For seven years, scandals and public rifts have rocked the declining Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). The spectacle of division and embarrassment continued at the just-concluded annual meeting of Baptists in Anaheim.

Now, for the first time, the establishment class of the largest and ostensibly conservative protestant denomination in America is visibly divided against itself. Albert Mohler, the president of the denominations flagship seminary, has publicly broken ranks with SBC elites who have rushed to defend megachurch pastor Rick Warren. Warren is accused of violating the denominations doctrinal standards.

Warrens Saddleback church boasts some 20,000 in attendance, making it the largest congregation in the SBC. His 2002 publication, The Purpose Driven Life, with more than 30 million copies sold, is one of the bestselling nonfiction books in history.

Warrens openness to the political left is evidenced by giving the invocation at Barack Obamas inauguration in 2009 and attending the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. In Davos, Warren met and befriended National Institutes of Health head Francis Collins, a pro-abortion bureaucrat who joined with former SBC chief ethicist Russell Moore to criticize Donald Trump voters.

On May 6, 2021, Warrens Saddleback Church ordained three women as pastors, in defiance of both the clear teaching of the Bible and Article VI of the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 (BFM 2000). The latter states, While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture. Rather than reprimand Saddleback, SBC Credentials committee chair Linda Cooper asked the convention to appoint a committee to study the meaning of the word pastor and report back to the convention next year.

In a surprise appearance, Warren addressed the convention: Welcome to Orange County, with 149 Southern Baptist churches, 90 of them started by Saddleback . . . it is customary for a guy who is about to be hung to let him say his dying words. Then this: I have no intention of defending myself . . . I am most like Christ when I refuse to defend myself.

Warren then read a prepared love letter to Southern Baptists. He said hes planted thousands of churches around the world. Ive had the privilege for 43 years of training 1.1 million pastors. Sorry friends. Thats more than all the seminaries put together.

By my calculation, that comes to 71 pastors trained per day for 43 straight years! One wonders if the churches planted and pastors trained, whatever the actual numbers, have also adopted a pick-and-choose posture toward the Bible and BFM 2000 articles, as modeled by Warren and Saddleback.

Warren then chided messengers who frown upon the liberties Saddleback has taken with clear scriptural teaching: Are we going to keep bickering over secondary things or are we going to keep the main thing the main thing? Warren did not specify the main thing referenced.

Mohler responded, I served on the committee that brought the BFM in 2000 that was overwhelmingly adopted by this convention. . . If we eventually have to form a study committee over every word in our confession of faith then were doomed, were no longer a confessional people. . . the words mean what Southern Baptists said in the year 2000 [that] pastor is the most easily understood word among Southern Baptists for pastoral teaching and leadership.

Cooper, answered, I know what pastor means but to some of our Southern Baptist churches pastor means a spiritual gift that is given to many people. Coopers response exposes the core cause of theological compromise of the wider evangelical industrial complex that phalanx of luminaries and institutions associated with Presbyterian Pastor Timothy Keller.

It encompasses not only the SBC but also the Presbyterian church in America, many non-denominational congregations, and every major evangelical publishing house, including the venerable and once-stalwart Eerdmans, which joined in this years homosexual Pride festivities. The touchstone of doctrine for Cooper is not the Bible, the BFM 2000, the Christian tradition, nor anything boasting ancient roots, but the committees current reading of what some of our Southern Baptist churches believe and practice.

We are witnessing the step-by-step genuflection of the last major conservative Christian institutions in America before the same insidious force leftists have succumbed to for 200 years. Thats what Southern Baptist theologian Timothy George called the imperialism of the present.

On both sides of the ocean, from the heady days when the father of Protestant Liberalism Friedrich Schleiermacher (d. 1834) held forth at Trinity Church in Berlin to Brooklyn Heightss national sensation, Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887) to that sometime Presbyterian, sometime Baptist preacher at Riverside Church in Manhattan, Harry Emerson Fosdick (1878-1969), to todays Joel Osteen, progressive preachers have made the satisfaction of contemporary sensibilities, not the Bible or doctrine, priority number one. Why do they do it? Because, in business terms, measured in bodies, buildings, and bucks, at least for a time, it works.

The fawning protection of Warren by SBC establishment elites in Anaheim is just the tip of the iceberg. For more than a decade, Keller and SBC entity heads have sought, found, and employed winsome ways to reach contemporaries deemed capable of keeping evangelicals on the right side of history, namely the blue communities of college-educated, Democrat-voting denizens of the nations cities and blue enclaves scattered across the fruited plain.

That population has drunk deeply from the well of second-wave feminism that lacks patience with ancient Biblical distinctions between the proper roles of men and women in the church. The businesspersons hyper-alertness to the satisfaction of contemporary customers, and preservation and expansion of market share, best account for why Cooper cited the committees reading of contemporary views about the word pastor rather than either the Bible or Article VI of her own denominations confession in defense of Saddleback.

Christians anchored to the Bible and the confessions of faith crafted to protect and preserve the teaching of the Bible, have always, eventually, come to recognize such progressive catering to culture as sub-Christian lapses from the faith once delivered to the saints. If history is any guide, the SBCs current iteration of this old pattern shall meet with a similar fate.

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By Catering To Rick Warren, Baptists Subvert The Bible To Social Fads - The Federalist

The U.S. Supreme Courts Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization ruling is not the end of the fight for unborn lives. Its the beginning of a long, drawn-out battle to save unborn lives in all 50 states which are no longer under the curse of Roe v. Wade.

Despite the moaning, groaning, and gnashing of teeth from the pro-abortion left and their cronies in the corrupt corporate media that the end of womens health is near, the Supreme Courts decision to overturn the infamous ruling from 1973 will give states the authority to create their own protections for life inside the womb.

Voters and legislators in several states such as Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, and Montana, are attempting through petitions and bills to incorporate laws or constitutional amendments affirming an unborn or born alive babys right to live on their respective 2022 midterm ballots. Their quest to explicitly defend and protect unborn children, as stated in the Iowa legislatures proposal, would strengthen the states abilities to restrict and even ban abortion.

Many of these measures are strongly opposed by pro-abortion groups and politicians who arent happy to see Roe go. In Kansas, Democrat Gov.Laura Kelly wrote off her states proposed life-saving amendment as an economic development issue.

There are a number of CEOs who really look to see what kind of inclusive policies we have in place that make it easier for them to recruit and retain a talented work force. It will be an economic development issue for us, Kelly said.

A Dobbs victory is worth celebrating because it means that pro-lifers who have benefitted from years of the cultural swing towards preserving life have an even better chance at protecting the unborn. But beware because it also opens the door for radically pro-baby-killing states to double down on their abortion agendas.

While pro-life voters and legislatures are actively fighting to amend constitutions to include protections for preborn babies, pro-abortion groups are plotting to take advantage of the festering Dobbs panic on the left and in the corporate media to rally their troops to put killing infants back on the books. Many blue states are trying to radically codify the unmitigated slaughter of unborn infants. If they are successful, hundreds of thousands of preborn babies will continue to die in states, predominantly Democrat-controlled ones, each and every year.

In Arizona, the pro-abortion group Arizonans for Reproductive Freedom is racing against the clock to gather enough signatures on a petition that would put killing unborn babies up for a vote in November. If certified by the secretary of state at the July 7 deadline and then approved by enough voters in the fall, the Grand Canyon States constitution would be amended to endorse abortions up to the point in a pregnancy at which there is a reasonable likelihood of sustained fetal survival outside the uterus with or without artificial support.

At the behest of Planned Parenthood and Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom, leftist legislators in California are already well on their way to codifying abortion. Just this week, the state senate passed a constitutional amendment that would bar the Golden State from banning abortion. If two-thirds of the California state assembly votes to pass the amendment by June 30, it will appear on voters ballots in November.

In Michigan, the pro-abortion group Reproductive Freedom For All has teamed up with Planned Parenthood, ACLU of Michigan, and progressive organization Michigan Voices, to garner public support for a constitutional amendment that would solidify abortion as an unregulated practice in the state.

If the measure is added to the ballot and subsequently passed by voters, something Democrat Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has expressed support for, it would not only keep abortions around in Michigan but would likely make them more accessible by neutering laws banning baby killing after viability and permitting minors to get abortions without parental consent.

This poorly-worded amendment would repeal dozens of state laws, including our states ban on tax-funded abortions, the partial-birth abortion ban, and fundamentally alter the parent-child relationship by preventing parents from having input on their childrens health, Citizens to Support MI Women and Children said in a statement rejecting the attempt to codify abortion.

Perhaps the most radical example of this push to codify abortion is in Vermont. Abortion in Vermont already became codified in 2019, but pro-abortion politicians and organizations in the state, including GOP Gov. Phil Scott, Democrat Lt. Gov. Molly Gray, the ACLU of Vermont, and Planned Parenthood Action Fund, are pushing for voters to take it one step further and amend the state constitution in favor of killing unborn babies and mutilating children.

Come November, Vermonters will choose whether to approve or reject the measure which claims abortion is a right that shall not be infringed and that the fatal practice is central to the liberty and dignity to determine ones own life course. If the measure passes, Vermonts constitution likely be endorsing taxpayer-funded irreversible sex experiments on children.

Dobbs is not the end-all solution because theres still plenty of pro-life work left to be done in states, especially those like Vermont where leftists are dreaming up new ways to hurt children. Conservatives and pro-lifers need to act now while the wind from possibly the largest Supreme Court decision in history is behind their backs.

Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire and Fox News. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.

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Dobbs Isn't The End. It's The Beginning Of A Ballot Measure Battle To Save Preborn Lives In Every State - The Federalist

Marilyn Monroe made history again in March of this year when her portrait sold for $195 million, more than any other work by a 20th-century artist at auction. Sixty years after her death at the age of 36, Monroe is still one of societys foremost icons and is often imitated by todays most influential celebrities.

Take Billie Eilish for one. Eilish rocked the Met Gala last year with a deviation from her usual street style to a Marilyn Monroe-inspired ballgown, only to be topped at the 2022 Met Gala by Kim Kardashian wearing (and reportedly ruining) Marilyn Monroes iconic dress that she wore when she sang Happy Birthday to President John F. Kennedy.

2021 brought us a new documentary of Monroe, and this spring Netflix aired another documentary featuring interviews with Monroes inner circle. Now, Netflix is releasing yet another film about Monroe, Blonde, starring Ana de Armas in September.

To sum it up: we love Marilyn Monroe.

Monroe had all the factors by which to make her a lasting star a rumored scandal with JFK, early status as a sex symbol, and an early death. But there is one more component that forever fixed Monroes position as the north star in todays record of fallen lights: She lived in the 1950s.

Our cultures fixation with Marilyn Monroe flows largely from the dichotomy between her image and her era. Monroe was a sex symbol in a Hollywood wholly unknown to the modern viewer one that condemned actors filming in the same bed, onscreen kisses of more than three seconds, foul or sexual language, etc. Studios didnt drop the strict production code until 1968.

Hollywood of the 50s marketed desire, not sex. And theres something about this forbearance to a modern age with no modesty that attracts us. Theres something alluring about not baring all. Marilyn Monroe is a sex symbol, but only because we never watch her have sex.

Modern sex symbols are harder to find. Women like Megan Fox, Rihanna, and Kim Kardashian are our modern equivalents but they blend in. They fade into a culture of sexual license and become known for their talents or wealth. Promiscuity is too general now to establish one in the hall of fame. They dont compare with Marilyn Monroe, and everyone knows it.

What truly makes Monroe a sex symbol is the society of the 50s.

As such, Monroe is the emblem of a community we secretly admire but dont actually want. The one that looked down on divorce and sleeping around and drugs and had never heard of trans. We think weve liberated ourselves from this eras moral limits, and yet when we look at many of our popular films and TV shows, we find ourselves going back to what we left.

Downton Abbey: A New Era was just released last month. The second season of Bridgerton dropped this year. Persuasion is coming in July to add to the film and TV adaptions of Jane Austens works that have been making bank for the last twenty years. WandaVision in 2021 was a shorter reach back in time but one just as well-loved with the audience.

Though we deny it, we find a community set of values appealing. It brings together instead of dividing like your truth, my truth, and it rewards patience, commitment, and hard work unlike the modern staples of social media, porn, and video games.

Community standards are appealing to us, yes, but not worth the work. We might want the effects of the 50s community standards and of the rigid moral code of Jane Austens world and the purpose, respect, and chivalry of its inhabitants, but we also want overt sexualization. And desire trumps sex is a hard sell.

So, we take replicate the community of conservative eras, and we think itll be better if we put some sex in it. We take the career of Marilyn Monroe, sprinkle in a lot of smut, and we get Blonde, the first original Netflix film to gain an NC-17 rating. We take the societal norms of Regency England, throw in obscene amounts of nudity and we get Bridgerton.

We think these hybrids will make us happy. And they do entertain Bridgerton is the #1 most-watched English-speaking show on Netflix. And yet we betray ourselves with every nod to Marilyn Monroe. Somethings wrong, we feel it. We believe a house with no walls is no house, but we ditch the only thing that separates a man from an animal his morals and think well be satisfied.

Beth Whitehead is an intern at The Federalist and a journalism major at Patrick Henry College where she fondly excuses the excess amount of coffee she drinks as an occupational hazard.

Excerpt from:

Our Fixation With Marilyn Monroe Reveals Our Desire For 1950s Morality - The Federalist

MORGANTOWN, W. V. When I moved to this college town in the summer of 1975 as a 10-year-old Muslim immigrant girl from India, I found my stride doing something very simple: tackling the rolling hills outside our home on Cottonwood Street.

Each day, I logged my mile running the same route, down Cottonwood, down Headlee, up Pineview, up Cottonwood as religiously as I did my prayers. I subscribed to Runners World magazine and Boston Marathon winner Bill Rodgers became my hero. Every morning, Id meditate upon the image of then-Bruce Jenner to put a kick in my step. Running 10ks and competing in cross country and girls track in middle school and high school made me a lifelong athlete.

In recent years, girls and women in sports have come under attack as a result of an aggressive, well-funded campaign to allow boys and men who identify as girls and women to compete in female sports, in the name of transgender rights. University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas, a male who competed in mens swimming then last year started swimming on the womens team after identifying as female, has most notoriously dominated womens swimming after the NAACP allowed Thomas to compete in womens swimming.

Too often, athletes, parents, and sports organizations who disagree with males in womens sports have cowered or stayed silent in the face of this controversy because shaming naysayers as transphobic is a tactic of activists on this issue, just as racist and Islamophobic are weaponized to silence people on issues of race and religion.

But that is now finally changing. Earlier this week, the International Swimming Federation (FINA) voted to approve a new policy restricting most transgender athletes from competing in elite womens aquatic competitions. Then on Wednesday, the International Rugby League ruled that transgender athletes cannot compete in womens sports,

A mother in Australia, Katherine Deves, expressed relief, writing on Twitter: I am relieved and delighted my daughters sport is now safe and fair at [the] elite level.

On Thursday, the 50th anniversary of signing Title IX into law, a diverse team of athletes stood under the banner, Our Bodies, Our Sports, at Freedom Plaza on Pennsylvania Avenue, blocks from the White House, to stand together for protecting girls and womens sports for guess what girls and women. The rally was supported by the Independent Womens Network, where Im a senior fellow in the practice of journalism and a parent advocate.

After much reflection, as a classic liberal and feminist, I am proud to have stood with the athletes and advocates speaking up for girls and women in sports. This is not just an issue any longer of conservatives.

Included among the advocates were lesbian rights activist Lauren Levey and womens rights advocate Amanda Houdeschell, a leader at the Womens Liberation Front, known as WoLF. Ive created a Whos Who on my Substack. These athletes are champions in their sports and now they are trailblazers in public policy. They include:

Former Democratic Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, an original sponsor of the Protect Womens Sports Act, says protecting girls and womens sports is a feminist issue that should be supported by anyone of either party who wants to increase opportunities for women and girls.

Activists and politicians have just gone too far in laying claim to womens and girls sports. I say this as someone who has faced death threats advocating for the rights of gay, lesbian, and transgender people in Muslim countries, where in too many nations a person having anything but heterosexual sex within a marriage can be a crime punishable by death.

Long before I was a journalist or senior anything anywhere, I was just a girl running the Coliseum track in Morgantown. Athletics specifically girls athletics empowered me as a Muslim girl in West Virginia.

I still remember, as if it were yesterday, the call I got from a classmate named Jane, inviting me to join a relay team for our track meet at Suncrest Junior High School. As I passed the baton to Lynda McCroskey, I felt strong and empowered.

A cousin came one day and saw me running in shorts, and he told my father, That is haram for her to show her legs. Haram is the Arabic word for illegal.

Indeed, too often, girls in my religiously conservative Muslim communities arent allowed to bicycle or run as we near puberty for fear of breaking our hymen, or maidenheads, and losing our virginity. Whats more, our movement, the sun on our bare arms, or the wind in our hair can be deemed haram. In Pakistan, women have defied threats to run a road race.

My father, a firm believer in girls and womens rights, ignored my cousins complaint. I continued running and competing against girls my age.

At Morgantown High School, I had to run against boys in cross country because it was 1978 when I was a high school freshman. My classmate, Kaye, and I didnt have enough girls to make a girls team. I still remember a boy hobbling as if his knee was in pain right before I was about to pass him.

As hard as we trained, Kaye and I were only fast enough to qualify for the boys junior varsity team. It would take us four years on junior varsity to qualify to letter and get the much-coveted lettermans jacket as a Morgantown High Mohican.

The cartilage in my right knee wore thin by my junior year when Big Al, the trainer, had me popping daily ibuprofen for the pain. I couldnt run cross-country my senior year, alas, and never got my varsity letter. What I did get was a priceless, lifelong devotion to athletics.

Its with much meditation that I now say we have to keep girls and womens sports for those born female. As parent advocate Harry Jackson, a lacrosse and football referee and former Olympic-level athlete, suggests: sports federations can create open categories in which athletes born male and self-identifying as a female can compete. Or sports authorities can find some other solution. But having males compete with girls and women isnt the answer.

My younger self is an empowered woman today because of what running the Coliseum track with girls as Jane and Kaye allowed me. As we find solutions to support transgender athletes, we should allow the same destiny for all young girls.

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The Tide Is Finally Turning Towards Fairness In Women's Sports - The Federalist

Imagine an America in which a summa cum laude medical graduate interviews at countless medical schools but cannot find one that will tolerate her Christian faith, a faith-based pro-life clinic faces a financial crisis after having its federal Title X funds stripped away, and federal agencies discriminate against hospitals and clinics nationwide for refusing to kowtow to the administrations extremist stances on abortion, sexuality, and marriage.

That reality is already well on its way here, and will only get worse with the proposed elimination of U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) conscience protections for health professionals. President Joe Bidens HHS announced last week that the agency is in the rulemaking processof rolling back former President Donald Trumps protections for medical personnel whose faith prevents them from performing procedures like abortion.

Already, the three above examples are happening.

I was top of my class (summa cum laude) as an undergrad at UC Berkeley, had an MCAT score above the average of all the medical schools I applied to, and I had participated in many extracurriculars, reports one young woman. I think I applied to essentially all of the medical schools in my home state of California. I did not get even a single interviewexcept for the faith-based school of Loma Linda.

In a national scientific survey of faith-based health professionals that I constructed in 2019, 3 in 5 respondents agreed with the poll statement that it is common that doctors, medical students or other health-care professionals face discrimination for declining to participate in activities or provide medical procedures to which they have moral or religious objections.

Pro-life clinics like the example above will be at risk to lose federal Title X family planning funds thanks to the Biden administrations scheme, announced in April 2021, that would reverse a Trump administration policy and require grantees to make abortion referrals: Each project supported under this part must offer pregnant clients the opportunity to be provided information and counseling regarding pregnancy termination.

The abortion referral requirement affects pro-life clinics such as Staten Island, N.Y.s Beacon Christian Community Health Center. Beacon won an award under the Trump rule but no longer receives Title X funds to aid its low-income patients. The Biden administration is moving to effectively reserve those funds for its abortion business political supporters.

Finally, federal agencies are already working to discriminate against hospitals and clinics that dont match their ideology, eliminating conscientious objectors. Bidens HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra has signaled he will cease the prosecution of conscience law violators.

As The Federalist has documented, Bidens HHS has torn down the Conscience and Religious Freedom Division, stripped the HHS Office of Civil Rights authority to enforce conscience and religious objections, dismissed a case of forced abortion participation, assured abortionists that We have your back, and rescinded conscience waivers that had allowed federal grants to faith-based adoption and foster care agencies.

The Biden administration now is churning out rules that aggressively enforce its ideology on abortion; religious exemptions; insurance coverage of contraceptives and abortifacients; sterilization; allowing men in womens sports, bathrooms, and locker rooms; compelled speech; and Title IX sexual harassment due process protections. These ideologically driven restrictions could slam the door on thousands of pro-life hospitals and clinics as well as highly effective faith-based social programs for adoption and foster care, food and clothing distribution, mental health service, ex-offender programs, drug and alcohol rehabilitation, marriage and family counseling, and teen pregnancy prevention programs.

Such animosity toward persons of faith and pro-life convictions would only accelerate and exacerbate the long-predicted physician shortage crisis, leaving poor and marginalized patients without the faith-based care on which they had depended.

At the top of the administrations list of ideological mandates, however, is abortion, an issue on which self-described good Catholic Joe Biden apparently suffers from catechetical dementia.In 2006, Biden proudly proclaimed, I do not vote for funding for abortion.

But in his 2019 presidential run, he dropped his long-standing support for the Hyde Amendment that prohibits most federal funding for abortion. His administrations blitzkrieg of rules is now embedding abortion ideology even further in government policy while essentially eliminating funding for abortion opponents.

The administrations anti-religion ideological purge threatens to create what Richard John Neuhaus warned of in 1984 a naked public square, a government devoid of religious participation, values, and moral influence. In particular, excluding people of faith from health care bodes severe consequences.

Both our 2019 national survey of faith-based health professionals and another in 2009 revealed that 91 percent of respondents said they either strongly or somewhat agreed with the statement, I would rather stop practicing medicine altogether than be forced to violate my conscience. They cannot separate their faith-motivated mission to care for the poor from their faith commitment to honor the sanctity of human life.

Left unchecked, the Biden administration may well succeed in driving the pro-life and faith communities out of partnerships with the federal government. The victims of the resulting naked public square will be millions of patients, the poor, and other needy and suffering individuals served by faith-based health and social services programs.

Jonathan Imbody is a writer and consultant with FaithSteps.net and has several decades of experience in federal healthcare and religious freedom public policy.

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Biden Is Purging From Health Care Anyone Who Thinks Babies Are People And Men Aren't Women - The Federalist

New York Times columnist Charles Blow recently claimed to be truly shocked by a poll showing President Biden with a 33 percent approval rating. I was shocked, too how could his approval rating be that high?

Blow, of course, is surprised at Bidens unpopularity, and worried that the Democrats are stumbling into a bloodbath in the November midterms. Blow is paid to understand and explain politics and culture to his readers. That he is surprised reveals a lot about the bubble he is in. And his meandering analysis of Democrats problems illustrates how the ideology making Democrats unpopular is also preventing them from understanding why they are unpopular.

Blow initially blames Biden for being too much of a decent man sober and straightforward rather than a showman. This is a ludicrous assessment of a politician, who, until age caught up with his tongue, was one of D.C.s preeminent bloviators. Nonetheless, Blows ordinary partisan delusion is less interesting than the ideological blind spots revealed when he turns to genuine sources of Bidens unpopularity, such as the fear of crime and the pinch of inflation and that Republicans are playing heavily into culture war issues.

Although Blow does not seem to realize it, these issues combine to reinforce voters disapproval of Biden. Democratic failures on bread and butter issues such as crime and inflation are related to the culture-war radicalism that has captured their party.

Twitter, not the blue-collar union hall, is now the heart of the Democratic Party, which is controlled by the educated, urban professional-managerial class, epitomized by woke, union-busting CEOs. This faction has merged the class and culture wars championing cultural radicalism, entrenching its own economic interests, and neglecting the common good.

The Democrats are the party of wealthy diversity consultants lecturing hourly workers about white privilege and cis-heteropatriarchy while inflation eats away at wages and investment firms buy up homes in the hope of making America a nation of permanent renters. The governing priorities of those running the Democratic Party are sending government money to their clients (from teachers unions to Planned Parenthood) and waging culture war.

And they are fanatical culture warriors. Consider Blows complaint that the GOP is challenging the teaching of Black history and the history of white supremacy in schools, as well as restricting discussions of L.G.B.T. issues and campaigning against trans women and girls competing in sports with other women and girls. He adds that Republicans are using white parental fear, particularly the fears of white moms.

This litany of whines highlights the bubble Blow and his audience at The New York Times are in. Ordinary Americans know the difference between teaching history and teaching poisonous ideology derived from critical race theory. Americans understand that it is unjust for males to compete in womens sports, and that it is perverse to teach young children about sex and gender ideology. They are angry when educators encourage children to transition, and outraged when they hide it from parents.

Voters have also noticed that the cultural left never stops where it says it will. We were assured that the LGBT movement was about tolerance for consenting adult relationships; now it is about transgender toddlers, child drag queens, and men in girls locker rooms. We are also now told that being anti-racist somehow means judging people based on the color of their skin. Blow and other bubbled liberals may be okay with mastectomies for confused teenage girls, but most Americans are not.

This cultural radicalism erodes Democrats ability to govern competently. Sometimes this is the result of neglecting the basic tasks of government in order to prioritize boutique cultural issues, other times it is a direct consequence of ideology, as exemplified in the crime wave resulting from woke prosecutors and defunding the police.

In either case, wokeness is an ideology for those who are cushioned from its consequences. Indeed, wokeness is primarily a phenomenon of the college-educated, and especially the well-off; it is a niche, luxury political philosophy that thrives among the privileged and in the shelter of academia.

But though it is often a political liability, there are ways it serves the interests of its adherents. In particular, woke ideology legitimates the rule of the woke over the non-woke, and justifies economic exploitation and socio-political repression.

Wokeness claims to reveal the systems of unjust oppression that permeate society; it focuses on race, sex, and gender, and relegates economic class to a second-tier concern. This allows many of the privileged and powerful to claim to be righteous allies of the oppressed without having to sacrifice economic or social power or position. Indeed, many can claim to be oppressed themselves. This is why wokeness tends to focus on BIPoC and LGBT representation in boardrooms and Ivy League campuses, rather than helping the working class.

Thus, it is to be expected that woke discourse often suggests that the working class (especially working-class whites) have it coming for their sins of racism, sexism, transphobia, and so on the wicked deserve punishment, not sympathy. This is why pundits such as Blow are so quick to accuse dissenters of racism and bigotry. And it is why the woke left supports oligarchic power in pursuit of its aims, and eagerly uses economic, technological, and cultural power to suppress dissent.

This is why professors are having to submit woke loyalty oaths in the form of diversity statements, and why mandatory diversity, equity, and inclusion training has become the norm in the corporate world. This is why the left is eager to use social media censorship to suppress misinformation which in many cases is truth that is inconvenient to the regime (e.g., the Hunter Biden laptop story).

It is also why the left cannot understand its own failures. They have isolated themselves in a bubble that has drifted so far from reality and the concerns of normal voters that even electoral disaster may not bring them back to Earth. Cocooned in privilege and ideology, they think Biden is doing just fine. But most Americans have had enough of a government that is more committed to transitioning children than to controlling crime and inflation.

Nathanael Blake is a senior contributor to The Federalist and a postdoctoral fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

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How Democrats' Culture War Is Destroying Their Ability To Govern - The Federalist

The Labor Departments March inflation numbers released this month skyrocketed past Februarys, hitting a 12-month increase of 8.5 percent and the steepest annual increase since 1981. Thats no small figure, but most Americans know the inflation they encounter at the grocery store checkout, the gas pump, the car lot, and the leasing office is far higher than that.

Just look at basic items like groceries and gas, and youll see how much higher those necessities are climbing than the generic inflation figures slapped across headlines.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), in the average U.S. city, ground beef is up 14.9 percent since last March, boneless stew beef is up 24.3 percent, bacon is up 23.1 percent, boneless chicken breasts are up 17.6 percent, eggs are up 25.9 percent, milk is up 17 percent, frozen orange juice concentrate is up 18 percent, and ground coffee is up 15.8 percent. Meanwhile, fuel oil has jumped a whopping 71.5 percent, and utility gas is up 23.3 percent.

Many of these urban numbers dont even capture how steeply prices have risen for middle America, however. In the Midwest, ground beef has risen 24.5 percent, almost 10 percentage points more than the urban average.

While BLS breaks down beef products into ground beef, steaks, stew beef, etc., its all other uncooked beef category shows a drastic 38.2 percent jump in the Midwest, compared to a still-high rise of 25.4 percent in cities. The inflation of the price of bacon in the Midwest is 3 percentage points higher than in cities, while for boneless ham its more than 15 percentage points higher. The price of boneless chicken breasts in the Midwest jumped by31.2 percent, compared to 17.6 in U.S. cities.

In all likelihood, these prices arent done climbing. Investment firm Evercore ISI projected the price of chicken breasts to jump at a year-over-year rate of up to 70 percent in the first half of 2022, with beef and pork prices rising 20 percent.

So when you hear 8 percent inflation bandied about but feel certain your costs are rising at a far higher rate, youre not crazy youre just feeling the very real consequences of inflationary policies that Washington types are happy to brush off.

Dont listen to CNN journo-splaining to you Why inflation can actually be good for everyday Americans and bad for rich people. As Axios reported from Labor Department statistics, Shoppers with incomes of less than $40,000 arent buying as much fresh meat and seafood. Theyre turning to frozen meat or canned stuff instead and buying more store brands. Its these lower-income shoppers who are most at-risk as food prices rise.

Its also not just gas and groceries that are rising higher and faster than the nationally reported inflation numbers. According to a Redfinanalysis, February saw a 15 percent year-over-year increase in asking rent, and a 31 percent jump in the national homebuyers median monthly mortgage rate. Americans in the market to buy used vehicles have also seen a far higher price spike than the overall inflation rate in the past year, at a whopping41.2 percent as reported in March.

At the same time, wages cant keep pace with rising expenses, meaning Bidenflation is skimming off the top of Americans paychecks to the tune of around $4,200 in annual depreciation of the average salarys worth.

These are unsustainable numbers for most Americans, especially those who arent making as much as the politicians pushing bloated, multi-trillion-dollar spending plans to flood the economy with cash thats bleeding value. Legacy media outlets might try to downplay rising inflation as something that could be solved by eating lentils and letting the family pet die, but Americans know every time they buy groceries, fill the gas tank, or pay the utility bill how hard high-spending inflationary policies are making their lives.

Elle Reynolds is an assistant editor at The Federalist, and received her B.A. in government from Patrick Henry College with a minor in journalism. You can follow her work on Twitter at @_etreynolds.

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The Inflation Draining Your Wallet Is A Whole Lot Steeper Than 8 Percent - The Federalist

Mere minutes after Christian social media influencers Cole and Savannah (Sav) LaBrant uploaded a pro-life documentary to YouTube, the platform demonetized the video and removed it from its algorithm showing popular content. Instagram followed suit by deleting the LaBrants in-feed post, stating it did not adhere to Instagrams community guidelines. According to the LaBrants, the money that came from the YouTube ads would have been donated to crisis pregnancy centers.

This video came as a shock to many of the LaBrants loyal fans, as this type of content is not normal for the account despite their outspoken Christian views. Instead, they are known by their nearly 19 million Instagram followers for their adorable children, lighthearted content, and hilarious dance videos.

After teasing a new documentary for their YouTube channel for weeks, the couple released the nearly 40-minute documentary on abortion. The video has many facets and includes a look into the formation of a baby in the mothers womb, how abortion procedures work, and crisis pregnancy center resources.

This topic is near and dear to the hearts of Cole and Sav. When Sav was 19 years old, she became pregnant. While she says it was never a question of whether she would keep her baby, she understands the terror that a woman can feel when facing an unplanned pregnancy.

Before posting the documentary, many mentors and friends asked why they would add fuel to the fire, telling them that so much was at stake.

If this saves just one baby, its worth it, Cole said.

Its no surprise these toxic outlets would try to stifle a documentary that goes against the extremist narrative and could cause countless women to choose life instead of allowing them to believe that abortion is their only option. This is just another example of Big Tech censoring viewpoints that they dont agree with.

While the documentary received more than 3 million views, its reach was still significantly hampered by the quieting hand of Big Tech censorship.

The video wasnt just their opinion but included experiences from doctors who had performed abortions. It also included the story of Coles grandmother and how she refused to get an abortion after becoming pregnant as a teen, resulting in the birth of Coles mother.

I was never sorry. When you hold that baby, everything that was scary just goes away, Coles grandmother said.

The second half of the video pivots to a crisis pregnancy support group called Embrace Grace.

The LaBrants spoke with moms who had been helped by the center and highlight how they chose life for their babies. Through it all, the documentary shows there are other options for moms besides abortion.

One of the moms at the center told the incredible story of how she had gotten an abortion, only to discover months later that the pill hadnt worked. She was still pregnant with her miracle baby and decided in that moment to choose life.

Now, she cant imagine life without her daughter and wants her to know that she is a miracle. God heard my prayer, and He redeemed me, she said.

Following the documentarys release, angry fans and other critics posted rebuttal videos and articles, calling the documentary disgusting, manipulative, and harmful. Others were horrified that the family would compare abortion to the Holocaust, as the video compared the number of babies killed in abortions to the number of people killed in the Holocaust along with other genocides.

The suppression of this beautiful documentary shows that Big Tech is becoming more fearless and blatant with its unconstitutional censorship. It is appalling that these platforms would work to silence a message that provides help, information, and resources to women who desperately need it.

Why would Big Tech do this? What is in it for them to silence alternatives to abortion?

All babies, no matter the circumstances, are fearfully and wonderfully made by a loving God. They deserve a chance to live, not to be snuffed out before their first breath.

As we pray that this genocide will come to an end, we hope that soon, despite their best efforts, Big Tech wont be able to censor the outcry of support and love for all children born and preborn.

Bailey Duran is a writer who is passionate about faith, family, and traditional American values. She graduated from Liberty University in May 2021 with a B.S. in journalism.

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YouTube And Instagram Choke The LaBrants' Pro-Life Video - The Federalist

In its latest effort to implicate former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows in the violence on Capitol Hill last year, the House Select Committee on Jan. 6 revealed Meadows had been warned about the potential for unrest preceding the riot. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had been warned too, and refused multiple requests to prepare.

Meadows, according to former advisor Cassidy Hutchinson, who was subpoenaed by the committee, was cautioned about the possibility of violence on Jan. 6 surrounding the presidents protests.

I know that there were concerns brought forward to Mr. Meadows, Hutchinson told panel investigators in March. I know that people had brought information forward to him that had indicated that there could be violence on the 6th. But, again, Im not sure if he what he did with that information.

The testimony was revealed in a 248-page court filing from the probes attorneys in an ongoing legal drama between Meadows and the Select Committee over White House records.

The committees revelation made headline news across legacy outlets, amplifying the probes discovery as an indictment against a primary target of the regimes investigation in routine fashion.

Meadows Was Warned Jan. 6 Could Turn Violent, House Panel Says, read The New York Times.

Meadows was warned Jan. 6 could turn violent, former White House official says, headlined another article in NBC.

Meadows was warned of violence before Jan. 6, new court filings show, The Washington Post wrote in front-page news as a most read column Saturday morning.

If the revelation that Meadows was told violence might occur surrounding the protest of a politically sensitive subject is a major scandal, however, perhaps the committee should probe why Pelosi denied requests to deploy the National Guard up to six times.

In December, the initial trove of Meadows documents published by the Select Committee revealed Meadows pledged the National Guard would be ready to maintain order. The records illustrate a White House chief of staff who was far from dismissive of violent threats as depicted by the committee investigating Jan. 6.

Mr. Meadows sent an email to an individual about the events on January 6 and said that the National Guard would be present to protect pro Trump people and that many more would be available on standby, the Select Committee wrote. Panel members framed the material as an unearthed scandal but it now undermines its latest made-up scandal four months later.

In fact, nearly everyone in Washington knew about the potential for political unrest to break out at the climax of a violent election cycle. Even the Capitol Hill parking attendants warned about the hazard.

Due to the possibility of large-scale public protests, access to the Capitol Plaza will be restricted, read an email from the House Parking Team on the eve of the riot obtained by The Federalist. For the safety and security of personnel on the House campus, we ask that staff strongly consider parking in the Cannon and Longworth House Underground Garages.

That Meadows, a former four-term member of Congress, would be totally oblivious to the idea that mass protests might deteriorate into an uproar is negligent thinking.

Whereas Meadows was a White House bureaucrat involved in the planning of a peaceful demonstration on the Ellipse, Pelosi possessed the authority to adequately prepare for what was to come on Capitol Hill, and she deliberately refused.

According to former Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund, the agency requested Speaker Pelosi approve the deployment of the National Guard six times ahead of the Jan. 6 riot. Sund said House Sergeant at Arms Paul Irving, who works under Pelosi, thought the deployment was bad optics two days prior. Pelosi and House Democrats had previously condemned the use of federal troops in Washington to quell the violent mobs terrorizing the city.

The speakers deputies on the Select Committee investigating the attack, however, have publicly stated no interest in probing Pelosis own culpability.

If you look at the charge that we have in the resolution, it says the facts and circumstances around January 6. I dont see the speaker being part and parcel to that, Select Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., told CNN last year.

Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com.

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Before J6, Meadows Put Troops On Standby While Pelosi Refused Them - The Federalist

Every parent reading this should immediately stop and go watch HBOs Transhood (2020) documentary. It will enlighten, depress, and alarm you all at once, and its the best way to understand the crisis thats happening with so many of Americas children.

The film follows four families in Kansas City, Missouri, all of which include a child who identifies as transgender. It takes place over five years. Two of the children, 12-year-old Jay (a girl who identifies as a boy) and 15-year-old Leena (the opposite), have been placed on hormone pharmaceuticals by their parents in order to suppress their natural puberty.

The other two, 7-year-old Avery (a boy who identifies as a girl) and 4-year-old Phoenix (the same) are not receiving hormone drugs but they are dressed in female clothing and referred to as girls. Averys hair is dyed purple and pink. Phoenixs entire wardrobe is draped in rainbow.

In the most shocking scene, Leena, who wants his penis to more closely resemble a vagina (a procedure that literally involves splitting the phallus longways in half), visits a surgeon, Dr. Marci Bowers, who tells him, The thing is, a penis is basically the same thing as a clitoris. Everything a girl has, a boy has and everything a boy has, a girl has.

Bowers is a man who identifies as a woman. And he should immediately have his medical license revoked for lying to a child, encouraging him to permanently mutilate his sex organs.

But, if you can believe it, there are plenty of other confounding moments.

Avery, the 7-year-old, is very obviously used by his weird mother as a prop for her political activism. Avery is prostituted out on the cover of National Geographic, like an animal.

Hes also dragged to Washington, D.C., for a protest and to sign copies of an illustrated book, under his name, about being a transgender child. Avery hates all of it, and without a flicker of irony, his mother tells him, The problem is you do approve things and then you change your mind.

Avery: I just dont want to even have a book. Ive done too much in this world to ruin my life enough and now everyone in this world is going to know if I sell my book, its going to get on the news along with me for, like, the 50th time at this point, and its just going to make my life worse.

Averys mother: A couple years ago you wanted people to know. But now?

Avery: Yeah, I did but that was a stupid, silly mistake and now I dont.

To that end, 4-year-old Phoenix, who begins the movie by wearing dresses and referring to himself as a girl-boy, ultimately reverts back to identifying as male. This boys father says early in the documentary, I dont really feel like Phoenix ever was a boy, only to say later, Theres a lot to it where I dont know if [Phoenixs mother] Molly or I made the right decisions.

In another scene, the mother of 12-year-old Jay sobs because her insurance wont cover her sons hormone replacement shots. The doctor administering the treatment appears taken aback, because, she says, Usually if something is medically necessary, insurance will cover it.

Not a clue in sight, I guess.

To the contrary, the signs telling these parents that this is not okay are everywhere. Avery at one point says, Why do I have to grow up? I just want to stay a kid.

In another scene, 15-year-old Leena discusses a classmate, a boy, who broke up with her. When I was dating Brian, it felt like an authentication, she said. Im dating a straight man and he sees me as a woman and I was so excited because, like, thats all I wanted. She said that Brian eventually told her that he was using me as a cover up because he was unsure of his identity in the sexual world.

Its a rude awakening to this young person affirmed by his parents and medical providers that hes not the sex he was born as that straight boys are highly unlikely to view other biological males as female.

In another, a woman who identifies as a man is seen cutting the hair of teenage Jay, while explaining, Ive had a complete, total hysterectomy.

Any sane person would feel compassion for both the children and for the confused parents. But only a stupid or sick person would believe that the best way to treat a gender-dysphoric child is to affirm his or her mental state with irreversible hormone treatments and surgeries, before the child is even old enough to sign a consent form.

Its worth repeating that these arent random people I found on Tik Tok. Theyre children featured in a documentary on HBO. Thats how big this problem has become.

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'Transhood' Shows Why Kids Are Incapable Of Making Medical Decisions - The Federalist

More than a dozen GOP governors wrote to President Joe Biden Tuesday signaling opposition to his executive order requiring government-mandated project labor agreements (PLAs) on taxpayer-funded construction contracts exceeding $35 million, according to a newly obtained letter.

Biden signed Executive Order 14063 in February at a Maryland union hall. PLAs are collective bargaining agreements that are project-specific and give union contractors public works contracts. Led by Govs. Bill Lee of Tennessee and Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas, the group of governors say the president is essentially giving unions a monopoly on major federal government projects.

When mandated by government agencies, PLAs can interfere with existing union collective bargaining agreements and needlessly discourage competition from quality nonunion contractors and their employees who comprise 87.4% of the private U.S. construction industry workforce according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, they write, adding:

Reducing competition from some of the best union and nonunion construction firms and workers will exacerbate the construction industrys skilled labor shortage, delay projects, and increase construction costs by estimates of 12% to 20% per project, which will result in fewer infrastructure improvements, less construction industry job creation, and higher taxes.

PLAs make contractors change out existing employees with union hiring hall workers. Since 2009, more than half of the federal governments construction projects have been built by nonunion contractors, The Wall Street Journal reported, while the estimated 12 to 20 percent construction cost increase may result in fewer improvements to utility, affordable housing, roads, and bridges.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The construction industry is grappling with a skilled labor shortage of 430,000 workers, the group Associated Builders and Contracts determined in a 2021 report. The governors think Bidens order will exacerbate this, as well as delay projects and result in less infrastructure.

In short, the aforementioned policies will undermine taxpayer investment in billions of dollars of forthcoming public works projects financed by the Infrastructure Investments and Jobs Act of 2021 and additional bipartisan legislation passed by Congress, all of which was signed into law free from language requiring or encouraging the use of PLAs, the governors write.

Republican governors wrote to Biden in January seeking cooperation from his administration on infrastructure implementation. The governors called on federal agencies to work with states to draft regulations and guidance that allow maximum regulatory flexibility to prevent further federal overreach in order to protect economic growth.

In 2009, then-President Barack Obama signed an executive order encouraging PLAs. The order stipulated that agencies, on a case-by-case basis, when awarding a contract costing more than $25 million or more, may require a PLA when it will:

Advance the Federal Governments interest in achieving economy and efficiency in Federal procurement, producing labor-management stability, and ensuring compliance with laws and regulations governing safety and health, equal employment opportunity, labor and employment standards, and other matters, and be consistent with law.

It is the contention of the governors, roughly three months after their January letter, that the Biden administration must give states flexibility and avoid costly pro-PLA policies. A 2021 study by the Rand Corporation, a think tank that is partly funded by the U.S. government, found that a PLA mandate in Los Angeles resulted in fewer projects and spiked construction costs.

Other studies have shown similar results.

An October 2021 study authored by a former Saint Louis University professor found nonunion workers suffer around a 34 percent reduction in wages and benefits under government-enforced PLAs. A 2019 study released by the Beacon Hill Institute for Public Policy Research found that the construction of New Jersey schools built under PLAs cost roughly 16 percent more than schools built free from such restrictions.

In addition to Lee and Hutchinson, the letter sent Tuesday was signed by Ron DeSantis of Florida, Brian Kemp of Georgia, Kim Reynolds of Iowa, Tate Reeves of Mississippi, Mike Parson of Missouri, Pete Ricketts of Nebraska, Chris Sununu of New Hampshire, Doug Burgum of North Dakota, Henry McMaster of South Carolina, Kristi Noem of South Dakota, Greg Abbott of Texas, Spencer Cox of Utah, and Mark Gordon of Wyoming.

View the full letter here.

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GOP Governors Oppose Biden EO Creating Monopoly On Federal Construction Contracts - The Federalist

Facebook obliterated an award-winning conservative Wisconsin news page and cut off thousands of its followers without warning this week after wrongfully censoring it for months.

The Silicon Valley giant censored Wisconsin Right Now after the popular news site posted a story from The Australian to its Facebook feed that compared a picture of the infamous Falling Man from 9/11 to the horrific footage of Afghans falling from planes following President Joe Bidens disastrous U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Facebook quickly hid the post and slapped it with a community standards violation for content related to suicide or self-injury.

WRN appealed the violation, noting that the article did not advocate for self-harm, and Facebook reversed its decision but still unpublished WRNs page.

A message from Facebook claimed that WRN violates Facebook Pages terms but did not specify why. The Big Tech company claimed that WRN could appeal if the unpublishing seemed to be a mistake but the link given by Facebooks support team is broken.

Facebook did not respond to a request for comment.

Every American should be deeply concerned by the fact that a few unaccountable big tech companies are controlling the free flow of information in our democracy, and that the decisions they make are often arbitrary and unfair, Jim Piwowarczyk, WRN owner and contributor, told The Federalist. What has happened to us is a very troubling example of this, and we call on Facebook to reverse its decision.

Even before Facebook nuked WRNs main page, the social media company restricted the pages ability to invite new followers to like the page and live-stream videos for simply reporting the news.

Even though WRN won numerous awards for its airtight coverage of the Kyle Rittenhouse trial, Facebook limited the news sites ability to share articles about the young gunman.

We led coverage on this case, going to the scene, interviewing witnesses a half-hour after it happened, uncovering missing ballistics evidence mentioned during the trial, and more, Piwowarczyk explained.

Facebook still suppressed WRNs coverage even after the media company published an analysis stating the firearm charge against Rittenhouse wouldnt stand under Wisconsin gun laws, something the judge presiding over the case publicly ruled one day later.

Facebook then did not remove the violations when Rittenhouse was acquitted, Piwowarczyk said.

Facebook also enlisted the help of its fake fact-checkers to censor reposts about Hillary Clintons role in promoting the Russian collusion hoax and a meme about Rittenhouse playing video games with his judge.

We have reported many stories the mainstream media will not, and it is highly questionable and troubling that Facebook would seek to prevent Wisconsin voters in a key battleground state (where Facebook-traced money was involved in elections) from learning all sides of the equation in the political debate and other news stories, especially as the midterm elections loom, Piwowarczyk said.

Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire and Fox News. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.

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Facebook Censored, Then Wiped A Conservative Wisconsin News Page - The Federalist

White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain offered an interesting insight into Democrats 2022 midterm election strategy on Sunday, musing about French President Emmanuel Macrons ability to win reelection despite a 36 percent approval rating, implying a similar possibility for U.S. President Joe Biden. Instead of trying to turn Bidens sinking approval ratings around by ditching failed policies, Democrats seem content with their underwater numbers so long as they can drive Republicans popularity even lower with smears and censorship.

Bidens approval rating is at 40.9 percent, according to the RealClear aggregate, although a Quinnipiac poll has him as low as 35 percent and a CNBC poll has him at 38 percent. A February NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll reported that 56 percent of Americans thought Bidens first year in office was a failure, and the month before a mere 25 percent were satisfied with his administration.

The Biden administration has helped drive its own approval ratings into the ground with crisis after self-induced crisis. Democrat-led Covid lockdowns and ballooning federal spending have caused the worst inflationary crisis in decades, coupled with energy prices that were on the rise even before Russias invasion of Ukraine thanks to Bidens war on oil and gas. Destabilization in Ukraine and a botched withdrawal from Afghanistan may top the list of Bidens most deadly mess-ups, but theyre far from the only line items.

From a first-day executive order requiringthat schools ignore the biological differences between male and female students from the athletic field to the bathroom if they wish to continue receiving federal funding, and keeping those same schools closed for months, to bragging about working with Big Tech to silence dissent, exacerbating a record-setting crisis at the U.S. Southern border, ousting people from their jobs with medical mandates, encouraging kids to chop off their genitals, and colluding with the National School Boards Association to smear parents as domestic terrorists, the Biden team has done everything possible to alienate voters.

Meanwhile, Bidens radical legislative agenda has crashed and burned, leaving him with nothing to offer voters but a list of failures. Biden could choose to learn from these mistakes and respond by securing the border, unhampering American oil production, respecting parents and free speech, and protecting minors from predatory sex propaganda. But instead, the White House is tacitly admitting it doesnt care that Americans dont like its agenda.

How is that a workable election strategy? It isnt, unless you can convince voters to hate or fear your opposition even more. Democrats spent all four years of former President Donald Trumps presidency pushing the Clinton campaign-funded Russia collusion hoax, aided by propagandists in the legacy media. When The New York Post broke news of sensational and incriminating Biden family scandals in the weeks leading up to the 2020 election, Big Tech and big media collaborated to nuke the story and censor those who tried to share it.

Those are just two of the most explosive examples. There are countless more of tech companies censoring conservative perspectives (including a sitting president), journalists running cover for Democrat conspiracy theories while lying about Republicans, and even tech barons like Mark Zuckerberg funneling nearly half a billion dollars to take over local election offices.

In a fair system, a president with approval ratings that are underwater by double digits would be worried about his next election, and probably worried enough to be making some big changes. But Biden has done nothing but double down. That signals just how confident his people are in their ability to collude with the censorship regime to smear their opponents or keep their arguments from reaching voters entirely. Censorship is a powerful political tool, and its part of why the laptop class is so panicked at the idea that someone with slightly more respect for free speech than they now owns the Twittersphere.

All of Bidens disasters point to a Republican victory in the midterms this fall, but Democrats unwillingness to let nosedives in the polls budge their cultural battles should be a chilling reminder to Republicans that Democrats havent played by the rules for years. The collaborators in the Biden White House, in the legacy media, and in Big Tech are so confident in their backroom rigging that they dont think they need to listen to what American voters think.

This should put urgency and tangible political reforms behind the broad and bipartisan desire among Americans to ensure American election processes are beyond reproach.

Elle Reynolds is an assistant editor at The Federalist, and received her B.A. in government from Patrick Henry College with a minor in journalism. You can follow her work on Twitter at @_etreynolds.

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Dems Have Zilch To Offer So They're Smearing, Censoring The Opposition - The Federalist

The Hillary Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committees claims of attorney-client privilege in the Michael Sussmann criminal case may constitute a breach of the settlement agreements they entered with the Federal Election Commission, according to a letter sent to Special Counsel John Durhams office on Friday.

That letter, obtained first by The Federalist, followed the flurry of motions to intervene filed in the special counsels pending false statement case against Sussmann. Hillary for America, the DNC, tech executive Rodney Joffe, Sussmanns former law firm of Perkins and Coie, and the investigative firm Fusion GPS all filed motions last week asking the court for permission to argue against disclosing documents to the special counsel based on their claims of attorney-client privilege.

The special counsels office had previously filed a motion arguing that the court should review 38 documents withheld in response to grand jury subpoenas to assess whether the secreted material truly qualified as protected by attorney-client privilege. The day after Sussmann responded to that motion, opposing any such in camera review by the judge, his fellow Spygate hoaxers sought to join in Sussmanns efforts to keep the documents concealed.

After the Hillary for America and the DNCs motions to intervene hit the Sussmann docket, The Coolidge Reagan Foundation penned a three-page letter to Durham and Assistant Special Counsel Jonathan Algor. That letter alerted the special counsels office to key facts about the FECs recent decision to fine the political groups in relation to a complaint the foundation had filed with the FEC. That complaint charged Hillary for America and the DNC with using the law firm, Perkins Coie, to hire and funnel over $1 million to outside research firms such as Fusion GPS to perform potentially sensitive, controversial, or politically embarrassing opposition research into Donald Trump.

The FEC complaint, filed in 2018, alleged that the research was not for the purpose of assisting Perkins Coie in providing legal advice, but to further the political and campaign-related goals of the organizations. The foundation also claimed in its FEC complaint that because the work was not for the purpose of providing legal advice or assisting with impending or potential litigation, it was not covered by attorney-client, work-product, or other privileges.

Significantly, as the foundation noted in its April 22, 2022 letter to the special counsels office, the FEC had found probable cause to believe the political organizations had misreported the purpose of certain disbursements. The FEC reached that conclusion based on a memorandum prepared by the FECs Office of General Counsel, but under controlling regulations that memorandum will not be made public for another week, the letter explained.

Foundation counsel Dan Backer added that while the memorandum is not yet public, the special counsels office would likely be able to obtain it directly from the FEC. That memorandum also will provide Durhams team further details on the FECs investigation and fact-finding that may be useful to the special counsel in the Sussmann litigation, noted the letter.

In Fridays letter, Backer also highlighted Hillary for America and the DNCs commitment in their settlement agreement with the FEC to not further contest the Commissions finding of probable cause to believe that the political organizations had falsely reported their payments through Perkins Coie to Fusion GPS as being for legal services. In contrast, in the Sussmann case, Hillary for America and the DNC are nevertheless asserting materials generated by Fusion GPS and provided to Perkins Coie are protected by attorney-client privilege and work-product doctrine, the letter stressed.

The Government should not permit HFA and the DNC to adopt conflicting positions in different proceedings, depending on the federal agency against which they are litigating, the foundations letter concluded, suggesting the trial court may find those breaches of the settlement agreement material in ruling on any privilege claims.

Whether the special counsel will follow the foundations suggestion and obtain the memorandum prepared by the FECs Office of General Counsel before the judge in the Sussmann case rules on the Clinton campaign and the DNCs assertions of attorney-client privilege is yet to be seen. But what is clear is that the special counsels office intends to ensure the jury knows that both the Clinton campaign and the DNC believe communications relevant to Sussmanns efforts to peddle the Alfa Bank hoax are protected by attorney-client privilege.

On Friday we also learned just how the special counsel hopes to do thatby having representatives of both the Clinton campaign and DNC testify at trial. That revelation appeared in a response brief Sussmanns attorneys filed last week, wherein the defense team noted that they had just learned that the special counsel had issued trial subpoenas to both the Clinton campaign and the DNC. According to Sussmanns legal team, the special counsel requested the testimony of witnesses from those political organizations regarding the assertion of attorney-client privilege in front of the jury.

Sussmann is now also seeking to exclude that testimony and claims that both the Clinton campaign and the DNC will likewise seek to quash the subpoenas.

The irony in all of this, of course, is that the more Sussmann, the Clinton campaign, and the DNC hide behind the claims of attorney-client privilege, the more it appears that, yes, Sussmann pushed the Alfa Bank hoax, including during his meeting with FBI General Counsel James Baker, on behalf of the Clinton campaign. The FECs conclusion that probable cause existed to support the finding that the Clinton campaign and DNC had falsely reported fees paid to Fusion GPS as legal fees only further supports that conclusion.

The question Fridays letter to the special counsels office raises, however, is whether the Clinton campaign and the DNCs settlement agreement with the FEC, in fact, forecloses their claims of privilege in the Sussmann case. Backer believes it does, telling The Federalist, The Clinton Campaign and the DNC want to have their cake and eat it too, but they cannot simultaneously say they wont contest the reasoning behind the FEC fine and settlement agreement and also run to federal court and say, No, no, no, everything we do is privileged.

That, however, is precisely what Hillary for America and DNC are doing, leading one to wonder if the real issue in play is not attorney-client privilege, but the privilege of being a Democrat.

Margot Cleveland is The Federalist's senior legal correspondent. She is also a contributor to National Review Online, the Washington Examiner, Aleteia, and Townhall.com, and has been published in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prizethe law schools highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. As a stay-at-home homeschooling mom of a young son with cystic fibrosis, Cleveland frequently writes on cultural issues related to parenting and special-needs children. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.

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Letter: No, Hillary Can't Try To Hide Her Oppo From The Special Counsel - The Federalist

Many media observers hate Axios for being a shallow, horse-race obsessed bastion of the bothsiderism normalizing the radical assault on constitutional order and amping up the all politicians are the same cynicism greasing the wheels of the Republics collapse through supercharged low turnout apathy. Its devotion to bold-faced type headings and conclusory sound byte analysis at once is ironically difficult to read and so childish that USA Today throws side eye.

Which is all fair, but its also so clumsily bad at this effort that its always good for at least a couple laughs.

Yesterday, the outlet waded into legal waters discussing Trump judges auditioning for future Supreme Court perches. But it couldnt just print this ground-breaking observation that readers of this website understood years ago because it had to throw in something for balance. And this was a doozy.

After detailing Trumps impact on the judiciary and walking through Judge James Ho wading into the lesser Black women discussion and Lawrence VanDyke denigrating his colleagues (though, weirdly, not the opinions where he compared the rest of the Ninth Circuit to criminals or suggested they were possessed), readers are treated to this visual (hat tip to Professor Steve Vladeck who flagged this on Twitter because Im certainly not reading Axios):

There are culture jammers whose heads spun at that juxtaposition. Weve got judges jumping in to back the idea that Black women arent worthy of the Supreme Court, grandstanding in opinions to bash their colleagues, and turning opinions over to gratuitous anti-Trans hate takes, but Ketanji Brown Jackson said Don McGahn has to comply with his subpoena with a quote that cites The Federalist Papers and de Tocqueville.

Totally responsible media coverage.

Trump judges audition for Supreme Court [Axios]

Joe Patriceis a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free toemail any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him onTwitterif youre interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.

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Trump Judges May Openly Deploy Hate Speech, But Ketanji Brown Jackson Cited The Federalist Papers. So WHO CAN CAST STONES? - Above the Law

Robert Eggers latest film, The Northman, solidifies his standing as one of the most interesting young directors and writers around. His films would be unique in any era, but they truly stand out as something special in the current film landscape, even if they are disturbing.

Eggers films have a distinct aesthetic that makes for powerful filmgoing experiences. Theyre also definitely not everyones cup of tea, which gives his voice even more of an edge in this age of mass media franchise saturation.

Its useful to look at The Northman in context, in line with the directors work. Eggers debut film, The Witch (2015), is at the very least a top-five contender for greatest director premier ever. Its one of the best horror films ever made, but more importantly a fearless and disturbing look into the dark heart of humanity. The films pace is torturous, each moment bleeding dread.

But whats really unique about The Witch is that the commitment to historical detail extends to the beliefs of the time its set. Its subtitled A New England Folktale, and the focus of the entire story is on a heretical pilgrim family trying to make their way in the new world alone. They encounter a witch in the wilderness who embodies all the ideas of the time about witchcraft.

I think from Eggers perspective, this story is probably a deconstruction of Christianity as a toxic ideology and possibly a defense of feminism. After all, witches were alleged to require parts of dead children to make their flying ointments, and engaged in nonreproductive sex with Satan in the woods. The importance of infanticide to contemporary feminism and the worship of nonreproductive sex is central to everything deemed critical theory, a.k.a. leftism.

Whatever Eggerss intention may have been, however, the film he made displays the depravity of the human heart in all its naked glory. Its a boldly directed, disturbing masterpiece, which is also useful as a didactic tool about the age in which its set.

Eggers followed that film with The Lighthouse, done entirely in black and white. A bizarre and twisted tale of insanity and isolation set in a New England lighthouse at the end of the 19th century, this film displayed even more of Eggers mastery as a filmmaker even if it was a less satisfying piece of writing.

The film is visually stunning, and the performances are spectacular, but theres so little for the audience to relate to that it often feels overwhelming. But this film also takes the historical exactitude to the realm of belief. This is what brings in all the insanity of the story: the beliefs of the characters inform the reality of the narrative.

The Northman looked like it would be a massive departure from Eggerss previous works. The cast was much larger, the scale clearly epic. Its categorized as an action drama instead of horror, but this film is essentially a continuation of his previous creative vision.

While there is action and drama in the film, it still feels primarily like a horror movie. The score, in particular, accompanied by brutal onscreen violence, often makes the viewer feel as though hes being assaulted. Several scenes involve hallucinogenic states that are deeply troubling.

If it wasnt so enslaved to reproducing a genuine historical mood, this film would be the epitome of dark fantasy. There are Valkyries, sorceresses, zombies, and Odin even shows up at one point. But its all based around what the people of the time actually believed and did, and while there are surely academics who would contest various aspects (because there always are) its obvious that the film is supposed to be representing an ancient worldview accurately.

The film mostly succeeds at being a powerful tale of Viking revenge. Its basically a retelling of Hamlet, but they went directly to Shakespeares source material: the legend of Amleth. All the fundamental unadorned elements are there, to the point where someone unfamiliar with Shakespeare might think it was a terrifying remake of The Lion King.

The production and cinematography are stunning. The performances are also remarkable, especially for a film with zero humor. Eggerss films are almost unbearably grim. The only thing that offsets this is that the viewer often feels as though the people making the film were having a riotously good time. Not in the way of practical jokes on set, but because everyone understands he is doing great work. And this film is very great work.

The film is also a deeply disturbing look at what paganism meant, and ultimately why Christianity converted all of Scandinavian and Russia out of it. I think Eggers is probably attempting to romanticize pre-Christian Europe. Especially if youve seen The Witch it seems clear that the world of The Northman is the exact same world the witch comes from. Its a world of nudity in the woods, open sex, and violence.

Maybe Eggers is trying to criticize through faithful depiction, but his love of Conan the Barbarian tells me that he likes this world, at least a little. There are numerous visual callbacks to that film in particular.

But its also possible that Eggers is trying to do the most postmodern of things: storytelling without morality. From this perspective, there are no heroes, only protagonists. Its not clear that Amleths mother and uncle arent justified in killing his father, or that it even matters if they are. His father isnt a good man, no one in the film is particularly good.

Amleths revenge is a destiny, something he must do, not necessarily something he should do. The fact that the gods are apparently on his side isnt particularly indicative of his virtue. This is a story of pain and power and magic. Taken in that light, the violent and operatic nature of The Northman feels almost sublime. But as a Christian, it ultimately rings hollow, or even horrifying.

A world with no truth or goodness is not beautiful. At one point a character remarks on the Christians of the day as those who worship a corpse on a tree. And that is iconographically accurate. But the context makes all the difference.

The reasons behind why that corpse was on that tree, how that corpse came back to life, and how that tree eventually replaced Yggdrasil and baptized Norse mythology changing Northern Europe for the better is one of the most beautiful stories ever told.

Maybe the best scene in the film is the climactic swordfight between Amleth and his uncle. They are fighting inside a volcano called the gates of hell. The bombast from the music, the amazing cinematography, and incredible performances synthesize into a perfect moment of fever dream violence. Its amazingly executed.

But while reflecting on it later I was struck by how hollow the struggle was, and how Jesus followers are promised that the gates of hell wont defeat us. And I felt deeply grateful that the world of The Northman was eventually transformed by the love of Christ.

A.C. Gleason is a proud alumnus of Biola University and Talbot Seminary. He teaches Philosophy full time. His writing has appeared in numerous outlets including Hollywood in Toto, The Daily Wire, and The Imaginative Conservative. He co-hosts and co-produces The AK47 Podcast with fellow Talbot Alum Kyle Hendricks.

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Director Robert Eggers Shows The Depths Of Depravity In 'The Northman' - The Federalist

Over on Substack, journalist Sophie Ross just penned the perfect headline. We Need to Talk About Tinxs Old Tweets, she titled a brief post about influencer Christina Najjar, the woman behind @itsmetinx (and Its Me, Tinx on Sirius XM).

The headline is perfect because it so concisely captures the shoddy logic that fuels cancel culture. No, we actually dont have to talk about Tinxs old tweets. We really, really dont.

Why? First, none of the tweets in question are all that offensive. They involve a 21-year-old calling a few celebrities fat and ugly 10 years ago. Even worse, some of the more recent tweets Ross included in her roundup are merely conservative, like criticizing Hillary Clinton, Silicon Valley, and the liberal echo chamber.

Najjar, according to Ross, also liked and retweeted posts in 2020 from Eric Trump, Elon Musk, Clay Travis, and Eric Weinstein, along with some tweets that directed harsh language at journalist Ken Klippenstein. I know people often blur the line between what is and what is not offensive to suit their politics at any given point in time so, please, review the posts yourself.

They basically amount to happy hour talk and mainstream conservatism.

For better or worse, tweets about celebrities she posted as a 21-year-old dont necessarily reflect one bit on Najjars character as a grown woman in 2022. If she seems like a different person now, thats probably because she changed, and she probably changed because shes a human being who grows with age.

While were on the subject, its also somewhat amusing that our media is only debating the morality of Tinxs TikTok account in light of old tweets and not, say, because TikTok is addictive and unhealthy and likely under the control of an adversarial government that obfuscated critical information in the early days of a pandemic.

Tinx, like Libs of TikTok, wields some cultural power. Influencers and anonymous accounts may seem silly, but theyre fair game for journalists when they deserve to be held accountable. This is not one of those times. (Nor was the weird occasion on which Taylor Lorenz creepily wrote about Libs of TikTok.)

If Najjar had been caught racking up followers with body positivity content while secretly or recently calling people fat or ugly, that would warrant some questions. Instead, shes being questioned for sending mean tweets at rich people as a 21-year-old leaning right.

The many corporate media outlets that amplified Rosss story zeroed in on the alleged hypocrisy of Najjar, TikToks big sister, criticizing peoples appearances. After Tinx apologized, E! News wrote, The TikTok star, who has been dubbed the older sister on the platform by fans due to her postscentered around positivity and self-love, concluded: If youve been following me for a little bit, you know they are not representative of who I am. I am very sorry. I am a work in progress.

This is the crux of the problem. Of course tweets she sent as a 21-year-old arent representative of who she is as a woman in her 30s. This entire controversy is silly precisely because its predicated on the argument that they are representative.

Its also predicated on the argument that Najjars right-leaning views are objectionable or somehow out of alignment with her affable persona. What actually seems to have happened is that a lot of center-left women discovered someone they really like holds views they dont like. That might not have been shocking in years past, but when people have been conditioned by the media to see dissent from liberal dogma as bigotry and extremism, it makes more sense that Tinxs followers feel disoriented.

Importantly, the apology Najjar posted makes no mention of her politics. If those tweets sincerely represent her views, she was right not to grovel or feign regret.

And if Najjar was more careful about vocalizing her views after getting famous, that decision wouldnt have been dishonest or even unreasonable in this unforgiving climate. She might not have wanted to alienate sensitive fans or subject herself to the kinds of unserious, damaging questions and accusations shes fielding now.

As Ross wrapped up her expose on Tinx, much of which seemed to originate on Reddit, she wrote, I do believe people grow, and are worthy of forgiveness and redemption. I promise Im not writing her off or attempting to cancel someone for things they said in their youth, or problematic political beliefs of the past. Again, people can change. I just think, alongside her loyal fans, Im simply interested in seeing her acknowledge them.

I actually think its great Ross felt compelled to clarify she didnt want to cancel Najjar. Its a sign our incentives are shifting. People dont want to be seen participating in cancel culture. But Rosss post remains a sad symptom of a deeply unhealthy society. An influencers conservative politics are not newsworthy and neither are mean tweets she posted as a 21-year-old, whether a journalist is interested in an acknowledgment or not.

This is why Rosss headline which explicitly said we need to talk about Tinxs tweets is so perfect. Plenty of major outlets followed her lead, granting the story newsworthiness in a cynical bid for clicks and a reflexive need to produce formulaic apology porn.

The latter is most concerning. Weve become so accustomed to this rhythm of habitual struggle sessions that we hardly even pause to consider whether something is actually to borrow a phrase needed. Is it newsworthy? Is it fair? Is it doing your readers a service? Or are we just going through the motions?

In this case, the answer seems clear.

Emily Jashinsky is culture editor at The Federalist. She previously covered politics as a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner. Prior to joining the Examiner, Emily was the spokeswoman for Young Americas Foundation. Shes interviewed leading politicians and entertainers and appeared regularly as a guest on major television news programs, including Fox News Sunday, Media Buzz, and The McLaughlin Group. Her work has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, Real Clear Politics, and more. Emily also serves as director of the National Journalism Center and a visiting fellow at Independent Women's Forum. Originally from Wisconsin, she is a graduate of George Washington University.

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The Media's Tinx Takedown Relied On Shoddy And Dishonest Excuses - The Federalist

News broke Wednesday the Florida Senate hadpassed a billto dismantle Walt Disney Worlds half-century-old independent special district status, an arrangement whereby Disney has been allowed, since 1968, essentially to govern itself. Gov. Ron DeSantis says Disneys self-governing status should be subject to review, to ensure that it is still appropriately serving the public interest.

Good. Disney is reaping its just reward for inserting itself into the political debate about Floridas parental rights bill, which Disney lost in spectacular fashion. Republican governors and lawmakers across the country should be taking notes.

This is how you deal with big corporations that try to throw around their weight and force woke policies on voters and families. You punish them, not just because they deserve it, but also, as Voltaire famously put it,pour encourager les autres.

Disney was no doubt betting that DeSantis and Florida Republicans would do what Republicans have almost always done in the face of woke corporate pressure: simply back down. Thats what South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem did last year when at the behest of the NCAA shevetoed a billthat would have protected girls sports from trans ideologues.

Same with Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, whovetoed a measurebanning genital mutilation and hormone treatments for minors (he was subsequently overridden by the state legislature). Same goes for then-Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, who in 2015 infamously caved to corporate pressure andgutted his states religious freedom law.

Indeed, at any other time and place, with almost any other Republican governor and legislature, Disney would almost certainly not have faced any consequences for wading into the debate over the parental rights bill. After all, since when do Republicans actually wield power against the enemies of their voters and defend ordinary families from powerful woke corporations? Almost never.

By breaking that mold, DeSantis has set a clear example that other GOP governors and state lawmakers should follow. If a corporation like Disney wants to insert itself in a political battle that has nothing to do with its business in this case, a fight over whether to prohibit classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity to children in kindergarten through the third grade then it should be prepared to pay a heavy cost.

Simply put, corporations that do what Disney did, publicly lobbying against the rights of parents to have a say in whether their young children are exposed to sexually explicit subject matter, have marked themselves out as enemies of a free people and should be treated as such. If Disney wants to make war on families in Florida, then the proper role of a democratically elected government is to go after Disney with every power at its disposal.

Maybe that means they lose tax breaks that were once justified for purely economic reasons. Same for the special status Walt Disney World has enjoyed all these years, governing a 40-square-mile area in central Florida as it sees fit.

This isnt about the economic arguments, not anymore. Whatever merit there was to the notion that Disney serves the public interest before the fight over parental rights has completely vanished. Now that Disney has taken a stand against families and parents, there can be no doubt: Disney does not serve the public interest in Florida, and Floridians owe it nothing.

Conservatives should understand this, but not all of them do. Over at National Review, Charles Cooke has decided to stand athwart history, as it were,and yell: Independent special district status is complicated! His complaint with DeSantis is that there was no need to punish Disney over its opposition to the parental rights bill because the bill passed. Disney lost, DeSantis and Republicans won. Moreover, he adds, until a month ago, Walt Disney Worlds legal status was not even a blip on the GOPs radar. No Republicans were calling for it to be revisited, nor did they have any reason to.

Did they not? What changed in the last month that might have prompted them to revisit the issue? Could it be that Disney came out publicly as a very real threat to Florida parents who dont want their second-graders instructed about sexual orientation and gender identity? Could it be that the fight over the parental rights bill revealed Disney as something other than an entertainment brand and Walt Disney World as something other than a beloved family theme park? Could it be, in fact, that this entire affair has exposed Disney as a malign force in Floridas civic life?

That Cooke cant grasp this, and instead attacks DeSantis by tediously explicating the particulars of Floridas independent special districts, shows the naivet of conservatives in general and Republican politicians in particular on woke corporations pushing extremist agendas. Cooke argues there are lots of independent special districts in Florida, and that Walt Disney World is unique not in itstypebut only in itsparticulars. Orlando International Airport and the Daytona International Speedway, he notes, have a similar independent status. Why single out Disney?

To ask is to answer. Did the Orlando International Airport or the Daytona International Speedway wage a public campaign against the parental rights bill, and while doing so commit to pushing a queer agenda on children? No, they didnt. Disney did. That makes all the difference.

If the airport and the speedway had behaved the way Disney did then yes, Florida lawmakers should have absolutely punished them. (Thanks to the impending revocation of Walt Disney Worlds special status, its unlikely the airport or speedway or any other entity in Florida with a similar status will decide to follow in Disneys footsteps, which is part of the point.)

Cooke further laments that singling out Disney is a mistake because, Walt Disney World is deeply rooted in Floridas soil, as a result of agreements the Florida legislature made with it in good faith. To poison that soil over a temporary spat would be absurd.

But here again Cooke and really, its not about Cooke, its about the accommodationist strain on the right that he and NR represent misunderstands the nature of the fight. This is not a temporary spat, asDisney itself has made clear. Its an ideological and cultural war that corporations like Disney will never stop waging.

For many years now, only one side in this war has been crying no quarter before every battle. The other side has pretended not to believe it and surrendered time and again, with predictable results. Finally, DeSantis and Florida Republicans have taken the enemy at their word, and responded in kind. Republicans everywhere should go and do likewise.

John Daniel Davidson is a senior editor at The Federalist. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Claremont Review of Books, The New York Post, and elsewhere. Follow him on Twitter, @johnddavidson.

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Gov. DeSantis Is Right To Attack Disney, And The GOP Should Follow - The Federalist

Now that a judge has stayed the federal mask mandate on public transportation, its important to have an honest accounting of what this entire mask situation was truly all about.

A lot of people will make a lot of claims. A tiny sliver will continue to claim mask mandates actually helped mitigate the spread of Covid-19.

They will be the outliers because, in terms of stopping the spread of Covid or any other virus, wearing a mask is the equivalent of doing a rain dance: it might make you feel better, and some quacks will tell you it works, but ultimately it does nothing except make you look foolish and give you a false sense of security.(Vaccine mandates were the modern equivalent of burning witches at the stake.)

It was all so stupid, and foisted on us by people were supposed to trust, which is why we need this honest accounting of what it was really all about.

A lot of people will claim the masks were about establishing and maintaining control. Thats fair, but it wasnt their primary purpose. The primary purpose of the mask mandates was to make every person who wore one a walking advertisement for fear.

If you were wearing a mask, then you were doing your job, because you had given up your right to free expression and replaced it with one, constant sentiment: Im afraid, and you should be too.

That was the main purpose of the masks. Thats why they wanted everyone to keep wearing them. It was about control, yes, but far more than that, it was about promoting fear.

Thats why they lied about the threat Covid poses. Thats why they inflated the number of deaths, counting so often all who diedwithas having diedfrom. Thats why they convinced so many Americans that the threat of hospitalization or death is exponentially higher than it actually is. (For the record, the survival rate for Covid is 99.7 percent for unvaccinated adults, 99.9 percent for vaccinated adults, and 100 percent for unvaccinated children.)

All they did the entire time was work as hard as they could to promote as much fear as possible, and masks were an excellent weapon they could force on you to help spread their message of constant fear, division, and dehumanization.

The mask stripped you of your right to free expression and replaced whatever you wanted to communicate with one single piece of speech: Be afraid.

That was the primary purpose. Thats why they were all so fired up about it. Thats why they were all so desperate for you and everybody else to wear them.

Its important we have our heads around that because it will help us avoid letting them do it again in the future.

It wasnt just about control.

It wasnt just about dividing and dehumanizing us.

It wasnt just about turning us against each other and forcing us to deny science so we could devastate each others social, psychological, and emotional health.

All of those were welcome byproducts to the public health experts and other elites who to this day claim masking provides value. But the primary purpose was to promote fear, and to stifle your speech and expression so you perpetually signaled that fear to everyone else.

You were obedient, yes. But more than that, you were afraid. That was the message, whether you wanted to send it or not.

It was the primary reason they made everyone wear them, and its important we never let them do that to us again.

Hrand Tookman is a Cleveland, Ohio native with a background in interpersonal communications. He writes with an objective of exposing media bias, and inspiring unity in defiance of so many forces today that thrive off of division.

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Mandatory Face Coverings' Only Purpose Was Promoting Fear - The Federalist

What are we to make of a comment Monday from Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin that the Biden administrations goal in Ukraine is to see Russia weakened to the degree that it cant do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine?

Austin made the remark in a press conference with Secretary of State Antony Blinken after the pair met with Ukraines President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv, in what was the highest level visit by U.S. officials since Russia invaded Ukraine in late February.

One obvious conclusion we can draw from Austins comment is that the Biden administration has now committed openly to a policy of escalation in Ukraine. The White House intends to keep the war in Ukraine alive, with the stated goal of weakening Moscow by continuing to pour new and more advanced weaponry into the war-ravaged country.

Indeed, Austin and Blinken announced a new round of military aid to Ukraine, bringing the total amount of U.S. assistance to about $3.7 billion since the invasion began. After resisting pressure early in the conflict to supply Ukraine with advanced weapons systems, the Biden administration has changed course. It is now preparing to send heavy artillery, helicopters, armored personnel carriers, antiaircraft radar systems, advanced attack drones and other weapons.

Austin told members of the press that the Defense Department wont just send weapons, but will expand military training for Ukrainian service members in the region on certain weapons systems being provided.

Delivering all this aid is of course itself an escalation of U.S. involvement in the war. A Wall Street Journalreportabout the meeting in Kyiv included this detail, buried near the end of the story:Senior U.S. military officers at a facility in Poland described an accelerating logistical network for supplying weapons and materiel to Ukraine, as well as a regional effort to increase troop levels and exercises with NATO members along the alliances eastern flank.

Seven 155-mm artillery pieces, along with their tow vehicles, are being processed through the facility, adding to the 18 howitzers the U.S. has already provided to Ukraine, a senior defense official said. Six dozen U.S. howitzers are being sent to Ukraine under a new aid package, and rounds of 155-mm artillery were visible on pallets at the Polish facility.

These weapons and munitions are getting into Ukraine for the most part via railway, which is probably why Russiacarried out missile strikeson least five railway stations across central and western Ukraine early Monday, just hours after Austin and Blinken met with Zelensky.

How did Austin and Blinken get to that meeting? By railway. Politicoreportedthat Austin and Blinken traveled to and from Kyiv by train and crossed into Poland shortly before Russian missiles struck several railway lines including one in the city of Lviv in western Ukraine, near the Polish border.

If youre wondering what is the significance of this deepening U.S. involvement in the Russo-Ukrainian war, or how it might lead to a direct military confrontation between the United States and Russia, consider that the U.S. secretaries of defense and state might have just narrowly missed being struck by a Russian missile as they traveled to and from Kyiv by rail on Monday.

As the Biden administration escalates, the chances that something very much like that will happen are going to increase exponentially. Perhaps a crew of U.S. servicemen quietly sent into the country to train Ukrainian troops on the use of a new U.S.-provided weapons systems will get hit by a Russian missile strike. Perhaps U.S. diplomats, whom Blinken said are returning to Ukraine this week, first to Lviv and eventually to Kyiv, will be killed or injured or otherwise caught in the crossfire.

We cant know what will happen exactly, only that if the United States continues down this path sending Ukraine increasingly advanced weapons systems, training Ukrainian troops, underwriting Ukraines defense it will lead,as it has already led, to ever-increasing U.S. involvement in the war.

At some point, it wont matter that back in March President Biden said he wouldnt send U.S. troops to Ukraine. The logic of U.S. escalation is already at work, moving us toward direct engagement.

After all, the Pentagonsaid in early Marchthat a U.S.-facilitated transfer of Polish MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine was not tenable, yet last week the United States and its allies took a step in that direction,providing Ukraine with aircraft partsit needed to get 20 grounded planes operational. Even now, Slovakia is in talks with its NATO allies aboutproviding MiG-29 warplanes to Ukraineif the United States will replace them with F-16s.

Beyond the logic of escalation, there is a strategic dead-end looming for the Biden administration. Early on in the war, Blinken articulated the hoped-for end state in Ukraine: We have to sustain this until it stops, until the war is over, Russian forces leave, the Ukrainian people regain their independence, their sovereignty, their territorial integrity. Were committed to doing that.

The best way to understand that is as a maximalist policy vis--vis Moscow: a total defeat of Moscow and a complete humiliation of the Russian armed forces. Since Blinken said that in early March, versions of it have been repeated in the corporate press and among unreconstructed foreign policy neocons.

Arecent columnby Daniel Henninger in the Wall Street Journal is representative of this view. The time has come, he says, for the West to declare its intention to win in Ukraine. After all, Americas credibility is at stake. The moment has arrived in this war for Mr. Biden to clear something up with one presidential assertion: Were in this thing to win.

So goes the thinking among establishment types inside the Beltway. As far as they are concerned, the United States is in this thing. And if were in, then wed better win. The assumption underlying this analysis is that Russian President Vladimir Putin, faced with U.S. escalation, will back down and accept defeat. An unmitigated Ukrainian victory is, according to these people, somehow a realistic outcome of this conflict.

But history, especially theunique history of Russo-Ukrainian relations, suggests otherwise. Indeed it suggests that Moscow will never allow for the kind of Ukrainian victory that Blinken and the White House are working towards. To the extent U.S. policymakers are relying on, say, historical comparisons to the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan as a guide for the creation of U.S. policy in Ukraine, then were in trouble.

Put another way,this is not a peripheral conflict for Russia. As far as the Kremlin is concerned, the fate of Ukraine is inextricably tied to Russias core strategic national interests. The chances that Putin will accept total defeat in Ukraine without escalation that involves the use of nuclear weapons, or that involves widening the war, are probably lower than most Americans are comfortable with.

To bring it back to Defense Secretary Austins remark about the U.S. wanting to see Russia weakened to the point it cannot field a military capable of invading a much smaller country, one has to ask: how does Russia, a country with the largest nuclear arsenal in the world, get weakened to that point? Do Austin and his generals really think that a U.S.-backed Ukraine is going to be able to do that? Or do they have something else in mind? The evidence suggests they have something else in mind, and that something else is direct U.S. and NATO involvement.

Instead of barreling toward a clash between Russia and the West, a wiser course of action for the Biden administration would be to ensure the United States doesnt get drawn into the war at all, and takes the lead in urging both sides to come to a negotiated political settlement that puts an end to the fighting.

But with each passing week, that wiser course of action becomes more remote and less possible, while a far more dangerous and increasingly inexorable course of events, for the United States and Russia and the entire world, draws ever closer.

John Daniel Davidson is a senior editor at The Federalist. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Claremont Review of Books, The New York Post, and elsewhere. Follow him on Twitter, @johnddavidson.

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Biden Is Openly Pursuing A Policy Of Escalation In Ukraine - The Federalist