A Pew Research poll released July 20 found that 70% of Democrats think the government should restrict what appears on social media, a dramatic change from five years ago when a majority of Democrats supported a free marketplace of ideas.
It’s no wonder, considering the drumbeat of warnings from leftist politicians and their liberal media allies about “disinformation” and “misinformation.”
But be warned: Democracy cannot survive for long if one of the nation’s two major political parties wants to put blinders on the public, limiting their access to information and canceling political opponents. That’s a rigged system. Ask the Iranians, Russians or Chinese.
A House hearing on July 20 held by the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government showed that the Biden administration is already censoring social media on a massive scale, putting blinders on all of us.
Hearing witness D. John Sauer, special assistant attorney general for Louisiana, described preliminary findings by a federal judge that Biden staff in the White House, the FBI, the Department of Health and Human Services, and almost every other executive department meet regularly with social media executives and pressure them to remove or demote criticisms of Biden economic and energy policies, Biden family members, and even items that depict the first lady in an unflattering way. According to Sauer, “millions of American voices” have been silenced in violation of the First Amendment.
Sauer cited some 18,000 communications from Team Biden to tech executives orchestrating a vast ongoing censorship operation.
Yet Democratic lawmakers were unfazed by this shocking evidence, and hardly questioned the witness. The U.S. Constitution and the future of our democracy be damned.
Rep. Stacey Plaskett laid out the Democratic Party’s distorted interpretation of the First Amendment, insisting that not all speech is constitutionally protected and offering hate speech as an example.
Plaskett and like-minded Dems need a refresher course on the Constitution and American history. The Supreme Court has ruled again and again that all speech, especially speech we like the least, is protected. That includes Nazi marches and cross burnings, as odious as these are. Who needs a constitutional amendment to protect speech everyone likes?
In 2017, the Court ruled unanimously in Matal v. Tam that the First Amendment requires “we protect the freedom to express ‘the thought that we hate,’” citing Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.’s dissent in the 1929 case United States v. Schwimmer.
Rep. Gerry Connolly aimed his wrath at witness Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose views on vaccines and other pandemic policies were censored. Connolly said this censorship “was not big brother government trying to exercise its will on an innocent population. It was public health measures to protect lives.”
Connolly’s wrong. Censoring scientific debate was a lethal mistake. If competing scientific viewpoints, especially about masking and lockdowns, had been considered, harm to schoolchildren, business owners, and many others might have been prevented. Turns out, official government policy was based on “misinformation” and “disinformation.”
During the hearing, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, battered Kennedy with accusations of antisemitism and racism for his outrageous comments about the disparate impact of COVID on different ethnic groups. But when he tried to respond, she barked “reclaiming my time” and “ask the witness to stop talking.”
Whether you think RFK Jr. is loony or a viable presidential contender, as a witness he should have been treated with civility. Wasserman Schultz’s abuse is reminiscent of how Sen. Joseph McCarthy browbeat witnesses during the Army-McCarthy hearings in 1954. Those hearings ended abruptly when McCarthy was asked, “Have you no sense of decency?” Wasserman Schultz should have been confronted with the same question.
The attacks on RFK Jr. were a sideshow. The main event was the Democrats’ concocted defense of censorship. The Democrats’ own witness — civil rights attorney Maya Wiley — testified that “the ability of every person to have access to accurate and reliable information is a cornerstone of our democracy.”
Wiley’s slippery language is meant to evade the real issue: Who decides what is accurate and reliable?
Wiley was asked directly by Rep. Chris Stewart, “Do you trust the government to determine what facts and views the American people are exposed to?” She replied, “I think I’m struggling with the question.”
Tell Democrats the answer is a resounding “no.”
Trusting government to be your eyes and ears is crazy.
Betsy McCaughey is a contributor to The Daily Caller News Foundation and a former lieutenant governor of New York and chairman of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths. Follow her on Twitter @Betsy_McCaughey. To find out more about Betsy McCaughey and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.
Let us diagnose the problem, namely we have bureaucrats that are behaving as an unelected fourth branch of the federal government. It does not matter which agency we look at; they are oversized, bloated with funds allocated for redundancies, and worse, they are using our tax dollars to harass, investigate, and intimidate those that threaten their power.
We have come to the point where a former president has been indicted for acting lawfully regarding documents, and potentially indicted again for what is in essence a treason charge to prevent him from seeking the presidency in 2024. We have candidates for the United States House of Representatives (possibly the U.S. Senate as well) having their bank accounts closed to strangle off the flow of funds to run a campaign. Does anyone believe that the closures of accounts were not directed by these bureaucrats, or at the minimum, like social media companies in the 2020 election cycle, (likely occurring even now in the 2024 cycle) coordinated by and between the companies and the bureaucrats?
How do we stop these appointed office holders and faceless bureaucrats? Step one is restoring stronger investigative powers to the U.S. House of Representatives. Once the bad actors are identified, we de-monetize their offices or divisions in that agency and in some cases, terminate the federal employee abusing the powers of their office. Is this legal? YES!
The Holman Rule (House Rule XXI, Clause 2(b)) was authored by William Holman of Indiana in 1876. The Rule amends appropriations legislation to reduce salaries or fire specific federal employees or cut existing programs (departments / divisions) within an established agency of the federal government.
The Rule was first in effect during the years of 1876 through 1895 and again from 1911 to 1983. Democrats pulled it from the “Rules of the House,” and it was not reinstated again until the 115th Congress (2017-2019). In the 116th Congress, Democrats yanked it from the Rules of the House once again. When Republicans, under the speakership of former Congressman Paul Ryan, took the House in 2017, the Holman Rule was brought back. However, then-Speaker Ryan, didn’t allow the Rule to be used in defense of a sitting president.
Rational Americans knew by mid-2019, at the latest, that the investigations into the president were politically founded and paid for by the Democratic nominee for president from the 2016 election. So why didn’t the House investigate and terminate the out-of-control bureaucrats? Some cited the only challenge of merit ever made against the Holman Rule in 1946.
At the height of McCarthyism, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the use of the Holman Rule to terminate 39 suspected communists was unconstitutional and cause for such terminations was not met. The Court ruled that terminations based only on political ideology were not cause for termination of a federal employee (while not citing free speech, it was implied). Even given the ruling, the Holman Rule was upheld as constitutional on its merits but was used outside the bounds of the Rule itself.
Effectively, the U.S. Supreme Court left cause-based salary reduction, termination, and liquidation of agency divisions as constitutional. How does that help in the 119th Congress coming into office in 2025? It gives those like me the ability to call for investigations of all federal agencies that are abusing their assigned powers.
Once the individual(s) or division(s) are identified, we can use the Holman Rule to terminate the individual employee or shut down the division in violation for cause. Those causes could be abuse of power, political targeting of opponents, malicious prosecution, and the list goes on and on.
In summation, there are those like me out there that will take the fight to them on your behalf but the funding and votes to win must come from you.
Paul “PT” Burton is a Republican candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives in Arizona’s 1st Congressional District.
How much do you like to walk in 110-degree heat? If you’re a resident of the city of Phoenix, you may need to start getting used to it if the city council gets its way.
A proposed ordinance in Phoenix is looking to significantly reduce the minimum number of parking spaces it requires for apartments. Currently, Phoenix requires a minimum of 150 parking spaces for every 100 one or two-bedroom apartments. Under the proposed ordinance, that number would decrease to 125 spaces. But that’s not the end of it. For new affordable apartment complexes near light rail stations, the requirement for most would be reduced to zero! Yes. Zero parking spaces at an apartment complex. Have you caught on to their agenda yet?
If you’ve been keeping score, you already know that—in just this year—climate change zealots have been seeking to prohibit gas stoves; put limits on things like lawn and garden equipment, motorized boating, and water heaters; and ban the internal combustion engine. Now, this latest attempt to reduce parking spaces makes it clear. They want to force you out of your air-conditioned car to walk in 110-degree heat with your reward being to wait for a bus or light rail. But that’s not all…
Apathy is a complacent and marked lack of interest. The opposite of love, it is said, is not hate but indifference.
In the real-world application of Rochambeau (a.k.a. Rock, Paper, Scissors), pen beats sword but apathy smothers both.
Our Founding Fathers and Mothers embodied the idea that individual liberties were worth picking up a sword to fight for and thus secure an inheritance of freedom for all future generations. Men and women fought, bled, starved, and died to have the opportunity to write our U.S. Constitution and our Bill of Rights. The ideas enshrined in those documents, including the Second Amendment, were penned to give every American Citizen a road map for navigating the future.
The sword was, and is, necessary to fight in defense against those who would place the boot of tyranny on the necks of individual citizens. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are incompatible with Big Government control-driven taxes, regulations, and a never-ending conveyer belt of rights-killing laws piling one on top of the other.
Imagine if no one would have bothered to pick up the pen or the sword in our Founders’ era. Our grand experiment in freedom would have never been born, and billions of people would have been robbed of these precious and unique American values. Ideas are only useful when put into action.
The gift of life is worthy of protection. The right to protect life is natural and God-given and codified in the Second Amendment. Keeping and bearing arms, including swords, guns, and knives is precisely protected by our U.S. Bill of Rights. These protections, it is written, “shall not be infringed.” Only, they are infringed. A little more each year. And never more than under the current President and his administration.
What is the response of American citizens? Is it a full-throated rebuke of those attempting to steal our inheritance and diminish our ability to protect life? Or is it a deafening and apathetic yawn?
I asked the experts.
Pro-Second Amendment organizations exist at both the national and state level, including Citizens Defense Leagues (CDL). These organizations are designed to connect citizens quickly and easily with the core issues, the current legislative concerns, and how citizens can use their voices to stop bad laws and support good laws.
Philip Van Cleave, President of Virginia Citizens Defense League (VCDL) says, “Apathy is a serious and long-standing problem with gun owners unless their rights are under severe and immediate threat. In Virginia, only a small percentage of the millions of gun owners are actively engaged in the work we do. To them I say, Get involved! Help make a difference! Join both a state AND a federal gun rights group.”
The President of the Arizona Citizens Defense League (AzCDL), Michael Gibbs tells us, “Since 2005, the Arizona Citizens Defense League has been instrumental in ushering 62 rights-protecting bills being signed into law by 3 different governors despite having a membership of less than 1% of Arizona firearms owners. While this speaks of the power of individual activism, can you imagine what we could accomplish if even 10% would become involved in advocating for their rights?”
In the state of Connecticut where the political balance is heavily Democrat and anti-gun, the President of the Connecticut Citizens Defense League (CCDL), Holly Sullivan, has this to say, “Too many of us tend to shy away from tough conversations, allowing the anti-gun narrative to gain traction. We need to normalize the discussion of blatant attempts to undermine the Second Amendment both with our legislators as well as in our communities. If we allow the other side to control the narrative, rest assured that they will.”
Alan Gottlieb, Founder of the national organization, Second Amendment Foundation (SAF), offered this, “In the United States while we have over 90 million gun owners, only about 6 million actively work to protect their Second Amendment rights. In fact, way too many do not even show up to vote in protection of these rights. The SAF hosts an annual free event, called Gun Rights Policy Conference (GRPC) designed specifically to encourage the public to become more informed and involved in protecting our rights. We will be in Phoenix, AZ this year—come join the fun!”
Joining any of these organizations is an excellent and easy step in reversing that inaction and indifference. None of us can do everything. But all of us can do something. Take the advice of Philip Van Cleave, “Write Letters to the Editor in your local newspaper or digital news outlet. Correct misinformation on guns in online chat groups or wherever you can do so. And engage with your elected officials. Even a handful of people contacting a legislator on a specific topic can make a big difference.”
Cheryl Todd has an extensive history of being a Second Amendment Advocate. Along with being a Visiting Fellow for the Independent Women’s Forum, she is the owner of AZFirearms Auctions, Executive Producer & Co-Host of Gun Freedom Radio, the founder of the grassroots movement Polka Dots Are My Camo, and the AZ State Director for the DC Project.
Rep. Mary Peltola continues to have support among left-leaning American politicos, after emerging victorious in Alaska’s messy open-primary, ranked-choice general voting system in 2022.
Conservative Alaska voters, faced with a contentious field last year, awarded Peltola enough second-place votes to lock in her win.
As a candidate with low name recognition, Peltola committed to bipartisanship, saying she drew inspiration from the late Congressman Don Young. However, her voting record since November has revealed a different story.
Peltola’s support for Rep. Hakeem Jeffries as House speaker, casting 15 votes in his favor, was the first big item that raised eyebrows around the 49th state.
She voted against the Strategic Production Response Act and justified her absence during the final vote by claiming she was unaware voting was about to occur.
Peltola voted against the censure of Rep. Adam Schiff, who was the unethical impeachment manager for Speaker Nancy Pelosi during the now-discredited “Russia collusion” attack on former President Donald Trump.
Recently, she joined most Democrats in opposing the National Defense Authorization Act. The rationale behind her “no” vote lies in her desire for culture-war earmarks to fund military transgender treatments and surgeries, as well as paying military women a month of leave for late-term abortions. Peltola has also supported transgender males’ participation in female athletic competitions.
She voted against H.R. 5, the Parents Bill of Rights, and has been advocating for a national railroad strike, urging Starbucks baristas to unionize, and encouraging pizza workers in Alaska to do the same.
Peltola’s consistent absence is notable: She has missed 16 times more votes than the median Democrat House member. In a House with 435 members, she is number 12 for most missed votes.
While she participated in the women’s Congressional Softball game against journalists, she failed to show up for work the next day when almost all amendments to the National Defense Appropriations Act were voted on. Her inability to get out of bed deprives Alaskans of a voice in the House.
When she does vote, Peltola votes in line with Rep. Nancy Pelosi 84% of the time, Rep. Ilhan Omar 77%, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez 78%. Keep in mind that 53 percent of Alaskans voted for Trump.
Nick Begich, a lifelong Republican who ran for Congress in 2022, has seen enough. He decided to run again after witnessing Peltola repeatedly vote against Alaska’s values.
Although he faces the challenge of overcoming his relatives, who include well-known Democrats, Begich enjoys the continued support of his followers.
But Alaska’s unique method of selecting representatives, introduced with Ballot Measure 2 in 2020, deviates from the rest of the nation. It’s a tangled mess.
The open primary format eliminated the Republican Party of Alaska’s ability to independently choose its candidate for the general election.
Instead, all candidates, whether clowns or statesmen, participate in the same primary ballot. In 2022, this resulted in a massive ballot with 48 candidates.
The top four vote getters from the primary advance to the general election, where voters are then asked to rank the candidates in order of preference. If a voter’s preferred candidate loses, their vote is transferred to their next choice, granting them an opportunity to vote again. In this scheme, some voters get to vote more than once, while others’ votes are counted just one time.
Given the array of choices Alaskan voters had in November, which included three conservatives and one liberal candidate selected in the primary, it remains perplexing how a radical like Peltola emerged victorious.
Supporters of ranked-choice voting had promised that the system would eliminate extremists, but this is not how it worked in real life. Alaskans ended up with a de facto member of The Squad.
Will it happen again?
Begich begins his campaign with a solid base of one quarter of the likely vote this time around. However, with less than a year remaining until the primary ballot is set in Alaska, a lot can happen with campaign hijinks, as we saw in 2022.
Last year, Begich garnered support from major conservative organizations like Americans for Prosperity and Freedom Works for America, as well as the endorsement of the Alaska Republican Party.
And yet, the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) is not structured to work well with the ranked-choice voting system, which in a state like Alaska all but guarantees the presence of multiple Republicans on a general election ballot.
This time around, the NRCC can and should focus on highlighting Peltola’s extreme positions to ensure that Alaskans can make a more informed decision in the upcoming 2024 primary and general elections.
For now, Alaskans are represented by a bait-and-switcher who holds some of the most mind-boggling positions in the history of the U.S. Congress. Alaska has the distinction of being the most conservative district in the country to be represented by a Democrat. We can do better.
National organizations like the NRCC, Freedom Works, Americans for Prosperity, and Club for Growth will be crucial in helping prevent a recurrence of 2022’s series of unfortunate events.
No matter your age, your background, your ethnicity, or your religious affiliation, there is one thing that we can all agree on: nothing is more important than protecting what you love.
Where we are divided is HOW we protect those things that are most precious to us.
People who ascribe to the anti-gun rhetoric and agenda, and who belong to groups such as Moms Demand Action (MDA), Everytown for Gun Safety, and Giffords Courage to Fight Gun Violence, all proclaim that saving lives is at the core of their mission. We all can applaud and agree on that. Life is precious. And each of us can name at least one life we want to protect.
But protecting what we love sometimes requires that good people stand against predators and murderers with the very tools that MDA, Everytown, and Giffords vilify: guns. People who understand that reality dedicate their own time, money, and energy to training themselves and others to be safe and responsible gun owners. This training and education is truly what will protect those you love.
People who value life and liberty belong to groups like The DC Project: Women dedicated to safeguarding our right to keep and bear arms. Members of the DC Project are the counter-voice to the groups that are solely focused on guns and laws. The DC Project focuses on life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness by emphasizing education, not legislation, as the key to keeping our communities and our children safe.
KidSafe Foundation is another organization that loves kids enough to empower them to be safe around guns. KidsSafe has trademarked the phrase “ZERO firearm accidents are the only acceptable goal!!®” and teaches age-appropriate safety training to children to ensure kids know to “Stop, don’t touch, run away and tell an adult!” if they find a gun, or if a friend is playing with a firearm.
Reducing suicide is the goal of Walk The Talk America (WTTA). By building a bridge between mental health professionals and responsible firearms owners in order to reduce suicide and increase the availability of trusted mental health care, WTTA is “paving the way by educating mental health professionals about gun culture and breaking negative stigmas around mental health for gun owners.”
Another solution-focused organization is Hold My Guns (HMG). HMG helps to reduce firearm-related deaths by partnering with local gun stores and ranges to offer safe and voluntary storage of firearms to people and families who want to temporarily remove guns from their homes. As stated on HMG’s website, “While many organizations use ‘gun safety’ as a cover to take away your rights, our focus is to never compromise rights for the sake of ‘safety.’”
The anti-gun groups think that laws will make us safer. Each one of these groups condemns something they call “gun violence” and believes that laws will stop this kind of violence. One can only assume that the people in charge of these organizations are aware that guns, all by themselves, cannot cause violence. Surely, the people in charge of these organizations know that it is people who cause violence. Some use guns, others use knives, and still others harm their fellow humans with cars, bombs, and even clubs and hammers.
Perhaps it’s not as catchy to say that their organizations condemn people who harm other innocent people; sometimes by using guns.
Inherent in the brand names of these groups is the valuation of children, towns, safety, and courage. However, when we take a look at their methods of protecting these things they purport to hold dear, they have but one tool in their toolbox: laws. Laws they naively expect law-breakers to follow. These anti-gun groups believe that laws, more laws, and some as-yet not enacted magical laws will make humans who do not value and respect human life somehow value and respect words on a legal document stating that assault and murder are bad. Extra bad, apparently, if the murderer uses a gun.
Every one of the organizations mentioned is undoubtedly sincere in its mission to save lives and make our communities safer. However, laws piled on top of more laws are not making the difference we all seek. Teaching and training children from their youngest ages to respect firearms and how to be safe around them is as common sense as teaching them to be safe around kitchen knives. Helping people get effective mental health care, free from stigma and judgment, and allowing safe and voluntary storage of firearms for families going through difficult times and emotional turmoil or drug addiction offers real-world solutions for individuals where and when they need it most. And emphasizing education over legislation is how we all truly can protect what we love.
Cheryl Todd has an extensive history of being a Second Amendment Advocate. Along with being a Visiting Fellow for the Independent Women’s Forum, she is the owner of AZFirearms Auctions, Executive Producer & Co-Host of Gun Freedom Radio, the founder of the grassroots movement Polka Dots Are My Camo, and the AZ State Director for the DC Project.
