Daily Archives: October 9, 2021

A minority report released by Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee exonerates former President Donald Trump of claims of weaponizing the Department of Justice (DOJ) in an effort to subvert the 2020 election.

Trump, Republicans concluded led by ranking member Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, never directed agency officials to act outside the guidelines of what would be appropriate for department staff in the course of securing election integrity.

The available evidence shows that President Trump was concerned about legitimate complaints and reports of crimes, and that the electoral system writ large had failed the American people, lawmakers wrote based on interviews with the same witnesses who testified before Democrats. President Donald Trumps focus was not on directing the DOJ or the FBI to take certain action; rather his focus was on making sure that they were aware of election allegations and that they were doing their job to properly investigate them.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., launched the committee investigation in January with a focus on the events between Dec. 14, 2020, and Jan. 3 this year, interviewing a trio of former top DOJ officials from Trumps last days in office. Those who testified include former Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, former Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue, and former U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia BJay Pak.

The Republicans conclusions directly contradict Democrats claims that Trump sought to overturn the November contest through a deep-state operation within the Justice Department, the same agency weaponized by then-Vice President Joe Biden to do exactly that in 2016.

In August, legacy outlets ran wild with the story first reported by ABC News that Jeffrey Clark, then an assistant attorney general within the DOJ, wrote a memo urging Georgia lawmakers to hold hearings on voter fraud before the results could be certified by Congress. In January, Senate investigators found that Clark had recommended the Justice Department also demand that states hold special conventions where the legislators pick electors, recommendations Trump repeatedly shot down twice, according to Donoghues testimony.

Clark was never interviewed by the committee before Durbin decided to conclude the Senate investigation.

While Democrats pivoted over the prior 10 months from framing Trump as a Kremlin agent to a rogue agent hellbent on retaining power through a DOJ takeover, Senate Republicans found no evidence to support the hysterical claims. Trump, Republican investigators found, consulted with close advisers and adhered to their advice to ensure DOJ bureaucrats in the same agency that worked against him take seriously allegations of voter fraud in a pandemic election that featured record-breaking turnout in the form of mail-in ballots. Voting by mail is the most common form of voter fraud and has been banned in France since 1975 while severely restricted across the developed world.

While Trump, Donoghue testified, had no impact on the Justice Departments actions investigating the November election, the frustrated president did not fire a single staffer at the DOJ or FBI related to the lack of action despite his own belief that Pak was a NeverTrumper. In fact, Donoghue said, the Election Crimes Branch was dragging their feet and maybe more to keep these investigations from going forward.

Mark Meadows, Trumps former chief of staff, on the other hand, reportedly abstained from applying severe pressure on DOJ officials to investigate fraud claims as hostile outlets such as The New York Times depicted.

See more here:

Senate Exonerates Trump Of Weaponizing DOJ Over Election Results - The Federalist

The federal government does nothing these days, said Federalist Publisher Ben Domenech while hosting Fox News Primetime on Thursday night.

Usually when people complain that the government does nothing, they just mean it didnt do what they want. I mean it literally. I mean the federal government increasingly can do nothing, he said. Step back a bit from whatever allegiance, bias, or prejudice you have for a moment and see the spectacle of the federal government of the United States incapable of everything but nothing.

As Domenech noted, this moment represents the first time in our history where the American people have seen the federal government in the District of Columbia capable of absolutely nothing its responsible for.

The list of things the federal government suddenly cannot do is nearly a list of things absolutely everyone, left and right, Democrat and Republican, expects a government to be able to do, Domenech said. The federal government cannot win a war. The federal government cannot secure its own seat of governance. The federal government cannot ensure domestic tranquilities. The federal government cannot guarantee law. The federal government cannot reflect and advance the values of its own people. The federal government cannot assert its own constitutional authority versus an upstart-larping, letterhead-bearing, western states pact.

The federal government also cant secure its own elections, establish justice, provide for the common prosperity or defense, secure the blessings of liberty, secure its own borders, prioritize its citizens, or handle a health crisis with any level of competence, Domenech said.

What can the federal government do? Well, try not paying your taxes, or protesting an out-of-control school board, or sending a joke tweet, and youll find out. They will try, they will put every effort into trying, to crush you like a bug, he added.

While many people like to believe the U.S.S.R. collapsed because of peoples desire for freedom, Domenech said it was actually the incompetence of government that led to its ultimate demise.

Come the early 1990s, the average Soviet citizen lived in a country defeated in Afghanistan, shot through with endemic violence, stricken with radically empty grocery shelves, afflicted by an increasingly worthless currency, and ruled by an aging group of idiots whose governance veered between insane radicalism and lethal incompetence. It was a country like, well, like the one you and I live in today, Domenech said.

While noting the challenges America faces, Domenech said the power to fix our current predicament rests within the states.

If the swamp ticks grown fat and happy off the federal government wont do their jobs, states must stand up and do it themselves, Domenech said. Treat the federal government like the angry, old relative sending all-caps emails. You want to impose unlawful mandates by email? You want to decide school policies where you have no authority? You want to control our travel and bully our businesses and pretend the 10th Amendment doesnt exist? I wont say the first part of the sentence Im thinking because this is a family program, but it ends, Sue me.

It doesnt have to be that way. But thats the way it is. This incompetent, decrepit, federal behemoth wants to impose total control over how you live, indoctrinate your children, snoop on your transactions, monitor your opinions for wrongthink, and descend with their full might to ruin you as they see fit. And they cant even keep track of border-runners or refugees or tell our friends from our foes, he added.

Watch Domenechs full monologue here:

Shawn Fleetwood is an intern at The Federalist and a student at the University of Mary Washington, where he plans to major in Political Science and minor in Journalism. He also serves as a state content writer for Convention of States Action. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood

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Domenech: Doing Nothing Is All The Federal Government Does - The Federalist

Arizona Democrat Sen. Kyrsten Sinema was harassed last weekend by a leftist group that is funded by the same organization that cornered then-Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake over Justice Brett Kavanaughs confirmation hearings.

In 2018, two women cornered Flake, a Republican, in a U.S. Capitol elevator and spent minutes demanding that he vote against confirming now-Justice Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Center for Popular Democracy, a group that champions equity, partnerships with progressive unions, and racial justice, proudly claimed the confrontation in an email to donors.

Last week, you saw protestors interrupting the Kavanaugh hearings, trying to slow it down and show the Judiciary Committee how much they/we care. Those protests were organized by theWomens March and the Center for Popular Democracy and other groups, an email from the organization stated.

The Arizona Republican still voted in favor of advancing Kavanaughs confirmation but after being intimidated by the protesters, called a delay on the Senate Judiciary Committees vote and asked the FBI to conduct a probe into the sexual allegations against Kavanaugh as a condition of his support.

Living United for Change in Arizona, the group that harassed and filmed Sinema in an Arizona State University bathroom while they demanded that she vote for President Joe Bidens Build Back Better Plan and amnesty for illegal aliens, is one of CPDs close partners. According to Ballotpedia, Living United was an Arizonapartner organization of theCenter for Popular Democracy, a national501(c)(3)nonprofit organization that was formed to support state and local progressive movements.

CPD not only works closely with Living United due to their similar progressive and pro-illegal immigration agendas, but it also uses donations from multiple leftist organizations to fund its partner organizations efforts. In 2019, CPD gifted Living United at least $332,400 for base building and states power building. One year earlier, Living United received at least$202,000 for paid sick days and minimum wage. CPDs 501(c)(4), the Center for Popular Democracy Action Fund also gave $984,806 to Living United in 2016 for paid sick leave and minimum wage.

Left-wing billionaire George Soros also gaveat least $1.5 million to Living United for Change in Arizona in 2019 and at least $250,000 in2017to become the groups largest donor.

Similar to the CPDs bragging about harassing Flake, Living United for Change in Arizona posted videos of its target campaign against Sinema on its social media and amplified the calls of immigrant youth.

Sinema condemned the confrontation as unacceptable and wholly inappropriate.

Yesterdays behavior was not a legitimate protest. It is unacceptable for activist organizations to instruct their members to jeopardize themselves by engaging in unlawful activities such as gaining entry to closed university buildings, disrupting learning environments, and filming students in a restroom, Sinema said in a statement on Monday.

Biden appeared unfazed by the violation of Sinemas privacy in the restroom, said it happens to everybody, and hasnt commented on any of the other demonstrators who continue to target Sinema over passing the reconciliation bill and giving illegal aliens a pathway to citizenship.

Jordan Davidson is a staff writer at The Federalist. She graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism.

Continued here:

Sinema Harassed By Same Network That Cornered Flake On Kavanaugh - The Federalist

The Facebook whistleblower thread has been pulled, and now the facade wont stop unraveling to the point that Frances Haugen has been revealed as part of the team of Big Tech censors at the center of 2020 election meddling, The Post Millennial has found.

Haugen was a member of Facebooks civic integrity unit, which was tasked with countering so-called misinformation (read: throttling politically disfavored content) about the 2020 election. In October, that entailed censoring The New York Posts reporting on Hunter Bidens laptop, which incriminated the Biden son and his father for corruption in the run-up to the highly contested election.

Just weeks before the November election, The New York Post reported that a laptop containing evidence implicating then-presidential candidate Joe Bidens son for engaging in shady overseas business dealings had surfaced after Hunter Biden abandoned it at a computer repair shop in Delaware. Documents from the shop appear to show a signed receipt from Hunter for the repairs, and text messages, videos, and emails recovered from the device point to a pay-to-play scandal involving the current president.

Big Tech companies such as Facebook and Twitter, however, censored the story. Both Facebook policy comms director Andy Stone on Twitter and CEO Mark Zuckerberg in congressional testimony admitted to the company suppressing the bombshell report.

Haugen, who joined Facebook in 2019 on the condition of being tasked with censoring misinformation, was assigned to the 200-member civic integrity unit, where she worked until after the 2020 presidential election. Haugen and four other people, according to the New York Post, were tasked with building a system to track misinformation targeted at specific groups of people in just three months, and after their efforts were successful and Biden won the election, Facebook dissolved the unit.

The so-called whistleblower has already been confirmed to be a left-wing activist. Soon after Haugen came forward with stolen documents, lamenting that Facebook isnt doing enough to censor hate speech and political dissidents, financial records revealed that she regularly donates to Democrats, including radicals such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Haugens attorneys are also deeply steeped in left-wing corruption. Her lawyers were part of the legal team that represented the fake whistleblower whose complaint about then-President Donald Trumps Ukraine phone call (a call about which the whistleblower did not have firsthand knowledge) led to a sham impeachment. Now shes receiving strategic communication guidance from former Obama aide Bill Burtons public relations firm Bryson Gillette, which is run by Democratic operatives. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki was a senior adviser there until September 2020.

On Tuesday, Haugen testified before a congressional hearing at least in part to gain lawmaker support for more Big Tech censorship. She accused Facebook of putting profits before safety by amplifying so-called misinformation which she said is killing people, a talking point you might recognize from the Biden White House.

The result has been more division, more harm, more lies, more threats, and more combat. In some cases, this dangerous online talk has led to actual violence that harms and even kills people,testified Haugen, who has also made woke statements about inclusion and bias in her previous tech jobs, which have included Google and Pinterest. At the latter, she reportedly drove the company toward giving users the ability to filter searches to specific skin tones.

Haugens lawyers have filed eight complaints about Facebook with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including lamenting that the company doesnt remove enough hate speech and didnt deploy lasting counter-measures or sufficiently fight so-called misinformation, right-wing extremism, and violence regarding the 2020 election and Jan. 6 riot.

The Facebook whistleblower news comes amid widespread Big Tech censorship campaigns and partisan calls for crackdowns on what Democrats call misinformation.

In July, Psaki announcedthat due to12 unnamed people on social media posting what the Biden administration considered to be misinformation, the White House is actively flagging problematic posts for Facebook that spread disinformation and helping to boost trusted content. Nothing is off the table when it comes to using Big Tech to quiet opposing views, she said.

When a reporter asked Biden that same week what his message is to sites such as Facebook, the president replied, Theyre killing people.

Read more:

Facebook 'Whistleblower' Was On Team That Nuked Hunter Biden Story - The Federalist

If you asked President Joe Biden right now where we are in the pandemic, how confident are you that you would get an even slightly intelligible answer?

What if you asked media sex god Dr. Anthony Fauci?

No one at this point can possibly expect that they would get a meaningful response. Biden was elected with the expectation, thanks to an image generated by the media, that he would competently address the pandemic, follow the science (which the left swears is settled, right up until they change their minds), and shut down the virus.

Nearly nine months in, the results are indecipherable guidance from his administration about masks, vaccines, booster shots, and group gatherings. Thats nothing to say of the averages of 100,000 new infections and almost 2,000 new COVID-related deaths reported each day, which has been the case for going on two months.

Back in March, Biden said that if we do our part there was a good chance that families and friends could have small groups for an Independence Day outdoor barbecue. Fast-forward to this month and Fauci, Bidens top COVID adviser, is telling people hes not sure they can gather for Christmas. But then, never mind, they can!

Who knows if a vaccine booster shot is a good idea for themselves? In mid-August, Biden said at the White House that there was a plan for booster shots to every fully vaccinated American adult American and that those shots would be available the week of Sep. 20. Then the Food and Drug Administration said, Nah!

Just a couple of days before Bidens Sep. 20 deadline, the FDA declined to approve boosters for most adults, instead stating that only adults over 65, plus anyone deemed high risk, should get an additional shot.

Unfortunately, that wasnt any less confusing. Are you high risk or not? It turns out to not really matter. If you want a shot, you can get one. Plenty of people are doing it, regardless of risk status. Best of luck!

By the way, if you want or need to travel outside the United States, the Biden administration makes no promises about your return. Whether youre vaccinated or not, a negative COVID test is needed for re-entry. Have fun figuring that one out.

And what about the godforsaken masks? Biden didnt wait a moment after being sworn in to tell the public that he was asking them to mask up for 100 days. And yet, here we are, still told by his Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that regardless of whether a person has received a vaccine, he should be wearing a mask when in public.

We are rapidly approaching Day 300 of Bidens 100 days. In that time, his administration went from telling the vaccinated to continue wearing masks to then saying that wasnt necessary, to going back to advising face coverings again.

This is precisely the kind of instability we were told not to expect from Biden. He was the remedy to his predecessors supposed chaos.

Now look where we are. Bidens handling of the pandemic has been a complete catastrophe, and were only just now coming down from the second-biggest wave of infections since this whole thing began.

Things are no better off than they were before Biden got into office. Theyre arguably a lot worse.

More here:

Joe Biden Has Created More COVID Chaos Than Ever - The Federalist

Twitter censored the obituary of a mother whose family said she died of complications induced by the COVID-19 vaccine.

An obituary in Oregon Live detailed how Jessica Berg Wilson, an exceptionally healthy and vibrant 37-year-old young mother with no underlying health conditions, died from COVID Vaccine-Induced Thrombotic Thrombocytopenia.

When user Kelly Bee posted the link to the Seattle womans obituary on Twitter, the big tech company labeled the tweet as misleading and prohibited other users from interacting, liking, or sharing the post. The label led to a page that explained why health officials consider COVID-19 vaccines safe for most people.

The obituary described Wilson as a devoted wife and mother but said the last weeks of her life, however, the world turned dark with heavy-handed vaccine mandates.

Local and state governments were determined to strip away her right to consult her wisdom and enjoy her freedom. She had been vehemently opposed to taking the vaccine, knowing she was in good health and of a young age and thus not at risk for serious illness. In her mind, the known and unknown risks of the unproven vaccine were more of a threat, the obituary stated. But, slowly, day by day, her freedom to choose was stripped away.

These mandates, the obituary stated, cost Jessica her life, cost her children the loving embrace of their caring mother, cost her husband the sacred love of his devoted wife, and cost Gods Kingdom on earth a very special soul who was just making her love felt in the hearts of so many.

After facing pushback from multiple users for the censorship, Twitter eventually removed the label. The Silicon Valley giant did not respond to The Federalists request for comment or questions about why it censored the post in the first place.

Jordan Davidson is a staff writer at The Federalist. She graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism.

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Twitter Censored Obit Of Mom Who Reportedly Died After COVID Vaccine - The Federalist

The Federalist Publisher Ben Domenech hosted Ryan Holiday, author and host of The Daily Stoic, on Fox Newss The Ben Domenech Podcast on Monday. Holiday discussed his newest book Courage Is Calling: Fortune Favors the Brave, and how the virtue of courage plays into questions of politics and culture today.

Holiday is writing on each of four stoic virtues: courage, temperance, justice, and wisdom. The idea is that these are sort of four pivotal virtues that the good life depends on, he said. A lot of people are struggling precisely because they dont have a core set of values.

How do you think about courage as being, not just standing up for something, but standing up for the right thing? Domenech asked.

The virtues are inseparable, Holiday concluded, because courage in the pursuit of an unjust aim, it might be courageous but its not virtuous. He referenced the infamous Charge of the Light Brigade as an example of courage that we do have to respect, but then as individuals we have to always think about, Well, why am I doing this and does it really matter?'

Holiday also cited the importance of courage in daily actions. We can find ourselves in a position where a lack of day-to-day courage puts us in a desperate moment where we have to be courageous, that had we just been a little braver a year earlier, five years earlier, we never would have been in such desperate straits.

In the context of the current pandemic, there is a real dynamic of the language of courage being embraced and afforded to people who are either refusing to follow government orders or who are taking stands against it that are essentially costing them their jobs, Domenech noted.

Obviously we need people like that in society, we need people who are resistant to the pressures of an overwhelming majority, Holiday agreed, but added, I think we can both acknowledge the lonliness of the stand and question the validity of the stand.

Holiday and Domenech also discussed the interaction of courage and cancel culture.

Tell me a little bit about the courage that it takes to stand up against that mob, because thats not something that I feel like weve had historically to the degree that we have it today because of the immediacy and the audience involved with social media, Domenech asked. Talk to me about the degree to which that has changed the demands of courage on the average American citizen.

I actually think cancel culture goes way back and was probably worse in the ancient world in the sense that today maybe you lose your job but in the past you got exiled, Holiday argued. I think cancel culture is real, its certainly alarming; as individuals, the idea of participating in calling for peoples jobs or piling on is sort of shameful and embarrassing. I also think as creators or as thought leaders or whatever you want to call it, thats a reality of the profession and you have to proceed despite it.

Listen to the full interview here.

Excerpt from:

Ryan Holiday On How To Courageously Stand Up To The Mob - The Federalist

On this episode of The Federalist Radio Hour, Niels Jorgensen, a retired New York City firefighter and host of the 20 For 20 podcast, joins Culture Editor Emily Jashinsky and Senior Editor Christopher Bedford to discuss his quest to document the stories of 9/11 heroes so that younger generations never forget.

One of our main missions with 20 For 20 is to tell the stories of these beautiful, wonderful, selfless people that gave everything that day. And many of them have never returned to their families, Jorgensen said. As we like to say, were willing to give up every one of our tomorrows so you can finish your today and my beautiful, brave friends did that and Im now on a little bit of a mission to get that out there because I feel like we truly have forgotten.

The people who sacrificed their lives for others, Jorgensen said, are true heroes who deserve recognition every day of the year.

Thats the beauty of America. There are strangers out there willing to give their lives for us and they dont even know us, Jorgensen said. Thats powerful. Thats what were doing. Were trying to get the stories of these heroes out there.

Originally posted here:

After 20 Years, The Stories Of 9/11 Shape America Every Single Day - The Federalist

Leftist squad member Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., admitted on Wednesday that she was only wearing a mask for theatrical reasons, not scientific ones.

Tlaibs confession came during a joint event with Housing and Urban Development Secretary Marcia Fudge in Detroit. Video shows the masked politician gathered in a circle with several other people and shaking the hand of a maskless attendee who approached her. When Tlaib moved across the gathering away from him, he began to apologize for being the one unmasked guy. Tlaib, however, quickly reassured him that her face covering was just for the cameras.

Oh, no, oh, not you! Im just wearing it because Ive got a Republican tracker here, she told the man while pulling her mask away from her face to speak and pointing at the person recording the exchange.

Tlaibs mask theater comes just a couple of months after she was caught on camera partying without a mask at an indoor wedding reception in Wayne County, Michigan. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines at the time suggested that regardless of vaccination status, people should mask up, especially in areas such as Wayne County, which was considered at substantial risk for community transmission.

On the same day as the wedding, Tlaib publicly scolded Republican Sen. Rand Paul for telling Americans to disregard the CDCs ever-changing COVID-19 guidance.

The KY Senator is throwing a tantrum as his state is being swallowed whole by this virus, again. People are getting sick and dying, Tlaib wrote on Twitter. He needs to put politics aside, and put people first. Start resisting the virus.

The representative also repeatedly urged her constituents to mask up while retweeting suggestions to double-mask.

Jordan Davidson is a staff writer at The Federalist. She graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism.

Originally posted here:

Rep. Rashida Tlaib Admits Her Mask Is All Theater - The Federalist

Americas military used to unite us, but now its leaders are tearing us down, said Federalist Publisher Ben Domenech while hosting Fox News Primetime on Wednesday night.

Nothing has been more unifying in American history than our flag and the men who defended it. Whether at the Veterans Day parade or atop Mount Suribachi, Americans respect for our men in arms and the symbol they defend was an extraordinary object of universal approval. It was extraordinary because this respect endured even as every other institution in American life shuttered and collapsed in the public eye, he explained.

This unifying symbolism when the Armed Forces of the United States grasped its purpose and its place lasted for a two-decade period, Domenech said.

America wasnt built on a streak of easy wins and golden handouts. This country was won through suffering, through pain that preceded any triumph. And the men who won were those who knew, its a cliche but its true, that freedom isnt free, Domenech said. In this moment, the armed forces represented something important: the core truth. And it was nearly the only civic institution to speak that truth. That truth about ourselves, that America requires sacrifice renewed with every generation, had the effect of making the military of the United States nearly the sole bearer of our national identity and civic virtue.

It was when military leaders decided the armed forces were the front for American civic virtue that Domenech said things went downhill. The once-universal trust in the military decayed not just because it lost a war in Afghanistan but because its leadership decided that [it is] the font of American civic virtue.

This is a shocking turn upending, without public debate and with even less public notice, the proper relationship between our republic and its military. That relationship predates the Constitution itself, Domenech noted.

The military has now decided, Domenech said, that it makes policy.

The men who run todays military are no longer in the business of defending America. That would, of course, require winning a war some time. Instead, they are in the business of ruling it. They rule it hand-in-hand with the bureaucrats and ideologues who control the commanding heights and government and the economy alike. They are of the same class, Domenech explained.

Domenech said these military leaders embrace wokeness and are even happy to be partisans of themselves, to join the elite who are grinding down the remnants of the American spirit.

Why do you think they spend so much time talking to the media and playing the Washington blame game? They care more about branding than winning, he said.

Domenech said all hope, however, is not lost.

We used to find greatness in our generals. For now, those days are over. But we can still find greatness somewhere else: in the young recruit, on the yellow footprints of Parris Island, in an airman who volunteers for deployment, and in those brave 19-year-olds thrust into history at the Abbey Gate, Domenech said through tears. These men and women without stars are not our rulers and do not seek to be. They are our brothers and our sons, our sisters and our daughters, our neighbors and our friends. The challenge for us now, as a people, is to reclaim the fullness of the armed forces, top to bottom, for its real purpose. Not as the font of American civics, but as its bearer. Not over the people, but of us, by us, and for us. Not led by men who profit, but by those who serve and win for the flag.

Watch Domenechs full monologue here:

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Domenech: The Military Used To Unite Us, Now Its Brass Tear Us Down - The Federalist