Daily Archives: January 23, 2024

The nerve center of the federal governments censorship operations admitted ahead of the 2020 election that mass mail-in voting comes with risks but flagged online posts highlighting such insecurities to Big Tech companies for censorship anyway.

A series of internal documents obtained via open records request by America First Legal (AFL) show that the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), which falls under the Department of Homeland Security, was aware of the risks associated with unsupervised mail-in voting in the months leading up to the 2020 election. It was during this same time that the agency was classifying social media posts highlighting these risks as disinformation and flagging them for censorship.

The communications unearthed by AFL reveal that by September 2020, CISA officials knew there was no evidence to support the claim that in-person voting increase[d] the spread of COVID-19 and were aware that mass vote-by-mail schemes presented difficulties to election officials. Among the major challenges highlighted by the agency were the process of mailing and returning ballots, high numbers of improperly completed ballots, and the shortage of personnel to process ballots in a prompt manner.

By October 2020, CISA had crafted a six-point list titled, Mail-In Voting Risk: Infrastructure and Process, which detailed insecurities present in mass mail-in voting operations and offered compensating controls election officials could use to manage them.

One of these risks is that Inbound mail-in ballot processes and tabulation take longer than in-person processing, causing tabulation of results to occur more slowly and resulting in more ballots to tabulate following election night. Under the compensating controls section accompanying that specific issue, CISA noted that Election officials, media, candidates, and NGOs are educating voters and setting the expectation that it will take days, if not weeks, to determine the outcome of many races.

Recall that it took several days after the Nov. 3, 2020, contest before Joe Biden was declared the winner. This was in large part due to states such as Pennsylvania and Nevada still counting ballots days after Election Day.

But it wasnt just CISA officials who were informed of such risks. An Oct. 30, 2020, email indicates the agency shared the aforementioned concerns regarding mail-in voting with members of the corporate press during an unclassified media tour that same day.

Rather than report this information to the American public, self-professed news organizations such as The Washington Post which had staff attend the tour published articles in the days following the Oct. 30 briefing dismissing mail-in ballotings many liabilities and praising CISA for its independence from [President Donald] Trump.

Officials including Krebs have also scrupulously avoided criticizing or even explicitly correcting Trumps unfounded attacks on the elections legitimacy even as their own assessments oftendirectly contradicthis statements about the security of mail ballots and other topics, the Posts Joseph Marks wrote.

Despite its own admission that mail-in voting presented challenges and potential hazards to effective election administration, CISA worked extensively to compel Big Tech platforms to censor posts underscoring such points leading up to the 2020 election. According to AFL, the agency contracted consulting firm Deloitte to report on Daily Social Media Trends relating to the U.S. Election including narratives relating to Vote-By-Mail and to flag specific social media posts for CISAs awareness and attention.

Included in the posts Deloitte sent to CISA was an Oct. 30, 2020, tweet issued by Trump, in which the then-president claimed there were Big problems and discrepancies with Mail In Ballots all over the USA. Deloitte also flagged a post from an unnamed conservative pundit who, as the consulting firm described, accused Twitter of SUPPRESSING a story about the Democratic presidential nominees son to help the nominee win the election.

That post was in reference to Big Techs censorship of the New York Posts Hunter Biden laptop story. OnTwitter (now known as X), users were not permitted to share the story, even via direct message. The platform further removed links and issued alerts that it may be unsafe. Meanwhile, Facebookannouncedshortly after the story broke that it would be reducing [the storys] distribution pending verification by third-party fact-checkers.

Despite having authenticated the laptop in late 2019, the FBI was also heavily involved in these platforms suppression of the story.

CISAs use of Deloitte to flag so-called disinformation online further confirms the findings unearthed in aninterim reportreleased by House Republicans in November. According to that analysis, CISA along with the State DepartmentsGlobal Engagement Center (GEC) colluded with Stanford University to pressure Big Tech companies into censoring what they claimed was disinformation during the 2020 election. At the heart of this operation was theElection Integrity Partnership (EIP), a consortium of disinformation academics spearheaded by the Stanford Internet Observatory that coordinated with DHS and GEC to monitor and censor Americans online speech ahead of the 2020 contest.

[RELATED:State Of Texas Joins The Federalist, Daily Wire In Suing The Federal Censorship-Industrial Complex]

Created at the request of CISA, EIP allowed federal officials to launder [their] censorship activities in hopes of bypassing both the First Amendment and public scrutiny. As documented in the interim report, this operationaimedto censor true information, jokes and satire, and political opinions and submitted flagged posts from prominent conservative figures to Big Tech companies for censorship. Among those targeted were The Federalists Mollie Hemingway and Sean Davis.

Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood

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CISA Admitted 'Risks' Of Vote-By-Mail In Internal Docs From 2020 - The Federalist

Democrats who want to stifle oversight and regulation of Big Fertility introduced legislation this month to protect the multi-billion-dollar assisted reproductive technology (ART) industry and punish states and health institutions that try to limit third-party child manufacturing.

Democrats Sen. Tammy Duckworth, Sen. Patty Murray, and Rep. Susan Wild introduced the Access To Family Building Act (AFBA) under the guise of protecting in vitro fertilization (IVF) for hopeful parents. In reality, the legislation seeks to ensure the unlimited creation and destruction of healthy eggs, sperm, and most importantly embryos in all 50 states by punishing any entity that tries to unduly restrict access to a range of reproductive technologies.

Duckworths bill refuses to specifically define ART. Instead, it points to Section 8 of the 1992 Fertility Clinic Success Rate and Certification Act (FCSRCA). which lists all treatments or procedures that include eggs, sperm, and embryos; IVF; and surgical reproduction procedures like gamete and zygote intrafallopian transfer (GIFT and ZIFT) as eligible for protection under the Democrats latest legislation.

The FCSRCA also includes a provision empowering the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services to expand the definition of ART to such other specific technologies as long as he publicizes his intent in such manner as to facilitate comment from any person (including any Federal or other public agency).

The sweeping and subjective categorizations in the FCSRCA mean that while manufacturing lifelongmotherless and fatherless children, surrogacy, and experimental transhumanist technologieslike artificial wombs,gene editing, and sidelining women in reproduction are not explicitly mentioned in Duckworths bill, they could easily be construed to fit within the parameters of protection.

If passed, Duckworths bill would permit individuals and Big Fertility facilities to sue if any state moves to impose even globally accepted common sense limits on procedures like IVF, surrogacy, and oocyte sales. It would also give President Joe Bidens Department of Justice the justification to pursue action against any state, facility, or individual that tries to limit or regulate the use of past, present, and future babymaking tech.

IVF is responsible for the millions of embryos sitting in frozen storage across the United States and the millions more that, despite the possibility of yielding asuccessful pregnancy, are destroyed during and after the procedure. ART such as preimplantation genetic diagnosisoften yields incorrect resultsand leads topremature disposal of viable embryos. Similarly, embryo freezing reduces the chance of an embryo surviving.

Statistics and science say that fundamentally revamping what it means to be a family or even human harms both women and babies because it sidelines childrens natural right to their natural mother and father to accommodate the desires of adults. Yet its an ideal all ART procedures often promote or aid.

Further, business for the reproduction for all fertility industry is booming and winning over the hearts, minds, and pens of leftist legislators.

Duckworth and Co. tried and failed to get a unanimous consent vote on their Right to Build Families Act in 2022. They also threw their weight behind California Rep. Adam SchiffsEqual Access to Reproductive Care Actwith the hopes of subsidizing ART and commercial surrogacy through a tax break.

Now, more than one and a half years after the Supreme Courts Dobbs v. Jackson decision, Democrats are revivingarguments that states will crack down on Big Fertility in hopes of jamming their legislation through Congress before the 2024 election.

Laws designed to hold the baby manufacturing market accountable remain largely nonexistent, save a few states that ban commercial surrogacy. Yet Duckworth, who conceived a child at 49 years old via IVF, complains that Republicans strong pro-life showing in state legislatures will severely limit their residents right to access basic reproductive carebut also pushing proposals that would jeopardize access to IVF and other assisted reproductive technologies that millions of Americans need to start or grow their families.

She insists Access to IVF and other assisted reproductive technology is a right. Murray similarly quips that Its hard to comprehend GOP attacks on technologies like IVF that help women have MORE childrenuntil you remember: the bottom line for the anti-choice movement is & has always been about control.

Today, anything an adult really wants is conveniently framed as a right, Them Before Us founder Katy Faust told The Federalist. But there is no right to artificially and commercially manufacture children in a laboratory, nor a right to separate them from one or both biological parents, both of which this bill would facilitate.

Outsourcing reproduction is no more a legal or human right than killing unborn babies. Unsurprisingly, the same women touting the AFBA are staunch supporters of abortion who voted in favor of legislation that would have codified ending life in the womb through all nine months of pregnancy.

The baby-making and baby-taking industries that Democrats support are both driven by adults selfish desires, not a childs right to life.

No matter which way you slice it, Democrats latest ART legislation is not protecting womens rights. They are protecting a global business that routinely exploits and profits off of the misfortunes of others.

If you want to talk about legitimate rights, a childs natural right to life and right to be known and loved by the two people responsible for [his or her] existence tops the list, Faust continued. Both child rights would be threatened by this legislation. Neither you, nor I, nor the government should be financially complicit in sacrificing the fundamental rights of children on the altar of adult wants.

As interest in reproductive tech as a means to parenthood skyrockets, ART deserves oversight and regulation. That wont be possible if Duckworths bill passes.

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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Democrat Bill Aims To Stifle Regulation Of Big Fertility Market - The Federalist

On Wednesday, in an email sent to a network of election officials and nonprofit organizations, theCenter for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL) announced it would begin efforts to facilitate applications to a massive federal government grant program administered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). This program could potentially funnel more than $700 million to election offices during the 2024 election under the auspices of CTCL officials and their partners in the nonprofit world of left-wing election activism. CTCL is the organization that funneled hundreds of millions of Mark Zuckerbergs dollars into key election offices to increase Democrat turnout in the 2020 election.

CTCL announced in ELECTricity, its regular e-newsletter sent to thousands of election officials who are part of its network, that it will host a webinar on Jan. 25 to assist those officials in applying for FEMAs 2024 Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) grant program.

According to FEMA, BRIC is intended to support[s] states, local communities, tribes and territories as they undertake hazard mitigation projects, reducing the risks they face from disasters and natural hazards. FEMA states on its website that BRICs available funding is $1 billion (for this grant application cycle), and for Flood Mitigation Assistance, the available funding is $800 million. These funds are intended to help state, local, tribal, and territorial governments address future risks to natural disasters, foster greater community resilience, and reduce disaster suffering.

During the 2021 BRIC grant cycle (the last year for which figures are available), the programs two top project types by total project cost were flood control at $1.39 billion and utility/infrastructure protection at $1.26 billion.

The BRIC program, with total spending expected to amount to $1 billion in 2024, presents a unique funding opportunity for election offices, according to CTCL Communications Manager Andra Abbate in an email obtained by the Caesar Rodney Election Research Institute. All previous BRIC grants appear to have been for some form of natural disaster relief.

Nevertheless, CTCL asserts in its email invitation that it will assist election offices in applying for BRIC grants. According to its creative interpretation of the new Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, elections should be classified as a critical service deserving of competitive FEMA grant funding. According to the email, As a core element of government function, elections are a critical service and eligible for this government funding. The webinar plans to cover the application process, and will include sample content, as well as inspiration for what the grant funds can be used for.

CTCL burst into the public spotlight in 2020 with its highly controversial $332 million Covid-19 Response Grant Program (Zuckbucks), which was aimed at gaining control of election offices in areas that were of critical importance to Democrats in the 2020 election through large, strings attached grants to election offices.

CTCL money financed the takeover of election offices at the city and county level by partisan activists and made those offices a platform to implement preferred administrative practices, voting methods, ballot harvesting efforts, and data-sharing agreements that were favorable to Democrat candidates. Many CTCL-funded election offices then became launching pads for intensive multi-media outreach campaigns and precisely targeted, door-to-door voter turnout and mail-in ballot-chasing efforts in densely populated urban areas packed with potential Democrat voters.

CTCLs interference in the 2020 election gave rise to a host of laws passed by state legislatures to ban the private funding of election administration. As of Dec., 27 states have passed laws that prohibit, limit, or regulate the use of private or philanthropic funding to run elections.

Democrat election activists are nothing if not ingenious, however. By tapping into a huge reservoir of potential federal funding, CTCL and its partners could skirt the prohibitions against private funding of elections, while gaining de facto control over a much larger funding source than could be provided by individual billionaires such as Zuckerberg, all the while using it to mount the same sort of technical, data-driven, and activist-led manipulation of the election system in favor of Democrats that they mounted in 2020.

If election offices are claiming to need extra multimillion-dollar grants on top of their normal public funding sources to the tune of CTCLs $332 million injection of private funding in 2020 (or even more in 2024), it is because they are planning to expand their activities into areas where election offices do not belong. Likely a significant part of the additional funding they will seek will be devoted to the shadowy (and costly) world of high-end data aggregation, statistical analysis, and the implementation of behavioral science solutions to mobilizing potential Democrat voters.

Furthermore, very few if any voter turnout operations are nonpartisan in their effect. An election official who acts to increase voter turnout in a D +40 district will expect, on average, to increase the vote margin of the Democratic candidate by roughly 400 votes for every additional 1,000 votes he encourages, since his actions will yield an average of 700 additional votes for the Democrat candidate and 300 votes for the Republican. Thats not baseless speculation; thats basic statistics. It makes no difference if the content or intent of his actions are nonpartisan.

The purpose of election offices is to maintain the polls and accurately count votes, not to get out the vote in their jurisdictions through leveraging extremely valuable inside information and providing system access to data analysts and partisan election activists to aid in voter canvassing or targeted ballot harvesting.

Lawmakers should be aware that CTCL and its partners in the Democrats shadow partyappear to be up to mischief once again and should subject their relationship with the BRIC grant program, and public election offices in general, to closer scrutiny, with an eye toward eliminating election interference in 2024 by yet another well-funded cabal of election fortifiers.

William Doyle, Ph.D., is research director at The Caesar Rodney Election Research Institute in Irving, Texas. He specializes in economic history and the private funding of American elections. Previously, he was associate professor and chair in the department of economics at the University of Dallas. He can be contacted at doyle@rodneyinstitute.org.

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Group Behind 'Zuckbucks' Is Now Meddling In The 2024 Election - The Federalist

Californias Democrat legislators are trying to make discrimination legal again. A bill called ACA7 seeks to go around the states constitutional ban on affirmative action and legalize discrimination. The state Assembly has passed the bill, and it is under consideration in the state Senate.

Californias voters passed Proposition 209 in 1996 with an overwhelming majority. The proposition banned affirmative action in the states Constitution and mandated that California shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group based on race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting.

Democrats predicted that Prop 209 would have detrimental effects on the minorities in the state. They thought that without racial preference in college admissions, minority students enrollment at the University of California (UC) system would drop significantly.

The Democrats fearmongering didnt come true.Research by Charles L. Geshekter, an emeritus professor of history at California State University-Chico, shows that since Prop 209s passage, minority students enrollment in the UC system has increased, and their graduation rates have also improved. Geshekter credited the ban on racial preferences in college admissions with leading to a redistribution of minority students among UC campuses. More of them achieved better academic outcomes when they attended a college that offered an apparently better match for their academic backgrounds and preparation.

Even the Los Angeles Times had to admit that UCs student body ismore racially diverse today. For example, UCs 2020 freshman class was composed of 36 percent Hispanics, 35 percent Asians, 5 percent blacks, and 21 percent whites.Additionally, about 44% of admitted students were low-income, while 45% were the first in their families to attend a four-year university.

Californias Democrats and their allies, however, never let inconvenient truths stand in the way. They insisted (without proof) that Prop 209 was a barrier to remedying the states systemic racism and tried to overturn Prop 209 through Prop 16 in 2020.

The Yes on 16 campaign had the support of Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom,tech billionaires in Silicon Valley, corporate media, and leftist organizations in the state. They demonized the No on Prop 16 campaign as awhite supremacist effort, though racially diverse groups, including Asians and African Americans, supported the No campaign. The Yes campaign also outspent the No campaign 14 to 1. Still, California votersrejected Prop 16 decisively.

Prop 16s defeat was not an outlier. In 2019, voters in Washington, another blue state,defeatedtheir Democrat-controlled legislatures attempt to repeal the states decade-long ban on affirmative action. Additionally,Pew Researchfinds that 74 percent [of Americans] think race and ethnicity should not be considered in admissions decisions. For gender, 82 percent think it shouldnt be considered. The results extend to every racial group and to Democrats as well as Republicans.

Californias Democrat legislators should have accepted defeat graciously, respected voters wishes, and shifted their energy and resources to other pressing issues. Instead, they couldnt take no for an answer. They chose to try to repeal Prop 209 again.

Last February, Assemblyman Corey A. Jackson, D-Perris, introduced Assembly Constitution Amendment 7, or ACA7. The bill would amend Prop 209 by authorizing the governor of California to issue waivers to public entities that wish to use state funds for evidence-based or research-informed and culturally specific programs to increase life expectancy, improve educational outcomes, and lift specific ethnic groups and marginalized genders out of poverty.

Clearly, ACA7 is a sly attempt to gut Prop 209 and make discrimination legal again in California. No wonder supporters referred to ACA7 as a skinnier affirmative-action measure.

Fellow Assemblyman Bill Essayli, R-Corona, voiced his objection to ACA7. He stated, We need to be treating each other equally, with dignity and respect, and stop the division. In response, Jackson referred to Essayli, the first Muslim member of the California Assembly, as a white supremacist.

Earlier this year, the California Reparations Task Force, a committee created by legislation and backed by Newsom, gave ACA7 a boost. The committee included the repeal of Prop 209 as one of its recommendations to the California Legislature in May 2023.

But a month later, the U.S. Supreme Courtruled that Harvard University and the University of North Carolinas race-based college admissions were unconstitutional, violating the 14th Amendments equal protection clause. The ruling effectively bans affirmative action.

Justice Clarence Thomas wrote, The color of a persons skin is irrelevant to that individuals equal status as a citizen of this nation. To treat him differently on the basis of such a legally irrelevant trait is, therefore, a deviation from the equality principle and a constitutional injury. All racial stereotypes harm and demean individuals.

A Gallup pollfound that 68 percent of U.S. adults, including 63 percent of Asians, 68 percent of Hispanics, and 52 percent of black respondents, support the Supreme Courts decision.

Since the courts ruling, many state legislatures have considered bills restricting so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs at public colleges and universities. Five states Florida, North Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Texas passed legislation to ban some DEI programs, such as affirmative action in hiring and admissions, from their higher education institutions. Some American corporations have also begun to reevaluate their DEI initiatives. They have learned that these initiatives have reinforced stereotypes, worsened the division of the workforce, and failed to create an inclusive workplace. Tech giants such as Google and Meta havemade cuts to their DEI initiatives and laid off DEI-focused employees.

Jackson and his Democrat colleagues in the California Legislature should have dropped ACA7 into a recycle bin and focused on other issues voters prioritize, such as drug overdose deaths, rampant crime, a growing homeless population, unaffordable energy and housing, and the rising cost of doing business in the state. Instead, Democrats doubled down and passed the bill in the California Assembly last September. ACA7 has now advanced to the Senate. If the Senate approves it by June 2024, ACA7 will appear on the state ballot in November this year, and Californians must vote again on the same issue they rejected merely four years ago.

Gail Heriot, a commissioner on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and a law professor at the University of San Diego, is a proponent of Prop 209. She believes that Proposition 209 says something fundamental that our laws should not discriminate on the basis of race, ethnicity, or sex. Its not a matter of which groups get the benefit and which bear the burden. Its a matter of principle.

Heriot has launched aNo on ACA7 petition at Change.org. Anyone, including non-California residents, can sign it. Heriot hopes to collect at least 26,000 signatures by next month and send a powerful message to the Senate: ACA7 is a bad idea, and senators should respect voters wishes by not moving the bill forward. In a state as diverse as California, it is all the more important that the government be prohibited from engaging in preferential treatment, Heriot said.

Since bad ideas that originate in California tend to spread to the rest of the country, any American who believes that all men are created equal ought to sign the No on ACA7 petition. Let California legislators know that racial discrimination in any shape or form is wrong and nothing can justify it.

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California Democrats Work To Make Discrimination Legal (Again) - The Federalist

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley thinks shes running in a two-way race. Shell have to win far more than just New Hampshire to turn that fantasy into a reality.

As the final votes were tallied in the first caucuses of the 2024 campaign, Haley declared that the primary contest had been narrowed down to between her and former President Donald Trump. Trump carried every county in the Hawkeye State except one, where the Republican frontrunner tied with his U.N. ambassador.

I can safely say tonight Iowa made this Republican primary a two-person race, Haley said.

The former two-term governor of South Carolina claimed to be triumphant despite a third-place finish with less than 20 percent of the vote. Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis was the runner-up with 21 percent, and Trump carried the contest in first with 51 percent.

[RELATED: Actual Republicans Want Nothing To Do With Nikki Haley]

On Tuesday, Haley defended her third-place finish as some sort of vindication that she was running against Trump, and no one else, in the Republican primary.

We came out with a strong showing. Thats what we wanted in Iowa, she said.

Haley dropped out of the ABC News debate in New Hampshire, refusing to stand on stage with anyone other than the former president.

Weve had five great debates in this campaign, Haley wrote on platform X. Unfortunately, Donald Trump has ducked all of them. He has nowhere left to hide. The next debate I do will either be with Donald Trump or with Joe Biden.

Haleys campaign now hinges on New Hampshire, where an electorate contaminated by Democrat and independent voters registered as undeclared may vote in what is allegedly a Republican primary. The states semi-open primary, however, is no small part of Haleys plan to pick up the advantage. Haley has openly professed to courting Democrats and independents to carry her over the finish line in New England.

If we get independents, if we get conservative Democrats, thats what the Republican Party should pursue, Haley told reporters last month. Our goal is to get as many people in the tent as we can.

Its a fine message for the general election in November, but its not the one to run on in a Republican contest when campaigning for the trust of conservative voters. Haleys cross-party appeal threatens to dilute any victory in New Hampshire. Her courting of Democrat support in the primary provides evidence that she is more of a lefty politician running in the shadow of ex-Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney than someone who carries the blessing of the GOPs base. Her third-place finish in Iowa was already buffered by Democrats who still plan to vote Democrat this fall. Haleys home state of South Carolina will vote just one month later, and polling shows Trump commands a consistent 30-point lead.

Of course, polls dont vote. People do. But a Haley win among Democrats in New Hampshire is unlikely to offer the former South Carolina governor the momentum she needs to convince home-state voters of conservative credentials that could out-Trump Trump. Voters are likely already suspicious of Haleys aggressive platform on foreign affairs as the establishments neocon favorite in the primary. While Haley routinely bangs the war drums over China and Ukraine, most Republican voters say the U.S. has already spent enough on Kyiv.

Haleys White House effort being bankrolled by Democrat megadonors, on the other hand, does little to shake off her brand as another Cheney in 3-inch heels. In December, LinkedIn Co-Founder Reid Hoffman gave $250,000 to Haleys super PAC. Who was another neocon Republican reliant on left-wing money to court Democrat voters in a GOP primary? Liz Cheney.

Victory in New Hampshire is far more validation that Haley is an imitation of the ousted Wyoming lawmaker than she is the incoming Republican standard-bearer.

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A Haley Win In New Hampshire Will Not Be The Victory She Thinks - The Federalist

After Arizona officials signed a consent decree agreeing to let voters who failed to provide proof of U.S. citizenship on their state voter application forms vote in federal elections anyway, Arizona saw an explosion of voters casting federal-only ballots. The soaring numbers coincide with millions of illegal immigrants flooding into the United States.

Twenty years ago, Arizona voters approved Proposition 200, also known as the Arizona Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act. At its core, the election integrity initiative required proof of U.S. citizenship to vote and photo identification at polling places. Prop 200 has come under constant assault from leftists fighting against the Arizona Constitutions key qualification to vote in elections: U.S. citizenship.

The challenge went all the way to U.S. Supreme Court, where in 2013 the justices ruled 7-2 that states could not add documentary proof of citizenship requirements to federal election registration forms. States must accept and use the standardized federal voter registration form for national elections under the 1993 National Voter Registration Act (NVRA). The NVRA form, developed by the federal Election Assistance Commission, does not require proof of citizenship. It only asks that an applicant aver, under penalty of perjury, that he is a citizen.

[READ NEXT: Elon Musk Rightly Says Arizona Doesnt Verify Federal Voter Citizenship But The Feds Dont Let Them]

But the opinion, authored by the late Justice Antonin Scalia, opened the door for states to vet voters. Scalia wrote that states retain the flexibility to design and use their own registration forms.

In response, Arizona accepted federal voter registration applications without citizenship documentation, but continued to require proof of citizenship on state forms. Federal registrants were designated as Federal Only Voters, eligible to vote for president and congressional contestants but not for state and local candidates.

But in 2018, in an affront to the will of the 56 percent of Arizona voters who supported Prop 200, the Grand Canyon State was forced to not only accept federal-only applications lacking proof of citizenship but also grant a federal-only registration to applicants who used a state form but couldnt provide proof of citizenship. Arizonas then-Secretary of State Michele Reagan, a Republican, and Democrat Maricopa County Recorder Adrian Fontes, an anti-election integrity warrior who went on to become Arizonas secretary of state, signed a consent decree with the leftist League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) following more lawfare.

That lawsuit was filed in 2017 challenging our ability to verify proof of citizenship even though we had a bifurcated (voter registration) system, said Scot Mussi, president of the Arizona Free Enterprise Club, a nonprofit committed to advancing a pro-growth, limited government agenda in the Grand Canyon State. Mussi and his organization have been at the forefront of several election integrity battles.

According to Mussi, the pause in the proof of citizenship provision saw an explosion of federal only voters voters who used the federal honor system instead of showing actual proof of citizenship.

According to the secretary of states office, about 1,700 people in Arizona voted in the 2018 midterm elections with a federal-only ballot. Two years later, in the absence of the documentation safeguard, the number grew to 11,600 individuals, according to AZ Free News. President Joe Biden claimed victory in Arizona by just 10,457 votes, or about 0.3 percent.

In 2022, the Republican-led legislature passed two election integrity bills aimed at ensuring citizenship at the polls. As the Arizona Free Enterprise Club summarized, House Bill 2492 requires county recorders to reject any application for state voter registration that does not include documentary proof of citizenship. The bill also requires proof of citizenship to vote in presidential elections.

Election officials who accept forms without documentation can be charged with a class 5 felony, which comes with a maximum two and a half-year prison sentence.

The bill also requires election officials to check a multitude of databases to determine the citizenship status of an applicant using the federal form who did not include proof of citizenship, Mussis organization notes. If the election official finds proof in the databases, no problem. If not, the election official is required to inform the Arizona attorney general and the county prosecutor about the suspected crime. If an applicant cannot be found in any of the databases, the election office must notify him requesting proof of citizenship within 30 days.

House Bill 2243 demands tighter maintenance of Arizonas voter rolls and gives county recorders authority to cancel voter registrations when applicants fail to provide satisfactory evidence of U.S. citizenship within the specified time.

As I reported last week, Fontes and his leftist predecessor, now-Gov. Katie Hobbs, have failed to do critical voter list maintenance. More than a dozen Arizona counties appear to be in violation of Section 8 of the (NVRA), which mandates states keep accurate and current voter rolls for elections for federal office.

AZ Free News reported last year that in two quarterly reports issued to the state legislature, the secretary of states office noted that it had received reports of more than 78,200 potentially invalid voters. The numbers included more than 1,300 individuals who admitted to not being a citizen on a jury questionnaire; and north of 23,600 people who admitted to not being a resident of a county on a jury questionnaire.

The bills were signed into law in 2022 by then-Gov. Doug Ducey. The Republican told then-Secretary of State Hobbs a Democrat and as partisan in the secretarys office as she has proved to be leading the executive branch that the laws offer a balanced approach that honors Arizonas history of making voting accessible without sacrificing security in our elections.

Election integrity means counting every lawful vote and prohibiting any attempt to illegally cast a vote, Ducey wrote in a letter to Hobbs.

The left attacked, almost immediately.

Several challenges making the usual hysterical claims of voter suppression were filed by roughly 20 far-left plaintiffs, including the Arizona Students Association, Mi Familia Vota, Living United for Change in Arizona (LUCHA), and the Arizona Asian American Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander for Equity Coalition. The Democratic National Committee also has jumped into the fray.

In September, Arizona U.S. District Court Judge Susan Bolton, a Clinton nominee, struck down key portions of the laws in what Mussi described as a weird judicial process.

Right now, theyre in limbo, said the Arizona Free Enterprise Club president. Judge Bolton, who is overseeing the case, issued a partial ruling, a very poorly written ruling, that deemed elements of the law are unlawful.

Part of the judges decision asserts the consent decree of a few years ago cannot be undone by lawmakers. Only the judge who presided over the agreement can change its terms.

It is in perpetuity until the judge dies or repeals it, according to Judge Bolton, Mussi said.

Legal observers say the case, which has already involved the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court on ancillary matters, is destined for appeal.

A further hearing in Boltons court is slated for later this month.

Mussi sounds confident that the consolidated case will eventually be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court and that the election integrity laws will stand.

We believe that the laws are lawful, that they comply with not only the National Voter Registration Act but it is a clear power that the state can implement laws ensuring that noncitizens are not voting in our elections, he said.

Meanwhile, Fontes, Arizonas secretary of state, released an updated election manual in late December. The manual, created by Democrats for Democrats, thumbs its nose at the election integrity laws, allowing, among other things, voter registration applicants failing to provide proof of U.S. citizenship to vote in federal races.

The Arizona GOP called it a power grab and a breathtaking overstep that is trying to take powers from the state legislature that are not his to take. Litigation is expected.

We warned the SOS early on that we would sue if the Elections Procedure Manual was not corrected to reflect the laws passed by the legislature. Unfortunately that did not happen. I imagine there will be many plaintiffs joining the Senate in protecting our elections, Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen wrote on his X account on New Years Eve.

Matt Kittle is a senior elections correspondent for The Federalist. An award-winning investigative reporter and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.

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Votes Without Citizenship Proof 'Exploded' In AZ After Dem Lawfare - The Federalist

Amid high-profile losses at the ballot box since the overturning of Roe, its becoming increasingly clear that people seeking to protect the rights of the unborn need to get serious about the unbalanced nature of American politics.

At the 51st annual March for Life in Washington, D.C., enthusiasm for protecting the rights of the unborn was tangible. Thousands of young people were in attendance, with some accurately describing the moment as a spiritual battle and civil rights issue of our lifetimes. Yet what is being done to effectively hinder the slaughter of the unborn?

Other than waxing poetic about Americas national creed and speak[ing] the truth in love, as he did at the March for Life, what has Speaker Mike Johnson done to advance life-saving policies in the House? What have Senate Republicans done other than kneecap Alabama Sen. Tommy Tubervilles protest of the Pentagons illegal policy subsidizing military members travel to receive abortions?

Besides endlessly investigating government weaponization, theyre doing nothing of significance. Congressional Republicans have so far refused to push back in any meaningful way on the lefts anti-life radicalism, opting to fund Democrats spending requests instead and sabotage one of the few people in the Senate working to protect the unborn and raise awareness of the federal governments illegal support for killing them.

Yes, some Republican officials in both chambers have tried several times to pass legislation protecting the unborn, but those fall flat due to lack of support. Their Democrat colleagues, on the other hand, frequently pass widely unpopular policies. Congressional Democrats ruthlessly pursue their goals through the negotiation process, ensuring the satisfaction of their base. Republicans dont.

Most Republicans at the national level appear unfazed by the federal governments persecution of pro-life activists and unwilling to take a stand on the ever-expanding abortion industry. The median voter may be ambivalent about abortion, but the Republican base most certainly is not.

Short of restricting and banning abortion, Republicans can do more to support life issues. Currently, congressional Republicans have the power to protect the rights of health care providers to not perform abortions against their consciences, strip funding from federal agencies that fund groups such as Planned Parenthood, and support colleagues like Tuberville when they stand against illegal abortion subsidization. This can all be accomplished now, but Republicans refuse to act despite the demands of their supporters. (Perhaps their inaction and routine capitulation betray their apathy.)

Subsequently, actual work protecting pro-life interests has been largely forfeitted to activists and private organizations.

Solidarity HealthShare is a health care-sharing ministry that, according to its website, provides an alternative way to fund health care costs while protecting and practicing its networks Catholic beliefs. Its cofounder Chris Faddis spoke to The Federalist about the issues facing pro-life doctors under the Biden administration. The American Board of Obstrecis and Gynecology that credentials OB-GYNs came out and said that doctors who speak out against abortion or the abortion pill should be should have their licenses removed right after the Dobbs decision, he said.

The federal government is not just on board with this but accelerating it. The Biden administration is forcing so-called non-discrimination rules, which would include abortion services and gender services, [that] would force doctors, hospitals, medical professionals, and clinics to participate in all of these practices, or they wont receive government funding. They wont be able to participate in Medicare, Faddis pointed out.

Dr. Christina Francis, CEO of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, told The Federalist the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is trying to require doctors in emergency rooms to perform elective abortions, which was never a part of the EMTALA regulation.

Faddis and Francis organizations work to provide tangible solutions for pro-life Americans while elected Republicans twiddle their thumbs. This is why many are turning to state legislatures for results.

March for Life president Jeanne Mancini told The Federalist her organization was laser-focused on growing our state [outreach and March for Life programs] to educate more voters about the gruesome reality of abortion.

Weve had a lot of states enact [before 20-week bans], which they couldnt do under the Roe regime. But weve had our fair share of losses, too, she said.

Despite lamenting the lefts deceptive use of language to push abortion ballot referendums, Mancini remained adamant that abortion is such a winning issue and suggested Republicans need to hone their abortion messaging.

There are so many positive ways to message about it what weve seen in elections is that when candidates seem kind of nominal about this, so they bury their heads in the sand, and they dont win. But when they lean into this, theyre competent, and they know what theyre speaking about, we win. So my advice would be to lean into [the abortion argument].

Political action at the state level is effective at protecting the unborn.

The overturning of Roe gave us the opportunity to really advocate for our position and bring people to our side. Instead of relying on the heavy hand of the judiciary prohibiting our ability to move the limits on abortion, now we can really advocate and bring the state legislatures to our side, said Penny Nance, CEO of Concerned Women for America.

An incredible amount of work still needs to be done. The American people reject Democrats abortion extremism, but they too often dont hear about it.

The most powerful government in the history of the world and its acolytes view abortion with religious fervor. Yes, pro-lifers need to raise awareness about how abortion kills the innocent while harming women, but the federal government and the lefts vast nonprofit apparatus are committed to eroding this awareness and the power of states.

Without meaningful action at the federal level, the abortion industry will continue to grow, and countless more lives will be lost. Red states cannot fight this fight alone.

Samuel Mangold-Lenett is a staff editor at The Federalist. His writing has been featured in the Daily Wire, Townhall, The American Spectator, and other outlets. He is a 2022 Claremont Institute Publius Fellow. Follow him on Twitter @smlenett.

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Congressional Republicans Need To Start Fighting Abortion - The Federalist

Joe Bidens signing of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023 may, in effect, be null and void by days end if a federal judge in Lubbock, Texas, agrees with the states attorney general that the $1.7 trillion spending bill was never validly enacted because the House of Representatives lacked a constitutionally mandated quorum.

The bench trial in this hugely important case, State of Texas v. Dept. of Justice, begins at 10:30 a.m. Eastern on Monday before district court Judge James Hendrix a Trump appointee who was first nominated by Barack Obama.

Heres your lawsplainer so you can follow along with the developments.

On Feb. 15, 2023, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed suitin State of Texas v. Dept. of Justice, challenging the constitutionality of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023. As Paxtons lawsuit explained, the omnibus spending bill originated in the House of Representatives as Resolution 2617. After the lower chamber passed H.R. 2617 in September 2021, the bill went to the Senate, which passed a different version of the bill in November 2022.

Because the spending bills differed, Congress needed to reconcile them, with each body then required to pass the amended version. On Dec. 22, 2022, the Senate approved the Houses amendments to the bill, with the House meeting the next day to consider the Senates changes.

As I explained shortly after Paxton sued the Biden administration, heres where the constitutional problem arose:

When the House met on Dec. 23, 2022, to vote on the Consolidated Appropriations Act, it lacked a quorum to conduct business. Only 201 of the representatives were present. Nonetheless, the House proceeded with the vote. But it didnt just count the votes of the present members. It added to the tally an extra 226 votes, cast by present House lawmakers on behalf of absent ones who had appointed them proxies.

While the votes of those physically present totaled 88 yeas and 113 nays, the House clerk recorded that the bill passed by a margin of 225 yea, 201 nay, and 1 present, relying on a rule originally adopted in May of 2020 that allowed members to designate[] another Member as a proxy to cast the vote of the designating Member if a public health emergency due to a novel coronavirus is in effect[.]

Then, on Dec. 29, 2022, Biden signed the Consolidated Appropriations Act, providing for appropriations through the fiscal year ending on Sept. 30, 2023.

In his lawsuit, Paxton argued that because the House proxy rule violates the quorum clause of the Constitution, which Texas maintains requires a members physical presence, the Consolidated Appropriations Act never became law.

The quorum clause, found in Article I of the U.S. Constitution, provides:

Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members, and a Majority of each shall constitute a Quorum to do Business; but a smaller Number may adjourn from day to day, and may be authorized to compel the Attendance of absent Members, in such Manner, and under such Penalties as each House may provide.

Whether that provision requires the physical presence of members of the House to vote on legislation or allows the House to authorize voting by proxy is the bottom-line question at Mondays trial.

From an originalist perspective, which looks at the text, structure, and original understanding of the Constitution, Texas quorum clause argument is correct.

It would make little sense for the Constitution to expressly say that if a quorum were lacking, the House was authorized to compel the Attendance of absent Members, if proxy voting were allowed. Further, as Paxtons complaint notes, delegates at the Constitutional Convention rejected proposals that would have allowed Representatives to vote by proxy. The founders had also previously rejected proxy voting during debates over the Articles of Confederation, further illustrating that only those physically present counted for purposes of a quorum.

The Supreme Court has alsoheldthat to conduct congressional business, the Constitution requires a majority of members to be actually and physically present. This aligns with the meaning of present at the founding: not absent; face to face; being at hand.Other constitutional provisions, such as record-keeping requirements and impeachment rules in the Senate, indicate the need forphysicalpresence.

Congresss operations over the two centuries before Covid-19 lockdowns, including during various national emergencies, further establish that the quorum clause requires the physical presence of lawmakers. As Texas highlighted in its lawsuit:

During the Yellow Fever epidemic, Thomas Jefferson urged President Washington to keep Congress sitting in Philadelphia, then the capital, even if it meant meeting in the open f[ie]lds. [I]n the aftermath of that epidemic, the Third Congress enacted a law still in force today stating that [w]henever Congress is about to convene, and from the prevalence of contagious sickness, or the existence of other circumstances, it would, in the opinion of the President, be hazardous to the lives or health of the members to meet at the seat of Government, the President could convene Congress at such other place as he may judge proper.

There would be no reason to meet in open fields or to convene Congress at such other place as he may judge proper if the House and Senate could instead opt for proxy voting without the attendance of elected officials. Further, through the Civil War, the Spanish flu pandemic, the Cold War, and the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Congress continued to meet in person.

This long-settled and established practice, coupled with the text and structure of the Constitution, confirms the quorum clause requires the physical presence of elected lawmakers. But only 201 members were physically present in the House on Dec. 23, 2022, meaning the legislative body lacked a quorum to do business. Consequently, the House could not and did not pass the Consolidated Appropriations Act.

So does that mean the entire $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill is unconstitutional?

Yes and no: Because the quorum clause, properly interpreted, required the physical presence of a majority of members to do business, and because the House lacked the requisite quorum when it purported to pass the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023, the $1.7 trillion spending bill was unconstitutionally enacted.

But Texas is only challenging two aspects of the Consolidated Appropriations Act and seeks only declaratory and injunctive relief related to those two provisions. Specifically, Paxton seeks a ruling that the legislations expansion of Title VIIs anti-discrimination provision to require employers, including Texas, to provide reasonable accommodations to limitations related to the pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions of a qualified employee, is null and void. While Texas maintains it already provides such reasonable accommodations, this amendment to Title VII harms the state by increasing litigation and other costs when employees wrongly believe Texas denied them a reasonable accommodation, the state argues.

Second, the Lonestar State challenges the $20 million appropriated to fund nonprofits and local governments to connect illegal aliens released by Immigration and Customs Enforcement with various social services. This appropriation further encourages illegal immigration and burdens Texas education, health care, and other costs, according to the state.

If Texas prevails following Mondays bench trial, the courts ruling would be limited to those two provisions of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023. However, to strike those two portions of the omnibus spending bill, the federal court would first need to conclude that the House violated the quorum clause and thus never constitutionally passed the law.

Because Paxtons complaint is narrow, a win for Texas will have limited reach. And because the Biden administration will appeal any adverse decision, by the time a decision is final, the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2024, will have come and gone. That means the $1.7 trillion will already have been spent, and both the $20 million appropriated to the pilot program to assist illegal aliens and every other dollar authorized by the omnibus spending bill will be history.

That will not be the end of the case, however, because of the so-called Pregnant Workers Fairness Act that Congress shoehorned into the spending legislation. That portion of the omnibus bill had nothing to do with appropriations and instead amended the substantive portions of Title VII. So even after all the money is spent, there will be one aspect of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023 that could be stricken.

Knowing that ruling in Texas favor wont affect any of the $1.7 trillion in the spending bill should assuage any practical concerns Judge Hendrix may have that the bill is too big to declare unconstitutional. And while striking the amendment to Title VII will have some ramifications, Congress can always re-up the reasonable accommodation provision, although that is unlikely with the current red House.

Yet the consequences of ruling in Texas favor would still be huge because it would be a declaration by a federal court that a majority of members of Congress and President Joe Biden violated their duty to faithfully execute the laws of the United States and did so to the tune of $1.7 trillion.

Ruling against Texas, though, would be equally significant but devastatingly so because it would be a sign to our country that the judicial branch is unwilling to operate as a check on the other two branches of government. If Judge Hendrix and the appellate courts ignore the quorum clause or sidestep the constitutional issue, which is more likely, they will declare to Americans that our Constitution and the rule of law mean nothing.

Many Americans may not even know that fewer than half the House members were present when Congress passed the largest spending bill in the history of our country. This was a flagrant violation of the Constitution. The relief sought in this case is narrow, but it is a matter of principle that we uphold our Constitutional order, and make clear that the federal government must never do this again, Paxton told The Federalist.

In pretrial haggling, the parties agreed on the logistics of the trial, with Texas and the Biden administration both agreeing to present their cases based on written declarations submitted by the parties, along with other documentary evidence. No witnesses will be called, according to a person familiar with the case, with both sides also waiving opening statements.

The bench trial before the district court judge will proceed, The Federalist has learned, with each side essentially presenting closing statements that highlight the evidence that the court has already admitted in advance of Mondays hearing. Arguments will begin at 10:30 a.m. ET, with Texas allocated one hour to address issues of justiciability, which concerns whether Paxtons lawsuit is one appropriate for the court to consider. The Biden administration will then have an hour to counter Paxtons legal arguments. Texas will have another hour to address the merits of its quorum clause argument, along with the arguments concerning the appropriate remedy. And the Biden administration will again have an hour to counter Paxtons legal team. Texas, as the plaintiff, will have the opportunity to provide a rebuttal to end the argument.

Since the first two hours will focus on the question of justiciability, watch for a punt by the court because if Judge Hendrix finds the case is non-justiciable, he will never reach the merits of the quorum clause question.

We will soon know whether our Constitution and the rule of law will crumble under the exigency of circumstances or the desires of politicians.

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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Congress's $1.7 Trillion Spending Bill Goes On Trial In Texas - The Federalist

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TheRyan Center, the University of Chicagos campus abortion clinic, advertises potentially illegal late-term abortions on its websites, according to a recent report from The Chicago Thinker, the universitys right-leaning student newspaper.

The 2019 Illinois Reproductive Health Act (RHA) states that, if an unborn baby can live outside the womb, an abortion can only be performed if, in the professional judgment of the health care professional, the abortion is necessary to protect the life or health of the patient.

The Ryan Center, however, offers abortions of preborn babies up to 23 weeks and 6 days old, when a significant percentage can survive outside the womb, and regardless of any threat to the mothers life or health. TheFamily Planning Associates(FPA) Chicago clinic similarly offers abortions up to 23.5 weeks.These are both ages at which babies prematurely delivered and given standard medical care often survive outside the womb.

U.S. babies delivered at 22 weekssurviveapproximately 28% of the time, while babies delivered at 23 weeks survive approximately 55% of the time, writes Thinker reporter Ben Ogilvie. Their survival rate is presumably even higher at a state-of-the-art health center like UChicago Medicine.

Essentially, killing viable babies is only allowed in extreme situations threatening the life of the mother in Illinois, yet the Ryan Center and FPA clinic appear to be advertising late-term abortions of babies at a known viable stage to anyone, under any circumstance.While the text of the law clearly indicates this is illegal, Illinois courts and agencies interpret health of the mother to include mental health. That can include any form of worry about bearing a child. This loose interpretation allows abortions up to birth in Illinois.

The Ryan Center and the FPA clinic may also be getting away with performing illegal late-term abortions because of the RHAs definition of viability. Its definition is not simply whether a child has a chance of surviving outside the womb or even if the child has a good chance. The RHA defines viability as when in the professional judgment of the attending health care professional, based on the particular facts of the case, there is a significant likelihood of a fetuss sustained survival outside the uterus without the application of extraordinary medical measures.

Subjective terms like extraordinary have often been misconstrued by abortionists to get away with killing children outside the legal limits. According to Ogilvie, Extraordinary is a term of art commonly used in discussions ofend-of-life care,living wills, andCatholic bioethics. It generally refers to medical care that is highly expensive or painful with limited benefits; cancer treatment for the terminally ill is a classicexample.

This is certainly not how one would describe the care administered to the10-15 percentof babies who spend time in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). Its unclear how abortionists at the Ryan Center and FPA clinic define extraordinary but their websites contain no cautions about this aspect of state law.

RHA contains no explicit penalty for performing illegal late-term abortions. While the intentional homicide of an unborn child carries a minimum 20-year prison sentence in Illinois, that isnt likely to apply to the babies dying in the Ryan Center or FPA Chicago facilities. This is because, per the RHA, a fetus does not have independent rights under the laws of this State.

Legally stripping unborn babies of their personhood isnt the only reason abortionists might get away with performing second-trimester abortions. The act removes all state and local oversight in abortion facilities. It also ended therequirementthat Illinois abortion facilities have a licensed physician on their boards in order to obtain a license. In Illinois, tanning salons and barbershopsfacestricter scrutiny than abortion facilities, writes former Executive Director of Illinois Right to Life Amy Gehrke.

Under RHA, abortion facilities only self-report their violations to law enforcement, so, as Gehrke explains, facilities can more easily destroy evidence, covering up any negligence or criminal activity taking place at an abortion facility.

In the case of any illegal late-term abortions in Chicago, no facility is going to report themselves to law enforcement if they murder viable unborn children. They openly market these potentially illegal murders because they are accountable to no one.

This article has been updated since publication.

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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Chicago Abortionists Advertise Possibly Illegal Late-Term Abortions - The Federalist

Alright, Gov. Ron DeSantis supporters, youve had a full day to be sad, angry, and whatever else, but now its time to move on. It sucks to lose, but it happens. Better luck next time.

DeSantis, also known as the greatest Republican governor of my lifetime, effectively ended his so very disappointing campaign for president on Sunday. As politicians of the same party routinely do after primaries, he immediately endorsed his competitor Donald Trump. That should be all his supporters needed to swallow however hard is necessary and do the same, but the wounds are apparently not just superficial for some of Team DeSantis.

Judging by a large number of his extremely-on-Twitter supporters, the defeat has deeply hurt their feelings. Theyre taking it personally and sorely.

Its every bit as unattractive as DeSantiss dysfunctional campaign. The whole time he ran, he made nothing but a series of unfathomable decisions.

He refused to confront his critics in the media, formerly his strongest attribute and something he only just now admits was a catastrophic mistake. He blew millions on an inept leadership team. He kept his campaign manager Generra Peck in her position for months as his poll numbers nosedived. He wore those inexplicable boots and showed not even a flicker of self-awareness when anyone pointed out how undeniably oddly they fitted.

Why did he change the way he pronounced his name?

For whatever reason, the DeSantis Devotees arent interested in acknowledging any of it. Their unyielding argument is that the governor is smarter and more capable than Trump, whom general election voters dislike so much that his defeat in a rematch with Joe Biden is inevitable.

Maybe Trump will lose in November. In campaign politics, someone has to, and nobody should know that better than DeSantis backers.

Its one thing for them to express their doubts. Thats fair. But its another to spend the next nine months telling fellow Republicans how stupid they were for not sharing their preference in the primary. Thats useless.

We know Trump is in serious legal jeopardy. We know he was defeated by Biden before and it could happen again. We know the ferociously deceitful news media will savage him for the duration of the campaign like theyve never done before.

Nobody needs DeSantiss diehard Twitter army to remind them, although it seems some of those people were so emotionally and professionally invested in his presidential campaign that theyre practically rooting for a defeat in November. That will at least earn them the consolation prize of getting to say, I told you.

Its childish. Its petty. Its pathetic.

Theyre understandably disappointed, but theres no reason they should embarrass themselves with an extended, unproductive bout of depression and resentment. Theres still a lot for everyone to get excited about.

DeSantis is still a phenomenal governor with another three years to run his state. He would also be a tremendous asset in a second Trump administration serving as Homeland Security secretary or attorney general. Hes young, so there is plenty of time for him to learn from his campaign and try again next time. I hope he does.

I also hope that, as quickly as DeSantis moved on, so will his supremely on-Twitter supporters.

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How DeSantis's Disappointed Supporters Can Move On From Ron - The Federalist