Daily Archives: July 27, 2022

The House Select Committee on Jan. 6 hired another television producer last month to elevate the drama of its summer show trials which concluded Thursday. Season two will debut in September.

In June, the committee hired Dan Przygoda, an Emmy-nominated news producer whose rsum includes stints at Bloomberg, ABC News Nightline, and Good Morning America, to help stage the theatrics for the panels series of televised hearings.

Can now announce that Im working with the [Jan. 6 Committee] on their upcoming hearings, Przygoda tweeted in an announcement on June 20.

Przygoda joined former ABC News President James Goldston to assist in the televised production, after Goldstons hiring was reported in early June. The committee had already held three out of eight of its summer hearings by the time Przygoda announced his role.

The committees employment of television news producers to dramatize its proceedings showcases how the partisan probe has approached its work of persecuting political opponents in a public forum absent a legitimate defense. The panels series of summer hearings possesses all the hallmarks of the Soviet-era show trials in the 1930s where regime dissidents were dragged before the public courts and declared guilty without fair representation.

In March, Democrats on the committee conceded the panels work was all about smearing the political opposition ahead of the November midterms.

Jan. 6 committee faces a thorny challenge: Persuading the public to care, headlined The Washington Post in a story that chronicled staffers anxieties over making a three-hour riot which happened more than 18 months ago interesting to the broader public.

Their challenge: Making the public care deeply and read hundreds of pages more about an event that happened more than a year ago, and that many Americans feel they already understand, the Post reported, followed by the passage below (emphasis added):

Theyll attempt to do so this spring through public hearings, along with a potential interim report and a final report that will be published ahead of the November midterms with thefindings likely a key part of the Democrats midterm strategy. They hope their recommendations to prevent another insurrection will be adopted, but also that their work will repel voters from Republicans who they say helped propel the attack.

Staging the hearings as must-see televised events became a central pillar of the committees strategy to gin up interest. Przygoda spent Thursday nights show trial previewing what was to come in the proceedings on Twitter.

After seven two-hour-plus hearings failed to offer panel members their knock-out blow, Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney opened the committees eighth hearing with the announcement of a second season in September, just before the election.

We have far more evidence to share with the American people and more to gather, Cheney said.

Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com.

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J6 Committee Hires Another TV Producer To Dramatize Show Trials - The Federalist

The New York Times on Thursday ran a slew of pieces by its full-time columnists wherein they purported to offer a confession of sorts about something each of them had gotten wrong in the past.

Each headline began, I was wrong about, when they should have more accurately begun, Its safe now to profess that I was dishonest about this thing because its no longer a factor in my political pursuits.

Michelle Goldbergs column,I was wrong about Al Franken, is about how she regrets having called for the shunning and resignation of the former senator, who was credibly and accurately accused of sexual assault, an allegation replete with photographic evidence, multiple witnesses, and an apology from Franken himself. Goldberg writes that today she believes it was wrong of her to call for him to lose his job without first there being a Senate investigation.

What she really means is that Franken was sacrificed so that Democrats and liberals could further use the so-often-absurd #MeToo movement as a political weapon against their opponents, but unfortunately it backfired.

Gail Collins piece, headlined, I was wrong about Mitt Romney (and his dog), is her apology for so gleefully mocking and attacking the Republican senator when he ran for president in 2012. What she really means is now that Romney attacks the head of his own party, hes good.

But the most awe-inspiring of the whole series is Bret Stephens, the former Wall Street Journal writer who identifies as a conservative despite calling for Republicans to lose every election of the past decade. His column, I was wrong about Trump voters, is hysterical in its blatant dishonesty wrapped up nicely in a shocking degree of self-regard.

When I looked at Trump, I saw a bigoted blowhard making one ignorant argument after another, he wrote. What Trumps supporters saw was a candidate whose entire being was a proudly raised middle finger at a self-satisfied elite that had produced a failing status quo. I was blind to this.

Stephens went on to use the opportunity to brag about how nice his life is. I belonged to a social class that my friend Peggy Noonan called the protected,' he said. My family lived in a safe and pleasant neighborhood. Our kids went to an excellent public school. I was well paid, fully insured, insulated against lifes harsh edges. Trumps appeal, according to Noonan, was largely to people she called the unprotected.'

Definitely sounds like a man with his tail between his legs.

Nobody buys for a second that Stephens is in any way genuinely reflecting on his contempt for the people who dared support Trump. (He literally says in the piece that he believed Trumps voters were moral ignoramuses.) I can promise you this is not something he would have written had Trump won reelection in 2020.

Stephens even admits it. Would I be wrong to lambaste Trumps current supporters, he says, the ones who want him back in the White House despite his refusal to accept his electoral defeat and the historic outrage of Jan. 6? Morally speaking, no.

What Stephens is really trying to say is that its one thing for him to tell you that its too bad youre not doing as well as he is, after hes fought in every way to keep it that way. Its another for him to do anything that would actually have changed that.

But in the same spirit of that Times series, I have my own confession: There was a period when I believed journalists in the national media were honest and decent people who were imperfect but always trying. I was wrong about all of that.

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I Was Wrong About The Media. They've Always Been Showy Losers - The Federalist

The Choco Taco is muerto. May it rest in peace. We didnt deserve it.

Once upon a time, we were a nation of visionaries and dreamers, a people who blasted beyond boundaries and invited those of every tribe and tongue to enter the American rocketship and use their talents to conquer the universe with us. Together, we carved interstates through mountains, built skyscrapers, and slipped the surly bonds of earth. There was no place we couldnt go, no limit we couldnt surpass, and most of all, nothing we couldnt turn into dessert.

We turned cartoon characters and professional wrestlers into frozen sweets. We turned weapons of mass destruction into popsicles. But most impressively, we turned tacos into ice cream.

The Choco Taco was the example par excellence of Melting Pot Americas commercialized culinary hubris. In 1983, Good Humor debuted its recently departed delicacy. And while Mexican cuisine may loom large in American food culture today, its important to remember this was not the case at the time.

In 1983, Taco Bell had a mere 1,600 locations nationwide, compared to over 7,600 today. Most Americans had never heard of Taco Tuesday, never seen an avocado, and couldnt tell their barbacoa from their carnitas. And yet, despite our limited familiarity with the referent, Good Humor had the audacity to fill their ice cream trucks with a parody confection.

You know that food you barely remember from the one time your grandmother took you to a Chi-Chis in Trenton, Good Humor said to us. Heres a joke ice cream version of that. We bet youll eat it.

And eat it, we did. For countless 80s babies, for those of us raised on boiled meatloaf, wet-paper-flavored apples, and the other haute cuisine of the day, we embraced the Choco Taco before we embraced actual tacos. Gripping the waffle shell in our summer-sweat-covered hands, we eagerly consumed a delicacy we didnt fully comprehend. And when we did, an inclusive curiosity sparked within us.

To the white kids of Reagans America, the Choco Taco declared, Theres a world of real tacos out there. Go discover it. Go embrace the people who gave it to you! Accept those whose culinary culture offered you something far more delicious than baloney and ketchup sandwiches! Befriend them!

Likewise, for the non-white kids of America, the Choco Taco declared, You belong. You matter. Dont be offended that we yoinked your culture and turned it into diabetes snacks. Thats an initiation ritual here. Thats how Business America shows you that we (sort of) accept you (kind of).

But then we won the Cold War, we became complacent, and we lost the desire to expand our horizons. By repeatedly giving the Weird Al treatment to exotic new delicacies, we could have conquered xenophobia and added glorious new flavors and textures to the American melting pot. We could have invented the Banana Split Baozi or the Lotta Chocolatty Chakalaka. Instead, we got sloppy and lazy.

We lost the desire to better ourselves, to discover how we might use technology to slather mid-tier ice cream upon previously unslatherable surfaces. We settled for artless tech, declaring, Hey, youve heard of ice cream, but have you ever heard of smaller ice cream? So we freeze-dried it and called it Dippin Dots. We cut it into chocolate-covered microcubes and called it Dibs. We made ice cream stale. We made it boring. And we called it progress.

Likewise, as Marxism wormed its way through our elite institutions and corrupted our collective mind, we paralyzed ourselves by demonizing culinary curiosity with our constant shrieks about cultural appropriation.

When people close down burrito food trucks because the owners are insufficiently Latinx, we have ceased to be a people capable of expanding the frontiers of Frozen Dairyland. When white Americans arent allowed to embrace and borrow the sweetest bits of other ethnicities, the reach of those ethnicities is hindered, and you get what we have now: a thousand artisanal creameries selling $25 kale and rose hip sundaes to bitter thirty-somethings, but not a single ice cream truck selling FroYo Falafels to curious 5-year-olds.

Rest in peace, Choco Taco. You taught us wonder and acceptance when you gave us nuts and chocolate instead of tomatoes and cheese, but we abandoned you. You should have lived a thousand years as the abuelo to a United Nations of modestly delicious novelty ice cream offshoots. Instead, youll be buried alone because well be too busy canceling Otterpops for normalizing transphobia.

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This Woke World Didn't Deserve The Choco Taco - The Federalist

It is no secret that there is a legitimate demographic crisis in most of the Western world. Birth rates in America and most of Europe have declined well below the level needed to replace the population. There are plenty of religious, patriotic, economic, and social reasons for Americans to be deeply concerned about this trend. This has caused an interesting willingness among conservatives to embrace heterodox policy ideas that traditional libertarian economic thinkers find abhorrent. One now finds conservatives calling for Republicans to get serious about the governments family and public health policy, as well as Republicans such as Sens. Mike Lee of Utah and Marco Rubio of Florida being the insistent voices for increased child tax credits.

There is an inherent tension here. On one hand, conservatives are suspicious of any increase in government spending or interference in the lives of citizens, rightly believing that most charity is best distributed at the local level by families, churches, charitable organizations, etc. On the other hand, we are staring at a civilizational crisis where people are not having enough children to sustain the population. This has serious consequences for our ability to function as a stable society with a thriving, healthy economy.

Conservatives will have to continue this dialogue about how to enact pro-family economic policies that encourage stronger, larger families without unnecessary government intrusion into family life. Child tax credits created through the tax code and administered by the Internal Revenue Service are one thing; the Family Security Act proposed by Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, which would give families a monthly payment administered through the Social Security Administration is quite another.

Conservatives will have to make distinctions and draw lines in the sand to determine how much government expansion we are going to tolerate to accomplish these policy goals. Creating another welfare program through the Social Security Administration seems to go well beyond pro-family tax reform. If conservatives are willing to accept that some pro-family policies may be good even if they come with taxpayer expense and a new government program, we need to start developing a framework to distinguish good family policy from bad.

Pennsylvanias new Child and Dependent Care Enhancement Program that was just passed in the commonwealths budget is a perfect example of bad family policy mistakenly being celebrated as good family policy. It would be one thing if this were passed in a state thoroughly controlled by Democrats. But both houses of the Pennsylvania Legislature are controlled by Republicans. Budgets are creatures of compromise, and there is nothing wrong with Republicans moving toward tax policies that encourage having more children. But conservatives need to be wary of how such pro-family policy is crafted and what preferences are contained within such policies. Republican legislators must take care that they are not unwittingly embracing leftist ideals in the name of pro-family reform.

Supporters point out that this new tax credit will help low-income families by defraying the costs of childcare. But those same supporters are falsely claiming that the tax credit is fashioned after the federal child tax credit, which was increased by the American Rescue Plan in 2021. There is a big, clear difference between the federal tax credit and the new Pennsylvania tax credit: The federal credit is a tax credit given to families under a certain annual income, based on how many dependent children they have. The new Pennsylvania credit allows parents to recoup a percentage of their childcare expenses.

At least someone in the Pennsylvania papers caught the difference, to a certain extent. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette editorial board realized the obvious: Some people choose to make sacrifices to have a parent stay home with their children. Others are too poor to afford costly childcare and rely on family members to take care of their children while they are at work. Both these categories of parents are apparently excluded from the Pennsylvania tax credit because they are not paying for daycare.

The editorial calls for at least a smaller standard credit of a few hundred dollars per child for those who choose to keep care in the family. This proposed compromise is still inadequate. Both for reasons of fairness and of good social policy, it is bad for the government to incentivize full-time institutional daycare rather than a family caring for its own children full-time.

The editorial points out what should be common sense: Most of the time, a two-income family earns more money than a one-income family. If families choose for a parent to stay home and care for children full-time, that is an economic sacrifice for most families. If the purpose of these daycare tax credits is to ease the costly burdens of childcare, why does the policy only ease the burden of daycare and not the burden of the one-income family who sacrifices a second income to keep a parent home for childcare?

This is not merely an economically unfair governmental choice. There is a serious and insidious social policy preference in the childcare tax credit. Most tax policies express preferential choices. Corporate entities are taxed differently often more favorably than individuals because we acknowledge that incentivizing LLCs, corporations, and partnerships to be more profitable creates jobs and produces good results for society. In kind payments (payments made with products, services, or something other than cash) are still treated as taxable income because we prefer not to let businesses get away with not paying taxes by bartering. And we have a federal child tax credit because we prefer people to have children. Each of these examples has both an economic reason (it is good for our economy to have this preference) and a moral one (it is good for our society to be this way).

The childcare tax credit adopted in Pennsylvania is not good for our society because it expresses a bad policy preference. If a family has children, both the mother and father work outside the home, and the family uses full-time institutional daycare for the children, the government will subsidize that with thousands of dollars in tax credits. If a family has children and one parent works while the other stays home to care for the children, the government does not subsidize the parents decision to stay home with the children. If both parents work (or if it is a single-parent household) and the children are cared for by a relative, the government also does not offer the tax credit. There is a clear policy preference expressed by the Pennsylvania government: It is better for families with children to have two working parents and to pay someone else to care for their children. This is bad policy.

There are many reasons it is beneficial for families to have a parent stay at home with children. Children tend to do better educationally when a parent stays home with them and/or chooses to homeschool. There is also good research suggesting that children develop more behavioral problems like stress and aggression when cared for full-time by out-of-home daycare rather than by a stay-at-home parent. Admittedly there are challenges for stay-at-home parents, such as the desire to return to work outside the home and the danger of social isolation. But having a stay-at-home parent is a good decision for raising intelligent, well-adjusted children.

Society benefits from having more intelligent, well-adjusted children. So the government should enact policies that encourage a parent to stay at home and be the full-time caretaker for children. If families decide they want or need two incomes to support their household, they are free to make that choice. But when the government actually incentivizes the decision to have ones children cared for full-time by a paid childcare institution rather than by the childrens own parents, it raises a question: Is this really good for families, for children, for society? Or is the government incentivizing the further distortion of the natural family? Is this a proper pro-family policy or a nod to socialism?

Incentivizing families to have more children through child tax credits, like the current federal tax code does, is a reasonable policy preference for conservatives concerned about our nations demographic decline. Subsidizing only those families who choose full-time institutional daycare, while disincentivizing families choosing to have a stay-at-home parent or using extended family for childcare, favors a socialist understanding of family and work life. Conservatives in general and Republican legislators in particular should be sensitive to this distinction.

Frank DeVito is an attorney living in eastern Pennsylvania with his wife and three young children. His work has previously been published in The American Conservative, the Quinnipiac Law Review and the Penn State Online Law Review.

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Discouraging Parents From Raising Their Own Kids Isn't Pro-Family - The Federalist

More than a hundred pregnancy centers across the country have been vandalized this year in response to the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Nevertheless, the Department of Justice still has done nothing about this despite pledging to conduct investigations. Most politicians and the corporate media seem completely uninterested in discussing the matter, much less calling for any action.

When given the opportunity to be on the right side of this problem with a proposed resolution to condemn the violence, House Democrats promptly voted against it. They made it clear that they do not want to defend pregnancy centers. They believe violence against these places is acceptable.

Even though its well known that leftists like to celebrate abortion and are upset about the recent decision of Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization, its hard to fathom why they should hate pregnancy centers. These organizations help women with their pregnancies, offering all kinds of support during and after pregnancy. They arent harassing abortionists or marching in the streets and disrupting traffic. They are fully pro-woman and work to offer a choice besides abortion for desperate mothers.

Nevertheless, Democrats have demonized pregnancy centers. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., wants to shut all of them down because they fool people who are looking for pregnancy termination and torture expecting mothers by offering them a way to have their baby safely. Although pro-lifers have rightly criticized Warren for these remarks, many on the left tacitly agree with her.

But why? Not only is it flatly contradictory to come out as pro-choice and yet eliminate the choice to have a baby, but its also wrong to bully charitable organizations that serve vulnerable mothers. Why do pregnancy centers draw so much hate?

One reason is that pregnancy centers are bad for the abortion business. Because people are constantly bombarded by the pro-abortion rhetoric of liberation and female empowerment, they tend to forget that Planned Parenthood and every other abortion provider is a business seeking to make money. Pregnancy centers cut into their profits by taking away clients and siphoning off public funding. In response, they lobby Congress and donate to political campaigns like Warrens in order to hamstring and shut down their competitors.

Another reason is that pregnancy centers are the most powerful refutation of abortion. They enable women to endure the difficulties associated with carrying a child and bringing it to term. They provide the material, emotional, and spiritual support necessary to have a baby. Besides giving that child a chance for a healthy and happy life, they do the same for mothers who suffer from abuse, poverty, and several other challenges.

Understanding this is essential. Although most debates over abortion often center on the question of personhood, the real reason most women seek an abortion is that having a baby is difficult. Even if a mother makes the heart-wrenching decision to put her child up for adoption, she still has to go through nine months of pregnancy and delivery. Her body, mind, and soul will be tested, and, at times, it will feel overwhelming.

Once the baby is born, these difficulties continue. Infants are needy and fragile. They continue demanding everything from the mother, who, in turn, will require a great deal of assistance from the father or whoever else is around to lend a hand. For the typical modern adult accustomed to an easy job, abundant leisure, and relatively few responsibilities, having a baby is more than merely disruptive; it is traumatic.

However, despite this, most parents will say a family is worth it. Yes, theres often pain, suffering, and boredom, but just as often, theres joy, fulfillment, and fun. With a child, there may be many trials, but there are no regrets. With abortion, there may be fewer trials, but regret will always be present.

This is why the goal of the pro-abortion crowd is less about explaining away the humanity of the unborn and more about making parenthood seem impossible. They will play up the rigors of pregnancy, childbirth, and childrearing while downplaying the accompanying rewards. Simultaneously, they will portray abortion as a consequence-free escape that will enable women to live their best lives.

In this most recent vote, Democrats have shown their hand. More than pro-life protests, pro-life media, or even pro-life politicians voting to outlaw abortions, they fear women who are in dire circumstances deciding to have their children. If word gets out that its possible to make it through pregnancy, have a child, and take care of that child in its infancy, many women may start to realize just how unnecessary and abominable the alternative is.

The pro-abortion left operates on the assumption that all women are weak, selfish, and unable to succeed as mothers. Pregnancy centers thwart these assumptions by empowering women and helping them turn what seems like a problem into a blessing with limitless potential. If Democrats choose to condemn these organizations, the pro-life movement needs to support them all the more by sharing in the work of helping mothers and building up a pro-family culture.

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Here's Why Democrats Have Waged War On Pregnancy Centers - The Federalist

New York Times opinion columnist Bret Stephens admitted in a snarky article headlined I Was Wrong About Trump Voters that Democrats ploy to undermine Donald Trump was truly a hoax.

While most of the corrupt press and institutions such as the Pulitzer Prize board still refuse to acknowledge that the discredited Steele dossier and every piece of information Hillary Clintons campaign fed to the corporate media about Trump colluding with Russia was hogwash, Stephens finally acknowledges that the Republican was unfairly targeted.

To this day, precious few anti-Trumpers have been honest with themselves about the elaborate hoax theres just no other word for it that was the Steele dossier and all the bogus allegations, credulously parroted in the mainstream media, that flowed from it, Stephens wrote.

Six years after the Steele dossier was commissioned by Fusion GPS which was hired by Clintons campaign lawyers firm, someone in the propaganda press has finally granted what real reporters such as The Federalists Spygate experts have known all along.

Stephens article is far from the apology the headline portrays it to be. But in conceding that the corporate media, in addition to intelligence agencies and the Democrat party, waged a war on Trump, the NYT writer has done more than any other journo or outlet that spread lies and misinformation about the nonexistent collusion and pee tapes.

Unfortunately, its not enough. Stephens, who has been in the media world for decades, does not apologize nor take any responsibility for participating in the medias collusion hoax factory. He shows no remorse for writing articles that affirmed the Steele dossier, nor does he acknowledge that his employer is guilty of mass publishing lie-ridden stories about Trump and the Russians.

If a guy who was complicit in the Democrats scheme to keep Trump out of office is admitting the reality of the Russia collusion story is that there was no collusion, every outlet that has refused to admit any error is even worse than he is.

Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire and Fox News. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.

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Bret Stephens Is First In Big Media To Admit Russian Collusion Was A 'Hoax' - The Federalist

If your friends jumped off a cliff, would you jump too?

This was always my parents equally prudent and absurd retort to my youthful protestations of their rules with an appeal to the majority: All my friends are doing it! To their credit, they were right. Going with the majority is not always the best course, and in fact rarely is in matters of great significance.

So it is with so-called same-sex marriage which is distinct from homosexuality generally in that marriage is a sacred institution, established by God as a covenant between one man and one woman for the purpose of family formation and recognized by the government. The Supreme Court discovered a right to same-sex marriage in the Constitution in 2015; these unions have thus been granted all the marital benefits of couples who perpetuate societal growth through procreation; and the media have assured everyone that its an issue that almost everybody has long since decided was uncontroversial.

In many ways, it is. Since 2015, Americans, including even many of those under the conservative label, have gone along to get along patronizing very pride-y establishments, celebrating the unions of their gay friends, and keeping quiet about the issue at best. The latest Gallup poll on the matter, released last month, shows support for same-sex marriage is up one point from last year to a new high of 71 percent, with weekly churchgoers being the primary remaining holdouts.

But with the reversal of Roe v. Wade and in a panic before the midterms, Democrats are rushing to enshrine a right to gay marriage into law (as if there are no other pressing issues they should focus on) and Republicans are falling for it. On Tuesday, a whopping 47 Republicans in the House sided with Democrats in supporting the ill-named Respect for Marriage Act, which would codify a right for gay couples to marry.

Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer says he intends to bring it for a vote in his chamber, and a few Republicans have already signaled their support in the 50-50 split Senate, but many of the rest of them are on the fence. Although support for same-sex marriage isnt exactly a conservative ideal (though a majority of Republicans now support it), the all my friends are doing it impulse paired with a general lack of conservative principles among our power-motivated legislators already caused 47 GOP representatives to jump off the cliff, and the same temptation is coming for cagey senators.

As Slate put it: Gay Marriage: Senate Republicans Have No Idea What To Do About The Respect For Marriage Act.

Well, since they have no idea what to do and since the conservative response to this alarming House vote has been weak while peer pressure is strong heres a suggestion: Resist the urge to leap into the abyss, and instead keep your feet firmly planted on the solid ground that is traditional marriage.

Cue the bigot smears, but remember we arent talking about shipping gays off to conversion therapy, erasing them from society, or criminalizing their personal lives. This is about the one very specific arena of marriage, and its OK to oppose the majority on this one. And thus its OK to oppose this piece of marriage-centric legislation.

First, marriage matters. It matters to the government, with traditional marriage rightly having distinct legal protections as the only union that naturally produces children for the sake of whom those marriages should remain intact. The government has no interest in peoples sexual behaviors except if those behaviors produce children, who are vulnerable for some 20 years of their lives and therefore must be legally protected in ways adults dont need to be. The legal protection children require is marriage, and thus marriage is not a sanction of any form of adult sexuality or affection but about children. And since same-sex relationships by nature cannot produce children, they dont need government involvement.

But marriage matters for so many other things too, not least of which are physical health and wellness, societal flourishing, home building, and financial planning. It also matters to the God who created it so it matters not what most people think.

Jack Phillips didnt care what the majority thought when he kindly served gay customers yet declined to celebrate a same-sex marriage by designing a wedding cake. Neither did Barronelle Stutzman, who made friends with a frequent gay customer but couldnt in good conscience participate in his homosexual wedding even though it meant losing almost everything. They know marriage matters, and in their courage and conviction, they refused to jump off the cliff. Cowardly lawmakers who would go along with the majority on the Respect for Marriage Act would take another hacksaw to the lives and business of these two and so many others like them, whose First Amendment rights would just be further eroded by contrived rights.

Second, it isnt a slippery-slope fallacy to recognize the ways in which the goalposts have shifted since Obergefell. What was once two consenting adults in the bedroom has become in-your-face, LGBT-positive programming for schoolchildren. The right to marry has become the right to adopt a child. And accept us has become affirm us. So far, anywhere sexual orientation has come to be foisted on the public, gender identity is sure to follow, and theres no reason to believe Congress codifying a federal right to marry wont spawn a federal right to any sex-specific space you so choose or the castration of children, doctors consciences be damned.

There isnt room here to rehash all the reasons why marriages with one man and one woman who bear children together are the best building blocks for society, nor to get into all the reasons Christians must be firm on the sanctity of the institution amid character assassinations. But our lawmakers in Washington would be wise to remember that going along to get along has never been the true conservatives way. And just because everyone is hurling themselves off the cliff doesnt mean you should too.

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As With Cliff-Jumping, So With Gay Marriage: Resist The Majority - The Federalist

New polling from the Judicial Crisis Network and CRC Research suggests that American voters largely agree that political violence is not a solution to the problems facing the nation today. Despite an overwhelming number of voters who want the Department of Justice to intervene against all forms of political violence, Attorney General Merrick Garland is picking and choosing which acts of intimidation will be prosecuted based on what might benefit the Democratic regime.

Of the 1,600 registered voters surveyed in July, 58 percent said Garland should enforce federal law prohibiting protests at the homes of Supreme Court justices, with only 30 percent saying he should not. An even higher number, 60 percent, believe President Joe Biden should condemn those kinds of actions as well.

Both Democrats, 52 percent, and Republicans, 71 percent, agree that seeking other ways to disrupt the justices private lives undermines democracy and should not be tolerated. Eighty-five percent of Republicans and 61 percent of Democrats also say that offering bounties for tips about where justices are dining is extreme and goes to[o] far.

Yet, the same DOJ that rushed tocapitalize on the National School Boards Associations collusion with the Biden White House to smear concerned parents as domestic terrorists remained largely unresponsive to the attacks on Republican-nominated justices.

Despite the fact that 84 percent of registered voters agree that those who engage in acts of vandalism and violence against pregnancy resource centers and churches should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, Garland also refused to take action against the widespread assaults on pro-life Americans and their property.

Instead of listening to the demands from senators, faith groups, and pro-lifers for the DOJ to do its job, Civil Rights Division Chief Kristen Clarke, a top DOJ official, smeared pregnancy centers as fake clinics that are harmful and predatory, all Democrat talking points.

Additionally, Garland released a statement publicly disagreeing with the Supreme Courts Dobbs v. Jackson decision. That particular statement only devoted two sentences to announcing that the DOJ will not tolerate violence and threats of violence. Meanwhile, following the Dobbs leak and Garlands refusal to enforce the federal law prohibiting protests at justices homes, a pro-abortion fanatic had shown up at Justice Brett Kavanaughs house to assassinate him.

While violent leftists called for an open season on pro-lifers, the Supreme Court, and its justices, Garland bragged about watching Democrats Jan. 6 show-trial hearings and reassured the corrupt corporate media that his prosecutors were doing the same.

Garlands lack of urgency about the lefts political violence in response to the overturning of Roe v. Wade, even as the AG prepares to indict his partys main political opposition and those who support him, strongly contrasts with how voters feel the DOJ should operate.

Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire and Fox News. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.

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Americans Want Justice But Garland Is Busy Trying To Indict Trump - The Federalist

Democrats love to talk about democracy mostly about how its under threat from Republicans and Christian nationalists and anyone who opposes their agenda. But at least on a rhetorical level, they seem to cherish democracy and rightly think that a government of the people, by the people is the surest safeguard against tyranny.

In practice, though, they hate democracy and will use every tool at their disposal to subvert and destroy it. Hardly a day goes by that Democrats dont proclaim as much by their actions. Just look at their response to the Supreme Court overturningRoe v. Wadelast month, which triggered laws in more than a dozen states banning or placing new restrictions on abortion. Voters in those states elected the people who passed these new laws, which in many cases are broadly popular. By overturningRoe, the court breathed new life into the democratic process, returning an issue to the American people that an earlier Supreme Court had snatched away from them.

But Democrats dont really want democracy when it comes to abortion, which they consider sacrosanct. They have no qualms about protecting it from regulations by state lawmakers through the raw exercise of federal executive power, if need be. This week, Attorney General Merrick Garland threatened to sue states that have outlawed or restricted abortion since the end ofRoe, and he also said the Justice Department would try to get a judge to tossa Texas lawsuitthat would block newly issued rules from the Biden administrations U.S. Department of Health and Human Services forcing doctors to perform abortions in emergency rooms.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Garlands DOJ said last week it hadlaunched a special task forceto evaluate state laws that hinder womens ability to seek abortions in other states where the procedure remains legal or that ban federally approved medication that terminates a pregnancy. The task force will also oppose state efforts to penalize federal employees who perform abortions authorized by federal law.

What could that mean? Well, take a look at the lawsuit Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton just filed against HHS. The administration is trying to use the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) to force ER doctors to perform abortions, even if it contravenes state laws outlawing the procedure. EMTALA was passed in 1986 as a way to prevent patient dumping, or turning away people who couldnt pay, and it requires hospitals that receive Medicare money (which today is all of them) to treat people who show up at an ER in need of emergency treatment.

The Texas lawsuit argues the Biden administration is trying to use federal law to transform every emergency room in the country into a walk-in abortion clinic, and that EMTALA does not authorize and has never authorized the federal government to compel healthcare providers to perform abortions.

Garland and HHS claim that EMTALA preempts state law, but its unclear what that means in the context of the new HHS rules. If a state legislature passed a law saying that emergency rooms are prohibited from treating patients who have no health insurance, then yes, EMTALA would preempt that.

But as Paxtons lawsuit rightly notes, the law says nothing about abortion, nor does it say anything about which specific treatments a hospital ER must administer. It only states that Medicare-participating hospitals have to provide stabilizing treatment for emergency medical conditions, and it specifically defines both of those terms in the statute.

For Democrats, though, laws passed by representatives of the people dont carry as much weight as rule by administrative fiat. On July 11, the Biden administrations Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services issued guidance purportedly reminding hospitals of their obligations under EMTALA. But the guidance was much more than a reminder, and it was accompanied bya letterfrom HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra that amounted to an abortion mandate for hospitals, asserting powers under EMTALA that simply dont exist anywhere in federal law.

First, Becerras letter claims that if an ER doctor determines that abortion is the stabilizing treatment necessary to resolve [an emergency medical condition as defined by EMTALA], the physician must provide that treatment.

But this is nothing more than a cheap word game. Abortion isnt a stabilizing treatment, and nowhere in federal law is it construed as such. Becerra is conflating Democrats loose rhetoric about abortion that its reproductive healthcare or womens health with the straightforward reality of the federal EMTALA statute, which says nothing about abortion and, to the contrary, specifically includes a mention of an emergency medical condition as one that threatens the life of an unborn child.

Second, Becerras false claim that EMTALA preempts state abortion laws is contradicted by the plain language of the law itself, which says it doesnt preempt state law except to the extent that the requirement directly conflicts with a requirement of EMTALA. But abortion is not a requirement of EMTALA and doesnt even fit the laws definition of stabilizing treatment for an emergency medical condition.

In a decent country, Texas would easily win this lawsuit and the Justice Department would never step in to try to get it thrown out. But Democrats are committed to subverting the democratic process at both the state and federal level in order to preserve some shred of their abortion regime. Theyre trying to preempt state laws they dont like by twisting the meaning of federal laws that dont have anything to say about abortion.

Remember that the next time you hear President Biden or some other leading Democrat talk about threats to democracy. They dont care about democracy, they care about power. And they will use every ounce of it they have to advance their policies the will of the people be damned.

John Daniel Davidson is a senior editor at The Federalist. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Claremont Review of Books, The New York Post, and elsewhere. Follow him on Twitter, @johnddavidson.

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Democrats Hate Democracy When It Comes To Abortion - The Federalist