Category Archives: Federalist

Justice Clarence Thomas. Few public figures have endured the pressure, press, and public responsibility of this man. In the public eye, the Justice seems a paradox. Those who know the Justice well describe him as the one justice who knows everyone and recount stories of his friendship and compassion for people from all walks of life. In contrast, the Justices critics frequently disclaim him as the cruelest justice. For the average citizen, these conflicting signals can be confusing: How can one judge which characterization of Justice Thomas is true?

In his recent book, The Peoples Justice, Judge Amul Thapar offers readers an opportunity to engage with this question. The author presents evidence for readers to evaluate and conclude whether, in fact, the Justices approach to law favor[s] the rich over the poor, the strong over the weak, and corporations over consumers or delivers equal justice under law. In the introduction, Judge Thapar makes the case that Justice Thomass principled approach champions the Constitution and the people it protects. In other words, the author argues that the Justices approach furthers the public good, and more often than not, the good of the parties. This is true, the author asserts, even though the Justices commitment to apply the law equally to all will not necessarily result in the most sympathetic party prevailing.

The book is worth reading for its strong case in defense of one of the great figures of our time. Additionally, all readers will be edified by the authors legal insights, succinct summaries of key legal doctrines, and his skillful and subtle articulation of the judicial process itself.

The Peoples Justice focuses on twelve specific constitutional stories. For each, the storyteller, himself a revered judge, follows the classic pattern of the judicial process. Each of the books twelve constitutional stories begins by explaining the events and legal questions that led to the issuethe controversy ultimately presented to the court. Each story also includes a brief outline of the applicable rulethe legal doctrines and principles according to which the controversies must be decided. The stories then proceed to Justice Thomas understanding of the applicable rule and the issue and facts before the courtthe application. After completing this principled analysis, each story concludes with the holdingthe cases outcome.

The majority of the book is dedicated to these stories. The book is often a page-turner because the authors holistic approach to each story so effectively compels the reader, introducing the characters and recounting their challenges, joys, and pain. Readers are drawn in to the story of a single mother, struggling to defend her home against a commercial use of the eminent domain doctrine. The case powerfully demonstrates the life-changing impact of what might seem initially a dry property-law concept. The reader is alternately saddened and angered by the story of an ambitious young female performer, attempting to vindicate her rights after being harassed and assaulted by a powerful man early in her career. The dramatic tension of a case in which principles of free speech are invoked to defend the production of violent video games leaves the reader with a racing heart and a better appreciation of the high stakes courts face when navigating public safety and democratic principles. By entering into these stories, the reader comes to appreciate how a justices responsibilities transcend common political camps and rhetoric. The stories demonstrate how, particularly in todays culture, such responsibility requires heroic virtue, principles, and firm commitment to the rule of law.

After recounting these stories, the author closes the argument by inviting the reader to conclude that the evidence demonstrates that Justice Thomas is a prudent judge, faithful to principles and wise in their application. The author challenges the reader to transcend the popular, oversimplified views of the Justice and consider a more nuanced view: that a Justice can be both faithful to principle and compassionate and sensitive to those in need.

Skeptics of the Justice may find themselves skeptical of the arguments made and the conclusion. However, even skeptics will benefit from the stories presented because of their clear legal analysis and illustrations of the complexities of cases presented to the Supreme Court. Even skeptics will be compelled to acknowledge that, although Justice Thomas is unfailingly committed to the rule of law, he is also always aware of a cases human impact.

One would expect a work by a revered judge about a Justice to not only make an effective argument but to do so with a special brilliance. This work does not disappoint. In addition to the compelling storytelling in the book, the work is also rich with legal instruction, articulations of the judicial process, and a focus on the virtues needed for right judgment.

One of the most delightful aspects of the book is the authors deft explanations of the legal doctrines key to the Justices judicial philosophy. With the skill of an artist, the author explains, succinctly and in plain English, some of the most complex concepts and principles of our legal system. These principles include originalism, incorporation, and the Takings Clause.

Perhaps only a reader who has spent time in the trenches of legal research can fully appreciate the authors accomplishment here. The author leads his readers, whether lay or legal, through these complex concepts so smoothly that the reader does not even notice the intellectual hurdles he or she has just cleared. With these clear explanations, the reader is equipped to engage with these concepts and choose his or her own informed perspective.

Additionally, throughout the book, the author recognizes and explains the virtues essential to the role of the judge and the Justices practice of these virtues. Courage figures prominently among them. Judge Thapar notes that the world often views case law in terms of its outcomes, rather than the integrity of the legal analysis. Despite this pressure, the Justice focuses on right application of the law, rather than pleasing any factions within the public. Because he applies principles without reference to a particular agenda, public disapproval is constant for the Justice. Likewise, prudence must be practiced to a heroic degree. The constitutional stories clearly illustrate the gravity of each case and the need to apply the right principles to the facts before the Court.

The Peoples Justice both edifies and engages its readers and provides needed evidence in defense of a public figure who is too often the target of conclusory allegations, whether favorable or critical. The books union of legal analysis and compelling storytelling make the work an interesting and worthwhile read for all audiences, whether legal professionals, law students, or engaged citizens. Ultimately, through The Peoples Justice, a reader can, in a sense, accompany Justice Thomas as he seeks to carry out his responsibility as a steward of equal justice under law and, by doing so, better equip him or herself to take up his or her share of this responsibility and practice the courage to assert [the truth] . . . and stand firm in the face of the constant winds of protest and criticism.

The views stated are the authors alone.

Note from the Editor: The Federalist Society takes no positions on particular legal and public policy matters. Any expressions of opinion are those of the author.We welcome responses to the views presented here.To join the debate, please email us atinfo@fedsoc.org.

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Book Review: The People's Justice - The Federalist Society

The Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C. opened in 1925. It is iconic. Presidents and world leaders have stayed there. It hosted many inaugural balls. And for the past four decades, the Mayflower has been the home of the Federalist Society National Lawyers Convention. Attending the annual meeting at the Mayflower is like a pilgrimage for conservative lawyers. I've attended every convention since I was a 1L in 2006. I still remember with awe my first visit. I walked through the gilded doors, across the marble lobby, into the bustling hallway, and sat down in the grand ballroom. I was awe-struck by the classic decor in the room, and even more impressed by the luminaries sitting in our midst.

In November 2009, shortly after I launched my blog, I live-blogged the Convention. I wrote up summaries of sessions, posted short clips of the programming to YouTube, and tweeted highlights. (You can see the entries here.) At the time, FedSoc did not have any social media team, and none of the sessions were live-streamed. For those who like a throwback, here is a clip from 2009, which captures my youthful humor, and the Mayflower's grandeur:

But perhaps the most significant moment of the 2009 Convention occurred in the grand hallway. I described it in my 2009 book,Unprecedented: The Constitutional Challenge to Obamacare:

The convention draws prominent academics, politicians, and judges from across the ideological spectrum to discuss and debate the key legal issues of the day. As is often the case at such conventions, some panels are more interesting than others. During lulls, attendants frequently recess to the grand hallway in the Mayflower to catch up with old friends, argue about the most recent Supreme Court case, or brainstorm and strategize. November 12, 2009, was just such a day. At 10:15 AM, a panel began on "Bailouts and Government as Insurer of Last Resort." Though certainly an interesting topic, a number of already-fatigued Federalists made their way out into the cavernous hallway. I joined them. Todd Gaziano, director of the Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at the Heritage Foundationthe same Heritage Foundation that had first advanced the individual mandate two decades earlierwas talking about the pending health care bill along with Nelson Lund, my former professor at George Mason University School of Law; Andrew Grossman, a former classmate; and a few others. At this point the law still had not cleared the Senate, but conservatives were already getting worried. Gaziano, brainstorming ways to challenge the law, asked the group if there were any possible constitutional infirmities in the law. I chimed in that all mandates in the past had been imposed by the statessuch as automobile insurancerather than the federal government. . . .

Gaziano said that he wanted to write a report for Congress that would give constitutional arguments as to why the law was invalid. He approached me and said something to the effect of, "Josh, I would love for a young and bright lawyer such as yourself to help write this report with me." I knew what that flattery meant in D.C.-speak: prominent lawyers frequently ask young lawyers to ghostwrite articles for them. In truth, I was not opposed to that ideaand in fact I had done it beforebut I recognized that for someone who was clerking, writing a white paper about a pending piece of litigation that would soon be litigated in the federal courts was inappropriate. I respectfully declined. A few moments later, Georgetown University Law Center professor Randy Barnett joined the conversation.

At a Federalist Society convention, Barnett is a rock star. He had just finished a debate. Tall and lean, with a piercing glance and sly grin, Barnett radiates confidence and warmth. Making his way through a throng of admirers, he always takes time to talk to inquisitive students. In addition to writing some of the most influential books and articles on originalism, constitutional theory, and the structures of liberty, Barnett had argued Gonzales v. Raich before the Supreme Court in 2005. That case, which Barnett lost, held that Congress had the power to regulate marijuana that never leaves a farm. More importantly, Barnett was a leading expert on the scope of federal power and constitutional law. In hindsight, Barnett's entry into our conversation was providential. Gaziano later told me that he was "looking for someone with real knowledge in the area," someone who had "gravitas," to help make the case against Obamacare. Barnett was perhaps the ideal candidate. This conversation, though it started out innocently enough, would change the fate of constitutional law. Gaziano asked Barnett, "Hey, Randy, do you have any thoughts about the constitutionality of the health care law?" Randy replied, "You know, I really haven't give it much thought."

Gaziano, tenacious as ever, kept at it and asked if Barnett wanted to write a report and "do something about the law." Barnett agreed, but said, "You will have to get someone to do the first draft." Gaziano coaxed Barnett further. "Stop by my office this week. We can talk more about this case. And I have a young associate who can help write this." Reading between the lines, I got the impression that Heritage would write the report and Barnett would put his imprimatur on it. Intrigued, Barnett flashed his trademark smirk and agreed.

All of this began in the halls of the Mayflower. FedSoc is often described as this top-down organization that dictates our legal culture. To the contrary, the most important facet of FedSoc is the natural interactions that organically arise in the hallways.

The Mayflower has countless other memories. One year, I moved my chair near an electric outlet in the State Room so I could charge my laptop. Justice Scalia walked into the room to promote his new book with Brian Garner. And before I had a chance to unplug my computer, Justice Scalia tripped on the cable. In a moment, I saw my life flash before my eyes. I thought I would be excommunicated from the Society, and banished from the legal profession. Thankfully, Scalia caught his footing, muttered something under his breath, and walked to the stage. Another year, a friend had recorded Justice Alito's remarks at a dinner that did not permit recordings. Foolishly, I linked to the video on my blog. In the halls of the Mayflower, I was promptly told to call chambers, and was asked to remove the video. I tried to explain that I could delete the link on my blog, but couldn't take down someone else's video. No excuses. Thankfully, I was able to track down my friend, and all was well. This year, I publicly challenged Will Baude and Michael McConnell to a debate on Section 3! Oh, the Mayflower memoriesmostly of me making mischief.

Alas, the fortieth National Lawyers Convention may be the final gathering at the Mayflower. So I've been told, starting next year, our shindig will (likely) move about a mile up Connecticut Avenue to the Washington Hilton. I think everyone would agree that the Hilton lacks the charm of the Mayflower. The walls and floors are sterile. It looks like a hospital. But more importantly, the Hilton lacks the memories. The Hilton also has really bad vibes. In March 1981, John Hinckley, Jr. shot President Reagan and James Brady outside the Washington Hilton. The hotel subsequently built a drive-through canopy structure allowing the President to exit safely from his limo within its shelter. The Barnett/Blackman casebook includes a photo of the assassination and hotel, right before an excerpt from Printz v. United States, which declared unconstitutional provisions of the Brady Act. (On a personal note, I also have Marriot Bonvoy Lifetime Platinum, so I lack status at the Hilton.)

Why, then, is the Convention moving? This industrial hotel is much larger than the classy Mayflower. More people can attend panels, more rooms can be blocked off, and the ballroom can fit five-hundred more attendees for the Scalia dinner. Indeed, the banquet this year was moved from Union Station to the Hilton's ballroom.

If this is indeed the last convention at the Mayflower, I will miss it dearly. Of course I can stay at the Mayflowerit's not going anywhere. Well, I am inclined not to, since they have cut many amenities, including the concierge lounge. (I was told it will never reopen due to "business reasons.") But without FedSoc, the Mayflower will not be the same.

As a coda to the video I recorded back in 2009, here is me signing off in 2023 (with much longer hair and a noteworthy photobomber):

And a walk through the Grand Hallway, one more time.

Link:

Farewell to the Mayflower - Reason

Less than one year before Americans will begin casting their votes in the 2024 election, the FBI is singling out supporters of Republican frontrunner former President Donald Trump as domestic terrorists, a report from Newsweek shows.

Testimony from more than a dozen current or former government officials who specialize in terrorism to Newsweek confirmed that this increase in targeting was born out of the FBIs decision to lump Trump supporters into its expanded definition of domestic extremism.

The nations federal law enforcement agency criminalizing opposition to the regime is not new, but it has drastically increased under President Joe Biden. FBI data reviewed by Newsweek indicates nearly two-thirds of the FBIs current investigations center on Trump supporters accused of disregarding anti-riot laws.

[Read: After Ignoring Violent BLM Riots, FBI Targets Trump Supporters For Breaking Anti-Riot Laws]

Despite widespread, leftist-led and encouraged riots during the 2020 summer of rage, FBI data says that spikes in domestic violent extremism and domestic terrorism investigations in 2020 and 2021 show clearly that the main targets of the investigations and cases open were of Trump supporters, not the people who wreaked billions of dollars of damage on American cities.

Similarly, assessments, a shadowy tool used by the FBI to spy on Americans who have political or ideological associations deemed unfavorable by the agency, more than doubled from 2019 to 2021.

A drastic rise in politicized probes of Trump voters follows an avalanche of rhetoric touted by President Joe Biden, his White House, Democrats in Congress, Attorney General Merrick Garland, FBI Director Christopher Wray, and other officials who have named the domestic extremism often pinned on Republican voters as the nations biggest threat.

The increase also serves as a continuation of the Biden regimes persecution of its number one political opponent and his popular brand of wrongthink ahead of the 2024 presidential election.

A majority of Americans say the administrations malfeasance is proof the U.S. has atwo-tiered system of justice. After a year of smears andsham felony indictments, morethan half of the nationsays they want the lefts enforcement arm to be punished for weaponizing its power against the American people to achieve political goals.

The FBI denies targeting Americans based on ideology, but days after the events on Jan. 6, 2021, the agency broadened its anti-government or anti-authority violent extremists-other (AGAAVE) classification so that it could jumpstart investigations into Americans based on their political affiliations.

The shift received hardly any attention, emboldening the FBI in October 2022 to create a whole new terrorism category, AGAAVE-Other, devoted to monitoring anyone the agency deemed an anti-government domestic violent extremist with seemingly adverse political affiliations.

Trump and his famous slogan Make America Great Again were not officially assigned to this category on paper or in the FBIs joint report to Congress. Newsweek noted, however, that government insiders acknowledge that it applies to political violence ascribed to the former presidents supporters.

One unnamed senior intelligence official told Newsweek that he believed Trumps army constitutes the greatest threat of violence domesticallypoliticallythats the reality and the problem set.

Biden tried to demonize half the country ahead of the November 2022 midterms by accusing MAGA Republicans of beinga threat to the very soul of this country. This screed was one of the many public confirmations his administration gave to his allies at the DOJ and FBI to keep persecuting their political foes.

Under Bidens rule, the FBI launched attacks on concerned parents, raided a pastors home,refused to protect Republican-nominated Supreme Court justices from coordinated influence campaigns designed to undermine theDobbs v. Jacksonruling, and attempted topunish Republican statesforprotecting childrenincluding the unborn.

In a statement to The Federalist, the FBI claimed it does not target Americans based on political belief or any First Amendment protected activity.

Any allegation that the FBI targets individuals solely for their political beliefs is categorically false, an FBI spokeswoman wrote. The FBI investigates those who commit acts of violence or threaten violence, and we do not take action based on political belief or any First Amendment protected activity.

FBI Director Christopher Wray also claimed previously that his agency does not target people for their religious beliefs, despite a leaked memo labeling traditional Catholics violent white supremacists suggesting otherwise. The release of an unredacted version of the memo targeting traditional Catholics challenged that claim.

This article has been updated since publication.

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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FBI Targets Trump Voters Ahead Of 2024 Election - The Federalist

Its no secret by now that Democrats love rigging elections in their favor.

During the 2016 contest, agencies such as the Department of Justice (DOJ) and FBI willingly partook in a Hillary Clinton campaign-funded operation to convince the American public that Donald Trump colluded with Vladimir Putin and the Russian government to steal the election. The FBI didnt just launch an investigation into Trump based on uncorroborated intelligence; it used the Clinton-funded Steele dossier to obtain a FISA warrant to spy on his campaign.

These kinds of nefarious activities continued into the 2020 election, in which these agencies (along with the CIA) worked overtime to discredit damaging reporting about then-candidate Joe Biden. These departments even went so far as to pressure Big Tech platforms in the months leading up to the election to censor information like the Hunter Biden laptop story when it became public. Like clockwork, these companies acquiesced.

And who could forget Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, whose Zuckbucks flooded local election offices in key battleground states to change how elections were administered and effectively fund a Democrat get-out-the-vote operation?

Now, as the country hurtles towards another intense presidential election, Democrats are once again putting their feet on the electoral scale to rig the 2024 contest in their favor.

Another facet of so-called law enforcement agencies election interference is their blatant targeting of conservatives. Within the past few years, the FBI has been caught directing its fire at parents attending school board meetings, Catholics who attend Latin Mass, and innocent pro-lifers, to name a few.

Given these actions, it wasnt shocking when Newsweek reported on Wednesday that the agency is gearing up to single out supporters of former President Donald Trump as domestic terrorists ahead of the 2024 contest. As The Federalists Jordan Boyd reported, Testimony from more than a dozen current or former government officials who specialize in terrorism to Newsweek confirmed that this increase in targeting was born out of the FBIs decision to lump Trump supporters into its expanded definition of domestic extremism.'

Former business associates, IRS and FBI whistleblowers, bank records, text messages, emails, reporting from a highly credible informant, and even President Joe Biden himself have all corroborated different aspects of the latters involvement in his familys corrupt foreign business ventures. But according to Democrats and their legacy media allies, this is just evidence of a fathers love for his son.

From the moment mountains of evidence began piling up, implicating Biden in playing a major role in his familys international influence-peddling scheme, Democrats have done all they can to hide, excuse, and obfuscate the massive scandal surrounding the sitting president. With help from the DOJ which almost got away with offering Bidens son, Hunter, a sweetheart plea agreement to evade future criminal charges and has routinely hindered investigative efforts into the Bidens these acts represent a clear attempt by Democrats to hide damning information about the sitting president from the American public ahead of the 2024 election.

Who needs free and fair elections when you can just throw your political opponents behind bars ahead of a major election? Spanning four separate cases and 91 felony counts, the DOJ and leftist prosecutors seemingly coordinated efforts to imprison Trump could not represent a more obvious attempt to interfere in the election process.

While 25 states passed legislation banning or restricting the use of Zuckbucks in elections, that hasnt stopped nonprofits like the Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL) one of the Zuckerberg-funded groups that meddled in the 2020 election from attempting to replicate their 2020 strategy for future elections.

Last year, CTCL and other left-wing groups launched the U.S. Alliance for Election Excellence, an $80 millionventuredesignedto systematically influence every aspect of election administration and advance Democrat-backed voting policies in local election offices. Through the use of scholarships and low entrance fees, the coalition seeks to make the 2020 private hijacking of election offices look like childs play.

Its not surprising the same agencies that pushed Big Tech platforms to censor the Hunter Biden laptop story ahead of the 2020 election would continue their censorship practices years later. As indicated in several federal court rulings, the Biden administration has been actively colluding with social media giants like Facebook to suppress commentary and facts posted online that it claims are examples of misinformation. Equally alarming is that in spite of these rulings barring such authoritarian behavior, the administration has continued to appeal the decisions to regain the power to stifle speech online.

And these actions dont even include the efforts undertaken by left-wing groups such as Vote.org, which have pressured Big Tech platforms to adopt plans to combat so-called election disinformation.

Sometimes the only way to win the game is to change the rules in your favor and thats exactly what Democrats have been doing to Americas election laws.

After expanding insecure voting practices such as mass unsupervised mail-in voting and the use of ballot drop boxes during the 2020 election, Democrat-controlled state legislatures have sought to enshrine these policies into law across the country. States such as New Mexico, Minnesota, and Michigan have all adopted sloppy election procedures under the guise of democracy and so-called voting rights.

Meanwhile, in states where Democrats dont hold power, the DOJ and leftist lawyers have stepped in to launch dishonest lawsuits against Republican-backed election integrity laws. For example, the DOJlaunched a lawsuit against a Georgia election integrity law requiring voter ID in June 2021, in which the agency parroted the lie that Georgias law was designed todeny[] or abridg[e] nonwhite Americans right to vote.

Shortly after taking office, Biden took the unprecedented step of ordering hundreds of federal agencies to interfere in state and local election administration. Executive Order 14019 mandated all departments use U.S. taxpayer money to boost voter registration and get-out-the-vote activities. Agencies were also instructed to develop a strategic plan explaining how they intended to fulfill this directive.

While the Biden administration has routinelystonewalledefforts by good government groups to acquire these plans, available information reveals an apparently partisan venture aimed at registering voters who are likely to support Democrats. Recent reporting from The Daily Signal indicates agencies such as the Indian Health Service are collaborating with leftist groups like Demos and the ACLU to register and turn out voters under Executive Order 14019.

The Biden bribery scandal isnt the only subject legacy media continue to lie about. In the months leading up to and after the 2022 midterms, media propagandists launched a full-scale attack on GOP voters seeking to legally observe the elections process. Despite their repeated insistence of a widespread conspiracy of Republicans threatening election officials, there is no evidence to suggest such an assertion is true. In fact, Bidens own DOJ all but admitted as much last year.

The corporate presss goals in regurgitating this false narrative are to both cast their political opponents as extremists and dissuade conservatives who have legitimate concerns about election integrity from partaking in legal forms of electoral oversight (such as poll watching).

While federal law prohibits tax-exempt 501(c)(3) groups from engaging in partisan voter registration, that hasnt stopped left-wing nonprofits from skirting the legal system by targeting voting demographics favorable to Democrats.

Organizations such as Restoration of America and Capital Research Center have issued reports in recent months detailing how leftist billionaires bankroll nonprofit groups to register likely-Democrat voters. Instead of explicitly stating theyre registering voters for the Democrat Party, groups like the Voter Registration Project target people of color, women, and young people. In other words, they specifically aim to register demographics likely to vote for Democrats.

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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10 Ways Democrats Are Already Rigging The 2024 Election - The Federalist

After two and a half years of having millions of illegal immigrants pour across Americas southern border, the Biden administration finally decided to resume construction of former President Donald Trumps border wall on Thursday.

The Department of Homeland Securitys announcement that it plans to rebuild a portion of the fortification in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas came as quite a surprise, given that Biden pledged during his presidential run that there would not be another foot of wall constructed [under his] administration. Then again, the Delaware Democrat has never been known as someone who tells the truth.

Aside from failed presidential candidates like Robert Francis ORourke, very few Democrats have openly criticized Biden for authorizing continued construction of the border wall. Given Democrat politicos knack for conveniently forgetting what side of an issue they held two minutes ago, it seems only fair to remind them and the rest of the country what they had to say about the issue when Trump was president.

Ahead of the 2019 government shutdown over border security, the then-House speaker didnt mince words when criticizing Trump amid his insistence that Congress fund new wall construction along the U.S.-Mexico border. In fact, Pelosi called the wall an immorality and claimed it is the least effective way to protect the border and the most costly.

I cant think of any reason why anyone would think its a good idea unless this has something to do with something else, she said.

The infamous KJP had some choice words for Trumps wall before becoming Bidens White House press secretary.

Amid the 2020 Covid outbreak, the Leninist girl scout from New York claimed the wall was a xenophobic campaign stunt that falls down in the wind.

Americas favorite fake Indian referred to Trumps wall as racist during a 2020 CNN town hall and introduced legislation to redirect funds allocated for the project towards the governments Covid response.

Schumer has repeatedly referred to the border wall as expensive and ineffective.

The Democrat Minnesota congresswoman who routinely espouses her hatred for Jewish people had something to say about racism in May 2020.

Much like his fellow socialists in Congress, the Vermont senator called Trumps wall racist and accused the former president of ripping babies from their mothers and instituting a Muslim ban.

Before she became vice president and Bidens border czar, then Sen. Kamala Harris called Trumps wall wasteful and a vanity project several times throughout the 2019 government shutdown. She additionally referred to it as stupid and useless.

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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Here's What Dems Said About The Border Wall Under Trump - The Federalist

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell suffered a stunning blow this weekend when Republicans in the upper chamber disregarded his repeated calls for prioritizing Ukraine funding by passing the House GOPs short-term spending bill, which included no provisions for the Volodymyr Zelensky regime.

Publicly, McConnell pretended his move to finance the proxy war in Ukraine was temporarily tabled for the convenience of avoiding an imminent government shutdown. Behind closed doors, the Senate minority leaders plan to indefinitely send U.S. tax dollars to Eastern Europe was shunned by nearly every member of his party who expressed discomfort with hinging the fate of the government shutdown on Ukraine.

One source familiar with the situation told The Federalist that even McConnell quietly acknowledged to his colleagues that any spending bill that included Ukraine funding was not a winning issue for the party. Yet, he was so committed to putting another countrys financial well-being ahead of his own that he fought his own conference on it.

The Senate GOPs defiance of McConnell was confirmed when they, at the urging of Senate GOP steering committee members like Sens. Mike Lee and Rick Scott, passed House Republicans continuing resolution (CR) instead of the Senate bill.

When I came in on Saturday morning, I was convinced we were not going to win. The headwinds were totally opposed to us. And then by 1 oclock, we had decisively defeated McConnell, a Senate staffer told The Federalist.

Corporate media and Beltway insiders paint the titanic twist as a sign that the longest-serving Senate party leader in US history is losing control of his conference. The Senate Republicans who defied McConnell and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumers expensive spending package, however, are simply finally harnessing the collective decision-making power theyve always had to better reflect the party and constituents.

Spending negotiations did not start looking grim for McConnell until just one day before FY 2023 spending was set to expire. Up until that point, McConnell was armed with his deal, the support of the Pentagon, and prepared to send billions more U.S. tax dollars to Ukraine.

Its rumored that Pentagon officials are on their way over to the Capitol to lobby for Schumer-McConnell. The Military Industrial Complex doesnt like to lose, Lee wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

The package was standard for the Republican leader who has spent the last two and a half years pressuring his colleagues to join Democrats in subsidizing the war in Eastern Europe.

McConnell previously argued that sending Ukraine money without oversight is obviously in Americas self-interest because it benefits the vast U.S. military-industrial complex.

Republicans should welcome Democrats who are finally willing to spend money on our defense industrial base, McConnell demanded in his Sept. 11 Senate floor remarks. Such a bipartisan consensus will not survive if we turn our backs on this conflict.

The minority leaders insistence that Ukraine needs an endless stream of U.S. tax dollars was supported by a majority of his colleagues over the last two years with few objections.

Polls, however, show that sending an endless supply of cash is increasingly unpopular with the American people. With the 2024 election nearing, Republicans in both chambers quickly realized they couldnt afford to risk their congressional careers over another forever war to appease the defense industry and their allies in congressional leadership.

Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy confirmed on Friday night that the Senates misguided bill, which included funding for Ukraine, would be dead on arrival.

McCarthys firmness was unsurprising given the job pressure he faced from members of the House Freedom Caucus who wanted to leverage their GOP majority power to address the surging border crisis, punish the weaponization of the federal government, and cut off American sponsorship of the proxy war.

Senate Republicans grumblings about lining Zelenskys pockets also preceded the weekend fight but rarely made it beyond the walls of their offices. Despite wariness from House Republicans and his conference about indefinitely funding an overseas war, McConnell doubled down on his quest to pass his own legislative package, which catered to Zelenskys pleas for cash.

While he prepped for a cloture vote in the Senate, House Democrats prepared to support the McConnell bill with a procedural motion to take over the floor. Senate insiders told The Federalist that, at the time, they believed that would happen.

House Democrats understood that waiting for the Senate to take their first cloture vote on the Schumer-McConnell package would have forced the burden of the shutdown on the House GOP, which would have had to choose to pass the Senate bill with Ukraine funding or shut things down. The move would have also likely provided the heat to oust McCarthy from speakership, something Senate Republicans like McConnell would likely disapprove of.

The Democrats in the lower chamber tried to use every trick in the book, including magic minutes andpulling a fire alarmto delay the Houses CR vote and make the Senate decide on its bill first.

By midday Saturday, however, Senate Republicans were toying with the idea of abandoning the high-level spending proposed by the Democrat and GOP upper chamber leaders in favor of the Houses CR.

Senators Lee and Scott specifically proposed during a Saturday conference lunch that Republicans in the upper chamber wait for their House GOP colleagues to send over the stopgap. Waiting for the House bill, they argued, would rid them of the burden of passing legislation that goes against Americans wishes on Ukraine, keep Republicans from becoming shutdown scapegoats, and harbor McCarthy from the threat of removal for a little longer.

Even shadow leadership race candidates Sens. Cornyn and Thune, who started September by eviscerating House Republicans for opposing the Senate unipartys spending plan, expressed support for the plan so they would be seen as sympathetic to the conference that might one day choose them to lead the party.

By the end of the lunch, McConnell and Sen. Susan Collins were the only GOP senators who vocalized disdain for passing the Houses CR. McConnell was eventually forced to publicly declare Republicans intent to pass the stopgap in an attempt to maintain his appearance of control.

Schumer tried to stifle the vote by starting a live quorum, which requires all senators to convene in the Senate chambers to fulfill their duties to vote. Republicans were prepared to either take down cloture or abstain from voting altogether, but Schumer eventually relented and left his bill off the table.

The Republicans had successfully defied McConnell and delayed Democrats spending wishlist until mid-November.

Despite suffering defeat on the short-term funding bill, McConnell is not giving up on his dream to keep Ukraine in the running for future appropriations negotiations. He opened his floor speech on the passage of the CR by pledging to send the Zelensky regime more money before the end of the year.

Im confident the Senate will pass further urgent assistance to Ukraine later this year, McConnell said.

Its difficult to predict where negotiations will go in the next month. The momentum for the Senate GOP to collectively make its own decisions without McConnell, however, is there and waiting for them to grasp it.

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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How Conservatives Quietly Outmaneuvered McConnell On Ukraine - The Federalist

The following is a transcript of remarks I delivered at the American Political Science Associations annual meeting on Sept. 1. Panelists were asked to review the National Conservatism and Freedom Conservatism statements of principles.

Its true that both the National Conservative Statement of Principles which I signed and the Freedom Conservative Statement of Principles are useful distillations of the so-called New Right and the Old Right. I say that as someone with a foot in both camps, working for the organization founded by the Sharon Statement and a group founded by its author Stan Evans. FreeCons cite the statement as their inspiration. Ive spoken at NatCon as well. Like Michael Brendan Dougherty, as a NatCon signer, I have quibbles with both statements but could basically sign both of them as well.

That sentiment is certainly not shared by everyone on the right, new and old, but it reveals an essential point: The primary disagreement between NatCons and FreeCons is their priorities. This is not to minimize that disagreement. It is significant. With certain old conservative institutions run by stalwart defenders of the old agenda, it will be unworkable. But with Republican voters and average Americans, it will not.

Take, for example, the tax bill Donald Trump signed in 2017. Here was a standard bearer of the New Right expending immense political capital behind fiscal conservatism. It became the legislative highlight of his entire presidency, and not merely because Democrats after 2018 declined to cooperate with his administration, but also because the president and people who staffed his administration genuinely wanted to do tax reform and pushed the reconciliation effort hard.

Today, virtually no person in the national conservative camp will argue that was the right move. Importantly, though, virtually no person in the national conservative camp would in theory argue against a more competitive corporate tax rate that helps onshore jobs, or tax relief for overburdened American families increasingly getting less for their money.

Again, this is not true of everyone in the national conservative camp, because it includes a handful of integralist thinkers and heterodox voices who offer provocative dissents. Generally, though, national conservatism believes in free markets, just with the prioritization of families and communities as their moral end. Freedom Conservatives dont disagree with that, perhaps with the exception of some hardcore libertarians.

But this conflict over priorities amounts to a major gulf in policy and tone: When the market fails to provide a living wage for single moms, is the priority to go after government barriers that may burden businesses with costs that cut into wages? Is it to create new cash benefits for parents? Is it to do both?

What about tone? Should conservatives be extolling the virtues of the business whose CEO is pushing ESG and hiking his own salary beyond previously conceivable limits? Should they be supporting the union that might score a win for the single mom? (Even Ben Shapiro has made the conservative case for collective bargaining in the private sector, though critically its nobodys pet issue.) Should they be focused on that mothers inability to send her child to a public school that successfully educates kids, and does so without pushing politically charged policies on sex and race?

Politics aside, what is the most moral way to prioritize family and freedom and flourishing under a set of economic and cultural conditions that threaten all those ideals? Do the free markets we all support need more or less intervention? Do families and individuals need more or less freedom?

Heres the NatCon statement on free markets, which some of us on the New Right might balk at in another context if it came from a FreeCon: We believe that an economy based on private property and free enterprise is best suited to promoting the prosperity of the nation and accords with traditions of individual liberty that are central to the Anglo-American political tradition. We reject the socialist principle, which supposes that the economic activity of the nation can be conducted in accordance with a rational plan dictated by the state.

Heres the FreeCon statement on the same: Most individuals are happiest in loving families, and within stable and prosperous communities in which parents are free to engage in meaningful work, and to raise and educate their children according to their values. The free enterprise system is the foundation of prosperity. Americans can only prosper in an economy in which they can afford the basics of everyday life: food, shelter, health care, and energy. A corrosive combination of government intervention and private cronyism is making these basics unaffordable to many Americans.

Lets turn to foreign affairs. There are few genuine doves in either the FreeCon or NatCon camp. Note most of the NatCon opposition to war policy in Ukraine is explicitly predicated on the need to prioritize China. Many, if not most, NatCons are willing to support a more militaristic approach to Mexican cartels as well.

If we return to the issue of tax reform, most people on the New Right myself included would say Republicans who reeled at the cultural chaos of 2020 expended vast amounts of political capital on a lower priority (without even doing it very well), when they could have met the moment and tackled the corruption of higher education and K-12 or immigration reform, they could have dealt with cronyism in housing and health care, they could have seriously reigned in Big Tech.

Many ostensible disagreements are rooted more in rhetoric and priority disagreements than ideology. Heres a broad but not at all exhaustive list of basic, fundamental points of agreement:

There are some genuine divides among many members of both camps, including:

This question of priorities is the biggest development to conservative political thought because it does change the calculus when decisions have to be made on policies like the tax code, labor, trade, education, and then rhetoric.

The Sharon Statement was a perfect articulation of conservative priorities for 1960. That really has not changed. If anything, contra the FreeCons, it should be used to unite these disparate factions, not as a wedge. The central threat is an ever-expanding federal bureaucracy that seeks, in cooperation with global institutions, to impose progressive ideological ends on individuals, families, schools, and employers by encroaching on personal and corporate freedoms.

These disagreements on rhetoric and priority are not to be minimized. They are significant. Still, its worth considering when internecine squabbles on the right boil over if the apparent divide which often looks and feels very bitter puts the two camps in different ballparks or different sections of the same one. The most important development in conservative thought to continue torturing this metaphor is that people on the right now realize where their tickets are.

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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Between The Old And New Right, There's One Major Fault Line - The Federalist

Republican Rep. Laurie Schlegel says she never saw herself running for public office. Yet, just a couple of years into her first term in the Lousiana House of Representatives, she is recognized as one of the most effective legislators in the state possibly the nation for passing a popular law that protects children from viewing onscreen sex.

In the past, Schlegels husband encouraged her to join political races, but she told The Federalist she always shut it down. She is a busy mother, counselor, and community member who, until recently, never wanted to run a campaign.

My husband is a judge here and so I never thought I would also enter into elected office. There was already one in the family, so it just wasnt something that was on my radar, Schlegel explained.

When a state House position opened after the Republican representative for Louisianas 82nd District abruptly resigned in January 2021, however, Schlegel decided to throw her hat in the ring.

It just sort of felt right. I had to make a very quick decision. He resigned in January, and the election was going to be in March, Schlegel said.

She won the seat with nearly 3,000 votes. By May 2021, Schlegel was officially a member of the Louisiana House of Representatives. One of her first orders of business was cracking down on the porn industrys grip on Pelican State children.

For almost a century, judicial precedents and legislative inaction have allowed the most horrifying sexual content to be easily accessible today to anyone, of any age. The kind of pornography kids can see includes torture, violence, degrading treatment, and all other manner of psychologically damaging material. In addition, as Fight The New Drug points out, Today, porn sites receive more website traffic in the U.S. than Twitter, Instagram, Netflix, Pinterest, and LinkedIn combined.

Schlegel decided to take this situation head-on.

We as a society have accepted certain behaviors need to be age-restricted alcohol, gaming, [in-store] pornography and so its very consistent with public policy to actually protect children, Schlegel told The Federalist.

Schlegel didnt run for the legislature intending to challenge the multibillion-dollar porn industry. Yet just a few months into her term, she started working to legally shield children from the distortion of intimacy depicted in X-rated videos.

Every single day porn websites are allowing minors to enter into their sites with actually no safeguards, Schlegel said.

These videos, Schlegel said, are not your daddys Playboy but hardcore pornography that is proven to negatively affect adolescents sexual and mental development. Thanks to ubiquitous, internet-connected cell phones and tablets, the average first age of exposure to porn has dropped to 11 years old, with some kids encountering it as young as 7.

What theyre seeing is violence masquerading as sex. A lot of the research shows that 90 percent of the leading pornography scenes are aggressive towards women. Thats what little kids are seeing, Schlegel said.

Premature introduction to explicit content that frequently romanticizes incest, rape, and other sexual horrors is linked to myriad mental and sexual disorders, as well as low mood, melancholy, lower self-esteem, and decreased appetite.

As a practicing licensed counselor and certified sex addiction therapist, Schlegel is all too familiar with the damage porn does to minds, bodies, and souls. Shes spent years treating clients who struggle with rampant porn addictions and compulsive sexual behavior, an uncontrolled hyper-fixation on indulging sexual fantasies and impulses that stemmed from prolonged interactions with visual sexual content.

If adults can become scarred from repeated exposure to onscreen sex, the havoc porn can wreak on children, who lack the cognitive function to contextualize it, is immeasurable. Despite the dangers porn poses, kids are increasingly exposed to it early in life.

Once you really fully know the gravity of the situation and what kids are seeing online and how its impacting them, we cant just sit back and just do nothing, Schlegel said.

Schlegels professional life wasnt the only thing pulling her to rein in the porn industry. On a personal level, Schlegel has a heart for children and sees her role as a mother as her highest calling.

I do feel like our responsibility as adults is to help raise up the next generation to be well-functioning, adjusted adults. Thats why Im super passionate about things around kids, Schlegel said.

Before Schlegel filed her bill aimed at curbing the porn industry, she sought to educate her colleagues on how pervasive and invasive onscreen sex is among minors.

She brought world-renowned sociologist Dr. Gail Dines, a leading anti-porn scholar, into the state legislature to give a webinar on the harms of porn. The event, hosted by the bodys womens caucus, attracted male and female Democrat and Republican legislators. They learned how exposure to sexually explicit material tanks mental health and normalizes dangerous, degrading, and predatory bedroom behavior.

Its not just an opinion, its not just a moral perspective, its actually a harms-based perspective where peer-reviewed research conclusively shows its harmful to children, Schlegel said. I think once you really fully grasp that, just like the body did, you have to do something.

Do something they did. Once she established that age verification technology was available and, with the help of several constitutional attorneys, determined it legally possible to mandate it, Schlegel pitched House Bill 142. It requires websites with at least 33.3 percent pornographic material to confirm users are older than 18 before granting them access to the full site.

Schlegels hard work gained her bill the sponsorship of nearly 50 bipartisan colleagues. The bill was rewarded with a nearly unanimous vote in the House and a unanimous vote in the Senate and eagerly signed by the states Democrat governor.

Its difficult to determine the ages of the people who made up the bulk of porn site visits in the state, but once Schlegels law went into effect in January 2022, traffic on sex-selling websites in Louisiana fell 80 percent.

Ive gotten a lot of really great feedback, Schlegel said. People even disclosing how theyve been watching [porn] since they were a little kid and how they have been struggling and they wish they would have had something a safeguard them when they were younger.

It wasnt long before Schlegel led the charge to pass another bill,HB-77, which emboldened the states attorney general to investigate and fine any websites that failed to comply with her first law.

I went through with the legislature and I actually copied down titles of the videos that were on the landing page of one of the noncompliant pornography sites. Most of the descriptions are about having sex with teens and incest, Schlegel said. These things are not normal and natural. And thats what a young mind is viewing.

Schlegel faced criticism from porn providers who claimed the law overstepped the Consitution, but she stood her ground. She said her legislation was solely rooted in her desire to do right by our children, not impose her Christian faith or restrict adults behavior.

My law is to protect children. Its not to inhibit adults from their First Amendment right. I made sure I narrowly tailored this law to protect adults First Amendment rights and not make an unduly burdensome, Schlegel said.

Schlegels legislation couldnt have been introduced at a more perfect time.

In 2021, the nations loneliness epidemic reached new heights. Americans who had suffered two decades of rapid technology advances and years of government-mandated isolation were looking for stimulation and intimate connections. Many found solace with onscreen prostitutes working for industry giants like Pornhub.

In a country where 97 percent of children as young as 3 years old have home internet access, the rapid rise in traffic on porn sites was not comforting to parents or voters.

When Schlegels bills soared through her state legislature, it made safeguarding kids look easy to more than a dozen other states. They quickly took up her model for protecting children from the physical, mental, and emotional injuries posed by websites selling sex.

Schlegel did not intend to shop out her strategy to other states, but politicians all across the nation flocked to her phone to ask for advice about how to get their own protections against porn on the books. Some of these copycat laws fared better in legislatures and courts than others, but Schlegel said that was to be expected.

I knew that there were going to be legal challenges because the porn industry is a multibillion-dollar industry that is highly unregulated, she said. And because of that, theyve been so irresponsible.

Court rulings on states laws have been what Schlegel calls a mixed bag and will likely eventually need to be decided by the Supreme Court, which hasnt ruled on a porn case since the early 2000s.

So much has changed since then, Schlegel said. There was no iPad, there was no iPhone back then. It wasnt like we had little computers in our pockets that kids have today.

In a way, Schlegel views the legal challenges and political hurdles facing other states on this issue as an encouragement.

When you see an issue and Republicans and Democrats are joining together, it means its a big issue, Schlegel said. And I think youre seeing that around protecting kids online, whether its in our country and other countries. Im very grateful that this has become a national discussion.

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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Meet The Lawmaker Who Successfully Shielded Kids From Porn - The Federalist

CNN published an exclusive statement from Trumps longest-serving White House chief of staff, John Kelly, on Monday, purporting to confirm the Atlantics election-season hit piece from three years ago. The media, it seems, is going to run the exact same inference campaign it conducted in 2020.

Trump, according to the anonymously sourced story from Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg, disparaged the graves of WWI veterans on a trip to France. According to The Atlantic, the president canceled a visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery outside of Paris in 2018 because of his hair.

Though numerous outlets including NBC News, The Guardian, The Washington Post, Axios, and The New York Times contend that Kelly had confirmed the stories, a closer reading tells us something different. What can I add that has not already been said? the former chief of staff told CNNs Jake Tapper, prefacing his statement before mentioning the alleged Aisne-Marne incident. That is not a confirmation, but a retelling.

[Trump] blamed the rain for the last-minute decision, saying the helicopter couldnt fly and that the Secret Service wouldnt drive him there. Neither claim was true, Goldberg wrote without a single on-the-record source three years ago.

Federalist Editor-in-Chief Mollie Hemingway covered the saga in her book on the 2020 election, Rigged: How the Media, Big Tech, and the Democrats Seized Our Elections.

In fact, both claims were true, she wrote. A visit by helicopter was deemed unsafe by military officials because of low cloud cover, and so was a drive through crowded Paris streets and the winding country roads from Paris to the site of the cemetery about fifty miles outside of the city.

Even John Bolton, who was Trumps National Security Adviser during the trip and who later capitalized on anti-Trump sentiment upon leaving the White House, disputed The Atlantics account.

The weather was bad, and Kelly and I spoke about whether to travel as planned to the Chateau-Thierry Belleau Wood monuments and nearby American Cemeteries, where many US World War I dead were buried, Bolton wrote in his White House memoir.

Marine Ones crew was saying that bad visibility could make it imprudent to chopper to the cemetery. The ceiling was not too low for Marines to fly in combat, but flying POTUS was obviously something very different. If a motorcade was necessary, it could take between ninety and a hundred and twenty minutes each way, along roads that were not exactly freeways, posing an unacceptable risk that we could not get the President out of France quickly enough in case of an emergency. It was a straightforward decision to cancel the visit but very hard for a Marine like Kelly to recommend, having originally been the one to suggest Belleau Wood Trump agreed, and it was decided that others would drive to the cemetery instead.

But Trump, according to Goldbergs tale, rejected the idea of the visit because he feared his hair would become disheveled in the rain, and because he did not believe it important to honor American war dead.

Why should I go to that cemetery? Goldbergs anonymous sources claimed Trump said. Its filled with losers.

Goldberg also published allegations from anonymous sources that Trump issued more derogatory comments about deceased Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain, telling White House staff in 2018 were not going to support that losers funeral.

Kellys statement Monday marks the only time a source has gone on record to support Goldbergs allegations, which, at this point, one might conclude were probably planted by Kelly in the first place.

While Goldbergs story can now count one anti-Trump source on record offering a confirmation that wasnt actually a real confirmation at all nearly two dozen officials from the Trump White House reportedly called the hit piece false.

Given Trumps enthusiastic visits with military service members and to memorial sites throughout his presidency, the Atlantic story also defies common sense.

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Kelly's 'Confirmation' Of Fake Trump Story Isn't Confirmation At All - The Federalist

Forever war enthusiast Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) declared Tuesday that the ouster of Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House was tantamount to a terrorist attack, suggesting that the eight House members who voted with Democrats to remove McCarthy were, themselves, terrorists.

We saw a similar thing happen to Boehner, Ryan, and now McCarthy. Im sure the next speaker is going to be subjected to the same terrorist attacks, Cornyn said. Later, Cornyn doubled down on his remarks, writing on X, A handful [of] House members just want to blow up the institution and themselves in the process. Sad.

To be clear, a cut-and-dry democratic vote to remove someone from a place of power is the farthest thing from a terror attack, which involves a premeditated, violent assault that inflicts injury, death, and fear on a populace.

In likening eight Republicans to terrorists, Cornyn joins the left in their campaign to label virtually all conservatives the very people Cornyn claims to represent as dangerous domestic extremists and terrorists.

The catalyst for this slanderous narrative was the events of Jan. 6, 2021, which the deep state used to vilify, torture, and, without due process, imprison innocent conservatives for the crime of questioning a rigged election. Countless peaceful J6 protesters were labeled domestic terrorists by the feds, Democrats, corporate media, and even Republican leaders.

The terrorism accusation spread from those present at the capitol to anyone who identifies with the right. Indeed, last year, during a discussion about the Jan. 6, 2021 protest, Republican Russia hoaxer and disgraced Former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe likened conservatives to members of the Islamic Caliphate and called for more robust surveillance of mainstream conservatives.

McCabes sadistic hopes have largely come true. A report published today in Newsweek detailed how the FBI has quietly created a new category of domestic terrorists, known as Anti-Government, Anti-Authority Violent Extremism (AGAAVEs). Classified data obtained by Newsweek, however, reveals that Anti-Government, Anti-Authority Violent Extremism is just code for the supporters of former President Donald Trump. The new label is a way for the Biden DOJ to target people based on their political beliefs without being explicit.

According to FBI data obtained by Newsweek, nearly two-thirds of the FBIs current investigations are focused on Trump supporters.

None of this should be surprising given that President Joe Biden repeatedly tells us exactly what he thinks about half the American public. Donald Trump and MAGARepublicansare a threat to the very soul of this country, Biden tweeted last September.

It doesnt stop with Trump supporters. After Jan. 6, Bidens FBI launched an investigation into terrorist parents who opposed child mask mandates and the teaching of critical race theory at local school board meetings. In a brazen violation of the First Amendment, the FBI investigated and seemingly infiltrated and surveilled Latin mass-attending Catholics, whom the bureau labeled Radical-Traditionalist Catholics and potential Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremists.

The feds have also declared war on peaceful pro-life protesters, raiding their homes at gunpoint in the dead of night and charging them with federal crimes that will likely lead to massive fines and prison time.

Cornyns statement is consistent with what he truly is: controlled opposition. He supports federal legislation that brazenly violates the Second Amendment; applauds the risky experimental Covid vaccines, which were forced on large swaths of the American public with complete disregard for bodily autonomy; pushes for legislation allowing the Biden administration to force public schools to teach racist, anti-American Critical Race Theory; opposes House Republicans who aretrying to investigate Democrats witch hunt against former President Donald Trump; and, continues to support fueling the bloody conflict in Ukraine by demanding blank checks be sent to Volodymyr Zelensky. (Zelensky, notably, refuses to hold elections until the war is over and has moved to restrict the religious practices of Ukraines second-largest denomination of Orthodox Christians.)

Like the Democrats and their partners in the deep state, Cornyn deeply loathes the genuinely conservative sect of the Republican Party and, like the left, sees utility in labeling them terrorists. Leftists want to wield and maintain power by force, and their way of doing so is by demonizing and criminalizing political opposition. Throughout history, dehumanizing lies of this nature have led to unimaginable atrocities. Any Republican who parrots the narrative that conservatives are terrorists is not an ally theyre a snake in the grass.

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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John Cornyn Joins Deep State In Calling Conservatives Terrorists - The Federalist