Rep. Bob Good, R-Va., will resign shortly as chairman of the House Freedom Caucus
, a group of the chamber’s most conservative members, after losing his primary election.
Good told reporters
Monday that he had submitted his resignation to the caucus board, but didn’t provide a timeline for his official resignation as chairman.
Sources familiar with the matter, however, told news outlets that Good’s resignation
would become official by week’s end.
In June, Good lost
his primary in Virginia’s 5th Congressional District to his challenger, state Sen. John McGuire.
McGuire had the endorsement of former President Donald Trump
working on his behalf, as well as the political apparatus of former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif.
The challenger had a 374-vote lead over Good before the primary headed for a recount
. That recount solidified McGuire’s victory in early August.
Good attempted to fend off the influence of Trump and McCarthy in the primary. He found himself on Trump’s bad side because, before endorsing Trump, he supported Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in the GOP presidential primary. Good was also one of the House members who voted to oust McCarthy
as speaker last October.
In the coming weeks, the House Freedom Caucus
will decide who will become Good’s successor as chairman. With the caucus looking to expand its membership after contested House races throughout the country in the Nov. 5 election, it seems likely that members will move quickly on appointing a new leader, at least on an interim basis.
Recent reports suggest
that Reps. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., and Andy Harris, R-Md., are on the short list to replace Good as chairman of the caucus.
Robin DiAngelo, the notorious “anti-racist” activist and the author of “White Fragility,” admitted in a blog post Thursday that The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh tricked her into filming a scene in which she pays “reparations” to a black man in the satirical documentary “Am I Racist?” In her statement on the issue, she resorted to citing the discredited left-wing smear factory the Southern Poverty Law Center
.
DiAngelo did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request
for comment about why she cited the SPLC, but Walsh did respond to her decision to cite that organization.
“Robin DiAngelo is so entrenched in a leftist bubble that she got duped by me in a wig. No wonder she thinks the SPLC is a reliable source,” Walsh told The Daily Signal in a statement Friday.
‘Am I Racist?‘
“Am I Racist” launches in theaters Friday. The film’s Internet Movie Database (imdb.com) description reads: “A man investigates diversity, equity, and inclusion practices, exposing absurdities through undercover social experiments.”
The film exposes the absurdities of critical race theory, a lens through which activists such as DiAngelo interpret American society as systemically racist, and where black people are inherently oppressed and white people are inherently oppressors, despite the decades of civil rights law guaranteeing equal rights and despite the success of certain minority groups that do not fit that stereotype.
Critical race theory—rebranded “anti-racism” for a broader audience—has spread in academia and corporate America.
In her blog post, DiAngelo recounted
how the film team introduced themselves last year. The Daily Wire team told her they were making a documentary film called “Shades of Justice,” and that they “planned to interview anti-racist activists, authors and thought leaders in service of supporting the cause of racial equity.”
She admitted taking $15,000 for an interview, a sum she claims she has since donated to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.
DiAngelo recalled that Walsh introduced himself as “Matt”
and “presented himself as someone new to anti-racist work and seemed earnest, and his questions did not come across as adversarial.”
She then described a scene in which Walsh asked if she supported reparations and when she said, “yes,” he persuaded her to hand a black member of his team some cash. She went on to say she was “unsettled by the way [Walsh] manipulated this last scene,” and she asked the Daily Wire team not to include it in the film.
“I had been played,” she admitted. She condemned “Am I Racist?” as a “‘Borat’-style mockumentary … designed to humiliate and discredit anti-racist educators and activists.” (“Borat,” a 2006 dark humor mock documentary, followed a fictional Kazakh reporter in the United States.)
After describing how she discovered the truth, DiAngelo asks, “So, who is Matt Walsh and what is his—and his backers’—agenda? Luckily for us, he has clearly answered that question, without shame, time and time again.”
She then proceeds to quote the SPLC
. The SPLC claims Walsh “frequently demonizes LGBTQ+ people and promotes racist and anti-transgender conspiracy theories.”
What Is the SPLC?
DiAngelo appears not to have questioned the reliability of her source. As I wrote in my book, “Making Hate Pay
: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center,” the SPLC has faced numerous scandals and routinely weaponizes its “hate” accusations against conservatives, in part to silence any dissent against its own leftist agenda.
The SPLC published a “hate map” that lists mainstream conservative and Christian organizations alongside chapters of the Ku Klux Klan. It uses this “hate map” as a reputational weapon to silence those who dissent from its woke agenda. While the SPLC’s education arm Learning for Justice pushes critical race theory and gender ideology, the “hate map” smears parental rights groups such as Moms for Liberty
and Parents Defending Education as “extremists.”
Conservative Christian groups that advocate religious freedom and define marriage as between one man and one woman appear on the SPLC map as “anti-LGBTQ hate groups.” National security experts who warn against radical Islamist terrorism find themselves branded “anti-Muslim hate groups.” Advocacy groups that call for the enforcement of immigration law and oppose open borders appear on the map as “anti-immigrant hate groups.”
This year, the SPLC even added an openly homosexual group—Gays Against Groomers
—to its list of “anti-LGBTQ hate groups.”
In 2019, the SPLC fired its co-founder and saw its president resign amid a racial discrimination and sexual harassment scandal. At that time, a former employee called the “hate” accusations a “highly profitable scam.”
The SPLC unionized after that scandal. Earlier this year, the SPLC Union broke the news
of mass layoffs at the organization in June. The SPLC “gutted its staff by a quarter,” laying off more than 60 union members, including five union stewards and the union’s chair.
Last month, 90% of the SPLC Union voted
to demand the SPLC fire its president and CEO, Margaret Huang, accusing her of “union-busting.” The SPLC has stood by Huang, but the union has launched a petition that has gathered more than 5,000 signatures.
The SPLC also currently faces a defamation lawsuit
that crossed a major legal hurdle last year.
If DiAngelo wants to discredit Walsh, she should choose a more reputable organization to cite.
FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—Almost 70% of voters believe the American dreamhas become less attainable, according to a new report from the Rainey Center, a Washington-based public policy research organization.
Only 20% of Americans voters said they believe they have achieved the American dream
, and just 26% believe their family has. Almost half of young people agreed the American dream is out of reach, according to the survey of 1,010 respondents over online panels from July 14-15, but released Friday.
Homeownership,
reasonable taxes, and the ability to provide a better life for future generations were the aspects of the American dream respondents said were unattainable.
“America has unfortunately delved into a period of toxic national pessimism based on the affordability crisis plaguing our country,” Rainey Center President Sarah Hunt told The Daily Signal. “Inflation is through the roof, interest rates are still rising, and runaway spending is out of control.
“However, there is hope on the horizon—the Rainey Center and our network of elected officials are constantly advancing innovative policies to best address the issues Americans face most,” Hunt continued.
More than half of Americans polled said freedom
and individual rights were the most important aspects of the American dream.
Forty percent of American voters said the American dream has become “much less attainable” over the past 10 years, while a further 26% say it has become “somewhat less attainable.”
Less than 10% said it has become more attainable.
Latinos and white voters are more likely than black voters to say the American dream is much less attainable now. Women were more likely to take that position than men.
Republicans, at 46%, are more likely than Democrats, at 37%, to say the dream has become “much less” attainable.
Forty percent of those surveyed said the American dream is out of reach for themselves, 40% say they are on the way to achieving it, and the other 20% said they have successfully achieved it.
Americans were a little more optimistic about the American dream for their families. Thirty-five percent said the American dream is out of reach for their families, while 39% say they are on their way to it.
Almost 60% of voters said America is a place where people can expect “a fair shake,” and 56% agreed there is equal opportunity for all.
Those surveyed were split on whether the American dream is real or a myth: 54% said it is mostly or somewhat real, while 39% said it is mostly or somewhat a myth.
At Tuesday night’s debate, former President Donald Trump said his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, supports “transgender operations on illegal aliens that are in prison.” Harris looked on skeptically, suggesting Trump was off his rocker.
Yet Harris has indeed supported transgender medical interventions on illegal alien prisoners, and she has not publicly disavowed the claim. Her campaign did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment
about it.
Some legacy media outlets rushed to “fact-check” Trump’s claim. Time magazine’s story
on the debate originally blasted Trump’s quote as false. Time later appended this correction:
The original version of this story mischaracterized as false Donald Trump’s statement accusing Kamala Harris of supporting “transgender operations on illegal aliens in prison” As a presidential candidate in 2019, Harris filled out a questionnaire
saying she supported taxpayer-funded gender transition treatment for detained immigrants.
Trump’s claim traces back to Harris’ response to an ACLU questionnaire for presidential candidates in the 2020 cycle.
“As president, will you use your executive authority to ensure that transgender and nonbinary people who rely on the state for medical care—including those in prison and immigration detention—will have access to comprehensive treatment associated with gender transition, including all necessary surgical care?” the questionnaire asked
. “If yes, how will you do so?”
Harris marked the box for “Yes.”
“It is important that transgender individuals
who rely on the state for care receive the treatment they need, which includes access to treatment associated with gender transition,” Harris wrote. “That’s why, as Attorney General, I pushed the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to provide gender transition surgery to state inmates. I support policies ensuring that federal prisoners and detainees are able to obtain medically necessary care for gender transition, including surgical care, while incarcerated or detained.”
“Transition treatment is a medical necessity, and I will direct all federal agencies responsible for providing essential medical care to deliver transition treatment,” the candidate added.
Trump raised the issue because it represents a confluence of three separate areas on which Harris is vulnarable: immigration, crime, and controversial transgender issues
.
Yet this position represents the logical conclusion of Harris’ support for Democrats’ proposed Equality Act and the gender operations euphemistically referred to as “gender-affirming care
.”
Under President Joe Biden and Harris, the federal Bureau of Prisons reissued a Transgender Offender manual that the Obama administration had begun. The manual’s latest version states that surgery for prisoners who claim to be transgender is “generally considered only after one year of clear conduct and compliance with mental health, medical, and programming services at the gender-affirming facility.”
The pro-transgender outlet The 19th News
has faulted the Biden-Harris administration for not clarifying its position on gender operations for prisoners, but the administration has taken multiple actions to offer cross-sex hormones and surgeries for prisoners.
In January, Kristen Clarke, assistant attorney general with the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, filed a “statement of interest”
supporting “gender-affirming care” for prisoners.
“People with gender dysphoria should be able to seek the full protections of the Americans with Disabilities Act, just like other people with disabilities,” Clarke said. “We are committed to ensuring constitutional conditions inside our jails and prisons so that those detained inside these facilities, including people with gender dysphoria, can live safely and receive needed medical care. The U.S. Constitutionrequires that people incarcerated in jails and prisons receive necessary medical care, treatment and services to address serious medical conditions.”
The administration has also extended transgender policy to illegal aliens. Under Biden and Harris, the Department of Customs and Border Protection issued guidance telling border security personnel to refer to illegal aliens by their preferred gender pronouns
.
When she ran in the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries, Harris adopted many far-left positions more in line with her home state of California than with the rest of America. Her campaign has attempted to redefine her as a moderate for the election, but polls suggest voters
see through this.
?Are you doing as well as you were 4 years ago? That’s the key question, along with the other side of populism: the institutions are off their rockers. We all see it with COVID? and transgender?? ideology. Americans need solutions to inflation and the border, along with a… pic.twitter.com/egs35smX7D
Self-described “Democratic socialist” Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., has supported Harris, despite her recent abandonment of more “progressive” stances.
When NBC’s “Meet the Press” host Kristen Welker asked Sanders about this, he said, “I don’t think she’s abandoning her ideals.”
“I think she’s trying to be pragmatic and doing what she thinks is right in order to win the election,” he added.
?KAMALA CHAMELEON: On Sunday, Bernie Sanders (the guy who’s too far left for the Democratic Party) defended Kamala Harris despite her flip-flops running away from Sanders’ own positions. “I don’t think she’s abandoning her ideals,” he said. “I think she’s trying to be pragmatic… pic.twitter.com/FmiFuQ8lmM
Is Vice President Kamala Harris
the future of the Democratic Party? Her ascendancy has been meteoric, fueled by Democrats eager to retain control of the White House.
The youthful Harris was the answer to President Joe Biden
‘s old blood. At a glance, she was younger and more spirited. Harris embodied the diversity exalted by Democratic voters.
Trifecta: a woman, part black, part Indian American, with the woman angle being first among equals— especially as regards reproductive rights placed in jeopardy by the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Mixed with hatred of former President Donald Trump
, Democrats find Harris electrifying.
But political honeymoons do not last forever. The hard work of campaigning follows.
And there is where Harris, 59, stumbles. Unemployment is troubling. Prices are climbing. Terrorists are racing through our porous borders, leaving appalling crimes in their wake.
Are voters better off today than they were four years ago? A positive answer is unconvincing. Voters do not see a future of wealth, safety, and leisure under a Democratic administration. Everyone feels left behind but billionaires and the multitrillion-dollar military-industrial-security complex.
The yawning gap between Harris’ promises and reality is in plain view. For three and a half years, Harris has copiloted the nation with Biden into terra incognita. Americans are worried about the future, which remains fraught with uncertainty.
The border
is Harris’ Achilles heel. A staggering number of illegals enter every day, wreaking havoc on the lives of citizens peacefully residing in border towns. They are bankrupting New York City and Chicago. They are committing crimes.
Biden and Harris have been reactive rather than proactively going to the source (i.e., penalizing failed states for driving their people to desperation in tens of millions).
This is where Trump, 78, the former president, sees his opportunity.
Illegal immigration on Trump’s watch dwindled to a trickle. He built an insurmountable wall that provided reassurance that all was under control. He upgraded vetting to screen out terrorists.
Trump boosted the economy with punishing tariffs and indulgent tax cuts. He is attracting voters who see him as more competent on economic and immigration issues. Harris should worry that Trump’s character flaws are being overlooked. Instead, voters are more focused on her policy positions and the past four years of foreign conflict, economic downturn, rising inflation
, and migrants invading our borders.
Trump’s advantage is particularly pronounced in key battleground states like Pennsylvania, where Harris’ position has been weakened by earlier opposition to fracking that appealed only to Democratic progressives in that state.
Fracking is welcomed by Democrats in other states as a generator of jobs
. Harris opportunistically flip-flopped to attract more votes, which could estrange voters who would rather lose than compromise to win.
As the 2024 race comes into sharper focus after Tuesday night’s presidential debate, Harris must awaken from her reverie. Her rise was swift, but the road to victory is steep. The honeymoon is over, and promises will not do. Harris needs to deliver, and deliver now, by jump-starting the economy and creating an impermeable border campaign.
The proof of the pudding is in the eating. If Harris is unable to gain more electoral votes than Trump, she will be defeated.
History will define Harris as a loser who failed to deliver in contrast to Trump, who succeeded in everything he promised—including ending the constitutional right to abortion, bringing a close to forever wars, and building a wall. If Harris wins, however, a new chapter will open for women and minorities.
