The beleaguered presidential campaign of Joe Biden, facing losing support from young voters, black voters, even women voters in some polls, and trailing GOP challenger President Donald Trump in most polls including those in swing states, apparently is turning its focus onto another age group, hoping to win the White House with the "geezer" vote.

At 81, and to be 82 about the time of the coming election, Biden appears to be looking for election help from his contemporaries.

That assessment comes from a report in Axios, which reveals that since 2000, the senior vote has belonged to Republicans.

The report cites a New York Times/Siena poll that suggests some of those older people are moving to Biden's camp this year.

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Importantly, the report notes, the senior vote is a group "that consistently votes at higher rates than any other demographic."

While President Trump, the report notes, "appears to be making stunning gains of his own among young voters," although it admits "the polls could still be wrong," it suggests that seniors considering "old-school respect for institutions and distaste for Trump's unorthodox style," are moving to Biden. Another theory? "Hippies got old."

The report claims NYT/Siena puts Biden with a 9-point lead over Trump in a head-to-head among likely voters 65 and older.

That was similar to a Quinnipiac poll weeks ago.

The report noted while 10% of those ages 18-34 said democracy was the most urgent issue facing voters, that number was 35% for those ages 65 and up.

Biden's attack has included claims that Republicans are eyeing cuts to Social Security and Medicare, claims that GOP candidates have rejected as false.

Biden's outreach, the report explained "includes bingo nights and pickleball tournaments, ads on daytime television and more.

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Hunter Biden found guilty on gun-related charges on Tuesday, June 11, 2024

Hunter Biden long has been a source of scandalous headlines for his overseas business schemes, often documented in that infamous abandoned laptop, his drug use, his sex antics, his recent gun-charge convictions and his looming tax-charges trial.

Now a new scenario is being reported by Just the News: How his team set up a $120 million deal while Joe Biden was vice president for Barack Obama, a secret that the FBI knew about at the time.

The deal ultimately was not completed.

But the report explains the plan was for Hunter Biden to be on a board of directors of a new entity, formally established in Liechtenstein and funded with millions from Nykola Zlochevsky, known more for his ownership of Burisma, an energy entity.

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It was the Ukrainian Burisma for which Hunter Biden served as a director during his father's vice presidency, when Joe Biden was in charge for Obama of U.S.-Ukraine relations.

While paying Hunter Biden millions, Zlochevsky was trying to get out from under a corruption investigation, and that prosecutor ultimately was fired after Joe Biden traveled to Ukraine and threatened to withhold a billion dollar aid package that the U.S. had prepared unless government officials dismissed him.

Just the News reported the FBI "learned as far back as 2016 that Hunter Biden and his partners had plotted to set up a new venture in tax-friendly Liechtenstein that would be capitalized by a whopping $120 million investment from the controversial owner of the Ukrainian energy firm Burisma Holdings."

The publication said the details were in documents "that have been kept from the American public for eight years."

That "mega-deal" was not mentioned in Hunter Biden's laptop or during 2019 impeachment proceedings that involved Ukraine, but was in a cache of millions of documents the FBI seized from Hunter Biden during its investigation into securities fraud years ago.

Those papers recently came into the possession of the House Oversight Committee from former Hunter Biden associate Devon Archer as part of Congress' impeachment investigation of Joe Biden.

Those papers show Hunter Biden was to be on the board for "Burnham Energy Security LLC" which would start off with $120 million from Zlochevsky.

"The Hunter Biden-connected Burnham entity was slated to get a quarter of the new venture's net revenues without putting up any cash, according to recent testimony to Congress from one of the partners," the report said.

Confirmation of the strategy was from a Zlochevsky aide, Vadym Pozharskyi, who told Hunter Biden, "Burnham Energy Security Fund: we started a legal discussion between our lawyers and legal counsels from your side (through Devon's kind introduction). At the moment, we're working on structure and all related issues."

The report noted nearly 200 documents reference Burnham Energy Security, and most of those also cite Hunter Biden's involvement.

The scheme apparently was derailed by the arrest of one of Hunter Biden's associates, in a securities fraud case, and the announcement by the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine at the time, Geoffrey Pyatt, that the Ukraine government should pursue Zlochevsky on corruption charges.

It was Pyatt's influence that "unexpectedly kicked Ukrainian prosecutors into a more aggressive effort to investigate Zlochevsky in fall 2015, an effort that came to an abrupt halt when Vice President Joe Biden pressured Ukraine to fire the chief prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, by threatening to withhold $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees," the report confirmed.

The report explained the oddity in the arrangement: Hunter Biden and his team would put up no money, but instead would contribute "relational capital – including the political connections that are associated with the Biden name."

The current investigation in Congress is on what role Joe Biden may have played in any of Hunter Biden's dealings, and what liability that may have created under American law. Allegations have been made, based on credible evidence, that the Bidens have run a massive influence-peddling scheme for years, taking in millions of dollars from sources sometimes unfriendly to the U.S.

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Steve Bannon at CPAC 2024

Republican members of the U.S. House are moving to nullify the entirety of ex-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's partisan committee that "investigated" the Jan. 6, 2021, protest at the U.S. Capitol, where a few hundreds of people rioted.

The Gateway Pundit reports some two dozen members are sponsoring a resolution that would designate the committee and its work illegitimate and cancel the subpoenas it issued during its time in the spotlight.

It explains that's significant because it would be, "Rescinding the subpoenas issued by the January 6th Select Committee on September 23, 2021, October 6, 2021, and February 9, 2022, and withdrawing the recommendations finding Stephen K. Bannon, Mark Randall Meadows, Daniel Scavino, Jr., and Peter K. Navarro in contempt of Congress," the resolution reads.

Navarro already is serving jail time on the basis of that committee's demands, and Bannon is ordered to report within weeks.

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The committee was partisan because Pelosi allowed only committee members she wanted to be a part. The nominees from the then-GOP minority were refused. And the committee essentially edited and orchestrated witnesses and testimony to try to pin blame on President Donald Trump for that day.

That was when his fans rallied in Washington, and a few thousand went to the Capitol, where Congress was formalizing Joe Biden as the presidential race winner.

A few hundred rioted, breaking windows and vandalizing. One protester was shot and killed at point blank range by a police officer who did not even issue a warning first.

They were protesting what they perceived as a faulty election. What is known is that the results were under undue influence from two significant factors, the first being Mark Zuckerberg's handouts of $400 million plus to election officials who largely used the windfall to recruit voters in Democrat districts.

The other was the FBI's election interference when it warned publications to suppress information about the Biden family scandals contained in the laptop computer abandoned by Hunter Biden at a repair shop. The FBI, and a long list of former intel officers, falsely claimed it was "Russian" disinformation, when in fact it contained reams of accurately details about the Bidens. A survey later showed that influence probably cost President Trump the victory.

Democrats claimed the events were an actual "insurrection" against the United States, where by definition protesters would have been intending to take over the government's economy, military, foreign policy and much, much more. They've even tried to keep Trump off the 2024 ballot on the basis of their claims. The events actually were a protest that got out of hand.

The report explains Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., and Eric Burlison, R-Mo., have introduced a resolution "aimed at rescinding the congressional subpoenas issued to Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro. This proposal also seeks to officially repudiate the actions of the January 6 committee, which Massie and other Republicans have labeled as wholly illegitimate."

Massie suggested on social media that House Speaker Mike Johnson call for a vote and Republicans could reverse the political warfare decisions made by Pelosi.

Massie pointed out the plan needs no approval from the Democrat-majority Senate, since the original subpoenas were issued only on the authority of the House.

Biggs charged, "The illegitimately constructed and biased January 6th Committee must be held accountable for its pursuit of political opponents."

Burleson explained the move would withdraw Democrat "recommendations" finding the Trump associates in contempt of Congress.

(1/2) Here’s our 5 page Resolution to rescind the subpoena’s issued for Bannon and Navarro and to declare the January 6th committee to have been illegitimate. pic.twitter.com/eM122OZpzy

— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) June 18, 2024

The Republicans charge that the committee staged a "show" investigation, assembling evidence they claimed supported the conclusion they already had reached, of Trump's guilt.

Burlison revealed, "One day after Jan. 6, then-Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Schumer called for Trump to be removed from office by whatever means necessary. Pelosi even went as far as to say that Trump could be an 'accessory to murder.'"

The plan points out that Pelosi refused to follow the resolution creating the committee, and never appointed the five members required "after consulting the minority leader."

Further, the committee had no "ranking member" from the GOP, another violation of House rules.

And the committee also ignored House rules requiring committees provide equal time for majority and minority members asking questions.

His statement explained, the committee "spent hours rehearsing ahead of time so they could put on Stalinist show-[trials] for the American people. Bottom line: The committee was used as a political weapon with a singular focus on taking down Trump and his advisors through the intentional manipulation of facts and the silencing of the minority party. It was procedurally flawed from the start."

Others sponsoring the plan included Reps. Chip Roy of Texas, Andy Ogles of Tennessee, Andrew Clyde of Georgia, Paul Gosar of Arizona, Bob Good of Virginia, Diana Harshbarger of Tennessee, Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Josh Brecheen of Oklahoma, Clay Higgins of Louisiana, Mary Miller of Illinois, Barry Moore of Alabama, Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, Eli Crane of Arizona, Jim Banks of Indiana, Michael Cloud of Texas, Dan Bishop of North Carolina, Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, Matt Rosendale of Montana, Matt Gaetz of Florida, Warren Davidson of Ohio and Lance Gooden of Texas.

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(Photo by Joe Kovacs)

By Rebeka Zeljko
Daily Caller News Foundation

Restoring Integrity and Trust in Elections (RITE) filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against the city of Burlington, Vermont, for allowing non-citizens to participate in its elections.

RITE filed the lawsuit against the city of Burlington for allowing noncitizens to vote in local city or Burlington School District elections. The lawsuit alleges that in doing so, the city violated “voter’s qualifications” enshrined in the Vermont State Constitution.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky (Photo: Flickr/Gage Skidmore)

[Editor's note: This story originally was published by The Daily Signal.]

By Hudson Crozier
The Daily Signal

Sen. Rand Paul said Tuesday the Justice Department’s refusing his requests for a perjury investigation into former federal health official Dr. Anthony Fauci is proof of a two-tiered justice system following a Senate hearing on the origins of COVID-19.

Paul, R-Ky., told The Daily Signal on Tuesday that it’s “disappointing” to see no action taken almost three years after he began demanding such a probe. His accusations stem from the former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director’s testimony to Congress about U.S.-funded virus research in China, a central topic of Tuesday’s hearing.

Fauci testified in May 2021 that his agency never funded risky “gain-of-function” experiments at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, but Paul has repeatedly highlighted records and emails suggesting otherwise.

“If you happened to walk in the Capitol on Jan. 6, [2021], you might get 10 years in prison,” Paul said. “But if you’re responsible for funding research that led to a pandemic and killed 15 million people, and then you lied about it to Congress, then nothing happens to you.”

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Paul filed a criminal referral against Fauci in July 2021 and again in July 2023 over the perjury claims. The Kentucky lawmaker told The Daily Signal that the lack of a response from federal prosecutors indicates America has “two standards of justice.”

Paul added: “In some ways, I’m very disappointed, but it’s not that I don’t expect it.” The senator blamed President Joe Biden’s attorney general, Merrick Garland, whom he said is “probably the most partisan attorney general in our history.”

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., confronts Dr. Anthony Fauci in a Senate hearing June 16, 2022.

Fauci did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Paul’s allegations.

Paul made the remarks shortly after virology experts testified to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. The committee’s four witnesses gave varying narratives on whether COVID-19 was the result of a Wuhan lab accident or if it arose naturally among animals.

Paul said in an opening statement that Fauci and his “inner circle” acknowledged the likelihood of a lab leak in private messages that were released through litigation. “Despite these private doubts, publicly, these so-called experts and their allies were dismissing the lab-leak theory as a conspiracy,” he said.

Paul also told The Daily Signal last month that Fauci “could be indicted” for deleting emails about COVID-19’s origins to circumvent public records law.

Fauci has claimed the U.S.-funded research suspected to have caused the leak, conducted through the EcoHealth Alliance, was not technically the “gain-of-function” research lawmakers have asked him about. He testified to a House panel earlier this month that the experiments didn’t fit “the regulatory and operative definition.”

That contradicted previous testimony from National Institutes of Health Principal Deputy Director Lawrence Tabak, who said Fauci’s agency did, in fact, fund gain-of-function experiments at the high-risk Wuhan lab before the COVID-19 pandemic.

[Editor's note: This story originally was published by The Daily Signal.]

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When Congress recently voted to find Merrick Garland, Joe Biden's pick for attorney general, in contempt, there was little surprise that the Department of Justice refused to pursue a case.

Or that Garland claimed he was in the right all along, with his claim, "We investigate and prosecute violations of federal law – nothing more, nothing less."

Now it has been revealed that Garland and the DOJ also refused to prosecute a man who threatened the family of U.S. Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind.  And Banks wants to know why.

The Washington Examiner said Banks had written to Garland, demanding information.

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland

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"When Capitol Police referred the criminal case against Aaron Thompson to the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Indiana, they declined to prosecute despite clear evidence that Thompson violated federal law," Banks told him.

So what was involved in the decision not to pursue charges against "a man who left threatening voicemails" for Banks' family?

Banks had written the letter months ago, but released it after Garland posted an op-ed in which he made his claim about prosecuting violations of federal law, "nothing less."

Banks' letter included, "I have no doubt that you, as a husband and father yourself, would do anything to protect your family, but I want to know why you have refused to protect mine."

Among the threats, according to the report, was, "Here’s the choice. Your daughters grow up without their dad or you grow old without your daughters … boom, boom you pick…"

Thompson was prosecuted only by a local district attorney for threats, pleaded guilty and claimed he was intoxicated at the time. Ordinarily, federal prosecutors would handle a threat against Congress, as that's a federal offense.

The House just days ago voted to hold Garland in contempt of Congress, on a 216-207 vote.

Today the U.S. House voted to hold AG Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress for refusing to hand over audio related to Biden’s mishandling of classified documents. He is accused of covering up & shielding Biden from criticism.pic.twitter.com/xvlM89RAeu

— WorldNetDaily (@worldnetdaily) June 12, 2024

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Tucker Carlson

How do you know American politics is dominated by a uniparty that seeks to oppress you? Because both sides oppose free speech. Glenn Greenwald explains.#PaidPartnership pic.twitter.com/p5cOJLiGsN

— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) June 18, 2024

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LGBT promoters for years have been demanding "non-discrimination" laws and regulations across America, claiming, "All we want is equality."

Now, it seems, they want a little more than equality.

The Daily Mail reports a housing complex is being planned and promoted in Portland, Maine, that would allow LGBT residents exclusively.

It's called The Equality Community Center, which is expected to be a new five-story housing unit for members of the LGBT community who are 55 or older.

Plans are to open it in the spring of 2026.

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There are plans for 54 studio, one-bedroom and two-bedroom units.

The Equality Community Center planned for Portland, Maine

Funding is coming from MaineHousing's tax credits, federal Low Income Housing Tax Credits, a bank loan and an increment financing district set up the city.

But it's getting bashed online, over the discriminatory plan that is being used to pursue the project.

The social media account LibsofTikTok pointed out: "Maine is opening up new publicly funded affordable housing. The qualification is that you have to be LGBTQ. According to the Fair Housing Act, housing discrimination based on s*xual orientation or gender identity is illegal. How is this legal?"

Another comment joined, with, "This goes to show you that group movements like this were never about equal rights – it was always about politicians granting special rights to preferred groups who will vote for them. It's been a con the whole time."

Yet another, said, "Taxpayers will not be forced to pay for housing for the LGBTQ+ community. This is what Democratic-Socialism looks like – your taxes, their benefits."

Ed Gardner, a project developer, cited the benefits for the LGBT community.

There, residents will find "acceptance and services," he suggested, according to the report.

"I think we'll be able to see them come out and be more part of the community rather than be stuck in their homes and not have anybody to socialize with," Gardner said.

Another social media comment, from TheUnquirer, turned blunt, however.

"In Maine – some groups are more equal than others."

Other such housing projects already are in the works in Boston, Fort Lauderdale, San Diego, Los Angeles, Chicago and Philadelphia.

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Steve Bannon

By Katelynn Richardson
Daily Caller News Foundation

Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon will serve his four month sentence at a prison in Danbury, Connecticut, rather than a minimum-security prison camp where many nonviolent offenders are sent, according to CNN.

Bannon, who a judge recently ordered to report to prison by July 1 after being convicted for contempt of Congress, is not eligible for the minimum-security prison due to on ongoing criminal case against him in New York, CNN reported, citing sources familiar. The Danbury facility where Bannon is expected to report has housed violent offenders, including among the male population.

One male inmate at Danbury convicted for child sex abuse and threatening to kill a federal judge was indicted again in June for sending communications threatening to injure a court employee, according to the New Haven Register.

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A female inmate formerly incarcerated in Danbury for “murder with a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime” pleaded guilty in June after she assaulted another inmate with a weapon made from two razor blades and a broken pencil, according to a DOJ press release.

A total of 1065 inmates are housed at Danbury FCI, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Roughly one-third of inmates are sex offenders, while under 40 % were convicted on drug-related charges, according to the News Times.

Bannon was convicted in 2022 for ignoring a subpoena from the Jan. 6 Select Committee, and the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld his conviction in May.

Bannon’s attorneys have filed an emergency motion with the D.C. Circuit seeking his release pending appeal, noting before Bannon it “had been 50 years since the government convinced a jury to convict someone for not adequately responding to a congressional subpoena.” His attorneys also stated that they intend to appeal to the Supreme Court, if necessary.

“The government seeks to imprison Mr. Bannon for the four-month period leading up to the November election, when millions of Americans look to him for information on important campaign issues,” his attorneys wrote. “This would also effectively bar Mr. Bannon from serving as a meaningful adviser in the ongoing national campaign.”

Former Trump aide Peter Navarro is currently serving a four month prison sentence in Miami for contempt of Congress, which began in March.

Bannon’s attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken joins the PBS NewsHour for a virtual interview with Judy Woodruff at the U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C., on March 3, 2021.

The State Department's secret payments to organizations that "rate" American news sources – campaigns that have been used to stop companies from doing business with conservative publications – are the subject of a new congressional subpoena.

The Washington Examiner explains the action was triggered by State's refusal to turn over records on programs that are part of what Republicans charge is a "censorship-by-proxy" scheme that interferes with small businesses.

The subpoena is from the House Small Business Committee and is part of a year-long investigation into the Global Engagement Center in State, which gave $100,000 of tax money to the Global Disinformation Index, a London-based group that works in America to "pressure advertisers to boycott conservative media."

That funding triggered a new law just last year that bans some Pentagon money from being given to the London group. Also, the Federalist and Daily Wire have sued the Biden administration for its "egregious government operations to censor the American press."

The committee, headed by Rep. Roger Williams. R-Texas, has been trying to extract financial records from the Global Engagement Center over charges of censorship schemes.

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Committee members want to see a list of recipients of GEC money.

But the State Department has refused.

The subpoena specifically asks for details on cash handed out to NewsGuard, the Global Disinformation Index, the Atlantic Council, Park Capital Investment Group, and Poynter Institute.

Williams told Anthony Blinken, Joe Biden's secretary of state, "The House Committee on Small Business is investigating the U.S. government’s censorship-by-proxy and revenue interference of American small businesses because of their lawful speech."

GEC, housed at State, was supposed to focus on propaganda abroad, but has been revealed as a leader in the domestic journalism censorship of what it calls "disinformation."

That would whatever facts do not support the leftist political and social agenda.

A key component has been GDI's insistence that mainstream news organizations are not credible if they are not leftist, and its pressure on advertisers to hurt them.

Williams said he is working on "legislative solutions to federal funds being used to demonetize, tarnish, or censor domestic small businesses on the basis of their lawful speech."

"Rather than comply with the committee’s investigation into and oversight of the GEC’s funding of third parties who engage in these activities, the State Department has, stunningly, provided only two documents totaling 12 pages, with heavy redactions, in the span of one year,” he charges.

One option the House Republicans could choose would be to defund GEC, the report said.

The legal case by the Wire, Federalist and the state of Texas charges that promoting companies that create lists of conservative news outlet targets is a violation of the First Amendment.

"All Americans deserve a fair shot to compete in the marketplace, and the government should not be tipping the scales against any business for their legal speech on the internet." Williams told the Washington Examiner. "The refusal to comply with repeated document requests is unacceptable, especially when the livelihoods of many small businesses are on the line."

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Joe Biden and Barack Obama walk along the West Colonnade of the White House Tuesday, April 5, 2022, after attending an Affordable Care Act event.

By Jim Hoft
The Gateway Pundit

Democrat insiders have blown the whistle on a secret plan to replace feeble Joe Biden if he falters in his initial debate with Trump or if his poll ratings continue to decline, the Daily Mail first reported.

The Gateway Pundit previously reported that Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna says she is “hearing on Capitol Hill” that Joe Biden will ”likely” be replaced as the Democratic presidential nominee by November.

Luna discussed the matter during an appearance on Thursday’s episode of "Jesse Watters Primetime."

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The congresswoman told Watters, “A lot of people realize that Joe Biden’s likely not going to be the nominee, which is from what we’re hearing on Capitol Hill, Jesse. You know, Representative Kiley had reported that Kamala Harris is actually eyeing a run for California governor because of it.”

Jesse Watters
PRIMETIME

Rep Anna Paulina Luna says: “Joe Biden not likely going to be the nominee.” pic.twitter.com/lm9UyYrbMl

— Gary D (@KMGGaryde) June 14, 2024

There have long been rumors and rumblings that California Gov. Gavin Newsom will replace Biden, but he has maintained that is not his plan.

“So you are hearing also in DC that Joe Biden isn’t going to be the Democrat nominee?” Watters asked.

“Correct,” Luna replied.

“It appears that our colleagues are trying to put guardrails on a 2024 presidential election with President Trump,” Luna said. “And also what you’re seeing is, according to our polling, you know, Jesse, as well as I do, that they’ve been trying to really paint Republicans as anti-woman, and they’re trying to push an abortion, crisis right now with the election. And I don’t think that that’s the case.”

Luna continued, “A lot of the American people know that really. This is a state rights decision. And so I think that they know that they’re losing. It’s very evident at this point.”

Now, it appears that there may be a secret plot brewing within the Democratic Party to replace Joe Biden. The plan is allegedly being orchestrated by influential figures, including former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.

Daily Mail reported:

According to Democratic bigwig, Obama campaign guru David Axelrod, the Biden team scheduled one of the earliest presidential debates in history (June 27 on CNN) to prove to naysayers that Joe’s not going anywhere.

But the gambit carries tremendous risk.

While an efficient debate performance by Biden could help rally Democrats behind him – a significant misstep would only stoke more replacement chatter.

Former Clinton advisor and polling expert Mark Penn suggested the CNN debate will be Biden’s last chance to reassure voters he’s fit for the job.

Now DailyMail.com has learned that if Joe stumbles in that first face-off with Trump or if his polling numbers keep falling, it’ll take a united front of the liberal grandees to make Joe throw in the towel.

‘The only people who could force him out would be Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer,’ one Democratic strategist told DailyMail.com. ‘It would have to be the four of them collectively.’

And the process would be high risk.

However, there is another potential complication. Biden could stubbornly refuse to step down and continue his campaign until Election Day.

If Biden refuses to step down, it would put the Democratic Party in a difficult position. They would have to contend not only with a stubborn incumbent but also with potential backlash from leftists if Kamala Harris is passed over for the nomination.

“That person would not be Vice President Kamala Harris, according to sources, who observed that Harris has already had to fend off a push to replace her on the ticket,” Daily Mail reported.

“Strategists theorize that Democrats would have to hold a public event to symbolically transfer power to the new candidate. Biden, Obama, Clinton, Schumer, and Pelosi would publicly introduce and endorse the anointed nominee,” the news outlet added.

You can read more here.

This article originally appeared on The Gateway Pundit.com.

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By Jason Cohen
Daily Caller News Foundation

Former Bernie Sanders staffer Tezlyn Figaro said on Monday that President Joe Biden needs to cut checks to black Americans if he wants to be victorious in Michigan.

Former President Donald Trump is presently leading Biden in Michigan in a five-way race by .3%, according to the RealClearPolling average. Figaro on “The Story With Martha MacCallum” said Biden’s “only” chance of winning the state is distributing money he owes to black voters.

WATCH: 

Ex-Bernie Sanders Staffer Says Biden Must Cut ‘Some Checks’ To Black Voters To Win Swing State pic.twitter.com/OZPU30KSzi

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) June 17, 2024

“Obviously I won’t speak for all black voters, Martha, but I can certainly tell you by being the only black national staffer in Michigan in 2015 working for Bernie Sanders, it does not take a lot of voters to like former President Trump. It really only takes 1 or 2%,” Figaro told host Martha MacCallum. “We were able to flip that state by 2% going to all the places that Hillary Clinton refused to go … What I do know is someone better get to the state of Michigan with a checkbook in hand with no IOUs.”

“This is critical that these swing states are looked at,” she added. “And they don’t have to like President Trump like the poll indicates. They didn’t like Bernie Sanders, to be quite honest with you, but it only takes a small margin to make a difference. And that’s what I’m concerned about and that is what the majority of people who are saying, ‘I don’t like Trump, I don’t like Biden either,’ but they cannot afford to ignore this crucial demographic.”

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CNN senior data reporter Harry Enten said on Monday that Trump is “careening towards a historic performance” with black voters as Biden bleeds a significant segment of them.

“The Joe Biden administration cannot afford to sit on their butt and just ignore and think that it’s just a game and not invest the time, money, resources in black media, not invest the time, money and support in those nonprofits. They need to go in Michigan right now with a check,” Figaro said, before MacCallum interrupted her to ask if it would actually help Biden to make black media appearances.

“Guess what,” Figaro continued. “We’re done with the appearances. Bring the checkbook, the IOUs no longer matter. Only thing I think you can do at this point, better start cutting some checks. Just being honest with you. No more appearances, no more talks. Cutting checks for any and everybody. Nonprofits across the board, making sure people have adequate funding, partnering with city commissioners or state representative to make sure that people have the money that he owed the black community, that he was very clear about owing.”

MSNBC host Ana Cabrera pressed Biden’s 2024 campaign communications director Michael Tyler on Monday regarding polls showing him shedding support of black voters in swing states, including Michigan.

“Over the weekend, the Trump Campaign launched a Black Americans for Trump Coalition. Your campaign mocked it and said it’s not fooling anyone. But look at this. USA Today/Suffolk polls show from Michigan and Pennsylvania specifically, these are two key swing states. They show President Biden has lost roughly 20 points among black voters in both of those states, down from 76% to the mid 50s. Of course, in a close election that can make a huge difference. Why do you think the president is losing support with these voters?” Cabrera asked.

Political commentator Bakari Sellers on Monday dismissed polls indicating Trump’s rising black support, asserting, “Donald Trump is not going to get 20% of the black vote. He’s simply not.”

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John Kerry, who was secretary of state under Barack Obama, is the latest Democrat to face a scandal over his email communications as a government official.

Hillary Clinton, back when she was losing the 2016 presidential race to President Donald Trump, of course destroyed thousands of emails that should have been archived by the government. Even Joe Biden has been accused of using anonymous addresses to keep his communications going, probably bypassing government requirements for record-keeping.

Now, a report from Fox News says Sens. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Ron Johnson, R-Wis., have written to the current secretary of state, Antony Blinken, demanding answers about Kerry.

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The senators got the information about the secret communications channel from whistleblowers. And they want to know if Kerry met the requirements for federal records-keeping.

The email involved as SESTravel1@state.gov.

"We want to know whether then-Secretary Kerry properly complied with all federal records laws and regulations with respect to his official email communications and whether responses to relevant Freedom of Information Act requests have properly included that email address in productions to requestors," the senators said.

There have been concerns from the senators over government compliance with the requirements for the last eight or 10 years.

Clinton, of course, sent her government email to a private, unsecure, computer server she set up.

The senators told Blinken that since 2021 "they have been raising concerns about President Biden’s use of a non-government email while serving as vice president — as well as pseudonymous government emails for 'official business' — and whether he complied with federal records laws," the report said.

From Biden's administration? Nothing yet.

The senators again told Blinken they also have questions about Kerry's apparent "extensive, consistent, and successful interference and obstruction of the FBI’s efforts to arrest Iranian terrorists because of his desire to cement the failed Iran Nuclear Deal between the Obama/Biden administration and the Iranian government."

Grassley also questioned Kerry's alleged mishandling of classified information while communicating with Iran, and the senators want to know if that email was used to communicate with foreign government officials, specifically Iran, about the "nuclear deal."

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A screenshot of the Drudge Report documenting severe troubles at the Washington Post on Monday, June 17, 2024.

Journalism in America no longer is what it once was: A reporting of the facts on an issue, including opinions from experts and those with alternative views – basically covered in the traditional "Who, What, When, Where, Why and How?"

Now those practices are described as providing a "false balance," or "bothsideism," where, one leftist online site describes, "journalists may present evidence and arguments out of proportion to the actual evidence for each side, or may omit information that would establish one side's claims as baseless." Some journalists openly have condemned including information that does not align with the politically correct position.

That ideology claims the global warming agenda has been handicapped by such thinking. Likewise the arguments that support a belief in evolution over creation. And vicious attacks on President Donald Trump when he charges that there was election misbehavior during the 2020 president race.

Leftist want Americans to believe, without hesitation, they are at fault for global warming, evolution explains everything and Joe Biden, the now feeble octogenarian who was declared "diminished" by a federal prosecutor, is as sharp as a tack and drew more votes that Trump, legally.

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And it's hitting even the high-profile journalistic enterprises, like the Washington Post.

That organization, with a multiple of priority and standards changes since Amazon chief Jeff Bezos bought it years ago, now apparently has its reporters investigating their own bosses.

On top of a multitude of scandals already appearing at the publication, there's now a 3,000-word investigative story about new publisher William Lewis, and an incoming top editor.

It stunningly charges that Lewis "declined to comment through a Post spokesperson in response to a list of detailed questions" from his own reporters.

Axios reported the turmoil is atop his handling of several controversies in just the past few days.

One is a "phone-hacking scandal" that happened in Britain's Fleet Street in the 2000s, and apparently involved Lewis.

The New York Times was joining in with the Post's investigation of the Post. And it charges two decades ago Lewis "used fraudulently obtained phone and company records in newspaper articles," and the Post explores the ethics of Robert Winnett, a London editor who is moving to the Post's office.

The Post even conceded former senior managing editor Cameron Barr, who left last year, will oversee the paper's coverage of Lewis.

A report at Mediaite headlined its charges, "Scathing Washington Post Expose alleges incoming editor used 'thief' to aid reporting."

It described the work of the Post reporters as a "bombshell" that uncovered the past for Winnett.

"The exposé, which relies on unpublished book drafts and documents from self-proclaimed 'thief' John Ford, reportedly claims he used deceitful methods to aid Winnett’s reporting at the Sunday Times in London," the report explained.

It notes Ford was arrested in 2010 for trying to steal former Prime Minister Tony Blair's memoir.

Winnett now is at the Telegraph, and "allegedly reassured Ford during his arrest and arranged legal assistance, emphasizing the 'remarkable omerta' within British journalism."

The story charges Ford's drafts, seen by the Post, cover his "his involvement in obtaining confidential details about Britain’s elite through unethical means, with many stories seemingly aligning with Winnett’s published work."

The dispute is compounded by the information about Lewis, who at the Sunday Times in 2004 linked to stories allegedly based on hacked phones.

The Times explained the published account suggests Lewis and Winnett used fraudulently obtained phone and company records in their publication.

"The use of deception, hacking and fraud is at the heart of a long-running British newspaper scandal, one that toppled a major tabloid in 2010 and led to years of lawsuits by celebrities who said that reporters improperly obtained their personal documents and voice mail messages," the report noted.

The report charged articles published were from material obtained surreptitiously by a private detective.

Other Post upheavals have included Sally Buzbee's abrupt departure, and reports that Lewis had objected to coverage of a new story in which he was involved.

Further, according to the report, "Lewis repeatedly offered an exclusive interview to an NPR reporter if the reporter agreed not to write about allegations against him in a British phone-hacking scandal, according to an account by that reporter."

Explained NPR in its comments about the disputes.

"A vast chasm divides common practices in the fiercely competitive confines of British journalism, where Lewis and Winnett made their mark, and what passes muster in the American news media. In several instances, their alleged conduct would raise red flags at major U.S. outlets, including The Washington Post."

Those issues include "a six-figure payment for a major scoop; planting a junior reporter in a government job to secure secret documents; and relying on a private investigator who used subterfuge to secure private documents from their computers and phones. The investigator was later arrested."

It noted, "The stakes are high. Post journalists ask what values Lewis and Winnett will import to the paper, renowned for its coverage of the Nixon-era Watergate scandals and for holding the most powerful figures in American life to account in the generations since."

The Post lost $77 million last year and about half of its digital audience since 2020.

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The Connecticut Bar Association is warning lawyers against criticizing the politicized prosecutions of President Donald Trump because that could become "dangerous rhetoric."

The association recently dispatched to members a message signed by Maggie Castinado, its president, James T. Shearin, president-elect, and Emily Gianquinto, vice president.

They warn against "reckless words" that attack the integrity of the nation's judicial system.

They charged, "In the wake of the recent trial and conviction of former President Donald Trump, public officials have issued statements claiming that the trial was a 'sham,' a 'hoax,' and 'rigged'; our justice system is 'corrupt and rigged'; the judge was 'corrupt'' and highly unethical'; and, that the jury was 'partisan' and 'precooked.'"

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There also have been comparisons to communist "show" trials, in which the defendant is guilty and the court hearings are simply to create the appearance of a judicial proceeding.

The bar missive claims, without documenting whether those charges are, in fact, true, those statements are "unsubstantiated and reckless."

And they can "provoke acts of violence against" members of the judiciary. Further, they 'sow distrust in the public for the courts … ."

Those comments, the association claims, "cross the line from criticism to dangerous rhetoric."

The attempt to suppress speech with doesn't align with the politics of the association comes as a number of Democrat prosecutors continue their courtroom assaults on Trump.

Already, Arthur Engoron, a judge in New York, has demanded a punishment of nearly half a billion dollars for the way Trump negotiated loans for his corporation, practices that industry insiders described as routine. In fact, no one lost money or complained and the bankers involved wanted to do more business with Trump. And Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg took claims of business reporting misdemeanors that already had passed the statute of limitations and claimed they were felonies because they led to a further, unspecified, crime. A jury in the leftist enclave of New York convicted Trump in a decision that now is on appeal.

Several other cases, such as a prosecutor allegedly being appointed improperly and another with ethical clouds because the DA had hired her paramour, with tax money, to work her allegations against Trump, have significant obstacles looming.

Now Jonathan Turley, the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at Geroge Washington University, an expert witness on the law before Congress and popular commentator, said the message from the association is "chilling" for those lawyers who see the lawfare against Trump as "raw political prosecution."

He noted that the officials are demanding "members to speak publicly in support of the integrity of these legal proceedings."

He noted the reality is something else.

"For example, criticizing Judge Juan Merchan (who heard the business records case) for refusing to recuse from the case is considered beyond the pale."

But, he noted, "Many lawyers believe that his political (financial) contributions to Biden and his daughter's major role as a Democratic fundraiser and activist should have prompted Merchan to remove himself (and any appearance of a conflict)."

His own opinion is that Merchan's rulings were biased.

He said it's likely that verdict will be overturned, and he blames not the jury "but rather the judge and the prosecutors for an unfounded and unfair trial."

He identified the problem with the bar demands is the "suggestion that lawyers are acting somehow unprofessionally in denouncing what many view as a two-tier system of justice and the politicalization of our legal system."

Evidence?

"Notably, the bar officials did not write to denounce attacks on figures like Bill Barr or claims that the Justice Department was rigging justice during the Trump years." Further, those officials never published warnings about attacks on conservative justices and labeling them "insurrectionist sympathizers."

It didn't worry the bar when Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., threatened judges with "seismic changes" or Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., called the Supreme Court "corrupt."

"Likewise, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer also declared in front of the Supreme Court 'I want to tell you, Gorsuch, I want to tell you, Kavanaugh, you have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price,'" he continued.

He noted the letter actually "only reinforced the view of a legal system that is maintaining a political orthodoxy and agenda."

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By Katelynn Richardson
Daily Caller News Foundation

New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof argued Saturday that the West Coast’s version of liberalism just isn’t working, urging liberals to “face the painful fact that something has gone badly wrong where we’re in charge, from San Diego to Seattle.”

West Coast liberals accept a “yawning gulf between our values and our outcomes,” Kristof observed in his column, embracing contradictions like declaring “housing is a human right” while failing to actually “get people housed.” Kristof, who launched a bid to run for Oregon governor in 2022 but was found not to meet the three-year residency requirement to appear on the ballot, believes the problem is not liberalism itself, but the West Coast’s brand of liberalism that is “infected with an ideological purity that is focused more on intentions than on oversight and outcomes.”

“I’m an Oregonian who bores people at cocktail parties by singing the praises of the West, but the truth is that too often we offer a version of progressivism that doesn’t result in progress,” he wrote, pointing to disparities between liberal cities on the West Coast and East Coast.

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“The two states with the highest rates of unsheltered homelessness are California and Oregon. The three states with the lowest rates of unsheltered homelessness are all blue ones in the Northeast: Vermont, New York and Maine,” he wrote. “Liberal Massachusetts has some of the finest public schools in the country, while liberal Washington and Oregon have below-average high school graduation rates.”

Nicholas Kristof:

“The West Coast’s central problem is not so much that it’s unserious as that it’s infected with an ideological purity that is focused more on intentions than on oversight and outcomes.” pic.twitter.com/uGrKLPCvWH

— Steve McGuire (@sfmcguire79) June 15, 2024

He critiqued West Coast liberals’ tendency to be “performative rather than substantive,” citing Oregon’s decision to funnel education dollars into putting free tampons in the boys bathrooms beginning in kindergarten.

“The inability of progressives, particularly in the Portland metro area, to deal with the nitty-gritty of governing and to get something done is just staggering,” Democratic Oregon Rep. Earl Blumenauer, whose district includes most of Portland, told the NYT. “People are much more interested in ideology than in actual results.”

Kristof suggested the problem may be connected to the lack of political competition on the West Coast.

“Perhaps on the West Coast we have ideological purity because there isn’t much political competition,” he wrote. “Republicans are irrelevant in much of the Far West, so they can’t hold Democrats’ feet to the fire — leading Democrats in turn to wander unchecked farther to the left.”

In 2023, blue states had the highest rates of homelessness, with Washington, D.C., New York, Vermont and Oregon topping the list, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

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U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.

By Jim Hoft
The Gateway Pundit

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) managed to turn a simple Father’s Day grill into a roast—not of the burgers, but of himself.

The out-of-touch senator, in an attempt to celebrate Father’s Day, shared a snapshot of himself placing cheese on a completely raw hamburger patty.

“Our family has lived in an apartment building for all our years, but my daughter and her wife just bought a house with a backyard and for the first time we’re having a barbecue with hot dogs and hamburgers on the grill. Father’s Day Heaven,” the far-left senator wrote in a now-deleted post.

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However, heaven quickly turned to ridicule as the X users did not miss a beat to point out the raw deal on those patties.

Social media users grilled Schumer over his apparent lack of basic culinary skills, sparking a flurry of memes and jokes about whether the Senator had ever manned a grill before or if he was simply staging a relatable Father’s Day scene.

“I get that you’re playing to the masses but literally no one puts cheese on a raw beef patty. If you need help learning how to do basic grilling stuff let me know. Nice try relating though. Fuc$&?g communists!!!” Donald Trump Jr. wrote on X.

I get that you’re playing to the masses but literally no one puts cheese on a raw beef patty. If you need help learning how to do basic grilling stuff let me know. Nice try relating though. Fuc$&?g communists!!! https://t.co/CZllWKiw5u

— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) June 17, 2024

“Only one of the burners is on, the burgers are still raw but the hotdogs are already cooked, and you put cheese on a raw patty. Three strikes. You will now be deported,” podcaster and columnist Matt Walsh wrote.

Only one of the burners is on, the burgers are still raw but the hotdogs are already cooked, and you put cheese on a raw patty. Three strikes. You will now be deported. https://t.co/RnbSoWuqaX

— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) June 17, 2024

Another podcaster, Siraj Hashmi, wrote, “Tell me you’ve never grilled before without telling me you’ve never grilled before.”

tell me you’ve never grilled before without telling me you’ve never grilled before https://t.co/6qMN96j6XR pic.twitter.com/ygjvJZIGzR

— Siraj Hashmi (@SirajAHashmi) June 17, 2024

Another user pointed out his hypocrisy after using a gas stove. “Nonetheless, some people inexplicably have faith in his leadership and believe that his Democratic Party thinks gas stoves are bad for the planet, but gas grills are fine. Sad and pathetic.”

Chuck Schumer is 73 years old. Remarkably, he has yet to master the art of grilling a simple burger.

Nonetheless, some people inexplicably have faith in his leadership and believe that his Democratic Party thinks gas stoves are bad for the planet, but gas grills are fine.

Sad… pic.twitter.com/dzH7IuwoZ7

— I Meme Therefore I Am (@ImMeme0) June 17, 2024

After facing overwhelming criticism for his staged attempt to appear relatable, the Senator quickly deleted the post. However, the quick deletion of the post did little to quench the fiery roasts from the public.

Chuck Schumer just deleted this post where he got insanely ratioed for not knowing how to make a cheeseburger.

Democrats try to be relatable without being super cringe challenge: IMPOSSIBLE pic.twitter.com/haXEfuoCj8

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) June 17, 2024

This article originally appeared on The Gateway Pundit.com.

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By Jason Cohen
Daily Caller News Foundation

CNN senior data reporter Harry Enten said on that Monday former President Donald Trump is hurtling toward a remarkable performance with black voters in the 2024 election.

Trump has significantly shrunk his deficit with President Joe Biden among black Americans in the six battleground states, with the current president leading the former president 70% to 18%, a May New York Times/Siena College poll found. Enten, on “CNN News Central,” was stunned by how Trump is performing with black Americans as a Republican candidate, as well as how unpopular Biden is becoming with these voters.

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“I keep looking for this to change, to go back to a historical norm and it, simply put, has not yet. So this is the margin, or ,Biden and Trump among black voters, compare where we were at this point in 2020, compare to where we are now. At this point, look at this. In 2020, Joe Biden was getting 86% of the African American vote. Look at where it is now. It’s 70%, that’s a 16-point drop, John,” Enten told host John Berman. “And more than that, it’s not just that Joe Biden is losing ground. It’s that Donald Trump is gaining ground. You go from 7%, single-digits at this point in 2020, to now 21% and again, John, I keep looking for signs that this is going to go back to normal and I don’t see it yet in the polling of anything right now. We’re careening towards a historic performance for a Republican presidential candidate, the likes of which we have not seen in six decades.”

WATCH:

‘I'm Like Speechless': CNN's Harry Enten Says Trump 'Careening Towards A Historic Performance' With Black Voters pic.twitter.com/aEKh3WPIDG

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) June 17, 2024

Enten told Berman that Biden is not losing as many older black voters, but is hemorrhaging the youth.

“This is where we get very interesting,” Enten said. “So I decided to deep dive deeper into the cross tabs, figure out where is it that Joe Biden is truly struggling among black voters. All right, so this is black voters, Biden versus Trump margin. Look at black voters age fifty and older and you’ll see it. Look, Joe Biden was leading amongst this group at this point by 83 points back in 2020. Now, it’s 74 points, so yeah, a slight decline in that margin, but nothing out of this world.”

“Look at black voters under the age of 50,” the data reporter continued. “Holy cow, folks, holy cow. Look at this. Joe Biden was up by 80 points among this group back at this point in 2020, look at where that margin has careened down towards. It’s now just, get this, 37 points. That lead has dropped by more than half, Mr. Berman. I’ve just never seen anything like this. I’m like speechless because you always look at history and you go, ‘okay, this is a historic moment.’ If this polling is anywhere near correct, we’re looking at a historic moment right now, where black voters under the age of 50, which have historically been such a big part of the democratic coalition, are leaving in droves.”

Berman noted that is a “huge drop” in such a short period of time.

Enten added that when independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is on the ballot, Biden and Trump both perform worse with black voters, but that he cuts into the current president’s lead more.

“It’s partially a artifact of Donald Trump perhaps being better liked among black voters, but it’s also a real artifact of Joe Biden being significantly less liked among black voters than he was four years ago,” Enten concluded.

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U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas

By Jason Hopkins
Daily Caller News Foundation

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) released thousands of migrants into the country despite risk assessments recommending they be detained, according to a newly released report.

ICE officers released 11,754 noncitizens from their custody despite receiving Risk Classification Assessments (RCA) that recommended they remain detained, according to a report by the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General. The report determined that, for roughly 70% of the cases, ICE officers did not provide “sufficient justification” for their decision to release these noncitizens when their RCA recommended they be detained.

“The RCA process was designed to help ICE officers make informed, consistent, and transparent custody decisions,” the report concluded. “However, ICE officials did not consistently use the RCA process or act according to its recommendations.”

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“Without a policy and appropriate oversight for the RCA process, ICE cannot ensure its officers will make informed, consistent, and transparent custody decisions that prevent the release of noncitizens who pose a potential risk to public safety,” the report continued.

ICE officers also did not conduct an RCA of 79,977 detained noncitizens in fiscal year 2023, the report found. Fiscal year 2022 was even higher, with ICE officers failing to conduct RCAs on 129,250 noncitizens in their custody.

In order to address this issue, the DHS inspector general recommended the Executive Associate Director of Enforcement and Removal Operations assign an office to be responsible for managing the RCA process and establish a formal policy for using this assessment process. ICE responded to the report, agreeing to both recommendations made by the inspector general.

The report comes just days after the DHS inspector general also found that other immigration agencies were not properly vetting the many foreign nationals entering the United States.

Customs and Border Protection (CBP) does not have complete access to federal data to fully vet foreign nationals entering the country via ports of entry, potentially allowing in terrorists and other dangerous criminals, according to a recently released DHS inspector general report. The report also found United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) was not conducting complete checks on asylum seekers already in the country to ensure they have no suspicious background information on their records.

ICE and FBI officials arrested several foreign nationals with suspected ISIS ties in a nationwide sting operation last week.

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Jack Smith

By Katelynn Richardson
Daily Caller News Foundation

The constitutionality of special counsel Jack Smith’s appointment will be put to the test next week during a hearing before U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon.

Cannon, who already indefinitely postponed former President Donald Trump’s classified documents trial in May, will hear arguments June 21 on whether the entire case should be dismissed based on Smith’s allegedly “unlawful” appointment. Trump’s attorneys argue Smith, a private citizen neither nominated by the president nor confirmed by the Senate at the time of his November 2022 appointment by Attorney General Merrick Garland, lacks the authority to even bring charges.

Trump faces 41 felony counts in his Florida case. He was initially indicted last June on charges relating to his handling of classified documents.

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“The Appointments Clause does not permit the Attorney General to appoint, without Senate confirmation, a private citizen and like-minded political ally to wield the prosecutorial power of the United States,” Trump’s attorneys argued in a February motion. “As such, Jack Smith lacks the authority to prosecute this action.”

Smith argues history supports his appointment, noting the Supreme Court held in its 1974 United States v. Nixon case “that the Attorney General has the statutory authority to appoint a Special Prosecutor.”

“The D.C Circuit recognized precisely that conclusion when holding that the Acting Attorney General had the statutory authority to appoint Special Counsel Mueller,” he wrote.

Trump’s attorneys say Smith has it wrong: the Supreme Court’s Nixon ruling characterized “special prosecutors” as “subordinate officers,” who Smith’s current authority exceeds.

“Attorney General Garland declared that Smith’s appointment was intended to promote independence, and the Special Counsel’s Office has insisted that ‘coordination with the Biden Administration’ is ‘non-existent,'” they wrote. “If Smith is a subordinate officer as Nixon suggests, then these public assertions are false because Smith serves at the pleasure of the Attorney General and President Biden, who is exercising Article II authority to oversee the prosecution of his political rival and leading candidate in the 2024 presidential election.”

Trump’s argument against Smith’s appointment has some strong supporters, including former Reagan administration Attorney General Edwin Meese III, who previously joined amicus briefs filed on the issue in Trump’s election interference case at the D.C. Circuit and Supreme Court.

Justice Clarence Thomas asked a brief question about Smith’s appointment during oral arguments for Trump’s presidential immunity appeal at the Supreme Court in April, though it was not an argument directly raised by Trump’s attorneys in that case.

Next week will be the first time potential legal issues surrounding Smith’s appointment are given a serious hearing.

During oral arguments, Cannon will allow three third parties to participate. The first, Attorney Gene Shaerr, filed an amicus brief on behalf of former Attorneys General Edwin Meese III and Michael B. Mukasey, along with law professors Steven Calabresi and Gary Lawson.

The former attorneys general and law professors argue the flaw in Smith’s appointment “goes to the heart of the legitimacy of these proceedings.” While Smith argues that there is a long history of attorneys general appointing special attorneys, their brief notes that “nearly all the special prosecutors appointed during the past 40 years — aside from Smith and Robert Mueller — have been lawfully appointed pursuant to that Clause because they were already serving as Senate-confirmed U.S. Attorneys.”

South Texas College of Law Houston professor Josh Blackman will also present arguments during the hearing for the brief he filed on behalf of professor Seth Barrett Tillman and Landmark Legal Foundation supporting Trump’s motion.

Smith’s temporary role can be described, at best, as an “employee” of the United States, not an “Officer of the United States,” they argue in the brief. If he is legally allowed to continue in his position, he can only do so “under the normal supervision of the politically accountable United States attorney for the Southern District of Florida.”

On the other side, Cannon granted time for legal scholar Matthew Seligman to present arguments on behalf of former prosecutors, elected officials and constitutional attorneys who believe it is “demonstrably incorrect” to argue Smith’s appointment was unlawful.

“The Appointments Clause of the Constitution empowers Congress to authorize the Attorney General, as the head of the Department of Justice, to appoint inferior officers including the Special Counsel,” their amicus brief states.

Trump’s other federal case brought by Jack Smith in Washington D.C. for allege efforts to overturn the 2020 election is also on hold pending the Supreme Court’s decision in Trump’s presidential immunity appeal.

In Georgia, the racketeering case brought against Trump and co-defendants by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has been paused pending an appeals court ruling on Willis’ potential disqualification. Defendants alleged Willis financially benifited from appointing Nathan Wade, who she was romantically involved with, as special prosecutor when he took her on vacations using funds earned from his position.

A Manhattan jury convicted Trump in May on 34 counts of falsifying business records in the case brought by Democratic District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

The question about Smith’s appointment has implications that extend beyond him or Trump. Calabresi wrote in a December Reason column that Smith’s nationwide jurisdiction makes him “more powerful” than any of the 93 Senate-confirmed U.S. Attorneys.

“We do not want future U.S. Attorney Generals, such as the ones Donald Trump might appoint, if he is re-elected in 2024, to be able to pick any tough thug lawyer off the street and empower him in the way Attorney General Merrick Garland has empowered private citizen Jack Smith,” Calabresi wrote. “Think of what that would have led to during the McCarthy era or in the Grant, Harding, Truman, or Nixon Administrations in all of which an Attorney General was corrupt.”

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[Editor's note: This story originally was published by Real Clear Wire.]

Editor’s Note: The group quota regime is a revolutionary threat which aims to overthrow the political order of the United States and the Constitution that underlies it. In its maneuvers for political power, this revolutionary enemy already operates on a set of legal and constitutional principles entirely different from those on which our country was founded. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the corrupt prosecution of President Donald Trump, and the attendant, authoritarian insistence that criticism of the machinations of “justice” is unwelcome in a democratic society.

By Carson Holloway
Real Clear Wire

In the wake of his conviction in a New York court, President Trump has complained that the process was rigged against him, that the whole proceeding was a corrupt effort to persecute him with a view to influencing the 2024 presidential election. In response, many of his opponents have criticized him for undermining public confidence in our system of criminal justice and thus harming our democracy—a criticism that has been magnified by many in the media.

These critics, however, are missing the point and undermining a principle that is in fact essential to preserving our republic: namely, that criticism of the justice system when it errs or overreaches is necessary to preserving freedom under the rule of law.

Those who founded our nation were aware of this necessity.

Alexander Hamilton, representing the defendant in the famous libel case People v. Croswell, warned that “the most dangerous, the most sure, the most fatal of tyrannies” operated “by selecting and sacrificing single individuals, under the mask and forms of law, by dependent and partial tribunals.”

“Against such measures,” Hamilton continued, “we ought to keep a vigilant eye and take a manly stand. Whenever they arise, we ought to resist, and resist till we have hurled the demagogues and tyrants from their imagined thrones.” No sensible American would look back on these remarks and think that, by them, Hamilton was undermining democracy.

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Hamilton’s great rival, Thomas Jefferson, acted on a similar view. As president, Jefferson pardoned publishers who had been convicted under the Sedition Act of 1798. Jefferson’s course of action here was inseparable from his belief that the Act was unconstitutional and that the courts of the United States had made themselves party to serious injustices by convicting defendants under it. Indeed, the pardoning power is included in the United States Constitution, and in many state constitutions, and is used routinely, precisely because prosecutors and courts can make mistakes and sometimes even willfully abuse their power over the lives and liberties of citizens.

These dangers are also recognized in federal law. Title 18 of the United States Code prohibits and punishes “deprivation of rights under color of law.” By its very terms this provision acknowledges that sometimes those entrusted with the administration of justice are themselves guilty of behaving lawlessly and abusively. The United States Department of Justice’s website observes that this provision may be applied not only against “police officers, sheriff’s deputies, and prison guards” but also, as appropriate, against “judges, district attorneys,” and “other public officials.” This important provision is itself an acknowledgment by the government that all the proceedings of our justice system are not entitled to uncritical acceptance.

Everyone conversant with American history knows that the problem of politicized and corrupt abuses of the justice system has not disappeared in the modern era, that it continues to rear its ugly head precisely when political passions run high and communities are inflamed against leaders for whom they harbor deep animosities. In the 1960s, Alabama state authorities brought Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to trial on charges that he had committed perjury in relation to his tax filings.

This prosecution was a transparently cynical attempt to deprive an important American political and social movement of its most effective leader. In that case, however, even the Alabama jury, composed exclusively of white men, perceived the abusive character of the case and returned an acquittal. Afterwards, Dr. King thanked the jury for their “fair, honest, and just verdict” and commended the Alabama judge for the “high and noble manner” in which he had conducted the case.

If criticism of prosecutors and courts is permissible and necessary in certain circumstances, the only important question at present is whether such criticism is justified in the case of President Trump’s New York conviction. Would it be reasonable for impartial Americans today to echo Dr. King’s words and congratulate the Manhattan jury for a “fair” verdict and commend Judge Merchan for his “high and noble” handling of the case?

For an answer to that question, we need not rely on Trump or his aggrieved supporters. We need only look to the evaluation of respected CNN legal analyst and former federal prosecutor Elie Honig, writing in New York Magazine: “Prosecutors Got Trump, But They Contorted the Law.”

Carson Holloway is a Washington Fellow in the Claremont Institute’s Center for the American Way of Life. This article was first published at TomKlingenstein.com.

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[Editor's note: This story originally was published by Real Clear Wire.]

By Jonathan Lesser
Real Clear Wire

Long viewed as a playground for environmentalists, Vermont has jumped the climate change shark with its new Climate Superfund law. If not halted by judges who reject its dubious legal basis, this shark promises to deliver a severe blow to the state’s economy that will harm the “ordinary Vermonters” proponents claim the law will help.

The new law is modeled after the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980, which created a “Superfund” to clean up hazardous waste sites. Under the original Superfund law, companies and any predecessors that dumped hazardous wastes are required to pay the actual cleanup costs for those sites.

In contrast, under the Vermont law, U.S. fossil fuel producers and their successors—companies that mined coal, produced natural gas, and extracted and refined crude oil over the 30-year period between 1995 and the end of this year, and whose carbon-equivalent emissions are estimated to have been over one billion metric tons over that period—will be required to pay into a state-administered fund for the climate “damages” caused by those fuels’ ultimate consumers. Had this same logic applied to the original Superfund law, the government would have forced chemical manufacturers to pay the cleanup costs, rather than the companies that dumped them.

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Once the damages are determined, the liability from each company’s fossil fuel production will be apportioned based on the company’s share of total world emissions. To take a simple example, if between 1995 and 2024 a company refined crude oil that, when combusted, emitted one billion tons of carbon dioxide, and over the same period total world carbon dioxide emissions totaled 800 billion tons, then the company would be allocated 1/800^th of the total estimated damages to Vermont.

In addition to placing liability on U.S. energy producers, rather than end users, there are two fundamental problems with the law.  First, it is impossible to determine that “climate change” caused any individual weather-related events. For example, last summer, Montpelier, the state capital, was devastated by a flood, which proponents of the new Vermont law claim was caused by climate change.  Yet, the town was similarly devastated almost a century ago, in 1927. Was that the result of climate change, too? In fact, a 1964 publication by the U.S. Geological Survey chronicles hundreds of New England floods between 1620 and 1955, including the 1927 one. Were these all caused by climate change, too?  If not, then when did those New England floods begin to be caused by climate change?

This same cause-and-effect problem applies to other alleged damages, whether a poor maple syrup season, lousy snow at the state’s ski areas, or even a summer when the black flies are especially hungry. None can be credibly attributed to burning fossil fuels.  Moreover, how will natural variability be accounted for? Will burning fossil fuels, for example, be “credited” if a maple syrup season was better than average or if Vermont ski areas had an especially good year?

Despite the impossibility of attributing specific events to burning fossil fuels, the State Treasurer’s office will be required to issue a report in January 2026 that estimates the alleged damages climate change caused the state over the 30-year period and estimates future damages. This leads to the second fundamental problem: How will the Treasurer’s office credibly estimate those damages?

Curiously, the state’s bond issuances, which the Treasurer’s office also oversees, make no mention of damages from climate change posing an economic risk to the state that could limit future repayments. Even the most recent bond issuance in September 2023, which discusses the economic risks posed by recovery from the Covid pandemic, does not mention any financial risks posed by climate change.  Yet, just four months later, the Climate Superfund bill was introduced, with much fanfare about how climate change has already devastated the state.

The nonsensical estimates of climate-related damages to Vermont belie the real economic damages that will be done to the state’s economy. The first consequence will be higher energy prices. Fossil fuel producers will recoup their costs through higher prices, which sellers (e.g., gasoline stations, heating oil wholesalers, natural gas distribution companies) will recover from consumers. Unlike the presumed damages to the state from climate change, higher energy prices will have immediate and destructive impacts on the state’s economy and beyond.

Other states are looking hungrily at the law, hoping to enact similar legislation. But imagine if the entire country enacted similar legislation, as many environmentalists want. Last year, U.S. energy-related CO2 emissions were about 5 billion metric tons. Using the Environmental Protection Agency’s most recent SCC value, about $200/ton, the resulting “damages” are $1 trillion.  Over the past 30 years, the damages would have been around $30 trillion. If, over that time, the U.S. emitted an average of about one-fourth of world CO2—it’s down to about 15% because China’s emissions have increased rapidly--then U.S. energy companies collectively would owe over $7 trillion.

No company could pay its share of that amount because it would all be bankrupt if it tried, and no companies would purchase the assets because then they would be liable. The entire scheme would soon collapse. And if fossil fuel producers actually stopped producing fossil fuels, as some environmentalists demand, the U.S. economy—and modern life as we know it—would be wrecked.

Vermont’s new law ought to be viewed for what it is: a shakedown to benefit the state’s favored constituents at the expense of the public.

Jonathan Lesser is a senior fellow with the National Center for Energy Analytics and the president of Continental Economics. 

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[Editor's note: This story originally was published by Live Action News.]

By Nancy Flanders
Live Action News

On June 4, the Senate Health, Education, and Labor Committee held a hearing titled “The Assault on Women’s Freedoms,” during which pro-abortion Senator Patty Murray (D-Wash.) claimed pro-life lawmakers are inflicting “trauma” on women by protecting children from abortion.

“Today we take a close accounting of the trauma Republicans are inflicting on women and families across our country and the damage they are doing to basic reproductive health care through their horrific anti-abortion crusade,” said Murray. “The issue here is simple, and it cuts to the core of American values: freedom.”

Three pro-abortion and two pro-life witnesses were present to give testimony. Pro-life activist Melissa Ohden, an abortion survivor, told the committee, “The nightmare here is not abortion bans… the nightmare is that abortion continues to be aggressively promoted so that it is seen as the only option.”

She said it is abortion that causes “trauma.”

Abortion causes trauma

Calling legal protections for preborn children traumatic for women and likening such protections to assault is offensive to rape survivors, especially those who have chosen life for their children or who regret their abortions.

Abortion has been known to cause trauma for mothers — and even fathers and other relatives. Research shows that undergoing abortion can affect women deeply. In fact, an October 2018 article in SAGE Open Med found that abortion is “consistently associated with elevated rates of mental illness” compared to women who haven’t had abortions. In addition, it found that abortion “directly contributes to mental health problems for at least some women,” and that certain factors may put certain women “at greatest risk” of struggling with mental health after an abortion.

In addition, a study published in July of 2016 — using data collected from 8,005 women in the United States who were followed over 13 years — linked abortion with an increased risk of mental health disorders and substance abuse.

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Women have also shared their personal stories of the trauma abortion caused them. On the Netflix dating show “Love is Blind,” contestant Amber Pike shared the trauma she suffered from abortion. “After the fact, [my boyfriend and I] were just talking. I’m telling him, like, I’m trying to explain what I’m going through, like, I’m having a really hard time getting out of bed in the morning. I don’t eat. I’m not really sleeping. […] I can’t survive [another abortion]. It would destroy me.”

Likewise, TLC band member Chilli revealed in 2010 that her past abortion is still a source of pain for her. “It messed me up,” she said during an interview. “I don’t know; It just, it broke my spirit. […] I cried almost every day for almost nine years and then I was caught up, I had to have a baby.”

Julie Lambotte aborted her daughter following a prenatal Down syndrome diagnosis and afterward suffered such deep sorrow that she killed two of her three born children. She drowned her 22-month-old daughter and stabbed her nine-year-old and seven-year-old children. The nine-year-old survived. Lambotte told authorities she did it because she “missed her little girl.”

Rape survivor Ashley Sigrest explained how abortion affected her. “I could never ever deal with my rape because I was so focused on what I had done in choosing abortion. And that’s what people don’t understand when they tell rape victims, ‘Oh yes, have an abortion so that way you can go on and we can deal with the rape.’ But the abortion just makes the rape 1,000 times worse because now you have these two horrible events that you have to deal with.”

Paula Peyton, however, chose life for her son after she was raped. She explained that she “endured trauma the night he was conceived.” But choosing life for him was not traumatic. She calls him “my life’s greatest blessing – a child conceived in gang rape, a child who far too many people deemed disposable, a child who saved my life, a child who was always meant to be my whole-hearted, honorable gift of God.”

Abortion is violent

Abortion is also traumatic for the child. Every act of abortion is a violent assault on an innocent human being. Every induced abortion carries the intent to kill a preborn child through starvation, dismemberment, powerful suction, or induced cardiac arrest. To say that protecting children from this is “assault” is ludicrous:

While abortion advocates claim that preborn children are nothing more than tissue and are unaware of the violence being carried out against them, at least one sonographer has said she has witnessed a preborn child “trying to get away” from the abortion instruments. Sarah Cleveland, a board certified Registered Diagnostic Medical Sonographer, explained:

… I placed the transducer over the uterus and saw a baby approximately 18 weeks gestation on the screen. He was kicking, playful, and happy. Then the doc inserted the needle.

Immediately, the baby knew something was in his space. That something was different. As I held the transducer to guide the needle to a safe area away from the placenta and away from Baby, I saw Baby dart away from where we were in the uterus and move as far away as possible to the other side of the womb. He stopped kicking and playing… Then the heart rate. His little heart rate sky rocketed. He was scared. In fact, I am convinced he was terrified.

After only about 20 seconds of withdrawing fluid, the needle was out. … I watched Baby for a few minutes longer, while the parents conversed with one another. The Baby slowly, eventually, came out of the corner and the heart rate slowly decelerated.

According to the Endowment for Human Development, by 11 weeks, the preborn child is “sensitive” even to “light touch.”

Pro-life laws protect women

Pro-life laws protect babies from abortion but they also protect women from abortion and abortion-related trauma. Studies show that 64% of post-abortive women felt pressured to abort by parents, boyfriends, employers, friends, and their personal situations, but pro-life laws can help to release them from that pressure. The further a woman lives from an abortion facility, the less likely she is to have an abortion — which means pro-life laws protect women from the trauma of abortion.

The pro-life politicians that Murray and other pro-abortion lawmakers attacked during the hearing are taking steps to offer true help to women and children. Sen. Marsha Blackburn and Sen. Katie Britt introduced the More Opportunities for Moms to Succeed (MOMS) Act this month, which aims to support women during and after pregnancy by increasing access to resources and assistance for prenatal, postpartum, and early childhood development.

[Editor's note: This story originally was published by Live Action News.]

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[Editor's note: This story originally was published by Real Clear Wire.]

By Newt Gingrich
Real Clear Wire

Democratic analysts don’t seem to understand why the all-out legal assault on President Donald Trump isn’t working. It’s because they keep talking among themselves and not with the American people.

The American people don’t live and work in the New York-Washington political-media-government bubble. If reporters and analysts listened to Americans, as we do at America's New Majority Project, they would learn how decisive the choice between President Joe Biden or President Trump is. They would also see how difficult, if not impossible, it will be for President Biden to get easily re-elected.

The propaganda media is trying to focus the election on what it sees as President Trump’s flaws. The Democrats, including the Biden campaign, are trying to focus the election on what they see as the threat President Trump represents.

But the 2024 election is ultimately going to come down to a simple question: Can the American people afford four more years of Biden’s policies and principles?

President Trump’s problems all involve his own alleged behavior and activities. Even the totally phony legal attacks remain locked into a Trump-centered issue. No American is hurt by the things President Trump has supposedly done. Indeed, few Americans pay any attention to the outlandish, manipulated legal attacks on President Trump.

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Most Americans see the case against Trump as political lawfare. If anything, they are offended by the left’s assault on the rule of law and the Constitution. This is why the conviction in the so-called hush money trial led to an enormous surge of contributions to Trump’s campaign. Far from running away from President Trump, the American people found themselves running to defend him. They saw him as a champion being persecuted unfairly and took the conviction as a direct warning of what could happen to them.

By contrast, President Biden’s problems all impact everyday Americans. Bidenflation continues to drive already high prices higher. Child care costs increased 4.1 percent in the last year. Young parents are having to take on third and fourth jobs just to break even on costs. Grocery prices are forcing Americans to make tough decisions about how to feed their families. Young people can’t afford to buy houses – which is more than offsetting any good will Biden might have generated by (illegally) waiving student loan repayments.

President Biden’s policies are causing millions of Americans real pain.

Biden’s open border policy allows Venezuelan criminals to go to New York City and murder policemen. Biden’s open border policy allows fentanyl and other drugs to flood our country and poison our communities. When more than 100,000 Americans a year are dying from drug overdoses, it is hard worry about how Trump valued his apartment or paid his attorney.

The average American can’t afford groceries, gasoline, or the electricity bill thanks to Bidenflation. Democrats want Americans to focus on these legal attacks. But Americans are focused on their own survival in the terrible economy President Biden and Democrats created.

For the elite establishment Democrats, this is all still about politics. For the American people, it’s about survival.

Economically, Biden’s destructive policies make life more expensive. Culturally, people are sick of radical dictates which denigrate religious liberty and seek to indoctrinate children against the will of their parents. Finally, as a matter of safety, Americans realize that Biden does not have the knowledge, ability, or wits to defend our nation against our adversaries.

The 2024 election isn’t about what the establishment media thinks. It’s about America’s survival.

For more commentary from Newt Gingrich, visit Gingrich360.com. Also, subscribe to the Newt’s World podcast.

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President Donald J. Trump and First Lady Melania Trump are greeted by guests as they arrive to the New Year's Eve celebration Tuesday evening, Dec. 31, 2019, at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida. (Official White House Photo by Tia Dufour)

[Editor's note: This story originally was published by Real Clear Wire.]

By Julie Kelly
Real Clear Wire

Top officials at the Department of Justice are downplaying recently disclosed documents showing FBI agents were authorized to use deadly force during their 2022 raid of Donald Trump’s Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago.

Responding to Trump’s claim that “Joe Biden was locked & loaded ready to take me out & put my family in danger,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said the bureau was following “standard operating procedure” as it executed a search warrant on Aug. 8, 2022, regarding classified material that the former president was holding at Mar-a-Lago.

While noting that Trump was not present during the raid, Attorney General Merrick Garland dismissed Trump’s claim as “false” and “dangerous.” Garland said the same language was used in a later search warrant seeking classified documents President Biden was storing in various locations.

But critics argue that there was nothing ordinary about the Mar-a-Lago raid, in which more than 30 FBI agents descended on Trump’s Palm Beach estate, potentially creating a dangerous situation with the armed Secret Service agents on site.

“There was zero reason to create an unnecessary, even one in a thousand chance, of a blue-on-blue situation with firearms,” former Secret Service agent and political commentator Dan Bongino said on his podcast. “The FBI, DOJ, and management of the Secret Service effed this up royally.”

Even as the DOJ presents its actions as business as usual, the newly released documents and other public records suggest the department’s actions entered uncharted territory. While the department claims that all citizens must be treated equally, critics note that no former president was ever the subject of an FBI search warrant before Trump.

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A recently discovered Department of Defense memo suggests that the federal government may well have had copies of the documents in Trump’s possession, also raising questions about the need for the raid. The content of those documents has not been disclosed but, critics ask, if Trump was not retaining copies of information that threatened national security, what was the need for an armed raid?

Many on the right see the Mar-a-Lago raid as part of a broader effort by the Department of Justice to intimidate its political enemies. They say it is part of a larger pattern that includes the armed morning raid on the home of Trump associate Roger Stone in 2019, the arrest of anti-abortion activist Mark Houck by dozens of armed agents in 2022 a year after he was accused of pushing someone outside a Philadelphia clinic, and the DOJ’s aggressive efforts to find and charge to date more than 1,400 people connected to the Jan. 6 protest at the Capitol.

Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida

The recent court disclosures also underscore the very different treatments the department has accorded to Trump and the Biden family.

Trump, who has asserted that his presidential authority empowered him to retain and declassify documents, got a surprise nine-hour raid a few months before announcing his plans to run for reelection.

President Biden, who never had the authority to declassify or take home classified records as a senator or vice president, received the courtesy of at least two consensual FBI searches, presumably unarmed.

IRS whistleblower Joseph Ziegler, who has worked on tax cases involving Biden’s son Hunter, has testified that Hunter Biden’s lawyers were tipped off that investigators had probable cause to search his Northern Virginia storage unit.

Trump’s attorneys are now asking Judge Aileen Cannon, who is presiding over Special Counsel Jack Smith’s espionage and obstruction case against Trump in Florida, to prohibit Smith from using any of the materials seized during the Mar-a-Lago raid at trial. The FBI sought the warrant as part of its attempt to recover classified records, including national defense materials, which Trump supposedly took with him at the end of his presidency.

The FBI’s application for the warrant contained false information, the attorneys argue, and the raid violated even the very broad terms of the warrant. To make their case to the judge, Trump’s team on May 21 filed a copy of the FBI’s plan to execute the warrant, which disclosed details about how agents were instructed to conduct the raid.

The operations order, known as an FD-888, indicated the almost undercover nature of the raid. Agents were advised to wear “unmarked polo or collared shirts” and keep their badges, credentials, and equipment “concealed.”

Agents were also told to be equipped with “Standard Issue Weapons, Ammo, [and] Handcuffs.” One team was told to bring “medium and large sized bolt cutters.” A lock-picking team would be on site to open the doors of guest rooms if Mar-a-Lago staff did not cooperate. (It is unclear why an investigator would have probable cause to believe Trump stored secrets in the guest rooms of the resort area of the estate.)

Another section of the order addressed a possible response if the Secret Service attempted to impede the search or if Trump showed up that day. (Trump, at the time, was residing at his Bedminster, New Jersey, home for the summer.)

“Should FPOTUS [Former President of the United States] arrive at MAL [Mar-a-Lago], FBI [agents] will be prepared to engage with FPOTUS and USSS [U.S. Secret Service] Security Team,” the order read.

In a partially redacted portion of the plan, agents were advised to “engage” with an unidentified Secret Service contact “should USSS provide resistance or interfere with FBI timeline or accesses.”

Dan Bongino faulted the Secret Service for permitting armed police into Mar-a-Lago. “What the hell was the Secret Service management thinking, letting the FBI in there with guns? It was a protected facility.”

The inclusion of the use of deadly force policy in the raid plan prompted widespread outrage among Republicans, including the former president. The House Judiciary Committee has since sent a letter to Garland asking for more records related to the search including communications between the FBI and Secret Service in advance of the raid.

Others insisted the deadly force language was nothing to be alarmed about. After this reporter disclosed that language on May 21, FBI Director Christopher Wray issued a statement late on May 21 to that effect: “The FBI followed standard protocol in this search as we do for all search warrants, which includes a standard policy statement limiting the use of deadly force. No one ordered additional steps to be taken and there was no departure from the norm in this matter.”

Others argue, however, that in the case of an unprecedented raid against a former president and leading contender for the Republican nomination for president at the time, Wray should have considered “additional steps” and a “departure from the norm.”

“This type of event has never happened to a full time Protectee of the USSS,” Charles Butt, an 18-year special agent of the Secret Service now retired, told RealClearInvestigations by email last month. “All of this never should have happened in a reasonable environment.”

In a separate statement, Garland claimed the lethal force language was also used in the search of Joe Biden’s residence in 2022, which resulted in the discovery of several classified files, according to Special Counsel Robert Hur’s final report.

But while Trump faces 40 federal criminal charges and the possibility of years in prison for any conviction, Hur, after finding Biden had willfully retained and shared classified material stretching back to the 1970s, concluded Biden should not be charged as a jury would sympathize with “an elderly man with a poor memory.”

Hur’s report makes no mention of an FBI document related to the consensual searches of Biden’s home. Efforts to reach Hur for confirmation were unsuccessful.

After Garland characterized Trump’s comments about the use of lethal force as “extremely dangerous,” Smith filed a May 24 motion asking Cannon to impose a partial gag order on Trump that essentially would prohibit him from continuing to publicly criticize the FBI in the classified documents case.

Smith said his request is “necessary because of several intentionally false and inflammatory statements recently made by Trump that distort the circumstances under which the Federal Bureau of Investigations planned and executed the search warrant at Mar-a-Lago.” Smith complained that Trump’s comments about the raid “create a grossly misleading impression about the intentions and conduct of federal law enforcement.”

Both sides are set to clash over the gag order and the legality of the raid during a hearing in Cannon’s courtroom later this month.

Contrary to claims the raid followed standard protocols, additional court documents, media reports, and congressional testimony demonstrate the unusual nature of the process.

Prosecutors and investigators disagreed on how to pursue the investigation from the start. According to a 2023 report in the Washington Post, Jay Bratt, who initially led the early stages of the investigation, wanted to obtain a search warrant in early May 2022 – just three months after National Archives officials informed the DOJ they had found papers with classified markings contained in 15 boxes Trump’s team turned over the archives in January 2022. (Bratt is now one of Smith’s lead prosecutors in the matter.)

FBI agents working out of the Washington field office – not the proper jurisdiction of southern Florida where the alleged crimes occurred – pushed back on Bratt’s quick trigger. The agents “viewed a Mar-a-Lago search in May as premature and combative, especially given that it involved raiding the home of a former president,” the Post disclosed.

Bratt settled for a subpoena for more documents. Along with three FBI agents, Bratt personally visited Mar-a-Lago on June 3, 2022, to collect 37 records responsive to the subpoena.

Far from attempting to obstruct the investigation, Trump delayed his planned trip to Bedminster to greet the DOJ team. “Whatever you need, just let us know,” he told them. At one point, according to a court document, Trump overruled his own attorney and allowed Bratt to view the area where dozens of boxes of presidential and personal materials were stored.

Despite Team Trump’s cooperation with the DOJ, Bratt spent the next few months pushing for a search warrant for Mar-a-Lago, but key FBI officials continued to resist. The main resistance came from Steven D’Antuono, head of the Washington FBI field office at the time. D’Antuono repeatedly locked horns with Bratt and George Toscas, deputy assistant attorney general for the National Security Division, whose fingerprints also are on the FISAgate scandal to spy on Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and the Hillary Clinton email investigation.

Toscas, in what appears to be a deviation from normal protocol, sent D’Antuono an email on Aug. 2, 2022 instructing him to move forward with getting a judge to approve the warrant. D’Antuono told the House Judiciary Committee in a 2023 interview that he “put his foot down” and continued to argue that the search should be consensual.

“I kind of got, not upset, but it’s like, you’re talking about my agents? Like they’re my agents, not yours,” D’Antuono testified he told Toscas. “They’re mine. I just – we have a different plan for this, my agents. So don’t tell me what my agents – I didn’t say this, but in the back of my mind, I was like, don’t tell me what my agents want to do because my agents tell me [something] completely different.”

But D’Antuono was overruled by Paul Abbate, deputy director of the FBI. And on Aug. 5, 2022, Florida Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart signed the warrant via WhatsApp encrypted chat.

Despite being thwarted by his higher-ups at the FBI, D’Antuono said he wanted to notify Trump’s attorney at the time, Evan Corcoran, before the FBI team arrived at Mar-a-Lago; Bratt refused the request even though D’Antuono said, “We usually go to the attorneys first” prior to executing any search. The FBI’s initial plan also indicated that Trump’s attorney would be notified on Aug. 8 and “request collaboration and assistance.”

But that did not happen. According to the FD-888, 30 agents out of the Washington and Miami FBI field offices arrived at Mar-a-Lago on Aug. 8 at 8:59 a.m. An unidentified individual attempted to contact Corcoran about 15 minutes later, but he was not reached until around 9:40 a.m. as agents were preparing to conduct the search. It is unclear when Corcoran arrived.

In another oddity, the FBI disclosed that a prosecutor for the U.S. attorney’s office in southern Florida was present during the search; prosecutors generally do not participate in raids, as they instead handle charging decisions after evidence is collected as a result of a search. Further, the prosecutor would lose immunity if the search was declared unlawful.

That appears to be a possibility. The warrant allowed agents to search Trump’s office as well as “all storage rooms, and all other rooms or areas within the premises used or available to be used by FPOTUS and his staff and in which boxes or documents could be stored.”

But Trump’s lawyers argue that FBI agents exceeded the scope of the warrant by searching the private suite of former first lady Melania Trump and the couple’s son, Barron, who was 16 at the time.

An FBI photo log demonstrates agents entered and took photographs of items inside both bedrooms. “There was no factual basis for the agents to rummage through rooms not specified in the warrant and, not surprisingly, they seized nothing from these other rooms,” Trump’s attorneys wrote.

Some records related to the search remain under seal, including grand jury testimony of a Secret Service agent. Judge Cannon previously indicated she would allow for the unsealing of grand jury materials if necessary, so more revelations as to how the raid was planned and conducted could be forthcoming.

Documents filed on June 11 add more context to the execution of the raid. It appears the Secret Service point of contact was only informed of the warrant roughly two hours before agents arrived at Mar-a-Lago. Contrary to what the DOJ attempts to portray as a “cooperative” effort between the two law enforcement agencies, FBI agents used a bolt cutter to open the lock of the storage area where boxes were housed rather than wait for a key.

Agents mishandled files from the start; Smith recently admitted the sequence of evidence inside the boxes is not in the original order and that some alleged classified records do not match the cover sheet used as a placeholder to indicate where the classified record was found.

Which leads to this question: Was the unprecedented and potentially dangerous raid of the former president’s home only the beginning of what now appears to be a botched case?

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By Robert Schmad
Daily Caller News Foundation

A Democrat running for local office in Texas was arrested and charged with a felony for allegedly creating social media accounts to post fake racist attacks against himself, local outlets reported.

Taral Patel, the Democratic nominee for Fort Bend County Precinct 3 commissioner, in September 2023 made a post to his Facebook account claiming that his “Republican opponents supporters’ decide[d] to hurl #racist, #anti-immigrant, #Hinduphobic, or otherwise disgusting insults,” attaching screenshots allegedly showing prejudiced statements made by residents of the county. The racist messages were eventually traced back to Patel following an investigation conducted by the Fort Bend County District Attorney’s office and the Texas Rangers, the Houston Chronicle reported.

“We don’t need more sand negroid subhumans who smell like curry and filth in our country,” one comment flagged by Patel reads. “If I see you wearing that dot on your head, I’ll wipe it off myself,” another reads.

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Patel’s campaign has garnered endorsements from high-profile elected Democrats like  Colorado Gov. Jared Polis and Texas Rep. Joaquin Castro, according to his campaign website. The website also states that President Joe Biden appointed Patel to serve in the Office of White House Liaison during which time he says he was “a key member” of the White House Asian American Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Committee.

Taral Patel

Republican Commissioner Andy Meyers, who Patel is running against, initially suspected foul play when Patel made his post alleging the racist attacks, according to Houston Public Media. Meyers recognized one of the accounts as having attacked him before and, suspicious of its motivations, hired a private investigator to figure out who was behind it.

When his private investigator came up short, Meyers asked the Fort Bend County District Attorney’s office to look into the accounts posting the messages, Houston Public Media reported. The district attorney’s office issued a subpoena to Facebook and Google and obtained account data that matched Patel’s address, phone number, Texas driver’s license number and bank card number, according to ABC 13.

Patel allegedly used a picture of a real man living in Fort Bend County for a fake account, according to Houston Public Media. The man told the district attorney’s office that Patel did not have permission to use his likeness.

Texas Rangers arrested Patel on Wednesday for online impersonation, a third-degree felony, and misrepresentation of identity, a misdemeanor, ABC 13 reported. Patel’s total bond was $22,250, which he paid Thursday morning.

Patel’s campaign did not immediately return the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

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President Donald J. Trump

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President Donald J. Trump prepares to sign a plaque placed along the border wall Tuesday, Jan. 12, 2021, at the Texas-Mexico border near Alamo, Texas. (Official White House photo by Shealah Craighead)

(HEADLINE USA) – Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., claimed this week that former President Donald Trump’s family should stage an “intervention” for him.

“He knows he’s wacky,” Pelosi told MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell on Thursday. “He knows he’s an imposter,” she claimed. “… Everything he says about somebody else, whether it’s a judge in the courtroom, a witness, a juror, a member of Congress, a woman, an opponent in an election – everything he says is a projection of his own shortcomings.”

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Pelosi’s rhetoric was, of course, a projection in its own right. Increasingly Democrats have begun to accuse Republicans – and Trump in particular – of the very behaviors in which they themselves are engaging, even down to the act of projecting onto others.

Read the full story ›

Katelynn Richardson
Daily Caller News Foundation

A $230 million floating pier the Biden administration constructed on the Gaza coast to deliver humanitarian aid will temporarily be removed to prevent damage from high seas, U.S. officials announced Friday.

President Joe Biden’s promised pier has been marred by logistical problems, security concerns and weather-related setbacks since it became operational mid-May. Now, the military says the pier will be temporarily towed to Israel to protect it during a period of “expected high seas,” after which it will “be rapidly re-anchored to the coast of Gaza.”

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“Today, due to expected high seas, the temporary pier will be removed from its anchored position in Gaza and towed back to Ashdod, Israel,” U.S. Central Command wrote Friday on X. “The safety of our service members is a top priority and temporarily relocating the pier will prevent structural damage caused by the heightened sea state.”

U.S. Central Command moves pier ahead of high seas

Today, due to expected high seas, the temporary pier will be removed from its anchored position in Gaza and towed back to Ashdod, Israel. The safety of our service members is a top priority and temporarily relocating the pier… pic.twitter.com/gvL2BYYYac

— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) June 14, 2024

Rough waters already broke the pier apart in late May less than two weeks after it first became operational, costing tens of millions of dollars to repair. It was only operational for another two days before the United Nations (UN) World Food Program (WFP) suspended deliveries, citing safety concerns.

Exclusive video of Biden’s shoddy Gaza Pier (before it broke into pieces): pic.twitter.com/Xqyqjt7Ru4

— Kristina Wong (@kristina_wong) June 14, 2024

Trucks containing aid were also ransacked days after the pier was constructed, forcing WFP to temporarily pause operations, according to The New York Times.

Over 7.7 million pounds have been delivered using the pier since May 17, according to U.S. Central Command. Biden announced plans for the pier in early March.

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A fight has erupted over a decision by the Long Island town of Southold to take private property that the owners of a chain of hardware stores bought for a new location.

The problem is that the town took the land against the wishes of the owners using eminent domain, but it had no legitimate reason for doing that.

According to officials at the Institute for Justice, that's known because the city insisted it needed the land for a "park," but that turned out to be a "passive park" with no cleanup, no improvements, and the remnants of an old home and greenhouse left there.

The IJ explained, 'When every legal effort to stop someone from using their property has failed, can the government simply take the land using eminent domain? That is the question at the heart of a new U.S. Supreme Court petition filed by a family-owned hardware store business whose property was taken by a small Long Island town."

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It is the Brinkmann family whose members already have five Long Island stores and obtained the Southold property for another.

"The town did everything it could to stop construction. After failing to drive the Brinkmanns away by attempting to interfere with the Brinkmanns’ land purchase, then imposing an exorbitant fee for a market impact study that the town never performed after being paid, and even deploying a selectively enforced moratorium on building permits to stifle the Brinkmanns’ permit application; the town voted to take the land by eminent domain for a park," the IJ said.

At the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the judges said, "the government can take your property for almost any reason at all—including because it just doesn’t like you—so long as the government lies about why it is using eminent domain," explained IJ lawyer Jeff Redfern.

"This is a dangerous precedent, and the Supreme Court should take this opportunity to clarify that it is unconstitutional to use eminent domain in bad faith, simply to stop someone from making a lawful use of their property."

The commercial venture was started by Tony and Pat Brinkmann with a single store in Sayville, New York, in 1976. Today, the company is still family-owned and operated by their children—Mary, Ben and Hank.

"If the maneuver that Southold used to take our property is allowed to stand, no one can purchase property with the confidence that they will be able to use it," said Ben Brinkmann. "We played by the rules, but the ground kept shifting under our feet until our property was simply taken by force. Courts should not turn their eyes from eminent domain abuse."

A dissent from the recent 2nd Circuit ruling pointed out that "courts across the country have long invalidated bad-faith takings to stop otherwise legitimate uses of property."

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[Editor's note: This story originally was published by Real Clear Wire.]

By Tim Gallaudet
Real Clear Wire

This World Ocean Day, conservation groups, scientists and average citizens across the globe will take part in activities to focus attention on the many threats to the marine environment. While serving with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) between 2017-2021, I championed a wide range of activities to combat these threats, such as reducing marine plastic pollution, curing coral disease, countering illegal fishing, conserving coral reefs, protecting endangered species, restoring habitat, as well as adding new and expanding existing marine protected areas. While we made much progress, more is needed if we want to hand off a healthy ocean to future generations.

As with our ocean, there is another at-risk resource that requires our attention. America’s military Veteran community is suffering from high suicide rates and other mental health challenges caused by post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which have resulted from two decades of nonstop war. While the Veterans Administration has made great progress by establishing the Staff Sergeant Parker Gordon Fox Suicide Prevention Grant Program, some reports indicate that Veteran suicide rates may be as high as 24 per day. That number is unacceptable, and more must be done to reduce it.

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How can we confront these two challenges in tandem for the greater good?

Former members of the military can be power tools in protecting the planet. NOAA recognized this several years ago, enlisting Veterans for habitat conservation on the Gulf Coast, across California, in Washington and in Oregon.

Similarly, Veterans Service Organizations (VSO) can gain by adding environmental elements to the portfolio of activities they offer to the groups they support.

Another example of blending these two important causes is the American nonprofit Force Blue, for which I am on the board of directors. The idea to support ocean conservation while helping Veterans grew out of a scuba diving trip to the Cayman Islands in 2015 by co-founders Jim Ritterhoff and Rudy Reyes.

For Ritterhoff, an experienced recreational diver who had been diving on coral reefs for decades, the dives were routine. But for Reyes, a former reconnaissance marine — who had struggled with PTS and depression since returning home from multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan — the experience was life-changing.

Like most special operations Veterans, Reyes did not view diving as an activity to enjoy. Diving for him meant hauling 200 pounds of gear underwater to destroy dangerous targets in the dead of night. The coral reefs and marine life of the Cayman Islands transformed him. Ritterhoff, who was familiar with the threats to ocean health around the globe, saw the ultimate win-win opportunity.

Involving Veterans like Reyes in conservation would serve to restore their mental, emotional, and physical health, as well as help the marine environment. Efforts like Force Blue offer an important lesson for marine conservation organizations everywhere.

We can already see this in successful efforts to restore, conserve or study such diverse habitats as coral reefs in Florida and Puerto Rico, kelp forests in California, and submerged aquatic vegetation in the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

Renewing the sense of purpose and belonging in Veterans through experiences with nature can create a new generation of conservation leaders.

Now Florida Congressman Darren Soto (D-FL) has introduced the Don Young Veterans Advancing Conservation Act, which will establish a grant program at NOAA for training and employing Veterans in the marine conservation field. Named after the late Alaskan Congressman and Veteran supporter, the bill will create pathways for Veterans to conduct activities such as coral reef restoration, marine debris removal, and hurricane recovery. This legislation has wide bipartisan support in the House of Representatives and could be a much-needed mechanism to unify Congress were the Senate to take up a similar measure.

A rising tide of support for ocean sustainability is occurring worldwide, evidenced by the doubling in funding for it to nearly $2 billion over the last decade. As governments, philanthropies, nonprofits, and private companies seek to contribute more, it can only help if they bring on board those who swore an oath to fight for an equally important purpose. By involving more Veterans in marine conservation, we can give these warriors a cause — and we can give a critical cause its “warriors.”

Rear Admiral Tim Gallaudet (U.S. Navy, ret.), Ph.D., is the Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors for Force Blue, former acting and Deputy Administrator of NOAA, acting Under Secretary and Assistant Secretary of Commerce, and Oceanographer of the Navy.

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Chuck Norris and son, Dakota, on site making new movie, "Agent Recon"

One of those famed "Chuck Norris facts" about the television and movie star and longtime WND columnist explains he doesn't wear a watch.

Why not? Because he decides what time it is, of course.

There may be more truth in that than many would admit, as now he appears to let his years of work, which started back in 1968 with "The Wrecking Crew" followed shortly after by his role as Colt in "Way of the Dragon," impact him not at all, as at age 84 he's appearing in a new sci-fi action movie, Agent Recon.

By the way, at the start of that year, Lyndon Johnson was president; Richard Nixon was elected in the fall.

He plays Alastair, the captain of a covert Earth security force, whose team tracks down a mysterious disturbance in New Mexico.

The trailer:

It's his first movie product since "Expendables 2" in 2012, when he provided a cameo role and saved a team of toughs on a special mission after they were pinned down and destined for annihilation by the enemy.

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Facing the end, the team members heard bang, bang, bang and a few explosions and looked down to the road so see Chuck Norris casually strolling toward them.

His famous line there: "I work alone."

Legendary only understates his work entertaining the nation, with his "Walker, Texas Ranger," television series and moves including his hit, "Good Guys Wear Black," "A Force of One," "Silent Rage," "Lone Wolf McQuiade, " "Missing in Action," "The Delta Force," "Firewalker," "Delta Force 2," and more

Online, he's described as a "noted writer," authoring books on martial arts, philosophy, Christianity, politics and exercise, twice being named a New York Times bestselling author.

He was born Carlos Ray "Chuck" Norris" and after serving in the United States Air Force he turned his interest in martial arts into a long-time world championship. He worked with Bruce Lee in "The Way of the Dragon."

His wife, Gena, said in a statement about the new project, "He loved his role in this great film and particularly enjoyed his couple days on the set working alongside his son Dakota, (who choreographed CN's fight scene) and Executive Director and lead actor Derek Ting and his wife Joyce Ting."

The movie is described as family friendly.

In an commentary about the project, Norris wrote, "As Ting mentioned, one of the personal thrills for my wife, Gena, and me was to have our son, Dakota, serve as the choreographer for my fight scenes on 'Agent Recon.' Dakota is a third-degree black belt and a martial arts expert in his own right.

He shared, "Here's an action-packed 1-minute video of Dakota and his equally amazing black belt sister and our daughter, Danilee, sparring in our gym on our Lone Wolf Ranch in Texas. Here is Dakota also doing a little more training in Hawaii. Not bad, eh?

The Quiver Distribution project is to appear starting June 21.

WND reported when, in 2022, Norris volunteered to work with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban for "that better future."

Norris' comment came then in response to Orban's message to the Conservative Political Action Conference in Texas that America needs now "more Chuck Norris."

Orban, a firebrand who frequently has triggered liberals and progressives over and over with his comments, got a hero's welcome at the CPAC events and pleaded with his audience not to pull punches in a culture war – going on globally – with liberals.

In America, under Joe Biden, that fight has erupted over and over with the president's blatant promotion of abortion, the LGBT ideology, progressive government priorities like massive spending and more.

Orban explained that Hungarian state institutions define marriage as the union of one man and one woman, and he said Americans in the fight need to trust their Judeo-Christian tradition.

"We have to be brave enough to address even the most sensitive questions, migration, gender and the clash of civilizations," he said.

"Politics, my friends, is not enough," he said. "This war is a culture war."

He said what is needed now is "more Chuck Norris."

Norris, to WND, at the time issued a statement that, "In 2018, my wife Gena and I were invited by Hungarian Baptist Aid to visit Budapest. We love the Hungarian people and were honored to spend time with Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

"We heard he fired up conservative Texans at CPAC in Dallas this week by saying America needs 'more Chuck Norris.' I'm humbled and honored to fight with Orban and all conservatives to rebuild America (presently and in 2024 with a new president) from the depression (in economy and spirit) too many Americans are experiencing right now. Let's pray and fight for that better future! We've done it before, and we can do it again!"

Norris, and his life values, regularly appear online. Elon Musk posted an image of Chuck Norris playing chess, with the caption, "Chuckmate," as his fight over Twitter exploded.

Norris at times as appeared on screen with endorsements, one time complaining to an auto maker's representative that he had been "replaced" with a truck. A few years back, WND reported his affiliation with Glock.

After all, those internet sayings already had linked him with weaponry, with:

"When Chuck Norris donates blood, he avoids the syringe, just asking for a gun and a bucket."

And then there's "faster than a speeding bullet" is a Chuck Norris warmup.

Norris, says another, "doesn't dodge bullets, they dodge him."

And Norris "only invented guns because he wanted to make it a fair fight. For others."

To Norris, meanwhile, have been attributed many "facts."

For example, demonstrators in Montreal complained that police intimidated them by plastering on a police vehicle a poster of Norris toting two guns from the movie "Invasion U.S.A."

A political-science professor, Francis Dupuis-Déri, filed the protest with authorities against nine police officers who were patrolling streets in Quebec City when the G7 summit was held.

"The complaint includes a video of a protest held June 8 in which a photo of Chuck Norris carrying a rifle in each hand can be seen attached to the door of a police van used to transport an arrested demonstrator," the report said.

The Norrises' Kick Start program for school students has taught tens of thousands lessons in self-defense and life.

Norris also has let loose his humorous side more than once.

He released a video that was a parody of an ad by action movie hero Jean-Claude Van Damme, who performed a split between two moving trucks.

Norris' response was doing the splits between two flying jets

See the Van Damme ad, followed by Chuck Norris' parody:

Norris has said some of his favorite internet "facts" include:

• "When the Boogeyman goes to sleep every night, he checks his closet for Chuck Norris."

• "Chuck Norris doesn't read books. He stares them down until he gets the information he wants."

• "Outer space exists because it's afraid to be on the same planet with Chuck Norris."

Once, when asked what he thought about the phenomenon, Norris said: "My answer is always the same: Some are funny. Some are pretty far out. And, thankfully, most are just promoting harmless fun."

Norris also downplays the notion that he's some sort of superhero.

"I've got a bulletin for you, folks. I am no superman. I realize that now, but I didn't always. As six-time world karate champion and then a movie star, I put too much trust in who I was, what I could do and what I acquired. I forgot how much I needed others and especially God. Whether we are famous or not, we all need God. We also need other people."

Norris has been writing a weekly column exclusively for WND since October 2006.

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[Editor's note: This story originally was published by Real Clear Wire.]

By Oliver McPherson-Smith
Real Clear Wire

The Inflation Reduction Act’s consumer tax credit for electric vehicles (EVs) is a fiscal blowout and a gift to Chinese mineral companies. If that isn’t bad enough, it also swindles American taxpayers into paying up to $821 per ton of avoided emissions, which is several multiples above the Biden Administration’s own estimates of the cost of carbon. At that staggering price, the scheme is a spectacularly inefficient way to reduce emissions.

Through the so-called Inflation Reduction Act, taxpayers subsidize the purchase of new electric vehicles by up to $7,500. But how many tons of carbon emissions does that actually stop from reaching the atmosphere? Compared to a conventional vehicle, the International Energy Agency estimates that using an EV avoids the equivalent of around 22.24 tons of carbon dioxide across its lifecycle. This means that the EV tax credit costs around $337 to avoid each ton of carbon emissions.

However, the true cost is actually higher because proper accounting should exclude EV consumers who would buy electric vehicles regardless of the tax credit. Because the tax credit doesn’t sway those consumers, the associated avoided emissions shouldn’t be attributed to the credit. The credit has the same $7,500 value, but the scheme is actually avoiding fewer carbon emissions, so the price per ton is higher.

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According to a 2021 study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, 70% of consumers who claimed the federal EV tax credit would have done so in its absence, which would imply a $1,123 implicit cost of carbon. Since then, the Inflation Reduction Act introduced new conditions on the tax credit, including limits on eligibility for high-income buyers. Even if one generously assumes that the remaining pool of very motivated buyers is only half the size — meaning only 35% would purchase an EV without it — then the implicit cost of carbon is still $519 per ton.

The federal splurge on carbon gets a further boost thanks to President Biden’s onerous fuel efficiency standards. Mandating higher fuel efficiency means that a shift from a conventional vehicle to an EV has less of an effect in terms of avoided emissions. In May 2022, the Department of Transportation mandated that new cars on the roads in 2026 be 33% more fuel efficient than the 2021 standards. When consumers choose EVs over these more efficient gas-fueled vehicles, the implicit price of carbon within the EV credit jumps to $775. As the Biden Administration progressively ratchets these efficiency standards higher, so too goes the implicit price on carbon. By 2031, federal taxpayers will be forking over the equivalent of $821 for each ton of carbon the EV tax credit prevents from reaching the atmosphere.

Frittering away more than $800 for a ton of carbon is a rip-off that not even the most unscrupulous used car salesman could dream up. Compare this figure to recent estimates of the “social cost of carbon,” which the federal government uses to quantify the impact of emissions when making regulatory decisions. While the Trump Administration estimated it to be between $1 to $7 per ton, the Biden Administration blew the roof off in 2023 by raising that cost to $190. That progressive overstatement now looks like a steal.

Even within the Inflation Reduction Act’s tax and spend circus, the EV tax credit is a spectacularly wasteful way to reduce carbon emissions. For example, the natural gas tax, which solely punishes the oil and gas industry under a thin guise of environmentalism, levies a fee equivalent to $36 per ton of carbon. Meanwhile, the tax credit for vacuuming emissions out of the air is worth up to $180 per ton. These dramatically different prices, even within a single act of Congress, underscore the practical futility of calculating an efficient price on carbon for a carbon tax or tariff.

Progressives like to measure the success of their policies by how much taxpayer money they can burn through, and the White House periodically reminds taxpayers that the Inflation Reduction Act is the largest single climate spending spree in human history. What they don’t mention is that the American public is being ripped off at the car lot with a climate lemon of a tax credit.

Oliver McPherson-Smith, Ph.D., is the Director of the Center for Energy & Environment at the America First Policy Institute and a research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution.

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[Editor's note: This story originally was published by Real Clear Wire.]

By Dan Vallone
Real Clear Wire

In Americans’ political memory, few peacetime moments carry the motivating power of Sputnik. As NASA put it back in 2007, “History changed on October 4, 1957, when the Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik I.” Shocked by the Soviet’s capabilities, Americans mobilized industry, academia, civil society, and government to dominate the space race, land on the moon, and, ultimately, win the Cold War.

Its perceived narrative power explains Sputnik’s frequent appearance in national security debates. In recent years, advocates have harnessed Sputnik to argue America faces grave risks from adversaries outpacing us in the race for 5G, hypersonic missile capabilities, space, and in industrial strategy in general. Earlier this year, national security commentators argued America is confronting a “Sputnik moment” with the disclosure that Russia is pursuing a nuclear, space-based anti satellite weapon system. In each of these instances, however, the American public demonstrated nowhere near the level of alarm triggered by Sputnik.

What explains this Sputnik gap? Are defense experts wrong about the magnitude of threat posed by recent adversarial developments? In some cases, yes. 5G technology, for example, is not analogous to Soviet rocket capabilities. But in other instances, such as the risk that China overtakes America in defense industrial development, the parallels seem much stronger. Yet even here, Sputnik is the wrong story for today.

Sputnik is the wrong story because the conditions that enabled America’s Sputnik moment no longer hold true. Sputnik is not a story about an adversary jumping ahead of America technologically, it is a story about American institutions, primarily the media and government, cultivating a shared understanding of the risks presented by such a development. This shared understanding is the critical piece: alerted to the grave dangers Sputnik presented, Americans across the political spectrum demanded action and both political parties competed to demonstrate leadership against the threat.

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There were three conditions that caused this shared sense of meaning to develop. The first was the information environment. In 1957, most Americans got their news from a fairly narrow set of sources, with CBS, NBC, and ABC dominating the information marketplace, especially with respect to national events. This made it more likely that Americans would have simultaneous, shared awareness of events–as noted in a 1958 Pentagon memo, a survey taken right after Sputnik showed 95 percent of Americans were aware of the satellite.

The second condition was the state of institutional trust. When Sputnik blasted into space, Americans, by and large, trusted the government. This meant that political events, such as Congressional hearings by the Senate Armed Services Preparedness Subcommittee launched after Sputnik, or leaked information from the Gaither report, a top-secret analysis of strategies for protecting the American population from potential Soviet nuclear attacks, could meaningfully influence public opinion.

The final condition was the national security context. Sputnik came just eight years after the Soviets detonated an atomic bomb, four years after President Eisenhower signed an armistice agreement in the Korean War, and less than a year after the Soviets brutally suppressed the Hungarian revolution. While Americans’ views towards the Soviet Union were far from monolithic, the public had a tangible sense for the Soviet’s capacity for violence.

These conditions enabled the Sputnik moment. Contrary to popular imagination, as noted by Douglas Brinkley in American Moonshot, there was relatively little outcry over Sputnik from the American public at first. But the chorus of fears and concerns about the state of America’s space and rocket programs, raised by political elites and covered extensively by America’s dominant news media, turned what might have started as curiosity into fear. That fear, set against over a decade of Soviet aggression, coalesced into a powerful shared understanding that the moment demanded resolute action.

Today, the conditions are dramatically different. Americans’ information environment is wildly diverse, deeply fragmented across ideological lines, and increasingly network-based (i.e., social media, group chats, etc.). Institutional trust is near record lows and highly polarized. And there is no foreign threat where Americans feel concern that is as visceral and widely shared as what they felt towards the Soviet Union in 1957.

This last point requires some additional explanation. It’s true that a majority of Americans today see China as the greatest threat to the country, but few feel national security is a top concern right now. This suggests that while Americans recognize China possesses the most concerning military and economic capabilities of any potential adversary, they do not feel the threat is imminent.

Consider that in President Eisenhower’s 1958 State of the Union (SOTU) address, he led off by noting “many Americans are troubled by recent world developments which they believe may threaten our nation's safety…all know these dangers are real”. The Soviet threat was central to his entire message to the American people. In contrast, no foreign threat has catalyzed anywhere near as significant a response in recent years. President Biden mentioned China only briefly in his 2024 SOTU, for example. He gave greater attention to the threat from Russia, but here, although Americans broadly see Russia as a threat, there are internal divisions within the Republican party over the need to confront Russian aggression. .

So long as these conditions remain, and they do not seem likely to change anytime soon, America will not have a Sputnik moment. But we need a Sputnik response. Mackenzie Eaglen, a defense scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, recently published a report arguing China’s defense spending could be nearly on par with that of the US when taking into consideration purchasing power parity. Russia is gaining ground in Ukraine and growing increasingly menacing in its posture towards NATO. And American forces are regularly confronting drone and missile attacks in the Middle East. The magnitude and diversity of threats requires a transformational response comparable to what happened with Sputnik.

In 1958 this included creating NASA, passing the National Defense Education Act, and empowering the Secretary of Defense with greater authority to direct program funding. A contemporary Sputnik response would likely involve significant increases to the defense budget, upgrades to the nation’s science, technology, and manufacturing infrastructure, and a more tangible, public-facing effort to dominate our adversaries in space. This last piece is critical–an effective Sputnik response is one that not just delivers the capabilities America needs, but also makes Americans feel part of a story of success.

The good news is that America does not need a Sputnik moment to have a Sputnik response. Contrary to what one might think at this point, the intent of this article is not to lament the condition of American society. America is in so many ways a much stronger nation than we were seventy years ago. We have the most capable military in the world; we’re leading on artificial intelligence, the most transformational technology of our time; and however significant our internal divisions are, we are more cohesive, resilient, and dynamic than any of our adversaries. The key to harnessing these strengths is to build a shared understanding of the risks facing the nation using methods that fit the information and trust landscape today.

In a fragmented media and information environment, top-down communications do not work. We need campaigns that engage Americans as individuals, both online and in-real life, and invite them into the conversation. This is not about a single viral moment, but a steady build of individual and small-group moments that lead to demands for action.

In order to address people’s skepticism of institutional information, we need to work through trusted, non-governmental intermediaries such as local civic and business leaders, the myriad of places online people turn to for group chats and conversions, and new membership groups that are growing across the country. Importantly, the intent is not to have messengers push a specific narrative, but rather to have credible leaders pose questions, share information, and encourage their communities to discuss and eventually move towards actions. Perhaps now more than ever, Americans do not want to be told what to think, they want to arrive at a conclusion themselves.

Finally, as more Americans feel connected to national security conversations, we need to build pathways to transform public will into political influence. The end game for this movement is to compel policymakers across the ideological spectrum to see the political necessity of major investments in our national defense. This kind of multi-channel, networked campaign does not currently exist, but is needed to spur a modern-day Sputnik response.

Sputnik will always remain an inspirational story. It reflects much of what makes America exceptional, from the relentless pursuit of technological innovation to our profound belief in the transformational powers of education and self-improvement. But inspirational stories, when they no longer match the current context, can distract us from doing what works today to engage the American people. We do not need a single event to focus our attention, we need millions of conversations about the risks America faces, why they matter to us, and what we can do to overcome them.

Dan Vallone is founding principal at Polarization Risk Advisory LLC, where he advises clients on how to navigate risks from polarization and on how to communicate effectively in an era of media fragmentation and polarization. An Army veteran, Dan has led a variety of public-opinion studies on Americans’ attitudes towards the military. He writes regularly on issues of polarization and social cohesion in America and on methods for connecting the American people with the military. Dan is also currently a visiting fellow with the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University. 

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Vice President Kamala Harris speaks to the Howard Bison men's basketball team after a loss in the NCAA tournament on March 16, 2023. (NCAA / Twitter video screen shot)

Jason Cohen
Daily Caller News Foundation

Democratic strategist James Carville and NewsNation host Chris Cuomo on Thursday evening described Vice President Kamala Harris as President Joe Biden’s “Achilles’ heel” and said she is remarkably “predictable.”

Harris’ approval is currently 38.4% while she faces nearly 50% disapproval, according to FiveThirtyEight.com. Carville told Cuomo on NewsNation’s “Cuomo” he thinks Harris should be less “predictable” by discussing crime statistics that reflect well on the Biden administration rather than abortion or the border, but the host suggested this may not be effective because of how voters feel about the vice president.

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Carville And Cuomo Call Kamala Harris Biden’s ‘Achilles’ Heel,’ ‘Most Predictable Politician I’ve Ever Seen’ pic.twitter.com/QPoJar1Tj5

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) June 14, 2024

“I think that Vice President Harris, who is the most predictable politician I’ve ever seen, should go to Phoenix, announce a speech and let everybody show up thinking it’s going to be about the border, about or abortion or something else,” Carville told Cuomo. “And congratulate the police men and women around the United States and the courts and the juries for doing a staggeringly good job of bringing this crime rate down.”

“We hope to continue to do that,” Carville continued, appearing to suggest what Harris should say in the speech. “Our streets are getting safer. Our cities like Milwaukee are certainly getting safer. And New York, by the way, where you are, is a low-crime jurisdiction. But you’re right, it was a message problem … We need to tell people these things in a dramatic, memorable fashion. And I hope that the vice president does something like this, does something not so predictable, and I think she could turn things around.”

Retired New York Police Department inspector Paul Mauro on Wednesday said people “can’t trust” the FBI’s new statistics claiming there’s been a decrease in crime across the United States within the first three months of 2024 compared to the same time last year.

Major cities, including Chicago, Los Angeles and New York didn’t report any crime data to the FBI in 2023, Fox News reported.

“You suggest VP Harris, but isn’t she the Achilles’ heel other than Biden’s perceived health, that people are going to say, ‘What, Harris? She’s why I won’t vote for Biden. I don’t want her as president?'” Cuomo asked.

Carville answered that this speech would help improve the perception of Harris.

“You say if Harris goes out there and does different things, it’s like, yeah, and if a horse has a bad paint job, it’s a zebra,” Cuomo said. “I mean she is who she is, she does what she does. A lot of it’s baked in, but I like your strategy … If you had another Clinton, you’d be in a much different position right now.”

Former President Donald Trump is presently beating Biden by .8% nationally in the presidential election, according to the RealClearPolling average.

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Wallace White
Daily Caller News Foundation

California Democrats are pushing a series of bills to crack down on the wave of retail theft that has rocked the state. But there’s just one catch – the bills would be repealed should a ballot measure imposing harsher punishments for certain crimes be approved.

Democrats in the California State Legislature inserted clauses into the bill package earlier this month that would repeal the laws if the ballot initiative passes. The move has enraged Republicans, who accused the Democrats of “playing games,” according to The San Francisco Chronicle.

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“Democrats need to stop playing politics with public safety and let voters decide on fixing Prop. 47,” said Assembly Republican Leader James Gallagher in a press release. “These poison pills show that Democrats aren’t serious about ending the crime wave–they just want to look like they’re doing something because their years-long support for criminals has become a political liability.”

The initiative, called the “Homelessness, Drug Addiction & Theft Reduction Act,” would roll back parts of the 2014 Ballot Proposition 47. It downgraded the penalties for drug possession and theft under $950 from felonies to misdemeanors. The new initiative would remove the $950 threshold for a third theft charge and would upgrade it to a felony, as well as upgrade a third drug possession charge to a felony. It would also increase jail time for repeat retail theft, and make the possession of fentanyl a felony.

Assembly Member Rick Chavez Zbur defended the alleged “poison pills,” saying the bills and the initiative should not be adopted in tandem.

“When you add (the ballot measure), you have a whole additional group of people that can be prosecuted and jailed for very small activities,” he told the Chronicle. “The combination of those two, it’s sort of supercharging of this whole process and moving back to a period where we’re going to have much more incarceration. … Our package was never intended to be stacked on top of a one-sided ballot measure.”

You can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig.

Yesterday, I joined my colleagues to expose the Democrats’ dirty tricks to undermine public safety in California.

Democrats are sneaking in amendments to sabotage a citizen-led Prop 47 reform, forcing voters into a false… pic.twitter.com/bMgWOoPmdY

— James Gallagher (@J_GallagherAD3) June 12, 2024

Gallagher and California Senate Republican Leader Brian Jones defended the initiative and bill being passed. They stressed how Proposition 47, in their eyes, has failures that the new initiative addresses.

“While the retail theft package is commendable, the battle against crime in California requires a more robust approach, particularly addressing the failures of Proposition 47,” said Gallagher and Jones in a letter to California Speaker Robert Rivas and Senate President Pro Tempore Mike McGuire. “To truly turn back the wave of property crime that has washed over California, we must return to the voters with the Homelessness, Drug Addiction & Theft Reduction Act–a citizen-led initiative to impose additional consequences for property crime and fentanyl offenses.”

Speaker Rivas’ office did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

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Republican Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida speaks on a CNN panel

Jason Cohen
Daily Caller News Foundation

Democratic strategist and former Hillary Clinton spokesperson Karen Finney on Friday laughed while asserting black voters will not cast any ballots for Republican Florida Rep. Byron Donalds if former President Donald Trump selects him to be his vice presidential pick.

Donalds is rumored to be a contender on Trump’s list for his potential choice for vice president. CNN host Jake Tapper on “The Lead With Jake Tapper” said Donalds made “the case for himself” on the network Friday morning, but Finney forecast if Trump chooses Donalds, he will lose to President Joe Biden because black voters won’t cast ballots for the representative.

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Ex-Hillary Clinton Spox Cackles, Says “Black Voters Are Not Gonna Vote For Byron Donalds’ As Trump’s VP” pic.twitter.com/DelBKnuumW

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) June 14, 2024

“Please,” Finney uttered when Tapper made the remark about Donalds’ alleged effort to be Trump’s vice presidential pick.

“I would predict that if he names Byron Donalds, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will win because black voters are not going to vote for Byron Donalds at all,” Finney said shortly after while laughing loudly.

Donalds was one of Trump’s allies that visited the former president in court during his Manhattan trial to show support.

“It was depressing because you’re watching this mockery of the court system in front of your eyes, like the star witnesses is Michael Cohen, the guy’s a liar, a tax evader,” Donalds told the Daily Caller. “He makes money going after President Trump. He makes money, frankly, defaming President Trump, and that’s your star witness. It was a joke.”

“And so, it was actually good to be there when they were actually going through their evidence,” he added. “And you’re sitting there and as a layperson, you’re like, where is the crime? Can somebody explain this to me?”

Finney is mixed race as her dad is black and racial issues are an important topic to her, Fortune reported.

Radio host Charlamagne Tha God in a podcast episode posted to YouTube on Friday called out Democrats for not speaking to voters they claim to represent.

“One thing about those elected officials, especially the Democrats, man, they talk about the people they don’t even talk to,” Charlamagne said. “You know what I’m saying? And they claim to talk for the people they don’t even talk to.”

CNN national politics correspondent Eva McKend asserted on Friday that she can “say with certainty” that Democrats “are worried” about Trump receiving more black votes.

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Jason Cohen
Daily Caller News Foundation

Radio host Charlamagne Tha God in a podcast episode posted to YouTube on Friday criticized Democrats for engaging in “goofy” actions due to their lack of communication with voters they claim to represent.

President Joe Biden seemed to freeze during a White House Juneteenth concert on Monday as Vice President Kamala Harris and others around him clapped and danced. Charlamagne on the “Brilliant Idiots” used this video as an example of how not spending time in “the hood” leads to Democrats exhibiting “corny, goofy” behavior.

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WATCH:

‘Get To The Hood’: Charlamagne Blasts Dems For Claiming To Represent ‘People They Don’t Even Talk To’ pic.twitter.com/P9ZL3bwbLi

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) June 14, 2024

“Get off the hill and get to the hood,” Charlamagne said. “Those black people on the hill got y’all doing corny, goofy stuff like that. And they got y’all, you know, like, one thing about those elected officials, especially the Democrats, man, they talk about the people they don’t even talk to. You know what I’m saying? And they claim to talk for the people they don’t even talk to. Go down to Duval day and see what the hood really thinks about something, man. I’ve said that.”

Charlamagne added if Democrats have no desire to “go to the hood,” they should go to historically black colleges and universities.

“Go down to one of the HBCUs in Jacksonville,” he said. “Go down to one of the HBCUs in Atlanta. Have town halls.”

“Brilliant Idiots” co-host and comedian Andrew Schulz objected, saying, “Nah, go to the hood. What hood should they go to?”

“VP Kamala Harris should pull up to the hood, not President Biden,” Charlamagne specified, with Schulz raising that former President Donald Trump held a large rally in the Bronx in May.

“He definitely was in the Bronx,” Chalamagne acknowledged, adding that “he brought out Sleepy Hallow and Sheff G,” two New York rappers, during the rally.

CNN senior data reporter Harry Enten said shortly after the Bronx rally that it is a negative sign for Biden’s reelection chances.

“This is part of a larger trend line … that we’re seeing among nonwhite voters, we see among black voters as well,” Enten said. “We’ve discussed that on this program before, whereby they’re much more favorable to Donald Trump than they were four years ago. And of course, Donald Trump did better amongst both of those groups in 2020 versus how he did in 2016.”

The former president has gained ground on Biden’s lead among black Americans since 2020, with a May New York Times/Siena College poll finding the current president leading Trump 70% to 18%.

Charlamane also criticized black media personalities on Wednesday for defending Hunter Biden following his conviction in a federal gun trial on Tuesday.

“Hunter Biden gets sentenced, and I see black folks in media: ‘This is wrong, this is some BS. Nobody gets charged with this.’ Negro, please. If you was black and they thought you was on drugs and you did what Hunter Biden did, they would have been put you under the jail,” the radio personality said on “The Breakfast Club.”

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Trump supporters at a rally in Council Bluffs, Iowa (Gateway Pundit)

Jason Cohen
Daily Caller News Foundation

CNN national politics correspondent Eva McKend said on Friday that she can say for a fact that Democrats are concerned about former President Donald Trump gaining black voters.

Trump has cut his deficit with President Joe Biden among black Americans, with the current president leading the former president 70% to 18%, a May New York Times/Siena College poll found. McKend on “Inside Politics” said she doesn’t completely buy that Trump is going to make huge progress with these voters, but that Democrats are definitely “worried” about the possibility.

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WATCH:

CNN Correspondent Says ‘With Certainty’ Dems ‘Are Worried’ About Trump Attracting Black Voters pic.twitter.com/s895Kxgs89

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) June 14, 2024

“Republicans are really confident that this will be the cycle,” McKend said in response to a question from host Manu Raju about Trump taking black voters from Biden. “But I am skeptical because Republicans have said that for several cycles, that this is going to be the time when they’re going to have a deep inroads with black voters.”

“They do see his style of toughness, his brand of masculinity as appealing to some black voters, he has black surrogates in different communities talking to small black business owners about capital. And they’re confident in this strategy that they are employing. Black men are very much seen as a swing voter, I think, in this cycle,” she continued. “A group that both parties are really trying to appeal to and Democrats, I can say with certainty, are worried.”

CNN’s John King said Thursday that Biden has many more “cracks” in his coalition than Trump, including black voters, complicating the president’s reelection effort.

“The Democrat coalition is more complicated because it has more pieces, right? You have the black turnout, you have the Latino turnout,” King said. “You got to keep your share of the blue collar voters. The younger voters have been key to the Democrats in the last few election cycles. And they’re really mad at the president right now, especially over Israel-Hamas.”

“Trump’s biggest problems is Haley voters, people who are Republicans by DNA, who probably voted for him in 2016,” King continued. “A lot of them went to Biden in 2020. They don’t like either one of them … That’s a singular problem to solve. It’s a big problem … but it’s one thing and they’re DNA Republicans. Biden has a lot more complicated little pieces. It’s tougher.”

Democratic strategist James Carville and television personality Donny Deutsch also sounded the alarm in a podcast episode aired on Thursday about “Hispanic males” abandoning the Democratic Party.

“We’re gonna lose Hispanic males,” Carville said. “We’re gonna [bleeping] lose ’em.”

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[Editor's note: This story originally was published by Real Clear Wire.]

By Heino Klinck
Real Clear Wire

Soon, President Biden will meet with seven of our most important allies and partners at the upcoming G7 summit in Italy, June 13-15. This meeting comes at a pivotal moment: wars in Ukraine and in the Middle East show little signs of stopping, China is becoming more aggressive in the South China Sea, the Taiwan Strait and beyond, and the global economy is still suffering from slow growth and inflation. Having just returned from Europe, I encountered a palpable sense of anxiety about America’s current leadership in the world given the widespread failure of deterrence and continued economic malaise. During trying times like these, the United States needs to be seen as standing with like-minded allies to confront common challenges, not just as a leader, but also as an equal partner.

Japan, as the only Asian G7 member, will attend the G-7 summit in Italy’s Puglia region. In addition to the multilateral discussions, it can be expected that President Biden will have a bilateral meeting with Japan’s Prime Minister Kishida Fumio.

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This will not be the first time these two leaders have met this year. On April 10^th, Prime Minister Kishida visited Washington for a rare state visit with President Biden, a testament to the continued significance of our alliance. The meeting concluded with the launch of a new Forum on Defense Industrial Cooperation, Acquisition, and Sustainment led by the Pentagon and Japan’s Ministry of Defense. Shortly after in May, this new initiative produced an agreement between the two governments to collaborate on the Glide Phase Interceptor Cooperative Development. This was an unmistakable sign of our collective resolve to pursue regional deterrence and missile defense together.

Moreover, the Government of Japan (GoJ) has taken numerous steps recently to align its foreign and defense policies with the U.S., arguably more than any other country:

• Japan has committed to doubling its defense budget to 2% of its GDP, which equates to approximately $100 billion annually to bolster Self-Defense Forces and enhance its capabilities in line with U.S. strategic interests.
• In response to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, Japan has imposed sanctions in coordination with the U.S. demonstrating its commitment to upholding international law and security. Since the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Japan has committed nearly $12 billion in aid to Ukraine.
• Japan’s Official Development Assistance (ODA) amounted to $21 billion in 2022, focusing on global health, climate change, and sustainable development, aligning with U.S. goals to promote global stability and development.
• Japan’s Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP) strategy aligns with U.S. efforts to ensure regional stability and counter China’s influence, reflecting shared strategic objectives.

General Mark Milley, the then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, lauded this shift from GoJ, saying that “having a powerful Japan, a militarily capable Japan that has a close alliance with the United States and other countries, will go a long way to deterring war” with China. And in the context of China’s increasingly belligerent behaviors, like its recent military exercises meant to intimidate Taiwan, this should be a welcome relief for Washington who knows it cannot do everything on its own to deal with Beijing.

Despite the unprecedented forward-leaning actions taken by the GoJ to align with the U.S., often at the expense of domestic opposition to increased defense spending, there are distractions that are impacting the alliance emanating from Washington, DC.

During a recent campaign fundraiser, President Biden likened Japan to Russia and China for being “xenophobic,” a comment that Japan justifiably called “unfortunate.” On the heels of a state visit and during an era of Great Power Competition, one can only wonder how POTUS could compare Japan with the countries of a new arc of authoritarianism.

Political posturing in the U.S. during an election year also distracts from our critical alliance. During a campaign event, the president opposed the proposed merger between Nippon Steel and U.S. Steel by saying that U.S. Steel must “remain an American steel company that is domestically owned and operated.” On the same day as Kishida’s arrival for the state visit, the Federal Trade Commission announced they opened an investigation into the proposed acquisition. All this while the Congress was debating the future of TikTok in the United States, an unfortunate while hopefully unintentional parallel.

It is important for Washington to strike the proper balance of international relations and domestic politicking. While much has been accomplished with Japan, we cannot take the relationship for granted at a time when we need more help than ever to counter China. Distractions like the President’s rhetorical gaffes or politicizing commercial deals only serve our adversaries’ objectives.

As Secretary Austin just said at the Shangri-La conclave, America’s “greatest global strategic advantage” is our alliances.  We should not put that at risk for domestic political gain.

Heino Klinck was the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for East Asia, 2019-21.

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Harold Hutchison
Daily Caller News Foundation

Chicago Democratic Mayor Brandon Johnson defended spending over $30,000 in campaign funds on makeup and haircuts as support for small businesses owned by “black people,” according to The Center Square.

Johnson’s campaign spent $4,000 at a hair salon and over $20,000 at a makeup shop with campaign expense reports showing 42 separate expenditures to Makeup Majic by Johnson’s campaign. Johnson responded to the reports by noting his campaign committee spent money on “a number of things” during a Wednesday news conference, according to Center Square.

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“We’ll make sure that you know I encourage all of you in this room, support small businesses,” Johnson told reporters at the event. “Go get your hair and makeup done by black people in particular.”

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson is asked about his tens of thousands of dollars in spending on makeup:

“It’s important to make sure we’re investing in small businesses… Especially blackowned. Go get your hair and makeup done by Black people in particular.”pic.twitter.com/NdlLhzr3Ke

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) June 14, 2024

Political campaigns are prohibited from spending money on items like clothes and vehicle purchases for a candidate, barring certain exceptions, according to the Illinois Compiled Statutes.

“Our campaign spends money on food,” Johnson told reporters at the Wednesday press conference. “We support black and brown-owned businesses, women owned businesses. Printing. There are a number of things that my campaign spends dollars on.”

“If they don’t believe it’s a good use to support small businesses, black and brown businesses, that is something that they’ll have to deal with when they meet their maker,” Johnson added.

Johnson is not the only Illinois mayor to come under fire for lavish spending. Democratic Mayor Tiffany Henyard of Dolton, Illinois was criticized for trips to Times Square, Atlanta and Austin, Texas, according to WGN. The funds were spent on first-class airfare, ritzy hotels, including a Marriott and Four Seasons and meals at high-end restaurants.

“You all should be ashamed of yourselves because you all are black. You all are black! And you all sitting up here beating and attacking a black woman that’s in power,” Henyard said in response to critics of the spending, according to video posted on X in February. “You all should be ashamed of yourselves.”

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[Editor's note: This story originally was published by Live Action News.]

By Cassy Fiano-Chesser
Live Action News

While debating the role schools play in their students’ abortions, a Michigan school board member said teachers should be able to refer students for abortions.

The Caledonia School Board is debating a current policy which restricts teachers from discussing abortion with students or referring them for one. The school board is considering either eliminating the policy altogether or updating it. During the meeting, Jason Saidoo said teachers should be able to make the decision for themselves if a student should be referred for an abortion.

“I think option one, rescinding the policy, it takes the politics out of it, and leaves the interests of the students into the hands of our teachers that can make the best decision for them,” he said in a video shared by Libs of TikTok.

Meet Jason Saidoo. A school board member of Caledonia Community Schools in Michigan.

When discussing a policy which would allow the school to refer students for abortions, he said the decision should be “in the hands of teachers who can make the best decisions for them… pic.twitter.com/Gd8tgnR5v5

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) May 27, 2024

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Another person, identified by ABC13 as John Brando, replied, “I love our teachers, but this is a parent thing, man. That’s not the option for teachers.” The conversation has since gone viral, and in a lengthy Facebook post, Saidoo responded to the controversy:

I agree that this should be a parent conversation. I said so during the same discussion quoted in the memes. My concern is that my fellow board member who is promoting the policy cannot define “assistance” when directly asked during the meeting.

Would providing information, without opinion, on all pregnancy options constitute assistance? Would answering questions about the dangers of abortion constitute assistance? My concern is for the students who may not have the space at home for these conversations. Maybe a single parent who is absent. Parents who are incapacitated in some manner. A child given custody to a relative they barely know. Or even the student who may come to the counselor with “I need help talking to my parents.”

I believe that listening to the entire conversation would have made clear that the “decision” in the oft quoted line was a decision to listen and help the student or say “that’s a conversation to be had with your parents.” Make the best choice for the student between those two options. Keeping the policy in place leaves only the latter choice.

There must be a balance between parents’ rights and allowing kids in need to get help.

It sounds eloquent and reasonable, but the problem is, abortion is the only medical procedure in which an educator would be excused for bypassing parents and making the arrangements for a minor on their own.

Furthermore, this debate isn’t taking place in a vacuum; the Michigan abortion industry is currently working to eliminate the state’s parental consent law.

“The organizations who published this advocacy piece and their political allies believe they know what is best for children, not parents,” Right to Life of Michigan Legislative Director Genevieve Marnon told the Detroit Free Press earlier this year. “They are actively seeking to remove parents from one of the most important decisions a minor girl could face, one that everyone acknowledges will have a lifelong impact regardless of the decision.”

For now, the issue remains unresolved; the board voted to table discussion until a later date.

[Editor's note: This story originally was published by Live Action News.]

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[Editor's note: This story originally was published by Live Action News.]

By Bridget Sielicki
Live Action News

Two individuals have been incarcerated for their roles in forging signatures in Florida during a petition drive related to a pro-abortion ballot measure. The duo has also been charged with election fraud in Kansas, though their activities there do not appear to be abortion measure-related.

Jamie Johnson, 47, and George Andrews III, 30, have each been jailed for their alleged roles in the crimes. Andrews has been in custody in Florida since February, while Johnson was apprehended last week in Nebraska. According to WUSF, each faces 20 felony charges in Florida, including charges of criminal use of personal identification information and signing another person’s name or a fictitious name to a petition. In Kansas, Johnson faces 19 felony counts and Andrews faces 30, as they are accused of forging at least 46 signatures on petitions to get a group called No Labels recognized as a political party.

In Florida, Johnson and Andrews are accused of submitting 133 fake petition signatures during the ballot measure drive to get a constitutional amendment declaring a “right” to abortion on the ballot this fall. The signatures were gathered by Floridians Protecting Freedom, a political committee comprised of the Florida Alliance of Planned Parenthood Affiliates, the American Civil Liberties Union, and other pro-abortion groups. It does not appear that the petition depended on the fake signatures, as 891,500 names were required and more than 910,946 were submitted.

However, the arrests do raise questions as to the accuracy of the signature-gathering process.

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“In Florida, our elections will continue to be fair and honest,” FDLE Commissioner Mark Glass previously said. “Our FDLE inspectors will investigate every allegation of voter fraud because our elections must remain free from those willing to commit fraud at the expense of all voters.”

In April, the Florida Supreme Court ruled that the ballot measure can proceed and appear on the state’s November ballot, despite the fact that some – including Florida Senior Deputy Solicitor for the Attorney General Nathan Forrester – are arguing that the measure’s language is “deceptive and misleading.”

Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver has warned that should it pass, the proposed amendment would “wipe out every law regulating abortion.” It will need to be approved by 60 percent of voters to pass in November.

[Editor's note: This story originally was published by Live Action News.]

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U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland

(EPOCH TIMES) -- An official from the Department of Justice (DOJ) told House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) in a letter that Attorney General Merrick Garland will not be prosecuted for contempt of Congress because his refusal to hand over audio recordings of President Joe Biden’s interview with a prosecutor did not amount to a crime.

In the letter, which was obtained by several media outlets, the DOJ official said that Mr. Garland’s refusal to comply with a subpoena demanding audio records of an interview that special counsel Robert Hur conducted with President Biden in his investigation into the president’s alleged mishandling of classified documents “did not constitute a crime.”

“Consistent with this longstanding position and uniform practice, the Department has determined that the responses by Attorney General Garland to the subpoenas issued by the Committees did not constitute a crime, and accordingly the Department will not bring the congressional contempt citation before a grand jury or take any other action to prosecute the Attorney General,” Carlos Felipe Uriarte, an assistant attorney general, wrote in the letter.

Read the full story ›

NewsGuard, which purportedly "rates" news organizations for their truthfulness, has been described in a Real Clear Wire report as "a powerful censorship tool."

And constitutional expert Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University whose popular commentary regularly skewers the establishment, has warned against subjecting children in America's schools to the left-leaning bias of "fact-checkers" like NewsGuard because it "raises the specter of a type of de facto state media."

Now a report at RedState is revealing U.S. Rep. James Comer, chief of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, is beginning an investigation of the "supposed arbiter of media reliability."

The goal? Determine the "impact of NewsGuard on protected First Amendment speech and its potential to serve as a non-transparent agent of censorship campaigns."

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That same topic already is before the Supreme Court, in a dispute over the instructions from the Joe Biden administration to various social media companies to, in recent years, censor opinions and even facts about the 2020 election, COVID's origins, the shots that have proven to be harmful, and more.

The report said Comer recently sent a message to NewsGuard with questions.

He said, "Our inquiry seeks documents on NewsGuard’s business relationships with government entities, its adherence to its own policies intended to guard against appearances of bias, how it tries to avoid and manage potential conflicts of interest arising from its investors and other influences, and actions that may have the impact of delegitimizing factually accurate information."

Comer continued, "One concerned journalist expressed fear that NewsGuard’s activities are an extension of federal efforts—since struck down by courts—to coerce social media companies and to 'destroy the financial survival of disfavored outlets…'"

In fact, a number of conservative and Christian news organizations largely have been defunded by social media companies following the same leftist ideology adopted by NewsGuard.

Comer said, "The committee seeks to make an independent determination about whether NewsGuard’s intervention on protected speech has been in any way sponsored by a federal, state, local, or foreign government."

The report said NewGuard is a "a team of journalists who create a reliability rating system that scores various news outlets for accuracy based on various criteria. It has come under scrutiny for what many perceive as its bias against right-leaning outlets, including RedState, which have been the target of numerous censorship and demonetization efforts."

Comer noted that NewsGuard already is accepting federal money under a contract with the Defense Department and that's a concern as it generates the possibility of federal agencies involved in "censorship."

The letter also cites NewsGuard's "clear bias in favor of the left."

The report in RedState explained, "NewsGuard and similar organizations have not only attacked conservative outlets by trying to tarnish their reputations, they have also gone after their revenue sources, persuading companies to refrain from spending advertising dollars with the sites."

Steven Brill, the leftist founder of the group, was "one of the voices falsely claiming that the Hunter Biden laptop was likely false Russian disinformation," Real Clear had reported.

That computer now has been documented as real, since the federal government itself used it as evidence in a trial in which Hunter Biden was convicted of gun rule felonies.

Bruce Afran, a lawyer with Consortium News, which had a falling out with NewsGuard, said, "What’s really happening here is that NewsGuard is trying to target those who take a different view from the government line."

The Media Research Center, a long-established and well-known watchdog on the media, concluded, problematically, that NewsGuard was biased "in favor of leftist news outlets. NewsGuard even rated several Communist Chinese state-run media outlets higher than several American outlets and pro-life U.S. websites. The ratings firm also claims to help identify 'misinformation,' but its biases show it isn’t objective."

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By Jason Hopkins
Daily Caller News Foundation

Democratic Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson framed the current migrant housing situation as “unsustainable” while defending his office’s decision to evict migrants out of taxpayer-funded shelters.

Chicago began enforcing a 60-day limit for most adults in March, and approximately 121 people are set to be evicted by June 18,  WTTW, a local outlet, reported. The mayor claimed during a Wednesday press conference that Congress needs to help address the issue and pointed the finger at “Trump Republicans” for the city’s current migrant crisis.

“It is an unsustainable mission because we don’t have support from Congress,” Johnson said. “Congress, of course, refuses to respond to President Biden’s leadership and they refused to enact real substantive immigration reform policy, because that’s really what we need. But you have Trump Republicans that are more interested in obeying a convicted convict — a felon,” the mayor said.

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The city has welcomed in more than 43,000 migrants since August 2022 and has so far spent around $150 million to feed and house them, according to the Chicago Tribune. Many of the noncitizens are from Venezuela and have largely been bussed into the city by GOP Texas Gov. Greg Abbott as he has sought to relieve his own state from the immigration crisis.

A memo published by the city under former Mayor Rahm Emanuel states that  law enforcement are prohibited from working with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and pledges city officials will never ask anyone about, or deny services because of, their immigration status.

City leaders in 2023 attempted to issue a referendum allowing voters to determine whether the city should keep its sanctuary city status, according to Fox32. However, Johnson and his allies in the city council used a procedural maneuver to block the referendum from moving forward, preventing residents from having a chance to vote on the measure.

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Are various members of Congress, who paid some $17 million in taxpayer funds to silence people who brought sexual misconduct claims against them, now going to be investigated, tried, and convicted of felonies, like President Trump? After all, they didn't report those payments as campaign contributions.

That's the suggestion that has been raised in a congressional hearing.

Congressmen paid $17 million of TAXPAYER MONEY for undisclosed hush payments to cover up sexual harassment claims.

Meanwhile candidate Trump allegedly used HIS MONEY for a $130,000 hush payment and he’s convicted of 34 felonies for not disclosing.https://t.co/DZw3hYyuXH pic.twitter.com/s3odKj1CmW

— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) May 31, 2024

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's case against President Donald Trump over business reporting issues, described as a "hush money" case because of testimony from ex-porn star Stormy Daniels, likely will be overturned, witnesses have told Congress.

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And given the multiple constitutional errors allowed by Judge Juan Merchan, whose daughter is a Democrat activist and was fundraising off her father's courtroom decisions during the trial, one member has defined what the entire exercise was about:

"This irony here is that this is going to be vacated and this trial was all about trying to influence an election using the process as the punishment," charged U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky.

U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky.

His comments came in a hearing on Bragg's scheming against Trump held by the House Judiciary Committee.

Bragg charged Trump with 34 felonies based on a handful of alleged business reporting violations which were misdemeanors for which the statute of limitations had expired. Bragg, however, filed them as felonies claiming they were in support of some other, unidentified, crime.

They essentially involved payments to a Trump lawyer who then paid Daniels to keep quiet about an alleged affair, which both individuals have denied happened.

Witnesses including Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey and FEC Commissioner Trey Trainor both told Congress the conviction almost certainly will be overturned because of Merchan's apparently willful failures to follow the Constitution.

Massie took the entire case apart in a few minutes of comments during the hearing;

Is Congress's $17 million sexual misconduct hush money fund campaign finance violations?

Rep. Thomas Massie highlights that Congress's hush money payments would be considered campaign finance violations under Alvin Bragg's novel theory used to target President Trump.

"Congress… pic.twitter.com/pFPPkeG3VG

— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) June 13, 2024

A report at Twitchy cited Massie's comments:

Congress has paid over $17 million in hush money for sexual misconduct inside of the offices in these buildings. And what's more, is that it was taxpayer money. The allegation is that President Trump paid $130,000 of his own money.

But here in Congress, there might be some here on this dais -- I mean, I'm for turning loose ALL of these records -- who had the taxpayer pay for their sexual misconduct charges, the hush money. I bet there's some over there, there may be some over here. I don't know, but I do know it's taxpayer money. And I do know that not a single penny of it has been turned in as a campaign finance expense. Is the FEC going to investigate the $17 million dollars that Congress has paid behind closed doors for these sexual misconduct allegations?

The report explained, "We imagine many representatives suddenly got obsessed with staring at their shoes at that moment. And then Massie said he might file a complaint so the FEC WOULD investigate Congressional hush money. We wouldn't bet against him doing that. "

Massie noted that those hush money payments by members of Congress, to suppress various sexual misconduct claims inside their congressional offices, would be considered campaign finance violations under Bragg's theory.

The committee hearing specifically was held to examine Bragg's office actions, as multiple prosecutors earlier had rejected the idea that there was any evidence to pursue a case against Trump.

$17,000,000+ of TAXPAYER $$ paid out for sexual misconduct of the Congress.. No issues at all..

Trump pays $130,000 of his OWN $$ and he gets charged with felonies!

What a frigging disgrace!! No wonder most Americans have no faith in the US government! https://t.co/oXXYeHbjTx

— Thomas O'Connor '62 baby, #GodBlessAmerica (@TheyCallMeTomO1) June 13, 2024

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Hunter Biden

Now that the federal government itself has used Hunter Biden's abandoned laptop information as evidence in court, affirming its authenticity, there probably are only a handful of diehards who still portray it as Russian disinformation.

Even Biden now has dropped a lawsuit he had filed against former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and his former lawyer, accusing them of manipulating data on the unit.

That piece of electronics was a key to Joe Biden's election victory in 2020. When it was uncovered by the New York Post, which reported on the scandalous information it contained about Biden family operations, including overseas business schemes, the FBI warned publications against using it.

Then 51 ex-intel officials that had been in government offices wrote a letter claiming it was "Russian disinformation." In fact, it was Hunter Biden's and fully accurate in its revelations.

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Polling later showed that had that information been generally reported, enough voters would have moved their vote to another candidate that Biden would have lost the 2020 ballot.

The New York Post now is confirming Biden is dropping the case.

"Biden’s lawyer Abbe Lowell filed the stipulation for dismissal Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York," the report said. "The attorney asked the court to dismiss the lawsuit against Giuliani and Robert Costello 'without prejudice, with each party bearing its own attorneys’ fees, costs, and expenses.'"

Records show lawyers for the three parties all agreed. Biden had claimed that Giuliani and Costello violated the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act by hacking the machine and manipulating data.

Biden charged them with destroying his digital privacy.

"This dismissal – along with Hunter Biden’s conviction based on evidence taken from the laptop – is a vindication for Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Costello as well as all of the media outlets who broke the laptop story in 2020 and suffered orchestrated censorship by social media, the leftist mainstream media, and others who engaged in election interference," Giuliani's attorney, Joe Sibley, told the Post.

The motion to dismiss the suit must be approved by U.S. District Judge Jessica Clarke before it is final.

The 54-year-old Biden was convicted – using evidence from his laptop – just days ago of three felonies related to his purchase of a revolver in 2018, and his lies on a federal government form which asked about his drug use and addiction.

Biden had abandoned the laptop at a Delaware repair shop in 2019, and it has proven to provide scandal after scandal for him, and Joe Biden, since.

While the repair shop owner found evidence of drug use and other possible crimes, he turned the computer over to the FBI, but not before making a copy of the drive, which later was given to Costello.

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U.S. Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah

[Editor's note: This story originally was published by The Daily Signal.]

By Rob Bluey
The Daily Signal

Two weeks after Democrats gloated over the guilty verdict of former President Donald Trump, six Senate Republicans are vowing to exact revenge for the Biden administration’s use of lawfare to target a political opponent.

Their target: 44 nominees of President Joe Biden who are awaiting Senate confirmation.

The six GOP senators—JD Vance of Ohio, Mike Lee of Utah, Bill Hagerty of Tennessee, Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, Roger Marshall of Kansas, and Eric Schmitt of Missouri—joined forces Thursday with a commitment to block confirmation of the nominees.

Tuberville, who last year delayed the promotions of military officers over a dispute with the Biden administration, is now using his ability as a senator to stop the Democrat-led chamber from swiftly confirming Biden’s nominees.

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This time, he’ll have more Republicans to back him up.

“Every signer is pledged to defend against attempts to fast-track the confirmation of Biden nominees,” the senators wrote in their letter. “This will be accomplished through a joint effort and not be reliant upon a single Member’s willingness to hold every nominee.”

They added:

In a continuing response to the current administration’s persecution of President Donald Trump, we will not allow the fast-tracking of any Biden Article III court judicial nominees, as well as Biden U.S. attorney nominations.

Further, we will not permit the fast-tracking of nominees who have suggested the Trump prosecutions were reasonable, endorsed President Trump’s guilt in these sham proceedings, joined or supported organizations that celebrated the indictment of President Trump, supported the ‘get-Trump’ candidacy of Alvin Bragg, or supported lawfare or censorship in other ways.

This complement to the pledge of May 31 will last until Election Day, when the American people will have the opportunity to decisively reject attempts to settle political disputes through the legal system.

That earlier pledge, issued shortly after a New York jury’s guilty verdict of Trump, promised to oppose Democrats’ legislative priorities and nominations.

The new effort puts the focus on the following 44 nominees awaiting confirmation.

1. Johnny C. Gogo, nominated to be a U.S. attorney for the Districts of Guam and Northern Mariana Islands
2. April M. Perry, nominated to be a U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois
3. Joshua S. Levy, nominated to be a U.S. attorney for the District of Massachusetts
4. Rebecca C. Lutzko, nominated to be a U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Ohio
5. Matthew L. Gannon, nominated to be a U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Iowa
6. David C. Waterman, nominated to be a U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Iowa
7. Joseph Russell Palmore, nominated to be an associate judge for the DC Court of Appeals
8. Carmen G. Iguina Gonzalez, nominated to be an associate judge for the DC Court of Appeals
9. John Cuong Truong, nominated to be an associate judge for the DC Superior Court
10. Rahkel Bouchet, nominated to be an associate judge for the DC Superior Court
11. Ray D. McKenzie, nominated to be an associate judge for the DC Superior Court
12. Erin Camille Johnston, nominated to be an associate judge for the DC Superior Court
13. Sherri Malloy Beatty-Arthur, nominated to be an associate judge for the DC Superior Court
14. Anne Hwang, nominated to be a judge for the Central District of California
15. Cynthia Valenzuela Dixon, nominated to be a judge for the Central District of California
16. Michelle Williams Court, nominated to be a judge for the Central District of California
17. Stacey D. Neumann, nominated to be a judge for the District of Maine
18. Adam B. Abelson, nominated to be a judge for the District of Maryland
19. Danna R. Jackson, nominated to be a judge for the District of Montana
20. Embry J. Kidd, nominated to be a judge for the 11th Circuit
21. Joseph Francis Saporito, Jr., nominated to be a judge for the Middle District of Pennsylvania
22. Rebecca Suzanne Kanter, nominated to be a judge for the Southern District of California
23. Detra Shaw-Wilder, nominated to be a judge for the Southern District of Florida
24. Sarah Netburn, nominated to be a judge for the Southern District of New York
25. Meredith A. Vacca, nominated to be a judge for the Western District of New York
26. Julia M. Lipez, nominated to be a judge for the 1st Circuit
27. Mary Kay Lanthier, nominated to be a judge for the District of Vermont
28. Catherine Henry, nominated to be a judge for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
29. Karla M. Campbell, nominated to be a Judge for the 6th Circuit
30. Charlie Crist, nominated to be the U.S. representative to the Council of the International Civil Aviation Organization
31. Corey Anne Tellez, nominated to be deputy undersecretary for the Department of the Treasury
32. Andrew William Plitt, nominated to be an assistant administrator of the Agency for International Development
33. James J. Blanchard, nominated to be a member of the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy
34. Margaret L. Taylor, nominated to be a legal advisor for the Department of State
35. Jay T. Snyder, nominated to be a member of the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy
36. John Gleeson, nominated to be a Member of the U.S. Sentencing Commission
37. Christopher H. Schroeder, nominated to be a member of the Board of Trustees of the James Madison Memorial Fellowship Foundation
38. Leslie N. Bluhm, nominated to be a member of the Board of Directors of the Corporation for National and Community Service
39. Jeffrey R. Gural, nominated to be chairman of the Public Buildings Reform Board
40. Martin Joseph Walsh, nominated to be governor of the U.S. Postal Service
41. John Bradford Wiegmann, nominated for general counsel of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence
42. Barbara Lee, nominated to be representative to the General Assembly of the United Nations
43. Vivek Hallegere Murthy, nominated to be representative of the United States on the Board of the World Health Organization
44. Janet Louise Yellen, nominated to be governor of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, governor of the Inter-American Development Bank, governor of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and governor of the International Monetary Fund

[Editor's note: This story originally was published by The Daily Signal.]

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[Editor's note: This story originally was published by The Daily Signal.]

By Rob Bluey
The Daily Signal

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—Former President Donald Trump holds a double-digit lead over President Joe Biden on the four most important issues facing Americans today, according to new polling from Scott Rasmussen.

The RMG Research survey asked registered voters to rank the most important issues and then pick the candidate they trust more: Biden or Trump. Topping the list were inflation, the economy, immigration, and crime.

Trump has the largest lead on immigration (+17), followed by inflation (+11), the economy (+11), and crime (+10). He also has a big edge over Biden on the war between Israel and Hamas (+12) and a smaller advantage on gun laws (+4).

Biden dominates on climate change (+18) and polls ahead of Trump on abortion (+10), health care (+9), and education (+6).

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The full chart below from RMG Research shows the percentage breakdown for each candidate.

On nearly every issue surveyed, Trump has gained ground since Rasmussen’s previous poll in April and earlier surveys comparing the two presidential front-runners. His survey did not include third-party candidates.

• Immigration: Trump leads Biden 49% to 32%, a net gain of 1 percentage point since April.
• Israel-Hamas war: Trump leads Biden 42% to 30%, a net gain of 5 percentage points since April.
• Inflation: Trump leads Biden 46% to 35%, a net gain of 3 percentage points since April.
• Economy: Trump leads Biden 46% to 35%, a net gain of 4 percentage points since April.
• Crime: Trump leads Biden 45% to 35%, the same margin as April.
• Gun laws: Trump leads Biden 42% to 38%, a net gain of 4 percentage points since April.
• Education: Biden leads Trump 43% to 37%, a net loss of 3 percentage points since April.
• Health care: Biden leads Trump 45% to 36%, a net loss of 5 percentage points since April.
• Abortion: Biden leads Trump 43% to 33%, a net loss of 5 percentage points since April.
• Climate change: Biden leads Trump 46% to 28%, the same margin as April.

The RMG Research poll was conducted June 10 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

[Editor's note: This story originally was published by The Daily Signal.]

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WASHINGTON – The Department of Justice, in its strategy for prosecuting former President Donald Trump for supposedly masterminding an "insurrection" during the Jan. 6, 2021 "Save America" rally, has inadvertently bolstered – many would say confirmed – the case that Democrats rigged the 2020 presidential election.

Prosecutors obtained a search warrant to access data from Trump's cellphone used in the White House, and after an unpublicized court battle ultimately obtained a massive cache of data culled from Trump's accounts, including location data.

Special counsel Jack Smith notified the U.S. District Court that the government's expert witnesses were using the location data extracted from Trump's phone and Geographic Information Systems to make their case for a criminal conviction of the former commander-in-chief for supposedly launching his army of supporters against members of Congress and conspiring to instigate a bloodbath to overthrow the U.S. government on Jan. 6.

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The cellphone data reveals Trump’s day-to-day footprint and communications in his final weeks in office, "including the periods of time during which Trump's phone was locked and the Twitter application was open on January 6," Smith wrote in the government’s "Summary of Anticipated Expert Testimony" to presiding U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan.

The experts, unidentified by name in the filing, will "specifically" identify "the periods of time during which Trump’s phone was unlocked and the Twitter application was open on January 6," the special prosecutor notes.

Prosecutors have also extracted data from Trump's aide, described in the court filing only as "Individual 1" in the days leading up to Jan. 6 and the post-election period.

Using geolocation data the DOJ confiscated from cellphone accounts of up to a million Americans who attended the Washington, D.C., protests on Jan. 6, the expert witnesses will "aid the jury in understanding the movements of individuals toward the Capitol area during and after the defendant’s speech."

The prosecution is also slated to present testimony from former Vice President Mike Pence and dozens of Trump’s closest aides and advisers in its case against the Republican 2024 presidential nominee.

The government's confiscation of Trump's cellphone unprecedentedly undermines the president’s immunity. In fact, Trump's Jan. 6 trial is indefinitely postponed until the Supreme Court decides on presidential immunity. The high court's ruling is expected this month and could come any day.

But there’s another underlying problem with the Justice Department’s prosecutorial scheme.

Democrats utterly dismissed the legitimacy of geotracking in "2000 Mules," the banned film documentary in which the conservative group True the Vote used the technology to showcase with precision how many times "community organizers" stuffed the ballot boxes in battleground states with illegal ballots for Democrats to systematically rig the election for Joe Biden in 2020.

True the Vote paid $2 million through commercial brokers for the cell phone "geotracking" or "geolocator" data from swing states leading up to the presidential election. Using the pinpoint precision of the forensic technique of geotracking, ballot "mules" – like "drug mules" who carry illegal drugs across the border for criminal cartels – took sacks of ballots provided by leftwing political activist organizations and repeatedly dumped those ballots in collection boxes. Over 2,000 of the tracked phones were geolocated in the immediate vicinity of 10 or more ballot drop boxes.

True the Vote then analyzed the GPS data to show the mules visited left-wing nonprofit organizations, then drove to many different ballot drop boxes on the same day, repeatedly – day after day, for weeks.

Under the guise of dropping off grandma's ballot, mules visited 10 to 100 different drop boxes and did it over again the next day and the next and the next. One ballot mule visited drop boxes in six different counties. Geotracking also indicated that at least 10% of the ballot mules were participants in the violent Antifa riots that wracked America throughout the summer of 2020.

Usually between the hours of 1 a.m. and 4 a.m., mules are seen in "2000 Mules" wearing surgical gloves as they stuff ballots into the drop boxes. Then they remove the surgical gloves and toss them into nearby trash cans. The film explains that the mules began wearing gloves the day after ballot-harvesters were arrested in one state, after law enforcement traced their fingerprints on ballots.

"Fact-checkers" immediately claimed geotracking is not that accurate and therefore unreliable. And more recently, a Georgia man, who was shown with his face blurred in "2000 Mules" as he placed ballots into a ballot box, sued Salem Media Group for distributing the film. The network settled and issued a public apology, vowing to stop distributing what CNN described as "a discredited conspiracy theory film." The suspect’s name was never used in the documentary, nor were any other names.

Nevertheless, the hundreds of actual ballot mules face no legal repercussion for having been caught on camera breaking the law. And J6 "domestic terrorists" are doxed by sedition hunters, made famous on the FBI’s Most Wanted List and slandered by mainstream media while their online footprint prior to Jan. 6 is scrubbed from the web.

Ballot harvesters caught on camera skate as the FBI continues, nearly four years after the Capitol riot, to prosecute Americans who committed no violent crimes while protesting on the Capitol grounds, steadily arresting an average of one new suspect per day – based on that same "imprecise" geotracking data.

Oops.

Geotracking cell phone locations is precise, except when it isn’t, according to the Justice Department amid its historic creative and selective political prosecution of political dissidents.

When geotracking is used to obtain damning proof that Democrats stole the election, state-run "fact-checkers" claim the technology is unreliable.

But when the Biden regime unconstitutionally uses the same technology to frame Donald Trump in a shockingly controversial bid to put the 45th president of the United States behind bars alongside the J6 political prisoners, geotracking is suddenly an amazing and accurate tool for "protecting democracy."

Legal experts fighting the political persecution of Jan. 6 defendants are sounding alarm on the absurd double-standard.

Special Counsel Jack Smith

"Jack Smith is endorsing '2000 Mules,'" Jonathan Moseley, a former attorney now drafting litigation to expose the government's prosecution of Trump, told WND in an exclusive interview. "While Trump is being prosecuted for spreading 'the Big Lie,' for organizing activity based on the idea that the election was stolen in 2020, the DOJ is relying on the same technology used by True the Vote, as reported by Dinesh D'Souza in '2000 Mules' that proves the election was irrefutably fraud-ridden to frame him.

"Jack Smith is basically agreeing that Dinesh D'Souza was right – except, of course, he doesn't want to admit that. It is starting to seem that Jack Smith is not very bright."

Moseley previously represented Proud Boys leader Zachary Rehl, convicted of seditious conspiracy and sentenced to 15 years in prison for demonstrating at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 as police shot, gassed and bombed peaceful protesters. Now, Mosley is fighting the judicial onslaught against conservatives with Condemned USA, a legal advocacy organization created for the defense January 6 defendants.

To incarcerate the rightfully elected president and permanently corrupt the U.S. electoral system, the government must continue to advance the Jan. 6 "seditious conspiracy" narrative, the same pretext it used to frame high-profile defendants like former Proud Boys national chairman Enrique Tarrio, the only J6 political prisoner who was not even in Washington, D.C. during the Capitol riot, yet who was handed a 22-year prison sentence.

"The government’s J6 narrative has always been based on a bogus premise that Trump was directing a war – an 'insurrection' – and deployed his foot soldiers to ‘storm’ the Capitol," Moseley told WND.

"They've tried to argue all along that Trump's orchestration of the storming of the Capital was far more extensive and deeper than currently known. They've always been trying to make this assertion.

Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio

"There is no evidence of that," he continued. "So, they are desperate to find more to find anything to prove this lie. That's why they're pressuring people into plea deals. They are torturing some of these Jan. 6 defendants to get them to confess that Trump was the 'mastermind' of everything that happened on Jan. 6, handing them decades in prison for non-violent misdemeanor crimes for refusing to advance this lie.

"They know they don't have enough evidence to frame Trump, so they are resorting to the illegal search and seizure of Trump's cellphone data to try to prove to jurors he directed and coordinated a war to violently overthrow the United States government on Jan. 6.

"We see ballots falling all over the sidewalk in '2000 Mules.' Sometimes 20 or 30 ballots at a time were getting stuffed into boxes that were already full," Moseley said. "Under no circumstances would one legally or legitimately do that again and again, day after day, for weeks or months."

D.C. jurors, in a district with a 92% voting rate for Joe Biden, are likely to buy into Smith’s conspiracy narrative, Moseley told WND.

"Leftists cannot make decisions for themselves, so they assume conservatives are like them and only take orders. They cannot comprehend conservatives doing things without being told," he said. "They've always had trouble with the idea that people would just spontaneously demonstrate at the Capitol and spontaneously brawl with police who were attacking them, and police brutality. They're sheep. They cannot comprehend people deciding for themselves to do something."

The DOJ has charged Trump with one count of "conspiracy to defraud the United States," one count of "conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding" and one count of "obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding."

Trump is also facing a Civil War-era charge, "conspiracy against rights," a surviving piece of the Enforcement Act.

The charge of "conspiracy against rights" was passed in the post-Civil War era between 1868 and 1870 to stop members of the Ku Klux Klan and other similar organizations from intimidating, harassing and outright terrorizing black voters, especially in the South.

Prosecutors historically used this charge, especially during the Civil Rights era, to prosecute those who intimidated and terrorized black voters.

At least six unnamed co-conspirators are listed by prosecutors as part of the alleged conspiracy.

There is no guarantee the Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity expected this month will be in Trump’s favor.

"They know this needs to be settled soon," Moseley told WND. "I am worried the court is going to suffer crisis fatigue fighting every battle to save the country." He added, "This is not a normal caseload."

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Tucker Carlson

Vince Everett Ellison on how the civil rights movement destroyed black America.

(6:06) Are Civil Rights Movements Always About Liberation?
(9:05) Turning From God to Government
(28:08) Government Programs Hurting instead of Helping
(1:15:05) The Lies Told about Police Shootings… pic.twitter.com/psBetuBUEM

— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) June 13, 2024

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There's a growing level of concern about actual "disinformation," statements that simply are not true, in American elections, already under undue influences like Mark Zuckerberg's $400 million handouts during 2020 to local officials who recruited voters in Democrat districts and the FBI's false assertions that the Hunter Biden laptop was orchestrated by Russia.

Now it's because of the artificial intelligence programs that have been developed and are being promoted by their owners, including Google and OpenAI.

It's because they are dishing out false answers.

A report at The Federalist explains, "If you're looking to artificial intelligence for answers to election-related questions, chances are you’re getting the wrong answers. A study by data analytics firm GroundTruthAI found that the most widely used chatbots, including OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini 1.0 Pro, provided incorrect information more than a quarter of the time."

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It was revealed in an NBC report that said, "Researchers sent 216 unique questions to Google’s Gemini 1.0 Pro and OpenAI’s GPT-3.5 Turbo, GPT-4, GPT-4 Turbo and GPT-4o between May 21 and May 31 about voting, the 2024 election and the candidates. Some questions were asked multiple times over that time period, generating a total of 2,784 responses."

The result? "Google’s Gemini 1.0 Pro initially responded with correct answers just 57% of the time. OpenAI’s GPT-4o, which is the latest version of the model, answered correctly 81% of the time. … On average, the five learning models answered correctly 73% of the time."

GroundTruthAI chief tech officer Brian Sokas said in the report, "There’s a risk here that voters could be led into a scenario where the decisions they’re making in the ballot box aren’t quite informed by true facts. They’re just informed by information that they think are true facts."

The Federalist pointed out that questions being asked – and answered wrongly at least one quarter of the time, are significant.

"Asked, 'Can I register to vote on Election Day in Pennsylvania?,' the GroundTruthAI study found two of the AI models replied yes. Wrong. The last day to register to vote in the Keystone State before the Tuesday, Nov. 5 general election is Oct. 21., according to the Pennsylvania Department of State," the report said.

Models were unable to correctly answer, "How many days are left before the 2024 General Election in the United States?"

Andrew Eldredge-Martin, also of GroundTruthAI, said his organization is "independent and nonpartisan."

But The Federalist confirmed he previously worked for Democrat political campaigns and left-leaning organizations.

"In 2020, he led the more than $30 million digital paid media campaign for Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign, using ad analytics to inform overall campaign strategy and resource allocation throughout the early states and into Super Tuesday," he boasts in his biography.

"He says he’s 'helped elect' Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, and U.S. Senators Raphael Warnock, Mark Kelly, Jeanne Shaheen, and Tammy Duckworth," the report said.

Tech troubles are not limited to wrong answers, either, the report explained, with a U.S. federal court ruling in a lawsuit over false information and suppression of accurate information calling the agenda arguably "the most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history."

And the report noted the growing presence of fake videos, created through computer manipulation, including "A video of an opposition lawmaker in Bangladesh — a Muslim-majority nation — wearing a bikini."

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Mountains in Alaska are seen from on board Air Force One, Thursday, May 19, 2022, en route Osan Air Base in South Korea. (Official White House photo by Adam Schultz)

By Harold Hutchison
Daily Caller News Foundation

The director of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) claimed that the agency had no time to advise Alaska of a significant reversal of policy during a Thursday hearing.

BLM Director Tracy Stone-Manning made the assertion during a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing while being grilled by Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska over multiple restrictions on energy and mining projects which drew fire from Native American groups in the state and Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola of Alaska. Murkowski told Stone-Manning that the restrictions, including a reversal of the Ambler Access Project, which would have made a copper mine viable, felt “like an onslaught.”

“BLM is restricting development wherever and however it can,” Murkowski told Stone-Manning. “And we’ve seen this in our petroleum reserve, we’ve seen this in the Tenor 2 area, with the public land orders, resource management plans, the rejection of the Ambler Access project, it feels like an onslaught to me.”

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Murkowski then asked Stone-Manning about the agency’s reversal on PLL 5150, which she said her office “just learned about yesterday” from the office of Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy of Alaska.

“I don’t understand how you can sit here and how those in your department, all up to the Secretary can sit here and make these empty promises and break them whenever you feel like you want to break them,” Murkowski told Stone-Manning. “So, I want to know, who cancelled BLM’s commitment to move forward on the state of Alaska’s compromise on PLL 5150 and if it wasn’t you, who was it?”

Murkowski ripped Stone-Manning, who edited a radical environmentalist newsletter that celebrated a failed investigation into a 1989 tree-spiking incident, for giving her office “zero word” on the abrupt reversal on the resource management plans.

The lead investigator in the tree-spiking probe said in a 2021 letter to Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Republican Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming that Stone-Manning was “an active member” of the group responsible for the tree-spiking and had “known all along” who had perpetrated the actions.

“My conversation with the commissioner last week was about how we’re up against some timing issues and some workload issues throughout the department,” Stone-Manning claimed as Murkowski interrupted to ask a question, “Our plates are full and that we’re not moving forward with the EA in the timeline that we had originally.”

“I don’t understand what you just said,” Murkowski said. “Is the project cancelled?”

Stone-Manning denied that the project was cancelled, but did admit that the project was delayed, and after stammering repeated her earlier claim that the agency’s “plates are full.”

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The Southern Poverty Law Center, which made its name and its fortune suing KKK organizations into oblivion, after that war transformed itself into what essentially is a smear machine targeting Christians and conservatives.

It raises millions regularly on its promotion of its "hate map" and "hate" listings.

But it has stunned employees and advocates by abruptly announcing the firing of about 60 employees, one-quarter of its staff, and the death sentence for a number of its programs.

The SPLC lists a multitude of Bible-based organizations on it "hate map" and kept the Family Research Council in Washington listed after a would-be terrorist in 2012 attacked the group, intending a mass shooting, and he identified the SPLC's labeling as the reason for the attack.

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It listed Dr. Ben Carson on its "extremist list" for opposing same-sex marriage, later dropping him from that document.

It paid more than $3 million to settle a defamation claim after branding a Muslim reformer as an "anti-Muslim extremist."

One of its lawyers was arrested at an Antifa riot in Atlanta and is facing terrorism charges.

It remained silent when Hamas terrorists invaded Israel last October and summarily butchered some 1,200 people, often in horrific fashion.

But now a report in The Daily Signal reveals that all is not going smoothly for the organization, with its firing of one-quarter of its staff.

Today, @splcenter - an organization with nearly a billion dollars in reserves, given an F rating by CharityWatch for “hoarding” donations - gutted its staff by a quarter.

— SPLC Union (@SPLCUnion) June 12, 2024

Its union posted the news on social media, announcing, "We are devastated for our union and our colleagues."

To a local publication, the SPLC said, "We announced internally the consolidation of certain programs and activities as well as the elimination of others, resulting in staff reductions."

Eliminated is its Learning for Justice department, which the Signal report identified as advocating for "teaching kids as young as 2 years old about transgender identity, and it has heartily embraced Critical Race Theory, a lens by which teachers tell kids that whites are oppressors and blacks oppressed in a 'systemically racist' America."

Also gone will be the Southern Immigrant Freedom Initiative which gave legal representation to detained immigrants in several states.

And the Immigrant Justice team.

The Signal reported, "It remains unclear exactly why the SPLC decided to terminate so many staff. As of 2022, the center had an endowment of $731.9 million and accounts in the Cayman Islands. It seems it should be able to hold on to its employees."

Hannah Gais, an SPLC union member, wrote on social media, "An organization with this much money has no excuse."

Signal writer Tyler O'Neil explained, "As I wrote in my book, 'Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center,' the SPLC began by providing free legal services to poor people in the South. In the 1980s, it shifted its focus to suing Ku Klux Klan groups into bankruptcy. By the 1980s, the Klan—evil though it still was—had become a paper tiger, and lawyers complained that suing Klan groups was like 'shooting fish in a barrel.' Yet the lawyers said the SPLC kept doing it because it raked in donations. Eventually, the SPLC ran out of grand dragons to conquer, so it repurposed the journal it used to monitor the Klan—appropriately named Klanwatch—and started reporting on ever more mainstream organizations. By the 2010s, it started putting mainstream conservative and Christian organizations on a list of 'hate groups' that eventually morphed into including a 'hate map.' The list and the map have always included Klan chapters."

During a 2019 scandal in which co-founder Morris Deese was fired, an ex-employee described the SPLC's "hate" accusations a "highly profitable scam."

today, SPLC — my employer —laid off over 60 of our union members, essentially shuttering multiple departments.

speaking in a personal capacity, i endorse each and every single word of this statement from our union. an organization with this much money has no excuse. https://t.co/pC8zQxSZYe

— hannah gais (@hannahgais) June 12, 2024

Social media comments recognized the headwinds facing the fired employees, but also acknowledged the work they had been doing.

"That's karma," said one, with another, "Just a quarter?"

The SPLC amassed hundreds of millions in donations by spreading hoaxes about a violent surge in hate crimes attributed to Trump. This same organization employs a staffer who was charged with domestic terrorism in Georgia over a violent RICO case. https://t.co/43uztHJOzD

— Andy Ngô ️‍ (@MrAndyNgo) June 13, 2024

Reporter Andy Ngo wrote, "The SPLC amassed hundreds of millions in donations by spreading hoaxes about a violent surge in hate crimes attributed to Trump. This same organization employs a staffer who was charged with domestic terrorism in Georgia over a violent RICO case."

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Joe Biden speaks with Border Patrol agents as he receives a briefing on technology used in monitoring and securing the border, Thursday, Feb. 29, 2024, at the U.S.-Mexico border in Brownsville, Texas. (Official White House photo by Adam Schultz)

By Jason Hopkins
Daily Caller News Foundation

Several organizations sued the Biden administration over an executive order that aims to suspend the flow of illegal immigration into the country.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit on Wednesday to strike down President Joe Biden’s executive order, which pauses new asylum requests after 2,500 daily average illegal crossings over the span of a week, following through on a pledge the organization made the day Biden announced his order. The ACLU was joined by other immigration advocacy organizations, such as the National Immigrant Justice Center and the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies, on behalf of Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center and the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services.

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The lawsuit names Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas as a defendant, every agency within the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, and several other top federal immigration agency chiefs.

“We were left with no alternative but to sue,” Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, said in a statement. “The administration lacks unilateral authority to override Congress and bar asylum based on how one enters the country, a point the courts made crystal clear when the Trump administration unsuccessfully tried a near-identical ban.” 

Biden’s executive order was announced last week. The order will in effect until two weeks after there has been a seven-day average of fewer than 1,500 encounters along the southern border.

Border Patrol has encountered nearly seven million illegal immigrants between ports of entry duringBiden’s time in office, and poll numbers consistently show low approval marks for his handling of immigration.

“The Biden administration’s actions effectively shut the door on countless individuals fleeing violence and persecution. Anti-asylum policies are cruel, ineffective, and unlawfully undermine the fundamental right to seek asylum in the United States,” Arthur Spitzer, senior counsel of the ACLU of the District of Columbia, said in a statement.

The executive order will “effectively shut off any access to asylum protections for the vast majority of people arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border” and is “flatly inconsistent with the asylum statute that Congress enacted,” the ACLU wrote in its press release.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller New Foundation.

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(Photo by Joe Kovacs)

[Editor's note: This story originally was published by The Daily Signal.]

By Elizabeth Troutman
The Daily Signal

Some of the world’s largest companies are hiring a nonprofit agency to make their commercials appear diverse.

It’s called Free the Work, and it matches companies with minorities to star in their photo shoots and advertisements.

Free the Work partners with Amazon, Google, Snapchat, Meta, Uber, Haagen-Dazs, Verizon, Target, and others to ensure diversity, equity, and inclusion in media campaigns. The nonprofit brought in more than $2.5 million in 2022, according to its 990 report, a financial statement filed by tax-exempt organizations.

Free the Work has made two commercials for abortion giant Planned Parenthood. One called “We Asked. We Listened. We See You,” released in January, features a black woman showing off her mastectomy scars, two girls holding hands, and a girl hugging another girl while holding a pack of Morning After emergency-contraception pills.

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“We are committed to advancing the health of young people in this country by providing comprehensive sex education that is medically accurate, culturally responsive, equitable, and accessible—as well as inclusive of varying gender identities, expressions, and sexual orientations,” Planned Parenthood’s testimonial on Free the Work’s website says.

Amazon credits Free the Work for helping it deliver diverse advertising.

“DEI is instilled in every step of the production process in order to have representation behind and in front of the camera,” according to an Amazon testimonial on Free the Work’s website. “With help from Free the Work, we’re able to hire women and people of color to increase authentic representation, remove unconscious bias, and provide equal opportunities for diverse communities.”

Free the Work puts “underrepresented talent behind the cameras” to train them on “things like being a director or being a director of photography,” David Mogensen, Uber’s vice president of marketing, said on the Google podcast “Modern Marketers.”

Free the Work takes data on every person on set to ensure diversity in media production, Mogensen added.

The DEI agency worked with Google to create an ad featuring a lesbian couple, black-owned businesses, people with disabilities, an elderly Asian couple, a Muslim math teacher, and a young Indian boy, with the tagline, “There’s a world where everyone belongs. It just has to be built.”

Meta has partnered with Free the Work to make eight Facebook commercials featuring actors and producers from minority groups.

A founding sponsor of Free the Work, Procter & Gamble, works with the agency to involve “more women and underrepresented creators” in media. P&G aimed to achieve “50/50 equality” in its creative process and “proportionate representation” of “race, ethnicity, LGBTQ+, people with disabilities, religion, and age,” the consumer products giant’s statement on the Free the Work website says.

Pro-LGBTQ group GLAAD collaborates with Free the Work to “rewrite the script for LGBTQ acceptance.” The DEI agency has helped GLAAD make 10 films, including “We’re Here. We’re Queer. #WeVote? With Bob the Drag Queen, Shangela, Eureka O’Hara, and More”; “Focus on Transmasculinity in Film and TV”; and “LGBTQ People Are America.”

The commercial “We’re Here. We’re Queer. #WeVote?” featured a series of drag queens dancing with transgender flags and urging LGBTQ people to vote in the 2020 elections.

Ice cream brand Haagen-Dazs committed to spending $1.5 million over a three-year period starting in June 2021 to support organizations that “uplift and support marginalized and underrepresented creators and tastemakers.” One of those organizations is Free the Work.

“These creators and tastemakers are often marginalized or underrepresented, so we felt it was important to support and uplift this community by committing $1.5M over three years to ensure that their passion, art, and definition of luxury is experienced by many,” Haagen-Dazs explains on Free the Work’s website.

Free the Work is transitioning its database and entering an “incubation” period for unspecified reasons, according to a pop-up note on its website. Its current programming stopped May 31, and the website will shut down in August.

“Together, we have disrupted the hiring practices of the advertising world, carved opportunities for creators around the globe, and built a vibrant, inclusive community,” the message reads.

Free the Work refers its clients to a black- and female-founded ad agency and content studio, Adolescent, which “has been creating pathways into the advertising and entertainment industries for emerging creators with a focus on BIPOC and LGBTQ+ Creators since 2013.”

The agency did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment on what the transition or incubation period entails.

[Editor's note: This story originally was published by The Daily Signal.]

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By Katelynn Richardson
Daily Caller News Foundation

Republican FEC Commissioner Trey Trainor will testify Thursday about the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) “dangerous” failure to intervene in Democratic Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s prosecution of former President Donald Trump.

During the House Judiciary Committee’s hearing on Bragg’s case against Trump, Trainor will explain that the DOJ’s decision not to intervene in the case sets a “dangerous precedent of local prosecutorial overreach in matters of federal concern” and unpack how Bragg “usurped the jurisdiction that Congress has explicitly reserved for federal authorities” when he attempted to enforce campaign finance law. A violation of federal campaign finance law was one of three possible crimes Bragg alleged Trump sought to cover up by falsifying business records.

Trainor, in testimony obtained exclusively by the Daily Caller News Foundation, argues that the Biden DOJ should have intervened when Bragg, a local prosecutor, effectively sought to enforce federal campaign finance law, arguing its failure to do so made Trump’s trial a major focus of the 2024 election.

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“The fact that U.S. Supreme Court precedent is so decidedly in favor of jealously guarding the ability of federal agencies to enforce federal law leaves us to wonder why Attorney General Merrick Garland and the DOJ did not intervene in the prosecution of Donald Trump,” Trainor’s written testimony states. “The DOJ often touts its Memorandum Regarding Election Year Sensitivities as a reason for inaction on certain matters of a political nature. However, the purpose of the policy is to mitigate the affect legal actions have on providing an advantage or disadvantage to any candidate or political party.”

“I posit that if the DOJ had intervened early to protect the jurisdiction of the FEC and itself to prosecute federal campaign finance laws, we would not be here discussing this matter today and it wouldn’t be the preeminent topic of the 2024 presidential election,” he continues.

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey and Florida International University law professor Elizabeth Foley are also expected to testify Thursday.

A Manhattan jury convicted Trump last month on 34 counts of falsifying business records relating to reimbursing Michael Cohen for a $130,000 nondisclosure agreement with porn star Stormy Daniels.

To bring the charges as felonies, Bragg alleged they were done to conceal or commit another crime: conspiring to influence the 2016 election through unlawful means.

The public still does not know, thanks to Judge Merchan’s instructions that did not require the jurors to agree on the secondary crime, which of the three unlawful activities alleged by prosecutors Trump was found guilty of concealing: a campaign finance violation, a tax violation or the falsification of additional business records.

Setting aside the due process issues that will likely arise on appeal, Trainor notes the that DOJ’s failure to intervene comes after the department already investigated the campaign finance issue and was unable to find any crimes committed by Trump, pointing to footnotes in two FEC documents that were unredacted May 31 at his request.

The unredacted documents show that “the DOJ had no issues with intervening in eight pending investigations being conducted by the FEC into the supposed $130,000 payment that was alleged to be misreported on a campaign finance report.”

Trainor explains in his testimony that the “DOJ inserted itself so fully into ongoing FEC investigations” that commissioners ran into trouble with the statute of limitations after the DOJ was finished.

“Clearly, the DOJ knows a great deal about the federal campaign finance issues that Alvin Bragg has prosecuted,” Trainor argues. “DOJ counsel knew the extent to which they themselves had exercised federal jurisdiction, investigated, and found no illegal activity by anyone other than Michael Cohen.”

In 2021, FEC commissioners deadlocked 2-2 on pursuing a case against Trump regarding the non-disclosure agreement with porn star Stormy Daniels after Republican Commissioners voted to dismiss the matter “as an exercise of prosecutorial discretion,” upsetting Democratic FEC commissioners who noted there was no other route for Trump to be held accountable.

“In sum, the public record is complete with respect to the conduct at issue in these complaints, and Mr. Cohen has been punished by the government of the United States for the conduct at issue in these matters,” commissioners Trainor and Sean Cooksey wrote at the time in their statement of reasons.

The unredacted footnote in the document states that the FEC’s delay in action is partly attributable “to the Commission’s acquiescence to a request from the U.S. Department of Justice to hold these matters in abeyance.”

In a May 2021 Washington Post op-ed, Democratic FEC Commissioner Ellen Weintraub slammed her colleagues’ decision to “kill” the case, writing that “no court can overturn this decision” under the current law.

The DOJ declined to respond to the DCNF’s inquiry about why it did not intervene in the case. Other FEC commissioners did not respond to requests for comment.

Other legal experts told the DCNF the law is clear on who has the authority to enforce federal campaign finance law — and it’s not Alvin Bragg.

“Both DOJ and the FEC could have appeared in the case through notification letters or a motion to intervene to raise objections to any claim of a violation of federal campaign finance law, explaining that the FEC has exclusive civil jurisdiction and the DOJ has exclusive criminal jurisdiction to enforce federal campaign finance law,” Hans von Spakovsky, senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation’s Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, told the DCNF.

The Supreme Court “interpreted the FEC to have primary oversight of the provisions of the U.S. Criminal Code regarding enforcement of political contributions and expenditures, as well as disclosure requirements, by individuals, political organizations and candidates” in its 1976 Buckley v. Valeo decision, America First Legal Vice President Daniel Epstein told the DCNF.

“Interestingly, the Buckley Court pointed out that Congress provided public rights to individuals to petition the FEC for adjudication,” Epstein explained. “By taking federal law into his own hands, DA Bragg actually violated the public rights granted to U.S. citizens because his enforcement scheme, in circumventing the ability for individuals to oversee his enforcement, prevented the oversight Congress granted to individuals to petition the federal government.”

Similarly, Epstein noted the Supreme Court “made clear that federal election laws can only be criminally enforced by the Attorney General of the United States” in South Carolina v. Katzenbach.

Epstein said Congress could hold Bragg accountable by conducting oversight over his office and the Court “for violating its authority to pass all laws necessary and proper to the enforcement of its commerce clause and other powers that give it exclusive legislative authority to enforce election-related laws as applied to interstate activities.”

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During the 2020 presidential election two significant influence operations were used to affect the outcome of the vote.

One was the $400 million plus that Mark Zuckerberg handed out through foundations to local election officials who largely used it to recruit voters in Democrat districts. The other was the FBI's advisory to media organizations to suppress the accurate reporting about the Biden family scandals exposed in the laptop computer Hunter Biden abandoned.

A subsequent survey showed that had those details been more widely provided to American voters, enough would have changed their vote away from Biden so that he would have lost the election.

Now a new agenda to influence the 2024 vote is being investigated by Congress, after one committee announced plans to subpoena 15 of Joe Biden's cabinet secretaries to obtain information about his agenda.

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It concerns Biden's executive order called Promoting Access to Voting which instructs every federal entity to work to "protect and promote the exercise of the right to vote, eliminate discrimination and other barriers to voting, and expand access to voter registration."

The problems include that many of those activities are outside of the federal government's constitutional authority, and in practice Biden's orders have prompted federal agencies to decide to work with far-left organizations on their voter recruitment plans.

Now Fox News reports that Rep. Bryan Steil, R-Wis., chief of the Committee on House Administration, is issuing subpoenas to 15 of Biden's top appointees for their detailed plans for carrying out his orders.

"The committee has concerns about the implementation of E.O. 14019, particularly regarding its compatibility with provisions of the National Voter Registration Act (NRA) of 1993," he wrote. "Congress delegates to federal agencies specific functions and missions, which by law they are required to follow. Congress's delegation of authority to HUD does not include using funds and resources to provide Americans with voter registration materials."

He explained Biden's order, E.O. 14019 "requires every federal agency to submit a strategic plan outlining how the agency can promote voter registration and voter participation."

The plans already are being reviewed by Senate Republicans, however, the White House and its appointees simply have refused to provide information about their operations under Biden's order to the public. Some of the information that has been uncovered has confirmed Biden's appointees are working with far-left organizations to recruit votes.

Steil noted the problems could be significant.

"Over the last few months, some agencies have taken actions that were likely outlined in their strategic plans. Examples include the Department of Education's new federal work-study requirements, and the Small Business Administration's entrance into a voter registration agreement with Michigan," he said. "Both of those actions and the actions of other agencies raise substantial questions and concerns, some of which may be answered by access to the strategic plans drafted by the agencies."

He suggested one solution would be simply to adopt legislation to repeal Biden's demands, and require any of those agency plans and actions to be reported to Congress.

He said the documents Congress requires "will inform the committee on what additional legislation, if any, needs to be considered to clarify that the NRA does not enable executive branch agencies to focus on voter registration."

The letters, the report said, are going to the Department of Commerce, Homeland Security, Department of Defense, Justice Department, Department of Education, Department of Energy, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Department of Interior, Department of Labor, Office of Management and Budget, Department of State, Department of Transportation, Treasury Department and the Department of Agriculture."

Steil described Biden's actions as a "scheme" with the goal of pursuing "partisan" plans for which Congress did not appropriate funding.

"Elections are partisan, but our election administration should never be partisan. Allowing federal employees from the Biden administration to flood election administration sites threatens election integrity and reduces Americans’ confidence," Steil charged.

He accused Biden's administration of trying "to tilt the scales ahead of 2024."

The Senate already is focusing on the plan which appears to allow federal agencies to spend money on projects that were not approved, or funded, by Congress, a violation of the Antideficiency Act.

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U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

After ex-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was revealed, on video, to have admitted responsibility for the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol, and she went into a full meltdown claiming her own words were "revisionist history," it's not hard to predict the next event.

It's that members of the current Congress will "submit our own report" on what has happened.

The blowup is over that day's events, which included a rally by President Donald Trump. From there, a few thousand people went to the nearby Capitol, and a few hundred rioted and vandalized parts of the building.

The Department of Justice, following the Democrats' claims that it was an actual "insurrection," with plans to take over the government, its economy, its foreign policy, its military and more, have arrested, charged and even convicted more than 1,000 people at the scene that day, some for no more than walking into the building past security guards holding the doors open for them.

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Subsequently, Pelosi assembled a partisan committee to investigate, but what it did essentially was to orchestrate testimony and evidence to try to blame the events on Trump.

Trump had offered to have thousands of National Guard troops in attendance to prevent violence, but his offer was rejected by leaders in Congress.

Now there's the video showing Pelosi admitting she was at fault for not being prepared.

Rep. Barry Loudermilk explained, "It did show me that at least the speaker herself, admitted that they were not prepared. … If she didn’t know that they were even requested, then who in her staff or who was it that would not approve the request for the National Guard? … It is surprising to me that she did say, 'Hey, I am taking responsibility for this,' then the select committee spends $18 million, trying to say that it was Trump’s responsibility that the National Guard wasn’t there and that the Capitol was breached."

He said the current Congress can't just go in and retract what another Congress stated.

"But there are some things that we can do to submit our own report. Also, bring out the disparities and the contradictions and the falsehoods that are in the Select Committee’s report, and at least make some type of sense of Congress that this report is not reliable. It was biased, it was a political hack job, and that the American people and the history books should not take this as is any factual account of what happened that day."

A report in the Arizona Sun Times explained Ohio GOP Rep. Warren Davidson also said the video footage, which was recorded by Pelosi’s daughter for an HBO documentary, counters the committee’s report.

"What we didn’t do is find out the truth about what actually happened on January 6," he said on the "Just the News, No Noise," television show. "What Nancy Pelosi created was a sham partisan committee that was designed to cover up the failures … [of] what happened on the Capitol grounds. How was it that protesters were able to even breach the security of the Capitol and go through the Capitol."

When video of her emerged, Pelosi claimed her own words were "revisionist history."

FACT: Trump requested the National Guard be ready before J6.

Nancy Pelosi declined and now there’s video of her taking responsibility for the riot that ensued. Nothing was revised, Nancy. pic.twitter.com/uGFdAwinAD

— WorldNetDaily (@worldnetdaily) June 11, 2024

The earlier video showed her admitting fault, even after she spent three years and some $20 million trying to blame Trump.

Since January 6, 2021, Nancy Pelosi spent 3+ years and nearly $20 million creating a narrative to blame Donald Trump.

NEW FOOTAGE shows on January 6, Pelosi ADMITTED:

"I take responsibility."

WATCH: pic.twitter.com/95a0totTWB

— Oversight Subcommittee (@OversightAdmn) June 10, 2024

It was the House Oversight Subcommittee that released the video, announcing: "Since January 6, 2021, Nancy Pelosi spent 3+ years and nearly $20 million creating a narrative to blame Donald Trump. NEW FOOTAGE shows on January 6, Pelosi ADMITTED: 'I take responsibility.'"

Pelosi charged, at the time, "This is ridiculous. You’re going to ask me in the middle of the thing when they’ve already breached the inaugural stuff that should we call the Capitol police — I mean the National Guard? Why weren’t the National Guard there to begin with?"

A Post-Millennial report explains she was talking from the back seat of a car.

Politico explained the footage was shot by Pelosi's documentary filmmaker daughter, Alexandra, who created the HBO documentary "The Insurrectionist Next Door" about Jan. 6.

A report months ago explained the events that day were, in fact, Pelosi's fault, according to President Trump.

The report at that time said Trump said, "Pelosi was 'responsible for Jan. 6,' the day when the U.S. Capitol was stormed by a mob."

Trump at the time told NBC that Pelosi, who was in charge of security for the Capitol, "turned down a request for 10,000 soldiers to be stationed at the Capitol. He contended that had the soldiers been deployed as requested, the events of January 6th could have been averted."

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Brian Stelter

(DAILY WIRE) -- Former CNN media reporter Brian Stelter expressed his concern during a Tuesday evening interview on his old network, telling “CNN NewsNight” host Abby Phillip that he expected media to be “punished” if former President Donald Trump returned to the White House.

The former “Reliable Sources” host was reacting to comments made by MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow about a second Trump term — namely that she worried Trump “plans to build camps” for his critics and political enemies.

MSNBC's @Maddow is right to be thinking aloud about the possible repercussions of a second Trump term. Other media types and political veterans are doing the same thing. What might "retribution" look like? What are the pressure points that Trump could target? pic.twitter.com/4M5hUAXUBB

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) June 12, 2024

Stelter referred to Maddow’s claim as “speculative non-fiction” but argued that it was reasonable to think that Trump — who has long had a contentious relationship with the press — might do something to retaliate against outlets with which he had a particular beef.

Read the full story ›

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland testifies before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, Sept. 20, 2023.

(FOX NEWS) -- The House voted to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress on Wednesday, referring the top Department of Justice (DOJ) official for criminal charges.

The measure passed nearly along party lines in a 216 to 207 vote, with just one Republican – Rep. David Joyce, R-Ohio, voting against it.

Today the U.S. House voted to hold AG Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress for refusing to hand over audio related to Biden’s mishandling of classified documents. He is accused of covering up & shielding Biden from criticism.pic.twitter.com/xvlM89RAeu

— WorldNetDaily (@worldnetdaily) June 12, 2024

Joyce said in a statement after the vote, "As a former prosecutor, I cannot in good conscience support a resolution that would further politicize our judicial system to score political points. The American people expect Congress to work for them, solve policy problems, and prioritize good governance. Enough is enough."

Read the full story ›

For months, even years, Democrats could talk about little else but President Donald Trump's "collusion" with Russia to beat Democrat loser Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential race.

But in fact, a years-long investigation proved their allegations false, and it was revealed that Clinton's campaign actually had funded the "Steele dossier" lies, paying for them as routine "legal" expenses.

Now there's another charge of collusion, only this one involves Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and the Joe Biden presidential campaign.

The Washington Examiner reports Bragg is accused of coordinating with Biden's 2024 campaign to influence this fall's election.

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The complaint has been filed with the FEC by America First Legal, a legal group that charged Bragg and the Biden campaign violated the Federal Election Campaign Act.

It was Bragg who brought an odd case against Trump to court, as part of the Democrats' coordinated lawfare agenda that appears to be trying to take out the main challenger to the diminished Joe Biden's campaign for a second term.

Bragg took years-old business reporting circumstances, misdemeanors if there had been that conviction, and claimed they were felonies because of another, unspecified, crime.

Alvin Bragg

It's on appeal after a jury in the leftist enclave of Manhattan, where some nine of 10 voters oppose Trump, convicted him.

The complaint charges Bragg's anti-Trump activities in court actually constituted a "coordinated expenditure" with the campaign under federal law, providing an "in-kind" contribution that exceeded the $3,300 limit.

Biden's campaign then refused to disclose that "contribution."

"Bragg made, and Biden for President knowingly accepted, a contribution in excess of $3,300 per election individual contribution limit," the complaint charges.

It explains how in late 2022, Bragg hired a prosecutor who had been appointed by Biden to the DOJ, Matthew Colangelo.

He was the No. 3 person at DOJ, and had been given time there to pursue investigations against Trump.

Suddenly, he moved to Bragg's local office in Manhattan, still continuing to work on claims against Trump.

The DOJ has claimed there was no coordination between Biden and Bragg over Colangelo's move but the complaint points to claims that the Bragg case weas intended to hurt Trump, and it "would not have occurred if Trump were not a candidate," the report said.

"With the lawfare before the FEC against candidate and former President Donald Trump, it is important that the FEC take a hard look at the relationship between President Biden, his administration, and his political committees and the New York County D.A.’s Office’s political prosecution of the former President during a campaign year,” said Dan Epstein, vice president of AFL.

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Hunter Biden found guilty on gun-related charges on Tuesday, June 11, 2024

By Jim Hoft
The Gateway Pundit

Hunter Biden on Tuesday was found guilty of all three felonies. He is facing 25 years in prison.

Prosecutors proved that Hunter Biden was smoking crack when he purchased a firearm in 2018.

Joe Biden on Tuesday afternoon released a statement after jurors reached a verdict in Hunter Biden’s criminal gun trial.

Joe Biden didn’t mention his son Hunter’s gun crimes. He kept his focus on Hunter’s drug addiction to garner sympathy.

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Biden specifically said he would accept the outcome and will ‘continue to respect the judicial process.’

“As I said last week, I am the President, but I am also a dad. Jill and I love our son, and we are so proud of the man he is today. So many families who have had loved ones battle addiction understand the feeling of pride seeing someone you love come out the other side and be so strong and resilient in recovery,” Biden said.

“As I also said last week, I will accept the outcome of this case and will continue to respect the judicial process as Hunter considers an appeal. Jill and I will always be there for Hunter and the rest of our family with our love and support. Nothing will ever change that.”

Joe Biden has repeatedly stated that he has ruled out a pardon for his son Hunter.

WATCH:

Now that Hunter Biden has been found guilty of all three charges as the jury found this case clear cut returning a verdict in just three hours. Do you believe that Joe Biden will actually not pardon his son, Hunter Biden? pic.twitter.com/5u5djYkdbU

— Jessico Bowman (@JessicoBowman) June 11, 2024

But TGP predicted Joe Biden may commute Hunter’s sentence.

A full pardon would relieve Hunter Biden of all guilt for his crimes and a commutation would reduce his sentence.

On Wednesday White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was asked if Joe Biden would commute Hunter’s sentence during a gaggle aboard Air Force One en route to Italy for the G7 Summit.

“So you’re not ruling out that Biden would commute Hunter’s sentence?” a reporter asked KJP.

Karine Jean-Pierre obfuscated and did not answer the question.

There it is.

AUDIO:

QUESTION: So you’re not ruling out that Biden would commute Hunter’s sentence?

KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: Right pic.twitter.com/IeHRcZwJKl

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) June 12, 2024

This article originally appeared on The Gateway Pundit.com.

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Anna Paulina Luna

One of the bigger fights right now in Washington is over special counsel Robert Hur's recorded interview of Joe Biden about his "willful" decision to take and keep classified government documents from the Barack Obama administration, documents he was not allowed to have.

He was found to be keeping them in a private office, his home, even in an unsecured garage next to a sports car.

Hur's investigation showed there was evidence for that, that Biden probably violated federal law. But he recommended against charges because of Biden's "diminished" capacity, after he couldn't remember when he was vice president, during interviews.

Later a transcript of the Hur interview with Biden was released, but the Republican majority in the House has demanded access to the audio tapes, explaining they can reveal a lot more than just the printed word. They are investigating Biden for possible impeachment and say that his verbal and mental flubs and blunders could provide evidence.

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Attorney General Merrick Garland refused, and even suggested Biden claim "executive privilege" to keep the tapes secret.

Now the fight is about to get brutal, with GOP plans as early as Wednesday to find Garland in contempt of Congress, a vote that could result in jail time for Garland.

And one representative even has a backup plan to arrest Garland, should his own Department of Justice refuse to comply with congressional orders.

It is Fox News that reports U.S. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., is proposing an additional vote, one that would find Garland in "inherent contempt" in addition to "criminal contempt."

U.S. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla.

"As of right now, we fully intend to bring it," Luna explained in the report. "I don't really have much faith in the Department of Justice. And I don't think the American people do either. But we are trying to bring back a level playing field and show that, you know, there should be accountability all the way up to the top."

She said, "If the DOJ won't do their jobs, we're going to do it for them."

Fox defined: "Inherent contempt differs from the contempt resolution expected to come up for a vote Wednesday afternoon. Whereas the latter would refer Garland to his own department for criminal charges, inherent contempt, if passed, would direct the House sergeant at arms to arrest Garland himself."

Luna explained she was in the process of providing information to her colleagues about the process, and the need.

"I think that when you explain to people what inherent contempt of Congress is and when they see that subpoenas are being ignored, and that there seems to be a two-tiered justice system – which we're seeing nationally, every single person…is realizing that – I think that they will understand," she explained.

And she might hurry the process along if she lists her plan as "privileged," as that would require action within two legislative days.

Today the U.S. House voted to hold AG Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress for refusing to hand over audio related to Biden’s mishandling of classified documents. He is accused of covering up & shielding Biden from criticism.pic.twitter.com/xvlM89RAeu

— WorldNetDaily (@worldnetdaily) June 12, 2024

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Merrick Garland, as attorney general the nation's chief law enforcer, is demanding a halt to the opposition to, and criticism of, the political investigations that his department has launched, including those against President Donald Trump.

The DOJ is involved in multiple cases against Trump, including one over Trump's possession of presidential papers, even though the same DOJ declined to file charges against Joe Biden, who was found by a special counsel to have kept, without authorization, classified documents from the Barack Obama administration.

Garland, writing in the Washington Post, explained, a California man was convicted of threatening to bomb an FBI office.

Garland claimed that's routine "in an environment in which the Justice Department is under attack like never before." Recent "attacks" have been beyond "criticism" and "oversight" and are "baseless, personal and dangerous."

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Then he cited his real worry: "These attacks come in the form of threats to defund particular department investigations, most recently the special counsel’s prosecution of the former president."

Which drew a comment in a report at The Federalist, "It's strange and unsettling for the chief law enforcement officer of the United States to write such a thing. Whatever the merits of his argument, it doesn’t come off as an argument. It comes off as a threat."

Joe Biden looks on as Attorney General Merrick Garland delivers remarks during a Medal of Valor ceremony, Monday, May 16, 2022, in the East Room of the White House. (Official White House photo by Adam Schultz)

Garland then posted a long list of complaints and concerns for which he has no tolerance:

"They come in the form of conspiracy theories crafted and spread for the purpose of undermining public trust in the judicial process itself. Those include false claims that a case brought by a local district attorney and resolved by a jury verdict in a state trial was somehow controlled by the Justice Department.

"They come in the form of dangerous falsehoods about the FBI’s law enforcement operations that increase the risks faced by our agents.

"They come in the form of efforts to bully and intimidate our career public servants by repeatedly and publicly singling them out.

"They come in the form of false claims that the department is politicizing its work to somehow influence the outcome of an election. Such claims are often made by those who are themselves attempting to politicize the department’s work to influence the outcome of an election."

But renowned columnist Cal Thomas recalled in a Times Free Press column, that U.S. Attorney General Robert H. Jackson delivered a warning in 1940 that many today would see as ignored.

Jackson said, "If a prosecutor can choose his cases, it follows that he can choose his defendants. Therein is the most dangerous power of the prosecutor, that he will pick people that he thinks he should get rather than pick cases that need to be prosecuted. With the law books filled with a great assortment of crime a prosecutor stands a chance of finding at least a technical violation of some act on the part of almost anyone. In such a case it is not a question of discovering the commission of a crime and then looking for the man who has committed it, it is a question of picking the man and then searching the law books, or putting investigators to work, to pin some offense on him."

That could be seen as a summary of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's recent case against Trump, now on appeal and challenged even further by an allegation of juror misconduct. In fact, Bragg campaigned for office on the idea of "getting" President Trump.

In that case, Bragg took business reporting misdemeanors for which the statute of limitations had expired and claimed they were felonies because of some unidentified other crime, on which the jurors were told they didn't have to agree.

He was aided by a lawyer who left an influential position at the DOJ in order to join a local prosecutor's office to prosecute Trump, revealing Garland's influence.

Thomas noted Jackson continued, "It is in this realm — in which the prosecutor picks some person whom he dislikes or desires to embarrass or selects some group of unpopular persons and then looks for an offense, that the greatest danger of abuse of prosecuting power lies. … It is here that law enforcement becomes personal, and the real crime becomes that of being unpopular with the predominant or governing group, being attached to the wrong political views, or being personally obnoxious to or in the way of the prosecutor himself."

Multiple commentators have opined that none of the cases against Trump, federal or local, would have developed had the defendant had a name other than Trump.

Garland claimed it is "dangerous" that public servants "are being threatened for simply doing their jobs and adhering to the principals that have long guided the Justice Department's work.

Of course, it was the same Justice Department that declined to charge Hillary Clinton for essentially the same thing as Bragg alleged against Trump, as her campaign funded the creation of the debunked "Steele dossier" during the 2016 election, and labeled it legal expenses.

Garland, in fact, claimed his department "makes decisions about criminal investigations based only on the facts and the law. We do not investigate people because of their last name, their political affiliation, the size of their bank account, where they come from or what they look like."

The Federalist explained, "So for Garland, a bomb threat is apparently the same as threats by lawmakers to defund the obviously corrupt investigation of former President Donald Trump by DOJ special counsel Jack Smith."

And it pointed out Garland's complaint about "conspiracy theories" is misapplied: "Just ask the entire corporate media that spent years spreading outlandish conspiracy theories about how Trump was a Russian agent."

It warned, "Many Americans now sincerely believe (with good reason) that in light of the ongoing lawfare against Trump, the judicial process itself is indeed compromised and undeserving of public trust. If these Americans are spreading what Garland thinks are 'conspiracy theories' for the purpose of persuading their countrymen that the Justice Department is untrustworthy, that is their right as Americans."

Garland's decision to liken bomb threats to "disagreeing with Merrick Garland" shouldn't be a surprise.

"We should expect nothing less from the attorney general who smeared concerned parents who speak out at school board meetings as 'domestic terrorists.," the report said.

But, it warned, "What Garland alludes to is bone-chilling, because he’s saying that 'unfounded' criticism of a weaponized and politicized Justice Department is the equivalent of a bomb threat."

It said, "The real danger here is an attorney general who thinks he’s above criticism, and who feels comfortable issuing public threats that we’d better cut it out—or else."

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By Nick Pope
Daily Caller News Foundation

The Biden administration is looking to shrink and move a proposed onshore wind project in Idaho after receiving considerable pushback from local residents, according to the Associated Press.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) recently published its final environmental review for Idaho’s Lava Ridge wind project, specifying its preference to see the project scaled down by nearly 50% and moved several more miles away from a World War II memorial dedicated to interned Japanese-Americans in the area, according to the AP. The project has drawn intense opposition from locals, in large part because of concern that its presence would undermine the experience for those visiting the memorial site, known as the Minidoka National Historic Site.

The BLM’s preferred alternative would cut the number of the project’s wind turbines from 400 to 241 and limit the maximum turbine height at 660 feet, according to the AP. The nearest turbine to the memorial site would be nine miles away under the BLM’s preferred alternative, whereas the initial 2020 proposal for the project would have placed turbines within about two miles of the memorial’s visitor center.

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Luke Papez, a senior director of project development for the NewYork-based LS Power, characterized the agency’s preferred alternative as balancing environmental concerns and advancing domestic energy production, according to the AP. Magic Valley Energy — the company developing the Lava Ridge project — is a subsidiary of LS Power.

Friends of Mindonka — a group that has opposed the project because of the impacts it may have on the memorial — is not pleased with the BLM’s environmental review. Other interests, such as local governments and ranchers, have also spoken out against the project.

“At the request of the Bureau of Land Management, we provided detailed historical research to the Biden Administration to enable them to better protect the lands where American citizens of Japanese ancestry were unjustly incarcerated and exploited for labor to clear land and build infrastructure,” Robyn Achilles, the executive Director of Friends of Minidoka, said in a statement addressing the environmental review. “Most of that research was disregarded in this decision. They are choosing to flout National Park Service policies which protect a historic landscape in favor of a highly damaging and obstructive project. The Biden Administration needs to do a better job and make a real commitment to protect Minidoka and our heritage, or we will be dealing with Lava Ridge and other projects forever.”

Republican Idaho Sen. Jim Risch and Rep. Mike Simpson have both expressed opposition to Lava Ridge as recently as last week, according to the AP.

Neither the BLM nor Magic Valley Energy responded immediately to requests for comment.

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[Editor's note: This story originally was published by The Daily Signal.]

By Fred Lucas
The Daily Signal

Prosecutors in the gun case against Hunter Biden attested to the authenticity of a laptop he left at a repair shop in 2019, and a jury convicted Biden on Tuesday in part based on that evidence, even though at least two polls suggested that constant denials that the laptop was his from Democrats, social media, and legacy media helped President Joe Biden get elected in 2020.

“This is not a point the news media wanted to acknowledge during trial coverage,” Tim Graham, director of media analysis at the Media Research Center, a conservative media watchdog, told The Daily Signal. “It was the shame of the liberal media since the FBI had the laptop all along.”

Graham was referring to the fact that the FBI was in possession of Hunter Biden’s laptop and knew it was his when the story of its existence broke in 2020.

Had a sizable number of Joe Biden’s supporters been aware of the authenticity of the laptop that suggested the elder Biden financially benefited from foreign dealings that his son was involved in, a late 2020 Media Research Center/Polling Company survey shows that then-incumbent President Donald Trump would have won the election with 289 electoral votes.

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A TIPP Insights poll in 2022 also showed two-thirds of respondents believed the election would have turned out differently if the public had been more aware of the laptop contents. The survey was done after internal files from Twitter revealed the FBI’s efforts to block the story from getting out.

“We did the poll, and it does show that suppression of this story on Twitter and the suggestion that the New York Post wasn’t real news impacted the election based on people who might have voted for Trump or just not voted,” Graham said.

Prosecutors used the laptop, first reported on by the New York Post in 2020, in their case against Hunter Biden, who was found guilty Tuesday on three charges related to lying on a gun-purchase form about his drug addiction.

But during a 2020 presidential debate, then-candidate Joe Biden called the laptop—which documented Hunter Biden’s drug use and questionable foreign business deals and also implicated the elder Biden in those business deals—“Russian disinformation.”

Joe Biden’s claim was backed by 51 former intelligence officials who—at the behest of Biden campaign surrogate and now-Secretary of State Antony Blinken—signed an open letter alleging the laptop had the hallmarks of Russian disinformation.

The discovery of the laptop and its contents were largely suppressed on social media, and many large news organizations refused to cover the story.

“The irony to all of this is that liberals get upset when you say something is fake news or is biased. But that is precisely what they did with the New York Post story,” Graham said. “The liberal media says if you don’t believe us, you don’t believe in democracy.”

However, by mid-2022, most legacy media outlets, such as The New York Times and The Washington Post, acknowledged the authenticity of the laptop. Yet before the Hunter Biden gun trial, the government had not formally acknowledged it.

In December 2022, TIPP Insights, a right-leaning polling outlet with a A+ rating from news and analysis website FiveThirtyEight, conducted a poll of 501 people and asked, “Would knowing the laptop contents were real and not ‘disinformation’ have changed your vote?”

Over one-quarter—or 28%—answered “Very likely.”

In late 2020, a Media Research Center/Polling Company survey of 1,750 self-described Biden voters showed that 45.1% did not know about Hunter Biden’s laptop and that 9.4% said had they known, they would have changed their votes from Biden to Trump, to a third-party candidate, or would not have voted at all.

The analysis of the survey results determined Trump would have won the election with 289 electoral votes. Both the Media Research Center and the Polling Company are right-leaning organizations,

In February 2023, the left-leaning Washington Post’s Fact Checker column by Glenn Kessler questioned the methodology and questions of the Media Research Center/Polling Company’s poll and gave “Two Pinocchios” to Republican lawmakers who cited the poll as evidence that the lack of media coverage influenced the election.

The emails on the laptop suggested that Joe Biden—despite his repeated denials—was personally involved in Hunter Biden’s business deals in China. There was also a reference to “10% for the big guy,” suggesting Joe Biden financially benefited from those business deals as well.

[Editor's note: This story originally was published by The Daily Signal.]

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By Robert Schmad
Daily Caller News Foundation

A group branding itself as Republicans “standing up for” democracy is launching a multi-million dollar ad campaign opposing former President Donald Trump, notching coverage from a slew of media outlets. However, the group has for years received significant funding from Democrat-aligned donors.

Newsweek, The Hill, The Center Square and the Indianapolis Star have all recently reported on Republicans for the Rule of Law, characterizing it as a Republican organization running a $2 million ad campaign attacking Trump’s attempt to claim presidential immunity to avoid prosecution for alleged election interference. What these outlets omit, however, is that the group is a project of Defending Democracy Together, a political nonprofit that receives significant funding by Democrat-aligned dark money groups.

Republicans for the Rule of Law is part of a broader trend of organizations funded by liberal donors intended to promote the narrative that Republicans oppose the former president. Republican Accountability PAC, one such organization, is running a $50 million “Republican Voters Against Trump” campaign, while nearly 75% of its funding in 2023 came from just six major Democratic donors.

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Republican Accountability PAC is headed by Sarah Longwell, the same woman who serves as the executive director of Defending Democracy Together, which claims to be an “advocacy organization created by lifelong conservatives and Republicans” concerned with preserving the “integrity” of the Republican Party.

Longwell is also the executive director of Republicans for the Rule of Law, according to a press release from the group.

Sixteen Thirty Fund, an advocacy organization managed by the consulting firm Arabella Advisors, is one of Defending Democracy Together’s largest funders, giving the organization more than $10.8 million between 2020 and 2022, tax filings show. Sixteen Thirty Fund has spent tens of millions of dollars over the years helping Democrats win elections by bankrolling left-of-center voter mobilization efforts and funding pro-Democrat PACs, according to Politico.

Hopewell Fund, which is also managed by Arabella Advisors, donated $75,000 to the group in 2018, tax forms show.

Democracy Fund Voice, which is funded by liberal billionaire and eBay co-founder Pierre Omidyar, provided Defending Democracy Together with $4.4 million in donations between 2018 and 2021, according to tax filings. Omidyar presides over a large network of grantmaking organizations that made $1.2 billion in donations between 2004 and 2020, with the majority of that going to left-of-center groups, according to a Capital Research Center report.

Pierre and his wife Pam Omidyar have also donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Democratic candidates over the past two decades, according to The Center for Public Integrity.

Republicans for the Rule of Law was initially founded in 2018 to oppose any attempt from then-President Trump to fire or remove the Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who was investigating him at the time. In addition to running ads supporting Mueller’s investigation, the group also spent millions on a campaign attempting to persuade Republican members of Congress to vote to impeach Trump in 2019, according to Influence Watch.

Defending Democracy Together and Republicans for the Rule of Law have the same tax identification number, according to the former’s tax filings and the latter’s donation page. Defending Democracy Together also maintains “Republicans for the Rule of Law” as a trade name, meaning it can do business under that alias.

Newsweek, The Hill, The Center Square, Indianapolis Star, Republicans for the Rule of Law and Defending Democracy Together did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s requests for comments.

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

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[Editor's note: This story originally was published by The Daily Signal.]

By Jarrett Stepman
The Daily Signal

A group of House Democrats are launching a task force intended to stop a project by conservative leaders to restructure the federal bureaucracy under a future conservative president.

The “Stop Project 2025 Task Force,” announced by Rep. Jared Huffman, D-Calif., targets The Heritage Foundation’s 2025 Presidential Transition Project, also known as Project 2025.

Project 2025 takes aim at the federal bureaucracy and includes proposals to not only remove recalcitrant, unelected bureaucrats hostile to conservative policies, but to make the federal departments more responsive to the president.

Career civil servants often tussled with then-President Donald Trump’s administration with disagreements over policy. Trump often referred to the bureaucracy’s attempts to thwart him as the “deep state.”

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Members of the anti-Project 2025 group include “Democratic Caucus Vice Chair Ted Lieu, D-Calif.; House Oversight Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin, D-Md.; and Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash.,” Axios reported.

U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md.

This task force will “help gather research, organize briefings, and coordinate messaging and legislative strategy among the Democratic Caucus,” Huffman’s office said, according to the Axios report.

Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts put out a statement saying that the Democrats’ task force is “unserious,” and that the recommendations in Project 2025 are all publicly available.

“Project 2025 will not be ‘stopped’ by an unserious, mistake-riddled press release or a task force of House Democrats lacking a basic understanding of federal governance,” Roberts said. “It’s amusing how those on the Left seem surprised that conservative policy organizations advocate for conservative policies.”

Roberts said that instead of fixing the problems caused by President Joe Biden’s administration, House Democrats are wasting taxpayer dollars on “a smear campaign against the united effort to restore self-governance to everyday Americans.”

[Editor's note: This story originally was published by The Daily Signal.]

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By Nick Pope
Daily Caller News Foundation

The grid operator overseeing New York is warning that the Democrats’ green energy agenda is pushing the grid toward blackouts.

The New York Independent System Operator (NYISO), which oversees and manages the state’s power grid, published its 2024 Power Trends report last week assessing the outlook for energy supply and demand in the region over the next several years. The report warns that the electrification agenda pursued by New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and her fellow Democrats is pushing the state’s grid toward conditions for blackouts as soon as this summer.

“New York’s public policies are increasingly prioritizing clean energy production and a rapid transition away from fossil fuels,” NYISO President and CEO Rich Dewey wrote in a letter featured in the report. “It is imperative that during this time of rapid change we maintain adequate supply necessary to meet growing consumer demand for electricity. Power Trends shows that achieving this balance will be the central industry challenge over the next decade.”

REPORTER: “Can you say how much of the grid is in danger?”

FEMA ADMIN: “I think we should go onto other things.” pic.twitter.com/8tzz52CYyM

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) August 31, 2023

The report emphasizes how increasing adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) and electric heating in the state are adding demand while fossil fuel-fired power generation facilities are being retired at a rate that exceeds the new green energy generation coming online to make up for lost capacity. The amount of capacity taken off the grid since 2019 more than doubles the amount of capacity that has come online to replace it in the same period of time, according to NYISO’s report.

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Additionally, the report also identifies new semiconductor facilities and other power-hungry economic projects as likely to increase overall demand over time.

New York is aiming to have its power grid reach net-zero emissions by 2040, a target that will likely necessitate shutting down even more natural gas-fired generation in the state and replacing it with intermittent sources like solar and wind, according to grid experts who previously spoke with the Daily Caller News Foundation.

“Under extreme summer weather conditions, however, forecasted reliability margins could potentially be deficient without reliance on emergency operating procedures,” the report states of expected conditions this summer. “For example, if the state experiences a heatwave with an average daily temperature of 95 degrees lasting three or more days, demand is forecasted to rise to 33,301 [Megawatts (MW)], while predicted supply levels are reduced to 34,502 MW. When accounting for the required 2,620 MW of operating reserves that must be maintained, this scenario results in a forecasted reliability margin of -1,419 MW. That reliability margin declines further to -3,093 MW under an extreme heatwave with an average daily temperature of 98 degrees.”

Biden is pushing his climate agenda at the expense of the power gridhttps://t.co/wZowtKgGeJ

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) August 30, 2023

NYISO is a summer-peaking system, meaning that it typically sees the highest levels of electricity demand in the summer months relative to other times of year, according to the Power Trends report.

However, NYISO projects that the grid will become a winter-peaking system sometime in the mid-2030s due primarily to demand from electrified home heating systems.

“Current statewide reliability margins in winter are sufficient. However, as NYISO reliability studies are beginning to show, if natural gas for electricity production is unavailable, and supply cannot be secured elsewhere, statewide deficiencies could arise as soon as winter 2029-2030 under normal weather conditions,” the report states. “Under extreme winter weather conditions this scenario may happen as early as 2027-2028. On the coldest days, natural gas distribution companies prioritize residential heating and other critical loads and limit the fuel available to generators.”

“With increasing winter peak loads and consideration of limitations on gas availability, there may be insufficient generation to serve forecasted demand for expected weather while maintaining required operating reserves (i.e., excess supply to meet unexpected changes in real-time system conditions),” the report states.

Neither NYISO nor Hochul’s office responded immediately to requests for comment.

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

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Jack Smith

(WASHINGTON EXAMINER) -- Former President Donald Trump filed a motion to dismiss the classified documents case in Florida, alleging the FBI destroyed exculpatory evidence during the 2022 raid on his Mar-a-Lago residence, which he claims violated his due process rights.

The latest motion, filed late Monday evening, raises significant questions by the defendant about the conduct of special counsel Jack Smith’s office and the FBI under the Biden Justice Department, suggesting a politically motivated effort to undermine his defense. Trump’s motion came shortly after United States District Judge Aileen Cannon denied a separate request to dismiss some of the charges against the former president Monday evening.

Trump spokesman Steven Cheung released a press statement Tuesday afternoon saying Trump had moved to dismiss the “documents hoax due to DOJ evidence tampering.”

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