Horowitz: Thanks to Trump endorsement, anti-Trump RINO to become top House committee chair



The most important benefit of winning back the House is the ability to write budgets and block Biden’s budget. It all comes down to the power of the purse. Yet thanks to Trump endorsing Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas) over her conservative challenger during a 2020 primary, she remains in Congress and is slated to become the chair of the House Appropriations Committee.

With just a 51% Liberty Score, Granger, a 25-year incumbent from Tarrant County, Texas, is one of the most liberal and out-of-touch Republicans in the House. Her pro-life credentials are dubious, and she called on Trump to drop out of the race in 2016. During Trump’s presidency, she accused the former president of “tear[ing] apart families” at the border, as if the illegal aliens, not the American people, were the victims of the border crisis. She is everything that is wrong with the old GOP, yet now she will become the chief appropriator of the new GOP Congress.

It didn’t have to be this way. Granger was challenged by Colleyville City Councilman Chris Putnam, whom I personally endorsed, in the March 2020 primary. Unlike most primary challengers, Putnam raised a respectable amount of money, and polls showed him leading Granger early on. Yet Donald Trump inexplicably endorsed Granger ahead of the primary, and her fortunes flipped. Trump’s ally, Kevin McCarthy, also spent $1.5 million in negative ads against Putnam. Granger won 58%-42%, and now she remains as one of the most powerful members of the House. With Trump on the ballot in 2020 and endorsing nearly every single incumbent, it was the first cycle in a while in which all incumbents won their primaries.

After Granger stabbed Trump in the back the first time and then received an endorsement, she immediately stabbed him in the back again – just as Mitt Romney did following his Trump endorsement. Granger was the very first person to call for a bipartisan committee on Jan. 6 that has now led to the persecution of people who never committed a crime and merely advocated that state legislatures have the final say in the selection of electors. She was the first Republican to tell Trump to “move on” following the 2020 election. On Jan. 14, 2021, Granger was one of four Republicans who was absent and did not cast a vote on the House impeachment of Trump because she tested positive for COVID. However, the other three clarified that they would have voted no, while Granger conveniently remained silent.

Think about it: One of the most important things the GOP House can do is defund the U.S. attorney’s office in D.C. and the FBI’s persecution of people who never committed violent crimes on Jan. 6., yet the chief appropriator believes in all of the disproven Democrat talking points about what happened that day. In fact, she believes in the Democrat talking points on every issue that matters.

Putnam, her opponent, was an early Trump supporter, but like so many of his most ardent supporters, he was shafted by the man himself, who almost appears to have a Stockholm syndrome for those who hate him. For all the talk about Trump being vindictive toward disloyalty and awarding loyalty, that only seems to apply to conservatives like Ron DeSantis. He had no problem carpet-bombing his own supporters with devastating consequences we are still living with today.

For example, while conservatives worked tirelessly to remove Kevin McCarthy from leadership, Trump endorsed him, and when he did so, many other prominent conservatives who agreed to attack McConnell held their fire on McCarthy. In response, McCarthy reciprocated the kindness by declining to affirm support for Trump’s new bid for the presidency last week.

So here we are, stuck with the same subversive House and Senate leadership people who do not share our values. Most of the committee chairs are also cut from the same cloth. The only Texas Republican with a lower liberty score than Granger is Michael McCaul (47%), who will be the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Trump was elevated by the base to drain the swamp, but with the exception of a few individuals who made it a personal vendetta against him, Trump not only declined to go after the swampy Republicans but endorsed against his most ardent supports and is still doing so even to this day. We are now paying for it, because nearly every Republican in power who failed us before and during the Trump presidency is still in control. Perhaps Granger herself was right about moving on from Trump after all.

Horowitz: Why the GOP vote on House rules is more important than the election



November 8 is no longer the most important date on the calendar for conservatives. It’s the day after Election Day, along with the ensuing weeks, that will determine whether the incoming House majority fails like the previous eras of GOP control or whether it ushers in a new day in Washington.

At present, the outcome of this election is locked and loaded. Republicans will almost certainly win back the House, but even in the likely scenario they also win the Senate, they will not have 60 seats, nor will they have the presidency. Now it’s just a matter of which seats they win and exactly how many. In other words, whether this tyrannical government is stopped in its tracks is going to rest solely on the resolve of the House Republicans to hold the line on the issues that matter, in the way they matter, at the time and points of leverage that matter. This will all be determined in the week following the election, when the House Republicans vote to elect leadership and adopt the rules package governing the House next year. This is where conservatives need to pay attention, because absent any fundamental changes to the way House GOP leaders do business, the Republican House will be no better than during the John Boehner and Paul Ryan eras.

In September, the House Freedom Caucus submitted a list of proposed rules changes to the current conference leadership so that the new conference can vote on them before selecting leadership for the incoming Congress during the freshman member orientation conferences scheduled for the week after the election. Taken as a whole, these rules are designed to decentralize power, empower individual members to push initiatives and leadership positions, and ensure that conservatives don’t get steamrolled by McConnell and McCarthy working together on the most important issues of our time while ignoring conservative priorities. Thus far, Freedom Caucus Chair Rep. Scott Perry (R-Penn.) has not received a response from leadership on the proposals.

Here are some of the most important proposals in my opinion:

  • Adopting the rules package before selecting leadership: The first proposal is actually a rule on the rules, which provides the leverage to make all the other rules changes. Under the current conference rules, unless amended, the conference will first conduct leadership elections the week of Nov. 14 and then likely adopt a rules package the next day. This allows leaders to jockey for positions and then betray the conference on the rules package a day later after securing the positions of speaker and majority leader. The Freedom Caucus is proposing that the current conference adopt an amendment that the incoming conference first vote on the rules package before selecting leaders. This will force the front-runners to take a stand on the issues and show the incoming members they intend to change the way the House does business.
  • Majority of the majority rule: So, what are some of those changes they seek in the rules package? The most important one is adopting a rule that leadership can only support a bill on the floor that has the support of a majority of the elected Republicans. This is extremely important during the critical budget bill votes. During Trump’s presidency, leadership often screwed over conservatives by passing unpopular bills with majority Democrat support. This allowed most Republicans to “hope yes, vote no,” get the bad bill passed, but rely on Democrats to do the dirty work. Requiring a majority of the majority will either stop these bills in their tracks and provide us with the leverage to fight for our priorities on the budget bills, or expose the undocumented RINOs by forcing them to publicly vote their conscience so they can be tagged for defeat in future elections.
  • Selecting chairmen from the committee members: We all know that leadership is very careful about the GOP image and will not conduct hearings on issues leaders believe are untouchable. The way they enforce this discipline is by hand-picking the chairmen directly or through their leadership-dominated steering committee. The Freedom Caucus is proposing a simple way to decentralize leadership by having the members of each standing committee choose their respective chairmen. This way, if the members want to delve into issues that leadership is afraid of, they can select a chairman who will follow the truth, not politics.
  • Allowing an open amendment process: Under both parties in recent years, most important bills were brought to the floor under rules that shut off the ability of average members to force votes on amendments. This way, many of our priorities won’t even get a vote and Republicans can continue to pretend they stand with us on important issues while ensuring they never see the light of day. One proposed rules change would force a vote on any amendment that has 10% of the conference signed onto it. That would require roughly 23-24 members to support it. This is the way we can force votes on ideas like a full ban on transgenderism in federal funding, a moratorium on immigration, or terminating immunity for vaccine companies – all ideas leadership would never bring up for a vote.
  • Motion to vacate the chair: What is the deterrent against the next speaker following in the path of the previous fraudulent GOP leaders? Well, the new Congress has taken away the potent tool of allowing any member to call a vote to “vacate the chair,” which essentially could lead to deposing the speaker. The Freedom Caucus is calling on the conference to restore that prerogative to empower individual members to hold leadership accountable.
  • Read the bill: It is precisely the largest, most consequential bills that both parties have been slamming onto the floor within hours of the scheduled vote. The new rules proposal would require the bills to be posted five full days before any vote, and any waiver of that rule would have to be approved by two-thirds of the House members, not just the Rules Committee.

These proposals and more were laid out in a pamphlet being distributed by the Freedom Caucus to GOP House candidates so that they know what to expect immediately after the election. Unless these members are vigilant and their constituents remain engaged, the entire conservative leverage could be lost within a week after the election.

Taken in totality, these rules would ensure that this time the GOP House actually fulfills its electoral mandate. If Kevin McCarthy is serious about changing the direction of the Congress, he would embrace rather than ignore these proposals.

Chip Roy: Not one additional penny for federal tyranny



America is not right.

America is not right because she is being pulled apart — pulled apart by Democrat politicians intentionally breaking down America’s long-standing norms, her institutions, and her economic and military superiority. Too harsh?

Dangerous cartels are pouring fentanyl and trafficked human beings into our communities and undermining national sovereignty through a purposefully uncontrolled, wide-open southern border. Bureaucrats at the IRS, FBI, and “public health” agencies are running amok, targeting taxpayers and political opponents and firing Americans quite literally for making their own health care decisions.

Our self-inflicted energy crisis is sending prices through the roof, weakening our grid, and sabotaging national security. Health “care” has been handed over to insurance companies and is too expensive and increasingly unattainable for millions because of a politically motivated focus on “coverage.” Our schools are literally teaching children to apologize for their country under the tenets of critical race theory and to reject the “radical” idea that there is a difference between man and woman. And even our military is facing a recruitment crisis in the wake of the incompetent withdrawal from Afghanistan because it is increasingly prioritizing wokeness over lethality.

Yet the GOP needs to look in the mirror, too.

Republicans too often join Democrats to write blank check after blank check to fund every last bit of this radicalism, fueling rampant inflation in the process. Worse, they offer only “big talk” political campaign rhetoric and tepid, aging ideas more suited to advancing corporate and defense industry largesse. And big corporations are happy to oblige – profiting off crony capitalism and knowingly advancing an environmental, social, and governance movement that is actively destroying small businesses, free enterprise, and liberty. And all of this is steamrolling a working class who are left to wonder what happened to their country.

Enough.

Republicans must prove to the American people that we will no longer be complicit in this deconstruction of America. But it is simply not good enough to say, "Trust us and put us back in charge." We have to mean it. We must stand up. And we must demonstrate that we will fight for the people who sent us to Washington after telling them we would.

We can do just that, one final time before the upcoming election, by pledging to our constituents that we will not provide one more penny to fund the tyranny carried out by the Biden administration.

The tools to take action are readily available to us – it’s just a matter of Republicans finding the collective will to use them. Article I of the Constitution grants Congress absolute authority over federal spending. James Madison, the father of the Constitution, wrote, “This power over the purse may, in fact, be regarded as the most complete and effectual weapon with which any constitution can arm the immediate representatives of the people …”

Federal funding for fiscal year 2022 expires on September 30, and Congress will have to decide whether to pass either short-term funding with a “continuing resolution” or a full appropriations package for 2023. But neither of these bills can pass without Republicans' votes.

Here’s how this will work. Democrats will say something like, “We can’t pass appropriations by September 30, so we’ll do a short-term continuing resolution until mid-December, throw a little money at Ukraine, etc., and then we can handle this after the election.”

Republicans must loudly and emphatically reject this business-as-usual approach. Don’t hide behind Ukraine or whatever the “emergency” of the day may be, and do not cower in the corner fearing that we may be “blamed” for a government shutdown. Just say no.

Therefore,House and Senate Republicans should pledge to reject any continuing resolution that expires prior to the first day of the next Congress, as well as any appropriations package put forward by Democrats this year, whether it’s before or during the upcoming “lame-duck” session.

This would empower the American people to decide – through the November elections – how taxpayer dollars should be spent by the new Congress that begins in 2023.

Any member of Congress who wrings his hands about this approach should be prepared to explain to the American people why he supports funding a bureaucracy that is fundamentally at odds with their freedom, security, and prosperity.

Republicans should explain why they are willing to give nearly $60 billion to petty tyrants like DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who lied to Congress when he claimed DHS had “operational control” of the border. Border Patrol has apprehended over 3 million illegal migrants since President Biden took office, 1 million of whom have been released into the interior U.S., with roughly 900,000 known “gotaways.” And cartels are trafficking increasing amounts of deadly fentanyl, which caused 71,000 “overdose” deaths in 2021, into our communities and schools.

Perhaps Republicans should explain why they are in favor of providing$13 billion in annualfunding to an IRS that just received an $80 billion windfall to hire 87,000 new agents. Voters also may wonder why Congress continues to give $11 billion to the FBI each year without demanding that it not target parents for voicing concerns about their kids’ schools at the behest of a radical organization that equated them to domestic terrorists.

Speaking of schools, Congress still gives about $80 billion to a Department of Education that pumps money into schools that are failing our children and filling their minds with radical racial and gender ideologies. Not to mention student loans – where we will be giving a middle finger to hard-working Americans who paid off their federal loans or never took them in the first place by forcing them to pay hundreds of billions to pay off other peoples’ debts.

Do Republicans approve of the “public health” agencies – over $6 billionto fund the NIAID run by Tony Fauci – that forced schools to shut down altogether, doing immeasurable harm to children at all age levels? Or the nearly $9 billion given to a CDC that pushed for businesses to close and for masks to be worn at all times, which are just two of the colossal mistakes the agency made in its COVID-19 response?

And do Republicans support giving nearly $10 billion to the EPA to press its regulatory boot on the necks of American energy producers while families are struggling to fill up their gas tanks and pay their power bills? Or the billions in subsidies to weather-dependent renewable energy sources that make grids – in states like Texas, of all places – less reliable, or the millions in tax credits we provide to rich liberals so they can buy $70,000 electric vehicles and then preach to you about it?

These are just a few ways that federal bureaucrats use bipartisan congressional funding to undermine the well-being of Americans every day. Step one is for Republicans to refuse Democrats the ability to pass another massive appropriations package this Congress. Step two is for Republicans – if Americans grant us the majority in the House next year – to aggressively expose the federal bureaucracy and demand commonsense reforms and policies for the benefit, not the detriment, of the American people.

Not one additional penny for this radical Congress and administration.

Chip Roy represents Texas' 21st Congressional District.

Former Miss America Cara Mund to run for Congress as an independent



Miss America is running for Congress.

Cara Mund, the winner of the 2018 Miss America pageant and native of Bismarck, North Dakota, has announced she is running as an independent for the state's at-large congressional district seat currently held by Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-N.D.).

Mund announced her candidacy on Saturday and said she will start to gather the 1,000 signatures required to run for Congress as an independent, the Bismarck Tribune reported. She said she timed her announcement to coincide with the 57th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which prohibited racial discrimination in voting.

If elected, she would be the first woman to represent North Dakota in the U.S. House of Representatives.

“I am so proud to be a North Dakotan,” Mund said in a statement. “It would be an honor and a privilege to represent the people of our state in Congress. I am ready to get to work and look forward to putting North Dakotans first.”

Her announcement has the potential to upend what was widely expected to be a no-contest race for Armstrong, who will face Democrat Mark Haugen in November. North Dakota is a solid red state, and Armstrong won his first re-election bid with 70% of the vote in 2020.

While Armstrong will still be heavily favored headed into November, Mund's candidacy would introduce an element of unpredictability into the race as she is a political neophyte whose positions are unclear.

While Mund has spoken publicly about her political aspirations as recently as 2018, when she stated her desire to be the first female governor of North Dakota, she has never identified with a political party.

"I don't really identify as a Democrat or Republican, but rather just as an American. I'm a person, not a party," Mund was quoted as saying in 2017, according to opinion columnist Mike McFeely.

\u201c"I don't really identify as a Democrat or Republican, but rather just as an American. I'm a person, not a party," Mund was quoted as saying in 2017.\u201d
— Cara Mund (@Cara Mund) 1659929972

However, Mund drew headlines in 2017 for criticizing the Trump administration's decision to pull the U.S. out of the Paris climate accord.

“I do believe it’s a bad decision,” Mund said during the Miss America competition. “Once we reject that, we take ourselves out of the negotiation table, and that’s something that we really need to keep in mind. There is evidence that climate change is existing, so whether you believe it or not, we need to be at that table, and I just think it’s a bad decision on behalf of the United States.”

She also made Facebook posts supporting Black Lives Matter and called the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg "one of my biggest inspirations" in a Sept. 18, 2020, post mourning Ginsburg's death.

Mund, who holds a Cum Laude degree from Harvard Law school, also gained attention in 2018 for criticizing the Miss America organization. She claimed that pageant leaders, including former Fox News host and Miss America 1989 Gretchen Carlson, had "systematically silenced me, reduced me, marginalized me, and essentially erased me in my role as Miss America." The head of the organization's board later resigned.

47 House Republicans vote to ban states from recognizing traditional definition of marriage, at least 2 GOP senators will do so too



The U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday voted 267-157 to pass a bill that redefines marriage in federal law, codifying a Supreme Court decision that recognized same-sex marriages.

The bipartisan Respect for Marriage Act passed with unanimous support from Democrats and 47 Republicans voting in favor, including GOP conference chairwoman Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), and National Republican Congressional Committee chairman Tom Emmer (R-Minn.). It now heads to the Senate, where at least 10 Republicans will need to join the Democratic majority to overcome the Senate's 60-vote filibuster threshold and pass the bill.

\u201cFull roll call vote on the Respect for Marriage Act\nhttps://t.co/3qRngXSj9w\u201d
— Rob Pyers (@Rob Pyers) 1658272118

Though same-sex marriage is already de facto federal law because of the Supreme Court's 2015 decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, Democrats reintroduced the legislation in response to Justice Clarence Thomas' concurring opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization — a landmark case that overturned Roe v. Wade — in which Thomas said the court should revisit its substantive due process precedents, including Obergefell. Hysteric Democrats have accused the Supreme Court of threatening to end same-sex marriage rights, and even interracial marriage rights, citing Thomas' opinion and ignoring the court majority's opinion in Dobbs, which explicitly ruled out overturning those precedents.

Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote the majority opinion in the Dobbs decision, emphasized, “Nothing in this opinion should be understood to cast doubt on precedents that do not concern abortion.”

Nevertheless, Dobbs galvanized Democrats to schedule a vote on same-sex marriage, which they hoped would put some Republicans on record for opposing marriage equality and serve as a distraction from inflation and President Joe Biden's flailing approval rating.

The Respect for Marriage Act repeals the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, a law signed by President Bill Clinton that recognized marriage as "only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife." It also defined a spouse as "a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife."

The bill also prohibits individual states from recognizing the traditional definition of marriage as a union between one man and one woman. Democrats said these legal protections are necessary to protect marriage equality.

“I first filed the Respect for Marriage Act over a decade ago. Since then, the fight for marriage equality has seen many highs and lows, but perhaps none more frightening than the current threat posed by Clarence Thomas and this conservative Supreme Court,” House Judiciary Committee chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) said in a statement after the bill passed.

“I, along with my Democratic colleagues, will not be idle bystanders while the constitutional rights and freedoms that underpin our democracy are shredded," he added.

House Democrats are next expected to take up a bill that would codify the right to contraception — another right they claim is threatened by the originalist majority on the Supreme Court.

Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Wednesday he is working to schedule a Senate vote to codify same-sex marriage.

"I want to bring this bill to the floor and we're working to get the necessary Senate Republican support to ensure it would pass."

It remains unclear how many Senate Republicans would vote for the Respect for Marriage Act, but it appears at least two will. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) is a co-sponsor of the Senate version and will vote for it. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) also told CNN reporter Manu Raju he "probably will" vote for the measure when Democrats bring it forward.

Former Democratic Rep. Corrine Brown, convicted on corruption charges, to run for Congress again



Convicted felon, tax cheat, and former Democratic Congresswoman Corrine Brown will attempt to mount a political comeback by running for Congress again this year.

A new release reported by WJXT-TV announced Brown's candidacy for the U.S. House of Representatives in Florida's 10th Congressional District, which represents much of the Orlando area. It states that the former congresswoman, who pleaded guilty last month to a federal tax fraud charge, will seek the seat currently held by Rep. Val Demings (D-Fla.), who is running to challenge Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.).

“I’ve represented most of the people of the new 10th District during my 24 years in Congress and I always earned huge support in this region,” Brown said in a statement. “Now I see our hard-won gains are being taken away from us."

Brown, 75, pleaded guilty to one count of tax fraud last month after she admitted that she lied to the Internal Revenue Service about her income and about deductions she had claimed. She was sentenced to 32 months of time served and was ordered to pay $62,650 in restitution fees to the IRS.

She was previously convicted in 2017 for 18 fraud and tax crimes related to a scheme to funnel money from a fake children's charity into her personal bank accounts. Brown's sentencing judge called her crimes "especially shameless" at the time, since she had robbed children of promised opportunities to fund her own lavish lifestyle. She was sentenced to serve five years in prison but was released on humanitarian grounds in April 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

However, last year, an appeals court overturned Brown's conviction after it ruled that the judge was wrong to have dismissed a juror who claimed "the Holy Spirit" had told him Brown was innocent. Prosecutors had sought to re-try the case, but her plea deal puts the matter to rest.

In her release, Brown said her experience shows "the inequality of the American judicial system."

“There are far too many innocent people wrongly imprisoned,” Brown said. “Too many people whose lives have been ruined because of a racially biased and broken judicial system. And there are too many people who are being overlooked and underpaid by both the State of Florida and the federal government. If nobody else is going to stand up to right these wrongs and fight for those who are being denied their God given rights to freedom, justice, and the ability to participate in our democratic system, I will!”

Before her fraud case, Brown served in Congress from 1993 until 2017.

Religious groups raise concerns over Biden's child care plan: 'It will be detrimental to our ability to participate'



Conservative religious groups are working to have a non-discrimination provision removed from President Joe Biden's proposed universal child care plan, arguing the way the bill is written threatens their ability to serve families with young children.

American leaders of the Catholic Church and the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America say that the strings attached to the pre-kindergarten and child care plans in Biden's $1.85 trillion "Build Back Better" plan could force religious groups to violate their conscience rights. These groups fear that non-discrimination language in the bill — language supported by most congressional Democrats — could lock them out of providing child care to families in need, the New York Times reports.

The language is typical for federal legislation. It requires that any organization that receives funding from the government or participates in a federal program comply with federal non-discrimination statutes. These laws would forbid a Christian day care center, for example, to refuse to hire a gay employee or an atheist.

Biden's child care plan would spend nearly $400 billion to aid states in developing universal pre-K and child care programs over six years. The plan aims to ensure that four-person households earning up to $300,000 annually spend no more than 7% of their yearly income on child care. Any family that earns less than 75% of their state's median income would get state-funded care and would pay nothing out of pocket.

Organizations with a religious affiliation make up a substantial number of early childhood care providers in the United States, serving as many as 53% of families, the Times reports. The groups lobbying Congress to amend the child care plan say the non-discrimination language could hurt their ability to teach religious content, force them to compromise all-boys or all-girls programs, and prohibit them from selecting staff who adhere to their religious precepts.

"It will be detrimental to our ability to participate," Jennifer Daniels, the associate director for public policy at the United States Conference of Bishops, told the paper in an interview. "It would impact our ability to stick with our Catholic mission in a variety of ways. We've worked really hard to make our concerns known."

Democratic lawmakers counter that the anti-discrimination language is needed to ensure that groups receiving federal money do not discriminate.

"The Build Back Better Act must not allow government-funded discrimination — in employment or in the provision of services to participants — in publicly funded programs," Reps. Robert Scott (D-Va.) and Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio) wrote in a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). Scott is the chairman of the Education and Labor Committee and the author of the child care plan.

"We believe that allowing such discrimination financed with public funds collected from all taxpayers is wrong," the lawmakers wrote. "We are asking you to oppose any effort to remove or change the nondiscrimination provisions included in the child care and universal preschool provisions of the Build Back Better Act."

According to the Times, Scott's legislation would change how child care providers are treated under federal law:

At issue is what's arguably a major change the bill would make in how the federal government treats institutions that receive aid for the care of small children. For decades, low-income families have received funds from the Child Care and Development Block Grant program that they may use at a variety of child care centers. But since those centers are not necessarily considered direct recipients of federal funds, they are not bound by some nondiscrimination laws.

A similar situation exists for religious elementary schools that receive money through local school systems to educate low-income students.

Mr. Scott's legislation would categorize any prekindergarten or child care center that participates in the new program as a federal financial recipient, requiring it to either comply with nondiscrimination laws or turn away families, the conservative religious organizations argue.

Left-wing civil rights groups support the change, contending that religious groups should not have a right to discriminate by claiming religious liberty protections.

"Who do they want to shut out? Is it the lesbian mom you want to shut out?" said Liz King, the director of the Education Equity Program at the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. "Is it the children with autism you want to shut out? Since at least 1964, the law and basic principle has been that federal funds cannot be used to discriminate. No one should have to subsidize their own discrimination."

But the religious groups have an advocate in Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), a moderate who has reportedly expressed their concerns in private meetings with his colleagues. According to the Times, Manchin told his fellow Democratic lawmakers federal funding would greatly help religiously affiliated groups provide child care and insisted that they not be prevented from participating in Biden's program.

Manchin's argument "found widespread agreement" among Democratic senators, but the child care plan has not yet been amended.

Bipartisan bill would halt taxpayer funding for gain-of-function research



A bipartisan duo of House lawmakers introduced legislation last Friday that would halt federal funding for gain-of-function research, the controversial field of viral research that some believe could potentially cause a pandemic.

Reps. Buddy Carter (R-Ga.) and Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) have put forward a bill that would pause taxpayer funding for gain-of-function research for a period of five years.

"Without proper safety standards and protocols, gain-of-function research creates an immense risk of man-made, deadly pathogens entering our communities," the lawmakers wrote in a statement.

Gain-of-function research studies how pathogens might be enhanced to cause new, potentially deadlier infectious diseases. Experiments in this field of research involve taking a pathogen that was found in nature and altering it in a lab to study how it might evolve. The purpose of the research is to study how diseases might become deadly to humans, so that vaccines and other preventive measures could be developed to control and prevent a pandemic.

But some gain-of-function experiments take viruses that were not dangerous to human beings and engineer them to be infectious to humans, which critics say risks causing a new pandemic if such an engineered virus is somehow released from a laboratory.

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, scientists studying the SARs-CoV-2 virus have raised the possibility that features of the virus looked engineered. While many respected scientists maintain that the most likely explanation for the origins of COVID-19 are natural, after it became known that U.S. taxpayer-funded gain-of-function experiments were conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China, others are calling for a full investigation into the possibility that COVID-19 came from the lab.

"This is something we never should have allowed without proper oversight and safety protocols," Carter said. "We knew the dangers of gain-of-function research, but the National Institute of Health and Dr. Fauci continued to fund it in America and overseas. Evidence continues to mount that COVID-19 originated from the Wuhan Institute of Virology with research funded by U.S. taxpayers. We must double down on our efforts to prevent irresponsible research and protect our communities from future pandemics. Our bill will prevent taxpayer funds from being used to conduct gain-of-function research until we can ensure proper safety standards are put in place."

"The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted our economic, educational, and public health well-being. As one of the wealthiest and most powerful countries in the world, the United States needs to prepare and invest in measures that help to prevent any future pandemics," Cuellar said. "Gain-of-function research has been directly linked to the spark of the coronavirus pandemic. The Pausing Enhanced Pandemic Pathogen Research Act is the best path forward to ensure that we avoid U.S. taxpayer funds from falling into the wrong hands. I look forward to working closely with colleagues on both sides of the aisle to ensure that we pass responsible legislation for our futures."

Rep. Kevin McCarthy opposes '9/11-style' commission to investigate Jan. 6 Capitol riot



House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has likely killed a bipartisan agreement to form an independent commission to investigate the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, coming out in opposition to the deal Tuesday.

The "9/11-style" commission proposal was put forward by House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) and ranking member John Katko (R-N.Y.), who had agreed that the commission would be evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats and would have subpoena power if both sides agreed to use it.

The commission would investigate the circumstances leading up to the violence on Jan. 6, when a mob of President Donald Trump's supporters trespassed at the U.S. Capitol, assaulted police officers, and broke into Capitol Hill offices searching for lawmakers in an attempt to stop the certification of the Electoral College vote declaring Joe Biden as the winner of the 2020 presidential election.

But McCarthy and House Republicans wanted to expand the scope of the commission's investigation to encompass other incidents of political violence, including the 2017 shooting at a Republican congressional baseball practice and the deadly attack on Capitol Police on April 2. Democrats refused to expand the investigation and the bipartisan deal that was reached would solely focus on the events of Jan. 6.

In a statement released Tuesday, McCarthy announced his opposition to the deal, accusing the proposed commission of being "duplicative" and "potentially counterproductive" given other ongoing bipartisan investigations into the events of Jan. 6 and the criminal investigations being conducted by U.S. law enforcement.

"For months, the Speaker of the House refused to negotiate in good faith on basic parameters that would govern a commission to examine the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol," McCarthy said.

"While the Speaker has wasted time playing political games, numerous Congressional and intergovernmental agency efforts have picked up the slack. There are ongoing bipartisan investigations into all facets of the January 6 events occurring inside the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, as well as the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration," he said.

McCarthy added that he supports the ongoing efforts of law enforcement to bring the rioters to justice, noting that the Department of Justice has announced 445 arrests in connection with the violence at the Capitol. He claimed the committee proposal as drafted might "interfere with and ultimately undermine these ongoing prosecutorial efforts," though he did not explain how.

"Finally, the renewed focus by Democrats to now stand up an additional commission ignores the political violence that has struck American cities, a Republican Congressional baseball practice, and, most recently, the deadly attack on Capitol Police on April 2, 2021. The presence of this political violence in American society cannot be tolerated and it cannot be overlooked. I have communicated this to our Democrat colleagues for months and its omission is deeply concerning," McCarthy continued.

"Given the political misdirections that have marred this process, given the now duplicative and potentially counterproductive nature of this effort, and given the Speaker's shortsighted scope that does not examine interrelated forms of political violence in America, I cannot support this legislation."

Reporters asked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to respond to McCarthy's statement on Tuesday, and she said, "I'm very pleased that we have a bipartisan bill to come to the floor and it's disappointing but not surprising that the cowardice on the part of some on the Republican side not to want to find the truth."

President Joe Biden supports the bill to create the Jan. 6 commission, which will be voted on in the House Wednesday. It faces long odds to overcome a filibuster by Senate Republicans should it pass the House.

Top Republican condemns Big Tech CEOs for censorship and exploiting children



The top Republican on the House Energy & Commerce Committee tore into three Big Tech CEOs testifying before the committee Thursday, accusing their companies of exploiting and profiting from children.

Committee ranking member Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), in her passionate opening statement, accused Big Tech platforms of failing to keep their promise to help people connect and build relationships.

"You have broken my trust, yes, because you failed to promote the battle of ideas and free speech," she told the CEOs of Google, Facebook, and Twitter. "Yes, because you censor political viewpoints you disagree with. Those polarizing actions matter for democracy.

"But do you know what convinced me Big Tech is a destructive force?" McMorris Rodgers continued. "It's how you've abused your power to manipulate and harm our children. Your platforms are my biggest fear as a parent."

A working mother of three children, McMorris Rodgers is outspoken on issues of child exploitation on the internet, the dangers posed to teen mental health from overexposure to social media, and the responsibility Big Tech to combat child grooming and trafficking.

In January, McMorris-Rodgers released what she calls the "Big Tech Accountability Platform," a Republican Party statement of principles and legislative priorities for regulating tech companies.

"I'm a mom of three school-aged kids. My husband and I are fighting the Big Tech battles in our household every day," she said. "The battle for their development. A battle for their mental health. And ultimately, a battle for their safety. I've monitored their algorithms, I've monitored where your algorithms lead them. It's frightening."

The congresswoman raised concerns about social media's demonstrated harmful effect on children, mentioning studies that show increased rates of depression, self-harm, suicides, and suicide attempts for youth that are overexposed to social media platforms. She also related stories shared with her by constituents of kids harming themselves, or falling prey to child predators interacting with them over the internet.

"Our kids — the users — are the product. You — Big Tech — are not advocates for children," she said. "You exploit and profit off of them. Big Tech needs to be exposed and completely transparent for what you are doing to our children so parents like me can make informed decisions. We also expect Big Tech to do more to protect children because you haven't done enough. Big Tech has failed to be good stewards of your platforms."

Visibly angry, the lawmaker concluded with a personal ultimatum to Big Tech companies:

I have two daughters and a son with a disability. Let me be clear, I do not want you defining what is true for them. I do not want their future manipulated by your algorithms. I do not want their self-worth defined by the engagement tools you built to attract their attention. I do not want them to be in danger from what you've created. I do not want their emotions and vulnerabilities taken advantage of so you can make more money and have more power.

Over 20 years ago, before we knew what Big Tech would become, Congress gave you liability protections. I want to know, why do you think you still deserve those protections today?

What will it take for your business model to stop harming children?