Category Archives: Federalist

Right now, more than 100 babies are being saved from abortion every day in Texas. The Texas Heartbeat Act is currently enforceable, even as the abortion industry and Biden administration attempt to thwart it. There has been much legal back-and-forth and misrepresentation of this life-saving law, particularly on the unique way in which it is enforced. Lets cut through that confusion.

The Texas Heartbeat Act prohibits elective abortion after the preborn childs heartbeat is detected. Those who commit an abortion after this biological marker in the childs development, as well as those who knowingly aid and abet in that illegal abortion, can be sued. The lynchpin that has allowed the law to take effect is that the state is not allowed to enforce the law; rather, it is the responsibility of private individuals to hold the abortion industry accountable for following the law.

So far in Texas, we are seeing the abortion industry comply with the new law. Eighty-five percent of abortions that previously would have been occurring in our state are now illegal. More than 100 babies per day are being given a chance at life. There have not been any credible assertions of violation. This means that the unique threat of private lawsuits under this law is successfully saving babies.

Civil penalties are the most effective in pro-life laws because the abortion industry is profit-driven. The industry profits off killing preborn children and does not want to lose money. So it complies with pro-life laws (even as it fights them in the courts). That is why the Texas Heartbeat Act uses civil remedies because it incentivizes compliance from the abortion industry.

Despite the assertion by pro-abortion advocates and media, this is not vigilantism, and the civil remedies are not a bounty. The threat of a lawsuit and paying out at least $10,000 for a violation is the consequence set up under this law for engaging in an illegal activity, namely, performing an abortion after the baby has a heartbeat.

Penalties function to deter illegal activity and to encourage compliance. Vigilantism implies lawlessness, and filing a lawsuit is not lawless. If a person believes an illegal abortion has been committed, she can bring a suit under the law, and a judge will evaluate the evidence and proceed from there.

The same holds for those who aid or abet in an illegal abortion. Rideshare platforms have ranted about this part of enforcement. However, Texas law already had a definition of aiding and abetting long before the Texas Heartbeat Act, and judges are used to applying this standard in other criminal activities.

For a driver with a ridesharing platform to be sued under the aiding and abetting provisions of the Texas Heartbeat Act, he would have to know where hes taking the pregnant woman, how far along in the pregnancy she is (is she past the point at which the babys heartbeat is detectable?), and whether shes entering that abortion facility to obtain an abortion. This is the kind of high legal standard a judge would use in determining aiding and abetting of an illegal activity.

The same goes for the fear of frivolous lawsuits. There is already a legal standard under which judges consider and dismiss frivolous lawsuits that existed long before this law. Even if you dont trust the pro-life activist who can bring the lawsuit, trust our legal system and the judges who are used to handling these situations every day, and are equipped through legal and evidentiary standards to do so.

The ability of any individual to bring a lawsuit under the Texas Heartbeat Act is a type of private enforcement that is already used in other areas of law (such as Medicaid fraud), including to a limited degree in other pro-life law. The Heartbeat Act merely extends this approach.

Besides, most pro-lifers who would bring a lawsuit under the Texas Heartbeat Act are not interested in monetary compensation they are interested in preborn lives being spared from a violent and unjust death. That is why the law is clear that a pregnant woman cannot be sued under the law, because the purpose is to hold those who profit off the deaths of preborn children accountable: the abortion industry.

But why try this unique enforcement mechanism in the first place? Because the pro-life movement is tired of district attorneys refusing to enforce pro-life laws and activist federal judges holding pro-life policies up in court for years on end, if not indefinitely. It is time to try a new approach. And that new approach is working.

Texas is the first state to actually see a heartbeat law take effect the Texas Heartbeat Act is the strongest pro-life law since Roe v. Wade. The anti-life mob is trying to cancel the Texas Heartbeat Act, but they have not been successful. So instead they are misrepresenting the law and constantly nitpicking and finding new objections.

But the most important aspect of the law is this: Thousands of tiny Texans are being spared from the violence of death by abortion because of the way the Texas Heartbeat Act is enforced. No wonder those who promote abortion are so up in arms over its ingenuity.

Rebecca Parma is the senior legislative associate at Texas Right to Life in Austin, Texas.

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The Texas Heartbeat Act Is Saving 100 Babies' Lives Every Single Day - The Federalist

Despite viral claims amplified by the White House, Democrats, and the corporate media, the idea that Border Patrol agents were whipping Haitian migrants at the Southern U.S. border turned out to be a lie.

The photographer who took the viral photos that were circulated to further the false narrative admitted on Friday that he never saw Border Patrol use the leather against anyone.

Ive never seen them whip anyone, Paul Ratje told KTSM. He was swinging it, but it can be misconstrued when youre looking at the picture.

This isnt the first time that people with platforms have rushed to push an agenda without checking all of the facts and it wont be the last. Here are all the people who spread the lie that mounted border agents whipped illegal aliens.

The biggest culprits of this border lie are President Joe Biden, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, and others in the Biden administration who spent the last week condemning and even dismounting Border Patrol over the false whipping allegations.

As late as Friday morning, the president and the White House blamed the border agency for the outrageous treatment of Haitian migrants in Del Rio, Texas.

To see people treated like they did? Horses running them over? People being strapped? Its outrageous. I promise you, those people will pay, Biden said.

Earlier in the week, Psaki admitted that she didnt have the full context of the situation but still called the footage horrible to watch.

I have seen some of the footage. I dont have the full context. I cant imagine what context would make that appropriate, but I dont have additional details, shesaid. I dont think anyone seeing that footage would think its acceptable or appropriate.

Even Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who previously said that Border Patrol agents were not whipping Haitian migrants who illegally crossed the border into the United States, later claimed that he was horrified by what I saw and promised an investigation into the alleged incident.

Democrat Rep. Maxine Waters was quick to jump on the whip bandwagon. In addition to sounding off on Twitter about Haitian migrants being treated like animals by the U.S. government, she claimed that cowboy agents were running down Haitians and using their reins to whip them.

Squad member Rep. Rashida Tlaib furthered the narrative by claiming that Border Patrol committed human rights abuses by cracking a f-cking whip on Haitians fleeing hardship.

Another Squad member, Rep. Ilhan Omar, called the pictures cruel and inhumane and repeated the claim that the U.S. government is denying illegal aliens human rights.

Use of whips on refugees? Disturbing and unacceptable. This must end immediately, Democrat Sen. Jeff Merkley tweeted.

It wasnt long after the photos and footage first started circulating that media grifters such as Joy Reid adopted speculations on border agents treatment of migrants as fact and even suggested that whips which come from the slave era, slavery era, were part of the package that we issue to any sort of law enforcement or government sanction personnel.

That same angle was amplified by a Democrat candidate in Florida who said asylum seekers [are] being hunted down like runaway slaves on a plantation by whip cracking cowboys.

Other outlets tried to cushion their role in spreading the false narrative by claiming the agents used whip-like cords or reins like whips but their agenda-setting is clear.

CNN analyst Asha Rangappa joined in the Twitter fun by asking who issuedwhips. To Border Patrol.

MSNBC host Chris Hayes deliberately avoided calling the Border Patrols reins whips but said accuracy demanded an admittance that they were using their reins as whips.

Members of the White House press corps also quickly latched onto the narrative and ensured that it was a regular topic of discussion in press briefings.

Another reporter pressed Psaki for minutes over the Haitian migration issue and asserted that border agents were acting with the intent to lash and hurt black illegal aliens.

The executive director of San Antonio Mayor and Former HUD Secretary Julian Castros political action committee popularized the lie on Twitter which gained more than 73,000 likes.

When news broke that there is no proof of whipping, he dug his heels in.

Former director of the United States Office of Government Ethics Walter Shaub tried to diss right winger-fringe-bigot blue checks on Twitter who he said are trying to argue that these arent whips.

How the hell would it even matter if someone is using an object that was marketed and sold as a whip or using some other object to whip a human being? Its whip if its used as a whip!! he said.

Jordan Davidson is a staff writer at The Federalist. She graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism.

Originally posted here:

These Conspiracy Theorists Spread The Border Patrol 'Whipping' Lie - The Federalist

Reeling from Barack Obamas reelection in 2012, the Republican Party published an autopsy report at the request of then-chairman Reince Priebus. In corporate pastels, the document recommended Republicans moderate on social issues in order to be more welcoming and inclusive. Then came Donald Trump. Then came 2020.

In retrospect, the autopsys contention that Republicans needed to rebrand as the Growth and Opportunity Party is quite funny. If you were paying attention, it was quite funny then too.

Consider the arc of conservative youth group Turning Point USA, which used to intentionally identify its focus as fiscal responsibility, free markets, and limited government, lead by a young Objectivist fan of Ayn Rand. Now the group holds Culture War events that would make Rand cringe.

Why? I think my friend Inez Stepman put it perfectly during a recent podcast. The culture war is the big tent, she said. This inverts the GOPs donor-approved conventional wisdom, but it is absolutely true.

Again, if you were watching our culture closely ten years ago (see: Angelo Codevilla), you understood this long before the Trump era. Slower learners needed the Trump moment to see this more clearly. Its also true that Democrats wild reaction to Trump pushed them even further left on cultural issues, which made the state of affairs even more obvious.

Watch this video of a woman tearing obscene OkCupid ads off the walls of a subway car as it careens through New York City. As of this writing, I do not know who the woman is. The video could be staged, but theres no clear reason or evidence of that at this point. It appears authentic.

This is propaganda, the woman says. Its never going to go away until we the people say we dont want this anymore, she adds later, having recruited a couple other passengers to help tear the ads down.

Nonpartisan parents around the country are resisting the excesses of LGBT ideology and critical race theory. The issue transcends the narrow borders of identity politics. I still think the realignment will ultimately prove impossible, but its quite clear that theres political capital to be gained by Republicans leaning into the culture war. The left pushed too far, too fast, and Democrats are now under the thumb of cultural radicals in politics and media, left to defend and promote an ideology that offends most of the country.

Look at the results of this recentpoll from the Minneapolis Star Tribune. There is little support for reducing the size of the citys police force. Youd likely find that opposition to such measures actually animates voters as well.

Democrats are out of step with the public on many high-profile questions, some of which they cant ignore because the party establishment is culturally radicalized and demands they actively promote far-left priorities. Republicans who find that socialism polls poorly in the suburbs should recognize those results dont speak to fears about the national debt. The label has a cultural connotation about creeping radicalism that cant be tapped into with platitudes about free markets.

Not all culture war issues are politically expedient (although that doesnt mean conservatives should budge on them). But contra the 2012 autopsy, standing against the excesses of cultural leftism and actually fighting back will bring voters into the GOP, not repel them. More importantly, of course, its a moral imperative with urgent stakes.

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The Culture War Is The Big Tent - The Federalist

Upon New York Gov. Andrew Cuomos resignation after a bombshell sexual harassment report, there was palpable applause in the conservative world. It was time for the emperor to renounce his throne. But in Cuomos place has emerged a figure no more appealing.

Former Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul, who joined Cuomos team in 2014, is already pushing boundaries that ought to gall those concerned with their rights and the common good. Corporate media outlets may have referred to the Buffalo native as a centrist Democrat, but anyone paying attention right now might think otherwise.

Like other Democrat leaders, including President Joe Biden, Hochul has joined the bandwagon to compel Americans into COVID vaccination. This week, a federal judge extended a block on Hochuls August order requiring all health-care workers to get vaccinated by Sept. 27 or else be fired. The block will remain in effect until Oct. 12 and comes on the heels of state employees, with legal aid from the Thomas More Society, suing New York over the lack of religious exemptions in Hochuls overbearing order.

What New York is attempting to do is slam shut an escape hatch from an unconstitutional vaccine mandate, attorney Christopher Ferrara of the Thomas More Society said, further arguing that the plaintiffs are not anti-vaccine as much as seeking to retain their constitutional rights.

Preliminary data indicates Americans are dissatisfied with attempts by the government to force them to get COVID shots. According to a recent Convention of States Action and Trafalgar Group poll, only about 30 percent of people think the White House can do so. Worse for Hochul, the poll indicated just over 56 percent of Americans support attempts by state governors to oppose the vaccine requirement. (Another win for Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis).

Robert C. Cahaly, chief pollster at Trafalgar Group, told me the data shows people are not willing to let COVID dictate their lives anymore.

Look at college crowds in red and blue states, see the traffic on the roads, or just go to Home Depot on a Saturday morning. People are telling us that COVID is in their rearview mirror and they would like for the government to respect their choices in the matter, Cahaly said.

Hochul doesnt seem to get the message, though. Its no wonder the governor said in August she desires the legal clearance to mandate all charter and public school employees get tested, while claiming she would mandate it given the opportunity.

Keep in mind, this is the same official whose administration has been accused by lawmakers of rejecting local governments vaccination plans and prolonging dosage plans back in January. Hochul tried to rationalize this failure in a recent briefing, noting, There is a role for state government [and] a role for local government. This is ruling class hierarchy at play.

After the Supreme Court ruled Bidens eviction moratorium unconstitutional, Hochul signed into law an extended moratorium on COVID-related evictions in effect until Jan. 15, 2022. Landlords already struggling to collect rent as New Yorkers flee the state will be further burdened by the moratorium.

New York Citys largest landlord group, the Rent Stabilization Association, is suing Hochul and claims the unsworn hardship declaration tenants would sign to avoid rent will go unvetted since residents wont need to provide any documentation of the hardship. As The New York Daily News reported, the states moratorium program has continued to deal with glitches and only a small portion of the more than $2 billion program is being allocated to landlords.

Joe Borelli, a Republican New York City Councilman, told me he thinks Hochuls administration is hurting working-class New Yorkers by freezing evictions.

Democrats have a misguided belief that every landlord owns a skyscraper, but unfortunately the people who will get crushed the most by this are small mom-and-pop landlords and two-family homeowners, Borelli said. They have decided to arbitrarily suspend the concept of a contract for some backwards political gain.

Hochuls office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The supposed centrist is assuming office at a time Democrat governors are increasingly expanding the scope of government and backing further coronavirus restrictions after lockdowns led to social and economic devastation. Mask mandates have trickled back in several blue states, including in schools.

Borelli is appalled by Hochuls COVID leadership thus far and calls it Kafkaesque that further mandates are on the table after all this time.

Its just unclear to anyone observing how despite our lower numbers, an effective vaccine, and successful treatments, the mandates and restrictions only seem to be getting worse, the councilman said.

In her short time in office, Hochul keeps reinforcing the power of the COVID hierarchy. Her administration represents not a break with Cuomo, but its indefinite extension.

The rest is here:

Andrew Cuomo's Replacement Is Just As Feckless As He Was - The Federalist

In the time it took you to click on the link to this piece and finish reading this sentence, youd already be dead. 15 seconds. Thats how long Israelis living Gaza border towns have to get themselves, their infants, their spouses, their elderly parents, out of the shower, the bedroom, the bar, or the supermarket, and into the shelter. 15 seconds.

Its longer, but not by much, for Israelis living farther away from Gaza I put farther in quotation marks because most people dont realize how tiny Israel really is. At its narrowest point, the width of the country is a mere 9 miles. Its roughly the size of New Jersey. You could drive from the North to the South in less than a day. And walking, you could cross the country in 3 hours. So Israelis living farther from Gaza might have, lets say, 60 seconds to grab their children and run to the nearest shelter.

They wouldnt have time to grab diapers, snacks, or drinks, so the enterprising among them will have packed a go-bag and left it by the door. If Im making it sound like Israeli civilians live in war zone, its because they sometimes do.

Much of this anguish has been mitigated by the Iron Dome air defense missile system. The Iron Dome is a defensive system that counters incoming rocket fire. When Hamas which the U.S. designated as a foreign terrorist organization in 1997 fires thousands of rockets at metropolitan areas with the goal of killing and maiming innocent men, women, and children, the Iron Dome detects and intercepts those rockets. In other words: it is often the one thing standing between terrorists and their would-be victims.

President Biden signaled his commitment to replenishing Israels Iron Dome batteries (which are much-depleted thanks to Hamass ceaseless rocket barrage this past May) both during the latest round of fighting and again, just last month, during his meeting with Prime Minister Naftali Bennet.

But this week, his own party stripped $1 billion from their funding bill which had previously been earmarked for the Iron Dome. It didnt matter that Biden had promised the Israelis his help. It didnt matter that Democrats have long proclaimed support for the State of Israel and for Israels right to defend itself. It didnt matter that the Iron Dome has exactly zero offensive capabilities. What mattered is that the progressive wing of the Democratic party has claimed complete control. Gone are the days of Pelosi ruling her party with an iron fist.

Theres a lot hippy-dippy peace and security for both sides language that the left typically employs. This Iron Dome funding is a good litmus test that proves that for the leftist Squad and their ilk, a lot of that is pure and complete fabrication. People who want peace and security for all peoples would have no issue funding a defensive missile system. But in the end, their problem with Iron Dome isnt that its defensive its that its defending Jews.

But despite their machinations, the funding passed its first hurdle Thursday, with the help of Congressional Republicans. The House voted overwhelmingly (420 in favor, 9 opposed) to replenish the Iron Dome missiles. This is great short-term news because it means Israel will have no trouble restocking the system with the batteries needed to intercept Hamass rockets. But it cures nothing in the long term.

Progressives have once again proven that they can hold the Democratic Party hostage. And despite the fallout from the original vote, nine members of Congress voted against saving the lives of Israeli civilians. Those people are: Cori Bush, Andre Carson, Jesus Garcia, Raul Grijalva, Thomas Massie, Marie Newman, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, and Rashida Tlaib.

Remember those names. When people tell you who they are, believe them. These nine members have told us in no uncertain terms that they do not want innocent men, women, and children to have anything standing in between them and destruction.

Its worth mentioning that there was actually one surprise today. Absent from the aforementioned list is Rep. Alexandria Oscasio-Cortez. Though she was widely expected to vote against (and had reportedly been instrumental in getting the original funding provision stripped) AOC voted present, and made a big show of sobbing in a near-hysterical fashion. The idea of Jewish civilians being in fewer life-threatening situations is apparently deeply triggering. Again: when people tell you who they are, when they shout it from the rooftops, believe them.

See the original post here:

The Squad Tries To Shoot Down Israel's 'Iron Dome' Defense System - The Federalist

The Biden administration and the corporate medias lies about the border are collapsing and neither institution is prepared to do damage control.

While the White House frantically repeats lies about the administrations handling of the border including that officials are expelling migrants under Title 42, even though federal authorities are releasing thousands of illegal aliens into the U.S. even Politico admits that Everyones mad at Biden over migration.

For months, Republicans have called out the Biden administrations incompetence at the border. Just this week, 26 Republican governors begged Biden to take action to protect America, restore security, and end the crisis now. But even more telling than the GOPs cries for action is the lack of approval from U.S. adults on President Joe Bidens immigration policy. In a mid-September Reuters/Ipsos poll, only 38 percent of those surveyed said they approved of Bidens handling of the border crisis his administration created and exacerbated.

While the White House does damage control and tries to win back public approval points by claiming that the administration is using Title 42 to deal with an influx of illegal aliens in Del Rio, Texas, its also fighting off the increasingly progressive sect of congressional Democrats who are demanding the administration immediately put a stop to deportations.

Right now, Im told there are four flights scheduled to deport these asylum-seekers back to a country that cannot receive them. Such a decision defies common sense. It also defies common decency and what America is all about, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told his congressional colleagues on Tuesday.

Schumer did not hold back any criticism from the administration for keeping what he called a hateful and xenophobic product of former President Donald Trump.

Even Bidens corporate media allies who go to great lengths to cover up his other failures are noting the White Houses inability to fully address the humanitarian and political sides of this crisis. MSNBC anchor Stephanie Ruhle condemned Vice President Kamala Harris, who Biden appointed to address the root cause of illegal migration to the U.S., this week for ignoring the mounting problems in Del Rio.

How about the message from our vice president, where is she? She was supposed to be in charge of all of these migration issues, going to those Northern Triangle countries thats obviously not Haiti, that was one of her first international trips with the message do not come here illegally, Ruhle said on MSNBC. People arent listening. What is she saying now?

Similarly, CNNs anchor Brianna Keilar pressed Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on why he is still refusing to call the months-long struggle at the Southern border a crisis.

This is really this is something we havent seen before. A this camp inside of the United States, with thousands of people, what is the reticence to call something that is so clearly a crisis a crisis? Keilar asked.

I call it a heartbreaking situation, a tremendous challenge, Mayorkas said.

Jordan Davidson is a staff writer at The Federalist. She graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism.

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The White House And Media's Border Lies Are Collapsing Live On TV - The Federalist

On this episode of The Federalist Radio Hour, actor, producer, and director Greg Ellis joins Culture Editor Emily Jashinsky to discuss his book The Respondent: Exposing the Cartel of Family Law.

Family law is the one branch of our legal system I found out that doesnt provide a presumption of innocence. So, in essence, that means that partners, spouses, parents, good law-abiding citizens arent afforded the same rights that criminals get, Ellis said. That astounded me and I think many people arent aware of this. I wasnt. I was ignorant, completely oblivious until this happened to me.

The push for social justice, Ellis said, is popular right now but he thinks men often get overlooked.

Everyone should be presumed innocent until proven guilty. The presumption of innocence, Ellis said. But I think more and more thats not happening and thats more and more not happening with men.

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How Our Ailing Culture Fuels The 'Cartel' Of Family Law - The Federalist

The indictment of Washington attorney Michael Sussman accused of lying to the FBI in order to smear Donald Trump during the 2016 campaign reveals the ace up the sleeve of high-powered Democrats. Its a card they played time and again to advance the Trump-Russia conspiracy theory: friends in high places.

They used friends in law enforcement to launch secret investigations; they used friends in the federal government to broaden those investigations; and they used friends in the media to spread the word about Trump and his organization being under investigation.

The Russia fiasco metastasized in large part because those involved in advancing the false allegations had important connections. They used friendships with powerful federal officials to encourage investigations against team Trump. Those targeted by Sussmann and others were unabashed outsiders, and as such lacked the sort of connections the insiders exploited so adroitly.

Sussmann was a partner at the Washington law firm Perkins Coie in 2016, which represented the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clintons campaign for president. But, according to the indictment handed down by Special Counsel John Durham last week, when he met with the FBIs general counsel, James Baker, to allege that Trump was in cahoots with the Russians, Sussmann claimed he was representing another client. The indictment alleges this was false.

Securing a meeting with the FBIs top lawyer cant have been easy. But for Sussmann it was.

Not just anyone can call up the bureaus general counsel and, with amorphous claims of conspiratorial criminality by a presidential candidate, promptly get a private sit-down. And yet that is exactly what Sussmann did. How? Because, as Baker told congressional investigators, Sussmann came to him based on a preexisting relationship.

In closed-door congressional testimony Oct. 18, 2018, Baker told lawmakers about Sussmanns convoluted claim that a computer server at Trump Tower was in secret contact with a possible Russian government cutout, Alfa Bank. So he was describing a what appeared to be a surreptitious channel of communications communication between some part of President Trumps, Ill say organization but it could be his businesses. I dont mean like The Trump Organization, per se. I mean his enterprises with which he was associated. Some part of that and a an organization associated with a Russian organization associated with the Russian government, and it was conducted in a way so as to make it a covert communications channel.

When Baker asked him how he came upon this information, Sussmann, according to Baker, said that there were some cyber experts that somehow would come across this information and brought it somehow to his attention, and that they were alarmed at what it showed, and that, therefore, they wanted to bring it to the attention of the FBI.

Asked for the names of the experts, Baker said, I dont think I ever found out who these experts were.

Faced with flimsy sourcing for an abstruse allegation, Baker might have been expected to ask a lawyer whose firm was closely aligned with the Democratic Party some probing questions. But if he did, thats now lost in a cloud of foggy recollection. I cant remember, Baker told members of Congress when asked if he knew Sussmann was billing the DNC and the Clinton campaign for his time talking with Baker. I dont specifically remember when I learned that. So I dont know that I had that in my head when he showed up in my office. I just cant remember.

I just find that unbelievable, Rep. Jim Jordan replied, that the guy representing the Clinton campaign, the Democrat National Committee, shows up with information that says we got this, and you dont ask where he got it, you didnt know how he got it. But he got it from some, you know, quote, expert.

Jordan asked Baker whether Sussmann ever mentioned he may have got some of this information from the Democratic National Committee?

I am not sure what I knew about that at the time, Baker said a failure of memory that Sussmanns lawyers are sure to take advantage of.

Baker suggested it was a mystery why Sussmann reached out to him and then repeatedly made it clear exactly why Sussmann saw him as a possible collaborator. I had a personal relationship with Michael, Baker said, but youd have to ask him why he decided to pick me.

And so what youre saying is you were the intermediary between Perkins Coie and the FBI because of your personal relationship with that attorney? then-Rep. Mark Meadows asked.

I believe so, Baker answered but he did so with the caveat: Youd have to ask Michael why he came to me.One plausible answer Sussmann could have givenwas that going to Baker was the best way to achieve his goal after all, Baker did pass the information on to bureau investigators, and there would soon be stories in Slate and the New York Times telling of an FBI probe into Trump and Russia.

For his part, Sussmann told congressional investigators that when he met with Baker, he told him, I wasnt looking for the FBI to do anything. I had no ask. I had no requests.

Sussmann wasnt the only old friend feeding Russia conspiracy stories to James Baker. In the fall of 2016, another Washingtonian with the general counsels ear was David Corn, the Washington bureau chief of the left-wing magazine Mother Jones.

David had part of what is now referred to as the Steele dossier and he talked to me about that and wanted to provide that to the FBI, Baker told lawmakers. And so, even though he was my friend, I was also an FBI official. He knew that. And so he wanted to somehow get that into the hands of the FBI.

How did a Mother Jones reporter/columnist get chosen to drop a dime on Trump with the FBI?

David is a friend of mine

Longtime friend?

Longtime friend.

When did you first meet Mr. Corn?

Years and years and years ago, Baker said to congressional investigators. Our kids carpooled together. We carpooled with them when our kids were little.

As with the materials from Sussmann, Baker took dossier sections from David Corn and passed them on to FBI counterintelligence agents.

Having such relationships was seen not as a liability, not as a risk of bias, but instead as something that boosts the credibility of those passing along information.

Consider former British agent Christopher Steele, who had a knack for cultivating friends in high places. In 2007 he met Bruce Ohr at an organized crime conference. They would continue to meet about once or twice a year, whenever Ohr was in London or Steele was in Washington. Orbis, the private intelligence firm Steele formed after he left MI6, produced a steady stream of short reports; Steele shared them with Ohr.

Their friendship developed to the point that, in the spring of 2010, Ohr connected Steele with the FBI and pushed for the bureau to make his friend a paid FBI informant, a confidential human source. The relationship he built over the years with Ohr would prove helpful when Ohr became one of the highest-ranking career officials at the Department of Justice, associate deputy attorney general especially since Steele wasnt the only one cultivating a connection with Bruce Ohr.

Ohr had also become personally acquainted with Glenn Simpson at the same sort of policy conferences year after year. That relationship was reinforced when the opposition research firm Simpson co-founded, Fusion GPS, hired Ohrs wife, Nellie, as an independent contractor.

When it came time for Steele to tap Ohr in launching a counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign, Steele used all the trappings of friendship among international sophisticates: He took the Ohrs to breakfast at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington.

Not long before the 2016 election, Christopher Steele had a falling out with the FBI, which had discovered he was not honoring the confidential part of his agreement to be a confidential human source. But thanks to Steele and Simpsons relationships with Bruce Ohr, Steeles ability to influence the FBI was not lost. He began to funnel his spurious tales through Bruce Ohr to the bureau. Lawmakers asked James Baker why the FBI having shut down Steele as an official source turned to Bruce Ohr as a way to continue gathering information from Steele. Baker saw Ohrs friendship with Steele as an asset, not a liability: Bruce, Baker said, had some type of preexisting relationship with the source.

Ohr wasnt the only official Steele cultivated; he had also become pals with Jonathan Winer sometime around 2000. During the Obama administration, Winer was a top State Department officer. And while at Foggy Bottom, Winer didnt forget his old friend from London. For years, Winer encouraged colleagues at State to read the research reports produced by Steeles private intel company, Orbis. Winer distributed well over 100 of Steeles intel memos to Victoria Nulands State Department Eurasia team.

He also promoted Steele himself: Toria and Paul, Three reports from Orbis, Winer wrote in a November 2014 email, showing his nickname and first-name basis with Toria Nuland and Paul W. Jones, her deputy. He added, The man behind them and Orbis, Chris Steele (as previously mentioned, former MI6 Russia expert, and a trusted friend of mine) is in DC next couple of days. If youd like to meet with him, let me know and I can put it together. Winer promoted Steeles dossier with no less vigor and enthusiasm, distributing it among his friends at State.

From Michael Sussmanns relationship with the FBIs general counsel, Jim Baker, to Bakers friendship with David Corn of Mother Jones; from Bruce Ohrs long connection with Christopher Steele to Steeles decade-long association with Jonathan Winer, the stealthy dissemination of allegations against Trump, his businesses and his staff remains a blueprint of how Washington works.

This article was first published by RealClearInvestigations on Sept. 22, 2020.

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How Old Friends In High Places Assembled The Russia Collusion Hoax - The Federalist

Federal officials are releasing thousands of illegal aliens into the United States as an influx of Haitian migrants overwhelms officials in Del Rio, Texas, a new report from the Associated Press suggests.

The Biden administration has repeatedly claimed it is countering the influx of illegal aliens at the southern border by ordering expulsions under Title 42, but data showsthe government is not near as vigilant about enforcing that policy as it appears to be.

Haitian migrants in Del Rio, the report indicates, are being let go from federal custody on a very, very large scale as President Joe Bidens border agency struggles to process and contain the approximately 14,000 illegal aliens camped out in foul and soiled conditions under International Bridge.

Some of the migrants released into the United States were directed to report themselves to an immigration office within the next two months, but reports indicate that only a small percentage of illegals caught and then released by the government actually follows through on self-reporting.

Despite footage, pictures, and reports of what is happening in Del Rio, the Biden administration is pushing aside the opportunity to address the crisis in favor of lying to the American public about their role in creating it.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters in a press briefing this week that the Biden administration is expelling illegal aliens and claimed that the COVID-19 protocols for other foreign nationals shouldnt apply to migrants.

These are individuals we noted and discussed we are expelling individuals based on Title 42,specifically because of COVID,and we want to prevent ascenariowhere a large number of people are gathering and posing a threat tothe community and the migrantsthemselves.Those are the policieswe put in place in large partbecause again the CDC recommends Title 42, she said.

Later, she reiterated on CBS Mornings that we are still implementing Title 42.

We are going to send people out of the country who come in as we implement that, she said.

A COVID safety protocol? one of the hosts asked.

Exactly, Psaki confirmed.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told CNN on Monday that the federal government has an obligation to execute on the Title 42 authority, which is a public health authority in a time of pandemic that is held by the Centers for Disease Control, but U.S. Customs and Border Protection data suggests that just under 45 percent of the 156,641 unique encounters dealt with by the agency in August resulted in expulsion under the COVID-19 policy.

If you come to the United States illegally, you will be returned, your journey will not succeed, and you will be endangering your life and your familys life, Mayorkas also said on Monday.

Jordan Davidson is a staff writer at The Federalist. She graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism.

Excerpt from:

Report: Federal Authorities Releasing Thousands Of Illegal Aliens Into US - The Federalist

(Watch the video for a monologue on this article and an interview with The American Conservatives Shaun Rieley on finding the path of good in a sometimes grey and painful world.)

Dear God, I ask you that you help me get out of here and that you take care of my mom.

Thats a prayer that the bishop of El Paso, Texas brought to a meeting of 20 Catholic bishops and Vatican officials. Its a childs prayer, written in Spanish, collected from a migrant in a tent city south of the border. Its heart-wrenching; theres no soul as innocent as a childs, and in this simple plea, it shows.

But theres no peace coming to children like these; not right now, in this moment at least not in this world.

The images flickering across American television screens this past year, and particularly these past couple of weeks, show that clearly. They are scenes of terrible suffering, of fear, exploitation, disease, trafficking in drugs and women and children, of rape and sexual assault, of human slavery and human desperation. They are scenes borne of weakness, lawlessness, and the criminal exploitation of the vacuum that lawlessness creates.

And heres what might be the most tragic aspect: The bishops of the Catholic Church bear a lot of responsibility for this disaster.

Its a hard charge to make and not one to be taken lightly, but its true: They help make this possible. How? Through their promotion to open borders a strict adherence that warps Gods call to love our neighbors, and misunderstands the criminal situation at the border.

Take a look at how quickly they condemned President Donald Trumps moves to seal the southern border and liberate it from the control of drug cartels. Look at the statement they released condemning the construction of a border wall, which they bafflingly claimed would undermine the right to freedom of worship.

Or look at how theyve repeatedly denounced both the Trump and Biden administrations for using Title 42 of the U.S. code to expedite deportations of illegal arrivals in the United States. If theres a step the United States can take to enforce its immigration laws, the bishops oppose it loudly and swiftly.

Now compare that with the hard fight some of our bravest bishops had to wage to protect life. Its been an uphill slog and its a wonder its come as far as it has.

But the difference between the two is not as surprising as you might at first think. The [United States Conference of Catholic Bishops] collected $50 million for migration and refugee services for the year 2020, most of which came from the federal government, Lepanto Institute President Michael Hichbor told the news site Church Militant. During that same period, he added, the U.S. bishops collected a meager $777,000 for pro-life activities.

That isnt to say the bishops arent pro-life; of course they are. Nor is it to say they are guilty of the humanitarian crisis on our border; they arent working as human smugglers and they arent running our ineffectual government.

But more than any other religious group, it is Americas Catholic bishops who lend moral support and cover to the current border situation, and who thunder against any change in the status quo that might possibly mean fewer illegal immigrants and fewer victimized children in tents run by criminal gangs just praying to God to protect them and their mothers.

This is a distinction with meaning: Its important to separate guilt from responsibility, just as its crucial for us to understand what our duty as faithful Catholics is to our country and her people, to our just laws and our future, to our brothers and sisters around the world who are suffering and in distress, and to our salvation.

We live in a fallen world, and while we rightly desire one free of war and borders, that world is not and never will be ours until the Kingdom comes. This means until then, the Christian imperative to welcome the stranger comes with duties and responsibilities including preserving the society that welcomes him.

As a moral and Christian people, we have a religious duty to be welcoming and to take people into our care. There are a lot of excuses not to its not an easy command but there are precious few good reasons not to; the kind of reasons that will pass muster with God. There are, however, limits to how we limited men are able to love, and so there are limits on how we are called to charity. In St. Thomas Aquinass greatest work, Summa Theologiae, the renowned doctor of the church explains the order of charity, beginning with God at the center and moving out from ourselves to our family and nearest neighbors. God does not ask us to feed the hungry at the expense of our children, or to shelter the stranger by turning out the widows and orphans already among us.

And while we have an ordered call to charity, we dont have a religious duty to have no nations, no laws, and no order. In the New Testament and Old, we see individuals and families in strange lands, sometimes as refugees. We are shown their example, and over and over again you will see these same holy men and women act with respect toward their hosts. They dont break their laws, and when they do they flee.

Its difficult to understand how breaking our laws, disregarding our customs, and evading our lawful and justly stationed officers to cross our border against our wishes can be called an act of love, even if the perpetrators are deserving of charity once apprehended or turned back.

Nor are charity and love things our country lacks: Since the mid-1960s, we have taken in more than 60 million 60 million legal immigrants from all around the world. To put that in perspective, there are currently 330 million people in the United States.

This is the largest immigration wave in history. Not American history world history. If there is any country or any civilization anywhere at any point that has experienced anything like this, theres no trace left of them. And we did this voluntarily.

Does this sound like a place that doesnt welcome the refugee? Does this sound like a country that turn[s] away the vulnerable? Or one that does not answer the call to act with compassion towards those in need and to work together to find humane solutions, as the bishops have said?

When criticizing our policy that people stay in Mexico while applying, the bishops said we must honor the rule of law and respect the dignity of human life, but do they actually believe that?

If they do, then theyre either being foolish or have fallen for the lies our societys open border proponents tell, and this has terrible consequences. Their words and actions help shield and continue a murderous, criminal system that preys on the most vulnerable in our hemisphere and spits in the face of both the rule of law and the dignity of human life.

Once again, this is no exaggeration. Almost everything youve been told by corporate media about the border is a lie. Our border story is not Homeward Bound III, or Fievel Goes North its an organized cartel operation, complete with tagging systems and lines. Its also rife with sexual slavery, labor slavery, and unbelievable cruelty. Everything about the U.S.-Mexico border and what happens there is built on ignoring our laws, ignoring common sense, and ignoring basic humanity in favor of silence and cowardice.

The U.S. has chosen not to control its border, and thats the key word choose. We are easily rich enough and powerful enough to guard a few hundred miles of desert if we wanted. It would cost us one-fiftieth of what was so eagerly spent on a single failed war in Afghanistan. But no, we choose to not control our border. So somebody else controls it in our place. Gary Hale, a drug policy fellow at Rice Universitys Baker Institute in Houston, summed it up: Criminal organizations control the border.

What criminal organizations? The Mexican cartels. They have guns, knives, and the depravity to use both on any who oppose them. The result is a hellscape of human smuggling and exploitation.

A half-century ago, most people illegally crossing the border did so by themselves. Today, more than 95 percent hire a smuggler, many of them tied to the cartels. Human smuggling inevitably means everything that phrase evokes: migrants extorted for all their earthly possessions, young girls subjected to sexual exploitation, drugs and weapons pouring over the border, and people murdered when they see too much, say too much, or simply upset the wrong person.

Even where the Border Patrol does get involved, our own foolish policies are used against us. Word is out that if youre a family its almost certain you wont be deported. So at the border, theres a trade in children, some of whom are passed around to help multiple cross into the United States.

Children as young as two are being transported by the cartels, alone, all the way up from South America. The cartels tell parents now is the time to do it. Its good to take advantage of the moment, because children are able to pass quickly, one Guatemalan smuggler told Reuters. Thats what were telling everyone.

Thats just young children, but there are a lot of other broken parts. Because the United States makes deportation nearly impossible for anyone whose child is a U.S. citizen, pregnant women are making dangerous journeys, hoping to cross over and give birth just across the border.

More than 300 pregnant women are reported to be in that mass of Haitians in Del Rio, Texas. At least five have given birth already.

Because American policy is to let in unaccompanied minors with few questions asked, anybody under 30 with a brain claims to be an unaccompanied 17-year-old; its not like we have any way to check.

How many gang members have we let into the country this way? We dont know, of course when it comes to immigration, we deliberately avoid knowing too much. If we knew the truth, thered be pressure to change things.

Why do we let this insane situation persist? Because the current situation, as horrible as it is, creates a lot of winners. Employers get the low-wage workers they want. The Democratic Party gets the long-term political advantage of transforming this country more rapidly than the American people actually want or vote for. And everybody gets to avoid the discomfort of angering the press and activists by making the hard decision to stand up for the law instead of the easy decision to do nothing.

These are the profit centers, and they are happy for any moral shroud they can hide under. Theyll gleefully shield their misdeeds with the press statements of the Catholic Church.

But the more our moral leaders tolerate it, the more insane the situation at the border becomes. The way to ebb this humanitarian crisis is to stop feeding it. When America acts as a nation of laws where people have to arrive legally then the border crisis disappears, as it did in the final year of the Trump administration. But when we send the message that our laws mean nothing and anybody can get in if they know the magic words then more and more people show up. Nearly two million so far this year, and more are coming every day.

Theres an important role for the bishops to play in this human drama, as is true of all our politics. The root of the word politics, after all, is politik, a Greek word to describe the affairs of the city affairs the church cant afford to sit out of.

In 1962, for example, the bishop of New Orleans excommunicated three prominent Catholic segregationists for defying the churchs desegregation order, despite angry cries that he should not meddle in politics. Similarly today, church leaders fighting the evils of abortion are told to mind their business to stay out of the affairs of the city. There can be no accepting this.

While it might be upsetting to the chirping secretaries of our Commanding Heights, the ancient knowledge of the church has much to contribute on questions of economics.

But God does not call us to violate just laws for charity; nor to love all with equal good deeds and intensity, understanding we cannot extend good deeds to everyone on earth, nor love all with the same intensity. So when church leaders act, they must do so with careful consideration and sound theology, working hard to ensure no single teaching or group of teachings obscures the others to the detriment of the good; striving to make certain justice, charity, and mercy are all weighed.

Much as many bishops have erred in forgetting the necessity of repentance in forgiveness and the mercy and love inherent in just punishment, they have largely failed on the subject of immigration. They have stressed the importance of charity while neglecting the godliness of just order, they have placed a single newsworthy community of poor souls distant from us over an unseen and less glitzy community of poor souls next door and they have not paid proper heed to the harmful effects this charity without justice has had on the lives of the vulnerable (nor the power it has given wicked men).

The results of these mistakes are painful, are deadly, and are on our border every day and night. On this, there can be no confusion; its time for our church to recognize it.

See the original post here:

The Bishops' Misapplication Of Catholic Charity On Our Southern Border - The Federalist