Daily Archives: September 25, 2023

It is just shy of one year since my dream of being a broadcast journalist ended. I was hired as a multimedia journalist in 2017 by Gray Media after being a stay-at-home mom for 25 years. I was a homeschooling mom and a student myself. I was also a freelance writer, journalist, and portrait photographer. To inspire my kids, I finished my bachelors degree. I received my bachelor of science in leadership and started at the Nebraska NBC affiliate KNOP-TV in September 2017.

I rose quickly to morning producer/anchor by 2018. Not long after, I was promoted to producer and co-evening anchor. As I grew in the industry, my personal life was filled with struggle. My mother died of cancer just three months after I started in 2017, and in 2019, my 25-year-old daughter and her unborn son died unexpectedly.

It was the most difficult time of my life. I immersed myself in my family and my job. I kept my mind busy by finishing my masters degree in international security and intelligence from Bellevue University, and I started my Ph.D. in forensic psychology. Covid-19 hit not long after.

In May 2020, KNOP-TVs news director left the station for a Mississippi Gray station, and in June 2020, I became the news director. I continued to produce and anchor the 6 p.m. show, and sometimes the 10 p,m, show. When Covid was in full swing I lost employees who either moved away or quit rather than getting the mandatory vaccine. So, I taught myself how to produce and anchor weather with the help of my weatherman.

For one full year, I had no contact with the outside world of Gray Media. No one came and no one went. I was the boss (hiring, firing, managing payroll, overseeing office management, and so forth.). I was also producing, anchoring, sometimes doing the weather, and occasionally reporting. I did not miss a day of work during the pandemic.

In 2021 I was still doing these things, and sometimes even produced and anchored the morning show. I had a makeshift cot in my office for days when it did not make sense to drive home after the 10 p.m. show.

I live in Curtis, Nebraska, which does not get the KNOP-TV television signal. I grew up in small-town Nebraska where being a news director doesnt really mean much to the average person. I dont think people realized the extent of my job responsibilities in North Platte.

In 2022 an elder at St. John Lutheran Church started a petition to let voters decide if Curtis should be a sanctuary city for the unborn, a movement started by Mark Lee Dickson of Texas. A reporter from the Flatwater Free Press inquired about my involvement.

The reporter asked me a few questions one morning while I was getting my kids ready for school. I told her I was active in my church and pro-life. I answered her questions and volunteered that I had notarized petitions and witnessed signatures made. I assured her I never reported on my involvement or my actions in my church.

After our conversation ended, she asked me if I did or did not realize that as a journalist, I should never do what I did. I was confused. In my view, I had done nothing wrong. The issue of life is nonpartisan. There are pro-life people who are Republicans and pro-life people who are Democrats.

The reporter pressed me, and I said in frustration, You know what, youre right, I shouldnt have done it. I responded in duress, and it wasnt even a coherent sentence. Yet it was the only quote she took from me for her story.

On the morning of September 30, 2022, the news article crossed news desks in Nebraska. By 6 p.m., I was no longer employed by Gray Media.

My Lincoln-based Gray Media bosses called me into my office in North Platte on my day off to tell me it would be my last day. I was escorted out. And while it may be a law in Nebraska that an employer may fire an employee, or an employee may leave employment, without reason, my former employee gave me a reason: I was told I was being fired for practicing partisan politics. I did not have a contract when I was fired.

Ironically, pro-life groups in North Platte later told me they thought I was pro-choice because I reported in a nonbiased manner. Furthermore, about a week after I was fired, nearly 30 articles written by me about abortion were all removed from the companys website after I publicly asked people on my own social media to read the stories and tell me if I was reporting in a biased way. Nearly 300 stories I wrote covering other topics remain on Gray Medias websites today.

Today, I continue to write stories on my own platform. I now have about 8,500 followers on Facebook. And I am unapologetically pro-life.

I have been given a lot of support by the community of North Platte and surrounding areas I am still treated like a journalist by most.I sat at an anchor desk for EWTN (a Catholic Network) in Washington D.C. during the pro-life march in January 2023 and was interviewed by Lifesite News. I was on podcasts across the nation and have been given a couple of awards, most recently a Freedom Fighter Award in Hastings, Nebraska.

None of these activities pay, however. I am also completing my Ph.D. in forensic psychology. I had the honor of serving on a floor committee in St. Louis, Missouri for the Missouri Synod Lutheran Church prior to 2023s 68th Regular Convention in Milwaukee. After Milwaukee, I was on Issues, etc. in St. Louis during the evening drive-time hour.

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is currently reviewing my firing by Gray Media, and then I will be given a right to sue letter. I am praying about the course I should take.

Im not sure what God wants me to do. I pray a prayer of thanksgiving and a prayer for clarity every day, among my other daily talking and walking with Him. I know that He strengthens us and draws us closer to Him in heartbreak and despair.

I always thought I was very close to God through the life and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, my baptism and confirmation, and now He must be rendering me for something important. I know that being fired in this way was a direct attack by the enemy. But we know what Jesus meant in John 19:30 when he said, It is finished. All that is important is indeed already finished in Him, and Christ has done all the work. I trust Him to know how He plans to use me to encourage others to know these truths.

To deny that life is life from conception to natural death is to deny Christ. And that, I will never do.

I still live in Curtis, Nebraska. My husband is a truck driver. I have four kids still in school, and the others are in various stages of their adult lives. I have six living grandchildren. My biggest dream now is to be salt and light in a dark, tasteless world. I want to write and make a difference where God will allow. Then I will rest in Him and with hope spend eternity praising Him where I will be with Him and my family in Heaven forever.

This story has been updated to reflect that the Flatwater Press has multiple offices in Nebraska.

After the story was published, Matt Wynn with the Nebraska Journalism Trust claimed in an e-mail to The Federalist that the reporter did not specify that the conversation, a recording of which Wynn said he listened to, was off the record.

Melanie Standiford is an independent journalist.

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I Was Fired From Corporate Media For Being Pro-Life - The Federalist

Did former President Donald Trump ask then-Assistant Attorney General Jeff Clarks legal opinion concerning Department of Justice options for addressing voting irregularities in Georgia, or did Clark volunteer his legal analysis on the question without the presidents prompting?

The federal judge presiding over Clarks removal case, who will decide whether Clark must defend himself in the Democrat stronghold of Fulton County or in a Georgia federal court, focused on that question during last weeks hearing. In doing so, the judge revealed just how crazyand dangerousthis political prosecution is to the future of our constitutional republic.

Currently, Clark faces criminal charges in Fulton County, Georgia, after get-Trump prosecutor Fani Willis obtained a sprawling grand jury indictment against him and 18 co-defendants, including former President Donald Trump. That mid-August indictment charged the defendants with supposed crimes related to alleged postelection interference with the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.

A week after the indictment dropped, Clark sought to remove the criminal case against him to federal court, based on a federal statute, codified at 1442(a)(1). That removal statute provides that a criminal prosecution that is commenced in a State court against an officer of the United States or any federal agency may remove the case to a federal court if the prosecution is for or relating to any act under color of such office

In arguing for removal, Clark stressed that Williss charge against him rested on a Dec. 28, 2020 draft letter he presented in his role as assistant attorney general to his superiors, Jeff Rosen, then acting attorney general, and Richard Donoghue, then deputy attorney general. Clark urged Rosen and Donoghue to sign the letter addressed to the Georgia governor, the Georgia speaker of the House, and the Georgia president pro tempore of the Senate.

It stated that the DOJ was investigating various irregularities in the 2020 election for President of the United States and noted that we have identified significant concerns that may have impacted the outcome of the election in multiple States, including the State of Georgia.

In light of these developments, Clarks proposed letter continued, the Department recommends that the Georgia General Assembly should convene in special session so that its legislators are in a position to take additional testimony, receive new evidence, and deliberate on the matter consistent with its duties under the U.S. Constitution.

Rosen and Donoghue refused to sign the letter and took issue with Clarks view of the facts. That made Clarks drafting of the letter a crime, according to the Fulton County indictment that charged him with criminal attempt to commit false statements and writings for drafting that letter, presenting it in an email to Rosen and Donoghue, and later meeting with the two on January 2, 2021, to seek authorization to send the draft letter.

But if it were a crimesomething Clark strenuously challenges, stressing he was merely presenting his legal analysis of the issuethen Willis is seeking to prosecute him for or relating to conduct he undertook under color of his federal office. Thus, according to Clark, he has the right to remove the criminal case to federal court.

Last Monday, Judge Jones held an evidentiary issue on the issue. Initially, attorneys for Willis argued Clark was not acting under color of his federal office, by positing that the assistant attorney general for the civil division had no role in investigating or pursuing election cases on behalf of the federal government.

To support that argument, Willis pointed to previous statements by Rosen and Donoghue, both of whom disagreed with Clarks position and maintained it was not for Clark or the Department of Justice to involve itself in Georgia election issues. Willis also presented testimony from Joseph Jody Hunt. Hunt, who served as assistant attorney general of the civil division from August 2018 until July 2020, testified on Monday that Clark, in effect, was out of his civil division lane in drafting the letter.

But, as Clarks attorney stressed during the hearing, as an assistant attorney general Clark held authority to advise the president on all relevant issues, not just those within the province of the civil division. And, as Clarks lawyer stressed, President Trump wanted to hear Clarks legal opinion. The then-president met on January 3, 2021, with Rosen, Donahue, and Clark in the Oval Office, along with six other senior administration lawyers from DOJ and the White House. There the group discussed Clarks draft letter for three-and-a-half hours.

While in the end Trump opted against sending the letter to Georgia, that the president huddled with the lawyersincluding Clarkto discuss the issue confirms Clark was acting within the color of his office as a former assistant attorney general.

Judge Jones, however, seemed to see the issue differently, as demonstrated by his query of whether former President Trump had solicited Clarks opinion or whether Clark, in violation of Department of Justice protocols, had reached out to the president first. The mere posing of this question exposes how far afield this entire prosecution has become.

Donald Trump was the head of the executive branch of government. Whether Trump solicited Clarks opinion or Clark ignored Department of Justice protocol to present what Clark believed the best course of action to the president is not the courts concern. And it is definitely not the concern of a county prosecutor.

If Clark was out of line, if Clark acted outside the color of his office, that was for the president of the United States to decide. By obtaining Clarks advice and weighing it against the advice of others in the Department of Justice, the president confirmed Clark was acting under the color of his office as assistant attorney general of the civil division at the time.

In short, that Clark violated department protocols, or even assumed functions beyond his normal authority, matters not because the president is the executive and the president holds the authority over the Department of Justice.

Consider, for instance, another scenario: An assistant attorney general bypasses protocols to inform then-President Trump that then-FBI Director James Comey was running a covert investigation into Michael Flynn based on a Hillary Clinton-funded fake dossier. It would be ridiculous to say that such a hypothetical assistant attorney general was operating outside the color of his office by taking such concerns directly to the president.

The same is true here. Clark apparently believed the Department of Justice was not adequately investigating voting irregularities in the national election, and he attempted to argue that position to his superiors. While it is unclear whether Clark also went directly to Trump, even if he did, that does not mean Clark was acting outside the color of his position.

Judge Jones has yet to issue his decision on whether Clark properly removed the Fulton County criminal case to federal court, but if the federal judge rejects Clarks efforts to remove the case and finds Clark acted outside the color of his office, that would represent a dangerous precedent calling into question not just Clarks authority, but the authority of the president of the United States.

Margot Cleveland is an investigative journalist and legal analyst and serves as The Federalists senior legal correspondent. Margots work has been published at The Wall Street Journal, The American Spectator, the New Criterion (forthcoming), National Review Online, Townhall.com, the Daily Signal, USA Today, and the Detroit Free Press. She is also a regular guest on nationally syndicated radio programs and on Fox News, Fox Business, and Newsmax. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Privethe 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. Cleveland is also of counsel for the New Civil Liberties Alliance. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland where you can read more about her greatest accomplishmentsher dear husband and dear son. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.

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Fulton County Judge Reveals How Dangerous This Prosecution Is - The Federalist

Mark Campbell is a registered sex offender convicted of first-degree sexual assault for raping his 10-year-old daughter, but thanks to the state of Wisconsin, he is now housed in a womens prison in Fond du Lac.

Despite his biology and the heightened threat he poses to women based on the nature of his crime, the Wisconsin Department of Corrections allowed him to be categorized as FEMALE, and subsequently to be incarcerated with female inmates at Taycheedah Correctional Institution since August of 2022.

Campbell began serving his 34-year sentence in 2007, and has since been receiving wrong-sex hormones and claiming to be a woman named Nicole. In 2013, he requested a surgical operation to mutilate his male sexual organs to appear more female, and was initially declined for not meeting prerequisites.

In 2016, Campbell sued the Department of Corrections for not allowing him to undergo the procedure, claiming it was an Eighth Amendment violation. In 2019, the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that clearly established law did not require Wisconsin prison officials to provide Campbell with gender-dysphoria treatment beyond hormone therapy.

But as of December 2020, a federal judge ruled that Wisconsin must offer Campbell taxpayer-funded transition surgery and move him to a womens prison while awaiting that surgery, according to reporting from The Daily Signal.

In his ruling, U.S. District Judge James Peterson referred to Campbell by inaccurate female pronouns and argued the disfiguring genital surgery was necessary because Campbell was still in anguish thanks to his gender dysphoria, even after receiving experimental female hormones on Wisconsin taxpayers dime. While he awaits the procedure, the convicted rapist continues to be housed with female inmates.

Campbells status as a sex offender isnt unusual for male inmates with whom female prisoners are forced to live. According to The Daily Signals reporting on Wisconsin data, 81 of the 161 male inmates who claim to be transgender have been convicted of sexual assault or sexual abuse.

Nor is the trend of leftist localities housing dangerous men with female inmates to appease the pro-transgender agenda of the Democrat Party limited to Wisconsin. A California law passed in 2019 requires men who say they are women to be housed in womens prisons. In both the 116th and 117th Congress, House Democrats overwhelmingly voted for H.R. 5, which sought to bar so-called discrimination based on gender identity in federal institutions effectively demanding that men like Campbell be treated as women under the guise of equality.

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WI Forces Female Inmates To Live With Man Who Raped Daughter - The Federalist

A clip of comedian Louis C.K. on the Joe Rogan show has been circulating on X (formerly Twitter) this week in which he goes on and on about how opening up the southern border would be a good thing because Americans shouldnt have such a high standard of living compared to the rest of the world, how poor people in other countries just want what Americans have, and how its not fair that we have so much. It shouldnt be so great here, he says. So open the border and let them pour in.

Its possible hes joking, that its just a comedy bit hes practicing. Thats what my friend Inez Stepmanthinks. Get liberals to nod along in agreement and then expose the consequences of such an insane idea. You can judge for yourself:

I dont think it comes off as a joke but as an almost perfect distillation of globalist liberalism. Louis C.K. cannot fathom why Americans should have a say about who comes into their country and who does not. He clearly has no real allegiance to his country or countrymen, and is actually embarrassed by their prosperity and presumably his own as well.

There is nothing special about America, according to this view, and no reason the rest of the world should not enjoy her ill-gotten riches. Opening the border is the least we could do for the cause of justice.

Whether its a joke or not, the substance of what Louis C.K. articulates is the logical endpoint of leftist ideology. Its what the mainstream left actually believes and the Biden administration has been actively working to accomplish at the southern border.

This week, the border began collapsing completely in south Texas. Over five days,about 45,000 people illegally crossed the Rio Grandenear the small town of Eagle Pass, Texas, population 28,000. In one especially active 24-hour period, nearly 10,000 people forded the river.

Customs and Border Protection shut down two international bridges to deal with the crisis. The mayor of Eagle Pass, Rolando Salinas,declared an emergency on Wednesday, it seems with good reason. He told The New York Post that the surge of illegal immigrants, most of them single adult men from Venezuela, has swamped the citys only migrant shelter. Many of them, says Salinas, dont want to listen to instructions. He added, Not all of them come in peace.

Bill Melugin of Fox News has been in Eagle Pass this week posting jaw-dropping videos and images of the influx, which sure enough consists of mostly single adult men. The lines stretch over the river and along both banks as far as the eye can see. Whatever you think of the border and U.S. immigration policy, this is shocking.

All of it recalls the mass encampment of some 15,000 Haitians under a bridge in Del Rio, Texas, two years ago. At the time, images of what looked like a refugee camp you might see in a war-torn country dominated several news cycles, goading the Biden administration to disband the encampment and deport a small number of Haitians as a warning to others. Most of them fled back across the Rio Grande rather than face being deported to Haiti, a country they had left years ago for better jobs in South America (which countries they in turn left for better jobs in the United States).

But notice how the illegal immigrants in Melugins footage are walking calmly, not running, not trying to evade Border Patrol. They show every indication they believe they will not be detained long.

And of course theyre right. Its impossible for federal authorities to detain this many people arriving within such a short timeframe. There is simply nowhere to put them.

A soft-sided facility erected by Customs and Border Protection that could house about 2,000 quickly reached capacity early in the week, leaving federal officials little choice but to parole mass numbers of illegal immigrants and release them from custody on their own recognizance. They are now making their way to points all across the United States. The vast majority of them will stay for good.

This is not a mistake or a mishap, the unintended result of an ill-considered policy. This is intentional. Flooding the border with illegal immigrants is the actual policy.

When White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre repeats the talking point that President Biden has done more than anyone else to secure the border and deal with illegal immigration, asshe did again last week, what she really means is that under Biden and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, uncontrolled illegal immigration is not something federal officials are trying to stop, its something theyre trying to facilitate and manage.

The numbers tell the tale. Nearly six million people have been arrested crossing into the United States illegally since Biden took office. Millions more have gotten in without being caught. About 200,000 are arrested every month. They are coming in such great numbers because they know that if they can get across the river theyll be allowed to stay. Under Biden, there is almost no chance of being deported. Its not more complicated than that.

That brings us back to Louis C.K.s comments and the ideology from which they spring. Deterring illegal immigration is a policy you pursue only if you believe foreign nationals do not automatically have a right to enter the United States simply because they want a better life. Borders are something you enforce only if you believe you have a duty to your fellow citizens and the nation at large to protect the country and safeguard its way of life.

Biden and Mayorkas and the ruling elite in this country do not believe these things. They believe a borderless world is better, that the United States does not belong to the American people, to whom they feel no particular allegiance.

To quote Louis C.K., they believe it shouldnt be so great here. And theyre determined to make it so.

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It's No Accident The Southern Border Is Collapsing, It's Intentional - The Federalist

Special Counsel Jack Smith filed a motion on Friday that, if granted, would effectively bar President Donald Trump from criticizing him, President Joe Biden, and other deep state bureaucrats for their hyperpartisan prosecution of his First Amendment right to claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.

Through his statements, the defendant threatens to undermine the integrity of these proceedings and prejudice the jury pool, in contravention of the undeviating rule that in our justice system a jurys verdict is to be induced only by evidence and argument in open court, and not by any outside influence, Smith wrote in the motion to D.C. District Judge Tanya Chutkan.

Under Smiths proposal, chatter about the high-profile case would be legal for everyone, including President Joe Biden, but not Trump himself. The jury pool, judges, and others involved would hear campaign commentary from corporate media and Biden about the case. They would not, however, be privy to any takes from Trump, whose primary campaign strategy thus far is to repeatedly call attention to the weaponization of the federal government.

Smith paints his radical demands for Trumps muzzling as modest, permissible restrictions that might be applied in any routine federal criminal case. This, however, is no routine case. Its a partisan indictment led by bureaucrats handpicked by Trumps Democrat replacement and 2024 rival that has quickly become one of the most egregious examples of sweeping state abuse this nation has ever seen.

Even corporate media like the Washington Post acknowledge Smiths latest attempt to criminalize political speech and make criticism into defamation amounts to election interference in an already legally flawed and unwise indictment.

If Chutkan grants Smiths request for a sweeping gag order, she will be endorsing the silencing of not just the former leader of the free world but also the Biden administrations top political rival a current presidential candidate.

Chutkan has yet to rule on Smiths motion but her previous pronouncement regarding Trumps case inspires no confidence that the Republicans First Amendment rights will be considered or protected.

Mr. Trump, like every American, has a First Amendment right to free speech. But that right is not absolute, Chutkan said during proceedings in August. In a criminal case such as this one, the defendants free speech is subject to the rules.

Chutkans declaration that I cannot and I will not factor into my decisions how it will factor into a political campaign also seems to suggest means she doesnt care about the political implications of handicapping the speech of a man who is in the middle of an election cycle.

What the defendant is currently doing the fact that hes running a political campaign has to yield to the orderly administration of justice. If that means he cant say exactly what he wants to say about witnesses in this case, thats how it has to be, the Obama appointeeconcluded.

Smiths motion and Chutkans comments only confirm Americans fears that the Department of Justice is corrupt, weaponizes itself against its citizens for political purposes, and wants to capitalize on the lefts 2020 censorship campaign.

A large majority of Americans believe the U.S. has a two-tiered system of justice. Another56 percentrecognize the Trump indictments as interference by the Department of Justice in the 2024 election instead of a fair application of the law.

The incumbent administration grasping at the First Amendment rights of the leading presidential candidate to shut him up is a perfect example of the abuse of power and political hit jobs Americans worry about.

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, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.

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Smith's Gag Order Designed To Destroy Trump's Rights - The Federalist

Twenty-eight Republicans publicly vowed on Thursday to oppose the use of billions of American tax dollars to fund a proxy war in Ukraine.

The rejection, sent in a letter to Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young, is a direct response to the Biden administrations recent demand that Congress send $24 billion more in American taxpayer-funded resources to Volodymyr Zelensky in an attempt to curb Vladimir Putin and his regime.

Sen. J.D. Vance, who spearheaded the letter, said Congress should not keep funding an indefinite conflict without more fact-based information about the war.

Yesterday at a classified briefing over Ukraine, it became clear that America is being asked to fund an indefinite conflict with unlimited resources, Vance wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. Enough is enough. To these and future requests, my colleagues and I say: NO.

More than half of the nation says Congress should stop financing Ukraine, a country plagued by corruption. Yet, President Joe Biden, his cabinet members, and even establishment Republicans like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell have repeatedly pledged to support the war for as long as it takes.

Retiring Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley reportedly received a standing ovation on Wednesday after he also swore that the United States will continue to provide support to Ukraine for as long as it takes.

My tenure may be ending but the mission for this group continues until the end state of a free and sovereign Ukraine is attained, Milley said.

These statements imply an open-ended commitment to supporting the war in Ukraine of an indeterminate nature, based on a strategy that is unclear, to achieve a goal yet to be articulated to the public or the Congress, the signees wrote.

The statements also lack any transparency about how the nations previous aid was used.

In their letter, the Republicans note the whopping $114 billion total often used to measure U.S. funding for Ukraine does not reflect the full picture, which includes transferred and reprogrammed funds. They add that in all five of its supplemental requests for Ukraine funding to Congress, the Biden administration requested additional authority to transfer and reprogram funds.

The vast majority of Congress remains unaware of how much the United States has spent to date in total on this conflict, information which is necessary for Congress to prudently exercise its appropriations power, the Republicans warn.

The ignorance is not due to a lack of curiosity from the Republicans behind the letter, who have made multiple inquiries over the last two years demanding more information. In January, Vance and three dozen other Republicans in Congress signed a letter to Young demanding a full accounting of U.S. aid to Ukraine. Their requests went largely unaddressed.

It is difficult to envision a benign explanation for this lack of clarity, the Republicans state.

As prime examples of the executive branchs reckless Ukraine spending spree, the GOPers highlighted the Department of Defenses recent $6.2 billion Ukraine aid accounting error and the Biden administrations $5 billion request for the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, a number which exceeded 15 times what Congress allotted in the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act.

The American people deserve to know what their money has gone to. How is the counteroffensive going? Are the Ukrainians any closer to victory than they were 6 months ago? What is our strategy, and what is the presidents exit plan? What does the administration define as victory in Ukraine? the GOPers ask.

To grant another round of Ukraine funding requests by the Biden administration without answers to these questions, the GOP members declared, would be an absurd abdication of congressional responsibility.

The 28 Republicans pledge to keep their purse strings closed until the Biden administration explains its funding frenzy to Congress and taxpayers.

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, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.

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28 Republicans Say 'No' To Funding Indefinite War In Ukraine - The Federalist

Its the season for respiratory viruses. Chances are, you and your loved ones might catch one, but just say no, at least to the nasal swab. Encourage your family and friends to do the same. The Covid-19 test wont change anything, but positive tests will fuel the media and health bureaucracys hysterical efforts to impose medical martial law.

Im not just pontificating here. Recently, I felt myself going downhill. Thinking it was strep throat, which seemed to be going around the kids school, where Id spent a number of hours watching my oldest play volleyball, I booked an appointment at my doctors office. The test for strep came back negative, though, and thats when the nurse practitioner said something that surprised me.

It may be the early stages of the flu, she said. It could be Covid. Its going around. But the tests are so inaccurate, I dont recommend getting one.

So I skipped the test. She prescribed steroids and a Z-Pak and sent me on my way, which is what she would have done if I had tested and it had come back positive. Given the brain fog I suffered and that the kids at the school tested positive for Covid and negative for strep, I likely had the best-engineered virus U.S. taxpayers could buy.

In other words, I had an unpleasant cold for about a week. No one around me got sick, I healed, and life moved on.

With the fall virus season in full swing, theres a chance youre going to get it. Theres a chance your kid is going to get it. Theres a chance a loved one is going to catch it.

Dont play the game. Dont get tested, dont self-report, and dont be a statistic for the neurotic control freaks stoked by corporate media in the past few years. Be the anti-Nike: just dont do it. Stay away from people, eat some chicken noodle soup, maybe get some steroids and a Z-Pak from your doctor, but dont give the Branch Covidians the numbers they want to see.

The neurotics are anxious for Covid panic to come back. Theyre looking for excuses to reassert control. An elementary school in Maryland has already brought back mask mandates. So, too, have Rutgers University, Morris Brown College, hospitals in California and New York, and Lionsgate Studios.Joe Bidens staff announced hes wearing masks again.

If you think Im being paranoid, then look to the Associated Press, which tells us not to worry because theres no sign that anyone in federal or state leadership is considering widespread COVID-19 restrictions, requirements or mask mandates. Someone should ask a gas stove for its opinion on the media assuring us that people have nothing to fear.

For starters, masks dont work. They are the tiger thwarting rocks of respiratory virus interventions. More important, though, the latest variant, whatever its called, is continuing Covids evolutionary journey toward becoming a fairly mild and constantly circulating cold.

Dr. Jill Biden, despite being a doctor, caught it and quickly recovered without incident, and shes 72. Her husband, President Joe Biden, did allow himself to be tested, but in a rare moment of clarity he refused to wear the mask his handlers tried to put on him. Instead, he told a group of reporters, Dont tell them I didnt have it on, when he was caught on camera without it.

For once, Biden made the right call. In this narrow instance, its even okay to emulate him, though you might also want to bite his style if youre trying to win a dog in a truth-telling contest at a church carnival. Do not emulate him when it comes to getting tested constantly, though.

Look, I get it. Spring of 2020 was a mildly terrifying time the media helped ensure that it was but its time to let it go. The Wu Flu is here to stay, regardless of any of the measures that have completely failed to stop it ever since it escaped the lab via a plucky pangolin. Dont test. Dont report. Dont worry about it.

Youre not dying. You just cant think of anything good to do, and besides, in 2023, its just Covid.

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You Just Have A Cold. Don't Give Covidians Numbers By Testing - The Federalist

Yesterday, Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy gave a masterclass on how to handle the corrupt corporate media by going on the offense and thwarting a Washington Post hit job. After learning about the looming negative Post article by reporter Emily Heil on his Brooklyn, New York One Bite Pizza Festival scheduled for this Saturday, Portnoy cold-called Heil and confronted her for using dishonest media tactics.

Portnoy posted his phone call exchange with Heil on X (formally known as Twitter), and the video has since garnered nearly 30 million views. Since then, Heil and her co-writer Tim Carman have cowered away, protecting their tweets and canceling their interview scheduled for this morning with Portnoy.

Portnoy knew Heil had been contacting advertisers of his pizza Festival, and he asked Heil on the call why she was asking his sponsors how they could support a misogynistic racist. Heil immediately denied doing so.

Portnoy didnt let Heil get away with lying, reading to her out loud an email she sent to one of his advertisers, in which Heil stated that Portnoy has a history of misogynistic comments and other problematic behavior. Caught in a lie, Heil was left stuttering and later claimed that this was just one of her standard media tactics.

This is kind of standard journalistic stuff, said Heil, explaining that she was hoping for a dialogue with [the advertisers] and that indicat[ing] that there might be something negative in her report on the event was a reporting tactic used to get [the advertisers] to engage.

That is a sad state of journalism, Portnoy responded, pointing out her tactic is to lie, and her motive is to destroy his festival because she created a false characterization of him in order to scare off his sponsors.It seemed like you were going to try to shame sponsors for being associated with me and put them in a box, said Portnoy.

In a statement published after the phone call, Portnoy explained that what hes learned over the years with these types of hit pieces is that [you] cant give an inch. So rather than just sit[ting] back and let[ing] them dictate the pace of the game I decided Id speed them up and make them play by my rules.

Portnoy is exactly right. In going on the offensive, he shamed and publicly humiliated Heil for her bad-faith journalism. Before Heil and Carmans article even comes out, the public now knows exactly what to expect because Portnoy spectacularly discredited their journalistic integrity.

Anybody whos listened to this [and] think[s] you are going to give me a fair chance is crazy, Portnoy told Heil.

Amazingly, after Portnoy read Heils damning email, she still tried to claim that she was engaging in honest reporting. Im just asking people about, you know, how they came to participate and how they view it, Heil said.

No, but you could have just as easily said, Whats your involvement? Are you proud to be involved with somebody who has done so much for the pizza and service industry? Right? Portnoy asked, in reference to the millions of dollars he raised for small businesses during Covid.

Without answering his question, Heil attempted to end the conversation by inviting Portnoy to interview for the article the next day. Portnoy pointed out that if Heil really wanted to get my perspective, it wouldnt be me calling you. You would have already reached out to me in a fair manner.Portnoy also said that all interviewing would do is validate all the stuff youre about to make up against me, adding, I wasnt born yesterday.

Eventually, however, Portnoy agreed to the interview, but after his video received millions of views and the public presumably began criticizing Heil and Carman, the pair canceled on Portnoy. The @washingtonpost just [canceled] the 10am call, Portnoy wrote on Twitter. Shocker.

The Washington Post, which claims to be a non-partisan publication, has a history of deceptive and slanted journalism. The Post attacks Christians and homeschoolers while weaponizing its stupidity to defend the Biden Administration at all costs. For example, without evidence, the publication worked to discredit the Hunter Biden laptop story ahead of the 2020 election, and even though its authenticity is indisputable today, the publication has doubled down on its false reporting. It also buried sexual assault allegations against President Joe Biden while incessantly pushing the unsubstantiated allegations against then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

Portnoys cold call to Heil was a humbling moment for her. Rarely are members of the corporate media confronted for their journalistic malpractice. They are used to spinning narratives and telling lies that hurt people without facing any consequences.

Not this time. Portnoy beat Heil to the punch and, in doing so, took away her power and credibility.

Evita Duffy-Alfonso is a staff writer to The Federalist and the co-founder of the Chicago Thinker. She loves the Midwest, lumberjack sports, writing, and her family. Follow her on Twitter at @evitaduffy_1 or contact her at evita@thefederalist.com.

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WaPo Reporters Cower Away From Interviewing Dave Portnoy - The Federalist

The United Kingdoms parliament has been shaken byallegations that two of its staff were Chinese spies. The scandal illustrates that Western democracies are ill-prepared for Communist Chinas intelligence gathering and political interference operations.

TheTimes, which first broke the story last week,identified one of the alleged Chinese spies as Chris Cash, a 28-year-old British citizen. According to TheTimes, Cash was a history major who had studied and worked in China. Cash was recruited as a sleeper agent during his stay in China, tasked with infiltrating the U.K.s political networks critical of the Beijing regime.

Cash seemed to have succeeded in his mission.Alicia Kearns,chairwoman of parliaments Foreign Affairs Committee, hired Cash as a researcher. Although he had no security clearance, Cash accessed almost everywhere in Westminster as an employee. He worked for the China Research Group, an internal think tank co-founded by conservative members of parliament (MP) Tom Tugendhat and Neil OBrien in 2020. Members of the think tank are mostly conservative MPs with hawkish views on China and its ruling Communist Party (CCP).

Cash wasreportedlyan outgoing individual and often a fixture at Westminsters social scenes, rubbing elbows with MPs, activists, Chinese dissidents, and journalists covering China. Cash also participated in China-related policy discussions. Early this year, Cashaccompanieda conservative MP to meet with Cabinet Office minister Alex Burghart to discuss proposed amendments to the Procurement Bill.

The bill was designed to strengthen U.K. policy toward China, including the ability to exclude companies posing national security risks from bidding on government contracts. It is unclear if Cash tried to water down the bill in any way. But it seems Cash might have caused harm in other ways.

An MP sanctioned by Beijing,Luke de Pulford, tweeted about Cashs duplicity: Worth noting: this is a man who consistently briefed against @ipacglobal and its members, and who I believe subverted free parliamentary debate by downplaying the behaviour of the CCP. He worked to divide the movement a typical CCP tactic and he had success.

In March, Cash and another staff member in his 30s were arrested under the Official Secrets Act and were released on bail until October. Only senior leaders of the parliament were aware of these arrests. Other MPs and the general public didnt find out until last week, when The Times reported it.

Cash maintains that he is completely innocent. People who came in touch with Cash in the past are upset and demanding to know why parliamentary leadership kept something so egregious to themselves.

China critics are anxious about how much of the information they shared with Cash was reported back to Beijing and if their safety is now compromised. Some Hong Kong dissidents are concerned whether Cash shared their whereabouts with Beijing. Even if the spy allegation is false, Beijing has succeeded in its mission to sow distrust and division within the U.K. legislature.

The spy incident was exposed the same week British media revealed that the nations spy agency, MI5,warnedthe Conservative Party to keep two individuals off its candidate lists in 2021 and 2022 due to their alleged links to ChinasUnited Front Work Department, a CCP outfit responsible for spreading propaganda and conducting covert and overt interference operations overseas. In 2022, MI5 also issued a rare security alert against Christine Lee, a U.K. lawyer who was linked to the United Front and allegedly involved in political interference activities in Britain on behalf of China.

Despite its spy agencys warnings, the measures the U.K. government has taken to address the security threat posed by China are completely inadequate, according to a parliamentaryreport released in July. The report accused the CCP of using its size, ambition, and capability to successfully penetrate every sector of the U.K.s economy, and Chinese recruitment schemes have tried to headhunt British and allied nationals in key positions and with sensitive knowledge and experience.

U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunaksaid he was appalled by the espionage scandal. Yet he refuses to name China as a threat and has no plan to change his engagement with Beijing because he believes that confronting China too much will hurt his nations economy and discourage China from cooperating on tackling climate change.

The United Kingdom is far from the only democracy exposed to the CCPs subversion activities and interference operations. In Australia, an investigation uncovered a network of China-linked donors and companies that contributed more than $5.5 millionto Australian Liberal and Labor parties between 2013 and 2015, aiming to influence Australias foreign policy by favoring Beijings positions.

One of the nations promising politicians, Senator Sam Dastyari, resigned from parliament in 2017 after he wasreportedly under the political influence of a China-born businessman who is linked to the United Front. The Australian parliament passed an anti-foreign interference law in 2018 to address Chinas overseas political interference activities. But former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull complained the law wasnt rigorously enforced, even in 2023.

Last year, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS)warnedits government that Beijing is the foremost perpetrator of foreign interference in Canada. CCP operatives have employed incentives and punishment as part of their overseas operations, directly targeting Canadian legislators, business executives, and Chinese immigrants in the nation.

This spring, Canadaexpelleda Chinese diplomat, accusing him of seeking to intimidate an MP who is an outspoken critic of China by going after the MPs relatives in Hong Kong and mainland China. Under public pressure, Prime Minister Justin Trudeauorderedan independent investigation to help identify and combat foreign interference in Canadas elections and its democracy.

The United States has also encountered Chinese espionage and political interference. A suspected Chinese spy reportedlydeveloped extensive ties with local and national politicians in the United States, including Homeland Security Ranking Member Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., before she escaped to China. Early this year, aChinese spy balloonflew across the continental United States for weeks, passing sensitive military sites, before the U.S. military shot it down.

Last month, two U.S. Navy sailorswere arrestedfor passing intelligence to China. Of course, the ongoing investigation of Hunter Biden hasrevealed that Chinese businessmen sent him millions of dollars, seeking to buy influence over his father, President Joe Biden.

All these incidents reveal two disturbing trends. First, the CCP has stepped up its spying and political interference, and its goals have expanded from gathering intelligence and suppressing overseas dissent to directly meddling in democratic processes. The CCP wont be deterred by any arrest or publicity because it believes every revelation will spread distrust and confusion in a democratic society, to the partys advantage.

Second, Western democracies are ill-prepared for Chinas threat to their political systems, mainly because some leaders are concerned that hawkish policies would jeopardize their countries economic ties with China. Above all, they believe climate change is the biggest threat to humanity and desperately seek Chinas assistance to solve the climate crisis.

These leaders misplaced priorities, wrong-headed policies, and unwillingness to confront China have given the CCP ample opportunities to weaken the democratic systems of their countries. We can only hope voters will wake up to the CCPs threat and hold their leaders accountable.

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While Western Leaders Look Away, China's Spies Are Everywhere - The Federalist

Last week, a middle school teacher in Texas was fired for assigning the graphic adaptation of Anne Franks diary. Judging from most headlines, this seems to be an instance of intolerant and anti-intellectual parents targeting a teacher for trying to engage her class with a text that denounces hate.

Newsweeks title was typical, Anne Frank Book Gets Teacher Fired, placing the blame on the book rather than the teacher, and purposely de-contextualizing the issue so that its about the presence of this book, not what was done with it. Understandably, Randi Weingarten, the infamous president of the American Federation of Teachers union, tweeted to her 124,000 followers about the incident to complain about a wrongful termination but had all the details wrong.

All this is to say that theres more to this story that deserves further examination.

Ill admit, as an English teacher myself, I sympathized with this woman at first, thinking she mustve been caught in the crosshairs of some vindictive parents or administrators who disagreed with her politics or lifestyle. Ive witnessed this and can attest the attacks can be from both sides, and it gets ugly.

However, once I made it past the headline, it became apparent why this teacher was removed from the classroom. First, the book wasnt included in the classs approved curriculum. Second, the book included sexually explicit content that was wildly inappropriate for a middle school English class.

At best, the teacher was incompetent and thought using this book would help her struggling readers understand Anne Franks story, not thinking about the material in it. At worst, the teacher knew what was in the book, thought it would be good for her students, and wanted to rebel against prescribed standards by going off-script.

For most people, all this might be confusing. After all, how can Anne Franks diary be inappropriate when so many millions of students read the book and missed these salacious descriptions? This is because the original version published in 1947, which most people have read, doesnt include Franks descriptions of puberty, genitalia, and lesbian desires, which were in the original diary. For whatever reason, the graphic novel version published in 2017 includes these missing portions, as the Daily Mails writeup on this story shows.

That said, this doesnt make it a bad book. Puberty and sexual desires are normal aspects of young adulthood, and many adolescent readers may take solace in the fact that Frank felt the same things some of them do.

But this kind of content does make it a bad book for whole-class reading in a middle school English class. In this context, the teacher is effectively acting as an authority on sensitive topics, taking it upon herself to introduce, explain, and evaluate what Frank is talking about.

Instead of students encountering these subjects when theyre ready, they are forced to adopt and apply their teachers interpretation. Otherwise, they may be punished or suffer a bad grade.

Naturally, this makes for an extremely uncomfortable classroom environment. In addition to assigning the graphic novel to her classes, this teacher was making her students read these parts aloud, which is extremely questionable. Why would she ask 13-year-old boys and girls to read lines about how Frank feels about menstruating or how she wants to grope her friend? Either she gets a perverted thrill from this, or she wants to somehow de-stigmatize or normalize this subject matter for her young students two things most people would consider sexual grooming.

As a teacher, I also question the instructional merits of assigning a graphic novel as whole-class reading. Most middle schoolers desperately need to practice reading texts, building their vocabulary, logic, and imagination to better comprehend complex ideas in written form. And as much as I love graphic novels as a narrative art form Scott McClouds classic book, Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art, is still a favorite of mine their reliance on visual representation makes them unsuitable for teaching reading.

Seeing illustrations of Frank with accompanying word bubbles and narration is altogether different from reading her words and putting them together in ones mind. The content might be similar, but the skills involved are not, and this matters if students are going to be tested on those skills at the end of the year.

Overall, far from condemning the administrators and parents as bullies and book banners, we can say that they did the right thing in dismissing a teacher who crossed more than a few lines. Not only did she neglect to teach age-appropriate content to her classes, but she corrupted her students, doing untold damage to their mental and emotional health.

For the time being, a long-term sub has replaced her while the district looks for someone to fill the vacancy. Its unlikely the students will learn much in the meantime, but at least they wont be subjected to further harm.

Hopefully, educators can learn from this story and remember what they were hired to do. Our job is to teach kids knowledge and skills (i.e., how to think), not opinions and values (i.e., what to think), and certainly not how to become activists (i.e., not to think). This might mean reading the PG version of Frank and avoiding various hot topics that come up in class discussions. Thats fine.

The kids will grow into adults and think about these things when theyre ready. We just need to make sure they actually do grow into adults and learn how to think in the first place.

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Teacher Who Assigned An Anne Frank Book Deserved To Be Fired - The Federalist