Joe Biden and the Reality Test

/in , , , , , , /by

According to recent polls, President Biden is stuck in the political doldrums. A recent average of several national surveys shows him holding a slightly less than 42% approval rating.

Close observers of presidential politics offer a host of reasons for this sustained ennui. The analyses are copious and a good number offer provocative and perceptive insights into the president’s enduring inability to generate enthusiasm for himself and his presidency.

I think a lot of them are missing something. It has less to do with public opinion than public judgment.

Opinions can change often depending on new information and changing circumstances. But public judgment is something more settled. As explained by political scientist Will Friedman, the term “public judgment” is meant to suggest “that people have thought and felt their way forward on an issue in a reasonably well-rounded, fair-minded way.”

The public’s judgment on Joe Biden seems to be calcifying, and it bodes poorly for his reelection.

That inflation has hit America hard is indisputable. Costs of everyday items from the cost of groceries to gas has bumped-up dramatically in the past couple of years. America’s standing in the world, especially with respect to China, is wobbly, at best. The non-stop, insistent drumbeat of “transgender rights” and the normalizing of homosexuality has gotten old. The hectoring of the liberal elites, speaking of all who disagree with their inspired cultural dicta with disdain, has reached an “oh, just clam up” phase. And Joe Biden is presiding over this confection of yuck.

The perception of American decline is now firmly rooted in the minds of most citizens. In April, Pew Research published a study showing that “sizable majorities of U.S. adults say that in 2050 — just over 25 years away — the U.S. economy will be weaker, the United States will be less important in the world, political divisions will be wider and there will be a larger gap between the rich and the poor.”

The joint perceptions of wisdom and strength are also essential in leaders. In these categories, the American people are skeptical of our president. A March 2023 Gallup survey found that only 37% of Americans believe “leaders of other countries respect Biden.” This is about the same percent that thought the same thing of Donald Trump during his final year in office — the difference being that Biden ran for the presidency based on his years as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations committee.

Yet more than two years into Biden’s foreign policy, “confusion abounds, with a troubling disconnect between the administration’s stated priorities and its conduct,” according to Kori Shake, formerly of the National Security Council and now a senior fellow of the American Enterprise Institute. Shake notes that the 2022 Defense Department budget included “$109 billion in spending on issues such as homelessness, climate change, and public health research that do not boost military power and that should be the responsibility of other government departments.”

Ordinary Americans do not follow the intricacies of international events or the minutiae of economic forecasts, but they are observant. Their gut feelings might not reflect meticulous research but that does not mean they are not correct. As William F. Buckley famously said, “I should sooner live in a society governed by the first 2,000 names in the Boston telephone directory than in a society governed by the 2,000 faculty members of Harvard University.”

My conclusion about the gathering judgment of my fellow citizens could be off the mark. If it’s not, President Biden’s political future appears dark. And that might well be the best thing for the future of our country.

AUTHOR

Rob Schwarzwalder

Rob Schwarzwalder is Senior Lecturer in Regent University’s Honors College.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2023 Family Research Council.

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.

Congress Hears from Experts on Gender Transition Harms to Minors

/in , , , , , , , /by

Medical experts and detransitioners met members of Congress at the Capitol Monday to discuss the lifelong damage America’s gender transition industry is inflicting upon minors. Coordinated by Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-Calif.), the information session aimed to improve member awareness of the issue with an eye toward holding a full-scale public hearing or even pass legislation to protect children through the House.

The developing issue caught LaMalfa’s attention after a constituent’s daughter was secretly transitioned in school, prompting the mother to file a lawsuit.

Other lawmakers attended for similar reasons. “My constituents care about it,” said Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), chairman of the Anti-Woke Caucus. “They’re outraged by it, by what’s going on in the culture and that kids can be coerced to make decisions that are life-changing and that they might regret later.”

LaMalfa has introduced the Protecting Children From Experimentation Act (HR 3328), which is similar to laws protecting minors from gender transition now enacted in 19 states, and the End Taxpayer Funding of Gender Experimentation Act (HR 3329), which would prohibit federal funds from subsidizing the experimental procedures. Senator Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) has introduced companion legislation in the Senate (S 1597 and S 1595, respectively).

Lawmakers were aware of the seriousness and gravity of subject matter in advance. “It’s such an important conversation and really uncomfortable conversation,” said Banks. And yet, Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-Wisc.) added, “Anything we can do to prevent anyone else from going down this path is worthwhile.”

Yet they hardly could have prepared themselves for the gripping emotion of the story told by Chloe Cole, a young woman who identified as a boy until age 16, but who already suffered life-altering consequences of gender transition procedures before she detransitioned. “I was a victim of so-called ‘gender medicine’ when I was only a child,” she summarized.

Cole explained that she felt like becoming a boy from an early age, related to childhood trauma and an early start to puberty. She then explained that her doctors manipulated her parents into reluctantly consenting to gender transition procedures with false claims of suicide:

“My parents wanted to prevent me from transitioning until I was at least a legal adult — and for good reason. My doctors, however, had something else in mind. They emotionally manipulated my parents, telling them there was no other option but to allow me to start treatment — or else. They said, it would be life or death. And they had to choose, they said, between having a dead daughter or a live, transgender son.”

In studies of adults who identify as transgender, the “suicide rate actually goes up because of the numerous complications,” noted Cole. “If these are the rates we see in adults, what do we expect regarding children?” Along with Cole, FRC’s Director of the Center for Family Studies Dr. Jennifer Bauwens and American College of Pediatricians President Quentin Van Meter established during the session that people who identify as transgender are as likely or more likely to commit suicide after they undergo gender transition procedures.

Cole argued it is “irresponsible to expect a kid to fully understand what these treatments throughout life will entail.” Believing she was a boy, Cole received a double mastectomy at age 13, but from age 16 she has regretted that operation — which she said she was not competent to consent to in the first place. “It pains me that I will never be able to breastfeed my children,” said Cole, “that I may not be able to conceive a child or naturally give birth, or that I may never be able to have a level of sexual function or pleasure.”

Cole described long-lasting side effects, such as complications from the skin grafts that force her to wear bandages on her chest every day, missed social development, “waking flashbacks of my transgender self,” and “a heavy sense of guilt for my parents, my family, my future spouse and children.” Worst of all, her “gender-affirming” doctors “rudely” discounted her physical suffering, showed no sympathy for her detransition, and gave her no guidance on how to wean off of hormones.

Detransitioner Walt Heyer spoke after Cole, describing his experience with living as a woman for years “without hormones or surgeries” and then undergoing a gender transition surgery in 1983. He said that a pioneer of gender transition procedures, Dr. Paul Walker, decided he needed surgery, even though his problems were actually due to early childhood trauma. Heyer said Walker admitted in court filings that it is impossible to change gender, that it is only possible to neuter patients.

Heyer, who detransitioned decades ago, now runs a ministry that has helped hundreds of detransitioners, and from his experience he said most people who are diagnosed or treated as transgender don’t even have gender dysphoria, but that their feelings stem from other causes. Regardless, he concluded, “I don’t care whether it’s a child or an adult. No one needs their genitals cut off. It’s barbaric. It’s insane. No one needs hormones. That is also totally insane. We’ve got to stop this stuff.”

While those providing gender transition procedures to minors often represent them as reversible, Dr. Van Meter said the industry “is blocking puberty” in young people “so they cannot resolve the issue” causing their gender dysphoria. Far from a “pause,” “it’s a purposeful way to go right down the pathway” to complete gender transition, he said. Cole also disputed the point. “The younger the patient begins intervention, the higher the rate of complication as the course of natural development is disrupted. Past a certain amount of time on hormones, and once a patient has had their ovaries or testicles removed … they will be dependent on hormone replacement therapies for life.”

“I can’t imagine how that would feel,” LaMalfa reflected. “‘They told me this would be the fix. And now I’ve got all these physical problems, and I don’t feel at all differently.’ That’s a disservice. That’s malpractice. That’s criminal, what’s going on.”

Panelists contended that even social transition is irreversible. “Once you open up pandora’s box and give a child a new name, new haircut, new clothes, new identity, everyone in that child’s life looks at them differently forever,” argued Van Meter. “You cannot put that back together. You cannot sew the family back together that’s been torn asunder by this.” Heyer agreed that there are “consequences to even suggesting or encouraging” social transition.

Beyond the tragic personal impacts, the panel’s medical experts emphasized the unscientific nature of transgender treatments. “There is no scientific basis for this,” said Van Meter, such that “they’re scrambling to develop curriculum” to train medical school students. “Europe has finally opened their eyes,” and the countries that embraced gender transition procedures for minors earlier than the U.S. are now abandoning them as unsound. Most recently, an official review of Norway’s guidelines called in March for the country to join Sweden, the U.K., and other countries in revising them.

Van Meter explained that all the medical associations trace their approval back to a pair of highly questionable Dutch studies — which gave rise to the “Dutch protocol” of “gender-affirming care” — which was destroyed by a peer-reviewed study published earlier this year. He said that the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) and the Endocrine Society first adopted the Dutch protocol, and all the other mainstream professional associations simply “rubber stamped” their work.

But to maintain the façade, these professional organizations must quench all dissenting opinions, continued Van Meter. At the Endocrine Society’s annual meeting last month, he said “the meeting was designed to basically shut up anybody with a contrary opinion.” Attendees, including himself, were required to sign a pledge to respect others, which he said amounted to not airing contrary views. And when he lined up to ask a question after one session on the topic, conference organizers departed from convention and announced there would be no questions taken.

“There are no standards of care for transgender health. None whatsoever. They are the opinions of ideologues,” said Van Meter. “What we need is a consortium of all of us — me and those folks I completely disagree with — to sit down at the table and come up with something in the middle. That would be a standard of care.”

But Van Meter said his attempts to establish such a consensus standard of care have been rejected. “I have, for the past four years, sent in a request to the major teaching academic societies in endocrinology to have a symposium where they have a balanced presentation. … We will never get a standard of care.”

Because this industry collusion prevents medical associations from establishing legitimate guidelines to care for children who identify as transgender, the panelists asked Congress to erect guardrails. “My profession has completely gone off the rails. We need you to intervene. We’re not protecting kids anymore. We’re harming kids,” pleaded Bauwens.

Members of Congress who were present asked elucidating questions to the panel. “What goes on in these people?” asked Grothman. He tallied up 12 or 13 people who in his estimation would have to sign off on a hospital offering gender transition treatments — psychologists, endocrinologists, surgeons, hospital administrators, and the hospital board. “It goes against all commonsense. Right? You’ve got to be almost nuts in your own mind to even approve this. Even a normal person, assuming this to be okay, would say, ‘We’re going to wait until you’re 18,’” he said.

Bauwens responded that “clinicians see it as a civil rights issue, not a medical issue, so they’re no longer doing proper assessments.” Van Meter added that there is “no question” that the transgender movement hooked itself onto the gay movement’s civil rights juggernaut — even though the issues are separate.

Banks also asked a pointed question, “Why all of a sudden? Why is gender confusion in our face everywhere … all of a sudden?” When panelists agreed that the internet was involved — Cole explained her exposure in detail — Banks noted that the internet has been around a long time. The panelists offered two additional pieces of the puzzle. First, in the early days of the internet, “in 1993, no one had treated a child in the U.S.” with gender transition procedures, said Van Meter. Second, Cole offered, the “internet has evolved to become more personal.” Through phone browsers and social media, promoters of gender transition procedures have direct access to children.

All this will lead to a tsunami of children suffering from the harmful effects of gender transition procedures. “There is an impending massive influx of children like me,” said Cole, “all of them missing various body parts, all of them still wishing they still had their voice, their sexual function, their fertility, their health, and their life back. And we need to create a place for these kids.” There is so little guidance right now, she lamented, “nobody even knows how to detransition.”

“For many children, it’s already too late,” said Cole, who added that she is “personally aware of thousands” of young people who have detransitioned or are trying to do so. Van Meter agreed, warning the gender transition industry is “going to hurt lots of kids before it’s shut down.”

“It seems diabolical to me,” responded Rep. Brian Babin (R-Texas), “doing this for profits, doing it to 13-year-olds. … I never would have thought that I would live to see this, where we don’t follow the science, where we can offer up our kids on the altar of profits and weirdness.” Babin added, “These doctors are playing God.”

The urgency of the situation required Congress to act, argued LaMalfa. “For people to be going alone on this, and be getting bad information — we’re elected leaders. And so, we need to buck up on this and lead and help get good information out to folks and then hold those accountable that are doing these barbaric things,” he said. “We need to drive this because it’s not a political agenda for us. It’s about getting the basic truth out.”

LaMalfa told reporters, “We just want to get the science out in front of people now. And so, we have a job to do here. You heard my colleagues say, ‘What committee can we do this in?’” While only four members attended the information session, a public committee hearing would publicize the truth far and wide. But LaMalfa set his sights even further. “I don’t [see a reason] why we can’t get something passed out of the House to get this started. We’ve already built on that earlier with the Women’s Sports [bill].”

LaMalfa also addressed some of the most common objections made against the bills, which were not debunked by the panel — such as the suicide myth. In response to those who might object that the bills deny health care or restrict personal liberty, LaMalfa said, “These decisions shouldn’t be made by minors. If this is something that adults want to make decisions about, that’s a different accounting. But even then, there needs to be clear information.”

LaMalfa also responded to federalism concerns, given that many states have already passed similar legislation. “If the federal government is going to be looking out for people’s individual rights and liberties … then maybe we need to have a federal standard. Because I don’t see California embracing what we’re talking about,” he said. “In fire season, people don’t care what color fire truck is coming … they just want the fire put out. I think they want solutions from their elected leaders whether it’s county, city, state, or federal to get things back on track to protect their kids and the values they have.”

Other members who attended agreed with the need to bring more publicity to the issue through a public hearing. “This conversation’s going to reach a lot of people, but most importantly it’s going to reach our policymakers as we wrestle over what to do about it,” said Banks. Babin added, “Truth can only be covered up for so long.”

AUTHOR

Joshua Arnold

Joshua Arnold is a staff writer at The Washington Stand.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Texas Enacts Law Prohibiting Gender Transition Procedures on Minors

Joe Biden and the Reality Test

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2023 Family Research Council.

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.

Pride Month Kicks Off With Outrageous Sexual Acts In Front Of Children Nationwide—Worse than Sodom and Gomorrah!

/in , , , , , , , , , /by

Worse than Sodom and Gomorrah!

Pride Month Kicks Off With Outrageous Sexual Acts In Front Of Children Nationwide

Family friendly? Not so much…

By Ray Dietrich, Red Voice Media, June 5, 2023:

It appears we have gone from ‘People love who they love’ to disgusting acts being performed in front of children as part of so-called Pride Month, and there are no signs of it slowing down.

In Los Angeles, at an event advertised as a ‘family event’ two men can be seen in bondage gear simulating choking in front of the crowd:

In Tempe, Arizona at an all aged ‘Pride Party’ a rapper performed songs about anal sex, converting straight men, and more in front of children:

Read more.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

RELATED ARTICLE: Move over American flag. Now U.S. troops salute ‘rainbow flag’

RELATED TWEETS:

RELATED ARTICLES:

Norway Bans Child Sex Mutilations (Gender-Affirming Surgery), joins Finland, Sweden, and UK in Rejecting Gender Ideology

“Human Rights” Campaign Declares a National State of Emergency for LGBTQ+ People

Target Funding Woke Group That Wants Mount Rushmore Shut Down

Christian Man in Pennsylvania Arrested for Reading the Bible

NYC Unveils Vending Machines with Free Crack Pipes and Drug Kits

NYC Mayor: 50 Houses of Worship Will Now Become Shelters for Illegals, Wants NYers to Open Their Homes To Migrants, “They Have Spare Rooms”

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

DEFUND THE UN: Islamic Republic of Iran Named Vice President of General Assembly

/in , , , , , , /by

The UN is a disgrace. It has not met the goals for which it was founded, and it will not do so. The U.S. should leave it and expel it from New York. But we would need a sane, America-First administration for that.

Iran named vice president of UN General Assembly

JNS, June 5, 2023:

Following Iran—a country that executes its citizens for “blasphemous” social-media posts—gaining leadership over a U.N. forum based on promoting human rights through technology, the Islamic regime in Tehran has now gained another position of influence within the international body dedicated to fostering peace: vice president of the General Assembly.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry called it “a shameful decision.”

It said: “In addition to murdering its own citizens, attacking innocents around the world and racing towards a nuclear weapon with the goal of wiping Israel off the map, Iran will now serve in a senior U.N. position.”

The ministry noted that Iran advocates for the elimination of Israel, a fellow member of the United Nations, saying “this decision, which defies all logic and reason, is an insult to the millions of Iranians protesting for their basic freedoms and to the justice, peace and global stability that the U.N. is supposed to stand for.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a short video with a simple message: “I have heard all of the reports about Iran. I have a sharp and clear message for both Iran and the international community: Israel will do whatever it needs to do to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.”…

Read more.

AUTHOR

ROBERT SPENCER

RELATED ARTICLES:

Blinken says Iran will not be allowed to get nukes, calls for new diplomatic solution with Islamic Republic

Iran: Khamenei blames protests on ‘thugs and villains,’ says he won’t back down from enmity to U.S.

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

U.S. State Department Pushes LGBTQ ‘Pride’ Everywhere Except Muslim World

/in , , , , , , , , /by

U.S. embassies celebrate “Pride Month” from the Vatican to Jerusalem, but not in Saudi Arabia.

In June, United States embassies across the world get ready for the biggest patriotic celebration of the year. Flags are taken out of the attic, ironed and hoisted in rainbow swirls across the sky.

From Europe to Latin America to Asia, Africa and Oceania, the new flag of the nation flies across what used to be the worldwide diplomatic outposts of the United States of America.

This is done without regard to the religious feelings or sensibilities of the host nation.

In Vatican City, the U.S. Embassy flew the rainbow flag and tweeted that it “stands with the LBGTQI+ community against discrimination and other forms of persecution because of who they are and whom they love.”

In Jerusalem, outgoing Ambassador Tom Nides cheerfully declared “Shabbat Shalom” from a gay pride parade that featured a drag queen. Nides had made no comment about the murder of Meir Tamari, the 20th person in Israel killed by Islamic terrorists so far this year.

In India, Ambassador Eric Garcetti, the former Los Angeles mayor whose inappropriate nomination had barely survived the scandal of his aide sexually harassing men, broadcast a video in which he raised the pride flag, with more dedication and drama than the Marines at Iwo Jima, before delivering a speech about the importance of the LGBTQ movement.

In Paris, the embassy celebrated “#IncroyableDiversité” while the embassy in Moscow put up a rainbow mural of Biden declaring in Russian that, “Pride is a celebration of generations of LGBTQI+ people, who have fought bravely to live openly and authentically.”

In Port-au-Prince, Haiti, a country where the people are starving, children are being sold as sex slaves and the streets belong to gangs, the white ambassador convened white staff members to attend a Pride Month ceremony. The wind was blowing hard and the participants might have smelled ash, misery and human waste. Some of the locals have taken to setting each other on fire, but surely they appreciated the ambassador’s thoughts on LGBTQ pride.

Few Americans were in attendance since the embassy had previously issued an alert warning tourists not to come “due to kidnapping, crime, civil unrest, and poor health care infrastructure.”

But while State Department facilities from Bogota, Columbia to Pretoria, South Africa put aside their pressing business to celebrate Pride Month, and the embassies in Warsaw, Poland and the Philippines joined in, there were notable exceptions from the global celebration of ‘Pride’.

The United States embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia bafflingly neglected Pride Month. In Islamabad, Pakistan, insult was added to injury when the embassy instead commemorated Urs, a festival marking the death of a Sufi saint, without even a single rainbow emoji in view.

The Saudis would seem to be more in need of hearing about gay rights than the Haitians or the French since under Sharia law the penalty for pride is being stoned to death. The Pakistanis could also use a few rainbow flags since they lock up gay people while freeing terrorists.

The Biden administration recently vented its outrage because Uganda passed some laws criminalizing homosexuality. There has been talk of threatening one of the poorest nations in the world with sanctions. But where are the sanctions for Saudi Arabia? Or other Muslim countries?

A decade ago, Brunei brought back Sharia law and the death penalty for homosexuality. The US embassy in Bandar Seri Begawan failed to mention Biden’s views on ‘Pride’ and instead promoted ‘Sports Diplomacy’ through soccer. There are no sanctions for Sharia law.

And no mention of Pride Month in our outreach to the Muslim world.

Pride Month was missing in action in Baghdad, where the U.S. embassy has enough problems since the only thing Iraqi Sunni and Shiite Muslims agree on is trying to kill them. If the Kuwait embassy celebrated the Stonewall riot, they kept it to themselves. No rainbow flags could be seen in Jordan where all the focus was on the royal marriage of its dictator. Nancy Pelosi recorded a message on the marriage, but sadly had nothing to say about LGBT rights.

The same was true in Yemen, currently caught in a civil war between Sunnis and Shiites over who gets to impose Sharia law on whom. Neither side will be particularly interested in any rainbow flags. And Biden isn’t interested in telling either side about ‘Pride Month’.

The US Embassy in Cairo focused on Jill Biden’s visit to Egypt where she met with women wearing hijabs and pretended to understand what they were saying to her. The honored doctor made no mention of the LGBTQ movement to the women in the hijabs.

While the U.S. Embassy in Bern, Switzerland urged, “This month and every month, let us celebrate the pride that powers the movement for LGBTQI+”, the message did not reach the U.S. Embassy in Algiers. “Pride Month is kicking off in the U.S. today! We’d love to know: What does Pride mean to you,” the U.S. Embassy in Brussels asked. But the U.S. Embassy to the UAE instead bafflingly urged the locals to come to Michigan to get degrees in Arabic Language..

But that’s how you get more Muslim Brotherhood members and win elections in Michigan.

To understand the mystery of why some embassies and consulates, but not others, celebrate Pride Month, take a trip to Kabul. Not literally, as that would be a worse idea than visiting Haiti or Baltimore, but via the digital outposts of the nation’s failed diplomatic empire.

In 2021, the US Embassy in Kabul tweeted, “The month of June is recognized as (LGBTI) Pride Month. The United States respects the dignity & equality of LGBTI people & celebrates their contributions to the society. We remain committed to supporting civil rights of minorities, including LGBTI persons. #Pride2021 #PrideMonth.”

In August 2021, the Taliban took Kabul. The embassy ‘saigoned’ itself out of there, but not before costing at least 13 American lives, and is now permanently virtual. The collapse of Afghanistan is not enough to shut down any part of the State Department. Despite being unable to operate in Kabul, the U.S. Embassy continues to conduct its business. Foreign aid, which was 99% of our function in Afghanistan, continues to flow by the billions to the terrorists.

The U.S. Embassy in Kabul has taken the time out to celebrate ‘Mother’s Day’ in Pashtun (a people that believes that mothers should be ‘burkaed’ and beaten, not heard), ‘Asian American, Native Hawaiian, & Pacific Islander Heritage Month’ and ‘World Press Freedom Day’ in a nation where the only free press is living in caves.

Afghans with access to Twitter are informed that there are over 2,700 mosques in America.

Most of those Afghans can only wonder what the hell is wrong with America. The U.S. Embassy in Kabul (not actually in Kabul) believes that the one thing that can give Afghans hope is the knowledge that the Taliban aren’t just taking over in their country, but also in America.

Among all this diplomat-ish nonsense, the one thing you won’t find the U.S. Embassy in Kabul tweeting about is Pride Month or displaying any colorful rainbow flags.

What happened between Pride Month 2021 in Kabul and all the lost pride months since?

Afghanistan, like the rest of the Muslim world, is now fully run under Sharia law. We didn’t have to worry about offending the old puppet regime, but we strive not to offend the Taliban.

There’s no more talk of Pride Month to Afghans, no lesbian studies or any of the stuff that our diplomats used to waste their time on while American boys were fighting and dying in valleys.

The Biden administration will fly its Pride flags in Vatican City and Jerusalem, but you won’t hear about it in Riyadh, Doha, Islamabad or Kabul. In the great intersectional roundabout, Muslims are higher on the totem pole than ever drag queens and not a word must be said to offend them. It’s alright to offend Catholics and Orthodox Jews, but thou shalt not cross a Koranist.

The flags of Pride Month fly from Warsaw to Bogota, and from Oslo to Port-au-Prince, but the army of pride doesn’t venture to hang its banners in Baghdad, and never mind, Benghazi.

Like feminism, the LGBTQ movement stops at the line in the sand drawn by Sharia law.

And the Biden administration, the State Department, and the alphabet soup activists are fine with that, because it was never about rights, but about bringing down western civilization.

There’s no need to hang up flags in Riyadh, when your goal is to destroy Rome and Jerusalem.

AUTHOR

DANIEL GREENFIELD

RELATED TWEETS:

RELATED ARTICLES:

Facebook destroys the Robert Spencer author page

India: 60 recent incidents of Muslim boys brutally murdering Hindu girls

That Epidemic of Bicycle Theft in the Netherlands, and its Remedy

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

 

 

PODCAST: Style guide avoid terms like ‘biological sex’ and is America the home of the brave?

/in , , , , , , , /by

GUESTS AND TOPICS

TERRY SCHILLING

Terry Schilling is the President of American Principles Project. Terry is responsible for developing, coordinating and implementing APP’s strategy, messaging and grassroots activity at the state and federal level. As the son of a small business-owner, Terry knows how to leverage limited resources to generate maximum results. He takes the same approach to politics—especially campaigns. In the past, Terry has worked in communications, development, grassroots, and management positions with Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), Sen. Sam Brownback, and various state and local candidates. Before joining APP, Terry managed his father’s race for Congress in Illinois. Running in 2010 on a shoestring budget in a district that had been Democratic for nearly 30 years, Terry led the Bobby Schilling for Congress campaign to a 10-point victory.

TOPIC: Major media style guide tells press to avoid terms like ‘biological sex,’!

DR. RICH SWIER

Dr. Rich Swier is a “conservative with a conscience.” Rich is a 23 year Army veteran who retired as a Lieutenant Colonel. He was awarded the Legion of Merit for his years of service. Additionally, he was awarded two Bronze Stars with “V” for Valor and Heroism in ground combat, the Presidential Unit Citation, and the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry while serving with the 101st Airborne Division in Vietnam. Dr. Rich now publishes the the “DrRichRwier.com report“. A daily review of news, issues and commentary!

TOPIC: America Has Gone From The Home of the Brave to the Land of the Terrified!

©2023. Conservative Commandoes Radio. All rights reserved.

The Anti-Christ King & The ‘Mammon Centric System’

/in , , , , , , , , /by

“5. And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. 6. And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. 7. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech. 8. So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city. 9. Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.” — Genesis 11, King James Bible

The present push to return to the Babylonian, One World, Luciferian, Mammon System, ( just as on the ancient plain of Shinar in Babel ) is a grim harvest of souls, lost to the inversion of language and values, which the Satanic Marxists employ to confuse and destroy.

These were the very same attacks Karl Marx formulated in his initial scheme to dismantle Prussian society, which utterly rejected him and his rebellious blasphemy – banishing him to England and the godless stacks of the Mammon Crown’s British Library.

“Marx & Satan” by Richard Wurmbrand, samples some of Marx’s early doggerel in this line.  His really was full-throated rebellion from his Creator, just as Satan has and continues to be.

British Ashkenazi Jewish Lord Rothschild supported Marx to create his societal deconstruction attack in the 1840’s, which appeared in this period, with assistance of fellow godless Communists, Friedrich Engels & German Ashkenazi Jewish Zionist Racist Moses Hess.

The Ashkenazi Jews are not of the line of Shem — from whose great grandson Eber is sourced the name “Hebrew”, to describe the tribe that became God’s chosen people.

In fact, the Ashkenazi are west-Asian Khazars, from the area known today as, the Ukraine.

Friends, are we beginning to smell the coffee here?

Noah’s eldest son Japheth had a grandson named Ashkenaz  — who was never of the line to the Hebrews, the House of David and the birth of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, the only begotten Son of God.

In fact, the adoption of the nomen ‘Ashkenazi’ was naught but singular, fictitious political device, adopted by the Khazars, who found themselves threatened from the east by the Mohammedans and the Persian Empire and opposed by European Christendom from the west, should they adopt Moslem practice.

Mohammedans came to allow that ‘Jews’, as people of the Book, might escape the sword in failing to convert, enduring second class citizenship called ‘dhimmitude’  — to wit, Bondage, something Mohammedan Slavers practice in brutal depth, through the centuries to the very present.

Thus the Khazars adopted Judaism as expedient to survival  — with the additional benefit of Usury, the charging of interest, something not permitted among Christians, but ongoing among Jews.

It is in fact, that godless, Khazarian Usury, that continues as root of the Satanic Mammon Centric System, lorded over by the British Rothschilds, and the other Khazarian Families—and now occasion for the venal, opportunist, Bushes, Clintons, Obamas, Bidens et al, to involve

Christian America’s Blood and Treasure in the ancient mammon racket of the Money Masters of Khazaria.

Now, after three centuries, the godless, Mammon-actuated Crown  – ever lusting after TOTAL CONTROL of the People, Resources and Production of the Christian American Republic, the first nation ever so created, under God – grows restive, flaunting before all Christendom open, Marxized, Satanic ritual, worshipping Moloch the baby killer, on 28 July 2022, in a Commonwealth Games Marxized stadium ceremony, presided over by Charles, now King Charles III, at Birmingham, UK—surely now become the Anti-Christ King.

We kid not.

Please see at time 1:19:41, “Identified! The Fourth Horseman, the Antichrist named Death”

It is real and it is abomination and it is the actual, mortal enemy of God-fearing Americans and Christians the world over, whom our grandfathers, fathers & brothers have opposed unto death, under their righteous arms, and the doctrine of Citizen Rulers in Romans 13.

“3. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same: 4. For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.” — Romans-Chapter-13

Arise now America, in Christian repentance, to your renewed calling to defend your Godly American Republic as The Sovereign Rulers, to restore Christ’s Liberty in America and mete justice to Mammon Offenders, in God’s wrath, for His Greater Glory, in Jesus’ Precious Name.

Amen and Godspeed, Should the Lord tarry in triumphant return.

“1. Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.” — Galatians 5, King James Bible.

©2023. DEACON. All rights reserved.

10 Things for Christians to Remember during Pride Month

/in , , , , , , , , /by

We all know it’s coming and in various ways we are bracing for it. You’ll be navigating workplaces, city streets, social media feeds, and corporate events celebrating it. The first thing to understand is that “Pride month” does not mean the same thing to everyone.

For many, Pride month is seen as a month of inclusivity and tolerance where people are seen and reminded that they matter. In significant ways, these are values that Christians share. But there’s so much more to it.

The message of Pride is not that you matter because you are created in the image of God, a message Christians not only agree with but started. No, Pride is a declaration of independence against nature and nature’s God. It is a claim that we can do whatever we want and no one can stop us. Live your truth. Live authentically.

In addition, for many, the symbolism has come to represent oppression, intolerance, and hate. The rainbow flag, which has now become much more than a rainbow, represents a movement that is pushing speech codes, that has closed businesses, and harassed people because they did not share a commitment to the sexual revolution or would not affirm that men can become women and get pregnant.

It’s interesting that Pride month falls right in the middle of Memorial Day and the Fourth of July. On Memorial Day, we celebrate those who gave their lives for our freedom. On the Fourth of July, we celebrate our independence from tyranny and those who pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor so we could live as free people. Our nation, and those who died for it, get one day. But the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence get an entire month. If that doesn’t seem right, it’s not.

But let’s not get angry or panic. How do we think soberly, act biblically, and maintain our joy as we wade through this month-long celebration of sin?

Here are a few things to remember.

1. Pride celebrations are not new.

Although pride parades down the streets of America’s cities are a relatively recent development, people making a declaration of independence from God is so old it is almost cliché.

In the Garden of Eden, God told Adam and Eve not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:16-17; 3:2-3). However, Eve, with Satan’s help, convinced herself that doing things her way would help her become like God. Perhaps she decided she was spiritual, not religious.

She observed that the tree was good for food, that it was a delight to the eyes, and that it was desirable to make one wise (Genesis 3:6). She convinced herself that her rebellion would not be rebellion at all but virtue. She had followed the old rules long enough and found them to be stifling of her individuality. She was ready to chart a new path and live her truth and even convinced her husband to join her celebration. They may have even felt a sense of pride as they freed themselves from the bondage of God’s rules.

Basically, Adam and Eve started these parades and we’ve all participated in various ways and with varying degrees of enthusiasm.

2. You can love the way God wants you to or the way the world wants you to, but not both.

Much will be said about love this month. T-shirts, memes, and parade signs will declare that “love is love” and that “love wins.” Whether Christians can agree with these sentiments depends on how “love” is defined. Proponents of the sexual revolution would have us believe that we show love for someone by affirming identities, indulging desires, and encouraging each other to “live your truth.” But God’s definition of love is very different.

Scripture reminds us that “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful” (1 Corinthians 13:4-5). But then it goes on to remind us that love “does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth” (1 Corinthians 13:6). This crucial verse is where God’s understanding of love and the world’s understanding of love diverge. God’s love forbids the celebration of things God does not celebrate. The world’s understanding of love requires it.

This means that a Christian’s unwillingness to celebrate Pride month will be seen by the world as an act of hate and by God as an act of love. Christians must choose whose definition of love they will accept.

3. No one is beyond the love or reach of Jesus.

While Christians are right to separate themselves from celebrations of sin, we should be equally careful to avoid a different but equally bad kind of pride — self-righteousness. If Christians have any goodness within ourselves, we do not deserve the credit. After all, “[God] saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit” (Titus 3:5).

Rather than a sense of self-righteousness, Jesus modeled how our hearts should respond to people who are lost:

“When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest’” (Matthew 9:36-38).

When we see crowds who are lost, we should be moved to compassion, not self-righteousness.

4. Don’t be afraid.

This month, some will encounter a city street lined with rainbow flags or unwittingly expose their child to sexual revolutionary propaganda on “Blues Clues” and be prone to despair. Don’t despair.

Fear is never from God. (2 Timothy 1:7). Whatever situation you are dealing with, God is not surprised by it, nor is it beyond His control. However, He knows we are prone to worry, which is why Peter encourages us to cast all our anxieties on him (1 Peter 5:7). The same God who formed the mountains and put the planets into orbit is aware of the situation and handling it.

The good news is that our moments of weakness are the moments God does His best work in us. While the culture takes pride in their independence from God, we should boast in our dependence:

“But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me” (2 Corinthians 12:9).

Maybe we should start our own pride parade; it would be kind of the same but also very different.

5. Being a Christian is supposed to feel weird.

One of the challenges of Pride month is that Christians often feel different. Most of us would prefer not to feel different. We want to blend in and be noticed only for how nice we are to people. But when someone at work is going from office to office asking people if they want a rainbow sticker for their window, the only way to blend in is to conform. So now you feel different.

But that’s how it’s supposed to feel. This is not our home. “Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul” (1 Peter 2:11). We aren’t supposed to do or love the same things as the world around us. “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him” (1 John 2:15). If being a Christian makes you feel different than other people, good. You are different. The real problem would be if you never felt different.

6. Don’t give an inch.

It’s possible to avoid feeling different, just do what everyone else is doing. Just provide your preferred pronouns or tolerate a rainbow flag in your office window. Other times, all you must do is keep your mouth shut. But don’t do it. The path of compromise only seems easy, but it’s not. After all, “The fear of man is a snare. But whoever trusts in the Lord is kept safe” (Proverbs 29:25).

It’s easy to rationalize seemingly small compromises. All Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego needed to do to avoid being thrown into a furnace was bow (Daniel 3). Surely, God would understand that they weren’t actually worshipping the idol. Right? They could have easily told themselves they needed to stay alive and maintain a good relationship with the king who had shown them so much trust. After all, God couldn’t use them if they were dead. But remember, it’s not you who is going to do the work, it’s God. God did change the heart of the King, but he did not use their influence, he used their obedience. Give Him your obedience.

7. Remember what you’re saying “YES” to.

During Pride month, Christians are required to say no to some things. We can’t participate in sin (Ephesians 5:11) nor can we celebrate evil (1 Corinthians 13:6). So you may be accused of being “anti” everything. These are moments it’s helpful to remember that anytime you say “no” to one thing its because you’re saying “yes” to something else. Something better.

When we say “no” to doing whatever you want sexually, it’s because we are saying “yes” to virtue, discipline, delayed gratification, and the satisfaction and intimacy that comes from forming relationships God’s way. When we say “no” to the idea that boys can become girls, we are saying “yes” to finding our created purpose. When we say “no” to surrogacy so that a child can be placed with two dads, it’s because we are saying “yes” to each child being known and loved by both their parents. When we say “no” to bad ideas, it’s because we’re saying “yes” to better ideas. Every time.

8. Pray for those who curse you.

One reason Christians shouldn’t be surprised when we are misunderstood or mistreated is because Jesus spent significant time telling us what to do when it happens. “Bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you” (Luke 6:28). Our responsibility is not to avoid every conflict, but to respond to it correctly when it happens.

That means we have to pray for those who treat us poorly. “But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you” (Luke 6:27). Praying for those who treat us poorly helps us love people, even if they don’t love us back. “For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?” (Matthew 5:46) This is the goal of every day of every month. Pride month changes nothing, it just gives us more opportunities to love people the way Jesus does.

9. Pride comes before a fall.

It’s ironic that those who started “Pride” events used the term “pride” to describe them. They named their entire movement after one of the seven deadly sins; a sin that Proverbs assures us is the prelude to our destruction: “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall” (Proverbs 16:18). It is almost as if God was looking to make it obvious what was actually happening here. Just as we would be wise to avoid celebrating “Wrath Month” or a “Lust Parade,” Christians should be wary of celebrating pride. After all, we know what happens next.

10. God will have the last word.

In Daniel chapter 5, Belshazzar, the king of Babylon, throws a party while an invading army is gathering around the city. He was so confident that the walls that had protected him his whole life would continue to protect him that he mocked an invading army by inviting his military to party rather than prepare for battle. Belshazzar was very confident, or at least he wanted to project confidence. Then God interrupted his party.

In a scene that gives us the phrase “the writing on the wall” the hand of God showed up and wrote a message on the wall. The interesting thing about the message is that Belshazzar was not able to read it, after all, he summoned Daniel to interpret it for him. Nevertheless, “the king’s face grew pale, and his thoughts alarmed him; and his hip joints went slack, and his knees began knocking together.” What we see here is what happens when fake power meets real power. The world is filled with people who have some form of cultural or political power, but when they are confronted with real power, their confidence disappears immediately.

Pride month is fake power celebrating its fake power, and it will survive only until God decides He has had enough. And that moment is coming. Our job is to make sure we’re doing what we can to remind people where the real power is and that opposing Him will never be a good decision — which is the opposite of pride.

AUTHOR

Joseph Backholm

Joseph Backholm is Senior Fellow for Biblical Worldview and Strategic Engagement at Family Research Council.

RELATED TWEET:

RELATED ARTICLES:

Suspended Coach and Daughter Reinstated after Protesting Boys in the Girls’ Locker Room

Louisiana Senate Resuscitates Stop Harming Our Kids Act

Why the Newest Horror Movie ‘Nefarious’ Is One of the Clearest Presentations of the Gospel Hollywood Has Ever Seen

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2023 Family Research Council.

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.

How to fix the FBI: An initial proposal to start a national discussion

/in , , , , , , , /by

With all the talk of “abolishing the FBI,” few envision what would happen to our country if we were suddenly left without a federal service to fight interstate crime and child trafficking, conduct effective counterintelligence, and come up with the necessary technology and training for law enforcement and investigators.

Here is an initial plan to get a national conversation started.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation, as its name states, is only a bureaucracy. It is not a sacred institution. It is not a brand to be protected at all costs. It is a bureaucratic structure mandated by law to perform necessary functions to investigate federal crimes, combat foreign spies, and not much more.

When that structure fails to do its job well, when the people within it fail to live up to the professionalism necessary to enforce the law objectively, and when that bureaucracy loses the public trust necessary to perform its lawful duties, it’s time for a change.

The danger of considering an institution “sacred,” as some do with the FBI, is that it is somehow beyond question, permanent, untouchable, indeed sacrosanct.

The danger of protecting a brand at all costs is that, when the integrity of that brand has been compromised, the institution resorts to any form of deception and intimidation to protect the façade from even constructive criticism. Director Christopher Wray has filled J. Edgar Hoover’s shoes in that regard.

It’s time for such a bureaucracy to go. The Bureau has become too large, too centralized, too opaque, too politicized, and too duplicative of other agencies to continue.

Like it or not, America needs federal law enforcement. It needs solid counterespionage and counterintelligence capabilities to combat foreign spies and agents and to neutralize their operations. The country needs strong and professional capabilities against child trafficking, illegal narcotics trafficking, cyber crime, financial crimes, terrorists, and crimes against the federal Constitution. It needs some sort of federal mechanism to help states fight crime in their own jurisdictions.

That doesn’t mean the FBI is still the answer. We already have a Drug Enforcement Administration. We have a number of counterterrorism services. We have a standing cybersecurity organization with police powers. We already have a world-class financial crimes capability in a separate agency. And so on.

Over the past two decades, the FBI has returned to what longtime Director J. Edgar Hoover had turned it into: A domestic intelligence service with police powers. This is incompatible with our constitutional form of government. Thomas J. Baker, an FBI veteran who started his career under Hoover and, even in retirement, continued working with the Bureau, saw the entire metamorphosis up-close as he related in his new book, The Fall of the FBI: How a Once Great Agency Became a Threat to Democracy.

Time for the FBI to go the way of the OSS

After World War II, the country reassessed its entire national security structure, abolished certain agencies – even ones that performed with extraordinary success and heroism – and carefully considered something new. It abolished the Department of War, reorganized it, merged it with the Department of the Navy, and created the Department of Defense. It abolished its wartime foreign intelligence bureaucracy, the Office of Strategic Services, and later created an entirely new Central Intelligence Agency – being careful to vet the CIA of the Communist Party members who had proliferated through the OSS. And so it’s time for the FBI to go the way of the OSS, but without a centralized replacement.

Unfortunately, the realities of the world require our government to have most of the capabilities that the public expects the FBI to perform. To start a national conversation about what to do with the FBI, here is an initial proposal after years of consideration. This proposal does not claim to have all the answers. It provides a rough blueprint to break up the FBI while preserving important national functions. It recognizes that legal authority, administrative and personnel issues, training, ethos, and so forth are far larger matters that deserve separate consideration.

FBI structure and what to do with it

The latest major reorganizations in the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations divided the FBI into six major branches, each of which are divided into units called divisions. These branches and divisions are important to understand if we are to figure out what to do with the Bureau. The six branches are:

  1. National Security Branch;
  2. Intelligence Branch;
  3. Criminal, Cyber, Response, and Services Branch;
  4. Science and Technology Branch;
  5. Information and Technology Branch; and
  6. Human Resources Branch.

All perform or support an awkward and unstable combination of law enforcement and domestic intelligence functions.

Let’s look at each branch one by one. We can then see what functions complement or duplicate those of other agencies, and transfer those branches or divisions to those respective agencies, paring down the Bureau as we go. The idea is not to create new agencies of any kind.

National Security Branch. The National Security Branch is arguably the most politicized and compromised component of the entire FBI. This branch must be broken apart.

Within the National Security Branch is a Counterintelligence Division, whose most famous chief was Peter Strzok. This division has seldom done well to combat foreign intelligence services in a strategic fashion, which is why the independent Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive was created in 2001. Unfortunately, after a promising start under non-FBI counterintelligence professionals, the office, since-renamed the National Counterintelligence and Security Center (NCSC), was virtually taken over by the FBI and rendered it ineffective as a strategic counterintelligence entity. The FBI Counterintelligence Division has become extremely politicized, going along with the Steele Dossier and Russia collusion narrative and treating legally protected speech as treason. Interim solution:

  • Transfer the FBI Counterintelligence Division to the NCSC under a new leadership and ethos, with a limited number of personnel billets to force undesirable FBI personnel out of the transfer. NCSC says its role is to “lead and support the U.S. Government’s counterintelligence and security activities,” so the FBI division is redundant. This is a dangerous move, though, because the NCSC is both flaccid and politicized.
  • Parcel out the Counterterrorism Division, the Terrorist Screening Center, and related elements of the National Security Branch to the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), and remove NCTC from the Department of Homeland Security into an independent and small counterterrorism agency.
  • Move the Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate of the National Security Branch to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (to be dealt with later).

These steps will leave the FBI without a National Security Branch, while keeping the important public functions, and remove the most toxic branch out of the Bureau.

Intelligence Branch. The FBI Intelligence Branch is responsible for the collection and synthesis of information into analytical products and coordination with other agencies. The fact that the FBI has an entire Intelligence Branch shows that it is no longer a law-enforcement agency but, indeed, a European-style domestic intelligence apparat with police powers. There are legitimate reasons for different agencies the federal government to have strong intelligence analysis, but when centralized into a single agency or bureau, that analysis is subject to abuse. The Intelligence Branch is also opaque and armored against constitutional checks and balances like legislative oversight. Interim solution:

  • Divide the Intelligence Branch along topical and functional lines, and parcel them out to other agencies with the legal authority and obligation to perform those varied work functions.

Criminal, Cyber, Response, and Services Branch. The third branch, Criminal, Cyber, Response, and Services Branch, performs an amalgam of functions patchworked together since 9/11. This is an important branch of the FBI and, though manipulated politically from the Justice Department, is said to be not as politicized as the National Security Branch.

Just as a patchwork is not an integrated body but is sewn together, this branch can be carefully taken apart. The Criminal Investigative Division of the branch does the important work of combating organized crime, transnational crime, certain violent crimes, certain crimes against children, investigation of public corruption and financial crimes, and violations of civil rights laws. Interim solution:

  • Transfer as many criminal investigative functions as possible to the states, with federal block grants to states that wish to, but cannot afford, to perform these functions on their own.
  • Transfer the financial crimes unit to the Securities and Exchange Commission.
  • Transfer the remainder of the Criminal Investigation Division to the United States Marshals Service, the nation’s oldest law enforcement agency, with few scandals in its history and little politicization.

The branch’s Cyber Division duplicates the functions of other agencies. Interim solution:

  • Transfer the Cyber Division’s security functions to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and move CISA out of the Department of Homeland Security to become an autonomous agency.
  • Transfer the Cyber Division’s cyberintelligence functions and resources to the National Counterintelligence and Security Center (NCSC).
  • Transfer the Cyber Division’s law enforcement functions and resources to the very competent U.S. Postal Inspection Service.

The Response portion of the branch, called the Critical Incident Response Group, is a crisis management unit that puts the FBI at the center. Interim solution:

  • Transfer the Critical Incident Response Group to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which needs a whole new rejuvenation of its own; and to states that seek those resources and responsibilities.

The Services component is to assist victims of terrorism and crime. A separate unit, International Operations, coordinates federal law enforcement abroad to investigate transnational crimes. Interim solution:

  • Transfer Services to other agencies like FEMA and the Department of Health and Human Services, and, with the support of block grants, to any willing state governments.
  • Transfer experienced International Operations personnel to other agencies that perform law enforcement work abroad.

Science and Technology Branch. This small branch creates new scientific and technological methods, products, and training for the rest of the FBI’s operations. It provides important support to state and local law enforcement. Its forensic sciences department is responsible for fingerprint, DNA, and other biometric analysis, scientific analysis necessary for criminal investigations, computer forensics, and safe transporting and preservation of evidence and hazardous materials. It also runs the FBI’s world-class crime lab, FBI information services, the National Crime Information Center, and technical collection and analysis. Interim solution:

  • This branch provides so many important uses nationwide that it should become an autonomous stand-alone center like FEMA, but run by a rotating board of state governors.

Information and Technology Branch. With its principal purpose to manage FBI information and maintain and upgrade the Bureau’s information system, this branch can be abolished, with necessary talent and resources transferred to other agencies that assume the above FBI functions.

Human Resources Branch. With all the other FBI branches now transferred to other agencies, there is no more need for a Human Resources Branch. Interim solutions:

  • Most of its staff have become so politicized that they are unsuitable for government service and should not be transferred anywhere.
  • The sole exception is the FBI Academy, which sits in this branch. The FBI Academy has a valuable purpose as basic training for FBI agent recruits and for other types of training. Since it offers almost no national security or counterintelligence training, the Academy performs more of a law enforcement training function and should be transferred to the U.S. Marshals Service.

With these transfers – the reverse of the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, which absorbed independent entities into a centralized bureaucracy – the United States will maintain its necessary federal law enforcement and national security functions without an FBI.

Other issues

Dividing and scattering the FBI’s key functions is easy to propose but very complicated to do. One of the key problems is personnel: Substandard and bloated management at the top (few if any should be transferred anywhere except out), politicization and unprofessionalism in certain branches and field offices, a training and bureaucratic ethos at odds with the agencies that would inherit FBI functions, and a danger that an influx of FBI management into those agencies would have the opposite of the desired effect without strong leadership.

Material and personnel resource transfers to other agencies should be reduced in size to force the attrition of redundant, non-essential, and substandard personnel at the discretion of the receiving agencies.

As we redistribute the functions of the FBI central apparat, we face the problem of providing too much power to other agencies, especially elements of the Department of Homeland Security bureaucracy. One of the virtues of transferring certain FBI functions to DHS is that it removes them from the hyper-politicized Department of Justice. DHS is a separate matter in itself and is another main target for downsizing, and decentralization, and depoliticization, but that must follow the dismantling of the FBI.

And then there is the very serious question of the power of the central government as a whole. Many FBI functions can be given up completely and left up to the states, funded where necessary by federal block grants that permit the states to spend the money as they see fit without federal interference.

Like the OSS did in World War II, the FBI has performed extraordinarily valuable functions. As with the OSS, the FBI has become fatally flawed with personnel unsuitable for, or dangerous to, government service. While one can romanticize about the OSS and the FBI, the fact is that neither is or was a “sacred” institution. Neither operated with a congressional charter. Indeed, the idea of the FBI being sacred smacks of secret police-speak, for it was the Soviet KGB that called itself the “holy of holies.”

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is just a bureaucracy and a brand that must use obfuscation, deception, and intimidation to maintain its luster. It has failed to execute its constitutional potential. It has serially abused its authority and the public trust. It has become too politicized to function legally. It is a rogue organization that resists congressional oversight. And it is populating itself with new, politicized cadres who will make tomorrow’s FBI far worse.

The only way to fix the FBI is to take it apart, parcel out the useful functions, and close down the rest. Now it’s time for a good national discussion about how to do it.

A full PDF of the Report can be downloaded HERE.

AUTHOR

J. Michael Waller

Senior Analyst for Strategy.

RELATED ARTICLE: Introducing your passport to the digital gulag

EDITORS NOTE: This Center for Security Policy column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Protestors Turn Out Against Florida Immigration Law in ‘A Day Without Immigrants’

/in , , , , , , , , , /by

Last Thursday [June 1, 2023], protestors across Florida held a walkout against a recently passed immigration law under the banner of “Un Día Sin Inmigrantes,” or “a day without immigrants.”  According to NBC News, protests were also scheduled in several other states, including California, Georgia, Minnesota, Illinois, Oregon, Texas, South Carolina and Colorado.

Signed into law last month, FL Senate Bill 1718 is set to go into effect on July 1st, and is one of the strongest state immigration laws to-date.  However, for the very same reason, it has been targeted by protestors and advocates as an attack on immigrants (whether illegal or not).  Among the commonsense provisions in the bill, it prohibits issuing identification documents to illegal aliens and requires employers with 25 or more employees to use the E-Verify system.  The bill would fine employers $1,000 per day for failing to use E-Verify and makes it a felony to use a fake ID to gain employment.

Some businesses were closed in Florida in support of the protest.  Outside one restaurant closed in Fort Lauderdale, protestors gathered to chant and wave flags from their home countries.  The restaurant’s owner, Isis Cordova, said, “I managed to get legal status in this country, and I said one day when I have documents I’m going to raise my voice. I’m also going to speak up for those people who don’t have a voice.”

Opponents of the law claim that it will result in an exodus of illegal aliens from Florida, damaging the state’s economy and leaving critical business sectors without workers.  Samuel Vilchez Santiago, Florida director of the American Business Immigration Coalition, has said that the effects will be particularly acute in the agriculture, construction and hospitality industries. “These are industries where immigrants make up the vast majority of workers, and not allowing businesses to be able to utilize these workers will have a really big impact on our economy and their ability to create jobs,” Vilchez said.

However, supporters say that the concerns are overblown, and that the legislation will help prevent employers from driving down wages in those industries by employing cheaper illegal workers.  In a statement, CEO and President of the Florida Trucking Association, Alix Miller, said that although he was aware of the arguments, he was not aware of any issues due to the law.

In signing the bill, Republican Governor Ron DeSantis said:  “In Florida, we will not stand idly by while the federal government abandons its lawful duties to protect our country. The legislation I signed today gives Florida the most ambitious anti-illegal immigration laws in the country, fighting back against reckless federal government policies and ensuring the Florida taxpayers are not footing the bill for illegal immigration.”

That statement is consistent with FAIR’s latest cost study, showing that illegal immigration costs American taxpayers more than $150 billion annually.  In Florida alone, it is estimated that there are 1,185,000 illegal aliens, for a 2023 cost to Florida taxpayers of $8.04 billion, or $986 per household.

After the law was passed, at least one major advocacy group, the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), issued a travel advisory for Florida.  Domingo Garcia, the president of LULAC, claimed that the law creates “a clear and present danger to Latinos in Florida and to Americans in general.”

With the protests receiving extensive coverage in Spanish language media and advocacy groups continuing to voice their opposition, the controversy shows no signs of dying down.  In the weeks and months ahead, FAIR will continue to track the law’s implementation and work to support policies that protect American taxpayers and fight back against the Biden Administration’s abuse of our immigration laws.

© COPYRIGHT 2023 FEDERATION FOR AMERICAN IMMIGRATION REFORM, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Help Wanted: Law Enforcement Staffing Challenges at the Border

/in , , , , , , , , /by

In May, FAIR wrote about a newly released report by the Inspector General for the Department of Homeland Security that raised red flags about the “unsustainable” methods of staffing at Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and their impact on morale.  In response to that report, the House Committee on Oversight is holding a hearing Tuesday with the sole witness being the Inspector General.  The hearing will “examine the current management of law enforcement resources and highlight how the Biden Administration’s policies have catalyzed the crisis at the southern border.”

According to the Inspector General, the dramatic increases in border encounters, have magnified existing “staffing challenges” at CBP and ICE. The Inspector General, therefore, conducted an audit to determine: (1) whether CBP and ICE are properly managing law enforcement staffing resources; and (2) the turnover rates for CBP and ICE, and whether the agencies have an effective plan to replace departing officers.

Overall, the Inspector General found that CBP’s and ICE’s workloads “have outpaced their current staffing” and described the agencies’ current management of staffing needs as “unsustainable.”  The workload has grown tremendously, the IG wrote, yet despite the greater workloads, “staffing levels have remained the same.

The IG also pointed out that the flow of migrants and traffic into the U.S. has far outpaced the number of CBP and ICE agents, which has consistently hovered around the number authorized by Congress.

The IG warned that “[u]nless CBP and ICE assess and make strategic changes to how they manage staff at the border…heavier workloads and low morale may lead to higher turnover rates and earlier retirements among these employees.”  This could further worsen staffing challenges along the southern border and impede CBP’s and ICE’s ability to carry out their missions.

Sadly, many agents and officers also told the Inspector General that the priorities at work had changed.  Officers at six ports of entry told the IG that CBP leaders prioritized “maintaining the flow of traffic and minimizing wait times” over security.  Border patrol agents at two different stations told the IG that they felt pressure to process and release migrants as quickly as possible to move them out of the facilities.  Nearly half of CBP respondents and over half of ICE respondents said they had to take on additional work outside their traditional responsibilities.

In addition, 20 percent of CBP agents said they felt unable to perform their primary law enforcement duties of securing the border. One border patrol agent said that all of the manpower in his station was being delegated to do processing instead of deterring or apprehending illegal aliens.  A combined 24 percent of CBP and ICE respondents said they plan to leave their agency within the next year.

The IG also explained in detail how overtime was typically forced on agents, rather than being voluntary.  This resulted in many agents working double shifts and, over the course of a year, several extra weeks of work.  Some agents told the IG that they had reached the statutory limit for how much overtime they could submit early in the year.

Finally, the IG noted that the change in immigration policies during the Biden Administration has also hurt morale at the agencies.

“Since FY 2019, immigration policies have shifted significantly as the United States experienced the COVID-19 pandemic and transitioned from one administration to another….Our interviews and survey comments showed staff frustration and lower morale related to changing policies, especially when the respondents felt the changes were inconsistent with their law enforcement duties. In the view of some law enforcement personnel, these policies have made it difficult for them to enforce the laws and carry out their mission; one said they felt as if they were doing their job “with one hand tied behind [their] back.”

While the IG gave credit to the Department of Homeland Security for taking some proactive steps to mitigate the situation, the Inspector General made three recommendations.  The recommendations focused on better coordination with experts around staffing needs, reviewing actions to determine if efforts are working, and better communicating with frontline staff about duties and responsibilities.

The Biden Border Crisis is not only affecting families and communities from the border to the interior of the country, but it’s affecting the men and women who make sacrifices to protect the border and secure our nation. Today’s hearing is an opportunity for members of Congress to get at the bottom of the DHS workforce crisis, to ask the Inspector General more in-depth questions about his audit, and encourage accountability from the Secretary of Homeland Security.

*To watch the Committee on Oversight hearing, visit their website here.

© COPYRIGHT 2023 FEDERATION FOR AMERICAN IMMIGRATION REFORM, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

RELATED TWEET:

Housing Finance Watch: Purchase Rate Lock Volume Was Down 42% From 2019 While Rates Were Stable

/in , , , , , , , , /by

Housing Finance Watch(Week 22, 2023)

By Edward J. Pinto | Tobias Peter | Sissi Li

Key takeaways:

  • Median rates stayed at 6 5/8% while daily 30-year rates retreated from their recent peak of 7.14% to 6.89% on June 5th, according to MND.
  • Purchase volume was 42% below 2019’s level.
  • Y-o-y HPA is projected to be around 1% in May, June, and first half of July 2023.
  • Metros with less affordability continue to have slower y-o-y HPA. The Western metros of San Jose, San Francisco, Seattle, and Sacramento are already having y-o-y HPA declines.
  • Over time, if the unemployment rate increases to around 5.5%, price declines will spread to the low end of some FHA markets and to metros with stagnating or declining job growth.

PDF to full report

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

RNC Election Law Update

/in , , , , , , , , /by

The Republican National Committee sent out the following election law update in key states for June 2023.

Please see the document linked at the bottom of this column for important pending litigation, including cases in which the RNC is involved. Below is a high-level summary of state legislation highlights and important news. Please feel free to reply with any requests to follow any particular election law bills, rulemakings, or lawsuits. If there is anyone else you would like to receive this update, please send us their contact information.

State Litigation Highlights

Arizona
There are several pending voting lawsuits in Arizona:

  • Restoring Integrity and Trust in Elections (RITE), the Arizona Free Enterprise Club, and Arizona GOP sued Arizona Secretary of State Fontes for authorizing an illegal expansion of the database of signatures used to verify ballots, including the addition of potentially unreliable signatures. The state filed a motion to dismiss and intervenors filed motions to dismiss on May 22, 2023.
  • Mi Familia Vota v. Hobbs (AKA Mi Familia Vota I):
    • Filed in August 2021, challenging S.B. 1485, which removes voters from the permanent mail ballot list if a voter does not vote by mail in two straight election cycles; and SB1003, which requires voters to “cure” signature-less ballots by 7PM on Election Day.
    • The RNC and the NRSC are intervenor-defendants. The DCCC and DSCC also intervened as plaintiffs.  DOJ filed a statement of interest in the case in November 2021.
    • On June 24, 2022, the court granted in part and denied in part defendants’ motion to dismiss. The court (1) allowed plaintiffs to pursue their claim that SB1485 was enacted with a discriminatory intent, and (2) dismissed the remaining claims but granted plaintiffs’ leave to file an amended complaint. The plaintiffs and plaintiff-intervenors opted not to amend their complaints.
    • On August 15, 2022, the RNC joined the Attorney General’s 54(b) motion to enter judgment on the dismissed claims.
    • Update: Court extended discovery through September 2023.
  • HB 2492 (Proof of Citizenship) Challenges:
    • There are 8 lawsuits challenging HB2492 (and other legislation) that require proof of citizenship for registrants using the National Voter Registration Form:
      • Six of the lawsuits were consolidated. The RNC was granted intervention in all of the cases.
      • On December 27, 2022, the State filed a motion to dismiss. The motion to dismiss was denied on February 16, 2023.
      • On April 4, 2023, the Arizona Speaker of the House of Representatives and Senate President moved to intervene as defendants, which was granted on April 26, 2023.
      • The RNC filed a motion to dismiss on May 15, 2023 which was joined by the state legislator intervenors.
  • Attorney General Contest:
    • Attorney General candidate Abe Hamadeh and the RNC remain in a pending election contest. A motion for a new trial is pending.  After the recount, Hamadeh’s deficit decreased to 280 votes. Top Republican legislators filed an amicus brief in support of Hamadeh. A hearing on the motion for new trial took place on May 16 and is pending a ruling.

Colorado 
On December 5, 2022, a liberal group represented by Perkins Coie filed a lawsuit alleging signature matching disproportionately disenfranchises young people, people with disabilities, and people of color. On December 22, 2022 and February 6, 2023, plaintiffs filed a first and second amended complaint .  On February 28, 2023, the Secretary of State filed a motion to dismiss which the court denied on April 17, 2023. On April 28, individuals supported by RITE moved to intervene in the litigation.

Florida 
On April 27, 2023, the 11th Circuit ruled in favor of the state of Florida, RNC, and NRSC, in the challenge to SB90, Florida’s 2021 election integrity legislation. The law was upheld in its entirety, except for one minor component of the line warming ban. The court also remanded back to the trial court the question of whether the drop-box and registration delivery provisions violate the First and Fourteenth Amendments. The district court had previously permanently enjoined multiple provisions of SB90 including the required registration disclaimers for third party voter registration organizations (§ 97.0575(3)(a)), registration delivery provisions for third party voter registration organizations (id.), drop box regulations (§§ 101.69(2)-(3)), and line warming provisions (§§ 102.031(4)(a)-(b)). On May 18, 2023, the plaintiffs filed a petition for rehearing in front of the full 11th Circuit.
 
On March 16, the Elias Law Group filed a lawsuit in federal court alleging that Florida’s wet signature requirement for voter registration applications violates the materiality clause of the Civil Rights Act. On April 5, 2023, the RNC and Republican Party of Pasco moved to intervenein the litigation. On May 26, 2023, the RNC’s intervention was granted.

On April 26, 2023, the LWV and FL NAACP sued Florida’s Secretary of State alleging that the state’s voter registration application violates the NVRA, specifically by not specifying the eligibility requirements for voter registration.

Florida has been hit with three separate suits this week following Gov. DeSantis signing SB 7050 into law:

  • On May 25, 2023, the Hispanic Federation, Poder Latinx, and Florida residents sued Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody and Secretary of State Cord Byrd over Senate Bill 7050 over its restrictions on third party registration organizations.
  • On May 24, 2023 the League of Women Voters of Florida and League of Women Voters of Florida Education Fund sued Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody and Secretary of State Cord Byrd over Senate Bill 7050 alleging the restrictions on third-party voter registration groups violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution. The law prohibits noncitizens and people with felony convictions from handling voter registration application, requires receipts to voters registering, and reduces the number of days for the third-parties to return the applications.
  • On May 24, 2023, the Florida State Conference of Branches and Youth Units of the NAACP, Equal Ground Education Fund, Voters of Tomorrow, Disability Rights Florida, Alianza for Progress, Alianza Center, UnidosUS and Florida Alliance for Retired Americans sued Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody and Secretary of State Cord Byrd over Senate Bill 7050. The plaintiffs challenge the imposition of fines, barring noncitizens and felons from registering voters, and retention of voter information for other activities.

Georgia 
In July 2021, the RNC, NRSC, NRCC, and GA GOP were granted intervention in 8 lawsuits, including the DOJ’s lawsuit against the state, challenging provisions of SB202. Thanks to the RNC efforts, these safeguards were in place for the 2022 election and the state saw record turnout. The cases have mostly been consolidated and the various plaintiff groups are filing a series of preliminary injunction motions on different provisions of SB202:

  • The DOJ, joined by four other plaintiff groups, filed a preliminary injunction motionin the SB 202 cases. They move to enjoin Georgia from enforcing (1) the reduction in the number of dropboxes and limitations on the use of dropboxes outdoors and during non-early voting hours; (2) the line-warming prohibition; (3) the absentee ballot deadline; (4) the out-of-precinct provisional ballot deadline; and (5) the ID requirement for absentee ballot applications. They claim these provisions violate the Voting Rights Act and the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments.
  • The AME plaintiffs moved to enjoin enforcement of (1) the felony provision for the handling of absentee ballots and (2) the requirements that dropboxes be located at an election office and accessible only during business hours.
  • The NGP plaintiffs moved to enjoin enforcement of the line-warming restrictions.
  • The CGG Plaintiffs moved to enjoin enforcement of the birthdate requirement for absentee ballots.
  • The State filed a motion for judgment on the pleadings, requesting that the court dismiss DOJ’s complaint. The State argues that the Eleventh Circuit’s decision in League of Women Voters clarified that proof of discriminatory impact is necessary to establish a VRA violation, which DOJ does not allege.

In CGG v. Raffensperger, one of the unconsolidated cases, plaintiffs filed a proposed amended complaint that drops the challenge to the voter ID law for absentee ballots and the narrowing of the absentee ballot deadline and adds a claim banning the early release of absentee vote totals.  Motions for summary judgment are due in July.

In another non-consolidated SB202 suit, one of the plaintiffs who challenged SB202 provisions banning the pre-filling of absentee ballot applications and required disclosures by third-party groups voluntarily dismissed its claims against Secretary of State Raffensperger. After litigating the case for well over a year, the plaintiff concluded its practices did not violate SB 202.

On May 2, 2022, a group of liberal organizations sued Georgia’s Election Board challenging a state law that requires handwritten signatures on absentee ballot applications. The groups seek declaratory and injunctive relief, requesting the court find that the so-called Pen and Ink rule violates the Civil Rights Act and to enjoin its enforcement. The RNC and GAGOP have intervened in the litigation. On March 9, 2023, the court denied defendants’ motion to dismiss.

Iowa
The RNC, Iowa GOP, NRCC, and NRSC were granted intervention to defend against a lawsuit challenging provisions of SF413 and SF568. The trial set for March 21, 2022, was pushed back in light of discovery disputes between the Iowa legislature and plaintiffs. On March 16, 2022, the Iowa Supreme Court granted certiorari to resolve these discovery disputes.  After a hearing over the ongoing discovery disputes on July 15, 2022, the court issued an order compelling discovery on August 18, 2022.
 
Kansas
On March 17, the Kansas Court of Appeals ruled that challenges to voting laws under the state constitution be evaluated under strict scrutiny instead of the more flexible Anderson-Burdick standard utilized in federal claims and in many states. On April 5, 2023, the state filed its petition for review with the Kansas Supreme Court. There will likely be opportunities for groups to file amicus briefs in support of the state’s appeal of the ruling.

On May 4, 2023, a Kansas federal district court ruled that the state’s restrictions on out-of-state organizations providing pre-filled absentee applications violated federal law.
      
Louisiana
On May 1, 2023, multiple Democrat groups sued Louisiana Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin under the NVRA and 14th Amendment regarding the state’s requirements for people with previous felony convictions to re-register to vote.

Maine
On March 28, 2023, the U.S. District Court in Maine ruled in favor of the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF), finding that the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) preempts Maine state law imposing fines and use restrictions on voter roll data because the state law creates obstacles to the transparency Congress intended under the NVRA. Maine’s Secretary of State had denied a request for voter rolls that PILF made in 2019. Maine passed a law that would restrict use and impose fines for unauthorized use of voter rolls produced to a requester.

Montana
RITE filed an amicus brief with the state Supreme Court in support of the state in Montana Democratic Party v. Jacobsen, involving challenges to several commonsense voting integrity reforms.

Michigan     
On September 30, 2022, the RNC and MI GOP sued Secretary of State Benson after she issued last-minute guidance on election challengers. Plaintiffs allege the guidance is inconsistent with state law and previous guidance and request the court to reinstate the 2020 challenger procedures. On November 3, 2022, the MI Supreme Court stayed the lower court’s decision. The case remains open at the MI Court of Appeals where the state has appealed the trial court’s preliminary injunction order. The state filed their opening brief on February 24, 2023. On May 26, 2023, the RNC and MIGOP filed their reply brief.
 
On March 13, 2023, the RNC and MIGOP filed its appellate brief in a suit challenging Flint’s refusal to hire an equal number of Republican and Democrat election inspectors. The lower court had ruled the parties did not have standing to bring the claim. The state filed its opening brief on May 15, 2023. The RNC’s reply brief is due on June 5, 2023.

New Hampshire 
In June 2022, Democrats filed two cases challenging SB 418 in NH which would require voters registering on Election Day to mail in proof of their identity within 7 days if they did not have documentation at the polling place. On September 1, 2022, the NH Republican State Committee motioned to intervene which was denied on December 21, 2022 and the NHRSC appealed to the New Hampshire Supreme Court, which granted cert. Since then the parties have agreed to a stipulation to permit the NHGOP to intervene in the litigation.
 
New York     
In January 2022, the RNC and NYGOP, leading a broad bipartisan coalition of officeholders and concerned citizens, including Congresswoman Malliotakis and naturalized citizen voters, sued Mayor Eric Adams, the New York City Council, and the New York City Board of Elections in state court over the “Non-Citizen Voting Law,” which illegally allows non-citizens to vote in city elections.  On June 27, 2022, Judge Porzio struck down the Non-Citizen Voting Law, explaining in his opinion that it violates the New York Constitution, New York election law, and the Municipal Home Rule Law. Appellees filed their appellate brief on October 10, 2022. On December 11, 2022, RNC filed its opening brief. The city and intervenors filed reply briefs on January 9, 2023.

In February 2023, four voters brought a lawsuit  in New York Supreme Court in Erie County against the Erie County Board of Elections. The lawsuit seeks an order of the court directing the commissioners of elections to count, canvass, and tally the write-in primary votes of candidates regardless of their party affiliation in primary elections. On March 28, 2023, the court ruled for the Petitioners and found that Chapter 480 of the Laws of 2021 was facially unconstitutional. The NY Attorney General appealed and on May 9, 2023, the court ruled in her favor.

North Carolina
On March 20, 2023, the federal district court for the Western District of North Carolina denied a motion to dismiss by the state in an NVRA challenge brought by two citizens in the state. The court also declined to adopt the Magistrate Judge’s recommendation to dismiss the suit for lack of sufficient pre-suit notice. The court also denied the motion to intervene by the League of Women Voters of North Carolina and the North Carolina A. Philip Randolph Institute. The suit alleges that North Carolina is failing to maintain accurate voter rolls and that the state is allowing ineligible voters to vote in the state’s elections. This is an important ruling to review for those interested in voter registration list maintenance issues.

On April 28, 2023, the North Carolina Supreme Court issued three opinions related to elections. It ruled 5-2 in Harper v. Hall, a redistricting case challenging state congressional and legislative maps. The North Carolina Supreme Court also reversed the trial court in Holmes v. Moore and reinstated photo ID. In Cmty. Success Initiative v. Moore , the court ruled in favor of the General Assembly that passed legislation related to felons voting rights and reversed the trial court’s grant of summary judgment. In Moore v. Harper, the U.S. Supreme Court subsequently askedfor briefing from both sides on the effect of the state Supreme Court ruling on the pending appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court.

Ohio
On January 6th, 2023, Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless, Ohio Federation of Teachers, Ohio Alliance for Retired Americans, and Union Veterans Council represented by Elias Group sued the Ohio Secretary of State challenging Ohio’s new election integrity bill: H.B. 458. The lawsuit challenges the in-person voter ID requirements, deadlines for ballot curing, and provisions regarding applications for and returning mail ballots. Plaintiffs filed an amended complaint on January 27, 2023. Ohio Republican Party and two citizen poll workers supported by RITE moved to intervene in the litigation. On April 18, 2023, Ohio Republican Party and the two citizen poll workers intervention was granted.  

Pennsylvania      
On September 1, 2022, the RNC, NRSC, NRCC, Pennsylvania GOP, and 12 individual voterssued Pennsylvania and all 67 counties for unlawful ballot curing in violation of state law and the U.S. Constitution. On October 21, 2022, the PA Supreme Court ruled 3-3 on the legality of the practice thus upholding the PA Commonwealth Court’s ruling denying the RNC’s and other plaintiffs’ preliminary injunction motion.  On March 23, 2023, the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court dismissed the case on subject matter jurisdiction grounds and ignored the merits of curing.
 
Following the RNC’s win in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling that ballots must be signed and dated as required by state law, the NAACP and John Fetterman filed two separate lawsuits in federal court. The RNC, NRCC, and PA GOP were granted intervention in the case and filed a motion to dismiss both cases. The NAACP amended its complaint with an Equal Protection claim comparing the requirements under the state statute and federal UOCAVA requirements. On January 17, 2023, the RNC filed a motion to dismiss in NAACP. On February 17, 2023, the RNC filed a motion to dismiss the amended complaint in Eakin. The RNC filed motions in support of summary judgment in both NAACP and Eakin. Both RITE and Lawyers Democracy Fund filed amicus briefs in support of summary judgment against the plaintiffs.

On March 28, 2023, two voters supported by Lawyers Democracy Fund brought a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania alleging a violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendment right to vote and due process in Luzerne County. The claims arise from the 2022 midterm election when Luzerne County failed to supply enough ballot paper on Election Day.

Texas 
The DOJ sued the State of Texas and the Secretary of State, challenging provisions of SB1, Texas’ 2021 voting integrity legislation. The DOJ claims SB1 violates Section 208 of the Voting Rights Act and Section 101 of the Civil Rights Act. The RNC, NRCC, NRSC, and Dallas and Harris County Republican Parties initial moved to intervene in the suits was denied. The party committees appealed and the 5th Circuit reversed and ruled that the Republican committees were entitled to intervention as of right. On May 24, the court denied plaintiff’s motion to dismiss. On May 31, 2022, the court granted the parties’ unopposed motion to stay pending appeal. On July 12, 2022, the court granted in part and denied in part defendant’s motion to dismiss, allowing only the claims brought by LULAC Texas, Voto Latino, the Texas Alliance for Retired Americans, and Texas AFT against the Secretary of State and Attorney General to proceed. On August 2, 2022, the court granted in part and denied in part defendants’ motion to dismiss, further limiting the claims allowed to proceed. Two interlocutory appeals as to the court’s August 2 judgment were filed in the 5th Circuit. The 5th Circuit has ordered the case bifurcated to separate out claims that involve the Legislature’s Intent. On May 26, 2023 summary judgment motions were filed including one from the RNC and other party committees.
 
Vermont     
On March 9, 2023, the RNC, the Vermont Republican Party, and two concerned citizens supported by RITE brought a complaint for declaratory and injunctive relief applying an earlier Vermont Supreme Court ruling to challenge Winooski’s charter that allows noncitizens to vote in school board elections and on school budget questions. Winooski filed a motion to dismiss. Update: On June 2, 2023, the RNC and RITE plaintiffs filed a response to Winooski’s motion to dismiss. Since the results of these elections have statewide budget and policy impacts outside of the municipality, the Vermont constitution limits voting on those issues to United States citizens. The RNC and VTGOP previously sued cities of Montpelier and Winooski over their town charters in a facial challenge, but the VT Supreme Court held and left the door open for this as-applied challenge.

Washington
On November 11, 2022, a liberal group filed a lawsuit alleging signature matching disproportionately disenfranchises young people, people with disabilities, and people of color. On December 16, 2022, the plaintiffs filed an amended complaint. On January 12, 2023, the RNC and WA GOP filed a motion to intervene in the case. Plaintiffs oppose the intervention and the state has taken no position. On February 7, 2023, the court denied the motion to intervene filed by RNC and WA GOP. On March 20, 2023, the RNC and WAGOP appealed the denial with the Washington Court of Appeals and filed a reply brief on April 4, 2023. Oral argument on the appeal is scheduled for June 30, 2023.
 
Wisconsin
On March 22, 2023, a complaint was filed with the Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC) against Tech for Campaigns for violations of Wisconsin election law. The complaint alleges the organization is providing improper assistance in completing a ballot and engaging in ballot harvesting. Presumably in response to the complaint, Tech for Campaigns modified the language on its website.

On September 23, 2022, an individual voter supported by the RNC and RITE sued WEC over its guidance that allowed absentee voters to change their votes after they are cast. RISE and the DNC filed motions to intervene. On October 5, the court sided with the plaintiff and granted a temporary restraining order, giving WEC until 4pm, October 7 to withdraw the unlawful guidance. On October 7, the DNC appealed the temporary injunction order and requested a stay of a temporary injunction with the WI Court of Appeals. On October 10, the appeals court granted the temporary stay pending a decision and requested a briefing on whether to grant the petition for an interlocutory appeal. Also on October 10, plaintiffs requested their case be transferred to a different court of appeals pursuant to state law. On October 12, the WI Supreme Court upheld the temporary stay, ordered briefing on the petition to file an interlocutory appeal, and asked the WI Court of Appeals to step aside until the high court issued a ruling on the venue issue. Update: On June 2, 2023, the RNC and RITE plaintiffs filed a motion for summary judgment.

A left-wing group, Rise, represented by Marc Elias, sued WEC on September 27 in a collateral attack on the White ruling argues that election officials should be allowed to accept absentee ballots with partial witness addresses if the official can discern the correct information. On October 3, the Wisconsin state legislature and Michael and Eva White filed motions to intervene. On October 6, the court granted the Wisconsin state legislature’s motion to intervene and declined the Whites’ motion to intervene. At a hearing on October 7, the court denied plaintiff’s motion for a temporary injunction, thus reinforcing that an address is complete if it contains “a street number, street name and name of municipality.” On December 22, 2022, the Whites filed an appeal of the ruling denying their intervention. On February 28, the Whites, as proposed-intervenors, filed their reply brief. There is also a pending League of Women Voters suit on the issue.

Wyoming
In 2021, an action was brought against the state over HB 0075, which required voters to present photo ID to vote.  In February 2023 the state district court dismissed the lawsuit, upholding the state’s ID requirement.

Legislation Highlights

Connecticut
The Connecticut Senate passed Senate Bill 1226 on a 29-7 vote. The bill recognizes the late Representative John Lewis and is aimed at protecting historically marginalized communities. In essence, the bill codifies several provisions in the Voting Rights Act of 1965 following the Supreme Court’s decision in Shelby County v. Holder.

On May 30, 2023, the Connecticut Senate passed HB 5004 that allows an early voting period of up to fourteen days. The bill allows for early voting to begin fifteen days before election day and conclude on the second day prior to election day. The bill now heads to Governor Lamont’s desk where he is expected to sign it.

The State Senate has approved a constitutional amendment for no-excuse absentee voting.

Louisiana
The Louisiana House of Representatives passed and the Senate committee reported favorably HB 311 which proposes a Constitutional Amendment to prohibit the use of monies from a foreign government or nongovernmental source to fund elections, such as Zuckerbucks. The bill now heads to the full Senate where a two thirds majority is needed in order to pass.

Nebraska
On May 30, 2023, the Nebraska Senate advanced LB514 by invoking cloture. LB514, introduced by Senator Tom Brewer, lays out requirements for valid forms of identification to vote. This bill comes in wake of Nebraskan voters voting to approve voter ID in a ballot initiative last year. The bill now advances to the floor for a final reading by voice vote.

Nevada
On May 30, 2023, Governor Joe Lombardo signed Senate Bill 406 that makes threats of intimidation and harassment or violence against election workers a felony. This bill comes after election officials across Nevada reported several instances of intimidation surrounding the 2022 general election. “It’s important we’re protecting the integrity of our elections and our employees across the board,” said Governor Lombardo.

Pennsylvania
On May 31, 2023, Pennsylvania Senators Coleman and Dush co-sponsored a memorandumstating that they will soon introduce legislation that will restore the primacy of in-person votes. The bill will allow voters who have submitted their absentee ballot the opportunity to appear at the polls, void their absentee ballot, and vote in person.

Texas
On May 28, 2023, the Texas legislature passed HB 1243 which will raise the penalty for illegal voting from a misdemeanor to a second-degree felony. The bill now heads to the Governor’s desk for his approval.

Virginia
Virginia has adopted HB 1948 which removes the witness requirement for absentee ballots and replaces it with the requirement that the voter provide the last four digits of their social security number and their date of birth.

Other News

  • National: “GOP-led states plan new voter data systems to replace one they rejected. Good luck with that.”
  • AL: U.S. Supreme Court could decide soon whether Alabama’s congressional map violates the Voting Rights Act
  • AZ: Arizona Gov. Hobbs vetoes more election bills from GOP-controlled legislature
  • AZ: Finchem, attorney ordered to pay $48K in sanctions in ‘groundless’ election challenge
  • CA: Secretary of State finalizing voting regulations aimed at Shasta County
  • CO: Denver has one of the few jails that gives inmates the chance to vote in person
  • FL: Hillsborough County voter system breach exposes 58,000 people’s information
  • FL: North Miami Beach mayor arrested on charges related to ‘voting irregularities’
  • FL: 3 civil rights groups file federal lawsuits over new Florida election laws championed by Gov. DeSantis
  • FL: New Broward elections office will prioritize security after past protests
  • IL: How did hundreds of noncitizens end up on Chicago’s voter rolls?
  • KY: KY SOS eyes possible exit from ERIC.
  • MD: Rockville, Maryland debates on whether noncitizens should vote
  • MT: Whitefish man charged with voter fraud in 2020 election
  • NC: Majority of NC voters support voter ID, new poll says
  • NC: NC lawmakers expected to roll out major election law changes, with input from former Trump lawyer
  • NC: State Republicans reintroduce election integrity Legislation
  • NY: New York lawmakers want early voting through mail
  • VT: Phil Scott vetoes noncitizen voting in Burlington and voting for 16- and 17-year-olds in Brattleboro
  • WV: Fayette County Man Pleads Guilty to Illegal Voting in 2020 General Elections

Voting Litigation Overview

©2023. Republican National Committee (RNC), 310 1st St SE Washington, D.C., 20003-1885, U.S.

 

 

Memory and Identity

/in , , , , , , , /by

Francis X. Maier: We live in a time in which America’s future is at risk by methodically undermining the nature of the family, the memory of our culture, and the founding spirit of our nation . . . in other words, the things that anchor our identity as a free people.

The strip of Pennsylvania that meanders along the Delaware River is soaked in American history.  Quakers founded our borough of Yardley in 1682.  Washington crossed the Delaware just five miles north of our home.  Trenton, where the Hessians had such a bad morning after Christmas in 1776, and not just from hangovers, is a 10-minute ride from our driveway.  Princeton battleground in New Jersey is just another 15 minutes away, at most.  So our area is thick with reminders of the Revolution.

These weeks of early summer from Memorial Day (May) through Flag Day (June) to Independence Day (July) are redolent of patriotic zeal.  At our parish, after our Mass celebrating Pentecost, the congregation sang “America the Beautiful.” The voices were full-throated and sincere. The next day, on Memorial Day, we watched the town parade from the VFW post at the end of our block, along with hundreds of neighbors who lined the street.

Local parades can be Raggedy Ann affairs; long on enthusiasm, short on glamor.  But watching Korean and Vietnam War veterans salute the colors as if they were 20-somethings again, eyes filled with memory and emotion, while re-enactors in Revolutionary War garb march past with their fifes and drums. . .well, it’s a window on something sacred.  A thread weaving together generations.

Again and again, men have consecrated America’s virtues and best ideals on the battlefield.  They’ve done it with their blood.  And that leaves the rest of us with two obligations: gratitude; and the work of sustaining the best of the nation for which they sacrificed.

I mention all this to frame what follows.

A Catholic friend, a former officer and combat veteran whose sons also saw combat for this country, sent me the following email recently:

Historically, I’ve always defined myself as a “conservative,” i.e., committed to conserving this country’s founding values of God, family, country.  Those values today are despised and under assault by many of our most powerful institutions, including elite higher education, much of the media, the tech industry, and even the financial industry, including banks and money managers. Many corporations are intimidated by the tyranny of DEI and other “social scores” — think China — and as a result, they’re supporting an anti-family, anti-American agenda.

The speed of this change is breathtaking, and its permanence is unknown, especially given the on-going weaponization of the FBI, CIA, the judicial system, and other organs of state.  I still believe that most of the woke agenda lacks support from a majority of Americans.  But it succeeds through zealous advocates who’ve mastered the use of threats to manipulate individuals and institutions.

The recent behavior of the retail giant Target is insightful for its vulnerability to LGBTQ and transgender pressure.  I suspect many corporations have confused the energy and tactics of the trans community for massive public support.  I think Target’s behavior is repugnant to most people, but it may be true that it’s ”good for business.”  It may also be true that quite a few Americans have been frightened into passive acceptance.  The recent Target and Bud Light controversies may be a defining moment for the success or failure of woke tactics. I’m praying that it will be a watershed that brings back some common sense.

Two things are notable about the email: its obvious frustration, and an undercurrent of misgiving.  Did my friend risk his own life in battle, and lead his sons to risk theirs, to serve “God, family, country,” or merely another generous helping of destructive sex and what’s “good for business”?  It’s the kind of question my wife and I have asked ourselves.  We supported our eldest son when he was accepted at West Point. We were proud of the time he spent there.  Our feelings today are far more ambivalent.

In his book Memory and Identity, John Paul II noted that the nation, like the family, is one of humanity’s “natural” societies, and not the product of mere convention.  Neither family nor nation can be replaced by anything else.  Therefore a proper “patriotism is a love for everything to do with our native land: its history, its traditions, its language, its natural features. . . .Every danger that threatens the overall good of our native land becomes an occasion to demonstrate this love.”

Yet at the same time, while acknowledging John Paul’s wisdom, Charles Chaput warned that “A nation can become so corrupt and Babylon-like that it’s not worth defending, and America is no exception.”

The two statements are not incompatible.

Chaput went on to stress that it’s “proper, and important, for Americans to express gratitude for our democratic institutions. . . .[They’re] a remarkably durable design of government of which we ought to be proud, and to which we ought to be loyal.”  But that gratitude and loyalty must be earned by

a healthy society [that] respects and sustains the past, teaching children its history, and weaving together the generations. . . .The historical illiteracy of recent decades widens the conflicts between generations.  It also blinds us to the subtle — and more recently, crudely violent — transformations and erosions taking place in our political structures.  In many ways this illiteracy is far more perilous than any gap that separates different groups in a pluralistic society.

We live in a time that very much “threatens the overall good of our native land,” methodically undermining the nature of the family; the memory of our culture; and the founding spirit of our nation . . . in other words, the things that anchor our identity as a free people.  Many of the mouths that so easily accuse others of “racism,” “fascism” and “hate” are possessed by the same kind of venomous instincts themselves.

I suppose the lesson is this.  We need to remember and revere those who died for the founding beliefs and best ideals of America.  And as Christians, we need to live in a way that restores them in the nation’s heart.

You may also enjoy:

Russell Shaw’s The American Church, Going, Going . . .

Robert Royal’s Of Witness and the Only True Safety

AUTHOR

Francis X. Maier

Francis X. Maier is a senior fellow in Catholic studies at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

EDITORS NOTE: This Catholic Thing column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. © 2023 The Catholic Thing. All rights reserved. For reprint rights, write to: info@frinstitute.org. The Catholic Thing is a forum for intelligent Catholic commentary. Opinions expressed by writers are solely their own.

Biden Wants To Give Power Over Defense Contracts To Climate Activist ‘Cabal’ Bent On Curtailing Economic Growth

/in , , , , , , , , , , , /by

The Biden administration is pushing to give veto power over major Pentagon contracts to a group of climate activist groups that advocate for establishing “guardrails” on economic growth, according to a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation.

The administration proposed a rule in November that requires major contractors for the Department of Defense (DOD), NASA and Government Services Agency (GSA) to submit climate-related goals to a consortium of activist organizations, called the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), for validation. If the SBTi rejects the contractor’s plan to reduce emissions, the company would no longer be eligible to compete.

However, the groups behind the SBTi are part of the Global Commons Alliance, a climate activist network that seeks to limit economic development and set up international watchdogs to monitor climate pledges of governments and private companies, according to a DCNF review of the network’s activities. The Alliance’s components advocate for limits on consumption, redistribution of resources between rich and poor people and a more ambitious set of goals to mitigate perceived changes to the climate.

Additionally, scientists involved in the Alliance have argued for the need to limit Earth’s population to preserve the climate.

The Biden administration is “placing our defense needs in the hands of these people whose interests may not be in defense,” Dan Kish, a senior fellow at the Institute for Energy Research, told the DCNF.

“These seem to be offshoots of the interests of the World Economic Forum — people who consider themselves smarter and better and wealthier and more powerful than the rest of the subjects of the world, and seek to impose their will,” he added.

‘Playing God’: The Coalition Of Climate Orgs Behind The SBTi

In 2015, sustainability professionals from the World Resources Institute (WRI), World Wildlife Fund (WWF), CDP (formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project) and UN Global Compact came together after the Paris Climate Accords to find ways for corporations to set benchmarks and devise plans to meet the goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, according to Technology Review. The SBTi emerged from the coalition, and is working on developing guidance for so-called science-based emissions reduction goals for various industries.

The groups behind the SBTi also created the Science Based Targets Network, or SBTN, to “[build] on the momentum of the [SBTi],” according to the group’s website, which lists the SBTi’s constitutive organizations as “among our core founding partners.” The SBTN helps companies and cities create and monitor targets, which it calls Science Based Targets for Nature, in a bid to preserve nature “in line with scientifically defined limits and on a socially equitable basis,” according to the group’s website.

However, the SBTN relies on research from the Earth Commission, an organization seeking to establish “guardrails” on human activity to protect the climate; both organizations operate under the umbrella of the Global Commons Alliance.

“The goal is to translate the scientific guardrails defined by the Earth Commission, into tangible science-based targets for nature, specifically tailored to cities and companies by the Science Based Targets Network,” the Earth Commission’s website reads.

In a February 2023 journal article, scientists from the Earth Commission stressed the importance of reducing “indirect drivers” of climate change, such as human population size and growth.

“Many of the factors causing global biodiversity decline are associated with economic growth and speculation,” the researchers wrote in the journal article. Achieving “justice” and a “nature-positive” society requires “reducing over-accumulation of capital” and associated excess production and consumption among wealthy countries.

Additionally, a November 2022 paper sponsored by the Earth Commission, which called for a “radical redistribution” of resources, found that if everyone on the planet had minimum access to life necessities, the planet’s climate disaster triggers would be violated by up to 26%. “Having ‘too little’ therefore results from others having ‘too much,’” the authors conclude.

In practical terms, states can even-out resources between rich and poor countries through “taxation, internalizing costs, overseas aid, universal basic incomes, voluntary limits on consumption, and education,” according to the scientists.

In May, the SBTN introduced new environmental targets, broadening their scope to include not only reducing greenhouse gas emissions but updating so-called “planetary boundaries” meant to restrain the scope of human economic activity to protect human, animal and plant habitats.

Myron Ebell, director of the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Center for Energy and Environment, explained the concept of planetary boundaries to the DCNF: “We have far exceeded the ‘carrying capacity’ of the Earth.”

“So first, let’s figure out exactly what it is (for example, no more than one billion people), which can then be the basis for imposing ‘science-based’ policies to make people less numerous and a lot poorer.” Such policies would send the earth “back to the Stone Age,” he said.

“These people are basically playing God,” said Kish.

The Earth Commission and the SBTN overlap in terms of shared resources, founding partners and aims under the umbrella of the Global Commons Alliance, while the groups that founded both the SBTi and the SBTN are partners of the Alliance, their websites show. While the Biden administration’s rule only mentions the SBTi, experts suggest it opens channels for the other groups to influence how the Pentagon and other U.S. agencies decide which companies should receive government contracts.

“SBTN is a separate but related organization [to SBTi] focusing on SBTs beyond climate,” SBTN spokesperson Arabella Stickels told the DCNF.

“We shouldn’t be delegating the authority for what’s important for our national defense and our national defense contractors to some third party groups,” Kish told the DCNF.

‘Less Bang For Our Buck’

Under the Biden administration’s proposed rule, the SBTi will effectively have veto power over key Pentagon contracts.

According to the proposal, any company holding $50 million or more in contracts with the DOD, NASA or GSA must report all second and third-order greenhouse gas emissions generated by its operations. Two years after the rule goes into effect, they’ll also be required to submit a “science-based target” to the SBTi for validation.

If they fail their inspection, the SBTi will return the target and offer the company a second chance to submit a more appropriate emissions reduction target.

In practical terms, that means groups involved in the SBTi are “establishing not only industrial policy, but military policy,” Kish told the DCNF. “And that means that we’ll get less bang for our buck.”

The SBTi “appears to be a cabal and is certainly a racket,” Ebell said.

The DOD awarded roughly $383 billion in contract spending in 2021, according to analysis firm Deltek; however, the Pentagon’s largest defense contractors aren’t featured in the SBTi dashboard yet, meaning they haven’t yet committed to the initiative.

The Pentagon did not say whether or how the department would work with the SBTN, though it maintains that combating climate change is a top priority.

“All requirements are pre-decisional as the rule proposal is pending,” Kelly Flynn, a DOD spokesperson, told the DCNF. “We have nothing further to provide at this time beyond what is stated in the proposed rule.”

Empowering the SBTi to make decisions regarding key Pentagon contracts could undermine Congress’ authority to allocate funds for national defense, according to Kish.

“Congress is one that appropriates and allocates the money for the defense of the nation, which is one of our premier reasons for being in the social contract that we have under the Constitution,” said Kish. Yet, the Biden administration is seeking “to offshore this to some people who have some grand ideas who are then going to impose their will on our defense contractors,” Kish said.

The White House did not respond to the DCNF’s requests for comment.

AUTHOR

MICAELA BURROW

Investigative reporter and Pentagon correspondent.

RELATED ARTICLE: ‘Complete Collapse’: Here’s How ESG Destroyed One Nation’s Economy

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.