Tag Archive for: elections

The Swiftian Candidate: How a Pop Star Might Impact the Presidential Election

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For decades, celebrities have insisted on involving themselves in politics and political commentary, whether they have any moral or intellectual basis for doing so or not. Whether it’s middle-aged, wine-box variety feminists on “The View” or the latest thespian to mistake an increasingly-irrelevant acting award for a doctorate in political science, the rich and famous insist on airing their pernicious political positions in, more often than not, the most noxious, arrogant, self-aggrandizing terms imaginable. Even the legendary Narcissus would blush to hear a politically-charged Academy Award acceptance speech — at least all he did was stare at his reflection and leave the rest of the world alone.

One of today’s most prominent celebrities, however, was largely silent on the subject of politics for much of her career, but now has the potential wherewithal to sway nearly a fifth of voters in 2024. According to a new survey, country star-turned pop icon Taylor Swift’s endorsement would likely influence 18% of voters in America, including about 30% of voters under the age of 35. Of course, Swift is likely to endorse the incompetent, geriatric incumbent Joe Biden.

This should not be a surprise, nor a puzzle to figure out. The pop star previously endorsed the Biden-Harris campaign in 2020, posting a platter of Biden-Harris campaign-sticker-style cookies to Instagram. Even before this, in the documentary “Miss Americana,” Swift lamented not having used her influence to criticize then-candidate Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election. She also blasted Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) in the 2018 midterms, calling the staunchly pro-life politician “Trump in a wig” and endorsing Blackburn’s opponent, pro-abortion Democrat and former Volunteer State governor Phil Bredesen.

In the wake of the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, Swift took to social media to defend abortion as “women’s rights to their own bodies,” posting a pro-abortion eulogy by Michelle Obama. She has also been a proponent of the LGBT agenda, calling on fans to oppose pro-family, pro-marriage legislation and legislators and announcing Pride Month dedications.

According to a New York Times report, Biden campaign aides and staffers are lobbying for Swift’s endorsement a second time around. “The biggest and most influential endorsement target is Ms. Swift,” the report states. “Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, a top Biden surrogate, all but begged Ms. Swift to become more involved in Mr. Biden’s campaign when he spoke to reporters after a Republican primary debate in September.” Apparently, the Biden team has even considered aligning campaign stops with Swift’s record-breaking “Eras” tour.

It seems ludicrous — laughably so — that a woman who’s made a career out of singing about picking the wrong guy is able to practically direct people how to vote. But setting aside the irony entailed by glancing at Swift’s catalog of songs and failed relationships, the fact that a single, politically-illiterate billionaire celebrity can effectively command a fifth of voters is disturbing, to say the very least, and actually reveals some of the chief flaws of democratic systems.

First and foremost, Swift’s political power is indicative of how far the Western world — America in particular — has fallen from God. C.S. Lewis once quipped in an essay, “Where men are forbidden to honor a king they honor millionaires, athletes, or film-stars instead: even famous prostitutes or gangsters. For spiritual nature, like bodily nature, will be served; deny it food and it will gobble poison.”

Christ the King has been forced out of the public square in secular Western society. In His stead, the masses now do exactly as Lewis predicted and worship celebrities, with Swift towering above them all. Without a God to worship, the public will inevitably worship lesser gods. This lesson is written throughout history: the ancients would worship and sacrifice to Zeus, Jupiter, Odin, Horus, and countless others. Without the revelation of the one true God, Perfection Himself, these false gods were but exaggerations of common human strengths and weaknesses.

Now, in the ages since Christ’s birth, death, and resurrection, a new sort of god has come to be. No more can men conjure gods in their imaginations, unseen beings responsible for thunder and lightning; instead, the public now worships those among them who are deemed to have transcended common human limitations: billionaire businessmen, cutting-edge scientists, and talented performers are all glorified in God’s place. Under the tutelage of the Serpent, man has usurped the throne of God — if only in his own mind. Where God invites man to become one with Him, man’s new idea of god promises that every man can become a god, and on his own terms, not on Someone Else’s. Without Christ at the center of the public square, man now gobbles poison, and Swift is peddling it with her views on abortion and sex.

In fact, Swift’s very few political statements directly contradict the noble notion of self-sacrifice inherent in a Christ-centered public square: endorsing the killing of one’s own children for whatever reason — career, reputation, economic ease, or just consequence-free sex — and supporting the sterile LGBT agenda, incapable of producing children or building families, in direct conflict with God’s design for human sexuality. Like the rest of the cultural elite horde, Swift buys into, repackages, and mass-distributes the Luciferian agenda. But unlike the rest of the cultural elite horde, her influence may be enough to alter the outcome of an election.

Finally, there is the alarming degree of political illiteracy prevalent among her fans. Self-declared “Swifties” willing and ready to base their vote on the pop star’s endorsement are not informing their political worldview but allowing someone else to form it for them. One politician’s endorsement of another is a means of informing the political worldview of citizens, a way of saying, “If my policies align with your priorities, then consider voting for this guy, there’s a lot of overlap.” But if swaths of Americans are prepared to vote for a candidate based only on one individual’s recommendation, these people are not bearing in mind the countless generations of Americans who came before them and fought, killed, bled, and died for their children’s children’s children to be able to choose for themselves their leader, instead of having a despot thrust upon them. They are not bearing in mind the God-given responsibility they have to form their consciences well and vote accordingly. They are not bearing in mind God’s commandments and designs and how those ought to be lived out in a virtuous society.

The ”democratic” part of our democratic republic is increasingly falling under the control of a handful of powerful, uber-wealthy cultural elites who dictate where political power goes and how it is exercised. Sounds an awful lot like tyranny.

AUTHOR

S.A. McCarthy

S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 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.

GOP Leader Urges Party: ‘Stop Using the A-word and Start Talking about Life’

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The closer we get to November, the more high-profile Republicans are admitting it: Silence isn’t selling on abortion. From RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel to the head of the House’s GOP fundraising arm, the cry to get off the sidelines on life is echoing off the walls of campaign headquarters. Lt. Governor Mark Robinson (R-N.C.) is the latest to join the chorus of conservatives, telling candidates to “stop being cowards and stand up for what you believe.” But know this first: the problem is as much about how the GOP is messaging as whether they do.

“I’m tired of talking about abortion,” the candidate for governor told reporters. The “a-word,” as he calls it, is what sent the party in a tailspin to begin with. “I’ve changed what I’m saying,” he told Family Research Council President Tony Perkins. “Democrats, the leftists, they want everyone to say the word ‘abortion.’ They want our children to say it in schools. They want us to say it in our churches. They want politicians to say it on the floor of the House and on the floor of the Senate. They want me to say it. As the lieutenant governor, I’m bound and determined to stand up for what I believe in. And what I believe in [is] life — and it’s time for us to start using that word. This is an issue of life, about protecting life, and then about doing what we can to elect officials to make sure that once those lives come into the world, that they have life and have it more abundantly.”

His intentional shift raised the antenna of local media, who’ve started reporting that Robinson is trying to duck the issue now. Baloney, he replies. “They think that I’ve changed my position,” he said. “I have not changed my position.” Instead, he’s doing what he believes every pro-lifer should do: he’s changed the terms. “The subject is not abortion,” the lieutenant governor insisted, “the subject is life.” And that’s where conservatives need to debate.

Perkins nodded emphatically. The FRC president has also called for a shift in language, drawing America’s attention back to the unborn baby, not the procedure. Of course, that’s become more difficult, the “Washington Watch” host pointed out, since Republicans let Democrats define the terms when “so many were just silent.” Now, he shook his head, they’ve “started stuttering.” “We need to go out and tell people what we’re for. We are for protecting the unborn and preserving a culture of life in this country.”

Bringing the conversation back to life also extends an arm to women, Robinson wanted people to know. “… [W]hen I speak, I want to be that person who’s there, who’s understanding. I want to be the person who’s … not up on a platform telling the young woman why she can’t have an abortion. I want to be that person who’s coming down, putting my arm around that young woman who may find [herself] in crisis, and telling them why she doesn’t have to have an abortion… [and that] our folks as elected officials [are] going to fight hard to make sure that you can bring that child into the world — and not only bring that child into the world, but have a great life for that child, yourself, and your family.”

It’s exactly the kind of message he and his wife needed to hear when they were struggling with an unexpected pregnancy before they were married. “My wife and I chose the route of abortion years ago,” he admitted, “and I cannot tell you the immense pain, the solid pain that we went through for so many years over this issue. It was just this unspoken thing that hurt both of us very deeply. And we have always regretted it, almost to the point where we just couldn’t even speak to one another about it because it was so painful.” But the difficulty of reliving that choice hasn’t stopped Robinson from sharing what they’ve been through. “We want to tell those stories to young people.” In fact, “It’s because of this experience and our spiritual journey that we are so adamantly pro-life,” he’s said.

Since that conscious decision to open up about it, the Robinsons have been amazed to see “how God used that to reach so many people who felt the exact same way, to encourage them to keep going and to know the mistakes that they made are shared by so many of us.”

And the beauty of that, Perkins added, is that when you do share it, “Yes, there’s pain, there’s guilt — it still bothers you — but there’s forgiveness. And that’s the good news of Jesus Christ in the gospel message, is that we don’t have to carry that burden. We don’t want others to do it, but we don’t have to carry that burden any longer.”

That’s exactly right, the lieutenant governor agreed. “That’s one of the best things about giving your life to Jesus Christ, you know when Jesus forgives. It’s a forgiveness that you can feel down deep in your soul. … But I would definitely warn anyone, any young person out there, do not take this issue lightly. Do not take this issue lightly. It haunts, it hurts, and it causes deep emotional distress.”

But the abortion crisis didn’t start overnight, he pointed out, and Republicans can’t end it overnight. “Educating our young people is going to be crucial,” Robinson urged. “You want to empower a young person? Empower that young person to know the greatest thing that they can do for their future is hold control of their body and make sure that they’re not falling into those traps that popular culture is pushing so many of them into. That’s real empowerment. That’s real progress.”

That’s not a message North Carolina is hearing form its current governor, Perkins half-joked. Roy Cooper (D) has embraced the radical agenda of the Left on everything from abortion to transgenderism. And yet, his challenger says, “People love [my] message. They love it.” So what advice would he give conservatives who are running from the issue?

“The number one thing I would tell them to do is to stop listening to the bad reports of CNN, CBS, and ABC and all those news agencies that are using this issue to try to browbeat Christian, Bible-believing conservatives. That’s number one. The second thing that I would say is, quite frankly, stop being a coward and stand up for what you say you believe in. It’s time for the people of this nation to realize who we are.” Look, he said, “America’s survival is at stake” in this election. “We need to make our stands strong — and it starts with us standing up for what’s right.” Without apology.

AUTHOR

Suzanne Bowdey

Suzanne Bowdey serves as editorial director and senior writer at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 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.

Memo to Democrats — Lawlessness Started Long Before January 6

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With nothing but three years of failure to campaign on, President Biden has made it clear that he intends to use January 6 as the theme of his reelection bid. The first evidence of that was his speech in Charleston on Monday, when he told the audience, “Let me say what others cannot: We must reject political violence in America. Always. Not sometimes — always.” Conservatives agree — we just didn’t wait until January 6 to say so.

Like most Americans, I thought the chaos created in the Capitol was foolish, and in some cases, criminal. But it was a riot, not an insurrection. You don’t stage an insurrection with signs, placards, and flags. The difference between many Republicans and President Biden is that we’ve been talking about the destructive nature of lawlessness for the last several years. But apparently, the burning down of major cities, the lobbing of Molotov cocktails, and destruction of federal property all went down the memory hole for the Left.

Now, suddenly, the legacy media has decided to care about these things, running headlines like The Washington Post’s, “Violent Political Threats Surge as 2024 Begins Haunting American Democracy.” The article starts with the story of Rusty Bowers, former speaker of the Arizona House and the latest victim of “swatting” that we’ve seen across America. “It was one of many violent threats and acts of intimidation that have defined the lives of various government officials since the 2020 election,” they claimed.

According to them, these political attacks just started. That’s interesting, since it was eight years earlier when, inspired by the radical Southern Poverty Law Center, a gunman followed SPLC’s “hate map” to Family Research Council and shot one of our employees. Armed with 100 rounds of ammunition, Floyd Corkins said his goal was to “kill as many people as possible.”

Despite that and so many other horrifying incidents, Steven Levitsky, a Harvard professor, suggested in the article that “while violent threats span the political spectrum, the ‘vast majority’ come from activists on and others on the far right.”

Does the entire Left suffer from clinical amnesia? When then-House Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) was shot at a congressional baseball practice in 2017, it wasn’t a threat from the “far right.” It was a politically-motivated attack that almost took my good friend’s life. And after it happened, what did Democrats do? They fanned the flames.

High-ranking officials like former Attorney General Eric Holder seconded Hillary Clinton’s call for incivility, telling a rowdy crowd to start roughing up conservatives in 2018 — two years before the supposed genesis of all political violence. “Michelle [Obama] always says, ‘When they go low, we go high,’” Holder told the audience. “No. No. When they go low, we kick them!”

This is the same party who told Americans to get up in people’s faces. “You have to be ready to throw a punch,” former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said. “Push back on them,” Democrat Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) coached the crowd. “Tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere!” “[We’ll] fight Trump… in the streets,” Congressman Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) vowed. “Get up in their face,” Senator Cory Booker (D-N.J.) demanded. Even the Vice President of the United States, Kamala Harris, encouraged the Left to loot, burn, and torment their opponents. “I support them,” she said.

And what about the hostility toward the newest members of the Supreme Court? Senator Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) openly declared that Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh “will pay a price” for not supporting abortion. “You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions,” he fumed, escalating tensions that were already evident outside the justices’ homes. But sure, it’s Trump supporters who “embrace political violence.”

Over at Reuters, reporters claims this all started with Biden’s predecessor. “Incidents of political violence began rising in 2016,” Gary LaFree argued, “around the time of Trump’s first run for the presidency.”

But let’s consider the context. In the summer of 2020, 140 American cities were torched in the most expensive explosion of civil disobedience, rioting, and looting that’s ever taken place in the country. As many as two dozen people died as a result of the mayhem unleashed after George Floyd’s death, causing $2 billion dollars worth of damage. But the media doesn’t factor in any of this. Nor do they take into account the hostility against pro-lifers since the overturning of Roe v. Wade, which has yet to earn a footnote in their distorted reporting.

In The Washington Times, experts on violence called for bipartisan solutions. Here’s a solution. This one goes back to the very first president of the United States, George Washington. In his farewell address, he says, “Of all of the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.” He continues, “And let us with caution, indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion …”

In other words, the very thing our country needs is being driven out, and that is a recognition of God and religion — allowing people to live out their faith in such a way that it affects the world around them. That, my friends, is the answer to incivility, lawlessness, and division.

AUTHOR

Tony Perkins

Tony Perkins is president of Family Research Council and executive editor of The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 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.

Just How Good Are The Polls For Donald Trump?

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Former President Donald Trump is enjoying unprecedented polling success compared to his 2016 and 2020 White House bids despite battling four criminal indictments, spelling bad news for President Joe Biden’s reelection chances in 2024.

Trump has already led the president in 91 national polls for a hypothetical head-to-head matchup, dwarfing his previous records against Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election, which he won with 306 Electoral College votes, and Biden in 2020, according to polling data compiled by RealClearPolitics. Additionally, the former president is already faring better in crucial battleground states ahead of 2024 than he did in previous cycles when Trump outperformed the projections both elections, despite his 2020 loss.

This unprecedented polling success, coupled with the fact that Trump has often fared better than his polling average in certain states during previous cycles, bodes well for his chances to win a second term in 2024.

“The research indicates that he should be stronger in 2024 than in the past,” Dr. Charles Bullock, elections expert and political science professor at the University of Georgia, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “In the past, he has run ahead of his polls. So if here in the polls, he’s a few points ahead as opposed to a few points behind, that’s why I think he would be in an even better position.”

Trump was up against Clinton in a total 29 polls in the 2016 election, during which he briefly led in the RCP average during two separate periods, never surpassing a 1.1 point-margin. In 2020, Trump only led Biden in 5 polls all cycle, and never led in the RCP average.

The former president has already reached his largest RCP average lead for a general election as a Republican candidate, achieving a 2.6 point-advantage over Biden nationally on Nov. 26.

“The contrast between Trump’s policies — on the economy, on the border, on immigration, on crime, on national security — the country’s really benefited, and that strategy has worked very, very well. And that’s where these poll numbers come from, because it’s about issues. And he’s been really good,” John McLaughlin, CEO and partner of McLaughlin & Associates, told the DCNF. “He’s a better candidate today than he was in 2016 and 2020. He knows the issues, he’s focused on them, he knows the policies, he knows what he’s got to do … he’s focused on winning this election, and he’ll be a better president once the election is over. He’s making these poll numbers happen.”

The final RCP average for 2016 showed Clinton up by 3.2 points; however, she secured the popular vote by 2.1 points. In 2020, Biden was up by over 7 points in the 2020’s last RCP average, but he only beat Trump by 4.5 points.

The former president is also already faring better in crucial battleground states this year, most of which he won in 2016 and lost in 2020.

In 2016, Trump never led in the RCP average in Wisconsin, Michigan or Pennsylvania, yet won all three battleground states. The former president was only projected ahead of Clinton in two polls in Michigan and three polls in Pennsylvania, but didn’t lead in a single poll in Wisconsin for the entire cycle.

The former president’s largest lead in the RCP average for Ohio was 3.4 points, but he ended up winning by over 8 points. Trump also over-performed in North Carolina and Florida, winning by larger margins than predicted.

This cycle, Trump is already leading Biden in both Michigan and Pennsylvania for the RCP average by 2 points and 1.5 points, respectively. The former president has already led in four polls this year in Michigan, and in ten in Pennsylvania — nearly beating his records there for both entire cycles in 2016 and 2020.

While Biden is leading by 0.7 points in Wisconsin for the RCP average, Trump has already led in three polls, beating his 2016 record and almost eclipsing that of 2020.

“Americans are getting behind President Trump and his movement because they know this country can’t survive another four years of a disastrous Biden presidency that has divided the entire nation,” Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung told the DCNF in a statement. “Polls show President Trump beating Crooked Joe Biden in the general election because he’s the only person who can supercharge the economy, secure our border, safeguard communities, and put an end to unnecessary wars. Americans want to return to a prosperous nation and there’s only one person who can do that — President Trump.”

Jon McHenry, a GOP polling analyst and vice president at North Star Opinion Research, doesn’t believe the polling comparisons are necessarily indicative of Trump’s popularity over Biden.

“I don’t think the polls actually say a ton about the former president, other than he is running against a historically unpopular incumbent,” McHenry told the DCNF. “President Biden is flailing badly in trying to run on his record. Our survey in Arizona for the League of American Workers showed that voters view the term ‘Bidenomics’ unfavorably by a nearly two-to-one margin, and disapprove of the President’s job on the economy by a 60 to 38 percent margin. He’s going to be left with a negative campaign, and hoping that if it is former President Trump he’s carrying several convictions.”

Biden’s November approval rating of 37% is the lowest any incumbent president has had going into their reelection year in recent history, according to Gallup. Former Democratic President Jimmy Carter comes closest at 40% from November 1979, and he went on to lose to Republican President Ronald Reagan the following year by nearly 10 points.

The RCP average for a 2024 national Republican primary, based on polls conducted between Nov. 9 and Nov. 28, indicates Trump has a 48-point lead over the field, followed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis at 13.6%, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley at 9.6%, conservative businessman Vivek Ramaswamy at 4.8% and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie at 2.2%.

In the Democratic primary field, which Biden has kept largely to himself, the president holds 69.7% support ahead of self-help author Marianne Williamson with 9% and Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips with 3.5%, according to the RCP average for the same time period.

Biden did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

AUTHOR

MARY LOU MASTERS

Contributor.

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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.

VIDEO: Interview with Dutch lawyer and farmer’s advocate Eva Vlaardingerbroek on the recent Dutch elections

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This interview with Dutch lawyer and farmer’s advocate Eva Vlaardingerbroek was filmed at her hotel during the Ottawa leg of her tour with Trinity Productions on November 30th, 2023.

Please read the story details at RAIR Foundation.

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The Left Wants Pro-Lifers to Despair after Tuesday’s Election. Don’t.

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Unlike a lot of things in life, losing doesn’t get any easier the more you do it. If anything, the sting turns to despair, as pro-lifers, who’ve slogged through seven bitter defeats since June of 2022, know well. Over the last several months, the jubilation of seeing Roe fall has been replaced by a sinking feeling that the cause of the unborn is doomed in the very place the justices have entrusted it: the states. But is that true — or are we just experiencing the pains of a battle we only just started fighting?

There had been real hope that Ohio, the first conservative state to weigh in on a radical abortion measure, would reverse the string of losses since Dobbs. When that didn’t happen, and Buckeyes voted 56-43% to let parents take their child’s life right up to the moment of birth, the media’s taunts that life is a political loser felt truer. Maybe, as notorious squishes like Senator Mitt Romney (R-Utah) are already saying, the movement should just give up. Stop talking about abortion.

But, as the editors of National Review so powerfully write, “In the mind of anyone who knows the truth that abortion deliberately kills an innocent human being, giving up on the most important human-rights cause of our time is unthinkable. After five decades of Roe and less than two years from Dobbs, the fight for life in the democratic arena has barely begun.”

Remember, they told discouraged readers, “Advocates of same-sex marriage suffered a string of 32 losses at the ballot box before succeeding for the first time, in the bluest of states, in 2012. … Their success serves as a reminder that a string of defeats at the ballot box is no reason to believe a cause is lost.”

For a half-century, pro-lifers have marched, prayed, volunteered, voted, suffered blows, and stepped right back into the ring — not because the cause was politically advantageous, but because it was morally right. That cause didn’t end when the Supreme Court righted one wrong. It ends when every square inch of this nation is a safe place for children in the womb. Anyone who thought that would be easy has quickly forgotten the lessons of the last 50 years.

We have to do what we’ve done since the beginning — stand up, dust ourselves off, and, as the NRO editors urge, “Take the long view on the fight on life.” “Do not despair,” pro-life scholar Michael New insists. “We were never promised a smooth glide path to victory. This is an important lesson. Because history tells us, when we persist, we win!”

Does that mean we don’t have things to learn? Absolutely not. We’re in a new and volatile political environment that Dobbs created, and if we’re going to turn the tide, it’ll take time. And while we don’t need to rethink our principles, we do need to rethink how we talk about them — if, in some cases, we even are.

In one of the more astonishing statistics from Tuesday night, a whopping 24% of self-described “white evangelical or born-again Christians” supported Ohio’s Issue 1, which not only puts the Buckeyes on par with California’s abortion extremism but gives the green light to minor transgender surgery — without parental consent. We’re expecting voters to act with moral clarity when the church won’t even speak to it. Until that changes, pro-lifers will have a much steeper hill to climb. If Christians have been complacent after the Dobbs victory, we need to ensure they’re no longer complicit after defeat.

Why would Christians be voting for abortion anyway? Family Research Council’s Joseph Backholm thinks the answer “could be the silence on these issues in many parts of the church. Many churches don’t want to be divisive, so they choose to say nothing, but when you say nothing you say something. Many Christians have been left with the impression that it doesn’t really matter what Christians think about abortion because the people they look to for guidance on these issues live and act like it doesn’t matter.”

Elsewhere, in Virginia, where abortion was the only messaging point Democrats had to run on, the media rushed to gloat that conservative agendas like Governor Glenn Youngkin’s had been rebuked. Among the more creative post-election name-calling was Fox Business’s Dagen McDowell, who labeled Youngkin a “damp Dorito” for putting so much emphasis on life.

But the reality is, NRO’s Jim Geraghty points out, “Virginia is shifting from narrow GOP control of the state House and narrow Democratic control of the state Senate, to narrow Democratic control of both chambers. Control of the state legislature is probably going to come down to a couple thousand votes in a handful of districts. It’s a frustrating result for the GOP, but not a sweeping rebuke.”

That step-away-from-the-ledge rationale was echoed by politicos like John McCormick, who noted that what happened Tuesday night isn’t all that different from what happened the year Youngkin won. “The House of Delegates went 52R-48D [to] 51D-49R house now.” And let’s not forget, he posted, Virginia is “a Biden +10 state,” and voters were still “evenly divided [46-47%] on a 15-week [abortion] limit.” Oh, and by the way, the damp Dorito has a 54-38% approval rating. Biden hasn’t sniffed a percentage like that since inauguration.

So losing the legislature by 1%, especially after Democrats banked their whole campaign on the outrageous lie that Republicans want to ban “all abortions without any exceptions” isn’t exactly a death knell for conservatism in the Commonwealth. And yet, McCormack shakes his head, “Twitter is treating it like a political earthquake.”

Even more encouraging, at least in the winning hearts and minds category, is that Americans believe the Democrats’ position on abortion is more extreme — by a two-to-one margin. Pro-lifers just have to figure out a way to continue driving that point home on the road to reasonable compromise.

In other words, Geraghty emphasizes, “The results last night are no reason to panic.” “The elections in the year before the presidential election are a little odd — much lower turnout, governors’ races in a trio of Southern states with their own quirky histories and dynamics, and intense waves of advertising in state legislative races that usually fly under the radar.”

But, he continues, “If you look back eight years to 2015, you see Republicans won two governors’ races (Kentucky, Mississippi) and lost one (Louisiana). This year, Republicans won two governors’ races (Louisiana, Mississippi) and lost one (Kentucky). (Jeff Landry won the Louisiana governor’s race in the first round in October, and everyone seems to have forgotten about that.)”

Tuesday night’s results were disappointing, to be sure, but they don’t negate all of 2023’s other victories. In a year that’s seen the beat-back of Pride, a surge of anti-woke boycotts, an education revolution, the repudiation of ESG, 19 signed SAFE Acts, a nationwide parents’ revolt, and the election of House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), America is a long ways from writing social conservatives’ obituary. The cultural undercurrents continue to be strong on the Right, even if the electoral fruit doesn’t always bear that out.

The outcome in Ohio, Virginia, Kentucky, and other states may not have been what we hoped for, worked for, or anticipated, but even in the midst of it, we shouldn’t once question what we did or what we stood for. In days like these, we have to keep an eternal perspective, remembering that, as Christians, we go from victory to victory. That doesn’t mean every election ends with a parade, because our battle is not temporal; it’s spiritual. Voters may reject the values that have sustained this nation for more than 240 years — but an election is not going to change the sovereignty of God.

Our charge is to not lose heart, to stay faithfully engaged in the struggle, and to pray. “In this world you will have trouble,” Jesus warned. “But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

“It took us 50 years to get here,” Family Research Council President Tony Perkins told TWS. “But the way forward is the same way we arrived at this point — continuing each and every day to win the hearts and minds of people by telling truth. Now, the volume has been ratcheted up where the lies are being fueled by millions of dollars, but that just means we need to speak the truth with more passion and more consistency to break through Left’s deception.” Even so, he insisted, “We’re not going to retreat. We’re not going anywhere.”

AUTHOR

Suzanne Bowdey

Suzanne Bowdey serves as editorial director and senior writer at The Washington Stand.

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.

Florida Sen. Rick Scott Breaks Precedent, Endorses Trump Over DeSantis

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Florida Republican Sen. Rick Scott released an op-ed Thursday morning endorsing Donald Trump for President in 2024 over the state’s governor Ron DeSantis.

Scott published the piece for Newsweek, saying he thinks it is time for the Republican party to unite behind Trump and said although he knows most of the GOP candidates running for President, he believes Trump is the only one who can beat President Joe Biden. The Florida Senator also said although he will not ask for the other candidates to drop out of the race, he believes the stakes are too high and that Trump is the best option for the country.

“I am often asked whether this is the beginning of the end of America. It will be, if we stop fighting and cede our country to the incompetent, radical Democrats who are destroying the fundamental values that make America great. We of course do not even know if Joe Biden is lucid enough to be aware that his administration is destroying America. Biden’s presidency has become an embarrassment to his political party and to our entire nation,” Scott wrote.

“I am optimistic that we can return America to its rightful position of economic and military strength and the undisputed moral leader of the free world, but only with strong leadership in the White House. That is why I support my friend President Donald J. Trump to be the 47th president of the United States and encourage every Republican to unite behind his efforts to win back the White House,” he continued.

“It’s time for the Republican Party to come together, behind one candidate, and declare with one voice that we are united in our efforts to defeat Joe Biden and rescue America,” Scott added.

“I know most of the candidates running for president, and I respect their decision to put themselves through this very difficult process. They’ve made their case to voters, laid out their agendas and their plans, and told their stories. Make no mistake: every single one of them would be a better president than Joe Biden. But Republican voters are making their voices heard loud and clear. They want to return to the leadership of Donald Trump,” he said.

National polling shows Trump ahead of other GOP candidates by a large lead. Other polls also show Trump beating Biden in the general election.

AUTHOR

HENRY RODGERS

Chief national correspondent. Follow Henry Rodgers On Twitter.

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

Polls Show Trump Looming Large over GOP Primary Field, Despite Indictments

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Former President Donald J. Trump is dominating the GOP primary field, according to several polls. A Wall Street Journal survey published Saturday shows that Trump is the top presidential pick for 59% of Republican voters, with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) in second place at 13%. None of the other Republican contenders polled higher than single digits.

This follows an Economist/YouGov poll showing Trump at 51% among Republicans and DeSantis at 14%. Both surveys also found that if Trump weren’t running, DeSantis would be the likely Republican second choice, with The Wall Street Journal poll placing the Sunshine State governor at 35% support as a second choice and the Economist/YouGov poll placing him at 28%. Both polls also showed Trump as the Republican nominee beating incumbent Joe Biden, though not by a wide margin.

Trump is, of course, currently engaged in several legal battles, most stemming from his claims that the 2020 presidential election was fraudulently tampered with. The former president has multiple criminal charges and four indictments leveled against him, and at least one major criminal trial looming. The most recent indictment stems from alleged election interference in Georgia. Trump and 18 others — including former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani — were arrested in Fulton County last month after voluntarily turning themselves in, yielding Trump’s now-famous mugshot, the first taken in connection with any of the four indictments. Trump and his allies have been released on bail.

But according to The Wall Street Journal, most Republicans see the indictments as politically-motivated persecution. All Republican respondents said they were aware of the indictments, with 87% responding that they were following news of the indictments. Regarding Trump’s alleged “hush money” payment to porn actress Stormy Daniels, 79% of Republicans said the indictment was politically motivated, with 61% saying the case had no merit.

Eighty-one percent of Republicans said the indictment against Trump for allegedly taking classified government documents when leaving the White House was politically motivated, with 67% saying the case had no merit. Eighty percent of Republicans classified the indictment against Trump for allegedly attempting to overturn the 2020 presidential election results as politically motivated, with 70% saying the case had no merit. And a stunning 82% of Republicans said the Georgia indictment is politically motivated, with 71% saying the case has no merit.

As many pundits have noted, the indictments against Trump are unprecedented, as no former U.S. president has ever been indicted after leaving the Oval Office. But the criminal charges against Trump have only made Republicans more likely to vote for him. Forty-eight percent of Republican voters told The Wall Street Journal the indictments have made them more likely to vote for Trump, with 36% saying the indictments have had no effect on how they plan to vote, and a paltry 16% saying the indictments have made them less likely to vote for Trump. Furthermore, a whopping 78% of Republicans said that Trump’s actions after the 2020 election “were a legitimate effort to make sure votes were tallied accurately.” Only 16% said Trump’s actions were an “illegal” attempt to interfere in a legitimately-conducted election.

Despite his popularity among Republicans, several Democrats are attempting to keep Trump off the 2024 ballot, arguing that a Civil War-era clause in the 14th Amendment prohibits Trump from holding office again for having allegedly “engaged in insurrection or rebellion.” Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) has even stated that Trump doesn’t need to be convicted of insurrection or rebellion for the clause to apply.

However, when a Florida lawyer filed a lawsuit to bar Trump from appearing on the 2024 ballot, U.S. District Judge Robin Rosenberg dismissed the case. The lawsuit alleged that Trump was an insurrectionist, citing the events at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, and was thus unfit to hold office. Without addressing the constitutional question, Obama-appointed Rosenberg tossed the case out on lack of standing, arguing that the plaintiffs could not show they had been in any way harmed by the events at the Capitol and stating that “an individual citizen does not have standing to challenge whether another individual is qualified to hold public office.”

AUTHOR

S.A. McCarthy

S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.

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

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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.

Democrats Will Use Deep-State ‘Falsehoods’ to Win ‘Election after Election’: Senator

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The Democratic Party has burrowed so deeply into the federal bureaucracy that it conducts “one continuous operation” of disinformation designed “to impact and interfere in our election using falsehoods across the board, election after election,” said Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.).

Federal agents’ refusal to investigate Hillary Clinton for mishandling classified information, conducting a three-year-long inquest against Donald Trump over baseless charges of “collusion” with Russia, and classifying evidence of Joe Biden’s influence peddling taken from Hunter Biden’s laptop as Russian disinformation is “literally part and parcel of the exact same operation,” Johnson told “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins” recently.

“The individuals in the FBI that exonerated Hillary Clinton moved, went on to [the] Crossfire Hurricane investigation. That was a fraudulent investigation,” said Johnson, citing Special Counsel John Durham’s final report. “Then the FBI sees Hunter Biden’s laptop in December 2019. We have whistleblowers that said higher ups in the FBI said, ‘You will not look at that Hunter Biden laptop.’ We also have whistleblowers from the FBI who said that the FBI developed a scheme in August of 2020 to downplay any derogatory information on Hunter.”

The FBI Erases Hillary Clinton’s Foreign Bribery Scandals

The Durham report details how the FBI refused to investigate, much less prosecute, Hillary Clinton over three incidents involving receiving donations intended to sway her foreign policy following the 2016 election.

In 2014, a foreign nation sent an asset to curry favor with Hillary Clinton, who had not yet officially declared her candidacy. Agents sought a FISA warrant almost immediately, but officials in Obama’s FBI held up the application for five months. One agent remembered that “everyone was ‘super more careful’” about her application and “scared with the big name [Clinton]” involved. “[T]hey were pretty ‘tippy-toeing’ around HRC, because there was a chance she would be the next [p]resident.” Two officials, including Peter Strzok, “alluded to the fact that they did not want a presidential candidate on tape.”

Ultimately, the warrant came down 11 months later, “conditioned on the requirement that the FBI give defensive briefings to the various public officials and candidates of both political parties”: that is, that the FBI warn both candidates of attempts by foreign agents to affect policy. The offer came although Assistant FBI Director Andrew McCabe admitted that defensive briefings “reduce your ability to get to the bottom of the threat.”

Hillary Clinton did not attend the briefing, opting to have her attorneys attend in her place.

In November 2015, an FBI informant embedded in Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign warned of another foreign agent seeking to influence her impending administration. The informant made a $2,700 donation on behalf of the U.S. citizen fronting for this foreign agent seeking to influence the Clinton campaign. The foreign citizen was known by the FBI “to have foreign intelligence and criminal connections,” and a contribution of that sort would violate 52 U.S. Code § 30121. Federal Election Commission records confirmed a donation.

The informant told the FBI handling agent, “They [the campaign] were okay with it. […] yes they were fully aware from the start” of its origins, and intent to purchase access.

Yet “this apparent illegal contribution was not documented in FBI records,” Durham noted. “Instead, the FBI effectively removed their sole source of insight into this threat.” The agent in charge of the case, “responding to direction” from above, told the informant to have nothing more to do with Clinton fundraising:

“do NOT attend any more campaign events, set up meetings, or anything else relating to [Clinton’s] campaign. We need to keep you completely away from that situation. I don’t know all the details, but it’s for your own protection.”

Finally, Andrew McCabe quashed an FBI investigation into foreign donations to the Clinton family’s “philanthropic” nonprofits. Paul Abbate, now the FBI deputy director and then the assistant director of the Washington Field Office, described McCabe as “negative,” “annoyed,” and “angry” that the investigation took place, during a meeting on February 22, 2016. McCabe then told investigators in multiple FBI field offices that he must personally approve all investigations into the Clintons’ foundations.

In August 2016, Obama-era FBI Director James Comey shut down the investigation, turning it over to the New York office, and subpoena power was given to the U.S. Attorneys offices in the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York. Those offices refused to issue subpoenas to investigate the Clintons.

The Southern District of New York issued 34 charges against former President Donald Trump at an April 4 arraignment over campaign finance violations, charges legal experts call strained.

Durham contrasted that with the way agents rushed to investigate 2016 Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump over charges they knew to be hearsay. Agents received the Steele dossier on September 19, 2016, and, within two days, incorporated it into a FISA application targeting the Trump campaign.

Hillary Clinton is “the one, with the Clinton Foundation and the Clinton Global Initiative, that was cozy with the Russians,” Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) told Perkins on Tuesday. “Clinton was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to go deliver speeches in Russia.” But the FBI responded to their prodding after “they created this narrative, they paid for this narrative, and they pulled together documentation and hired people to push this narrative. And the media went along with them every single step of the way.”

The CIA Peddles Disinformation about Russian Disinformation

When the Hunter Biden laptop story broke on the eve of the 2020 election, Obama-era Acting CIA Director Mike Morell, “at the direction of current Secretary of State Anthony Blinken,” who was then “working for the Biden campaign [came] up with a fraudulent letter signed by 51 intelligence officials” asserting the story carried all the hallmarks of Russian propaganda, Senator Johnson told Perkins. “But also, we now know the CIA tried to solicit signatures from current CIA employees.”

The CIA uncharacteristically expedited approval of the statement, which deemed any mention of Hunter Biden’s laptop “Russian disinformation,” according to a report released last week by the House Judiciary Committee. Morell asked the CIA’s Prepublication Classification Review Board for a “rush job” to approve a statement via email on October 19, 2016 — three days before the final debate between President Trump and Joe Biden.

In an email to former CIA Director John Brennan the same day, Morrell revealed the letter’s intention was starkly political: to “give the [Biden] campaign, particularly during the debate on Thursday, a talking point to push back on [President] Trump on this issue.”

Partisan political appointees manifested their political bias in each of these cases — and tried, or succeeded, in changing the course of multiple elections, Johnson said.

“This is one continuous operation of the Left, of Democrats, of the Biden campaign, the Hillary Clinton campaign, to impact and interfere in our election using falsehoods across the board, election after election,” Johnson told Perkins on Monday.

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) echoed his words Tuesday night. “We’ve got the pattern of recognition here,” Gaetz told Newsmax TV host Chris Plante. “You’ve got Big Government, Big Media, Big Tech all in this conspiracy to try to reshape the nature of truth. And guess what? You saw the very features of that conspiracy reemerge in the Hunter Biden laptop scandal.”

Truth “shouldn’t be something defined by the powerful,” said Gaetz.

The Deep State ‘Goes Down Very Low’: Trump

Former President Donald Trump, who campaigned on a pledge to “drain the Swamp,” said clearing left-leaning partisans out of the U.S. government’s bureaucracy will take a herculean effort.

“There is a Deep State, and there are a lot of problems,” he told Newsmax’s Rob Schmitt on Tuesday. “I did a lot of firings, but it goes down very low” into the ranks of federal employees.

Durham closed out his nearly four-year-long investigation by declining to make any criminal referrals, or call for any new policies, to prevent future election-tampering. “Not every injustice or transgression amounts to a criminal offense,” wrote Durham. “If this report and the outcome of the Special Counsel’s investigation leave some with the impression that injustices or misconduct have gone unaddressed, it is not because the Office [of Special Prosecutor] concluded that no such injustices or misconduct occurred. It is, rather, because not every injustice or transgression amounts to a criminal offense, and criminal prosecutors are tasked exclusively with investigating and prosecuting violations of U.S. criminal laws.”

The Biden administration’s FBI responded to the Durham report by declaring the agency needs no reform, because “current FBI leadership already implemented dozens of corrective actions, which have now been in place for some time. Had those reforms been in place in 2016, the missteps identified in the report could have been prevented.”

Impeachment, Expulsion Resolutions Introduced in the House

While Trump states the Deep State goes low, House Republicans are starting at the top.

FBI Director Christopher Wray faces impeachment, thanks to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.). Her legislation, introduced Tuesday and reported first by The Daily Caller, raps Wray “for facilitating the development of a [f]ederal police force to intimidate, harass, and entrap American citizens that are deemed enemies of the Biden regime,” including pro-life advocates and traditional Roman Catholics.

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) introduced a bill to expel Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), a Democratic hopeful for U.S. Senate, from Congress, citing his role in promoting the Russian collusion narrative. “Schiff lied to the American people. He used his position on House Intel to push a lie that cost American taxpayers millions of dollars,” Luna said. “He is a dishonor to the House of Representatives.”

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) has invited Durham to testify before his committee and co-authored a letter to Biden administration CIA Director William Burns over “the role of the CIA in helping to falsely discredit allegations about the Biden family in the weeks before the 2020 presidential election.” Burns has until Sunday to respond.

Republican presidential candidates have called for massive retaliation against the agency. Aside from Trump, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) said the next president will “need to clean house at these agencies, as they’ve never been held accountable for this egregious abuse of power.” Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley agreed. “Heads need to roll over this. Anybody that touched it or had a part in it needs to be fired and every one of their senior managers needs to be fired. The FBI has lost complete credibility when it comes to this.”

Equality Under the Law Is a Battle ‘for the Soul of America’

Restoring even-handed administration of justice has spiritual connotations, one rising Republican said.

“The Democrats try to lecture us on democracy,” Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) told Schmitt on Tuesday. “It is Republicans, it is conservatives: We’re the ones that are actually fighting for the soul of America and for our republic, because we want the law to be applied equally.”

The Bible repeatedly condemns “respect of persons” (James 2:9, Colossians 3:25, Ephesians 6:9), especially in applying the law (Deuteronomy 1:17 and 16:19, II Chronicles 19:7, Proverbs 24:23).

The ongoing bias of deeply embedded federal bureaucrats in favor of one party across multiple election cycles “is going to have to be a campaign issue,” Tony Perkins told Senator Blackburn.

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. ©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.

Biden Reelection Bid Promotes Abortion, Pornographic School Library Books as ‘Personal Freedom’

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President Joe Biden officially announced he plans to seek reelection in an online video message that indicates he plans to wage a social issues-focused campaign that presents unrestricted abortion-on-demand and same-sex marriage as “our rights” to “personal freedom.”

Biden chose to launch his reelection campaign, not with a traditional campaign speech, but with a previously recorded video posted online around 6 a.m. Tuesday morning. Abortion is among the ad’s first political messages, as the camera pans a protester holding a sign that reads, “Abortion is healthcare.”

The campaign video, which cites no presidential accomplishments in the president’s tenure, seemingly seeks to paint Republicans as extremists who threaten America’s spiritual health. “When I ran for president four years ago, I said we were in a battle for the soul of America. And we still are,” Biden says. “The question we’re facing is whether in the years ahead whether we have more freedom or less freedom, more rights or fewer rights.” But, the president asserts that “MAGA extremists are lining up to take on those bedrock freedoms,” including allegedly “dictating what health care decisions women can make, banning books, and telling people who they can love all while making it more difficult for you to be able to vote.”

Conservatives say the ad shows Biden’s newly discovered focus on social issues. “Five seconds. That’s how long it took Joe Biden to endorse abortion in his new campaign ad,” noted SBA Pro-life America. “It’s what he’s running on. It’s what he stands for: taxpayer funded abortion on demand up to birth.”

Biden’s reference to “banning books” apparently refers to outraged parents’ efforts to remove books heavy with graphic depictions of sexual acts from public school libraries serving children under the age of 18. Among these titles is “Gender Queer: A Memoir” by Maia Kobabe, which “has detailed illustrations of a man having sex with a boy,” as well as “fellatio, sex toys, masturbation, and violent nudity.” Another book that frequently generates parental outrage, “Lawn Boy” by Jonathan Evison, “describes a fourth-grade boy performing oral sex on an adult male” and remembering the experience fondly. The content of books that parents removed from Florida school libraries proved so sexually explicit that TV networks cut away from a press conference in which Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) showed their contents publicly. One such concerned parent pushed back against such characterizations, telling “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins” last July that removing pornography from school libraries is “not Kristallnacht.”

Biden’s campaign appears to have adopted the talking points offered last summer by a Beltway Democratic polling firm, Hart Research Associates, which advised Democrats to attack “Republicans’ culture war attacks on schools” and accuse the GOP of “banning books and censoring curriculums,” while reassuring voters that Democrats want to “put politics aside.”

Biden’s launch video also appears to indicate that he will highlight his signature accomplishment of the so-called “Respect for Marriage” act, which imposed a nationwide redefinition of marriage on all 50 states. As he refers to “telling people who they can love,” the camera features Jim Obergefell, the plaintiff in the 2015 Supreme Court opinion that invented the right to same-sex marriage. Swing-state voters in Ohio rejected Obergefell in a landslide loss last November.

The ad says Biden intends to advance “personal freedom,” to “protect our rights,” and “to make sure that everyone in this country is treated equally.” As president, Joe Biden attempted to impose a COVID-19 vaccination mandate on every employer with 100 employees or more, doubled fines for travelers who refused to wear masks, and shoehorned discriminatory race- and gender-based equity policies into every aspect of government.

“I know America,” Biden insists in the ad.

Biden’s campaign intends to enroll inner-city Christians in his coalition. Near the end of the video, a shorter-than-normal screen cut featured two shots containing a cross-shaped Baptist church sign and a black minister opening his church door, separately.

Critics showed no surprise that the president chose not to highlight his record, which has included inflation unseen in 40 years, a poorly executed withdrawal from Afghanistan, and divisive efforts to brand his political opponents as incipient domestic terrorists.

“This particular president has been a sad story for the United States,” Rep. Dan Bishop (R-N.C.) told “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins” on Tuesday. “We’re exposed to so many weaknesses in consequence of it abroad.” The last 27 months have inflicted “debilitating damage,” Bishop stated.

Entirely apolitical figures have criticized Biden’s promotion of gender ideology, threatening to cut off school lunch funding to schools that refuse to give men access to women’s private facilities and the “right” to compete against females in sports. “More and more women are realizing their biological reality is being attacked by politicians pandering to their base instead of protecting women’s rights,” said 12-time NCAA All-American swimmer Riley Gaines. “Protecting the girls’ and women’s sport category is common sense and should not be a partisan issue.”

Whatever issues his handlers highlight, Joe Biden faces an uphill battle in 2024. Biden currently has an approval rating of just 39%, according to the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll. A new CBS News/YouGov poll shows that 72% of Americans say the nation is “out of control,” and 71% say it’s Joe Biden’s fault.

“In terms of inflation and other problems in our economy, it’s time to turn a page,” Bishop told Perkins. “But he’ll do what he’s going to do, I guess.”

A whopping 70% of Americans, including 51% of Democrats, say they do not want President Biden to seek a second term in office. He currently faces two Democratic primary challengers: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and New Age author Marianne Williamson.

The Democratic National Convention currently plans to hold no debates during the 2024 primaries.

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. ©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.

RNC Chair Tells Republicans: ‘We Can Win on Abortion’

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After a deflating 2022 midterm election, the surest path to lose the White House would come from Republicans refusing to speak on the issue of abortion, the party’s chair told aspiring candidates.

“We’ve seen what happens when we let Democrats define who we are and what we stand for,” said Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel during a speech Thursday at the Reagan Library. In 2022, “a lot of Republican candidates took their D.C. consultants’ bad advice to ignore the subject. Then what happened? Democrats spent $360 million running ads filled with lies about abortion, and most Republicans had no response.”

“Let’s talk about abortion, which has become a huge issue coming after the Dobbs decision,” McDaniel exhorted GOP candidates. “When you don’t respond, the lies become the truth.”

The discussion should include a national minimum standard of protections for the unborn, which most voters favor — especially contrasted with the Democratic Party platform, she said. “Polling shows that when the choice is between a Democrat who wants zero abortion restrictions and a Republican who supports protecting life, at 15 weeks, we win by 22 points,” McDaniel noted. A 15-week national pro-life standard wins over “72% of voters, including 60% of Democrats [who] support protecting unborn children.”

“We are the pro-life, pro-woman, pro-family party, and we can win on abortion. But that means putting Democrats on the defense and forcing them to own their own extreme positions,” she concluded.

Her comments came during a moment of uneasiness within GOP ranks, as aspirants and advocates contemplate the best strategy to advance the pro-life cause in a post-Dobbs environment. A statement from former President Donald Trump roiled the movement, as some interpreted it to advocate inaction at the federal level. “President Donald J. Trump believes that the Supreme Court, led by the three Justices which he supported, got it right when they ruled this is an issue that should be decided at the State level,” Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung told The Washington Post late last week. The Post last week also reported on tales from unnamed sources that Trump personally believes abortion should be a matter of “states rights” and advocated not discussing the issue — comments that drew instantaneous backlash.

“Life is a matter of human rights, not states’ rights,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the SBA Pro-life America, adding that a states-only position would result in “abortion up until the moment of birth” in states such as California, New York, and Oregon. “We will oppose any presidential candidate who refuses to embrace at a minimum a 15-week national standard to stop painful late-term abortions while allowing states to enact further protections,” she added. Other pro-life leaders amplified her position. “If you don’t understand killing children is a federal issue, you shouldn’t be running for federal office,” said Kristan Hawkins of Students for Life of America. “Imagine supporting a candidate who said that slavery was a ‘states rights’ issue,” tweeted Lila Rose of Live Action.

Trump did not address the criticism directly — but he appeared to take McDaniel’s words to heart, bashing Democratic extremism on abortion “As the most pro-life president in American history, I will continue to stand strong against the extreme late-term abortionists in the Democrat Party, who believe in abortion-on-demand in the ninth month of pregnancy, and even executing babies after birth,” said the 45th president in pre-recorded comments to the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition on Saturday. “They actually talk, beyond birth — after birth — executing the baby.”

He likely had in mind comments from then-Virginia Governor Ralph Northam (D), who said in 2019 in the event of a live birth during a botched abortion, the abortionist would hold “a discussion” about whether the newborn would receive lifesaving care. In January, the House of Representatives passed the Born Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act to establish national standards of care — with the support of only one Democrat.

“This is where we’ve come, and it’s so sad to see,” said Trump. “I will stand proudly and defend innocent life, just as I did for four, very powerful, strong years. Because every child, born and unborn, is a sacred gift from God.”

Mary Szoch, director of the Center for Human Dignity at Family Research Council, said the former president provided a strong foundation during his four years in office. “President Trump gave us the justices who gave us Dobbs. He was the first presidential candidate to actually describe what an abortion is — a child being ripped out of her mother’s womb even just before birth — and he was the first president to attend the March for Life,” Szoch told The Washington Stand. “His administration did more for the unborn than any other.”

That sets a high bar for any Republican, including himself. “In a second term, he — or anyone else who calls himself a Republican — must be held accountable to do the same, which means committing to signing any democratically passed pro-life legislation and committing to upholding and reinstating federal protections for the unborn,” Szoch told TWS. “The pro-life movement must continue to work until nobody has the power to take away the fundamental right to life with a vote, scalpel, or pill.”

Trump’s proposals for future pro-life accomplishments seemed less precise. He promised to “again [appoint] rock-solid constitutional conservatives to be federal bench judges and justices, in the mold of Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.”

Former Vice President Mike Pence, who spoke at the Iowa event in person and plans to decide whether to mount a presidential campaign “well before late June,” endorsed national pro-life protections after the first trimester over the weekend. “I think the American people would welcome a minimum national standard in Washington, D.C. — 15 weeks,” he told CBS “Face the Nation” Sunday. Another likely presidential contender, Senator Tim Scott (R-S.C.), has vowed, “If I were president of the United States, I would literally sign the most conservative pro-life legislation that they can get through Congress.”

His colleague, senior South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham (R), believes his legislation, the Protecting Pain-Capable Unborn Children from Late-Term Abortions Act, deserves top consideration. “America does not need, and the unborn cannot afford, to have two major parties who support no restrictions on abortion up to the moment of birth. The unborn need a voice in Washington,” Graham said. “It is up to us to provide it.”

Beltway pundits and consultants widely blamed the lack of the 2022 “red wave” on Graham’s bill, which Democrats portrayed as a “national abortion ban.” Yet Republican Governors Greg Abbott of Texas, Brian Kemp of Georgia, Mike DeWine of Ohio, and Kim Reynolds of Iowa all signed heartbeat bills protecting children from abortion beginning at six weeks after fertilization before winning lopsided victories in 2022. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis also signed a heartbeat bill after his 20-point reelection.

Being willing to have accurate, disciplined, unapologetic messaging and refusing to run from discussions about abortion will prove indispensable to retaking the White House and U.S. Senate in 2024, McDaniel said.

“Just as Reagan was the great communicator, we have to be great communicators. Republican candidates right now are trying to do that. They are out there working hard to get the nomination of our party. And in four short months, the RNC will host its first primary debate in Milwaukee.”

The second debate would take place at the Reagan Library, she announced. Life, family, parental rights, and children’s safety will all likely be topics of debate.

“I firmly believe that our next president will be on that stage,” as long as he handles the abortion issue properly, predicted McDaniel.

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

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

RELATED ARTICLE: The ‘Father of the Abortion Pill’ reveals it was always about death

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.

GOP Primary Voters Want Candidates to Embrace Cultural Issues, Poll Finds

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A new poll reveals that the overwhelming majority of Republican primary voters want future GOP presidential contenders to embrace hot button issues like gender transition procedures for minors and implementing restrictions on pornography.

The survey, conducted by OnMessage Inc., found that 93% of respondents want candidates to confront parents rights issues, including increased transparency with school curriculums and school activities. A full 76% also want candidates to ban gender transitions procedures for minors, such as surgeries to remove healthy organs, puberty-blocking drugs, and cross-sex hormones.

The poll also found 86% of respondents saying they are more likely to support a candidate that advocated for requiring age verification in order to access pornographic websites.

In response to issues that are considered less contentious, voters showed less enthusiasm, with 59% saying they want a candidate who will push for a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants, and 50% saying they want an emphasis on supporting Ukraine through military aid.

“The fight against the woke issues … that’s where the intensity really was,” said Jon Schweppe, director of Policy and Government Affairs for the American Principles Project, during “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins” last week. “Ultimately, voters are looking for someone who’s going to defend the family, who’s going to fight the woke Left, who’s going to fight to stop these horrific sex change procedures that are being performed on kids. … I think a Republican candidate who emerges from this presidential primary is going to have to be strong on all those issues.”

Perkins pointed to a particularly notable result in the survey indicating less than expected support for protecting women’s sports from men who identify as transgender women. “Sixty-nine percent [who support prohibiting males from competing in girls sports], that’s still a good number. But what was surprising was that it’s even stronger when it comes to these sex change medical procedures. People understand what’s going on and what really matters.”

Schweppe, whose organization released the results of the poll, concurred.

“When you’re talking about puberty blockers as young as seven, eight years old, that’s where voters are really animated,” he observed. “They see it as an issue of life and death because it is. Women’s sports is important and we want to protect these opportunities for girls, but I think it’s a little bit lower stakes. [Gender transition procedures] are a horrific thing that’s being perpetrated on these kids. And it really, really animates Republican voters. And what we’ve found is that in our polling of the general electorate, it’s actually really important to independents and even some Democrats too. It’s a great issue for Republicans to lead on and hopefully do the right thing as we try to stop this from happening across the country.”

The survey’s results appear to rebuke the strategy taken by some Republican candidates and strategists ahead of 2022’s midterm elections, which was to steer clear of divisive social issues. That strategy did not appear to pan out in the midterm results.

The poll also found that GOP primary voters prefer Florida Governor Ron DeSantis over former President Donald Trump in a head-to-head matchup, with DeSantis garnering 53% and Trump receiving 38%.

Schweppe asserted that the growing rivalry between the two men will benefit conservative voters in the end.

“The encouraging thing, especially for social conservatives, is that as Trump and DeSantis fight each other, they’re going to continue to try to outflank each other on all of these issues. [Even with] the Big Tech issue today, they’re kind of outflanking each other with that, trying to do a digital Bill of Rights to make sure censorship doesn’t happen online.”

“I think folks should be excited about the primary. Let’s make sure that we get a strong candidate that can finally take Joe Biden out of office and make sure we can save this country,” Schweppe concluded.

Matt Carpenter, director of Family Research Council Action, was also encouraged by the message voters appear to be sending to presidential candidates through the latest poll results.

“GOP primary voters want to hear their presidential candidates address cultural issues,” he told The Washington Stand. “Many of these voters are motivated by what their children are exposed to in the classroom, or the obsession of the current administration to fund abortion through all stages of pregnancy. They want their nominee to provide a clear contrast to the radical anti-family, anti-faith, anti-life agenda of the current administration.”

“Americans, in general, have opted to vote with their feet and their wallets, by leaving liberal states in favor of more conservative ones and by cancelling subscriptions or deciding to shop elsewhere in order to avoid woke corporations,” Carpenter concluded. “It follows that the GOP would see a similar pattern emerge among their likely primary voters in the upcoming presidential primary.”

AUTHOR

Dan Hart

Dan Hart is senior editor at The Washington Stand.

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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.

‘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.

Musk’s Twitter Buy ‘The Best $44 Billion I’ve Seen Spent in My Lifetime’: Congressman

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If Elon Musk won’t suppress the news, CBS, ABC, and NBC News are more than happy to. While the Twitter files continue to drip out damning evidence of the company’s pre-Musk bias, three of America’s biggest outlets refuse to cover the story that’s riveting people the world over. In an ironic twist, the media is so beholden to Big Tech that it is suppressing a story about suppression. But don’t think the truth won’t get out, Congressman Pat Fallon (R-Texas) warns. The GOP is weeks away from House control, and no amount of coordinated media blackouts will protect Silicon Valley then.

“Get ready for Republican oversight” was the message of incoming soon-to-be committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.). Like the rest of his conservative colleagues, he’s ready to dive into the last two years of criminal mismanagement under Democratic rule — on everything from the border and COVID to Afghanistan, energy, and Hunter Biden. But this latest wrinkle, this proof of widescale, devastating, conservative censorship will be priority #1.

Rep. Pat Fallon (R-Texas) may have been unsurprised by the revelations at Twitter, but he’s outraged nonetheless. “…[O]ur worst fears and suspicions have been confirmed,” he told Family Research Council President Tony Perkins on “Washington Watch.” “Really. I mean, you had the head of their legal department, Vijaya Gadde, admitting that the FBI told him, ‘Hey, listen, you’re going to get probably a hack and leak story in October dealing with Hunter Biden. So just be aware of that and take action.’ That’s very troubling.” Add that to the suspicions that Google “magically” made 70% of GOP campaign emails redirect into spam, and Fallon warns that this is a much bigger, more sinister problem than people realize.

“Now we’ve confirmed that Twitter, I suspect Facebook, and other Big Tech firms are doing the same thing. We’ll get them under oath, because they claim that they’re not biased — which I find laughable, being that I’ve been… a victim of their shadow-banning for years. So let’s ask them… and see what they say. And if they want to commit perjury, well, then, they’re going to have to pay the consequences — and then they might do a perp walk after all.”

Perkins pointed out that while Twitter might be a private company, “they’ve become the public square. … They’re like a public utility… like a telephone company. And can you imagine the telephone company refusing to do service with one person because they don’t like their politics? But that’s essentially what we have with Big Tech.” And worse, he explained, since the Biden administration was colluding with these platforms to squelch “disinformation.”

“If you’re on the government clock,” Fallon argued, “… and using taxpayer resources to meddle in politics and campaigning — you’re breaking federal law. And it seems to us [from] what we’ve uncovered thus far, that’s exactly what went on. That’s why another [reason] we need to call some of these former executives and current executives of Big Tech [before Congress and ask], ‘Have government officials [been] pressuring you and telling you to edit political free speech?’”

Asked if Twitter violated election laws, the Heritage Foundation’s Hans von Spakovsky, who served on the Federal Election Commission (FEC) from 2006-2007, replied, “The answer to that is yes.” But, he told Perkins, “In September of last year, the Federal Election Commission, which has authority over investigating violations of our federal campaign finance laws, actually dismissed complaints that have been filed against Twitter — not only for shadow-banning Republican elected officials and candidates, but also for suppressing the Hunter Biden laptop story.”

Twitter executives claimed they hadn’t coordinated with the Biden campaign. But also, von Spakovsky, explained, Jack Dorsey’s team insisted they had “a bona fide commercial reason for suppressing the Hunter Biden story, which was their internal policy against publishing hacked materials.” But now that we know they were lying, the FEC needs “to reopen that file, reconsider the case, and potentially make criminal referrals to the Justice Department for any Twitter executives who committed perjury in their testimony to the FEC,” he insisted. After all, it’s “a potential violation of campaign finance law,” the former commissioner pointed out.

The lawyers who filed the original complaints need to go back to the FEC and say, “You might need to reconsider your decision to close the file based on this newly uncovered evidence,” von Spakovsky urged. At the end of the day, the FEC has civil authority, “so they can impose fines and … penalties on anyone violating campaign finance laws, including a corporation.”

In the meantime, expect an intense, in-depth investigation of Twitter and all of the social media platforms suspected of cracking down on conservative or politically inconvenient messaging. “This is the best $44 billion I’ve seen spent in my lifetime,” Fallon insisted. “I mean, thank you, Elon Musk. It’s like the Wizard of Oz, and he’s pulled back the curtain, and we find that all of our suspicions have been confirmed.”

AUTHOR

Suzanne Bowdey

Suzanne Bowdey serves as editorial director and senior writer at The Washington Stand.

RELATED ARTICLE: Ex-Twitter Manager Slapped With Three-Year Prison Sentence For Spying For Saudi Arabia

EDITORS NOTE: This The Washing 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.

CEO Allegedly Conspired To Store California Election Workers’ Data In China

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Eugene Yu, whom police arrested last week for alleged data theft, allegedly conspired to store California election workers’ personal data in China during the 2020 presidential election, prosecutors said in a court filing Thursday.

Yu’s firm, Konnech, entered a contract with Los Angeles County to provide secure poll worker management software for the 2020 election that stipulated all employee payroll and scheduling data collected by the company should be stored in the U.S., according to the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office. Despite multiple statements to The New York Times denying Yu or Konnech stored data in China, new court filings indicate that Yu deliberately collaborated with unknown conspirators to transfer the personal information of hundreds of Los Angeles election workers through third party contractors based in China.

Luis Nabergoi, Konnech’s project manager for the Los Angeles operation, sent a memo via Chinese messaging app DingTalk around Aug. 18 confirming Chinese contractors exercised so-called “superadministration” privileges for all clients of Konnech’s PollChief software, the court documents state. Nabergoi called the situation a “huge security issue.”

The Chinese company with whom Konnech contracted was responsible for developing troubleshooting software, according to the NYT.

On Oct. 4, Nabergoi sent an internal email informing Konnech employees the company was “moving t0 a new stage in the company maturity and we need to ensure the security, privacy and confidentiality or [sic] our client data,” the court documents state.

The documents also included allegations the company embezzled at least $2,645,000 by violating the company’s contract with Los Angeles County.

Authorities arrested Yu in Michigan on Oct. 5 following initial allegations that Konnech stored the personal information of Los Angeles election workers in servers located in China, extraditing him to California afterward.

“Data breaches are an ongoing threat to our digital way of life. When we entrust a company to hold our confidential data, they must be willing and able to protect our personal identifying information from theft,” District Attorney George Gascón said in a statement.

Gascón said the event could constitute a “cyber intrusion” in U.S. elections.

None of the data appeared to have been sold, according to the Los Angeles Times. However, intelligence services operating on behalf of Beijing could obtain access to information from private companies housed in Chinese servers, according to a 2020 Foreign Policy report.

None of Konnech’s actions had an effect on vote counting or altered election results, according to the L.A. District Attorney’s office.

True The Vote, a election integrity organization, previously reported concerns about Yu and Konnech to the FBI in 2021 after claiming their researchers had accessed Konnech data from servers in China, according to the NYT. Los Angeles County authorities began investigating Konnech after receiving a tip from Gregg Phillips, a True The Vote associate.

After Yu’s arrest, Konnech distributed a letter to clients claiming the company “never hosted your data or system in servers outside of the United States,” the NYT reported.

The district attorney declined to say whether other individuals were under investigation, the NYT reported.

Konnech did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

AUTHOR

MICAELA BURROW

Reporter.

RELATED ARTICEL: Michigan Announces $715 Million Contract With Chinese Communist Party-Affiliated Company

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