Category Archives: Federalist

Even with the titanic marketing force of Disney and buzz (no pun intended) around featuring a lesbian couple kissing, Lightyear proved to be a flop. Although it was expected to top the charts and bring in $70 million in its first weekend (a modest goal, all things considered), the movie made $51 million, second behind the newest Jurassic Park installment. For context, Top Gun: Maverick made more than $100 million in its opening weekend.

While its fair to see this as yet another instance of the truism, go woke, go broke, its worth asking why Disney keeps doing this. They have a whole slew of perfectly profitable franchises to tap, and they can churn out blockbusters from any of them without breaking a sweat. Why do they feel the need to shoehorn a scene of lesbians kissing that no asked for? Why did they double-down against their own audience?

Probably the first and foremost reason that Disney executives do this is because they can. They believe they have a monopoly over young audiences and can start treating them like a captive audience. Daniel Greenfield makes a convincing case in Frontpage Mag that this is exactly what Disney is thinking: Disney may have started out feeding the imaginations of children, but now its business model is acquiring intellectual properties with active fandoms and milking the adult fans for every cent. Rest assured, Disney will keep issuing more sequels and spinoffs ad nauseam, knowing full well that their cult-like fandoms will continue to watch them.

When entertaining people becomes secondary, its only natural to propagate a message. These days, that message is diversity, inclusion, and equity (DIE, as Jordan Peterson puts it), which has become the standard in all popular entertainment. For example, it was clear Frozen II would make a lot of money just because it was Frozen II, so its creators decided to turn the movie into a convoluted propaganda piece that spoke on the environment, the treatment of indigenous people, and female empowerment. No one seemed to mind that the movie was terrible, and theres little doubt that Disney will make another sequel when the time is right.

However, what really seems to lie at the heart of this decision to promote lesbianism in a kids movie is something much more profound and personal than anyone cares to admit. Disney filmmakers and most of the creative class in Hollywood have become boring. They arent all that interesting, and nothing really interests them. Action, drama, romance, and all the magic of moviemaking doesnt excite them anymore.

Rather, like bored teenagers addicted to TikTok, Disney executives are more interested in identity politics and social justice, and they believe that everyone else is interested in this too. Sure, people may watch the new show about Obi-wan Kenobi because they know and love the character, but whats really going to hook them is the black female antagonist because shes (wait for it) black and female. And, if they dont like her, theyre haters and Disney will delight in taking a quixotic stand against these anonymous bigots.

Wokeness has become a vicious cycle for privileged creators: success makes them bored, so they go woke, but this bores them again, so they double-down on their wokeness, which soon becomes boring, etc. This cycle is then reinforced by social media, which affirms these peoples narcissism and casts their dissatisfied fans as ignorant bigots.

Seen from a healthy distance, this phenomenon of bored filmmakers injecting wokeness in Lightyear makes little sense. How can anyone be bored by a story about a space ranger fighting for his friends on a distant planet? Why would they feel the need to spice this up with wokeness? Was depicting acts of valor against space aliens not enough?

And yet, this is how a woke person sees the world. Discussing a theologians bold (and nonsensical) claim that Jesus was actually a transgender person, Catholic writer Michael Warren Davis notes how narrow this view is: The Bible is the most profound and influential book in the whole history of the world. It contains the philosophy of Jesus Christ, the most important philosopher and mystic in world history Now, imagine if all you could find in those pages was a parable for transvestic fetishism. What a boring little place your head must be.

For most people, this is the real problem with the woke agenda: its boring and predictable. Perhaps a few people were outraged when they heard of the lesbian kiss in Lightyear, but the majority people likely rolled their eyes and muttered, Oh okay. Ill pass then.

Not surprisingly, these peoples suspicions were confirmed. The movie was indeed dull: the characters were flat, the story was dumb, and the themes resonate more with adults suffering from a midlife crisis than with actual kids. Clearly, the creators of the movie were more worried about indulging themselves and crafting woke propaganda than in entertaining audiences. Its the work of bored people putting out a boring product for an increasingly bored audience thats burned out on the wokeness.

Hopefully, filmmakers at Disney can learn from this mistake and break the cycle. The world is so much more than peoples skin color and sexual orientation, and the possibilities for storytelling are endless. These people need to get over their boredom, stop obsessing over diversity and representation, and return to making fun movies that transcend all that and really go to infinity and beyond. Itd be a win-win: Fans would be happy, filmmakers would find purpose again, and the modern entertainment in general would be slightly less mediocre.

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Dull 'Lightyear' Is Another Victim Of Bored, Woke Filmmakers - The Federalist

#DateTitle11787Oct27General Introduction21787Oct31Concerning Dangers from Foreign Force and Influence31787Nov3Concerning Dangers from Foreign Force and Influence (continued)41787Nov7Concerning Dangers from Foreign Force and Influence (continued)51787Nov10Concerning Dangers from Foreign Force and Influence (continued)61787Nov14Concerning Dangers from Dissensions Between the States71787Nov15Concerning Dangers from Dissensions Between the States (continued) and Particular Causes Enumerated81787Nov20Consequences of Hostilities Between the States91787Nov21The Utility of the Union as a Safeguard Against Domestic Faction and Insurrection101787Nov22The Utility of the Union as a Safeguard Against Domestic Faction and Insurrection (continued)111787Nov24The Utility of the Union in Respect to Commercial Relations and a Navy121787Nov27The Utility of the Union In Respect to Revenue131787Nov28Advantage of the Union in Respect to Economy in Government141787Nov30Objections to the Proposed Constitution From Extent of Territory Answered151787Dec1Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to Preserve the Union161787Dec4Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to Preserve the Union (continued)171787Dec5Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to Preserve the Union (continued)181787Dec7Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to Preserve the Union (continued)191787Dec8Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to Preserve the Union (continued)201787Dec11Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to Preserve the Union (continued)211787Dec12Other Defects of the Present Confederation221787Dec14Other Defects of the Present Confederation (continued)231787Dec18Necessity of a Government as Energetic as the One Proposed to the Preservation of the Union241787Dec19Powers Necessary to the Common Defense Further Considered251787Dec21Powers Necessary to the Common Defense Further Considered (continued)261787Dec22Idea of Restraining the Legislative Authority in Regard to the Common Defense Considered271787Dec25Idea of Restraining the Legislative Authority in Regard to the Common Defense Considered (continued)281787Dec26Idea of Restraining the Legislative Authority in Regard to the Common Defense Considered (continued)291788Jan9Concerning the Militia301787Dec28Concerning the General Power of Taxation311788Jan1Concerning the General Power of Taxation (continued)321788Jan2Concerning the General Power of Taxation (continued)331788Jan2Concerning the General Power of Taxation (continued)341788Jan5Concerning the General Power of Taxation (continued)351788Jan5Concerning the General Power of Taxation (continued)361788Jan8Concerning the General Power of Taxation (continued)371788Jan11Concerning the Difficulties of the Convention in Devising a Proper Form of Government381788Jan12The Same Subject Continued, and the Incoherence of the Objections to the New Plan Exposed391788Jan16Conformity of the Plan to Republican Principles401788Jan18On the Powers of the Convention to Form a Mixed Government Examined and Sustained411788Jan19General View of the Powers Conferred by The Constitution421788Jan22The Powers Conferred by the Constitution Further Considered431788Jan23The Powers Conferred by the Constitution Further Considered (continued)441788Jan25Restrictions on the Authority of the Several States451788Jan26Alleged Danger From the Powers of the Union to the State Governments Considered461788Jan29The Influence of the State and Federal Governments Compared471788Jan30The Particular Structure of the New Government and the Distribution of Power Among Its Different Parts481788Feb1These Departments Should Not Be So Far Separated as to Have No Constitutional Control Over Each Other491788Feb2Method of Guarding Against the Encroachments of Any One Department of Government by Appealing to the People Through a Convention501788Feb5Periodical Appeals to the People Considered511788Feb6The Structure of the Government Must Furnish the Proper Checks and Balances Between the Different Departments521788Feb8The House of Representatives531788Feb9The House of Representatives (continued)541788Feb12Apportionment of Members of the House of Representatives Among the States551788Feb13The Total Number of the House of Representatives561788Feb16The Total Number of the House of Representatives (continued)571788Feb19The Alleged Tendency of the New Plan to Elevate the Few at the Expense of the Many Considered in Connection with Representation581788Feb20Objection That The Number of Members Will Not Be Augmented as the Progress of Population Demands Considered591788Feb22Concerning the Power of Congress to Regulate the Election of Members601788Feb23Concerning the Power of Congress to Regulate the Election of Members (continued)611788Feb26Concerning the Power of Congress to Regulate the Election of Members (continued)621788Feb27The Senate631788Mar1The Senate (continued)641788Mar5The Powers of the Senate651788Mar7The Powers of the Senate (continued)661788Mar8Objections to the Power of the Senate To Set as a Court for Impeachments Further Considered671788Mar11The Executive Department681788Mar12The Mode of Electing the President691788Mar14The Real Character of the Executive701788Mar15The Executive Department Further Considered711788Mar18The Duration in Office of the Executive721788Mar19The Same Subject Continued, and Re-Eligibility of the Executive Considered731788Mar21The Provision For The Support of the Executive, and the Veto Power741788Mar25The Command of the Military and Naval Forces, and the Pardoning Power of the Executive751788Mar26The Treaty-Making Power of the Executive761788Apr1The Appointing Power of the Executive771788Apr2The Appointing Power Continued and Other Powers of the Executive Considered781788Jun14The Judiciary Department791788Jun18The Judiciary Continued801788Jun21The Powers of the Judiciary811788Jun25The Judiciary Continued, and the Distribution of the Judicial Authority821788Jul2The Judiciary Continued831788Jul5The Judiciary Continued in Relation to Trial by Jury841788Jul16Certain General and Miscellaneous Objections to the Constitution Considered and Answered851788Aug13Concluding Remarks

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Federalist Papers

There is an idea, which is not without its advocates, that a vigorous executive is inconsistent with the genius of republican government. The enlightened well-wishers to this species of government must at least hope that the supposition is destitute of foundation; since they can never admit its truth, without at the same time admitting the condemnation of their own principles. Energy in the executive is a leading character in the definition of good government. It is essential to the protection of the community against foreign attacks; it is not less essential to the steady administration of the laws; to the protection of property against those irregular and high-handed combinations which sometimes interrupt the ordinary course of justice; to the security of liberty against the enterprises and assaults of ambition, of faction, and of anarchy. Every man the least conversant in Roman history knows how often that republic was obliged to take refuge in the absolute power of a single man, under the formidable title of dictator, as well against the intrigues of ambitious individuals who aspired to the tyranny, and the seditions of whole classes of the community whose conduct threatened the existence of all government, as against the invasions of external enemies who menaced the conquest and destruction of Rome.

There can be no need, however, to multiply arguments or examples on this head. A feeble executive implies a feeble execution of the government. A feeble execution is but another phrase for a bad execution; and a government ill executed, whatever it may be in theory, must be, in practice, a bad government.

Taking it for granted, therefore, that all men of sense will agree in the necessity of an energetic executive; it will only remain to inquire, what are the ingredients which constitute this energy? How far can they be combined with those other ingredients which constitute safety in the republican sense? And how far does this combination characterize the plan which has been reported by the convention?

The ingredients which constitute energy in the executive are unity; duration; an adequate provision for its support; and competent powers.

The ingredients which constitute safety in the republican sense are a due dependence on the people, secondly a due responsibility.

Those politicians and statesmen who have been the most celebrated for the soundness of their principles and for the justness of their views have declared in favor of a single executive and a numerous legislature. They have with great propriety, considered energy as the most necessary qualification of the former, and have regarded this as most applicable to power in a single hand; while they have, with equal propriety, considered the latter as best adapted to deliberation and wisdom, and best calculated to conciliate the confidence of the people and to secure their privileges and interests.

That unity is conducive to energy will not be disputed. Decision, activity, secrecy, and dispatch will generally characterize the proceedings of one man in a much more eminent degree than the proceedings of any greater number; and in proportion as the number is increased, these qualities will be diminished.

This unity may be destroyed in two ways: either by vesting the power in two or more magistrates of equal dignity and authority, or by vesting it ostensibly in one man, subject in whole or in part to the control and co-operation of others, in the capacity of counselors to him. Of the first, the two consuls of Rome may serve as an example; of the last, we shall find examples in the constitutions of several of the States. New York and New Jersey, if I recollect right, are the only States which have entrusted the executive authority wholly to single men. Both these methods of destroying the unity of the executive have their partisans; but the votaries of an executive council are the most numerous. They are both liable, if not to equal, to similar objections, and may in most lights be examined in conjunction.

The experience of other nations will afford little instruction on this head. As far, however, as it teaches anything, it teaches us not to be enamored of plurality in the executive. We have seen that the Achaeans on an experiment of two Praetors, were induced to abolish one. The Roman history records many instances of mischiefs to the republic from the dissentions between the consuls, and between the military tribunes, who were at times substituted to the consuls. But it gives us no specimens of any peculiar advantages derived to the state from the circumstance of the plurality of those magistrates. That the dissentions between them were not more frequent or more fatal is matter of astonishment, until we advert to the singular position in which he republic was almost continually placed and to the prudent policy pointed out by the circumstances of the state, and pursued by the consuls, of making a division of the government between them. The patricians engaged in a perpetual struggle with the plebians for the preservation of their ancient authorities and dignities; the consuls, who were generally chosen out of the former body, were commonly united by the personal interest they had in the defense of the privileges of their order. In addition to this motive of union, after the arms of the republic had considerably expanded the bounds of its empire, it became an established custom with the consuls to divide the administration between themselves by lotone of them remaining at Rome to govern the city and its environs; the other taking the command in the more distant provinces. This expedient must no doubt have had great influence in preventing those collisions and rivalships which might otherwise have embroiled the peace of the republic.

But quitting the dim light of historical research, and attaching ourselves purely to the dictates of reason and good sense, we shall discover much greater cause to reject than to approve the idea of plurality in the executive, under any modification whatever.

Wherever two or more persons are engaged in any common enterprise or pursuit, there is always danger of difference of opinion. If it be a public trust or office in which they are clothed with equal dignity and authority, there is peculiar danger of personal emulation and even animosity. From either, and especially from all these causes, the most bitter dissentions are apt to spring. Whenever these happen, they lessen the respectability, weaken the authority, and distract the plans and operations of those whom they divide. If they should unfortunately assail the supreme executive magistracy of a country, consisting of a plurality of persons, they might impede or frustrate the most important measures of the government in the most critical emergencies of the state. And what is still worse, they might split the community into the most violent and irreconcilable factions, adhering differently to the different individuals who composed the magistracy.

Men often oppose a thing merely because they have had no agency in planning it, or because it may have been planned by those whom they dislike. But if they have been consulted, and have happened to disapprove, opposition then becomes, in their estimation an indispensable duty of self-love. They seem to think themselves bound in honor, and by all the motives of personal infallibility, to defeat the success of what has been resolved upon, contrary to their sentiments. Men of upright, benevolent tempers have too many opportunities of remarking, with horror, to what desperate lengths this disposition is sometimes carried, and how often the great interests of society are sacrificed to the vanity, to the conceit, and to the obstinacy of individuals, who have credit enough to make their passions and their caprices interesting to mankind. Perhaps the question now before the public may, in its consequences, afford melancholy proofs of the effects of this despicable frailty, or rather detestable vice, in the human character.

Upon the principles of a free government, inconveniences from the source just mentioned must necessarily be submitted to in the formation of the legislature; but it is unnecessary, and therefore unwise, to introduce them into the constitution of the executive. It is here too that they may be most pernicious. In the legislature, promptitude of decision is oftener an evil than a benefit. The differences of opinion, and the jarrings of parties in that department of the government, though they may sometimes obstruct salutary plans, yet often promote deliberation and circumspection, and serve to check excesses in the majority. When a resolution too is once taken, the opposition must be at an end. That resolution is a law, and resistance to it punishable. But no favorable circumstances palliate or atone for the disadvantages of dissention in the executive department. Here they are pure and unmixed. There is no point at which they cease to operate. They serve to embarrass and weaken the execution of the plan or measure to which they relate, from the first step to the final conclusion of it. They constantly counteract those qualities in the executive which are the most necessary ingredients in its compositionvigor and expedition, and this without any counterbalancing good. In the conduct of war, in which the energy of the executive is the bulwark of the national security, everything would be to be apprehended from its plurality.

It must be confessed that these observations apply with principal weight to the first case supposedthat is, to a plurality of magistrates of equal dignity and authority, a scheme, the advocates for which are not likely to form a numerous sect; but they apply, though not with equal yet with considerable weight to the project of a council, whose concurrence is made constitutionally necessary to the operations of the ostensible executive. An artful cabal in that council would be able to distract and to enervate the whole system of administration. If no such cabal should exist, the mere diversity of views and opinions would alone be sufficient to tincture the exercise of the executive authority with a spirit of habitual feebleness and dilatoriness.

But one of the weightiest objections to a plurality in the executive, and which lies as much against the last as the first plan is that it tends to conceal faults and destroy responsibility. Responsibility is of two kindsto censure and to punishment. The first is the most important of the two, especially in an elective office. Men in public trust will much oftener act in such a manner as to render them unworthy of being any longer trusted, than in such a manner as to make him obnoxious to legal punishment. But the multiplication of the executive adds to the difficulty of detection in either case. It often becomes impossible, amidst mutual accusations, to determine on whom the blame or the punishment of a pernicious measure, or series of pernicious measures, ought really to fall. It is shifted from one to another with so much dexterity, and under such plausible appearances, that the public opinion is left in suspense about the real author. The circumstances which may have led to any national miscarriage or misfortune are sometimes so complicated that where there are a number of actors who may have had different degrees and kinds of agency, though we may clearly see upon the whole that there has been mismanagement, yet it may be impracticable to pronounce to whose account the evil which may have been incurred is truly chargeable.

I was overruled by my council. The council were so divided in their opinions that it was impossible to obtain any better resolution on the point. These and similar pretexts are constantly at hand, whether true or false. And who is there that will either take the trouble or incur the odium of a strict scrutiny into the secret springs of the transaction? Should there be found a citizen zealous enough to undertake the unpromising task, if there happened to be a collusion between the parties concerned, how easy is it to cloth the circumstances with so much ambiguity as to render it uncertain what was the precise conduct of any of those parties?

In the single instance in which the governor of this state is coupled with a councilthat is, in the appointment to offices, we have seen the mischiefs of it in the view now under consideration. Scandalous appointments to important offices have been made. Some cases indeed have been so flagrant that ALL PARTIES have agreed in the impropriety of the thing. When inquiry has been made, the blame has been laid by the governor on the members of the council; who on their part have charged it upon his nomination; while the people remain altogether at a loss to determine by whose influence their interests have been committed to hands so unqualified and so manifestly improper. In tenderness to individuals, I forbear to descend to particulars.

It is evident from these considerations that the plurality of the executive tends to deprive the people of the two greatest securities they can have for the faithful exercise of any delegated power, first, the restraints of public opinion, which lose their efficacy as well on account of the division of the censure attendant on bad measures among a number as on account of the uncertainty on whom it ought to fall; and, second, the opportunity of discovering with facility and clearness the misconduct of the persons they trust, in order either to their removal from office or to their actual punishment in cases which admit of it.

In England, the king is a perpetual magistrate; and it is a maxim which has obtained for the sake of the public peace that he is unaccountable for his administration, and his person sacred. Nothing, therefore, can be wiser in that kingdom than to annex to the king a constitutional council, who may be responsible to the nation for the advice they give. Without this, there would be no responsibility whatever in the executive departmentan idea inadmissible in a free government. But even there the king is not bound by the resolutions of his council, though they are answerable for the advice they give. He is the absolute master of his own conduct in the exercise of his office and may observe or disregard the council given to him at his sole discretion.

But in a republic where every magistrate ought to be personally responsible for his behavior in office, the reason which in the British Constitution dictates the propriety of a council not only ceases to apply, but turns against the institution. In the monarchy of Great Britain, it furnishes a substitute for the prohibited responsibility of the Chief Magistrate, which serves in some degree as a hostage to the national justice for his good behavior. In the American republic, it would serve to destroy, or would greatly diminish, the intended and necessary responsibility of the Chief Magistrate himself.

The idea of a council to the executive, which has so generally obtained in the State constitutions, has been derived from that maxim of republican jealousy which considers power as safer in the hands of a number of men than of a single man. If the maxim should be admitted to be applicable to the case, I should contend that the advantage on that side would not counterbalance the numerous disadvantages on the opposite side. But I do not think the rule at all applicable to the executive power. I clearly concur in opinion, in this particular, with a writer whom the celebrated Junius pronounces to be deep, solid and ingenious, that the executive power is more easily confined when it is one; that it is far more safe there should be a single object for the jealousy and watchfulness of the people; and, in a word, that all multiplication of the executive is rather dangerous than friendly to liberty.

A little consideration will satisfy us that the species of security sought for in the multiplication of the executive is unattainable. Numbers must be so great as to render combination difficult, or they are rather a source of danger than of security. The united credit and influence of several individuals must be more formidable to liberty than the credit and influence of either of them separately. When power, therefore, is placed in the hands of so small a number of men as to admit of their interests and views being easily combined in a common enterprise, by an artful leader, it becomes more liable to abuse and more dangerous when abused, than if it be lodged in the hands of one man, who, from the very circumstance of his being alone, will be more narrowly watched and more readily suspected, and who cannot unite so great a mass of influence as when he is associated with others. The decemvirs of Rome, whose name denotes their number, were more to be dreaded in their usurpation than any ONE of them would have been. No person would think of proposing an executive much more numerous than that body; from six to a dozen have been suggested for the number of the council. The extreme of these numbers is not too great for an easy combination; and from such a combination America would have more to fear than from the ambition of any single individual. A council to a magistrate, who is himself responsible for what he does, are generally nothing better than a clog upon his good intentions, are often the instruments and accomplices of his bad, and are almost always a cloak to his faults.

I forbear to dwell upon the subject of expense; though it be evident that if the council should be numerous enough to answer the principal end aimed at by the institution, the salaries of the members, who must be drawn from their homes to reside at the seat of government, would form an item in the catalogue of public expenditures too serious to be incurred for an object of equivocal utility.

I will only add that, prior to the appearance of the Constitution, I rarely met with an intelligent man from any of the States who did not admit, as the result of experience, that the UNITY of the executive of this State was one of the best of the distinguishing features of our Constitution.

PUBLIUS

Source:The Federalist: The Gideon Edition,eds. George W. Carey and James McClellan (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2001), 362-369.

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Federalist No. 70 | Teaching American History

Summary

This section of six chapters deals with the proposed structure of federal courts, their powers and jurisdiction, the method of appointing judges, and related matters.

A first important consideration was the manner of appointing federal judges, and the length of their tenure in office. They should be appointed in the same way as other federal officers, which had been discussed before. As to tenure, the Constitution proposed that they should hold office "during good behaviour," a provision to be found in the constitutions of almost all the states. As experience had proved, there was no better way of securing a steady, upright, and impartial administration of the law. To perform its functions well, the judiciary had to remain "truly distinct" from both the legislative and executive branches of the government, and act as a check on both.

There had been some question Hamilton called it a "perplexity," as well he might about the rights of the courts to declare a legislative act null and void if, in the court's opinion, it violated the Constitution. It was argued that this implied a "superiority of the judiciary to the legislative power." Not at all, Hamilton argued. The courts had to regard the Constitution as fundamental law, and it was, therefore, the responsibility of the courts "to ascertain its meaning as well as the meaning of any particular act proceeding from the legislative body." The same should apply to actions taken by the executive.

Analysis

In this essay Hamilton discussed the question of whether the Supreme Court should have the authority to declare acts of Congress null and void because, in the Court's opinion, they violated the Constitution. Hamilton answered in the affirmative; such a power would tend to curb the "turbulence and follies of democracy." But others have disagreed with Hamilton about this. Among those who have wished to curtail the Supreme Court's power to invalidate acts of Congress have been Presidents Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and Franklin D. Roosevelt. The issue is still a live one, as is evident from the heated debates of recent years.

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Federalist No. 78 (Hamilton) - CliffsNotes

It didnt take long after the shooting in Uvalde, Texas for Americas neo-Marxist left to reignite their full-fledged assault on the Second Amendment.

Before the victims families could even lay their loved ones to rest, calls were being made by some of the countrys most notable Democrats to bar and confiscate certain types of firearms from the American public. Look no further than President Joe Biden, who, in addition to advocating for a ban on rifles like the AR-15, has repeatedly stated that the constitutional rights of Americans are not absolute.

They said a .22-caliber bullet will lodge in the lung, and we can probably get it out may be able to get it and save the life. A 9mm bullet blows the lung out of the body, he said last month. So, the idea of these high-caliber weapons is, uh, theres simply no rational basis for it in terms of self-protection, hunting Remember, the Constitution was never absolute.

Massachusetts Democrat Sen. Ed Markey took his remarks a step further, arguing that his party should pack the Supreme Court in order to ensure that when [Democrats] put gun safety laws on the books they are not overrid[den].

Despite the glaringly obvious intentions to disarm the American citizenry through any means necessary, Senate Republican leadership was more than happy to jump in bed with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and his merry band of dystopian Democrats to negotiate a compromise on gun control legislation. Released on Tuesday, the bill provides increased funding to state mental health resources, as well as funding for states to implement red flag laws.

As previously noted by Federalist Senior Editor David Harsanyi, red flag laws are ripe for abuse, with authorities in states like California and Maryland able to confiscate weapons merely on the strength of an uncorroborated allegation by family members, coworkers, law enforcement officers, or others without any kind of genuine due process.

Senate Republicans have since faced well-deserved backlash from conservative voters since the frameworks release, with Texas Sen. John Cornynwho spearheaded the negotiations with Democratsgetting booed off the stage at the Texas GOP convention on Friday. In an attack on his own base, Cornyn proceeded to retweet a journalist that quoted the Texas senator as having referred to the upset crowd (many of whom likely voted for him in 2020) as a mob.

Youd think that with recent special election victories and polls indicating a red tsunami in the midterm elections, Republicans would be politically savvy enough to outright reject Democrats assault on Americans constitutional liberties. Such commonsense thinking, however, has always been absent from GOP leadership, who have routinely caved to the left on nearly every major policy issue and worked to stab their base in the back.

Take, for instance, the subject of immigration. In March of last year, when illegal immigration along the U.S. southern border was beginning to skyrocket, a group of congressional Republicans led by South Carolina Sen. Lindsay Graham and Florida Rep. Maria Salazar proposed legislation that wouldve provided a pathway to citizenship for illegal aliens living in the country. As reported by Breitbart News, the plan would have provided green cards to illegal aliens enrolled and eligible for former President Obamas Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program and gives work visas to the roughly 11 to 22 million illegal aliens in the U.S.

Specifically, the amnesty dubbed the Dignity Proposal would give legal resident status to anywhere from 1.5 to 3.5 million illegal aliens who are enrolled and eligible for DACA. Eventually, these illegal aliens can apply for green cards and obtain American citizenship, the Breitbart report reads.

Immigration is hardly the only issue where Republicans have ceded ground to Democrats. In recent years, the GOP has been complicit in helping Democrats raise the debt ceiling, fund the moronic Covid-19 lockdowns, and confirm Bidens radical, left-wing judicial nominees to the federal bench at a rate not seen since the presidency of Ronald Reagan.

Rather than put up a fight for their voters, many congressional Republicans have instead fallen in line with Democrats, thus helping the latter advance their neo-Marxist agenda and bid to exert greater control over the American populace.

Whether its our politics or our culture, many conservatives often wonder how America couldve reached the point where multi-trillion spending packages and choosing your sex have become normalized. What ever happened to that shining city on the hill that Reagan talked about? How has the left taken so much ground in such a short period of time?

The simple fact is that when only one side is playing to advance their values and ideology using the current framework, society tends to devolve pretty quickly. As a result of weak-kneed Republicans who have refused to fight for the ideals that have defined our country for generations, America has declined into the vapid and increasingly Godless state we find her in today.

Unlike President Bill Clinton, who declared that the era of big government is over after his party experienced tremendous losses in the 1994 midterms, dont expect todays Democrat Party to recant or move to the center on any major political or cultural issue when they get annihilated at the ballot box this November. For the left, election losses are seen as mere temporary setbacks. Democrats know that at the end of the day, the likelihood that Republicans will utilize any congressional majorities to advance or promote a pro-freedom agenda and reverse actions taken by their party is slim to none.

If conservatives wish to reverse this trend, it is incumbent upon voters to either consistently pressure elected Republicans into advancing our principles or throw them out of office if they dont. Any form of complacency will only continue this vicious cycle, wherein Democrats slowly destroy the country while Republicans just sit and watch.

Shawn Fleetwood is an intern at The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He also serves 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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America Won't Survive If Only The Left Is Playing To Win - The Federalist

More than half of U.S. Democrats believe that President Joe Bidens policies caused the nations record-high inflation.

A new poll from Issues & Insights and TIPP found that approximately 53 percent of blue voters blame Biden, his administration, and his agenda for Mays 8.6 percent year-over-year increase in essential goods and services costs that are plaguing Americans.

As a matter of fact, according to I&I, every race, age, income, and education group except for self-proclaimed liberals overwhelmingly felt Bidens policies caused the current inflation mess.

In general, 64 percent of American adults said they think Biden shoulders the responsibility for skyrocketing prices. Of that 64 percent, most (38 percent) said Biden is very responsible and 26 percent said the Democrat is somewhat responsible.

Only 8 percent of those surveyed said they believed Biden was not at all responsible for the countrys economic woes.

Despite Americans widespread belief that the nations money problems were caused by Biden, the White House refuses to take responsibility for them. Biden insists that Russias Vladimir Putin is to blame for record-high gas prices and rising costs in the U.S. but Americans arent buying it.

No matter how many times White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre lies that the economy is in a better place than it has been historically, Democrats, Republicans, and Independents know excessive federal spending and government-induced supply chain issues are only a recipe for economic disaster.

According to the same poll, approximately two-thirds of U.S. adults said they believed too much federal spending made inflation worse.

Americans disapproval of inflation doesnt bode well for Biden, whose overall average job approval rating currently sits at 39.7 percent. Nor does it bode well for Democrats going into midterms where a majority of Americans say their top voting priority will be the state of the economy.

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

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Poll: Majority Of Democrats Say Runaway Inflation Is Biden's Fault - The Federalist

Younger readers probably wont comprehend how important magazines like Sports Illustrated were in pre-internet culture. Most sports news wasfound in local papers and in short segments at 10 p.m. on the nightly news. Sports Illustrated was oftenthough, periodically, competition would pop upthe sole venue in which a sports fan could find deeply reported, well-crafted features and profiles, not to mention often-remarkable photography (the swimsuit issues, naturally, sold best). The magazines circulation hit around 3.5 million in the mid-1980s, with another million copies being bought on newsstands.

In my late 20s, I brieflyworkedfor the company (well, the website, which was then called CNN/SI.comperhaps a portend of terrible things to come), where I occasionally interacted with one of my writing heroes, Frank Deford. What a dream it was. I would have done it for free. I guess I almost did.

Ive largely ignored the magazine for the past decade or so, not for any philosophical reasons or any animosity, but with all the choices it simply fell off my radar. But after running across an astoundingly nonsensical pieceheadlinedWhen Faith and Football Teamed Up Against American Democracy, Im glad I did.

Ostensibly, the feature is about Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, a SCOTUS case regarding a school district punishing a football coach named Joseph Kennedy for a 30-second silent prayer on the 50-yard line after every game. The pieces subhead describes the case as so:

The U.S. Supreme Court will soon decide the case of a football coach at a public high school who was told he wasnt allowed to pray on the field in front of players. The expected result is a win for the coachand the further erosion of the separation between church and state.

In frontof players? Can you imagine? How will our brittle democracy survive an open display of religiosity? Greg Bishop, who could easily have written this piece for The Nation, offers no explanation of how a prayer is eroding separation of Church and State. Even this atheist, after all, understands that the Establishment Clause doesnt ban praying in public placesnot in schools, and not even in Congress, where prayers are recited before every session.

Bishop anoints Rachel Laser of Americans United for Separation of Church and State his proxy, allowing her to frame the debate over Kennedy in the most preposterously hyperbolic, partisan terms imaginable, even though the only thing her organization excels at is losing cases. The bad-faith retelling of Kennedys story is crammed with partisan platitudes about democracy being under attack on issues like voting rights, LGBTQ rights, and the potential overturning of Roe v. Wade.

Now, its unimaginable that a major publication would allow areporter to throw around phrases like voting integrity, religious freedom, and protecting the life of the unbornwithout quotation marks intimating that the ideas arent realand thats probably always been the case. Though the piece brings upRoethree times, no one explains how a court (concerned solely with the constitutionality of laws) is undermining democratic institutions by giving abortion rights, unmentioned in the Constitution, back to voters. Washington State, home of Bremerton High School, sadly, will not be restricting abortion any time soon.

In any event, Bishop also uses appeals to authority, tapping independent scholars or legal experts who hold no vested interest in the outcomeone of the only names offered isconspiracy theoristLaurence Tribe. He warns readers about the nefarious, big-money forces propping up Kennedy. First Liberty($7,255,961in assets), writes Bishop, is a powerful Christian conservative law firm, part of apowerful right-wing machinepowerfulis the key word herewhile Americans United for Separation of Church and State($11,141,577in assets, not counting in-kind contributions from places like the Meredith Corporation, which has $6.727 billion in assets), are simply terrified and transported to an alternate universe of disinformation and propagandaand, in that world, even democracy is in danger.

Disinformation? Its all just progressive mad libs. Thats what happens when democracy is a euphemism for achieving political ends in whatever fashion happens to be convenient. Sometimes, when the numbers are there, it means crass majoritarianism and centralized federal power; and when the numbers arent there, it can mean compulsion or a court dictating rights by fiat.

In this case, a school district, not the coach, is attempting to limit speech. There is no prohibition on praying in public institutions. Such a prohibition has never existed. Any scholarand Bishop claims to have spoken to many for the piecewho claims that the Constitutions authors would have found the act of kneeling after a competition perilous to foundational American ideals is a complete fraud. Then again, When Faith and Football Teamed Up Against American Democracy is a microcosm of the incurious activism that dominates journalism these days. Its one thing to put up with relentless bias thats infected virtually every area of mainstream culture, but another to see once-respected magazines putting out such banal, predictable propaganda.

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Sports Illustrated Is Now A Bullhorn For Attacks On The First Amendment - The Federalist

MATAMOROS, Mexico Its easy to find gut-wrenching stories at the border. Ask almost any migrant you meet in northern Mexico and youll hear about the violence and hardships they endured to get as far as they have.

Alba Luz Perdomo, for example, fled Honduras with her husband and 13-year-old daughter after a gang killed her brother and threatened to kill them too. But that was just the beginning of their troubles.

They were forced to leave a farm where they had been working in the southern Mexican state of Tabasco by locals who told them foreigners werent welcome. In Monterrey, Perdomos daughter was nearly abducted by their landlord. They sought help from a man claiming to be a pastor in Matamoros, but who turned out to be a human trafficker and kept the family in his house for 20 days before they managed to escape.

Now theyre living in a migrant shelter in Matamoros, just across the river from Brownsville, Texas. But theyre afraid to leave the walled compound of the shelter because the local cartel keeps trying to recruit her husband. Perdomo says she doesnt want to cross the border illegally, but doesnt know what to do. Im asking God to do something, she says, because this is horrible.

Alba Luz Perdomo recounts her familys harrowing journey through Mexico to Matamoros.

Its impossible not to feel sympathy for this woman and her family. Their story is shockingly commonplace among migrants stuck in Mexican border towns like Matamoros and Reynosa, where I recently traveled with a pair of colleagues, Emily Jashinsky and David Agren, to better understand the ongoing border crisis. (Read part one of this series here.)

But too often, sympathetically conveying these stories many of which are impossible to verify is the extent of the medias coverage of the crisis. It makes for a compelling read and, especially when President Donald Trump was in office, a just-so morality tale complete with villains and victims and a heroic struggle for justice. For left-leaning reporters, it confirms all their prior assumptions about the anti-immigrant bigotry of Trump and his supporters, and the bravery and nobility of the migrants (and, by extension, of themselves).

Of course, such biased coverage has the effect of obscuring the causes of the crisis and clouding our understanding of how its playing out. But looking beyond the personal stories of hardship and suffering we usually see in the corporate press and beyond the outrage-driven coverage we often see in conservative media we can discern the outlines of an entire black market industry around illegal immigration thats been created and sustained by U.S. border policy, which cartels and smugglers are using to enrich themselves at the expense of migrants and the American people alike.

Consider the story of Ramon and his wife Veronica and their two-year-old daughter. They left Nicaragua, Ramon told us, because of poverty. We spoke to them on a recent weekday afternoon at the Catholic Charities Humanitarian Respite Center in McAllen, Texas, where U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement drops off nearly everyone it discharges from federal custody in that area. They had just been released that morning along with about 70 others.

Their story, like many others on the border, is terrifying. When Ramon and Veronica and their daughter reached Reynosa, their bus was stopped at a cartel checkpoint and they were asked for a code. (When migrants pay off the cartel they get a code. Thats how the cartel keeps track of whos paid and who hasnt.)

They hadnt paid and didnt have a code, so the cartel kidnapped them and took them to a stash house with a bunch of other families. Ramon says the house had no water, no food, no electricity. They were held there 10 days, until family members back in Nicaragua were able to get together $3,000 (a thousand for each of them) and pay the cartel tax.

Veronica and Ramon and their daughter at the Respite Center In McAllen, Texas.

After they paid, they were taken over the river by boat, picked up by Border Patrol, and were released a few days later on humanitarian parole. In this case, they were released on parole through arelatively recent bureaucratic innovation designed to streamline the processing of illegal border-crossers and prevent overcrowding in federal detention centers.

They say they were only asked for the address and telephone number of their destination. ICE discharged them with a sheaf of documents that allows them to travel inside the United States which theyll need to do, because they were also given a date, 30 days out, to report to an ICE office in central Washington State, where theyre headed.

What they dont have is a court date or work permits. For whatever reason, their parole documents, which they showed us, did not include a work authorization number. This concerned them greatly, as it did most everyone we spoke with at the Respite Center who didnt have work authorization.

The irony is that Ramon and Veronica, if their story is true, might actually have a compelling case for political asylum. But they seemed far less concerned with filing an asylum claim than with getting a hold of work permits.

The two are in fact connected. If you successfully file an asylum claim, you also get authorization to work in the United States while the case runs its course, which, because immigration courts are so backlogged, now takesalmost five years. This is one reason so many illegal immigrants arrested after crossing the border are claiming asylum. Even if they have no chance in court, they can work in the United States in the meantime and send money to their families back home. For many migrants, thats the ultimate purpose of crossing the border in the first place.

But there are other ways to get authorization to work besides filing an asylum claim. We spoke to a group of Haitian men at the Respite Center who had all been released under a slightly different iteration of humanitarian parole. Their paperwork differed significantly from Ramon and Veronicas. Not only did these men have authorization to work, they had court dates for removal proceedings that were months away, some more than a year. A staff member at the Respite Center told me she had seen court dates for removal proceedings (not asylum hearings) as far out as 2026.

The bureaucratic morass these people are pulled into upon crossing the border is dizzying. Even for an American citizen and a native English speaker, its hard to follow. No wonder the reality of U.S. immigration policy gets distilled down to a few essentials on the south side of the Rio Grande.

What most migrants there believe is in fact the truth, more or less: if you can get across the Rio Grande, you will probably be allowed to stay. Under what conditions and for how long is not as important to them as crossing the border and getting released from U.S. custody, preferably with permission to work.

Because of this, smuggling networks and cartels are able to collect massive revenues from migrants, knowing that once inside the United States they will be able to earn far more than they could back home or in Mexico. Thats why, for example, the cartel that kidnapped Ramon and Veronica held them until family members back in Nicaragua came up with a cash payment of three thousand dollars.

Those family members no doubt went into debt with local loan sharks to come up with the money, as migrants families are often forced to do. But if Ramon and Veronica can get into the United States and start working, it will ultimately be worth it. For some migrants stuck in northern Mexico, failing to get into the United States isnt an option; if they dont get in and start working, their families back home will never be able to repay the loan sharks.

Haitian migrants wait near the international bridge in Matamoros to meet with immigration lawyers.

This is dynamic now all up and down the border. Indeed, its hard to overstate the extent to which illegal immigration has become an industrial-scale, international smuggling black market that operates according to these incentives.

In Matamoros, Pastor Abraham Barberi, who runs one of two migrant shelters in the city, told us that back in 2019, when some 3,000 migrants were concentrated in a sprawling encampment near the international bridge, the cartel came in and made every person there pay a tax. The cartel made a lot of money off that, Barberi told us. A lot of money.

The 54-year-old pastor has been working in Matamoros for more than 20 years, and personally knows many members of the cartel here, which he says controls everything here now, including the police and the municipal government. Even the predominantly Haitian migrant community, we were told, has been infiltrated by the cartel as a way of keeping track of newcomers. (As if to underscore the point, a few days after we left town the cartel imposed blockades along main roads in Matamoros and set fire to a bunch of vehicles, supposedly in retaliation for the arrest of a Gulf Cartel boss.)

They know youre here, Barberi tells us at one point, but quickly adds that were safe, not to worry. They wont bother you because they dont want trouble with the U.S. government, or any foreign governments. He says the cartel leaves him and his shelter alone, not just because they know hes doing good work but because hes not trying to profit off the migrants in his care.

If we were doing something illegal with the migrants, or we were charging them to stay here, collecting money, profiting from them, the cartel would be here in a heartbeat, he says, snapping his fingers for emphasis. They would want a part of it. But they know were not doing that. I have asked thecoyotes[smugglers] please, dont do business here, do it over there. And they respect that.

At the same time, Barberi adds, when the cartel-affiliated smugglers want customers, they know where to find them. In a sense, their business is right here. They dont have to go around looking for them.

Its not just cartels in border towns that see migrants as potential customers, its also Mexican officials in the countrys interior. Miguel, a Salvadoran taxi driver who came to Reynosa with his wife and three kids, relayed a common story we heard from others in the shelters: that on the bus ride north, when they reached Monterrey, uniformed and armed federal agents boarded the bus and asked everyone for their papers. Miguel and his family had none, so the agents demanded payment.

Variations of this story are common. Sometimes its not federal agents but state police or cartel gunmen. What emerges, though, is a picture of official corruption at every level of Mexican society that enables hundreds of thousands of migrants to transit through Mexico each month and arrive at the U.S.-Mexico border. Its a massive and lucrative business.

Every aspect of illegal immigration has been monetized, including information and often outright misinformation. Barberi told us he found out recently that his name, address, and phone number were being sold for a thousand dollars in Central and South America by people claiming that if migrants could just get to Barberis shelter in Matamoros, he would take them across the border.

Now, Barberi tells arriving migrants right away that no one at his shelter is going to take anyone across the border. Often, he says, they also think theres a list they can get on to get into the United States. Barberi tells them there is no list, it doesnt exist. He says he wishes the U.S. government would make a video explaining all this and post it to social media, to deter people from coming. He has repeatedly asked the U.S. consulate to do this, to no avail.

But even if such a video or PR campaign existed, it would be going up against the personal testimony of hundreds of thousands of people who are crossing the border illegally and being released into the United States every month. There is nothing the Biden administration can say, no message it can send, that refutes the tangible results of its policies: people are getting in, and they are staying.

The Respite Center where we met Ramon and Veronica only allows migrants to stay 24 hours. Hundreds of people churn through there every day. Even those like Ramon and Veronica, who said they had no money left to travel to Washington state, will soon move on, somehow. Veronica told us they were waiting to see what will happen, that a friend in Washington might loan them the money for airfare, and that throughout their ordeal, We have always trusted in an all-powerful God.

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

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Border Dispatch, Part II: 'The Cartel Controls Everything Here Now' - The Federalist

Last week, the Jan. 6Committee featured video clips from former U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr during its hearing on the violence that erupted at the capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. For the few Americans following the show trial, Barrs testimony seemed a denial by former President Donald Trumps top law enforcement officer of any legitimate basis to challenge the outcome of the November 2020 election.

To Democrats, this proved Trump sought to steal the White House from Biden via a coup. To Republicans, Barr revealed himself as a traitor uninterested in investigating voter fraud. Neither view is correct.

In his deposition, Barr testified about his disagreements with the then-president about claims of election fraud. Barr resigned as attorney general on December 14, 2020, in the aftermath of the November general election as Trump continued to dispute the outcome. The day he resigned, Barr explained, when he walked in to speak with the president,

[Trump] went off on a monologue saying that there was now definitive evidence involving fraud through the Dominion machines and a report had been prepared by a very reputable cybersecurity firm, which he identified as Allied Security Operations Group. And he held up the report and he had and then he asked that a copy of it be made for me. And while a copy was being made, he said, you know, This is absolute proof that the Dominion machines were rigged.

Barr testified to the committee that he had told the president theyve wasted a whole month on these claims on the Dominion voting machines and they were idiotic claims. There was absolutely zero basis for the allegations, Barr explained, yet people believed there was this systemic corruption in the system and that their votes didnt count and that these machines controlled by somebody else were actually determining it, which was complete nonsense.

Then-President Trump also raised what he called the big vote dump in Detroit, Barr explained, where people saw boxes coming into the counting station at all hours of the morning and so forth. Barr told the committee that he had explained to Trump that there were approximately 630 precincts in Detroit, and unlike elsewhere in the state, they centralize the counting process. So theyre not counted in each precinct, theyre moved to counting stations. And so a normal process would involve boxes coming in at all different hours. Barr said point blank, Theres no indication of fraud in Detroit.

The committee also heard testimony that Barr had directed B.J. Pak, the then-U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, to investigate a security tape from the State Farm Arena in Atlanta that Trump believed showed a suitcase of illegal ballots secreted beneath a table being pulled out after election workers had been sent home for the night. Pak explained they investigated the claims and that the longer segment on the video established the alleged black suitcase was actually an official lockbox where ballots were kept safe.

The bottom line, according to Barrs testimony, was that he had not seen any widespread election fraud that would question the outcome of the election, and that the stuff Trumps people were shoveling out to the public were bullsh-t. . . the claims of fraud were bullsh-t.

Claims of election fraud, however, represented but a portion of Trumps challenges to the November 2020 results. Also, that the above claims were bullsh-t says nothing about whether there were systemic violations of election law and illegal voting. Nor were those questions ones for the attorney general or the U.S. attorneys investigating allegations of fraud.

Barr made this point in his testimony when he explained that he had told Trump the department doesnt take sides in elections, and the department is not an extension of of [Trumps] legal team. And our role is to investigate fraud. Barrs testimony also made clear that the U.S. Department of Justice investigated claims of fraud, such as the supposed suitcase of ballots in Atlanta.

But what Barr didnt investigateand indeed shouldnt have investigatedwere the many violations of state election law highlighted by Trumps legal team in their lawsuits challenging the election results. For instance, in Georgia, the state election code requires residents to votein the county in which they reside, unless they changed their residence within 30 days of the election and outside of the 30-day grace period, if people vote in a county in which they no longer reside, their vote in that county would be illegal.

Trumps legal team obtained solid evidence that as many as 30,000 Georgia residents voted illegally in their prior county in 2020. Trump never had his day in court on this challenge, though, which theoretically could have resulted in Georgias election results tossed.

Thats not the business of the attorney general, however, so those Republicans seeing Barr as derelict misunderstand his role. Likewise, those Democrats championing Barrs words, believing it establishes a coup attempt by Trump, ignore that his testimony focused solely on election fraud.

The former attorney generals testimony concerning vote harvesting perfectly illustrates the misplaced role both the right and the left sought to ascribe to Barr. During last weeks Jan. 6 Committee hearing, Barr testified it was his opinion then and his opinion now that the election was not stolen by fraud. He added that he hadnt seen anything since the election that changed his mind on that, including the 2,000 Mulesmovie.

The 2,000 Mules movie, produced by Dinesh DSouza, includes information about an investigation by election integrity group True The Vote and features its founder Catherine Engelbrecht and its election intelligence analyst Gregg Phillips. DSouzas film explains True The Votes use of GPS surveillance geolocation data emitted by cellphones to help identify phones in key battleground states that made numerous trips to multiple election drop boxes and, in Georgia, to non-profits which the film does not identify. The movie also includes videos of persons placing multiple ballots into drop boxeswhich is illegal in some states, including Georgia, unless those ballots are for family members.

Barr told the committee that both he and the Georgia Bureau of Investigations were unimpressed with the use of cellphone geolocation data because, if you take 2 million cell phones and and figure out where they are physically in a big city like Atlanta or wherever, just by definition youre going to find many hundreds of them have passed by and spent time in the vicinity of these boxes.

The former attorney general added, though, that he held his fire on the photographic evidencebecause I thought, well, h-ll, if they have a lot of photographs of the same person dumping a lot of ballots in different boxes, you know, thats hard to explain. There was a little bit of photographic evidence from 2,000 Mules, Barr said, but he found it was lacking, and that it didnt establish widespread illegal harvesting.

In response to Barrs deposition testimony, the 2,000 Mules producer took to Twitter, challenging the former attorney general to a public debate. What do you say, Barr? DSouza tweeted. Do you dare back up your belly laughs with arguments that can withstand rebuttal and cross-examination? DSouza added in comments to The Epoch Times, The hearings are one-sided propaganda, not an attempt to get to the truth. The producer then invited people to view the evidence in 2,000 Mules and judge for themselves.

Some Republicans saw Barrs dig at DSouzas movie as proof the former attorney general was totally disinterested in election fraud, while Democrats framed Barrs comments as establishing Trumps attempt at a coup. Ignored by both sides, however, was what Barr said next:

The other thing is people dont understand is that its not clear that even if you can show harvesting that that changes the or the results of the election. The courts are not going to throw out votes and then figure out what votes were harvested and throw them out. Youd still the burden on the challenging party to show that illegal votes were cast, votes were the result of undue influence or bribes or there was really, you know, the person was non compos mentis. But absent that evidence, I just didnt see courts throwing out votes anyway.

With these few sentences Barr capsulized the disconnect between what many Trump voters believed the attorney general and federal prosecutors roles to be following the November 2020 election, and the reality that the Department of Justices focus rests on provable federal crimes. Barr tasked federal prosecutors with investigating allegations of widespread fraud, such as the manipulation of the Dominion voting machines and the supposed secreted suitcases of hidden ballots. U.S. attorney offices found the charges unfounded. And while ballot harvesting may be illegal under some states election codes, for the Department of Justice to get involved, more than that would be needed.

But even then, as Barr noted, that doesnt undo the election, or rendered Georgia, Michigan, or Pennsylvanias results void. Rather, courts hear and decide election challenges, and such challenges extend far beyond issues of election fraud. Therein is the reason Democrats parading of Barrs testimony is also misplaced.

While Barr could testify concerning the cases of voter fraud the Department of Justice investigated, in the aftermath of the November 2020 election the former attorney general did not scrutinize, nor should he have, violations of state election law or potential violations of the Equal Protection Clause caused by the states disparate standards applied during the election.

And Trumps legal team had solid evidence of systemic violations of the election code and the widespread counting of illegal votes, as well as potential Equal Protection violations. Further, in the case of Georgia, there were enough illegal votes cast to likely render the states election results void.

Attorney General Barr, however, lacked both the authority (and the tools) to render judgment on matters of state election law. His deposition testimony to the committee also suggests that matters of election law remain outside his wheelhouse, as a court need not identify the ballots illegally harvested or cast to rule the election results invalid, as Barr seemed to suggest. Rather, under Georgia election law, if the evidence established that there are more illegal or irregular votes than the margin of victory, the remedy is a new election.

In other words, for Georgias results to be undone, Trump only needed to establish there were 11,780 illegal votes; he did not need to identify the illegally cast ballots and establish they represented votes for Biden in sufficient numbers to render him the winner.

Thats why, in his widely misrepresented telephone call with the Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffenperger, Trump said, All I want to do is this: I just want to find 11,780 votes. Trumps legal team had found the votes, but the Georgia courts refused to timely consider Trumps challenges.

Likewise, many of the issues Trumps legal team raised after the general election and before the results were certified, remained unanswered until a year or more later, when state courts declared the procedures used in November 2020 illegal or unconstitutional.

Nothing Barr did or could have done could have altered the reality that there is insufficient time between the November election and the certification of the vote for states to do much more than a recount and audit, and the Department of Justice to conduct a high-level investigation of what would need to be widespread and obvious fraud to be caught in time to change the outcome of an election.

Yet evidence accumulated since Biden was certified the winner of the 2020 election makes clear that in every swing state, systemic violations of the election code occurred. While moving to the widespread use of mail-in voting in the name of Covid-19 exacerbated the problems, post-election scrutiny of the last general election reveals that every defect in our electoral system identified in 2005 by the bipartisan Commission on Election Reform, co-chaired by Democrat Jimmy Carter and Republican Jim Baker, remains a problem today.

At the time, Carter and Baker warned in the commissions 100-plus page report that elections are the heart of democracy and if elections are defective, the entire democratic system is at risk. The commission added as a corollary to that first principle that confidence in elections matters equally, and in fact is central to our nations democracy.

So, when the Jan. 6 Committee show trial finally ends, Americans need to remember election integrity is not about Trump or Barr, nor Democrats or Republicans: It is about our country and her future. That future depends on a serious revamping of the American electoral systemand soon.

Margot Cleveland is The Federalist's senior legal correspondent. She is also a contributor to National Review Online, the Washington Examiner, Aleteia, and Townhall.com, and has been published in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prizethe law schools highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. As a stay-at-home homeschooling mom of a young son with cystic fibrosis, Cleveland frequently writes on cultural issues related to parenting and special-needs children. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.

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Why Both Republicans And Democrats Are Wrong About Bill Barr - The Federalist

In its attempt to blame former President Donald Trump for the crimes committed on January 6, 2021, at the U.S. Capitol, House Democrats have spent the week focused on Trumps unsupported claims of widespread election fraud. The Jan. 6 select committee and the legacy media outlets promoting the show trial completely ignore, however, the verifiable evidence of systemic violations of election law, illegal voting, and the constitutionally deficient execution of the November 2020 electionincluding issues Trump challenged following the election.

Georgia provides a peach of an example. President Biden won Georgia and the states 16 electoral votes by a margin of 11,779 individual votes, but before the state certified the results of the November 2020 election, Trump challenged the outcome, raising several issues both in and out of court. Trump hammered accusations of fraud in Fulton County, claiming counterfeit ballots secreted in suitcases and vote-flipping by Dominion Voting Systems gave Biden the victory. But Trump also contested the Georgia results based on evidence indicating that tens of thousands of illegal votes were improperly counted.

While Trumps legal team argued illegal votes in some 30-plus categories were improperly included in the final election tally, violations of Section 21-2-218 of the Georgia election code alone closed the gap between the two presidential candidates. That section provides that state residents mustvotein the county in which they reside, unless they changed their residence within 30 days of the election and outside of the 30-day grace period, if people vote in a county in which they no longer reside, their vote in that county would be illegal.

Shortly after the November general election, Mark Davis, the president of Data Productions Inc. and an expert in voter data analytics and residency issues, compared voting records obtained from the Georgia secretary of states office with the National Change of Address (NCOA) database. After excluding individuals who moved within 30 days of the general election, Davis identified nearly 35,000 Georgia voters who indicated they had moved from one Georgia county to another, but then voted in the 2020 general election in the county from which they had moved.

Trump highlighted this evidence during a telephone conversation with Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. His election lawyers, he said, noted from that data they have actually hard numbers of tens of thousands of votes that were counted illegally, and that with the margin of victory less than 12,000, that in and of itself is sufficient to change the results or place the outcome in doubt.

The lawyers explained that they would like to sit down with your office . . . if you are able to establish that our numbers are not accurate, then fine. While the secretary of states representative indicated he was happy to get with our lawyers and well set that up, Cleta Mitchell, one of Trumps election lawyers, told The Federalist that meeting never happened.

We had tried for weeks to get the secretary of state to sit down with us to review the data, Mitchell said, noting that Raffensperger just kept saying the Trump campaigns data was wrong and, We said, Show us, then, where it is wrong.

But instead of meeting, according to Mitchell, the day after their call with the secretary of states office, lawyers sent Trumps legal team a very nasty letter saying they wouldnt give us any data until we dismissed all pending litigation. Then, after Trumps team dismissed the lawsuit following Senate candidate Kelly Loefflers withdrawal of her objections to the Georgia electors and asked for the promised meeting to review the data, the secretary of states office withdrew the offer, Mitchell told The Federalist.

While Trumps legal team was unable to either present their evidence in court or secure a meeting with the Georgia secretary of states office tocompare the data, Davis continued to pursue out-of-county illegal voting. Last year, Davis told The Federalist that in May 2021, he obtained an updated voter database from the secretary of states office and compared that data to the NCOA information he had processed in November.

As I reported at the time: When Davis ran the data, he found that, of the approximately 35,000 Georgians who indicated they had moved from one county to another county more than 30 days before the November general election, as of May, more than 10,300 had updated their voter registration information, providing the secretary of state the exact address they had previously provided to the USPS. Those same 10,000-plus individuals all also cast ballots in the county in which they had previously lived.

Daviss follow-up analysis provided solid evidence that there were enough votes cast illegally in a county in which the citizens no longer resided to equal the margin separating Trump and Biden. And that was but one category of illegal votes identified by Trumps legal team.

Mitchell, now a senior legal fellow at the Conservative Partnership Institute, told The Federalist that in addition to the individuals who moved out of a county more than 30 days before the election and then voted illegally in their prior county, Trumps legal team identified an additional 30-plus categories of illegal votes that were wrongly included in the certified totals.

We never were able to present our evidence to the court, however, because the chief judge of Fulton County, Chris Brasher, failed to appoint a judge eligible to hear the election contest for a month, Mitchell said.

None of those 30-plus categories involved the Dominion Voting System, claims of counterfeit votes, or ballot harvesting, but concerned specific violations of the Georgia election code. And those numbers far exceeded Bidens 11,779-vote margin of victory.

Yet the January 6 Committee and their cohorts in the press cast all the challenges to the November 2020 tabulations as crazy conspiracy theories of fraud peddled by Trump to steal the election.

The same anti-Trump media lied about Trumps telephone call with Raffensperger, falsely telling the country that Trump had pressuredthe Georgia Secretary of States chief investigator Frances Watson to find the fraud, promising that she would soon be a national hero. But two months later, when the transcript of the call was released, it became clear that Trump was speaking of establishing there were 11,780 illegal votes from the various categories identified by his lawyers.

The fact is we had already found many more illegal votes than the margin (11,779), Mitchell told The Federalist, We didnt need to find anything. We already knew which votes were illegal and had been included in the certified total, the election lawyer said, stressing that, under Georgia law, if the evidence established that there are more illegal or irregular votes than the margin of victory, the remedy is a new election.

Last July, the secretary of states office confirmed to The Federalist that its investigation into the approximately 35,000 residents who moved from one county to another more than 30 days before the election remain[ed] ongoing. But follow-up outreaches to Raffensperger and key members of his staff inquiring on the status of the investigation went unanswered.

Meanwhile, the Jan. 6 Committee continues to spin challenges to the November 2020 election as concerning nothing but nonsensical claims of voter fraud. With the corrupt medias cooperation, the vast majority of Americans may never learn of the systemic violations of election law, illegal voting, and the disparate treatment of voters in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution, the latter seen most clearly with the infiltration of funding from Mark Zuckerberg to targeted Democratic-heavy populations.

Heck, its unlikely most members of Congress know of these systemic problems with our electoral system. But with midterms around the corner and Democrats likely facing a bloodbath, dont be surprised if left-leaning politicians and their friends in the press discover substantial problems in about five months time.

Margot Cleveland is The Federalist's senior legal correspondent. She is also a contributor to National Review Online, the Washington Examiner, Aleteia, and Townhall.com, and has been published in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prizethe law schools highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. As a stay-at-home homeschooling mom of a young son with cystic fibrosis, Cleveland frequently writes on cultural issues related to parenting and special-needs children. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.

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Jan. 6 Committee Ignores Clear Evidence Of Broken Election Laws - The Federalist