Alaska Judge Rules Conservative Lawmaker, Despite Oath Keepers Membership, Eligible for Office

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Editor’s note: Restoring Liberty’s publisher Joe Miller was the trial attorney who litigated and won the below case. In response to press inquiries, Attorney Miller stated, “We’re pleased that Judge McKenna agreed with us that Representative Eastman should not be removed from office just because he attended President Trump’s speech on January 6. As we argued from the very beginning in this case, the First Amendment protects the rights of association and speech that were attacked here. However, we are disappointed in the court’s determination that Oath Keepers is an organization that sought to overthrow the government by force or violence and believe there was no admissible evidence supporting that finding.”

If you would like to read the decision, it is available HERE. You may also donate to Representative Eastman’s legal fund HERE.

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By Associated Press. An Alaska lawmaker with ties to the far-right Oath Keepers group is eligible to hold office, a state judge ruled Friday.

Superior Court Judge Jack McKenna issued the ruling after overseeing a trial this month in the case against Republican state Rep. David Eastman. The decision can be appealed.

The ruling found that Eastman is a member of the Oath Keepers, but that he “does not and did not possess a specific intent to further the Oath Keeper’s words or actions aimed at overthrowing the United States government.” (Read more from “Alaska Lawmaker with Oath Keepers Membership Eligible for Office” HERE)

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Rep. Eastman’s Trial Concludes

By Alaska News Source. After both sides rested their cases Tuesday in the case questioning Rep. David Eastman’s eligibility for office, closing arguments were heard by Superior Court Judge Jack McKenna Wednesday morning. . .

Eastman’s active lifetime membership was proved early on when he took the stand and openly admitted his affiliation. After a number of expert and witness testimonies for both the plaintiff and defense teams, attorneys from both sides made their final statements on record Wednesday.

Eastman’s attorney Joe Miller reinforced his stance that speech — including that which advocates for the force or violence to overthrow the government — is constitutionally protected under the First Amendment. The attorney for Kowalke, the plaintiff, painted a different picture before the judge, stating that it’s proved that the words and actions used on Jan. 6 go beyond protected rights to free speech. (Read more from “Rep. Eastman’s Trial on Oathk Keepers Membership Concludes” HERE)

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore Flickr

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Identical Twins, Raised in US, Foreign Country, Guess Which One Had a Much Higher IQ

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A pair of identical twins who were raised in separate countries have displayed unexpectedly large disparities in cognitive abilities while exhibiting highly similar personality traits. A comparison of the monozygotic sibling’s characteristics sheds new light on the age-old nature/nurture debate.

Growing up stateside, the adopted twin was unaware that she even had any siblings until she submitted her DNA to South Korea’s program for reuniting family members in 2018. Two years later, she received word that she not only had an identical twin, but an older brother and sister too.

Having been reunited, the twins then completed a series of tests designed to assess their intelligence, personality profiles, mental health, and medical history. Somewhat surprisingly, results revealed that the IQ of the twin raised in the US was 16 points lower than that of the Korean-raised sibling.

The finding, published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences, contradicts previous studies on monozygotic twins, which have indicated an average IQ difference of no more than seven points. Commenting on the unexpectedly large gulf between the two sisters, the study authors write that “it is striking that the twins showed substantial differences in cognitive abilities that have been linked to strong genetic influence.” . . .

“Notable is that both twins are distinctively high on Conscientiousness, indicating that both are purposeful, well-organized, dutiful, and achievement-striving.” That these similarities persisted despite the sisters’ contrasting life experiences and home environments is interesting, and highlights the role that genetics play in determining a person’s temperament. (Read more from “Identical Twins, Raised in US, Foreign Country, Guess Which One Had a Much Higher IQ” HERE)

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‘A Recipe for Tyranny’: Here’s Why an Alaska Lawmaker Faces Removal From Office Under the State’s ‘Disloyalty Clause’

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Editor’s note: Restoring Liberty’s Joe Miller is the trial attorney for the Alaska lawmaker discussed below.
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By Daily Caller. An Alaska state representative faces potential removal from office due to his affiliation with a group accused of partaking in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, despite the fact that he was not accused of entering the building.

Republican State Rep. David Eastman, who was re-elected for a fourth term during the midterm election by nearly 25 points, is currently on trial after an Alaskan resident accused him of violating the state’s “disloyalty clause” for his affiliation with the “constitutional service” group the Oath Keepers, according to court documents. The clause, found in Alaska’s constitution, states that anyone who advocates for the overthrow of the government cannot hold a public office. . .

Eastman attended former President Donald Trump’s rally on Jan. 6, but did not enter the restricted areas of the Capitol grounds, Alaska Public Media reported. However, two Oath Keeper members, including founder Stewart Rhodes, were convicted last month of “seditious conspiracy” for their actions on Jan. 6, according to AP.

“This trial is proceeding as though the 1st Amendment had already been repealed,” Eastman told the DCNF. “That is a terrifying reality for the voters in my district. It is a fundamental American right that your vote will be counted. This lawsuit was filed to ensure that the voters in my district would not have their votes counted.” . . .

“The judge in this case has decided that the state now has a legal obligation to determine whether or not each candidate is sufficiently loyal to those in government before their name may be placed on the ballot in the future,” Eastman said. “Where is the America of my birth?” (Read more from “‘A Recipe for Tyranny’: Here’s Why an Alaska Lawmaker Faces Removal From Office Under the State’s ‘Disloyalty Clause’” HERE)

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Oath Keepers Founder Testifies His Group Was Acting in ‘Counter-revolution’

By Fox News 28. Stewart Rhodes, founder of the Oath Keepers, testified to an Alaskan judge on Tuesday that efforts to postpone the certification of the 2020 presidential election were a “counter-revolution,” not an insurrection.

“My perspective is that we’re preserving the Constitution, and it’s — I wouldn’t even call it insurrection, I would call it a counter-revolution against an insurrection. … I consider the left to be an insurrection,” Rhodes said. . .

Rhodes’ testimony came as a defense witness for Alaska state Rep. David Eastman, a Wasilla Republican who is defending against a lawsuit that claims Eastman’s life membership in the Oath Keepers violates the disloyalty clause of the Alaska Constitution. The lawsuit was filed in July by Randall Kowalke, a Matanuska-Susitna Borough resident. . .

After Rhodes, Miller called attorney John Eastman to testify. On Monday, the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection recommended the U.S. Justice Department bring criminal charges against Eastman, a legal expert who advised former President Trump.

Eastman, unrelated to David Eastman, said he believes Rhodes’ words and actions fall short of the standard needed to rule speech illegal under the protections offered by the First Amendment. (Read more from “Oath Keepers Founder Testifies His Group Was Acting in ‘Counter-revolution’” HERE)

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Republicans Score Big Win in Biden’s $1.7 Trillion Budget Package

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Congressional Republicans succeeded in slashing funding for the Internal Revenue Service in the negotiations over President Biden’s $1.7 trillion omnibus budget.

Senate Republicans forced Democrats and the White House to cut more than $275 million from the IRS over the next year. GOP lawmakers demanded the cut, arguing that the IRS is already slated to receive additional money over the next decade thanks to Biden’s recently passed $739 billion Inflation Reduction Act.

“This process was far from perfect, but ultimately it allowed Republican redlines to be adhered to and because of that I will urge my colleagues to support this package,” said Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby, the top Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Overall, the budget allocates $12.3 billion for the IRS — 2.2% less than the nearly $12.6 billion the agency received in the last fiscal year. The Biden administration initially sought a $1.3 billion increase for the IRS this year. (Read more from “Republicans Score Big Win in Biden’s $1.7 Trillion Budget Package” HERE)

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US Tax Dollars Used to Wargame Media Suppression of Hunter Biden Crimes Months Before 2020 Election

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A US government-funded nonprofit known as “the mountain retreat for the liberal elite” sponsored a “tabletop exercise” intended to influence coverage of a leak of documents related to Hunter Biden, the latest installment of Elon Musk’s “Twitter Files” reveals.

In a series of tweets Monday, independent journalist Michael Shellenberger posted confidential documents from the Aspen Institute’s September 2020 event, which he said was attended by Twitter’s then-head of trust and safety, Facebook’s head of security policy and top national security reporters from The New York Times and The Washington Post.

The exercise by the “Aspen Digital Hack-and-Dump Working Group” involved an 11-day scenario in October 2020 that began with the imaginary release of falsified records related to Hunter Biden’s controversial employment by the Ukrainian energy company Burisma, which paid him as much as $1 million a year to serve on its board when his father was vice president.

“The goal was to shape how the media covered it — and how social media carried it,” Shellenberger wrote.

But the drill was put into practical use weeks later, when The Post broke the news about Hunter Biden’s infamous laptop — which was either ignored or downplayed by most mainstream news outlets and suppressed by both Twitter and Facebook. (Read more from “US Tax Dollars Used to Wargame Media Suppression of Hunter Biden Crimes Months Before 2020 Election” HERE)

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White House Claimed 1 Million New Jobs in Second Quarter. Feds Say That Number’s off by 1 Million.

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The Biden administration vastly overstated its estimate that employers created more than 1 million jobs in the second quarter of this year, claiming historic job growth when in fact hiring had stalled, according to a new estimate.

Job growth was “essentially flat” in the second quarter with only 10,500 new jobs added, the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia said.

Republicans are accusing the administration of lying about the employment data in an election year and are demanding answers.

The Philadelphia Fed’s new assessment shows that employment numbers in 29 states and the District of Columbia were significantly lower than the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported for the March-through-June period.

The BLS, a division of the Department of Labor, estimated net job growth of 1,047,000 jobs in the second quarter. The Philadelphia Fed now says its data shows that 10,500 net jobs were created in that period. (Read more from “White House Claimed 1 Million New Jobs in Second Quarter. Feds Say That Number’s off by 1 Million.” HERE)

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New York Times Slammed Over ‘Swastika’ Crossword Puzzle

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Several people are calling out the New York Times after the shape of its Sunday crossword puzzle resembled a swastika.

Twitter users slammed the American newspaper on Dec. 18, with many people calling the Sunday edition of its puzzle “disgusting” and “shocking,” with some noting that it was published before the first evening of Hanukkah.

The puzzle, titled “Some Theme’s Missing,” was created by Ryan McCarty, a Washington, D.C.-based consulting manager who has previously created 22 other puzzles for the paper.

“He started this grid in the middle and worked his way out, stirring in a heap of fresh, lively vocabulary, including 20 debut entries,” a New York Times article said.

(Read more from “New York Times Slammed Over ‘Swastika’ Crossword Puzzle” HERE)

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Vatican Defrocks Pro-life Priest for ‘Blasphemous Communications’

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The Vatican defrocked pro-life priest Father Frank Pavone this week for what it claimed were “blasphemous” social media posts and alleged disobedience to his bishop, but he has vowed to continue exposing abortion, Democrats, and “the Swamp.”

In a letter to American bishops from the Vatican ambassador to the United States, Archbishop Christophe Pierre explained the decision was made in early November and “there was no chance for an appeal,” the Associated Press (AP) reported Sunday.

In a social media post-Saturday evening, Pavone said, “We have only just begun exposing #abortion, exposing the Democrats, exposing the Swamp (in both the state & the church).”

“One of the tactics of them all is that they think they can get away with their evil and shut the rest of us up. Wow, have they underestimated their opponents!” he continued:

In a subsequent post, Pavone wrote that in every profession, if one defends the unborn “you will be treated like them! The only difference is that when we are ‘aborted,’ we continue to speak, loud and clear.”

(Read more from “Vatican Defrocks Pro-life Priest for ‘Blasphemous Communications’” HERE)

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Franklin Graham Responds to Christian Singer’s Plan To Host Lesbian Wedding: Don’t ‘Compromise’ God’s Authority

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The Rev. Franklin Graham criticized contemporary Christian music star Amy Grant after she and her husband announced their plans to host a same-sex wedding for their niece at their farm, denouncing homosexuality as a sin.

In a Sunday Facebook post, Graham, the son of legendary evangelist Billy Graham and head of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, said, “God defines what is sin, not us; and His Word is clear that homosexuality is sin.”

Graham took issue with Grant being quoted in a Washington Post article as saying: “Jesus, you just narrowed it down to two things: love God and love each other.” The artist told the outlet about her and her husband’s plans to host her niece’s wedding at their farm. The wedding will be the family’s “first bride and bride” nuptials, according to the report.

The 70-year-old Graham agreed that God calls Christians to love one another but cited John 14:15 to stress that loving the Lord means obeying Him.

“We have all sinned, and in order to have a relationship with God and spend eternity with Him in Heaven, we must turn from our sin and put our faith in His Son, Jesus Christ, who came to earth to die for our sins,” Graham wrote.

(Read more from “Franklin Graham Responds to Christian Singer’s Plan To Host Lesbian Wedding: Don’t ‘Compromise’ God’s Authority” HERE)

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More Than $3 Million Later, Here’s What the January 6th Committee Came up With

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The House of Representative’s select committee established by Speaker Nancy Pelosi to investigate the events of January 6, 2021 held its final public hearing on Monday and announced it would be making four criminal referrals for former President Donald Trump to the Department of Justice.

The four referrals are for:

Obstruction of an official proceeding
Conspiracy to defraud the United States
Conspiracy to make a false statement
Inciting or assisting an insurrection

Trump was not alone, either. A number of his associates were also referred to the DOJ, including Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Kenneth Chesebro, Mark Meadows, and Jeffrey Clark. (Read more from “More Than $3 Million Later, Here’s What the January 6th Committee Came up With” HERE)

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