The latest inflation numbers show 3.5% annual growth for consumer prices, still well above pre-pandemic levels. That means millions of families are struggling to get back to where they were in 2021. This should come as no surprise, since excessive deficit spending from Washington remains much too high. In 2023, the federal government spent $6.1 trillion (roughly $47,000 per household) and ran a staggering $1.7 trillion deficit. Yet the Biden administration seems determined to make this worse, consistently choosing policies that increase deficits in pursuit of its ideological agenda. The country can’t afford such reckless spending. The economy would run smoother with lower deficits. Too many elected officials, however, either don’t know this or don’t care. They view the federal government as an enormous piggy bank. The Biden administration has aggressively used the swamp’s enormous budgets to fund leftist causes through grants. Here are five examples of such grants that the administration has approved since December 2022. 1. $45 million for a “diversity and inclusion” scholarship in Burma. Not content with pushing the diversity, equity, and inclusion fad in America, the Biden administration is also subsidizing it globally. Burma (also known as Myanmar) has serious problems, including a badly flawed judicial system, rampant corruption, and high poverty due to a lack of property rights and heavy government interference in the economy. A $45 million DEI scholarship will do nothing to address those problems. 2. $3 million for “girl-centered climate action” in Brazil. Not content with creating a “climate corps” in America, the administration gave a grant to an organization based in the Netherlands to promote DEI-infused environmental activism in Brazil. As with Burma, this grant focuses on niche, far-left concerns rather than the genuine problems facing South America’s largest country. 3. $125 million to racialize public health. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has faced growing criticism in recent years for its politicized and unconstitutional response to the COVID-19 pandemic, its promotion of gender ideology, and more. CDC’s $124.9 million grant to the National Network of Public Health Institutes threatens to further damage the already-frayed relationship between public health groups and the American people. The network’s “racial justice competency model” is rooted in critical race theory, which claims that any outcome gaps between racial groups must be caused by systemic racism. A fixation on addressing “inequities” means forcing the ideology of critical race theory on the medical system, which is the last thing America needs. 4. $573,000 to anti-Israel group for fighting “disinformation.” The Biden administration has embraced the Left’s crusade against “disinformation,” which is often code for censoring contrary opinions. This approach also applies to foreign policy, as the State Department has provided grants to many organizations working abroad. A problematic example of this: two grants worth over $573,000 to the Virginia-based organization MENAACTION, which says it focuses on the rights of youth in the Middle East. Key members of this group have parroted disinformation themselves, repeating false claims made about Israel’s fight against Hamas, the terrorist organization that governs the Gaza Strip. So not only are anti-disinformation grants of dubious value to begin with, but these grants seem likely to spread rather than restrain disinformation. 5. $288,563 for “diverse” bird-watcher groups. Proving that nothing is safe from the reach of DEI-mania, the National Science Foundation approved a grant for having ornithological societies (bird aficionados) create “affinity groups” based on identity characteristics. Rather than being based on serious evidence of bigotry or discrimination—as though bird-watching groups are nests of racists—it’s instead predicated on some members who lack “a sense of community or feel their voices are not being heard.” Such vibes-based concerns might be worth addressing with internal meetings. However, the federal government has absolutely no business getting involved, especially when the gross national debt is $34.6 trillion. Wasteful grants are impossible to avoid when the federal government has grown to such a bloated mess. However, the Biden administration has made this worse by green-lighting absurd projects such as these. As Congress starts work on legislation to fund the federal government in 2025, legislators should examine the agencies and programs funding these grants when they look for places to find savings for taxpayers. The Biden administration certainly won’t. Distributed by Tribune News Service and originally published by msn.com The post 5 Examples of How Congress Wastes Your Money Amid Inflation appeared first on The Daily Signal.

British parliamentarian William Wilberforce’s legacy rests on his bold public stance against slavery. The legendary 18th- and 19th-century abolitionist stood up before the British people in the House of Commons with a message of piercing moral clarity: Whatever the cost of abolition, there is no excuse for slavery. After several years of impassioned advocacy, Wilberforce declared to the House of Commons, “Having heard all of this, you may choose to look the other way, but you can never again say you did not know.” Given the findings of the U.S., the United Nations, and the European Union, the world can no longer deny knowledge of the Chinese Communist Party’s crimes against humanity, including forced labor, perpetrated primarily against the Uyghurs. With ignorance no excuse, it’s time for Europe to follow the U.S. example, remove the products of Uyghur forced labor from its store shelves, and stop permitting the CCP to profit from genocide. In December 2021, with irrefutable evidence of genocide and forced labor throughout Xinjiang, the U.S. enacted the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act to eliminate products of forced labor from American imports. To ensure this, the forced-labor ban presumes all Xinjiang goods are the product of forced labor unless the importer proves otherwise through clear and convincing evidence. However, while the law has reduced forced-labor imports, enforcement must continue to be strengthened to completely eliminate this despicable trade. Slow to follow suit, the European Commission proposed banning goods made with forced labor in October 2022. In an encouraging move, the European Parliament approved anti-forced labor regulations in April, but the European Council must ratify them to reduce this heinous trade. While Britain can point to public corporate reporting on forced labor, thanks to the Modern Slavery Act of 2015, the British government has not passed legislation or established a legal precedent barring imports from Xinjiang. Tragically, Europe’s hesitation has incurred a grave cost, as American officials regularly share details of the Chinese Communist Party’s ongoing repression of the Uyghur population. Not only has the CCP conducted mass sterilization and forced more than 1 million Uyghurs into political reeducation camps, its efforts include widespread forced labor—in other words, slavery—in sectors ranging from clothing to solar panels. Enforcement statistics from U.S. Customs and Border Protection bear this out, with records detailing $670 million in denied shipments, out of total reviewed shipments of $3.7 billion, implicated in forced labor over the past two years. Without a unified stand by U.S. allies, however, Xinjiang’s exports just end up rerouted. For example, Xinjiang’s exports to European Union countries increased by 34% in 2022, the year the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act took effect in the United States. At an April 2023 Congressional-Executive Commission on China hearing, Anasuya Syam, the human rights and trade policy director at the Human Trafficking Legal Center, warned lawmakers: “Without a similar, regional approach [to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act] to Xinjiang, the EU will continue to be a dumping ground for goods manufactured using Uyghur labor.” Despite that evidence, however, Europe remains rhetorically bold, but slow to act. European capitals have publicly hailed measures to reduce trade in goods created through forced labor. A European Parliament resolution called on the European Commission “to propose an import ban on all products produced by forced labour and on products produced by all Chinese companies listed as exploiting forced labour … .” Belgian Deputy Prime Minister Pierre-Yves Dermagne has affirmed, “This hideous crime must be eradicated, and the first step to achieve this consists in breaking the business model of companies that exploit workers.” And in 2021, Britain’s then-trade secretary, Liz Truss, declared, “Forced labour, anywhere in the world, is unacceptable.” However, Europe has yet to match those lofty words with action. Considering the CCP’s continuing abuse of Uyghurs as a slave-labor force, the European Council should ratify the Forced Labour Regulation adopted by the European Parliament to ban imported goods produced by forced labor at its next meeting in June and move forward with implementation. Given America’s experience implementing trade restrictions to stamp out forced labor, from laws like the Tariff Act of 1930 as amended in 2015 to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, the State Department should work with the United Kingdom and other European allies to strengthen measures denying market access to the products of forced labor. By taking these actions, America and our European allies can stand with Wilberforce in recognizing that now is “a time [in] which all … should be strenuous in their endeavours to lighten the vessel of state, of such a load of guilt and infamy.” The post Europe Must Stop Dragging Its Feet and Oppose Chinese Forced Labor appeared first on The Daily Signal.

I doubt that there is any national or religious group that produces the percentage of people who aid those who wish to hurt, let alone kill, that group as do Jews. When one observes Jews who defend those whose raison d’etre is the annihilation of the one Jewish country on Earth, you have to ask: Why are there no others like them? Were there blacks who defended slavery? Were there Armenians who defended the Turkish mass murder of fellow Armenians during World War I? It is true that every nation has produced people who work against their nation—particularly during time of war. Vidkun Quisling, the Norwegian leader who collaborated with the Nazi occupiers of Norway, is perhaps the best known: The very name “Quisling” is widely used as a synonym for traitor. But even Quisling identified more with fellow Norwegians than Israel-hating Jews identify with fellow Jews. It turns out that the Jews who side with those who wish to eradicate the one Jewish state and slaughter as many Jews as possible are truly unique. It is this uniqueness that makes these Jews difficult to explain. Nevertheless, it is important to at least attempt to do so. Here are two explanations. 1. Psychological Explanations As a result of the Holocaust, virtually every Jew—whether or not they had family members who were murdered by the Nazis and their non-German collaborators—suffers from a form of PTSD. Few non-Jews know this, and even fewer can identify with this condition. So, let me explain. Between 1941 and 1945, one of the most civilized nations in the world—the nation that gave the world the greatest music ever written; the greatest single national source of great scientists; the nation that produced Protestant Christianity, the mother of modern liberal democracies, the primary source (along with the Hebrew Bible) of the American experiment in freedom and of the anti-slavery movement—murdered two out of every three Jews in Europe. Jewish women, babies, and elderly Jews were slated for death just as much as were young men. Jews were not merely persecuted or enslaved; they were targeted for death in the largest and most systematic genocide in recorded history. And with very few exceptions, the world’s nations did nothing to help the Jews of Europe. Even those who managed to flee were, in too many cases, denied safe harbor in other countries, a fact that continues to underlie the need for one Jewish state in the world. Inevitably, this has had a profound impact on the Jewish psyche. Virtually every Jew since 1945 has, consciously or subconsciously, feared another Holocaust. In fact, long before the Holocaust, at the Passover Seder Jews recited (and still do): “In every generation they arise to annihilate us.” Note that the words are not “to persecute us” or “to enslave us” but “to annihilate us.” Jew-hatred has always been unique in that it is an annihilationist hatred. Given this reality, some Jews have always sought to assimilate wherever and whenever possible. Some changed their names, some baptized their children (as Karl Marx’s Jewish parents did), and some simply chose not to raise their children as Jews. Today, there are Jews who choose to identify with the Jews’ enemies. More than a few young Jews on college campuses, for example, undoubtedly believe—consciously or not—that they will be more secure if they align themselves with the Jews’ enemies. To those who seek to annihilate Israel and its Jews, there is no one as valuable as a Jew who sides with them—and many young Jews know, or at least sense, this. By aligning themselves with today’s Nazis—and lest you think that is too strong a term, vis-a-vis the Jews there is no difference between the Nazis and the Iranian regime, Hezbollah, and Hamas—they go from being hated by Israel-haters to being loved by them (for now). 2. Ideological Explanations Not all Jews side with the would-be exterminators of the Jewish people for psychological reasons. Many Jews who are in the pro-Palestinian, Israel-hating camp are there for ideological reasons: They are leftists (not liberals, who generally remain what they have always been: pro-Israel). And leftism is one of the two primary sources of Israel-hatred and Jew-hatred today. The other is fundamentalist Islam. This is true around the world. The most anti-Israel leaders outside of the Muslim world are leftists.The president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, described by The New York Times as “Colombia’s first leftist president,” has severed his country’s relations with Israel and not only used the “genocide” libel against Israel but accused Israel of engaging in “the extermination of an entire people.” (As I have noted for decades, truth is a liberal and conservative value; but it is not, and has never been, a left-wing value.) The leftist president of Bolivia, Luis Arce, severed his country’s relations with Israel less than three weeks after Oct. 7. Bolivia perfectly illustrates the universal left-wing hatred of Israel: Bolivia’s previous left-wing president, Evo Morales, severed Bolivia’s relations with Israel in 2009; and Morales’ conservative successor, Jeanine Anez, restored relations with Israel in 2020. Meanwhile, the most pro-Israel leader in the world today is the conservative president of Argentina, Javier Milei. Most American Jews are liberal, but many are leftist, and they embrace the anti-Israel/pro-Palestinian/pro-Hamas line. (At this time, “pro-Palestinian” means “pro-Hamas” just as, during World War II, “pro-German” meant “pro-Nazi.”) For many Jews who abandon belief in the Torah, leftism fills the religious hole created by that abandonment. This is equally true for many non-Jews, but there is a major difference: Christians who abandon Christian faith do not still call themselves Christian, nor does anyone else; but Jews who abandon Jewish faith often continue to call themselves Jews (especially when attacking Israel), and so do others. Psychopathology and left-wing ideology are the two primary explanations for why Jews such as those in groups like “Jewish Voice for Peace” and “IfNotNow” willingly serve as useful idiots for those who wish to exterminate the Jewish state and the Jewish people. Including them. COPYRIGHT 2024 CREATORS The Daily Signal publishes a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Heritage Foundation. The post Sick Jews appeared first on The Daily Signal.

A House subcommittee on Wednesday discussed the increasing left-wing bias at National Public Radio, a taxpayer-funded news and features network. The hearing stemmed from a debate sparked by an online essay a month ago in The Free Press by longtime NPR editor Uri Berliner, who alleged that the network was both extremely biased and had abandoned its commitment to quality journalism.  Berliner, who considers himself a liberal, wrote in his essay that NPR had become deeply biased and that its news coverage had alienated all but a narrow, left-wing audience. He said the network needed to change or it would erode not only its own credibility, but the credibility of media in general. Berliner resigned about a week after the controversy erupted. NPR’s CEO, Katherine Maher, was asked to appear before the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce on Wednesday. However, the day before, she said she couldn’t make it because she didn’t have enough time to prepare. Maher also said that she had an NPR board meeting to attend. “NPR respects the Committee and its request, and has offered to testify on a date in the near future that works for the Committee and Maher,” an NPR spokesperson said, according to Fox News. A spokesperson for the committee responded to Maher’s absence. “It speaks volumes that Ms. Maher has chosen not to appear [Wednesday] to answer for how her taxpayer-funded news outlet discriminates against the viewpoints of millions of Americans,” the committee spokesperson said, according to Fox News. Rep. Morgan Griffith, R-Va., who was to chair the hearing, said in his opening statement that the committee was investigating whether allegations of ideological bias and censorship of conservative and moderate voices were true. Griffith said that the subcommittee had invited Maher and that he hoped she would appear before the committee in the near future. “The only reason not to appear in front of this committee at some point in the near future is if the allegations are both true and NPR doesn’t care,” the Virginia lawmaker said. Democrats on the committee were dismissive of the hearing, and said that allegations of NPR’s bias are baseless. Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Fla., said that NPR isn’t biased at all, that its reporting is valuable and objective, and that Republicans listen to too much conservative media. “Despite the clear benefits of public radio, Republicans have brought us here to discuss an alleged bias at NPR,” she said. “Republicans say that NPR is biased against conservatives, but what they point to are examples of objective journalism. Disagreeing with reporting does not mean that the information is biased.” Democrat Rep. Kathy Castor seriously believes NPR is unbiased journalism."Republicans say NPR is biased against conservatives, but what they point to are examples of objective journalism." pic.twitter.com/ENUsE6UjIf— Media Research Center (@theMRC) May 8, 2024 The Florida Democrat suggested that the committee should instead focus on covering the gun deaths of children, preparing for the next pandemic, what she said were the successes of the Biden administration-backed Inflation Reduction Act, or climate change. “Members may want to step out of the right-wing echo chambers, which have routinely peddled lies and conspiracy theories,” Castor said. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., said that it was crucial to conduct oversight of NPR, which receives taxpayer dollars, and that there is no free-speech right to get taxpayers’ money to fund a media organization. “It is a fundamental principle under the First Amendment for news agencies to report on stories however they see fit,” she said. “It is not, however, a fundamental principle for news organizations to receive public funding to express their viewpoint.” McMorris Rodgers said that the hearing was to be about discussing accusations from within NPR that the news network is “actively censoring viewpoints” while taking taxpayer money. “Note for the record that we invited NPR CEO Ms. Maher to participate in today’s hearing,” McMorris Rodgers said. “She declined to do so, stating that she needed more time to prepare and that she had a conflict with an NPR board meeting.” The Washington congresswoman said that it was “especially troubling” that an organization funded with taxpayer money has “mocked, ridiculed, and attacked the people who fund their organization.” McMorris Rodgers pointed to the Berliner essay and said that it was telling that NPR declined to report stories that could help President Donald Trump in the 2020 election, no matter “how true and important to the public conversation they were.” She cited how Berliner wrote that an editor at NPR thought the news network shouldn’t report on the Hunter Biden laptop story in the lead-up to the 2020 presidential election because it could help Trump. It was also revealing, she said, that Berliner said he found 87 editors registered as Democrats, but no Republicans. “Today’s NPR has strayed from their core mission,” McMorris Rodgers said. “When an entity that was created by Congress and receives taxpayer funding strays from their core mission, there needs to be accountability and oversight.” Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., said that the hearing was a waste of time. He said that it was unfair for Republicans on the committee to call in the NPR CEO to testify, given that she only had a week to prepare and that she had a board meeting scheduled at the same time. The New Jersey Democrat also said that, given that Maher had only been the CEO for six weeks, she shouldn’t have to answer for a “former, disgruntled employee,” referring to Berliner. Pallone said that NPR plays a “vital role in democracy” in providing information. He said that public funding for the network goes to support mostly local programming that provides the last line of defense in “news deserts.” He said that instead of investigating the publicly funded NPR, Congress should investigate “the vast landscape of right-wing media” that he said promotes “misinformation.” Pallone said that investigating NPR hearkens back to the days of “McCarthyism.” Howard Husock, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who had served on the board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, testified that he wanted to remind the committee of where public broadcasting began.  The Corporation for Public Broadcasting is the organization that oversees NPR. It began with the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, he said, and of particular relevance is the mandate from Congress that “public broadcasting from radio and television should, it says, be ‘responsive to the interests of people both in particular localities and throughout the United States.’” Husock said that that’s where he has concerns about NPR. He pointed to a poll by the Pew Research Center that found “87% of NPR listeners describe themselves as Democrats, 12% as Republicans.” He said that contrasts sharply with commercial television newscasts, “which are close to 50/50.” The AEI fellow said that NPR doesn’t act like a “national taxpayer-supported service.” NPR’s audience is not the product of limited reach, he said, “instead, it produces a product which seems not to attract a broad swath of America.” That’s largely because of the selection of stories NPR reports. He suggested that changing the outdated Public Broadcasting Act would help alleviate the crisis of the decline of local newspapers. Husock said that direct funding does not account for most of the taxpayer dollars NPR receives. Instead, “31% of revenues” come from fees charged to local affiliates. That means, he said, that federal money sent through grants to local NPR affiliates is recycled back to the national network. Media Research Center Executive Editor Tim Graham said in his testimony that bias at NPR isn’t a recent phenomenon and that reporters at the network have intentionally tried, for instance, to derail Republican presidents’ Supreme Court nominees going back decades and that they continued that with the 2018 nomination of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. “In March, between ‘Morning Edition’ and ‘Fresh Air,’ Kavanaugh accuser Christine Blasey Ford was granted an hour of taxpayer-funded airtime to reiterate her unproven charges of teenage sexual assault,” Graham said. Yet, the network has failed to cover stories that might damage Democrats. He cited the case of Hunter Biden’s laptop, the salacious contents of which were dismissed by many “so-called mainstream media” outlets as “Russian disinformation.” Graham said that many media outlets were biased when it came to covering that story, but “NPR stood out.” NPR’s public editor dismissed the story as a “politically driven event,” even though the network gave extensive coverage to Blasey Ford’s unproven allegations. The MRC editor pointed to other examples of what he called bias at the network. “NPR covered the [former House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi-picked House Jan. 6 Committee live for every minute, and then it couldn’t do a two-minute story on the Biden impeachment inquiry,” he said. NPR has also “encouraged chaos and disorder in society,” Graham said: In 2020, NPR’s blog ‘Code Switch,’ with the slogan ‘Race in Your Face,’ posted an interview promoting a new book titled ‘In Defense of Looting.’ On ‘The NPR Politics Podcast’ in 2021, they promoted a book by Yale law professor Elizabeth Hinton saying that protests against policy shouldn’t be called riots; they should be called ‘rebellions.’ On NPR’s ‘Fresh Air’ on April 15, 2023, the movie critic John Powers praised the movie ‘How to Blow Up a Pipeline,’ hailing it as ‘hugely timely.’ You know, this is what NPR is doing. That’s what NPR is doing with taxpayer dollars, Graham said, “getting behind looting, rioting, and blowing up pipelines. And yet, NPR represents the Republicans as uniquely extreme.” The post NPR’s CEO Is a No-Show at Hearing Looking Into Bias at Taxpayer-Funded Network appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Years before the prosecution called the former porn star to testify Tuesday in Donald Trump’s “hush money” trial in Manhattan, Democrats viewed Stormy Daniels as an avenue for impeaching Trump when he was president.  My 2020 book “Abuse of Power” details the origins of Left’s lawfare against Trump, which began immediately after his 2016 election to the presidency.   Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, an elected Democrat, led the first criminal case against Trump, followed by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis in Georgia and two federal prosecutions by special counsel Jack Smith. Indicted in four separate criminal cases for a total of 91 counts, Trump got some good news Tuesday when a federal judge in Florida postponed indefinitely his trial in the classified documents case, one of Smith’s. Below is an adapted excerpt from “Abuse of Power”: It’s funny how “legal experts” who would pop up working for Democrats were talking and writing about Trump’s demise for other reasons months earlier.  Two lawyers whom the House Judiciary Committee hired for impeachment, Norman Eisen and Barry Berke, wrote a New York Times opinion piece along with Noah Bookbinder, also a lawyer, with the headline: “Is This the Beginning of the End for Trump?”  The lawyers suggested Trump could be taken down for a possible campaign finance violation tied to alleged flings with former porn star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal.  Or, as the lawyers characterized it in their Times piece, federal prosecutors determined that “Mr. Trump, the Trump Organization, and the campaign were all directly involved in an illegal scheme to silence two women who claimed they had affairs with Mr. Trump.”  The lawyers’ op-ed in the Times further says Trump “could be named as an unindicted co-conspirator” or “charged if he leaves office before the statute of limitations runs out (most likely in 2022).” Still, regarding the hush money [for Daniels and McDougal], even House Democrat Leader Nancy Pelosi had said after the news of  Trump’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen’s planned guilty plea that it wasn’t grounds for impeachment, even as some of her members were pushing for that.  “Impeachment has to spring from something else. If and when the information emerges about that, we’ll see,” Pelosi said in 2018. “It’s not a priority on the agenda going forward unless something else comes forward.” But impeachment was a priority for members of the House Democratic Caucus, which she led.  In December 2018, when Cohen pleaded guilty to a campaign finance violation for paying hush money to Daniels, the plea agreement referred to “Individual 1” as directing him to do so. It was clear that this individual was Trump.  Cohen also pleaded guilty to tax evasion and other financial crimes and was sentenced to three years in prison. He later pleaded guilty to lying to the Senate Intelligence Committee. In late 2019, with Democrats in control of the House, many of the hardliners in Pelosi’s caucus were pushing the speaker to go beyond Trump’s phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as grounds for impeachment. Democrats in the House Progressive Caucus wanted to include the ambiguous obstruction arguments from special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on the discredited Trump-Russia claims, the campaign finance allegation in the Stormy Daniels case, the emoluments clause of the Constitution, and potentially other matters. By this point, the House had launched 12 separate investigations into Trump.  But after initial resistance, Pelosi had already caved once to the members demanding Trump’s impeachment on the Ukrainian phone call. The other matters would only prolong the process.  Trump admitted he and Zelenskyy talked about Joe Biden. Now, Democrats just had to turn it into an impeachable case.  Nevertheless, keeping swing district House Democrats in the loop was one reason why, early in the process, leadership had considered progressives’ demands for a “kitchen sink” impeachment involving Russia, Stormy Daniels, emoluments, and anything else they could think of.  This would allow moderate Democrats to go home and say they had voted against some articles of impeachment while still voting to oust Trump in order to appease the base and avoid a potential primary challenger from the left. In the age of MAGA and #Resistance voters, primary challenges are a forefront concern for incumbents on both sides. During the impeachment hearing, Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee called former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch to testify.  As with other witnesses, Yovanovitch’s legal counsel was steeped in Democratic politics. Lawrence S. Robbins represented both Republican and Democrat clients.  But in a December 2018 op-ed for Politico, Robbins called for either impeaching or prosecuting Trump for campaign finance violation regarding the Daniels hush money. Robbins wrote: “The Department of Justice’s description of the role of Individual 1—the president himself—leaves no doubt that career Justice Department prosecutors regard Trump as a full blown co-conspirator. And most serious-minded criminal lawyers agree that, if these allegations are true, the president, but for his day job, would have been sitting in the dock with his long-time fixer.”  Robbins further wrote that Trump would use his office as president to shield himself from prosecution, so “Congress would surely have no choice but to hold him accountable in the way prescribed by the Constitution.” That way, of course, was impeachment. The post How the Left Tried to Use Stormy Daniels to Impeach Trump appeared first on The Daily Signal.

You can tell when the PolitiFact website is going to negotiate around the facts. On May 7, its top headline on the homepage asked: “Are ‘outside agitators’ co-opting campus protests?” This isn’t quite the right question. The media have presented these events as “student” protests, so if half the participants aren’t college students, how would they describe the nonstudents? PolitiFact writers Kwasi Gyamfi Asiedu and Loreben Tuquero offered this summary: —Police, city and university officials nationwide have blamed ‘outside agitators’ for campus protests but have provided little evidence for their claims.—Law enforcement experts say police often consider ‘outside agitators’ to be people who move from city to city and are paid to be agitators.—Historians say government and law officials commonly use the ‘outside agitator’ narrative to delegitimize protesters and their demands. First, the “little evidence” is a weird claim, when PolitiFact’s article acknowledges facts like the New York Police Department reported that “32 out of 112 people arrested at Columbia’s private campus were unaffiliated with the university. At nearby City College, 102 out of 170 people arrested were not students.” Add it up, and 134 out of 282 protesters were not students. So, when Mayor Eric Adams complains about “outside agitators,” he’s not in need of a “fact check.” They even scolded leftist Reps. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., and Hank Johnson, D-Ga., over their “agitator” concerns. They did not mention the recent story of an outside agitator named James Carlson, who was part of the army that briefly occupied Hamilton Hall at Columbia University. He’s a 40-year-old trust fund heir who owns a townhouse in Brooklyn worth $3.4 million. PolitiFact typically seeks out “experts” to match the narratives it wants to underline. It doesn’t like people suggesting these protesters aren’t local and they might be paid to protest. It found William & Mary law professor Timothy Zick to define the outside agitator spin: “It was used as sort of a phrase that would link protesters, no matter how peaceful they were, to Communists and other infiltrators who were causing disruption.” The term is used to cast doubt on protester “sincerity.” Angus Johnston, “historian of student activism” at Hostos Community College in New York, explained, “The idea behind the concept of the outside agitator is that dissent can never be coming from the people who are expressing that dissent.” It also turned to Johnston to underline, “Some experts have been quick to note the main goal of a protest is to get others to join in.” This spin is nothing like how the media spun the tea party protests against Obamacare legislation. They sought to discredit them as donor-funded “AstroTurf” (not grassroots). They went looking for the most racist or ignorant-sounding sign they could find to present protesters as a kooky “fringe” movement. NBC’s Chuck Todd decried “town hall madness.” The front page of The Boston Globe lamented the “quarrelsome masses hollering questions downloaded from activist websites.” MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann ranted, “The truth is out about the societal sabotage dressed up as phony protests against health care reform. … When Hamas does it or Hezbollah does it, it is called terrorism.” That looks pretty funny right now, since these protesters are a much better match for that Hamas spin. All of this was about “delegitimizing protesters and their demands.” Protests are covered in wildly divergent ways, depending on whether the activists are on the Left or the Right. This is just as true for liberal “fact-checking” organizations as it is for liberal media outlets. COPYRIGHT 2024 CREATORS.COM The Daily Signal publishes a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Heritage Foundation. The post PolitiFact Shames Talk of ‘Outside Agitators’ in College Protests appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Legislation adopted Wednesday by the House of Representatives would restore a question about U.S. citizenship to the 2030 census, potentially reshaping congressional representation and the Electoral College. Lawmakers voted, 206-202, to pass the Equal Representation Act, a bill championed by Reps. Chuck Edwards, R-N.C., and Warren Davidson, R-Ohio. (See how your representative voted.) Sen. Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., introduced the Senate version, which Republicans overwhelmingly supported in a March vote. With millions of illegal aliens residing in the United States—a problem exacerbated by the Biden administration’s border policies—the legislation aims to protect Americans’ electoral power and congressional representation by ensuring foreign citizens aren’t counted in the census. “If you are an illegal immigrant, you should not be represented in the U.S. Congress,” House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., told The Daily Signal. “It’s a shame that House Democrats are allowing their open-borders agenda to get in the way of common sense.” One of those Democrats openly acknowledged the benefits of counting illegal aliens. Rep. Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y., admitted, “We have a diaspora that can absorb a significant number of these migrants. … I need more people in my district just for redistricting purposes.” Democrat Congresswoman Yvette Clarke on illegal immigrants in America:"I need more people in my district just for redistricting purposes." The end game: Dems are willing to destroy what it means to be an American citizen to help themselves politically. pic.twitter.com/3XmBDqYEsH— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) January 9, 2024 After being in all but one census from 1820 to 2000, the citizenship question was abandoned in the 2010 questionnaire during the Obama administration. The Trump administration attempted to restore the citizenship question for the 2020 census, but a divided Supreme Court ruled against its approach, and the idea was abandoned. The Equal Representation Act would require the citizenship question on the 2030 census and each decennial census that follows. The Trump administration attempted to restore the citizenship question for the 2020 census. A divided Supreme Court ruled against its approach, and the idea was abandoned. (Photo: Smith Collection/Getty Images) Heritage Action, an independent partner of The Heritage Foundation, advocated for passage of the Equal Representation Act. The organization scored Wednesday’s vote on HR 7109. (The Heritage Foundation created The Daily Signal in 2014.) Ryan Walker, Heritage Action’s executive vice president, faulted the Obama administration for undoing nearly 200 years of precedent. Walker said the consequences of inaction are significant, given the ongoing border crisis. “Illegal immigrants and other noncitizens cannot vote, and should not be given the power to sway our elections or congressional maps—especially in light of Joe Biden’s border crisis that has brought more than 10 million people into our country,” Walker said. “The Equal Representation Act puts electoral power back in the hands of those with the right to vote—American citizens—something every member of Congress must protect.” The House version amassed 114 co-sponsors and was approved by the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability in April on a 22-20 vote. Illegal aliens should have ZERO influence in our electoral process.You don't get to come to our country, break our laws, and then be included in congressional apportionment.That's why I cosponsored the Equal Representation Act, which the House will vote on tonight.— Rep. Eric Burlison (@RepEricBurlison) May 8, 2024 “Members of Congress represent U.S. citizens, not foreigners,” said Davidson, the bill’s co-sponsor. “Under the Democrats’ open-border policies, sanctuary cities and states inflate their population with illegal aliens. Then they’re rewarded with more congressional representation by a census that counts illegals. The inflated count is then used to draw congressional maps, undermining fair representation for our citizens.” Edwards stressed only American citizens can legally vote, “so, only American citizens should be counted when determining federal representation.” Hagerty forced a vote on the Equal Representation Act in March. It ultimately failed, 51-45, although only one Republican, Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, voted against it. Three other Republicans didn’t vote. The post House Passes Bill to Restore Citizenship Question to Census appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Pointing to the combination of an open border and declining confidence in elections, congressional Republicans are backing legislation to require proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote.  “Due to the wide-open border that the Biden administration has refused to close, practically engineered to open, we now have so many noncitizens in the country that if only one out of 100 voted, they would cast hundreds of thousands of votes,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said Wednesday during a press conference in front of the Capitol.  Because America’s borders are wide open and Democrats want to turn noncitizens into voters, Congress must act to protect our federal elections.Today, we introduced the SAVE Act to ensure that only Americans get to decide American elections.Thank you to @RepChipRoy and… pic.twitter.com/dXANdzUuoC— Speaker Mike Johnson (@SpeakerJohnson) May 8, 2024 “Since our elections are so razor thin these days—just a few precincts in a few states decide the makeup of Congress and who is elected to the White House—this is a dangerously high number and it is a great concern to millions and millions of Americans. It could actually change the outcome of our elections,” Johnson said.  The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, or SAVE Act, is sponsored in the House by Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, and by Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, in the Senate.  The House speaker noted that about 16 million illegal aliens have entered the United States since Joe Biden took office as president.  Although it’s already illegal for these illegal immigrants to vote in federal elections, Johnson said, election officials have no mechanism to deter them from registering to vote.  “If a nefarious actor wants to intervene in our elections, all they have to do is check a box on a form and sign their name. That’s it,” Johnson said.   The legislation would amend the 1993 National Voter Registration Act, better known as the “motor voter law,” to require that states obtain documentary proof of citizenship from someone before he or she may register to vote. It also would require states to remove noncitizens from existing voter rolls. “The most fundamental thing you can do to destroy the rule of law and to destroy our republic is to undermine faith in elections and undermine integrity of elections by making it unclear as to who is voting and limiting our ability to know that only citizens are voting,” Roy told reporters, adding:   We are here for the proposition supported by the vast majority of the American people: that only citizens of the United States should vote, that we should have documentary proof, that we should have a system to guarantee that only citizens of the United States vote in federal elections where we have the clear authority under the Constitution of the United States, under our laws as Congress, to set the terms of those elections.  For his part, Lee argued that the one-citizen-one-vote measure should have lawmakers’ unanimous support. “When federal law has been interpreted as precluding in many ways the voter registration officials in various states from even inquiring into someone’s citizenship when addressing voter roll issues, we have a problem,” Lee said.  “It’s legislation that really ought to pass unanimously in both houses of Congress because the only reason to oppose this—that I can think of—would be if you are comfortable with or somehow want noncitizens to vote and noncitizens in some instances to influence the outcome of elections,” the Utah Republican continued.  However, there is opposition. It’s “not true” that noncitizens are voting, Michael Waldman, president of the Brennan Center for Justice, a liberal advocacy group that opposes voter ID and other election security measures, posted on X.  Speaker Johnson, explaining bill to require passport or birth certificate to register to vote: "We ll know, intuitively, that a lot of illegals are voting in federal elections. But it's not been something that is easily provable." That's because … it's not true! (Intuitively?)— Michael Waldman (@mawaldman) May 8, 2024 Johnson announced the legislation last month while visiting former President Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida. The press conference featuring Johnson, Lee, and Roy came one day after House Administration Chairman Bryan Steil, R-Wis., sent a letter demanding answers from the District of Columbia Board of Elections, which allows noncitizen voting in local races. Steil’s letter inquires how the District will ensure that noncitizens can’t vote in federal elections. “Not only is D.C. allowing noncitizens to vote, but the board is actively encouraging it,” Steil writes. “In addition to board staff hosting a virtual town hall focused on the ability of noncitizen D.C. residents to vote, the committee has received notice regarding a postcard mailed by the board to ‘residential customers’ advocating for noncitizens to register to vote in D.C. elections.” During his remarks Wednesday, Johnson also raised the issue of jurisdictions that allow noncitizens to vote in local elections. “A growing number of localities are blurring the lines by allowing noncitizens to vote in municipal local elections,” the House speaker said. “In cities and towns in California, Maryland, and Vermont, and even right here in D.C., you might not know this, but noncitizens are voting.” But Jenny Beth Martin, honorary chairwoman of Tea Party Patriots Action, said at the Capitol press conference that just because it’s already illegal doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.  “It’s already illegal for noncitizens to vote, but just because something is illegal doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. If you’re not a citizen, it’s illegal to enter our country without authorization. but that happens multiple millions of times every year,” Martin said. “We’re trying to get ahead of the curve here.” The post Roy, Lee Introduce Bill to Require Citizenship Proof to Vote appeared first on The Daily Signal.

In an explosive House subcommittee hearing Wednesday, Republicans pressed the leaders of three major public school districts about their responses to antisemitic incidents.  Rep. Kevin Kiley, R-Calif., presented Enikia Ford Morthel, superintendent of Berkeley Unified School District in California, with a report on antisemitic incidents in her school district. “You gave us a statement in your testimony when you said that ‘any suggestion or assertion that antisemitism is pervasive in the [district] is false,’” Kiley said. He then proceeded to quote a news release from the Anti-Defamation League and the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, which filed a civil rights complaint against the district. “Incidents include students repeatedly hearing antisemitic comments in classrooms and hallways, such as ‘kill the Jews’; non-Jewish students asking Jewish students what ‘their number is,’ referring to numbers tattooed on Jews during the Holocaust; and Jewish students being derided for their physical appearance and demonized as evil,” the ADL and Brandeis Center claimed. “Jewish students report being worried about mob violence, including being ‘jumped’ at school.” The ADL claimed that the district “has done nothing to address, much less curtail, the hostile environment.” “You can be confident that I am there in my schools every day, in the schools, in the classrooms, with the babies,” Ford Morthel responded. She acknowledged that antisemitic incidents have occurred and declared that “every single time we are aware of such an instance… we take appropriate action.” ?WATCH: @KevinKileyCA reads from @ADL & @BrandeisCenter report on antisemitism at Berkeley Unified School District & asks Enikia Ford Mothel abt her claim that antisemitism is NOT "pervasive" in the school district. Here's her response: "We take appropriate action." Trust me… pic.twitter.com/VD3KDnG3lU— Tyler O'Neil (@Tyler2ONeil) May 8, 2024 Rep. Aaron Bean, R-Fla., pressed Karla Silvestre, president of the Montgomery County Board of Education in Maryland, about whether she had fired anyone over what the Zionist Organization of America described as “severe, persistent, and pervasive antisemitism” in the school district. “I met with one of your students this morning,” Bean said. He summarized what the student told him: “For being Jewish, I suffered physical harm.” “Have you expelled students and teachers?” he asked. “We have taken disciplinary action,” Silvestre responded. “Have you fired anybody?” Bean pressed. “No,” the board president replied. She noted that four teachers have been subjected to discipline. ?WATCH: @RepAaronBean demands to know whether @MCPS Board President Karla Silvestre has fired any teachers over what @ZOA_National described as "severe, persistent, and pervasive antisemitism" in the school district. Here's how she responded.? pic.twitter.com/1DZP8eV62p— Tyler O'Neil (@Tyler2ONeil) May 8, 2024 Rep. Brandon Williams, R-N.Y., asked David Banks, chancellor of New York City Public Schools, whether Scott Milczewski, the former principal of Hillcrest High School in Jamaica, N.Y., is still drawing a paycheck from the school district after allowing a student-led riot. The students shouted antisemitic chants to intimidate a Jewish teacher locked in her office. The riot continued for hours before police broke it up. “Is the former principal at Hillcrest still drawing a salary from New York Public Schools today?” Williams asked. “Yes, he is,” Banks acknowledged.  “How can Jewish students feel safe at New York City public schools when you can’t even manage to terminate the principal of ‘open season on Jews’ high school?” Williams demanded. The chancellor noted that staff at the school district have due process rights. ?WATCH: New York Public Schools Chancellor David Banks admits that the former principal at Hillcrest is STILL "drawing a salary" from the school district despite his failure to break up anti-Jewish harassment. Powerful questioning from @RepWilliams. pic.twitter.com/eNxLh0ymOs— Tyler O'Neil (@Tyler2ONeil) May 8, 2024 “That’s concerning to me that you still have him in a senior position,” Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., said of the situation. “We’re getting lip service, but a lack of enforcement and accountability.” Banks condemned the hearing as “the ultimate ‘gotcha’ moment,” suggesting that the House’s investigation of the antisemitic events that had taken place in his district wasn’t something that would “bring us together.” Ford Morthel said it was “appropriate” for a curriculum to teach students a positive spin on the chant “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” Kiley asked her about a school curriculum that stated, “For some Palestinians, ‘From the river to the sea’ is a call for freedom and peace.” The curriculum went on to cite Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., who the House of Representatives censured for her remarks on the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack on Israel.  “We definitely believe that it is important to expose our students to a diversity of ideas and perspectives, and if it was presented as a perspective, I do think it was appropriate,” she responded. 'I do think it was appropriate," Enikia Ford Morthel, superintendent of Berkeley Unified Public School District, says of a curriculum stating that "For some Palestinians, 'from the river to the sea' is a call for freedom and peace."? pic.twitter.com/diwVi9JELl— Tyler O'Neil (@Tyler2ONeil) May 8, 2024 Ford Morthel later added that the slogan could be both a call for genocide and a call for peace, depending on the context. “From the river to the sea” is a call for Jews to be swept from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea in an ethnic cleansing, establishing the Islamic State of Palestine. It has been the official motto of the Hamas terrorist organization since 1988. It's time we broke down the history of "From the river to the sea."It's explicitly ugly and overtly genocidal—Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran make that very clear. pic.twitter.com/P9H6Fq847s— Tony Kinnett (@TheTonus) October 18, 2023 Ford Morthel largely brushed off the dozens of reported antisemitic bullying and harassment incidents in her district by telling members of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce’s Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education, “Our babies sometimes say harmful things. We are mindful that all kids make mistakes.” She described antisemitic incidents from staff similarly, claiming that “we know that our staff are not immune to mistakes, either. And we don’t ignore them when they occur.” Contrary to that statement, Berkeley High School teacher Alex Day told school board members and parents that he would be teaching an anti-Israel curriculum full of falsified history to students in November, and proceeded to lecture students about the Israeli government in class for several days without intervention. Several local parents are currently suing the district over the matter. Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, D-Ore., used the hearing to vilify former President Donald Trump and her Republican colleagues, falsely suggesting that the former president had described white supremacists marching in Charlottesville, Virginia, as “very fine people on both sides.” “If my colleagues care about antisemitism, they could condemn and denounce these comments from the leader of their party,” Bonamici claimed. “Does anyone have the courage to stand up against this? Let the record show no one spoke up at this time.”The transcript from the 2017 press conference Bonamici appears to be referencing does not show Trump calling white supremacists “very fine people.” After saying that there were “very fine people” on both sides of the debate about Confederate monuments, Trump added: “I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally.” The post ‘Our Babies Sometimes Say Harmful Things’: Superintendents Deny Antisemitism Is ‘Pervasive’ Problem in Their Schools appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Although we tend to think of celebrities as leading luxurious and even opulent lifestyles, some of them have backgrounds that include the not-so-glamorous but highly honorable duty of military service. While there are a few celebrities who have well-publicized links to the military, there are many others whose service is not so well-known. Read on for a list of celebrities who have been involved... Source