Daily Archives: June 22, 2022

Last week, the Jan. 6Committee featured video clips from former U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr during its hearing on the violence that erupted at the capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. For the few Americans following the show trial, Barrs testimony seemed a denial by former President Donald Trumps top law enforcement officer of any legitimate basis to challenge the outcome of the November 2020 election.

To Democrats, this proved Trump sought to steal the White House from Biden via a coup. To Republicans, Barr revealed himself as a traitor uninterested in investigating voter fraud. Neither view is correct.

In his deposition, Barr testified about his disagreements with the then-president about claims of election fraud. Barr resigned as attorney general on December 14, 2020, in the aftermath of the November general election as Trump continued to dispute the outcome. The day he resigned, Barr explained, when he walked in to speak with the president,

[Trump] went off on a monologue saying that there was now definitive evidence involving fraud through the Dominion machines and a report had been prepared by a very reputable cybersecurity firm, which he identified as Allied Security Operations Group. And he held up the report and he had and then he asked that a copy of it be made for me. And while a copy was being made, he said, you know, This is absolute proof that the Dominion machines were rigged.

Barr testified to the committee that he had told the president theyve wasted a whole month on these claims on the Dominion voting machines and they were idiotic claims. There was absolutely zero basis for the allegations, Barr explained, yet people believed there was this systemic corruption in the system and that their votes didnt count and that these machines controlled by somebody else were actually determining it, which was complete nonsense.

Then-President Trump also raised what he called the big vote dump in Detroit, Barr explained, where people saw boxes coming into the counting station at all hours of the morning and so forth. Barr told the committee that he had explained to Trump that there were approximately 630 precincts in Detroit, and unlike elsewhere in the state, they centralize the counting process. So theyre not counted in each precinct, theyre moved to counting stations. And so a normal process would involve boxes coming in at all different hours. Barr said point blank, Theres no indication of fraud in Detroit.

The committee also heard testimony that Barr had directed B.J. Pak, the then-U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, to investigate a security tape from the State Farm Arena in Atlanta that Trump believed showed a suitcase of illegal ballots secreted beneath a table being pulled out after election workers had been sent home for the night. Pak explained they investigated the claims and that the longer segment on the video established the alleged black suitcase was actually an official lockbox where ballots were kept safe.

The bottom line, according to Barrs testimony, was that he had not seen any widespread election fraud that would question the outcome of the election, and that the stuff Trumps people were shoveling out to the public were bullsh-t. . . the claims of fraud were bullsh-t.

Claims of election fraud, however, represented but a portion of Trumps challenges to the November 2020 results. Also, that the above claims were bullsh-t says nothing about whether there were systemic violations of election law and illegal voting. Nor were those questions ones for the attorney general or the U.S. attorneys investigating allegations of fraud.

Barr made this point in his testimony when he explained that he had told Trump the department doesnt take sides in elections, and the department is not an extension of of [Trumps] legal team. And our role is to investigate fraud. Barrs testimony also made clear that the U.S. Department of Justice investigated claims of fraud, such as the supposed suitcase of ballots in Atlanta.

But what Barr didnt investigateand indeed shouldnt have investigatedwere the many violations of state election law highlighted by Trumps legal team in their lawsuits challenging the election results. For instance, in Georgia, the state election code requires residents to votein the county in which they reside, unless they changed their residence within 30 days of the election and outside of the 30-day grace period, if people vote in a county in which they no longer reside, their vote in that county would be illegal.

Trumps legal team obtained solid evidence that as many as 30,000 Georgia residents voted illegally in their prior county in 2020. Trump never had his day in court on this challenge, though, which theoretically could have resulted in Georgias election results tossed.

Thats not the business of the attorney general, however, so those Republicans seeing Barr as derelict misunderstand his role. Likewise, those Democrats championing Barrs words, believing it establishes a coup attempt by Trump, ignore that his testimony focused solely on election fraud.

The former attorney generals testimony concerning vote harvesting perfectly illustrates the misplaced role both the right and the left sought to ascribe to Barr. During last weeks Jan. 6 Committee hearing, Barr testified it was his opinion then and his opinion now that the election was not stolen by fraud. He added that he hadnt seen anything since the election that changed his mind on that, including the 2,000 Mulesmovie.

The 2,000 Mules movie, produced by Dinesh DSouza, includes information about an investigation by election integrity group True The Vote and features its founder Catherine Engelbrecht and its election intelligence analyst Gregg Phillips. DSouzas film explains True The Votes use of GPS surveillance geolocation data emitted by cellphones to help identify phones in key battleground states that made numerous trips to multiple election drop boxes and, in Georgia, to non-profits which the film does not identify. The movie also includes videos of persons placing multiple ballots into drop boxeswhich is illegal in some states, including Georgia, unless those ballots are for family members.

Barr told the committee that both he and the Georgia Bureau of Investigations were unimpressed with the use of cellphone geolocation data because, if you take 2 million cell phones and and figure out where they are physically in a big city like Atlanta or wherever, just by definition youre going to find many hundreds of them have passed by and spent time in the vicinity of these boxes.

The former attorney general added, though, that he held his fire on the photographic evidencebecause I thought, well, h-ll, if they have a lot of photographs of the same person dumping a lot of ballots in different boxes, you know, thats hard to explain. There was a little bit of photographic evidence from 2,000 Mules, Barr said, but he found it was lacking, and that it didnt establish widespread illegal harvesting.

In response to Barrs deposition testimony, the 2,000 Mules producer took to Twitter, challenging the former attorney general to a public debate. What do you say, Barr? DSouza tweeted. Do you dare back up your belly laughs with arguments that can withstand rebuttal and cross-examination? DSouza added in comments to The Epoch Times, The hearings are one-sided propaganda, not an attempt to get to the truth. The producer then invited people to view the evidence in 2,000 Mules and judge for themselves.

Some Republicans saw Barrs dig at DSouzas movie as proof the former attorney general was totally disinterested in election fraud, while Democrats framed Barrs comments as establishing Trumps attempt at a coup. Ignored by both sides, however, was what Barr said next:

The other thing is people dont understand is that its not clear that even if you can show harvesting that that changes the or the results of the election. The courts are not going to throw out votes and then figure out what votes were harvested and throw them out. Youd still the burden on the challenging party to show that illegal votes were cast, votes were the result of undue influence or bribes or there was really, you know, the person was non compos mentis. But absent that evidence, I just didnt see courts throwing out votes anyway.

With these few sentences Barr capsulized the disconnect between what many Trump voters believed the attorney general and federal prosecutors roles to be following the November 2020 election, and the reality that the Department of Justices focus rests on provable federal crimes. Barr tasked federal prosecutors with investigating allegations of widespread fraud, such as the manipulation of the Dominion voting machines and the supposed secreted suitcases of hidden ballots. U.S. attorney offices found the charges unfounded. And while ballot harvesting may be illegal under some states election codes, for the Department of Justice to get involved, more than that would be needed.

But even then, as Barr noted, that doesnt undo the election, or rendered Georgia, Michigan, or Pennsylvanias results void. Rather, courts hear and decide election challenges, and such challenges extend far beyond issues of election fraud. Therein is the reason Democrats parading of Barrs testimony is also misplaced.

While Barr could testify concerning the cases of voter fraud the Department of Justice investigated, in the aftermath of the November 2020 election the former attorney general did not scrutinize, nor should he have, violations of state election law or potential violations of the Equal Protection Clause caused by the states disparate standards applied during the election.

And Trumps legal team had solid evidence of systemic violations of the election code and the widespread counting of illegal votes, as well as potential Equal Protection violations. Further, in the case of Georgia, there were enough illegal votes cast to likely render the states election results void.

Attorney General Barr, however, lacked both the authority (and the tools) to render judgment on matters of state election law. His deposition testimony to the committee also suggests that matters of election law remain outside his wheelhouse, as a court need not identify the ballots illegally harvested or cast to rule the election results invalid, as Barr seemed to suggest. Rather, under Georgia election law, if the evidence established that there are more illegal or irregular votes than the margin of victory, the remedy is a new election.

In other words, for Georgias results to be undone, Trump only needed to establish there were 11,780 illegal votes; he did not need to identify the illegally cast ballots and establish they represented votes for Biden in sufficient numbers to render him the winner.

Thats why, in his widely misrepresented telephone call with the Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffenperger, Trump said, All I want to do is this: I just want to find 11,780 votes. Trumps legal team had found the votes, but the Georgia courts refused to timely consider Trumps challenges.

Likewise, many of the issues Trumps legal team raised after the general election and before the results were certified, remained unanswered until a year or more later, when state courts declared the procedures used in November 2020 illegal or unconstitutional.

Nothing Barr did or could have done could have altered the reality that there is insufficient time between the November election and the certification of the vote for states to do much more than a recount and audit, and the Department of Justice to conduct a high-level investigation of what would need to be widespread and obvious fraud to be caught in time to change the outcome of an election.

Yet evidence accumulated since Biden was certified the winner of the 2020 election makes clear that in every swing state, systemic violations of the election code occurred. While moving to the widespread use of mail-in voting in the name of Covid-19 exacerbated the problems, post-election scrutiny of the last general election reveals that every defect in our electoral system identified in 2005 by the bipartisan Commission on Election Reform, co-chaired by Democrat Jimmy Carter and Republican Jim Baker, remains a problem today.

At the time, Carter and Baker warned in the commissions 100-plus page report that elections are the heart of democracy and if elections are defective, the entire democratic system is at risk. The commission added as a corollary to that first principle that confidence in elections matters equally, and in fact is central to our nations democracy.

So, when the Jan. 6 Committee show trial finally ends, Americans need to remember election integrity is not about Trump or Barr, nor Democrats or Republicans: It is about our country and her future. That future depends on a serious revamping of the American electoral systemand soon.

Margot Cleveland is The Federalist's senior legal correspondent. She is also a contributor to National Review Online, the Washington Examiner, Aleteia, and Townhall.com, and has been published in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prizethe law schools highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. As a stay-at-home homeschooling mom of a young son with cystic fibrosis, Cleveland frequently writes on cultural issues related to parenting and special-needs children. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.

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Why Both Republicans And Democrats Are Wrong About Bill Barr - The Federalist

In its attempt to blame former President Donald Trump for the crimes committed on January 6, 2021, at the U.S. Capitol, House Democrats have spent the week focused on Trumps unsupported claims of widespread election fraud. The Jan. 6 select committee and the legacy media outlets promoting the show trial completely ignore, however, the verifiable evidence of systemic violations of election law, illegal voting, and the constitutionally deficient execution of the November 2020 electionincluding issues Trump challenged following the election.

Georgia provides a peach of an example. President Biden won Georgia and the states 16 electoral votes by a margin of 11,779 individual votes, but before the state certified the results of the November 2020 election, Trump challenged the outcome, raising several issues both in and out of court. Trump hammered accusations of fraud in Fulton County, claiming counterfeit ballots secreted in suitcases and vote-flipping by Dominion Voting Systems gave Biden the victory. But Trump also contested the Georgia results based on evidence indicating that tens of thousands of illegal votes were improperly counted.

While Trumps legal team argued illegal votes in some 30-plus categories were improperly included in the final election tally, violations of Section 21-2-218 of the Georgia election code alone closed the gap between the two presidential candidates. That section provides that state residents mustvotein the county in which they reside, unless they changed their residence within 30 days of the election and outside of the 30-day grace period, if people vote in a county in which they no longer reside, their vote in that county would be illegal.

Shortly after the November general election, Mark Davis, the president of Data Productions Inc. and an expert in voter data analytics and residency issues, compared voting records obtained from the Georgia secretary of states office with the National Change of Address (NCOA) database. After excluding individuals who moved within 30 days of the general election, Davis identified nearly 35,000 Georgia voters who indicated they had moved from one Georgia county to another, but then voted in the 2020 general election in the county from which they had moved.

Trump highlighted this evidence during a telephone conversation with Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. His election lawyers, he said, noted from that data they have actually hard numbers of tens of thousands of votes that were counted illegally, and that with the margin of victory less than 12,000, that in and of itself is sufficient to change the results or place the outcome in doubt.

The lawyers explained that they would like to sit down with your office . . . if you are able to establish that our numbers are not accurate, then fine. While the secretary of states representative indicated he was happy to get with our lawyers and well set that up, Cleta Mitchell, one of Trumps election lawyers, told The Federalist that meeting never happened.

We had tried for weeks to get the secretary of state to sit down with us to review the data, Mitchell said, noting that Raffensperger just kept saying the Trump campaigns data was wrong and, We said, Show us, then, where it is wrong.

But instead of meeting, according to Mitchell, the day after their call with the secretary of states office, lawyers sent Trumps legal team a very nasty letter saying they wouldnt give us any data until we dismissed all pending litigation. Then, after Trumps team dismissed the lawsuit following Senate candidate Kelly Loefflers withdrawal of her objections to the Georgia electors and asked for the promised meeting to review the data, the secretary of states office withdrew the offer, Mitchell told The Federalist.

While Trumps legal team was unable to either present their evidence in court or secure a meeting with the Georgia secretary of states office tocompare the data, Davis continued to pursue out-of-county illegal voting. Last year, Davis told The Federalist that in May 2021, he obtained an updated voter database from the secretary of states office and compared that data to the NCOA information he had processed in November.

As I reported at the time: When Davis ran the data, he found that, of the approximately 35,000 Georgians who indicated they had moved from one county to another county more than 30 days before the November general election, as of May, more than 10,300 had updated their voter registration information, providing the secretary of state the exact address they had previously provided to the USPS. Those same 10,000-plus individuals all also cast ballots in the county in which they had previously lived.

Daviss follow-up analysis provided solid evidence that there were enough votes cast illegally in a county in which the citizens no longer resided to equal the margin separating Trump and Biden. And that was but one category of illegal votes identified by Trumps legal team.

Mitchell, now a senior legal fellow at the Conservative Partnership Institute, told The Federalist that in addition to the individuals who moved out of a county more than 30 days before the election and then voted illegally in their prior county, Trumps legal team identified an additional 30-plus categories of illegal votes that were wrongly included in the certified totals.

We never were able to present our evidence to the court, however, because the chief judge of Fulton County, Chris Brasher, failed to appoint a judge eligible to hear the election contest for a month, Mitchell said.

None of those 30-plus categories involved the Dominion Voting System, claims of counterfeit votes, or ballot harvesting, but concerned specific violations of the Georgia election code. And those numbers far exceeded Bidens 11,779-vote margin of victory.

Yet the January 6 Committee and their cohorts in the press cast all the challenges to the November 2020 tabulations as crazy conspiracy theories of fraud peddled by Trump to steal the election.

The same anti-Trump media lied about Trumps telephone call with Raffensperger, falsely telling the country that Trump had pressuredthe Georgia Secretary of States chief investigator Frances Watson to find the fraud, promising that she would soon be a national hero. But two months later, when the transcript of the call was released, it became clear that Trump was speaking of establishing there were 11,780 illegal votes from the various categories identified by his lawyers.

The fact is we had already found many more illegal votes than the margin (11,779), Mitchell told The Federalist, We didnt need to find anything. We already knew which votes were illegal and had been included in the certified total, the election lawyer said, stressing that, under Georgia law, if the evidence established that there are more illegal or irregular votes than the margin of victory, the remedy is a new election.

Last July, the secretary of states office confirmed to The Federalist that its investigation into the approximately 35,000 residents who moved from one county to another more than 30 days before the election remain[ed] ongoing. But follow-up outreaches to Raffensperger and key members of his staff inquiring on the status of the investigation went unanswered.

Meanwhile, the Jan. 6 Committee continues to spin challenges to the November 2020 election as concerning nothing but nonsensical claims of voter fraud. With the corrupt medias cooperation, the vast majority of Americans may never learn of the systemic violations of election law, illegal voting, and the disparate treatment of voters in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution, the latter seen most clearly with the infiltration of funding from Mark Zuckerberg to targeted Democratic-heavy populations.

Heck, its unlikely most members of Congress know of these systemic problems with our electoral system. But with midterms around the corner and Democrats likely facing a bloodbath, dont be surprised if left-leaning politicians and their friends in the press discover substantial problems in about five months time.

Margot Cleveland is The Federalist's senior legal correspondent. She is also a contributor to National Review Online, the Washington Examiner, Aleteia, and Townhall.com, and has been published in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prizethe law schools highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. As a stay-at-home homeschooling mom of a young son with cystic fibrosis, Cleveland frequently writes on cultural issues related to parenting and special-needs children. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.

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Jan. 6 Committee Ignores Clear Evidence Of Broken Election Laws - The Federalist

A political tsunami is coming for Democrats. The resounding victory of Republican newcomer Mayra Flores in the special election for Texas 34th congressional district signals what most political pundits and election prognosticators already know: a red tidal wave will soon sweep away a Democrat Party in thrall to far-left radicals and progressive extremists.

However, as impressive as Flores seven-point victory was in the nations second-most heavily Hispanic congressional district a district which Joe Biden carried by four points the real impact will be felt in state legislatures.

What the red tsunami portends is not merely a coming Republican majority in Congress and state capitols, but a realignment that propels conservatives into power. All across the nation in one primary after another, conservative state legislative candidates are defeating milquetoast establishment and moderate candidates.

This is encouraging as it is in our home states where our freedoms and way of life will either be won or lost. The renewed focus on states from conservatives is a game-changing development. Indeed, the State Freedom Caucus Network was launched in December 2021 with this specific mission in mind: to create a bulwark outside Washington D.C. that will protect as many Americans as possible from both the neo-Marxist policies coming out of the modern Democrat Party and the fecklessness that is a hallmark of establishment elites in the Republican Party.

The strategy appears to be working.

For example, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds supported a slew of conservative challengers against liberal Republican incumbents beholden to teachers unions and antagonistic toward school choice. Six establishment incumbents in the Iowa State House lost to pro-parent conservative challengers with all but one of Reynolds endorsed candidates defeating their entrenched opponents.

This stands in stark contrast to South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, a darling of the Washington elite, who conversely supported eleven moderate candidates. Incredibly, Noem even backed Democrats who recently switched parties against budding South Dakota Freedom Caucus members. Only four of her preferred legislators won their primaries.

For a sitting governor with a national profile, these results illustrate two realities: that Noem is fundamentally out of touch with her own electorate and that voters are backing candidates who will actually fight to preserve freedom.

In Georgia, members of the Georgia Freedom Caucus were targeted by establishment GOP forces seeking to rid themselves of meddlesome legislators with actual principles. David Ralston, the liberal Republican Speaker of the House, redrew district lines to punish conservative state legislators like Rep. Philip Singleton. While Singleton was forced to retire, Ralstons overall efforts largely backfired as voters propelled every other member of the Freedom Caucus to victory. They even tossed out Rep. Bonnie Rich, the loyal lieutenant who redrew district lines for Ralston to punish conservatives.

In South Carolina, thirteen out of the fourteen members of the South Carolina Freedom Caucus won their primaries while four establishment incumbents lost to freedom-minded conservative challengers. In Nevada, Freedom Caucus incumbents won all their races with only one that remains undecided.

North Dakota Gov. Doug Borgum spent over $1 million to back moderate or left-leaning Republican candidates. He suffered similar results as Noem with conservatives crushing their opponents in primaries across the state.

The undercurrents of the red wave are clear: voters are in full revolt against the cultural and economic progressivism that is ravaging families and threatening our ability to live free. Voters are equally tired of the Republicans who enable and empower radicalized Democrats to trample our rights with woke nonsense.

It is for this very moment that the State Freedom Caucus Network exists. The Network stands ready to support liberty-minded state lawmakers with the resources, policy knowledge, and procedural strategies they need to ensure the rights of their citizens are protected and the progressive policies crushing American households are dismantled.

Establishment Republicans push the oft-repeated talking points that only weak-kneed, or as they call them, moderate, GOP candidates are electable. This is, like most conventional wisdom, only conventional and not actually wise.

On the other hand, voters understand that the hour is late. Unchecked progressivism, which has fully captured Americas cultural and political institutions after a decades-long march, now threatens the very freedom that undergirds our republic. Conservative warriors are being summoned by citizens ready to fight for the things that they love.

The red conservative wave is indeed upon us and candidates who do not stand with the American people will be washed out to sea.

Andy Roth is the President of the State Freedom Caucus Network.

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The Red Wave Is Not Just Inevitable, It's Also Conservative - The Federalist

Even though inflation has reached 40-year highs, topping out at 8.6 percent for the month of May, some took minor solace in the fact that prices havent increased at the rates seen during the Jimmy Carter era. But one influential analyst thinks that solving skyrocketing prices will require nearly as much effortand quite possibly, economic painas breaking the back of inflation did during the 1970s and early 1980s.

Former Treasury Secretary and longtime Democrat Larry Summers recently co-authored an important paper analyzing long-term inflation trends and statistics. The paper demonstrates that changes to the way the federal government measures inflation via the Consumer Price Index since the Carter era understate the current scope of the problemand the challenge the Federal Reserve faces in getting inflation under control today.

Two changes to the inflation measureone a one-time methodological change, and the other a long-running trendexplain much of the apparent difference in CPI rates between the late 1970s and today. The first comes from a 1983 move by the Bureau of Labor Statistics to remove homeownership costs from the CPI measurement and replace them with a metric called owners equivalent rent.

The new metric quantifies what homeowners would receive for their homes on the rental market. As one might expect, the metric closely tracks the rental market. (Rent is a separate component of the CPI.) Most importantly, shifting from homeownership costs to owners equivalent rent to calculate homeownership costs eliminated the direct effect of mortgage ratesand therefore interest rate policyon calculating the rate of inflation.

Prior to the 1983 methodological change, the very direct link between interest rates and the homeownership component of the CPI magnified the effects of efforts to combat inflation. Consider the two possible scenarios:

Summers and his co-authors argue that the interest rate CPI ratchet (my words, not theirs) of scenario one helped lead to the double-digit inflation rates of the late 1970s and early 1980s. While the 1983 change to the methodology means we will no longer see this ratchet in the monthly inflation statisticswhich explains why inflation hasnt risen above 10 percentit also means we wont benefit from the benefits of scenario two (i.e., a downward ratchet) once inflation starts to get under control.

Summers and company also note that, compared to past decades, a smaller portion of the Consumer Price Index consists of goods with volatile prices. This suggests that combating inflation will require a longer and more sustained effort.

For instance, in the early 1950s, food and clothing comprised roughly half of the total Consumer Price Index, as opposed to approximately 17 percent today. The shift means that more elements of the CPI come from sticky industries and sectorsones less amenable to sudden price shifts.

While a grocery store or clothing retailer changes its prices quite often, for instance, manufacturers of computers or other durable goods alter their prices less frequently. The fact that the latter types of sectors dominate the CPI compared to prior decades suggests that wringing inflation out of the economy will not happen overnight, nor very easily.

Summers famously predicted last February that inflation would accelerate if Democrats rammed through their $1.9 trillion stimulus legislation. Sure enough, it did. His newest analysis therefore bears watching, as does one ominous conclusion: that bringing inflation down to the Feds desired 2 percent level willrequire nearly the same amount of disinflation as achieved under [Federal Reserve] Chairman [Paul] Volcker.

Volcker, who served from 1979 to 1987, eventually tamed inflationbut not before having to raise interest rates as high as 20 percent, sparking the deep recession of the early 1980s. American families could face a reprise of these hardships in the coming months and years, thanks in no small part to the profligacy of both the Federal Reserve and spendthrift lawmakers over the last 70 years.

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Study: Inflation Is Much Worse Than The Government Claims - The Federalist

By the way Chief Lee White of the Coeur dAlene Police Department is acting, youd swear he just prevented a mass shooting in a preschool using only psychic abilities and a roll of tape.

But thats not what White and his force did. Instead, on Saturday they arrested 31 guys who were found to be in possession of nothing other than a single smoke bomb and a plan to make noise throughout the city.

Each individual was charged with one misdemeanor, conspiracy to commit riot, based on the fact that the men involved were dressed in distinguished uniforms of khaki pants and blue t-shirts, plus some of them had shin guards and shields. There were no guns nor ammunition, but they did have some kind of document spelling out a plan to march in a line through a downtown park and agitate passersby.

The intent was to align in a column forming on the outside of the park, proceeding inward, until barriers to approach are met, according to The New York Times, and once an appropriate amount of confrontational dynamic has been established the column will disengage and head to Sherman [Ave.]. In other words: Show up, irritate pedestrians, and then leave.

Its certainly annoying and offensive, but since when did that require two press conferences from the police chief and fire-alarm coverage from The New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, and on and on?

Ah, thats because this wasnt just anybody. This wasnt Black Lives Matter or Antifa. It was the Patriot Front, a group made up of white nationalists. Thats why were supposed to believe this was so important. They were white racists and, as were told by the FBI and the media over and over again, thats the greatest threat to the country at the moment.

Its not because anyone was hurt or that there was even any evidence that there was a specific plan of assault. They had no weapons.

Admittedly, anything can be a weapon, but generally speaking, a shield is meant to defend, not attack. And Chief White said there were regular attendees walking around the [Pride] event with long guns and handguns and bear spray and all kinds of things like that. Thats perfectly legal for them to do in Idaho, but it was apparently the shields police were concerned with.

The police report from the arrest says that it was likely the intent of the group to incite physical confrontation and cause disorder, and use violence and/or the threat of violence to disturb the public peace.

Again, its not that thats not serious, but consider the hostage situation the entire nation faced (and continues to face) through the summer and fall of 2020 when violent Black Lives Matter riots were raging in every major city. Mostly peaceful, we were assured. In the case of Coeur dAlene, nothing happened, and in addition, White said plenty of activist groups were in the city at the same time, opposed to and in support of the Pride event, including the left-wing Antifa and the right-wing Panhandle Patriots.

A member of the Panhandle Patriots group is even on video ahead of time saying they planned to go head to head with the Pride organizers and attendees. Damn the repercussions, he said. Stand up, take it to the head, go to the fight.

Okay, so why was there a major arrest of an unaffiliated group that had nothing but a single smoke bomb? (Which, by the way, would have had minimal effect outdoors.)

White said his department is even working with the FBI on this matter involving misdemeanor charges. (Hmm where have we seen that before?)

This is an important story. Not because white nationalists are involved. But because for curious reasons, the FBI is.

Originally posted here:

The 'White Nationalists' At Idaho Pride Were The Least Armed That Day - The Federalist

Four Senate Democrats wrote a letter this week, detailing their demand for the Big Tech anti-trust bill thats been working its way through Congress over the past year. They want to help, they say; to clarify. They even included the text they want added to make it all better. The reality, however, is their effort is a poison pill and just the latest effort to kill the best chance to regulate Big Tech that Americas yet seen.

The bill the American Innovation and Choice Online Act would prevent what it calls self preferencing behavior among those tech companies so large and powerful that engaging in commerce requires engaging with them. Specifically: Apple, Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft.

Amazon, for instance, is infamous for requiring companies to turn over large amounts of data as a condition of selling on Amazon. Theyve been caught red-handed using that data to copy the most popular products, then making sure users see their knock-offs first. Under this bill, Amazon could not use its platforms market power to force that disclosure.

The four dissenting liberal senators like the worthy goal of the legislation, mind you; just not the little bit that might impede some of the most powerful companies in world history from censoring hate speech, disinformation and misinformation convenient catch-alls for nearly anything they dont like.

Although important, they write, competition policy goals should not override the ability of platforms to moderate content in good faith.

More to the point: These four senators appreciate that some smart Republicans have co-sponsored the bipartisan American Innovation and Choice Online Act (AICOA); theyd just rather enjoy that support without any conservative or populist ideas along for the ride.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, the lead Senate sponsor of the bill, has reportedly already promised Republicans will walk if the changes are made, and hes right: Populists and conservatives like Sens. Josh Hawley, Sen. Ted Cruz, and Rep. Matt Gaetz would flee. And make no mistake: Populists and conservatives defecting would not only kill the bill, it would kill any meaningful chance of reining in Silicon Valley for the next three years at least (and probably more).

Republicans are on the cusp of a giant electoral victory in November, but that doesnt mean conservatives and populists are on the cusp of any great policy victories. While the likely incoming speaker of the House has shown more awareness of the political moment than his Senate counterpart, the Californian politician is still far from hostile toward Big Tech or Big Business in general.

In a House and Senate run by Kevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnell, Republican efforts to dismantle Big Tech will find even fewer GOP supporters than the ideologically diverse minority theyve assembled for the current effort.

Because even now, with cosponsors from Rep. Ken Buck to Gaetz, and from Hawley to Sen. Lindsay Graham, reformers need a lot of Democratic support.

Big Tech lobbyists are working hard to make the case to Republican members that leftist allies are proof of poison. But while its true its proof of compromise, the reality is both the left and rights bases are clamoring for action, and the American Innovation and Choice Online Act is the only game in town.

You can expect that Democratic support to evaporate overnight, however, if they lose the majority (which they will). Why? Simply put: They dont play like that. In the minority, their only goal will be to undermine the majoritys legitimacy; Republicans wont be able to pave a road or name a Post Office if it requires their support.

So yes: This is it. And thanks to the above, this is it, not only for this Congress, but for the next and likely the one after that.

There is reasonable resistance to the bill, of course. Senators like Mike Lee have expressed concern about its intrusion into the marketplace. Its a compromise, no doubt, but that is what the moment requires.

This isnt some boring squabble. In barrooms and boardrooms from D.C. to Oshkosh, activists on the right and left alike recognize Big Techs power is so large, it threatens our politics, markets, and civil society. Theres a fight coming, and this bill is the only viable fight coming for years.

Big Tech knows this: Every company targeted, save Microsoft, has dumped millions of dollars into lobbyists and ads opposing it. They say the bill poses a threat to their power and it does, because we know they pose a threat to us.

Washington works on momentum. People like to sign on to winning issues and are quick to defect from losing ones. But for both parties right now, reining in Big Tech is a winning issue.

These four Democrats? If Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer brings the American Innovation and Choice Online Act to the floor this summer (as hes promised), theyll likely fall in line. The alternative, they know, is a vote for Big Tech and no one wants to be seen doing that right now.

If they get their poison pill in there, however and the rare bipartisan coalition thats been assembled cracks Big Tech will win, and well all lose.

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This Bill Is The Last Game In Town For Checking Big Tech's Power - The Federalist

When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years. So said Mark Twain, and so have felt countless sons. Well past twenty-one, I continue to be astonished at how much my old man has learned.

A memory illustrates. Early last year, I was driving home from Mass with my familyon Sunday morning. There the readings had included the Gospel of Lukes parable of the prodigal son. Its the tale of the headstrong son who demanded and squandered his inheritance and then begged for forgiveness, his older brother who never rebelled, and the father who loved them both.

I had always identified with the prodigal son, and figured everyone else did, too. This is partly due to my Irish heritage which, according to William Butler Yeats, means I have an abiding sense of tragedy, which sustains me through temporary periods of joy.

I said this to my wife, Devin, as we drove home from church. She said she understood the sentiment,but admitted at times feeling a certain kinship with the dutiful elder son.We clearly had interpreted the lesson differently, which surprised me. I decided to consult my father to break the tie.

I called him from the car, asking which character in the parable he identified with most. Easy, he answered. The father. Believing God alone had been, well, perpetually cast in that role, I never thought picking the father was an option. It seemed my dad, when faced with multiple-choice options (a) or (b), was puckishly choosing (c) as a write-in answer. Or so I thought.

Weeks later I shared the breezy exchange with Dr. William Muse of Knoxville, Tennessee.Muse, a contemporary of my father, is a dear friend whom I figured could use a smile. We were together in Dallas where he was tending to his daughter, Amanda, who was dying of cancer. Sad of heart but undaunted in his Catholic faith, he somehow found time to counsel me.

Read this, he said, pitching me Catholic priest and writer Henri Nouwens spiritual classic The Return of the Prodigal Son. Its a meditation inspired by the authors response to a reproduction of Rembrandts eponymous and hauntingly beautiful painting. How strange the book was there in Amandas bookcase, my own poor manstolle legeexperience.Your dad is not wrong. None of you are.

I devoured the book. It taught me that while we tend to be each actor prodigal son, elder son, even the father at different stages of life, we ultimatelyare called to progress tospiritual fatherhood. That is, were called to love one another exactly as the compassionate father did, with self-emptying hearts of mercy.

After all, neither the justice the prodigal son demanded nor the justice the elder son expected ultimately satisfies. Knowing this, the father gave his heirs freely and fully not the mere justice they sought but the far greater mercy they needed.

Justice may even the scales, but in mercy, the world is remade anew.As a broken world, so a penitent man.As we need merciful forgiveness, so must we grant it. As we are loved by God, so must we try to love one another. For nothing you have not given away, as C.S. Lewis wrote, will ever really be yours.

In other words, in the parable of the prodigal son we are, in fact, called to identify with the father, just like my old man said.

A Dutch painter inspired a fellow countryman priest centuries later, whose book helped a Tennessee doctor explain the true meaningof fatherhood to a North Carolina lawyer, but make no mistake. I was once again astonished at how much my old man had learned.

Mike Kerrigan is an attorney in Charlotte, N.C.

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What I Learned From My Father About The Prodigal Son - The Federalist

Last week House Speaker Nancy Pelosi unsurprisingly weighed in on the abortion case that is on everyones mind and displayed her usual tenuous grasp of the truth. Ireland, Italy, Mexico has had legislative initiatives to expand a womans right to choose very Catholic countries, she stated. Hers is, sadly, a narrative that seems common on both sides of the Atlantic.

Recently a Swedish colleague told me abortion is a major topic in Sweden right now. He wasnt talking about abortion laws in Sweden that isnt on the agenda of any major political party right now. Swedes are frequently discussing abortion laws in the United States in light of the much-anticipated Supreme Court ruling Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization this month.

Most of these conversations contain a touch of perplexity, as the Swedes take for granted that the United States already has particularly draconian abortion laws. How could this be, the narrative goes, since it is already practically impossible for a woman to get an abortion in America? My unusually informed colleague explained his own perplexity, as abortion is legal until 18 weeks in Sweden. But, surprising to him, in many parts of the United States abortion law is actually allowed much later than that.

I must admit my own ignorance of this fact represented a mirror image of the Scandinavians. I assumed full-term, perhaps even partial-birth, abortions were completely legal in the Nordic welfare state. My ignorance might be partially forgiven since the European Union Parliament voted 364-154 (with 37 abstentions) in favor of condemning the expected U.S. court decision. Never mind that the parliament has no competence to consider abortion laws, let alone any legal developments in the United States.

Upon further research, I felt comfortable asserting what I had suspected, and what so many Europeans seem not to realize: no matter how the justices rule in this case, the United States will continue to have looser abortion laws than virtually all of Europe. Thus, even if the worst fears of the pro-abortion lobby are realized, American abortion laws will remain radical within the Western world.

What does it say, then, that the possibility of such an outcome warrants, in some quarters, threats against justices and harassment (if not worse) of their children at school? Or the resignation of many Americans that we will witness widespread unrest, if not outright violence, this summer? I submit that it proves this uproar is primarily about ideology, not choice, or health, or any of the other political rhetoric frequently associated with that side of this issue.

If this were simply an argument over a womans basic rights, as the argument goes, one might think the European landscape would be satisfactory to the aggrieved parties. Notoriously laissez-faire Netherlands is the most permissive on the continent, with abortions allowed until 24 weeks. Frances limit is 14 weeks. Swedens fellow Scandinavian countries Denmark, Finland, and Norway allow abortions until 12 weeks, as does Germany.

Even Hungary, which spends 6 percent of GDP on family policies and has enshrined the right to life from the moment of conception in its constitution, allows abortion until 12 weeks. By contrast, perennial red state Alaska, for example, is one of seven states that has no term limits on the practice, and one of eight that allows it in the third trimester or beyond.

Self-professed leftist Bill Maher even opined on the topic this spring. If you are pro-choice, he stated on his show Real Time, you would like it a lot less in Germany and Italy and France and Spain and Switzerland. Did you know that? I didnt know that.

Inevitably the pro-abortion argument reverts at this point to access to the practice for low-income women, as 13 states are set to ban it if the Supreme Court decision rules accordingly. This is disingenuous. Contrary to popular belief, abortions are usually not free or even low-cost at facilities like Planned Parenthood.

According to the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute, the average cost of an abortion at 10 weeks of pregnancy was more than $500 in 2014. Depending on the length of gestation, location of the facility, and insurance factors, the cost can easily surpass $1,000.

In 2015, virtually all of the 157,000 abortions covered by Medicaid were conducted in states that contribute funds specifically for the practice (in other words, states that are already pro-abortion). A bus ticket from, say, New Orleans (Louisiana would be the only state to be surrounded by other states in which abortion is illegal if the 13 state laws come into effect) to Mobile or Pensacola is a comparatively unrealistic barrier to access.

Thus, not all that much is likely to change in wake of the Dobbs case, as abortions were already especially expensive for low-income women in the states in question, and a woman pregnant at 40 weeks will still be able to cross into states like New Jersey or Oregon for what amounts to medieval butchery.

This all offers the next piece of evidence that this was never about women, or health, or rights. It has always been about the exercise of power and the quest to destroy all that is sacred, including the home, the family, and life itself.

To my friends in Sweden and other parts of Europe sadly, you are wrong about the state of abortion in America. To my fellow pro-lifers we have a lot of work ahead of us, no matter how the court rules.

Abortion is alive and well in America and will remain that way for the foreseeable future; and our opponents consider even the harassment of schoolchildren fair game in this moral conflict. This is the civil rights issue of our century. Let us not mistake a victorious battle (assuming it happens) for triumph in that war.

Michael OShea is a visiting fellow at the Danube Institute. He is part of the Budapest Fellowship Program, sponsored by the Hungary Foundation and the Mathias Corvinus Collegium.

Original post:

With Overturn Of Roe, US Will Have Looser Abortion Laws Than Europe - The Federalist

Leonard Leo, Co-Chairman of the Federalist Society, played a key role in building the Supreme Court's current 6-3 conservative majority. Pool/Getty Images hide caption

Leonard Leo, Co-Chairman of the Federalist Society, played a key role in building the Supreme Court's current 6-3 conservative majority.

As soon as Thursday, the Supreme Court could rule on Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization. A leaked draft opinion in that case showed a majority of justices agreeing to overturn Roe v. Wade, which would end the constitutional right to an abortion.

However the court rules, this moment is the culmination of a decades-long effort by conservative activists around the country. One man in particular has played an outsized role in that effort: Leonard Leo, Co-Chairman of the Federalist Society. He's devoted his career to getting conservatives appointed to the country's most powerful courts.

We look at how he came to have so much sway.

In this episode, you'll hear excerpts from the interview NPR's Deirdre Walsh conducted with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news segment to help you make sense of what's going on in your community.

Email us at considerthis@npr.org.

This episode was produced by Connor Donevan and Jonaki Mehta. It was edited by Bridget Kelley, Courtney Dorning and Krishnadev Calamur. Our executive producer is Sami Yenigun.

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Meet The Man Who Helped Build The Court That May Overturn Roe : Consider This from NPR - NPR

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is currently considering publishing regulations that will push for potentially irreversible medical and surgical interventions for people with gender dysphoria in the name of health care.In April, HHS Assistant Secretary Rachel L. Levine stated gender affirming care is medical care and included children and adolescents in that equation.

Levine also reaffirmed a principle articulated by Hippocrates that physicians should do no harm.Can a physician provide interventions like potentially sterilizing hormones and surgeries for children and adolescents without doing harm? Research on adolescent brain development and decision-making indicates these two concepts are contradictory.

Our society is encouraging adolescents to make crucial decisions with lifelong consequences as research continues to document the immaturity of the adolescent brain. It does not utilize the strategizing and planning center, the prefrontal cortex, in the same manner as adults.

The American College of Pediatricians, of which I am a board member, just published a new position statement entitled The Teenage Brain: Under Construction with research showing that adolescents brains are not developed enough to make sound decisions, and this should inform potential medical and surgical interventions on minors with gender dysphoria because of their lifelong consequences.

Neuroscientists studying decision-making have found adolescents are much more likely to rely upon emotions and peer pressure and less likely to consider future consequences. Researchers now talk about two systems for decision-making in the brain: a socioemotional system and a cognitive-control system.

The socioemotional system often involves intuitive responses that are made rapidly as the person responds to feelings and emotions, while the cognitive-control system is much more reasoned and deliberate. Coordination between both systems is important in order to make good decisions, but neither system is mature during adolescent years.

Unfortunately, emotionally charged and high-risk situations present the most challenges for adolescent decision-making, especially when influenced by peer pressure. Even individuals between 18 and 21 years of age demonstrated diminished cognitive performance compared with older adults when they were exposed to emotionally charged situations.

Adolescents are also less likely to incorporate and integrate their personal ethics and values when making important decisions. This means they do not improve their decision-making strategies when faced with more significant and important decisions, as adults do.

Given this research on the immature processing that occurs in the adolescent brain, it is crucial that adults assist with decision-making, especially those decisions that involve lifelong consequences.Practically, this means that adolescents who are struggling with gender dysphoria should not be allowed to make decisions that contribute to permanent, unnecessary surgical procedures, mutilation, and infertility.

The research on brain development indicates that adolescents should wait until they are 25 before attempting to make such significant decisions with lifelong consequences. This would mitigate the potential influence of peer pressure and emotions, while allowing the adolescent to experience natural puberty and associated hormonal influences on brain development.When allowed to do so, 85 to 90 percent of adolescents with gender identity concerns will accept their biological sex.

In addition, evidence is demonstrating that those who are allowed to undergo hormonal blocking of puberty, followed by surgical procedures, may experience regret and criticize the adults who did not properly warn them of the consequences of their immature decisions. An article published in Pediatric News on March 17, 2022, reported on a Zoom conference of people who had transitioned back to their natural sex.

They said the medical establishment initially failed them when they transitioned to the opposite gender, and again, when they decided to go back to their natal gender. This was confirmed in a 2021 study of 100 detransitioned patients in which over half felt they had not received appropriate information or evaluation prior to transitioning.

The American College of Pediatricians promotes an attitude of Best for Children and agrees that physicians should avoid causing harm.Using current research on adolescent brain development and decision-making, therefore, physicians should not encourage children and adolescents to make decisions with damaging and lifelong consequences.

Dr. Jane Anderson, MD, FCP is a board member of the American College of Pediatricians and retired faculty in Pediatrics at University of California San Francisco. For more information, please visit http://www.acpeds.org.

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The Science On Brain Development Rebukes Those Pushing Gender Transition On Kids - The Federalist