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‘About To Combust’: Republicans Have Golden Opportunity To End Spying On Americans — But It’s Tearing Them Apart

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Intelligence community abuses of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) have gone from a niche issue for libertarian-minded politicos to a priority among the Republican Party base, thanks largely to former President Donald Trump.

Republicans have a chance to put an end to the law once and for all – or at least significantly reform it – but the party has spent months trying to reach a consensus on how to balance national security with the rights of Americans.

“It’s delicate right now. The place is about to combust,” a GOP source on Capitol Hill told the Daily Caller on Monday.

Under Section 702 of the FISA, the government has the authorization to gather foreigners’ communications who have been flagged in relation to national security matters. The communications can be gathered even if the subject was talking about, or with, Americans.

FISA was elevated from a relatively niche issue with the attention of privacy hawks in D.C. to a critical sticking point for Republicans after it was used to spy on the Trump campaign during the 2016 election season. Based on FISA-enabled surveillance, the national security state and corporate media were able to undercut Trump’s first term in office by perpetuating the “Russiagate” conspiracy theory, the former president’s allies have argued in the years since.

The surveillance bill is set to expire on April 19, and after punting negotiations in December, Republican lawmakers, including avowed Trump allies, are now forced to consider the contentious issue.

The GOP is divided into two broad camps over various proposed reforms, perhaps most notably a warrant requirement. National security hawks aligned with the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence have expressed more opposition to the requirement and other privacy-minded reforms — members aligned with the Judiciary Committee are stressing that FISA must no longer be a tool that can be used to spy on Americans, like what happened with the Trump campaign.

In February, negotiations restarted on the legislation, a GOP source explained to the Daily Caller. At the time, the GOP source said, the rough agreement was that the Intelligence bill would be the base while the Judiciary would be given the opportunity to add amendments. The arrangement led to some disagreements over what the base of the bill should be, the source continued.

The battle has since gotten more heated, after Speaker Mike Johnson put forward a compromise reform bill: the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act (RISAA).

“I don’t think [RISAA goes far enough] I think that these are a lot of papered over reforms that FBI was doing internally, or were claiming that they’re doing internally,” Republican Arizona Rep. Andy Biggs told the Caller.

“RISAA doesn’t go nearly far enough in protecting Americans from illegal spying by their own government. It is a sham reform, and House Republicans should not vote for any FISA reauthorization that lacks a warrant requirement. Speaker Johnson and the GOP majority have a real opportunity to end this madness, and they should take it,” Rep. Mike Lee told the Daily Caller in a statement.

Ahead of the renewal fight this week, Speaker Johnson put forward RISAA, a bill backed by Ohio Rep. Mike Turner and the intelligence committee. Privacy hawks across the political spectrum have said the legislation doesn’t go far enough.

“Speaker of the House Mike Johnson claims that RISAA reflects a compromise,” reads a joint statement from the Electronic Privacy Information Center, the Brennan Center for Justice and Freedomworks. “In reality, this bill is not a ‘compromise,’ and its 56 ‘reforms’ codify the unacceptable status quo.”

“Making 56 ineffective tweaks to a fundamentally broken law is not reforming it. Absent significant amendment, RISAA will do nothing to prevent the government’s repeated abuses of Section 702 to spy on Americans.”

“Any member of Congress who supports extending FISA without radical reforms should receive a ‘Deep State-approved’ logo to burnish for their reelection campaign,” longtime D.C. journalist Jim Bovard, who focused on privacy rights and civil liberties, told the Caller.

“If Congress cannot yank in the reins on the FBI and NSA after millions of confirmed violations of Americans’ rights, only a fool would expect Congress to ever give a damn about the Constitution.”

Much of the pressure that is mounting is being directed at Speaker Mike Johnson. Johnson has faced increasing criticism from the Trump wing of his conference, with Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene threatening to oust him from the speakership for helping pass a government funding bill, among other complaints.

The move to put forward RISAA has invited more criticism for Johnson from within his own conference.

“FISA is tricky right now. It’s expected that Mike Johnson will just roll over on this — like everything else he’s done,” a GOP source told the Daily Caller before the Speaker indicated that he would try to bring RISAA to the floor.

“Mike Johnson is a constitutional conservative who was fighting for the judiciary committee six months ago, and now when you look at his actions, since he’s become speaker, it kind of seems that he switched teams. They’re going to deny it and say ‘well you know he’s the speaker now,’” a senior GOP aide told the Daily Caller.

Turner’s office offered an unequivocal defense of the bill, stating it is “not an expansion of warrantless surveillance on American citizens.” Turner has consistently denied that his version of FISA reform constitutes a warrantless surveillance program against Americans.

Some Republicans have gone on the record to question Johnson’s personal record on privacy issues.

“House leadership, including @SpeakerJohnson and @RepJeffries, voted for a FISA 702 warrant requirement in 2018. Now they’re both opposing a warrant requirement. Why do the Intel Bros™️ get to tell House leadership what to do?” Lee tweeted Tuesday.

A failure on the GOP’s part to properly rein in FISA could send a bad signal to Republican voters, journalist Matt Taibbi told the Caller.

“If Republicans don’t vote for extensive FISA reform, it will mean they were never serious about getting to the bottom of the abuses in the Trump/Russia investigation. It would send a devastating message to Republican voters in particular,” he said.

“When I started working on the Russiagate story, I started hearing horror stories from Hill staffers, who apparently were surprised to learn how pervasive the misuse of FISA has been since passage of the FISA Amendments Act in ’08,” he continued. “The unmasking procedure has proved to be a joke with no real safeguards, and parallel structure (i.e. using intelligence illegally obtained from programs like this in ordinary criminal investigations) is probably far more common than we think.”

Johnson did previously vote to extend FISA surveillance in 2018, despite Trump’s opposition, but has fought along Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan to push back on FISA abuses more recently.

Trump has been a vocal critic of FISA abuses, due to the law being used to surveil his campaign during the 2016 election.

“‘House votes on controversial FISA ACT today.’ This is the act that may have been used, with the help of the discredited and phony Dossier, to so badly surveil and abuse the Trump Campaign by the previous administration and others?” the then-president tweeted in Jan. 2018.

During the 2016 election, the FBI used a document complete with opposition research on the former president to earn the approval from a secret court that oversees FISA to secretly monitor Trump aide Carter Page, according to CNN. The document, the infamous Steele Dossier, included unverified claims that the Russian government had compromising personal and financial information on the eventual president.

The former president’s White House later put out a statement undercutting Trump, clarifying that the administration believed Section 702 “is vital to keeping the nation safe” while adding that renewing the bill “is a top priority of the administration.”

It was later revealed in 2023 through court documents that the FBI had been using data obtained through FISA improperly to search Americans, including some who attended the Jan. 6, 2021, riot and Black Lives Matter protests, Newsweek reported.

As a result of Trump’s vocal opposition, and the way FISA was used against his campaign, the issue has become pressing for many of his supporters.

The FISA debate last reared its head in December of 2023 when Congress was considering the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). An extension of Section 702 until April was added to the bill, and nearly 150 House Republicans voted for the package.

When the package passed in December with the inclusion of FISA extension, Trump’s supporters, who blame the legislation for spying on the former president, became enraged. Trump-aligned figures like Charlie Kirk and Kash Patel blasted House Republicans.

Some in Trump’s orbit are sounding the alarm this time around too: “We know that 702 was abused to spy on Americans and specifically to spy on Donald Trump,” former Trump administration official Ric Grenell told the Caller. “The current draft doesn’t fix the abuses and therefore the bad outweighs the good.”

Lawmakers who have aligned themselves with Trump, yet voted for the NDAA with FISA extension within it, include Kentucky Rep. James Comer, Speaker Johnson, Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert, New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, Texas Rep. Ronny Jackson, South Carolina Rep. Nancy Mace and Ohio Rep. Brad Wenstrup.

Mace, Comer, Boebert and Johnson’s offices explained to the Daily Caller why they chose to vote for the NDAA in 2023. All noted separate issues and funding that were folded in the NDAA that persuaded them to vote for the package, despite the inclusion of the FISA extension.

The NDAA has long been considered a “must-pass” bill by Congress for national security reasons. The urgency to pass the NDAA has resulted in controversial provisions being included before, such as in 2011, when President Barack Obama signed the 2012 NDAA into law and codified the indefinite detention of American citizens allegedly linked to terrorism.

Boebert’s office noted that she promised her voters she would get the Pueblo Jobs Act signed into law, and Comer’s office said that his district’s military base needed funding.

“Congressman Comer fully supports Representative Jim Jordan’s ongoing FISA reform efforts,” Comer’s spokesperson told the Daily Caller. “In 2023, he supported the National Defense Authorization Act because the legislation secured badly needed funding for his district military base Fort Campbell and delivered support to our men and women in uniform by repealing the COVID-19 vaccine mandate and providing a boost in pay.”

Mace’s office told the Daily Caller in a statement that the congresswoman did not support the inclusion of the FISA extension in the NDAA, despite her vote for the package in December 2023. The congresswoman’s spokesperson Gabrielle Lipsky noted that the bill included a “variety of priorities important to the thousands of active-duty service members she represents.”

“Rep. Mace did not support the inclusion of a FISA extension in the NDAA and does not support a FISA extension without significant reforms to section 702 to ensure the protection of Americans’ 4th Amendment rights,” Lipsky told the Daily Caller in the statement.

Still, 73 House Republicans, about one-third of the conference, voted against the NDAA.

Stefanik, Jackson and Wenstrup did not respond to questions regarding their previous support for the NDAA and how they would handle the upcoming Congressional vote.

Meanwhile, prominent civil liberties organizations and advocates on both ends of the political spectrum have made an effort to persuade Congress to change its approach to FISA.

“Demand Progress plays a leading role advocating for and organizing civil society in support of Congressional action to rein in warrantless surveillance,” Demand Progress, a left-wing civil liberties organization with a focus on internet issues told the Daily Caller in statement. “We have further driven tens of thousands of contacts to Congress opposing FISA reauthorization absent major new privacy protections for Americans against warrantless surveillance and have conducted exhaustive research documenting FISA abuse.”

“We will go and identify and work with those members to go and reach out and branch into other members of Congress and their offices where we can so like, I’ve met with all different kinds of, you know, different committees that have interests on this topic. We’re always talking with them about what this trade off is, and why it’s so important. We’re certainly pushing very hard as often as we can,” a member of the conservative group Americans for Prosperity told the Daily Caller.

For the time being, Republicans seem likelier to take up the intel committee’s version of reforms, which Turner’s office insisted to the Caller is sufficient to protect Americans.

“It’s the largest reform to FISA and the FBI in a generation. This bill contains over 50 reforms to prevent another Carter Page/Russia Hoax abuse from happening and drastically reduces FBI querying,” Jeff Naft, the communications director for Turner, told the Daily Caller in a statement.

AUTHOR

REAGAN REESE

White House correspondent. Follow Reagan on Twitter.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Watch Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green on ‘Tucker Carlson Uncensored’ Topic: Speaker Mike Johnson

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“Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one—the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts,…Your affectionate uncle, Screwtape.” ― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

“To sell your soul is the easiest thing in the world. That’s what everybody does every hour of his life. If I asked you to keep your soul – would you understand why that’s much harder?” ― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

“Compromise is the art of losing slowly” — Dr. Rich Swier, patriot, author and publisher.

Republicans, unlike Democrats, are determined to compromise in order to get things done. But does their strategy of compromise work? We think not.

A perfect example of this ability to compromise and by doing so losing is that of Speaker Mike Johnson and the most recent budget bill.

As President George Washington wrote, “We must consult our means rather than our wishes.”

Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. said, “Don’t tell me what you value, show me your budget, and I’ll tell you what you value.”

Here’s a short list created by the [3] of some of the items in the March 22, 2024 $1.2 trillion federal budget,

  • $400,000 requested by Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.) for Briarpatch Youth Services in Fitchburg, Wisconsin. The group promises to hide minors’ struggle with gender dysphoria from their parents while indoctrinating teens in extreme gender ideology.
  • $400,000 requested by Senator Bob Casey (D-Pa.) for the Mazzoni Center in Philadelphia, which carries out transgender hormone shots, clears the way for transgender surgeries, advertises transgender services for minors, and holds drag show fundraisers.
  • $1,808,000 requested by Senators Sheldon Whitehouse and Jack Reed (both D-R.I.) for Women and Infants Hospital in Providence, Rhode Island, which carries out first- and second-term abortions at its Family Planning Clinic.
  • $650,000 requested by Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) for Dartmouth Hitchcock Nashua in New Hampshire. “We routinely provide both medication and procedural abortion care up to 22 weeks of pregnancy,” the group declares.
  • $780,000 requested by Senator Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) for Amador Health Services in Las Cruces, New Mexico, which boasts that it “can provide transgender/gender non-conforming (GNC) health education, therapeutic counseling and referrals, and additional LGBTQ+ support that puts your safety and comfort first.

Also listed the following concerning earmarks in the 2024 budget:

  • “Sen. Bennet (D-CO), $845,000 – Envision: You, CO (SAMHSA) – LGBTQ advocacy.”
  • “Sen. Shatz (D-HI), $550,000 – Hawaii Health and Harm Reduction Center, HI (SAMHSA) – LGBTQ services and syringe exchange.”
  • “Sen. Schumer (D-NY), $1,000,000 — SAGE, NY (ACL) – LGBTQ advocacy.”

QUESTION: Do these $6,433,000 in appropriations and earmarks truly fit your personal values?

Listen to Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor-Green on why Mike needs to go and why.

The Bottom Line

Democrats don’t compromise. Republicans have shown that they are willing to bow down to the Democrats wishes being is policy, fiscal or social.

Remember that immediately after the inauguration of Joseph Robinett Biden Jr. the formed the J6 Committee. Since then they have placed in prison over 1,200 American on trumped up charges.

America’s patriots are looking for a little less talk and a lot more action from Republicans from the schoolhouse to the White House.

We have a candidate President Donald J. Trump who is a patriot and has promised concrete action to right our rapidly sinking ship of state.

This is why the November 5th 2024 election is so very important to restore and strengthen our Constitutional Republic form and government and equal justice under our laws.

C.S. Lewis wrote, “Do not let us mistake necessary evils for good.”

The time for compromise is over. Speaker Johnson, “Impeach Biden now!”

©2024. Dr. Rich Swier. All rights reserved.

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‘Your Obligation, Your Duty’: 14 GOP Governors Gather To Support Texas’ Right To Protect Its Borders

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Thirteen Republican governors attended a Sunday media briefing in Eagle Pass, Texas during which Governor Greg Abbott urged President Joe Biden to take action on the issue of illegal migrant entries along the southern U.S. border, CBS News reported.

Abbott intensified his clash with the Biden administration over runaway immigration issues, demanding immediate action to stem the flow of illegal migrants across the southern border, according to the outlet.

Abbott’s critique of Biden’s handling of border security was unreserved. He accused the administration of neglecting its duties, emphasizing the onus now falls squarely on the federal government to uphold the nation’s laws.

“Joe Biden, it is your turn now — your obligation, your duty, to follow the laws Congress passed and secure the border, just as Texas has,” Abbott stated.

The confrontation has been brewing for some time, with Texas taking unilateral steps to curb illegal crossings. State authorities controversially restricted U.S. Border Patrol access to Shelby Park in Eagle Pass in January. Abbott also attributes a significant drop in local illegal entries to Texas’ extendive deployment of razor wire barriers, asserting their effectiveness in securing the border area, the outlet reported.

Abbott didn’t hesitate to invoke constitutional rights in defense of his actions while also accusing Biden of facilitating unauthorized entry into the country. This sentiment was echoed by Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who criticized the federal government’s inaction, which compels states to take matters into their own hands, CBS News noted.

“Because of his failures, Governor Abbott is having to step up, governors from across the country are having to step up and do the job of the federal government because they simply won’t,” Sanders stated, according to CBS News.

The Texas governor was joined by Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, Idaho Governor Brad Little, Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb, Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds, Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry, Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves, Missouri Governor Mike Parson, Montana Governor Greg Gianforte, Nebraska Governor Jill Pillen, New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee and Utah Governor Spencer Cox, according to a release by Abbott’s office.

AUTHOR

MARIANE ANGELA

Contributor

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

‘Dead On Arrival’: Mike Johnson Rips Reported Details Of Senate Border Deal

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House Speaker Mike Johnson sent a letter to all House Republicans on Friday indicating his opposition to reported details of a border security deal being negotiated in the Senate.

The Senate is currently considering proposals to increase border security and reform the immigrant parole process for asylum seekers, demanded by Republicans, in exchange for authorizing aid to Ukraine to be used in its war against Russia. After alleged details of the plan were reported in the press, Johnson indicated that he would not support the deal should they be included, according to the letter which was obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation.

“I wanted to provide a brief update regarding the supplemental and the border since the Senate appears unable to reach any agreement,” began Johnson in his letter. “If the rumors about the contents of the draft proposals are true, it would have been dead on arrival in the House anyway.”

Letter from Speaker Mike Johnson of Jan. 26, 2024 by Daily Caller News Foundation on Scribd

The negotiations — currently being led by Republican Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma, Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut and independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona — have not yet been completed and a draft proposal has not been published. However, several media reports have alleged contents of the deal, which have spawned conservative opposition.

One alleged aspect of the deal, reported by The New York Times, concerns reform of “humanitarian parole,” a status granted by the Department of Homeland Security that temporarily permits some foreign nationals fleeing persecution to remain in the United States without obtaining a visa. The Biden administration has issued parole status to millions of foreign nationals from nations such as Cuba, Venezuela, Haiti, Nicaragua, Afghanistan and Ukraine.

Republicans seek to significantly curtail parole issuance to foreign nationals seeking asylum, who either present themselves at a port of entry or cross the border illegally. The draft proposal in the Senate would reportedly add detention capacity for U.S. Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to preclude the issuance of parole to illegal entrants, which is often done due to a paucity of space, the Times reported.

The deal also reportedly includes a reported threshold of migrant encounters per day that, if reached, would suspend parole and processing of foreign migrants. The threshold is reportedly 5,000 individuals per day, though that number is far below the current number of daily migrant encounters by Border Patrol, the Times reported.

“[T]here needs to be a hard cap on parole,” said Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.

“[T]hey want this outcome and this outcome is terrible for the American people,” said Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas on Thursday during a press conference to oppose the deal, which he termed a “stinking pile of crap,” according to The Hill.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell supports the deal, according to a report by Politico. “He’s fully behind the border bill, fully behind the support for Ukraine and is not going to let political considerations of any campaign stand in the way of his support,” said Republican Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, regarding McConnell’s views on the matter.

In 2023, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 2, known as the “Secure the Border Act,” which has served as the body’s border security proposal in negotiations. The bill would appropriate funds to construct a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico, prohibit asylum status for persons who enter the country illegally and expand the authority of law enforcement to remove foreign nationals ordered deported.

Other Republicans, however, have attacked the alleged parole reform for not being strict enough. “What is currently being worked on in the Senate will be meaningless in terms of Border Security and Closure,” wrote former President Donald Trump, the leading candidate for the party’s presidential nomination, in a statement.

Democrats, by contrast, want to preserve parole authority and limit removals of aliens, who have long been settled in the country yet are ordered deported from the United States. “Expanded nationwide expedited removal is an incredibly dangerous tool,” said Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla of California to NBC.

“I am emphasizing again today that House Republicans will vigorously oppose any policy proposal from the White House or the Senate that would further incentivize illegal aliens to break our laws,” Johnson wrote.

AUTHOR

ARJUN SINGH

Contributor.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

‘Super Expensive’: NRCC Drops Video Targeting Dems For Thanksgiving Food Price Hikes

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The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) released a video Wednesday, first shared with the Daily Caller News Foundation, seeking to hold Democrats responsible for Thanksgiving food price increases ahead of 2024.

The online advertisement, titled “Thanksgiving in Biden’s America” and launched by the House GOP’s campaign arm, depicts how some of the feast’s staples “are more expensive again this year,” arguing that “you can thank Democrats” for the price increases. Local prices for canned cranberries, canned pumpkins and russet potatoes are all up 60%, 30% and 14%, respectively, since 2022, according to the NRCC.

“It’s super expensive and I’m sharing the cost with some of my siblings,” a grocery shopper can be heard saying in the video.

“Definitely more conscious about what we purchase,” another said.

WATCH:

Inflation has spiked under the Biden administration, which has been attributed by critics to record levels of government spending approved by Democrats. Biden signed the American Rescue Plan in 2021 authorizing $1.9 trillion in new funding for COVID-19 relief, as well as the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which added $750 billion to the deficit and sought to advance the president’s green energy agenda.

“Unsatisfied with their war on Christmas, extreme Democrats launched a war on Thanksgiving. That’s why your Thanksgiving meal costs skyrocketed,” Ben Smith, NRCC rapid response director, told the DCNF in a statement.

While the average cost for a Thanksgiving table of ten has decreased by 4.5% since 2022, the price is still up by 25% at $61.17 since 2019, according to a report from the American Farm Bureau Federation released Nov. 15. Last year’s average Thanksgiving feast saw a record-high price of $64.05 compared to $48.91 from before the COVID-19 pandemic.

The NRCC is seeking to expand its majority in the House by targeting 37 seats held by vulnerable Democrats, including several that will now be open in 2024 following a wave of departures in Michigan, Virginia and California.

AUTHOR

MARY LOU MASTERS

Contributor.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

House GOP Is About To Drop A Massive Report Alleging That Biden’s DHS Chief Broke The Law

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House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green is set to release a lengthy report detailing his initial findings of his probe into Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas that details ways he believes he broke the law, he told the Daily Caller News Foundation in an exclusive interview.

Green launched a probe into Mayorkas on June 14 with the initial phase focusing on the DHS secretary’s alleged “dereliction of duty.” Green says the more than 100 pages of findings from the first phase of his ongoing probe will be released within the next couple of weeks.

“The list of everything that we’ve learned so far in phase one, the dereliction of duty phase will be published here very shortly. In fact, I’m proofing the final document, which is like 111 pages, but laws that have been violated. In some cases, we believe that Mayorkas has broken the law himself,” Green told the DCNF.

Green cited several instances where he believes Mayorkas has committed “intentional” and “willful dereliction of duty,” he said, referring to DHS’ use of the CBP One phone application to allow tens of thousands of migrants to enter the country each month through ports of entry at the southern border. He also believes Mayorkas lied to Congress when he asserted that DHS had “operational control” of the U.S.-Mexico border.

“There’s the lying to Congress, there’s the CBP One app, which is just this big shell game to produce automatic mass parole in violation of the laws passed by Congress. It is a wanton disregard for the separation of powers and the Constitution of the United States,” Green said.

“There’s also sort of negligent dereliction of duty. He admitted in the Senate that he didn’t understand the cartel strategy despite the fact that Merrick Garland very clearly understood it when he testified. If you’re the guy who’s in charge of homeland security and protecting the borders and going against the cartels, you probably ought to understand the major strategies of the drug cartels,” Green said, referring to Mayorkas seemingly not knowing about cartel wristbands used to track migrants crossing the southern border when previously pressed by Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.

WATCH:

Despite some House Republicans already having filed articles of impeachment against Mayorkas, Green stopped short of calling for such action until his investigation concludes.

Green said the final phase of the probe will include information from anonymous U.S. officials who have been speaking with the committee that he hopes will become whistleblowers and testify publicly. He told the DCNF in May that he was speaking with the officials and that they had shared evidence of “potential fraud” Mayorkas committed.

“Ideally, they would become whistleblowers, get protection and testify. They have reluctance to do so because of what’s happened at the DOJ with the guys who came clean there and then got bullied by the leadership,” Green said.

“So they’re obviously very concerned. I mean this administration has no concept of law and order and so these people are very concerned. We just have to figure out a way to make sure we can guarantee the protection because some of these people they have their retirements on the line,” Green added.

The second phase of Green’s investigation into Mayorkas will begin with a subcommittee hearing entitled “Biden and Mayorkas’ Open Border: Advancing Cartel Crime in America” Wednesday that will spotlight the fentanyl crisis, the DCNF first reported. It will be followed by a full committee hearing on July 19 “to examine how this administration’s reckless open-border policies have empowered cartels in Mexico to seize operational control of the Southwest border,” a committee spokesperson told the DCNF.

AUTHOR

JENNIE TAER

Investigative reporter.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

American Support For Same-Sex Relations Sees Biggest Decline Ever Recorded

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Support for same-sex relations has plummeted among Americans over the past year, according to a Gallup poll released Friday.

Gallup’s annual Values and Beliefs poll found that 64% of Americans believe same-sex relations are acceptable in 2023, compared to 71% in 2022. The 7-point drop in views of gay and lesbian relations represents the steepest decline of all polled social issues. Moral acceptance of same-sex relations has fallen to its lowest level since 2019, a year in which 63% of respondents said they found gay relationships “morally acceptable.” 

Still, the poll shows that same-sex relations are still viewed much more favorably than in past decades. In 2012, 54% of Americans found gay and lesbian relationships acceptable. In 2002, 38% of Americans found them acceptable. Likewise, a record-high 71% of Americans support same-sex marriage, according to a June 5 Gallup poll.

The backslide in acceptance same-sex relations comes mainly from Republicans, according to Gallup. Only 41% of Republicans reported finding same-sex relations morally acceptable, a sharp drop from the record-high of 56% in 2022. The 41% figure represents the lowest level of support same-sex for relations in nearly a decade. In 2014, 39% of Republicans found gay and lesbian relationships “morally acceptable,” according to the poll.

Support for gay relationships among Democrats slightly declined from 85% in 2022 to 79% in 2023. Independents saw a slight uptick, with support increasing from 72% to 73%.

The decline of same-sex relationship acceptance comes amid a broader backlash against the LGBT movement over the past year, with many Republican state legislatures moving to ban sex changes for children and explicit books featuring gay sex from school libraries. Conservatives expressed outrage against Bud Light and Target over the alleged promotion of transgender ideology, which has resulted in declining sales and stock prices for each entity, respectively.

Some have questioned if the political packaging of homosexuals with gender ideologues would result in a backlash against the gay and lesbian community.

“But when you examine the other issues at stake — public schools teaching the concepts of queer and gender theory to kindergartners on up, sex changes for children before puberty, the housing of biological males with women in prisons and rape shelters, and biological males competing with women in sports — you realize we are far beyond what the gay rights movement once stood for. It’s these initiatives from the far left that are new; and the backlash is quite obviously a reaction to the capture of the gay rights movement by queer social justice activists,” gay rights activist and public intellectual Andrew Sullivan wrote in a May blog post.

AUTHOR

COREY WALKER

Reporter.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Speaker McCarthy, Leaders Gather for Prayer and Repentance

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On a snowy Wednesday morning in Washington, D.C., hundreds of people made their way to the Museum of the Bible for a unique event: the National Gathering of Prayer and Repentance. Before dawn had even broken across the city, almost 60 speakers from different nations, organizations, political districts, and backgrounds responded to God’s call to humble themselves and seek His face.

“What you’re about to see,” Family Research Council President Tony Perkins said, “is something you won’t see on MSNBC, CNN, or even Fox — that is, members of Congress who are praying and crying out to God. … Know that God is answering your prayers, America,” Perkins urged, “by raising up leaders who love Him and fear Him.” Led by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (La.), 16 Republicans from across the country — Mary Miller (Ill.), Brian Babin (Texas), Rick Allen (Ga.), Michael Cloud (Texas), Robert Aderholt (Ala.), Tracey Mann (Kan.), Burgess Owens (Utah), Michelle Steel (Calif.), Gary Palmer (Ala.), Warren Davidson (Ohio), Randy Weber (Texas), Brandon Williams (N.Y.), Diana Harshbarger (Tenn.), Dan Bishop (N.C.), Nathaniel Moran (Texas), and Mike Johnson (La.) — took turns confessing sin and asking for God’s wisdom in the days ahead.

“We have lost our way,” Congresswoman Miller admitted, “because we have rejected you as Creator, Lord, and Savior. Now we are adrift and foolish, calling evil good and good evil. …We most humbly ask you to intervene, deliver us here in Congress and in our country from going our own way and thinking our own thoughts. Please, Heavenly Father, take the scales off our eyes. Help us to acknowledge our need of You. Our need to weep and mourn over our pride, our immorality, child abuse, and idolatry. Draw us back to you and to your word.”

Rep. Bishop asked forgiveness for a nation that has failed to understand “our dependence on You — for imagining that our blessings have come by virtue of our merit, our entitlement, our intellect, our effort.” We repent, he continued, “for acquiescing in the status quo. Forgive us for our lack of courage, our resignation, our cynicism, our hopelessness, our narrow self-interest, and ambition. Forgive us for making our government an idol and then for turning a blind eye as its instrumentalities have accumulated power and turned it against the humanity, the dignity, and the rights with which you have endowed the people. You ask who will go for me and whom will I send? Lord, send me. Forgive us, Jesus, King of all nations.”

After Leader Scalise read Psalm 33, Speaker McCarthy turned to the audience and said he was also asked to share a Scripture, but decided he’d like to “pray and read, if that’d be all right.” He started by thanking God that “we can still honor Your word, study Your word, and teach the next generation.” He asked for the Lord’s blessing on the leaders of Congress who joined him on stage and those who weren’t there today. “I want you to open their hearts. I want you to help them be bold.”

Then, knowing the difficult debates facing both parties, the speaker prayed for the president. “Father, you know I will meet with him today. Father, I ask that you open both of our hearts … that our meeting [would seek] your truth and help for this nation. … [W]e continue to seek your guidance. We ask that you give us the patience of Job. We ask that you give us the intellect, the leadership that you gave David.”

Perkins, who co-hosted the event along with Pastor Jim Garlow, also welcomed Anne Graham Lotz, Ambassador Sam Brownback, Rabbi Jonathan Cahn, former congresswoman Michele Bachmann, Pastor Carter Conlon, and 19-year-old Jacob Kersey, who recently resigned from his Georgia police department when he came under fire for posting a Bible verse about marriage.

Kersey pointed out how much we take for granted the privilege of coming before God in prayer. He lifted up the 800,000 “brave men and women serving in law enforcement,” many of whom are “excellent examples of strength, fortitude, character, and integrity.” “But Father,” he admitted, “we have problems too. We’re sinful human beings. And the events in Memphis and Minneapolis shed light on our brokenness and sin. … We need the Prince of Peace, Jesus. We need you.”

Too many believers, Brunson said — “many teachers of the church” — “have become ashamed of the clear teachings of Jesus Christ. Many care too much about maintaining respectability and social standing and … are not willing to stand against the mainstream of our society, to go against the current. There are all kinds of ways to rationalize compromise. We need to repent and love the truth.”

Luke wrote that “there would be times of distress with perplexities,” Bachmann explained, “meaning that the days would become so difficult that the problems would be humanly impossible to solve. That is our day,” she insisted. “And so it is altogether fitting and proper that we come to our Father with prayers and repentance. It is the only way. It is the best way. It is the right way. It is the healing way. It is the life giving way.”

To watch the National Gathering for Prayer and Repentance, click here.

AUTHOR

TWS Staff Report

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Republicans Win Control Of The House

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Republicans gained control of the United State House of Representatives, edging out a narrow victory in the tightly-contested midterm elections.

The GOP currently holds 218 seats after mail-in ballots caused over a week of delays in results, The Associated Press reported, though that number may grow as the last few remaining races wrap up. The elections were far closer than pre-midterm projections, with most pollsters predicting Republicans would take between 225 and 255 seats. 

“There was a widespread anticipation that [election night] was going to be a bad night for Democrats. But, you know, the question is like, How bad would it be? It was very likely that the House would flip, and by definition, that’s a bad night by any standard, but it’s a lot less bad for Democrats than I think we thought,” Charlie Cook of the Cook Political Report told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Though final results were below initial predictions, Republicans picked up key seats in Florida, taking 21 of 28 House districts, according to the Associated Press. In New York, Republicans flipped four traditionally blue Democrat seats, taking 10 of the 26 seats.

In Virginia, Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger was reelected, leading Democrats to take one more seat than Republicans, 6 to 5, according to the Associated Press. In Rhode Island, Democrat Seth Magaziner won his seat, despite pre-election predictions that the seats would turn red, according to The Washington Post.

In Georgia, where Republican Herschel Walker and Democrat Sen. Raphael Warnock are heading to a runoff, Republicans took 9 seats and Democrats took 5, according to the Associated Press.

“Here’s what we do know: While the press and the pundits are predicting a giant red wave, it didn’t happen,” Biden said in a news conference following the Nov. 8 midterm elections, according to The Washington Post. “[Voters] sent a clear, unmistakable message that they want to preserve our democracy and protect the right to choose in this country.”

AUTHOR

BRONSON WINSLOW

Contributor.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. 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.

Biden’s Rhetoric is a Threat to the Republic

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This isn’t just pandering to the base.

The only good thing about this speech is that it didn’t have a color scheme out of V for Vendetta and didn’t feature Marines in the background. Whoever runs these things at least learned from that attempt at looking like Biden was about to declare martial law, suspend habeas corpus and make everyone read Gender Queer and How To Be An Anti-Racist at gunpoint in a gulag.

The bad news is no one cared about that speech except conservatives. They care even less about this one.

With the countdown underway, voters have made it clear that they care about the economy and crime. Anyone who finds the “threat to democracy” routine persuasive is already a solid blue voter and ActBlue donor who probably showed up for at least one D.C. protest.

This isn’t just pandering to the base, it’s pandering to the Elizabeth Warren base.

Biden’s call to “vote knowing what’s at stake and not just the policy of the moment, but institutions that have held us together as we’ve sought a more perfect union are also at stake” is an admission that his faction has lost the policy argument and doesn’t have anything else to work with.

While the delivery is laughable, the premise isn’t. Biden’s speeches may not interest voters, but they continue to push the totalitarian message that “democracy” is embodied by Democrats and threatened by Republicans, that if Dems fail to win, then the result will be the end of America.

That kind of rhetoric is typical, but under Obama and Biden, it’s been backed up by arrests, investigations, surveillance, raids, imprisonment, censorship and the whole banana republic gamut.

The same speech delivered by the leader of a free country and say Vladimir Putin or Xi sound very different because they have really different implications. Biden, once again declaring that the opposition is a collection of “dark force” that “thirst for power” and will destroy democracy is election rhetoric, but it’s also become an actionable item for the DOJ, the FBI and Big Tech firms.

Biden’s rhetoric is a threat to the republic, not because words are scary, but because his allies have shown that they employ such rhetoric as cover for imposing totalitarian realities.

AUTHOR

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EDITORTS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

The Floodgates Just Opened For A Red Tsunami, Analysis Finds

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Republicans could win another 12 to 25 seats in the House of Representatives in a massive sweep this November, a new analysis from Cook Political Report predicted.

The predictions present an even more optimistic situation for Republicans than Cook’s last analysis, which predicted 10-20 seat gains for the GOP. Seats with Democratic incumbents were moved from “likely D” to “toss up” in four races, and two races with Democratic incumbents were moved from “toss up” to “likely R” in this week’s analysis.

“Enthusiasm is on our side, as evidenced by historic turnout from Republicans in primaries and early voting,” a GOP spokesperson told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Americans are rejecting Democrats’ failures from high prices to out-of-control crime to their woke agenda. Democrats are hemorrhaging support amongst voters across every state, district, and demographic.”

Republicans are beating Democrats in voter enthusiasm with a 78%-69% edge, strengthening their September lead but still not matching their lead prior to the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, according to Cook. Democrats are generally performing worst in blue states that swung heavily for Biden in 2020 including New York, Oregon and Connecticut; Cook attributes this to voters in red and purple states fearing abortion restrictions.

The House is currently controlled by Democrats by an eight-seat margin, but the results predicted by Cook would give the GOP a four-to-17 seat edge. Republicans have maintained a consistent lead in midterm polls, with voters primarily concerned about inflation and the economy and rating the GOP as more trustworthy in handling those issues.

Republicans are beating Democrats in voter enthusiasm with a 78%-69% edge, strengthening their September lead but still not matching their lead prior to the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, according to Cook. Democrats are generally performing worst in blue states that swung heavily for Biden in 2020 including New York, Oregon and Connecticut; Cook attributes this to voters in red and purple states fearing abortion restrictions.

The House is currently controlled by Democrats by an eight-seat margin, but the results predicted by Cook would give the GOP a four-to-17 seat edge. Republicans have maintained a consistent lead in midterm polls, with voters primarily concerned about inflation and the economy and rating the GOP as more trustworthy in handling those issues.

The Democratic National Committee did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

AUTHOR

LAUREL DUGGAN

Social and cultural reporter.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. 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.

Blake Masters: ‘We’re Remaking the Republican Party’ Because the ‘Establishment’ is ‘Out Of Touch’

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Republican Arizona Senate candidate Blake Masters said the GOP is out of touch with ordinary Americans and described how he’s breaking from some “establishment” norms in an exclusive interview with the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Masters said Republicans, including himself, were in agreement about many key issues such as low taxes and low regulations, but that he’s more skeptical of foreign intervention and more vocal about crime and immigration than some of his counterparts. He spoke with the DCNF at the National Conservatism conference in Miami Sunday.

“I think I’m speaking more boldly about the southern border and issues of crime than a lot of establishment Republicans,” he told the DCNF. “I’m running on this America First agenda, that’s what I believe in, and I think we’re remaking the Republican Party to really implement that America first agenda. I think that the Republican party that Paul Ryan wants, that’s not the Republican party the American people want.”

Masters is running against Democratic Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, who is leading him by 47 to 45 percentage points roughly two months ahead of election day, according to a Sept. 9 Emerson College poll. The race has been labeled a “toss-up,” according to the non-partisan Cook Political Report.

The “America First” agenda, according to Masters, prioritizes the needs of ordinary Americans, and that means focusing more on domestic issues and less on foreign intervention. He also said establishment Republicans tend to grow disconnected from normal Americans during their time in office, which he said was driving growing support for populist strains of conservatism.

“Establishment Republicans tend to be a little bit too disconnected from the people. I see this especially in the Senate,” he said. “You stack a few six-year terms and suddenly you’re too disconnected from American life and what working class and middle class people are feeling. They live in a bubble, and the America first groundswell happened because establishment Republicans are out of touch.”

One key area were he’s distancing himself from the Republican establishment is foreign policy; he said he is a non-interventionist by default and believe the U.S. government should avoid military intervention when it’s not strictly necessary.

“I’ve been much more skeptical, for instance, about sending $40 billion to Ukraine,” he told the DCNF. “I would’ve voted no, I don’t think we should be doing that, and I think the Republican establishment is still more hawkish on that.”

The comments come amid an apparent rift between Masters and the GOP: the Senatorial Republican Super PAC, which is affiliated with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, pulled millions of dollars in ad buys for Masters in Arizona in August.

Masters didn’t directly comment on whether the funds were being withheld due to the perceived conflict between him and the Republican establishment, but said he was confident that necessary funds would come in from Washington, Silicon Valley and Arizona in apparent references to McConnell and tech entrepreneur Peter Thiel.

“This race is too close, it’s too crucial and it’s too winnable. I don’t know when the dam breaks but I think we’re gonna have all the resources we need,” he said.

McConnell’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

AUTHOR

LAUREL DUGGAN

Social issues and culture reporter.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. 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.

Republicans Snag Over 1 Million Voters From Dems In Past Year: AP

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Over 1 million U.S. voters in 43 states have fled the Democratic Party since 2021 and registered as Republicans, according to a new report.

Republicans have gained major ground in suburban counties, according to the voter registration data examined by The Associated Press, as well as “in virtually every region of the country.” The findings come almost four months before the midterm elections in November, which a bipartisan swath of pundits has deemed a probable “red wave” in part due to messaging failures among the left.

“While Democrats may see a slight enthusiasm bump following the Supreme Court’s decision on abortion, it’s highly unlikely they’ll be able to sustain that for the next five months,” Andy Surabian, a Republican strategist, told The Daily Caller News Foundation.

Data for roughly 1.7 million voters who switched political parties was analyzed by the AP. The data, which according to the outlet comes from the political firm L2, reportedly shows that around two-thirds of the 1.7 million voters became Republicans — while only about 630,000 voters became Democrats.

Biden’s support in the suburbs has been widely credited as the reason for his success in the 2020 presidential election. While these areas “have tended to show a net advantage to Republicans,” Biden “registered a net Democratic advantage for the first time since Barack Obama’s victory in 2008,” Brookings Institution, a left-leaning think tank, said in a November 2020 report.

However, suburban counties near large cities like Denver, Atlanta and Pittsburgh, as well as near smaller cities like Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and Des Moines, Iowa, have garnered Republican support, the AP reported.

“Biden and Democrats are woefully out of touch with the American people, and that’s why voters are flocking to the Republican Party in droves,” Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel told the AP.

The data showing more registered Republicans comes after Democrats lost in droves across states last fall. In Virginia, Republicans swept statewide, notably taking the gubernatorial race with the election of Glenn Youngkin.

Republicans also won big recently in Texas, where Mayra Flores flipped a blue district in June with the support of Latino voters. The Democratic National Committee did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

AUTHOR

GABE KAMINSKY

Investigative reporter. 

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. 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.

Biden Takes ‘Death to America’ Terrorists Off Terror List, Replaces Them With Republicans

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Democrats say Muslim terrorists aren’t terrorists, but their political opponents are.

The Biden administration responded to protests against its stolen election by embedding a domestic extremism office into the National Security Council. The man in charge of making it happen, Joshua Geltzer, had previously denied that Black Lives Matter was a terrorist threat and had attacked the Trump administration’s response to Antifa and BLM violence in Portland.

That means that the only domestic extremists the NSC will be fighting are Republicans.

Even while the Biden administration is preparing to double down on Obama’s abuse of the national security state to target his political opponents, it’s also giving real terrorists a pass.

Joe Biden, whose biggest bundlers included the Iran Lobby, announced he was ending support for American allies fighting the Houthis, and then went even further by preparing to remove the terrorist organization whose motto is, “Death to America”, which took American hostages and tried to kill American sailors, from the list of designated foreign terrorist organizations.

The motto of Iran’s Houthi Jihadis is, “Allahu Akbar, Death to America, Death to Israel, Curse the Jews, Victory to Islam.” The Houthis took over parts of Yemen as a result of the chaos unleashed by Obama’s pro-Islamist Arab Spring. Since then they’ve been engaged in a protracted war while causing a local famine by confiscating food from the local population.

Last year, the Trump administration had finally secured the release of three American hostages, Sandra Loli, an American aid worker who had been held for 3 years, another American who had been held for a year, and the body of a third American, in exchange for 240 Houthis, including three dozen Islamic terrorists who had been trained in the use of missiles and drones by Iran.

Like those launched at the USS Mason.

The Houthis lived up to their “Death to America” slogan by repeatedly launching cruise missiles at the USS Mason which had been protecting shipping in the area. And they lived up to the second half of their slogan by ethnically cleansing the remaining local Jewish population, locking them up, and confiscating their homes and land. Local reports stated that the Houthis were “cutting off water & electricity to Jewish homes and preventing Jews from purchasing food.”

“No Jew would be allowed to stay here,” one of the Jewish refugees said.

The Iran-backed Islamic terrorists fight using 18,000 child soldiers. The soldiers, many abducted, some as young as 10, are taught to hate America and to kill enemies of Iran.

None of this stopped Biden’s State Department from taking the Houthis off the terror list.

“Secretary Blinken has been clear about undertaking an expeditious review of the designations of Ansarallah,” the State Department claimed. “After a comprehensive review, we can confirm that the Secretary intends to revoke the Foreign Terrorist Organization and Specially Designated Global Terrorist designations of Ansarallah.”

‘Ansarallah’ or ‘Defenders of Allah’ is what the Houthis call themselves. Blinken had only been confirmed on Tuesday. By next Friday, he had already somehow completed the “comprehensive review”, amid all the other minor business like China, Russia, and a global pandemic, and decided that the Islamic terrorists whose motto is “Death to America” aren’t really terrorists.

How can the Biden administration deny that Islamic Jihadis backed by Iran who attacked Americans are terrorists? The State Department claimed that this, “has nothing to do with our view of the Houthis and their reprehensible conduct, including attacks against civilians and the kidnapping of American citizens.” Not to mention the attacks on the USS Mason.

But the Biden administration isn’t even going to pretend to care about attacks on our military.

The Bidenites are claiming that they’re taking the Houthis, whom they don’t deny are terrorists, off the list of designated terrorist groups because of the “humanitarian consequences”.

That’s a lie, no matter how often you hear it in the media, because Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that the United States would be providing licenses to “humanitarian activities conducted by non-governmental organizations in Yemen and to certain transactions and activities related to exports to Yemen of critical commodities like food and medicine.”

That’s despite the fact that the humanitarian crisis in Yemen was caused by the Houthis.

Nevertheless the media, echoing propaganda from the Iran Lobby and Qatar, a close terrorist ally of Iran, has falsely claimed that the Houthis are the victims of the Yemen famine. A number of politicians, mostly Democrats, but some Republicans, as well as various aid groups, have pushed this same disinformation campaign about the causes of the Yemen famine.

America and its allies have spent billions providing food, medicine, and other humanitarian aid to Yemen. That aid has been seized by the Houthis who have used it for their own troops or to resell on the black market. This is a familiar problem from Syria to Somalia, and aid groups have refused to honestly address their complicity in aiding the terrorists who caused the crisis.

There’s no money in admitting that the aid an organization is providing is being seized by the terrorists, prolonging the conflict and worsening the humanitarian crisis. Some aid organizations share the same goal as the Houthis of worsening the crisis because it boosts their donations.

That’s why international aid organizations don’t want to talk about the Houthis taking their food donations, or about their use of child soldiers. “It’s a taboo,” an anonymous aid official had said.

When Secretary Pompeo announced that the United States was finally designating the Houthis a foreign terrorist organization, the United Nations took the lead in claiming that it would cause a humanitarian crisis. But the UN’s World Food Program had already admitted that its food shipments weren’t getting to the starving people because the Houthis were intercepting them.

The Middle East director for UNICEF also admitted that the Houthis were seizing food.

An Associated Press investigation found entire stores seling “cooking oil and flour displaying the U.N. food program’s WFP logo.” The former Houthi education minister said that 15,000 food baskets that were supposed to go to hungry families instead went to the Houthi terrorists whom the Biden administration is defending. Massive amounts of aid have been pumped into Yemen, and the famine has only grown worse because the Houthis have used starvation as a weapon.

The only way to end the famine is to end Iran’s grip on Yemen through its Houthi terrorists.

That’s obviously not what Biden or the Democrats have in mind. The loudest Democrat voices against designating the Houthis as a terrorist group have a troubling history with Iran.

“Reversing the designation is an important decision that will save lives and, combined with the appointment of a Special Envoy, offers hope that President Biden is committed to bringing the war to an end,” Senator Chris Murphy tweeted.

Murphy had been among the loudest voices against the designation.

And Murphy had met with Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif last year. That same year, he had advocated lowering sanctions on Iran for “humanitarian reasons”. Biden had also joined the push to use the pandemic as a pretext for reducing sanctions on the terror state.

That same year, the Left succeeded in forcing out Rep. Elliot Engel, one of the few remaining pro-Israel Democrats, and replaced him with the militantly anti-Israel Rep. Jamaal Bowman, whose election was backed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and her antisemitic ‘Squad’.

Engel, who had served as Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, was replaced by Rep. Gregory Meeks, a strong backer of the Iran Deal. Meeks’ position was cheered by Iran Lobby groups. As far back as 2009, Meeks had declared at a hearing, “I have developed a tremendous appreciation for the work of the National Iranian American Council. I am pleased that we will hear the perspective of NIAC’s President, Mr. Trita Parsi.”

Emails released allegedly showed Parsi telling Iran’s Foreign Minister, “I am having a meeting with Gilchrest and Meeks, and they asked for our assistance in getting some communication going between the parliamentarians.”

Speaking to the Islamic Republic News Agency, the official state news agency of the Islamic terrorist state, Chairman Meeks allegedly stated that he was willing to travel to Iran and had been engaged in dialogue with Iranian legislators.

Meeks took the lead in attacking the designation of the Houthi Islamic terrorists as terrorists, arguing that, “No solution in Yemen will be sustainable unless the Houthis are involved.”

And that gets at the real reason why Biden and Democrats oppose the designation.

It’s not about humanitarian aid, which would have kept on going anyway, only to be stolen by the Houthis. It’s about supporting Iran’s bid to take over parts of Yemen in order to control shipping and tighten the grip of the Islamic terrorist regime over the entire region.

The ‘diplomatic’ solution advocated by Biden and the Democrats would finalize Iran’s grip over parts of Yemen. Designating the Houthis as terrorists would get in the way of another in a series of Islamist dirty deals with Iran that began with Obama and that will continue on under Biden.

Even while the Democrats insist loudly that the Houthis must be part of the solution in Yemen, they just as vocally cry that the Republicans must be isolated and eliminated in America.

The Democrats militarized D.C. with an armed occupation and are criminalizing political dissent. They have claimed that one riot, after a year full of them by their own activist wing, requires a permanent state of emergency that will be run through the National Security Council.

The Biden administration is not only taking the Houthis, and likely other Islamic terrorist groups, off the terror list, it’s putting the domestic political opposition on its terror list. This is an extension of the same Obama policy that illegally shipped foreign cash to Iran even while it was using the NSA to spy on pro-Israel members of Congress and on the Trump campaign.

The Democrats are happy to fight terrorism by designating their domestic political opponents as terrorists while removing the “Death to America” Houthis who have kidnapped and killed Americans, who fired on the USS Mason, and ethnically cleansed Jews, from the terror list.

And what do the Houthis plan to do with their newfound support from the Biden administration?

In addition to sanctioning the Houthis, the Trump administration sanctioned three of their leaders, beginning with Abdul Malik al-Houthi. The Houthi leader has made it clear that he intends to build up the same missile program that was used to attack the USS Mason.

“To have rockets that could reach far beyond Riyadh, this is a great achievement,” he said, referring to the Saudi capital.

He also promised to send terrorists to fight against Israel.

“Many of Yemen’s tribesmen are ambitious to fight against Israel, and they are looking for the day to participate along with the freemen of the Islamic nation against the Israeli enemy,”

This is the terrorist group that the Biden administration and the Democrats are bailing out even while they’re criminalizing the Republican political opposition as terrorists.

“Death to America” is something that the Houthis and their Democrat supporters can agree on.

COLUMN BY

DANIEL GREENFIELD

Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism.

RELATED ARTICLE: Ilhan Omar named Vice-Chair of House subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, and Global Human Rights

EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

VIDEO: How the 2020 Election was Presented to Us vs. How It Really Was

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A demonstrator stands with supporters of President Donald Trump outside the Pennsylvania Convention Center where votes are being counted, on Nov. 6, 2020, in Philadelphia.

WATCH: How the election was presented to us vs. how it was.

RELATED ARTICLE: POLL: 78% Of Republicans Believe Presidential Election Was Fraudulent

EDITORS NOTE: This Vlad Tepes Blog entry was posted in Leftist election rigging by Eeyore. ©All rights reserved.