Monthly Archives: March 2024

When corporations and people misallocate capital, they tend to suffer. Of course, whether capital is misallocated is sometimes only fully understood after the fullness of time.

The Peoples Republic of China is rapidly modernizing its military, expanding its fleet, and building up its nuclear arsenal. China has also embarked on a costly effort to ensure its energy resilience by reducing its reliance on imported oil while cloaking the initiative as somehow being green a mere talking point to assuage Western elites.

It wasnt always such in China, where for decades, first under Deng Xiaoping and then Jiang Zemin, Chinese applied capitalist-mercantilist economic reforms culminating in Chinas accession to the World Trade Organization in 2001. China appeared to be following the path charted by post-war Japan through the late 1980s.

But under paramount leader Xi Jinping, the emphasis on growth aided by capitalistic principles gave way to central planning and a massive military buildup. China is boosting its open defense budget by 7.2 percent this year. Total defense spending increases are likely far higher. Whether this effort ends up producing a massive inventory of expensive and hard-to-maintain equipment or weapons soon to be used in war will determine whether future analysts view the spending as a misallocation of resources.

America has flirted off and on with industrial planning of varying levels of specific control. From the republics very beginning, there were arguments between those who favored internal improvements and industry (Alexander Hamilton) versus those who thought the government should stay out of the way (Thomas Jefferson).

In the 1970s and 80s, some pointed to Japan as the model to be followed, with highly trained bureaucracy seemingly adept at picking winners and losers. But Japan Inc.s bubble burst in the late 80s, followed by decades of sluggish growth, suggesting that Japans considerable capital reserves were misallocated.

Today, the argument regarding picking winners and losers is more likely to boil down to just how specific you want to get and who decides politicians, bureaucrats, or business executives?

Of course, the risk of misallocating capital grows when those putting the capital at risk use other peoples money and when the decisions are concentrated and politicalized.

America provides two recent examples, the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors(CHIPS) and Science Act, passed in 2022, and the Inflation Reduction Act, passed a week later.

The CHIPS Act sought to counter Chinas rise as a microchip manufacturer by directly supporting the construction of chip fabrication plants in America with $39 billion in subsidies for manufacturing, investment tax credits of 25 percent for purchasing manufacturing equipment, and billions more dollars for workforce training and research.

In practice, the CHIPS rollout has been less than stellar. Critics claim that the effort to reshore chip manufacturing to the U.S. is not going well because U.S. workers are skilled in chip design, (but America) lacks workers with the desire or skills necessary for chip manufacturing. Workers must be meticulous, attentive to detail, and dedicated to consistency, perfection, and timely production. As a result, the push to shower dollars on moving chip fabrication to America has run into the reality of operating uncompetitive facilities with production costs some 50 percent higher than in Taiwan.

President Joe Bidens signature Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) offers another example. This mammoth spending bill, with some $663 billion in climate action spending, was approved on Aug. 7, 2022, on a partisan 5150 vote with Vice President Kamala Harris breaking the tie. Five days later, it passed the house on a partisan vote as well, with no Democrats or Republicans crossing the aisle.

The bill unleashed a flood of spending on electric vehicles (EVs) just as consumers started growing cooler on them due to their limitations. It also extended spending to support wind and solar power.

In addition to the likely misallocation of capital, there are other unintended consequences that come with the legislation.

For instance, the addition of wind power to the energy mix necessarily entails higher costs for reliability for batteries or back-up power plants with higher costs passed along to consumers. Wind farms are voracious consumers of land and material steel, cement, and unrecyclable fiberglass. Wind powers claimed net benefits rarely look at whole system costs. And wind power even affects local and continental scale climate in ways we dont yet fully understand.

In the case of EVs, much of the material is sourced from overseas, often with deplorable working conditions and child labor. The vehicles are 10-40 percent heavier than vehicles in a similar class, resulting in significantly more road wear and greater amounts of rubber particle pollution and noise from the tires. Further, EV charging in residential areas may eventually require hundreds of billions of dollars of electricity infrastructure upgrades, as four EVs charging at once with a Tesla supercharger draw as much power as a 40,000-square-foot supermarket.

And then there are the truly head-scratching results of the IRA bill. Between the IRA and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law of 2021, theres some $50 billion for carbon reduction, $85 billion for clean (meaning low-CO2, rather than low pollution) electricity, and $93 billion for batteries and renewables. Some companies have responded lustily to these incentives while others view the government largesse with suspicion, knowing that what the government has given, it can take away, and that the fundamental business case generally remains unaltered.

There are two great (bad?) examples of how corporations are responding to federal money, in Texas and Louisiana.

The first is Occidental Petroleums partnership with the Department of Energy and BlackRock to build two direct air capture plants to suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and then sequester it deep underground.

If you think this sounds like boiling the ocean or trying to empty the ocean with a spoon, youre only half right.

One of the facilities is designed to take about 500,000 tonnes of CO2 out of the air. Americas 242 coal plants in 2022 each generated an average of 3.6 million tonnes of CO2, meaning that more than seven of these costly facilities would be needed to remove the CO2 from one operating coal plant. Thus, some 1,736 direct air capture installations would be required to suck the CO2 generated by Americas coal fleet out of the atmosphere. The federal government and BlackRock are putting $1.75 billion into building two of these facilities. Occidental plans on building 100 of the plants.

China is building or planning to build more than the entire existing American coal fleet.

In the southeast Texas town of La Porte, another high-tech effort is underway, this one using pure oxygen and natural gas in a complicated process to generate electricity while separating the CO2 and burying it deep underground. Led by NET Power Inc., this effort would not even be considered without the push from Washington and global elites to treat CO2 as a deadly pollutant, rather than a natural trace constituent in our atmosphere. This policy push attaches an artificially high value to the CO2 generated by the plant, thus allowing it to theoretically compete with a traditional combined cycle natural gas generator.

In both cases, the effort represents a diversion from the core mission in Occidentals case, finding and producing oil and gas, and in NET Powers case, generating competitively priced electricity not dependent on government support. Thus, the chase for the unsustainable sugar high of government money that might evaporate with shifting political priorities replaces the effort to build and manage a profitable business.

And, as with EVs and wind farms, there are likely unintended consequences to removing some of the 0.04 percent of the atmosphere made up by CO2. In this case, observations show that as the column of air moves generally from the west to east across America, vegetation consumes the CO2, thus reducing levels of the gas by the time the mass of air hits the East Coast. In all likelihood, a hugely costly effort massive enough to reduce CO2 in Texas would reduce the amount of CO2 absorbed by terrestrial plants to the east, thus lessening to a degree the claimed benefit of the energy-intensive endeavor.

Ask yourself this: As China rapidly arms, Russia labors to pound Ukraine into submission, and Iran plots to wipe Israel off the face of the map, can you imagine China, Russia, Iran or even India for that matter spending what will amount to trillions of dollars to remove any fraction of the carbon dioxide theyre pumping into the air?

No? Then why are we misallocating capital? Why are we wasting money on things that will make no measurable difference?

Originally posted here:

DC Doesn't Just Spend Too Much, It Spends On The Wrong Things - The Federalist

Image CreditScreenshot/X/Ian Miles Cheong

CNN National Security Analyst Juliette Kayyem said the Biden Department of Justices lawfare against former President Donald Trump is not enough to defeat him and called on the Department of Homeland Security to meddle in the election to stop Trump from winning.

On Saturday, Trump warned Americans of an economic bloodbath in the auto industry if Biden wins a second term.

China now is building a couple of massive plants where theyre going to build the cars in Mexico, Trump said during an Ohio rally. [China thinks] that theyre going to sell those cars into the United States with no tax at the border.

Were going to put a 100% tariff on every single car that comes across the line, and youre not going to be able to sell those cars if I get elected, the former president continued. Now, if I dont get elected, its going to be a bloodbath.

Democrats and the media, however, cut the clip to suggest the former president was simply saying there would be a bloodbath if he lost. All over TV screens and social media last weekend, they spread the deliberately false disinformation narrative that Trump had called for a violent bloodbath if he loses.

Kayyem fired off an alarming yet telling post on X in which she admitted the DOJs unrelenting campaign to jail Trump is failing to influence the election enough to make Trump lose. Kayyem is a former Obama administration DHS official, a current advisor to an Israeli surveillance company, and a former DOJ official.

It is good Biden is talking about the threat to our democracy coming from the violence Trump promises. We have a whole department created to address terrorism. And it would be nice to hear a plan about protecting our homeland security. DOJ is not built for this, the Arab-American daughter of Lebanese immigrants wrote.

Kayyem then proposed a very transparent planning process that engages local and state governments who manage elections.

This plan would provide transparency on threats, a crisis response capacity, recommended rules of deployment for public safety resources, a civilian strike type team that can address violence in real time and provide information to the public and media, etc., she wrote.

Kayyem continued to argue that states and localities cannot be trusted to handle this on their own and called for the DHS to immediately begin planning.

These would be additional measures to the multiple layers of election interference already in place. While DHS is already actively working to undermine the election on behalf of Democrats, the media is also deliberately perpetuating the bloodbath lie to meddle in the election.

MSNBC disingenuously headlined an article: Trump says there will be a bloodbath if he loses the election while NPR ran a piece: Trump says some migrants are not people, and warns of bloodbath if he loses, with The New York Times running a near identical headline. The Rolling Stone published Trump Says There Will Be a Bloodbath and Elections Will End If He Isnt Reelected.

Left-wing legacy media deceptively edited a clip to accuse Trump of political violence and make an immediate determination of guilt in the court of public opinion. That meets the definition of disinformation: deliberately spreading false information to mislead the public. This is the type of press Benjamin Franklin warned about, one in which the accused is allowed no grand jury of the truth of the accusation before it is publicly made.

Franklin, writing an analysis of the press entitled An Account of the Supreme Court of Judicature in Pennsylvania, viz. The Court of the Press, continued: The proceedings are also sometimes so rapid, that an honest good citizen may find himself suddenly and unexpectedly accused, and in the same morning judges and condemned, and sentence pronounced against him, That he is a rogue and a villain.

Brianna Lyman is an elections correspondent at The Federalist.

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CNN Analyst Asks Feds To Meddle In Elections To Defeat Trump - The Federalist

Because both men involved in the harrowing New York City subway shooting that took place this week are nonwhite, the pro-crime left is going to have to think very hard about how to frame this story without acknowledging the skin color of either the perpetrator or the victim.

Actually, never mind. Its apparently already decided theyre going with the tried and true its the damn guns! line.

During a press conference immediately following the incident, subway system CEO and Chairman Janno Lieber rushed to get ahead of any obvious questions about how and why this happened. When you bring a gun on the train and you start a fight, its just its not right and its absolutely outrageous, he said. Thats what happened here. Someone brought a gun on the train and started a fight. Thats why we need to keep fighting against guns.

Suffice it to say, that is not what happened here.

At the start of rush hour on Thursday, according to New York police, a 36-year-old black man, identified by reports as Dajuan Robinson, approached a 32-year-old male passenger in a provocative and aggressive manner. Bystander video, which circulated on social media, shows Robinson yelling at the man, whom he apparently believed to be of Latin descent, Ill beat you up, F-ck your kind, and F-ck your race.

Police said that at some point, Robinson had displayed either a knife or blade. The 32-year-old, who had been seated, then stood to square up against his aggressor. The two circled each other for a moment before a brawl broke out. Shortly into the fight, a woman approached Robinson from behind and stabbed his lower back at least once. In the video, Robinsons shirt visibly turned red with blood, and after the two men were separated by yet another male passenger, Robinson struggled to maintain balance. You stabbed me, he said, adding, Im bleeding, and, I got you.

Robinson then started fumbling through a jacket he took off at the start of the altercation, pulled out a gun, and cocked it. Passengers scrambled to the other end of the train car, and eventually, four fired shots can be heard on the video. According to police, the 32-year-old man was able to take the gun from Robinson and shoot him in the head, landing him in the hospital in critical condition as of Friday.

In his remarks at the press conference, Lieber lamented the disruption the incident brought to what he described as the worlds greatest experiment in tolerance and diversity (aka New Yorks sewage-level mass transit system).

As of mid-February, crime was up more than 20 percent on the subway compared to the same time in 2023. Its gotten so violent, exacerbated in large part by the unabated influx of migrants, that last week, New Yorks Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul ordered some 1,000 additional state policemen and National Guard members to patrol the system. This is on top of the extra 1,000 law enforcement officers New York City Mayor Eric Adams dispatched to the subways in February.

The collapse of law and order isnt an unfortunate coincidence to that great experiment in tolerance and diversity. Its a direct consequence of it. The city and states Democrat leaders believe the public should tolerate the crime, violence, and blight. Thats why theyve legalized so much of it and prosecuted so little of it. They believe hordes of penniless, criminal migrants only add to the citys diversity. Thats why they house, feed, and clothe so many of them and turn away none of them.

If they didnt believe it, Lieber would have said something about it. Instead, he prattled about guns. [T]he real victims are the people I saw in those videos who are having a harrowing time because they are on the train with somebody with a gun, he said. Even if hes fighting somebody else, theyre afraid for their lives. Theyre just trying to go about their lives. So get rid of the guns. People want to have disagreements, thats going to happen in life. But when a guns involved, we cant live with it.

In other words, if not for the gun, it was all just a happy display of tolerance and diversity. Just something thats going to happen in life. Only a racist bigot would say otherwise.

Enjoy that great experiment, New York.

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NYC Subway Shooting Is A Result Of 'Tolerance And Diversity' - The Federalist

Former President Donald Trump spent Thursday sitting in a Florida courtroom while his opponent, President Joe Biden, hit the campaign trail a reminder that Democrats 2024 campaign strategy of get Trump lawfare is dangerous election interference regardless of the outcomes of particular prosecutions.

Biden spoke to voters in Michigan and Wisconsin this week and is slated to visit North Carolina soon as he tries to patch potential holes in the blue wall. Meanwhile, Trump appeared in court to defend himself from special prosecutor Jack Smiths relentless campaign to jail the former president.

After the hearing on Thursday, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon denied one of Trumps motions to dismiss the Biden Justice Departments classified documents case against him. Cannon argued in a two-page ruling it would be premature to decide now whether the Espionage Acts applicability to a former president is unconstitutionally vague, as Trumps team argues. (Cannon has not yet ruled on another motion to dismiss, which argues Trump had unreviewable discretion to designate documents as personal under the Presidential Records Act.)

But in doing so, Cannon gave Trumps team the opportunity to raise the issues during the trial.

Although the Motion raises various arguments warranting serious consideration, the Court ultimately determines that resolution of the overall question presented depends too greatly on contested instructional questions about still-fluctuating definitions of statutory terms/phrases as charged, along with at least some disputed factual issues, Cannon wrote. She opted to deny the Motion without prejudice, to be raised as appropriate in connection with jury-instruction briefing and/or other appropriate motions.

Some leftists, including former U.S. attorney and MSNBC contributor Joyce Vance, fretted Friday that the decision could end up bolstering Trumps chances of having his case tossed entirely should Cannon side with Trump at trial something she called a nightmare scenario.

Vance explained to Salon that if Cannon had ruled in Trumps favor, special counsel Jack Smith could have then appealed her ruling.

But thats not the case if, after todays ruling in the governments favor, she permits Trump to resurrect the motion at trial. She could grant the motion to dismiss the case then, at which point the Biden DOJ likely cant appeal, Vance said. Thats because once a jury has been empaneled, double jeopardy attaches and prevents the government from retrying the defendant on the same charges if hes acquitted.

Cannon did express skepticism at Trumps argument that the Espionage Act is unconstitutionally vague, telling the defense at the hearing Im not seeing how any of that gets you to the dismissal of the indictment, according to Courthouse News. Still, her decision leaves the door open for Trumps team to argue the unconstitutionality of the Espionage Act later down the road.

But even if Trump succeeds everywhere in court, Democrats lawfare is achieving its goal of costing him time and money in a busy campaign season. And its being led by the Justice Department of Trumps main opponent.

Smith, of course, was appointed by Bidens attorney general, Merrick Garland, who has weaponized the Justice Department against political enemies before. Furthermore, Jay Bratt, a prosecutor on Smiths team, had a meeting in the White House with then-deputy chief of staff for the White House counsels office Carolina Saba and FBI agent Danielle Ray in March of 2023, according to the New York Post, which cited visitor logs. Trump was indicted by Smith weeks later for what the DOJ claimed was improper retention of classified document at Mar-a-Lago.

Bratt had two prior meetings at the White House in 2021 around the same time Trump was working with the National Archives to return requested records, according to The Post.

Fox News legal analyst Jonathan Turley said the meeting raises obvious concerns about visits to the White House after [Bratt] began his work with the special counsel. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani said there was no legitimate purpose for a line [DOJ] guy to be meeting with the White House except if its coordinated by the highest levels, according to The Post.

As Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist 78, an individual can only unjustly lose his liberty at the hands of the judicial system if the judicial system is in cahoots with the executive or legislative branch.

The courts will not endanger the general liberty of the people so long as the Judiciary remains truly distinct from both the Legislature and the Executive, Hamilton wrote. Liberty can have nothing to fear from the Judiciary alone, but would have every thing to fear from its union with either of the other departments.

By weaponizing the justice system against Trump, who is beating Biden slightly in most polls, Jack Smith and the rest of the get Trump gang are attempting to achieve just that.

Brianna Lyman is an elections correspondent at The Federalist.

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Keeping Trump In Court While Biden Campaigns Is Election Interference - The Federalist

Were in another cycle of erstwhile social progressives publicly rebuking ideas they once embraced. This brutal honesty is laudable.

For hedge funder Bill Ackman, the soul searching began after Oct. 7. For Bill Maher, it seemed to begin at some point during the Donald Trump presidency and lockdowns, as elite hatred for the president accelerated and amplified illiberal tendencies on the left.

This trend is fueled at least in part by further leftward movement in the Democratic Party. Maher, of course, literally hosted a show called Politically Incorrect years ago, when his views were more fashionable in liberal circles. The classic I didnt leave the party, the party left me explanation accounts for some of this. But not all.

At its heart, the question is whether people bothered by extreme trans ideology, border policy, critical race theory, and more oppose this extremism on a premise that undermines their broader worldviews.

Maher and Ackman are two particularly interesting case studies because its worth questioning whether either Bill is willing to follow his own logic to its uncomfortable conclusion. Much of what weve been quickly conditioned to accept is the radical fruit of moral relativism, not merely political correctness or DEI run amuck.

Earlier this month, Maher said on his program that wokeness started as a great thing and morphed into something else. Ackman backed Rep. Dean Phillips, D-Minn., for president, then questioned him during a Spaces conversation on X about diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Phillips said some reasonable things about equality of opportunity. He even took a reference to DEI off his website and explained, Am I being educated by Mr. Ackman and many others on both sides of this issue and every other one? Yes.

Ive been learning from so many people over the last two months about a lot of things I wasnt aware of, Phillips contended.

Ackman suggested Phillips didnt understand what DEI was when that was made part of his website. He added, I made the same mistake. But even during his clean-up efforts, Phillips explicitly told CNN he believes in equity.

As recently as 2019, Phillips co-sponsored the Equality Act, one of the most radical pieces of legislation the House has ever considered. His congressional campaign website still brags about his support for the bill.

Inez Stepman, a senior fellow at the Independent Womens Center and Federalist contributor, analyzed the legislation in the Wall Street Journal.

The Equality Act would threaten the existence of womens prisons, public-school girls locker rooms, and womens and girls sports teams, she explained. It would limit freedom of speech, freedom of association, accurate data collection, and scientific inquiry. It would threaten the rights of physicians who doubt the wisdom of performing life-changing, reproduction-limiting procedures, and parents who seek to protect their minor children from such treatment.

For what its worth, honest proponents of the bill deny none of this. These sweeping changes are their goal.

Ackman pledged $1,000,000 to Phillips presidential bid. If both men are genuinely troubled by censorship, attacks on Title IX, and parental rights, they should actively rebuke this bill, which Democrats use as a major talking point.

Its not about just this one piece of legislation. The Equality Act is meant as a catchall for the lefts approach to sex and gender and, indeed, equality as a legal concept. Its a helpful proxy for the broader ideology.

I dont mean to suggest staunch defenders of Western thought who, for example, support lifting restrictions on same-sex marriage or believe abortion should be legal or oppose harsh border security are bad or categorically wrong when they side with the left over the right. (As a woman, I generally enjoy access to voting and crediteven if it means I pull the lever for people with kind eyes and buy 30 percent of what Instagram advertises to me.) It is, however, worth considering how many truly radical positions have quickly become norms.

The absurdities of 2020 made this easy for some centrists and leftists to see, as did the fallout from Oct. 7 in campuses and media. Norms went from shifting over centuries to decades to years.

Its the decades that caught us off guard. Changes in a lifetime feel slow relative to changes between presidential election cycles. In the sweep of human history, theyre not. But if you are one of the people who was wrong not to oppose trans ideology or DEI or ESG in 2010despite the trends being obvious back in 2010have you corrected fully for those biases that prevented clarity at the time?

Bret Weinstein and Heather Heyings book, A Hunter Gatherers Guide To The 21st Century, put a lot of this change in perspective.

In the West, at least, moral relativism was gradually mainstreamed as technology falsely undermined more and more peoples faith in the Judeo-Christian God and the system of ethics that sprang forth after Christ. But, as Tom Holland documented in Dominion, Christ is not an optional aspect of the Western values virtually everyone holds dear, even if weve taken those values for granted so long that their wellspring faded into the background.

This shift happened within the lifetimes of people still alive. Politicos recent faceplant over Christian nationalism made this clear enough. The Founders vision for freedom of religion allowed enormous tolerance, but it did not pretend to establish that all religious traditions were morally equal. Without a belief humans are endowed by our Creator, the rights we all cherish do not logically follow.

Some honest non-believers today make reasonable arguments that Point A isnt the only route to Point B. For a while, Ayaan Hirsi Ali was among them, until after Oct. 7 she announced Dominion had helped convert her to Christianity.

Its not crazy, of course, to disagree with Holland or Ali. Whats crazy is for people who cherish American freedoms to dismiss offhand that our system of natural rights is rooted in the Judeo-Christian tradition.

That doesnt mean every patriotic American needs to believe in God, but it does mean the people disturbed by the arc of cultural leftism should question why it upsets them. Is it because men and women are different and truth is not relative? Is it because equality of outcomes leads to racism and racism is hatred and hatred is bad? Maybe because free speech is just and justice is good? For many people, myself included, these questions lead us down a surprising path.

Standing by the Equality Act and equity might help centrist Democrats win elections in the short term, but its not a path to the long-term restoration of a healthy society. It will not make people physically or mentally better off in the future. It will keep us in purgatory, cycling through a holding pattern like Groundhog Day.

The effect of asking these questions is kind of like turning on your fog lights.

Emily Jashinsky is culture editor at The Federalist and host of Federalist Radio Hour. She previously covered politics as a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner. Prior to joining the Examiner, Emily was the spokeswoman for Young Americas Foundation. Shes interviewed leading politicians and entertainers and appeared regularly as a guest on major television news programs, including Fox News Sunday, Media Buzz, and The McLaughlin Group. Her work has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, Real Clear Politics, and more. Emily also serves as director of the National Journalism Center, co-host of the weekly news show Counter Points: Friday and a visiting fellow at Independent Women's Forum. Originally from Wisconsin, she is a graduate of George Washington University.

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Disenchanted Democrats Should Be Asking Deeper Questions - The Federalist

Pop star Olivia Rodrigo handed out free Plan B pills, provided by the Missouri Abortion Fund, to fans at the St. Louis stop on her GUTS World Tour.

In addition to the free abortifacient at her concert, Missouri fans received cards that read Funding abortion? Its a good idea, right? a play on her song, bad idea right?

No, Olivia, its quite a bad idea to promote killing preborn children to a largely adolescent, female fanbase.

Rodrigo follows the trend of Gen Z celebrities and influencers whose politics are engrained in their public image. For the Good 4 U singer, her dying hill is abortion access.

Rodrigo, in partnership with the National Network of Abortion Funds, created the Fund 4 Good, a global initiative committed to building an equitable and just future for women and girls through direct support of community-based non-profits that champion girls education, support reproductive rights and prevent gender-based violence, according to the sites homepage.

What kind of message does this send to girls by saying the only way to an equitable and just future is to destroy the exclusively female ability to create life?

After every show, the Vampire singer encourages fans to donate to the fund. A portion of the proceeds from all ticket sales also go towards abortion access.

Despite isolating an entire portion of the fan base who believe that womens rights start in the womb, this move is unsurprising as the 21-year-old has an outspoken past in abortion advocacy.

At her Washington, D.C. stop on the 2022 Sour Tour, a then 19-year-old Rodrigo seemed to display a fundamental misunderstanding of what the overturning of Roe v. Wade did.

Because were in D.C. I want to say Im heartbroken after whats happened here this week about the Supreme Courts potential decision to overturn abortion. Our bodies should never be in the hands of politicians, I hope we can raise our voices to protect our right, to have a safe abortion.

Although overturning Roe v. Wade did not take away the constitutionally nonexistent right to abortion, the singer did not hold back from trashing conservative Supreme Court justices and dedicating her rendition of F**k You to them at the 2022 Glastonbury Music Festival.

In addition to urging her largely underage fanbase to support murder in the womb, the singer has also used her platform to encourage getting the Covid vaccine and boosters, making her a Biden-administration darling.

Olivia Rodrigo, a California native, got her start in acting with a breakout role in the Disney+ High School Musical reboot TV series. Since then, she went on to release the critically acclaimed 2021 album Sour, which secured her a Grammy for Best New Artist. Her 2023 sophomore follow-up, GUTS is met with equal praise. She laments through ballads and pop-rock songs the plights of teenage girlhood.

Update: Abortion funds are no longer being used to provide concertgoers with free Plan B.Variety reportsthat Rodrigos team told the abortion organizations they are no longer allowed to provide the abortifacient due to widespread media attention. The organizations are also no longer allowed to hand out condoms and lubrication. Jade Hurley, communications manager for the DC Abortion Fund, claimed that Rodrigos team and the National Network of Abortion Funds made this decision because children are present at the concerts, despite the well-known fact that children would be present at theevent beforehand.

Elise McCue is a former intern at The Federalist and student majoring in multimedia journalism and professional and technical writing. She also reports on the Southwest Virginia music scene for The Roanoke Times. You can follow her on twitter @elisemccue or contact her at mccueelise@gmail.com

Excerpt from:

Olivia Rodrigo Hands Out Free Morning-After Pills To Teen Fans - The Federalist

Biden delivered his annual State of the Union address one week ago, but considering the state of our union is abysmal, polls show voters werent impressed.

Four of the five polls conducted since Bidens fiery appearance show the White House failed to make up lost ground after the president sought to reassure voters who are concerned, among other things, about the 81-year-old being too mentally and physically fragile to lead.

According to a Forbes/HarrisX poll of more than 2,000 registered voters from March 8-10, 59 percent said Bidens speech did more to divide than unify America, compared to 41 percent who said otherwise.

Just 37 percent of those surveyed approve of Bidens job as president, which is one point below his aggregate approval rating maintained by FiveThirtyEight. When asked whether respondents would cast their vote for Biden or his 2024 rival, former President Donald Trump, if the election were held today, Trump had a five-point lead, 41 to 46 percent, well beyond the surveys 2.2 percent margin of error. Of the independent respondents, 44 percent selected Trump while only 29 percent went with Biden.

In contrast to Bidens performance, Trump and former President Barack Obama saw post-speech bumps in their respective 2015, 2016, and 2018 State of the Union addresses, according to Gallup.

The issue facing our nation isnt how old we are; its how old are our ideas, Biden said from the center of the House chamber last week. Hate, anger, revenge, retribution are the oldest of ideas. But you cant lead America with ancient ideas that only take us back.

The presidents speech, however, opened with threats to the Supreme Court and claims that the regimes political opponents are existential threats to democracy, which only alienated voters. In fact, Trump, who faces 88 state and federal charges as Democrats seek to bar their chief rival from the ballot this fall, continues to perform better than Biden on most national polls. Meanwhile, Americans, remain anxious about the southern border, the deteriorating economy, and global turmoil, all presided over by a leader with a floundering memory.

The propaganda press, however, celebrated Bidens joint election-year address. In their telling, the elderly presidents speech restored his public image and proved hes energetic and ready to lead for another four years.

Biden stares down questions about his age and fitness for office with spirit, headlined coverage by NBC.

The medias coverage of Bidens age needs a rethink, suggested Vox.

The New York Times couldnt cram enough fawning descriptors into its News Analysis: forceful, confrontational, pumped up, defiant and feisty, and commanding and energized.

Moments after the president stepped down from the podium, however, Fox News Chief Political Analyst Brit Hume suggested otherwise. Americans, Hume said, saw little more than an angry old man.

Voters didnt like the State of the Union address as much as reporters did, wrote James Freeman in The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday.

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Poll Shows Biden Bombed State Of The Union Address - The Federalist

A member of the Georgia State Election Board (SEB) participated in and voted on cases involving counties that he was a registered lobbyist for, The Federalist has learned.

In Georgia, members of the State Election Board are required to avoid any appearance of conflict and/or impropriety, according to the boards Code of Conduct. In fact, members are expected to recuse themselves from any matter before the SEB in which the member or members employer has provided services to a respondent, complainant, or witness.

Georgia law also prohibits members of state boards from engag[ing] in any business with the government, either directly or indirectly, which is inconsistent with the conscientious performance of his governmental duties.

However, it appears SEB member Edward Lindsey voted on matters brought before the board involving DeKalb and Cobb Counties. Both counties appear to have contracted with a law firm where Lindsey is a registered lobbyist, according to lobbyist disclosure reports.

Disclosure reports also list the DeKalb County government and Cobb County government among Lindseys direct lobbying clients, but when asked to confirm that fact, Lindsey did not give a direct answer. Instead, he told The Federalist I have in the past taken the position regarding the counties in question that since the counties election operations were governed by law by an independent County Election Board which my firm does not represent that there was no conflict.

Lindsey was appointed to serve on the SEB by Georgias Republican-controlled House of Representatives in January 2022 and is up for re-confirmation in the coming weeks. Prior to his appointment, he served as the Georgia House majority whip from 2010-2013.

According to Georgia lobbyist registration and disclosure reports, not only is Lindsey registered as a lobbyist for the governments of DeKalb and Cobb Counties, hes also a lobbyist for Dentons US LLP, a global law and lobbying firm. According to its website, Lindsey is a partner in Dentons Public Policy practice and serves as the head of the Firms Georgia State Government Affairs team.

Documents reviewed by The Federalist show that DeKalb County first contracted with Dentons in January 2018, and has paid the firm $1.2 million to date. In December 2023, the DeKalb County Board of Commissioners requested the countys Purchasing & Contracting Department extend DeKalbs contract with Dentons to Dec. 31, 2024, which would pay the firm an additional sum of up to $240,000.

The Federalist also obtained a contract proposal between Cobb County and Dentons. Cobb County paid $60,000 to retain Dentons in 2023, according to OpenSecrets.

Despite these ties, Lindsey has declined to recuse himself from some matters involving the aforementioned counties that have been brought before the State Election Board. On Oct. 3, 2023, for instance, the SEB heard a case pertaining to a complaint filed against DeKalb County over several election-related issues, such as late poll openings and poor practices surrounding absentee ballot tabulation. Investigators alleged that DeKalbs election board and former elections director Erica Hamilton violated state law.

During the meeting, Lindsey made a motion for a technical violation with a letter of instruction to DeKalb County, saying to the DeKalb respondents: I do understand what you guys were going through.

Similar to what Ive done before. I dont see a reason to send this to the [attorney general], Lindsey said. It looks like you guys are doing what you are fixing the problem. I think it is a technical violation. So well send I make a motion for a finding of a technical violation with a letter of instruction to DeKalb County.

The board ultimately voted to send a letter of instruction to DeKalbs election board and referred Hamilton to the attorney generals office. More recently, Lindsey presided over a case involving Cobb County last month.

In a statement to The Federalist, Lindsey said, If a claim involves a direct allegation against a client of our firm, I have in the past and will in the future recuse myself.

If, however it involves merely an individual in a county or an independent entity separate from our client given the nature of our representation, I have not recused myself, Lindsey said. I have to look at the particulars of the matter involved. I think in the end I have been fair and tried to be judicious in this regard.

A deeper dive into Lindseys background reveals that the SEB member also previously lobbied on behalf of the National Vote at Home Coalition, which, according to InfluenceWatch, works to lobby for the nationwide adoption of a mail-balloting system through the regulatory and legislative processes. The group revealed plans in its 2019 annual report to expand the use and acceptance of vote-from-home policies during the 2020 election, and enjoys ties to several left-wing organizations, including Rock the Vote and Democracy Fund.

The National Vote at Home Institute also gifted $35,104 to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffenspergers office in 2020, according to the groups tax filings.

The organizations interference in the 2020 election was much more expansive. According to InfluenceWatch, National Vote At Home CEOAmber McReynoldsprovided consulting to various state- and county-level governments on implementing mail-in ballots, and, as Time Magazine reported, was in frequent communication with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in the months leading up to the contest.

Georgia adopted several of Vote at Homes key recommendations, including a new online portal for voters to request absentee ballots, expanded absentee ballot drop boxes, ballot tracking so that voters can follow their ballots progress and, crucially, a rule change that allowed county election workers to begin processing absentee ballots 15 days before Election Day, the Time report reads.

The Center for Renewing America filed an IRS complaint against the group and the Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL) in September 2022, alleging the organizations engaged in a partisan electioneering schemeto boost Joe Biden in the 2020 election. The IRS did not disclose whether it has acted on the complaint when The Federalist probed the agency over the matter in September 2023.

Lindsey has used his position on the State Election Board to protect the states mail-in voting policies. Last month, he helped defeat (3-2) a proposed SEB resolution that would have sent a recommendation to the state legislature to repeal no-excuse mail-in balloting. Lindsey was joined in his opposition to the measure by the boards sole Democrat appointee and Chairman John Fervier, who was appointed by Gov. Brian Kemp.

Lindsey previously supported the switch to no-excuse absentee voting during his time in the Georgia General Assembly, according to the Georgia Recorder.

DeKalb County one of Lindseys clients has also been a major proponent of mail-in voting policies. Last year, the locality accepted a $2 million grant from the Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL) as part of its membership with the U.S. Alliance for Election Excellence, an $80 millionventureby left-wing nonprofitsto systematically influence every aspect of election administration and advance Democrat-backed voting policies such as mail-in balloting in local election offices. The Alliance was launched by CTCL in April 2022 and seeks to build upon CTCLs 2020 Zuckbucks scheme.

Its worth mentioning that Lindsey has regularly penned op-eds in CNN decrying concerns about election integrity issues in Georgia.

While Georgia Republicanspassed a law (SB 202)in March 2021 banning the private funding of local election offices, DeKalb officials used a loophole in the statute to justify accepting the grant from the Alliance. Instead of having their election office accept the funds, DeKalb officials had the countys finance department apply for the grant. As Democrat and DeKalb Board of Registration and Elections Chair Dele Lowman Smithadmitted, this was done since election offices are not allowed to receive grants directly, Decaturish.com explained.

While Georgia Republicans fast-tracked a law (SB 222) closing the loophole, the final version of the bill signed by Kemp was not as strong as the one originally introduced. According to CNN, the House Rules Committee jettisoned a provision included in the initial draft of the bill that would have forced DeKalb County to return the $2 million grant to CTCL.

Lindsey told The Federalist he did not lobby the Georgia General Assembly to strike the language from SB 222 seeking to force DeKalb County to return the $2 million grant to CTCL.

The countys acceptance of the grant prompted DeKalb County GOP Chair Marci McCarthy to file a complaint with the SEB on Feb. 5. 2023. She alleged the DeKalb elections department circumvented the spirit of SB 202. Restoring Integrity and Trust in Elections (RITE), an election integrity legal group, filed a similar complaint.

On Monday, McCarthy sent an email to Raffensperger, Georgias election board, and House Speaker Jon Burns, in which she inquired about the status of her and RITEs complaints. She also claimed that Raffensperger told her colleague in the election integrity movement who inquired [about] the status of the complaints that they have been dismissed.

When asked if a report of investigation had been issued, Secretary Raffenspergers response was that his office did not issue reports,' the email reads.

Georgia State Election Board Paralegal Alexandra Hardin told The Federalist that an investigation into the allegations raised in McCarthys complaint is still pending and open, and findings have yet to be presented to the board.

Burns did not respond to The Federalists request for comment on whether he still plans to move forward with Lindseys re-confirmation, given these revelations. He also did not say whether hes concerned about Lindseys objectivity as a SEB member on matters involving his clients.

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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GA Election Board Member Voted On Cases Involving His Clients - The Federalist

Oklahomas Republican-controlled House of Representatives passed legislation on Wednesday prohibiting the use of ranked-choice voting in elections.

HB 3156 stipulates that [n]o election conducted by the State Election Board, a county election board, or any municipality authorized to conduct elections in Oklahoma shall use ranked choice voting, ranked voting, proportional ranked voting, preferential voting, or instant runoff voting. The measure passed in a 63-16 vote, with Republican Rep. Marcus McEntire and 15 Democrats opposing.

The bill now heads to the Senate for consideration.

Under RCV, voters rank candidates in order of preference. If no candidate receives more than 50 percent of first-choice votes in the first round of voting, the last-place finisher is eliminated, and his votes are reallocated to the voters second-choice candidate. This process continues until one candidate receives a majority of votes.

HB 3156 would additionally nullify any existing or future ordinance approved by a local government authorizing the use of ranked-choice voting. Elections conducted using the system would also be moot.

Should a locality violate that provision, the secretary of the Oklahoma Elections Board would have the authority to bring a civil action in an appropriate court for such declaratory or injunctive relief as is necessary to enforce the law. Oklahomas Senate president pro tempore and House speaker may also do so jointly.

While no Oklahoma locality currently uses RCV for elections, according to Oklahoma Watch, bill sponsor and Republican Rep. Eric Roberts previously said HB 3156 is necessary to preserve the simplicity and timeliness of our current elections, along with our current ease in doing hand recounts when needed.

Ranked-choice voting makes voting more confusing and has delayed election results everywhere it has been tried, Roberts said. GOP Sen. Brent Howard is also a sponsor of the measure.

Various U.S. municipalities that have adopted RCV have experienced confusing and eveninaccurate election outcomes. In an Oakland school board race, for instance, election officials announced two months after the fact thatthey got the count wrong, resulting in the rightful winner suingfor his seat.Meanwhile, a Utah town that used an RCV pilot program for its 2021 municipal elections experienced high rates of ballots being discarded or spoiled.

In the Genola City Council Race 1, forexample, 58% of ballots were either discarded out of hand or otherwise spoiled, while the Genola City Council Race 2 had a discarded or spoiled rate of over 74%.

Astudypublished by the Foundation for Government Accountability last year found that RCV ballots are often discarded due to ballot exhaustion, a term used to describe when voters select only one candidate on their ballot, and those ballots are tossed becausetheir first choice didnt win a majority in the first round. In Alaskas 2022 special congressional election, for example, more than 11,000 exhausted ballots were thrown out because those electors voted for only one Republican candidate and no one else.

RCV has also been shown to produce election results that appear to contradict the desires of voters. Democrat Mary Peltolawon the aforementioned 2022 Alaska special congressional race even though nearly 60 percent of voters [cast] their ballots for a Republican. A similar scenario played out in a 2018 Maine congressional race, in which then-incumbent GOP Rep. Bruce Poliquinlostto Democrat Jared Golden despite Poliquin winning the most votes in the first round of voting.

If passed by the Senate and signed into law by GOP Gov. Kevin Stitt, Oklahoma would become the sixth state to ban the use of RCV. Other jurisdictionsthat have prohibited the system include Florida, Idaho, Tennessee, Montana, and South Dakota.

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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GOPers Pass Bill To Keep OK Free Of Ranked-Choice Voting Chaos - The Federalist