Tyler O’Neil, Daily Signal – Freedom First Network https://freedomfirstnetwork.com There's a thin line between ringing alarm bells and fearmongering. Thu, 07 Nov 2024 21:28:55 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.6.2 https://freedomfirstnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/cropped-Square-32x32.jpg Tyler O’Neil, Daily Signal – Freedom First Network https://freedomfirstnetwork.com 32 32 178281470 The Left’s 6 Enormous Transgressions That Helped Propel Trump to Victory https://freedomfirstnetwork.com/the-lefts-6-enormous-transgressions-that-helped-propel-trump-to-victory/ https://freedomfirstnetwork.com/the-lefts-6-enormous-transgressions-that-helped-propel-trump-to-victory/#respond Thu, 07 Nov 2024 21:28:55 +0000 https://freedomfirstnetwork.com/the-lefts-6-enormous-transgressions-that-helped-propel-trump-to-victory/ (The Daily Signal)—Donald Trump seems likely not just to win the Electoral College but also the popular vote to return to the White House, delivering a massive rebuke to Vice President Kamala Harris and the Left more generally.

Trump’s genius—in raising his fist amid an assassination attempt, donning the apron of a McDonald’s fry cook, and riding shotgun in a trash truck—carried the day. However, the Left’s slings and arrows against the former president also helped propel him to victory by exposing how cynical and conniving his opponents were.

The Left committed at least six massive political miscalculations that also amount to transgressions against America’s political order. These moves helped Trump win, but they also exposed the forces he will face in a second term.

1. The Lawfare

Left-leaning prosecutors brought multiple civil and criminal cases against Trump, most of which revved into high gear last year after he announced in November 2022 that he would run for president again in 2024.

New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat, campaigned on the prospect of prosecuting Trump, and her office began investigating the Trump Organization in early 2019. She sued in September 2022, alleging that Trump had violated the law by exaggerating his net worth, though none of his business partners claimed to be victimized by this alleged exaggeration.

Presiding Judge Arthur Engoron demanded Trump and his companies fork over more than $350 million to the state in February. Engoron initially ordered Trump to post $454 million bond, but an appeals court agreed to lower the amount to $175 million.

In March 2023, a Manhattan grand jury indicted Trump on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to pay pornography star Stephanie Clifford, known by her stage name Stormy Daniels, “hush money” after the 2016 election. Michael Cohen, Trump’s personal attorney at the time, gave Clifford $130,000 in October 2016, and Trump reimbursed Cohen in a series of payments after Trump entered the Oval Office in January 2017.

On May 30, a jury convicted Trump on all 34 felony counts. His sentencing hearing has been scheduled for Nov. 26, though the former president has appealed the verdict in light of the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat, argued that Trump had interfered in the 2016 election by altering business records after the election.

Improperly appointed special counsel Jack Smith led an investigation into Trump for alleged lawbreaking regarding his challenging the 2020 presidential election results and inspiring the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.

In August 2023, a grand jury approved an indictment against Trump. U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan scheduled a trial to begin March 4, but Trump appealed to the Supreme Court. The high court ruled July 1 that the president has “absolute” immunity from charges stemming from “core constitutional powers” and “presumptive immunity” for all other official acts.

Smith launched another case against Trump regarding his alleged improper retention of classified documents after his presidency ended Jan. 20, 2021. Smith, whom President Joe Biden appointed in November 2022, charged Trump with 40 felonies in the case. U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the case in July, ruling that Smith’s appointment as special counsel was unconstitutional.

Smith is reportedly wrapping up both prosecutions in the wake of Trump’s election victory.

Biden later confessed that he had improperly retained classified documents from his years as vice president and U.S. senator, yet he faced no charges. Special counsel Robert Hur investigated Biden and interviewed him, ultimately declining to bring charges in part because a jury would find Biden sympathetic as an “elderly man with a poor memory” and because his “diminished faculties” made it less likely he intentionally violated the law.

Republicans demanded that the Justice Department release the audio of Biden’s interview with Hur, since the special counsel’s report cast grave doubts on the president’s ability to carry out his duties.

Each of these legal cases arguably represented a political attack on Trump through the legal system, often on trumped-up charges. Trump became the first former president convicted of a felony, yet the partisan nature of these attacks led Americans to suspect that the Left was abusing the system to prosecute its top enemy. The lawfare almost certainly backfired, as well it should have.

2. The Ballot Challenges

In a similarly egregious political attack, activists and Democratic officials moved to strike Trump from state ballots on the claim that he had incited an insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021.

The Supreme Court definitively (and unanimously) ended this argument in March, ruling that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution does not disqualify Trump from appearing on ballots. (Trump had never been charged with insurrection, much less convicted of it.)

At a time when Democrats were running as the “party of democracy” and warning that Trump would end democracy, they also sought to disqualify the former president at the outset. This effort also backfired.

3. The Nazi Comparisons

Throughout this election cycle, Biden, Harris, and others on the left have suggested that Trump represented a threat to democracy. They condemned him as racist and authoritarian. They continued to do so even after he faced multiple assassination attempts.

Yet the most absurd moment arguably came toward the end of the campaign, when Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Harris’ running mate, noted that Trump would hold a rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City. On the day of that rally, Walz said, “Donald Trump’s got this big rally going at Madison Square Garden. There’s a direct parallel to a big rally that happened in the mid-1930s at Madison Square garden.”

Walz was straining to connect Trump’s rally to an American Nazi Party rally in February 1939. Not only was there a gap of more than 80 years between the two rallies, but Madison Square Garden’s location physically moved in both 1926 and 1968. The Madison Square Garden that hosted the pro-Nazi rally is not even the same building that hosted Trump.

Furthermore, Madison Square Garden hosted multiple Democratic Party events, from Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s last 1936 campaign speech to the Democratic National Convention in 1976, 1980, and 1992.

The idea that Trump echoed Nazis simply by choosing a venue—which had been twice rebuilt since the 1939 event—is ludicrous on its face.

4. Hiding Biden’s Decline

The fact that Biden was no spring chicken—even in 2019 and 2020—should not be lost on anyone, but for most of the 2024 presidential election, the White House, the legacy media, and the Democratic establishment brushed off concerns about the sitting president’s declining mental acuity.

None other than Kamala Harris repeatedly insisted that Biden was A-OK.

“Our president is in good shape, in good health, and is ready to lead in our second term,” Harris said in February. She praised him as “vibrant.”

Despite his disastrous performance in the June 27 debate with Trump, Biden repeatedly insisted he would remain in the race. Only after former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former President Barack Obama leaked that they had met with Biden, pressuring him to withdraw, did the president finally announce he would leave the race and back his vice president.

Early Wednesday morning, CNN hosts Jake Tapper and Anderson Cooper tried to bring up any counties where Harris was “outperforming Biden in 2020,” but not one county showed the vice president winning 3% or more votes than Biden did four years before.

5. The Kamala Switcheroo

Speaking of Kamala Harris, who, exactly, is she? That’s not a rhetorical question.

There’s tough-on-crime prosecutor Kamala, whom she sometimes plays on TV. There’s radical-Left activist Kamala, who briefly got a voting record score to the left of Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. Then there’s cackling Kamala trying to be bubbly, as she briefly was for the “joy” and “vibes” election the legacy media tried to foist on Americans when the Democratic elites propped Harris up as the savior early in her brief campaign.

Finally, there was angry, scolding, Trump-is-a-fascist Kamala, who also wiggled out of taking any policy position that would differentiate her from the sitting president while she was running a “change” election.

Is it any wonder Kamala Harris never won a primary in the 2020 Democratic contest?

That’s right—the last-minute switcheroo that was going to “save democracy” from Donald Trump involved someone who didn’t win a single Democratic primary in 2020 or 2024. It involved someone who claimed she wasn’t Joe Biden but never created any daylight between her policies and those of Joe Biden.

Worse, it involved a candidate who branded her opponent a fascist when she herself had the record of trying to prosecute pro-life journalists, demanding donor information from conservative nonprofits, and demonizing fellow Americans for disagreeing with her radical stance on abortion.

Democrats chose a nominee who had been tasked with solving the crisis over illegal immigration, even though it got worse on her watch. They chose a nominee whose answer to every question was “I grew up in a middle-class family.” They chose the garden goddess of word salads, whose grand achievement was explaining that Ukraine is a country in Europe.

What does Harris’ duplicity have to do with her awkwardness and her lack of primary victories? Just this: Americans knew she was being foisted upon them under false pretenses, and Tuesday’s election results suggest that they really didn’t like that.

The Biden-Harris switcheroo suggested that the real power behind the administrative state wasn’t the man sitting behind the Resolute Desk but a shadowy network of elites pulling the strings behind the scenes. Perhaps someone should write a book about that. (My book on this exact subject, “The Woketopus: The Dark Money Cabal Manipulating the Federal Government,” is available for pre-order now and releases on Jan. 21, 2024.)

6. The Closing Argument

After all this, Harris delivered a “closing argument” packed with lies and predicated on demonizing her opponent.

Yet the legacy media seized on comedian Tony Hinchcliffe’s remark at Trump’s Madison Square Garden event that Puerto Rico was an “island of garbage,” and Biden revealed his disdain for Trump’s supporters by responding: “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters.”

By calling Americans who oppose his chosen successor “garbage,” the sitting president of the United States sent a clear and chilling message—even if Biden attempted to clarify it later.

Trump, always the showman, defused the insult with his comedic charm. He donned the orange and yellow reflective vest of a garbageman and sat in the front of a garbage truck. He spoke about it at his rallies, remarking that the safety vest made him look thinner.

On the one hand, Americans saw a Democratic puppet who couldn’t present a genuine personality, and on the other hand, they saw a man who isn’t afraid to get his hands dirty (metaphorically, of course) by working at McDonald’s and getting into a garbage truck.

The idea that this man—who faced unprecedented criminal charges, disgusting attempts to remove him from the ballot, and assassination attempts—represented the true threat to democracy just could not stand.

Rather, the entire campaign revealed the exact opposite. Only one political party tried to disqualify its opponent from the very beginning of the race. Only one party fanned the flames of hatred despite assassination attempts against its target. Only one struggled desperately to change the playing field at the last minute after lying to the American people the whole time.

Trump won this election, despite every norm the Left broke to try to take him down.

Now, he has to make sure his victory sends the appropriate message: that the elites can’t force their way on the American people. That struggle has just begun.

]]> https://freedomfirstnetwork.com/the-lefts-6-enormous-transgressions-that-helped-propel-trump-to-victory/feed/ 0 227471 Five Things to Know About John Podesta https://freedomfirstnetwork.com/five-things-to-know-about-john-podesta/ https://freedomfirstnetwork.com/five-things-to-know-about-john-podesta/#respond Thu, 31 Oct 2024 05:32:41 +0000 https://freedomfirstnetwork.com/five-things-to-know-about-john-podesta/ John Podesta may be one of the most influential people you’ve never heard of. He has held high positions in three presidential administrations and created a nonprofit that influences legislation and policy. He also oversees the spending of hundreds of billions of your tax dollars.

Podesta is one of the major tentacles of the Left’s massive influence campaign in Washington, D.C., a behemoth I call the Woketopus. It’s the subject of my new book, “The Woketopus: The Dark Money Cabal Manipulating the Federal Government.”

The book explains how the Left’s dark money network props up a system of woke nonprofits — groups advocating climate alarmism, transgender orthodoxy, critical race theory and technocratic government — that staff and advise the federal government, especially in the Biden-Harris administration.

John Podesta’s brainchild, the Center for American Progress, upholds all four major issues and has been particularly active in pushing subsidies for wind and solar, even though fossil fuels and nuclear energy are far more reliable. While many on the Left claim that man-made climate change threatens to destroy our civilization, climate doom predictions have stubbornly refused to come true since the 1970s, and the Left’s purported solutions to this overexaggerated crisis make life harder for Americans and others around the world.

So, who exactly is John Podesta?

1: Background

Podesta grew up in Chicago and attended Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois. He met a young William Jefferson Clinton in 1970 when they both worked in Connecticut for Joseph Duffy, a U.S. Senate candidate. He received his J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center in 1976.

Podesta worked as a Justice Department lawyer and then brought his legal expertise to Democratic offices in Congress.

2: The Clintons

Podesta worked in the Clinton White House, rising to be deputy chief of staff in 1997. Podesta coordinated the White House’s responses to the Whitewater probe (which investigated Bill and Hillary Clinton’s real estate investments) and the Monica Lewinsky scandal. The House of Representatives impeached Clinton for perjury and obstruction of justice in the scandal, though the Senate acquitted him.

Hillary Clinton tapped Podesta to chair her 2016 presidential campaign.

Amid that campaign, WikiLeaks released a 2012 email in which a progressive activist suggested to Podesta that “there needs to be a Catholic Spring [like the Arab Spring], in which Catholics themselves demand the end of a Middle Ages dictatorship and the beginning of a little democracy and respect for gender equality in the Catholic Church.”

Podesta responded, “We created Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good to organize for a movement like this. Likewise Catholics United.” Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good received funding from left-wing foundations like George Soros’ Open Society Institutes and the Tides Foundation, groups that also fund Podesta’s left-wing nonprofit, the Center for American Progress.

3: The Podesta Group

John Podesta and his brother Tony co-founded The Podesta Group in 1988, and its fortunes rose with John Podesta’s prominence. The firm developed close ties to the Democratic Party, raking in $29.3 million in 2010 and earning Tony Podesta the rank of third most influential lobbyist in 2007.

Amid then-Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into ties between then-President Donald Trump and Russia, Tony Podesta dissolved The Podesta Group. The Justice Department investigated Tony Podesta for potential violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act connected to work he had done on behalf of a Ukrainian political party that supported Russian President Vladimir Putin. Prosecutors closed the investigation without bringing charges.

4: The Center for American Progress

John Podesta combined his connections, his lobbying experience, and his legal and policy background to create a left-wing juggernaut. He founded the Center for American Progress in 2003, which he envisioned as a Democratic alternative to conservative think tanks such as The Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute.

Politico has described CAP as “the most influential think tank of the Biden era.” CAP has fed more than sixty officials into the Biden administration and helped shape Biden’s legislative initiatives and executive actions. Neera Tanden, CAP’s president and CEO from 2011 to 2021, currently serves as director of the White House Domestic Policy Council.

While leading CAP, Podesta also joined corporate boards and consulted for left-leaning nonprofits. Between 2010 and 2014, he served on the board of the green energy company Joule Unlimited, which later collapsed.

CAP has long supported electric vehicles and urged the Biden administration to spend more on green technologies. It describes climate change as “the greatest challenge facing the United States — and the world — over the next decade and beyond.” It celebrated the so-called Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, two bills that directed billions of dollars to fund electric vehicle charging infrastructure. (Automakers have been moving away from EVs due to low consumer demand, and they have warned that the Biden-Harris administration’s vision for a quicker transition to EVs is not possible.)

CAP also condemned the increase in U.S. exports of liquefied natural gas (LNG), a curious move because American LNG exports had helped European countries that would otherwise rely on Russian LNG. Billionaire donors pressured John Podesta on the issue, and President Biden announced a temporary pause of pending approvals of LNG exports in January. A judge struck down the pause in July, but the administration appealed that ruling.

5: Directing Billions of Dollars

In August 2022, President Biden signed a law the Democrats titled the “Inflation Reduction Act.” The Inflation Reduction Act arguably worsened inflation, cleared the way for the IRS to hire 87,000 agents, and earmarked $369 billion in climate spending.

Biden touted the law as “the largest climate investment in history.”

Who did Biden pick to determine where all this “climate investment” goes? None other than John Podesta.

This puts the radical activist with close ties to the infrastructure of the Left at the center of a massive federal enterprise where he can advance his agenda in the name of saving the Earth.

Tyler O’Neil is managing editor of The Daily Signal and the author of two books: “Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center,” and “The Woketopus: The Dark Money Cabal Manipulating the Federal Government.”

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

]]> https://freedomfirstnetwork.com/five-things-to-know-about-john-podesta/feed/ 0 227317 CEASE AND DESIST: Trump Sends a Legal Warning to Anyone Trying to Cheat in the Election https://freedomfirstnetwork.com/cease-and-desist-trump-sends-a-legal-warning-to-anyone-trying-to-cheat-in-the-election/ https://freedomfirstnetwork.com/cease-and-desist-trump-sends-a-legal-warning-to-anyone-trying-to-cheat-in-the-election/#respond Sun, 27 Oct 2024 12:43:06 +0000 https://freedomfirstnetwork.com/cease-and-desist-trump-sends-a-legal-warning-to-anyone-trying-to-cheat-in-the-election/ (Daily Signal)—Former President Donald Trump sent a “cease and desist” message on Truth Social and X, issuing a legal warning to anyone attempting to cheat in the 2024 presidential election.

“CEASE & DESIST: I, together with many Attorneys and Legal Scholars, am watching the Sanctity of the 2024 Presidential Election very closely because I know, better than most, the rampant Cheating and Skullduggery that has taken place by the Democrats in the 2020 Presidential Election,” Trump wrote. “It was a Disgrace to our Nation!”

“Therefore, the 2024 Election, where Votes have just started being cast, will be under the closest professional scrutiny and, WHEN I WIN, those people that CHEATED will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law, which will include long term prison sentences so that this Depravity of Justice does not happen again,” he added. “We cannot let our Country further devolve into a Third World Nation, AND WE WON’T!”

Trump clarified that the legal exposure “extends to Lawyers, Political Operatives, Donors, Illegal Voters, & Corrupt Election Officials.” He also warned, “Those involved in unscrupulous behavior will be sought out, caught, and prosecuted at levels, unfortunately, never seen before in our Country.”

Trump’s warning follows the style of a “cease and desist” letter. For example, if a newspaper printed something that someone considers to be defamation, the allegedly defamed person’s attorney would write a letter to the newspaper, warning of a lawsuit unless the paper retracts the claim and ceases to continue publishing such claims.

Trump did not clarify which laws he considers the alleged cheaters to have been violating, but the Biden-Harris administration has recently attempted to stop states like Virginia and Alabama from removing aliens from their voter files. A federal judge ruled Friday that Virginia must put the names of aliens back on the rolls. Gov. Glenn Youngkin, the commonwealth’s Republican governor, pledged to appeal the ruling to higher courts, and to the Supreme Court, if necessary.

]]> https://freedomfirstnetwork.com/cease-and-desist-trump-sends-a-legal-warning-to-anyone-trying-to-cheat-in-the-election/feed/ 0 227229 Fact-Checking the Kamala Harris CNN Town Hall https://freedomfirstnetwork.com/fact-checking-the-kamala-harris-cnn-town-hall/ https://freedomfirstnetwork.com/fact-checking-the-kamala-harris-cnn-town-hall/#respond Thu, 24 Oct 2024 10:05:11 +0000 https://freedomfirstnetwork.com/fact-checking-the-kamala-harris-cnn-town-hall/ (Daily Signal)—Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, answered questions in a CNN town hall with anchor Anderson Cooper Wednesday night. She repeatedly condemned her Republican opponent, former President Donald Trump, in the harshest of terms, even saying that she thinks he is a fascist.

The Daily Signal fact-checked many of her claims.

‘Terminate the Constitution’

Harris touted the fact that former Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., endorsed her against Trump. The vice president said Cheney backed her due to “a legitimate fear, based on Donald Trump‘s words and actions, that he will not obey an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

“He himself has said he would terminate the Constitution of the United States,” she added.

The claim traces back to a post Trump wrote on Truth Social on Dec. 3, 2022. In that post, the former president wrote of the 2020 presidential election, “A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution.”

He added, “Our great ‘Founder’ did not want, and would not condone, False & Fraudulent Elections!”

Fellow Republicans criticized his comments, and Trump later clarified that he would not terminate the Constitution.

In a follow-up post, he condemned the legacy media’s interpretation of his post.

“The Fake News is actually trying to convince the American People that I said I wanted to ‘terminate’ the Constitution,” Trump said in a Truth Social post on Dec. 5, 2022.

Hitler’s Generals

Harris said she believed Trump is a fascist and she repeatedly tied him to the Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler.

Harris claimed that Trump said to his generals “in essence, why can’t you be more like Hitler’s generals?”

The vice president was referencing an Atlantic article by Jeffrey Goldberg citing anonymous sources, claiming Trump said, “I need the kind of generals that Hitler had.”

Trump spokesman Alex Pfeiffer said the claim is “absolutely false,” and that “President Trump never said this.”

That article claimed Trump ordered then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows not to pay for the funeral of 20-year-old Army private Vanessa Guillén, calling her a “f—ing Mexican.” Meadows denied the story and Guillén’s sister accused The Atlantic of “exploiting my sister’s death for politics.”

‘Suckers and Losers’

Harris claimed that Trump referred to members of the military as “suckers and losers,” that “he demeans people who have taken an oath to sacrifice their life for our country.”

The claim that Trump called members of the military “suckers” and “losers” originates from a 2020 article published in The Atlantic relying on anonymous sources. Trump has consistently disputed the reports.

‘Price Gouging’

Harris attributed inflation to “price gouging.” When CNN’s Cooper asked her about whether the Trump administration or the Biden administration was responsible for inflation, she suggested that her experience as attorney general in California would help her fight inflation.

“How I come to it is probably a new approach grounded in a lot of my experiences as a former attorney general, where I took on price gouging and part of my plan is to create a new approach that is the first time that we will have a national ban on price gouging, which is companies taking advantage of the desperation and need of the American consumer and jacking up prices without any consequence or accountability,” she said.

Other Democrats, such as President Joe Biden and Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., have attributed inflation to companies’ greed.

As Heritage Foundation Research Fellow EJ Antoni pointed out, there is a far more obvious culprit: government spending.

As Antoni noted, “One of the functions of money is that of a measuring tool. If a yardstick were to shrink from 36 inches down to just 30, it would take 120 of these shortened yardsticks to cover the distance of a football field, instead of 100. As the dollar has lost value, it takes more dollars to measure the value of the things we buy.”

While Americans feel the pain of inflation, so do businesses. According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, “businesses have gotten the short end of the stick,” Antoni explained. “The producer price index is used to measure inflation on the products and services businesses buy—sometimes called wholesale inflation—and that index has risen 17.5% since Biden took office. Conversely, the consumer price index, the widely cited metric for inflation faced by American families, is up 17.1% over that same time.”

“Businesses have actually been sheltering consumers from some cost increases in an effort to maintain market share and not lose customers,” he wrote. “That also explains why, according to the Biden administration’s Census Bureau, total corporate profits have fallen for the last six quarters after adjusting for inflation.”

“If alleged price gouging were really the cause of inflation, did businessmen magically become greedy when Biden took office?” Antoni asked. “Were corporations never greedy in the 40 years leading up to Biden’s inflationary expansion of government? Businesses haven’t even passed all their higher costs on to consumers; if they’re trying to be greedy, they’re doing it all wrong.”

‘Women Have Died’

When discussing state abortion laws in the wake of the Supreme Court striking down the abortion precedent Roe v. Wade (1973) in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022), Harris claimed, “Women have died because of these laws.”

She has repeatedly mentioned the name Amber Nicole Thurman, suggesting that she died due to Georgia’s law restricting abortion.

Yet Thurman died after she took the abortion pill, which caused complications and left parts of her twin unborn babies inside her.

Thurman legally obtained abortion pills in North Carolina to end the lives of her unborn twins, but she could not know without an ultrasound (which the FDA had required only a few years beforehand). Five days later, she began to abort the twins, but both babies’ remains remained in her uterus. She began to develop sepsis and went to the hospital.

Doctors hospitalized her, but she died before they could perform a dilation and curettage to remove the remaining parts of her unborn babies.

Harris blamed Thurman’s death on a law restricting abortion, but the law would not prevent the removal of the babies’ remains when they were already dead. The FDA’s loosened restrictions on the abortion pill, not Georgia’s law, is arguably to blame for this tragic death.

Prefer to Run on the Problem

Harris repeated her claim that Trump killed a bipartisan border bill earlier this year “because he’d prefer to run on a problem instead of fixing a problem.”

Yet critics have warned that the bill would have cemented Biden’s open-border policies into law.

Cooper pressed Harris on why the Biden administration used executive orders to reverse many Trump border policies in January 2021. He noted that illegal aliens crossed the border in large numbers after those orders, and the numbers only decreased when Biden issued other executive orders. He asked her whether she regrets the weaker border policies.

Harris replied that only Congress could solve the ultimate problem. Cooper again pressed her on whether Biden should have issued the 2024 executive orders sooner, and she replied, “I think we did the right thing.”

]]> https://freedomfirstnetwork.com/fact-checking-the-kamala-harris-cnn-town-hall/feed/ 0 227185 3 Biblical Reasons Conservative Christians Should Vote in This Election https://freedomfirstnetwork.com/3-biblical-reasons-conservative-christians-should-vote-in-this-election/ https://freedomfirstnetwork.com/3-biblical-reasons-conservative-christians-should-vote-in-this-election/#respond Sun, 20 Oct 2024 16:14:16 +0000 https://freedomfirstnetwork.com/3-biblical-reasons-conservative-christians-should-vote-in-this-election/ (Daily Signal)—New research finds that approximately 41 million evangelical Christians won’t vote in the Nov. 5 presidential election, but that pastors can persuade approximately 5 million to vote just by urging them to fulfill their civic duty.

As an evangelical Christian myself, I’d like to encourage my fellow believers to cast their ballots. I also ask pastors to tell their flocks to vote, without endorsing one candidate over another.

First, however, let’s explain the research.

George Barna, director of research at Arizona Christian University’s Cultural Research Center, conducted two in-depth surveys in August and September. Online and by phone, Barna surveyed 2,000 adults who self-identified as Christians and said they attended church services at least once a month. He also did an online survey of 1,000 adults in the overall U.S. population.

The surveys found that only 51% of “people of faith”—those who describe themselves as affiliated with a recognized religious faith or as “a person of religious faith”—indicate they are likely to vote in the upcoming election. The U.S. voting-age population is about 268 million, and the survey estimated that about 212 million adults qualify as being in the “people of faith” category. Since 49% of “people of faith” in the survey indicated they would not be likely to vote, that amounts to approximately 104 million Americans “of faith” who are unlikely to vote.

Barna broke down these nonvoters into a few (sometimes overlapping) groups: born-again Christians, identified by their stated beliefs regarding sin and salvation (41 million nonvoters); self-identified Christians who regularly attend church services (32 million); voting-age adults who regularly attend an evangelical church (14 million); adults who attend Protestant churches (46 million); and adults who attend Catholic churches (19 million).

Likely nonvoters gave a variety of reasons for not voting: a lack of interest in politics and elections (68%), disliking all the major candidates (57%), feeling that no candidate reflects their most important views (55%), believing that their one vote won’t make a difference (52%), and saying that the election has become too controversial for their liking (50%).

Yet Barna’s research also found that these nonvoters may reconsider their apathy if their pastors encourage them to vote.

“This research underscores the fact that simply encouraging people to vote in order to fulfill their biblical responsibility would not only be seen as doing their job while helping the community, but an estimated 5 million regular churchgoers would be likely to vote as a result of that simple exhortation,” Barna said in a press release on the findings. “That, in itself, could change the outcome of the election.”

He also noted that the results of the 2020 presidential election, which were contested, came down to a combined total of 587,000 votes in nine battleground states.

“In that context, the 32 million Christians sitting in the pews each week who refuse to vote are a game-changer,” the researcher added. “It’s low-hanging fruit for pastors as they try to motivate those congregants to carry out their civic duty and honor God through their influence for things that matter in our culture.”

So, should conservative Christians vote in the 2024 election? Whether our votes will make a difference or not, what does the Bible say?

1. Honor the Ruling Authorities

Christians look with hope for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come, when Jesus will reign and wipe away every tear. In the meantime, however, both the Bible and Christian tradition are clear: We should honor the ruling authorities.

“Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God,” the Apostle Paul writes in Romans 13:1. (I’m using the translation known as the English Standard Version for all Bible citations.)

Jesus proclaimed that he was the messiah at a time when the Jews expected a messiah to rise against Roman oppression, just like the Maccabees did against Greek oppression under Antiochus IV Epiphanes. Jesus repeatedly told his disciples and the Roman authorities that he didn’t come to usher in political change, for “my kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36).

So, in modern America, who are the “governing authorities?” The three branches established by the Constitution—the executive under the president, the legislative under Congress, and the judicial under the Supreme Court—certainly qualify. But each derives its own authority from the people, who exercise their sovereign will through voting.

I would argue that in modern America, if you are a citizen with the right to vote, honoring the governing authorities entails educating yourself on the major issues and casting a ballot in your local, state, and federal elections.

Paul also lays out the basic function of government: The ruler, he writes, “is God’s servant for your good,” to reward the good and punish the evil. Paul adds: “He is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer” (Romans 13:3-5).

At the most basic level, following the Apostle Paul’s directive here involves casting a ballot in the way that will best help the government be a servant of God’s ultimate justice while acknowledging that human justice is limited.

2. Seek the Peace of the City

Some Christians might object that casting a ballot represents an endorsement of flawed candidates or a flawed system, and therefore they should protect their consciences by not implicating themselves in a broken political system.

To these people I would point to Jeremiah 29, the letter that the prophet Jeremiah wrote to the Jewish exiles in Babylon. Although God inspired Jeremiah to write that letter to the Jewish exiles at the time, not to modern Christians today, Christians may look to Jeremiah’s advice for inspiration and guidance—especially as Christians find themselves in what feels like a hostile and post-Christian American culture.

“Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce,” Jeremiah wrote. “But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare” (Jeremiah 29: 4-7).

Christians live in a sort of exile on earth, as citizens of heaven. As St. Augustine wrote in his magnificent book “The City of God,” Christians should work for the peace and prosperity of the earthly city in which we live, while longing for the heavenly city where our true citizenship and fulfillment reside.

This means voting in elections, sometimes for the lesser of what may seem to be two evils, because our votes will make a difference and can help the health of the earthly city where we currently dwell.

3. Instruments of God

Ultimately, God decides whether nations rise or fall, and whether he will give them prosperity or judgment.

This should come as great encouragement to American Christians who fear for our country. It is not up to us to determine whether the Constitution endures, whether the deep state will be defeated, or whether an immoral person takes the reins of the U.S. government.

Our votes can make an impact, but God determines the course of history, and he inspired Paul to write to the Romans, “We know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28).

This “good” does not always mean earthly prosperity—all things ultimately worked together for good for Stephen when he got stoned for preaching the good news about Jesus (Acts 7-8). It does mean, however, that we can put our ultimate hope in God, and look at the struggles in this world as a testing ground, a “vale of tears” before we reach the summit of everlasting joy.

“The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; he turns it wherever he will,” Solomon writes in Proverbs 21.

The prophets ring with the message that God sometimes chooses judgment for his people, the Jews, and he used both the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar and the Persian King Cyrus to accomplish his will. The first served God by delivering judgment on the Jews—destroying Jerusalem and carrying the Jews off into exile. The second served God by returning the Jews to Jerusalem, paying to rebuild the temple and the walls of the holy city.

When we vote, prayerfully and wisely, we are taking our own small part in God’s ultimate governance of human affairs. We won’t always get it right, but he will.

]]> https://freedomfirstnetwork.com/3-biblical-reasons-conservative-christians-should-vote-in-this-election/feed/ 0 227112 Democrats Insist That Transgender “Medicine” Is Essential to Military Recruitment https://freedomfirstnetwork.com/democrats-insist-that-tranny-medicine-is-essential-to-military-recruitment/ https://freedomfirstnetwork.com/democrats-insist-that-tranny-medicine-is-essential-to-military-recruitment/#respond Thu, 10 Oct 2024 14:05:41 +0000 https://freedomfirstnetwork.com/democrats-insist-that-tranny-medicine-is-essential-to-military-recruitment/ (The Daily Signal)—Several Democrats running in tight races for the U.S. House and Senate joined a larger group of Democrats in signing a letter urging Congress not to defund a measure providing experimental transgender medical interventions that’s included in a bill to fund the U.S. military.

The vast majority of the Democrats in the House (162 of 212) signed the letter, led by Reps. Sara Jacobs, D-Calif.; Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash.; and Mark Pocan, D-Wis. The letter urges the House of Representatives not to include “provisions that actively target LGBTQ+ service members and LGBTQ+ dependents and threaten the recruitment, retention, and readiness of our Armed Forces” in the National Defense Authorization Act, the bill to fund the military.

The NDAA allocates money to the Department of Defense and it is considered one of the must-pass bills in Congress each year. Two of the letter’s signatories, Reps. Colin Allred, D-Texas, and Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., are running for U.S. Senate in their respective states.

The letter flags provisions House Republicans added to the NDAA that would restrict what the Democrats call “medically necessary care for transgender service members or their family members.” In addition to defunding transgender medical interventions, the provisions would prevent military leaders from approving ideological flags like the LGBTQ “Pride” flag. They would also remove pornographic books and books pushing gender ideology from Department of Defense K-12 school libraries, which the Democrats call a “transgender book ban.” They would also ban any of the NDAA funds from going to “a drag show, drag queen story hour, or similar event.”

The 162 Democrats who signed the letter claim that these provisions would exacerbate the U.S. military’s recruitment and retention crisis and that people who identify as transgender are more likely to serve in the military than those who do not so identify.

“As our nation faces recruitment and retention challenges, attacking transgender people—who are more likely to serve in the U.S. military than cisgender people—is a grave mistake,” the Democrats wrote. “If service members are concerned for their health care, their right to exist, or the well-being of their children and loved ones, they cannot focus on their jobs, thereby weakening military readiness and retention rates.”

“The U.S. government should not prohibit our service members from accessing medically necessary care, especially care that is safe, effective, and supported by every major medical association in the U.S., representing more than 1.3 million doctors,” the letter adds. “The care transgender service members receive is essential for them to be their authentic selves and focus on their mission. Denying this access to health care would deter transgender people from joining the Armed Forces, damage retention efforts, and hurt our military readiness.”

Are these claims true?

‘Gender-Affirming Care’

Many states have passed laws banning experimental “transgender” medical interventions for minors, such as so-called puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries that remove healthy breasts or sex organs. There is no conclusive evidence that these interventions, euphemistically referred to as “gender-affirming care,” make life better for people struggling with gender dysphoria (the persistent and emotionally painful condition of identifying with the gender opposite one’s sex).

Internal documents from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, or WPATH, a pro-transgender activist group, revealed that the organization’s leaders knew about various side effects of “gender-affirming care,” including cancer in teens and reduced sexual function, as well as the lack of informed consent for procedures with lifelong impacts. These medical professionals endorse the experimental treatments anyway.

Some doctors have gone on record opposing such treatments. Back in 2023 in Florida, many doctors testified in favor of a rule that would prevent Medicaid dollars from funding “gender-affirming care.” The doctors—including psychiatrists, endocrinologists, neurologists, and a former WPATH leader—testified that these interventions are experimental and may do more harm than good.

“The claim that ‘gender affirming’ drugs and surgery are safe, effective, and medically necessary is a triple lie,” Jay Richards, director of the Richard and Helen DeVos Center for Life, Religion, and Family at The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Signal.

“The complications—some that persist for a lifetime—from these experimental procedures are notorious,” he said. “And while some individuals may report relief from symptoms of gender dysphoria in the short term, there’s no evidence that, on balance, medicalizing a therapy for a mental disorder is beneficial. And by definition, these procedures are not medically necessary—since they attempt to treat a psychological disorder with drugs and surgery that does not directly address the psychological disorder.”

“At best, sex trait motivation drugs and surgery are experimental interventions of doubtful benefit and obvious harms,” Richards added. “Subjecting service members to these experiments makes no sense either for the individuals involved or for military readiness.”

Polls have consistently found that more Americans oppose “gender-affirming care” for minors, even when framed in terms most likely to get a favorable response.

An RMG Research poll in March found that only 22% of respondents supported giving minors access to “gender-affirming care,” while 64% said they opposed it.

A 2022 Pew Research Center survey asked respondents whether they would “make it illegal for health care professionals to help someone <18 [under 18] with medical care for gender transition.” Even with this arguably deceptive framing, nearly half of respondents (46%) said they would support such a ban.

Similarly, more Americans (44%) told Pew they would oppose requiring “health insurance companies to cover medical care for gender transitions” than would support it (27%).

From these responses, it seems likely that taxpayer funding for experimental transgender interventions would prove rather controversial.

As for the idea that transgender people are “more likely to serve in the U.S. military than cisgender people,” the claim appears to trace back to an analysis of the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey. That survey, conducted by the National Center for Transgender Equality, found that “respondents served in the military at nearly twice the rate as the people in the U.S. population overall.” Since the proportion of the general population who identify as transgender is minuscule, this does not mean that a large proportion of veterans or service members is transgender or that the military would be handicapped without transgender recruits.

Two Senate Candidates

Two of the 162 House Democrats who signed the letter are running for U.S. Senate.

Allred is challenging Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, in the Lone Star State, which former President Donald Trump carried in 2016 and 2020. Cruz leads Allred by 5 points in the RealClearPolitics polling average.

“Day after day, Colin Allred shows Texas who he really is,” a spokesman for the Cruz campaign told The Daily Signal in a statement on the letter. “He is a radical who will destroy Texas and America. His record on transgender issues puts our children and families at risk.”

Gallego is running against Republican Kari Lake in Arizona, which is considered a key swing state. Gallego leads Lake by 7 points in the RealClearPolitics average.

“The fact that Ruben Gallego would try to hold up the National Defense Authorization Act to DEMAND that taxpayer money goes to sexual reassignment surgeries is a testament to how radical he truly is,” a spokesperson for Lake’s campaign told The Daily Signal in a statement Tuesday. “Gallego’s radicalism does tremendous harm to our military preparedness and puts our national security at risk.”

18 Swing-District Democrats

Eighteen House Democrats in races the Cook Political Report rates as “competitive” also signed the letter.

Reps. Yadira Caraveo, D-Colo., and Emilia Sykes, D-Ohio, are running in races Cook rates as “toss-ups.”

Eight Democrats in races Cook rates as “lean Democrat” also signed the letter: Reps. Jahana Hayes, D-Ct.; Eric Sorensen, D-Ill.; Frank Mrvan, D-Ind.; Angie Craig, D-Minn.; Susie Lee, D-Nev.; Pat Ryan, D-N.Y.; Andrea Salinas, D-Ore.; and Chris Deluzio, D-Pa.

Eight more Democrats in “likely Democrat” races also signed the letter: Reps. Mike Levin, D-Calif.; Darren Soto, D-Fla.; Sharice Davids, D-Kan.; Hillary Scholten, D-Mich.; Chris Pappas, D-N.H.; Dina Titus, D-Nev.; Steven Horsford, D-Nev.; and Greg Landsman, D-Ohio.

None of these Democrats responded to The Daily Signal’s request for comment by press time.

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