Fierce is a free weekly newsletter about conservative women and politics.
I’ll be completely honest with you. The reason Fierce is hitting your inbox on a Monday is because I spent an inordinate amount of time on Zillow this weekend looking for our next house. In my (weak) defense, we’re looking to move to Florida and, well, it’s a darn big state and there are lots of listings to check out. Anyway, sorry for the late newsletter — I can’t promise it won’t happen again (this is my first out of state move since I was five, after all), but I will try my best to stick to the weekend schedule!
The House wasn’t in session last week — yay! — but there was still plenty of news being made, some good and some downright unconstitutional. Looking at you, Pelosi.
In today’s edition:
We gained another Fierce Force member when Republican Julia Letlow won the special election in Louisiana’s Fifth Congressional District
Nancy Pelosi says it’s “her right” to decide whether or not Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks gets to keep her seat
Gov. Kristi Noem rankled conservatives over her handling of a fairness in women’s sports bill that hit her desk
— Teri Christoph (Email: fierce@substack.com)
Let’s start off with the good news: Republican Julia Letlow won the special election in LA’s 5th CD. She ran to replace her husband, Luke, who was elected in November and died of COVID-19 just a few days before he was to be sworn in. It’s great to see the ranks of the GOP freshman class grow — they’re an important line in the sand between us regular folk and the power hungry elites in DC. Read on for more on that.
As we talked about in last week’s newsletter, House Democrats have decided they are the ones who should determine if Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, the certified winner of Iowa’s Second Congressional District, should keep her seat or if it should go to the sore loser, Democrat Rita Hart. A rational person would look at the situation, acknowledge that winning by six votes is the slenderest of margins and accept that Iowa’s election officials knew what they were doing when they certified the results after two recounts. But we’re not dealing with rational people, we’re dealing with Nancy Pelosi and her merry band of marauders.
Rep. Nancy Mace had some things to say about that:
When you talk about a legally certified election, the votes in Mariannette Meeks' race were counted and recounted and in some instances were recounted for a third time again...
If we’re going to have voting system standards we’ve got to have it across the board ... Nancy Pelosi’s in power and she wants to have more power. This is a power grab by Nancy Pelosi and D.C. Democrats.
Exactly. Rep. Ashley Hinson spearheaded an effort to stop Pelosi from disenfranchising the voters of IA-02.
Fox News noted that several big Democrat corporate donors, including Amazon, Google and Facebook, have remained silent on Pelosi’s power grab.
Amazon and Facebook each gave $30,000 to the DCCC during the 2020 cycle through their political action committees (PACs). Google gave $37,000 and Microsoft gave $34,000 through their PACs. All four companies did not respond to repeated requests for comment from Fox News on whether or not they support the Democrats’ attempts overturning Miller-Meeks' election.
This right here is why H.R. 1 must not be allowed to pass in the Senate. Without fair elections, Nancy Pelosi and her ilk will continue to take what they want and face no repercussions. You might want to see where your Senators stand on H.R. 1. If they’re for it, make your voice of opposition heard.
One last note about Pelosi’s attempt to steal the election from the GOP: Would it surprise you to learn that a lawyer linked to the fraudulent Steele dossier is helping Democrats in this effort? Of course it doesn’t surprise you. The Daily Caller has more:
[Marc] Elias was the attorney who hired Fusion GPS on behalf of the DNC and Clinton campaign to investigate Donald Trump’s possible ties to Russia. As part of the project, Fusion GPS hired former British spy Christopher Steele to conduct the investigation.
Isn’t that cozy?
Meanwhile, Gov. Kristi Noem has royally ticked off conservatives over her inartful handling of a bill to protect girls and young women from facing competition from biological males in high school and college sports. Per PJ Media:
What happened? Earlier this month, Noem proudly announced that she would sign H.B. 1217, noting her firm defense of women’s sports on International Women’s Day.
According to Schilling, however, Noem had “frozen out advocates of HB 1217” for a week and instead took “advice from the bill’s most vocal critics, which include the South Dakota Chamber of Commerce and the South Dakota Board of Regents.”
Some have questioned if Noem’s about-face was due, in part, to her wanting to keep the leftist’s at Amazon happy; a proposed fulfillment center in Sioux Falls would bring additional jobs to the state. Tucker Carlson took things further on his show, suggesting Noem was kowtowing to the likes of the NCAA and U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
For her part, Noem said she was “concerned that this bill’s vague and overly broad language could have significant unintended consequences.” This may be, but her handling of the matter — particularly her sloppy messaging — left some of us wondering about her ability to play a larger role on the national stage.
Tyler O’Neil at PJ Media sums it up well, writing: “Noem should have strategized with the Republicans in South Dakota’s legislature before suddenly turning on them like this. This partial veto gave transgender advocates a victory and made the process of passing a bill with real teeth more difficult.”
Of Note
REP. FISCHBACH: Politics Of Playgrounds — RSC Women Aim To Aid Working Moms
Free Speech Pledge: Lawmakers and the Public Speak Up for Freedom of Speech
REP. MICHELLE STEEL AND REP. BURGESS OWENS: The PRO Act Fails American Workers
Rep. Tenney to Newsmax TV: 'Human Trafficking the Issue Now' at Southern Border
Question of the Week
Last week’s question was:
Is it time for government to start regulating social media?
About three-quarters of you were reluctantly in favor of government stepping to regulate social media, but a very vocal one-quarter of you were against it. Not one of you whole-heartedly embraced the idea of more government regulation, so good on ya!
Some of your replies:
“No to regulating anything YES to getting a life !”
“I’m generally not in favor of the government regulating ANYTHING. That said, I believe we need to define social media as either a platform or a publisher. Then these companies must adhere to the laws accordingly.”
“Censorship, when one sided against a particular group, is a socialist tool and should never be allowed.”
“Who says they aren’t already regulating social media?”
Alrighty then.
Here’s your new Question of the Week:
How would you described your current political affiliation? Republican? Democrat? Libertarian? Disgusted? Homeless? Other?
Please shoot me your response at fierce@substack.com.
RIP, Beverly Cleary
Teri Christoph is the publisher of the Fierce newsletter. She is co-founder of Smart Girl Politics, an online network for women, and can be found on Twitter, Gab and MeWe.