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'A threat'

'And the purpose of it is obviously political'

If Democrats seek to swap out President Joe Biden for another candidate on the Nov. 5 ballot, they’ll face legal challenges, according to an analysis by The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project.  That’s because a patchwork of state laws determines what a political party must do to substitute someone else as a presidential nominee.  “If there is a freezing moment or something very consequential that happens at the debate, the likelihood goes up,” Mike Howell, executive director of the Oversight Project, told reporters Tuesday.  https://t.co/ifTNCjpRVD— Oversight Project (@OversightPR) June 24, 2024 CNN will host a 90-minute debate Thursday night between Biden and former President Donald Trump.  “There is not a political exception that if you’ve been trying to cover up the fact that your candidate has been declining rapidly to the extent that you are even invoking executive privilege to hide an audio tape … you just get to supersede all of the election integrity rules that exist in the various states,” Howell told reporters.  Special counsel Rober Hur’s report on Biden’s possession of classified documents from his years as vice president and senator characterized him as “elderly” and “struggling” with memory loss. The Biden administration invoked executive privilege to block release of audio recordings of his two interviews last fall with the special counsel. The Oversight Project is part of a multiparty lawsuit by CNN and other news outlets, as well as watchdog groups, to access the audio recordings of the Biden interviews.  More recently, Biden had a wandering incident at the G7 summit in Italy and also appeared to freeze onstage at the end of a Los Angeles fundraiser and be physically guided away by former President Barack Obama (who Biden served as vice president for eight years).  If delegates to the Democratic National Convention were to nominate another candidate for president in August, it might not affect relevant state laws, said Sam Dewey, counsel for Heritage’s Oversight Project.  “There are two separate questions. One is who gets the party’s nomination. The second is ballot access,” Dewey told reporters. “You can be nominated by a party and not necessarily have access to a ballot. We are seeing that right now with attempts by the DNC to keep Robert Kennedy, RFK Jr., off the ballot. It’s separate. Just being nominated by a party doesn’t get you on a ballot.” Dewey continued:  Even if at the convention, superdelegates and a bunch of [other] delegates get together and said, ‘We’re not doing this, we’re subbing in the vice president [for Biden], we’re subbing in Hillary Clinton,’ pick whomever, that wouldn’t at all speak to what [our] memo was addressing, which was access to ballots. That’s an entirely different question. If someone drops out, that frequently is litigated.   The Oversight Project sent a memo on substituting candidates to top election officials in all 50 states for their review.  Battleground states such as Georgia and Nevada have procedures under which a presidential candidate may withdraw from the balllot. Wisconsin allows it to occur only in case of death, according to the memo.  “Important caveats include the timeline and triggering events,” the Oversight Project’s memo says, adding: For example, some states allow withdrawal before the 74th day before an election, and failure to adhere to these timelines can result in the candidate’s name remaining on the ballot (which provides its own corollary of post-election litigation).  Likewise, the rationale for withdrawal (death, medical, or other) can be outcome determinative. Some states, like South Carolina, do not allow withdrawal for political reasons. Limited case law exists on swapping out political candidates on a ballot, the memo notes. And at least 31 states defer to state or national party rules and nominating committees in the event of a candidate’s withdrawal. “These states circumvent the substitution process highlighted above,” the Oversight Project’s memo says. “There may be some avenues for challenges to these laws on improper delegation grounds, however, these may be marginally beneficial.” For its part, the Biden White House has denied that the president has had any mental or physical problems barring his seeking a second four-year term. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre argued that recent videos unflattering to Biden were “cheap fakes.” First lady Jill Biden has said her husband is a great president “because” of his age. The post If Democrats Want to Drop Biden, They Might Have to Contend With These State Laws appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Democrats Rally Around DA Bragg After Decision to Drop Charges Against Columbia Vandals

Uri Berliner, NPR Whistleblower, Joins The Free Press

President Joe Biden entered office with the attitude of not letting the powerful COVID-19 crisis go to waste. The pandemic was the perfect cover to unfold his coordinated censorship regime.  MRC Free Speech America recently detailed the seven censors of Biden’s federal government. Sitting atop that censorship regime, however, is the Biden White House, which attempted to push nearly every major Big Tech company to censor Americans in the name of “safety” in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Biden, his Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the U.S. Census Bureau worked alongside Meta and Google, and in the case of the White House, Twitter and Amazon as well, to push their desired narrative about the COVID-19 vaccines. In its recent report, MRC outlined seven federal entities that have worked to censor American citizens’ free speech. These include: the Department of Homeland Security, Department of State, Department of Justice, Department of Defense, Department of Health and Human Services, The National Science Foundation and Department of the Treasury. But there are two others that bear mentioning: The White House itself and the Department of Commerce. The White House House Judiciary Committee Chair Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) has released a plethora of reports revealing the Biden administration’s relentless requests for social media companies to censor COVID-19 and vaccine-related content online. In February 2021, Facebook began coordinating with the Biden White House to censor disfavored opinions related to COVID-19. According to an internal email from Facebook, these topics included the theory that COVID-19 was a man-made virus; that the virus leaked from a lab in China; and other allegedly “false claims on Facebook and Instagram about COVID-19, COVID-19 vaccines, and vaccines in general.” In an email to Mark Zuckerberg, a Facebook employee revealed that Facebook's censorship of these opinions was prompted by pressure from the Biden White House. Jordan’s Facebook Files summarized that “the Biden Administration pressured the companies to censor true information, satire, memes, opinions, and Americans’ personal experiences.” The committee report explained that “internal July 2021 Facebook emails obtained by the Committee and Select Subcommittee show that Facebook understood that the Biden White House’s position as wanting ‘negative information on or opinions about the vaccine’ removed as well as ‘humorous or satirical content that suggests the vaccine isn’t safe.’” The Biden administration even went so far as to ask platforms to remove specific accounts. For example, internal communications at Twitter show that during one of the first meetings the White House had with the platform, it asked why Twitter had not censored COVID-19 vaccine critic Alex Berenson. In another internal note, Lauren Culbertson, then Twitter’s Head of U.S. Public Policy recounted that “The Biden Team was not satisfied with Twitter’s enforcement approach as they wanted Twitter to do more and to deplatform several accounts.” Culbertson further added, “They were very angry in nature.” The YouTube Files similarly show the White House pushing the Google-owned video platform to censor. On July 20, 2021, Rob Flaherty Digital Director of the White House, emailed the YouTube public policy team a tweet from CNN fact checker Daniel Dale that showed his algorithm was presenting him with “anti-vaccine content.” The White House responded confrontationally: “We had a pretty extensive back and forth about the degree to which you all are recommending anti-vaccination content. You were pretty emphatic that you are not. This seems to indicate that you are. What is going on here?” And in August, the White House asked how YouTube was “planning to promote” the Pfizer vaccine, which at the time had been just approved. In September 2021, YouTube worked with the White House to change its policies to remove content that questioned vaccines.  The most recent release of Jordan’s Amazon Files further revealed that Amazon buried 43 book titles offering information and criticism of vaccines in general. Many of the books were written long before the COVID-19 pandemic even began.  Department of Commerce via The U.S. Census Bureau The U.S. Census Bureau entered the censorship game by piggybacking off of the CDC’s obsessive control over the COVID-19 narrative, according to Louisiana Chief District Judge Terry A. Doughty’s Murthy v. Missouri July 4, 2023 court ruling. MRC Free Speech America research utilizing our exclusive CensorTrack database was cited in the complaint for the Murthy v. Missouri case.  “The CDC entered into an Intra-Agency Agreement (“IAA”) with the Census Bureau to help advise on misinformation,” Doughty wrote. “The IAA required that the Census Bureau provide reports to the CDC on misinformation that the Census Bureau tracked on social media.” Facebook had been cooperating with the CDC Director for the Division of Digital Media Caroline Crawford, the White House and the Department of Health and Human Services in their efforts to guide the platform on what speech to censor relating to COVID-19.  Crawford received biweekly CrowdTangle reports showing the top COVID-19-related content on Facebook, in January 2021. She made Census Bureau officials privy to these reports. She reportedly said that the Bureau “was asking for regular meetings with platforms, specifically focused on misinformation,” according to Doughty’s ruling.  Prior to a weekly meeting with Facebook, Crawford even sent a PowerPoint of types of content that the CDC and the Census Bureau sought to censor. “This is a deck Census would like to discuss and we’d also like to fit in a discussion of topic types removed from Facebook,” Crawford reportedly said.  “The ‘deck’ the Census Bureau wanted to discuss contained an overview of ‘Misinformation Topics’ and included ‘concerns about infertility, misinformation about side effects, and claims about vaccines leading to deaths,’”” Doughty wrote. “For each topic, the deck included sample slides and a statement from the CDC debunking the allegedly erroneous claim.”  The Bureau prepared similar slide decks for the “COVID BOLO” [Be on the lookout] meetings it arranged for Facebook with the CDC. These meetings were reportedly an effort to “be sure credible information was out there and to flag information that the CDC thought was not credible for potential removal,” according to Doughty. Each meeting “included five ‘hot topics’ (for example, vaccine shedding, death reports in the VAERS database, and various side effects of the COVID-19 vaccines) with a BOLO note for each topic.” The Bureau and the CDC even held at least one meeting with Google/YouTube on similar topics in March 2021. The ruling further notes that when the Bureau asked for more meetings with the company, Crawford “followed up with Google about using their “regular 4 p.m. meetings” to go over things with the Census. Although misinformation was not the primary topic of conversation in these meetings, they did indeed discuss misinformation.  Conservatives are under attack. Contact your representatives and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on so-called hate speech and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us using CensorTrack’s contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.

On Tuesday, ABC’s Good Morning America essentially gave an in-kind donation to the Biden campaign ahead of Thursday’s debate. They highlighted a Biden Campaign ad while parroting talking points about how former President Trump was going to take away people’s right, while also decrying attacks against President Biden and calling them conspiracy theories. Chief White House correspondent Mary Bruce began by claiming that President Biden was “hoping that he can hold Donald Trump accountable for his actions in office.” She goes on to state that abortion rights will be “front and center” in the upcoming debate and, as expected, declared that Trump was to blame.     Bruce continued her Trump-abortion rant as she professed that “Twenty-one states have now banned or severely restricted abortion and Trump has bragged about appointing three of the justices who overturned Roe.” She described abortion as a “winning issue for Democrats” and concluded that “the Biden team is hoping it will continue to drive voters to the polls in November.” Video from the Biden ad played as Bruce reported: We are now getting a bit of a preview of what is to come on the debate stage on Thursday night. The President is hoping that he can hold Donald Trump accountable for his actions in office and he is trying to put abortion rights front and center, marking the two-year anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. The Biden team is saying Donald Trump is to blame. Co-anchor George Stephanopoulos turned to senior congressional correspondent Rachel Scott and asked her about the “wild and unsubstantiated allegation about President Biden” -- referring to Trump's request for Biden to take a drug test before the debate. Trump has made it clear that he was willing to take the drug test if it means that Biden will as well. Scott called Trump's request “a page straight out” of his “playbook.” She proclaimed that “Donald Trump has done everything, from questioning President Biden's mental fitness to mock his debate preparations.” Continuing to portray Biden as the victim, Scott noted that Trump was “calling on the President to get a drug test before he gets on the debate stage and he's fundraising off of that point.” In regards to Trump suggesting that Biden was “jacked up” on supplements, Scott wanted to make it exceptionally clear that she did not agree: “To be absolutely clear here, there is no evidence of that. These are baseless and unfounded claims and it's not the first time that we have heard Donald Trump use these claims.” Scott concluded that “the Biden campaign insists that Donald Trump is resorting to baseless and obviously false lies.” Unsurprisingly, throughout this segment there were no negative words said in regards to Biden or his campaign.  Click "Expand" to view the transcript: ABC's Good Morning America 6/25/2024 7:07:27 – 7:09:25 GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: And the race for the White House now -- I want to thank Matt Gutman for that. The first presidential debate is just two days away. Chief White House Correspondent Mary Bruce and Rachel Scott, who's following the Trump campaign are tracking the latest on all that and Mary let me start with you: Biden campaign focused on abortion. MARY BRUCE (CHIEF WHITEHOUSE CORRESPONDENT): Yeah, George. We are now getting a bit of a preview of what is to come on the debate stage on Thursday night. The President is hoping that he can hold Donald Trump accountable for his actions in office and he is trying to put abortion rights front and center, marking the two-year anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. The Biden team is saying Donald Trump is to blame. Out on the campaign trail, the Vice President saying Trump is “guilty of stealing reproductive freedom from the women of America.” Twenty-one states have now banned or severely restricted abortion and Trump has bragged about appointing three of the justices who overturned Roe. He says abortion laws should be up to the states but Biden has said that he will go even further if he is re-elected and of course, abortion has been a winning issue for Democrats in recent years. The Biden team is hoping it will continue to drive voters to the polls in November, George. STEPHANOPOULOS: And Rachel -- thank you, Mary and, Rachel, the Trump campaign, Donald Trump following a familiar playbook, making a wild and unsubstantiated allegation about President Biden. RACHEL SCOTT (Senior Congressional Correspondent): Yeah, this is a page straight out of Donald Trump's playbook, George. Donald Trump has done everything, from question President Biden's mental fitness to mock his debate preparations. Now, he's calling on the President to get a drug test before he gets on the debate stage and he's fundraising off of that point. Over the weekend, the former president suggested that President Biden was using supplements to get “jacked up” before his public appearances. To be absolutely clear here, there is no evidence of that. These are baseless and unfounded claims and it's not the first time that we have heard Donald Trump use these claims. He once called on Hillary Clinton to get a drug test before they faced off during the 2016 debate. This morning, the Biden campaign insists Donald Trump is resorting to baseless and obviously false lies, but George, this is a sign of just how nasty things could get on the debate stage in 48 hours. STEPHANOPOULOS: Okay Rachel, Mary thanks very much. (…)

We have heard repeatedly during this election cycle that Donald Trump is a deep and abiding threat to democracy. That threat supposedly springs from Trump’s belief that he won the 2020 election, as well as his promotion of the specious legal theory that the vice president has the unilateral power to invalidate certified state electoral votes. One can stipulate that Trump has presented no evidence sufficient to support a claim that he lost the 2020 election based on voter fraud; one can further stipulate that Trump’s pressure on Mike Pence to delay election certification was rooted in baseless misinterpretation of the Constitution. In reality, however, the truest threat to American democracy isn’t stubborn unwillingness to concede an election or groundless legal wrangling. It is the continuing attempt to create a series of institutions impervious to public rebuke or electoral accountability, comprised of pseudo-experts who act as “authorities” on a wide range of issues affecting Americans. It is the creation and maintenance of a permanent bureaucracy, organized by the political left and catering to its whims. This was the goal of Woodrow Wilson, who wrote in 1887 that the political sphere — the responsibility of elected officials — had to be circumscribed in favor of expert “administration”: “Administrative questions are not political questions. Although politics sets the tasks for administration, it should not be suffered to manipulate its offices.” The power of the administrative state, Wilson wrote, should be unhampered and discretionary. And that is the goal of the so-called Deep State today. In preparation for Joe Biden’s possible defeat, the Biden administration is promoting new regulations from the Office of Personnel Management to prevent the reclassification of career civil servants as political appointees of at-will workers — effectively giving them taxpayer-funded tenure. The administration has spent the last few months ramming through regulations in an attempt to avoid the consequences of the Congressional Review Act — a piece of legislation that allows Congress to repeal regulations by passing a joint resolution immune to filibuster. The CRA can only be used, however, on regulations filed in the 60 days before a Congressional session adjourns. Hence the rush. All of this is designed to insulate government from the elected branches. And that is good, according to our legacy media and the Democratic Party, because the elected branches may come to be run by Donald Trump. This is why The New York Times ran a piece in March titled, “It Turns Out the ‘Deep State’ Is Actually Kind of Awesome.” According to the Times, “When we hear ‘deep state,’ instead of recoiling, we should rally. We should think about the workers otherwise known as our public servants, the everyday superheroes who wake up ready to dedicate their careers and their lives to serving us.” Those who posit that bureaucrats ensconced in regulatory positions may pursue anti-democratic ends are labeled “conspiracy theorists.” But there is no conspiracy theory necessary when the goal of bureaucratic administration is out in the open and has been for 150 years. Our Constitutional republic was rooted in checks and balances between elected branches, and an unelected judiciary delegated the power merely to interpret law rather than create it. There is no independent fourth branch of government that presides over policy, free from the electorate’s judgment. Yet that is precisely what the Biden administration continues to promote. And that is a threat to American democracy — a threat that has already materialized over the course of decades, turning our government into an elephantine, sclerotic and byzantine architecture shielded from public accountability. According to Democrats, that’s a good thing. At least it protects us from the true “threat to democracy,” an elected Republican president. Ben Shapiro, 39, is a graduate of UCLA and Harvard Law School, host of “The Ben Shapiro Show,” and co-founder of Daily Wire+. He is a three-time New York Times bestselling author; his latest book is “The Authoritarian Moment: How The Left Weaponized America’s Institutions Against Dissent.” To find out more about Ben Shapiro and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.