Elon Musk

(NEW YORK POST) -- "Two homicidal maniacs" have threatened to kill Elon Musk in the past seven months, the Tesla CEO claimed at a recent shareholder meeting, while comparing himself to the slain Beatles legend John Lennon.

During the question and answer portion of the electric vehicle company’s annual shareholders meeting last week, Musk said his high profile has put a target on his back — just like Lennon.

An anonymous shareholder asked Musk what he’s doing to make sure he stays healthy and safe, to which Musk acknowledged he should maybe start working out to avoid being “assassinated.”

Read the full story ›

(THE COLLEGE FIX) -- The current summer heat wave is due to climate change, a University of Pennsylvania professor told CNN.

Presidential Distinguished Professor Michael Mann said that it is currently extremely hot this week due to climate change. However, future problems can be prevented “by getting off fossil fuels.”

“This is a glimpse of not only what our future will look like, but in fact, it will look quite a bit worse than this,” Professor Mann told CNN host Brianna Keilar during an interview Monday.

Read the full story ›

A state investigation now has been launched into allegations, from a whistleblower, that Texas Children's Hospital has committed Medicaid fraud in its "sex-change" program for children, according to investigative reporter Christopher Rufo.

He posted a report online pointing out his earlier investigative documentation in which that whistleblower made allegations against doctors in the transgender program there.

"Now, the State of Texas has taken action," he reported. "I have confirmed with a spokesman for Attorney General Ken Paxton that the alleged Medicaid fraud is 'currently being investigated by the Texas Attorney General.'"

Rufo pointed out there are two avenues for an investigation, civil and criminal.

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"If the state pursues a civil case against Texas Children’s, the hospital could lose a significant amount of funding and, in the maximal outcome, even lose access to the state Medicaid program. If the state decides to pursue criminal charges, the doctors involved could face significant fines and up to 10 years in prison," he noted.

He explained that the "scandal" of what promoters call transgender "health care" "is finally reaching the point of crisis."

"There will be a reckoning—and Texas might lead the way."

Revolver News noted that Rufo's original report found that Vanessa Sivadge, a registered nurse at the hospital, charged that doctors there are charging Medicaid for transgender procedures, even though that is not allowed.

This is Dr. David Paul. According to Sivadge, Paul has managed a large number of pediatric sex-change patients. For example, he prescribed sex-change hormones and discussed breast implants with a male who identified as "female." The patient was enrolled in the state Medicaid… pic.twitter.com/t12qgspQSP

— Christopher F. Rufo (@realchrisrufo) June 18, 2024

EXCLUSIVE: A nurse at Texas Children's Hospital claims that doctors in the hospital’s child sex-change program committed Medicaid fraud. "The largest children's hospital in the country is illegally billing Medicaid for transgender procedures."

A massive scandal.

— Christopher F. Rufo (@realchrisrufo) June 18, 2024

Sivadge was the anonymous whistleblower who denounced TCH's child sex-change program in an interview with me last year. After that, she says, the FBI sent two agents to her home to intimidate and threaten her. pic.twitter.com/ZSInVH3zrv

— Christopher F. Rufo (@realchrisrufo) June 18, 2024

But there was more. She knew that Texas prohibits state Medicaid funds from being used on "gender-affirming care." And yet, she noticed that many patients in the child sex-change program were enrolled in state Medicaid—which, she believed, was a violation of the law. pic.twitter.com/dsDizM4H56

— Christopher F. Rufo (@realchrisrufo) June 18, 2024

A City Journal report explained, on the topic, the public was "sold a bill of goods."

The report explains "Texas law forbade hospitals from billing Medicaid for transgender procedures. The Texas Medicaid Provider Procedures Manual has long stated that 'sex change operations' are 'not benefits of Texas Medicaid.'"

That City Journal report said, "The 'gender-affirming care' business has always had an aura of madness around it. Wielding the authority of white coats and prestigious degrees, doctors have convinced large swaths of the public that some children are 'born in the wrong body.' The solution? Stop puberty, prescribe cross-sex hormones, and then, with the stroke of a knife, remove body parts—most commonly breasts, less frequently genitalia."

While that ideology captured great influence, the report said, "The consensus appears to be shifting. European governments have backed away from many of these dubious procedures. In England, the Cass Review has raised grave questions about the scientific evidence behind 'gender-affirming care.' In the United States, the public has turned decisively against the use of puberty blockers and gender surgeries on minors, with some state legislatures banning the practice."

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A judge has rejected a demand from Planned Parenthood that a child-trafficking case be dismissed.

BREAKING: The judge has DENIED Planned Parenthood’s motion to dismiss our lawsuit against them for trafficking minors out of state to obtain abortions.

One step closer to eradicating Planned Parenthood from the State of Missouri.

— Attorney General Andrew Bailey (@AGAndrewBailey) June 19, 2024

Missouri state Attorney General Andrew Bailey announced on social media, "BREAKING: The judge has DENIED Planned Parenthood’s motion to dismiss our lawsuit against them for trafficking minors out of state to obtain abortions. One step closer to eradicating Planned Parenthood from the State of Missouri."

A report from Just the News said the allegations are that the abortion industry moneymaker "traffics minors out of state to obtain abortions."

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The lawsuit, filed earlier this year, accuses the Great Plains chapter of the abortion corporation of being able to take minors across state lines to obtain abortions without parental consent.

"The lawsuit accuses the Great Plains chapter of unlawful behavior, allegedly captured on camera, of staffers taking minors across state lines to get an abortion procedure without parental knowledge," the report explained.

The video, from undercover investigators and reporters with Project Veritas, appeared to show a conversation between a Planned Parenthood employee and someone asking about an abortion for a 13-year-old.

Planned Parenthood spokeswoman Emily Wales said the organization "will continue following state and federal laws and proudly providing Missourians with the compassionate sexual and reproductive care that remains available to them in a state with a total abortion ban."

A report from KMOX earlier explained that Planned Parent claims the entire situation wasn't real.

Officials with the abortion company told Judge Brouck Jacobs, "There is no allegation that any child, any minor has been taken across state lines; there’s no allegation that any parent has complained. There’s no allegation that any abortion has been performed either in Missouri or outside of Missouri, with or without parental consent here. The whole conversation is hypothetical."

Prosecutors responded that while the situation may have been hypothetical, Planned Parenthood's worker thought it was real and based the responses on that.

The video shows a man taping the conversation telling Planned Parenthood's worker that the girl's "parents" couldn't learn of an abortion, and, the report confirmed, "Staff then directed him to their affiliate clinics in Kansas where they said he could 'bypass' parental consent."

The report continued, "When the man asked how often girls go out of state for abortions, the Planned Parenthood employee said it happens 'every day.'"

The state's law says, "No one shall intentionally cause aid or assist a minor to obtain an abortion."

The KMOX report continued, "The attorney general’s office argued that the Missouri clinic still aided in a hypothetical abortion, pointing to a point in the video where the employee says 'we can cut off our letterhead so it doesn’t even say where she was,' in reference to a doctor’s note in order to miss school. The employee also says that Planned Parenthood often sets up hotels for those who need to travel out of state."

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A so-called "science' magazine has turned itself into an expert on education, admitting that homeschooling works, but demanding federal oversight, and rules, for parents who teach their own children.

A report from Breitbart identified the magazine as "Scientific American," a publication that often takes left-leaning positions.

It now is not only calling for federal rules for homeschooling, but even "background" checks for parents.

The magazine's agenda came in a recent newsletter in which it cited information from the National Center for Education Statistics, which confirmed 1.5 million American children were homeschooled during the 2019 time period.

Homeschooling activity actually is surging across the U.S.

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"The newsletter admits that homeschooled children have excelled, going on to win national spelling bees, even pointing to famed Hungarian mathematician Paul Erdős, who was homeschooled by his mother," the report said.

But the magazine complained "most states don’t require the same assessment of homeschooled kids that are required for their public school peers. Parents are not required to have an education themselves to direct instruction, and in most states, no one checks to see that children are receiving an education at all. In the worst cases, homeschooling can hide abuse."

The commentary said, "homeschool parents should be required to undergo a background check — the same as K-12 teachers."

And, the magazine insisted, "Homeschool instructors could be required to submit documents every year to their local school district or to a state agency to show that their children are learning."

The report noted actually NCES documents that most homeschooling is done to battle "toxic school environments and a lack of moral instruction."

It explained, "Eighty percent of homeschoolers said they homeschool because they have a concern about school environment (which could include safety, drugs, negative peer pressure, or other issues), 75 percent said they desire to provide moral instruction, another 75 percent said they want to put an emphasis on family life together, and 59 percent said they have a desire to provide religious instruction. Further, nearly three quarters, 73 percent, said they homeschool because they have a dissatisfaction with the academic instruction at other schools. To further demonstrate that point, the U.S. Department of Education’s National Assessment of Educational Progress testing found that just 32 percent of fourth graders read at or above proficiency for their grade level in 2022."

Public schools across America today, in fact, are facing a multitude of fights with parents as leftists embedded in staff and faculty impose leftist ideologies of "diversity, equity, inclusion," as well as Black Lives Matter, LGBT and "environmental justice." In extreme cases, some schools allow teachers to encourage students to declare they are transgender, and then conceal such influences from parents.

"In 2023, for example, the Los Angeles Unified School District hosted a 'Rainbow Club,' to teach kids as young as five years old about LGBT-related topics, and there has been controversy nationwide about what some describe as 'pornographic' books in schools,," the report noted.

HeadlineUSA characterized the magazine's demands as declaring "war" on homeschooling.

It explained, "To solve the non-existent problem, the leftists who work at the magazine said that 'homeschooling should be subject to some basic federal mandates'" and those background checks should be mandatory.

The Washington Examiner described the magazine as "left-leaning legacy" publication, and said, "While the implication of what the Scientific American editors advocated appears to be government control over homeschool curriculums and practices, one of the most oft-cited reasons families decide to homeschool is to get their children out of government-run schools."

WND previously reported when Harvard Law School professor Elizabeth Bartholet complained publicly about, "The Risks of Homeschooling."

She has claimed that homeschooling deprives children of their right to a "meaningful education."

She explained, it is "important that children grow up exposed to community values, social values, democratic values, ideas about nondiscrimination and tolerance of other people's viewpoints."

PJ Media, at the time, commented: "In other words, she knows that homeschooled children are being taught to think for themselves, and she won't stand for it."

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Uber driver Ahmed Ali

By Cristina Laila
The Gateway Pundit

A Washington state father came to the rescue and beat the Uber driver who was raping his daughter in the back seat of the car.

The Uber driver, 58-year-old Ahmed Ali, was arrested and charged with rape after he picked up a young, inebriated woman from a bar in Washington last weekend, took her to a secluded area and raped her.

According to court documents, Ali manipulated the Uber app to make it appear he dropped off the young woman at home, but he drove her to a secluded area near the Nisqually River.

The victim’s father went looking for his daughter after she didn’t return home and found her naked in the backseat of Ahmed Ali’s rideshare car. Ali’s pants were down as he scrambled to climb back in the front seat.

The girl’s father beat Ahmed Ali so badly that he needed medical attention. Two shots were reportedly fired.

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Ahmed Ali is a father of five children. His family showed up to court to support him after he was caught raping a young woman who was too drunk to defend herself.

Ali is currently being held on a $100,000 bond as prosecutors prepare to file charges.

Uber said they removed Ahmed Ali’s access to the app.

“The driver’s behavior is appalling and has no place in our society or on the Uber platform. We take reports of this nature very seriously and removed the driver’s access to the platform as soon as we were made aware of the incident. We have a dedicated team standing ready to assist law enforcement with their investigation,” a spox for Uber said in a statement to Fox 13 Seattle.

Fox 13 Seattle reported:

The woman’s father and other relatives went looking for her after she didn’t return home and found her naked in the back seat of Ali’s car with the accused attempting to hold up his pants as he climbed to the front of the car.

As described in probable cause documents, the victim’s family attacked the Uber driver in an effort to stop him, during which at least two shots were fired. Ali, who was visibly wounded with bandages on his hands during his court appearance, was detained despite trying to flee and needing medical attention.

The disturbing nature of the allegations has led prosecutors to express concerns over the potential for violence should Ali be released. The court found probable cause for both the charges of second-degree rape and first-degree kidnapping, with the prosecution asking for a $100,000 bond.

More from Fox 13 Seattle:

This article originally appeared on The Gateway Pundit.com.

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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.

By Nick Pope
Daily Caller News Foundation

The Biden administration finalized rules governing subsidies in its signature climate bill Tuesday that figure to be a major victory for labor unions.

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Treasury Department finalized prevailing wage and apprenticeship requirements for certain incentives contained in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), a massive climate bill that President Joe Biden signed into law in August 2022. While the administration characterizes the rules as a win for blue-collar workers, they will more likely give a significant advantage to labor unions — typically stalwart supporters of the Democratic Party — and drive up costs of IRA-backed projects that are already increasing, according to infrastructure policy experts and industry stakeholders.

“If the Biden administration’s goal is to undermine taxpayer investments in the construction of critical clean energy infrastructure funded by the Inflation Reduction Act, this final rule is a wild success,” Ben Brubeck, the vice president of regulatory, labor and state affairs for the Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC), said of the policies announced Tuesday. “This bold weaponization of the IRS and end-run around Congress in an attempt to steer clean energy construction contracts to unionized labor and contractors — key election-year donors — by incentivizing private developers to require inflationary and exclusionary project labor agreements should be extremely concerning for taxpayers and clean energy advocates.”

Union Manager Details Why Members Are ‘Fed Up’ With Biden Policies, Says Trump Has Chancehttps://t.co/smoBHG8tjX

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) April 28, 2024

Specifically, the new rules require private developers of certain IRA-funded projects to abide by project labor agreements (PLAs), as well as pay the prevailing wage and offer apprenticeships to access lucrative IRA tax credits, according to the IRS. Developers could choose to not follow the standards, but doing so would disqualify them from reaping bigger subsidies on the table.

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A PLA is effectively a collective bargaining agreement for the construction industry, according to the Department of Labor, while the prevailing wage is “the average wage paid to similarly employed workers in a specific occupation in the area of intended employment,” according to the Labor Department’s Employment and Training Administration.

“Meeting strong labor standards and building partnerships with unions will now be the norm for clean energy projects,” John Podesta, one of the top climate officials in the Biden administration, said of the new rules. “Today’s final rules give clarity and certainty to developers and the workers they employ that clean energy jobs will be good jobs.”

Meanwhile, the Biden administration is also imposing requirements for  IRA-backed green energy projects that employ at least four laborers to also hire one or more registered apprentices to work on job sites in order to get the biggest tax break, according to the IRS. Additionally, those apprentices must put in at least 15% of the total work hours for covered projects that start construction this year and beyond in order to get the maximum subsidy.

“These rules definitely subsidize unionized workers, who are a tiny fraction of the American workforce, which is made up of about 168 million jobs,” Diana Furchtgott-Roth, director of the Heritage Foundation’s Center for Energy, Climate, and Environment, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “So, a subset of workers get to benefit from additional subsidies, but many others will continue to face more difficulties.”

Critics of the rules point out that most American construction workers are not unionized — ABC estimates that only about 10% were in 2023 — and that these rules will heavily shift the playing field in favor of the small minority of organized laborers, delaying construction and dissuading competitive bids. The rules are also being put in place at a time when the U.S. faces a construction laborer shortage of about 500,000 workers, according to a recent analysis conducted by ABC.

While ABC and several other trade associations involved in construction have been sharply critical of the policies, pro-organized labor groups and labor unions —  including some that are primed to be major supporters of Biden’s reelection bid — have taken the opposite tack.

“One of the greatest promises of the Inflation Reduction Act is that it will create and maintain good-paying, union jobs in the clean economy, while building inclusive pathways into the highest quality training for lifelong careers in construction,” Jason Walsh, president of the BlueGreen Alliance, which has already endorsed Biden’s 2024 campaign, said in a statement. “With this rule we are seeing how that promise will come to fruition.

Neither the IRS nor the Treasury Department responded immediately to requests for comment.

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By Jim Hoft
The Gateway Pundit

This is where we are right now as a country.

The Biden regime has sent two FBI agents to intimidate a nurse who exposed controversial practices at Texas Children’s Hospital.

Christopher Rufo recently shared on X, “The Biden Administration sent two FBI agents to intimidate a nurse who told the truth about the child sex-change program at Texas Children’s Hospital. The regime is mobilizing to threaten and imprison anyone who opposes ‘transgender medicine.’”

Writing for the City Journal, Rufo detailed the events that led to the FBI’s intimidating encounter with the nurse.

Vanessa Sivadge, a registered nurse at Texas Children’s Hospital, saw a dramatic rise in the number of “transgender children” treated at the hospital beginning in 2021.

These patients struggled with depression, anxiety, addiction, suicide attempts, physical abuse, and discomfort with puberty. However, instead of addressing these underlying psychological conditions, doctors at the hospital diagnosed them with “gender dysphoria” and assigned them to a regimen of “gender-affirming care.”

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When Sivadge voiced her concerns about this practice, she was visited by two FBI agents, Paul Nixon and David McBride, who told her she was a “person of interest” in an investigation targeting the whistleblower who had exposed the child sex-change program.

“They threatened me,” Sivadge told Rufo. “They promised they would make life difficult for me if I was trying to protect the leaker. They said I was ‘not safe’ at work and claimed that someone at my workplace had given my name to the FBI.”

WATCH:

This is where we are now: The Biden Administration sent two FBI agents to intimidate a nurse who told the truth about the child sex-change program at Texas Children’s Hospital. The regime is mobilizing to threaten and imprison anyone who opposes “transgender medicine.” pic.twitter.com/XbtZVnp5Kw

— Christopher F. Rufo (@realchrisrufo) June 18, 2024

More from City Journal:

Both the Department of Justice and the hospital leadership were ideologically committed to “transgender medicine.” They had been embarrassed by the investigation that had exposed their actions, and they were looking for revenge.

Things went quiet for a while afterward. Sivadge resumed her work as a nurse, and the FBI did not reappear.

Texas Children’s Hospital continued its sex-change program but focused instead on patients who had reached the legal age of 18. Sivadge saw the same terrible medical regimen being prescribed for these young adults: testosterone for girls, estrogen for boys, and referrals for specialty services. While Roberts and Paul had stopped providing sex-change procedures for minors, the gender clinic still overflowed with “transgender” teens.

Sivadge’s duties as a nurse included providing medication refills and working with doctors to provide parents with information about treatment plans, scheduling, and diagnostics. She worked with patients’ charts and saw their complex psychological diagnoses and the treatments administered by the doctors.

Then Sivadge noticed discrepancies in the paperwork. After the FBI visit, she followed some of the medical charts for these patients and came to believe that doctors might be violating the law.

Texas law prohibits hospitals from billing Medicaid for transgender procedures. However, Sivadge alleges that this was a standard practice at Texas Children’s Hospital. Several “transgender” patients were enrolled in Texas Children’s Health Plan STAR, a “no-cost Medicaid managed care plan.”

“The largest children’s hospital in the country is illegally billing Medicaid for transgender procedures,” Sivadge said. “It is evident that the hospital continues to believe it is above the law not just by concealing the existence of their transgender medicine program from the public, but by stealing from the federal government.”

This is not the first time that the Biden regime has used the FBI as its mafia.

In May 2023, Dr. Eithan Haim leaked the sex change documents to investigative reporter Christopher Rufo. Dr. Haim was careful not to disclose any patient information but the Biden DOJ indicted him on four felony counts related to HIPAA violations.

One day after Dr. Haim exposed the Texas Children’s Hospital, the Texas state legislature voted to ban transgender medical treatment and procedures on minors.

Dr. Haim was informed last year that he was under federal investigation for leaking documents to Christopher Rufo.

Last week, heavily armed agents showed up at Dr. Haim’s door and told him that he had been indicted with four felony charges.

“Had three heavily armed agents at my door 7AM Tuesday to inform me I was indicted with four felonies…for blowing the whistle about the largest children’s hospital in the world lying to the public about their transgender program,” Dr. Eithan Haim said on X.

On Monday, the Biden Regime unsealed the indictment against Dr. Haim. Dr. Haim was indicted on four felony counts. If convicted, he faces up to 10 years in federal prison and a $250,000 maximum fine.

READ:

Biden Regime Unseals Indictment Against Texas Doctor Who Blew Whistle on Sex Change Program at Texas Children’s Hospital – He is Facing Up to 10 Years in Prison!

This article originally appeared on The Gateway Pundit.com.

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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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U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo.

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

By Elizabeth Troutman
The Daily Signal

Sen. Josh Hawley on Tuesday accused one of the scientists behind the assertion that the COVID-19 virus was not grown in a lab of “shameful propaganda” at an “Origins of COVID-19″ hearing.

“You should have done better, and because you didn’t, people have suffered,” the Missouri Republican said to Robert Garry.

Hawley said people have lost their jobs and social standing because of the “propaganda article” of Garry, one of the five authors of the March 2020 opinion paper on “The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2,” published in the scientific journal Nature Medicine.

“It is wrong to censor and lie to the American public,” the Missouri lawmaker said. “It is wrong to withhold critical information from them.”

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Garry is a professor of microbiology and immunology, and associate dean for biomedical sciences at Tulane School of Medicine in New Orleans.

“As a scientist who is supposed to follow facts, do you regret that your work was used to censor your fellow scientists and ordinary Americans who asked questions about the virus?” Hawley asked Garry.

Garry responded that scientists are not responsible for their articles after they are published.

“All we did was write a paper,” he said.

“It’s been one of the most scrutinized papers in history,” he said. “It’s held up very well. It wasn’t an attempt to distort things and to mislead the American public. It was just a paper.”

The Missouri senator accused Garry of lying about the intelligence community coming to the conclusion that the virus did not originate from a lab.

“That is a lie,” Hawley said. “The intelligence community did not come to that conclusion. Multiple intelligence community agencies and components have concluded it was likely a lab leak, and they concluded at the same time you and your people were propagandizing the American public.”

“I am not going to sit here and allow you to lie any further,” he continued. “You have disgracefully participated in shameful propaganda that has been one of the worst chapters in American history with the country propagandizing its own people.”

Garry agreed that there is more to learn from the intelligence community.

“All agencies should come forth with more information,” he said.

The hearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee aimed to identify the truth about where the coronavirus came from, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said.

Agencies and officials withheld information about the COVID-19 virus from the American public, Paul said in his opening remarks.

“Privately, they were saying one thing,” Paul said. “Publicly, they were saying another. Media pundits parroted the narrative, while social media platforms censored discussion about the lab leak, labeling it as misinformation and stifling open discourse about the virus’s origins.”

Molecular biologist Richard Ebright called the paper “fraudulent.”

“I would tell a younger scientist that you do not state a conclusion without evidence, even in an opinion piece in a scientific journal,” Ebright said. “And you never, under any circumstances in a scientific journal, state conclusions that you know to be unsound. That represents scientific misconduct.”

[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 Jarrett Stepman
The Daily Signal

A bipartisan group of 13 senators unveiled legislation Tuesday to protect victims of digitally altered “revenge pornography.”

Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., are sponsoring the Take It Down Act to crack down on the practice of using artificial intelligence tools to create so-called deepfake pornography depicting other people.

“In recent years, we’ve witnessed a stunning increase in exploitative sexual material online, largely due to bad actors taking advantage of newer technologies like generative artificial intelligence,” Cruz said in a written statement. “Many women and girls are forever harmed by these crimes, having to live with being victimized again and again.”

Although “some states provide legal remedies for victims of nonconsensual intimate imagery,” Cruz said, it would help to create a uniform, federal law to aid in “removing and prosecuting the publication of nonconsensual intimate images nationwide.”

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The Texas Republican said the bill would “empower all victims of this heinous crime.”

Emma Waters, a research fellow at The Heritage Foundation, explained how the deepfake videos work.

“These AI-generated photos and videos, dubbed ‘deepfakes,’ can be produced in a matter of minutes on a multitude of apps and websites,” Waters wrote. “The technology is simple. Anyone can use ‘face swap’ on ready-to-use apps, such as DeepSwap and FaceSwapper, to place someone else’s likeness in a sexually explicit photo or video.”

The Cruz-Klobuchar bill wouldn’t just go after creators of deepfake pornography; it would force websites that publish the material to take it down within 48 hours once notified.

A one-page explanation of the legislation lays out four points about what it would and wouldn’t do.

The bill would criminalize publication of such videos without consent, protect “good faith disclosure” of the videos to law enforcement, require websites to remove the offending material, and is “narrowly tailored” to punish criminal acts without “chilling lawful speech.”

A similar bill was introduced in the Senate by Majority Whip Dick Durbin, but Cruz and Klobuchar have criticized that measure for being too broad in scope.

The Hill quoted Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., one of the senators endorsing the Take It Down Act, as saying that Durbin’s bill would “stifle American technological innovation.”

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

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By Jason Cohen
Daily Caller News Foundation

Dr. Anthony Fauci on Tuesday lamented that Americans were not appreciative of how he managed the COVID-19 pandemic.

Fauci, who was formerly the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), touted efforts to make COVID-19 vaccine resisters’ lives more challenging during a 2020 interview, including banning unvaccinated people from attending college and getting jobs at large corporation. The former NIAID director said on “Morning Joe” that it is really “frustrating” for him to receive backlash as he believes he was doing his best to handle the pandemic as the science changed.

WATCH:

Fauci Complains It’s ‘Terribly Frustrating’ Americans ‘Don’t Appreciate’ How He Managed COVID-19 pic.twitter.com/aLDDOPfcAo

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) June 18, 2024

“It is quite frustrating, Joe,” Fauci told host Joe Scarborough. “People really don’t appreciate. I don’t blame them for that, but they don’t appreciate that we were dealing with a moving target. When we were saying things in the beginning, wear a mask or not, how the virus is spread. I mean, originally it was felt, understandably, but incorrectly, by the CDC that it spread by the same way that flu is spread … mostly by droplets, when in fact most of the transmission is not only by  droplets but by aerosol, but also 50-60% of the people who transmit it have no symptoms at all.”

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“We didn’t know that at the beginning. It was a changing, moving target. Was it frustrating? It was terribly frustrating because people like to take things out of context and do a gotcha. That’s part of the reporting process. and I accept that. That’s the world we live in. But it certainly is frustrating,” Fauci concluded, with Scarborough telling him how much he appreciates the former NIAID director.

Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene during a recent hearing refused to call Fauci a doctor when he testified to the House Oversight Committee. She opted to call him “mister” instead and asserted he “does not deserve to have a license … and he belongs in prison.”

Greene brought up how Fauci’s NIAID  directed $424,455 to researchers at the University of Georgia in September 2020 to infect dozens of beagles with disease-causing parasites to test an experimental drug, according to documents obtained by White Coat Waste Project (WCW) and reviewed by the Daily Caller.

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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.

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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The state of Kansas on Monday launched a civil lawsuit against Pfizer over its COVID shots, alleging that the lucrative corporation "misled the public that it has a 'safe and effective' COVID-19 vaccine" in violation of the Consumer Protection Act.

A report in the Kansas Reflector explains Attorney General Kris Kobach said he took the action to seek "civil monetary penalties, damages, and injunctive relief from misleading and deceptive statements made in marketing its COVID-19 vaccine."

In fact, as the pandemic that likely was released on the world through mishandling at a Chinese lab working on projects to make viruses worse surged, several corporations including Pfizer release their shots suggesting they were both safe and effective.

But what now has been documented is that the shots themselves, which were designated experimental when they were unleashed, have been linked to a wide range of side effects, including sometimes fatal heart ailments.

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CNN Business reported that Pfizer's cash flow exploded when it started dispensing COVID shots, with revenue soaring to $24.1 billion, with the shots responsible for 60% of its revenue.

Kobach alleges the company "willfully concealed, suppressed and omitted material facts relating to the COVID-19 vaccine, the 'most egregious' ones regarding safety of the vaccine for pregnant people, in regard to heart conditions, its effectiveness against variants and its ability to stop transmission," the report said.

"Pfizer marketed its vaccine as safe for pregnant women. However, in February of 2021 (they) possessed reports of 458 pregnant women who received Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine during pregnancy. More than half of the pregnant women reported an adverse event, and more than 10% reported a miscarriage," Kobach explained.

Studies later showed the percentage of "adverse events" was higher for pregnant women than the general population. Preliminary study findings had claimed there was no "significant safety concerns."

Further, Albert Bourla, the company CEO, said in 2023, "We have not seen a single signal (that the shots cause myocarditis), although we have distributed billions of doses."

But Kobach charged, "As Pfizer knew, the United States government, the United States military, foreign governments and others have found that Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine caused myocarditis and pericarditis."

And Kobach noted information available at the time confirmed the shots were effective "less than half the time."

"Pfizer urged Americans to get vaccinated in order to protect their loved ones, clearly indicating a claim that Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccination stopped transmission. Pfizer later admitted that they’ve never even studied transmission after the recipients receive the vaccine," Kobach said.

The company in a statement claimed it saved countless lives and it based its statements on science.

It said the state's case "has no merit."

Kobach explained that five other states will be joining, and will make their own announcements. Previously, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued Pfizer for misrepresenting its shots and trying to censor public discussion of its product, a case also based on the CPA.

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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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(FOX NEWS) -- Embattled actor Armie Hammer is breaking his silence years after alarming allegations of sexual abuse and cannibalism were made by several women, ultimately stalling his once successful career.

"In my case it was an ego death, a career death," Hammer said of the turbulent cancellation he experienced in 2021 while making an appearance on the "Painful Lessons" podcast.

Citing writer Joseph Campbell's work, "The Hero's Journey," Hammer explained that "the hero," (which he isn't calling himself) "must die, so the hero can be born again. If you don't experience these deaths, you're gonna just keep going with whatever that life is. But if you can access the idea of death as a transitory phase, into the next part of your life, then you end up being grateful for all of these little micro-deaths," he explained.

Read the full story ›

(Photo by Joe Kovacs)

By Philip Lenczycki
Daily Caller News Foundation

A private social network run by a self-identified Chinese government agent provides illegal immigrants with resources to get into the U.S. and evade border authorities, a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation discovered.

The American Self-Guided Tour Channel is a Chinese-language group with over 8,000 members on the encrypted instant messaging platform Telegram that serves as both a forum for discussing Chinese illegal immigration and a hub for documents detailing specific routes to the U.S., a DCNF review of the channel found.

Documents in the Telegram channel translated by the DCNF identify U.S. border wall gaps, instruct Chinese nationals on how to answer questions from Border Patrol agents and provide scripts for requesting asylum.  

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Furthermore, the channel is overseen by an individual who spreads Chinese Communist Party (CCP) propaganda, bans accounts who fail to toe the Party line and identifies himself as a Chinese police officer.

“We’re allowing an element that is completely beyond our law to be established firmly as a beachhead in the United States of America, and the people of America are going to pay a severe price, much worse than we are paying even now,” North Carolina Republican Rep. Dan Bishop said after learning about the findings of the DCNF’s investigation.

Customs and Border Protection data shows that the overwhelming majority of the roughly 48,000 Chinese illegal immigrants encountered by U.S. authorities in 2024 have been single adults — and experts warn that “military-aged males” make up the lion’s share.

Bishop described the 1,100% spike in Chinese illegal immigrants since fiscal year 2022 as “historically unprecedented,” and told the DCNF that the inner workings of China’s human smuggling networks have largely remained a mystery to lawmakers up until now.

“Even people, like me, who’ve seen a lot of it have not yet totally come to grips with the sort of depth that you’ve described,” said Bishop, who chairs the House Homeland Security Committee’s Oversight, Investigations and Accountability subcommittee.

The DCNF discovered the American Self-Guided Tour Channel and several related Telegram groups facilitating Chinese illegal immigration after analyzing a Chinese illegal immigrant’s abandoned cell phone, which was found near the California-Mexico border by a San Diego man in January 2024.

Telegram did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

‘Try Alternate Identities’

Through a months-long review of the American Self-Guided Tour Channel, the DCNF discovered that the group contains documents instructing Chinese nationals on how to navigate the U.S. immigration system, including scripts for claiming asylum and answering questions from Border Patrol agents.

One document translated by the DCNF advises those wishing to apply for a green card in the U.S. to “be sure to prepare a story about your persecution in advance.”

Another document provides responses to questions Border Patrol agents may ask in order to establish whether or not an asylum-seeker has a credible fear of persecution from their home country. Under current law, migrants who claim “credible fear” of persecution can seek asylum in the U.S.

“Even if moving would be inconvenient, can you live safely elsewhere in the country?” reads one of the hypothetical questions.

“No, because the situation I’m facing is nationwide,” the suggested answer states. “Even if I move to another place, I’ll be under threat just as before.”

Another post provides templates on how to craft asylum claims based on political, religious, racial, sexual and even gender persecution, despite women comprising only a small fraction of Chinese illegal immigrants.

“I am [name, ancestral hometown] nationality, I was born on [birthday]. Because I suffered gender-based violence and discrimination in my motherland, I am seeking asylum in [country],” the document’s template on gender persecution states. “My family forced me to marry, they wanted me to marry a man much older than me. When I refused, they beat me and threatened me saying that if I didn’t obey, they’d kill me. After marrying, my husband started physically and mentally abusing me, I was forced to leave my home and live in hiding. I tried seeking help from the local government, but they’re either corrupt or unwilling to help me. If I am forced to return to [motherland], I fear for my life, there I will face more violence and discrimination.”

Documents stored on the channel indicate a relatively sophisticated understanding of the U.S. immigration system, with some featuring intricate flow-charts to map out various potential U.S. immigration pathways.

One such flow-chart suggests that, as a last resort, those who’ve received a deportation order, but lack a passport to return to their countries, may consider starting the immigration process over with a false identity.

“You can try alternate identities, [but] the difficulty is relatively high and Trump may invite you to a meeting with state security agents in the future,” the document states, referring to former President Donald Trump.

‘Crossing Point’

The American Self-Guided Tour Channel also serves as a hub for travel guides facilitating Chinese illegal immigration, some of which identify specific border crossing points between the U.S. and Mexico, the DCNF discovered.

The guides vary in their geographic scope, with some focusing on travel between multiple countries, such as from China to Ecuador, which Rep. Bishop told the DCNF doesn’t require a travel visa for Chinese nationals.

“Essentially without visas, as I understand it, they can fly to Ecuador, and then they have an overland route and come up and come right through the border,” Bishop said.

The Telegram channel’s guides commonly list Quito, Ecuador, and Necocli, Colombia, as the first and last travel locations in South America for Chinese illegal immigrants.

Other guides on the channel provide more detailed advice on how to travel through a single country. One guide for Mexico falls into this category and features a series of Google Map screenshots that chart a path between Tapachula, Mexico and Laredo, Texas.

While most of the guides concern travel through South and Central America, several also focus on where and how to cross the U.S. southern border.

One such document identifies 15 border wall gaps along the southern border, including 12 in California as well as crossing points in Arizona and New Mexico.

This guide also provides Chinese nationals with basic instructions on what to carry and how to make the crossing.

“Take a taxi to a location near the wall crossing point, get out, and head straight in, carrying a few hundred dollars in cash for random contingencies,” the document advises.

The DCNF confirmed the existence of several of the crossing points while visiting the California border in June 2024.

Bill Wells, the mayor of El Cajon, California, told the DCNF that Chinese nationals now constitute a significant portion of crossings near San Diego.

“When I’ve been out at the border, most of my interactions have been with Chinese people,” Wells said. “I’ve come across groups of Chinese people standing on the side of the road in the middle of the night waiting to be picked up. I’ve come across migrant encampments, where there’s 100 or so Chinese people waiting to move on to the next stage, maybe 30 yards from the fence where they just crossed.”

Despite this, Wells told the DCNF that local officials remain in the dark about how the human smuggling networks operate.

“We have no idea,” Wells said. “You would think that something of such major importance to not only the nation, but to municipalities, you would have somebody from the government calling you and saying, ‘Hey, this is what we know. This is what’s going on. This is how it’s going to affect you or not affect you.'”

Wells told the DCNF that he believes Chinese illegal immigration poses a serious national security threat to the U.S. and pointed to multiple sensitive military and public utility sites close to the U.S.-Mexico border near San Diego.

“There’s just so much to worry about from a committed enemy,” Wells said.

‘Cyber Police’

The DCNF’s review of the American Self-Guided Tour Channel also discovered that its owner — @wjackcn, or “Jack W” — claims to work as a cyber police officer stationed in China.

“Yes, I am cyber police,” Jack W stated on April 30, 2024, after an account in the channel asked him if he was a cyber police officer.

Cyber police serve China’s Ministry of Public Security by monitoring website content and spreading propaganda, according to federal authorities.

After identifying himself as a cyber police officer, Jack W outlined his policing duties in a post in which described himself as being “responsible for national security affairs, fighting reactionaries and foreign hostile forces.”

Later that day, Jack W directed channel members interested in national security work to apply to China’s premier civilian intelligence agency, the Ministry of State Security.

“If you want to work for the Ministry of State Security, please use the method of participating in the National Civil Servant exam,” Jack W told members of the Telegram channel.

Although the DCNF was unable to confirm Jack W’s affiliation with the Ministry of Public Security or Ministry of State Security, a review of the account’s posts found that it promoted Chinese illegal immigration and has banned members for expressing “hurtful opinions towards the motherland.”

In one instance, after a now-deleted account called for the CCP to be overthrown on April 22, 2024, Jack W banned 20 accounts.

The next month, Jack W announced he’d banned multiple accounts who’d criticized Chinese police officers.

“Those who disparaged an Urban Management and Law Enforcement video have already been banned,” Jack W announced on May 20, 2024, referring to a Chinese government agency that the U.S. nonprofit Human Rights Watch has described as a “thuggish para-police” tasked with enforcing non-criminal administrative regulations.

Jack W’s Telegram channel has also promoted CCP propaganda.

On June 4, 2024, the American Self-Guided Tour Channel posted an image of a tank with the caption: “Celebrating the 35th Anniversary of the Defeat of the Western-Backed Colour Revolution,” in reference to the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre, during which the Chinese government slaughtered as many as 10,000 pro-democracy protesters, according to the former British ambassador to China.

A DCNF review of the Telegram channel also discovered that, in addition to Jack W, several other members have identified themselves as Chinese police officers, military personnel and CCP members.

Rep. Bishop described Chinese illegal immigration as “the most astonishing threat.”

“Chinese nationals presenting at the southern border of the United States were almost unheard of previously,” Bishop told the DCNF.

In May 2024, Bishop chaired the House Homeland Security Committee’s Oversight, Investigations and Accountability subcommittee hearing concerning the approximately 8,000% increase in Chinese illegal immigration the U.S. has experienced since March 2021.

The hearing followed a January 2024 DCNF investigation revealing an internal Customs and Border Protection email showing that the Biden administration dramatically simplified the vetting process for Chinese illegal immigrants in April 2023 by reducing the number of interview questions Border Patrol agents are required to ask from roughly 40 down to just five.

“The experts that testified before the Subcommittee on Oversight that I chaired when we had a hearing on this established fairly persuasively that there is no vetting,” Bishop told the DCNF. “It’s a perfunctory, quick interview, and they move on into the country and are released.”

“China is the foremost adversary of the United States on the world stage,” Bishop warned. “Something’s descending on the United States that we should never have allowed to occur.”

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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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In days gone by, American consumers used to, occasionally, get a discount for paying cash for a product or service.

The sellers had the revenue immediately. There was no lag time at a credit card company, or bank. And retailers found that helpful.

Now it's just the opposite.

A Houston Herald report tells how Noa Khamallah wanted to buy popcorn and a soda at Yankee Stadium, and was directed to an ATM, where he deposited $200 in cash, and got back a debit card –with a balance of $196.50.

Yankee Stadium in New York City

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In the report, he said paying for anything in New York is expensive, but, "If you add on top of that extra fees for being able to pay for food, that’s not right."

The Herald explained, "Reverse ATMs like those at Yankee Stadium are now common at cashless venues and restaurants across the country as a way to cater to those who prefer paying in cash. People who want to pay their parking tickets, tolls, taxes or phone bills in cash, meanwhile, often learn that government agencies and businesses have outsourced that option to companies that usually charge a fee."

Cash, the report noted, still remains the third-most popular way to paying, adding up to 16% of all payments in 2023, the Federal Reserve confirmed.

Jonathan Alexander, of the Consumer Choice in Payment Coalition, said, "It’s unbelievable that we actually have to tell retailers, 'This is U.S. currency and it’s something that should be accepted.'"

No laws demand businesses take cash, although a few states and cities have banned what they called "cashless" establishments.

Congress is working on a requirement that businesses take cash for in-person purchases up to $500 but it hasn't passed.

Especially hurt by the cashless ideology are older or lower-income consumers who are less likely to have the digital payment systems set up for their personal buying.

The report added, "Prudence Weaver said she would prefer her son be able to use cash on trips to the zoo, amusement parks and baseball games, rather than have to pay fees for debit cards."

She said, "To let my 13-year-old go buy a slushy at the amusement park, I’m already out $6. I understand that there is a place for electronic payment, but I don’t think it should be the only option."

Some consumers prefer cash because their products don't end up getting listed in a computer under their name somewhere.

The issue even has added to the American economy, in its way, with business opportunities for companies to facilitate cash payments for those who want to do that.

For example, PayNearMe "charges its clients a fee ranging from $1.99 to $3.99 on each cash transaction," the report said.

A report at ZeroHedge explained, "The debate rages on whether this shift truly serves the public or merely lines the pockets of corporate giants. At stadiums, amusement parks, and beyond, the cost of going cashless continues to climb - and it's everyday consumers who are footing the bill."

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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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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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[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 Real Clear Wire.]

By Jason Isaac
Real Clear Wire

Apparently, you can litigate anything these days, and it’s gotten far more insidious than suing McDonald’s over hot coffee being, you know, hot. A new climate activist group called Our Children’s Trust is suing state and federal government agencies on behalf of individual children, claiming that fossil fuel regulators are negligently ruining their future.

That children should feel entitled to come of age under a specific set of favorable environmental and political circumstances — and to demand punishment for individuals they disagree with — isn’t just a testament to the egocentrism dominating the 21st Century. It also exposes our culture’s deeply warped understanding of climate science, which, surprisingly to many of us, actually shows global warming has no meaningful negative effects on our lives or our environment.

In fact, we have fossil fuels to thank for the twenty-first century for being the best time in human history to be alive. Unfortunately, it’s the best-kept secret in our world today.

If we really want to earn “our children’s trust,” we should teach them the truth instead of foisting crippling and needless anxiety on an entire generation.

Contrary to the attention-grabbing clips of forests burning and shock-inducing statistics about record-high temperatures, modern climate science suggests that warming is likely to remain mild and manageable while our resilience continues to improve. In fact, despite average global temperatures increasing about 1° Fahrenheit and our population quadrupling in the last century, climate-related disasters claim 99% fewer lives. Our resistance to severe weather events (which actually have remained consistent or even declined in recent decades) is actually growing at a faster rate than non-weather-related natural disasters like volcanoes and earthquakes. The alarmists want you to believe a changing climate is jeopardizing human lives; however, the opposite is true.

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Our environment is also better than ever. The U.S. has cut air pollution by nearly 80% in the last 50 years and ranks number one in the world for access to clean drinking water. In fact, those infamous greenhouse gases may actually help the planet. Mild increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide create a “global greening” effect that stimulates plant growth, which both helps natural ecosystems and makes agricultural production more efficient.

Meanwhile, this is the best time in human history to be alive, thanks largely to widespread access to affordable, reliable energy. Children today have a far greater chance of living a long, healthy, fruitful life than ever before. Around the world, in both developing and developed nations, poverty has plummeted and people are enjoying the tangible, life-improving benefits of lower infant and child mortality, better nutrition, improved education, lower infectious disease rates, more economic opportunity, gender equality, and longer lives. It’s no coincidence that global quality of life spiked and has continued to improve consistently since the Industrial Revolution — or that communities without access to electricity are still plagued by poverty, danger, and disease.

For a group claiming to seek “Our Children’s Trust,” this activist group seems to be deliberately abusing children’s trust.

With nearly any factoid we could wonder about immediately accessible on our smartphones, how could we have possibly gotten it so wrong about climate change? The jury is out on whether the cultural cancer of climate alarmism is the result of a deliberate plot for political power by global elites or simple negligence by a society that accepts the claims of those in authority (or simply those who pop up in our Tik Tok algorithm) at face value.

I suspect it’s a combination of both. “Indoctrination” has become a political buzzword, and while there’s no denying there are bad actors out there in schools and governments with agendas to push at all costs, the real problem with the public’s view of climate change is far subtler — which means it’s also harder to root out.

The problem is that no political issue, including this one, is black and white, but few feel they have the time to educate themselves on the nuances and confounding variables of hundred- or even thousand-page research reports. It’s easier to accept grossly oversimplified top-line takeaways as gospel and reduce them to even less accurate headlines and soundbites. I’ve seen the consequences firsthand working with state education leaders on science curriculum standards. Few are truly setting out to put misleading or incomplete information in our classrooms, but the misinformation is pervasive and there’s simply so much information to sift through to get to the real nuggets of truth.

But we need to do better — for our children’s sake.

Jason Isaac is the CEO and founder of American Energy Institute and former Texas Representative .

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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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Soldiers assigned to the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment, known as 'The Old Guard,' and the U.S. Army Band, 'Pershing's Own,' participate in a Twilight Tattoo at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall, Virginia, June 14, 2023. (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. David Resnick)

There are key individuals in America's history who sometimes do not get a lot of recognition, despite the critical roles they played.

Such as Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, who drilled a group of farmers and tradesmen into a Continental Army that, despite the odds, beat the British redcoats.

And then there's Capt. Peter Humrickhouse, who crossed the Delaware and wintered with Gen. George Washington at Valley Forge. He also delivered the ammunition that saved Yorktown.

And the group, individual names relatively obscure, who saved the Liberty Bell from invaders.

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And the Zengers, Peter Zenger, the imprisoned newspaper editor and later, his widow, Anna Catherina, who carried on his fights.

And others, who all shared a common allegiance, in addition to their support for the fledgling America.

A pass in review is conducted at the Armed Forces Farewell and Hail for 20th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Mark Milley and 21st Chairman General Charles Q. Brown, Jr. on Friday, Sept. 29, 2023, at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall in Arlington, Virginia. (Official White House photo by Adam Schultz)

It's their participation in what then was the German Reformed Church in America, now known as the Reformed Church in the United States.

An organization that, stunningly, predates almost every other organization in the U.S., and is set to celebrate its Tricentennial in just one year, on June 12, 2025.

Planning already has begun for the events which will include a special celebration at the famed Mount Rushmore monument in South Dakota, according to Wayne Johnson, chair of the Tricentennial Celebration of the German Reformed Church in America.

Some of the members of that organization actually were the soldiers who were recruited to be Washington's personal guard, event organizers confirm,

The celebratory event will be co-hosted by the Mount Rushmore Society, the regional DAR, Daughters of the American Revolution, and others.

Plans already are being outlined online.

Organizers are explaining that the Mount Rushmore event is focus on patriotism, and its community-wide appeal.

Liberty Bell

The website includes a number of relatively unknown historical incidents, including the one about the Liberty Bell:

In 1777, England made its second greatest effort of the war. British General Howe left a garrison in New York and took 13,000 troops to capture Philadelphia. Washington rose to defend the capital, but on September 11 was outflanked and although defeated at Brandywine Creek, his army was not destroyed. Washington retreated to Chester, PA. Several days later the Americans suffered another defeat at Paoli, PA. Several hundred Americans were killed under a British bayonet attack. The American Congress fled from Philadelphia to York, PA, and Howe entered Philadelphia without opposition in late September.

Howe quartered a part of his army at nearby Germantown. On October 4, the Americans attacked this garrison and seemed to have won a victory until the British made a determined stand in the Chew house. British reinforcements came up from Philadelphia while the besieged house still held out, and Washington’s little army retreated. The Americans then took up their miserable winter quarters at Valley Forge.

Fearing the possibility of capture by the enemy, on June 16, 1777, the Assembly of Pennsylvania meeting in the State House at Philadelphia voted to authorize the removal of all bells belonging to several churches and other public buildings and all copper and brass to a place of safety. The Continental Congress, meeting in Independence Hall, on September 14, 1777 (three days after the Battle of Brandywine) resolved that all public bells in Philadelphia be removed to a place of security upon a near approach of the enemy to the city.

The order to remove the bells was passed along to Colonel Benjamin Flower, and his instructions read: “Ordered: that Colonel Flower employ James Worrell, Francis Allison and Mr. Evans, Carpenters, or such other workmen as he may think proper to employ, to take down the Bells of all the public Buildings in this city and convey them to safety.” They had their work cut out for them. Not only did they have to get the bells down, but also to convey them to safety. Eleven bells in all had to be removed. Most had to be taken from fairly high steeples, loaded aboard wagons, and spirited out of the city, all under the cover of night.

Once they were down, Colonel Flowers had to decide whether or not to move them by Army transport wagons leaving the area with increasing frequency. If they were to be overtaken by the British, they would certainly end up as shot designed for Americans. His reasoning might then have led him to seek out farmers bringing produce into the city from the area where the bells were destined to go, Allentown (then Northampton Town). Traditionally, these Pennsylvania German farmers brought their wares into Philadelphia and re-turned to their farms north of the city with empty wagons. A few of these wagons, with the bells secreted in them and covered with hay or straw, might be a better device. Should the British pass such a convoy, there would be a slightly lesser chance that they would be searched.

There are two stories recorded about whose wagon was used to haul the Liberty Bell out of Philadelphia. One states that the man chosen was one John Jacob Mickley. The exact date of the bells’ departure is unknown, perhaps a tribute to the extent of Flowers’ well-kept secret. Some historians give the date as September 16 or 17 when the bells were taken down. Whatever the date, Howe marched into Philadelphia on September 27 but did not send a patrol in pursuit of the fleeing wagon train, undoubtedly because he needed all of his men to secure the city and to repulse Washington’s counterattack at Germantown on October 4.

The bells were taken via Bethlehem to Allentown. At some point along the way, the bell wagons joined an Army convoy of some 700 other wagons, and they rattled into Bethlehem. As the wagon bearing the heavy Great Bell reached the center of town on September 24, the great weight broke the wagon. As the first story goes, the Bell was transferred to a wagon owned and driven by Frederick Loeser, who then carted the Bell on to Allentown.

The Bell’s hiding place until 1778 was in the basement of the Zion High German Reformed Church of Allentown, where it arrived early on the morning of September 25. Other bells were hidden in the same basement and the Church above them served as a military hospital until the British evacuated Philadelphia.

John Jacob Mickley and Frederick Loeser both have commemorative tablets in Pennsylvania which honor the parts they played in the saving of the Bell. The Loeser tablet stands at Loeser Lake just off Route 143 near Jacksonville, Pennsylvania in upper Lehigh County, not far from Frederick’s farm land. The tablet dedicated to Mickley is outside the entrance to the Liberty Bell Shrine located at the Zion Church in Allen-town, and also mentions Frederick’s role in the transport of the Bell. The shrine is housed in the same basement where the Bell was harbored during its year-long stay in Allentown.

When the British completed their evacuation of Philadelphia on June 18, 1777, the bells at Allentown were free to leave their refuge, and they lost no time in doing so. It is recorded that they departed on June 27, and on August 22, the Pennsylvania Packet stated that the bells had been returned safe and hung again.

The organization also notes the participation of Theodore Roosevelt in the church.

"Roosevelt originally belonged to the Reformed Church in America (RCA), a Dutch-American group. As a private person, Roosevelt attended religious services wherever he was. He preferred the Reformed Church if one were available to attend and is reported to have said, 'I take a sentimental satisfaction in worshiping in the Church of my fathers.'"

Event information about the tricentennial is being assembled online.

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(NEW YORK POST) – Disturbing images and video captured the moment three masked anti-Israel protesters ignited a pair of American flags and an Israeli flag outside the Jewish State’s consulate Wednesday.

The American flags were nearly invisible beneath the flames as the firebirds – one of whom has racked up several arrests in the last two months – stood outside the building at Second Avenue and East 42nd Street.

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One man wearing a keffiyeh and “Gaza” shirt held a burning American flag as he stood in the bike lane directly in front of an NYPD booth, whose glass reflected the bright yellow flames. Another disguised man ignited an Israeli flag that immediately wilted and fell from the flagpole, video shows.

Read the full story ›

IDF soldiers during operational activity in the Jabalia area of northern Gaza on Monday, May 20, 2024. (IDF photo)

(ANTIWAR) – The Biden administration is concerned that the violence on the Israel-Lebanon border could soon escalate into a full-blown war and that Israel is rushing into the conflict without a clear strategy, Axios reported on Wednesday.

US officials told Axios that the administration has cautioned Israel against the idea of a “limited war,” warning that Iran could intervene and militants in Iraq and Syria could join the fighting.

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The report said the White House believes a ceasefire in Gaza is the only thing that could reduce tensions on the Israel-Lebanon border. However, Israeli officials have previously threatened to escalate in Lebanon if a truce is reached in Gaza.

Read the full story ›

(JERUSALEM POST) – Pro-Palestinian protesters compared Gaza to a concentration camp and laid blame on the Nova Music Festival victims for the Hamas massacre that occurred there during the October 7 attacks, according to footage taken during the Monday Union Square memorial in New York that honored victims of the Nova Music Festival massacre.

The protesters were recorded repeating words spoken by Within Our Lifetime (WOL) organizer Nerdeen Kiswani.

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“On October 7th, on the Nova Music Festival A.K.A [also known as] the place where Zionists decided to rave next to a concentration camp. That's exactly what this music festival was. It's like having a rave right next to the gas chambers during the Holocaust," the protesters chanted, repeating after Kiswani. "This is beyond what you saw in the Zone of Interest."

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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Katelynn Richardson
Daily Caller News Foundation

The self-described sanctuary city of Denver, Colorado is quietly paying for illegal immigrants to travel to Utah, according to Republican Utah Governor Spencer J. Cox.

Without the approval or advance knowledge of local officials, Denver has been paying for migrants to relocate to other places, including Utah, where approximately 2,000 have been sent, 2KUTV News reported Thursday. Cox said Friday the practice is “unacceptable” and a result of the Biden administration’s immigration policies.

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“We recently learned that the Democrat mayor of Denver has been sending illegal immigrants to Utah without proper notification or approval,” Republican Utah Governor Spencer J. Cox wrote Friday on X. “This is completely unacceptable and follows on the failed catch-and-release policy of the Biden administration.”

Cox wrote that Utah’s resources “are completely depleted.” His office told Fox 13 News they learned about the city sending migrants on May 13.

We recently learned that the Democrat mayor of Denver has been sending illegal immigrants to Utah without proper notification or approval. This is completely unacceptable and follows on the failed catch-and-release policy of the Biden administration. Every state has received… https://t.co/pL4pShMTn2

— Utah Gov. Spencer J. Cox (@GovCox) June 14, 2024

“All 50 states, including Utah, are now border states due to the failed immigration policies of President Biden and Congress,” Cox continued. “Once again we call on the Biden administration and Congress to solve this crisis.”

Denver city officials told Axios Friday the responsibility lies with Texas.

“The vast majority of newcomers arriving in Denver do so on buses chartered from Texas and had no intention of ever coming to Denver,” Jordan Fuja, spokesperson for Democratic Denver Mayor Mike Johnston, told Axios. “That’s why part of our operations include purchasing tickets for newcomers to get to their desired location.”

Government officials in Salt Lake City, Utah also were not made aware in advance of the migrants’ arrival, the city mayor’s office told 2KUTV News.

“I have, myself, communicated our displeasure,” Andrew Roberts, chief of staff for Salt Lake County Mayor Jenny Wilson, told the outlet.

The Denver mayor and Utah governor’s offices did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

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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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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.

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 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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(ZEROHEDGE) – After a March tweet by Elon Musk decrying the New York Times bestseller list as "pure propaganda" after the outlet was forced to admit in court that it's not a ranked list, The Economist decided to see if there was any merit to longstanding claims of bias against conservative authors. They found, of course, that there is.

The Economist compiled Bookscan data over a 12-year period and built a statistical model to predict the likelihood of books appearing in the NYT's weekly "hardcover non-fiction" and "advice, how-to, and miscellaneous" rankings. The model considered books from publishers that identify as politically right of center.

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The analysis estimated that books by conservative publishers were 7% points less likely to make it onto the NYT weekly bestseller lists compared to books by other publishers with similar sales figures.

Read the full story ›

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

By Nancy Flanders
Live Action News

A woman in India has reportedly committed suicide after being coerced into an abortion.

According to police, Sandu Kavya Sri, age 20, married her husband Sandu Srikantah two years ago, and together they welcomed a daughter, who is now 10 months old. Kavya Sri became pregnant a second time and was five months along when at the end of May, her husband took her for an ultrasound that revealed their second child was also a girl. She then decided to stay with her parents, but was pressured by her husband and his parents to undergo an abortion, because the child was not a boy.

Kavya Sri’s father, Errapothu Raja, told police that Srikantah and his parents took Kavya to the hospital multiple times while pressuring her to abort her baby. After the abortion was eventually carried out, Kavya Sri attempted to kill herself, and though her husband and parents found her and rushed her to a private hospital, she died while undergoing treatment there.

Research has long found a connection between induced abortion and depression. Though abortion advocates often cite the flawed Turnaway Study to argue that women are damaged when they are denied abortions, research shows that whether a baby is wanted or unwanted, women still have much higher risks of depression and suicidal ideation after abortion.

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Jade Rees, a 21-year-old single mother in the UK, killed herself by hanging after her abortion. She had previously attempted to overdose twice in 48 hours. The Daily Mail reported, “Miss Rees left handwritten notes addressed to her parents and two-year-old son, explaining the struggle she had faced since the devastating procedure, in which she stressed that her little boy ‘means everything to me’.”

In 2022, it was reported that a woman in India hanged herself following 14 abortions, which a man she was in a relationship with coerced her to undergo.

A woman named Spring attempted suicide three times following her abortion. “Life after the abortion was awful,” she said. “I had instant remorse, guilt, and shame. I had a very difficult time functioning in everyday life. I had nightmares about the experience regularly. I fell into an extreme depression, and I was suicidal.”

Amy had an abortion after becoming pregnant from rape, because she was told it was the best thing for her to do. However, she was “heartbroken” following the abortion and began drinking heavily and abusing prescription drugs, both of which are behaviors that post-abortive women are more likely to experience. Amy also became suicidal. “I drank so much and took such a lot of painkillers in order that I wouldn’t wake up… ” she said. “Maybe if I even went to hell, that would be better than where I was at that time.”

Danielle, Nichole, and Jeanene also all attempted suicide after having an abortion, and sadly, teenager Ashli Blake and actress Charlotte Dawson both died by suicide after their abortions.

Research has shown that women who became pregnant and had abortions were six times more likely to commit suicide than women who had carried their pregnancies to term. In addition, women who aborted were three times more likely to commit suicide than women who had not been pregnant. Rather than increasing a woman’s chances of suicide, carrying a baby to term actually decreases them.

Another study had similar results, finding that women who had abortions were more likely to die within 10 years after their abortions than women who carried to term — with suicide being a common cause of death.

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

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(Pexels)

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

By Nancy Flanders
Live Action News

Two Vermont couples are suing Vermont’s Department for Children and Families (DCF) after the state revoked their foster care licenses because of their religious beliefs. Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) is representing both couples, who have each adopted children through foster care but who would not agree to transition hypothetical children experiencing gender dysphoria.

The lawsuit claims that DCF’s policy on sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression is unconstitutional and violates the right to religious expression, equal protection, and free speech.

According to a press release from ADF, Pastor Brian Wuoti and his wife Katy have been foster parents for 10 years and have adopted two brothers from foster care. Pastor Bryan Gantt and his wife Rebecca have been foster parents since 2016. They have cared for children born drug-dependent or with fetal alcohol syndrome and have adopted three children. ADF states that each couple has “a track record of success and high praise from social workers who knew them.” Social workers called the Wuotis “amazing” and said they “probably could not hand pick a more wonderful foster family.” They said the Gantts were “the perfect home” and the “first choice” for a baby born to a drug-addicted homeless woman.

However, DCF allegedly revoked its foster care licenses for the families due to their refusal to sign off on DCF’s sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression policy.

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“The Department recently decided to exclude all families with traditional religious beliefs about human sexuality from fostering or adopting any child,” the lawsuit reads. “This ideological campaign puts politics above people and gender ideology over children’s best interests. It is harmful, unnecessary, and unconstitutional.”

The policy states, “The caregiver’s beliefs and attitude about the child’s sexual or gender identity, as well as the caregiver’s behaviors and actions that may stem from their beliefs or attitude, will be carefully considered when identifying dangers and risks in cases involving LGBTQ youth. Family services workers should consider whether: • The child or youth is fearful of their parent/caregiver or others living in the residence; • The caregiver is verbally hostile when talking to or about the child; • The caregiver has not, will not, or is unable to provide care and supervision necessary to protect the child from harm, including self-harm; or • The caregiver is verbally abusive to the child, ostracizes the child, ridicules, or belittles the child.”

While the policy appears to focus on children who have already expressed an LGBTQ identity or gender dysphoria, DCF has allegedly refused to allow the two couples to foster even if the child is a relative, a newborn, or needs a safe home for just a day.

After DCF sent an email last year stating that families must support a child’s wish to change his or her gender, the Gantts told DCF that they could not ignore their religious beliefs. Likewise, in 2022, the Wuotis told DCF that they could not do or say anything against their religious views on sexuality. DCF revoked the licenses of both couples, despite the shortage of foster homes in the state.

Vermont DCF has had to place some children with unlicensed families, hospitals, and police stations due to the lack of available foster homes, yet it will not place children with licensed parents who have worked with DCF for years.

“Although the Wuotis and Gantts have adopted five children between them, the Department has determined they are unfit to foster or adopt any child solely due to their religiously inspired and widely held belief that girls cannot become boys or vice versa,” states the lawsuit. “Vermont would prefer children have no home than to place them with families of faith with these views.”

In a similar case in 2023, an Oregon woman sued the state after it rejected her adoption application because she would not promise to transition hypothetical children experiencing gender dysphoria.

[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 ›

Alex Jones

A federal judge overseeing the fight Sandy Hook school shooting victims' families brought against Infowars founder Alex Jones, over his claims it was faked by the government, has issued a ruling on the liquidation of his personal assets.

The Post Millennial reveals Christopher Lopez, a bankruptcy judge, said those assets will be liquidated to pay down on a massive civil judgment that two juries returned against Jones.

The report said Jones just a week ago had agreed to convert his bankruptcy case to a liquidation, and a ruling was pending on whether Jones' corporation, Free Speech Systems, also would be liquidated.

The report said Jones' primary home in Austin would be protected, as well as some other belongings. But the famed broadcaster already has moved to sell his ranch, estimated to be worth $2.8 million, as well as a collection of guns.

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Jones' claims that the shooting was a staged event infuriated families of the victims, and although he later recanted, they sued him for defamation anyway.

If the judge determines Free Speech Systems must be liquidated, it would mean Jones losing any control of his company.

In fact, he told reporters heading into court, "This is probably the end of Infowars here very, very soon. … It’s just the beginning of my fight against tyranny."

There have been some of Jones' supporters who have suggested they might buy assets.

The civil judgment against Jones was for about $1.5 billion.

Sandy Hook families have demanded payment, refusing offers to settle, and also insist that he lose control of his media accounts.

The families have announced their intention to continue pursuing any future earnings by Jones, because they believe he'll keep broadcasting in some fashion.

In recent days he's been suggesting fans download videos from his archive to preserve them, and pointing out alternative sources for purchasing dietary supplements he sells online.

Reports show his personal assets total about $9 million and Free Speech has some $6 million in cash and $1.2 million in inventory.

Both Jones and his commercial persona filed for bankruptcy protection two years ago when the civil judgments came down.

The plaintiffs were awarded damages for his statements about the 2012 shooting that killed six teachers and 20 first graders in Newtown, Connecticut.

A lawyer for the families said one of their goals was to deprive him of the ability "to inflict mass harm."

Jones recently was interviewed by Tucker Carlson, and commented on a wide range of issues.

Ep. 46 The Alex Jones Interview

TIMESTAMPS:

2:46 Alex Jones predictions
15:07 Deplatforming
21:59 Dividing us on race
25:37 The border
28:09 Austin
32:12 New World Order
42:09 Brian Stelter demon video
50:57 Depopulation
1:07:51 Food
1:13:51 Whiskey
1:16:22 Presidential… pic.twitter.com/IsJAQDUzDc

— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) December 7, 2023

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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.

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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A messaging truck sponsored by Public Advocate

A violent LGBT extremist has attacked the messaging of a pro-family organization, physically hurling a metal frame at an "unbreakable" truck with its messages, including one to "free" President Donald Trump.

The confrontation was documented by Eugene Delgaudio, president of Public Advocate, who recently visited Washington, D.C., with his free speech opinions on the sides of a truck.

He reported that one sign on the mobile billboard truck flashed the messaging, "Children are never born the wrong gender God doesn't make mistakes."

Another message was that, "Transgender women are insane men."

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The violence (Be aware of foul language and censored explicit imagery throughout videos):

Delgaudio explained yet another message was, "47 Free President Trump."

"This attack and the sudden closing of our online phone system, on the same day as our 'Straight Pride Parade' are a direct response to our stationary and mobile billboard campaign reaching the Washington, D.C., region and our visit to the main headquarters of the homosexual lobby, the Human Rights Campaign Fund, in Washington, D.C.," he explained.

"It is a typical tactic of the Human Rights Campaign Fund, and other Homosexual Lobby groups, to seek to silence by lawfare or other means, a peaceful Pro-family group and seek to destroy it. In recent days there is an uptick on our social media platforms of threats as we successfully reach 50 million views in one week, just one social media platform. Public Advocate is now reaching over 100 million views on combined social media platforms."

The organization's statement explained, "A violent physical attack Saturday involved a LGBT activist who used a metal frame striking our billboard truck with pro-family messages. This same attacker exposed his genitals several times and then spit on Eugene Delgaudio and kicked his car which was following the truck."

The organization reported it has filed a police report with the evidence of violence.

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By Jason Hopkins
Daily Caller News Foundation

Texas law enforcement has already nabbed the number one fugitive on its “10 Most Wanted Illegal Immigrants” list just days after it launched.

The Texas Department of Public Safety apprehended Victor Hugo Chox Gonzalez, a 38-year-old Mexican national wanted for aggravated sexual assault of a child and indecency with a child by sexual contact, on Thursday, according to an announcement by the agency. Following his arrest by DPS special agents, Gonzalez was booked into the Tarrant County Jail.

Gonzalez has a long criminal history in Tarrant County, according to Texas authorities.

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He was deported from the U.S. in 2016 after being convicted of a DUI with a chid in the car and assaulting a family member, the press release reads. He was also arrested for assault in 2021, and a warrant was issued for his arrest in 2023 for aggravated sexual assault of a child and indecency with a child by sexual contact.

The arrest marks a win for GOP Gov. Greg Abbott, who touted the launch of the “most wanted” criminal illegal immigrant list earlier this month.

“When President Joe Biden took office, he dismantled every effective border policy his predecessor put into place,” Abbott said on June 5. “As a result, we have seen record high levels of illegal immigration, including dangerous criminals and terrorists who are a threat to the public safety of our state and our nation.”

“These illegal immigrants will now be spotlighted on our 10 Most Wanted Criminal Illegal Immigrants List,” Abbott continued. “Texas is a law-and-order state, and with the help of our fellow Texans, we will ensure that the illegal immigrants on this list are taken off our streets and put behind bars to keep our communities safe.”

Gonzalez is one of two illegal immigrants on the top 10 list that are now in custody, according to Texas law enforcement.

The other individual, Servando Trejo Duran, Jr., was on the run for murder with a deadly weapon, according to the list. The other illegal immigrants featured have been convicted or charged with a litany of heinous crimes, many of them pertaining to sexual abuse or sexual assault of children.

Launched in partnership with the Texas Department of Public Safety, the new program is designed to locate and arrest individuals who are living in the U.S. unlawfully and are repeat offenders of dangerous crimes committed in Texas, according to the governor’s press release. The initiative also offers cash rewards to any person who offers information that leads to the apprehension of the most wanted illegal immigrants.

The list is the latest in Abbott’s effort to crackdown on illegal immigration. The Republican governor launched Operation Lone Star in 2021, which is an initiative that has deployed Texas National Guard troops to the border and bussed tens of thousands of illegal migrants into various sanctuary cities across the country.

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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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(NBC NEWS) -- In a loss for the Biden administration, the Supreme Court ruled Friday that a federal ban on “bump stocks,” gun accessories that allow semiautomatic rifles to fire more quickly, is unlawful.

In a 6-3 ruling on ideological lines, with the court's conservatives in the majority, the court held that an almost 100-year-old law aimed at banning machine guns cannot legitimately be interpreted to include bump stocks.

BREAKING: Gun-rights win Supreme Court rules 6-3 declaring that federal ban on bump stocks is unlawful.pic.twitter.com/UPfrZ8K0e2

— WorldNetDaily (@worldnetdaily) June 14, 2024

Writing for the majority, Justice Clarence Thomas said that a firearm equipped with the accessory does not meet the definition of "machinegun" under federal law.

Read the full story ›

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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By Will Kessler
Daily Caller News Foundation

Ford Motor Company told dealers on Thursday it was dropping certain equipment requirements to boost the sales of its struggling electric vehicle (EV) line, according to Bloomberg.

Dealers had previously needed to invest up to $1.2 million in certain equipment like chargers in order to be eligible to sell Ford’s EV line, with the change allowing all 2,800 dealerships with contracts to the company to sell EVs, according to Bloomberg. The changes to the program are intended to boost struggling sales of Ford’s EV models, which has contributed to the automaker taking a $1.3 billion loss on its EV production in just the first quarter of 2024 after selling only 10,000 vehicles.

“The growth has slowed down and we’re getting into the tough innings,” Marin Gjaja, the COO of Ford’s EV unit, told reporters following the announcement, according to Bloomberg. Gjaja said that Ford expects the change will “help us grow our sales.”

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The original EV program was started in 2022 and only had around 1,400 dealers enrolled, meaning the company’s EV could not be sold at around half of dealerships, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Ford expects to lose another $5.5 billion on the production and development of its EV line in 2024, with the company’s CEO Jim Farley previously calling it the “main drag” on its business, according to Bloomberg. The company will now require the installation of two EV chargers costing around $10,000 each at all dealerships, far less than the $100,000 chargers that were part of the previous requirements.

EV market share compared to gas-powered vehicles fell in the first quarter of 2024 from 7.6% to 7.1%, ending the trend of huge EV market growth in 2023 that totaled 47%. Sales for all vehicles grew 5% in the quarter, while EV sales grew just 2.7%.

Ford is one of many automakers that has had to delay the production of its EV lines amid slowing demand, including General Motors and Mercedes-Benz. The company announced in April that it would be focusing more on hybrid vehicles.

The Biden administration has sought to incentivize the transition to EVs by creating an up to $7,500 tax credit to ease costs for both consumers and companies. Federal regulators have also finalized rules that effectively require that 67% of all light-duty vehicles sold after 2032 be electric or hybrid.

Ford did not immediately respond to a request to comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.

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(Photo by Joe Kovacs)

By Nick Pope
Daily Caller News Foundation

Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s multi-billion dollar effort to lure electric vehicle (EV)-related factories to the state has not produced the thousands of jobs she promised, according to an analysis conducted by Bridge Michigan.

Whitmer and the state government have already spent $1 billion of the $2 billion pledged to five different projects to build EV battery factories or expand EV production, but only about 200 jobs have been created, a far cry from the 12,000 jobs Whitmer has stated the companies will ultimately provide for Michiganders, according to Bridge Michigan, a Michigan-focused nonprofit publication of the Center for Michigan. Two years after the subsidies were extended in 2022, only 2% of the jobs promised have been delivered while the state-backed projects have downsized relative to original plans or faced delays.

The companies that are to receive the $2 billion in pledged funds include Ford, LG Energy Solution, Our Next Energy and General Motors. Also included is Gotion, the subsidiary of a China-based company that has significant ties to the Chinese Communist Party, which the Daily Caller News Foundation has covered extensively.

Gretchen Whitmer Raked In Over $1 Million From Billionaires, Celebrity Donors While Attacking Her GOP Opponent’s ‘Special Interests’ Tieshttps://t.co/CVg8yOBFig

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) August 15, 2022

Each of the projects is now off schedule, and scale reductions have cut the best-case scenario for job creation by 13%, according to Bridge Michigan. However, the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC), which has played a key role in providing the subsidies, is still confident that its efforts will provide considerable benefits to Michiganders.

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“While there has been some re-scoping, we are still talking about billions of dollars being injected into the state and thousands of jobs being created,” Otie McKinley, a spokesperson for MEDC, told Bridge Michigan.

General Motors has so far received about $468 million of the state’s total pledged boost of $600 million to build an EV battery factory and expand EV production at a separate Michigan plant, according to Bridge Michigan. Whitmer and other proponents touted projections that the developments would cumulatively create 4,000 jobs, but so far there have only been 120 jobs created between the two projects.

Both General Motors projects were supposed to be completed and open this year, but construction remains ongoing at both sites, according to Bridge Michigan. LG Energy Solution’s planned facility in Michigan is the only of the five examined by Bridge Michigan that has yet to receive a large, up-front check from the state to facilitate its efforts.

Our Next Energy received $78.3 million from the state to build a massive EV battery factory and bring $1.6 billion of investment into Michigan, with the company initially saying that the factory would generate more than 2,100 new jobs, according to Michigan Bridge. However, the company has about 50 workers staffing its Wayne County project and has terminated 25% of its employees.

Michigan has also spent $70 million to purchase land for the Ford and Gotion projects, but officials did not “explicitly disclose” those payments, according to Michigan Bridge. Further, the state has already extended loans worth $51 million and spent an additional $600 million on utility hookups and other equipment for the same two developments, Michigan Bridge discovered through public records requests.

Ford’s facility in the state’s southwest “is still under construction; production at the site is scheduled to start, on time, in 2026,” a spokesperson for the company told the DCNF. “Last November, we said that the scale of the project, including job creation, was being reduced. Accordingly, it’s reasonable to expect that the State of Michigan’s support, when announced, will be smaller.”

The spokesperson characterized questions about the facility’s future as “premature, at best.”

The state’s support for the projects is intended to prepare Michigan to maintain its status as the center of America’s auto industry through the transition to EVs, which the Biden administration is facilitating with stringent regulations, according to Bridge Michigan. At the time that the subsidies were conceived and offered, state officials were concerned about the decisions by Ford and General Motors to establish factories in right-to-work states like Kentucky and Tennessee, prompting the push to open up the subsidy floodgates.

If the projects were to never be completed or are completed at a reduced scale, new rules and regulations will likely make it challenging for the state to recover subsidy funds, Bridge Michigan also found. Formerly, companies would have to create jobs first before receiving government cash, but the rules governing the Strategic Outreach and Attraction Reserve (SOAR) — an economic development fund established by the legislature in 2022 — allow for companies to receive state subsidies after they have passed other milestones, like arranging private financing or acquiring machinery.

Green energy and related initiatives have emerged as major parts of Whitmer’s agenda during her tenure as governor. In November 2023, Whitmer signed the Clean Energy and Jobs Act into law, committing Michigan to reaching 100% green energy generation by 2040, and also including language that allows the state’s utility regulator to override local governments to site green energy infrastructure.

Whitmer’s office, the MEDC, General Motors, Gotion, Our Next Energy and LG Energy Solution did not respond immediately to requests for comment.

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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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(Photo by Joe Kovacs)

Do Michigan residents need permission from elected and appointed officials in Lansing, their capital city, in order to practice their religious faith?

That's the issue in dispute in a case being handled by Becket for a St. Joseph Parish, and the legal team is arguing against the idea.

The Catholic parish, helped by Becket, is challenging a state law that makes it illegal for the Catholic church and school to hire staff based on their agreement to uphold Catholic religious beliefs and practices.

Becket senior counsel William Haun got right to the point, stating, "Michiganders don’t need a permission slip from bureaucrats in Lansing to practice their religious beliefs. The court should reject this irresponsible law and let institutions like St. Joseph get back to freely serving in their schools, churches, and communities."

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St. Joseph filed a case contesting the state's religious ideology, but it was dismissed. It now is seeking permission from the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to run its parish and school consistent with its faith.

The dispute is a recurring one, as leftists in government try to impose more and more of their ideology on everyone. Joe Biden's administration is noted for its attempts to demand that all doctors, including Christians with religious objections, to do transgender surgeries or abortions. The fight also involves imposing similar support requirements for foster parents.

The parish, since 1857, as served the local Catholic community in St. Johns, Michigan.

"In 1924, St. Joseph expanded and opened an elementary school – St. Joseph Catholic School – to provide families in the area with a Catholic education rooted in the teachings of the church," Becket reported.

"Like many religious schools, St. Joseph hires teachers and staff who support and advance the Catholic faith. St. Joseph also asks all staff – from kindergarten teachers to part-time bookkeepers – to be practicing Catholics and to uphold the faith. St. Joseph also follows Catholic teaching on issues like pronouns and separate girls’ and boys’ bathrooms and locker rooms."

The conflict arose when Michigan changed its law to include special protections for sexual orientation and gender identity ideologies – with no like protections for faith groups.

The state then told the church it must ask permission from the state’s Civil Rights Commission whenever it wants to ask Catholic employees to follow Catholic teaching, the report explained.

"Michigan politicians are chilling St. Joseph and hundreds of other religious ministries out of staying true to their faith," Haun explained. "That is irresponsible—the First Amendment prohibits scaring religious institutions into abandoning their religious ways of life."

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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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Physicians' organizations and doctors who sued to overturn the vast expansion of access to abortion drug Mifepristone that culminated under Joe Biden's abortion agenda were rebuffed by the Supreme Court's opinion that said they didn't have standing under the law to challenge the actions by the Food and Drug Administration.

But there's an easy solution, according to Mat Staver, the chief of Liberty Counsel, which has fought on behalf of pro-life issues for years.

"This case is far from over. The same lawsuit can be refiled with different plaintiffs who have standing. The FDA should no longer be allowed to circumvent safety laws to allow a eugenic drug to destroy innocent children and harm women. Chemical abortions are never safe and harm women and kill children," he explained.

All that's needed is a plaintiff "who can show a direct injury from Mifepristone traceable to the FDA's deregulation."

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The fight was over the FDA's vast deregulation of the dangerous drug, a campaign that culminated in 2021 when it decided to give consumers nearly "unfettered" access.

The drug is used for chemical abortions, and it "effectively starves an unborn baby to death and has the potential for many significant adverse events harmful to women and girls," the Liberty Counsel report said.

The FDA not only expanded its use, it said non-physicians could prescribe the drug, and they could be sent through the mail.

That alarmed a number of organizations, including the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, and doctors who challenged the expansion in court.

The opinion for the unanimous court was from Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and said the problem was that the plaintiffs don't prescribe or use the drug, so they don't have grounds to bring the complaint.

"Under Article III of the Constitution, a plaintiff's desire to make a drug less available for others does not establish standing to sue. Nor do the plaintiffs' other standing theories suffice…Under Article III of the Constitution, a plaintiff ’s desire to make a drug less available for others does not establish standing to sue. Nor do the plaintiffs’ other standing theories suffice. Therefore, the plaintiffs lack standing to challenge FDA’s actions," the opinion said.

Kavanaugh said, "The plaintiffs have sincere legal, moral, ideological, and policy objections to elective abortion and to FDA’s relaxed regulation of mifepristone. But under Article III of the Constitution, those kinds of objections alone do not establish a justiciable case or controversy in federal court. Here, the plaintiffs have failed to demonstrate that FDA’s relaxed regulatory requirements likely would cause them to suffer an injury in fact. For that reason, the federal courts are the wrong forum for addressing the plaintiffs’ concerns about FDA’s actions. The plaintiffs may present their concerns and objections to the President and FDA in the regulatory process, or to Congress and the President in the legislative process. And they may also express their views about abortion and mifepristone to fellow citizens, including in the political and electoral processes.”

"If a group of concerned physicians can't sue the FDA over the utterly politicized manner in which they approved and then expanded the availability of abortion pills, then who can? That's the unanswered question in today's ruling. How did a drug that sends one in 25 women who use it to the ER ever get approved? How did the FDA agree to allow it to be given to women without a physical examination? If —as it appears — no one can sue the FDA, then Congress must act to reign in the agency, which clearly cares more about shielding abortion providers than keeping American women safe," explained Eric Scheidler, executive director of the Pro-Life Action League.

Erin Hawley, vice president of the ADF Center for Life and Regulatory Practice, said, "We are disappointed that the Supreme Court did not reach the merits of the FDA’s lawless removal of commonsense safety standards for abortion drugs. Nothing in today’s decision changes the fact that the FDA’s own label says that roughly one in 25 women who take chemical abortion drugs will end up in the emergency room—a dangerous reality the doctors and medical associations we represent in this case know all too well. The FDA recklessly leaves women and girls to take these high-risk drugs all alone in their homes or dorm rooms, without requiring the ongoing, in-person care of a doctor. While we’re disappointed with the court’s decision, we will continue to advocate for women and work to restore commonsense safeguards for abortion drugs—like an initial office visit to screen for ectopic pregnancies. And we are grateful that three states stand ready to hold the FDA accountable for jeopardizing the health and safety of women and girls across this country."

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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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By Katelynn Richardson
Daily Caller News Foundation

The Supreme Court sided unanimously Thursday against several doctors and pro-life medical associations who brought a challenge to the abortion pill.

In FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, the Supreme Court held that the doctors do not have standing to challenge the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) decision to roll back safety regulations for the abortion pill. While recognizing the plaintiffs have “sincere legal, moral, ideological, and policy objections to elective abortion and to FDA’s relaxed regulation of mifepristone,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in the majority rulings that those kind of objections are not enough to show the doctors would be injured by the FDA’s actions, noting the federal courts are “the wrong forum” for addressing their concerns.

“Under Article III of the Constitution, a plaintiff ’s desire to make a drug less available for others does not establish standing to sue,” Kavanaugh wrote. “Nor do the plaintiffs’ other standing theories suffice.”

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Those who object to the abortion pill and its manner of regulation “may always take their concerns to the Executive and Legislative Branches and seek greater regulatory or legislative restrictions on certain activities,” Kavanaugh wrote.

In August 2023, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals found that the FDA “failed to address several important concerns” when it loosened restrictions on the abortion drug mifepristone after 2016. The appeals court narrowed an injunction earlier issued by Trump-appointed U.S. District Court Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, who required the FDA to reverse its initial 2000 approval of the pill altogether.

The FDA allowed distribution of mifepristone via mail and removed the initial in-person visit requirement in 2021. Earlier in 2016, it rolled back other safety regulations, enabling the drug to be used through ten weeks of pregnancy rather than seven.

The OB/GYNs and emergency room doctors who brought the challenge argued that women are more likely to require medical treatment as a result of the FDA’s relaxed safety standards, requiring them to sometimes, in violation of their conscience, complete an unfinished chemical abortion to address complications.

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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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A Mercedes-Benz electric SUV

By Nick Pope
Daily Caller News Foundation

Three coalitions of business interests are suing the Biden administration over its recently-finalized emissions standards for light- and medium-duty vehicles.

The coalitions — which include the American Petroleum Institute (API), the American Farm Bureau, the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM), numerous car dealers and more — filed suit in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit on Thursday morning to try to block the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) rules, which critics have characterized as an electric vehicle (EV) “mandate.” The regulations will require manufacturers to ensure that up to 56% of all new light-duty vehicle sales are EVs by model year 2032, according to the EPA.

“Today, we are taking action to protect American consumers, U.S. manufacturing workers and our nation’s hard-won energy security from this intrusive government mandate,” Ryan Meyers, API’s senior vice president and general counsel, said in a statement. “EPA has exceeded its congressional authority with this regulation that will eliminate most new gas cars and traditional hybrids from the U.S. market in less than a decade. We look forward to making our case in court.”

‘He’s Not Wrong’: Margaret Brennan Presses Buttigieg On Trump’s Stance Over Electric Vehicles Purchasedhttps://t.co/CARe2QlxtX

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) May 26, 2024

The lawsuit alleges that EPA overstepped its mandate in issuing the rules, which the complainants describe as “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion and not in accordance with law.” The tailpipe standards represent one of President Joe Biden’s biggest individual actions to date on his $1 trillion-plus climate agenda.

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The EPA has also finalized stringent tailpipe emissions standards for heavy-duty vehicles, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) locked in its own aggressive update to fuel economy standards on Friday.

Beyond regulations, the administration has also spent billions of dollars to advance EV production and adoption. However, despite these efforts, manufacturers have lost considerable amounts of money on their EV product lines while consumers generally remain hesitant to purchase electric models due to factors like concerns about EV range and charger availability.

“The EPA doesn’t have a leg to stand on where its gas car ban regulation is concerned, and we are going to make that case in court,” Rob Underwood, the president of the Energy Marketers of America, said in a statement. “This regulation is clearly bad for consumers as it will quickly and drastically restrict their ability to find and purchase affordable new gas cars. It’s bad for marketers of American-made liquid fuels and for U.S. energy security. And importantly, it’s also unlawful. EPA does not have authority under the law to do this.”

The EPA declined to comment, citing the litigation’s ongoing nature, and the White House did not respond to a request for comment.

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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."

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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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By Harold Hutchison
Daily Caller News Foundation

Former University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas’ challenge to a rule that prevents the biological male from competing against women in “elite events” was shot down Wednesday.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport denied the legal effort of Thomas, a biological male, to overturn rules issued in March 2023 by World Aquatics, the international governing body for competitive swimming and several other Olympic events, according to the Guardian. Thomas had sought to compete against women in the 2024 Summer Olympic games in Paris.

“The panel concludes that she lacks standing to challenge the policy and the operational requirements in the framework of the present proceeding,” the court said in its ruling, the Associated Press reported.

BREAKING: Biological male transgender athlete Lia Thomas loses legal challenge, banned from competing against biological females in Olympics. pic.twitter.com/5VqgwGCm79

— WorldNetDaily (@worldnetdaily) June 12, 2024

“She is currently only entitled to compete in USA Swimming events that do not qualify as ‘Elite Events,’” the panel said in its ruling, according to USA Today.

The issue of biological males who identify as transgender competing in women’s sports became controversial following Thomas’s participation in the 2022 NCAA championships, where the biological male won the 500-yard women’s final by 1.75 seconds.

“World Aquatics welcomes the recent decision made by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) regarding the case of Lia Thomas, which we believe is a major step forward in our efforts to protect women’s sport,” the organization said in a statement provided to the Daily Caller News Foundation. “World Aquatics is dedicated to fostering an environment that promotes fairness, respect, and equal opportunities for athletes of all genders and we reaffirm this pledge.”

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“Our policies and practices are continuously evaluated to ensure they align with these core values, which led to the introduction of our open category,” the statement continued. “We remain committed to working collaboratively with all stakeholders to uphold the principles of inclusivity in aquatic sports and remain confident that our gender inclusion policy represents a fair approach.”

Riley Gaines, who competed against Thomas as a member of the University of Kentucky’s swim team during the 2022 NCAA Championships, has been a vocal critic of allowing transgender athletes to compete against women.

The Olympic Games are scheduled to start July 26 in Paris, with hundreds of athletes competing in events that include basketball, gymnastics, diving, swimming, wrestling and weightlifting.

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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