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Yesterday — March 28th 2024Politics – The Daily Signal

Why Is Marxism—But Not Madison—Being Taught at Montpelier?

James Madison is the Father of our Constitution, and the Robert H. Smith Center for the Constitution at Madison’s Montpelier provides educational programming for teachers, law enforcement officers, and others.

That seems appropriate. After all, not only did Madison—our country’s fourth president—help draft the Constitution, but he also served as a key delegate at the Constitutional Convention, authored the Bill of Rights, and urged ratification of the Constitution through his practical and philosophical arguments in The Federalist Papers.

But these accomplishments are, at best, downplayed at his historic home. Montpelier has no exhibits dedicated to Madison and his contributions.

Worse still, Montpelier is equipping educators to teach Marxist-based theories to elementary, middle, and high school students. And the programs doing this are, in part, funded by the state of Virginia.

Issues surrounding policing and prosecution could be fair game for seminars at Montpelier. The Fourth Amendment protects against “unreasonable searches and seizures.” The Fifth Amendment, among other protections, guarantees that no person shall “be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.” The Sixth Amendment guarantees the “right to a speedy and public trial” by an “impartial jury” and the ability to confront those testifying against you. And the Eighth Amendment protects against excessive bail, excessive fines, and cruel and unusual punishments.

Madison drafted all of those.

Yet next week’s “Educator Seminar: Policing and Public Safety” will instead focus on the “history of policing, civil rights, and Constitutional change in African American contexts for the purpose of providing educators with key strategies and historical tools to teach topics in black history about law enforcement, social justice, and the Constitution.”

It will “help teachers be more inspired to teach hard histories that invite students in their classrooms to imagine equitable possibilities for promoting public safety for all.” And it will explore “why community approaches to public safety surfaced to counteract police violence and discrimination within the criminal legal system leading up to today’s age of mass incarceration.”

There’s a lot to unpack in those statements, but underlying all of them is the belief that our criminal justice system is systemically racist and that, as a result, we lock up too many people—particularly too many young black men.

But that’s not true. Our criminal justice system isn’t systemically racist, and mass incarceration is a myth.

If someone commits the crime, they should do the time. And it’s a sad fact that a disproportionate number of young black men commit violent crimes in the United States and often victimize other young black men in the process.   

But these aren’t the only terms that stand out. Of particular note in the description are the phrases “equitable” and “hard history.” Equity is about equality of outcomes, not opportunity. And “teaching hard history” is a mantra of the radical Southern Poverty Law Center, which often labels those it disagrees with as “hate groups.”

In fact, the SPLC’s “teaching hard history” curriculum and initiatives are not simply about discussing slavery’s role in American history. Like “The 1619 Project” and other critical race theory programs, they place slavery as the central animating force in America’s Founding. The preface of the curriculum states that “Some say slavery was our country’s original sin, but it is much more than that. Slavery is our country’s origin.”

This curriculum is also about forming students into activists. For example, it notes that those in K-2 should “examine how power is gained” and be able to “contrast equity and equality, identifying current problems where there is a need to fight for equity.”

This overlap is no coincidence. Hasan Kwame Jeffries, the host of the SPLC’s “Teaching Hard History” podcast as well as an author of the curriculum standards quoted above, also serves as the chairman of the board at Montpelier, which is the historic home’s governing body. (Currently, no Madison scholars are on the board.)

Jeffries—the brother of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y.—helped develop and appears in a video in Montpelier’s basement featuring encounters with police officers and protesters carrying signs that read “Stop police brutality,” “I can’t breathe,” and “Black Lives Matter.”

Per the Montpelier website, “[f]rom mass incarceration, to the achievement gap, to housing discrimination, and the vicious cycle of poverty, violence, and lack of opportunity throughout America’s inner cities, the legacies of 200 years of African American bondage are still with us.”

It’s sad that Montpelier has chosen to focus on a Marxist-motivated movement fueled by critical race theory, instead of on the many astounding achievements of the home’s former owner and the Father of our Constitution, James Madison.

It’s a disservice to the public, teachers, and students.

The post Why Is Marxism—But Not Madison—Being Taught at Montpelier? appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Biden DOJ ‘Fears’ Those Who Pray, Sing Outside Abortion Clinics, Tucker Carlson Says

Tucker Carlson Network founder Tucker Carlson has accused President Joe Biden’s administration of targeting a pro-life father for praying and singing outside of an abortion clinic, warning that the administration “fears” that type of activity.

Carlson interviewed Paul Vaughn, the Tennessee father of 11 children who was arrested by the FBI in October 2022 and charged with violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act. During an interview with The Daily Signal at the time of his arrest, Vaughn said that the FBI came to his home, “guns pointed at the door, banging on the house, yelling and screaming, ‘Open up! FBI.’”

“I had kids in the yard walking out to get in the car to go to school. I was about to take them to school, and other kids in the house,” he told The Daily Signal at the time. “So, seeing that the easiest path to de-escalation was me in handcuffs, I stepped outside and put an end to the ranting and the banging and the yelling.”

Video of the FBI's arrest of Paul Vaughn of Centerville, Tennessee. DOJ charged him with “conspiracy against rights secured by the FACE Act, and committing FACE Act violations" for blocking the entrance to an abortion clinic. Paul tells me the footage was taken by his wife. pic.twitter.com/KSDvLRSrlF

— Mary Margaret Olohan (@MaryMargOlohan) October 7, 2022

Carlson asked why exactly the Biden Justice Department would arrest Vaughn in such a dramatic manner.

“The question is,” the former Fox News Channel host asked, “what exactly did he do? Was he a terrorist, a serial killer? Was he trying to invade the country? No. Paul Vaughn, the father of 11 children, had dared to pray and sing hymns in the hallway of an abortion clinic.

“In other words, he did what the Biden administration really fears,” Carlson continued. “He prayed. And for doing that, he faces 11 years in prison.”

Video provided to The Daily Signal by Vaughn, taken by his wife, shows FBI agents outside the family’s home. Vaughn’s wife follows them, videotaping their conversation.

“I want to know why you were banging on my door with a gun,” she says. “Are you not going to tell me anything?”

“No, we are not,” one agent replies, while another says, “I tried.”

“No, you didn’t!” she shouts back. “You did not try.”

Carlson asked Vaughn whether he had ever thought that praying would be a federal crime with a penalty of 11 years in prison.

“I always thought praying for our nation is what we were instructed to do,” the pro-life father responded. “I thought that was what was required for freedom. And liberty is to beseech the favors of God on our land and to reach out to him. And, of course, we’re praying because our nation has allowed the sinful, atrocious action of abortion and killing unborn children. So, that’s ultimately what the Biden DOJ doesn’t like.”

Vaughn said that he believes the Biden DOJ’s intent with its “heavy-handed raid” was to “strike fear into Christians in the nation.”

WATCH:

When you start putting people in jail for praying, it’s pretty clear who you’re actually working for. Paul Vaughn is facing 11 years in Biden’s prisons. pic.twitter.com/X54sysL5w0

— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) March 26, 2024

“It’s an act of war against religious people,” he said. “And so that was their intent. Fortunately, God is gracious and kind, and his grace has been poured out upon our family, in ways we never could have experienced. And my children are growing up seeing a level of persecution that strengthens them, that provides a meaning in a foundation for their faith.”

He says he sees two ways of responding to these events.

“We can be bitter and upset and angry,” Vaughn said, “or we can be gracious, and we can be forgiving to the enemies. And trusting God is a God of justice, and he will work this out. And that’s the message that I’m telling my children. And I see them growing in this and understanding this.”

Vaughn praised the Christians all over the United States who have reached out to him to let him know they were praying for him. Asked by Carlson whether high-profile Christian leaders had drawn attention to his case, he said that he had not experienced much support from Christian leaders.

“It really is a moment for the church,” Carlson reflected. “If you’re an American Christian leader and you’re standing by without saying anything as a man faces 11 years in prison for saying prayers, I think it’s time to assess yourself.”

“Yep,” Vaughn replied, “I would absolutely agree. I would call on them to actually do that … we tend to divide the spiritual and material, and we either make it all one or the other, and we don’t do a good job as the American church of understanding that it’s both.”

Vaughn’s arrest came amid the Biden DOJ’s targeting of pro-life activists with the FACE Act. The FACE Act protects not only abortion clinics, but also pregnancy resource centers and houses of worship, but the Biden DOJ has largely used it to prosecute pro-life individuals.

Since 2022, the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division has charged dozens of pro-life individuals with FACE Act violations. In 2023, the DOJ charged four individuals with FACE Act violations related to attacks on pregnancy resource centers in Florida, though pro-abortion vandals have attacked at least 88 such centers and 218 churches since the May 2022 leak of the Supreme Court draft opinion indicating that Roe v. Wade would be overturned, according to CatholicVote.

In February, Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, urged the DOJ to comply with Republican demands to release FACE Act data. Though he had called on the DOJ in October 2022 to disclose FACE Act prosecution data, the DOJ didn’t release that data (even though the DOJ’s Kristen Clarke told Roy that she would ensure that he received the requested data in December).

Roy, who chairs the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government, warned that “DOJ’s failure to produce FACE Act prosecution data is particularly troubling in light of the apparent disparity between prosecutions targeting pro-life protesters and pro-abortion attacks on places of worship and pregnancy resource centers.”

“DOJ’s refusal to comply with this request hampers the committee’s constitutional duty to conduct oversight over the Department and the Civil Rights Division,” he said in the February letter, first obtained by The Daily Signal. “DOJ must return to its core mission of protecting all Americans, not simply those that it favors.”

“The Civil Rights Division continues to use the FACE Act to unfairly target pro-life advocates,” Roy wrote. “On January 30, 2024, six pro-life advocates were found guilty of violating the FACE Act, and they now face up to [10-1/2] years in prison, three years of supervised release, and fines of up to $260,000.”

Roy specifically mentioned pro-life activist Mark Houck, another father with a large family.

“These prosecutions come after DOJ conducted an aggressive raid on the home of pro-life advocate Mark Houck to arrest him on an overzealous FACE Act charge stemming from Mr. Houck’s earlier encounter with a belligerent abortion activist who attacked his young son,” Roy said. “A Pennsylvania jury rightly acquitted [him] in January 2023.”

Houck and his wife, Ryan-Marie Houck, previously told The Daily Signal that they were targeted by the Biden DOJ in an effort to intimidate, silence, and scare the family for their pro-life work—praying outside abortion clinics for the women headed inside to abort their unborn babies. 

In November, the Houcks sued the Biden administration for “malicious and retaliatory prosecution.”

The post Biden DOJ ‘Fears’ Those Who Pray, Sing Outside Abortion Clinics, Tucker Carlson Says appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Before yesterdayPolitics – The Daily Signal

Hyperbolic MSNBC’s Ronna McDaniel Debacle

The word broke on March 26 that NBC News was reversing its decision to hire former Republican Party chair Ronna McDaniel as a political commentator. MSNBC hosts across the schedule broke out into frenzied denunciations of whichever executive who thought that McDaniel should be paid to speak anywhere on this hypnotically/robotically anti-Trump network.

In one of her typical half-hour jeremiads, Rachel Maddow compared McDaniel to a mobster and a pickpocket. “You wouldn’t—you wouldn’t hire a wise guy, you wouldn’t hire a made man, like a mobster, to work at a DA’s office, right? You wouldn’t hire a pickpocket to work as a TSA screener. And so I find the decision to put her on the payroll inexplicable. And I hope they will reverse their decision.”

There was no need for NBC News to hire McDaniel. One can look at the election results during her tenure at the Republican National Committee and question her expertise at winning elections. But this mobster talk underlines once again that MSNBC is not a “news” channel. It’s a hyperbole channel, constantly fearmongering its audience that the end times are near for democracy.

Maddow claimed this hiring wasn’t about Republicans vs. Democrats. It’s about “bad actors trying to use the rights and privileges of democracy to end democracy.” There are no “fact-checkers” who will get in the way of this talk. Maddow is like Bluto in “Animal House” saying, “when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor.” Facts don’t matter. Rallying your audience is all that matters.

This was the essence of Maddow’s rant:

I want to associate myself with all my colleagues both at MSNBC and at NBC News who have voiced loud and principled objections to our company putting on the payroll someone who hasn’t just attacked us as journalists, but someone who is part of an ongoing project to get rid of our system of government. Someone who still is trying to convince Americans that this election stuff, it doesn’t really work. That this last election, it wasn’t a real result. That American elections are fraudulent.

Every conservative who’s ever watched Maddow lowlights knows that she was a leader in the Collusion Corps, someone who obsessed night after night over how the 2016 election was fraudulent because the Russians interfered with it. MSNBC doesn’t suggest that every election is fraudulent. It’s only when Democrats lose that they imply (for years) that it was fraudulent.

Since Hillary Clinton lost the election in 2016 and ran around telling people it was stolen from her, Maddow has hosted a series of fawnathons with her. They discussed why Russian President Vladimir Putin decided to back Donald Trump in 2016. In 2018, Clinton even suggested the Russians may have used the National Rifle Association to funnel money into the election.

Maddow concluded by lobbying the executives who allow her on air: “Acknowledge that maybe it wasn’t the right call. It is a sign of strength, not weakness, to acknowledge when you are wrong. It is a sign of strength. And our country needs us to be strong right now.”

That may be the funniest line of all. Maddow is notorious for refusing to concede she’s wrong, especially about Trump.

In 2019, Washington Post media critic Erik Wemple constructed a devastating timeline of all of Maddow’s promotions of the baseless dungpile called the Steele Dossier. He noted Maddow called it “creepy” and “unwarranted” when Michael Isikoff said she’d “given a lot of credence” to the dossier on his podcast.

Why couldn’t she acknowledge she was wrong? Instead, “Maddow declined to provide an on-the-record response to the Erik Wemple Blog.”

COPYRIGHT 2024 CREATORS.COM

The Daily Signal publishes a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Heritage Foundation.

The post Hyperbolic MSNBC’s Ronna McDaniel Debacle appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Victims of Chemical Abortions Speak Out as Supreme Court Hears Oral Arguments

The United States Supreme Court heard oral arguments Tuesday in a case dealing with the Food and Drug Administration’s removal of safeguards on chemical abortion drugs.

Represented by Alliance Defending Freedom, four national medical associations and four individual doctors sued the FDA for removing almost all safety standards for pregnant women taking the abortion drugs mifepristone and misoprostol.

Safeguards formerly included initial in-person visits to make sure the mother did not have an ectopic pregnancy or other serious medical condition, as well as follow-up check-up visits for internal bleeding and infection.

Activists rally in front of the Supreme Court building while the case's oral arguments occur inside. (Photo by Noah Slayter/The Daily Signal)
Activists rally in front of the Supreme Court building while the case’s oral arguments occur inside. (Photo by Noah Slayter/The Daily Signal)

Pro-abortion advocates gathered at the Supreme Court on Tuesday to rally in support of unrestricted chemical abortion drugs. Multiple pro-abortion protesters who spoke with The Daily Signal said they wanted women to have unfettered access to the drugs and pushed back against the idea that safeguards were necessary.

Pro-life advocates who spoke with The Daily Signal emphasized the need to protect women’s health, sharing stories of women who have suffered severe medical complications from taking the drugs without proper medical supervision.

Back at the Supreme Court as the court hears oral arguments in U.S. Food and Drug Administration v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine. Case deals with FDA removing safety standards for pregnant women who use abortion drugs pic.twitter.com/HmloE1QxiB

— Mary Margaret Olohan (@MaryMargOlohan) March 26, 2024

“Today, I argued before the Supreme Court on behalf of doctors and medical associations who are witnessing firsthand the harm to women caused by the FDA’s recklessness,” Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel Erin Hawley said in a press statement on Tuesday.

Hawley accused the FDA of violating federal law and its duty to keep women safe by removing crucial safeguards.

“Regardless of one’s views about abortion, we should all agree that women’s health matters,” she emphasized. “Women deserve for the FDA to do its job. Women deserve for the federal government to look out for their health and safety.”

At the Supreme Court on Tuesday, The Daily Signal spoke with Catherine Herring, a woman whose husband allegedly sought to drug her seven times after he found out she was pregnant. Herring said she became violently ill after the first attempt to abort her baby, and then kept watch until she ultimately caught him on video putting abortion drugs in her drinks.

WATCH:

Outside the Supreme Court this morning, abortion pill victim Catherine Herring tells @DailySignal that her husband "poisoned" her "seven times with abortion pills in attempts to kill" her daughter Josephine.

"He said the pregnancy would ruin his plans."
pic.twitter.com/NGxztO2UOs

— Mary Margaret Olohan (@MaryMargOlohan) March 26, 2024

“I was the victim of abortion pill poisoning in Texas,” Herring said. “My husband poisoned me seven times with abortion pills, in attempt to kill my daughter, Josephine.”

“He said the pregnancy would … make him look like a jerk,” she said.

“He was using an enormous amount of powder each poisoning,” Herring told the The Daily Signal. “I got violently ill. I ended up in an emergency room, with a urine sample that was black in color.”

Regarding the child Herring was pregnant with when poisoned, she said “Josephine is the sweetest little 18-month-old. She has a lot of health issues, a lot of developmental delays. She has spent many months in the hospital, in ICU. She has a feeding tube in her abdomen… I’m so grateful she’s alive.”

Activists rally in front of the Supreme Court building while oral arguments occur inside. (Photo: Noah Slayter/The Daily Signal)

Kelly Lester, a rape victim, post-abortive mother, and former abortion clinic worker, also shared her experience with the rally attendees.

Lester, who aborted her unborn baby through a chemical abortion, explained that she felt her traumatic experience must have been unique since she never heard anyone else discussing how isolated and terrifying it was.

“If this was the norm, we would hear about it, there would be people out there talking about how dangerous it was, how painful it was, how traumatic it was,” she said. “But I wasn’t hearing that, so I thought that my experience must have been isolated.”

“While working in the abortion industry as the receptionist, I dispensed the abortion drug regimen,” Lester shared, “I handed these women a bag and I told them the same lies that had been told to me. I told them it’s going to be like a heavy period, you’re going to have light cramping. It’s going to be simple and easy. It’s the best thing for you.”

“I believed the lies that I was fed,” Lester said.

The post Victims of Chemical Abortions Speak Out as Supreme Court Hears Oral Arguments appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Youngkin Stands Firm as Virginia Democrats Prefer to Give Millions to Pot Instead of Opportunity

Democrats in the Virginia General Assembly insist that Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, illegally appointed the director of the state’s renamed Office of Diversity, Opportunity, and Inclusion.  And they say they’re willing to give over $2 million more to commercial marijuana sellers to dramatize that point.

Created in 2020 under Youngkin’s predecessor, Democrat Ralph Northam, the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion sprang from a concept popularized by the Left and commonly known as DEI.

However, in his second week as governor, Youngkin signed an executive order Jan. 19, 2022, removing the term “equity” from the office’s name and replacing it with “opportunity.“ 

In November 2022, the Republican governor appointed Martin Brown, who is black, as Virginia’s chief diversity, opportunity, and inclusion officer—as well as director of the renamed Office of Diversity, Opportunity, and Inclusion.

In response to Youngkin’s name change for the diversity office, Virginia Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell, D-Fairfax, successfully offered an amendment to the state’s budget bill requiring that the office revert to its original name. 

Youngkin has criticized the budget passed March 9 by the Virginia General Assembly, and the spending plan awaits the Republican governor’s signature. Democrats hold a 21-19 majority in the state Senate and a 51-49 majority in the House of Delegates.

In a statement emailed Monday to The Daily Signal, Surovell said he “introduced the amendment because the governor has refused to hire a chief DEI officer which is a position created and titled in state law.”  

“If the governor is going to violate state law, the money needs to be directed,” the Senate majority leader added, apparently meaning “redirected.” 

Surovell’s budget amendment requires Youngkin to change “Diversity, Opportunity, and Inclusion” back to “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” by June 1, or the diversity office’s $2.3 million funding would go to the Virginia Cannabis Equity Business Loan Fund, a program to help licensed marijuana sellers. 

“Governor Youngkin has been clear that he doesn’t have any interest in a retail market for marijuana; instead, we should be working to fix a backward budget written by Democrats that has $2.6 billion in new taxes on Virginia families,” Youngkin press secretary Christian Martinez said Monday in a written statement to The Daily Signal.  

“Since the beginning of the administration, the governor has challenged the groupthink of the progressive Democrats’ pursuit of equity at any cost, instead focusing on advancing equal opportunities, not equal outcomes for all.”  

Surovell didn’t respond before publication to The Daily Signal’s request for comment on why his amendment tied the sale of marijuana to the diversity office’s name change. 

Last year, Surovell and Virginia House Speaker Don Scott, D-Portsmouth, wrote to Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares, a Republican, inquiring whether Youngkin’s name change for the office violated state law. 

In the letter, the two Democrats argued that Youngkin illegally renamed the office, saying the action violated the 2020 law that established the office in the executive branch with a director of diversity, equity, and inclusion. 

Here is the letter that @DonScott757 and I sent to @JasonMiyaresVA seeking an opinion regarding the Governor DEI actions – our first question is whether the Governor is bound by Virginia Law because apparently he doesn't think he is@FairfaxNAACP @charlottewords @LVozzella pic.twitter.com/E2PzbTvGL6

— Senator Scott Surovell (@ssurovell) May 2, 2023

The Senate and House leaders argued in their letter to the attorney general that Youngkin illegally named Brown as director since the governor didn’t appoint him to the office named in state law.  

In his written statement to The Daily Signal, Surovell said Youngkin had “hired someone for that office [and] renamed the person a diversity, opportunity, and inclusion officer who then made offensive comments regarding equity.”  

DEI is dead,” Brown said last April in a speech at Virginia Military Institute referencing the office’s name change. 

“We’re not going to bring that cow up anymore. It’s dead,” Brown said. “It was mandated by the General Assembly, but this governor has a different philosophy of civil discourse.”

The move caused an uproar in the General Assembly as many Democrats, joined by the Virginia chapter of the NAACP, demanded Brown’s resignation. 

The governor’s office defended Brown at the time, saying that Youngkin would “continue to advance equal opportunities—not equal outcomes—for all Virginians.”  

“This is too important of an issue to succumb to those seeking to cancel Chief Brown for challenging the groupthink of the progressive Left’s pursuit of equity at any cost,” the statement said. 

Ken McIntyre contributed to this report, which was modified with additional details within 24 hours of publication.

The post Youngkin Stands Firm as Virginia Democrats Prefer to Give Millions to Pot Instead of Opportunity appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Here’s How Biden Agency Mandates Pro-LGBTQ Language on Marriage, Gender

An Interior Department mining agency sought to purge its website and field offices of traditional language that could offend LGBTQ individuals, to comply with an executive order from President Joe Biden. 

Employees of Interior’s Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement are directed to go through all agency messaging and remove language that presumes traditional views on gender or marriage, according to documents obtained by The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project. (The Daily Signal is Heritage’s news and commentary outlet.)

Biden, who lied about being a coal-miner and has told miners to "learn to code" is now forcing miners to use woke LGBTQ+ terms

We got the documents from the @DOI @OSMRE ? pic.twitter.com/uKEJys0eYS

— Oversight Project (@OversightPR) March 26, 2024

The documents also show that Interior’s mining agency sought new staff and more resources to change signage at regional and field offices throughout the country, to ensure sensitivity to the LGBTQ population. The agency has offices in 36 states.

One document about Biden’s executive order says the effort includes discarding any written assumptions that marriage is between one man and one woman, or “that a person’s gender is always either male or female.”

Traditional beliefs about men and women and marriage that have been held by the majority of people for all of history? Offensive and outdated. pic.twitter.com/YpJafUbd5m

— Oversight Project (@OversightPR) March 26, 2024

Biden’s Executive Order 13988, signed on Jan. 20, 2021, his first day in office, is titled “Preventing and Combating Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation.” 

Section 1 of the president’s executive order says

It is the policy of my administration to prevent and combat discrimination on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation, and to fully enforce Title VII and other laws that prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation. It is also the policy of my administration to address overlapping forms of discrimination.

Biden’s order goes on to say in Section 2:

The head of each agency shall, as soon as practicable and as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, including the Administrative Procedure Act (5 U.S.C. 551 et seq.), consider whether to revise, suspend, or rescind such agency actions, or promulgate new agency actions, as necessary to fully implement statutes that prohibit sex discrimination and the policy set forth in section 1 of this order.

In 2022, employees with Interior’s mining agency answered a questionnaire to help them spot potentially offensive language. 

Among questions employees of the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement were asked: “Does the language of this action use gendered pronouns?” 

The agency flagged the term “manways” a technical term used in mapping, and “man-made,” but recommended no change.  

This is what your taxpayer $$ is funding! pic.twitter.com/j1KkOkV6kp

— Oversight Project (@OversightPR) March 26, 2024

The questionnaire, or checklist, allows for yes or no responses. It reads: “For any issues you describe in the previous item, how might they affect LGBTQIA+ people differently than other people, or otherwise be inconsistent with the policy in Section 1 of EO 13988?” 

It adds: “His/her’ is inconsistent with the policy established in Section 1 of EO 13988.”

The mining agency needs more staff and resources to replace signage at field offices to ensure that offensive language isn’t posted, according to the documents.  

“While conducting this review process, considerable time has been invested by the [Office of Communications] team members and other personnel,” a follow-up document in October 2022 says. It adds:

Action and Strategies to comply with EO 13988 (to review signage in regional and field offices to change or improve signage for persons who might identify as LGBTQIA+) will require additional personnel and resources, as well as collaboration with other OSMRE administrative office (OA) personnel.

A spokesperson for the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement didn’t respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment by publication time. 

Editor’s note: The original version of this story incorrectly said the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement recommended replacing the words man-made and manway with neutral terms. The agency flagged those terms for consideration but recommended no action.

The post Here’s How Biden Agency Mandates Pro-LGBTQ Language on Marriage, Gender appeared first on The Daily Signal.

EXCLUSIVE: Rubio Calls for DOJ to Investigate Planned Parenthood’s Handling of Aborted Baby Tissue

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL: Republican Florida Sen. Marco Rubio is calling for a federal investigation into reports that Planned Parenthood is providing aborted baby body parts to the University of California San Diego in exchange for “valuable consideration”—while also maintaining intellectual property rights over the fetal tissue.

“If confirmed, this relationship represents a flagrant violation of federal law, which explicitly prohibits the transfer of fetal tissue for any compensation,” Rubio wrote in a letter Tuesday to Attorney General Merrick Garland and Department of Health and Human Services Inspector General Christi Grimm, first obtained by The Daily Signal.

“I request that both of you open an investigation into the matter, publish your findings for the American people to see, and hold any guilty parties accountable to the fullest extent of the law,” he wrote.

The senator’s letter explains that the University of California San Diego and Planned Parenthood of the Pacific Southwest entered into a contract in 2009, recently obtained by pro-life activist David Daleiden through a public records request, wherein Planned Parenthood would provide “fetal and placental tissue” to the university “for the purpose of deriving cell lines from and determining gene expression, genomic, and epigenetic profiles of the materials.”

Under that contract, Rubio said, Planned Parenthood retained “all right, title, and interest in and to the [fetal tissue], including … patents and patent applications and other intellectual property rights relating to the [fetal tissue].” And the university had agreed to provide Planned Parenthood with credit as the source of the baby tissue if any publications or studies resulted from its use.

Though federal law forbids acquiring, receiving, or transferring human fetal tissue for “valuable consideration,” the Planned Parenthood and University of California contract was made for “valuable consideration,” Rubio noted. He called the inclusion of the phrase “valuable consideration” in the contract “significant,” given that the language is specifically in federal law.

In the past, Planned Parenthood has publicly acknowledged payments for aborted fetal tissue but said that it was only reimbursed for actual costs. Soon after that acknowledgment in 2015, Planned Parenthood said it would no longer accept even reimbursements.

Pro-life activist David Daleiden (center) stands with attorneys Jared Woodfill (left) and Terry Yates (right), at the Harris County Courthouse after Daleiden surrendered to authorities on Feb. 4, 2016, in Houston, Texas. (Photo: Eric Kayne/Getty Images)

“Furthermore, the relationship between Planned Parenthood and UCSD [University of California San Diego] appears to be much more than a mere contract,” Rubio added. “Not only was Planned Parenthood providing the aborted fetal tissue in exchange for ‘valuable consideration,’ but emails between the groups show that Planned Parenthood and UCSD were actively collaborating and meeting at regular intervals to discuss the progress of the research.”

One of the newly obtained documents shows a $10,000 donation from the university to Planned Parenthood as recently as 2021, the senator said.

The Florida Republican pointed out that the University of Pittsburgh is already under investigation for its “experimentation on aborted babies and its cozy relationship with Planned Parenthood.”

His letter specifically calls on the Department of Justice to uncover how many babies Planned Parenthood gave to the university, what the fetal tissue was used for, how much money the university had given to Planned Parenthood, how much Planned Parenthood has gained monetarily from its control over the intellectual property rights of the fetal tissue, and whether the National Institutes of Health or other agencies have provided funding for that fetal tissue research.

The New York Times reported in 2015 that the NIH had spent “$76 million on research using fetal tissue in 2014 with grants to more than 50 universities.” Those universities included the University of California San Diego, according to the publication.

And the Times acknowledged at the time that companies that were obtaining fetal tissue from abortionists and selling it to laboratories were existing in a “gray zone, legally,” since “federal law says they cannot profit from the tissue itself, but the law does not specify how much they can charge for processing and shipping.”

“I ask that you launch an investigation into University of California San Diego and its use of Planned Parenthood’s aborted fetal tissue in an apparent violation of federal law,” Rubio concluded. “Both of these organizations receive hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars every year, and the American people deserve answers.”

Rubio’s letter comes amid multiple disturbing reports about fetal tissue and the handling of aborted baby bodies. In February, lawmakers raised an outcry over the possibility that the Washington, D.C., medical examiner might dispose of the bodies of five preemie-sized aborted baby bodies from the Washington Surgi-Clinic located in downtown Washington. Those babies are related to the DOJ’s case against pro-life activist Lauren Handy, her attorney argued.

On March 25, 2022, five murdered babies were found outside of the Washington Surgi-Center

2 years later, the DOJ is trying to brush their death under the rug

Congress must investigate this case and reassert its constitutional power over Washington D.C. to protect human life pic.twitter.com/84so8vewov

— Rep. Chip Roy Press Office (@RepChipRoy) March 25, 2024

And last week, as The Daily Signal’s Elizabeth Troutman reported, pro-life activist Daleiden released videos purportedly showing Planned Parenthood officials discussing mutilating the bodies of living babies to bypass federal law against partial-birth abortions.

Daleiden told The Daily Signal that the footage, revealed during a House of Representatives hearing led by Republican Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, adds to Planned Parenthood’s record of barbarism toward premature babies. 

Daleiden posed as a fetal tissue procurer to secretly record and publish videos of Planned Parenthood employees in 2013 and 2014 allegedly discussing the sale of fetal body parts. Planned Parenthood has accused Daleiden of deceptively editing the videos. The abortion giant sued Daleiden and his organization, the Center for Medical Progress.

“The new videos show Planned Parenthood’s financial interest in selling the body parts from aborted babies is even bigger than previously discussed, and their criminal intent is irrefutably documented,” Daleiden told The Daily Signal last week. “The new footage also shows the barbaric lengths Planned Parenthood will go to in order to cover up their illegal abortion harvesting.”

The post EXCLUSIVE: Rubio Calls for DOJ to Investigate Planned Parenthood’s Handling of Aborted Baby Tissue appeared first on The Daily Signal.

EXCLUSIVE: Biden’s Peace Corps Pushes Expanded Overseas Voting

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—To comply with an executive order from President Joe Biden, the Peace Corps pushed to make its headquarters a voter registration center, upped efforts to register U.S. citizens abroad, and moved to supply multilingual voter registration forms. 

The Peace Corps, a federal agency, assigns volunteers to provide services and meet needs in over 60 countries. 

The agency released its plan to implement Biden’s order late last week in response to a request by The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project under the Freedom of Information Act. (The Daily Signal is the news and commentary outlet of The Heritage Foundation.)

The Peace Corps completed a Sept. 23, 2021, draft of “the compliance plan that Peace Corps is prepared to execute” to implement Biden’s Executive Order 14019, which requires federal agencies to help boost voting. 

“Overseas citizens are protected by federal law that does not require an ID to vote,” the Peace Corps plan says, a reference to voter ID requirements in many states. “Only requirement is SS# [Social Security number] and overseas address. For domestic citizens, Peace Corps will include usa.gov/voter-id hyperlink on the landing page, which provides information on voter ID requirements.”

The Peace Corps’ strategic plan says the agency will connect more citizens in the U.S. as well as citizens living abroad to the Federal Voting Assistance Program, known as FVAP, for information about registering and voting. 

“For overseas citizens, registration forms are only in English; however, Peace Corps can highlight that FVAP has registration instructions in French, Spanish, Portuguese and Arabic. Provide translated instructions to post via Diplomatic Pouch. For domestic citizens, we can provide those same instructions either in hard copy format or pdf,” the plan says.  

Biden’s order, issued in March 2021, required most federal agencies to submit a strategic plan for getting out the vote. 

House Republicans advanced legislation to rescind the Biden executive order on elections, asserting that it could put the federal government’s thumb on the scale in elections. 

Meanwhile, GOP state legislators in Pennsylvania have sued to challenge the constitutionality of Biden’s order.

The Peace Corps is at least the third agency to make a plan public even as the Justice Department invokes presidential privilege to block release of its own strategic plan to implement Biden’s order. 

“If requested by the District of Columbia, Peace Corps HQ agrees to be designated as a voter registration agency,” the strategic plan says. 

Neither the Peace Corps nor the D.C. city government responded to inquiries from The Daily Signal for this report. 

The Daily Signal previously reported, based on documents made available through the Freedom of Information Act, that taxpayer-backed federal agencies were partnering with transparently left-leaning organizations—among them Demos, the Brennan Center for Justice, and the American Civil Liberties Union—to implement Biden’s executive order. 

The Peace Corps plan mentions working with nongovernmental organizations, or NGOs, but doesn’t specify which groups. 

“For domestic citizens, invite NGOs to Peace Corps HQ to provide informational seminars to staff, unless COVID keeps Peace Corps HQ at Phase I. If so, invite NGOs to conduct virtual informational seminars,” the plan says.  

The agency’s plan uses 12 steps to explain how the agency will expand its website to promote greater voter participation. 

“Peace Corps will build out an information/landing page on peacecorps.gov (a public website), PC Live and Intranet (for both staff and Volunteers) that covers both domestic and overseas access to voting,” the plan says, adding: 

For overseas citizens, have FAQ [frequently asked questions]  and video to show How to Register. Provide the hyperlink to the Federal Voting Assistance Program (FVAP) which provides registration services/information to overseas citizens. Additionally, Peace Corps will use State Department’s Diplomatic Pouch to distribute voter registration forms to each post. For domestic citizens, include vote.gov hyperlink on the landing page, which provides access to on-line registration forms.

The post EXCLUSIVE: Biden’s Peace Corps Pushes Expanded Overseas Voting appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Washington Post, TikTok Target Young Women Speaking Up About Birth Control

The Washington Post and TikTok are under fire over apparent attempts to discredit stories women have been sharing about the negative effects of hormonal birth control on their physical and mental health.

The Post reported Thursday that “women are getting off birth control amid [a] misinformation explosion,” referring to the onslaught of viral videos of young women in their teens and 20s discussing how dramatically their lives have improved since getting off hormonal birth control and using natural fertility awareness methods.

“For more and more Gen Z women, there’s an intuitive sense that hormonal birth control might be messing with us, and our brains,” one young woman wrote for the New York Post. “And research is backing it up, showing correlations between the pill and a decreased sex drive, as well as higher rates of depression and suicide, and even stress reactions similar to [post-traumatic stress disorder] survivors.”

“Many of my friends are independently doing the same, whether it’s driven by concern for their mental health, desire for something more natural—or curiosity about what the world looks like when you’re not in a hormonal fog,” she added.

Written by Lauren Weber and Sabrina Malhi, The Washington Post article boasts that “TikTok recently removed at least five videos linking birth control to mental health issues and other health problems after The Post asked how the company prevents the spread of misinformation.”

One of those videos was from The Daily Wire’s Brett Cooper, who argued that birth control can have an effect on who women are attracted to, as well as affect their weight gain and their fertility. That video “racked up over 219,000 ‘likes’ before TikTok removed it following The Post’s inquiry,” the newspaper noted.

TikTok did not immediately explain to The Daily Signal whether it vetted Weber and Malhi’s claims of misinformation before it removed the videos. Weber and Malhi did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Alex Clark, host of “The Spillover” podcast, who has drawn fire for her outspokenness on the harms of birth control, called The Washington Post piece “dishonest reporting” that suggests only conservatives are against hormonal birth control.

“Women of all political backgrounds have been screaming from the rooftops that [hormonal birth control] has led to a litany of health issues all the way back to the ’70s,” Clark explained to The Daily Signal. “Teenage girls are prescribed birth control like candy. No in-depth conversation is had about side effects, and now those teenage girls have grown up, have differing political views, and are dealing with the physical consequences of HBC.”

Clark maintains that birth control is pushed upon women by the pharmaceutical industry as a huge moneymaker.

“Big Pharma is doing everything they can to squash this conversation, because women are their biggest cash cow,” she said. “Get us on birth control as teens. Recommend antidepressants for the side effects. Birth control works as a band-aid covering up warning signs of deeper hormonal or fertility issues.”

“When we’re ready to have a family, we find out,” she added. “Now, we need to pay [$20,000] for fertility treatments. Birth control is the gateway prescription drug to a lifetime of being Big Pharma-reliant. If they lose the next generation of young women on birth control, they worry they won’t have us hooked for life. It was never about women. It was always about our money.”

The anti-birth control movement is not conservative, historically or currently. It started in the 1970s by a group of feminist, liberal women who spoke up and risked their reputations questioning Big Pharma at the Nelson Pill hearings.

— Alex Clark (@yoalexrapz) March 24, 2024

Emma Waters, a senior research associate in the Richard and Helen DeVos Center for Life, Religion, and Family at The Heritage Foundation, also pointed out to The Daily Signal that current resistance to birth control has little to do with religion or politics. (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of The Heritage Foundation.)

“For years now, women have been sounding the alarm about the harms of hormonal birth control,” Waters said. “In many cases, it has little to do with religious or ideological belief. Women are tired of a ‘one sized fits all’ approach to health care that actively harms them. Gen Z women have had enough.”

The viral accounts and videos about birth control and its effects show Gen Z “rebelling against the hyper-medicalized approach to dealing with any issue, from acne to painful or inconsistent hormonal cycles,” Waters said.

And the researcher suggested that those defending birth control may be more out of touch than they realize.

“Frankly, The Washington Post piece really showed its age as older millennials lectured and dismissed the very real women whose own stories about the harms of hormonal birth control are driving this movement to make women, not Big Pharma, the driver in women’s reproductive health,” she added.

Lila Rose, the founder of the pro-life organization Live Action, called TikTok’s censorship of Cooper’s video “insane and ridiculous,” adding that the “harms of birth control are well-documented, and the fact that TikTok is deleting content criticizing birth control should concern everyone.”

“To be anti-fertility is to be anti-woman,” Rose told The Washington Post, “and the proliferation of hormonal birth control is just another way of trying to force women to be more like men, with significant consequences for our emotional and physical health.”

The Washington Post wrote about me and my company in an article titled “Women are getting off birth control amid misinformation explosion.”

It was a horrible (yet predictable) hatchet job full of fear-mongering and, ironically, misinformation. @LaurenWeberHP, you should be… pic.twitter.com/glfEJwiydu

— Brittany Martinez (@BritMartinez) March 23, 2024

And Brittany Martinez, the founder of Evie magazine, told The Washington Post’s Weber that she should be ashamed of “contributing to the mass gaslighting and dismissing of women’s horrible experiences on birth control.”

“I’d say you are out of touch and uninformed at best, but you’re also directly complicit in TikTok censoring and removing viral videos of women speaking out,” she added.

Research psychologist Sarah Hill, who went off the pill herself and experienced positive health effects, told the New York Post earlier this year that after going off the pill, “I had a lot more energy, and I was exercising and cooking again. Suddenly, I was interested in sex.”

She credits the pandemic with helping young women take a serious look at their health.

“The pandemic allowed us to focus attention on our health,” Hill told the New York Post. “For women who were not in relationships and weren’t sexually active, it was an opportunity to break up with their birth control … . They wanted to find out how they would think and feel and experience the world without it.”

“This generation of women is demanding they get information about what’s going into their body,” Hill added. “A younger generation of women are saying, ‘Hey, wait a minute. You can’t just tell me what to put in my body and expect me to blindly obey.’”

Dr. Taraneh Shirazian, a gynecologist at NYU Langone Health, similarly told the publication that she sees a “generational shift” in attitudes toward birth control.

“I have noticed that many patients prefer non-hormonal birth control,” she explained. “Many are keen on limiting their body’s exposure to outside hormones so that they can feel more natural and like themselves.”

The post Washington Post, TikTok Target Young Women Speaking Up About Birth Control appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Did University of Delaware Lie About Biden’s Senate Papers? Lawsuit Seeks Answers.

The Daily Caller News Foundation and Judicial Watch have asked a Delaware court to reopen their case seeking the release of President Joe Biden’s Senate records held at the University of Delaware.

Special counsel Robert Hur’s February report on his investigation into Biden’s retention of classified documents contained findings that contradicted the university’s claims that no tax dollars were used in processing the records sought by the Daily Caller News Foundation and Judicial Watch.

dailycallerlogo

The Delaware Supreme Court previously sided with the university in July, shielding the documents from release.

“The stunning revelations from the Hur report extend beyond the president’s memory lapses and mental state,” Daily Caller News Foundation Editor-in-Chief Michael Bastasch said. “The court needs to reopen this case to determine whether the University of Delaware lied.”

Judicial Watch initially sued the university on behalf of itself and the Daily Caller News Foundation in July 2020 after it denied the request, claiming the records were not related to the expenditure of public funds.

Documents requested by the Daily Caller News Foundation included agreements relating to the storage of 1,850 boxes and 415 gigabytes of records from Biden’s 1973 to 2009 Senate career, as well as communications between university staff and Biden’s staff, log sheets of individuals who have visited the collection, and the actual collection records.

“In sum, the report shows that President Biden directed his former staffers’ work in reviewing and cataloging the Senate papers, received the benefit thereof—and the university paid for it,” the Daily Caller News Foundation and Judicial Watch motion filed with the Superior Court of the state of Delaware states. “Such payments constitute consideration paid on President Biden’s behalf in connection with the donation of senatorial papers to the university—contrary to the representations in the supplemented affidavit.”

Biden gave his records to the university on the condition that they would not be publicly released until “they have been properly processed and archived,” according to the university’s website. They have been housed at the university since 2012.

“The search for Senate documents took place at Mr. Biden’s direction, required the participation of many, and was paid for by the university,” the motion continues. “Even the university general counsel was involved in coordinating with Mr. Biden’s chief of staff.”

Hur’s report noted that Biden “asked two of his former longtime Senate staffers to review his boxes in courtesy storage” in the spring of 2011 in preparation to donate the papers. The staffers “were paid by the University of Delaware to perform the pre-gift review,” according to the report.

“The Hur report provides disturbing evidence the University of Delaware misled the courts in order to hide Biden’s Senate papers,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said.

Originally published by the Daily Caller News Foundation

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NO SURPRISE: Liberal Media Ignore House Panel’s Hunter Biden Hearing  

For the first two years of Joe Biden’s presidency, the partisan Democrats of our “legacy media” treated the “Pelosi-Picked Panel” on Jan. 6 as a dominant story, worthy of hundreds of hours of television, both live coverage of the hearings and breathless cycles of previews and reviews.  

Once Republicans took over the House, would we have predicted this kind of committee oversight coverage would go from “hero” to “zero”?  

On Wednesday, the House Oversight and Accountability Committee held public hearings that were supposed to feature live testimony by Hunter Biden. The GOP-led committee titled the hearing “Influence Peddling: Examining Joe Biden’s Abuse of Public Office,” which was already a turnoff for Biden-voter reporters.  

That night, NBC offered two minutes. ABC and CBS did nothing. In January, Hunter Biden pulled a stunt by showing up and demanding a public hearing, and the networks covered that. On Feb. 28, Hunter showed up for a hearing behind closed doors, and the networks covered that. But when he skipped the public hearing he allegedly wanted, they skipped the story?  

Even those prestigious national newspapers—with the slogans about “All the News That’s Fit to Print” and “Democracy Dies in Darkness”—offered a big fat zero in their print editions. Nothing on Joe Biden’s abuse of office was published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, or The Wall Street Journal. 

Then consider “public” broadcasting—the ones who have automatic and undeserved prestige because of their “for the people” branding. The “PBS NewsHour” offered nothing, not 10 hot seconds. It offered eight minutes on a potential government shutdown, so its journalists were working on Capitol Hill.  

The taxpayer-funded hour also carried five minutes on the “controversial” Texas border-enforcement law, five minutes on the Biden administration setting a timeline for ending the gasoline-powered automobile, and almost seven minutes on a Mississippi police “goon squad” that brutalized some black men. “Systemic racism” is always a staple. 

National “Public” Radio was a bad joke, as in its show “All Things Considered” never considered a story on the Biden abuses hearing. NPR’s homepage was topped the next morning by its hot story: new details on Rupert Murdoch’s British phone-hacking scandal of 2011. Its media reporter, David Folkenflik, files a hostile story on Murdoch or Fox News on a regular basis, like he was an operative being paid by MSNBC and CNN.  

NPR had a Biden mention on its homepage. Its young White House reporter, Deepa Shivaram, had a TikTok-like video shoot on Joe Biden grabbing a trendy boba tea in Las Vegas under the headline “Food stops can tell you a lot about a campaign.” Shilling Shivaram cheerfully explained, “Asian Americans make up a critical voting bloc in Nevada,” and, “Experts on food and politics say that Biden ordering this could also send a message to people who think he’s too old for the job.” 

I scrolled all the way down the homepage looking for a Biden-hearing story, to no avail. At the very bottom, there was this news from the insect world: “Scientists studied how cicadas pee. Their insights could shed light on fluid dynamics.”  

That makes it easy to describe the quality of NPR’s coverage of the Biden family scandals. It’s a warm bucket of cicada urine.  

COPYRIGHT 2024 CREATORS.COM 

The Daily Signal publishes a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Heritage Foundation. 

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Conservatives Protest as House Passes $1.2 Trillion Spending Package

By a vote of 286-134 over conservatives’ objections, the House passed a $1.2 trillion spending package late Friday morning, avoiding a partial government shutdown but putting House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., in jeopardy of losing the speakership.

The bill now goes to the Senate, where it is expected to pass because Democrats have a working 51-49 majority with three independents.

The 1,000-plus-page package of bills includes funding for the State, Education, Defense, Labor, Homeland Security, and Health and Human Services departments in fiscal year 2024 as well as for “general government and foreign operations” and the Internal Revenue Service, The Hill reported.

The spending package met significant opposition from conservatives who blasted the combined bills as a surrender to the Left before and after the package passed.

With 218 House seats to Democrats’ 213, plus four vacancies, Republicans hold a five-vote majority.

“More Republicans voted against the DC Cartel’s minibus than voted for it,” Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., tweeted. “112-101. The Uniparty has once again sold Americans out.”

More Republicans voted against the DC Cartel's minibus than voted for it.

112-101.

The Uniparty has once again sold Americans out.

— Rep Andy Biggs (@RepAndyBiggsAZ) March 22, 2024

“Once again, the D.C. Cartel has unified against the American people. We are now on the hook for another $1.2 TRILLION in spending,” Rep. Matt Rosendale, R-Mont., said in an X post. “We call it the uniparty for this reason exactly, not even a majority of the majority agreed with this bill.”

A majority of Republicans voted against the #SwampOmnibus.

Unfortunately, 101 Republicans joined Democrats to pass this $1.2 trillion boondoggle that fully funds Biden’s “open borders” policies and includes earmarks for late-term abortions and transgender organizations. Insane. pic.twitter.com/L3EcOmR6Xv

— House Freedom Caucus (@freedomcaucus) March 22, 2024

Although more Republicans in the House opposed the bill than supported it, some came out in favor of its passage, as the conservative House Freedom Caucus noted.

“Democracy is messy,” Johnson said on CNBC the day before, as the House speaker acknowledged opposition to the spending package from conservatives. “It’s particularly messy right now and in a moment like this, but we have to get the job done and there are some very substantial wins in here.”

House Democrats mostly supported the spending bill, with just 22 voting against it.

“We had to work within difficult fiscal constraints—but this bipartisan compromise will keep our country moving forward,” Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash, said Thursday.

Heritage Action for America, the grassroots arm of The Heritage Foundation, issued a press release Thursday evening detailing what’s wrong with the spending bill and identifying it as a key “no” vote on the organization’s legislative scorecard. (The Daily Signal is The Heritage Foundation’s news and commentary outlet.)

?KEY VOTE?

Heritage Action OPPOSES the Second FY24 Six-Bill Minibus (Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2024).

This $1.2 trillion spending package continues the disastrous spending that fuels inflation & funds Biden’s border crisis.

Learn more?https://t.co/jI8QI3uNI4 pic.twitter.com/tTqND0OXX7

— Heritage Action (@Heritage_Action) March 21, 2024

“This bill doesn’t deviate from Congress’ charted course toward financial catastrophe and participation in the border crisis,” the key-vote description reads. “Inflation and job losses caused by Congress’ failures to cut spending penalizes America’s working class and those struggling to afford the American dream. The American people have pleaded for responsible spending and border security for years, but unfortunately, this minibus represents a continuation of business as usual.”

A majority of Republicans just voted against the $1.2 trillion spending bill packed with earmarks and funding for Biden's border crisis.

Their commitment to conservative principles will be reflected on the @Heritage_Action scorecard.

Why we opposed:https://t.co/AVbne7Kb1X

— Cody Sargent (@codydsargent) March 22, 2024

Many lawmakers criticized the bill for spending so much but doing so little to provide border security.

“Less than 24 hrs to review – the #SwampOmnibus – 1000+ pages & $1.2 Trillion – busts spending caps to fund the WHO, woke DOD, a weaponized FBI new headq, & 100% fails to stop Progressive Democrats’ mass releases of criminals across our borders,” Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, wrote Thursday in a post on X.

Some proponents said voting against the spending package would be a boon to China. Opponents countered that the bill would empower potential Chinese terrorists who are crossing the border.

“A vote for today’s atrocious spending bill is a vote for Chinese terrorism,” Biggs wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “We’ve had over 30,000 illegal aliens from China cross our border under this Administration’s border policies. You vote for it, you own it.”

A vote for today's atrocious spending bill is a vote for Chinese terrorism.

We've had over 30,000 illegal aliens from China cross our border under this Administration's border policies.

You vote for it, you own it. pic.twitter.com/nlrLGh99IU

— Rep Andy Biggs (@RepAndyBiggsAZ) March 22, 2024

“Well, the D.C. cartel is at it again. They released a $1.2 trillion minibus at 2:32 a.m. this morning, giving us somewhere in the neighborhood of about 48 hours to review it before they’re going to bring it up for a vote,” Rosendale said in a video he shared on X.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., filed a motion Friday to vacate the chair, meaning to remove Johnson from the speakership after only five months. Greene told reporters that the move isn’t personal, but reflects the views of other House conservatives.

BREAKING NEWS — @RepMTG has filed a motion to vacate @SpeakerJohnson, according to multiple sources on the House floor.

Stay tuned for more info…..

— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) March 22, 2024

Ken McIntyre contributed to this report, which is a developing story that will continue to be updated.

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EXCLUSIVE: DC Library Sought to Hire Ex-Felon for Drag Queen Story Hour

FIRST ON DAILY SIGNAL: A District of Columbia library sought to engage a drag queen with a criminal background to perform at pride-themed Drag Story Hours for children.

A staff member at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library solicited drag queen Latrice Royale, otherwise known as Timothy Wilcots, to sing and dance in drag before children, according to an email obtained by the Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project (The Daily Signal is Heritage’s news outlet).

According to that May 17, 2023, email, the library employee was under the impression that the LGBTQ organization the Human Rights Campaign would pay the drag queen’s travel fees and $10,000 performance fee. Wilcots ultimately proved too pricey for the event, the HRC’s Brandon Hooks shared in a later email (neither Hooks nor the HRC responded to requests for comment).

“Before I ping her manager again, I just want to make sure HRC would be able to cover 10k fee plus, hotel, ground, and air. Please let me know if this is possible,” wrote the library’s youth services manager, Paula Langsam. The library did not immediately address The Daily Signal’s inquiries.

I’m 52 today!!! #BirthdayGirl pic.twitter.com/SlDqcMniVt

— Latrice Royale Inc. (@LatriceRoyale) February 12, 2024

That email was addressed to both Hooks and Amy Oden of the HRC. The email’s subject line read: “Pride Family Day at MLK Update.”

Wilcots, who did not immediately respond to requests for comment, was previously arrested and incarcerated for possession of oxycodone, clonazepam, cannabis, and ecstasy, court records show.

Wilcots has described his time in prison in a number of media interviews since then.

The library’s interest in Wilcots, despite his criminal background, underscores concerns that drag queen story hour organizers are failing to perform background checks on the adults who dress in drag and read LGBTQ books to children at drag queen story hours.

Wilcots is a biological man who stands at 6 feet, 4 inches tall, weighing almost 400 pounds. When dolled up and wearing heels, one media report says, Wilcots “towers close to seven feet tall.” He is legally married to a man, describes himself as “large and in charge chunky yet funky bold and beautiful,” and has over a million followers on social media.

Drag queen story hours began as niche events on the West Coast that spread to libraries and schools across the U.S. The official Drag Queen Story Hour website boasts of almost 50 independently operated chapters across the U.S., including in New York City, D.C., and Chicago, as well as two international chapters in Tokyo and in Berlin.

According to the Drag Queen Story Hour’s official website, the events are designed to be about 45 minutes long for children aged 3 to 8 years old and intended to capture children’s imagination and help children explore their gender fluidity through “glamorous, positive, and unabashedly queer role models.”

For example, The Daily Signal previously reported that drag queen “VV Majesty” led a Capital Pride Alliance drag queen story hour in Washington, D.C., where “VV Majesty” read a book about a trans-identifying little boy to toddlers.

The drag queen was dressed in a voluminous tulle princess dress with a black bodice and an exposed red bra—a “fairy rose princess,” as the drag queen told The Daily Signal. He also sported a long black wig, a three-horned crown with red paper roses on it, and a large glittery necklace.

Critics on both sides of the aisle have expressed strong concerns about lasciviously dressed men, often in corsets, heels, wigs, and heavy makeup, reading books about gender ideology to very young children.

These concerns are heightened by news reports, such as the arrest of a Milwaukee judge on child pornography charges. That judge was the former president of an organization sponsoring Drag Queen Story Hour

The Justice Department sentenced Brett Blomme in December 2021 to nine years in prison followed by 20 years of supervised release for distributing child pornography showing abuse of young boys. At his sentencing, District Judge James Peterson described the child pornography that Blomme was distributing as “the worst of the worst.”

Drag queens who perform for children at story hours insist that they are well intentioned.

“I’m a nonviolent offender, not a child molester, or a pedophile,” Wilcots reportedly said in an interview with NewNowNext. “I wasn’t standing in front of schools targeting kids.” 

Today in DC: a @CapitalPrideDC sponsored drag queen story hour takes place at Stead Park. Drag queen reads a book about gender ideology to a big crowd of little kids and enthusiastic parents. pic.twitter.com/GrZ7LBQHBq

— Mary Margaret Olohan (@MaryMargOlohan) June 10, 2023

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‘Most Terrifying Poll Result I’ve Ever Seen’: Scott Rasmussen Surveys America’s Elite 1%

When veteran pollster Scott Rasmussen surveyed a group of Americans he calls the elite 1% earlier this year, he discovered a startling number who say it’s OK to win an election by cheating.

The elite 1%—individuals who make over $150,000 a year, live in densely populated areas, and have postgraduate degrees—are overwhelmingly liberal. They give President Joe Biden an 82% approval rating, compared to his 40% average from the rest of Americans.

Rasmussen asked these liberal voters: “Suppose that your favorite candidate loses a close election. However, people on the campaign know that they can win by cheating without being caught. Would you rather have your candidate win by cheating or lose by playing fair?”

Among all Americans, just 7% said they would want their candidate to win by cheating. But that number rose to 35% among the elite 1% and skyrocketed to 69% among those who are part of the politically obsessed 1%, meaning they talk about politics every day.

“I’ve been polling for a very long time and the last finding is the most terrifying poll result I’ve ever seen,” Rasmussen told The Daily Signal.

Rasmussen spoke to “The Daily Signal Podcast” about his findings and his upcoming plans for a weekly TV show. Listen to the full interview or read an edited transcript below.

Rob Bluey: Your firm, RMG Research, takes a different approach to polling and public opinion, trying to understand where voters stand on key issues. You’ve coined the term counterpolling. Tell us what that means.

Scott Rasmussen: Counterpolling is designed literally to counter misleading information that’s that comes out from a lot of establishment polls. Our belief is that most public opinion polling that comes out of Washington is presented and analyzed in the language of a Georgetown cocktail party. They use words that nobody else in America uses.

We go out and we make a strong effort to ask questions in the language of everyday Americans. We respect voters. We think they are intelligent. We have great hopes for the commonsense wisdom of the American people, but we also know they have better things to do with their lives than talk politics every day.

Bluey: It reminds me of after the 2016 presidential election when so many media organizations had a reckoning that they were out of touch with everyday Americans.

Rasmussen: We start by trying to understand. We don’t want to get into the innards of what you think about this policy detail vs. that policy detail. We want to know their attitudes. We want to know because that is something that is constant.

I’ve been polling on immigration for decades. And you know what’s never changed. About 80% of Americans say legal immigration is good for America and about 80% say illegal immigration is bad for America. That’s constant.

Bluey: One of the polls you did recently was on what you call the elite 1%. Can you give us some toplines on what you learned?

Rasmussen: The elite 1 % are people who make at least $150,000 a year. They live in a densely populated urban area, more than 10,000 people per square mile. And they have a postgraduate degree.

That last one is very important. We hear a lot about the diploma divide—that people with a college degree are more Democratic. Actually, it’s the postgrads who are different. The gap between postgraduates and people with a bachelor’s degree is often bigger than the gap between people with a bachelor’s and without a bachelor’s degree.

The elite 1% represent 1% of the population. They are extraordinarily influential. A heavy concentration of them went to one of 12 elite schools. The reason I bring that up is about half the policy positions in government, half the corporate board positions in America, are held by people who went to one of these dozen schools.

Their views really play a large role in the country, and it all feeds into this elite 1%.

They are in power centers. Somebody who is in Manhattan or Washington, D.C., is in a different circle of public influence than somebody who lives in McKinney, Texas.

If you’re thinking of who’s shaping the mainstream media narrative, it’s this group.

The Elite 1% are even more out of touch than you think https://t.co/q1Um2YuqSy

— Scott Rasmussen (@ScottWRasmussen) January 26, 2024

Bluey: The biggest headline for me was what this group thinks about the issue of cheating in elections. Can you unpack that one for us?

Rasmussen: We asked voters, 1,000 voters, to suppose there was an election and it was close but your candidate lost. And if their campaign team knew they could win by cheating and not get caught, would you want them to do so?

Among voters, only 7% say they’d rather cheat than win. I wish it was 1% or 2%, but 7% is not bad. Among the elite 1%, 35% would rather cheat than win. Then among a group that we call the politically obsessed elite—people who are not only in the elite 1%, but they talk politics every day—69% of them would rather cheat to win the election.

It’s because they don’t have much respect for the opinions of voters.

Bluey: What are their views on government compared to the general population?

Rasmussen: Let’s start with a very simple one. Most Americans think we don’t have enough individual freedom. Among the elite 1%, about half say, “No, we’ve got too much freedom.” And among that politically obsessed group, about 7 out of 10 say, “There’s too much individual freedom in America.”

That’s just mindboggling to me, but part of the reason is because they trust government. In America, it’s been 50 years since most voters trusted the government to do the right thing most of the time. But among the elite 1%, 70% trust the government.

When I look at all the data, there’s a sense that most of us believe in government “of the people, by the people, and for the people.” And I think they would say, it’s of and by the elites that is what’s best for the people. They really believe that if they could just make the decisions and get us out of the way, we would be a lot better off.

SCOTT RASMUSSEN NUMBER OF THE DAY:

47% of the Elite 1% of American voters believe that the U.S. provides too much individual freedom.

In contrast, a separate survey found that most voters (57%) believe there is too much government control. pic.twitter.com/1UTXTYNDt5

— Scott Rasmussen (@ScottWRasmussen) January 29, 2024

Bluey: As somebody who’s been in the polling business for a long time, what is it that keeps you going?

Rasmussen: I remain convinced that most of the polling data is misleading. Most of the data that guides the polling narrative is misleading. And as someone who believes deeply in our nation’s founding values, I want to lift up the voice of the people so loudly that it can’t be ignored in this city.

That’s the objective. We want to transform the debate. We want to help people see most Americans still embrace those founding ideals.

It just offends me to no end to see this misleading impression of the American people. And by the way, as a people, we are far more united than we are politically. In our day-to-day lives, there’s an awful lot of unity and common ground.

Bluey: On April 7, “The Scott Rasmussen Show” will premiere. Could you give us some details on the show and where people can tune in to watch?

Rasmussen: It’s going to be on the Merit Street Media, which is Dr. Phil’s new television network. It’ll be available everywhere. And I’m sure that they’ll have something on the website to tell you about specifics in your local area.

The show came about because of the counterpolling concept and because of my belief that most Americans still believe in those founding ideals and traditional values.

The show is going to be a lot of politics because as a pollster you can’t get away from that. But we’re also going to touch on other things. We’ll do some holiday types of stories and how people are reacting to cultural twists.

My favorite polling question every year is about New Year’s Eve. Most people are shocked to learn that more Americans pray than drink on New Year’s Eve. Now, that’s because a lot of Americans pray every day. It’s not because they’re out there just on that one day. That’s just a different perspective of the world. And we want to highlight that. Again, it’s all part of lifting the voice of the American people up so loudly that you can’t ignore it.

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Biden, the Left Channel Lenin in Language Manipulation on Illegal Immigration

As an historian, I found it fascinating to watch the Left try to impose new language to describe people in the country illegally.

The Left has gradually pushed accepted language away from “illegal aliens” (the term in law), to “illegal immigrants” (the most common term), to “undocumented immigrants” (the Left’s current favorite term), and now to “newcomers” (the Joe Biden White House’s latest experiment in gaining language dominance).

It all reminds me of Vladimir Lenin’s great language coup of 1903.

The Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party met secretly in Brussels. (The czar’s secret police made it impossible to meet openly in Russia.) At the meeting there was a split between Lenin’s hard-line revolutionary faction and a more moderate democratic wing.

Lenin’s faction was the smaller group, but it claimed the title Bolshevik (which means “greater faction” or majority). Group with the most votes were foolish enough to accept the title Lenin gave them, which was Menshevik, meaning minority. That language dominance and branding gave Lenin an enormous advantage in the following two-decade struggle to overthrow the czar and create Soviet Russia.

At least as far back as the French Revolution, the Left has had a passion for labeling things and ideas to gain language dominance. This process as applied to illegal immigration began at least 25 years ago for me.

That’s when I first remember being lectured that using the term “illegal immigrants” was wrong, and I should learn to say “undocumented.”

I thought this was nuts then, and I still do now. By definition, the people we were describing are illegal. Their first act on entering the United States is to break the law. Their decision to do so is an insult to every legal immigrant who patiently followed the rules and entered the United States legally.

In late February, the Biden White House had a handout, which said, “The bill also includes $1.4 billion for cities and states who are providing critical services to newcomers.” The reaction to replacing “illegal immigrant” with “newcomer” was so harsh that the Biden team dropped it. But its goal was clear.

This process of normalizing weird and radical ideas goes on constantly on the Left. Think of pushing transgenderism on children, kneeling during the Pledge of Allegiance, ignoring the destruction caused by the Black Lives Matter riots, etc.

The problem for the Left is that illegal immigration may be the battlefield on which they can’t win.

The latest absurdity began when Biden responded to jeers from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., during his State of the Union address. He said, “Lincoln (sic) Riley, an innocent young woman who was killed by an illegal. That’s right. But how many of thousands of people are being killed by legals?”

Note that even in acknowledging a young woman who was killed by an illegal immigrant, Biden had to immediately cover it with thousands being killed by legal immigrants and citizens. The illegal immigrant could not be the focus.

Of course, he got Riley’s first name wrong, but the Left immediately attacked him for using the term “illegal.” That included former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. Biden promptly began trying to backtrack. In an interview with MSNBC’s Jonathan Capehart on the following Saturday, Biden acknowledged his sin of language, “I shouldn’t have used ‘illegal.’ it’s ‘undocumented.’”

But Biden couldn’t stop there. He had to be pro-illegal immigrant. “I’m not going to treat any, any, any of these people with disrespect. Look, they built the country. The reason our economy is growing,” he said.

Biden’s defense of illegal immigration hurt him with the average American—and his use of “illegal” hurt him with his left-wing allies.

His confusion made him look weak. So, in another act of language dominance, the White House simply decided he really never apologized for saying “illegal” in the first place.

As The Hill reported:

White House deputy spokesperson Olivia Dalton attempted to clarify on Monday, telling a reporter that ‘the president absolutely did not apologize’ despite his expression of regret.

‘There was no apology anywhere in that conversation,” Dalton told reporters on Air Force One. “He did not apologize. He used a different word. I think what we should be really clear about is the facts.’

Biden (and his press team) may be confused, but the American people are not. As Scott Rasmussen reported:

Our recent polling found that 55% of voters believe ‘illegal immigrant’ is the proper term and another 8% prefer ‘illegal alien.’ While 63% favor use of ‘illegal,’ just 24% prefer ‘undocumented migrant.’

Among traditional Democrats, 54% prefer ‘illegal’ and 33% ‘undocumented.’ But [Bernie] Sanders Democrats prefer ‘undocumented’ by a 48% to 30% margin. It is the progressive Democrats who forced Biden to apologize. This just moves him even further from the mainstream.

Let’s be clear: Laken Riley was reportedly killed by an illegal immigrant. That illegal immigrant was in Athens, Ga., because of Biden’s insane policies, which favor an open border and prioritize illegal immigrants over American citizens.

No word games can overcome those facts.

This article was originally published by RealClearPolicy and made available via RealClearWire.

The Daily Signal publishes a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Heritage Foundation.

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Nonprofit Caught on Video Handing Residency Papers to Man Without ID

A nonprofit organization dedicated to “assisting migrants with their paperwork and legal needs” in New York City has been caught on video illegally filling out residency documents for a man without procuring any form of identification from him.

Video shot by Muckraker.com and obtained by The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project appears to show the nonprofit organization, La Jornada, saying that distributing such documents is against the law but then proceeding to do so with another person the next day. (The Daily Signal is Heritage’s news and commentary outlet.)

The video also shows the organization distributing paperwork to get a government-issued New York City identification card through the city’s IDNYC program.

Such a process suggests that an illegal alien easily could get a city ID card under a phony name through the nonprofit.

La Jornada, which operates out of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Queens, describes itself as an organization that is “helping migrants navigate the complex asylum processes and other legal procedures.”

The organization’s website states that La Jornada is “committed to justice and equality” and adds that “we strive to provide comprehensive support and expert guidance to those seeking safety and opportunities in a new country.”

The video, narrated by Muckraker.com founder Anthony Rubin, first shows him speaking to La Jornada employees about obtaining residency documents. Rubin tells one employee that a friend said he could obtain or buy those papers at the facility.

?Election Integrity Under Attack – Undercover Video

Illegal Alien "Charity" Distributing Fraudulent Papers Exposed

In Queens, New York, the organization La Jornada provides services to illegal aliens

The Oversight Project obtained video from @realmuckraker discovering a… pic.twitter.com/FOIDDn28jy

— Oversight Project (@OversightPR) March 20, 2024

“How can you buy that here?” the woman responds. “No, you could do your process of asylum.”

Rubin asks, “Not possible here?” 

She says in response: “Buy papers here? No, we cannot do that. … We could help you do your documentation if you need to get a Social Security or work permit.”

Later in the video, the woman is seen saying to Rubin: “You cannot go asking how much is the residency we sell, because that’s illegal … that’s something that you could do that you could get in trouble. That’s not what we could do. … They will think we are doing something illegal.”

However, the next day, a Mexican associate of Muckraker’s went back to the La Jornada office in Queens. Another employee gives the man residency and IDNYC paperwork although he hasn’t produced any form of identification.

In the video, the man is heard giving only his first and last name to the organization’s employee.

“Do you have a first and last name? Nothing else? Only have Jose Rubiano?” she asks.

The man affirms that.

The La Jornada employee says: “I’m going to get this signed and then I’ll be right back.”

Next, the employee produces documents with the name “Jose Rubiano” for both residency and the IDNYC card.

Muckraker’s Rubin explained why illegally facilitating residence and official identification cards is so problematic.

“Anyone, from someone seeking unauthorized employment to spies, saboteurs, or even terrorists, could obtain a government issued ID by visiting La Jornada and acquiring fraudulent papers,” Rubin said. “This risk also includes those who enter this country legally and overstay their visa.”

Such fraud, he said, potentially has allowed thousands of illegal aliens to obtain a new identity and integrate themselves into New York City undetected.

This is also a problem when it comes to illegal immigrants voting in local elections. With fraudulent residency papers, illegal aliens could take the first step toward voting in New York, which requires 30-day residency.

La Jornada is one of countless nonprofit organizations in New York and across the country that use U.S. taxpayers’ money to facilitate the increase in illegal immigration since President Joe Biden took office in January 2021. 

In 2023, Rep. Grace Meng, D-N.Y., secured $250,000 in federal taxpayer dollars for La Jornada.

The failed Senate border bill promoted by Biden in February was set to send $1.4 billion to nonprofits that cater to illegal immigrants.

“What started out decades ago as faith-based organizations supporting the State Department to resettle genuine refugees in the U.S. after a legitimate application process has evolved into mass illegal immigration and downstream activities, creating an immigration industrial complex worth billions of dollars,” Lora Ries, director of Heritage’s Border Security and Immigration Center, wrote in May for The Daily Signal.

The Daily Signal sought comment about the video from La Jornada, but the organization didn’t respond by publication time.

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Data Shows Minority Voters Shifting Party Affiliation

New polling suggests the country is about to see a “racial realignment” in upcoming elections.

A recent analysis shows a consistent downturn in the number of “nonwhites” who call themselves Democrats.

John Burn-Murdoch is the chief data reporter for the Financial Times. His March 11 analysis shows that since 1960, there has been a steady decrease in black people, Latinos, and other nonwhites identifying as Democrats. As it currently stands, about 50% of minorities self-identify as Democrats.

NEW ?:

American politics is in the midst of a racial realignment.

I think this is simultaneously one of the most important social trends in the US today, and one of the most poorly understood. pic.twitter.com/QeRsuMSKaL

— John Burn-Murdoch (@jburnmurdoch) March 11, 2024

Burn-Murdoch said he foresees that a majority of nonwhite voters could identify as Republicans in future elections.

“The migration we’re seeing today is not so much natural Democrats becoming disillusioned but natural Republicans realizing they’ve been voting for the wrong party,” Burn-Murdoch said.

Other polls have produced similar data. According to Gallup polling, Democrats have lost nearly 20 points in support from black Americans switching party preference in the last three years—down from 86% to 66%.

The Financial Times reporter chalks this up to reduced stigma for voting conservative among nonwhite voters. Basically, conservative people of color are now choosing to vote their values, not party loyalty, Burns-Murdoch says.

One example he shows is on the issues of gun rights and abortion. The percentages of nonwhite voters who vote pro-Second Amendment and pro-life are growing.

These data points could have importance in the upcoming election. For example, in Georgia, eligible black voters make up a third of the population.

In a statement to The New York Times, Joe Biden pollster Celinda Lake said, “We have to get the [African American voter] numbers up and we have to get African American voters out to vote, and we have to get the numbers up with young people and we have to get them out to vote.”

Biden presently has 73% support with black men and 83% support from black women. According to The New York Times, no Democratic candidate has won less than 80% of the black vote since the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

Also according to The Times, former President Donald Trump currently has almost four times the support of black voters than he had in 2020. A New York Times-Siena Poll has him at 23% black support, up from 4% support in 2020 and 6% in 2016.

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Rubio to GOP: Don’t ‘Shy Away’ From Exposing Democratic Abortion Extremism

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—Republican Florida Sen. Marco Rubio responded to GOP consultant Kellyanne Conway’s abortion advice by urging lawmakers to expose Democratic extremism.

Last week, Conway urged Republicans to stop highlighting that their Democratic opponents support unfettered abortions of unborn babies, though Democratic Party leaders and most Democratic politicians have repeatedly refused to specify any protections for the unborn that they would support.

Her advice is a marked shift from what the pro-life movement has focused on as of late—prominent pro-life groups, such as Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, encourage Republicans to highlight Democratic extremism on abortion.

Rubio had similarly urged Republicans, in a January memo first reported by The Daily Signal, to engage a three-pronged approach: to fight for a pro-family agenda, to highlight Democratic extremism on the issue, and to tell the truth about the horrors of abortion.

He also emphasized to his colleagues that Republicans have the moral high ground on the issue, one that deals with the killing of an unborn child.

“Pro-lifers should recall that protecting unborn human beings is the moral center and purpose of our movement—and we cannot be shy about saying so,” he noted. “No pro-life strategy deserves the name without advocating just limits on abortion.”

On Tuesday, Rubio reiterated this stance.

“Protecting life is the moral center and purpose for the pro-life movement,” the Florida Republican told The Daily Signal.

“We should not shy away from exposing the extremism of Democratic lawmakers and abortion advocates, who believe it should be legal to kill babies until the moment of birth,” the senator added.

Conway had laid out an abortion-related political strategy during Politico’s Health Care Summit last week, where she also touched on her support for both TikTok and in vitro fertilization.

Conway emphasized that she is “100% pro-life” and encouraged Democratic lawmakers and commentators to “stop being science-deniers” and “stop pretending you don’t know what you see on a sonogram.” She pointed out that Americans, when polled more granularly on abortion, are both supportive of abortion exceptions and supportive of protecting unborn babies that can feel pain.

But Conway, who formerly served as Donald Trump’s senior adviser, also said that she does not encourage Republicans to point out that their opponents support abortion up until birth.

“Notice how I did not say, and counsel clients against saying, ‘Democrats are for abortion up until the moment of birth.’ You know why that’s not the best way to say it?” she asked. “Nobody knows anybody … who is about to give birth and says, ‘You know what? I don’t really like stretch marks. I’m not really ready to have another person in my life. I changed my mind.’ Nobody knows anybody like that.”

Conway then went on to imply that Trump was speaking metaphorically when he said to failed 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton: “If you go with what Hillary is saying, in the ninth month, you can take the baby and rip the baby out of the womb of the mother just prior to the birth of the baby.”

“That’s sort of a metaphor for who is really extreme here, and people reflexively said, ‘Oooh, could that be true?’ And I think it changed a lot of the conversation,” Conway explained.

In a statement to The Daily Signal following publication of this story, Conway accused The Daily Signal of “barking up the wrong tree,” praised Rubio’s efforts exposing abortion extremism, and back-tracked on her suggestion that Trump was speaking metaphorically about born-alive abortions.

“Senator Rubio and I agree on the importance of defending Life and exposing the extremism of pro-abortion Democrats, and have been doing so for decades,” Conway said. “His leadership on the issue, including on the debate stage against a female Democrat in 2022, is part of why I recommended him in a recent NYT oped (LINK) to be on President Trump’s short list for Vice President.”

“President Trump spoke unequivocally, not metaphorically, leading  the way for the professional politicians who had shied away from saying it,” Conway added. “We changed the conversation and gave courage to others to speak out against the no-limits, no-shame Democrats. Our Administration lodged significant, historic gains for Life.”

She also explained:

“Our pre-Dobbs polling in February 2022 showed that a Republican who opposes abortion with the three exceptions beats a Democrat who support allowing abortion ‘for any reason, up until the moment of birth’ (56% – 34%). I’ve used the phrase ‘up until the moment of birth’ dozens of times publicly and privately. Yet, we have found that alone has not and will not move hearts and minds and expand a culture of Life. All the lesser-included offenses, e.g., sex-selection abortion, taxpayer-funded abortion, fetal pain abortion, late-term abortion, are widely unknown and deeply unacceptable to a majority of Americans. We are actively encouraging leaders to add these facts to their “all f the above are onerous” appeal, finish their sentences and not limit themselves to  ‘up to the moment of birth.'”

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Egregious Examples of the Media Spinning Trump’s ‘Bloodbath’ Comment as Call for Violence

The legacy media is clipping and spinning Donald Trump’s comments where he stated that if he doesn’t get elected, the country’s going to experience a bloodbath, saying it’s a call to violence.

The Context

Trump spoke at a campaign rally Saturday for Senate candidate Bernie Moreno, in Vandalia, Ohio. At the event, he said:

Now, if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath for the whole—that’s going to be the least of it. It’s going to be a bloodbath for the country.

Taken out of context, this line from the former president sounds like a call to violence to some.

However, in the previous line, he said, “We’re going to put a 100% tariff on every single car that comes across the line [into the U.S.], and you’re not going to be able to sell those cars.” He was criticizing the importation of foreign-made vehicles, specifically, those made by Chinese manufacturers.

See the full clip:

The media has jumped on the issue, saying Trump’s comments are hearkening back to Jan. 6, 2021, when his supporters protested at the U.S. Capitol Building during the certification of the 2020 election results after Trump asked them to “peacefully and patriotically” protest outside the Capitol.

The Media Reaction

Numerous media outlets called out Trump for what they considered his call to violent action.

CNN analyst Maria Cardona said Trump has a history of “dark, violent, dangerous, rhetoric.” Cardona also said that Trump’s “cult MAGA supporters and followers totally know exactly what he was telling them. They demonstrated that on January 6.”

MSNBC’s Jen Psaki, President Joe Biden’s former press secretary, brought Biden campaign spokesperson Michael Tyler onto her show, who said, “This is who Donald Trump is: A loser who gets beat by over 7 million votes and then instead of appealing to a wider mainstream audience, doubles down on his threats of political violence.”

On ABC’s “Face the Nation,” former Vice President Mike Pence fought back against allegations that the former president was calling for violence, saying, “The president was clearly talking about the impact of imports devastating the American automotive industry.”

MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough was visibly angry after he was criticized for promoting the idea that Trump was calling for violence and for saying “democracy was on the line” in connection with Trump’s comments. Scarborough said those who claimed Trump was not calling for violence are “idiots” and that their comments were “bull—-.”

The “Morning Joe” host said, “He [Trump] knew what he was doing. We’re not stupid. Americans aren’t stupid. He was talking about a bloodbath. Sometimes a bloodbath means a bloodbath.”

Joe Scarborough is having an UNHINGED Meltdown because he got called out for amplifying the fake “Bloodbath” Hoax ?

pic.twitter.com/IRkQGPo3nB

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) March 18, 2024

Trump responded to the media’s reaction with a Truth Social post, saying, “The fake news media, and their Democrat partners in the destruction of our nation, pretended to be shocked at my use of the word BLOODBATH, even though they fully understood that I was simply referring to imports allowed by Crooked Joe Biden, which are killing the automobile industry.”

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EXCLUSIVE: Conservative Organizations Issue Recommendations on Regulating IVF

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—Two leading conservative organizations are calling for the regulation of the in vitro fertilization industry amid media hysteria over a recent Alabama state Supreme Court ruling and Republican consternation over how to handle the issue.

Following the Alabama court ruling in favor of protecting embryonic human life, Republicans on Capitol Hill have suddenly found themselves required to position on a nuanced subject matter tied closely to the dignity of the human person and the fight for life.

Despite media hysteria suggesting the contrary, the Alabama Supreme Court did not ban IVF, but merely ruled in favor of protecting embryonic human life. Justice Jay Mitchell wrote in his opinion that “unborn children are ‘children’” under the state’s Wrongful Death of a Minor Act.

Experts, such as The Heritage Foundation’s Emma Waters, have argued that the ruling brings “much-needed regulation” to the fertility industry in the United States. (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of The Heritage Foundation.)

Waters noted that only a handful of state laws actually address the “moral and ethical questions raised by the artificial creation of human life.”

“This decision ensures that the well-being of children, not financial gain, is the top priority when it comes to IVF and embryonic cryopreservation,” Waters argues.

In a fact sheet released Tuesday, The Heritage Foundation cautioned that the IVF industry must be regulated and recommended imposing a standard of care on IVF clinics that would prevent “the wanton or careless destruction of embryonic human beings.”

“The willful or reckless loss of an embryonic child should not be treated as a loss of merchandise, where the parents simply get their money back,” the Heritage fact sheet said. “The law should recognize the
gravity of the harm and allow parents proper compensation under the wrongful-death provision.”

Parents should have a legal recourse if a fertility clinic destroys their embryonic children due to “willfulness, neglect, or carelessness,” the fact sheet noted, as the Alabama decision made clear.

Heritage also recommends codifying the recommended guidelines of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine to make sure only one embryo is implanted into the mother at a time. That would help avoid health complications for the mother and poor outcomes for the baby, the fact sheet said.

Heritage also calls for limiting the number of embryos created per round of IVF, following the practices of countries such as Germany; for mandating that fertility clinics secure true informed consent from parents; for prohibiting anonymous egg and sperm donations for IVF treatments; and for promoting access to non-assisted reproductive technology fertility treatments.

Former Vice President Mike Pence’s organization, Advancing American Freedom, similarly issued a memo on Tuesday, first obtained by The Daily Signal, that calls for Republicans to promote only IVF practices that promote life.

The top line of AAF’s messaging reminds lawmakers that “life begins at conception.”

“The law must recognize that millions of Americans are alive today due to IVF, and that embryos created via IVF should be afforded legal protection,” the AAF memo said.

At the same time, the conservative organization stressed that IVF presents a moral conundrum, since it often results in “the creation of frozen human beings, and those that are not implants remain frozen for an indefinite period.” The memo says there are about 1 million embryos in existence domestically, and points out that IVF can be used to “pursue a specific genetic result” that will lead to the destruction of embryos or “indefinite freezing of the unwanted child.”

IVF must be pursued responsibly, AAF cautioned, noting that the U.S. is largely out of line with the rest of the world when it comes to regulating the industry.

“Life begins at conception, and our laws should reflect this,” the memo stressed, emphasizing as a bottom line that “Republicans should never shy away from defending life” and unborn children and families deserve better safeguards.

IVF promises to be a complicated thorn in the side of Republicans, many of whom are already unsure how to successfully message on abortion ahead the 2024 election cycle. And it’s an issue that staffers may have to educate themselves on in order to message effectively.

Ethics and Public Policy President Ryan Anderson warned that IVF presents a pitfall that Republicans would do well to study and avoid.

“Republicans should not fall for the Left’s trap here,” he wrote. “They should not hesitate to say that America’s best social and political reforms were suffused with religious conviction. Or that the deepest reasons for our laws lie in God’s eternal law.”

“Nor should Republicans follow pollsters selling them on new government entitlements to IVF and other assisted reproductive technologies,” Anderson added. “There is no political appetite for bans on these procedures, and the GOP should call out the media’s lies suggesting there is. But our current state of unregulated embryo fabricating, freezing, and destroying does need fixing. The medically superior alternatives to IVF warrant promotion. And at the very least, embryos created through IVF deserve legal protection.”

Democrats are eager to harness both abortion and IVF this election cycle.

President Joe Biden was quick to call the Alabama ruling “outrageous and unacceptable,” saying in a statement: “Make no mistake: This is a direct result of the overturning of Roe v. Wade.”

Former President Donald Trump reacted to the Alabama ruling by promising that the Republican Party “will always support the creation of strong, thriving, healthy American families,” emphasizing that “we want to make it easier for mothers and fathers to have babies, not harder!”

“The Republican Party should always be on the side of the Miracle of Life,” he added, “and the side of Mothers, Fathers, and their Beautiful Babies. IVF is an important part of that, and our Great Republican Party will always be with you, in your quest, for the ULTIMATE JOY IN LIFE!”

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Special Counsel’s Testimony Again Reveals Media Bias in Political Scandals

“Both sides furious” was one reporter’s summary when special counsel Robert Hur testified in a House hearing to explain his decision not to prosecute President Joe Biden for willfully retaining classified documents, not just from his vice-presidential years but from his Senate career.

The network TV stories that night were the closest thing to “fair and balanced” we’ve seen in a long time. The Republicans decried the double standard, that Donald Trump is being prosecuted and Biden is not. The Democrats complained Hur’s report made Biden look feeble-minded (like nobody’s drawn that conclusion).

But let’s take a look at the bigger picture. While Hur was conducting his investigation, we joked that you should put his face on a milk carton. He was missing from the press.

Hur was appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland in January 2023. Bill D’Agostino reported at NewsBusters that over about nine months of morning and evening news coverage—from Feb. 1, 2023, through Nov. 20, 2023—ABC, CBS, and NBC spent just four minutes and 52 seconds on Hur’s inquiry.

But then there’s the breakdown. ABC aired 204 of those 292 seconds, or 70% of that airtime. NBC barely offered a minute (64 seconds), and CBS offered one paltry, 24-second news brief.

That’s not the way the network news covered Russian collusion and Robert Mueller, is it? They obsessed almost daily over that probe. From Jan. 20, 2017, through Dec. 31, 2018, NewsBusters reported the Big Three evening newscasts alone aired 2,092 minutes on investigations of Trump’s alleged collusion with the Russian government. It should not be surprising that this was the single most covered topic in their coverage of Trump in that time frame.

Here’s some rough math: Trump was punished with 858 overwhelmingly negative minutes on Russiagate in 2018, while Biden drew less than five Hur minutes over most of 2023. Very roughly, that’s about 170 to 1. But remember, the 858-minute number is only for the evening newscasts.

If Trump was “scandal-plagued,” the newscasters were the plague. If they made the political weather, it was a daily hurricane for Trump, while Biden was rewarded with “mostly sunny.”

That doesn’t mean Trump was damaged. In 2018, Trump’s approval rating actually improved, according to the RealClearPolitics polling average. But that’s not how the anti-Trump media designed it.

These numbers underline the fraudulence of former Washington Post Editor Martin Baron’s slogan when he claimed, “We’re not at war. We’re at work.” Metaphorically, they were at war under Trump as the Scandal Police, and now they spend most days at the doughnut shop.

This is why the media has a major trust problem with anyone who’s not a Democrat. Trump gets Scandal Police brutality. Biden scandals are avoided until they cannot be avoided, and then reporters often repeat the taunting mantra of “no evidence, no evidence.” As if it’s not their job to look for evidence.

This bifurcated media approach to scandal presents each and every Democrat prosecutor of Trump—whether elected or appointed by Biden—as nonpartisan and apolitical. Well, unless someone like Hur spurs a bad news cycle for Biden; then he’s a “Trump appointee”—ahem, before he became a Biden administration appointee.

The Biden Justice Department is also treated like it’s as pure as newly fallen snow.

People see through this. But journalists keep thinking that people are stupid when they don’t accept their preaching. Their eternally smug self-righteousness ensures they will never be trusted again.

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Why Is President Biden Helping Hamas?

President Joe Biden’s recent foreign policy moves are baffling. By any rational standard, they are undermining Israel and helping Hamas.

When Biden was caught on an open microphone following his State of the Union address telling Democrat Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado that Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were “going to have a come-to-Jesus meeting,” you have to wonder what he’s thinking.

It was a weird comment for two reasons. First, it is unlikely the leader of the Jewish state will have a “come-to-Jesus moment.” (Maybe a come-to-Moses or Abraham moment—but not a come-to-Jesus moment.) I have known Netanyahu since the 1980s. I am confident he was amused rather than intimidated by Biden’s comment.

Second, the American president cannot dictate to the prime minister of Israel. Israel is a sovereign country. Furthermore, its entire history has been a series of heroic victories in which it had to rely on its own courage and ingenuity to provide for its peoples’ security. The United States has historically been an ally of Israel (although in Suez Crisis of 1956, we intervened decisively against an Israeli victory). But the United States can only advise—it cannot dictate.

Biden grandly announced that an Israeli occupation of the city of Rafah would cross a red line. Of course, we remember President Barack Obama’s famous red line about the Syrian use of chemical weapons, which disappeared the minute Syria used the chemical weapons.

Netanyahu responded clearly to Biden’s threat. He told Politico’s parent company, Axel Springer, “We’ll go there. We’re not going to leave … You know, I have a red line. You know what the red line is, that Oct. 7 doesn’t happen again.”

At that point, Biden’s red line faded just like Obama’s. Biden said on MSNBC, “It is a red line, but I’m never going to leave Israel.”

Even Netanyahu’s political opponents in Israel know invading Rafah is a requirement of lasting peace. Israeli War Cabinet member Benny Gantz explained, “Finishing the war without demilitarizing Rafah is like sending in firefighters to put out 80% of a fire.”

The case for totally destroying Hamas is overwhelming. Hamas’ official founding document calls for the complete destruction of Israel. One of its most important leaders said publicly, “not a single Jew will remain.” Hamas has run a terrorist state, which stole enough construction materials from the people of Gaza to build 300 miles of tunnels (the stolen material was reportedly meant to build hospitals and homes).

Hamas has proven its willingness to use the people of Gaza as human shields behind which it protects its key leaders and military assets. The number of dead and wounded in Gaza since Oct. 7 has been a function of Hamas’ willingness to sacrifice its own people to build a humanitarian outcry against Israel.

Tragically, the Biden administration and much of the American news media accept the case set up by Hamas’ ruthlessness and focus their attention on the Israelis. The fact is: This is an urban war that Hamas started. In urban warfare, civilian deaths are unavoidable. The news media’s anti-Israel, antisemitic bias leads it to accept the Hamas propaganda.

As Richard Goldberg wrote, “Biden should draw red lines for Hamas, not for Israel.”

Biden’s proposal for Israel to stay out of Rafah would effectively create a sanctuary city for Hamas terrorists. It would be an irrational act that guaranteed the survival of those whose goal is the complete destruction of Israel. The conflict would remain endless.

When Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the Iranian Parliament chant, “Death to America, death to Israel,” they mean it. We know because the Ayatollah went on national television and pledged to the Iranian people that these words were not a slogan—but a policy.

The seriousness of Hamas’ desire to destroy Israel is captured in its map-making. As Louis Rene Beres wrote in jurist.org on Dec. 23, 2023:

Unhidden, both the Arab world and Iran still have only a ‘One-State Solution’ for the ‘Israel Problem.’ It is a ‘solution’ that eliminates Israel altogether, a physical solution, a ‘Final Solution.’ Even today, official Arab maps of ‘Palestine’ (PNA and Hamas) show the prospective Arab State comprising all of the West Bank (Judea/Samaria), all of Gaza and all of Israel. They knowingly exclude any references to a Jewish population and list ‘holy sites’ of Christians and Muslims only.

Biden should be firmly on the side of Israel and civilization—and against Hamas’ barbarism, terrorism, and genocide.

Sadly, he is failing that test.

This article was originally published by RealClearPolicy and made available via RealClearWire.

The Daily Signal publishes a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Heritage Foundation.

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Nothing Peachy About Georgia’s Willis-Wade Hanky-Panky Ruling

Fulton County, Georgia, Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee’s decision is one fine muddle. 

McAfee ruled on Friday in the Fani Willis-Nathan Wade sexual-kickback case: It takes two to tango, but only one is too corrupt to stay on the dance floor. 

How does that work?

McAfee gave Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis the option to continue her election-interference persecution against former President Donald Trump, but only if she booted Wade, her lead prosecutor and former boyfriend/high-flying travel companion.

McAfee’s ruling only makes sense if Willis and Wade conducted their torrid love affair with Wade awake and Willis comatose. Not even Helen Keller would have been so oblivious of events in which she was, literally, intimately involved.

“It’s like finding two people in a bank vault and taking one off to jail,” George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley told Fox News. “They were the two parts of this relationship, and only one of them was disqualified.” 

BREAKING: Jonathan Turley blasts Judge Scott McAfee over ruling that Fani Willis either recuse herself or remove lover Nathan Wade from the Trump case, says, “It’s like finding two people in a bank vault and taking one off to jail. WATCH pic.twitter.com/iCdzyDOrQ2

— Simon Ateba (@simonateba) March 15, 2024

Turley added: “Why should Willis escape that same penalty? The opinion leaves us feeling like the court went and shot the wounded.”

The decision should have been either: Wade and Willis are clean. So, proceed. Or Wade and Willis are crooked. So, you’re fired!

Instead, McAfee ruled: Willis is clean, and Wade is crooked. So, she should stay or leave with Wade, as she wishes. Whatever.

Huh?

McAfee’s pretzel logic might involve his reelection in two months. Perhaps by leaving Willis some wiggle room, McAfee reckons he can tiptoe around the land mine that would have exploded had he disqualified Willis and blown this case and himself sky-high.

This underscores the urgent need to eliminate all judicial elections and make local, county, and state judges like federal jurists; namely, appointed by executives, confirmed by legislators, and unbeholden to voters. Justice cannot be blind while shaking hands and kissing babies. 

McAfee might have ruled 100% on the law and evidence and 0% on his own political prospects. And yet he is on Fulton County’s May 21 ballot, according to his election website.

Thus, speculation stirs that McAfee’s decision was a self-serving campaign stunt. Such thoughts, justified or not, corrode confidence in a justice system already sinking into a quicksand of public doubts.

Meanwhile, Trump’s attorneys responded to McAfee.

“While respecting the Court’s decision, we believe that the Court did not afford appropriate significance to the prosecutorial misconduct of Willis and Wade, including the financial benefits, testifying untruthfully about when their personal relationship began, as well as Willis’ extrajudicial [Martin Luther King Day] ‘church speech,’ where she played the race card and falsely accused the defendants and their counsel of racism,” declared Steve Sadow, Trump’s lead counsel in the alleged election-interference prosecution. “We will use all legal options available as we continue to fight to end this case, which should never have been brought in the first place.”

These “legal options” most assuredly involve appeal motions. Wiser jurists might return a more rational result, perhaps based on McAfee’s finding that there was at least the appearance of corruption in this case. In legal matters, appearance alone tends to be sufficient to jettison parties too tainted to remain in place. Appearance should be enough to dismiss Willis, now that Wade has resigned in disgrace.

No less a Trump hater than Andrew Weissmann, a former Justice Department Deep Stater, considers Willis too crippled to continue. As he commented via X: “For the good of the case, given that ethics issues will abound now as to Willis, she should voluntarily recuse herself from the case and allow another prosecutor to oversee the GA trump [sic] case.”

For the good of the case, given that ethics issues will abound now as to Willis, she should voluntarily recuse herself from the case and allow another prosecutor to oversee the GA trump case.

— Andrew Weissmann (weissmann11 on Threads)? (@AWeissmann_) March 15, 2024

Willis cannot stand in court and challenge the propriety of Trump and 18 other co-defendants without the entire country—and the jury—thinking: “Go look in the mirror!”

And now, this circus moves on to appellate court. Whatever other judges decide, these appeals will take time. And right now, time is Trump’s best friend.

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Kellyanne Conway Tells GOP: Stop Saying Democrats Support Abortion Up Until Birth

GOP campaign consultant Kellyanne Conway urged Republicans to stop highlighting that their Democratic opponents support unfettered abortions of unborn babies, suggesting instead that Republicans focus on consensus.

Conway laid out an abortion-related political strategy Wednesday during Politico’s Health Care Summit, at which she also touched on her support for both TikTok and in vitro fertilization.

Conway emphasized that she is “100% pro-life” and encouraged Democratic lawmakers and commentators to “stop being science-deniers” and “stop pretending you don’t know what you see on a sonogram.” She pointed out that Americans, when polled more granularly on abortion, are both supportive of abortion exceptions and supportive of protecting unborn babies that can feel pain.

But Conway, who formerly served as Donald Trump’s senior adviser, also said that she does not encourage Republicans to point out that their opponents support abortion up until birth—though the Democratic Party and most Democratic politicians have repeatedly refused to specify any protections for the unborn that they would support.

“Notice how I did not say, and counsel clients against saying, ‘Democrats are for abortion up until the moment of birth.’ You know why that’s not the best way to say it?” she asked. “Nobody knows anybody … who is about to give birth and says ‘You know what? I don’t really like stretch marks. I’m not really ready to have another person in my life. I changed my mind.’ Nobody knows anybody like that.”

Conway then went on to imply that Trump was speaking metaphorically when he said to failed 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton: “If you go with what Hillary is saying, in the ninth month, you can take the baby and rip the baby out of the womb of the mother just prior to the birth of the baby.”

“That’s sort of a metaphor for who is really extreme here, and people reflexively said, ‘Oooh, could that be true?’ And I think it changed a lot of the conversation,” Conway explained.

She did not immediately respond to a request for further comment for this article.

.@KellyannePolls claims Trump was speaking metaphorically when he said in 2016 that Hillary supports very late term abortions.

Trump at the time: “If you go with what Hillary is saying, in the 9th month, you can take the baby and rip the baby out of the womb…" pic.twitter.com/06XyYs604l

— Mary Margaret Olohan (@MaryMargOlohan) March 15, 2024

Conway’s remarks conflict with the strategies of prominent pro-life groups, such as the Susan B. Anthony List, which encourage Republicans to highlight Democratic extremism on abortion.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., similarly urged Republicans, in a January memo first reported by The Daily Signal, to engage a three-pronged approach: to fight for a pro-family agenda, to highlight Democratic extremism on the issue, and to tell the truth about the horrors of abortion.

He also emphasized to his colleagues that Republicans have the moral high ground on the issue, one that deals with the killing of an unborn child.

“Pro-lifers should recall that protecting unborn human beings is the moral center and purpose of our movement—and we cannot be shy about saying so,” he noted. “No pro-life strategy deserves the name without advocating just limits on abortion.”

“This moment is an opportunity for Republicans to refocus and remember who we are,” he wrote. “Our party believes in the dignity of the human person, the importance of family, and the unalienable right to life. There is no cause that unites those beliefs more perfectly, and that motivates tens of millions of our party’s supporters more fully, than the pro-life cause. We have a responsibility to advocate effectively for that cause.”

At a different point in the Wednesday conversation, Politico’s Ryan Lizza asked Conway: “How do you advise a Republican candidate who genuinely says … ‘I believe an embryo is a human life’?”

“I know a few people like that,” Conway responded. “I don’t know many. I know you always want them to be the rule, not the exception … .”

“You don’t know anyone who believes that life starts at conception?” interrupted Lizza.

“I know many people who believe that, you’re talking about embryos,” she continued, before he pressed: “You don’t know anyone who believes embryos are a human life? That’s a very common position in the pro-life movement.”

.@RyanLizza: "How do you advise a Republican candidate who genuinely says…I believe an embryo is a human life?"@KellyannePolls: "I know a few people like that. I don't know many. I know you always want them to be the rule, not the exception…"

Lizza: "You don't know anyone… pic.twitter.com/UQsv276asr

— Mary Margaret Olohan (@MaryMargOlohan) March 15, 2024

She later said that she would advise a candidate who believes life begins at conception to say, “I am pro-life, and here is what that means,” before emphasizing the importance of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as “our first rights.”

Conway also encouraged GOP candidates to talk about close family members and friends who are pro-abortion, and to highlight the abortion exceptions that they personally support.

“You show me your exceptions,” she encouraged Republicans to say to Democrats, “And I’ll show you mine.”

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Turns Out Biden Lied About Hur, Beau, and Why He Pilfered Classified Documents

One of the big takeaways from the newly released transcript of President Joe Biden’s two-day interview with Robert Hur is that the special counsel was being exceedingly generous when describing the president as a “sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”

Much of the conversation with Hur is littered with barely incoherent answers and spiraling word salads. Though, the reader is occasionally entertained by Biden’s blowhard-y non sequiturs.

We learn about Biden’s Corvette—twice. We learn that the president is a frustrated architect but an excellent archer. Biden even jokes that there might be risque pictures of first lady Jill Biden.

Then again, the fact that the entire two-day interview isn’t a giant nonsensical rant is not as impressive as his defenders might believe. The president is, indeed, completely coherent at times. And those are the times he’s probably lying.

When Hur released his report last month, for example, it noted that Biden couldn’t recall the year his son died. This is not the kind of event that typically slips a healthy person’s mind—not even one who is constantly trying to emotionally manipulate the public with misleading claims about the cause of his son’s death.

Recall that Biden feigned great anger about this interaction. “There’s even a reference that I don’t remember when my son died,” he barked at reporters when the report was released. “How in the hell dare he raise that? Frankly, when I was asked the question, I thought to myself: It wasn’t any of their damn business.”

The transcript shows that it was Biden who brought up his late son Beau, not Hur. The president claimed he believed Beau had died in 2017 or 2018 when he had tragically died of brain cancer in 2015.

Who knows? Maybe Biden forgot what he said? Reading the full context of his answer, and considering the president’s lifelong fabulism, it is not entirely out of the question that the president purposely floated the wrong date to try and justify his pilfering of classified documents. Either way, it’s bad.

More importantly, Biden also contradicted himself when speaking about the documents themselves.

When Hur asked the president about the classified papers in his possession, the president contended that he “had no purpose for them, and I think it would be inappropriate for me to keep clearly classified documents.” But Hur, in his prepared testimony for Congress, says: “We also identified other recorded conversations during which Mr. Biden read classified information aloud to his ghostwriter.”

So, the documents did have a very specific purpose. Those files were used, according to Amtrak Joe, to help earn $8 million writing a book after leaving the Obama administration.

Yet, when the Hur report was released, the left wing did what they always do when confronted with bad news: They feigned a meltdown. They smeared the messenger. They concocted conspiracy theories. They denied reality. They’re doing the same right now.

The media continues to frame Hur’s findings as an exoneration of Biden to head off the (correct) perception that there is a stark, selective prosecution when it comes to the hoarding of classified documents. Donald Trump, yes. Biden and Hillary Clinton, no.

In The New York Times, Charlie Savage begins the paper’s story on the leaked transcripts by misleading readers with the contention that Hur had found “insufficient evidence to charge Mr. Biden.” This is not true.

Hur’s report concluded that Biden came off as too feeble-minded to be convicted by a jury for his decades-long mishandling of classified information. According to the special counsel, the president had “willfully retained classified information.” And he had done it for years before winning the presidency.

During today’s hearing, Democrats falsely used the word “exoneration” a number of times. Hur noted that the word “does not appear anywhere in my report, and that is not my conclusion.”

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How ADL’s Partisanship Harms the Fight Against Antisemitism

For over a century, the Anti-Defamation League has enjoyed a reputation as the preeminent Jewish organization combating antisemitism and all forms of hate. Its acronym, ADL, has “household name” status—and not just in Jewish homes. This makes its current penchant for partisanship extraordinarily dangerous for, and beyond, the Jewish community.

Last December, Senate Republicans learned that a Joe Biden nominee for a lifetime judicial appointment, Adeel Mangi, was previously a board member and generous supporter of the antisemitic Center for Security, Race and Rights at Rutgers University Law School.

At his confirmation hearing, they questioned Mangi about his alarming affiliation with that center and his knowledge of its repugnant activities. Just last week, proof emerged that Mangi had worked closely with the center’s director and others with ties to antisemitism and terror.

Yet rather than applaud the senators’ concern, the ADL stunningly accused them of bigotry. It decried supposed “inappropriate and prejudicial treatment” of Mangi that appeared to be “motivated by bias towards his religion”—Islam. Mangi’s faith and ethnicity were never mentioned in the questions, in contrast to the activities and ideology of the center.

For daring to question a nominee’s association with anti-Jewish bias, the ADL accused Republican senators of anti-Muslim bias. One could hardly imagine a more outrageous betrayal of the ADL’s historic mission.

Yet this was no rare instance of the ADL leveling a politically charged but fundamentally wrong indictment. Rather, sectarianism permeates the organization, especially since Jonathan Greenblatt left the Obama Administration to become its CEO in 2015.

Greenblatt’s background is notably lacking in an advanced Jewish education, specifically regarding how Judaism itself has, for millennia, consistently identified antisemitism, the world’s “longest hatred,” using a neutral yardstick. He has surrounded himself with like-minded progressives, such that today’s ADL views antisemitism, like everything else, through a partisan lens.

In a post to Elon Musk’s X platform, Greenblatt recently lumped “neo-Nazis at CPAC” (the Conservative Political Action Conference) together with antisemitic rants by Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan and delinquents who verbally assaulted writer Bari Weiss and Jerry Seinfeld in Manhattan.

CPAC declared that it stands with Israel, offered plenary sessions on antisemitism and the hostages held by Hamas, and has for years sponsored a “Shabbat at CPAC” program for observant Jews. To associate it with the very people it bans from attending, much less speaking, is simply deplorable—and consequential. It alienates the millions of Americans who support CPAC and its policy positions while blunting the efforts by CPAC’s leaders to combat antisemitism.

And speaking of Musk, Greenblatt wondered if Twitter, as it was known at the time, should be shut down after Musk restored Donald Trump’s access to the platform. Apparently, Greenblatt shared the opinion of X’s previous owners, who thought Trump’s tweets were hateful, but deemed Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s calls for Jewish genocide merely “foreign policy saber-rattling.”

This bears no resemblance to nonpartisan concern for antisemitism. The results were predictable: Musk is no antisemite, but his response to this gratuitous attack inadvertently elevated one.

So anxious is the ADL to malign conservatives that it even targets Jews who favor traditional values. Last year, the ADL’s Center on Extremism took aim at Chaya Raichik, the Orthodox Jewish woman behind Libs of TikTok; it tarred her as a purveyor of “anti-transgender hate” until Raichik threatened to sue. The ADL immediately quailed, conceding by implication that its accusations were indefensible.

Yet in November, the same Center on Extremism published a similar hit piece on the National Center for Public Policy Research and the National Legal and Policy Center. These organizations criticize supranational organizations like the U.N. and the World Economic Forum and what they call “globalist” agendas.

Although the ADL readily admitted that the “globalist” language was consistent with what “mainstream personalities and politicians” use and that “there is no evidence to suggest that either organization’s … proposals were filed with antisemitic intentions,” the ADL insisted nonetheless that the word globalist “could be interpreted” (emphasis added) as “an antisemitic dog whistle,” along with “conspiracy theories” that “sometimes promote antisemitism” (emphasis added).

Rather than learning to focus upon accuracy after the Raichik debacle, the ADL seems to have learned to employ weasel words to evade legal culpability.

This is especially offensive considering that one of the ADL’s named targets, the National Center for Public Policy Research’s Ethan Peck, is another Jew, an Israeli-American who condemns globalists in part for funding the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees.

The relief agency, of course, was lavishly funded from around the world as it taught Arab schoolchildren to murder Jews until the Israelis recently proved that the agency provided electrical power, internet connectivity, support, and terrorists for Hamas.

If the ADL truly believes Peck is blowing an antisemitic dog whistle, the problem is ADL’s hearing, not the decent, respected, and philo-semitic National Center for Public Policy Research. But given the careful language choices the ADL uses to smear Peck and his organization, it honestly appears more likely that the ADL knew its charges were specious from the outset.

The weaponized sectarianism of the ADL’s national headquarters undermines the fight against Jew-hatred, including efforts by its less ideology-driven (and thus, more effective) local offices to engage with law enforcement, legislators, and the public.

This is true, first of all, because those on the disfavored side are silenced: How can Peck be a credible advocate for Jews and their indigenous rights while the ADL implies that the organization he serves is spreading antisemitic tropes?

And, still more dangerously, the ADL’s silence and even expressed tolerance for left-wing antisemitism permits that antisemitism to fester.

The ADL legitimized groups like Black Lives Matter organizations that promoted antisemitic tropes until BLM’s reaction to Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7 made this untenable. Until Whoopi Goldberg claimed the Holocaust wasn’t about race, the ADL’s own definition of racism attributed it uniquely to whites.

All of this was happening while the most-targeted demographic in history—the one the ADL was created to defend—was smeared by leftist antisemites as possessing “white privilege.”

Greenblatt is now confronted by a reality quite different from his ideology. It was not conservatives who disrupted his speech at Brown University about antisemitism. And, of course, to the Mangi-supported, antisemitic Rutgers Center, the ADL remains a den of reviled “Zionists.” The center’s director, Sahar Aziz, obtusely accused the ADL of “aligning itself with right-wing leaders.” Just last month, when the ADL pointed out correctly that American student groups were supporting Hamas, the center denounced the ADL for engaging in “anti-Palestinian advocacy.”

The Coalition for Jewish Values, where I serve as managing director, is one of several organizations calling out antisemitism on both sides of the political aisle.

The ideological tilt of the ADL harms both our and its own efforts, and this can no longer be ignored. While our Jewish communities are surrounded by real wolves, it is unconscionable that the ADL continues to cry wolf, wounding those favorably disposed toward Jews and Israel while true antisemites endanger America’s future.

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Conservatives Win Triple-Header in One of America’s Bluest States

It has been 40 years since a Republican presidential candidate won Washington state. Today, Democrats enjoy a “trifecta” there, controlling the governorship and both chambers of the Washington State Legislature.

But despite Democrats’ firm grip on state government, conservatives just scored their own “trifecta” victory in the deep-blue stronghold.  

The conservative grassroots organization Let’s Go Washington collected 2.6 million signatures across the state on six ballot initiatives, which amounts to over 420,000 signatures per measure.  

In early March, under pressure to act on the Republican-backed ballot initiatives, the Washington State Legislature enacted three of the six measures after holding hearings.  

The three measures, which become law within the next 90 days, will:

  • Remove restrictions on reasonable police pursuits.  
  • Give parents the right to examine their children’s classroom curriculum, books, and other materials, and grant parents the right to see their children’s school records. 
  • Bar the state, counties, cities, or other jurisdictions from implementing a general income tax. 

“By having a coordinated, strategic agenda of six initiatives … we were able to put [Democrats] on defense, and they needed to react to what we were trying to accomplish,” Dann Mead Smith, finance director and steering committee member for Let’s Go Washington, told The Daily Signal.  

“And now, half of what we wanted to accomplish has been passed into law,” said Mead Smith, adding, “and we’re hopefully poised for a complete victory to get all six passed by voters in November.”  

The other three initiatives, for which the Washington State Legislature didn’t hold hearings, will appear on the ballot in November, giving voters the opportunity to approve them as law. Those initiatives would: 

  • Repeal the state’s cap-and-trade carbon tax.  
  • Allow Washingtonians to opt out of the state government’s long-term health care insurance program.  
  • Repeal the state tax on capital gains income.  

The Seattle Times also summarized the success of the campaign for the state ballot measures as putting the Democrat-controlled House and Senate on “defense.”

“House and Senate Republicans relentlessly brought attention to these initiatives, including through repeated procedural motions to require their consideration by the Legislature,” House Minority Leader Drew Stokesbary told The Daily Signal.  

“Even though the initiatives represent a significant rollback of Democrats’ signature policy victories in recent years, it appears that legislative Democrats succumbed to Republican pressure and decided to pass the three initiatives that were polling the best, and roll the dice with voters on the other three,” Stokesbary said, adding: “I suspect that will turn out to be a bad bet for them as well.” 

Originally, the Washington State Legislature “refused to even hold hearings on any of the six [initiatives],” Mead Smith said, “even though in the state Constitution, it says the paramount duty of the Legislature is to pass a state budget and then to debate citizen initiatives to the Legislature.”

In response, Let’s Go Washington mounted a public pressure campaign, holding two rallies on the steps of the state Capitol. Local media called for hearings, and polling indicated bipartisan support for the measures.  

Mead Smith of Let’s Go Washington, also the co-founder and co-leader of its parent company, Project 42, said he was surprised by this fact: Of over 820,000 unique signers of petitions to put the initiatives on the ballot, 57% were either registered Democrats or independents

With such a large, independent voting bloc in Washington state, Mead Smith said, he believes the Democrat-controlled Legislature saw the support for the initiatives and “that made them nervous” not to act—resulting in a “political calculation” to hold hearings on and pass three of the measures.  

If the three remaining ballot initiatives attract bipartisan support from voters, he said, he hopes other states will take note and “not enact some of these bad policies.” 

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CDC Exaggerated Maternal Death Rates, Study Finds

A new study has found that maternal death rates in the United States have likely been strongly exaggerated due to misclassifications of maternal deaths.

The study, published Wednesday in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology, found that the United States’ maternal death rates have been inflated for the past two decades due to data-classification errors.

These errors were apparently due to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s changes in the way that pregnancy was referenced on death certificates, leading to an “overestimation of maternal mortality.”

The maternal death rate has actually remained flat, according to the study. “A definition-based approach, which requires the mention of pregnancy among the multiple causes of death on the death certificate, shows lower, stable maternal mortality rates in the United States and a temporal decline in deaths due to direct obstetrical causes,” the report said.

“There has been a lot of alarm and apprehension surrounding the fact that some of these reports show a threefold increase in maternal mortality, and that is not what we found. We found low and stable rates,” K.S. Joseph, the lead author of the study, told The Washington Post.

In a statement to The Daily Signal, the CDC disputed the study’s findings, claiming that the methods used in the AJOG report “are known to produce a substantial undercount of maternal mortality” because “there are maternal deaths occurring that would not otherwise be identified if the death certificate didn’t include a pregnancy checkbox.”

“Capturing these otherwise unrecorded maternal deaths is critical to understanding the scope of maternal mortality in the United States and taking effective public health action to prevent these deaths,” the CDC added. “The recent report’s analysis does not address this, nor does it provide evidence of how large any potential overcount may be. That said, the AJOG report confirms a prior CDC analysis, which found that the pregnancy box is sometimes mistakenly checked on death certificates, which contributes to some overcounting.”

The news comes as Vice President Kamala Harris visits a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic in Minnesota, making her the first vice president to visit such a facility. The move is intended to demonstrate President Joe Biden’s administration’s dedication to promoting abortion in the post-Roe v. Wade era.

“I’m here at this health care clinic to uplift the work that is happening in Minnesota as an example of what true leadership looks like,” Harris said, adding: “It is only right and fair that people have access to the health care they need, and that they have access to health care in an environment where they are treated with dignity and respect … [I]t is absolutely about health care and reproductive health care.”

Vice President Kamala Harris is the first VP or POTUS to visit an abortion clinic.

Says she is there because of how many people are "silently suffering" after Roe was overturned. pic.twitter.com/oMrmRMBQHo

— Eugene Daniels (@EugeneDaniels2) March 14, 2024

She also sharply criticized efforts to protect the unborn across the nation, saying: “In this environment, these attacks against an individual’s right to make decisions about their own body are outrageous and in many instances just plain old immoral. How dare these elected leaders believe they are in a better position to tell women what they need, to tell women what is in their best interest.”

The visit also comes after Biden’s heated rhetoric on “reproductive rights,” birth control, and in vitro fertilization at last week’s State of the Union address, in which he accused Republicans of trying to restrict a woman’s “freedom to choose.”

Harris’ visit demonstrates an effort to “generate enthusiasm for the Democratic ticket among black, Hispanic, and young voters,” Axios reports. According to a poll released Thursday from the health policy research firm KFF, more than one-quarter of black female voters said that abortion is their top issue in the 2024 presidential election.

“It’s a complete shift,” KFF pollster Ashley Kirzinger claimed to The Associated Press, pointing to the fervor of white evangelical voters who turned out for then-presidential candidate Donald Trump in the 2016 election. “Abortion voters are young, black women—and not white evangelicals.”

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Kamala Harris Makes Celebratory Visit to Planned Parenthood Abortion Clinic

Vice President Kamala Harris spent Thursday afternoon visiting a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic in Minnesota.

The visit, which makes her the first vice president to do so, is intended to demonstrate President Joe Biden’s administration’s dedication to promoting abortion in the post-Roe v. Wade era.

The visit is a historic first. While a celebratory visit to an abortion clinic once would have been considered horrifying, tactless, and gruesome, Harris used her Thursday tour to claim there is a “health crisis” in the post-Roe v. Wade United States—since it’s now harder in a number of states for women to abort their unborn babies.

As The New York Times put it: “The mere sight of a top Democratic official walking into an abortion clinic offered the clearest illustration yet of how the politics of abortion rights have shifted for the party— and the nation.”

“I’m here at this health care clinic to uplift the work that is happening in Minnesota as an example of what true leadership looks like,” Harris told reporters on Thursday. “It is only right and fair that people have access to the health care they need, and that they have access to health care in an environment where they are treated with dignity and respect … . [I]t is absolutely about health care and reproductive health care.”

I am back in Minnesota today for the sixth stop on my nationwide Fight For Reproductive Freedoms Tour.@POTUS and I will never stop fighting to protect a woman’s ability to make decisions about her own body. pic.twitter.com/bwNsYG30ab

— Vice President Kamala Harris (@VP) March 14, 2024

Harris also sharply criticized efforts to protect the unborn across the nation, saying: “In this environment, these attacks against an individual’s right to make decisions about their own body are outrageous and, in many instances, just plain old immoral. How dare these elected leaders believe they are in a better position to tell women what they need, to tell women what is in their best interest.”

Her visit follows Biden’s heated rhetoric on “reproductive rights,” birth control, and in vitro fertilization in his March 7 State of the Union address, in which he accused Republicans of trying to restrict a woman’s “freedom to choose.”

And the visit demonstrates an effort to “generate enthusiasm for the Democratic ticket among black, Hispanic, and young voters,” Axios reported. According to a poll released Thursday from the health policy research firm KFF, more than a quarter of black female voters said that abortion is their top issue in the 2024 presidential election.

Planned Parenthood has previously come under fire for its founder, Margaret Sanger, who frequently made pro-eugenics comments and targeted black communities with birth control through her “Negro Project.” Critics accuse Planned Parenthood of targeting minority neighborhoods, and specifically black women, by disproportionately placing surgical abortion clinics in minority neighborhoods.

Spot the difference:

2020: @Mike_Pence becomes the first sitting VP to visit a pregnancy center (supports women & their children)

2024: @KamalaHarris becomes the first sitting VP to visit an abortion facility (tells women their children are impediments to their success) pic.twitter.com/0Uz4yUnt0u

— SBA Pro-Life America (@sbaprolife) March 14, 2024

In 2020, then-Vice President Mike Pence became the first sitting vice president to visit a pro-life pregnancy resource center. Those pregnancy centers exist to provide options to women who might otherwise abort their unborn babies, offering mothers resources, food, and baby necessities.

At the time, Pence joined members of the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List to visit the Florida-based A Woman’s Place Medical Clinic as he kicked off a multistate “Life Wins” tour. After the tour, he celebrated the Trump-Pence administration as the “most pro-life administration in history.”

“You know, the pro-life movement doesn’t just talk the talk. You walk the walk,” Pence said at the time.

“I saw a wonderful clinic, heard about all the volunteers that stepped forward, along with registered nurses and health care professionals,” he added. “The place is, literally, every day bustling with people ready to not just stand for life, but stand with women facing the most difficult circumstances in their lives.”

Thank you to A Women’s Place Medical Clinic for the work you’re doing to save the innocent lives of the unborn, including 10,000 babies in the last 35 years & 500 babies within the last 12 months. I couldn’t be more proud to be part of the most Pro-Life Administration in history! pic.twitter.com/rvAQiYcyRk

— Mike Pence (@Mike_Pence) August 5, 2020

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Back in the USSR?: Biden’s Budget for Gargantuan Government

In 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed.

It marked the end of an experiment that lasted almost a century, testing the premise that godless secularization—turning control of people’s lives over to other people to rule them, who decide what others need and how they should live and conduct their lives—is the answer for mankind.

In the free world, the collapse of the Soviet Union was cause for celebration. In the USA, it was widely viewed as a victory of the American way of life—a free nation under God.

But let’s not get confused between things and the names we give them.

Our own country—despite the words in our founding documents about freedom and God—has been on a path adopting the same premises about human reality that led to the collapse of the communist world.

This was evident in President Joe Biden’s message to the nation in his State of the Union address on March 7.

Biden, in so many words, delivered a message that the path for a better, wealthier, fairer America is more government.

Despite the reality that the country is being crushed with staggering debt, the result of runaway government, Biden and his party celebrate this and want even more.

The words find their way into numbers in the budget for the next 10 years that the president has just submitted to Congress.

Federal spending in this budget will stand in fiscal year 2025 at $7.3 trillion. One-quarter of our national economy consumed by the federal government.

This amounts to a 14% increase from where federal spending stood in the last quarter of 2023—$6.4 trillion.

Per the president’s spokesperson in the White House, this budget “invests in all of America to make sure everyone has a fair shot.”

“We leave no one behind.”

Translation: Government will accumulate more power and decide what is fair and achieve its aims with more government, paid for with other people’s money.

The beautiful language of leaving “no one behind” means government expansion into every area of our lives, including subsidized child care for families earning $200,000 and below.

The bill for the massive new spending, per the president’s budget, will be paid for with a total of $4.9 trillion in tax increases on the wealthy and on corporations.

I say “supposedly paid for” because expansion of government under the premises of raising taxes on the most successful sectors of our economy never works.

Renowned economist Arthur Laffer and Heritage Foundation economist Stephen Moore just published data showing that when President Donald Trump cut the highest individual tax rate and cut the corporate tax rate in 2017, the percentage of overall taxes paid by the wealthiest 1% of the population increased. (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of The Heritage Foundation.)

Before the Trump tax cuts, the top 1% paid “a little more than 40% of the income taxes collected,” per Laffer and Moore. After the tax cuts, that percentage increased to almost 46%.

This was not something new. Laffer and Moore show data going back to 1980 showing general correlation of lower top tax rates with a larger percentage of overall taxes paid by the top 1%.

Freedom means unleashing productivity and creativity. Absence of freedom means punishing both and therefore getting less of both.

It’s why the Soviet Union collapsed. Godless secularism doesn’t work.

The latest edition of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education’s “The State of Black Progress” shows the uniform failure of expansion of government into health care, education, housing, and retirement, all in the name of “fairness” and no one being “left behind.”

The truth really is, it’s more than this. It’s about politicians who love power buying it with gifts given with other people’s money. Harsh to say, but this is reality.

Only 19% of Americans are satisfied with the direction of the country, per Gallup.

Most Americans feel something is wrong. We need leadership to take us back to freedom and God.

The Daily Signal publishes a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Heritage Foundation.

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‘Make Voting Great Again’: GOP Warns Against Government Election Meddling

The Biden administration appears poised to put the government’s thumb on the scale in the 2024 election, House Republicans say. 

The administration’s lack of transparency about implementing President Joe Biden’s executive order for federal agencies to help get out the vote—combined with a warning from Attorney General Merrick Garland—has sparked some concern among lawmakers. 

“You just saw Merrick Garland saying voter ID is disenfranchising people,” Rep. Claudia Tenney, R-N.Y., co-chairman of the House Election Integrity Caucus, told The Daily Signal. “The statistics don’t bear that out. It’s like 85% of people across all demographics support voter ID.”

Earlier this month, Garland criticized voter ID laws and other election security measures as “discriminatory, burdensome, and unnecessary.”

“One of the first things I did as attorney general was to double the number of lawyers in the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division,” Garland said in a March 3 speech in Selma, Alabama. “That is why we are challenging efforts by states and jurisdictions to implement discriminatory, burdensome, and unnecessary restrictions on access to the ballot, including those related to mail-in voting, the use of drop boxes, and voter ID requirements.”

As explained in my book “The Myth of Voter Suppression,” several studies have shown that voter ID laws don’t suppress voting. 

A 2019 study by the National Bureau of Economic Research, based on turnout data from 2008 to 2018, said voter ID laws “have no negative effect on registration or turnout, overall or for any group defined by race, gender, age, or party affiliation.” 

A 2023 study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that voter ID laws actually “produced a Democratic advantage, which weakened to near zero after 2012.” It added that voter ID laws have “negligible average effects.”

Garland’s recent comments seemed aimed at intimidation during the 2024 election cycle, where it looks like Biden again will face Donald Trump, Tenney said.  

“We’ve had just an unprecedented amount of changes in laws in terms of election integrity,” Tenney said, referring to New York and other Democrat-controlled states. She added: “I’m trying to make voting great again. I’m trying to make it sacred.”

Americans should be able to trust elections, said Rep. Mary Miller, R-Ill. 

“It’s interesting we think we are so sophisticated around the world and we are faltering in this area,” Miller told The Daily Signal. “People need to feel that their vote matters. We need to have voter ID. You cannot even pay cash for a hotel room without coming up with … ID. This is ridiculous.” 

Voter ID laws are commonplace in almost every European country, while mail-in voting is far more restricted than in the United States. 

“You want legitimate voters to make sure that everybody has a vote that legally should have a vote,” Rep. Beth Van Duyne, R-Texas, told The Daily Signal. “Otherwise, you are diluting the voice of your constituency.” 

Van Duyne said she does worry about Biden’s Executive Order 14019, which requires federal agencies to establish plans and partner with nonprofit organizations to boost voting. 

“The Constitution clearly defines states as maintaining control of their election laws,” Van Duyne said. “Trying to stick the camel’s nose under the tent is a mistake. I do not want D.C. coming in and telling Texas how to conduct its elections.” 

Although Biden administration agencies have been slow to release information voluntarily, responses to requests for public records have shown agencies are partnering with transparently liberal organizations such as Demos, the Brennan Center for Justice, the American Civil Liberties Union, and similar groups. 

“I don’t have a problem with voters having access to vote. That’s the American way. I do have a problem with agencies being involved in the political process,” Rep. Carlos Giménez, R-Fla., said.

“That should be left up to the parties and volunteer groups for voter registration. Certainly, the agencies shouldn’t put impediments to voter registration [in place],”  Giménez told The Daily Signal. “But that’s a very slippery slope for federal agencies to be in charge of voter registration, because there are always going to be charges of ‘Are you registering one particular group over another?’ I’d rather not see the federal government involved in that.” 

The most frequent source of election fraud comes from mail-in or absentee voting, based on a compilation of cases from The Heritage Foundation’s Election Fraud Database. 

If Biden cared about election security, he would address the problem of absentee ballots, said Rep. Glenn Grothman, R-Wis.

“If you have an absentee ballot, you never know for sure who filled it out. You never know for sure if somebody is being coached,” Grothman told The Daily Signal. 

“If [Russian President] Vladimir Putin got elected with 80% of the ballots being absentee, we’d just roll our eyes and say that’s not a fair election,” he said. “But there are many states in which 80% of the ballots are going to be absentee, which will always cause American elections to be viewed jadedly.”

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PBS, NY Times Scowl at Conservative ‘Mandate’

The Heritage Foundation has been issuing its doorstop-length “Mandate for Leadership” books since Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980. But this is the first one that has inflamed The New York Times into painting it as a manual for autocracy.

On the March 8 edition of PBS’ “Washington Week With The Atlantic,” moderator Jeffrey “Obama Is Awesome” Goldberg cued up New York Times book reviewer Carlos Lozada to discuss his article “What I Learned When I Read 887 Pages of Plans for Trump’s Second Term.”

What surely delighted Goldberg was Lozada’s hot take. The Heritage book is “not about anything as simplistic as being ‘dictator for a day,’ but about consolidating authority and eroding accountability for the long haul.”

Here’s what is left unsaid. Conservatives would like to impose more political appointees on the executive branch because they feel the permanent bureaucracy is stacked with “progressives” who treat conservative presidencies as an occasion for clandestine warfare.

Under then-President Donald Trump, both career appointees and political appointees leaked to liberal media outlets with all kinds of anonymous “resistance.” One wrote a New York Times op-ed and then a book under the byline “Anonymous.” The author later revealed himself as political appointee Miles Taylor, who was barely 30 when he became a deputy chief of staff in the Department of Homeland Security.

As Lozada noted in reviewing the “Anonymous” book, it was full of “stuff we already know.” It was written to be bought by Trump haters who loved MSNBC guest snark like Trump is “like a 12-year-old in an air-traffic control tower, pushing the buttons of government indiscriminately.”

This, we know, is what Lozada means by “eroding accountability,” making it harder for liberal rags like The New York Times to undermine the Republican president from within. No one on PBS is going to ask him if anonymous sourcing “erodes accountability.” Because “accountability” is a one-way street for them.

The incentive structure is different for the bureaucracy under Democrats. Nobody at The New York Times wants an anonymously sourced war on the president. No major book publishers want a “tell-all” book lacerating the liberals for acting like 12-year-olds … or like feeble octogenarians.

Anonymous sourcing at the Times isn’t used for trashing the White House anymore. It’s now reserved for the most pedestrian stories on Team Biden. In January, John Kerry was leaving the State Department to join the Biden campaign, and it was announced “at a hastily arranged meeting, said the person, who asked to remain anonymous in order to discuss personnel matters.”

Under President Joe Biden, liberal journalists are expected to preach the most preposterous gospels. Lozada proclaimed on taxpayer-supported TV that the Heritage team wants “to politicize the Justice Department. … It’s very overt. They emphasize how, for instance, the White House Counsel’s Office and the [Justice Department] have to work as a team. That’s a quote.”

The “accountability” specialists of the pro-Biden media somehow can’t concede that the Biden Justice Department is aggressively prosecuting their opponent as a campaign strategy. Their press statements boast how their prosecutions in the Jan. 6 riot are massive and still unloading indictments.

Liberal reporters warn of Trump’s “retribution” and couldn’t possibly imagine that Biden’s seeking retribution through his Justice Department. Their “news judgment” is perfectly partisan. Implying Biden’s DOJ is nonpartisan is the most wretched misinformation you could publish.

The Heritage folks are not wrong to assert that the Left controls the permanent bureaucracy and that they’re very upset that conservatives have gotten organized. Other Republican presidents have taken their “mandate” seriously, but the “deep state”—especially defined as the anonymous sources perennially pushing statism—remains an entrenched and powerful foe.

COPYRIGHT 2024 CREATORS.COM

The Daily Signal publishes a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Heritage Foundation.

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Freedom Caucuses Shaking Up How Business Is Done in 11 States

For nearly a decade, the House Freedom Caucus has disrupted the way business is done in Congress. Now, that same model is spreading to state capitals across America.

State Freedom Caucus Network President Andy Roth is no stranger to Washington’s policy fights after spending years with the Club for Growth. A few years ago, he decided it was time to turn his attention to the states. Today, the State Freedom Caucus Network is growing and currently active in 11 states that span the country.

On this episode of “The Daily Signal Podcast,” we talk about the how these conservative lawmakers are challenging the status quo and shaking up the establishment. The transcript was edited for length.

Rob Bluey: You spent nearly two decades in Washington at the Club for Growth. You and I got to know each other fighting earmarks and all sorts of other bad things that Congress was doing. What inspired you to refocus your attention on state legislatures?

Andy Roth: The network was based on the House Freedom Caucus business model. The House Freedom Caucus launched in 2015 and almost immediately—because of my position at the Club for Growth—I had a lot of state lawmakers come to me and say gosh, “I wish we had that at the state level.” So we’ve been talking about this for years.

In 2019, we were like, we’ve got to make this happen because there are 50 swamps in the 50 states that people don’t know about. And they’re arguably, I would say they are worse than the swamp in D.C.

Because of the COVID stuff, school choice, there are so many issues that impact people and their families at the state level, and no attention was paid on them. So in 2019, we launched the network.

The Georgia Freedom Caucus was the first one. Then we went to South Carolina, South Dakota, Illinois, on and on. And now we have 11 of them.

Bluey: What’s your strategy in terms of how you identify a state?

Roth: These state Freedom Caucuses have to originate organically, meaning that the lawmakers themselves have to come to us and say, “We’ve got the members. We’ve got the desire. We have the principles. Let’s do it.”

We then talk to them and we help put it together and then we launch. We found the members in Georgia, South Carolina, and elsewhere because they were ready to go. That’s the process now going forward.

A lot of state lawmakers all across the country know about us, but there are some that still don’t. But once they do, they come to us and then we go through the process and hopefully we’re able to launch.

There is a Freedom Caucus movement that is sweeping across the nation. Do you want to know what it looks like? This: pic.twitter.com/IHFkvR6qWn

— Andy Roth (@andyroth) January 11, 2024

Bluey: Could you speak to some of those characteristics of people who are involved?

Roth: They are full-spectrum conservatives, but more importantly than that, they are conservatives before they’re Republicans.

If there are Republican leaders—whether it’s the governor, whether it’s the speaker of the State House or the Senate majority leader—if they’re pushing policies that are not conservative, we only want lawmakers who are willing to fight back against them.

Not only do they have to be great on policy, but they have to be willing to fight Republicans and Democrats at every turn.

Bluey: Some of those politicians haven’t exactly welcomed the State Freedom Caucus Network. What are some of the conflicts that are playing out right now in the states?

Roth: The best example is Wyoming. It is the reddest state in the union based on Trump-Biden numbers. [Donald] Trump won that state more than any other state.

The Wyoming House has 57 Republicans to only five Democrats. So you would think that they could pass school choice, ban transgender surgeries on minors, and get pornography out of the classroom.

But when you look at the actual voting records, instead of 57 to 5, it’s 26 conservatives to 36 liberals.

Liberals are in charge of the Wyoming House and the Senate, frankly. And that’s because big-government liberals know that they cannot win in Wyoming with a D after their name. So they simply put an R after their name, run, get elected, and then vote like liberals.

Wyoming is not an outlier. Every red state is like that. And that’s why you’re seeing headlines in South Carolina, Missouri, Idaho, all the states that we’re in where we are provoking the establishment and exposing their conceit.

?BREAKING: The "What Is a Woman Act," which would define a woman as a woman in state law, just FAILED in the WYOMING House of Reps.

Not California. In WYOMING.

20 "Republicans" voted against it.

Here is @WYFreedomCaucus member @jwforw explaining her bill.? pic.twitter.com/OwYOeypnqM

— State Freedom Caucus Network (@SFC_Network) February 15, 2024

Bluey: What are some of the tactics that you use to achieve your goals?

Roth: In Missouri, our most recent state, we launched on Jan. 5, and in two weeks, our lawmakers got kicked off their committees, had their parking spots taken, and even some of their staff got pay deducted because they committed the horrible sin of pushing leadership to pass the conservative priorities that the entire state GOP has advocated for.

Our lawmakers in Missouri merely said, “We’re going to filibuster all gubernatorial appointments until you guys commit to actually putting good legislation on the floor.” Well, they didn’t like that, so they kicked them off committees and took their parking spots away, and so on.

In South Carolina, it was even worse than that. At the very beginning of last year’s session, leadership required every member of the Republican House to sign a loyalty pledge. And this loyalty pledge had a lot of stipulations in it, but one of them said, you cannot criticize any of your Republican colleagues.

One of our South Carolina Freedom Caucus members raised their hand and said, “So if I take a picture of the vote board after a big vote, vote and tweet that out, am I criticizing my colleagues?” And they said, “Yes.” So our South Carolina Freedom Caucus members refused to sign the loyalty pledge.

Within a couple of days, they got kicked out of the House Republican Caucus. They’re now off on an island. And I’ll tell you candidly, our Freedom Caucus members were kind of wringing their hands when leadership was threatening them. But ever since they’ve been kicked out, it’s been liberating for them because they don’t have to attend the stupid meetings where leadership finger wags at you and says, “We have to pass this huge corporate welfare bill.” They don’t have to listen to any of that anymore.

You may have seen this video going viral on X.

This is @RepAdamMorgan, our Chairman of the @SCFreedomCaucus.

He understands how the swamp operates more than anyone.
pic.twitter.com/133Wzc3ODw

— State Freedom Caucus Network (@SFC_Network) March 12, 2024

Bluey: You’ve mentioned some of the issues that they’ve confronted in the states. What are some of the other policy debates that are coming up?

Roth: In red states, budgets pass almost unanimously. If you’ve got Republicans and Democrats voting for budgets, you should be worried and the data bears that out. States are increasing their budgets year after year after year.

We fight on the budget first and foremost. And we use every opportunity to offer amendments to cut this or that. And, unfortunately, we’re still losing because the state Freedom Caucus only has a small number of members compared to the overall legislature. But in South Carolina, last year’s budget had more no votes than any time in the last 50 years.

All of the big hot topic issues that you see in the headlines our guys are fighting on—like school choice, banning transgender surgeries for minors. We really like are hitting every issue possible.

Bluey: What motivates these conservative leaders to keep the fight going and recruit others to the cause?

Roth: Honestly, each other. I knew that the establishment would retaliate. What I didn’t fully appreciate at the time is that these members really love and respect each other and they stick together.

And they do that not just on the floor of the chamber when they vote, but they meet a lot of time, they pray a lot of time with each other. And when you know you’re in a trench, fighting against somebody, knowing that the person to your left and to your right have your back, that motivates everything.

In a lot of these red states, the grassroots are kind of demoralized. They see what’s going on in D.C. They see that nothing’s going on in their state capital. But now, for the first time, they have a Freedom Caucus at their state capital not only voting with them, but being very loud and vocal.

Did you know that teachers unions are spending millions of dollars in GOP primaries?

In IL, they're spending over $250K on primary challenges against @ILFreedomCaucus members Reps. Blaine Wilhour and Adam Niemerg.

All because they support school choice.https://t.co/DXk8F5MfN4

— State Freedom Caucus Network (@SFC_Network) March 5, 2024

Bluey: Can you share any thoughts on where you might go next?

Roth: Texas just had their big primaries last week. It was beautiful. The governor, the attorney general, the lieutenant governor, even President Trump endorsed candidates against liberal Republican incumbents, and in a lot of cases they won.

We have had our eye on Texas for a long time, but things were so corrupt there and so bad in Austin, I joke that it’s like a Spanish soap opera because it’s not only policy disputes, it’s personalities disputes.

Then there’s other states like Oklahoma and Ohio that I think we could be in fairly quickly.

I am worried about Florida. Gov. Ron DeSantis has done such a great job there that there’s almost an attitude of we don’t need a Florida Freedom Caucus.

My argument to them is DeSantis isn’t going to be there forever and the great thing about state Freedom Caucuses is that they live in perpetuity. Lawmakers will come and go but you can always count on a state Freedom Caucus to advance conservative policies.

Bluey: How can people support your organization?

Roth: I love that question. We are a 501(c)(3) and a 501(c)(4), so what that means is that we have an educational arm and an advocacy arm. The State Freedom Caucus Network is our mothership. And then State Freedom Caucus Foundation is our educational arm. Just go to our website and you can give to either one.

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Hunter Biden Won’t Appear Before House Oversight Committee Next Week, Attorney Says

Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden, will not appear before the House Oversight and Accountability Committee for a March 20 hearing, “Influence Peddling: Examining Joe Biden’s Abuse of Public Office,” according to a letter from his attorney.

“Your blatant planned-for-media event is not a proper proceeding, but an obvious attempt to throw a Hail Mary pass after the game has ended,” the younger Biden’s attorney, Abbe Lowell, wrote in a letter to the committee’s chairman, Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., on Wednesday. “Let me remind you of a statement you made about how witnesses—and specifically Mr. Biden—could satisfy your prior requests.” 

“At your press conference after the January 10, 2024, Committee hearing to hold Mr. Biden in contempt, you stated: ‘All we need are people to come in for the depositions, and then we’ll be finished. We just need people to show up to the depositions, and we’ll wrap this up. Nobody wants to wrap this up more than I do,’” Lowell said. “Mr. Biden did just as you asked and, as you did when you announced that witnesses could choose depositions, you want to ignore what you said.”

Lowell’s letter comes a week after Comer invited the younger Biden and his former business associates, Devon Archer, Tony Bobulinski, and Jason Galanis, to testify before the committee.

“Mr. Biden declines your invitation to this carnival sideshow,” said Lowell.

Lowell noted that Hunter Biden is scheduled to appear in a California court the following day, March 21, as the reason he couldn’t attend the hearing, though the attorney said that “the scheduling conflict is the least of the issues,” NBC News reported.

?BREAKING?

HEARING: “Influence Peddling: Examining Joe Biden’s Abuse of Public Office”

DATE & TIME: March 20 | 10AM ET

INVITED WITNESSES:
– Hunter Biden
– Devon Archer
– Tony Bobulinski
– Jason Galanis

— Oversight Committee (@GOPoversight) March 6, 2024

“Following interviews with key witnesses, this hearing will afford Americans the opportunity to hear from Hunter Biden and his business associates about Joe Biden’s involvement in the Bidens’ domestic and international business dealings,” a House Oversight and Accountability Committee news release from March 6 says. “The hearing will also examine inconsistencies among the witnesses’ testimonies in order to get the truth for the American people.”

The House of Representatives voted in December to formally authorize an impeachment inquiry to be conducted jointly by three House committees: Oversight, Judiciary, and Ways and Means, The Daily Signal previously reported.

Hunter Biden derided the House impeachment inquiry as “MAGA-motivated conspiracies about my father” in an opening statement during his deposition before congressional investigators on Feb. 28.

MAGA is a reference to Donald Trump’s past and current presidential campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again.” Joe Biden frequently derides the acronym to brand his opposition as “extreme.”

The president’s son, who has been indicted on tax and gun charges, is a central figure along with the president’s brother, James Biden, in bringing in what the House Oversight and Accountability Committee determined to be about $30 million through 20 separate shell companies. The money, lawmakers say, came to the Biden family from China, Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Romania. 

“The House Oversight Committee has called Hunter Biden’s bluff. Hunter Biden for months stated he wanted a public hearing, but now that one has been offered alongside his business associates that he worked with for years, he is refusing to come,” Comer said in a news release on Wednesday after Lowell’s letter.

“During our deposition and interview phase of our investigation, Hunter Biden confirmed key evidence, including evidence that his father, President Joe Biden, lied to the American people about his family’s business dealings and in fact attended meetings, spoke on speakerphone, and had coffee with his foreign business associates who collectively funneled millions to the Bidens,” Comer said, adding:

However, parts of Hunter Biden’s testimony contradict the testimonies of Devon Archer, Jason Galanis, and Tony Bobulinski. Next week’s hearing with Hunter Biden and his associates is moving forward, and we fully expect Hunter Biden to participate. The American people demand the truth and accountability for the Bidens’ corruption.

The Daily Signal’s Fred Lucas contributed to this report.

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TikTok Bill Passes in House With Bipartisan Support

The House of Representatives voted on Wednesday to pass bipartisan legislation on the Chinese-owed app TikTok.

Reps. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., and Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., introduced the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act on March 5. Gallagher and Krishnamoorthi are the chairman and ranking member, respectively, of the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party.

The legislation passed in a 352-65 vote, with the help of 197 Republicans and 155 Democrats. Fifteen Republicans and 50 Democrats voted against the legislation. One lawmaker voted “present.”

“Communist China is America’s largest geopolitical foe and is using technology to actively undermine America’s economy and security,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said in an X post. “Apps like TikTok allow the Chinese Communist Party to push harmful content to our youth and engage in malign activities, such as harvesting the location, purchasing habits, contacts, and sensitive data of Americans.”

“Today’s bipartisan vote to pass The Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act demonstrates Congress’ opposition to Communist China’s attempts to spy on and manipulate Americans and signals our resolve to deter our enemies,” Johnson said. “I urge the Senate to pass this bill and send it to the President so he can sign the bill into law.”

Chairman @RepGallagher floor speech in support of the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act.

“I also want to set the record straight on a few misconceptions about this bill: ??

It DOES NOT apply to American companies. It ONLY applies to… pic.twitter.com/urbFpD9VeN

— Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party (@committeeonccp) March 13, 2024

“The platform should not be in jeopardy. This should be an easy choice for TikTok, which is a subsidiary of ByteDance, which is closely linked and controlled by the Chinese Communist Party,” Rep. August Pfluger, R-Texas, said on “The Daily Signal Podcast” ahead of Wednesday’s vote.

“And you can see right there that the dangers that lay with a company that is beholden to a government that is demonstrating on a daily basis their willingness to undermine American interest both at home and abroad, not just with the data, not just with this particular platform, but in many different areas,” Pfluger said, adding:

So, the choice is pretty clear for TikTok that they either divest from their parent company, ByteDance, which is controlled by the Chinese Communist Party, or they won’t be allowed in the United States.

TikTok is a threat to our national security because it is owned by ByteDance, which does the bidding of the Chinese Communist Party.

We know this because ByteDance leadership says so, and because Chinese law requires it. ?

— Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party (@committeeonccp) March 13, 2024

Sens. Mark Warner, D-Va., and Marco Rubio, R-Fla., issued a joint statement about the House passing the bill. Warner and Rubio are the chairman and vice chairman, respectively, of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

“We are united in our concern about the national security threat posed by TikTok – a platform with enormous power to influence and divide Americans whose parent company ByteDance remains legally required to do the bidding of the Chinese Communist Party,” the senators said in a statement shared on X. “We were encouraged by today’s strong bipartisan vote in the House of Representatives, and look forward to working together to get this bill passed through the Senate and signed into law.”

According to a news release from the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, “The bill prevents app store availability or web-hosting services in the U.S. for ByteDance-controlled applications, including TikTok, unless the application severs ties to entities like ByteDance that are subject to the control of a foreign adversary, as defined by Congress in Title 10.” 

“In addition, the bill creates a process for the president to designate certain, specifically defined social media applications that are subject to the control of a foreign adversary—per Title 10—and pose a national security risk,” the news release explained.

Ryan Walker, executive vice president of Heritage Action for America, the grassroots advocacy arm of The Heritage Foundation, weighed in about the House successfully passing the legislation. (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of The Heritage Foundation.)

“The House sent a message today that adversarial foreign regimes do not have the right to surveil and steal from Americans while using the popularity of social media as a shield from scrutiny,” Walker said in a statement. “This bill does not ban TikTok or any app—it ends limitless influence and control given to foreign governments with proven contempt for the United States.”

“If social media companies can’t sever ties with communist dictators, they don’t get to access American consumers,” Walker said. “The Senate has a duty to quickly take up this important national security bill that the House is sending over with overwhelming support.”

The legislation “gives ByteDance and TikTok a clear choice: cut ties with the Chinese Communist Party and continue to operate in the United States or immediately cease all business in our country,” Kara Frederick, director of The Heritage Foundation’s Tech Policy Center, said in a statement prior to the vote.

“It should be an easy and simple decision for the company, but its executives are panicking because this bill calls their bluff,” Frederick said.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee advanced the legislation in a 50-0 vote last Thursday. 

President Joe Biden expressed his support for the legislation, telling reporters on Friday, “If they pass it, I’ll sign it.” Biden’s presidential campaign, however, is on TikTok and shared its first video there on Feb. 11, ABC News reported.

Former President Donald Trump, who sought to ban the app in 2020, said in a March 7 post on Truth Social that “If you get rid of TikTok, Facebook and Zuckerschmuck will double their business.”

“I don’t want Facebook, who cheated in the last Election, doing better,” Trump said. “They are a true Enemy of the People!”

“There’s a lot of good and a lot of bad with TikTok. But the thing I don’t like is, without TikTok you can make Facebook bigger,” says @realDonaldTrump. “And I consider Facebook to be an enemy of the people.” pic.twitter.com/nmw8CCzHDX

— Squawk Box (@SquawkCNBC) March 11, 2024

During an interview on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Monday, the former president was asked if he believes the app is a national security threat.

“I do believe that. I do believe it and we have to very much go into privacy and make sure that we are protecting the American people’s privacy and data rights,” Trump said. “And I agree, but you know, we also have that problem with other—you have that problem with Facebook and lots of other companies too.”

“I mean, they get the information. They get plenty of information and they deal with China, and they’ll do whatever China wants,” the former president said.

While the bill garnered overwhelming bipartisan support in the House, its future is uncertain in the Senate, where Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., has expressed opposition to banning the app.

“Reactionaries who want to ban TikTok claim the data can’t be secured because the ‘algorithm’ is in China. Not true,” Paul said in a two-part thread posted to X on Wednesday morning ahead of the House vote. “The truth is the Algorithm runs in the U.S. in oracle cloud with their review of the code. (NOT in China). Maybe we should examine the facts before committing violations of the 1st and 5th amendments.”

“They want to ban TikTok because it’s ‘owned by China,’” Paul said. “Not true.”

The Kentucky Republican added:

60% of the company is owned by US and international investors. 20% is owned by the company founders. 20% is owned by company employees, including over 7,000 Americans. The CEO of TikTok is from Singapore, not China. So ask yourself why they keep repeating this lie to scare you?

The Daily Signal reached out to TikTok for a comment about the House passing the legislation.

“This process was secret and the bill was jammed through for one reason: it’s a ban,” TikTok Policy said in an X post following the vote. “We are hopeful that the Senate will consider the facts, listen to their constituents, and realize the impact on the economy, 7 million small businesses, and the 170 million Americans who use our service.”

This is a breaking story and may be updated.

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Tuberville Calls for Coaches to Defend Girls’ Sports: ‘Stand Up for Your Athletes or Get Out’

Sen. Tommy Tuberville is calling on coaches, administrators, and athletic directors to stand up for their female athletes forced to compete against men identifying as women.

“Coaches and administrators, stand up for your athletes—or get out of the profession,” the Alabama Republican, a former collegiate football coach, said during a roundtable discussion with advocates for women’s sports in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday.

Three female GOP lawmakers joined Tuberville at the Capitol Hill event—Sen. Katie Britt of Alabama, Sen. Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, and Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi. Members of the Independent Women’s Forum were also at the table, including University of Pennsylvania swimmer Paula Scanlan, former Oberlin College lacrosse coach Kim Russell, and Cady Mullens, the mother of an NCAA athlete who spoke out about a male joining her team.

Then-Cincinnati Bearcats head football coach Tommy Tuberville, now a U.S. senator, looks on during a game against the Memphis Tigers on Nov. 18, 2016, at Nippert Stadium in Cincinnati, Ohio. (Photo: Ian Johnson/Icon Sportswire/Getty Images)

Former ESPN broadcaster Sage Steele moderated the conversation, which centered on President Joe Biden’s administration‘s plan to rewrite Title IX in a way that would allow men onto women’s sports teams and into their locker rooms.

The issue has exploded since the 2022 NCAA Women’s Swimming and Diving Championships, where Riley Gaines tied for sixth place with Lia Thomas, a man who identifies as a woman. Gaines quickly became a high-profile women’s advocate, gaining fame around the country even as transgender activists used harassment and violence to challenge her views.

Following Gaines’ example, other female athletes have stepped forward to speak out, including Scanlan, Peyton McNabb, and others. Steele, an outspoken advocate for women’s sports, says she was told by ESPN to stop talking about the controversy surrounding Thomas.

Mullens spoke about her daughter Lily’s experience as an NCAA athlete and captain of the Roanoke College women’s swim team. Lily Mullens and two of her teammates, Kate Pearson and Bailey Gallagher, pushed back strongly enough that a trans-identifying athlete ultimately withdrew from the team. But Mullens’ mother broke down in sobs as she recounted her daughter’s extreme anxiety over the ordeal.

“It shouldn’t be up to the athletes to push back,” she said. “What can Congress do to put the responsibility on the schools to protect them?”

Tuberville also emphasized that it should not be up to the athletes alone to fight this battle. “It’s for coaches, administrators, athletic directors,” he said.

“They’re a joke,” he added. “They don’t fight. They go along with the norm … they want to keep their jobs.”

In February, Tuberville introduced the Protection of Women in Olympic and Amateur Sports Act, legislation that would prohibit any governing body recognized by the U.S. Olympic Committee from permitting males to compete as females. He has previously introduced the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act, aimed at ensuring “fair, safe competition in women’s sports across the country.”

He said that he has asked the 10 to 12 Democratic women who have “consistently” voted against women, “Do you have daughters?” and “Do you really believe this?”

“They don’t have an answer,” he said. “So, you know they don’t believe it.”

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GOP Lawmaker Says Jan. 6 Report ‘Is Just the Beginning’

The chairman of a House Administration subcommittee on oversight says an “Initial Findings Report” on the Capitol riot over three years ago, released Monday, “is just the beginning.”

Since early 2023, Rep. Barry Loudermilk‘s subcommittee “has been investigating the failures at the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021, which House Democrats failed to do in the 117th Congress,” the new report says.

“For nearly two years, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s January 6th Select Committee promoted hearsay and cherry-picked information to promote its political goal—to legislatively prosecute former President Donald Trump,” Loudermilk, R-Ga., said in a written statement.

“It was no surprise that the select committee’s final report focused primarily on former President [Donald] Trump and his supporters, not the security failures and reforms needed to ensure the United States Capitol is safer today than in 2021,” the oversight subcommittee chairman said.

The American people deserve the entire truth about Jan. 6.

Instead of conducting a genuine investigation, the former Select Committee was focused on their predetermined narrative of legislatively prosecuting former President Trump.

It is my objective to uncover all the facts.… https://t.co/WtDQd0CZho

— Rep. Barry Loudermilk (@RepLoudermilk) March 11, 2024

“The American people deserve the entire truth about what caused the violent breach at the United States Capitol of January 6, 2021,” the Georgia Republican said, adding:

It is unfortunate the select committee succumbed to their political inclinations and chased false narratives instead of providing the important work of a genuine investigation. In my committee’s investigation, it is my objective to uncover the facts about January 6, without political bias or spin. My report today is just the beginning.

A one-page summary of the report argues that House Democrats’ select committee on the Capitol riot “hired Hollywood producers to assist with their prime-time hearings” and “refused to adopt rules, allowing them to operate without limits, to project their predetermined narrative to the world.”

Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., and former Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., the panel’s chairman and vice chairwoman, “failed to turn over video recordings of witness interviews and depositions, despite using these recordings in their high-profile, prime-time hearings,” the summary says.

Thompson said Monday in a statement posted on X that “Mr. Loudermilk’s latest attack on the select committee’s work is dishonest.”

“The select committee’s final report took into account the testimony of all witnesses, including the transcript that was released today (including at pp 127-128 and 585-592),” Thompson wrote. “All the evidence points to the same conclusion: Donald Trump wanted to join his violent mob as it marched on the Capitol, and he was irate when his security detail told him he couldn’t go.”

Congressman Thompson’s Response to Loudermilk’s Initial “findings” Report pic.twitter.com/au44Csbicz

— Bennie G. Thompson (@BennieGThompson) March 11, 2024

In a post Tuesday morning on X, Cheney said: “If your response to Trump’s assault on our democracy is to lie & cover up what he did, attack the brave men & women who came forward with the truth, and defend the criminals who violently assaulted the Capitol, you need to rethink whose side you’re on.”

“Hint: It’s not America’s,” the former Wyoming congresswoman added.

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6 Takeaways From Biden’s Testimony on Classified Documents

Special counsel Robert Hur released a report last month recommending against charging President Joe Biden for the mishandling of classified documents from his years as vice president and senator, in part because a jury would find Biden sympathetic as an “elderly man with a poor memory” and because his “diminished faculties” make it less likely he intentionally violated the law.

The Daily Signal has obtained the transcript from Biden’s interviews with special counsel Hur on Oct. 8 and 9, the interviews on which Hur based his report. The transcripts reveal that Biden forgot when he was vice president, when his son Beau died, and even details from an interview a few hours after they happened.

Here are six key takeaways from the transcript.

1. Biden Appears Not to Understand Document Classification

Throughout the Oct. 8 interview, Biden seemed to misunderstand different types of classified information. In fact, one of his attorneys, Bob Bauer, explicitly stated that Biden relied on staff to handle classified information.

“I would like to avoid having the president address the legal requirements for classification,” Bauer said. “I think it’s clear he’s relied on staff for that.”

Biden appeared not to know that materials marked “Eyes Only” are classified.

“In your understanding, if something is marked ‘Eyes Only,’ does that mean that it’s being treated as classified, or does it not mean that?” Marc Krickbaum, Hur’s deputy special counsel, asked Biden.

“The answer is, I’m not sure,” the president responded.

“I had real strong disagreements on a couple of policy matters that were consequential relating to the allocation of forces” in Afghanistan, Biden explained. “So, there were some really bright guys in the administration who I strongly disagreed with on something. So, it might say, ‘Eyes Only,’ like, ‘Joe, this is what you asked for.'”

Biden drew a distinction between documents marked “Eyes Only” and “Secret,” and documents he considered classified.

“If they’re marked ‘Classified,’ one of those things with circles around it and clearly it’s a classified document, not something that’s ‘Eyes Only’ or ‘Secret’ or ‘Selective’ or whatever the hell it is, other than saying, ‘Top Secret,’ it would not be in here,” the president said.

In the Oct. 9 deposition, Krickbaum asked Biden about a document marked “Confidential.”

“Do you recognize that to be a classification marking?” he asked.

“No,” Biden said. “I mean, confidential, doesn’t want to get around. It’ s not in a category, I don’t think, of code word, ‘Top Secret,’ that kind of thing.”

Hur and Krickbaum brought up many classified documents, most notably a memo Biden wrote to then-President Barack Obama in 2009 about Afghanistan, and Biden seemed either not to know that the documents had been in his possession or that they were classified.

2. Forgetting Key Details

Hur asked Biden about his move from the Naval Observatory, the home of the vice president, to an address on Chain Bridge Road in McLean, Virginia. Biden recalled the correct year—asking, “This is, what, 2017, 2018, that area?”—but he associated the year with different events from two years prior.

“Remember, in this timeframe, my son is—either been deployed or is dying, and so it was—and by the way, there were still a lot of people at the time when I got out of the Senate that were encouraging me to run in this period, except the president,” Biden said. He continued until asking, “What month did [Biden’s son] Beau die? Oh, God, May 30th …”

Rachel Cotton, from the White House Counsel’s Office, reminded the president that his son died in 2015.

“Was it 2015 he had died?” Biden asked. An unidentified speaker confirmed it had been May 2015.

“Trump gets elected in November of 2017?” Biden continued. Someone corrected him, saying “2016.”

“2016, all right,” Biden said. “So—why do I have 2017 here?”

During another round of questioning, Biden asked, “Well, if it was 2013—when did I stop being vice president?” Cotton reminded him, “2017.”

Biden also appeared to forget details from his conversation with Hur mere hours after they had happened.

About an hour into his Oct. 8 interview, Biden mentioned “two file cabinets that were attractive that I had when I was in either the home—I bought furniture for the home on Chain Bridge Road.”

Yet, after Biden took a break, Hur returned to the topic, and the president seemed not to recall ever mentioning the filing cabinets.

“I think before we took the break, if I remember correctly, you had mentioned some specific pieces of furniture,” Hur noted. “I think you mentioned a couple of file cabinets that I think you said you purchased in order to place them into the Chain Bridge Road residence.”

“Purchased—that I purchased—I don’t remember having any—brought any—I may have,” Biden responded. “Actually, I’m not sure.” He then asked for a photo to jog his memory about which house they had been discussing.

3. ‘Stuff on the Garage Floor’

Biden’s testimony about the classified documents in the garage of his private home in Wilmington, Delaware, appears to conflict with his lawyers’ official narrative that his lawyers, rather than Biden himself, first discovered the classified materials in his garage. Biden’s lawyers reported discovering classified documents there in November 2022, and returning them to the National Archives and Records Administration.

When Hur asked Biden about moving out of the Naval Observatory, Biden suddenly brought up the garage, and described what sounded like a personal recollection of discovering documents in the garage.

“Is that how the stuff got in my—didn’t get in my garage until much later,” he said, unprompted. “There was stuff one day. I came home, and all of it was on the garage floor. This was later though. It must have been after—anyway.”

Later on, Biden described “a lot of stuff they gathered up, and they just took up and dropped in my driveway like this, and some of them little skinny boxes, some open boxes, some but just everything piled up. I remember walking in one day.”

Hur presented photographs of classified materials that had been discovered in the garage.

“I don’t remember how a beat-up box got in the garage,” Biden said.

4. Long-Winded Yarns as Stall Tactic

Biden repeatedly launched into long discussions about Beau and his younger son, Hunter; his views about foreign policy and his general approach to politics; his history as a young lawyer; and other topics in an apparent attempt to avoid answering questions that might get him into legal trouble.

He described his reasons for keeping files related to an old Corvette, and mentioned his disagreements with others in the Obama administration about Afghanistan.

At one point, Hur interrupted the president in order to move on to a topic pertinent to the investigation.

“Mr. President, I am so sorry to interrupt you,” Hur said. “I just want to make sure—I have a fair amount of material … .”

“Yeah, I’m going to stop,” Biden replied.

In another instance, Biden apologized, saying, “Sorry for the detail.”

5. Did Not Know Location of Classified Documents

Biden admitted that he would put classified documents into his notebooks after briefings, and that his staff would compile his notebooks without knowing where the classified documents were.

“Staff doesn’t know I put anything in the book when coming in,” he said. “But if they did anything at the time, they took that whole book, put it in a drawer in my desk to get it out of the way, and never went into the book to see what was in there.”

Krickbaum, Hur’s deputy, asked Biden directly, “If there were marked classified documents stuffed in those notebooks, you were not aware of it?”

“Correct,” Biden said.

“Do you know where your notebooks were in the time period immediately after your term as vice president?” Krickbaum asked on Oct. 9.

“No, but I think that what they did, they gathered up my notebooks, and I think they were in drawers in this room,” the president said, referring to a room in the Chain Bridge Road residence.

6. Claiming He Didn’t Remember

Biden repeatedly claimed that he didn’t remember certain details about his past and his retention of classified documents. He may have adopted this strategy in order to avoid perjuring himself, but it also gave him the appearance of not intending any ill will in keeping classified documents from the National Archives.

On Oct. 9, Krickbaum, Hur’s deputy, pressed Biden on a February 2017 meeting with a ghostwriter, Mark Zwonitzer.

“In the course of explaining that memo about Afghanistan, you said to Mark, ‘I just found all the classified stuff downstairs,'” Krickbaum said, referring to Zwonitzer. “And so, you can imagine, we are curious what you meant when you said, ‘I just found all the classified stuff downstairs.'”

“I don’t remember, and I’m not supposed to speculate, right?” Biden replied.

Bauer, the president’s lawyer, replied, “Correct.”

Krickbaum pressed Biden on why he told Zwonitzer this, and the president repeatedly stated that he did not remember: He didn’t remember saying that, and he did not remember finding classified materials.

Biden also admitted that he found a paper with a red classified marking on it after his vice presidency, and he gave it to a staffer, telling the staffer to return it to the National Archives. Yet, even for this incident, Biden admitted, “I just remember being told that.”

In July, a jury in Miami, Florida, indicted former President Donald Trump for allegedly mishandling classified documents and obstructing justice in the investigation regarding those documents.

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Treasury Department Sent ‘Hate Group’ List of Conservative Organizations to Banks

It came to light last week that the Treasury Department provided a listing of “hate groups,” which lumped together mainstream conservative organizations alongside avowed neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups, to major U.S. banks for the purpose of monitoring financial transactions in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the Capitol.

Experts say the pattern could lead to an increase in banks canceling the accounts of politically disfavored organizations.

The listing was taken from a report compiled by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue and the Global Disinformation Index, two U.K.-based left-wing activist groups. The report includes a listing of “American Hate Groups,” which is itself based on the classifications of the anti-Christian Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).

The listing classifies conservative organizations such as the Family Research Council, the Alliance Defending Freedom, the American Family Association, the Eagle Forum, Liberty Counsel, and others alongside avowed neo-Nazi and other white supremacist groups, such as the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. compiled by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue and the Global Disinformation Index, two U.K.-based left-wing activist groups.

The report includes a listing of “American Hate Groups,” which is itself based on the classifications of the anti-Christian Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). The listing classifies conservative organizations such as the Family Research Council, the Alliance Defending Freedom, the American Family Association, the Eagle Forum, Liberty Counsel, and others alongside avowed neo-Nazi and other white supremacist groups, such as the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.

According to an investigation by the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) sent the report to “some of the largest financial institutions in the world, including the very financial institutions that are likely responsible for providing financial services to many of the listed ‘hate groups.’”

In January, reports surfaced that FinCEN had urged banks to “comb through the private transactions of their customers” to look for “suspicious charges” of legal activities involving political and religious expression without warrants, including the purchase of religious texts and legal firearms.

Experts warn that these actions are part of a pattern of increasing collusion between the federal government and corporate America to commit warrantless surveillance of American citizens.

But experts also fear that the Treasury Department’s actions could lead to an increase in outright cancellations of the bank accounts of conservative organizations by major financial institutions, which has already occurred on numerous occasions. As Jeremy Tedesco, a senior counsel at the Alliance Defending Freedom, testified before the Weaponization subcommittee last week, “viewpoint-based debanking is on the rise.”

As reported by National Review, some banks are citing “reputation risk” in order to justify discrimination “against gun manufacturers, distributors, and sellersfossil-fuel producerscontractors for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency; and private prisons and related services.”

In recent years, two Christian nonprofit organizations were targeted by Bank of America. Indigenous Advance Ministries, which helps impoverished widows and orphans in Uganda, had its long-standing account closed in 2023, with Bank of America claiming that it no longer serves Indigenous Advance’s “business type” and that the ministry exceeded the “bank’s risk tolerance.” Three years prior, Timothy Two Project International, a ministry that trains indigenous pastors across the globe, received “a nearly identical letter” from Bank of America and “was repeatedly stonewalled in attempts to gain clarity about the cancellation and how to resolve it.”

Similarly, in 2022 JPMorgan Chase, without explanation, canceled the account of the National Committee for Religious Freedom (NCRF), a nonprofit that advocates for religious freedom in the U.S. and which is headed by former U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback. In order for its account to be reinstated, JPMorgan demanded that NCRF turn over a list of high-level donors, “a list of candidates it intended to support, and its criteria for political support.”

Experts say that the Treasury Department’s actions could lead to more conservative organizations being debanked.

“That’s what they want,” Chris Gacek, senior fellow for Regulatory Affairs at the Family Research Council, told The Washington Stand. “It’s really troubling. The Republican attorneys general need to come together on this. They need to really start digging into this debanking pattern and getting subpoenas out. One of the industries where there’s a lot of state regulation is banking. State AGs would have the ability to get subpoenas and start looking at the records and start seeing what the feds were forcing them to do. It’s very, very serious.”

Editor’s note: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that the Biden administration’s Treasury Department distributed the “hate group” listing. It was in fact the Trump administration’s Treasury Department that distributed the listing to banks in the days following the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riots prior to Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20, 2021.

Originally published by the Washington Stand

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Todd Starnes Explains ‘Residual After-Effects of the Barack Obama Presidency’

In 2007, Todd Starnes was working at Fox News and covering then-Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. 

“I just felt like that was going to be the historic campaign, and it turned out to be,” says Starnes, a bestselling author and nationally syndicated radio host. 

The political climate facing America right now is in part due to the “residual after-effects of the Barack Obama presidency,” according to Starnes. The former Democratic senator from Illinois was president from 2009 to 2017.

“First, Obama categorized all of the [2008 GOP opponent Sen.] John McCain supporters … [as] the folks that cling to their guns and their religion,” Starnes said. “He called them ‘bitter’ Americans. He made those remarks in a speech in San Francisco. And then you had Hillary Clinton coming out and talking about the irredeemable ‘deplorables.’”

Starnes says both Obama and Clinton “were trying to dehumanize their opponents, their political opponents.” 

Second, Starnes points to Obama’s pledge to “fundamentally” transform America. 

Asked on “The Daily Signal Podcast” whether Obama succeeded in his mission to “fundamentally” change the nation, Starnes said, “Absolutely, and again, it’s a brilliant strategy,” going on to explain how the “transformation” occurred: 

Everybody thought all these white liberals were going out and voting for Obama, thinking they were, you know, a part of the new civil rights movement. And even Obama himself promised to usher in this post-racial America. And in fact, it actually further divided the country, because Obama knew that if he really wanted to be impactful, he was going to have to ride that divide. And he did.

And quite frankly, not only was it not the post-racial presidency, I think it really reverted us back to even before the civil rights movement itself. I mean, race relations, I think, are in a pretty rough spot right now. And it’s really because of the policies of the Democrat Party. They want to keep us divided.

In his new book, “Twilight’s Last Gleaming: Can America Be Saved?” Starnes explains how America arrived at the political division it finds itself in right now, and just how much time he thinks the nation has to right its course before it’s too late. 

Starnes joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to explain more. 

Listen to the podcast below:

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‘Totalitarian’ Bill Would Establish Maine as Sanctuary State for Abortions, Trans Surgeries

A Democrat-led bill seeks to establish a legal right to abortions, transgender surgeries, and hormonal treatments in Maine, and protect those traveling from outside of the state to get such procedures there.

LD 227 would establish a legal right to “gender-affirming health care services” and “reproductive health care services” within Maine, according to a draft copy of the bill published by The Maine Wire. The publication reported that the bill would also ban “interference with legally protected health care activity,” including abortions and attempted sex-change surgeries.

“Gender-affirming” care is a euphemism used by leftist activists and the media to describe transgender surgeries, hormones, and puberty blockers. Radical gender ideologues insist that “gender-affirming care” is necessary for those who are experiencing gender dysphoria.

The bill relies on an understanding of “gender-affirming health care services” established by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, an organization newly under fire for dangerous experimentation upon minors.

BREAKING: Democrats in Maine introduced LD 227 which would legally protect ''gender affirming care'' for minors and the medical providers. They are holding a hearing tomorrow on it. The sponsors are Anne Perry (D) and Donna Bailey (D).

You can contact them here:… pic.twitter.com/IVNQZWMlmQ

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) March 5, 2024

The legislation has been warmly welcomed by left-wing groups, such as Planned Parenthood Maine Action Fund, which claimed that the bill would “ensure Maine’s health care providers aren’t penalized under the laws of other states.”

“LD 227 is a straightforward bill to ensure that Maine law can continue to govern Maine health care,” said Polly Crozier, the director of family advocacy for GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders, in a joint press release with Planned Parenthood. “Maine is committed to protecting access to essential health care for transgender people and to reproductive health care, including abortion.”

But critics, such as Republican Maine state Rep. Josh Morris, assert that the bill “is extreme in its assault on family values,” adding that it “sanctions kidnapping and shields doctors from any consequences.”

"It's the craziest thing that I've ever seen."@BigSteve207 explains LD 227, the revamped Transgender Trafficking Bill.

This bill would legalize a rapist taking their victim to Maine to get an abortion, to cover up the evidence of the crime they had committed. pic.twitter.com/5xhSnGmede

— The Maine Wire (@TheMaineWire) March 5, 2024

In a letter sent Monday, 16 Republican state attorneys general sent a letter to Maine Gov. Janet Mills and Maine state Attorney General Aaron Frey, both Democrats. That letter slams the bill as a “novel effort at state-sanctioned culture war litigation tourism,” claiming the bill violates the Constitution and “flouts” the U.S.’ federalist structure.

“If Maine pursues LD 227’s constitutionally defective approach, we will vigorously avail ourselves of every recourse our Constitution provides,” the attorneys general wrote.

The attorneys general contend that LD 227 creates a private right of action for damages against prosecutors, law enforcement, and other officials in states outside of Maine who are enforcing “our own valid state laws, even laws whose constitutionality has been confirmed by federal appellate courts.”

“On top of that,” they add, “LD 227 purports to block valid orders and judgments from our state courts enforcing laws upheld by federal appellate courts.”

“In America, we have the right to disagree,” the attorneys general emphasize. “Maine has every right to decide what Maine’s laws are and how those laws should be enforced. But that same right applies to every State. One State cannot control another. The totalitarian impulse to stifle dissent and oppress dissenters has no place in our shared America. We will not allow laws like LD 227 to deter us from protecting the integrity of our States’ democratic processes.”

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DOJ Keeps Plan Secret for Biden’s Election Executive Order 

The Biden Justice Department continues to claim presidential privilege to block release of its strategic plan to turn out the vote, although at least two other federal agencies have made their plans public. 

In defending a lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act, the Justice Department is keeping under wraps its plans to implement President Joe Biden’s 2021 executive order, under which most federal agencies are required to develop a strategic plan for increasing voter participation in elections. 

The plaintiff in that case, the Foundation for Government Accountability, contends that privilege claim is undermined by two federal agencies releasing their plans to implement Biden’s Executive Order 14019, which he signed in March 2021. 

Notably, the U.S. Trade Representative, an agency that is part of the Executive Office of the President, made its plan public through a public records request, as The Daily Signal reported last week. 

The Railroad Retirement Board also released its strategic plan for boosting voting, The Daily Signal reported. 

“Now that at least two agencies have handed out their strategic plans, the Justice Department’s claim [that the plan] is protected by presidential privilege in our case is questionable,” Stewart Whitson, legal director for the Foundation for Government Accountability, told The Daily Signal in a phone interview.

The Foundation for Government Accountability first sued the Justice Department under the Freedom of Information Act in April 2022 in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida. 

“The DOJ is supposed to be the arbiter of following the law, and they are doing the opposite,” Whitson said in the interview. 

My book “The Myth of Voter Suppression” details how executives at the liberal think tank Demos—one of the private groups working with federal agencies on voter turnout—drafted an executive order in December 2020, the month before Biden took office, suggesting how he should turn government bureaucracies into voter registration agencies. 

Possibly more ambiguous is the Defense Department, which said it updated an existing strategic plan to fit Biden’s executive order on voting. 

The Pentagon’s strategic plan isn’t dated, but appears to have been drafted in 2021 after Biden signed the order that March. The Defense Department, unlike most other federal agencies, consistently has dealt with voting issues for military personnel. 

The Justice Department didn’t respond to The Daily Signal’s inquiries for this report. Federal agencies frequently decline to comment on ongoing litigation. 

Publicly, however, the Justice Department said in an October 2022 court filing that releasing documents about its strategic plan to implement Biden’s order could cause “public confusion.” 

“To qualify for protection under this privilege, material must be inter- or intra-agency, and both pre-decisional and deliberative,” the Justice Department’s motion in the lawsuit says.

In a March 3 speech, Attorney General Merrick Garland said voter ID and other election reforms were “discriminatory, burdensome and unnecessary,” and that the Justice Department would “fight back” against such measures. 

Numerous House and Senate Republicans have sought information about the documents related to Biden’s order telling government agencies to register voters. 

Critics have said the order could cause federal employees to engage in illegal activity by participating in elective politics. They point to potential violation of the Hatch Act, a law prohibiting partisan political activity using government time or resources, and the Antideficiency Act, which prohibits executive branch agencies from spending money for purposes not designated by Congress.

The Department of Education released a “toolkit” to expand voting among college students and to provide information about voting for students in grades K-12.

Also under Biden’s initiative, the Department of Homeland Security registers new voters during naturalization ceremonies. It’s not clear what else the DHS—which also is charged with stopping illegal immigration—has done to implement Biden’s executive order. 

As The Daily Signal previously reported, the Biden administration carved out paid administrative leave to encourage federal bureaucrats—seen as a loyal Democrat constituency—to volunteer as poll workers during elections. 

The Daily Signal also reported that federal agencies are working to carry out Biden’s order on voting with Demos and other liberal advocacy groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union

In 2021, the White House announced that the Justice Department would focus on the Bureau of Prisons to “provide information about voting to individuals in federal custody, facilitate voting by those who remain eligible to do so while in federal custody, and educate individuals before reentry about voting rules and voting rights in their states.” 

The Biden administration has made little other information available, however. 

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Politico Reporter Backpedals on Definition of ‘Christian Nationalism,’ Further Exposes Her Bias

Politico reporter Heidi Przybyla said in a recent television appearance that so-called Christian nationalists believe our rights “come from God,” rather than “any earthly authority.”

After getting eviscerated online, she backpedaled to nuance her position. After all, Thomas Jefferson would qualify under her definition, since he wrote in the Declaration of Independence that “we are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights … .”

But rather than clarify her point, she retreated into vagueness and equivocation—all the better to camouflage her own parochial views.

“The phenomenon of Christian nationalism may be relatively new, but the larger questions it raises have been around for a long time,” she wrote in Politico. “Any group of activists asserting a religious imprimatur for their policy agenda should be prepared to answer a couple questions.”

First, she wrote, “are they respecting the American principle of separation of church and state?” According to Przybyla, some Christian nationalists “have made plain in their public rhetoric that their aim is to blur or even erase this line.” And second, “are they ready to play by the same rules that everyone in a democracy must as they try to influence our laws[?]”

“No doubt some people feel so strongly in their views, and the righteousness of their position, that they would like to glide right over these questions,” she asserts. These people “seek to impose their views on the rest of us by claiming that heaven is on their side.”

So, who are these people? Przybyla doesn’t offer a single example. But a glance at her previous reporting gives us a good idea of whom she has in mind.

Those Sneaky ‘Christian Nationalists’

In a February article, for instance, Przybyla and co-author Alexander Ward warn of conservatives planning to infuse “Christian nationalist” ideas into former President Donald Trump’s administration should he win a return to office in 2024.

The authors fixate on Russell Vought, former director of the Office of Management and Budget and current president of the conservative think tank the Center for Renewing America.

Politico apparently obtained documents that reveal CRA’s agenda. The authors admit that the documents “do not outline specific Christian nationalist policies.” They still say the think tank is “Christian nationalist,” though, because “Vought has promoted a restrictionist immigration agenda … .”

That “agenda” is likely the standard conservative view that a nation has the right to defend its borders and prevent hordes of illegal aliens from flooding in.

The reporters then sloppily attribute to Vought the claim that it isn’t a person’s background that defines whether he can enter the U.S., but rather whether he “accept[ed] Israel’s God, laws and understanding of history.”

In the Vought article they’re presumably referring to, though, he’s citing Israeli scholar Yoram Hazony’s description of ancient Israel, not describing the conditions for American citizenship. And in the very same piece, Vought affirms the institutional separation of church and state.

In a December article, Przybyla argues that conservatives are also trying to infuse sectarian dogma into the judiciary. Among those targeted are Princeton professor of jurisprudence Robert George and Federalist Society Co-Chairman Leonard Leo.

Only the Left Can Be ‘Friends of the Court’?

The pair, she claims, were key influences in the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that legalized abortion nationwide. George filed a “friend of the court” brief in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case, in which he and legal philosopher John Finnis offered a cogent defense of the right to life of the unborn. (See George’s response to Przybyla here.)

According to Przybyla, amicus briefs like George’s apparently trace back to the nefarious efforts of Leo  and a network of conservative nonprofits. “In major cases involving cultural flashpoints of abortion, affirmative action and LGBTQ+ rights, Politico found information cited in amicus briefs connected to Leo’s network in the court’s opinions,” she wrote.

The conspiracy, she thinks, goes even deeper. “The picture that emerges,” she reveals, “is of an exceedingly small universe of mostly Christian conservative activists developing and disseminating theories to change the nation’s legal and cultural landscape.”

Why is it bad that legal scholars like George have sought to shape judicial decisions through amicus briefs, or that Leo has contributed to various political causes?

Przybyla claims that amicus briefs used to be “vehicles for neutral parties to make suggestions based on fact or law.” But when, say, a pro-life legal scholar submits an amicus brief, she implies that that’s sectarian.

Of course, submitting amicus briefs to the Supreme Court isn’t illegal, immoral, or undemocratic. It’s a common way of working to advance one’s views in our judicial system.

Liberal and leftist groups such as the ACLU, Planned Parenthood, the Human Rights Campaign, and NARAL do it all the time. Do they count as “neutral parties” for Przybyla? Presumably so.

The claim that when Christian conservatives do what left-wing groups do all the time, it’s evidence of a creeping theocracy would be laughable if she made it so plainly.

Yet, if we survey her other recent articles on the subject, that seems to be her view: When religious conservatives seek to legally influence policy, they’re trying to be “subversive to democracy” by pushing a sectarian agenda. In contrast, when her seemingly favored left-wing groups do the same thing, it’s neutral, commonsensical, and universally applicable.

But Przybyla’s views on these subjects are hardly neutral or rooted in American principles. Her claim of a “right to abortion,” for instance, is supposedly based on a “right” to privacy mentioned nowhere in the Constitution. What’s more, it contradicts the right to life of the unborn. And in Dobbs, the Supreme Court rejected the argument that the Constitution protects or enshrines any such right.

She has also warned that Christian nationalism threatens “LGBTQ+ rights” and “sex education in schools.” She’s vague about what these things mean. But the terms are the common parlance of gender ideologues who want to smuggle in radical aims, like indoctrinating kids in queer theory without parental consent and offering them “gender-affirming care” (doublespeak for the medical and/or surgical mutilation of a child’s body).

The Supreme Court has not yet weighed in on this debate. If the justices ultimately side with the critics of such indoctrination and medical interventions, will Przybyla report this as another victory for those sneaky Christian nationalists?

Confused Musings or Leftist Projection?

Given her written record to date, it seems highly likely. But her confused musings on the subject look like a classic case of leftist projection. She treats her own radical views as neutral, and accuses her opponents, whose views are arguably more consistent with American principles, as sinister and sectarian.

In her most recent, “clarifying” article, Przybyla claims that those who try to impose their religious views on the public should “expect fair and well-reported coverage of their political aims and the tactics used to advance them.” And, she emphasizes, they should not expect “any extra deference for their political words or actions simply because they are motivated by religious belief.”

Fair enough. But given her own confused and sectarian views, she might as a journalist consider the wisdom of a proverb Jesus once referred to: “Physician, heal thyself.” Or would that be Christian nationalism, too?

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EXCLUSIVE: Here Are the Left-Wing Groups the White House Trade Office Is Scheming With to Get Out the Vote

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative intends to cooperate with a liberal legal organization that routinely sues over voter ID laws as part of its strategic plan to comply with President Joe Biden’s executive order to get out the vote. 

USTR, an agency within the Executive Office of the President, included working with the Brennan Center for Justice, among other organizations, in the plan obtained by The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project through the Freedom of Information Act. The center, a legal advocacy group, is  based at New York University.

The plan to implement Biden’s order on getting out the vote drafted by the trade representative’s office says:

USTR will develop annual social media posts on key dates that are important to voting engagement including: National Voter Registration Day (4th Tuesday in September); Election Day (1st Tuesday in November); 15th Amendment anniversary re: Black men suffrage (February 3rd); 19th Amendment Anniversary (August 18th); and National Voter Registration Act (May 20th).

In addition to featuring senior USTR officials, USTR will seek to partner with nonpartisan, public service and civic engagement organizations (e.g., Asian Americans Advancing Justice, Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, National Pan-Hellenic Council, Brennan Center for Justice) in developing and amplifying content for these online engagements.

Biden nominated lawyer Katherine Tai as his U.S. trade representative to lead the office as his principal trade adviser and negotiator; the Senate confirmed her in March 2021. 

The USTR’s strategic plan describes the agency as “a component of the Executive Office of the President (EOP)” and “a Cabinet-level agency responsible for developing and coordinating U.S. international trade, commodity, and direct investment policy, and overseeing trade negotiations with other countries in bilateral, plurilateral, and multilateral discussions and institutions.”

The plan crafted by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative also indicates its election-related activities will have a budget impact for the agency, but that it was undetermined as yet based on the “approximate timeframe for implementation.”

On its website, the Brennan Center lists multiple court cases opposing voter ID, advocating use of mail-in voting, and regarding the drawing of congressional and legislative districts. 

The left-leaning organization also characterizes as “purges” efforts by states to update voter registration lists to do away with the names of dead voters, or those who moved to other jurisdictions.

The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which the USTR plan mentions as a partner, has opposed redistricting and apportionment based on eligible voting population, and for including noncitizens in the count for legislative and congressional districts, according to the Capital Research Center, an investigative think tank that monitors nonprofits. The organization also has advocated noncitizen voting in some local jurisdictions.  

Asian Americans Advancing Justice engages in litigation regarding voting rights and affirmative action. The National Pan-Hellenic Council is an association of sororities and fraternities.

Release of the records comes after the revelation that Biden administration agencies have partnered with other transparently left-leaning organizations, including Demos and the American Civil Liberties Union, to help implement Biden’s Executive Order 14019 aimed at boosting voting. 

Republican state legislators in Pennsylvania have sued to block Biden’s executive order from being used in their state, while Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives advanced legislation to deny funding to implement the order. 

“This executive order is so dangerous, and you could potentially be up to $1 billion [to fund it],” Rep. Claudia Tenney, R-N.Y., co-chairwoman of the House Election Integrity Caucus, told The Daily Signal in an interview.

“When Zuckerbucks looked really bad with $419 million, this is up to $1 billion. But you have every major federal agency engaged in the business of trying to create drop boxes and push their constituencies,” Tenney said.

Tenney and many other conservative advocates of election reforms have compared Biden’s executive order to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s donating $419 million in 2020 for grants to administer elections, which critics say disproportionately went to heavily Democrat areas. 

GOP lawmakers contend that the president’s executive order puts the federal government’s thumb on the scale in elections, which are supposed to be the purview of states. They argue that it also could prompt federal employees to violate the Hatch Act, which bars them from political activity on government time or using government resources.

The Biden administration has ignored requests about implementation of the president’s order from over 50 members of Congress. Most of the information about it has surfaced through FOIA requests. 

The Foundation for Government Accountability, a conservative legal organization, is suing the Justice Department for refusing to release its own strategic plan to implement Biden’s get-out-the-vote order. 

“I don’t think they [the Biden administration] are proud about this. I think it’s a mission to get as many votes in as possible,” Tenney told The Daily Signal. “They have built-in constituencies—the unions, a lot of these federal employees, people in HUD developments—they are using to try to get these votes that could make a difference in these swing states, which could decide our election.”

Although the Brennan Center routinely has opposed and litigated against voter ID laws, the trade representative’s office says in the strategic plan that it would coordinate with the Executive Office of the President’s administrative office to comply with voter ID laws. 

“The employee IDs for USTR employees are issued by the EOP Office of Administration,” the plan says. “EOP/OA is responsible for issues concerning whether these identity documents satisfy state voter identification laws.”

The plan adds:  “In a manner consistent with the Hatch Act, USTR will promote the goals of Executive Order 14019 of March 7, 2021, titled Promoting Access to Voting.”

The agency’s plan later explains how the trade representative’s office will promote voting among the 250 USTR employees located in the U.S., in Geneva, Switzerland, and at U.S. diplomatic facilities in the European Union, Mexico, and China. 

The plan notes:

USTR provides training for all employees on acceptable election activities including voting [and] volunteer service for voter registration and as a poll worker. In consultation with the Chief Human Capitol [sic] Officers Council (CHOC), the Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Administration will share policy guidance with USTR employees assigned overseas. CHOC is considering issuing guidance on administrative leave rules and other flexibilities. USTR will provide information to employees on voter registration, participation, and related policies.

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative didn’t respond to The Daily Signal’s inquiries before publication of this report. 

Neither the Brennan Center for Justice nor the other named organizations responded to requests for comment.  

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Ted Cruz Slams Biden Justice Department’s Collusion With Southern Poverty Law Center

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—Conservative U.S. senators condemned President Joe Biden’s Justice Department for receiving a briefing on “hate” from the Southern Poverty Law Center, a far-left group notorious for comparing conservative organizations with the Ku Klux Klan.

“It is sadly predictable that the Biden administration is echoing the anti-conservative activists at the Southern Poverty Law Center,” Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, told The Daily Signal in a written statement Friday. “Even pretending to take them seriously demonstrates a serious lack of judgment.”

“Biden’s leadership at the DOJ are partisans using another partisan organization to legitimize prosecuting Biden’s political opponents,” he added.

Cruz was responding to documents unearthed by The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project, which show that the SPLC reached out to the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division before releasing the 2022 version of its “hate map” in June 2023. The SPLC developed the “hate map” to track chapters of the Klan and other racist groups, but it has placed mainstream conservative and Christian organizations on the same map in recent years, suggesting they are hateful like the KKK. The “hate map” inspired a terrorist attack at the Family Research Council in 2012.

The 2022 “hate map” added parental rights groups, such as Moms for Liberty and Parents Defending Education, framing the parental rights movement as an “anti-student inclusion movement” led by “anti-immigrant extremist groups.”

The Justice Department warmly received the SPLC’s suggestion of a briefing at the time. The DOJ confirmed to The Washington Examiner’s Breccan Theis that the SPLC did indeed brief law enforcement on hate shortly after the release of the “hate map.”

The Southern Poverty Law Center is a corrupt and vicious tool used by far-left radicals to label anyone they disagree with as hateful or extremist to advance their own extreme political agenda,” McKinley Lewis, communications director for Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., told The Daily Signal in a statement Friday.

“Sen. Scott finds it alarming that the Biden administration would continue to coordinate with this radical group to label a group of parents, well within their rights to be involved in the education of their children, as dangerous or hateful,” Lewis added.

As I wrote in my book, “Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center,” the SPLC has faced numerous scandals related to its hate accusations. The SPLC paid millions in a defamation settlement to a Muslim reformer it had slandered, calling him an “anti-Muslim extremist.” Amid a racial discrimination and sexual harassment scandal that led the SPLC to fire its co-founder in 2019, a former employee called the “hate” accusations a “highly profitable scam.”

Despite these scandals, the Biden White House has hosted SPLC leaders and staff at least 11 times, and Biden nominated an SPLC attorney to a top federal judgeship.

Recently unearthed documents showed that a leading Education Department official met with SPLC staff in 2022, a year before the SPLC put Moms for Liberty on its “hate map.”

The White House had previously targeted parents who spoke out to school boards amid school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic, helping to draft the (subsequently rescinded) National School Boards Association letter to President Joe Biden likening concerned parents to domestic terrorists.

In a 2021 call with donors, SPLC President Margaret Huang bragged that the Biden administration reached out to her organization for advice to “help shape” its domestic terrorism strategy. These new documents from the DOJ suggest Huang was indeed telling the truth about this influence in the Biden administration.

The DOJ’s Civil Rights Division enforces the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, and under Biden, the division has charged at least 26 pro-life protesters with violating the FACE Act by protesting in front of abortion centers. Meanwhile, according to CatholicVote, the division has brought only five cases against pro-abortion activists, despite the fact that pro-abortion vandals targeted at least 88 pro-life pregnancy centers and 228 Catholic churches since the May 2022 leak of the Supreme Court’s draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade.

Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta admitted in December 2022 that the overturning of Roe increased “the urgency” of the DOJ’s work, including the “enforcement of the FACE Act, to ensure continued lawful access to reproductive services.”

Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email letters@DailySignal.com, and we’ll consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature. Remember to include the URL or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state. 

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Oblivious to the Irony: Democratic Party Becoming Enemy of Democracy

I remember learning about democracy back in grammar school. We learned about it in the context of the American Revolution: Britain’s King George III may have ruled as a capricious monarch, but the intrepid Colonists fought for the then-novel concept of democratic self-government.

A cursory glance at Merriam-Webster is instructive. That venerable dictionary defines “democracy” as “government by the people” or, more elaborately, as “a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections.”

Simple enough. But someone ought to remind our nation’s liberal elites and the foot-soldier activists of today’s Democratic Party.

On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a unanimous rebuke of the recent Colorado chicanery that rendered former President Donald Trump ineligible for the state’s GOP presidential primary ballot. That all nine justices agreed with Trump’s core legal argument—state actors cannot strike from the ballot alleged “insurrectionists,” absent specific implementing legislation from Congress—is nothing short of remarkable.

For months, liberal pundits and anti-Trump legal “experts” assured us that the 14th Amendment “insurrection clause” argument for Trump’s ballot disqualification was ironclad. Who can forget how, after the Colorado Supreme Court legitimized Trump’s removal in December, one-time conservative judicial stalwart-turned-Trump Derangement Syndrome patient zero J. Michael Luttig opined that the court’s logic was “masterful,” “brilliant,” and “unassailable.” Left-wing cable news outlets platformed countless other guests who ceaselessly pushed the same argument.

In the end, the argument garnered zero votes at the Supreme Court. Even Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson didn’t debase themselves by going along with such a half-baked, anti-democratic ruse. So much for “unassailable” logic!

One of the great ironies of our present age is that democracy’s would-be eponymous outfit, the Democratic Party, has become an enemy of democracy itself. The fact that party activists across numerous states pursued the extraordinary tactic of literally banning their leading opponent from the ballot is emblematic. But the anti-Trump criminal prosecutions and other unsavory lawfare tactics Democrats are also now weaponizing give the game away: Democrats hate democracy and harbor immense disdain for normal Americans’ beliefs.

Put simply, they don’t want to leave the country’s fate in our hands.

Hence, the current bizarre spectacle of Democrats ostentatiously bragging about the need to save “our democracy” while simultaneously pursuing some of the most anti-democratic stratagems in modern American history. Anything, it seems, to prevent the American people themselves from deciding the 2024 election.

To the warped Democratic mind, nothing is more “democratic” than preventing the actual demos from having its say. The horror!

An on-air MSNBC panel during the left-wing network’s Super Tuesday coverage was paradigmatic. Analyzing exit polling from Virginia, hosts Rachel Maddow and Jen Psaki could not believe voters ranked immigration as their top issue. “Well, Virginia does have a border with West Virginia,” Maddow quipped, as the others guffawed along with her.

Liberal elites to Americans suffering the myriad consequences of a wide-open southern border: Drop dead.

That’s literally “drop dead,” actually, in the case of Laken Riley, the former nursing student tragically killed two weeks ago by an illegal alien in Athens, Georgia. (Say her name, liberal media.) That’s literally “drop dead,” as well, for the majority of the 110,000-plus Americans who died of drug overdoses in 2022—70% of which were caused by fentanyl and other synthetic opioids trafficked across the border.

The reality is that during Joe Biden’s presidency, which has overseen the most illegal immigration and the most beleaguered southern border in American history, every town is a “border town.” The MSNBC clowns might delude themselves to the contrary, as they retire at night to their gated communities, driven by their chauffeurs. But that reality is still reality.

Those Americans who want their border secure, their communities safe, and their wages spared suppression by illegal alien labor are the “rubes” whom liberal elites are so passionate about denying from the democratic process that they will invert democracy itself to do so.

Destroy democracy in order to save it—don’t you see?

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The Daily Signal publishes a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Heritage Foundation.

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Our Families Are Hurting. Our Country Can Do Better.

What follows is a lightly edited transcript of the Republican response to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address, as delivered Thursday night by Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala.

Good evening, America.

My name is Katie Britt, and I have the honor of serving the people of the great state of Alabama in the United States Senate.

However, that’s not the job that matters most.

I’m a proud wife and mom of two school-age kids. My daughter, Bennett, and my son, Ridgeway, are why I ran for the Senate.

I am worried about their future—and the future of children in every corner of our nation. That’s why I invited you into our home tonight.

Like so many families across America, my husband, Wesley, and I just watched President Biden’s State of the Union address from our living room. What we saw was the performance of a permanent politician who has actually been in office for longer than I’ve even been alive.

One thing was clear: President Biden just doesn’t get it. He’s out of touch. Under his administration, families are worse off. Our communities are less safe, and our country is less secure.

I wish he understood what real families are facing around kitchen tables just like this.

This is where our family has tough conversations and where we make hard decisions. It’s where we share the good, the bad, and the ugly of our days. It’s where we laugh together. It’s where we hold each other’s hands and pray for God’s guidance. And, many nights, it’s where Wesley and I worry.

I know we’re not alone. Tonight, the American family needs to have a tough conversation, because the truth is, we’re all worried about the future of our nation.

The country we know and love seems to be slipping away. It feels like the next generation will have fewer opportunities—and less freedom—than we did. I worry my own children may not even get a shot at living their American dreams.

My American dream allowed me, the daughter of two small business owners from rural Enterprise, Alabama, to be elected to the U.S. Senate at the age of 40.

Growing up sweeping the floor at my dad’s hardware store and cleaning the bathroom at my mom’s dance studio, I never could have imagined what my story would entail.

To think what the American dream can do across just one generation, in just one lifetime, is truly breathtaking.

But right now, the American dream has turned into a nightmare for so many families.

The true, unvarnished State of our Union begins and ends with this: Our families are hurting. Our country can do better.

And you don’t have to look any further than the crisis at our southern border to see it. President Biden inherited the most secure border of all time. But minutes after taking office, he suspended all deportations, halted construction of the border wall, and announced a plan to give amnesty to millions.

We know that President Biden didn’t just create this border crisis. He invited it with 94 executive actions in his first 100 days.

When I first took office, I did something different. I traveled to the Del Rio sector of Texas, where I spoke to a woman who shared her story with me. She had been sex trafficked by the cartels starting at age 12. She told me not just that she was raped every day, but how many times a day she was raped.

The cartels put her on a mattress in a shoebox of a room, and they sent men through that door, over and over again, for hours and hours on end.

We wouldn’t be OK with this happening in a third-world country. This is the United States of America, and it’s past time we start acting like it.

President Biden’s border crisis is a disgrace. It’s despicable. And it’s almost entirely preventable.

From fentanyl poisonings to horrific murders … there are empty chairs tonight at kitchen tables just like this one because of President Biden’s senseless border policies.

Just think about Laken Riley. In my neighboring state of Georgia, this beautiful, 22-year-old nursing student went out on a jog one morning. But she never got the opportunity to return home. She was brutally murdered by one of the millions of illegal border crossers President Biden chose to release into our homeland.

That could’ve been my daughter. It could’ve been yours.

Tonight, President Biden finally said her name. But he refused to take responsibility for his own actions.

Mr. President, enough is enough. Innocent Americans are dying. And you only have yourself to blame. Fulfill your oath of office. Reverse your policies. End this crisis. And stop the suffering.

Sadly, we know President Biden’s failures don’t stop there.

His reckless spending dug our economy into a hole and sent the cost of living through the roof.

The worst inflation in 40 years. The highest credit card debt in history.

Hardworking families are struggling to make ends meet today. And with soaring mortgage rates and sky-high child care costs, they’re also struggling to plan for tomorrow.

The American people are scraping by while the president proudly proclaims Bidenomics is working!

Bless his heart. We know better.

I’ll never forget stopping at a gas station in Chilton County one evening. The gentleman working the counter told me that after retiring, he had to pick up that job in his 70s so he didn’t have to choose between going hungry or going without his medication. He said, “I did everything right, everything I was told to do—I worked hard, I saved, I was responsible.”

He’s not alone. I hear similar concerns from fellow parents when I’m walking with my friends or at one my kids’ games.

But let’s be honest—it’s been a minute since Joe Biden pumped gas, ran car pool, or pushed a grocery cart. Meanwhile, the rest of us see every day that our dollar doesn’t go as far.

And despite what he tells you, our communities are not safer.

For years, the Left has coddled criminals and defunded the police—all while letting repeat offenders walk free.

The result is tragic but foreseeable—from our small towns to America’s most iconic city streets, life is getting more and more dangerous.

Unfortunately, President Biden’s weakness isn’t just hurting families here at home. He’s making us a punchline on the world stage.

Where I’m from, your word is your bond. But for three years, this President has demonstrated that America’s word doesn’t mean what it used to.

From abandoning allies in his disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan to desperately pushing another dangerous deal with Iran, President Biden has failed.

We’ve become a nation in retreat. And the enemies of freedom see an opportunity.

[Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s brutal aggression in Europe has put our allies on the brink.

Iran’s terrorist proxies have slaughtered Israeli Jews and American citizens. They’ve targeted commercial shipping. And they’ve attacked our troops nearly 200 times since October, killing three U.S. soldiers and two Navy SEALs.

Meanwhile, the Chinese Communist Party is undercutting America’s workers. China is buying up our farmland, spying on our military installations, and spreading propaganda through the likes of TikTok.

The CCP knows that if it conquers the minds of our next generation, it conquers America.

And what does President Biden do? He bans TikTok for government employees, but creates an account for his own campaign. You can’t make this stuff up!

Look, we all recall when presidents faced national security threats with strength and resolve.

That seems like ancient history. Right now, our commander in chief is not in command.

The free world deserves better than a dithering and diminished leader.

America deserves leaders who recognize that secure borders, stable prices, safe streets, and a strong defense are the cornerstones of a great nation.

Just ask yourself, are you better off now than you were three years ago?

There is no doubt we’re at a crossroads. We all feel it.

But here’s the good news: We the People are still in the driver’s seat. We get to decide whether our future will grow brighter, or whether we settle for an America in decline.

Well, I know which choice our children deserve—and the choice the Republican Party is fighting for.

We are the party of hardworking parents and families. We want to give you and your children the opportunities to thrive—and we want families to grow. It’s why we strongly support continued nationwide access to in vitro fertilization. We want to help loving moms and dads bring precious life into this world. Wesley and I believe there is no greater blessing in life than our children.

And that’s why tonight, I want to make a direct appeal to the parents out there—and in particular, to my fellow moms. Many of whom will be tossing and turning at 2 a.m., wondering how they are going to be three places at once tomorrow and somehow still get dinner on the table.

First of all, we see you, we hear you, and we stand with you.

I know you’re frustrated. I know you’re probably disgusted by most of what you see going on in Washington. And I’ll be really honest with you—you’re not wrong for feeling that way.

Look, I get it. The task in front of us isn’t an easy one. But I can promise you one thing: It is worth it. So, I am asking you, for the sake of your kids and your grandkids, get into the arena.

Every generation has been called to do hard things. American greatness rests in the fact that we always answer that call.

It’s who we are.

Never forget, we’re steeped in the blood of patriots who overthrew the most powerful empire in the world.

We walk in the footsteps of pioneers who tamed the wild.

We now carry forward the same flame of freedom as the liberators of an oppressed Europe.

We draw courage from those who bent the moral arc of the universe.

And when we gaze upon the heavens, never forget that our DNA contains the same ingenuity that put man on the moon.

America has been tested before, and every single time, we’ve emerged unbowed and unbroken.

Our history has been written with the grit of men and women who got knocked down. But we know their stories because they did not stay down. We are here because they stood back up.

So now it’s our turn—our moment to stand up and prove ourselves worthy of protecting the American dream.

Together, we can reawaken the heroic spirit of a great nation.

Because Americans don’t just have a rendezvous with destiny—we take destiny’s hand, and we lead it.

Our future starts around kitchen tables just like this. With moms and dads just like you.

And you are why I believe with every fiber of my being that despite the current state of our union, our best days are still ahead.

May God bless you, and may God continue to bless these United States of America.

The Daily Signal publishes a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Heritage Foundation.

Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email letters@DailySignal.com, and we’ll consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature. Remember to include the URL or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state.

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Catch What You Missed From Biden’s State of the Union Address

President Joe Biden discussed some of the biggest issues on the minds of Americans, from border security to abortion and the economy, in his State of the Union address Thursday night. 

But what issues did Biden ignore that he should have talked about?

Were there any unifying moments? And how did members of Congress in the audience respond to the president in his fourth such address? 

Cody Sargent, communications director for Heritage Action for America, joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to talk about the biggest moments of the night. (Heritage Action for America is the grassroots arm of The Heritage Foundation, which is the parent organization of The Daily Signal.)

Listen to the podcast below:

Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email letters@DailySignal.com and we’ll consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature. Remember to include the URL or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state.

The post Catch What You Missed From Biden’s State of the Union Address appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Republican Response to Biden State of the Union Highlights Border, Economy, and Foreign Policy Failures

In the official Republican response to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address Thursday night, Sen. Katie Britt highlighted several of the Biden administration’s failings—most notably, its handling of the southern border, which she called “a disgrace.”

The Alabama senator declared, “Biden didn’t just create this border crisis, he invited it with 94 executive actions in the first 100 days.”

Biden signed executive orders that stopped several of the Trump administration’s initiatives to curb illegal immigration, including halting building a wall at the southern border and allowing illegal immigrants to enter the United States while applying for asylum rather than waiting in other countries for the several years it takes to actually get a court determination on whether asylum will be granted.

Britt furthered criticized Biden’s border policies by referencing an increase of deadly fentanyl poisonings in the U.S. The drug is predominantly smuggled across the southern border. Speaking from her kitchen, the senator said, “There are empty chairs tonight at kitchen tables just like this one” due to fentanyl poisonings and “horrific murders.”

She also mentioned Laken Riley, a 22-year-old woman who was recently murdered by an illegal immigrant. “She was brutally murdered by one of the millions of illegal border crossers President Biden chose to release into our homeland,” she said.

The president mentioned Riley during his address, holding up a pin with “Say Her Name” across it. However, Biden mispronounced Riley’s name, saying “Lincoln Riley” instead of “Laken.” He also seemed to diminish the circumstances of her death by saying that people were concerned with her death at the hands of an illegal alien but then asked rhetorically, how many Americans die by the hands of people legally here.

Britt also talked about the high cost of living, which she said was going “through the roof.” She disparaged Biden’s economic strategy, saying, “We have the worst inflation in 40 years and the highest credit card debit in our nation’s history.”

She also lambasted Biden for his foreign policy failures, saying that he has made America “a punchline on the world stage.” The senator called out Biden for his “disastrous” pullout of Afghanistan, saying it made America’s allies unable to trust that the U.S. would adequately back them in the future. She said Biden’s foreign policy weakness has also furthered the world’s various conflicts.

“President Biden has failed,” she said. “We’ve become a nation in retreat—and the enemies of freedom, they see an opportunity. [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s brutal aggression in Europe has put our allies on the brink. Iran’s terrorist proxies have slaughtered Israelis, Jews, and American citizens. They’ve targeted commercial shipping. And they’ve attacked our troops nearly 200 times since October, killing three U.S. soldiers and two Navy SEALs.”

Elected two years ago at age 40, Britt is the youngest female Republican ever elected to the U.S. Senate.

Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email letters@DailySignal.com, and we’ll consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature. Remember to include the URL or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state.

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Fact-Checking Biden’s State of the Union Address

President Joe Biden delivered his 2024 State of the Union address in the House Chamber of the U.S. Capitol on Thursday night.

During the 67-minute speech, frequently interrupted by applause from fellow Democrat senators and members of Congress, Biden spoke on a wide range of issues, from border security and the economy to abortion and foreign policies relating to Israel and Ukraine.

The president made numerous claims, many of them contentious and sharply partisan. The Daily Signal fact-checked many of those claims to assess whether they were truthful and accurate.

  1. ‘Dagger at the Throat of American Democracy’

Biden compared the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot to the U.S. Civil War of the 1860s. 

“Insurrectionists stormed this very Capitol and placed a dagger at the throat of American democracy,” he said. 

“Jan. 6 and the lies about the 2020 election, and the plots to steal the election, posed the gravest threat to our democracy since the Civil War,” Biden said. “But they failed. America stood strong and democracy prevailed.” 

If Biden was saying no attack happened on the Capitol between 1865 and 2021, that would be inaccurate. 

In 1954, four Puerto Rican terrorists attacked the Capitol. Unlike those who got inside the Capitol building two years ago, the 1954 terrorists were armed with guns. The four opened fire from the House Gallery, wounding five lawmakers: Reps. Alvin Bentley, Ben Jensen, Clifford Davis, George Hyde Fallon, and Kenneth Roberts. 

In 1971, a domestic terrorist group, the Weather Underground, bombed the Capitol, causing $300,000 worth of damage. Luckily, no one was killed or injured. 

The so-called Weathermen returned in 1983 and set off another bomb that “tore through the second floor of the Capitol’s North Wing,” according to the Senate’s history website. There were no fatalities.

As for Biden’s reference to “insurrectionists,” hundreds have been convicted in connection with the Jan. 6 riot, but not one was convicted of insurrection. But some were charged with sedition. 

The term “insurrection” has a specific legal definition under the U.S. Code (U.S.C. 2383), which says:

Whoever incites, sets on foot, assists, or engages in any rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States or the laws thereof, or gives aid or comfort thereto, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 10 years, or both; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.

According to Biden’s own Justice Department, none of the 950 arrested in connection with the riot was charged with insurrection.

Prosecutors did charge 50 defendants with conspiracy, and four have been convicted of seditious conspiracy. The other conspiracy-related charges were conspiracy to obstruct a congressional proceeding, conspiracy to obstruct law enforcement during a civil disorder, or conspiracy to injure an officer.  

Seditious conspiracy (under U.S.C. 2384) is defined this way: 

If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than [20] years, or both.

—Fred Lucas

2. ‘Cutting the Federal Deficit’

Biden twice took credit for cutting the federal deficit, and later said he wanted to cut it further by hiking taxes on corporations and the wealthy.  

He first noted that under his administration, Medicare now has the authority to negotiate lower prices for prescription drugs similar to that of the Department of Veterans Affairs. 

“That’s not just saving seniors money,” Biden said. “It’s saving taxpayers money, cutting the federal deficit by $160 billion because Medicare will no longer have to pay exorbitant prices to Big Pharma.” 

Later, Biden said, “I’ve already cut the federal deficit by over $1 trillion.”

“I signed a bipartisan budget deal that will cut another trillion dollars over the next decade,” he said. “And now it’s my goal to cut the federal deficit $3 trillion more by making big corporations and the very wealthy finally pay their fair share.” He used variations on the terms “fair” and “fair share” at least nine times. 

However, the federal budget deficit is set to increase every year for the next decade, wrote David Ditch, a senior policy analyst in the Grover M. Hermann Center for the Federal Budget at The Heritage Foundation.

“When deficits get too high, as happened during the COVID-19 pandemic, it adds to inflationary pressures on the economy. If current trends continue, driven by the growth of spending as a share of the economy, deficits will balloon even in years without a recession or a major war,” Ditch wrote. 

“The first-ever $1 trillion deficit happened in fiscal year 2009 and helped fuel the tea party movement in response. Incredibly, not only are $1 trillion deficits now standard operating procedure, but the federal government is set to crack $2 trillion deficits every year as soon as 2031—even sooner if any new legislation expands the [Washington] swamp,” Ditch added. 

The Congressional Budget Office projects the government will spend more on interest payments in 2024 on the accumulated debt than on national defense.

—Fred Lucas

The president also claimed that “the last administration enacted a $2 trillion tax cut that overwhelmingly benefits the very wealthy and the biggest corporations and exploded the federal deficit.”

That’s untrue. Those in income brackets earning $200,000 or more paid more taxes in 2018 compared with 2017. Those making less than $200,000 annually paid less in taxes.

—Tony Kinnett

3. COVID-19 Was ‘Worst Economic Crisis in a Century’

Biden called the COVID-19 pandemic the “worst economic crisis in a century.” That’s objectively incorrect. The Great Depression, which lasted from 1929 to 1941, resulted in 24.9% of Americans being forced into unemployment. At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, in the second quarter of 2020, unemployment hit 13%, and the pandemic only lasted two years.

—Tony Kinnett

4. ‘Most Americans’ Said to Support Roe v. Wade

“Like most Americans, I believe Roe v. Wade got it right,” Biden said of the 1973 Supreme Court ruling making abortion legal nationwide. 

The Supreme Court overturned Roe in June 2022, ruling that there was no constitutional right to abortion. In 2023, 44% of Americans identified as pro-life, according to a Gallup poll, while 52% identified as pro-abortion, and 4% had no opinion. 

Biden used the story of Texas resident Kate Cox, who was a guest of the president and in the audience Thursday night, to advocate for abortion. 

Cox, according to Biden, became pregnant with “a fetus with a fatal condition,” and because of Texas law protecting the unborn, Cox went to another state to have an abortion. 

Cox’s baby had a genetic condition known as trisomy 18, according to reporting by The Daily Signal’s Mary Margaret Olohan. 

“Trisomy 18 is a condition in which a baby had an extra copy of chromosome 18, making it highly likely that the baby would die in the womb or shortly after birth—though some babies with trisomy 18 do survive, such as the daughter of former Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa.,” Olohan reported.

—Virginia Allen

5. ‘Toughest Set of Border Security Reforms We’ve Ever Seen’

Biden touted his support of a “bipartisan” bill that, according to the president, included the “toughest set of border-security reforms we’ve ever seen.” 

He claimed that the bill would “bring order to the border.” 

The border bill Biden was referring to failed in the Senate in February because it “codified Joe Biden’s open border,” Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said on his podcast “Verdict with Ted Cruz.”  

The Senate’s 370-page bill included about $20 billion in border-related spending and directed the Department of Homeland Security to close the southern border “during a period of 7 consecutive calendar days, [if] there is an average of 5,000 or more aliens who are encountered each day.” 

According to Jeh Johnson, homeland security secretary in the administration of President Barack Obama, 1,000 illegal crossings a day amounted to a very bad day at the border. 

If the bill were passed, more than 1.8 million illegal aliens a year would be permitted to enter the United States. The bill also would give the president the authority to “direct the [homeland security secretary] to suspend use of the border emergency authority on an emergency basis.”  

The legislation also would have allowed the policy of “catch and release” to not only continue, but be incorporated into law. 

Last May, the House passed a border security bill, HR 2, which would end “catch and release,” restart construction on the border wall, and reinstate former President Donald Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy. 

The Democrat-controlled Senate has yet to take up HR 2. 

Biden went on to say he’s ready to “fix” the border. In February, there were rumors that he was considering taking executive action on the border, but has yet to do so. Instead, the president has continued to call on Congress to take action on the border. 

On his first day in office on Jan. 20, 2021, Biden stopped construction of the Trump administration’s wall at the southern border, signed an executive order “revoking a Trump Executive Order that directed harsh and extreme immigration enforcement,” and strategically undid many of the Trump administration’s other border security policies.

—Virginia Allen

6. Slaying Victim Laken Riley Incorrectly Identified as ‘Lincoln’

The first name of the young woman who was the victim of a recent brutal killing, allegedly by an illegal immigrant in Georgia, was “Laken,” not “Lincoln.” Accused of previous offenses, the man accused of killing Laken Riley was caught and released into the United States due to a reversal of Trump’s administration’s policies on illegal immigration by Biden.

—Tony Kinnett

7. Transgenderism as ‘Fundamental Right’ 

Biden suggested that the proposed Equality Act represents a protection of “fundamental rights.” He said, “I want to protect other fundamental rights. Pass the Equality Act, and my message to transgender Americans: I have your back!” 

The Equality Act would amend the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex, to prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender identity.

Contrary to Biden’s framing, that would undermine some existing fundamental rights, like women’s rights to safety and privacy in women’s spaces (including women’s prisons) and their right to fair competition in sports. 

The bill could also undermine children’s right to grow up without having their growth stunted by experimental transgender medical interventions. Earlier this week, journalist Michael Shellenberger released internal files from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, files revealing that doctors and psychologists who support medical interventions euphemistically referred to as “gender-affirming care” acknowledge that the side effects of such drugs are not fully known. They also admitted that teenagers have contracted cancer due to cross-sex hormones and that those drugs could permanently stunt a child’s growth.

—Tyler O’Neil

8. ‘Book Banning

Biden urged Americans to “stop denying another core value of America—our diversity.” He suggested that “banning books” is an example of such a denial.

The president was referring to the movement to restrict the availability of sexually explicit materials in school libraries, which some on the Left have falsely branded “book banning.”

While parents note that “Gender Queer: A Memoir” by Maia Kobabe contains depictions of sexual acts between a boy and a man and “Lawn Boy” by Jonathan Evison contains long passages in which a boy reminisces about sexual experiences at age 10, pro-transgender advocates defend those and similar books as necessary for LGBTQ+ children to “see themselves” in literature.

Removing such books from school libraries does not represent “banning” them, as it does not prevent publishers from printing them, parents from buying them, or children from reading them. It merely restricts their spread to minors in a school setting.

Heritage Foundation scholars checked school libraries across the country and found that the books are still available on the bookshelves. (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of The Heritage Foundation.)

—Tyler O’Neil

9. ‘Voter Suppression, Election Subversion’

Biden noted that the Voting Rights Act was signed 59 years ago, but said Congress has to pass more laws on voting. 

“But 59 years later, there are forces taking us back in time,” the president said. “Voter suppression. Election subversion. Unlimited dark money. Extreme gerrymandering.”

He referenced the late Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., a famed civil rights activist who died in 2020. 

“If you truly want to honor him and all the heroes who marched with him, then it’s time for more than just talk,” Biden said. “Pass and send me the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act.”

Biden didn’t specify what he meant by election subversion or voter suppression. But he previously has characterized voter-ID laws as voter suppression. The laws also restricted ballot harvesting and cleaned up voter-registration rolls of the names of dead people. 

Almost two dozen states enacted election reform laws in 2021. Biden specifically criticized a Georgia election reform law as “Jim Crow 2.0,” a reference to the segregated South of the past. 

An independent survey conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Election Data and Science Lab, in conjunction with the School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Georgia, found that 99% of voters felt safe at polling stations, 98.9% reported no issues or difficulty in casting a ballot, 97% rated interactions with poll workers as “good” or “excellent,” and 95.3% reported wait times of less than 30 minutes. 

The left-leaning New York Times described 2022 voter turnout—56%—as strong, but “shy of the 2018 high-water-mark midterms.”

Several studies have shown that voter-ID laws do not suppress voting. A 2019 study by the National Bureau of Economic Research—based on turnout data from 2008 to 2018—said voter-ID laws “have no negative effect on registration or turnout, overall or for any group defined by race, gender, age, or party affiliation.” 

A 2023 study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, voter-ID laws actually “produced a Democratic advantage, which weakened to near zero after 2012” and added voter-ID laws have “negligible average effects.”

—Fred Lucas

10. Preschoolers ‘50% More Likely’ to Earn Degrees

Biden claimed that children who attend preschool “are 50% more likely to earn a two- or four-year degree no matter their background.” That’s misleading. The study from Blueprint Labs that the White House based the statement on explicitly states that preschool “has no detectable impact on state achievement test scores” or college enrollment tests. 

The study did not show that preschool attendance increased the likelihood students would apply to two- or four-year programs compared with those who didn’t attend preschool.

—Tony Kinnett

11. Alabama Court ‘Shut Down IVF Treatments

The president claimed that “the Alabama Supreme Court shut down [in vitro fertilization] treatments across the state, unleashed by the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade.” That isn’t true. The Alabama Supreme Court did not “shut down” IVF treatments, but ruled embryos were to be classified as human beings

That decision was not directly caused by the Supreme Court of the United States’ ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, either. Nothing in the Supreme Court’s ruling mentioned IVF or triggered a preexisting Alabama law to make IVF illegal.

Additionally, the Alabama Legislature passed a bill protecting IVF treatments and procedures earlier Thursday, which Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, a Republican, promptly signed into law.

—Tony Kinnett

12. ‘Shrinkflation’

As expected, the president also sharply criticized what he called “shrinkflation.”

“Too many corporations raise their prices to pad their profits, charging you more and more for less and less,” Biden said. “That’s why we’re cracking down on corporations that engage in price-gouging or deceptive pricing, from food to health care to housing.” 

He blamed companies for the rising cost of snacks. 

“In fact, snack companies think you won’t notice when they charge you just as much for the same size bag, but with fewer chips in it,” Biden said. 

He called for Congress to pass legislation drafted by Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., “to put a stop to shrinkflation.”

However, the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed prices for both business and consumers have increased 18% on average since Biden took office in January 2021.

“Grocery stores cannot simply reduce the prices they charge while the prices they themselves pay continue to rise,” E.J. Antoni, a public finance economist and research fellow in The Heritage Foundation, recently wrote

He added, “If a dairy farmer charges a grocer 20% more for milk, then the grocer will also charge a family 20% more for milk. That’s not gouging anyone. It’s merely staying in business.”

—Fred Lucas

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Trump Reacts to Biden’s State of the Union Address

Former President Donald Trump shared his live, play-by-play reactions to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address on Truth Social Thursday night.  

When Biden and his Cabinet arrived at the House of Representatives chamber approximately 20 minutes after the speech’s scheduled start, the former president posted, “THEY ARE REALLY LATE, VERY DISRESPECTFUL TO OUR COUNTRY!”  

As Biden began his address by warning about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s designs on Ukraine, Trump said, “Putin only invaded Ukraine because he has no respect for Biden. Would have never happened under the Trump administration, and for four years, it didn’t happen!” 

When Biden referenced NATO, Trump quickly posted, “Under other presidents, NATO was BROKE.” He added, “NATO only became strong because of ME, I got the NATO nations to pay up. They were almost all delinquent. The United States was paying for them all!”  

When Biden brought up the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, Trump stated, “The so-called ‘insurrectionists’ that he talks about had no guns, they only had a rigged election.”  

Trump observed Biden’s demeanor during the speech, saying, “The anger and shouting is not helpful to bringing our country back together!” 

When Biden mentioned his handling of COVID-19, saying, “The Pandemic no longer controls our lives. The vaccines that saved us from COVID are now being used to help beat cancer—turning setback into comeback,” Trump responded, “YOU’RE WELCOME, JOE. NINE-MONTH APPROVAL TIME VS. 12 YEARS THAT IT WOULD HAVE TAKEN YOU!” 

Trump also commented on Biden taking credit for a good economy, stating “INFLATION UNDER BIDEN IS KILLING AMERICA.” He then shared a graphic that stated, “ALL 50 STATES HAVE SET NEW RECORD HIGH GAS PRICES UNDER BIDEN.” 

When Biden held up a Laken Riley pin in remembrance of the young woman recently killed by an illegal immigrant, Trump rebutted, “His border bill is a disaster. It would let at least 5,000 [illegal] migrants in a day, and that is one of the better aspects of it!”  

When Biden talked about school shootings and his plan for gun control, the former president went after him again on the border, saying, “He’s talking about violence, but migrant violence is leading to the worst crime wave in history!”  

“He wants to take away everyone’s gun,” Trump added. 

Finally, when Biden commented on the tragedy of the Hamas attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, Trump quickly posted, “He’s done nothing for Israel compared to what I have done.” 

“It’s only words he speaks, not TRUTH!” Trump said.  

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Progressivism Shunned by Voters in Blue Cities, States

Although Super Tuesday may have been predictable on the presidential front, the big primary day held some surprises lower down the ballot. Deep-blue cities and states are rejecting leftist policies.

In San Francisco, voters backed ballot measures to strengthen the city’s police force and mandate drug tests for welfare recipients, prompting the San Francisco Chronicle to declare on its front page Wednesday morning: “Progressivism Is Out … ”

Voters also placed many moderates on the Democratic County Central Committee, which the Chronicle reported “could reshape who is elected in San Francisco for years.”

Steven Buss, co-founder of the nonpartisan organization GrowSF, said of progressive politicians: “They had their turn. They failed. Now it’s time for the city to move on.”

Ballot Measure E bolsters the San Francisco Police Department by creating new policies for officers “to report use-of-force incidents,” allows police to use drones and set up security cameras to reduce and prevent crime, and authorizes police to use “new surveillance technology” with a board of supervisors’ approval.

The approved ballot measure also reduces the amount of time police officers spend on paperwork, “with the goal that patrol officers spend no more than 20% of their work time on administrative tasks.” The proposal was approved with just shy of 60% of the vote.

The most controversial of the ballot measures approved Tuesday was Measure F, which requires drug screening for welfare recipients. The policy requires single adults under 65 and with no dependents to submit to drug tests before being eligible to receive county welfare assistance.

“When screening indicates a recipient may be dependent on illegal drugs, the city will provide a professional evaluation and may refer the recipient to an appropriate treatment program,” the ballot measure states.

The program would be paid for almost entirely with money that current welfare recipients are ineligible for, either due to illegal drug use or due to a refusal to submit to drug testing. City Controller Ben Rosenfield estimated that the program would cost between $500,000 and $1.4 million annually.

“These costs would be offset by estimated annual savings of between $100,000 and $2 million from recipients who are no longer eligible to receive aid, with any additional savings available for treatment and other services for other program recipients,” Rosenfield explained.

Measure F was approved with 63% of the vote.

Other measures approved by San Francisco voters include Measure G, which is aimed at improving education standards and math curricula, and Measure D, which cracks down on bribery and “quid pro quo” arrangements among city officials and employees, stiffens penalties for officials and employees who do not meet the new standards, and requires annual ethics courses for officials and employees.

Measure G was approved with nearly 84% of the vote, Measure D was approved with 88%.

The deep-blue state of Washington also approved ballot initiatives Tuesday that are aimed at undoing left-wing policies and legislation enacted over the past few years.

Initiative 2081 established a “parents’ bill of rights,” which allows parents to review books in school libraries and remove books deemed sexually explicit; allows parents to opt their children out of sex education courses or class sessions or assignments related to sex, gender ideology, politics, or religion; and pledges that students’ and families’ religious beliefs will be respected, among other items.

Initiative 2113 reversed Democrat-backed restrictions on police pursuits, which have increased the number of suspects evading or escaping police. One suspect called 911 to cite the progressive legislation and tell the police to stop chasing him. The new policy allows police pursuit when an officer has a “reasonable suspicion” that an individual has broken the law and “poses a threat to the safety of others.” 

Initiative 2111 ended state and local income tax.

All three initiatives were approved by the state Legislature, while three others were not addressed by the Legislature and will appear on the state’s ballots in November. None of the three citizen-led measures approved by the Legislature requires the governor’s signature to become law.

Oregon also recently moved to undo disastrous progressive policies.

Last week, Oregon legislators passed HB 4002, recriminalizing drugs three years after making fentanyl, cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine legal.

The prior policy, adopted in 2020 with nearly 60% support from voters, imposed minor fines on those convicted of possessing illegal drugs. The legislation passed last week moves possession of drugs from a Class E violation—punishable by a maximum of a $100 fine—to a Class C misdemeanor, punishable by up to a month in jail and fines of up to $1,250.

Additionally, in the face of the worsening illegal immigration crisis and correlating increase in violent crime, self-declared “sanctuary cities” are now backing away from the label.

The most visible example is New York City’s Mayor Eric Adams. a Democrat, who has called for changes to the Big Apple’s immigration policy, encouraging local authorities to cooperate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Originally published by The Washington Stand

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SMOKING GUN: Biden DOJ Took Advice From Group Demonizing Concerned Parents, Docs Show

The Justice Department arm focused on prosecuting “hate crimes” welcomed input from a far-left organization known for demonizing conservatives and Christians right after that organization put parental rights groups, including Moms for Liberty, on a “hate map” alongside the Ku Klux Klan, documents obtained by The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project reveal. (The Daily Signal is Heritage’s news and commentary outlet.)

The Southern Poverty Law Center, which notoriously brands mainstream conservative and Christian organizations as hateful by placing them on a “hate map” in what a former employee describes as a fundraising scheme, reached out to the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division on June 6, 2023—the day the SPLC released its annual “Year in Hate and Extremism” report and had added Moms for Liberty to the map.

The new documents, obtained by the Oversight Project via a Freedom of Information Act request, reveal yet more collaboration between the Biden administration and the far-left group.

The Justice Department confirmed to the Washington Examiner that the briefing did indeed take place, although the department did not specify when.

SPLC Outreach

Michael Lieberman, senior policy counsel for “hate & extremism” at the SPLC, reached out to Robert Moossy Jr., deputy assistant attorney general at the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, and Sheila Foran, acting head of the Civil Rights Division’s Policy and Strategy Section, granting Moossy and Foran a “quick embargoed peek” ahead of the full report.

“We’d love to work with you both and the policy team to set up a briefing for interested DOJ interdepartmental hate crime task force members this month,” Lieberman wrote. “If you’re interested, happy to talk about scheduling time with our report authors and SPLC Intelligence Project subject-matter experts.”

The SPLC used its Intelligence Project to monitor Klan activity in the 1980s and later expanded the project to develop the “hate map,” which began to include mainstream conservative organizations in the 2000s.

Foran forwarded Lieberman’s email to Johnathan Smith, deputy assistant attorney general at the Civil Rights Division, and Luis Lopez, chief of the Policy and Strategy Section at the division. That section supports and coordinates the division’s policy work “by developing and analyzing legislative, regulatory, and policy proposals relating to the division’s enforcement authorities,” according to its website.

Lieberman’s “sneak peek” included a summary of the “Year in Hate and Extremism” report, describing the report as an “annual census of hate groups and anti-government groups” and as “one barometer of the level of hate and anti-government extremist activity in the country.”

The document described the report’s “key messages,” such as the claim that “hate and anti-government extremist groups are descending on Main Street America”; that “far-right lawmakers are pushing legislation straight from the scripts of hate groups, including bills that seek to control the bodies of women and those who can give birth, whitewash black history in schools, and criminalize LGBTQ+ people”; and the claim that “one group at the forefront of this ‘anti-student inclusion’ movement is Moms for Liberty,” which the SPLC accused of attempting to “normalize assaults on inclusive education.”

Lieberman sent a follow-up email with a link to the SPLC report after it had been published, again asking to arrange a “special briefing” on it.

His email also highlighted aspects of the report, noting that “for the first time, we are designating reactionary anti-student inclusion groups, like Moms for Liberty, as anti-government extremist groups.”

The email also lists policy recommendations, such as enforcing “hate crime” laws, providing “initiatives to reduce structural racism,” confronting “white supremacy in the military and in law enforcement,” confronting “reactionary anti-student inclusion and censorship campaigns,” and demanding that “social media companies should not enable the funding or amplifying of white supremacist ideas or provide a safe haven for extremists.”

The document also warns that the “great replacement” theory, which it describes as “a conspiracy theory that is inherently white supremacist and antisemitic,” is “being widely perpetuated in media and political narratives.”

Highlights from the SPLC’s “Year in Hate and Extremism” report from an email from Michael Lieberman of the SPLC to the DOJ.

DOJ Response

Foran responded to this email by thanking Lieberman and promising to share the report with the Hate Crimes Enforcement and Prevention Initiative. She also promised to “circle back” on “setting up a briefing.”

“We appreciate the offer!” she added.

“Arranging a briefing for members of the Hate Crimes Enforcement and Prevention Initiative is a high priority for us,” Lieberman responded. “Hope we can arrange it.”

Separately, Moossy wrote to Foran, Smith, and Lopez, misspelling Foran’s first name, “Shaila, this briefing makes sense to me, when is the next quarterly meeting?”

Moossy also forwarded the SPLC report to other colleagues, suggesting members of the Hate Crimes Enforcement and Prevention Initiative would accept the briefing and discuss the report.

He addressed the Policy and Strategy Section and the Criminal Section at the Civil Rights Division, asking, “Anything in here relevant or useful for next week’s meeting?”

These documents do not reveal whether the SPLC did indeed brief the hate crimes initiative, but they do demonstrate that the Civil Rights Division took the SPLC’s “hate map” report and the SPLC’s smears against conservative and Christian organizations, particularly Moms for Liberty, seriously.

The SPLC’s Ties With the Biden Administration

As I wrote in my book, “Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center,” the SPLC has faced numerous scandals related to its hate accusations. Its smears led to a domestic terrorist attack in 2012. The SPLC also paid millions to a Muslim reformer it branded an “anti-Muslim extremist.” And amid a racial discrimination and sexual harassment scandal that led the SPLC to fire its co-founder in 2019, a former employee called the “hate” accusations a “highly profitable scam.”

Despite these scandals, the Biden White House has hosted SPLC leaders and staff at least 11 times, and Biden nominated an SPLC attorney to a top federal judgeship.

Recently unearthed documents showed that a leading Education Department official met with SPLC staff in 2022, one year before the SPLC put Moms for Liberty on its “hate map.”

The White House had previously targeted parents who spoke out to school boards amid school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic, helping to draft the (later rescinded) National School Boards Association letter to President Joe Biden comparing concerned parents to domestic terrorists.

In a 2021 call with donors, SPLC President Margaret Huang bragged that the Biden administration reached out to her organization for advice to “help shape” its domestic terrorism strategy.

These new documents from the DOJ suggest Huang was indeed telling the truth.

The DOJ’s Civil Rights Division enforces the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, and under Biden, the division has charged at least 26 pro-life protesters with violating the FACE Act by protesting in front of abortion centers. Meanwhile, according to CatholicVote, the division has only brought five cases against pro-abortion activists, despite the fact that pro-abortion vandals targeted at least 88 pro-life pregnancy centers and 228 Catholic churches since the May 2022 leak of the Supreme Court’s draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade.

Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta admitted in December 2022 that the overturning of Roe increased “the urgency” of the DOJ’s work, including the “enforcement of the FACE Act, to ensure continued lawful access to reproductive services.”

Neither the Department of Justice nor the SPLC responded to The Daily Signal’s request for comment by publication time.

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Jordan Peterson: Government-Corporate Collusion ‘Threatens Everyone’s Freedom Equally’

Famed psychologist and author Jordan Peterson warned Congress about a potential “superstate” in which collusion between government and corporations may be “eliminating the private sphere.”

Peterson was a witness Thursday in a hearing held by a special House panel on government “weaponization” that focused on the Biden administration’s working with large banks to surveil private financial data and, in some cases, “debank” Americans.  

A total of five witnesses, including Peterson, appeared before the House Judiciary Select Subcommittee on Weaponization of the Federal Government

Peterson and the others testified about cases in which banks refused to do business with a Christian charity and other conservative-leaning organizations as a result of government pressure. They also noted instances in which the FBI used bank records to monitor gun purchases. 

During the hearing, subcommittee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, asked: “Dr. Peterson, do you think they are just going to stop with conservatives?” 

Peterson responded that Americans’ concern should be about ever-expanding control rather than a specific political party. 

“The danger posed by this increasing ability of governments and large corporations to collude threatens everyone’s freedom equally,” Peterson testified. “It could well be at the moment—and I think this is the point Republicans here are trying to make—is that the people in the sights of that collusion tend to have more conservative leanings, but that will shift in a moment whenever the political tides shift.”

During House @Weaponization hearing, @jordanbpeterson explains why both the Right and the Left should be concerned about big government and big corporations threatening individual privacy. pic.twitter.com/AoEfyt5E4H

— Fred Lucas (@FredLucasWH) March 7, 2024

Jordan noted that his subcommittee’s investigation uncovered government surveillance without a court warrant that wasn’t predicated on evidence of criminal conduct but rather on flagging transactions deemed related to Americans’ constitutionally protected rights to political and religious expression.

However, Democrats on the government weaponization subcommittee insisted that both the hearing and the panel were created to minimize the importance of the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021. That day, supporters of then-President Donald Trump stormed the Capitol, apparently to stop Congress’ certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 victory over Trump in the Electoral College. 

Peterson acknowledged the preoccupation with Jan. 6.

“We are concentrating a fair bit in this hearing on the specific events of Jan. 6, a very partisan issue that produces an intense partisan divide,” Peterson said. “But we’re not addressing the fundamental issue here directly, which is [that] our new technology enables a mode of surveillance that is so intense and all-pervading that no one will escape its purview regardless of their political views.” 

Democrats’ hearing witness was Michael Fanone, a D.C. police officer who responded to the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol and wrote a book about it titled “Hold the Line: The Insurrection and One Cop’s Battle for America’s Soul.”

“The distortions, mischaracterizations, and lies about Jan. 6 resulted, or at least partially played a role, in me leaving my job as a metropolitan police officer,” Fanone told the subcommittee. “They have inspired fellow Americans to threaten me, threaten members of my family, simply because of the statements I have made about my experience both on Jan. 6, 2021, and in the aftermath.”

Del. Stacey Plaskett, a nonvoting Democrat representing the Virgin Islands who is the ranking member of the subcommittee, said law-abiding citizens have nothing to fear. 

“I’ve shopped in a Bass Pro Shop plenty of times. I read the Bible on a regular basis. I happen to be and my family happen to be gun owners,” Plaskett said. “But I’m not afraid that the FBI is going to be searching my account, because I was also not a rioter on Jan. 6.”

Other witnesses included Brian Knight, director of innovation and governance at the Mercatus Center, a think tank at George Mason University; Jeremy Tedesco, senior counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian legal group; and Norbert Michel, director of the Cato Institute’s Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives.

At one point in the hearing, Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., sarcastically asked Peterson: “Why are you such a Luddite? Why don’t you embrace artificial intelligence and facial recognition and massive computer surveillance and cameras on every street corner, so that we could all be safer?”

Paterson gave a serious response about the dangers of too much security. 

“If the emerging collusion between government and gigantic corporations continues in the manner it is continuing, there won’t be anything that you do that can’t be used against you and will be used against you in very short order,” Peterson said, later adding:  

The concerns that are expressed here about the local consequences of that, let’s say with regard to Jan. 6, seem to me to fail to take into account the much broader threat that lurks underneath that everyone should be attending to. 

We are in danger of eliminating the private sphere in its entirety. It’s already happening in places around the world, particularly China, which is why I made reference to that. We have technologies at hand, and it appears both giant corporations and giant governments are utilizing it in every way that they can manage. 

It’s often motivated by the claim that that’s forestalling an immediate, proximal threat, while that is a short-term justification for engaging in a tremendous long-term danger. It should be perceived to those on the Left as a danger, because it will be the politically committed who are first identified by such systems. 

Last year, Canada’s College of Psychologists of Ontario ordered Peterson to undergo reeducation therapy to keep his license to practice, after the Canadian clinical psychologist made public comments on culture and politics. When Peterson sued, the Divisional Court in Ontario ruled against him. 

Massie said jokingly that “the reeducation has not been successful.” 

Rep. Greg Steube, R-Fla., said that it’s “absolutely insane, the level of the deep state acting to go after pro-life groups, pro-gun groups.” 

“The U.S. Department of Treasury told banks to be on the lookout for use of debit and credit cards for the purchase of legal firearms,” Steube said. “It’s appalling that a federal agency would ask private companies to spy on legal business transactions.” 

Steube also noted that the Treasury Department issued a report, “Bankrolling Bigotry,” that identified several conservative groups—including Alliance Defending Freedom—as hate groups. He asked ADF’s Tedesco about that. 

“It’s unbelievable that that has been used by the federal government to advise banks on domestic terrorist threats,” Tedesco testified. “I think the bigger point here is that the concept of hate is a tool of suppression. That kind of language, hate speech and similar vague language, are permeated throughout the financial industry [and] used to shut down and debank people.”

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The Right to Vote Is a Privilege Reserved for Citizens, Not for Illegal Immigrants

The New York City Legislature, following in the footsteps of Washington, D.C., passed a groundbreaking bill into law in 2022. The law would have allowed any lawful permanent resident or green card holder to vote in a New York City election. That law was met with legal challenges as quickly as it was passed, which was to be expected, given that it flagrantly infringed upon the state’s constitution.

The Constitution of New York states unequivocally, “every citizen shall be entitled to vote … .” This provision’s meaning is so obvious that it has been painful to see the far-left liberal New York City Council pass a law that violates it. It is evident that the New York City Legislature misplaced its reading glasses, as it would not have enacted a law that contradicts the New York Constitution in such a bizarre way.

The majority opinion, authored by appellate Judge Paul Wooten, stated, “The plain language of this provision provides that the right to vote in ‘every election for all officers elected by the people’ is available exclusively to citizens.”

Unsurprisingly, pro-immigrant organizations denounced the decision, calling it “shameful” and saying it “disenfranchise[s] residents.” Disenfranchises? Really? This remark is as illogical as it is absurd. The only people disenfranchised by this law are United States citizens.

Voter disenfranchisement entails impeding an individual’s ability to exercise his or her right to vote or diminishing the value of his or her vote. The reason the Electoral College is reviled by the Left is because, according to its worldview, it confers greater value on specific votes than others, especially in smaller states.

The right to vote is sacred. However, the Left has forgotten that it must be earned, not given. Not earned in the conventional sense of passing a test to acquire, like the racist literacy tests of the past; rather, acquired through enduring the complexities and challenges associated with being a citizen. Becoming a citizen is not a simple task. Individuals must either be so lucky as to be born in the United States, or endure a laborious and sometimes yearslong application process.

There are discernible indicators in both processes that demonstrate an individual is prepared and deserving of the right to vote.

A person born in the United States has lived and grown in that country. He or she has gone through the government-mandated educational system and complied with the laws of this country for his or her entire lives. They have fulfilled their responsibilities through compliance and, in the case of some, hardship brought upon by our laws.

Individuals who obtain citizenship have demonstrated their readiness to undertake substantial obligations and sacrifices to integrate into a foreign nation. They have sworn allegiance to a new nation after navigating a complex legal system, and many have become proficient in a foreign language.

Nothing of the sort applies to noncitizens. There are undoubtedly many noncitizens loyal to this country, but they, like everyone else, must undergo the same process to demonstrate that they have earned the right to vote. It is inequitable to accord equal weight to the votes of transient individuals who enter the country for economic purposes, return their funds to their country of origin, or who are mere public charges, in comparison to those who have sworn allegiance to the United States and who have gone through the process to become a citizen.

Through the news, we tragically witness the disloyal individuals who come here and commit heinous acts daily. Migrants assaulting police officers, MS-13 gangs wreaking havoc on the population, migrants stabbing innocent people in Georgia. These tragedies have become routine occurrences. Should these individuals, whose sole intention is to cause harm or act selfishly, be permitted to vote? Undoubtedly not.

Should individuals who immigrate in pursuit of economic prosperity gain the right to vote? Eventually, but only after enduring the same trials and tribulations that each and every American has also endured.

The foundation of the United States is immigration. Each of us is an immigrant in some capacity. Our right to vote has been acquired through either our unwavering allegiance to the United States or our successful completion of the trials and systems established by the country. If an individual claims your vote lacks significance, you should explain the arduous journey you undertook to earn that privilege and the actions you undertook as a citizen. It just might persuade someone to reconsider their position.

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6 Big Failures of Biden’s Presidency

The state of the union is feeble.

That’s what many Americans believe as President Joe Biden is set to make his fourth, and perhaps final, State of the Union address Thursday evening.

Regardless of what he says in the speech, the reality of Biden’s tenure is that the American people are not only uneasy but deeply pessimistic about the country’s future.

Why are Americans so down about the state of the union?

They’re down not only because of a crumbling confidence in the country’s most powerful institutions, but because of the failures of the man sitting in the Oval Office.

Here’s my roundup of what I think are the six most prominent failures of the Biden presidency so far.

The Worst Border Crisis in US History

This is the most obvious failure of the Biden administration, a failure that gets to the heart of what this administration and the modern Left are all about.

At the federal, state, and local levels, the Left works to ensure that the concept of citizenship becomes meaningless—outside of paying taxes. 

But it’s at the federal level where the most damage can be done. And the Biden administration has done all it can to ensure the flow of illegal aliens continues, knowing that once they’re allowed into the country most are likely here to stay.

The first thing Biden did when he became president was strip away the border security measures of the previous administration. His administration continued to tear away at every measure that would allow for effective enforcement.

From disbanding the successful “Remain in Mexico” policy that ensured that asylum-seekers would have to wait in Mexico for their asylum claims to be processed to ending the public health measure called Title 42, Biden has proved his unwillingness to enforce U.S. immigration laws.

Biden didn’t just immediately throw open the door for a wave of illegal immigration, his administration subtly ensured that illegal immigration would directly benefit his party.

For instance, the president issued an executive order directing the Census Bureau to count noncitizens in the reapportionment numbers, a nice bonus for Democrat-led sanctuary states to make up for citizens who fled their policies.

The result of all this has been predictable, but still astounding in its scope.

According to a Fox News report late last month, about 7.2 million illegal border crossings have occurred since Biden became president. This is a higher number than the population of 36 different states.

In every year of the Biden presidency, a new annual record for illegal border crossings has been set. Judging by the early numbers, 2024 will keep up the pattern.

It’s become such a disaster that even a few Democrat mayors and governors have begun to grouse. City budgets are being strained and radically shifted to cater to the newcomers.

All thanks to Biden.

The DEI Bureaucratic Cultural Revolution

The Biden administration has made it clear that its bureaucratic priority—no matter what Cabinet department—is always advancing “equity.”

Administration officials aren’t doing this by ensuring that Americans will be treated equally under the law. Instead the goal is the opposite: to wholly racialize the American republic and to turn us into warring “oppressed” groups clawing for scraps from the federal government.

From advancing critical race theory, to promoting gender transition for minors, to obliterating American history on public land, the Biden administration has empowered the bureaucracy to turn “diversity, equity, and inclusion”—or DEI—into a kind of ideological state religion.

An executive order Biden signed last year, called “Further Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government,” highlights how his administration aims to make this transformation complete.

Writer and filmmaker Christopher Rufo spoke about this order at the time and summarized the president’s policy. It’s worth quoting at length:

First, he’s creating internal cadres of DEI officers. This is really important for shaping the culture, the personnel, and the budgeting process in the federal government, which controls trillions of dollars of public resources. Second, he’s using this initiative to justify funding third-party political activists under the guise of so-called underserved communities or faith and community organizations. And third, he’s doubling down on the weaponization of civil rights law, this time with some very interesting and very modern twists. He’s pushing left-wing ideology, even regulating things like the use of artificial intelligence, and this entire package is justified through this really intricate but unfortunately widespread statistical and linguistic manipulation.

Biden is doing his best to ensure America in the future will be permanently ruled by people who act and think like those who run Harvard University.

Weaponized Agencies

Not only is the federal bureaucracy working relentlessly to promote DEI and the cultural revolution, but it’s also been outright weaponized to attack political opponents of the regime.

In 2022, I warned about the massive expansion of the Internal Revenue Service. It wasn’t hard to see how this would quickly be abused.

Sure enough, the IRS stepped up its policy of unannounced home visits, a tactic later abandoned because of pressure from Congress. Even more disturbingly, before the policy was ended, the IRS made an unannounced visit to journalist Matt Taibbi’s house the same day he testified to Congress about the cozy connection between the Biden administration and Big Tech companies.

It isn’t just the IRS that’s the problem.

The Department of Justice and the FBI have also been weaponized against Americans who disagree with the Biden administration’s preferred political narratives.

The DOJ put out a memo in 2021 essentially saying that parents protesting at local school board meetings were potential domestic terrorists. A House committee later found no justification at all for this conclusion.

This looked more like a smear campaign to silence opposition.

More recently, the FBI moved to investigate traditional Catholic pro-life groups as potential domestic terrorists.

“I’ve made it very clear that, in my view, the evidence shows that, the FBI, for example, in the last couple of years has been weaponized,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said in a November interview with The Daily Signal.

“We have the evidence to show it,” Johnson said. “They have, in some cases, targeted people of faith. They’ve targeted conservative Catholics and concerned parents at school board meetings and all the rest. The evidence is very clear that that’s happened.”

This is happening as the Justice Department has remained mostly silent while hundreds of pro-life pregnancy centers have been targeted for arson and vandalism by pro-abortion extremists.

Debt, Inflation, and the Cost of Living

The constant message from the Biden administration has been that the U.S. economy is the best ever and that it’s been creating jobs like never before. Never mind the fact that widespread COVID-19 lockdowns that the administration promoted were the reason so many jobs were lost to begin with.

But the administration hasn’t been able to hide from inflation and attendant cost-of-living increases, which are eating away at the savings and finances of countless Americans.

Biden’s message has been to blame private companies for the price surge and to focus on “shrinkflation,” in which products are reduced in size and quantity to mask price increases.

Administration officials even enlisted “Sesame Street” characters to promote this idea, another good reason to be more skeptical of public funding for PBS.

But breakfast cereal companies and grocery stores didn’t just decide to raise prices to be mean to customers. In fact, if anything, “shrinkflation” helps to disguise the deeper issue.

“According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, prices paid by business and consumers alike have increased 18% on average since Biden took office in January 2021,” Heritage Foundation economics expert EJ Antoni wrote in February.

The reason for this is that Congress and the Biden administration not only spent trillions of dollars on COVID-19 emergency aid but kept the spigot going afterward.

By the way, much of that COVID-19 emergency went down the drain, as billions of dollars were reportedly wasted or stolen.

“An Associated Press analysis found that fraudsters potentially stole more than $280 billion in COVID-19 relief funding; another $123 billion was wasted or misspent,” The Associated Press reported in June. “Combined, the loss represents 10% of the $4.2 trillion the U.S. government has so far disbursed in COVID relief aid.”

The spending issue isn’t just Biden’s, though he’s certainly done nothing to stem it. 

Long-term bipartisan failure has crippled the finances of the United States. This isn’t just causing prices to go up now. Federal spending threatens the future prosperity of Americans for generations to come.

Global Instability as Military Recruitment Collapses

The Biden administration faces multiple foreign policy crises across the globe. 

The shambolic and embarrassing departure from Afghanistan led to absolutely no accountability for those who conducted it. This is the administration’s MO.

Worse, we’ve now hit year two of the war between Russia and Ukraine, at which the U.S. and other allies have thrown tens of billions of dollars with no resolution. 

The Middle East—incredibly stable during the Trump administration—looks to be closer to all-out war as Iran and its proxies attack Israel. And China has been disturbingly aggressive in its actions toward the United States.

With all of this happening, the Biden administration seems to have no grand strategic plan other than to insist, loudly, that “we are the United States of America.” This maximalist, but soft approach seems to be particularly dubious when combined with a military both dwindling and demoralized.

The military hasn’t been immune to the “woke-ification” of the federal bureaucracy. Far from it. The DEI virus is hollowing out American military strength, just as it poisons the rest of our society.

The Biden administration has prioritized diversity, equity, and inclusion and related LBGTQ initiatives for the State Department and the military.

The Biden administration insists that DEI efforts are necessary to increase military recruitment and the effectiveness of the military, but the truth seems to be the opposite. The military now spends an increasing amount of time on DEI training and less on honing its warfighting capabilities.

In addition, the military services have seen a historic collapse in recruitment rates for the all-volunteer forces, especially among whites.

The Daily Caller News Foundation reported last month: “In fiscal year 2018, 44,042 new recruits to the Army—or 56.4% of the total—were white, according to data obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation. That number collapsed to a low of 25,070—or 44% of the total—in fiscal year 2023.” 

A significant increase in other groups hasn’t occurred to even come close to making up for the drastic recruitment shortfalls.

Yet, the Biden administration seems to have no other idea of how to fix this than to continue saying “diversity is our strength” until morale improves.

Still No Return to ‘Normalcy’

This one is the hardest to define, but in some ways is the most damning failure of the Biden presidency. Biden campaigned in 2020 on the message that he would restore normalcy and confidence in the presidency and the country.

Instead, Biden has used his time in office to portray his opponents as extremists (while acting like an extremist himself), has called his likely 2024 rival an “insurrectionist” as political allies attempt to arrest the former president, and has left many Americans feeling pessimistic and downright hopeless about the future.

It seems we’ve sunk deeper into a malaise than during the administration of President Jimmy Carter in the 1970s.

It doesn’t help that serious questions haven’t been answered about the president’s health and competency. The few times Biden has been asked to address this issue, his response is to caustically lash out at reporters who suggest he may be slipping mentally. 

And questions also have arisen about whether Biden is really the man running the show at all.

Biden has been the highly partisan face of an irresponsible regime that is dedicated more to the cultural revolution than effective national leadership in troubled times.

That’s not the resume of a “uniter in chief.”

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Congressman to Bring Abortion Survivor to State of Union Address in Response to Pro-Abortion Biden Guest

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—Rep. Bob Good is bringing an abortion survivor and pro-life activist to the president’s State of the Union address as his guest on Thursday night.

The Virginia Republican’s choice of guest is a response to President Joe Biden’s guest, Kate Cox, the woman at the center of pro-abortion uproar in recent months.

“President Biden’s State of the Union guest Kate Cox is the first woman to sue for the right to kill her child since Roe v. Wade was overturned,” Good told The Daily Signal. “By inviting her, the president is reaffirming his commitment to advancing federal legislation to legalize the abortion of babies up to the moment of birth.”

Good’s guest, Ryan Bomberger, is a pro-life activist whose mother was tragically raped, but chose to carry him to term and put him up for adoption. Good described Bomberger’s mother as “courageous” in her decision not to abort her son.

“Ryan, his biological mother, and adopted parents are a testament to the simple proposition that life has value at every stage,” Good explained. “Ryan’s presence at the State of the Union sends the message that pro-life members of Congress will continue to fight for the opportunity for every human being to live out their God-given purpose.”

Bomberger is the co-founder and chief creative officer of his pro-life organization, the Radiance Foundation, “a faith-based, educational, life-affirming 501(c)3 nonprofit organization” that “affirms that every human life has God-given purpose.”

“I’m the 1% used to justify 100% of abortions,” he told The Daily Signal. “I was conceived in rape, but adopted in love.”

“Planned Parenthood and their political allies don’t like my storyline, because it shatters their narratives of fear,” he added. “I am proof that triumph can rise from tragedy.”

Today's my birthday. ???Though I was conceived in rape, I was adopted in love. My birthmom's courageous decision will cause reverberations for generations. So grateful that I'm able to love and be loved! From adoptee to adoptive dad, lovin' being alive! https://t.co/fQ3WlbU1IB

— Ryan Bomberger (@ryanbomberger) May 5, 2021

Cox became a media sensation when she asked the Texas Supreme Court to give her permission to abort her unborn baby, a baby that had a genetic condition known as trisomy 18. Pro-abortion advocates hail Cox as the first pregnant woman to sue for the right to abort her baby since the 1973 Supreme Court abortion decision in Roe v. Wade, according to The Texas Tribune.

Trisomy 18 is a condition in which a baby had an extra copy of chromosome 18, making it highly likely that the baby would die in the womb or shortly after birth—though some babies with trisomy 18 do survive, such as the daughter of former Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Penn.

Meet my incompatible w life daughter Bella. Her docs put her on hospice at 10 days old. Other countries have much higher survival rates than US because they treat the baby not the diagnosis. Every kid deserves a shot at life, not be brutally dismembered for not being perfect. pic.twitter.com/QKVAREEyVY

— Rick Santorum (@RickSantorum) December 12, 2023

Cox’s lawyers argued that by not aborting her baby, Cox was jeopardizing her health and future fertility.

After an Austin, Texas, judge sided with Cox, ruling that she could abort her baby, the Supreme Court of Texas temporarily put that ruling on hold. Cox then traveled out of state and aborted her baby, and shortly afterward, the Texas Supreme Court ruled that Cox would not have qualified to abort the baby under Texas’ medical exceptions to the state’s abortion laws.

“Her story is incredibly powerful, devastating,” White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre said of Cox in a press briefing earlier this year. “And it speaks to the moment that we are in now, when we talk about women having the right to make these deeply personal decisions about their health care that was taken away by the Supreme Court.”

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State of Delusion: Biden’s Address Will Expose Wide Divide Between President and Reality

President Joe Biden on Thursday night will address a joint session of Congress and the American people to persuade voters that his many failures are actually successes.

Don’t buy it.

He will continue a campaign of gaslighting around his administration’s increasingly dangerous border catastrophe, his unaffordable and anemic economy, and his disastrous foreign policy that puts us all at risk. Biden will attempt to persuade us of the strength of his union—but he’s living in a state of delusion, and his primetime speech will make that painfully clear.

The reality of life in Biden’s America has become so far detached from the messaging coming out of his White House, it’s hard to imagine any address will change the minds of voters who have lost faith in the president. But we know he will try.

Here’s what you can expect to hear from Biden—and the hard truths he will continue to ignore:

First, he’s sure to deflect on his role in creating the border crisis. And this issue may best highlight the growing divide between the president’s dishonest view of his administration and the reality Americans face every day.

Biden will claim the historic number of illegal immigrants allowed in the country on his watch has nothing to do with him. He will tell you the humanitarian disaster caused by his blatant encouragement of illegal immigration is not his fault. He will blame Congress for a crisis of his making—a truly Orwellian touch. 

The reality? Biden and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas began intentionally and systematically dismantling all semblance of border security within hours of taking the oath of office. Before he was even sworn in, during Democratic debates, he promised to give free health care to illegal immigrants and oppose deportation. As soon as he got to the Oval Office, Biden ended almost all of former President Donald Trump’s policies that deterred mass illegal immigration, such as “Remain in Mexico”; halted construction of the border wall; and turned on a flashing “open” sign that remains on to this day. 

The result has been an unmitigated disaster. More than 9 million people have illegally entered the country on Biden’s watch—that’s more than the population of most states, and doesn’t include the 1.7 million people we know have evaded authorities altogether. His incoherent position on the border is overcrowding and overwhelming our schools and health care system, fueling a fentanyl crisis that’s destroying families in every state, and giving criminals free rein across the country—with deadly results.

Unfortunately for Biden, the American people already blame him for the crisis. Almost 70% of Americans disapprove of his handling of the border, and immigration is now the top concern of a plurality of voters. For the first time ever, a majority of Americans support a border wall. That is Biden’s legacy on the border.

We also know Biden will try to persuade Americans that “Bidenomics” is working, that the crime and decay in our cities are nothing to be concerned about, that the military is strong, and that Republicans are a threat to democracy. 

Here’s the truth: The president’s economic agenda has led to nothing but strife for average families. Real wages are down, prices are up, and credit card debt is at a record high. A staggering 60% of Americans are living paycheck-to-paycheck. Even Democrats admit the “Bidenomics” campaign is failing.

Meanwhile, a bipartisan majority of Americans think we have a crime crisis; Biden’s Pentagon is overseeing a historic recruitment shortfall and plunging public confidence; and our enemies have watched as Biden’s administration repeatedly fumbles on the world stage

Lastly, in perhaps his most cynical gambit, Biden will try to persuade you that Republicans are an existential threat to our democracy. He will make this claim just days after the Supreme Court unanimously overruled activist judges and officials from his own party who were trying to kick his chief rival off the ballot. The irony is stunning, and would be comical if it wasn’t so insulting. 

The State of the Union is an opportunity for every president to highlight his successes. But when an administration has so little success to promote, the only thing left to do is deceive and deflect. Instead of taking responsibility for his own dismal record, Biden will desperately attempt to rewrite history while using the federal government against his rivals.

Don’t be fooled. Biden is living in a state of delusion while the rest of us live in reality—far worse off than we were when he took office. No matter what he says in front of Congress on Thursday night, the real state of his union is weak, woke, and weaponized against those who dare to speak out.

Luckily, the American people will have the opportunity to respond in November. 

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Democracy-Denying Democrats Lose in Court, Go Bonkers

The pro-Biden media perpetually pat themselves on the back. They are a gift to the people, the essence of democracy, as in, “We inform the voters and then we expect the voters to make smart choices” (the ones we recommend). But when journalists lose, they have a disturbing tendency to argue democracy lost.

On Monday, the Supreme Court unanimously disapproved of the Left’s latest desperate attempt to rip Donald Trump’s name off the ballot, pushed by blue states, among them Colorado and Illinois. Their novel theory was that the 14th Amendment contains Civil War-era verbiage about keeping “insurrectionists” off the ballot.

To the average American, it might seem odd that it’s somehow “protecting democracy” to remove the Republican front-runner’s name from the ballot. That looks like throwing large obstacles in the way of democracy, not protecting it.

After the 2020 election, the geniuses at Time magazine called it “fortifying democracy” when the “progressives” engaged in elaborate strategies to prevent Trump from victory.

Journalists struggled to cope with this resounding legal defeat. CNN host Dana Bash told her frustrated liberal audience, “Unfortunately for America, the Court isn’t necessarily wrong that this is the way the Framers wanted it to be.” Those Framers, so annoying.

At another point, professor Larry Sabato groused to Jim Acosta on CNN, “You can’t save people from themselves. If they’re determined to reelect him after he organized that insurrection, then there’s nothing to stop the people from doing that.”

To sum up, democracy’s erstwhile defenders lament “the people are stupid.” Some hotheads like Keith Olbermann decried the Supreme Court as “corrupt and illegitimate” and demanded it be “dissolved.” Who are the authoritarians now?

For now, the moping pundits are focused on those alleged idiots voting in primary elections, where Trump has dominated, but they’re probably also despondent over the latest polls from Democratic newspapers like The New York Times, which found Trump leading Joe Biden by 5 points. Pollsters find Biden often loses to Trump in the swing states that will decide the race. He’s 21 points underwater on his approval rating.

Forget inflation or immigration. Team Biden wants to stick to this arrogant “democracy” posturing as the singular issue of 2024. In a New Yorker puff piece by Evan Osnos, Biden strategist Mike Donilon, the “high priest of Bidenism,” claimed the fall campaign should center on what he calls the “freedom agenda.” The Democrats aren’t the “freedom” party, unless it’s the right to abortion or to place LGBT pornography in school libraries.

Donilon predicted that as the election nears, “the focus will become overwhelming on democracy. I think the biggest images in people’s minds are going to be of January 6th.” And who is assigned the task of putting “images in people’s minds”? That would be the pro-Biden press.

They could certainly argue that two entire years of the media putting Jan. 6 “images in people’s minds” might have prevented a “red wave” in the midterm elections. But how does that cancel out all the other issues that matter to voters?

Osnos reported that Biden was holding a notecard with all of Trump’s trolling talk—his tweeting about “terminating” some voting rules in the Constitution, his joking with Sean Hannity about being a dictator on “Day One,” his description of illegal immigrants as “poisoning the blood of our country.”

All these remarks go into heavy rotation (and exaggeration) in the left-wing press—and Biden is still losing. That might be because Democrats don’t want any democracy on many issues. They want debates shut down. That’s especially true of our “no equal time” press.

COPYRIGHT 2024 CREATORS.COM

The Daily Signal publishes a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Heritage Foundation.

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Clarence Thomas, Liberal Racism, and the Ongoing Denigration of Black Conservatives

Presidential candidate Joe Biden stirred up controversy during the 2020 campaign, when, in an interview with a black radio host, he said: “If you have a problem figuring out if you’re for me or Trump, you ain’t black.”

Biden got pushback on this, but he captured a pretty common view among liberals: that liberalism is genetically emblazoned in black DNA.

They see blacks who are not liberal as not normal, not really black.

As a black woman and a conservative for many years, I can testify to the prevalence of this view.

Now the liberal media is getting into a new version of this. Same story, but slightly different version.

The big scoop is that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has hired as one of his clerks a young woman who has been accused of racism.

Crystal Clanton, a magna cum laude graduate of Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University who most recently was a clerk for highly respected conservative Judge William Pryor on the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, was just hired by Thomas.

Clanton, according to liberal accusers, posted remarks back in 2015, while working at Turning Point USA, saying, “I hate black people”—along with some profanity accompanying the statement.

Far-left journalists, such as Ruth Marcus of The Washington Post, and Jane Mayer of The New Yorker, have been on the story for years. Mayer first reported about it in 2017.

This despite no definitive evidence that the racist post was the work of Clanton.

Now that Thomas has hired Clanton, liberals have shifted into high gear.

With all the supposed concerns of the Left about racism, none seem troubled or confused by the allegation that a black judge—no less the most prominent black jurist in the nation—would hire a racist.

How does that compute?

The answer is that in liberal eyes, black conservatives “ain’t black.”

Certainly, a black conservative as sophisticated as Thomas could in no way be black.

And therefore, he could even be a racist and sympathetic to racists.

Absurd? Of course. Is it demeaning and insulting to Thomas? Of course.

Liberals are not only very tolerant of sloppy thinking. They are also tolerant of sloppy journalism.

Mayer’s latest coverage of Clanton, which she first reported in the New Yorker in 2017, appears under the headline “The Scandal of Clarence Thomas’s New Clerk.”

What is the scandal? Thomas has hired Clanton, “who became notorious in 2015 for apparently sending texts that said, ‘I hate black people … ‘”

“Apparently” is enough for Mayer and her liberal compatriots to convict.

When Pryor hired Clanton, who had a previous clerkship with Judge Corey Maze in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama, seven congressional Democrats called for an investigation. An investigation was conducted by Chief Judge Debra Ann Livingston of the 2nd Circuit.

The end of Livingston’s investigation of the incident was a green light for Clanton.

Livingston pointed out that both Maze and Pryor knew of the allegations when they hired her, rejected their validity, and found her to be highly competent.

As part of the 2nd Circuit investigation, Thomas sent a letter saying, “I know Crystal Clanton and I know bigotry. … Bigotry is antithetical to her nature.”

Thomas and his wife, Ginni, have known Clanton for years. Clanton actually lived with them for almost a year.

If she was a racist, how could Thomas not know it?

Yet despite this, liberal journalists continue on about Thomas’ hiring a racist as his clerk.

When will we realize that the real racism belongs to liberals who see every black American as a liberal mannequin, denying their uniqueness, integrity, and individuality? When will we realize the disservice to black Americans and all Americans in denying the humanity of black Americans who are conservative?

(C) 2024 CREATORS.COM

The Daily Signal publishes a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Heritage Foundation.

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Liberals Explore Other Ways to Disqualify Trump After Supreme Court Shoots Down Colorado’s Ballot Ban

The Supreme Court’s unanimous decision Monday shut down state efforts to remove former President Donald Trump from the ballot but left a few options open for Democrats seeking to disqualify him, which some began exploring soon after the ruling dropped.

Democratic Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin already said he is working on a bill that would create a pathway to disqualify candidates, stating it is “good news” the Supreme Court did not challenge the Colorado court’s finding that Trump engaged in insurrection. Rather, the Supreme Court ruled against Colorado on the basis that it is Congress, not the states, that has the power to enforce Section 3 of the 14th Amendment against federal officials and candidates.

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“[T]he Supreme Court punted and said, it’s up to Congress,” Raskin said on CNN Monday following the ruling.

The ruling kept open the option of states enforcing Section 3 of the 14th Amendment against their own officials and candidates, as Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, the left-wing group that filed the action against Trump in Colorado, has already been filing lawsuits to do. For federal officials, it held Congress is responsible for enforcement.

“I am working with a number of my colleagues, including Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Eric Swalwell, to revive legislation that we had to set up a process by which we could determine that someone who committed Insurrection is disqualified by Section 3 of the 14th Amendment,” Raskin said Monday.

Democratic California Rep. Zoe Lofgren likewise told Politico Monday that it “does not at first read appear that the court indicated a viable path to implement Section 3 of the 14th Amendment absent enactment of a law outlining procedures to do so.”

Before the ruling, some senior Democrats suggested in comments to The Atlantic that they would not certify a Trump victory on Jan. 6, 2025, if the Supreme Court failed to provide clear guidance on whether or not he committed an insurrection. The Supreme Court’s Monday ruling put boundaries on how Congress can enforce Section 3: requiring it be enforced by legislation that shows “congruence and proportionality” to the conduct in question.

Notre Dame Law professor and election law expert Derek Muller told the Daily Caller News Foundation rejecting certification remains “possible” but would be an “uphill climb” for Democrats.

“The court seems to suggest that legislation to enforce Section 3 must be appropriately tailored,” he said. “It’s not clear the Electoral Count Reform Act, if used to enforce Section 3, would fit that bill.”

“That said, Democrats objected or attempted to object to election results in 2000, 2004, and 2016, so I think it remains entirely possible that if Trump wins, at least some will attempt to do so,” he continued. “But any objection even to get a debate now needs 20% of each chamber to sign an objection, and to sustain an objection requires a majority in both houses, which seems nearly impossible.”

Some legal scholars thought the Supreme Court intended to shut the option down by specifying the kind of legislation required. The liberal justices seemed to have similar concerns when they wrote the majority’s opinion rules out “enforcement under general federal statutes requiring the government to comply with the law.”

“By holding that Section 5 enforcement legislation is the sole mechanism by which federal office-holders can be disqualified, the decision forestalls such potential scenarios as a Democratic Congress refusing to certify Trump’s election,” George Mason University law professor Ilya Somin wrote for Reason.

Practically, Hans von Spakovsky, senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation’s Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, told the Daily Caller News Foundation he doesn’t think Democrats have the votes to take such action.

“[Raskin] doesn’t have a hope of passing any such bill unless Democrats get rid of the filibuster in the Senate,” he told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Moreover, if he writes a bill that specifically goes after Trump, he may run into constitutional problems with a violation of the ban in Article I, Section 9 on bills of attainder and ex post facto laws.”

Regardless, any effort Congress makes is likely to spark legal challenges of its own, on which the Supreme Court will have the “last word,” University of California, Los Angeles law professor Rick Hasen wrote Monday.

“We may well have a nasty, nasty post-election period in which Congress tries to disqualify Trump but the Supreme Court says Congress exceeded its powers,” Hasen said.

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‘Let the Reckoning Begin’: Detransitioners Vindicated by Expose of WPATH Experimentation on Minors

Detransitioners have been trying to warn the public that so-called gender-affirming care—transgender surgeries, hormones, and puberty blockers—is both experimental and dangerous, especially for minors.

Now, thanks to the efforts of journalist Michael Shellenberger, we know that World Professional Association for Transgender Health doctors and medical experts pushing these practices were well aware of the experimental and lasting nature of the procedures they were recommending. Yet these so-called health professionals pushed forward, despite alarming awareness of tumors developing from hormones, reduced sexual function, lack of proper informed consent for minors, and more, according to Shellenberger’s reporting.

“Let the reckoning begin,” says Luka Hein, a young woman who underwent a double mastectomy when she was only 16 years old, believing that she would be happier if she could become a boy. “Because of organizations like WPATH I’m missing body parts and struggle with pain.”

The WPATH medical professionals acknowledge in the messages that some of the minors who are being given puberty blockers have no idea that they will be sterilized. Other messages reveal WPATH doctors saying they went ahead with performing surgery on patients with severe mental health problems, even though they were worried the patients couldn’t give full informed consent.

“I’m relieved the files are out in the world for everyone to read,” Shellenberger told my colleague Tyler O’Neil, sharing that the files reveal WPATH’s “whole paradigm falling apart over the last three years.”

“Nobody can claim to understand the gender issue without reading ‘The WPATH Files,’” he added.

The news prompted a number of detransitioners to speak up, sharing the mental and physical anguish that they have gone through as a result of this ideology.

“I was a scared kid who thought doctors were going to help me … and look at how these butchers talk about what happened to those like me behind closed doors,” Hein added in another X post.

On a more positive note, since I reposted the scar picture, I want to put it side by side with a more recent picture. I am determined to thrive, in spite of what has happened. #detrans #detransition pic.twitter.com/ua0Yfi3MaX

— Luka Hein (@onedonebun) March 5, 2024

A detransitioner is someone who attempted to transition to another gender, then realized that such an attempt is impossible, and “de-transitioned.” Many of these individuals, like Hein, say they were betrayed into irreversible hormonal and surgical procedures by doctors and therapists who ignored biological realities in favor of ideology.

I document numerous stories of these transitioners in my upcoming book, “Detrans: True Stories of Escaping the Gender Ideology Cult,” an intimate look at the lived experiences of detransitioners, including the manipulative therapy sessions, botched surgeries, and attempts to construct phantom body parts.

“WPATH gave my therapist the green light to destroy my body,” said Abel Garcia, a young man who attempted to transition to become a girl by taking hormone and undergoing breast augmentation surgery. “The people who hurt me sleep with no problem, while I live in emotional, physical & mental pain.”

“These files prove what detransitioners have always said but now it’s coming from their own mouth,” he added. “Let the truth prevail.”

WPATH gave my therapist the green light to destroy my body. The people who hurt me sleep with no problem, while I live in emotional, physical & mental pain.

These files prove what detransitioners have always said but now it’s coming from their own mouth. Let the truth prevail https://t.co/DTpy5bz9PO

— Abel Garcia (@OfficialAbelG) March 5, 2024

Chloe Cole, a young woman who underwent a double mastectomy as part of her teenaged gender transition, specifically addressed WPATH conversations reported by Shellenberger about developmentally delayed 13 year olds attempting transition.

“There is no ethical approach to taking an already developmentally delayed child and preventing them from going on the only path they have towards growing into an adult,” she said. “We are leaving vulnerable children stunted for life.”

“This is unimaginable levels of cruelty,” added Cole.

Laura Becker, another female detransitioner who has become an outspoken advocate against gender ideology, commented on Shellenberger’s revelation that doctors asked permission of all the “alters,” or alternative identities, of one client who had dissociative identity disorder (DID).

“I can’t believe this,” she wrote. “WPATH doctors got ‘consent’ from all a patient’s ‘alter’ personalities before doing surgery … instead of you know, treating the DID symptoms. Absolutely unethical.”

Some detransitioners called for punishments for the medical professionals who led them down this path.

“Justice for all victims,” wrote Richie, a man who attempted to transition to become a woman. “Jail time for the surgeons that held the scalpel, and the therapists that signed off the surgery. If I took everything from them, we still wouldn’t be even.”

“I didn’t think anyone should be jailed when I first ‘came to’ post-transition,” chimed in Michelle, another detransitioned woman, on X. “Changed my mind now. Probably would’ve still had some mercy in me if we hadn’t been gaslit so badly.”

Prisha Mosley, a young woman who has detransitioned and travels the country testifying in defense of biological sex, emotionally shared on Monday evening that she could not yet bring herself to read “The WPATH Files”: “No one deserves this monstrous form of irreversible medical harm … “

WPATH standardized blackmail and abusive medical experimentation and exploitation.

Detransitioners have been saying it for a while now: Doctors have forgotten their oath to Do No Harm. #WPATHFiles https://t.co/wRs8evulsH

— Prisha ? (@detransaqua) March 5, 2024

In a statement to The Daily Signal following publication, WPATH President Marci Bowers insisted that “WPATH is and has always been a science- and evidence-based organization whose recommendations are widely endorsed by major medical organizations around the world.”

“We are the professionals who best know the medical needs of trans and gender diverse individuals—and stand opposed to individuals who misrepresent and de-legitimize the diverse identities and complex needs of this population through scare tactics,” Bowers said. “The world is not flat. Gender, like genitalia, is represented by diversity. The small percentage of the population that is trans or gender diverse deserves healthcare and will never be a threat to the global gender binary.”

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The Left-Right Divide Is Not Bridgeable

Millions of Americans, depressed by the ideological divide in America, harbor a wish that something or someone can bridge this divide.

This wish is understandable. But it is fantasy. The divide is unbridgeable. One might as well wish that daily consumption of a hot fudge sundae will lead to weight loss.

To cite a few samples:

  • How are we to bridge the gap between those who believe men can become women and women can become men, and those who don’t believe this? Between those who believe men menstruate and those who believe only women menstruate?
  • How are we to bridge the divide between those who believe “colorblind” is a racist notion and those who believe “colorblind” is the antidote to racism?
  • How are we to bridge the divide between those who believe Israel is the villain and Hamas is the victim, and those who believe Israel is the victim and Hamas, which openly states its dedication to annihilating Israel and its Jewish inhabitants, is the villain, morally indistinguishable from the Nazis?
  • How are we to bridge the divide between those who believe young children should be brought to drag queen shows and those who believe this sexualization—and sexual confusion—of children is morally detestable?
  • How are we to bridge the divide between those who believe reducing the number of police will reduce violent crime and those who believe reducing the number of police will increase violent crime?
  • How are we to bridge the divide between those who believe in suppressing free speech if they deem any given speech “hateful” or “misinformation” and those who believe in free speech?

Every one of these positions is mutually contradictory. And this is just a partial list.

Ironically, even those who hold these mutually contradictory positions agree that these positions are unbridgeable. Only the naive (usually meaning non-Left liberals) believe otherwise.

I recommend that any American who believes the Left-Right gap is bridgeable read the comments submitted by New York Times readers to any column that discusses a Left or Right position. These comments are a superb indicator of what those on the Left, including liberals (I often distinguish between liberalism and leftism) believe.

To submit a comment to a New York Times article or column, one must be a subscriber to The New York Times. So, virtually all those who comment are on the Left, graduated from college, and have enough disposable income to subscribe to The New York Times.

This came to my attention again this past week when reading all the most popular comments reacting to a column on “Christian nationalism” written by Ross Douthat, the one New York Times columnist who defends Christian conservatives.

“Christian nationalist” is the latest left-wing smear of conservatives. It joins “sexist,” “racist,” “homophobic,” “Islamophobic,” “transphobic,” “xenophobic,” “fascist,” and “threat to our democracy” as the Left’s way of smearing—rather than responding to, let alone debating—those with whom progressives differ.

Douthat wrote an intelligent column explaining four distinctive conservative Christian positions and groups.

The comments rated highest on the list of “Reader Picks” are not only left-wing; they are irrational. Few, if any, actually define “Christian nationalism.” They simply declare conservative Christians “Christian nationalists,” just as they declare “transphobic” anyone who opposes hormone blockers for minors or opposes men who say they are women competing in women’s sports.

These comments also reveal a lack of self-awareness I believe is a defining characteristic of leftism. Nearly every commenter writes that any American who seeks to advance policies rooted in Judeo-Christian values is a Christian nationalist and therefore a “threat to democracy.” But if you seek to advance policies or laws rooted in a secular value system, that is perfectly in accord with American democracy.

“We progressives can advance our agenda based on our values, but when our opponents promote their values from a biblical perspective, they threaten democracy.” In other words, leftists can bring their values into American life, but conservative Christians (and Orthodox Jews) may not.

As for the lack of self-awareness, the Left never perceives itself as imposing its values. The Left forced as many Americans as possible to get the frequently harmful COVID-19 vaccine. The Left forced young people who were at minimal risk from the virus to get vaccinated and forced children to miss school for nearly two years.

But New York Times readers do not see themselves as imposing their values on Americans. In their minds, they never “threaten democracy”; only conservative Christians who wanted open churches and open schools did. And they never explain how, if a majority of the citizenry wants and votes for a particular value (or candidate) deemed conservative, democracy is “threatened.” Isn’t that the very definition of democracy—the candidate or policy with the most votes wins?

If you still think the Left-Right divide is bridgeable, it is only because it is too painful to confront the tragic reality of contemporary American life: Today’s Left-Right divide is at least as great as the North-South divide before and during the Civil War. The only thing that remains the same is that it was the Democratic Party that opposed freedom then, and it is the Democratic Party that opposes freedom today.

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The Daily Signal publishes a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Heritage Foundation.

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Super Tuesday Video Says ‘Votes Trashed’ With Ranked Choice Voting 

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—Ranked choice voting causes thousands of votes to get “trashed,” contends a new video by a government watchdog set for release Wednesday—one day after Super Tuesday, when 15 states hold presidential nominating contests.

The Foundation for Government Accountability provided the video to The Daily Signal ahead of Super Tuesday, which sees voters in the only two states with ranked choice voting laws—Alaska and Maine—cast ballots. 

Several counties and municipalities also use ranked choice voting, including the largest, New York City, for local primary elections.

Kansas and Wyoming—which don’t vote on Super Tuesday—have adopted the system only for presidential primaries. 

In the 15 states with contests Super Tuesday, President Joe Biden faces Democrat challenger Rep. Dean Phillips, D-Minn., and former President Donald Trump faces his final remaining Republican opponent: his former ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, also a former South Carolina governor. 

The video from the Foundation for Government Accountability shows voters riding on a yellow bus, which comes to a fork in the road between traditional elections and ranked choice voting. The bus takes the route of ranked choice voting. 

A narrator asks: “Would you still head to the polls if you knew your vote was just going to get thrown in the trash?” The narrator later adds: “Ranked choice voting destroys everything we know about free and fair elections.”

Ranked choice voting is a system that allows voters to rank a first, second, and third choice—or more. A voter casting such a ballot, for example, might select three candidates in order of preference out of six candidates for a congressional seat. 

Also known as an instant runoff, counting would go into subsequent rounds if no candidate gets more than 50% of the vote.

The narrator of the video contends that in Alaska and Maine, Democrats disproportionately have won general elections, asserting: “Ranked choice voting almost always ends in extreme partisan victory for the Left.”

My book “The Myth of Voter Suppression” documents various cases in which politicians on the Left have changed election laws for their own electoral benefit. 

In most states, the two major political parties set the rules for primary elections. Maine Republicans have the options of five presidential candidates still on the ballot (most states don’t remove candidates who have dropped out of a race). However, the Maine Republican Party said it will ignore the ranked preferences and award delegates to the Republican National Convention only to the first choices. Democrats will be able to rank both presidential candidates.  

In either case, both primaries in Maine have only two candidates still competing for votes, which makes it unlikely anyone would get less than 50% of the vote even if the polls weren’t lopsided. 

“In Maine, voters will see RCV [ranked choice voting] on their ballots for the presidential primary,” says a post about Super Tuesday by FairVote, a leading advocate of the system, adding later:  “Although the Maine Republican Party has chosen to ignore their voters’ ranked preferences and award delegates based on first choices alone, Maine’s secretary of state will process the ranked ballots according to state law—giving voters greater choice, and giving election observers and campaigns additional insight into voter preferences.” 

In Alaska, Republicans are holding a caucus instead of a primary, which won’t be bound by state rules. Democrats aren’t competing in Alaska until a primary set for April 13.

FairVote contends that beyond Super Tuesday, this is “RCV’s biggest year yet,” noting: “Ranked choice voting isn’t just being used on Super Tuesday this year. We’re also watching one of the most significant years yet for RCV—from Alaska’s first use of RCV in its presidential general election to a historic implementation of proportional RCV in Portland, Oregon.” 

The narrator of the video from the Foundation for Government Accountability says of ranked choice voting:  “The problem is that thousands of votes are trashed along the way to create this supposed majority.” The video then shows images of voters on the bus disappearing in a puff of smoke. 

According to the Foundation for Government Accountability, Maine threw out 8,000 votes in 2018; New York City tossed out 140,000 votes in its 2021 primary; and Alaska tossed out 15,000 votes in 2022. 

“A much smaller, manufactured pool of voters ends up deciding the election, to the exclusion of other voters,” the narrator of the video says.

In recent years, ranked choice voting has become the subject of one of the most contentious battles in election law as several state legislatures either considered it or banned the voting system. 

Proponents, such as FairVote, argue that ranked choice voting  will decrease political polarization by producing less extreme candidates in party primaries, give independent candidates a better chance in a general election, and prevent these independent candidates from becoming spoilers. 

As of the 2022 elections, the system was used in a total of 62 jurisdictions, including Minneapolis, San Francisco, and Cambridge, Massachusetts, according to the Ranked Choice Voting Resource Center

Some states with presidential nominating contests on Super Tuesday allow ranked choice voting at the local level, which doesn’t affect those federal contests. According to Rank the Vote, these include seven local jurisdictions in California, over 20 jurisdictions in Utah, five cities in Minnesota, four cities in Colorado, and three jurisdictions in Massachusetts.

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What to Watch for on Super Tuesday

Voters in 15 states are headed to the polls or to caucuses Tuesday, in what is arguably the most important day in the 2024 presidential primary season; that is, Super Tuesday

Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, and Virginia are all holding primaries. Caucuses will be held in Alaska and Utah. 

Ryan Walker, Heritage Action for America executive vice president, says that when you look at the states that have already held primaries, “Nikki Haley has not garnered more than 40% of the vote.” So, Walker says he will be watching to see whether the former South Carolina governor can go beyond that threshold in states voting Tuesday. (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of The Heritage Foundation, of which Heritage Action for America is the grassroots arm.)

Former President Donald Trump has already clinched GOP primary and caucus victories in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Nevada, Michigan, Idaho, and Missouri. Haley won the D.C. primary over the weekend.

Trump got a boost in media coverage ahead of the Super Tuesday voting when on Monday the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in his favor and against Colorado’s efforts to remove his name from the ballot there citing the “Insurrection Clause” of the 14th Amendment. The ruling clears the way for Trump to earn more delegates on Tuesday ahead of the GOP convention in mid-July. 

“A state cannot decide if a former president, or a former candidate, is allowed to be on the ballot, especially if they have not been convicted of a crime,” Walker said. 

Walker joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to discuss what issues are driving voters to the polls on Super Tuesday, and what the results could mean for determining who ultimately will be the GOP nominee for president. 

Listen the podcast below: 

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‘MORALLY REPREHENSIBLE’: Senators Rip FEMA on Poor Handling of Illegal Immigrant Travel

Key Senate Republicans blasted the Federal Emergency Management Agency for shoddy record-keeping regarding the transportation of illegal immigrants throughout the U.S. 

FEMA distributes grants to nonprofit organizations for shelter and travel expenses for illegal immigrants, but last month informed The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project that it has no documentation about how that taxpayer money has been spent. (The Daily Signal is Heritage’s news and commentary outlet.)

“It is becoming clearer every day that the Democrats’ open-border catastrophe is not only being orchestrated by the Biden administration, the American taxpayer is unwittingly being forced to pay for this invasion,” Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, the top Republican on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, told The Daily Signal. The committee oversees border and immigration issues.

The FEMA admission that it lacks documentation for expenses comes less than a year after an internal federal audit stated FEMA is responsible for “a detailed accounting of all program funds.” 

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said this is part of President Joe Biden’s larger intention of “an open border with as little oversight as possible.”

“Despite FEMA’s lack of a mechanism to track where these funds are sending illegal aliens, Biden still insists that Congress appropriate over $1.4 billion in Federal Emergency Management Agency funds to transport illegal aliens all over the country,” Cruz told The Daily Signal in a statement. 

The Texas senator called the Biden administration policies on the border “reckless and morally reprehensible.” 

“We heard reports a 22-year-old college student, Laken Riley, was murdered by an illegal alien,” Cruz said. “We have also heard of a two-year-old boy being shot outside of D.C., an adolescent being raped in Massachusetts, and a teenager being sexually assaulted in Louisiana—all by illegal aliens. The human cost continues to rise as a result of this full-fledged invasion. We must secure our border now.”

A FEMA spokesperson forwarded a Daily Signal request for comment to the Department of Homeland Security. The DHS did not immediately respond to The Daily Signal for this story as of publication time. 

In mid-February, the agency did inform The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project that it had no responsive records regarding the expenses. 

“Based on the original request you provided, we do not have reason to believe that FEMA would have records responsive to this request,” a FEMA official said in response to a public records request from the Oversight Project on Feb. 12. “Accordingly, we are administratively closing the request without prejudice.”

The request specifically asked for fiscal year 2023 information about “records regarding the Transportation Eligible Reimbursement” for the Emergency Food and Shelter National Board Program, the Emergency Food and Shelter Program, and FEMA’s Office of Chief Procurement Officer.

The Oversight Project posted on X, formerly Twitter, of FEMA: “They have admitted that they have zero documentation of where illegals travel to on taxpayer-funded resettlement trips.”

?Biden Admin Not Tracking Illegal Aliens

FEMA is charged with doling out taxpayer money to facilitate the continuation of the Invasion

They have admitted that they have zero documentation of where illegals travel to on taxpayer funded resettlement trips. pic.twitter.com/Z6kvuHC2y6

— Oversight Project (@OversightPR) February 21, 2024

The Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General issued a report in March 2023 stating that FEMA doled out $81.6 million to 25 nonprofit organizations in California, New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas. 

These nonprofits “did not always provide the required receipts or documentation for claimed reimbursements,” the inspector general’s report said. Some of the nonprofits “were unable to provide supporting documentation for families and individuals to whom they provided services.” 

“These issues occurred because FEMA did not provide sufficient oversight of the funds and instead relied on local boards and fiscal agents to enforce the funding and application guidance,” the report said. “As a result, FEMA, as the  [Emergency Food and Shelter] National Board Chair, cannot ensure the humanitarian relief funds were used as intended by the funding and application guidance.”

FEMA is the chairing organization of the Emergency Food and Shelter National Board, which also includes the United Way Worldwide, Catholic Charities, Salvation Army, American Red Cross, Jewish Federations of North America, and National Council of Churches of Christ in USA. 

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REPORT: Teachers Unions Quietly Spend Millions on GOP Primaries in 32 States

Though teachers unions are well known for donating huge sums to Democratic candidates, a closer look at donor data reveals that the unions have spent the last six years quietly slipping millions of dollars into the pockets of Republican candidates for state legislatures in contested primary races.

According to databases maintained by Open Secrets and Follow the Money, the largest teachers unions in 32 states have drastically increased donations to Republican state house, assembly, and senate candidates since 2018—donating up to $117,700 to individual candidates in a Republican primary.

In the 2012 and 2016 elections, only 12 states’ teachers unions donated to Republican primary candidates for state legislatures, and of those, only three states’ unions donated average sums of over $3,000 per Republican candidate.

Teachers unions are the largest donor to Democratic campaigns in the United States, with their unions and affiliated political action committees donating $55.3 million to Democratic primary and general candidates in congressional elections in 2022 and $66.5 million to Democratic primary and general congressional and presidential candidates in 2020. In 2022, teachers unions only donated $26,050 total to Republican primary and general congressional candidates.

But in state legislative races, as opposed to congressional ones, things are a bit different, and some Republicans started getting a lot more support from teachers unions starting around 2018—especially those running in districts that typically elect Republicans to office.

For the majority of the states, the local teachers unions are affiliates of one of the two largest national unions, either the National Education Association or the American Federation of Teachers. (As an aside, state affiliates are usually identified by the state’s name followed by a variant of “Education Association,” if connected to the NEA, or “Federation of Teachers,” if connected to the AFT.)

Both unions appear to have adopted a different donation strategy over the last decade: Instead of only investing in Democratic campaigns, they also put money behind the unions’ preferred candidates in Republican primaries.

Fifteen states’ teachers unions have donated at least $3,000 each to Republican candidates in state legislative primaries since 2018, with 16 states’ unions donating less than $3,000 each.

In Alabama, Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Texas, where Republican-sponsored education legislation from school choice reform to parental rights bills have consistently dominated state legislative sessions, unions have pumped hundreds of thousands of dollars into certain Republican candidates’ state legislative primaries.

For example, between 2018 and 2024, the Pennsylvania State Teachers Association has contributed $887,854 to Republican state legislative primaries in Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania State Education Association has donated $97,000 to Rep. Thomas Mehaffie III, R-Dauphin, and is his second biggest donor. He has received $15,000 so far in 2024 and got $19,000 in 2022 and $62,000 in 2020.

The Ohio Education Association donated $681,740 to Republicans in state legislative primary races between 2018 and 2024. 

Since 2018, the Indiana State Teachers Association has contributed $230,100 to Republican state legislative primaries in Indiana. After incumbent Edward Clere, R-New Albany, was challenged by New Albany anti-union candidate Jackie Bright Grubbs, Clere received a $30,000 donation from the Indiana Political Action Committee for Education, which is funded by the Indiana State Teachers Association.

State Sen. Ron Alting, R-Lafayette, who has received $42,500 from the Indiana State Teachers Association since 2018, has voted against the Senate’s Republican majority on more education and parental rights bills than any other currently serving Republican state senator.

Neither Alting nor Clere responded to The Daily Signal’s request for comment by time of publication, but the story will be updated if they do.

The two largest Texas teachers unions, the Texas State Teachers Association and the Texas Federation of Teachers, and at least two associated PACs have spent $343,239 on Republican primaries between 2018 and 2024.

Zeph Capo, president of the Texas Federation of Teachers, urged teachers in a March 1 letter to vote for 16 Texas House GOP incumbents who have taken union donations and “stood against Gov. [Greg] Abbott’s voucher push last year.” “Voucher” refers to school choice vouchers that allow students to take part of the public funding that would have been spent on them in public schools and use it for private, charter, or homeschool expenses. 

Capo described the GOP primary challengers as “well-monied.” Sixteen House incumbents have received between $3,000 and $25,000 for their primaries so far this year from various PACs and union-associated organizations.

Corey DeAngelis, senior fellow at the American Federation for Children, an organization that advocates for school choice, posted on X that the Texas Federation of Teachers has endorsed 77 candidates in 2024 but has not openly endorsed any Republican candidates, despite contributing to GOP campaigns via the Defend Rural Texas PAC and the Texas AFT Committee on Political Education.

In a statement to The Daily Signal, DeAngelis argued that teachers unions aren’t openly documenting their donations to Republicans because such endorsements are a “kiss of death”:

The Texas affiliate of Randi Weingarten’s teachers union [the American Federation of Teachers] publicly endorsed a bunch of House Republicans in 2022. But this year, although they made 77 public endorsements, none of them were Republicans.

Instead, leaked evidence reveals they are supporting ‘Republicans’ in the primaries who voted against school choice in more private ways, including phone-banking and funding a PAC that contributes to some of them. The radical leftist teachers union is trying to hide their support because they know their public endorsement has become the political kiss of death for Republicans.

The Illinois Education Association spent the second-highest amount on Republican state legislative primaries, only behind Alabama. Between 2018 and 2024, the association spent $2,650,315 on Republican candidates.

A report from public radio station WGLT in Illinois reports that at least $250,000 of this sum is dedicated to “unseating two conservative House Freedom Caucus members in southeastern Illinois,” state Reps. Adam Niemerg, R-Dieterich, and Blaine Wilhour, R-Beecher City.

Dick Simpson, a former Chicago alderman and professor at the University of Chicago, told WGLT that this move would be “to the advantage of the unions to try and get more moderate Republicans.”

“Even if they’re not going to vote with [the unions] 100% of the time,” Simpson said, “at least their more vocal opponents will be out of the legislature.”

Niemerg’s primary opponent, Jim Acklin, is neither a stranger to state representative primaries nor to teachers union donations. In 2016, Acklin received $63,900 from the Illinois Education Association but lost the primary for Illinois’ House District 102.

Acklin did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment by time of publication, but the story will be updated if he does.

Illinois isn’t the only state where teachers union donations don’t always guarantee a victory. In 2022, the Tennessee Educators Association donated at least $3,000 to 21 Republicans in primaries for the state Senate and House. Nine of those lost their primaries, including the two GOP candidates on whom the Tennessee Educators Association spent the most: Gabriel Fancher and Donnie Hall—both of whom received $12,700 each.

Since 2018, the Tennessee Educators Association has donated $480,597 to Republican primaries in Tennessee.

In some states, teachers unions have thrown so much money into the GOP primary system that they’ve outspent all other Republican donors.

A 2023 report from the Alabama Policy Institute showed that the Alabama Education Association was the largest contributor to Republican state legislative candidates in the 2022-23 election cycle, spending $1,557,500 on Republican House and Senate campaigns. Since 2018, the Alabama Education Association has donated a total of $3,270,938 to Alabama Republicans—the most of any teachers union in the country.

The union has given at least $2.4 million to candidates for the Alabama House of Representatives, and $1.51 million to candidates for the Alabama State Senate in the last decade.

Republicans have a supermajority in the Alabama state Legislature, with 73 of the 105 seats in the Alabama House and 27 of the 35 seats in the Alabama Senate. According to an article from Alabama Today, only 18 Republican representatives and seven senators refused the teachers unions’ donations.

Becky Pringle, president of the NEA, prematurely claimed responsibility for the defeat of an expanded school choice bill in Alabama in 2023 in an early January email to all NEA members, though a version of the bill since passed on Feb. 28. All six of the Republicans who voted with Democrats against the bill received between $5,000 and $25,000 in primary donations from the Alabama Education Association.

Jason Bedrick of The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Education Policy told The Daily Signal that these union trends are an obvious and desperate move:

It’s obvious what’s going on here: The unions are terrified that parents are clamoring for more education choice, so they’re doing everything they can to stop it. In red states, or even red areas of blue states, that means supporting candidates who might disagree with them on other issues but who can be relied upon to oppose policies that expand education freedom for families.

(The Daily Signal is Heritage’s news and commentary outlet.) 

While the AFT and NEA still only endorse Democrat candidates in official emails, letters, and voting guides, their donations, and those of their state affiliates, continue to flow into Republican state legislative primaries around the nation at an increasing pace.

Neither the AFT nor NEA responded to a request for comment from The Daily Signal by time of publication.

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‘Thank You, DC’: City Ends Haley’s GOP Primary Losing Streak

Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley won the District of Columbia’s GOP primary on Sunday, her first win in a Republican nominating contest after a string of losses to former President Donald Trump.

Haley carried the Washington, D.C., primary with just under 63% of the vote, according to The Associated Press. The primary came two days before Super Tuesday contests, with hundreds more delegates at stake, that could steepen her already daunting path to the nomination.

dailycallerlogo

“Thank you, D.C.!” Haley wrote on X of the results. “We fight for every inch.”

Let’s do it. Thank you, DC! We fight for every inch. ??? https://t.co/i4yQOGkPml

— Nikki Haley (@NikkiHaley) March 4, 2024

Trump carried nominating contests in Missouri, Michigan, and Idaho one day before the D.C. primary. Haley captured all 19 delegates at stake in Sunday’s contest, but still lags far behind Trump’s delegate count.

Haley spent Sunday campaigning in Maine and Vermont, two of the many states at play on Tuesday.

“Tonight’s results in Washington, D.C., reaffirm the object of President Trump’s campaign. He will drain the swamp and put America first,” Karoline Leavitt, national press secretary for the Trump campaign, said in a statement to the Daily Caller News Foundation. “While Nikki has been soundly rejected throughout the rest of America, she was just crowned Queen of the Swamp by the lobbyists and D.C. insiders that want to protect the failed status quo. The swamp has claimed their queen.”

Originally published by the Daily Caller News Foundation

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Here’s What Happens When Matt Gaetz Interrogates Presidential Brother James Biden

James Biden told congressional investigators that his older brother, President Joe Biden, made loans to him of $200,000 and $40,000 without charging interest, but that he has no documentation of the transactions. 

“There weren’t any,” the president’s younger brother testified, according to a just-released transcript of his Feb. 21 deposition. 

Jim Biden, who at one point got into a dramatic exchange with Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., said he needed the money for “outstanding bills that I had.”

When asked whether Joe Biden was present for meetings with Tony Bobulinski, then a business associate of his son Hunter Biden, the president’s brother answered: “That I know did not happen.”

Jim Biden also testified that the contents of reported emails didn’t change his testimony or memory about his work with a collapsed rural hospital company, Americore Holdings. 

The House Oversight and Accountability Committee on Friday released the 244-page transcript of the closed-door deposition, which is part of the impeachment inquiry into potential influence peddling by the president and his family.

The president’s brother became a key witness in the House probe after he and his wife Sara wrote a $200,000 check to Joe Biden on March 1, 2018, noting that the purpose was a “loan repayment.” 

That $200,000 check was cut the same day that James Biden got a $200,000 payment from Americore Holdings.

Separately, the House committee released a copy of a $40,000 check written Sept. 3, 2017, from Jim and Sara Biden to Joe Biden that evidence shows may have been laundered through a Chinese energy company, CEFC China Energy, that Hunter Biden was involved in. 

Several House members, including Gaetz, sat in on Jim Biden’s deposition, and several questioned him directly. At one point, Biden’s lawyer Paul Fishman said, “Calm down,” according to the transcript. 

It isn’t clear whether the remark was directed at Fishman’s client or someone else.  

“Have you ever made direct payments to your brother, Joe Biden?” Gaetz asked the president’s brother.

 “I repaid two loans that I secured from my brother,” Jim Biden replied.

Gaetz followed up by asking: “And were any documents memorialized in terms of those loans?”

Biden, 75, seemed to stumble for words in answering the question.

“Through—through,” Biden said, according to the transcript. “Actual, no, no.”

Biden testified that the two checks—although made out to Joe Biden—actually went to lawyer Mel Monzack, who oversees the president’s business income such as book royalties. 

“What was the full sum of those loans?” Gaetz asked. 

“One was for $200,000 and one was for $40,000,” Biden answered. 

Gaetz asked: “And what was the interest rate on those loans?”

Biden responded: “There weren’t any. … Yeah. Family. Uh-huh.”

Gaetz asked why he needed the $240,000 to begin with. 

“Outstanding bills that I had,” Biden answered. 

A House staff investigator asked the president’s brother about a recent Politico story about Americore Holdings. The investigator read from the article during the questions. 

“Did you ever speak with anybody at Americore about Joe Biden getting equity in the company?” the investigator asked. 

“That is ridiculous on its face. No,” Biden answered. 

The Daily Signal first reported that Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman is investigating Americore Holdings, which operated in Kentucky. 

The staff investigator continued, reading several references to the emails in Politico’s reporting. 

The investigator began to ask:  “This appears to be an email. Do you recall referencing—”

Jim Biden cut him off, saying, “No.”

“Joe Biden?”

“No.”

The investigator asked: “Does this—quoting an email—does this change any of your other answers about never involving—?”

Again cutting him off, Biden said: “No.”

He later denied that Joe Biden ever met with Bobulinski, his son’s business partner at the time. Bobulinski already had told the House committee that he met with Joe, Hunter, and Jim Biden in California. 

“Was Mr. Bobulinski what you would consider a business associate of you and Hunter Biden?” a House investigator asked. 

“He wasn’t of mine,” Biden answered. “I had discussions with him, but there was never anything that was memorialized in terms of his involvement.”

The investigator asked: “Do you recall whether you were at the bar with Hunter Biden, Tony Bobulinski, and Joe Biden?”

Biden replied: “That I know did not happen. … I could have been there just with Tony Bobulinski. I could have been there with Hunter as well. But my brother was never there.”

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The Fani Willis Escapades Grind On

The fun never sets in the Atlanta courtroom of Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee. That is the red-hot scene of the adults-only reality TV hit called “The Real Prosecutors of Fulton County.”

As The Associated Press observed on Wednesday, a perilous political matter has “taken on a soap opera atmosphere, bogged down by testimony about sex, dating, cash stashes, and text messages … .”

This week’s guest star is Terrence Bradley, Esq., the former law partner of Nathan Wade. Wade, for his part, swims in controversy. He conducted an adulterous relationship with Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, even while he was married (en route to divorce) and works for Willis as lead prosecutor in her criminal trial related to former President Donald Trump’s alleged efforts to “overturn” the 2020 election.

Bradley testified about when Willis and Wade started their swingin’ affair. He previously had exchanged hundreds of emails with Ashleigh Merchant, an attorney for Trump’s co-defendant Michael Roman, regarding the timing of Willis and Wade’s romance. In one message, Bradley said that it “absolutely” began before Willis employed Wade in November 2021.

Special prosecutor Nathan Wade listens to Fulton County Executive District Attorney Daysha Young during final arguments in District Attorney Fani Willis’ disqualification hearing at the Fulton County Courthouse on Friday in Atlanta. (Photo: Alex Slitz/AFP/Getty Images)

But then Bradley contracted courtroom-induced amnesia. Frustrated, Merchant told McAfee: “Judge, he doesn’t remember much of anything right now.”

Memories fade. But, alas for Willis and Wade, phone bills are forever.

Wade’s cellphone records are highly incriminating. They show some 2,000 calls and 10,000 text messages between Willis and Wade. They communicated nonstop, with the frenzied back and forth of teenagers in heat.

Even more revealing are the location data from Wade’s cellphone. They confirm that Wade repeatedly showed up at Willis’ home ’round midnight and then went home by the dawn’s early light.

Did they burn the midnight oil reviewing documents and plotting trial procedures or were other things afoot by candlelight?

Wade and Willis testified that they “did not sleep together” before Willis hired Wade.

As the late, great Henry Kissinger would have put it, this most likely “has the added advantage of being true.” These visits in the wee small hours involved little, if any, actual sleep.

The opposing counsel should have asked the obvious question as directly as this: “Did you two have sex before Willis employed Wade?”

Of course, Willis paid Wade an enormous sum to argue a complex Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) case against a former president of the United States. This is the legal equivalent of starring in the flying trapeze. Wade seems better equipped to drive a clown car. Nonetheless, he got paid like P.T. Barnum.

Wade has earned some $654,000 from Willis’ case against Trump since January 2022. Fishier still, Willis paid Wade $250 per hour in November and December 2021 while disbursing “only” $150 per hour to John Floyd, reputedly Georgia’s go-to RICO expert, according to a contract secured by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Wade then spent part of this bonanza to take Willis on cruises; a fabulous weekend in Napa Valley, California; and other hot times in posh spots.

Willis seems to have recruited Wade in exchange for sexual favors and financial benefits, namely earthshaking assignations and splashy vacations.

This was a giant sexual kickback scheme—call it play to pay—all financed with Fulton County, Georgia, taxpayers’ dollars.

If Willis hired her boyfriend, then this is corruption.

If Willis hired Wade and then started copulating with him, then this sounds like sexual harassment: A boss knocking boots with an employee over whom she wields professional and economic power.

This is either a kickback scam or #MeToo in reverse.

Which is it, Fani?

Willis and Wade should be booted from this case. Indeed, this entire stinking wreck should be dismissed and Rudy Giuliani, Mark Meadows, Sidney Powell, Harrison Floyd, Michael Roman, and the other defendants who are being persecuted—or who already have pleaded guilty—should have their charges dropped, their legal fees reimbursed, and profound apologies rendered by the people of Fulton County.

The Daily Signal publishes a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Heritage Foundation.

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‘GRATUITOUS SLANDER’: 2,500 Rabbis Slam ADL Over CPAC ‘Smears’

An organization that represents more than 2,500 traditional, Orthodox Jewish rabbis in U.S. public policy condemned Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt for comparing the annual Conservative Political Action Conference to controversial Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.

The ADL responded to the rabbi’s statement by emphasizing what it characterized as evidence of extremism at CPAC, rather than addressing his specific claims.

“Last week I attended my sixth CPAC representing CJV, and felt even more welcome than previously,” Rabbi Yaakov Menken, managing director of the Coalition for Jewish Values, said Thursday in a written statement representing his organization.

Menken condemned what he called Greenblatt’s “attempts to characterize the conference based upon intruders who got past security instead of its events and speakers. That is gratuitous slander.”

CPAC, organized by the American Conservative Union, bills itself the largest annual gathering of conservative activists. The conference, first held 50 years ago, convened Feb. 21 to 24 just outside the nation’s capital. The Anti-Defamation League, which bills itself as the nation’s premier organization combating antisemitism, has faced harsh criticism in recent years for downplaying antisemitism on the Left while condemning what it characterizes as “hate” on the Right.

The coalition condemned the ADL leader’s post Monday on the social media site X that lumped in “conspiracy theories” and neo-Nazis at the Conservative Political Action Conference alongside various incidents of antisemitism.

“Quite a weekend,” the Anti-Defamation League’s Greenblatt wrote in the post. He mentioned Farrakhan, the antisemitic Nation of Islam leader, “in Detroit railing against [ADL] & the Jews” and protesters in New York City “screaming anti-Jewish hate at [journalist Bari Weiss] & [comedian Jerry Seinfeld],” before mentioning “disturbing conspiracy theories & neo-Nazis at [CPAC].”

“Just unbelievable,” Greenblatt added.

Quite a weekend. Farrakhan in Detroit railing against @ADL & the Jews. Frenzied protesters outside @92ndStreetY screaming anti-Jewish hate at @bariweiss & @jerryseinfeld, and berating attendees. Disturbing conspiracy theories & neo-Nazis at @CPAC. Just unbelievable.…

— Jonathan Greenblatt (@JGreenblattADL) February 26, 2024

Neo-Nazis at CPAC?

In a story condemned by CPAC as “fake news,” NBC News reported Feb. 24 that a group of provocateurs who openly identified as national socialists attended a Young Republican mixer that evening and discussed “race science.”

Matt Schlapp, chairman of the American Conservative Union, told The Daily Signal in a Friday phone interview that the NBC News report “was not journalism.”

Schlapp said that Ben Goggin, the NBC News writer, attended CPAC “to undermine the organization” and “wrote a nonfactual story.” Schlapp added that he does not know “whether or not this cocktail party even existed.”

“Their basic thesis is wrong that somehow CPAC is chummy with neo-Nazis,” the ACU chairman said. “The record is clear. Whenever I’m made aware of any presence of some person espousing hate like that, they’re kicked out from our conference. We’ve kicked out [white nationalist and antisemite] Nick Fuentes from our conference.”

Schlapp said NBC News “hates” CPAC attendees, and he accused the outlet of facilitating antisemitism while trying to “blame conservatives for what they’re guilty of.”

“In psychology, they call that projection,” he quipped.

Schlapp noted that the news site Politico added a lengthy update to its Playbook newsletter citing Goggin’s NBC News report. He also said other NBC reporters apologized to him personally for the treatment CPAC received.

“I’ve talked to reporters at NBC who found NBC’s role at CPAC to be clownish and they’re embarrassed,” Schlapp told The Daily Signal. “For the NBC News reporters who have called me to apologize, I just want to say thank you.”

NBC News did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment by publication time.

Support for Jews and Israel

Menken noted the many ways the Conservative Political Action Conference has embraced Jews and the state of Israel, including members of the Jewish state’s parliament, the Knesset.

“There were at least two dozen Jewish conservatives I know personally at the event,” Menken told The Daily Signal. “There were also two members of Knesset there, at least one of whom stayed for the Shabbat program. At which non-Jewish progressive conference would two members of the Knesset be welcome?”

The Coalition for Jewish Values’ public statement Thursday noted other ways that CPAC had embraced him and other Jewish activists.

“Its website announces that ‘CPAC Stands with Israel,’” the coalition said. “The general session included a panel on campus antisemitism and another featuring the father of an Israeli hostage. And, of course, there was the Shabbat at CPAC program, which Nick Fuentes attempted to disrupt last year after being ejected from the main conference.”

The coalition also noted an “ongoing pattern of partisan bias” at the Anti-Defamation League.

The Coalition for Jewish Values has repeatedly condemned ADL’s Greenblatt for weaponizing charges of antisemitism against conservatives while turning a blind eye to antisemitism on the Left. Menken’s statement cited ADL’s attack on Chaya Raichik, the Orthodox Jewish woman behind the popular Libs of TikTok account on X, over her CPAC speech last year, and ADL’s decision to put Raichik in a “Glossary of Extremism” until she threatened to sue.

In November, the Anti-Defamation League claimed that the National Center for Public Policy Research and the National Legal and Policy Center had employed “conspiracy theories or conspiratorial language … that could be interpreted as an antisemitic dog whistle.”

The coalition condemned this attack, arguing that “both of these organizations are robust fighters for Israel and against antisemitism.” The rabbis also noted that ADL condemned a Jewish writer, Ethan Peck, by name even though Peck opposes antisemitism and terrorism.

“The ADL appears as concerned with a target’s politics as whether he or she is actually hateful—much less antisemitic,” Rabbi Avrohom Gordimer, chairman of the coalition’s Rabbinic Circle, added in the Thursday statement from the Coalition for Jewish Values.

“In the Raichik case, its accusations were not merely blatantly partisan but, by the ADL’s own admission, indefensible,” Gordimer said. “But it appears the ADL learned precisely the wrong lesson from its debacle; it used couched weasel words to avoid a similar reaction from Peck, rather than sticking to what is both true and protects Jewish interests.”

ADL’s Response

“ADL calls out antisemitism and extremism regardless of whether it is coming from the Right, the Left, or anywhere else,” a spokesperson for the Anti-Defamation League told The Daily Signal in an emailed statement Friday.

“Just a few examples from CPAC include multiple known white supremacists in attendance including Jared Taylor and members of the Groyper Army,” the ADL spokesperson said. “Video shows one known white supremacist, Ryan Sánchez, wearing a CPAC credential, openly giving the Nazi salute. None appear to have been ejected as they have been in previous years.” (Schlapp contested that video, since it appeared in NBC News’ reporting.)

“Additionally, the John Birch Society, an extremist group long considered too extreme by many on the right, officially returned to CPAC this year after a 12-year ban,” the ADL statement added.

The group also cited remarks from Jack Posobiec, senior editor at the conservative publication Human Events.

“Also, the ‘end of democracy’ was cheered from the stage by Jack Posobiec who went on to say ‘we didn’t get all the way there on Jan. 6, but we will endeavor to get rid of it,’ and later ‘clarified’ that, ‘We’re not destroying all of democracy, just their democracy,’” the ADL said.

“Furthermore, a pinball machine was on display which allowed players to reenact the January 6th attack,” the ADL spokesperson added. “The creator of the game made clear it was not meant as a joke, stating, ‘I decided to make a game that actually expresses what really happened on Jan. 6th. It’s very suspicious, and there was not any kind of serious investigation of what went on.’”

Responses to ADL

Posobiec told The Daily Signal that his comments about the “end of democracy” were meant as a joke. He sent the video of the speech, which shows laughter as he speaks.

Jack Posobiec at CPAC: “Welcome to the end of democracy. We are here to overthrow it completely. We didn’t get all the way there on Jan. 6, but we will endeavor to get rid of it.”

Trump’s Republican Party openly wants to end democracy. We must stop them. pic.twitter.com/UITxEth0im

— Republican Accountability (@AccountableGOP) February 22, 2024

Schlapp told The Daily Signal that the John Birch Society “for a number of years” has been only one CPAC co-sponsor among many, “with no objection from the ADL, which seems more intent on playing politics than fighting antisemitism.”

He also accused the Anti-Defamation League of “colluding” with NBC News “to smear the great Americans who make up CPAC.”

“They are relying on leftist propagandists intent on disrupting our event,” Schlapp added, referring to CPAC. “All the photos and videos I have seen are outside our event and therefore out of our control. If we determine someone to be a neo-Nazi, all can be assured they will not be sold a ticket in the future.”

“Sadly for the ADL, they put out no statement praising our efforts to combat Jew hatred but instead fell in line with the pro-Hamas fake news: Tragic that institutions continue to fail us and aid those intent on destroying Israel and America,” Schlapp said.

“Hey ADL, who moved the American Embassy in Israel? Call me if you need guidance,” he quipped.

Editor’s Note: This story has been updated after publication to reflect that the Coalition for Jewish Values statement represents the entire coalition, not just Menken.

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EXCLUSIVE: Railroading the Election: How 1 Small Agency Conforms to Biden’s Get-Out-the-Vote Agenda

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—Even seemingly obscure federal agencies are working to turn out more voters under President Joe Biden’s executive order on elections. 

The Railroad Retirement Board’s strategic plan includes calls for distributing flyers and posters; keeping metrics on directing individuals to the federal voter registration website Vote.gov; and working with an “equity team” to boost voting among non-English speakers.

The plan also contemplates turning some of 53 field offices across the country into “voter registration agencies,” but a spokesperson says the railroad agency lacks the resources for that. 

The Railroad Retirement Board’s strategic plan to comply with Biden’s Executive Order 14019 was obtained by The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project through a request under the Freedom of Information Act. (Heritage is the parent organization of The Daily Signal.)

The Chicago-based railroad board is among the few federal agencies to release such a plan, which may offer a glimpse at how larger government agencies are implementing the president’s executive order to get out the vote.

Although some agencies have announced broad steps to implement Biden’s order, or released limited documents, most have held tight to the strategic plans mandated by the order. 

The Foundation for Government Accountability is suing the Justice Department to obtain access to the required strategic plans.

The Defense Department said it updated an existing strategic plan to fit Biden’s executive order. 

The Pentagon’s strategic plan isn’t dated but appears to have been drafted in 2021 after Biden signed the order that March, weeks after taking office, to direct federal agencies to boost voter registration and voter participation.

Some Republican lawmakers and watchdog groups expressed fears that federal agencies’ involvement in elections would be used to tip the scales for partisan reasons. 

Others worry that the order will put federal employees in the awkward position of violating laws such as the Hatch Act, which prohibits federal employees from political activity on government time or using government resources. 

“Biden’s potentially illegal election-interfering executive order is finally coming into fruition, and it’s scarier than we thought,” Roman Jankowski, senior investigative counsel with Heritage’s Oversight Project, told The Daily Signal. 

“If the Biden administration is using the force and scope of a tiny agency like the RRB to drive up the vote,” Jankowski said, “then what do you think he will do with these really large and well-funded federal departments and agencies?”

Among the proposed actions listed in the documents obtained by the Oversight Project: The Railroad Retirement Board’s public affairs office “could also work with field service in determining if and in which states we should send notification of our agreement to be designated as a voter registration agency.”

But the railroad agency currently lacks the resources to make its field offices also serve as voter registration offices, spokesperson Elizabeth Mocek said.

“The RRB’s response to Executive Order 14019 pledged to help promote the vast resources available at Vote.gov,” Mocek told The Daily Signal in a written statement. She added:

In implementing this effort, we added Vote.gov to the footer of our website (RRB.gov) and created a handout promoting Vote.gov to be included in materials distributed at pre-retirement seminars for individuals nearing retirement, and at various meetings and rail labor conventions. We also created a Vote.gov logo to be included in publications issued by Public Affairs, which are available at all field offices.

In 2021, Daniel J. Fadden, senior executive at the Railroad Retirement Board, submitted the plan to Susan Rice, then an assistant to the president for domestic policy. 

The Railroad Retirement Board is a small, independent agency in the executive branch that focuses on administering benefit programs related to retirement, survivorship, unemployment, and sickness for the nation’s railroad workers and their families. 

The agency was created in the 1930s under the Railroad Retirement Act of 1934, the Railroad Carriers and Taxing Act of 1935, and the Railroad Unemployment Insurance Act of 1938. 

The agency’s public affairs office, along with its Bureau of Information Services, is responsible for implementing Biden’s executive order on voting, according to the strategic plan.

 “Success will be defined by adding the Vote.gov link to the RRB’s website. RRB.gov has tracking metrics that will be utilized to determine how many ‘hits’ the link receives,” the plan says. 

The concept of “equity,” a major focus of agencies during the Biden administration, is included in the railroad board’s elections plan—specifically in helping non-English speakers to vote. 

“The RRB, through the efforts of its Agency Equity Team (AET), recognizes that although the agency does not serve the general public, there are populations of railroad workers that are traditionally underserved,” the strategic plan says. It adds:

Specifically, the RRB has determined that in addition to Spanish-speaking railroad workers, there are workers speaking Navajo and Burmese who may have had difficulty accessing railroad retirement information. In coordination with the efforts of the RRB’s AET, the EO 14019 compliance team believes that providing a direct link to Vote.gov and eventually expanding language options on RRB.gov will allow for Limited English Proficiency (LEP) railroad workers to equitably access information on voter registration.

The railroad board’s document goes on to explain plans for related flyers and posters. 

“We will secure (or produce) flyers, posters, or other materials promoting Vote.gov (or voter registration in general) and make these available to our customers,” the RRB strategic plan says. “Our field offices nationwide are currently closed to the public. When we resume normal operations, we will post this material in all of those offices. We will also include promotional items in informational packages provided at pre-retirement seminars for individuals nearing retirement, and at various meetings and rail labor conventions.”

Earlier this week, the Department of Education released a “toolkit” to expand voting among college students, as well as to provide information about voting for students in K-12. 

Also under Biden’s initiative, the Department of Homeland Security registers new voters during naturalization ceremonies. 

As The Daily Signal previously reported, the Biden administration carved out paid administrative leave to encourage federal bureaucrats and other employees—seen as a loyal Democrat constituency—to volunteer as poll workers during elections. 

The Daily Signal also reported that federal agencies are working with Demos and other liberal advocacy groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union

Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email letters@DailySignal.com and we’ll consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature. Remember to include the URL or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state.

The post EXCLUSIVE: Railroading the Election: How 1 Small Agency Conforms to Biden’s Get-Out-the-Vote Agenda appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Republicans Must Use Leadership Change as Opportunity to End Business as Usual in Senate

With Wednesday’s announcement from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell that he will step down as the Republican Senate leader in November, conservatives have a generational opportunity. McConnell has been the Senate’s GOP leader for over 17 years. The choice senators will face now is between continuing business as usual or setting up the Senate to fight to save the country.

To anyone not living under a rock, it should be clear what’s at stake. The leftist regime is prosecuting former President Donald Trump. The border is wide open. Inflation and federal deficit spending are crushing everyday Americans.

These are existential threats to the republic. Regardless of what happens in the presidential election, the Senate is—by design—positioned to address these issues. Conservatives across the country are exhausted by business as usual in the face of these multiple impending crises. Senators must recognize the moment in considering what type of leadership to elect.

As Sen. Mike Lee has pointed out, Republican senators regularly vote with Democrats to pass Democrat priorities, yet this is never reciprocated. The irony of this is that, because of the structure of the filibuster, any 41 senators could block bad legislation and demand changes in exchange for passage. To the great shock of absolutely no one, there aren’t 41 Republican senators with the political will to do this. Strong Republican Senate leadership would be a step in the right direction to addressing the problem of political will.

Republican senators must elect leaders who will challenge the status quo and fight for conservative priorities. The right person for this role will be someone who can rally the troops to take on the risk of tough votes, even if those votes will be used against them by their opposition in election season. What’s the point of having six-year terms if senators can’t make prudent decisions for the good of the country?

While senators should first and foremost consider strong leadership when it comes to passing good bills or defeating bad ones, the nature of electoral politics is that for most senators, top-of-mind will be the ability of their leadership to fundraise to help them with their elections and to help elect new Republicans to add to their ranks.

These senators should consider that donors are just as frustrated as the general public with the state of Washington. In my conversations with donors of all types, the topic of frustration with a lack of results from Congress is unavoidable. Their displeasure seems to be at an all-time high.

While I would oppose the notion that donors should dictate how the Senate legislates, senators who would consider fundraising ability as a criterion for leadership should probably consider choosing leadership who will fight for conservative priorities in order to not frustrate the people who care enough about this country to donate their time and treasure.

Another criterion that senators should consider is how their leadership handles the legislative process. For example, starting in the 2010s, the Senate majority leader (regardless of party) began frequently engaging in the practice of filling the amendment tree.

Without getting overly complicated, there are rules in the Senate that govern the order in which amendments to legislation are considered. A limited number of amendments can be considered at any time. The majority leader can use a tradition known as the “right of first recognition” to fill all available slots for amendments. This prevents any other senator from offering additional amendments.

What this means in practice is that the only opportunity to affect legislation is in backroom negotiations. Often, conservative senators and the states they represent are excluded from this process. The reason offered by leadership for engaging in this practice of filling the amendment tree is to protect vulnerable members from having to take tough votes that may lose them support back home. After all, it’s very important to protect them so that the majority can supposedly fight for the country. And, if you look around, you can see exactly how well that’s going.

Another practical outcome of this procedural control is that much of the power of the Senate is held by one person—the majority leader. If you understand that the upcoming presidential election is certainly the most important of our lifetime, consider that while presidents are term-limited, the one person holding the power of the Senate could keep that position for well over a decade. The stakes couldn’t be higher. 

Unfortunately, many senators like this process of filling the tree, as it does protect them from tough votes and gives certain senators more say in the process. Conservatives must demand leadership with the courage to change this and other practices that weaken the ability of the Senate to fight for the best interests of the American people.

Ultimately, even necessary procedural changes are a question of political will. This means that political courage and an understanding of what’s at stake are the most essential qualities in the next Republican Senate leader.

Come the Senate election for a new Republican leader in November, senators should not waste a first-in-a-generation opportunity to end business as usual in Washington.

Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email letters@DailySignal.com, and we’ll consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature. Remember to include the URL or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state.

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MSLSD?: Racist Joy Reid’s Crackpot Conspiracy Theories on TikTok

In case you just can’t get enough of Joy Reid with an hour each weeknight on MSNBC, you can catch her sharing her wild and loose opinions on TikTok. Recently, she pounced on remarks by Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., supporting the Alabama court decision that frozen embryos are children, because “we need more kids.”

Our fertility rate in America is now at a record low, but Reid just wants to use Alabama’s football coach-turned-senator as a punching bag. “Why does the state of Alabama need more kids? More kids for what?”

Reid wants to make this about immigration. “Your party, Sen. Tuberville, is the one screaming that 10 million immigrants … have streamed into the country since Joe Biden has been president. And you’re claiming that’s too many people.”

Most critics of the border crisis aren’t arguing that America is overpopulated. They’re arguing the massive influx of humanity is too much for our government systems to handle, which is the same critique emanating from Democratic big-city mayors, who have been swamped with migrants who expect free food, housing, and maybe a monthly gift card.

But Reid was primed to uncork a racial conspiracy theory, which MSNBC always encourages against Republicans. Antebellum references seem mandatory.

“There was a time when the state of Alabama absolutely needed more kids, because Alabama was a slave state,” Reid proclaimed, “and the mandate of the planter class in Alabama was for black women to produce more kids because those kids were property, and they could work more kids and make more money on their plantation.”

But what does 1854 have to do with 2024? Reid suggested there was a master plan: “Are you saying the state of Alabama needs more kids because you think that those populations will include people who may be destitute and desperate enough that when you kick out the immigrants … you can make them do the work that the migrants are doing now? ‘Cause that kind of sounds slavery-ish.”

Wait. If the immigrants flooding into America are doing “slavery-ish” work, shouldn’t Reid oppose more immigration? Reid needs to imply the immigrants pouring in are “people of color,” even if that’s not true. For the Left, appeals to limit illegal immigration must always be painted as motivated by racism.

To its credit, The New York Times has published a series of investigative reports on migrant child labor in America. One was headlined “Alone and Exploited, Migrant Children Work Brutal Jobs Across the U.S.”

No one imagines that led to a scathing TikTok tirade by Reid. She closed out by asking Tuberville in absentia if, since he’s a “white guy,” he’s suggesting “we need more kids” means “whites need more kids,” a “Great Replacement thing,” because if he thinks white women need to make more babies, “that’s a little creepy. A little ‘Handmaid’s Tale,’ don’t you think?”

Back in 2021, Reid took to TikTok to mock Kyle Rittenhouse for tearing up when he testified about shooting rioters dead in self-defense. Reid compared him to Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearings, mocking their “male white tears,” and proclaiming these guys “Karen-out, and as soon as they get caught, they bring waterworks.”

Reid wouldn’t use this white-Karens-waterworks mockery for Hillary Clinton’s public tears when she ran for president. These videos aren’t for everyone. They’re for the hard-core MSNBC watchers who want to “own the cons,” but especially those stale, pale males. Conservatives just want to check what chemicals she might have put in her vape pen to explain that overactive imagination.

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Biden’s Catch-22—Continue Border Crisis or Fix It—Either Way, He Loses Support: The BorderLine

By hinting that he will use executive power to crack down on mass illegal immigration for the first time in his administration, President Joe Biden is admitting that he already has the necessary authority to do so. This completely undercuts his attempt to blame Republicans in Congress for not giving him additional laws, money, and staff to get the job done.

Nonetheless, expect Biden to dodge the blame when he visits Texas Thursday, his second visit to the Mexican border in a 54-year political career. Biden will be in Brownsville at the same time Donald Trump will be in Eagle Pass, farther up the Rio Grande in Texas. 

With his overall approval rating at 38% and a mere 28% of Americans approving his handling of immigration, Biden is “leaning in on an issue he’d long ignored,” according to Politico.

As global political risk consultant John Hulsman writes in City A.M., a political “rule of thumb is that if the president’s approval rating is over 60% … he can pretty much do what he wants. If it falls below 40%, he is trying to squelch rumors that he is dead.”

Earlier this month, Biden failed to fool the American people into thinking the Senate “bipartisan” border bill was a magic bullet to end mass illegal immigration. That more and more Americans are seeing the price of his open border puts Biden in a real bind—a sort of Catch-22, or more accurately “catch-and-release ‘24.”

In Joseph Heller’s novel, the Catch-22 was that a World War II bomber pilot would be crazy to fly any more missions. But if he formally claimed to be insane to get out of flying more missions, that meant he was sane and had to keep flying.

Biden’s immigration conundrum is that he urgently needs to use his executive authority to stanch his falling approval rating over his abandonment of border security and enforcement, but he has claimed for three years that he had no such power. If he maintains that fiction, his approval ratings will likely continue to fall. But if he takes real action to secure the border, reduce asylum fraud, or increase deportations, he offends his far-left base and loses that support.

Meanwhile, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has his own immigration Catch-22. He has been using a provision of immigration law called parole to let in tens of thousands of inadmissible aliens a month. By law, this parole should be temporary, for “humanitarian” reasons or the “significant public benefit” of the United States. It should be granted “case-by-case,” but Biden and Mayorkas created several programs to mass-parole inadmissible aliens, including one allowing 36,000 of them a month from just four countries, including Venezuela.

It appears the Department of Homeland Security used parole to let in Jose Ibarra, the Venezuelan who is accused of murdering University of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley last week. Before releasing Ibarra, Mayorkas’ border agents had no way of knowing whether he had a criminal record in Venezuela.

As The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project Director Mike Howell pointed out, Mayorkas can either say he made every decision case-by-case, in which case he is responsible for Ibarra, or he can claim that millions are being paroled into the U.S. automatically, which is against the law.

In December 2022, I laid out the six biggest lies underlying the Biden border strategy. The biggest lie was blaming vague, worldwide factors for mass illegal migration then claiming there was nothing his administration could do about it but release or parole thousands of illegal immigrants a day into the interior of the United States.

In fact, all along, the administration has had the power to detain, expel, and deport inadmissible aliens under existing law. Without any new laws or money, Biden could have raised the bar for asylum claims to discourage the massive fraud we’re seeing. Instead, he preferred catch-and-release. He could have used the Migrant Protection Protocols with Mexico and the Asylum Cooperative Agreements with Central American countries to keep most potential asylum claimants outside the U.S. until their claims were heard by immigration courts. But he abandoned these agreements immediately upon taking office.

In Brownsville, Biden will hear nothing new from his staged engagements with Border Patrol agents and local politicians, all of whom depend on him for their jobs. The White House has already scripted Biden’s remarks. After falsely claiming that the recent Senate border bill was “the toughest and fairest set of reforms to secure the border in decades,” he will ask “congressional Republicans to stop playing politics” and “to provide the funding needed,” said spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre. That’s his line and he’ll stick to it.

But Biden heard some truth in a meeting with state governors recently, when Republicans handed over a letter asking him to secure the border. “After digesting the gist,” reports Politico, “Biden shot back coolly that the things the governors wanted were all in the bipartisan border legislation that congressional Republicans refused to consider.”

Anyone who has watched Biden lately, much less heard him speak, would doubt he was able to digest any gist that quickly, or shoot back coolly. If he had read it, he’d know the Senate border bill would do the opposite of securing the border because it would expand and codify the very open border tools Biden is currently using and it would provide billions more dollars to bring in and sustain more illegal immigrants.

We know, and Biden knows, that he already has the power to fix the border and immigration chaos. That he has chosen not to, for over three years, is proof that his primary interest has never been national security or the safety of the American people.

Any concessions Biden makes now, however Draconian the Left may paint them, will be window-dressing to prop up his poll numbers and insufficient to stem the flow of illegal migration he has unleashed on Americans.

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.

Read Other BorderLine Columns:

Are We the Chump on the Latin American Block?

Asylum Zombies

The Gang’s All Here—Thanks to Biden’s Open Border

What I Saw at America’s Wide-Open Northern Border

No Such Thing as a Free Lunch: The Cost of Unchecked Illegal Immigration on Americans

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Virginia County Penalizes Pro-Amnesty Group CASA for Misusing Federal COVID-19 Funds 

A county in Northern Virginia has declined to hand over almost $2 million in federal COVID-19 relief to a liberal immigration activist group that calls itself a “national powerhouse.”  

The Prince William Board of County Supervisors voted Feb. 20 to deny the proposed reimbursement of about $1 million in federal funds to the organization, called CASA, after a county audit discovered over $200,000 worth of misallocated funds. 

The pro-amnesty group was supposed to use the federal COVID-19 aid to build a “training lab” and cover “programming start-up costs” for a new welcome center to be built in Prince William County.  

According to the audit obtained by local news site InsideNOVA, however, CASA used the funds to offset infrastructure costs at a separate location and to pay for an employee’s English language classes. 

Prince William found that CASA also used “thousands of dollars” to create merchandise, including lip balm, hoodies, and “fidget fun blocks,” InsideNOVA reported. 

The Daily Signal sought comment from the pro-amnesty organization and will update this article if it responds.

The immigration group CASA is not the same as the organization Court Appointed Special Advocates, also known as CASA, which operates on behalf of children in court systems across the nation. 

CASA made waves in June 2020 when it disrupted another board of supervisors meeting in Prince William. Members of the group joined Black Lives Matter demonstrators in protesting the county’s cooperation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency known as ICE, as well as calling on county officials to defund the police. 

During that meeting, a CASA representative made harsh remarks about a Republican supervisor, Yesli Vega.  

The CASA rep told Vega she “is the devil” and should “zip your mouth,” according to several news reports. 

The CASA rep apparently condemned Vega for her support of a federal program in Prince William to identify illegal aliens who had committed crimes. Vega is also the first Hispanic member of the Prince William Board of County Supervisors.  

CASA considers itself a “national powerhouse” that is dedicated to “building power and improving the quality of life in working-class: Black, Latino/a/e, Afro-descent, Indigenous, and Immigrant Communities,” according to its website.  

The website says the group aims “to create paths to citizenship” for illegal aliens.  

In one such effort, CASA partnered with Baltimore’s Office of Immigrant Affairs to help over 1,000 immigrant families “access federal, state, and local aid.” 

The organization often uses the phrase “Latinx,” a phrase for gender-nonconforming Hispanics who won’t use Latino or Latina to describe themselves.  

The group focuses on what it calls “LGBTQIA+” initiatives. It participates regularly in the District of Columbia’s Pride Parade, chanting “Si Se Puede” (meaning “Yes, We Can”), a common phrase for activists started by labor leader Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers of America. 

CASA also recently hosted “Café Con CASA,” a presentation dedicated to “addressing the imperialist roots of the gender binary, anti-LGBT legislative trends, and more.” 

The group also touts its political initiatives to achieve “climate justice.” On its website, CASA says the “climate emergency humanity faces today is fueled by capitalism, colonialism, and imperialism.” 

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McConnell to Step Down as Senate Republican Leader

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell will step down from his position in November, The Associated Press reported Wednesday.

The 82-year-old senator will announce the decision on Wednesday, the publication reported. He will have been the longest-serving Senate leader in United States history.

“One of life’s most underappreciated talents is to know when it’s time to move on to life’s next chapter,” McConnell will say in prepared remarks, which were obtained by The Associated Press. “So I stand before you today … to say that this will be my last term as Republican leader of the Senate.”

“As I have been thinking about when I would deliver some news to the Senate, I always imagined a moment when I had total clarity and peace about the sunset of my work,” McConnell will add. “A moment when I am certain I have helped preserve the ideals I so strongly believe. It arrived today.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., talks to reporters following the weekly Senate Republican Caucus policy luncheon at the U.S. Capitol on Feb. 27 in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

McConnell spoke on Wednesday afternoon in the United States Senate where he called for “the next generation of leadership.”

“I have full confidence in my conference to choose my replacement and lead our country forward,” he said, describing himself as “immensely proud” of the accomplishments he has played “some role in obtaining for the American people.”

He will serve out his Senate term, “albeit from a different seat in the chamber,” until January 2027, the AP reported.

McConnell has faced pressure in recent months for his handling of a variety of issues, most notably Ukraine aid and the border security deal. In interviews with The Daily Caller, Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee, and Florida Republican Sen. Rick Scott all deeply critiqued McConnell in late February.

“It is challenging to negotiate for border security from a position of strength when too many legislators share the Democrats’ conviction that defending Ukraine is more important than defending America,” Lee told the publication.

McConnell acknowledged Republican frustration with him in his remarks on Wednesday.

“Believe me, I know the politics within my party at this particular moment in time. I have many faults. Misunderstanding politics is not one of them,” McConnell said. “That said, I believe more strongly than ever that America’s global leadership is essential to preserving the shining city on a hill that Ronald Reagan discussed. For as long as I am drawing breath on this earth I will defend American exceptionalism.”

This is a breaking news story. Please check back for updates.

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IVF Legislation Would Open Door to Child Abusers Creating Kids

Liberals are trying to use the controversy over a state court decision about IVF to jam through expansive legislation with massive consequences.

On Feb. 16, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos are considered persons under the Wrongful Death of a Minor Act. This bold, and yet legally limited, ruling sparked a national debate about the legal status of embryonic children. It also fueled unfounded attacks that Republican lawmakers, or anyone who does not voice opposition to the Alabama decision, wants to prohibit in vitro fertilization. This couldn’t be further from the truth.

Still, this has not stopped Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill.; Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash.; and Rep. Susan Wild, D-Pa., from using this opportunity to paint their Access to Family Building Act as the political solution.

But ignore the rhetoric: Far from merely protecting IVF, this act would establish a statutory right for any adult to access any assisted reproductive technologies to create a child. This would allow, for instance, a child abuser to use reproductive technologies to have a child.

Duckworth announced that she will push Wednesday for a unanimous consent vote—which allows bills to be passed quickly, without going through the normal review process—while the Senate is in session. Her goal is to manipulate Republicans concerned with political optics into giving their support for a bill that would harm, not help, families struggling with infertility.

But this bill would have significant repercussions.

The act “pre-empt[s] any state effort to limit such access,” including commonsense regulations. This means that Louisiana’s embryo protection act, Colorado’s ban on anonymous gamete donation, or Nebraska’s law that renders surrogacy-for-pay legally unenforceable would all be on the chopping block. Moreover, the act’s broad language would legalize embryo cloning and “designer babies” with CRISPR, a gene editing technology. Both options are unpopular with voters in the United States.

If this was not bad enough, the act exempts itself from the bipartisan Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993. This is the first time an act tries to sidestep RFRA. If passed, it would be detrimental to religious and pro-life organizations. Without religious freedom protections, the act could require that churches or pro-life clinics provide IVF health insurance coverage or access to reproductive technology in their facilities.

It is one thing to support access to IVF. It is another thing to remove all legal and ethical regulations that govern the practice of IVF and reproductive technologies. Parents and their children should be protected from an unregulated and unaccountable fertility industry, not left vulnerable to its abuses.

This is not the first time that Duckworth has tried to use unanimous consent to force an unpopular and legally problematic bill through the Senate.

Last year, she tried this same move with the failed Right to Build Families Act. The idea that any adult—biologically related or not—has a fundamental right to build a child through assisted reproductive technologies was unpopular among Republicans and Democrats. Thankfully, Sen. Cindy Smith-Hyde, R-Miss., blocked her request for unanimous consent and the act did not progress further.

Although the Access to Family Building Act uses softer language, the intent is still the same: Any adult, including child abusers, would have the right to build a child through assisted reproductive technology. As for churches or other pro-life groups, they would be forced to provide the same access to employers or patients, even against their religious beliefs.

Lawmakers should not feel pressured to go along with a bad faith move to require a unanimous consent vote on the Access to Family Building Act. This act removes all commonsense regulations from IVF and reproductive technologies and makes parents and their embryonic children vulnerable to careless treatment in the fertility industry.

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What Is the ‘Christian Nationalism’ Fearmongering Really About?

Is America on the verge of establishing a theocracy? The Left’s recent warnings about the rise of “Christian nationalism” suggest that a powerful, conservative Christian cabal is pulling the strings behind the scenes to forcibly convert the entire nation, or something.

In the past week, Politico’s Heidi Przybyla has been hammering the drum on this issue, first claiming—apparently without concrete evidence—that former Trump administration official Russell Vought has prioritized “Christian nationalism” by name in documents for a potential Trump second term, and then defining Christian nationalism as the doctrine that rights come from God, not government.

“The thing that unites them as Christian nationalists—not Christians, by the way, because Christian nationalism’s very different—is that they believe that our rights as Americans, as all human beings, don’t come from any earthly authority, they don’t come from Congress, they don’t come from the Supreme Court, they come from God,” Przybyla said in an appearance on MSNBC. She also complained that “it’s men” determining “what God is telling them.”

Although Przybyla admitted that “so-called natural law” has done some good in the civil rights movement, she went on to warn against “an extremist element of conservative Christians who say that this applies specifically to issues including abortion, gay marriage,” and in vitro fertilization. She later noted that conservatives are applying natural law to surrogacy and “sex education in schools” as well.

?"Christian Nationalism" isn't the real threat to the free exercise of religion in America today. The real threat is the sexual revolution ideology imposed on the people by government force, and Heidi Przybyla can't stand the idea of that establishment being challenged. pic.twitter.com/3UBwHgO0Gc

— Tyler O'Neil (@Tyler2ONeil) February 27, 2024

Shortly after Przybyla’s article about Vought, radical leftists have widely echoed her rhetoric and suggested that America’s future may resemble a dystopian “Handmaid’s Tale.”

What’s really going on here?

First, Przybyla’s fearmongering has nothing to do with reality. According to her definition of “Christian nationalism,” the Declaration of Independence is a Christian nationalist document.

Not only does the declaration ground Americans’ ability to declare independence from Britain in “the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God,” but it explicitly roots the “unalienable Rights” of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” in an endowment from the “Creator.” It addresses its appeal “to the Supreme Judge of the world,” with “a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence.”

That’s not exactly subtle.

Przybyla’s real problem with “Christian nationalists” isn’t the whole rights-derive-from-God thing. It’s the content of those rights and the mere whiff of a possibility that the government won’t impose her preferences for what those rights should mean.

America isn’t on the verge of a Christian nationalist theocracy, you see. No one is seriously arguing that we should throw out the Constitution and replace it with the Bible, or that we should make citizens, candidates for office, or government officials recite the Nicene Creed before they may enjoy legal rights.

What conservatives are seriously arguing, however, is that some rights of the sexual revolution should be curtailed in the interests of more fundamental rights.

Przybyla unwittingly revealed her cards when she addressed the issues she thinks should be off-limits for these “extremist Christian nationalists.” The heart of her complaint isn’t some quibble with the Fourth Lateran Council but with the very idea that natural law should apply to abortion, same-sex marriage, surrogacy, in vitro fertilization, and sex education in schools.

You see, Christian nationalism isn’t the real threat to the free exercise of religion in America today. The real threat is the ideology of the sexual revolution imposed on the people by government force, and Przybyla can’t stand the idea of that establishment being challenged.

That’s why the Left has a conniption when the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade and allows the states to make their own laws on abortion. According to Catholic Vote, vandals attacked at least 88 pregnancy centers and pro-life groups after the leak of the Supreme Court’s draft opinion in that ruling, and they also attacked 236 Catholic churches since the leak.

The Biden administration moved to aggressively support abortion, even though President Joe Biden himself had been a staunch defender of the Hyde Amendment, which previously barred federal funds from supporting the killing of the unborn. A Department of Justice official even said the overturning of Roe increased the “urgency” of DOJ efforts to enforce a law disproportionately applied against pro-life protesters at abortion facilities.

The Left demonized all the conservative justices on the Supreme Court after the ruling, with ProPublica launching an inquisition into Justice Clarence Thomas.

The Left isn’t objecting to the Right’s imposing its worldview on Americans by force—it’s objecting to the Right’s finally getting a say on issues springing from the sexual revolution. We’re not witnessing the rise of Christian nationalism, but the weakening of an anti-Christian establishment.

Other news items should make it clear what’s actually happening in America today.

Last week, the Supreme Court refused to take up a case in which a person who holds traditional views on sexual morality is considered “presumptively unfit to serve on a jury in a case involving a party who is lesbian.” As Justice Samuel Alito noted, this case exemplifies a danger he warned about when the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), “that Americans who do not hide their adherence to traditional religious beliefs about homosexual conduct will be ‘labeled as bigots and treated as such’ by the government.”

Oregon’s Department of Human Services treated a widowed mother of five children in this way when it denied her the right to adopt a pair of siblings from foster care. Why? Because she disagrees with Oregon’s state religion, the religion of LGBTQ identity.

The Biden administration is also considering a rule to bar “non-affirming” parents from foster care. People who dare to dissent from the idea that a male can become female just by saying so have no business raising children in Biden’s America, it seems.

As for sex education in schools, parental rights groups such as Moms for Liberty are reacting to the Left’s extreme overreach in education. They’re not “banning books,” they’re calling for sexually explicit materials to be removed from school libraries.

Many of these groups exist because parents got a sense of what their kids were “learning” in school when the kids “attended class” via Zoom during the pandemic—and leftist indoctrination in racial lessons and transgender identity rightly shocked moms and dads.

This isn’t some exclusively Christian movement, either. Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, atheists, and others have joined Christians of every denomination in supporting parental rights to opt their kids out of having to read sexually explicit books.

I’ve reported exhaustively on the Southern Poverty Law Center because I see that organization as the tip of the spear in the Left’s efforts to demonize any dissent from its agenda, and its ties to the Biden administration horrify me. The SPLC brands mainstream conservative Christian organizations as “hate groups” in an effort to raise money and to demonize its opponents into silence. It represents the institutionalization of the effort against “Christian nationalism.”

Many Americans think the Civil War was about slavery, and they’re not entirely wrong. Abraham Lincoln didn’t actually oppose slavery when he ran for president in 1860, though. He ran against the expansion of slavery into the federal territories.

You see, the Southern Democrats had such a stranglehold on the federal government that they couldn’t imagine needing to compromise. They had also begun to think of slavery as a positive good, not the “necessary evil” the Founders called it.

Southern Democrats couldn’t live with losing the ability to force their ideology on the rest of the country, and that ambition became their undoing.

“Christian nationalism” is the modern equivalent of Southern Democrats’ demonizing Lincoln, kicking and screaming as they lose the ability to foist their beliefs on the rest of the country. If history is any guide, this trend does not bode well for the Left—or America’s civil tranquility.

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Democratic Congresswoman Cancels Speech to Islamic Group After Bipartisan Backlash

A Democratic congresswoman from Pennsylvania has canceled her scheduled Saturday address to an Islamic organization, some of whose leaders celebrated Hamas’ brutal Oct. 7 rape and slaughter of more than 1,200 Israelis, after she received harsh, bipartisan criticism.

Rep. Summer Lee, D-Pa., announced her change of heart Tuesday on X, formerly known as Twitter, claiming that she hadn’t been aware of “speakers’ previous comments.” But this isn’t the first time Lee has engaged with the individuals connected to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, whose banquet she had been set to address.

We should all take care to ensure that every community we serve is equally safe, seen, and valued. pic.twitter.com/uqGvVyXzxq

— Summer Lee (@SummerForPA) February 27, 2024

CAIR invited Lee to address its Philadelphia chapter’s annual banquet after at least two of its officials donated to the freshman lawmaker’s campaign.

Nihad Awad, one of her donors and the executive director of CAIR, said in a November speech that the rape and violent killings of Israelis at the hands of Hamas made him “happy to see people breaking the siege and throwing down the shackles of their own land.” 

Zahra Billoo, another donor and the executive director of CAIR for the San Francisco Bay Area, was removed from the board of the liberal Women’s March organization after making comments supporting Hamas’ rocket attacks and encouraging people to “pay attention” to “Zionist synagogues.”

Two of Lee’s other donors, including the co-founder of Students for Justice in Palestine and the executive director of American Muslims for Palestine have referred to Jews and Israelis as “organ-harvesters” and “parasites.”

Students from the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University have introduced a petition that calls for Lee to return those donations.

“We, the undersigned students of the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University, and community members, petition for the immediate return of campaign contributions received by your campaign from Hamas sympathizers and antisemites,” the students wrote.

They asserted that “accepting funds from such donors sends a message that you condone such actions and statements.” 

Those living in Lee’s 12th Congressional District and in Pittsburgh are being encouraged to sign the petition before it’s delivered to Lee’s office “at the end of the week.”

Democrats from Gov. Josh Shapiro to members of Pennsylvania’s House of Representatives and state Senate had condemned Lee’s prior decision to address the banquet on Saturday.

Bhavini Patel, one of two other women challenging Lee in the April 23 Democratic primary, called Lee’s planned address “appalling.” 

“Summer Lee needs to cancel this appearance and apologize for agreeing to share a stage with them in the first place,” Patel stated in a post on X.

Summer Lee needs to cancel this appearance and apologize for agreeing to share a stage with them in the first place.

This is appalling. https://t.co/u5ir2l86bH

— Bhavini Patel (@PatelForPA) February 26, 2024

Pennsylvania Republicans also called out Lee’s speaking engagement plans. U.S. Senate candidate Dave McCormick called on Lee to resign over the scandal on Monday.

Lee hasn’t responded to concerns that her actions and rhetoric might condone and encourage antisemitism, but does describe political opponents as antisemitic. Lee described House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., as a “white supremacist antisemite” in October in response to his nomination at the time for House speaker.

In December, Politico reported that Lee accused the American Israel Public Affairs Committee of “textbook racism” and described the organization as “an existential threat to the black community” in private Facebook posts.

Lee had not responded to The Daily Signal’s request for comment by time of publication.

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EXCLUSIVE: Catholic Churches Attacked 400 Times Since 2020, Tracker Finds

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL: Catholic churches in the United States have been attacked at least 400 times over the past four years, according to data compiled by the Catholic advocacy organization CatholicVote.

The hundreds of attacks across the nation began in connection with widespread civil unrest in May 2020, CatholicVote said. Examples include church burnings, beheadings of statues of Jesus Christ or the Virgin Mary, swastikas painted on grave stones, satanic and blasphemous statements graffitied on walls, windows smashed, Masses disrupted, and even the murder of a Catholic priest.

The leak of the draft Supreme Court opinion overturning Roe v. Wade led to another spike in attacks—since then, there have been 236 attacks on Catholic churches.

CatholicVote has only found evidence of an arrest in about 25% of the cases it tracked and estimates that the attacks have caused around $25 million in physical damages to churches.

Many of these attacks are abortion-related and include graffiti such as “Jane’s Revenge” (a reference to Jane Roe of Roe v. Wade) or “If abortions aren’t safe, then neither are you,” indicating that the attackers could potentially be charged with violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, a law protecting churches, pro-life pregnancy centers, and abortion clinics that the Department of Justice has used to charge dozens of pro-lifers praying outside of abortion clinics over the past few years.

President Joe Biden’s DOJ has not charged any vandals with FACE Act violations in connection to attacks on churches, however.

“Catholics across America are effectively under siege while the Biden administration’s reckless refusal to enforce the law continues to allow anti-Catholic extremists to endanger law-abiding citizens of faith and destroy their places of worship,” said Tommy Valentine, director of the CatholicVote’s Catholic Accountability Project.

“These unacceptable acts of bigotry against Catholics, and really all Americans of faith, cannot be tolerated,” he added. “It’s time for every elected official to take seriously their solemn duty to protect all citizens, including religious Americans.”

The 400th attack that CatholicVote recorded involved transgender activists who used deception to hold a “sacrilegious funeral” at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City for an atheist, transgender-identifying prostitute, Cecilia Gentili, revered by LGBTQ activists as a “transgender icon” and advocate.

Funeral attendees dressed in fur, fishnet stockings, miniskirts, and even thongs, as photographs posted by Time magazine showed. And during the funeral service, transgender activists appeared to mock Catholic saints and repeatedly celebrated “whores.”

Transgender activists attend the funeral of Cecilia Gentili at St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Feb. 15 in New York City. (Photo: Stephanie Keith/Getty Images)

One of the organizers of the funeral said that St. Patrick’s Cathedral was not told that Gentili was a man who identified as a transgender woman. “I kind of kept it under wraps,” organizer Ceyenne Doroshow, a man who identifies as a woman, told The New York Times, explaining that St. Patrick’s is “an icon, just like her [Gentili].”

A livestream of the event depicts one of the funeral organizers describing Gentili as: “This whore. This great whore. St. Cecilia, mother of all whores!”

The funeral attendees also placed a picture near the altar, where priests celebrate the Catholic Mass, that depicted Gentili with a halo and the Spanish words for “transvestite,” “whore,” “blessed,” and “mother,” as well as the text of Psalm 25.

CatholicVote sent a letter to New York Attorney General Letitia James last week calling on her to investigate “the facts and circumstances surrounding the recent use of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City by transgender activists to deceptively gain access and advance ideas and beliefs hostile to doctrines of the Catholic Church, while openly mocking these beliefs.”

The letter reminded James that under New York’s hate crimes laws, “selecting the victim of a criminal trespass based on a religion or religious practice is a hate crime” and “New York’s court’s have recognized that those who gain access to property by deception are liable for criminal trespass.”

Neither James nor New York Gov. Kathy Hochul immediately responded to requests for comment from The Daily Signal as to whether such an investigation would be done. New York is second only to California when it comes to attacks on Catholic churches over the past four years, according to CatholicVote: New York has seen 45 acts of violence and vandalism, while California has seen 54.

Biden, though described by his staff and legacy media as a “devout Catholic,” has not commented on the hundreds of attacks. In 2020, former President Donald Trump’s campaign condemned the onslaught of anti-Catholic crimes occurring throughout the United States to the Daily Caller News Foundation, accusing “radical leftists” of attempting to destroy the “moral fabric of our nation.”

“The rise in violence against houses of worship, religious symbols, and sacred spaces is quickly becoming an epidemic across the country, led by radical leftists hellbent on destroying the very moral fabric of our nation,” Trump campaign deputy press secretary Ken Farnaso told the Daily Caller at the time.

The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to requests for comment from The Daily Signal.

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The post EXCLUSIVE: Catholic Churches Attacked 400 Times Since 2020, Tracker Finds appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Hey, Elon Musk, You May Have a ‘Deep State’ Problem

The New York Times raised questions about President Joe Biden’s mental fitness after the bombshell special report explaining why there would be no criminal charges against Biden for unlawful possession of documents.

Special counsel Robert Hur wrote, “Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview with him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”

This Times coverage about Biden’s mental fitness prompted former New York Times public editor Margaret Sullivan to write:

Is there no one at these major outlets who is capable of taking a step back and exercising some judgment?

How about a note from New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger to two key people who report to him directly—the opinion editor and the top newsroom editor—that goes something like this: ‘Katie and Joe, I’m concerned that we’re going overboard with both coverage and commentary about Biden’s age. Let’s keep this in better perspective and tone it down.’ Believe me, those two sentences would make a world of difference.

In other words, note to the legacy media, particularly to the influential New York Times, “Back off! Circle the wagons!”

This elevates the importance of outlets like the Elon Musk-owned X, formerly known as Twitter. Musk uncovered the extent to which Twitter suppressed posts of conservatives; suppressed posts questioning the then-conventional wisdom of the COVID-19 vaccine, masking, and shutdowns; and even briefly shut down the New York Post’s account for its reporting on the Hunter Biden laptop story.

When Musk bought Twitter, things changed immediately. Conservatives saw a quick and substantial uptick in followers. But, since then, many conservatives say they experience pre-Musk sluggish growth. So, I recently posted on X the following:

Dear @elonmusk,

I can’t be the only one? I believe conservatives are STILL being suppressed—and that new followers are only painstakingly added—because of the anti-conservative, anti-Trump hostility of your deep state Twitter employees. This is a shout out to other conservatives/libertarians on your platform, please tell me if you’ve ALSO experienced the same sluggish growth in new followers, a stark contrast from what happened when Musk first took over when I—and many other conservatives—had an explosion of new followers. Please comment!

The comments were fast and furious:

—“I think people are afraid Big Brother is watching.”

—“Larry is correct, @elonmusk. #throttled.”

—“I agree, my new followers have slowed down. I was sent a message that my tweets would be made less visible because of the content I was posting. Twitter felt I was trying to manipulate others. I asked for a review, but no response—nothing has changed.”

—“I agree. Mine have slowed down, lost followers, etc.”

—“Yeah, I assume that there is a slew of typical San Franciscans still working at X and doing what they can to sabotage conservatives every way they can.”

—“I’ve had a surge in followers, but they’ve suspended me from following back 3 days and some limitations on what I can like. I got tired of this during the last election and closed my account and came back thinking things were fixed. They said it’s an algorithm issue.”

—“Looks like Mr. Musk needs to clean house again!”

—“Dead right. Elon still has some house cleaning to do—and it won’t happen with the current commie CEO.” (This refers to the hiring of former NBCUniversal advertising chief Linda Yaccarino.)

—“Yep. As soon as he put that liberal woman in charge, it went almost right back to what it was pre-Elon.”

—“Been saying this for quite a while now… it’s pretty obvious at times…”

—“I feel the same way. Can’t tell if anyone even sees my posts most of the time.”

—“I’m still constantly being told that other people wouldn’t say what I have to say. I thought Elon was for free speech. Free speech tends to be things that other people wouldn’t say.”

—“Yep! VERY SLOW GROW, if any at all.”

—“My numbers never change.”

—“I was banned under old regime and reinstated but definitely receive zero feedback on posts. Still shadow banned for sure.”

Bottom line, Mr. Musk, a lot of conservatives still detect a serious deep state problem at X, a platform we need now more than ever.

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‘Insane’: Ron Johnson Slams Wisconsin DOC for Housing Transgender Prisoners With Women

Republican Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson reacted Tuesday to a new report from The Daily Signal on the Wisconsin Department of Corrections housing a transgender prisoner, a child rapist, with women.

“Housing biological males in women’s prisons is insane,” Johnson said Tuesday. “Forcing a woman to share a cell with a biological male is even worse.”

“When will America reject these radical left policies destroying our country?” he asked.

The senator was referring to The Daily Signal’s report on Katie McGraw, a woman incarcerated in Taycheedah Correctional Institution in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin.

Recently she began sending distressed messages to her fiance, Raymond Slater II, describing a transgender prisoner named “Mark Campbell” with whom she shares both a cell and a bunk bed. McGraw expressed extreme anxiety as she described her cellmate’s constant masturbating, sexual comments, and aggressive behavior, and she asked her fiance to find out what exactly got Campbell locked up.

Her fiance said he stumbled on The Daily Signal’s September report on Campbell, a man who now identifies as a woman, who raped his own daughter, and is a registered sex offender convicted of first-degree sexual assault of a child.

Since Campbell identifies as transgender, the Wisconsin Department of Corrections has housed him in a women’s prison, Taycheedah Correctional Institution, since August 2022.

The Wisconsin DOC has ignored many requests for comment from The Daily Signal on its incarceration of men who identify as women with females. DOC also did not respond to a request for an interview with Campbell.  

Court documents allege that Campbell would sexually assault his daughter while her little brother was home and that “her little brother would sometimes come into the room while the sexual assault was occurring.”

Campbell first requested transgender surgery to attempt to become a woman in 2013, according to a Wisconsin outlet, but the DOC denied his request at the time. In 2016 he filed a lawsuit accusing Department of Corrections officials of being indifferent to his medical needs by not allowing him to get so-called sex-change surgery, the publication reported.

The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 2019 that the DOC officials couldn’t have anticipated that denying such a surgery to Campbell would violate his rights.

However, in December 2020, a federal judge ruled that Wisconsin must offer Campbell taxpayer-funded transition surgery and must move him to a women’s prison while awaiting that surgery.

The DOC housed Campbell in men’s prisons until August 2022, according to the inmate locator. In August 2022, authorities moved him to Taycheedah Correctional Institution, which “provides female inmates with a safe and secure environment that is gender-responsive,” according to the prison’s website.

Some of McGraw’s graphic descriptions of Campbell’s masturbation habits indicate that Campbell may have undergone a vaginoplasty, wherein surgeons remove the penis, testicles, and scrotum, rearranging tissue to create a faux vaginal canal and external genitalia.

Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email letters@DailySignal.com, and we’ll consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature. Remember to include the URL or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state.

The post ‘Insane’: Ron Johnson Slams Wisconsin DOC for Housing Transgender Prisoners With Women appeared first on The Daily Signal.

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