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Dem Megadonor Using Clean Energy PAC as Front to Turn Virginia Blue

Hedge fund manager Michael Bills and his wife Sonjia Smith, the largest sources of individual political donations this cycle in Virginia, used a green energy PAC to push money to Democratic candidates.

Bills—a former Goldman Sachs VP who now runs the Bluestem Asset Management LLC hedge fund—and Smith have spent over $2 million on the Virginia elections. The donations came through direct contributions to Democratic candidates as well as large investments in the Clean Virginia Fund, a PAC purportedly focused on fighting energy monopolies that has given predominately to Democrats.

The couple has made more political donations in the past two years than in the previous decade.

From 2008 to 2017, Bills gave just over $1 million to Virginia candidates and causes while Smith gave about $1.5 million. In 2018 and 2019, Bills cut checks for slightly more than $2 million while Smith donated roughly $1 million, according to the Virginia Public Access Project, a website that tracks political spending in the state. Bills’s direct contributions to Democratic campaigns range from $2,000 to $90,000.

In addition to writing five-figure checks to Democratic candidates, Bills founded the nonprofit Clean Virginia, which operates in tandem with a political action committee, Clean Virginia Fund. Both organizations are focused on targeting the state’s largest energy provider, Dominion Energy.

Bills provided 90 percent of all donations to the PAC, while 25 other donors provided the remaining 10 percent.

"In 2018, I founded Clean Virginia in an attempt to offset the undue and harmful influence that Dominion Energy and other utility monopolies have over Virginia politics," a statement from Bills on the Clean Virginia website says.

"We are very transparent about our funding and Michael Bills’ involvement," Clean Virginia spokeswoman Cassady Craighill told the Washington Free Beacon by email. "Michael Bills launched Clean Virginia and an associated PAC to protect the environment and Virginians from utility monopolies abusing their power."

"We do not fundraise, but actively invite a list of more than 40,000 supporters to take action for clean government and clean energy including signing petitions and contacting their state representatives," she added later.

Clean Virginia, Bills, and Smith gave money to 88 Democratic candidates, all of whom pledged not to take donations from utility companies, the Virginia Mercury reported last week.

In mid-September, the Democratic Party of Virginia voted to swear off political donations from Dominion Energy. Less than three weeks later, Bills donated $200,000 to the party.

The Mercury reported that the group announced a single donation to a Republican, state senator Amanda Chase, but refused to endorse her. Clean Virginia listed Chase and three other Republican legislators among the officials who refuse to take donations from Dominion Energy. At time of writing, the Virginia Public Access Project does not list a donation from Bills’s PAC to any of the four Republicans.

Some Republican candidates say the electricity provider is something of a straw man, and that Bills is only concerned about flipping the balance of power to Democrats.

Republican state senator David Suetterlein, who has a history of challenging Dominion Energy during his legislative career, said a Clean Virginia donation to his Democratic challenger is telling.

"There’s no way they didn’t know about my record," he told the Mercury. "I think their only goal is to have a Democratic majority." Suetterlein is on Clean Virginia’s list of anti-Dominion officials.

Bills and Smith join a number of major Democratic donors and organizations pouring money into Virginia, including Tom Steyer, George Soros, and Michael Bloomberg’s gun control PAC. Democrats look to win majorities in both legislative chambers in the November election, in addition to having a Democratic governor. Democrats haven’t held all three levers of the state’s government for 25 years.

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AG Barr rules that illegal aliens with multiple DUIs lack ‘good moral character’ needed to stay here

A recent immigration ruling from Attorney General William Barr takes aim at illegal alien drunk driving and how it is handled under federal immigration law.

According to the ruling, issued on Friday, multiple drunk driving convictions indicate that a removable alien lacks the “good moral character” needed get special permission to stay in the United States.

The case in question is that of a Mexican national who had been in the United States “without admission or parole since 1997″ and has three kids who are U.S. citizens. “He also has a criminal record,” the decision explains, noting two arrests for assaulting his wife, a public drunkenness charge, and a negligent driving conviction. He was also convicted of drunk driving in 2010 and 2012. He later participated in an alcohol safety program and start attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.

DHS began removal efforts against him in 2010, the document explains. He conceded that he was removable and asked to have his deportation canceled under federal law, which, among other things, requires that an immigrant show “good moral character” during the minimum 10-year period in the United States. The ruling explains that cancellation is “a coveted and scarce form of relief” which the attorney general can only issue to 4,000 aliens annually.

In 2016, an immigration judge granted the cancellation. According to the ruling, the judge said that though he was “troubled by [the illegal alien’s] alcohol-related convictions,” they were outweighed by multiple factors including his “rehabilitation efforts.”

The Board of Immigration Appeals, however, disagreed with the ruling and found that the immigrant failed to meet the requirement of good moral character as well as that demonstrating “exceptional and extremely unusual hardship” to a relative stipulated in the statute. The case was then referred for further review by acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker last year.

Upon his review, Attorney General Barr sided with the immigration review board and concluded in a ruling issued Friday that “when assessing an alien’s good moral character under [immigration law], evidence of two or more DUI convictions during the relevant period establishes a rebuttable presumption that the alien lacked good moral character during that time.”

The ruling adds, “An alien’s efforts to reform or rehabilitate himself after multiple DUI convictions are commendable, but they do not themselves demonstrate good moral character during the period that includes the convictions. Absent substantial relevant and credible contrary evidence, multiple DUI convictions require that the immigration judge deny cancellation of removal.”

Barr made the ruling in his role as chief immigration judge, as both the Board of Immigration Appeals and U.S. immigration courts are under the authority of the Department of Justice, rather than the judicial branch. A regulation put forward earlier this year cemented the attorney general’s ability to make binding, precedent-setting rulings on immigration cases like this one.

Drunk driving incidents involving illegal aliens are one of the high-profile public safety issues stemming from America’s illegal immigration crisis. In a single year of apprehensions in 2018, despite the agency’ very limited resources, Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested 80,730 aliens with DUI charges and convictions.

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Exclusive: Donald Trump Campaign Launches ‘Hocus Pocus’ Parody Merchandise Mocking Democrat ‘Witch Hunt’

President Donald Trump’s presidential campaign launched new merchandise mocking the Democrat “witch hunt” on Monday.

The new graphic poster, provided exclusively to Breitbart News ahead of its public release, features a parody of the movie “Hocus Pocus” featuring the Democrats trying to attack President Donald Trump.

The graphic comes available in a t-shirt and a poster and is made in the USA, according to the campaign.

New campaign merchandise released by Trump 2020

The parody poster features Democrat Reps. Adam Schiff, Nancy Pelosi, Jerry Nadler as the witches and President Donald Trump as the hero.

Disney’s Hocus Pocus poster

“Congressional Democrats continue their bogus Witch Hunt of President Trump because they still can’t accept the results of the 2016 election,” said Trump 2020 campaign manager Brad Parscale said in an exclusive statement to Breitbart News. “The President will continue delivering for the American people as he promised them in 2016, and there is no stopping him. The American people stand with their President and we will Keep America Great!”

The Trump campaign launched its Halloween themed attack as House Democrats continue to pursue their case to impeach the president.

Pelosi moved forward on the impeachment process but has so far refused to hold a House vote to authorize the impeachment inquiry for fear of political risk for centrist House Democrats.

Nadler, despite describing the impeachment effort against former President Bill Clinton in the 1990s as a lynch mob, has pushed for impeaching the president since winning the House majority in the 2018 midterms.

Schiff has conducted his impeachment hearing entirely in a secret room in the basement of Capitol Hill, leaking select details bolstering the case for impeachment to the establishment media.

The president on Monday described Schiff as the “biggest leaker in Washington.”

“I think Adam Schiff is the biggest leaker in Washington,” he told reporters. “You know that. I know that. We all know that. I’ve watched Adam Schiff leak. He’s a corrupt politician. He’s a leaker like nobody has ever seen before.”

 

 

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The new America: NO to voluntary Christian prayer in schools. YES to mandatory Muslim prayer

“Separation of church and state.” There may be no reference to, inference of, insinuation of, or display of religion anywhere in any government operation or public school, even if there is no coercion to participate in any Christian event or prayer. That is enshrined in every clause of the Constitution.

That is essentially what the Left has been telling us for years, and those principles have been enforced to varying degrees in many lower courts and, intermittently, even by the Supreme Court.

Now we know it was all a lie. It was a political war on the Judeo-Christian Founding of this country, not some scrupulous enforcement of a mythical “constitutional” provision based on novel legal grounds. How do we know? The same court system that has nixed Christian prayer that is completely voluntary now has no problem with mandatory Muslim prayer embedded in required coursework in government-funded schools.

Caleigh Wood was a junior at a Charles County, Maryland, public school in 2014-2015 when she was forced to complete an assignment on “The Muslim World.” One worksheet contained a fill-in-the-blank statement requiring students to write, “There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah,” a portion of an Islamic declaration of faith known as the shahada. That is a direct violation to the tenets of other religions and Caleigh Wood’s Christian faith.

In comes the Fourth Circuit earlier this year in Wood v. Arnold and suddenly expresses reluctance to interfere with state practices and stated that this did not violate Wood’s First Amendment rights. “School authorities, not the courts, are charged with the responsibility of deciding what speech is appropriate in the classroom,” wrote Judge Barbara Milano Keenan for the three-judge panel in February. “Academic freedom would not long survive in an environment in which courts micromanage school curricula and parse singular statements made by teachers.”

On October 15, the Supreme Court formally denied Wood’s petition for an appeal.

Folks, I’ve never seen such hypocrisy from the courts in my life. The Fourth Circuit is the very court that ruled that a 100-year-old WWI memorial cross – an inanimate object that can’t harm a fly – somehow violates the First Amendment, yet coercing a student to participate in Muslim declarations of faith does not. This is the same court that, in 2017, barred Rowan County, North Carolina, from opening council sessions with a prayer, similar to what our federal Congress does every day.

Remember, nobody was compelled to participate in the Christian prayer like Ms. Wood was compelled to participate in a Muslim expression of faith. The Supreme Court allowed the Fourth Circuit ruling to stand, meaning that prayer is enjoined to this very day in Rowan County. As I noted in June when the Supreme Court reversed the Fourth Circuit on the Bladensburg Cross case, some of the GOP appointees indicated that a similar cross that is newer might be a violation of the First Amendment. That was the upshot of the opinion from Alito, joined by Roberts and Kavanaugh. Only Thomas and Gorsuch categorically rejected the notion that such non-coercive expressions violate the First Amendment. The others left wiggle room. It should also be noted that only Thomas and Gorsuch would have granted the appeal in the Rowan County case. For Roberts, Alito, and Kavanaugh, this is gross hypocrisy.

In reality the courts have the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause exactly backward. During the House floor debate over the First Amendment on August 20, 1789, James Madison explained the purpose of the Establishment Clause as follows:

Congress should not establish a religion, and enforce the legal observation of it by law, nor compel men to worship God in any manner contrary to their conscience.

The operative word here is “compel.” Yet the very same courts that believe it’s OK to compel students to participate in Muslim religious dogma have ruled that voluntary Christian prayer or the existence of monuments and symbols that are Christian or Jewish (such as the Ten Commandments) are a violation of the First Amendment.

In the Maryland case, it was the epitome of pro-Islam coercion. The shahada, which Ms. Wood was required to write as part of the history class assignment at La Plata High School, is the Islamic conversion creed, the declaration a person recites to convert to Islam and then prays and repeats during the Muslim call to prayer. Zuhdi Jasser, an enlightened Muslim scholar, was quoted by Fox News as saying, “They made this student recite the Islamic call of witness, a prayer which makes her a Muslim. That’s absurd.”

There is no record of anyone dissenting from the denial of the appeal at the Supreme Court last week. It doesn’t necessarily mean there aren’t some justices who disagree with the Fourth Circuit. We can only infer that there weren’t at least four justices willing to take up the appeal.

Clarence Thomas seems to believe that even a bona fide violation of the Establishment Clause only applies to the federal government and not state governments (Town of Greece v. Galloway (Thomas, J., partial concurrence)). However, justices like Roberts and Alito, who clearly allowed the Fourth Circuit to mess with Rowan County’s voluntary Christian prayer, have no excuse for not getting involved in this case. Even if one believes that the student wasn’t directly expressing her belief in this prayer, these same justices and lower court judges already indicated that a Christian prayer can’t be recited, even when non-Christians are not required to do anything.

Moreover, even Thomas’ view of letting states establish a religion would only go so far as permitting a state, theoretically, to favor Islam in its dogma (which is clearly happening!). But to actually coerce an individual to take an action that violates her faith would violate the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. As Thomas said in his concurrence in Masterpiece Cakeshop, “States cannot put individuals to the choice of being compelled to affirm someone else’s belief or being forced to speak when they would prefer to remain silent.”

It’s true that states have more leverage to regulate the behavior and speech of students in schools than adult citizens in their homes just by the nature of education, but denying this case flies in the face of all existing precedent. This is not a matter of prohibiting lewd or offensive speech by students in class; this is actively compelling a student to participate in the ultimate religious conversion statement of another religion.

Somehow, if Muslims students were forced to write the Lord’s Prayer in public schools, I don’t think the courts would say, “Hey, let’s leave the curriculum to the teachers.” There are pending lawsuits in California against “Bring Your Bible to School Day,” which is purely voluntary.

One thing is clear about our legal system. It’s not about law and the Constitution; it’s about identity. And some identities are just more equal than others in the eyes of the elites.

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Queer Kid Stuff LGBTQ Channel Targets 3-Year-Olds with ‘Non-Binary’ Teddy Bear

Queer Kid Stuff is an LGBTQ YouTube channel that targets preschoolers as it seeks to instruct them in gender ideology and social justice.

Lindsay Amer, the creator of Queer Kid Stuff, says her YouTube channel features “an LGBTQ+ and social justice webseries for kids and families.”

Amer draws toddlers into her world view with what she says is a “non-binary” talking teddy bear and a repertoire of Sesame Street-styled LGBTQ songs she sings as she plays a ukulele.

Videos in the series include Learn Your LGBTs! in which Amer teaches young children what lesbians, gays, bisexual, and transgender individuals are, and the different sexual “identities” people assume.

Other videos include What Is Gender? Unicorns are Queer Horses, I is for Intersex, A is for Asexual, What Is Privilege???, and Transitioning – all topics Amer apparently believes are on the minds of preschoolers.

In the video What Is Gender? Amer and her teddy bear teach toddlers, “Did you know that some people aren’t boys or girls? Some people are boys … some people are girls … and some people are people.”

Transgender individuals, Amer says in the video, are “people who do not identify with the gender the doctors tell them they are when they are born.”

“Bad doctors!” reads a recent post at 4thWaveNow, a site that welcomes the views of “parent-skeptics who question medicalising gender-atypical youth” and that promotes “free speech,” “science,” and “rational feminism.”

The writer continues:

Do tell, readers. When you were 3 or 4 years old, would the words “identify as” make any sense to you? Can you picture your mom or dad casting aspersions on those dumb doctors who jumped the gun, and stupidly TOLD your parents you were a boy or girl?

When Teddy expresses confusion about how to tell who is a boy and who is a girl if “all of them can wear ties and dresses,” Amer responds, “That’s actually really easy, Teddy. All you have to do is ask someone what their pronouns are.”

“It’s easy, preschooler,” states 4thWaveNow. “Just take a few minutes out of your busy play day to inquire whether Jimmy or Judy were assigned the wrong sex at birth by doctors—you know, doctors, the people your parents told you to trust when they jabbed you with those ouchy pre-K shots?”

Amer touts as credits to her website:

The Huffington Post calls Queer Kid Stuff a “groundbreaking YouTube educational resource.” Teen Vogue praised their episode on consent during the height of #MeToo that “shows exactly why there’s no excuse not to grasp consent. Even toddlers can understand it.”

Amer recently presented her views at an official TED conference. Her bio on the TED site states her “educational video series … breaks down complex ideas around gender and sexuality through songs and metaphors.”

“By giving kids and their families a vocabulary to express themselves, Amer is helping to create more empathetic adults – and spreading a message of radical acceptance in a world where it’s sometimes dangerous to just be yourself,” the bio continues. “’I want kids to grow up and into themselves with pride for who they are and who they can be,’ Amer says.”

While Amer recommends adults watch the videos first before showing them to their toddlers or pre-school students, she does direct them to another site called itgetsbetter.org/glossary for assistance in the language of gender ideology in order to facilitate the preschoolers’ learning.

Her videos have corresponding activity sheets and lesson plans for teachers to use in classrooms as well as “queer-inclusive classroom tips.”

In August, Amer joined other LGBTQ+ individuals with YouTube channels in a federal lawsuit against YouTube and its parent company Google. As Variety reported, the coalition alleged sexual orientation discrimination against the tech giant by restricting their ability to make money off their videos.

Variety reported:

In their lawsuit, these creators allege that YouTube regularly labels their videos as offensive or sexually explicit simply because of their sexual orientation. They also allege that their videos are regularly being demonetized, that YouTube changes their thumbnail videos, and excludes them from content recommendations, resulting in suppressed view counts.

“We’re proud that so many LGBTQ creators have chosen YouTube as a place to share their stories and build community,” a YouTube spokesperson said, according to Variety. “Our policies have no notion of sexual orientation or gender identity and our systems do not restrict or demonetize videos based on these factors or the inclusion of terms like ‘gay’ or ‘transgender.’”

“In addition, we have strong policies prohibiting hate speech, and we quickly remove content that violates our policies and terminate accounts that do so repeatedly,” the spokesperson said.

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Group of 51 Migrants Tried to Sneak Past Border Patrol in Texas

Del Rio Sector Border Patrol agents arrested a group of 51 migrants who attempted to sneak into the U.S. illegally.

Carrizo Springs Station Border Patrol agents patrolling along the Rio Grande observed “discrepancies on a trail” leading from the river. The agents started tracking the migrants and called for assistance from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Air and Marine Operations (AMO). Officials with AMO dispatched a helicopter crew to assist in the search for the group, according to Del Rio Sector officials.

The aircrew helped locate the migrants and guided ground-based agents to their location. The agents placed the group of 51 migrants under arrest and began an immigration interview and initial assessment.

Following the initial interview, the agents identified all 51 migrants as Mexican nationals. They determined seven of those to be juveniles over the age of 15.

The agents turned all 51 migrants over to the Laredo West Border Patrol Station due to the location of the apprehension. The agents transported the migrants to the station where they will be processed for immigration violations.

Laredo Sector Border Patrol Agent Hector Garza, in his capacity as vice president of the National Border Patrol Council, told Breitbart Texas over the past weekend that migrants are more frequently attempting to evade arrest and are finding more traditional means of being smuggled into the U.S.

“We have also seen an increase in the strategy of packing human cargo into big-rig trailers,” Garza continued. “This appears to be happening as more OTMs (Other than Mexican) migrants are returned to Mexico under the MPP policy. As the migrants figure out they can’t just arrive and stay, they begin to seek more traditional human smuggling tactics to get into the country.”

Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior political news contributor for the Breitbart Border team. He is an original member of the Breitbart Texas team. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX and Facebook.

(Disclosure: Breitbart Texas sponsored the Green Line podcast for the NBPC in an effort to provide a platform for agents to inform the public about the realities on the border and what Border Patrol agents face. Director Brandon Darby received an award from the Laredo chapter of the NBPC for his work in helping to defend and bring a voice to Border Patrol agents. Breitbart News assisted in covering funeral costs for a slain Border Patrol agent previously.)

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Leftist Student at U. at Buffalo Caught Removing Dinesh D’Souza Event Posters

A leftist student at the University at Buffalo was caught on camera ripping down posters for an upcoming campus event featuring conservative commentator Dinesh D’Souza.

According to report by Campus Reform, a leftist student at the University of Buffalo was recently caught ripping down posters for a campus lecture by conservative commentator and filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza that occurred earlier this month.

D’Souza was hosted on campus by the Young Americans for Freedom student organization. D’Souza spoke about the ills of socialism and how the far left wants to violate the privacy and economic rights of American citizens.

University at Buffalo student Jake Zane caught an unnamed student ripping down posters for the event. He immediately took out his phone and began filming.

“You see, this is civil disobedience,” the student says in the video as she tears down the posters. “I’m just picking up some litter.”

Zane, who serves as the vice president of the University at Buffalo College Republicans, says that the student called the Young Americans for Freedom, “alt-right” as she ripped down the posters.

“Any time we put up posters, we constantly have to battle to keep them up,” Zane said in a short comment. “People tear them down. People draw on them.”

Earlier this month, Breitbart News reported that a student at the University of Wisconsin was found defacing the office of a campus student organization. She placed signs that read “Donald Trump is…,” “racist,” “sexist,” and “bigot” on the windows of the organization’s office.

“I’ve been here for four years and all four years I’ve experienced racism, I’ve seen homophobia, transphobia, I’ve seen people not treated fairly, class institutional racism all of that stuff,” the student vandal said. “Everything that you could imagine, I’ve seen.”

Stay tuned to Breitbart News for more updates on this story.

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