Anesthesiologists Hide Painful Climate Plan After Climate Depot Exposé

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A ridiculous plan to reduce anesthesia to combat climate change disappeared online after CFACT’s Marc Morano exposed it at our Climate Depot news and information service.

The article was pulled from the American Society of Anesthesiologists website within 48 hours of Marc posting it and tweeting about it.

The ridiculous justification for limiting anesthesia is that inhaled anesthesia accounts for up to 0.1% of the world’s carbon emissions, and that an hour of surgery using an inhaled anesthetic is equivalent to driving as many as 470 miles, according to a 2010 study.

The notion that people should risk pain and suffering during surgical procedures to “save” the planet is a perfect example of the crazy cult climate change has become.  Human sacrifice is demanded.  The fact that your future pain will not alter the temperature of the globe to a degree anyone can perceive in any meaningful way is entirely beside the point.

Marc explained the whole thing and more on Sebastian Gorka’s OAN television show and on In Focus with Addison Smith.

Marc further reports that the Harvard Medical School faculty is discussing intertwining climate into its entire medical teaching curriculum.

Subordinating our medical care to the climate regime seems a surefire way to violate a doctor’s basic Hippocratic oath to “first do no harm.”

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

Florida Senator Rick Scott: Biden ‘Lied’ about GOP Wanting to Cut Social Security and Medicare

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UPDATE: You know how Biden said it was Republicans who wanted to end Social Security, Medicare, etc.? Just watch this:

During his State of the Union address Tuesday night, President Biden asserted that “some Republicans want Medicare and Social Security to sunset.” A chorus of GOP lawmakers, including Senator Rick Scott (R-Fla.) are fiercely disputing the claim, pointing out that as a U.S. senator, Biden himself supported cuts in the social welfare programs.

On Wednesday, Scott joined “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins” to discuss Biden’s remarks.

“What he said is a lie,” Scott made clear. “You can’t make this stuff up. I put out a plan (you can go to RescueAmerica.com) [that] says, ‘Look, let’s come up with ideas. How do we make this a better place? Let’s … promote families, promote God … make sure we respect human life. One section says we should sunset the laws and regulations unless we want to keep them. So [Biden] wants to put out there that we want to cut Medicare and Social Security, which is a lie.”

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Scott went on to point out that as a senator, Biden advocated for cutting Social Security and Medicare himself.

“But guess what’s even better? He actually did a bill to sunset everything. Let me let me give you the quote of what he said: ‘When I argued that we should freeze federal spending, I meant Social Security as well, Medicare, Medicaid, veterans benefits. I meant every single solitary thing in the government.’ … So he might be a little bit of a hypocrite. And then, as you know, in September, he signed a bill to cut $280 billion out of Medicare, which will cut lifesaving drugs. So he might be a liar. He might be a hypocrite, but he’s one of those things. He could be clueless.”

Observers have pointed out that Biden has suggested making cuts to Social Security and Medicare on numerous occasions while in public office over a 40-year period.

“What he’s trying to do is just scare people,” Scott contended. He went on to assert that pursuing a balanced budget will be critical to saving programs like Social Security and Medicare from future insolvency.

“If we don’t balance our budget … if we don’t do anything, in 10 to 12 years, you’ll have over a 20% cut in Social Security. So if we just sit here and do what the Democrats want to do, just keep spending money, just augment a 20% cut. On top of that, we will run out of money. The bondholders are not going to lend us money.”

Scott continued, “We can balance this budget. … Biden could actually pay the interest without even any bills passing. But we’ve got a lot of ideas on how to do this. We’ve got to get our fiscal house in order and we’ve got to preserve Medicare and we’ve got to preserve Social Security, Medicaid, all these safety net programs that are important to people.”

AUTHOR

Dan Hart

Dan Hart is senior editor at The Washington Stand

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

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

‘Zombie Studies’: DeSantis Declares All-Out War on University DEI, CRT in Education Manifesto

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Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) last Tuesday rolled out a new education agenda designed to comprehensively recapture the state’s higher education system from woke ideologues. Instead, he set forth a conservative vision for a higher education system: “to focus on promoting academic excellence, the pursuit of truth, and to give students the foundation so they can think for themselves.” The proposals affect curriculum, faculty, funding, and more.

Proposed Reforms

DeSantis proposed reforms to Florida curriculum so that “everybody who goes through a Florida university has to take certain core course requirements that’s really focused on giving them the foundation so that they can think for themselves.” There is that phrase again — “think for themselves.” This is the essence of DeSantis’ proposals, and leftists work hard to smear it because they understand how popular that objective is.

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DeSantis offered specifics. “The core curriculum must be grounded in the actual history, the actual philosophy that has shaped Western civilization. Our institutions are going to be graduating students with degrees that are going to be meaningful. We don’t want students to go through, at taxpayer expense, and graduate with a degree in Zombie Studies.” Florida is already practicing this at the high school level. Earlier this year, Florida rejected a proposed high school curriculum for AP African-American studies because it was riddled with CRT-related concepts. Days later, The College Board (which produces the curriculum) released “a serious rewrite,” in the words of The Wall Street Journal editorial board.

DeSantis also proposed reforms to hiring and firing of higher education faculty. He identified two problems with the hiring process: a political process and a lack of control by those supposedly in charge. A lot of hiring decisions are “done by faculty committees,” he explained. “And if they have a certain worldview that they want to promote, those are the kinds of candidates they’re going to bring in. And, if you don’t toe that line, you’re not going to get hired.”

That’s not just a “blue state” problem. A WSJ op-ed from this week began, “At Texas Tech University, a candidate for a faculty job in the department of biological sciences was flagged by the department’s search committee for not knowing the difference between ‘equality’ and ‘equity.’ Another was flagged for his repeated use of the pronoun ‘he’ when referring to professors.”

Under DeSantis’ proposed changes, university presidents may “go out and recruit directly. Boards of Trustees will be able to do a lot of this approving directly. And that’s going to make a huge difference in terms of making sure, not only do we have high quality faculty, but we’re not applying some type of ideological litmus test to be able to be hired in the first place.”

Another problem DeSantis identified is the irresponsible behavior encouraged by life tenure. He said “the most deadweight cost” to universities comes from “unproductive tenured faculty.” Under his new proposals, tenured faculty must undergo a performance review every five years, and they would be liable to an impromptu performance review at any time.

DeSantis also announced his intention to defund all DEI and CRT programs at Florida universities, particularly DEI bureaucracies. “We are also going to eliminate all DEI and CRT bureaucracies in the state of Florida. No funding, and that will wither on the vine,” he said.

In a December 28 memo, the governor’s office required public universities to itemize all woke programs and expenditures and report them by January 13.

“They reported that, and it’s a lot of money. And it’s not the best use of your money,” said DeSantis. “Those bureaucracies are not representative of what the people of this state and the taxpayers of this state want.” DEI “bureaucracies are hostile to academic freedom,” he continued. “And really, they constitute a drain on resources and end up — certainly around the country — contributing to higher costs as these bureaucracies metastasize.”

DeSantis justified scrubbing DEI bureaucracies for two closely intertwined reasons, one ideological and one pragmatic. First, their purpose runs counter to the academic freedom most Americans expect from public universities; they are, essentially, wrong. Second, they’re just too expensive. They capture resources that can be better spent elsewhere — and more so as they continue to grow. Pairing these reasons is both accurate and politically astute. Together, they outflank any counterargument (such as suggesting DEI bureaucracies might possibly provide a marginal benefit) except the most radically left endorsement of critical theory — which voters rightly see as crazy.

By purifying the hiring process and distilling out DEI bureaucracies, DeSantis hopes to transform public higher education into a potable experience. Under Florida’s proposed system, FRC senior fellow for Education Studies Meg Kilgannon told The Washington Stand, “Professors and students will be able to learn in an environment freed from politically correct groupthink.”

DeSantis rounded out his policy proposals with targeted initiatives aimed at certain professions and institutions. He proposed that Florida research universities increase their research grants for STEM programs up to $50 million annually (thus draining resources that might be used for less serious, woke “research”). He endorsed his administration’s efforts to expand the training of Floridians to serve in critical, under-staffed occupations, such as nurses, truck drivers, and mechanics. He promoted the establishment of two constitution-focused centers at Florida State University in Tallahassee and Florida International University in Miami.

DeSantis also expressed concern over the plight of New College of Florida, an autonomous public institution since 2001. “In Florida statute, it’s supposed to be our premier liberal arts college,” he lamented. “Its mission has been more into the DEI, CRT ideology, rather than what a liberal arts education should be.” DeSantis chief of staff James Uthmeier said last month, “It is our hope that New College of Florida will become Florida’s classical college, more along the lines of a Hillsdale of the South.”

In early January, DeSantis appointed six new members to the New College of Florida Board of Trustees, creating a conservative majority. Some of the appointees are widely known, such as Manhattan Institute fellow and CRT-exposer extraordinaire Christopher Rufo, Hillsdale College Professor Dr. Matthew Spalding, and former 1776 Commission member Charles Kesler.

It turns out that appointing conservatives to higher education boards — thus puncturing academia’s typical, boring, progressive sameness — excites potential applicants. “When we announced the trustees,” DeSantis said, “you had people asking, ‘How do I apply?’ You had professors asking, ‘How do I join?’” The national media may scoff, but introducing real diversity — intellectual diversity — to university systems generates widespread enthusiasm.

Political Context

DeSantis’s new round of education policy proposals builds on his popular but unfairly criticized efforts undertaken during his first term as governor. For instance, the national media widely lampooned the Parental Rights in Education Act as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill for prohibiting teachers from discussing inappropriate sexual content in K-3 classrooms.

But what the national media sees as a problem, the average Floridian — and average American, for that matter — views as popular. Governor DeSantis and other Florida Republicans cruised to huge victories throughout the former swing state in November, even as Republicans generally underperformed expectations in most of the country. After winning reelection by 20 points, Governor DeSantis announced, “Florida is where woke goes to die.”

Conservative Education Manifesto

DeSantis’ proposals for higher education reform were no haphazard assortment of disjointed, incoherent positions working at cross-purposes. Rather, each is a well-thought-out piece of a comprehensive vision for a higher education system free of woke nonsense. And DeSantis accompanied his proposals with a 20-minute speech which is probably best described as a conservative education manifesto.

“There’s really a debate going on about, what is the purpose of higher education, particularly publicly-funded higher education systems?” said DeSantis, “The dominant view is, the use of higher education under this view is to impose ideological conformity, to try to provoke political activism, and that’s what a university should be. That’s not what we believe is appropriate in the state of Florida.” Instead, he proposed “centering higher education on the academics, excellence, pursuit of truth, teaching kids to think for themselves, [and] not try[ing] to impose an orthodoxy.”

Not only will slicing up the woke monster restore academic freedom, but it will also free up resources to promote real education. “And so, you’re not spending the money on DEI bureaucracies,” said DeSantis. “You’re spending the money on bringing really good people in. … That makes much more sense from a financial perspective, and it’s much more mission-oriented.”

DeSantis suggested his vision for higher education is actually quite popular. The more we implement this vision, he said, the more “you are going to see people flooding into these institutions because there’s a desire for it.” He underlined the basic motivation for this desire, “people want to be in a situation where they can send their kids to a university or college and not have to worry about, ‘what is going on?’”

He used New College of Florida as a prime example. Its DEI bureaucracy “really serves as an ideological filter, a political filter,” he said. “New College has really embraced that, and I think that’s part of the reason it hasn’t been successful and the enrollment’s down so much. Because I think people want to see true academics, and they want to get rid of some of the political window dressing that seems to accompany all this.”

Higher education reform benefits not only college-bound students and their parents, but every taxpaying Floridian as well, added DeSantis. “It’s important that your tax dollars are funding institutions that you can be proud of, with a mission you can be confident in.”

More Than Just Slogans

With slogans like “education not indoctrination” and “bring more accountability to the higher education system,” the new round of changes to higher education in Florida may seem like all talk and no action — a politician specialty. After all, things that sound too good to be true usually are. But when you pierce the surface, Florida’s new education plan brings the substance, too.

“This move by Governor DeSantis to really direct and guide higher education officials in his state is a great development,” said Kilgannon. “For too long, conservative leaders have not prioritized reforming higher education in ways that impact the moral and cultural life of students and faculty.” But the DeSantis plan emphasizes what others have neglected.

Nor are DeSantis proposals pie-in-the-sky fairy tales. “By reining in diversity, equity, and inclusion infrastructures that often act as Marxist politburos on college campuses, Governor DeSantis is offering not just an ideological critique but an actionable path toward reform,” said Kilgannon.

This path to reform already has the buy-in of every Florida college president. All 28 of them signed a letter pledging to “ensure that all initiatives, instruction, and activities do not promote any ideology that suppresses intellectual and academic freedom, freedom of expression, viewpoint diversity, and the pursuit of truth in teaching and learning. As such, our institutions will not fund or support any institutional practice, policy, or academic requirement that compels belief in critical race theory or related concepts such as intersectionality, or the idea that systems of oppression should be the primary lens through which teaching and learning are analyzed and/or improved upon.”

Here is a conservative education solution that doesn’t content itself with condemning leftist dominance in higher education; it actually proposes a workable alternative. DeSantis’ team has clearly thought long and hard, at every level, about what is required to take back the wheel of a public education system and redirect it to serve all the citizens and taxpayers of Florida.

Two qualities are rare among politicians: a brain and a spine. With these comprehensive education proposals, DeSantis demonstrates both.

Florida’s education plan is making news because it hasn’t been attempted before. No other conservative state has set forth a plan this comprehensive or this pragmatic to recapture higher education. “I don’t think there’s any state in the country that’s been leading on the issue like Florida,” said DeSantis. “We’ll be the first state that’s actually leading by example.”

“This is a great example for others on how to tackle the problem of taxpayer funded Marxist education at the higher-ed level,” said Kilgannon. “And since this is where teachers are formed for service in K-12, it’s a reform that will benefit younger children too.”

“We have more work to do,” said DeSantis. But he added, “I think you’re going to see some positive results really quickly.”

AUTHOR

Joshua Arnold

Joshua Arnold is a staff writer at The Washington Stand.

RELATED ARTICLE: ‘Don’t Do This to Kids’: State Hearings on Gender Transitions for Minors Draw Large Crowds

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

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

WOKE Disney Announces Massive Job Cuts, Restructuring of Company

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Karma is the unemployment line.

Layoffs at America’s biggest most WOKE companies continue apace but don’t worry, the Biden regime touts the greatest labor market ever.

Disney Jumps on Iger’s $5.5 Billion Savings Plan, Job Cuts

  • Company will restructure business units, eliminate 7,000 roles
  • Parks division delivers double-digit gains in sales, earnings

By 

Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive Officer Bob Iger announced plans for a dramatic restructuring of the world’s largest entertainment company that includes cutting 7,000 jobs and $5.5 billion in cost savings.

The reductions include lower spending on programming and $2.5 billion in non-content related cuts. As part of the change, Disney’s CEO also announced that the company will be reorganized into three divisions: an entertainment unit that includes its main TV and film businesses, the ESPN sports networks, and the theme-park unit, which includes cruise ships and consumer products

Read more.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

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Trump Trolled Biden In Epic SOTU Response

‘Zombie Studies’: DeSantis Declares All-Out War on University DEI, CRT in Education Manifesto

Disney to cut 7,000 jobs in major revamp by CEO Iger

WHISTLEBLOWER: “I Thought I Was Saving Trans Kids. What is Happening To Them is Morally and Medically Appalling”

Democrat Bill To Vaccinate of Children Without Parental Consent

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

WARNING GRAPHIC VIDEO: Anti-Regime Demonstrations In Baluchestan, Iran

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Regime Security Opens Fire On Demonstrators, Arrest Citizens, Publicly Flog Man.

This clip is a compilation of footage from Friday demonstrations in Baluchestan on January 27 and February 3, 2023. The videos were posted on posted on Iranian dissident journalist Masih Alinejad’s Twitter account and other social media outlets. In the clip, demonstrators can be seen chanting such slogans as “Our tables are empty, Khamenei is a killer,” “Death to Khamenei!,” “Curse upon Khomeini!” “Death to the Basijis!” “Death to the IRGC!” “I will kill whoever killed my brother!” “Death to the oppressor, whether it is the Shah or the Leader!”

The clip also includes footage from a car driving through a street, where several citizens are seen arrested, some pushed into cars and footage from a demonstration, where security personnel open fire at demonstrators, and victims with gunshot wounds are seen being removed from the area. Another video includes footage from a driving car, in which a man with his hands tied above his head to a lamppost is flogged in front of dozens of bystanders on the curb of a busy street. One of the videos is recorded by a man who says he is in Surjah, Baluchistan. He tells the viewers that they are under siege and that there are close to 1,600 IRGC cars near the village of Suraj, and a helicopter could be seen flying in the sky.

To view the clip of the anti-regime demonstrations in Baluchestan, Iran, click here or below:

“Our Tables Are Empty, Khamenei Is A Killer! Curse Upon Khomeini!”

Graffiti: “Death to Khamenei”

[…]

m101022a.jpg

Protesters: “Allah Akbar! Allah Akbar!

[…]

m101022c.jpg

m10102222.jpg

m1010222.jpg

“Death to Khamenei! Death to Khameini!”

m10102.jpg

[…]

Chant leader: “Our tables are empty, Khamenei is a killer!”

Protesters: “Our tables are empty, Khamenei is a killer!”

m10102a.jpg

Chant leader: “Death to Khamenei!”

Protesters: “Death to Khamenei!”

Chant leader: “Curse upon Khomeini!”

Protesters: “Curse upon Khomeini!”

m10102b.jpg

Chant leader: “Death to the Basijis!”

Protesters: “Death to the Basijis!”

m10102c.jpg

Chant leader: “Death to the IRGC!”

Protesters: “Death to the IRGC!”

m10102d.jpg

Read The Full Report

EDITORS NOTE: This MEMRI-TV video exposé is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Biden IRS Plans to Crackdown on Waitress’ Tips As Biden Lies No New Taxes On Working Class In SOTU Speech

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Biden’s IRS plans to crack down on waiters’ tips

‘They’re coming after waitresses’ tips now,’ tax expert Mike Palicz says

By Thomas Catenacci | Fox News

California, New York, Connecticut, Washington, Hawaii, Illinois and Maryland among the states to tax wealthy who flee.

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) proposed a revenue procedure this week to crack down on the service industry’s reporting of tips.

The Service Industry Tip Compliance Agreement (SITCA) program would be a voluntary tip reporting system in which the IRS and service industry companies cooperate, according to the announcement Monday. As part of the proposal, the IRS will give the public until early May to provide feedback on the program before implementing it.

“Those 87,000 new IRS agents that you were promised would only target the rich,” tweeted Mike Palicz, federal affairs manager at Americans for Tax Reform. “They’re coming after waitresses’ tips now.”

According to the IRS, the program would seek to “improve tip reporting compliance,” reduce administrative burdens and provide more transparency and certainty to taxpayers.

“This is not a proposal for the auditing of servers,” an IRS official told Fox News Digital. “Yesterday’s action was a proposal for comment – not a rule – based on over a decade of feedback from restaurants and other businesses seeking the increased flexibility for their overall tax compliance on tips.”

“This proposal is not in effect and is intended to welcome further conversation from all interested parties before any rule is put into place,” the official added.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

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America Hit Rock Bottom In 2022

Biden’s State Department Offers ‘Free Speech’ Grants Only to Anti-Free Speech Leftists

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

‘Zuck Bucks 2.0’: Liberal Group Uses Legal ‘Magic Trick’ To Fund Election Offices, Even In Red States, Watchdogs Say

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  • A nonprofit organization that poured money from Mark Zuckerberg into election offices during the 2020 presidential election is now offering “nonpartisan” assistance for election offices.
  • The group, the Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL), alongside various other “left-wing” nonprofits and companies, formed an $80 million initiative called the U.S. Alliance for Election Excellence, which targets election offices with grants, trainings, resources and consulting services, even in states that block public funding for election offices.
  • The Alliance claims to be nonpartisan, but a review of documents by the Honest Elections Project and the John Locke Foundation show that the group is designed to “systematically influence” aspects of the election administration and push progressive voting policies.

A nonprofit organization that poured money from Mark Zuckerberg into election offices during the 2020 presidential election recently created a collaborative initiative that offers “nonpartisan” assistance for election offices; however, the initiative’s partners and funding are tied to various left-leaning nonprofits, and the group’s “unusual and complex structure” allows for loopholes to be found in laws that block public funding, election integrity watchdogs told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The group, the Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL), alongside various other “left-wing” nonprofits and companies, formed an $80 million initiative called the U.S. Alliance for Election Excellence, which claims to assist election offices with grants, trainings, resources and consulting services, according to a report by the Honest Elections Project, a nonprofit focused on election integrity. The Alliance, whose member offices are called “Centers for Election Excellence,” claims to be nonpartisan, but a review of documents by the Honest Elections Project and the John Locke Foundation shows that the group is designed to “systematically influence” aspects of the election administration and push “progressive” voting policies by working around laws that block public funding for election offices.

“[The Alliance] allows CTCL and its partners to get into election offices, instead of parachuting in the way they did in 2020. They want to go to stay, they want to learn everything about how these offices function, they want to push, you know, what they term best practices, guidance, resources, trainings, technology, software, to reshape the way that they function,” Honest Elections Project Executive Director and report co-author Jason Snead told the DCNF. “All of it is designed to basically give them behind-the-scenes access at a granular level, so that they can nudge, push, whatever, to get these offices to behave in ways which are more in line with their left-wing agenda.”

CTCL is an Illinois-based election reform advocacy group that pushes “left-of-center” voting policies and election administration, according to Capitol Research Center’s (CRC) Influence Watch. The group has been funded by a wide array of organizations over the years, including the Skoll Foundation, the Democracy Fund, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.

The group was founded by co-workers from the now defunct New Organizing Institute (NOI), which has been described by The Washington Post as the “the Democratic Party’s Hogwarts for digital wizardry,” and was a training center for “left-of-center” activists while it existed, according to Influence Watch.

Alongside CTCL, the Alliance is composed of partners that include the Center for Secure and Modern Elections, an Arabella Advisors front group which lobbies for automatic voter registration, and the Center for Civic Design, which uses funding from liberal eBay billionaire Pierre Omidyar to advocate for ballot redesign and permanent vote-by-mail, according to CRC.

Arabella Advisors is a nonprofit network that hosts a number of nonprofit groups that channel “hundreds of millions of dollars” from left-leaning foundations to left-wing organizations, according to Influence Watch. The group creates hundreds of “pop-up groups” designed to look like standalone projects, despite being Arabella-run.

The Alliance’s newest partner, the Institute for Responsive Government, works with government agencies to modernize election administration, specifically focusing on government-driven voter registration policies, according to CRC. The Institute for Responsive Government is housed by the New Venture Fund, which is a nonprofit run by Arabella Advisors.

“This is a coalition of left wing organizations, all of which have had deep ties through their senior staff, founders, etc, to the Democratic Party, to partisan campaigns on the left, and of course, to major left wing, dark money funders as well,” Snead told the DCNF.

CTCL’s Alliance, dubbed “Zuck Bucks 2.0” by the Honest Elections Project, builds on the “Zuck Bucks” initiative, which used private funding to impact election policy nationwide in 2020, according to the Honest Elections Project. Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan reportedly donated a total of $350 million to CTCL in 2020 to be dispensed as COVID-19 “relief grants” to election offices, leading a group of House Republicans to call on CTCL to explain where the hundreds of millions of dollars they were given during the COVID-19 pandemic went.

Following the “Zuck Bucks” initiative, many states implemented legislation that blocked private donations to election offices, but the CTCL’s Alliance is allegedly moving around oversight by implementing a “membership” program with a “unusual and complex structure,” according to the Honest Elections Project. 

“The second main thing that the alliance is set up to do is allow CTCL to spread even in states that ban private funding of elections. And we suspected that from the jump, which is why we put so much time into trying to understand what the Alliance looks like, what its structure was, so we can understand what their strategy is.” Snead said.

Through public records requests, the Honest Elections Project received email communications between Alliance partners and local election offices selected to join the Alliance. The records, also reviewed by the John Locke Foundation, helped the Honest Elections Project look into the function of the Alliance, which showed the group’s alleged “behind-the-scenes influence” into election administration.

The Alliance started as a free group, but later added a membership fee and introduced “scholarships” to cover costs, which are now instantly converted into “credits,” according to the Honest Elections Project. The “credits” must then be used to buy services from Alliance-sponsored partners.

The “scholarship” to cover the membership cost can be used in states with weaker restrictions on public funding to provide funding for election offices without directly giving the office money, according to the Honest Elections Project. The Alliance’s choice to offer scholarships to election offices is a “two fold” decision, Snead told the DCNF.

The scholarships make it free for jurisdictions to join if they are allowed to accept funds, and also provides a loophole for states with less strict public funding laws. “It’s almost like they’re doing a magic trick pretending that we say it costs $4,800 to join, but if we never bill you, and you’d never pay us, there’s no transaction, we just convert those fees into credits behind the scenes,” Snead told the DCNF.

“I think it was very clearly designed to allow the influence of the Alliance to move into states where you cannot accept even the scholarship because of tightly worded private funding restrictions,” Snead said.

The membership process seems to be a “two way street,” according to one election official in email records obtained by the Honest Elections Project. Election offices receive guidance, resources, trainings, technology and software to reshape the way that they function, and the Alliance receives information on how the member offices operate, as well as the ability to guide election offices through the use of its partner services.

“I get something and give something,” one election official said about the agreement in documents obtained by the Honest Elections Project.

The Honest Elections Project is still investigating how states with public funding bans are able to join the Alliance, and has submitted public record requests to further understand the onboarding process, according to Snead.

“I fully expect that we will see other jurisdictions in states that have private funding bans targeted over the next days and weeks,” Snead said.

Once election offices are locked in with the Alliance and the “credits” have been awarded, election offices work with the left-wing partners of the Alliance, according to the Honest Elections Project.

“Instead of spending taxpayer dollars on any potential competitor to provide, for instance, a software solution to manage the recruitment and distribution of poll workers, they spent this money, now the money has to then effectively be spent on services that are provided by these CTCL approved collaborators,” Snead said.

The Alliance initially recruited “Centers for Election Excellence” in states that did not block the use of private funding in election offices, but later expanded to states that block public funding, including Utah and Georgia, according to the Honest Elections Project. Instead of sending funding directly to the election offices in Georgia, the Alliance sends funding to the respective county’s finance department, which later dispenses the funding to the election offices, CRC Senior Researcher Hayden Ludwig and Snead told the DCNF.

“Georgia private funding restrictions are not the tightest and so they have essentially identified a loophole where the funding goes to the county and then the county appropriates it to the elections office,” Snead told the DCNF. The Dekalb County, Georgia, finance department did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

The Honest Elections Project is currently investigating how counties in Utah were able to join the Alliance.

“Utah has fairly tight private funding restrictions. Again, the question is, did they get a membership fee to join the Alliance? Or did they take advantage of this scholarship program and pretend that that is somehow a satisfactory workaround?” Snead told the DCNF.

The Alliance is marketed as a seal of approval for election offices that excel at election administration, but after election offices were admitted, they were told that they would also be receiving massive grants, Snead told the DCNF.

Many election officials were surprised by the large sums of money offered, leading election officials in Ottawa, Michigan, and Brunswick and Forsyth, North Carolina, to announce that they will not be taking any funding from the Alliance. Ottawa County Clerk Justin Roebuck believes that some of the group’s initiatives are exciting, “but $1.5 million just seemed excessive,” he told the Holland Sentinel.

“We didn’t ask for that. Honestly, we were very surprised and we want people in it for the right reasons,” Roebuck continued.

Half of the original group of participating election offices are now facing some degree of pushback or expressing some reservations about joining the program, Snead told the DCNF.

Governors in Louisiana, Michigan, North Carolina and Wisconsin vetoed legislation banning private funding in 2021, and Wisconsin, Michigan and North Carolina have election offices that are participating in the Alliance. The respective offices did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s requests for comment.

If voters are going to have faith that CTCL is operating in a nonpartisan manner, “the process for awarding the money should be more transparent,” Ludwig told RealClearInvestigations.

If the CTCL Alliance is truly committed to helping election offices, “they would be advocating through democratic channels to expand budgets, going into state legislatures to support infrastructure. But they don’t and they have millions of dollars at their disposal,” he continued.

CTCL, the Center for Secure and Modern Elections and the Center for Civic Design did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

The Institute for Responsive Government could not be reached for comment.

AUTHOR

BRONSON WINSLOW

Contributor.

RELATED ARTICLE: Voter Participation Groups With Left-Wing Ties Threaten Voters With Peer Pressure

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.

Distinguishing Friend from Foe in Matters of Faith

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There are multiple words for “enemy” in Hebrew, but two of the more intriguing ones in Tanakh are oyev (אוֹיֵב) and soneh (שׂוֹנֵא), each of which conveys a distinctive meaning and linguistic nuance. According to Rav Eliyahu ben Shlomo Zalman, the great eighteenth-century Torah sage known as the Vilna Gaon (or HaGra), an oyev seeks to cause physical or bodily harm, while a soneh inflicts spiritual harm by disrupting his victim’s relationship with G-d.

Though the oyev can bring physical ruin in this world, the Vilna Gaon sees the soneh (or hater) as the greater threat because he jeopardizes one’s standing as a Jew both on earth and in the world to come. And it is this latter term that perhaps best describes certain evangelical groups who profess great love for the Jewish People and Israel while simultaneously seeking their spiritual demise through missionary efforts that promote avodah zarah (literally ‘strange worship’), as defined in Torah and condemned by the Prophets.

It was easy to rebuke the Presbyterian Church (USA) when it falsely labelled Israel an apartheid state or Anglican and Catholic Church leaders for objecting to a UK proposal to move its embassy to Jerusalem last year. Church excoriation of Israel is but a modern iteration of the same doctrinal antisemitism found throughout Christian tradition, which laid the groundwork for ghettos, crusades, inquisitions, pogroms, and genocide.

Consequently, it seemed refreshing at first glance when the Assemblies of God (“AG”), one of the largest evangelical denominations in the US, issued a statement denouncing antisemitism in the wake of H.R. 1125, a Congressional resolution condemning Jew-hatred in all its forms. But are such expressions of this solidarity pure, or are they part of an agenda to spiritually corrupt the Jews and their nation?

Given the drastic uptick in missionary activity against Jews in the US, Europe, and Israel (and despite defections from some evangelical movements over doctrinal policy), the question is legitimate and timely.

Certainly, many Christians support Jews and Israel for reasons of history and justice, while others are motivated by guilt for generations of Church-inspired persecution culminating in the Shoah. Still, others are driven by a compulsion to convert Jews per the “great commission” in the Book Matthew (28:16-20), using “friendship evangelization” to ingratiate themselves and facilitate missionary activity. This tactic developed with the realization that 2,000 years of persecution failed as a conversionary strategy and was honed after Jerusalem’s reunification in 1967 by those evangelists who believed the Jews must return to Israel and accept Christianity to trigger the “second coming” (a Christian concept found nowhere in Tanakh).

And the role of this denomination of evangelicals in creating and promoting “messianic Judaism” as conversionary subterfuge cannot be ignored. Theologically, this movement is Christian, not Jewish, despite its deceptive use of Jewish traditions, symbols, and imagery; and its endorsement by those who claim to love us is perhaps an indicator of their true intentions.

Typically, these evangelicals’ knowledge of Hebrew scripture is superficial at best and completely at odds with original text and doctrine, and they often employ Jewish buzzwords and symbols for misdirection. They claim, for example, that accepting “Yeshua” is the most Jewish thing a person could do – though he fulfilled none of the messianic criteria set forth in Tanakh and belief in the divinity of any man constitutes idolatry according to Torah. Moreover, the trinity (which is not monotheistic), vicarious atonement, and eucharist all contravene Torah law; and belief in a supernatural “messiah” who absolves sin through his own death evokes human sacrifice and is inconsistent with the mortal nature and role of Moshiach as delineated in Tanakh.

Despite effusive declarations of affection, their missionaries seek to divorce Jews from their ancestral faith, often targeting those with limited Jewish education or understanding of the textual and doctrinal incompatibility between Christianity and Judaism. And this is something I’ve experienced personally.

I’m frequently confronted by missionizing evangelicals while walking to shul or on the internet – though I neither solicit these interactions nor believe in “Judeo-Christian” commonality. Whereas their approach is always friendly, the conversation invariably descends into a game of “stump the Jew,” and they become flustered when claiming to quote Torah – only to find that they don’t really know it, their translations contain fundamental mistakes and distortions, and the actual Hebrew text supports none of their assumptions.

They are surprised to learn, for example, that Isaiah 7:14 does not prophesy a virgin birth; the “suffering servant” in Isaiah 53 refers to the Jewish people collectively, not a persecuted messianic figure; Psalm 22 does not foretell a crucified savior who would be pierced through the hands and feet; and Psalm 2:12 does not admonish readers to “kiss the Son lest [G-d] be angry.”

Because they must concede the divinity of Tanakh, they are flummoxed when confronted with errors, mistranslations, and outright fabrications where their bible professes consistency with Hebrew Scripture. For example, although the Torah clearly states the Patriarchs are buried in the Cave of Machpelah in Hevron, which is in Judea (Breishit, 23:1-20; 25:6-10; 35:28-29), Christian scripture incorrectly has them buried in Shechem (i.e., Samaria) together with Yosef. (Acts, 7.) The Torah, however, just as clearly states that Yosef’s bones – not the Patriarchs – were buried in Shechem. (Yehoshua, 24:32.) And then there are the “fulfillment citations” in the Book of Matthew, which purport to show where Tanakh references Jesus, but which utterly fail when matched against the actual Hebrew text. There are many other egregious examples, but the point becomes clear after parsing only a few.

The better a person is grounded in Tanakh, the easier it is to see through conversionary tactics. But even the observant community is not immune from risk.

In recent years, some some denominations of evangelicals have targeted Orthodox communities in the US and Israel by masquerading as rabbis, scribes, and kabbalists in a crusade of cultural deception. Not all observant Jews are well-versed in scripture, however; and consequently, some are ill-prepared to confront propaganda from theological charlatans who manipulate text to falsely claim Christian belief fulfills Jewish prophecy. Though a simple reading of Hebrew Scripture usually suffices to expose such dissimulation, the study of Tanakh for many ceases in grade school, leaving critical gaps in scriptural fluency.

Accordingly, the Jewish community must be vigilant in identifying the threat and educating those at risk. And this includes questioning the motives behind philosemitic declarations by Christian groups historically committed to Jewish conversion. Though some praised the AG’s statement against antisemitism, others were skeptical about a part of a denomination that (a) declares pro-Jewish sentiments while maintaining missions dedicated to Jewish evangelization and (b) posts content on its website about “witnessing” to Jews.

The evangelicals who approach me generally seem receptive to discourse with someone capable of reading original text and telling them what it really says. When, after a few conversations, one such gentleman informed me he no longer believed in evangelizing Jews and wanted to learn Hebrew, I cautioned him, “be careful what you wish for.” Understanding Hebrew, I said, would accentuate the errancies in his scripture and perhaps challenge his faith; but he said he wanted truth, not bias confirmation. So, I advised him to find a capable Jewish teacher and wished him well.

Though individuals can have respectful conversations interpersonally, we cannot expect the same from institutions and groups dedicated to corrupting the Jewish spirit. And no matter how strenuously missionaries might argue that a Jew must accept their savior to be “completed,” such claims violate the Torah’s explicit prohibitions against strange worship, false prophecy, and the adoration of alien deities and beliefs (e.g., the trinity, incarnation, deification of a man, etc.).

One need only read Tanakh to know the commandments are everlasting. Indeed, the Torah specifically states:

“Do not add to the word which I command you, nor diminish from it, to observe the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you.” (Sefer Devarim, 4:2.)

“Everything I command you that you shall be careful to do it. You shall neither add to it, nor subtract from it. If there will arise among you a prophet…[and he] says, ‘Let us go after other gods which you have not known, and let us worship them’…you shall not heed the words of that prophet…You shall follow the Lord, your God, fear Him, keep His commandments, heed His voice, worship Him, and cleave to Him.” (Sefer Devarim, 13:1-5.)

Like the soneh described by the Vilna Gaon, these missionary evangelists would have Jews abdicate their role as guardians of the commandments, renounce the faith of their ancestors, and compromise their holy obligations in this world and their place in the next. The strange worship peddled by missionaries serves only to profane Torah and alienate vulnerable Jews from their spiritual birthright – and it must be rejected accordingly.

©Matthew Hausman, J.D. All rights reserved.

New CFACT YouTube Series ‘Capitol Pink’ Exposes Free Speech Fight on Florida’s International University Campus

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CFACT is launching a new YouTube video series aimed at exposing the assault on free speech that right of center students face on their college campuses every day.

The program is called “Capitol Pink.” It is hosted by Shakira Jackson who is a recent graduate from the University of Pittsburgh and former CFACT Collegians activist. Her spunky, “take no prisoners” approach at tackling the censorship and political bias of those on the Left, particularly on America’s college campuses, is a breath of fresh air.

Watch Capitol Pink E1: What’s the Fuss about Florida Free Speech.

On the first episode of CFACT’s new YouTube series, Capitol Pink, CFACT’s Shakira Jackson sits down with Florida International University student Cristen Lameira to discuss her fights with campus administrations in starting conservative clubs and standing for free speech.

Lameira explains her struggles to try to get professors willing to stand up as public advisers to conservative clubs, and gives her advice to current students on how to effectively advocate for the rights of all students.

Capitol Pink is the video series that focus on free speech, censorship, technology, energy, environment, and much more. Tune in every few weeks to get the fresh take on these issues from CFACT activist and researcher Shakira Jackson.

The series is largely aimed at young adults and those attending college. However, the program will certainly be of interest to those of all ages. In addition to free speech, Capitol Pink will focus on important issues like technology, public policy, energy, environment, and more.

The Left and the media like to paint the picture that all young people walk in lockstep with the woke agenda. CFACT prides itself in exposing this charade as being flat out wrong. That’s why CFACT started its one-of-a-kind national Collegians program, and it’s why CFACT is sponsoring this new Capitol Pink video series.

It’s time for the public hear from a bright, young, articulate woman that isn’t beholden to the left-wing agenda. It’s time for there to be a forum for young people to speak out on the important issues of the day, without fear of being bullied as “politically incorrect.”

Take a look at the first episode of Capitol Pink, share it with a friend, and let’s start putting pressure on left wing administrators that stifle the rights of students in America.

EDITORS NOTE: This CFACT video exposé is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Democrats Crazy Like a Fox on Crime

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I don’t know about the State of the Union, but the state of Seattle is abysmal and rapidly deteriorating under Democrat rule.  Crime is at a 15-year high after the city moved to defund the police.  Homicides increased 24 percent in 2022 over 2021.  Overall crime is up 4 percent over an all-time high in 2021.  Aggravated assault and car theft contributed heavily to the statistics.  The city’s underfunded police force is down 130 officers.  In 2020, the crazy far-Left Democrat Woke mayor said she wanted to ‘reimagine policing’ and now the results are plain for all to see.

Seattle’s mayor is not the only Democrat who has produced such abysmal results.  Eleven U.S. cities – all run by Democrats – are among the 50 most dangerous cities in the world.  The list includes the “robbery capital” of the U.S. – Baltimore, and Detroit where 220 police officers left the force last year.  Chicago’s wackadoodle Democrat mayor now openly admits she can’t fix the high crime rate in her city, so people need to stop using cash in order to bring crime down.  D.C.’s Democrat city council recently voted to reduce penalties for carjacking, robbery, and gun-related felonies.  This is after a wave of carjackings in the city.  How nuts can you get?

California is right up there in bringing the crazy.  Governor Newsom signed a law ending loitering arrests for prostitution.  Now prostitutes solicit sex work in front of a Catholic grade school in Oakland all day every day.  Other California laws have brought about the early release of pedophiles from prison.  A former D.A. warns more children will be harmed as a result.   Felonies are being dismissed in Riverside, California near L.A. for lack of a speedy trial because there’s a judge shortage.  One reason there’s a judge shortage is because crime is way up.

Other Democrat-controlled jurisdictions are not far behind in craziness.  In Democrat-controlled St. Louis, 149 cars were stolen in just one recent week.  The Democrat mayor ran on an anti-police platform and the Democrat circuit attorney is one of those progressive prosecutors who won’t prosecute.  In Democrat-controlled New York, children under 12 will no longer be arrested or prosecuted for most crimes.  They’ll go to social services for treatment, instead.  The one exception is homicide, but a former police chief warned violent juvenile offenders are getting younger and younger.

I’m  sorry, but things going in this direction is no accident.  This is not just the ordinary ‘soft-on-crime, tough-on-crime’ argument we’ve been having for decades.  This is the far-Left and its willing accomplices in the Democrat Party deliberately creating chaos and pushing the U.S. off a cliff.  George Soros has spent $40 million to elect 75 progressive prosecutors around the country who won’t prosecute.  A bail fund of the kind championed by Kamala Harris received $33 million in donations in 2021.  Similar bail funds are currently operating in 37 states.  The criminals being bailed out have gone on to commit murder and other serious crimes.

Once again, I find myself saying ‘follow the money’.  The far-Left desires these outcomes and is putting up money to make them happen.  Chaos is a weapon; it’s political warfare.  The Democrats want chaos to soften people up for big government solutions that further empower Democrats.  Stop this ride, I wanna get off.

©Christopher Wright. All rights reserved.

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RELATED ARTICLE: Biden Urges Congress to ‘Restore Soul of This Nation’ by Expanding Abortion, Transgenderism in SOTU

Biden Urges Congress to ‘Restore Soul of This Nation’ by Expanding Abortion, Transgenderism in SOTU

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During his State of the Union Address Tuesday night, President Joe Biden called on Congress “to restore the soul of this nation” by making abortion legal nationwide until birth and passing a bill that would force religious employers to hire people who identify as transgender. His administration’s focus on pushing polarizing social issues clashes with Republicans’ more mainstream views of abortion and gender identity, a contrast that Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R) said gives Americans a clear choice “between normal or crazy.”

“Congress must restore the right the Supreme Court took away last year and codify Roe v. Wade to protect every woman’s constitutional right to choose,” said Biden, an apparent nod to the “Women’s Health Protection” Act, which would erase 1,381 pro-life protections including parental notification requirements. “The vice president and I are doing everything we can to protect access to reproductive healthcare and safeguard patient privacy.” He went on to chide states for enacting “extreme abortion bans” and threatened to veto any national pro-life legislation.

The president also urged Congress to “pass the bipartisan Equality Act to ensure LGBTQ Americans, especially transgender young people, can live with safety and dignity.” The bill, a longstanding goal of the LGBT lobby, would amend landmark civil rights acts to equate sexual orientation and gender identity with race, sex, and religion. It effectively places homosexuality and transgender status above religious liberty by denying protections of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). The extreme bill, once supported by Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) and former House Speaker Paul Ryan, “would eradicate freedom of thought, conscience, and belief — resulting in the penalization of anyone who disagrees with the ideologies,” wrote Mary Beth Waddell, director of Federal Affairs for Family and Religious Liberty at the Family Research Council.

Passing such social legislation, Biden said, would enhance “the power of our example. Let’s remember the world is watching.”

Biden symbolically gestured toward left-wing social issues with his guest list, which included Gina and Heidi Nortonsmith, the lesbian couple whose lawsuit foisted same-sex marriage on the state of Massachusetts by judicial fiat in 2004. The couple also spoke at the signing ceremony of the so-called “Respect for Marriage” Act, which struck down marriage protection laws nationwide.

Biden also invited Amanda and Josh Zurawski of Austin, who say doctors denied them medical treatment for a miscarriage due to confusion over the state’s Heartbeat law. SBA Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser says the president has weaponized their “tragic” story to further his “deeply misleading” allegations. “Every pro-life law in the country allows necessary and timely medical treatment to save the life of a pregnant woman in an emergency,” she said. “There are no laws in any state that prevent timely and compassionate care for a miscarriage,” added the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists (AAPLOG). “Denying proper healthcare to patients facing miscarriage complications is not complying with the law. Miscarriage care is not abortion.”

Some members of Congress made statements of their own, with Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) inviting acquitted pro-life activist Mark Houck, who found himself swarmed by federal agents at his home in front of his family for allegedly violating federal laws against blocking access to an abortion facility.

Even as he discussed bipartisanship, Biden tied conservatives and Republicans to civil war, insurrection, and the attack against Paul Pelosi by a hammer-wielding man with a mental illness. “Two years ago, our democracy faced its greatest threat since the Civil War,” he said, referring to the January 6 riot. “Today, though bruised, our democracy remains unbowed and unbroken,” apparently quoting the HBO series “Game of Thrones.” He claimed Pelosi’s assailant had been “unhinged by the Big Lie.”

“This kind of provocative rhetoric has only served to fuel the spread of violent attacks on churches and pregnancy help centers since Biden took office. While ignoring these attacks and their victims, the Biden administration has openly weaponized the federal government against pro-life Americans like Mark Houck and his family,” said Brian Burch of CatholicVote.

Biden also proposed a massive federal intervention into the way families raise children by “providing access to pre-school for 3- and 4-year-olds,” a proposal repeatedly made by President Barack Obama during successive State of the Union addresses. Multiple studies have found Pre-K attendance inflicts a number of harms on young students, and polls have found most mothers would like to stay at home. “No public preschool program can provide the environments and the parental love and care of a functioning family and the lifetime benefits that ensue,” said James J. Heckman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist frequently cited by those who support universal pre-K.

Those references aside, Biden’s 70-minute-long address largely focused on economic issues, showing uncharacteristic “restraint,” Meg Kilgannon, senior fellow for Education Studies at Family Research Council, told The Washington Stand. Biden “tried so hard to seem like a 1980s Democrat but it’s just not believable.”

The president often cited his economic success by comparing his results to the worst days of the 2020 recession, caused by a government-mandated shutdown to “slow the spread.” Biden said he had “created a record 12 million new jobs, more jobs created in two years than any president has ever created in four years,” he said.

Biden has added 2.7 million jobs over the prepandemic high of 152.4 million reached under President Donald Trump. By comparison, Trump added nearly 5 million jobs in his first two years in office, and 13.4 million in the 22 months rebounding from the COVID-19 lockdown. The labor force participation rate under President Biden remains below prepandemic levels (62.4% this month compared to 63.3% in January 2020).

“The state of our union is miserable, and the blame rests squarely with President Biden and the Democrats,” said Jenny Beth Martin, honorary chair of the Tea Party Patriots Action. “Whether it’s record deficit spending causing the worst inflation in four decades, an ‘open borders’ policy causing a record stream of illegal immigrants crossing our border, or a weak foreign policy emboldening China and other adversaries, President Biden is always doing the wrong thing and American families always end up paying the price.”

President Biden urged Congress to “pass the PRO Act, because workers have a right to form a union.” The Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, a sought-after legislative goal of labor unions, would strike down all state right-to-work laws and compel workers in a unionized shop to pay union dues, even if they do not want to belong to a union. Federal legislation has protected workers’ right to join a union since the 1936 Wagner Act. Yet only 6% of the private sector workforce belonged to a union in 2022, while one-third of government employees have unionized, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Labor unions contributed $65 million in union dues to Democratic candidates during the 2020 election cycle, including $27.5 million to Biden’s presidential campaign. The president was also the top recipient of campaign donations from teachers unions.

At two points, Biden paused mid-speech as Republicans opposed his caricature of their platform, accusing Republicans of wanting to eliminate Social Security and Medicare. A legislative proposal to that effect, from Senator Rick Scott (R-Fla.), received little legislative support.

Biden made a brief reference to the border, which has seen record-breaking levels of illegal immigration and virtually non-existent deportations during both of his years in office. “America’s border problems won’t be fixed until Congress acts,” particularly “if you won’t pass my comprehensive immigration reform,” which includes a pathway to citizenship for millions of illegal immigrants, he told lawmakers.

On foreign affairs, Biden pledged continued financial and military aid to Ukraine despite flagging public support, and boasted of a supposed hardline against China. “Before I came to office, the story was about how the People’s Republic of China was increasing its power and America was falling in the world. Not anymore,” he said. “As we made clear last week, if China’s threatens our sovereignty, we will act to protect our country. And we did.” Biden shot down a Chinese spy craft this weekend after it had completed its surveillance of areas that included U.S. nuclear installations.

Biden gave a nod to COVID-19, which defined the first few months of his presidency. “We have broken COVID’s grip on us,” he said. “And soon we’ll end the public health emergency.” Biden announced the federal government would end its emergency in May, shortly after the House of Representatives passed legislation ending the government’s state of emergency immediately. Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) invited as his guest a U.S. serviceman briefly dismissed from the military for refusing to take the COVID shot.

“Biden’s comments aimed at the need for a world ‘solution’ on certain topics (which understandably concern people) continue to imply the legitimacy of world power centers like the UN, WHO, and the like. Yet this takes power further from the people that true democracies are supposed to represent. If we have a ‘crisis of democracy’ as some think we do, such ‘solutions’ only exacerbate the problem,” Travis Weber, vice president for Policy and Government Affairs at Family Research Council, told The Washington Stand. “To the extent that the Biden administration’s priorities (like abortion or gender transitions for minors) are injected into these centers of world power, we will be exporting spiritually harmful activities to other nations. Social liberals’ intended solutions for these young people only keeps them imprisoned … and they need to find true freedom from the clutches of the enemy of their souls,” Weber said.

The spiritual condition of America figured prominently in his remarks. “Because the soul of this nation is strong, because the backbone of this nation is strong,” he said. Americans “are a good people, the only nation in the world built on an idea: that all of us, every one of us, is created equal in the image of God.”

“I appreciated the president’s affirmation that everyone is ‘created equal in the image of God.’ Unfortunately, for two years the president has demonstrated that he really doesn’t believe that,” David Closson, director of FRC’s Center for Biblical Worldview, told The Washington Stand. “Against the moral teachings of his own church, President Biden has pursued the most radical pro-abortion agenda in our nation’s history, and he made it clear tonight that he remains beholden to the abortion lobby by indicating he would veto any federal efforts to protect unborn life.”

“When it comes to protecting life, I wish the president’s policies matched his rhetoric,” said Closson.

“Americans want common sense from their leaders, but in Washington, the Biden administration is doubling down on crazy,” said Governor Sanders.

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

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

LEAKED VIDEO from Inside Sub-Human D.C. Gulag Where January 6th Patriots Are Imprisoned

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This terrible, horrible political abuse of absolute power has been going on for years. Thousands have been investigated. Close to a thousand patriotic Americans have been charged for exercising their Constitutional right to freedom of expression, freedom of assembly. Details of their detainment are horrific.

Most Americans are painfully unaware or worse, apathetic to the plight of their fellow Americans.

Meanwhile, Biden Regime quietly frees one of 9/11 terrorist planners from Gitmo

Exclusive: Jan 6 Defendant Jon Mellis Leaks Footage from Inside the DC Gulag to Gateway Pundit – Prisoners Are Forced to Drink Dirty Brown Water (VIDEO)

By Jim Hoft, TGP, February 6, 2023:

Jonathan Mellis was arrested on February 16, 2021, a month after the January 6 protests in Washington DC.

Jon pleaded not guilty to all charges against him after his arrest.  He has been held in prison for nearly two years now without trial.

After nearly two years in jail, Jon Mellis has yet to receive a Bond Hearing. He needs our help.

Mellis warned Americans in December 2022 that he and other J6 defendants in the “Patriot Pod” of the DC Gulag are being tortured by “racist, hateful, and abusive correctional officers,” sexually assaulted and treated like animals for being Trump supporters.

While attempted murderers, illegal alien rapists, and acid-throwing Antifa thugs are quickly returned to the streets, the son of a two-time Purple Heart award recipient is held on charges that allege no injuries or harm, nor property damaged while protesting the corruption of justice as is his civic right and duty.

On Monday night Jon Mellis leaked this video out of the DC Gulag.  As you can see, the political prisoners in this facility are forced to drink dirty brown water.

This is human rights abuse that all decent Americans should speak out against.

This is Joe Biden’s America.

Let’s support Jonathan in his stand against this gross miscarriage of justice HERE.

Jonathan Mellis: My name is Jonathan Mellis. I am a January 6th detainee inside the D.C. Jail. I have been incarcerated for over 700 days without trial and treatment.

What I have endured since my arrest has shaken my faith in humanity. I thought I was in a country where citizens were deemed innocent until proven guilty. I thought I was in a country where citizens are afforded dignity, who treated humanely. Democrat rioters who stormed the White House in the summer of 2020. They injured 100 federal officers, burned St. John’s Church and forced President Trump to be evacuated to an underground bunker. The next day of mainstream media and Democrats only laughed at President Trump. No Democrat experienced the inhumane and unconstitutional conditions we J6ers have endured for two years. One year of solitary confinement. Two years denied visitation. We live under threat by violent and hateful correctional officers with black mold, brown drinking water, rats and cockroaches. I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy.

We J6ers still sing the Star Spangled Banner every night. may look better Every night a great deal.

The wickedness of this regime and their DC colleagues is something we never thought we would witness in America.

What a dark period for this country.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

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

Biden’s State Department Offers ‘Free Speech’ Grants Only to Anti-Free Speech Leftists

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I have been a free speech activist for well over decade and have suffered the slings and arrows of those working furiously to shut down the first amendment. My colleagues and myself have received no funding save from private individuals like my readers, But the enemies of free speech are being funded by the rogue Biden regime.

It’s high treason. This is what happens when a hostile, small group of people who hate you runs the government.

Mainstreaming of America’s destruction with taxpayer dollars…..

State Department Offers ‘Free Speech’ Grants Only to Woke Activists

By: Thomas D. Williams, Ph.D.5. Breitbart, February 7, 2023;

The U.S. State Department is pretending to offer grants for proponents of free speech while disqualifying anyone who disagrees with their woke agenda.

If your “speech” promotes biological males playing women’s sports, abortion-on-demand, and the sexual indoctrination of six-year-olds, the State Department is offering $750,000 grants to help you stamp out the free speech of anyone who disagrees with you.

If you want government funding, your free-speech initiative “should include women and girls in all their diversity; LGBTQI+ persons, transgender or gender-diverse persons in particular; migrants; members of marginalized racial, ethnic, and Indigenous communities, religious minority group members; and others targeted by anti-rights actors,” the State Department stipulates.

In its Notice of Funding Opportunity “Ensuring Freedom of Expression for Vulnerable and Marginalized Populations Responding to Anti-Rights Efforts and Targeted Attacks,” the State Department notes that grants will only be given to those whose programs “have strong support from and participation by lesbian and bisexual women, transgender and intersex individuals, and other gender diverse persons.”

Strong proposals, it states, “will include a strong gender analysis that looks at the unique needs of women and girls, including lesbian and bisexual women, as well as transgender, intersex, and other gender diverse and gender non-conforming persons, women of color, women with disabilities, and/or women who experience multiple and intersecting human rights violations and abuse.”

Despite its stated aim of funding projects seeking to promote and protect “Freedom of Expression,” the State Department makes clear that it will only fund projects promoting a very specific type of speech: that which advocates for radical LGBT goals and the pro-abortion movement.

The initiative seems to focus on measures taken by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), especially his resistance to child sexual indoctrination, since he appears to be a probable threat to a Democrat run for the White House in 2024.

Keep reading.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

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

America Hit Rock Bottom In 2022

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Hit bottom, keeps digging.

The decent and civilized among us are shouting into the void. What’s it going to take?

The Year America’s Basic Systems Started To Crumble

By: Christopher Bedford, The Federalist, February 7, 2023:

Chaos in Washington, madness at the airport, holiday hangovers: The first month of 2023 was familiar enough. What might seem less familiar to Americans, however, are the cracks appearing in our walls.

Sure, Americans have long felt a decline — maybe a few shifts in the foundations; the yearly polls on trust in major institutions reflect that well enough. You might hear an uncle who says, “Wall Street’s a bunch of crooks!” or a neighbor who notices, “Washington politicians are only in it for themselves,” or even an old classmate who thinks, “Colleges are just a bunch of crazy activists these days,” but the complaints largely ended with the complaints themselves. Everything still worked well enough.

And then it didn’t.

While politicians, “the experts,” and their friends in corporate media managed to muddy the waters in the first year of lockdowns, by 2021 everyday Americans felt like they’d earned the right to wonder why their kindergarteners were in masks, or their local teachers still refused to teach. Modern homeschooling flourished like never before, while enrollment in Catholic schools increased for the first time in decades.

The easy and pervasive idea that you could drop your kids off at school and expect they’d get an education like you did back in the day was dead. The assumption that you could trust the hospital administrator went out with the idea that you could trust your favorite news anchor. Hell, even pastors and funeral directors stood in the way of the business of life, death, and salvation.

But these were just people, most reasoned; or at least these were just institutions. And anyway, these were “unprecedented times” and “we’re all in this together.” “The pendulum will swing back,” Americans confidently predicted. “This craziness will pass.”

Today, in the first month of 2023, we don’t have the luxury of thinking it’s all going to get better. Because far from the year America changed course and settled into “normalcy,” 2022 was the year the basic, behind-the-scenes systems we all count on started to break down.

People struggled to buy a car. Baby formula moved behind locked counters, where the cigarettes used to be sold. Baby aspirin and other simple medicines were in such high demand, friends and neighbors worked together to supply the most vulnerable. Container ships backed up for weeks while their contents rotted. Diesel shortages threatened the lifeblood of the American economy.

Even if you don’t have an infant or a child looking for medicine, even if you didn’t see the ships lining up the California coast or the Chesapeake Bay, or missed the growing unease in the trucking industry, you might have noticed the cost of meat fluctuating so greatly that some local restaurants charged “market price” for chicken fingers. Or maybe you noticed condiments and other basic items were out of stock in the fast food joints across your town. Or maybe a friend texted you to please keep an eye out for a certain type of formula for his baby daughter, who needs it.

The point is: “Good Morning America” could ignore it all they liked, but you noticed.

Keep reading.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

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

VOX PARTY SPAIN VIDEO: ‘Islam Is Incompatible With Western Culture’

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VOX party spokesman gives blunt speech about the consequences of Islam within a Western nation’s borders.

Please read the details at RAIR Foundation

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EDITORS NOTE: This Vlad Tepes Blog post by  is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.