Asheville –
A New Self-Appointed Truth Tracker
NewsGuard, a self-appointed arbiter of truth that calls itself “The Internet Trust Tool,” strikes again. These guardians of the political elite supposedly rate news websites for credibility and transparency. With its ever-growing power, NewsGuard is now colluding with the second-largest teachers union in America.
The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) announced a new partnership with NewsGuard, saying the deal is a “game-changer for teachers and families drowning in an ocean of online dishonesty.”
We all know what this really means. The teachers’ union is now hiding behind a third-party “fact-checker” to censor anything—and taking zero responsibility for it.
This teachers’ union has 1.7 million members teaching tens of millions of American children.
NewsGuard’s biased ratings are about to stop anything the union disagrees with from reaching millions of children across America under the guise of keeping youth safe from “dishonesty.” Most parents have no idea this is happening.
North Carolina removes over 430,000 inactive names from voter rolls
Judicial Watch has settled its lawsuit against North Carolina and two of its counties after they removed over 430,000 ineligible names from the voter rolls.
In the lawsuit, filed in April 2020, Judicial Watch argued that North Carolina, Mecklenburg County, and Guilford County failed to make reasonable efforts to remove ineligible voters from their registration rolls as required by the federal National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA). The lawsuit also claimed that these jurisdictions violated the NVRA by failing to make available to Judicial Watch public records concerning efforts to comply with the law.
“This is a win for the voters of North Carolina. After we filed our federal lawsuit, North Carolina removed hundreds of thousands ineligible voters (people who have died or moved away). North Carolina follows Judicial Watch voter roll clean-up successes in California, Kentucky, Ohio, and Indiana. And we are right now prepping lawsuits against other states to force them to clean up their rolls.”
In 2020, Judicial Watch also sued Pennsylvania, and Colorado for failing to clean their voter rolls.
In November 2021, Judicial Watch sent letters to election officials in 14 counties and five states — Arkansas, California, Illinois, New York, and Oregon—notifying them of evident violations of the NVRA.
A 2020 letter from Judicial Watch to Allegheny County, Pennsylvania led to the removal of 69,000 outdated registrations.
In October 2020, Judicial Watch released a study that found 353 counties nationwide that had more voter registrations than citizens old enough to vote, i.e., counties where registration rates exceed 100%.
Voters and not the election board should decide on Madison Cawthorn
Being giddy about the possibility of barring Madison Cawthorn’s attempt to return to Congress is not a good reason to do it. Unfortunately, canceling somebody, often merely for speech, is an increasingly common tactic in today’s raucous political climate.
If you haven’t heard by now, a group of North Carolinians filed a lawsuit claiming Cawthorn is an insurrectionist and thus ineligible for office under section 3 of the 14th Amendment. They want the state Board of Elections, which may potentially do their bidding, to carry out their agenda. It’s a highly dubious partisan tactic to dreg up a clause meant more for figures like former Confederates after their armed rebellion against the U.S. government.
As Constitutional law expert Jonathon Turley pointed out in a clear and straightforward piece, Cawthorn’s antics don’t come near meeting the standards of insurrection. “The confederacy formed a government, an army, a currency, and carried out diplomatic missions,” wrote Turley.
In his writeup, Turley condemns the actions on January 6 but points out that the charges brought against those in the U.S. Capitol mostly amount to trespassing or sometimes less severe charges. As bad as it is, a riot does not necessarily equate to treason or an insurrection.
Cawthorn’s supposed crime is casting doubt on the results of the 2020 presidential election. “The Democrats, with all the fraud they have done in this election, the Republicans, hiding and not fighting, they are trying to silence your voice,” declared Cawthorn in a speech to Donald Trump supporters outside the Capitol on January 6.
Whatever one’s opinion of Cawthorn, that hardly rises to insurrection or inciting a riot. As Dallas Woodhouse has already pointed out, there’s no evidence Cawthorn has been charged with a crime or is currently being investigated for one.
The state Board of Elections claims to have the authority to disqualify him. Yet, for what purpose? Because he’s a jerk? A naked partisan hack? Is it because of his questionable political instincts? Those are all issues voters should be deciding on and not government-appointed officials.
I’ve never met Cawthorn and have no affinity for him, but neither do I wish him any ill will. Voters in his congressional district are the ones qualified to decide his fate. After that, the House of Representatives has the authority to decide whether they want to seat Cawthorn in Congress or not. “If voters elect a rascal who is constitutionally ineligible to serve, the people’s representatives must decide whether or not to throw him out of the House,” wrote University of Iowa Law Professor Derek T. Muller in the Wall Street Journal.
Do left-wing partisans want to go down the road of dictating by government power who is ineligible for Congress because of mere rhetoric? Do the same requirements apply for supporters of Black Lives Matter or ANTIFA riots?
One of the problems in Congress today is that many representatives being sent to Washington are only interested in building their partisan brand and not governing. Perhaps that description encapsulates Cawthorn’s style and intentions perfectly. Still, that’s for North Carolinians to decide if that’s what they prefer in their representatives in this era. Handing it over to a so-called bipartisan board to determine his political fate is not only waving the white flag on democracy – but further opens American politics to becoming totalitarian – where crushing the opposition is all that matters anymore.
Ray Nothstine, Carolina Journal