Daily Archives: February 14, 2021

If you think state and federal government COVID-19 policies are too restrictive, you havent been to a college campus lately. Schools across the country have imposed extreme, micromanaging rules on 19-22 year oldsa demographic more likely to die from the seasonal flu and pneumonia than COVID.

Paying top dollar at already overpriced institutions for vastly inferior remote learning, university students remain unnecessarily isolated and barred from using the services and facilities they and their families are paying for.

Many schools, like Southern Methodist University, forbid students from having guests in their dorm rooms. Others have even installed security cameras in the hallways aimed at residents doors to monitor adherence.

Most institutions have isolation dorms or, as some students call them, isolation prisons, where students who test positive for COVID are forced to live alone for two weeks (sound familiar?).

Many students must wear masks at all times, including outdoors and in gyms. This is an ironic twist for institutions that train scientists and house overwhelmingly leftist professors and students who chastise anyone for questioning the ever-changing government COVID guidelines and screech at all of us to follow the science as though science is a religion with no growth, questioning, or margin of error.

COVID data strongly suggests that being fit and healthy is essential to protecting yourself from the virus and that those with comorbidities, such as obesity and diabetes, which are often related to lifestyle, are far more likely to be hospitalized or die from the Wuhan virus. Yet pro-science universities have made working out as difficult as possible. Many school gyms are closed. At schools with open gyms, many require students to sign up in advance to use them and can only stay for short periods at a time, usually less than an hour.

At the University of Wisconsin Madison, students are forced to take COVID tests every four days. If they dont, they lose access to university buildings. Their testing catalogue is counted on the Safer Badgers App, which students are required to download and many believe is an invasion of privacy.

They are tracking our movements, said Connor Hess, a junior at UW-Madison studying chemical engineering. Hess explained that while the university claims to not be tracking them, the app constantly asks students to turn on optional location services. The app uses Bluetooth to monitor if clusters of students are congregating together, and who the students are. They say they just have location services so that you can now see where the testing sites are, said Hess skeptically, but I dont know if I fully believe that.

If you miss required COVID tests at UW-Madison, the university has implemented a progressive approach to their administrative consequences. Punishments include being unable to use campus Wi-Fi, barred from accessing your transcripts, and prohibited from adding or dropping classes.

Students may also be put on disciplinary probation, which will be noted on their transcript and affect their ability to study abroad. In the end, consequences for not strictly following university COVID regulations lead to suspension. Similar disciplinary systems have been implemented at universities across the country.

Like many other colleges, my school, the University of Chicago, has created a snitch list, where students can anonymously turn in classmates for having a small gathering or not wearing a mask properly.

Students turned in to the university authorities across the country for having friends have had their class registration put on hold, been kicked out of university housing, and even been suspended. This Soviet software is divisive and disturbing and is often applied unfairly and sometimes used by students to target peers they dont like or seek to take revenge on.

A group of nine freshmen at the University of Chicago were reported to the snitch list after taking a photo in front of one of the university buildings. After the photo was posted on social media, the group was reported for not standing six feet apart, even though the students were outside and every student in the photo was wearing a mask. The majority of the freshmen pictured were members of the Chicago Thinker, a conservative/libertarian student newspaper on campus.

Such is the fear of being socially shamed or harassed on campus over COVID violations that when I asked students featured in the reported photo if I could share it for this article, every one said no and asked that I not use their name in this article. The few who agreed to talk to me said they are afraid of drawing more attention to themselves and the controversy. Most importantly, students are afraid of being discriminated against by future employers.

Students explained that the stakes are high. After one additional infraction, like the reported photo, they could be kicked out of the dorms. One freshman said he is worried if he is identified he will be relentlessly mocked on social media and provoke leftists to maliciously report me out of spite. (The singular male pronoun is used here for sentence clarity, but the anonymous students in this article may instead be females.)

One of the students pictured agreed, saying that he does not know who reported them, but he has noticed that punishment is not equally applied to leftist students on campus who are generally not afraid of being turned in to the snitch list and have engaged in Black Lives Matter rioting on campus with no consequences.

It reeks of targeting when you know leftist students have no fear of repercussions when they post videos of themselves burning things on private property while mask-less and conservative students have to be afraid of taking a masked picture outside in which they are only 5.9 feet apart, said the student.

The hysteria around COVID restrictions has bred an environment of such extreme judgment and fear that we cannot even function as normal human beings without being on edge, said the first student. Its unsettling that people are keeping tabs on you and filing reports just for taking a picture with friends, which of course, everyone on campus does.

One of the conservative freshmen was so fearful of being mentioned that he sent me this frantic email after a cordial phone conversation where I promised not to post the group photo:

Welcome to the new world order, where Americans live under a social credit system like the Communist Party in China uses to control their people. With every Snapchat and retweet, social scores are updated and altered.

If you adhere to left-wing orthodoxy, you will be okay. If you deviate from the norm, you will be punished socially and professionally. Young people today are acutely aware of this. They comply, rather than rebeleven conservative and libertarian students. Its our new reality.

While todays generation is compliant and submissive in the face of university overreach into their personal lives, feminists from the 1960s rebelled against onerous and intrusive rules. Before the feminist movement of the 1960s, women in colleges were subject to excessive and sexist university decrees. They had to adhere to strict dress codes and curfews. The parents of female students had to fill out a form articulating specific permission for their daughter to leave campus during the school year and they had to include how she may travel and with whom she may stay with. These rules contributed to a cultural revolution.

Renowned American feminist academic, professor, and cultural critic Camille Paglia was in college during these repressive times and was on the front lines of the 1960s feminist movement. She joined other women of her time in fighting paternalistic rules over the lives of adult college studentsespecially women.

Over the years, she has been a vocal critic of how modern feminism has changed and embraced the coddling, surveillance, and intrusion of college administrators in the lives and interpersonal relationships on college campuses, specifically in response to hysterical rape culture propaganda.

Paglia, a professor at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania since 1984, explains how 1960s activism, contrary to modern leftism, challenged, rebuked, and curtailed authority in the pursuit of freedom and equality. Students wanted less surveillance and paternalism, not more. Modern leftists and feminists, on the other hand, actively undermine intellectual freedom and diversity at American universities and have walked back important advancements made during the 1960s.

While freedom-loving students like Paglia forced the overbearing administration out of the personal lives of adult students, todays leftists have invited them back in, with creepy surveillance tools to boot.

The truth is, the oppressive COVID rules, many of which violate civil liberties, are an extension of the stifling speech codes and safe spaces so popular on college campuses. Free speech was once the primary weapon of the left, according to Paglia. Todays leftist students beg for more regulation and turn in their non-compliant classmates. Feeling helpless and outnumbered by the loud voices of social justice warriors on campus, most college students are terrified into submission and silence.

This year, the University of Chicago forced me to sign a nearly 2,000-word UChicago Acknowledgement and Attestation Regarding COVID-19 or have my student ID card deactivated. If you need any more proof that college administrators are infantilizing adult college students, here is an excerpt from the COVID-19 agreement I had to sign:

I agree that the University may disclose violations of this attestation and other COVID-19-related protocols or guidance established by the University and public health authorities to my parent(s), legal guardians(s) and other third parties as permitted by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.

This is what happens when universities have more administrators and lawyers than professors. For years, Paglia has warned that swollen campus bureaucracy, empowered by intrusive federal regulation, are the powerful fist crushing freedom at universities.

The societal effects of the university COVID power grab will be felt when students leave college and enter the workforce. Recent college grads will add to the growing number of young people terrorizing executives and co-workers with social justice threats and extortions. The rest of Americans will be helpless in the face of leftist intimidation, having been desensitized at college to oppressive rules and regulations encroaching on their personal lives and individual freedom.

This story was originally published in the Chicago Thinker.

Evita Duffy is an intern at The Federalist and a junior at the University of Chicago, where she studies American History. She loves the Midwest, lumberjack sports, writing, & her family. Follow her on Twitter at @evitaduffy_1

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Insane COVID Rules Train Next Generation To Embrace Totalitarianism - The Federalist

In a generally weak year for Super Bowl commercials, Jeeps stood out for being particularly obnoxious and tone-deaf. Called The Middle, left-wing political activist and world-famous singer Bruce Springsteen narrated and starred in the ad about how the country has been divided, but now it has a bright future as the ReUnited States of America.

While advertisements that appeal to virtues in order to increase sales and profits can work see Toyotas beautiful ad about the joy in adopting a child with special needs this one fell flat and faced mockery and opposition from many viewers. Here are the three main reasons the ad didnt work.

Many Americans love Springsteens music. His successful career has spanned four decades. Many liberals love that he shares their political views and works so hard as a political activist. Springsteen, like so many other wealthy celebrities, regularly speaks ill of Republican voters and politicians.

Just before the 2020 election, Springsteen called for an exorcism in our nations capital as dark music played on his radio show. Of Trumps presidency, he said, I thought it was a fing nightmare, but it was true. The episode, titled Farewell To The Thief, also insulted President Trumps family.

The 71-year-old Springsteen told Australians that he would leave the United States and move there if Trump was re-elected.

Springsteens posture against Republicans is well known and goes back decades. He was angry at President Ronald Reagans positive mention of Springsteens Born In The U.S.A. He endorsed and campaigned for John Kerry, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden.

Of President George W. Bush in 2008, Springsteen said the United States was now suffering the consequences of eight years of rule by a very radical group of people who pushed things in a very radical direction, had great success in moving things in that direction, and we are suffering the consequences. By 2016, he was calling President Trump a moron. In 2017 he bashed Trump in a protest song.

As one Twitter user put it, Thats all I could think of, the whole spot. Being preached to by someone who doesnt respect my views who relishes in suppressing them, having the nerve to pretend to be my community and declare unity. They have no idea how transparently cynical the whole thing came across.

The ad began with images of a tiny Christian chapel in the middle of the continental United States. The chapel, which seats maybe a half dozen, features a cross on top of a map of the United States that is painted like the American flag.

Later Springsteens narration uses biblical imagery evocative of the Old Testament journey of the Jews to the promised land: So, we can get there. We can make it to the mountaintop, through the desert, and we will cross this divide. Springsteen says that the chapel is for all, which is undoubtedly true, but its very particular religious imagery to be used in service of car sales.

While lefties began claiming that Springsteen was endorsing Christian nationalism, others felt that Jeep was using our religion and God to mock us.

The ad featured the Springsteen, who is extremely well known for being from New Jersey, wearing a cowboy hat and boots, small earrings in each ear. He appeared to have continued his regular upkeep of plastic surgery. The overall effect was one of cosplay rather than authenticity.

A Jeep with no top on in the middle of what seemed to be a particularly frigid time in Kansas drove down a dismal road. No Jeep owner would do such a thing.In general, the images were frosty, cold, and dark.

The final image was a map of the continental United States minus, for inexplicable reasons, the upper peninsula of Michigan. In the center was a red star, an image historically associated with communism and more recently with socialism.

The middle has been a hard place to get to lately, Springsteen said at the beginning of the ad. The end features the text, To The ReUnited States Of America.

What made the United States divided until recently, the viewer might ask. Why, according to Jeep, is the country reunited now?

For 74 million Trump-voting Americans who lived through four years of epithets and refusal by elites such as Springsteen to treat the president of the United States as legitimate, its not hard to see why the ad is going over like a lead balloon. One reason the middle has been a hard place to get to is because of wealthy and powerful people like Springsteen spewing hatred toward Republican presidents and their voters dating back to the 1980s.

Joe Biden, after winning a narrow election that came down to about 40,000 votes in three states, began asking the media to run with the narrative that he was a unifier. They dutifully did so, even as he signed radical executive orders and moved not one bit to the center but further and further to the left.

Corporate media, who have ignored or mocked concerns about election integrity despite the widespread sloppiness and rampant mail-in balloting associated with the 2020 election, have cheered on the crackdown of protesters in or near a riot at the nations capitol. They did so after spending months defending and contextualizing violent riots from the left that seized cities across the country, attacked federal buildings, killed dozens of Americans, set churches on fire, and terrorized small business owners.

How could a major corporation not see how propagandistic it comes off to suggest that when Republicans win a national election, thats divisive, but when Democrats win one, thats unifying? The corporate-approved approach is to paper over disagreement while Democrats hold power while amplifying a full-on #Resistance when Republicans are in power.

Jeep sales will not heal the fabric of the country. Jeep ads cant even help toward that goal so long as they are using dishonest and manipulative partisan framing in service of car sales.

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The Federalist The 3 Worst Things About That Terrible Jeep Super Bowl Ad How could a - The Federalist

Corporate media has spent the last year arguing that Donald Trumps claims about 2020 election integrity amount to seditious conspiracy theories. While maintaining that narrative despite the cognitive dissonance, Time magazines Feb. 15 cover story pulls back the curtain on a conspiracy among a well-funded cabal of powerful people in an an extraordinary shadow effort that successfully pushed Trump from office.

In a way, Trump was right, writes Time national political correspondent Molly Ball. There was a conspiracy unfolding behind the scenes. She later describes this conspiracy as something that sounds like a paranoid fever dream a well-funded cabal of powerful people, ranging across industries and ideologies, working together behind the scenes to influence perceptions, change rules and laws, steer media coverage and control the flow of information.

Trump was treated like he had three heads for complaining the election was rigged. In the infamous speech he gave as violence broke out in the U.S. Capitol the day Congress certified the Electoral College votes, Trump said, This year they rigged the election. They rigged it like theyve never rigged an election before. The left and some Republicans like Rep. Liz Cheney have insisted Trumps strong claims like this incited an insurrection.

Yet Ball makes exactly these kinds of claims in the Time article, and goes on to substantiate them. Its really hard to tell if the article is just a gloating bat flip, a horrifying attempt to radicalize more people among Democrats political opposition, or evidence the left believes Americans are so deadened under Democrat control they will not react to such public revelations of conspiracies to betray American self-governance.

The article is above all a striking work of doublespeak. It intones the Trump is crazy mantra at Trumps charges of election-rigging while telling how powerful people conspired to rig the 2020 election. Ball documents a massive election-manipulation conspiracy among the nations rich and powerful. She shows an amazing level of contempt combined with ignorance about how someone who believes in self-government, as opposed to rule by oligarchs, might take this information.

The conspiracys work touched every aspect of the election, Ball writes. They got states to change voting systems and laws and helped secure hundreds of millions in public and private funding. They fended off voter-suppression lawsuits, recruited armies of poll workers and got millions of people to vote by mail for the first time.

This, she and the dozens of conspiracists she interviewed claim, is evidence of their efforts to protect the election. In fact, all of these tactics weaken election integrity.

For example, mail-in ballots are known as an unreliable voting method, even without its potential assistance to criminal fraud such as ballot-stuffing, because they create margins of error well within the margin of actual votes in a close election. Thats why labor unions, Jeff Bezos, and many foreign countries refuse to use them.

Therefore, in a mail-in election such as 2020, in which half of the total votes and most of the Biden votes were mail-in, one can control the outcome simply by controlling the poll-watchers and vote-counters. Even if they are honest, their unconscious bias or the simple mayhem of unreadable handwriting and signatures creates the conditions for untrustworthy results.

We have no way of knowing how many of the approximately 65 million 2020 election mail-in ballots were legal meaning, how many fully complied with all applicable state laws to be validly completed by eligible voters. It could be all of them. It might not be. Nobody with power seems to care to find out. Joe Biden won, and the bad orange man is finally gone. Thats all that matters to them, and anyone who has any concerns or questions is simply a stupid bigot, end of story, move along, nothing to see here, shut up you white supremacist domestic terrorist or well put you in jail without any bail youre so lucky we havent already.

One of the core problems with the 2020 election is that many states did not follow their voting laws, suspending them with the excuse of COVID (which the Centers for Disease Control said the day before the election, after most votes were already cast, was not necessary). States were pressured or forced to do so, not by what Ball hilariously calls Trumps henchmen, but by lawyered-up leftist pressure groups that strategically undermined election protections with pre-emptive lawsuits while courts rolled over for them.

These leftist lawyers were unquestionably the aggressors in this situation, as Hans van Spakovsky and others have documented, filing as many as four times the number of lawsuits Trump or Republicans filed. Their efforts caused the very election confusion Ball claims her vaunted conspiracy was trying to avoid. What do you call people who do one thing while claiming to do the opposite? Idiots or liars. And I dont think these people are idiots.

This conspiracy also rigged the election by pre-emptively controlling the information voters were able to receive about the candidates. They did this by colluding with big tech companies to hide information that made Joe Biden look bad. Post-election research found that just the conspiracys successful information control on Hunter Bidens alleged corruption and its potential links to his father would have been enough to tip the election.

They successfully pressured social media companies to take a harder line against disinformation and used data-driven strategies to fight viral smears They executed national public-awareness campaigns that helped Americans understand how the vote count would unfold over days or weeks, preventing Trumps conspiracy theories and false claims of victory from getting more traction. After Election Day, they monitored every pressure point to ensure that Trump could not overturn the result, Ball writes.

The article shows how these activists pushed a narrative that election results would not be known on election night as part of their campaign to box out Trump. It then openly admits to a subsequent orchestrated attempt to anoint Biden the winner before all the votes had been tallied. This is how leftists made their fever dream a reality.

This coalition had private polling that mirrored the Trump campaigns internal polling, which differed from the public polling released throughout 2020 that consistently appeared to show Trump far behind. A top conspiracy leader was warning everyone he knew that polls were underestimating Trumps support, Ball writes.

To counteract this, he sent data to corporate media networks that got them to telegraph that the election results would take time to massage oops, be counted. The delay made way for a late surge of mail-in ballots that were just what Biden needed in every place he needed them.

Election night began with many Democrats despairing. Trump was running ahead of pre-election polling, winning Florida, Ohio and Texas easily and keeping Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania too close to call, Ball noted. But the conspiracy leader watched the results unperturbed, she says: he could tell that as long as all the votes were counted, Trump would lose. Amazing projection skills, right? Especially considering his cabal in reality pushed to declare Biden the winner before all the votes were counted.

Another major part of this campaign to tamper with the democratic process was leftists influence over the media and tech companies that control what Americans learn about the world beyond their own ears and eyeballs. Ball introduces us to a veteran progressive operative who piloted a nameless, secret project, which she has never before publicly discussed, that trackeddangerous lies that might otherwise spread unnoticed. Researchers then provided information to campaigners or the media to track down the sources and expose them.

It appears from Balls reporting that somebody got this research in front of Mark Zuckerberg, who in November 2019 invited nine civil rights leaders to dinner at his home, where they warned him about the danger of the election-related falsehoods that were already spreading unchecked. Zuckerberg and his wifes foundation was subsequently a massive part of the election 2020 conspiracy.

Not only did Facebook make a massive in-kind contribution to Democrats with information manipulation on the platform, but also Zuckerbergs foundation gave $350 million in 2020 to local governments to run elections, including training election workers. In Georgia, a highly contested state where subsequent Senate runoffs gave Democrats unified control of the federal government, Zuckerbergs money was suspiciously aligned with hugely positive flips for Democrats.

Coincidence? Maybe. Or maybe thats just a conspiracy theory.

The Time article bears close and repeated reading. One last area of observation here concerns its discussion of the alliance between big business and big labor.

The conspiracy leaders purposefully reached out to people dressed in Republican clothing, like Chambers of Commerce, to use them to help cloak Bidens coronation in bipartisan colors. These double agents mission was to convince Republicans to quietly accept the election results, fear violence from leftists, and to provide internal pressure at key postelection choke points like certification votes in cities and states. It all worked.

It is certainly no coincidence that from 2020 to 2021, Republicans satisfaction with big business plummeted 26 points to 31 percent. The Wall Street Journal says thats likely due to corporations increasingly choosing to bypass[] the political process and intervene[] directly to transform highly contested parts of American life. No kidding.

Amid the big business-big labor discussion, Balls interviewees admit the leftist rioters who terrorized America throughout 2020 did so with the tacit permission of higher-ups, who can turn the riots on and off at will. That will be cold comfort to those who lost more than 30 family members in the riots and hundreds more in subsequent murder spikes after the unrest pushed police to stand down.

Activists began preparing to reprise the George Floyd riots as it looked like Trump was about to win, Ball writes. Their Protect the Results coalition had a map listing 400 planned postelection demonstrations, to be activated via text message as soon as Nov. 4. To stop the coup they feared, the left was ready to flood the streets.

But a curious thing happened on the way to this nationwide riot. The white-collar conspiracy leaders called off their thugs. Their nonviolent plan to fortify the election was working. Violence wasnt needed at the moment. [T]he word went out: stand down, Ball writes. What a convenient little violent militia these people have, all at the summons of a text message!

The conspiracy of longtime Democrat activists who want Trump dead wasnt about making sure he lost, Ball repeatedly insists while writing an entire article indicating the opposite. It was about protecting democracy. Left unstated is the context leftists have been stating for Trumps entire tenure: they consider him democracys Public Enemy Number 1.

In this same article, Ball herself writes that leftist activists considered it their mission to oppose Trumps assault on democracy. To them, forcing him from office is synonymous with democracy. As leftists activists made explicit in their plans to shut down the country if Trump clearly won, to them it was impossible for democracy to result in Trumps election.

Every attempt to interfere with the proper outcome of the election was defeated, conspiracy member Ian Bassin told Ball (emphasis added). Heads Joe Biden wins, tails Donald Trump loses. In games, we call that rigging. In sports, we call it cheating.

So when they say they suspended election laws and threatened deadly violence to protect democracy, what all these people really mean is they worked to rig the election against Trump. They just think you are too stupid to put those two statements together. And they are apparently too narcissistic to hide their masterfully successful plotting.

As John Davidson says, the ruling class hates you, and they think you are stupid. In fact, they work to make you stupid and helpless, then laugh about it in your face afterward.

A numerical error in this article has been corrected.

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Time Profiles The Successful 'Conspiracy' To Rig The 2020 Election - The Federalist

On Wednesday night, MSNBC anchor Andrea Mitchell and Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin lost their minds on Twitter over Sen. Ted Cruz saying the second Donald Trump impeachment proceedings are full of sound and fury, like in Shakespeare.

While Mitchell and others thought they were delivering an intelligent blow to Cruzs remarks by pointing out the phrase should be actually attributed to William Faulkner, it turns out the two might need to brush up on their literature. Sparknotes or Cliffnotes is a good place to start.

The phrase full of sound and fury, signifying nothing, is in Act V, Scene Five of Shakespeares famous Macbeth. So much for owning those common folk conservatives!

@SenTedCruz says #ImpeachmentTrial is like Shakespeare full of sound and fury signifying nothing. No, thats Faulkner, Mitchell wrote.

and it says volumes about his lack of soul. Thats Any Thinking Person, Rubin responded.

I clearly studied too much American literature and not enough Macbeth, Mitchell then wrote hours later, My apologies to Sen. Cruz.

The Sound and The Fury is indeed a 1929 acclaimed novel by William Faulkner, yet the author derived the title from Macbeth (first published in 1623).

Faulkner wrote the book The Sound and the Fury. But the phrase comes from Shakespeares Macbeth: It is a tale, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. The whole passage is beautiful, responded New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof.<

While those on the left reacted to Mitchells laughable lack of awareness, Cruz comedically chimed in.

Methinks she doth protest too much. One would think NBC would know the Bard. Andrea, take a look at Macbeth act 5, scene 5: [Life] struts & frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more. It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound & fury, Signifying nothing.

Touche, Mitchell responded, recognizing her blunder that became a spectacle across the political aisle.

The fiasco trended near the top on Twitter Wednesday night, swiftly becoming an issue those on the right and left could agree on.

Um, he was right. The quote originated in Macbeth, tweeted Fox News political analyst, Brit Hume.

Imagine thinking you are dunking on Cruz here by showing your complete ignorance of a little old play Macbeth,' Federalist Senior Editor Mollie Hemingway said.

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Andrea Mitchell Owns Herself Trying To Correct Ted Cruz's Shakespeare - The Federalist

The case against Donald John Trump in this, his second impeachment trial, is a curious thing. The single charge is that he allegedly incited a riot at the Capitol by contesting the results of the 2020 election. But his actions do not meet the legal definition of incitement. As we are constantly reminded, a Senate impeachment trial is not a criminal trial, so the senators can choose to define incitement however they want, but so far they havent.

The opening statement from the House managers was almost solely focused on feelings and emotion. At one point, Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., literally broke down in tears while describing the riot. But what he did not offer was a standard by which Trumps guilt or innocence on the charge of incitement could be based. This is very important because a precedent is being set here.

Likewise, on day two, the Democrats once again made a mainly emotional appeal, focused on video and images from the riots. The closest that Democrats came to showing Trump had encouraged the events at the Capitol was a kind of incitement by omission. They tried to show that he intentionally refused to tell rioters to stop once they had started.

Even if that is true, and its not entirely clear when Trump was tweeting about the rioters themselves and when he was tweeting about the vast majority of his supporters who stayed peaceful, its not incitement. You cant incite something that already happened. Conservatives in favor of conviction have invented arguments that blend morality, patriotism, and emotion. But they are very short on facts and specifics, which mean any conviction of Trump would be a mile wide and an inch deep.

David French tweeted about the video presentation offered by the Democrats:

I agree that convicting Trump would set a precedent, just not the one French thinks it will. Standards and precedents have to be testable and repeatable, otherwise they are but merely whims. So what standard would we be setting with this novel definition of incitement that does not exist in our law? We saw politically motivated violence from the left all summer long, much of it directed against police. Did the progressive politicians and activists who frankly spread a lot of lies about how deeply racist our police are incite that violence? It seems to me by this definition they did.

When confronted with this problem, namely that the definition of incitement is so incredibly broad here, some in favor of conviction make an appeal to the fact that the riots happened. Here is National Reviews Dan McLaughlin, one of the loudest of the conservatives for conviction:

He is comparing Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters 2018 call for people to get in the faces of Trump officials, to confront them in public, to Trumps actions. His argument here is that since Waters call to action did not lead to immediate violence (although it certainly was a call for aggressive protest), she gets a pass for essentially doing exactly what Trump did. Under this rubric, intention becomes irrelevant. That is a very dangerous road that runs counter to centuries of Western governance. Of course intent matters, and there is not a shred of evidence that proves or even suggests that Trump intended a violent storming of the Capitol.

So if Frenchs argument falls apart because it could capture anyone in the future who disputes an election result, and McLaughlins falls apart because it is unable to grapple with the idea of intention, that really only leaves feelings and an emotional appeal. In some sense, it is like the old saw about trying to define pornography, that you know it when you see it. Thats not good enough for an impeachment conviction. It leaves wide open the door for future impeachments of disgust, where no crime or misdemeanor is committed or proven, but sufficient outrage is manufactured. That is not the purpose of impeachment. It is rather the purpose of elections, the opposite of impeachment.

Of course, emotions do play a role in politics, but the proper role for emotional appeal is as an appeal to voters, not to impeachment juries. If the Senate convicts Trump and bars him from running even though 75 million people voted for him, it would be one of the most anti-democratic actions ever taken by the federal government. That ought not to be done on the basis of feelings, but rather on the basis of facts and circumstances that are testable and repeatable.

Trumps defense team and Republican senators should not now hide behind the process question of whether you can convict a former president. They should defend directly against the charge of incitement and resoundingly reject this new, vague definition of the word. Further, they should make absolutely clear that questioning the outcome of an election or seeking to fix alleged problems with voting methods must never be considered an offense of any kind, let alone an impeachable one.

The facts of this case are not on the Democrats side. The feelings might be, but that must not be allowed to be sufficient. Republicans in the Senate and beyond must show resolve here in the face of furious outrage from those who have been outraged by Trump since before he even took office. Republicans must summon the strength they learned from Trump and stand against this scurrilous impeachment.

David Marcus is the Federalist's New York Correspondent. Follow him on Twitter, @BlueBoxDave.

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(1) This Impeachment Of Donald John Trump Is Trial By Feelings - The Federalist

If a nicest guy in the world award was given to famous American pastors, few would disagree New York Times best-selling author Max Lucado should find himself toward the front of that line. Hes the consummate cuddly bear whose central message is Gods boundless and unmerited grace for all people, regardless of their story. This is the hallmark of his ministry and life. It oozes from his pulpit and the pages of his books. He speaks of it in a thousand different ways, always seeking to help people understand this glorious truth from yet another creative, illuminating angle.

Lucados message is clear: No one is too far from Gods inexhaustible love. No. One. If you are human, this includes you. Full. Stop. All you have to do is accept it. It was this very message that earned him the prestigious invitation to preach this past Sunday to the congregation of the celebrated Washington National Cathedral in D.C. This is the church where our national leaders hold their largest and most solemn official religious gatherings.

But Lucados invitation to preach was surprisingly controversial and his cancelation was publicly demanded, according to the Episcopal News Service. Why? Because he has publicly stated that God instituted marriage between a man and woman and only condones married sexuality. And his great sin was not so much how he said it, but that he said it. This was enough to spur calls for his cancelation and for the National Cathedrals leadership to say letting Lucado speak was a mistake.

When the Washington National Cathedral announced on their Facebook page Lucado would be preaching their Sunday service, calls for him to be disinvited flooded in. Someone on the Cathedrals Facebook page baselessly explained, This mans theology makes some people want to kill themselves. The director of faith outreach for the highly influential LGBT lobbying group Human Rights Campaign made their thoughts known about the invitation to church leadership. Activists started an online petition to have Lucados invitation rescinded.

Pastor Lucados message was delivered to the congregation on February 7th. But only after retired Bishop Gene Robinson, the Episcopal Churchs first ordained openly gay bishop, was recruited to preside over the Sunday morning service as a calming device. Robinson provided a meticulously worded eight minute-long explanation for why Lucados was invitation was not revoked. To his credit, Robisons speech was a thoughtful and a classical liberal explanation for why inclusion sometimes includes people we dont agree with much at all. But he put his explanation to the congregation in the simple and binary context of good over bad, right over wrong, us against them.

Let me just say this carefully to those of us who are LGBTQ. Weve won. Weve won! We know how this is going to end. This is going to end with the full inclusion of gay and lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer people, non-binary people, all kinds of people. We know how it ends.

He concluded his side the zero-sum victors, good over evil. That pulpit is their pulpit and they will manage it according to their ascendent beliefs. And Rev. Randy Hollerith, dean of Washington National Cathedral, was also compelled to distance himself from his gentle guest during the Sunday service and did so in his carefully threaded introduction to Lucados sermon.

Max and I differ on many issues, but I know him to be a person of goodwill and deep faith. He has said things in the past that have caused the LGBTQ community great pain. Let me be clear. I dont agree with those statements. And the Cathedral does not agree with those statements. Our LGBTQ brothers and sisters and siblings are the beloved children of God, just as they are.

Lucados basic position on the nature of marriage and sexuality is what made his invitation a bridge too far for the LGBT political class. This incident demonstrates it is no longer possible to hold a belief contrary to LGBT orthodoxy, even in the most genuinely kind and gracious way, and still be considered a decent person by those on the left. It is no longer a matter of how you disagree, but simply that you disagree. That is the take-away here. And every person involved in this decision got the message loud and clear.

Washington, D.C.s Episcopal Bishop Mariann Budde told the Episcopal News Service, I would do it differently now regarding Lucados invitation. My biggest mistake, she explained, was not reaching out to some of my colleagues who are LGBTQ.

Budde, who certainly didnt rise to her position in that denomination without being acutely mindful of and dutiful to LGBT concerns, confessed, It took me a while to appreciate the magnitude of the issue and the magnitude of the concern from those who protested the invitation. Hollerith said, In my straight privilege I failed to see and fully understand the pain he has caused. Gay activists most faithful allies have a hard time keeping up with their demands.

It is critically important for all Christians, and any informed observer of religion in public life, to take note of what this incident marks. Two of the most powerful Episcopal clergy in the nation had to carefully explain, within minutes of his talk, why an evangelical preacher whose whole message is Gods limitless kindness and grace to everyone should be allowed to address the Sunday morning congregation of one of our nations great cathedrals. They admitted Lucados sermon that morning titled, How God Helps Us Through Our Trials, was not controversial in any way.

This pastor is not political, nor a culture warrior, and their concern was with what he wrote 17 years ago. His singular message is Gods unending love for everyone. He has sold over a hundred million books explaining that very truth. His disqualifying feature was not greed, arrogance, graft, sexual misconduct, or abuse of power. It was not ugliness toward any person. It is simply and singularly that he holds to the historic and clearly scriptural teaching of what marriage is as Gods clearly stated plan for human sexual expression, that which is held by nearly all major religions through the millennia and most clergy today.

To this, all orthodox Christians, Jews, and Muslims, as well as any other traditionally-minded individuals, should ask their LGBT neighbors this question: Is it possible for me to not agree with what you believe about sexuality and gender and still be considered a decent person in polite company?

Max Lucado got the answer to those questions this week in a dramatically stark fashion. Yes, Pastor Lucado was permitted to speak, but only by the skin of his teeth. And only with very public and deft distancing from the very people who invited him. Even the liberal clergy of the Episcopal Church received the message loud and clear: Dont invite his kind ever again. No matter how nice and inclusive they might be. Its not how you disagree. Its that you disagree.

This turn should jolt everyone who values civil society, the necessity of religious freedom, and the essential virtue of differing ideas. A new kind of fundamentalism is taking over liberalism, and it is doing so ironically, in the name of inclusion and free-thought. The Lucado incident is simply the latest dramatic dispatch in that story.

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Outrage Over Max Lucado Shows There Is No Room For Dissent In LGBT Church Politics - The Federalist

The Senate launched its second impeachment trial targeting ex-President Donald Trump Tuesday, the same week one year ago that the upper chamber exonerated the president of impeachment the first time.

This years trial, expected to last around two weeks, shares remarkable similarities to last years, when the coronavirus brewing overseas threatened to wreak havoc on the world while Congress distracted itself with a pointless impeachment. Only this time, the coronavirus is here, with new variants well on their way to becoming the dominant strains in the United States and a struggling vaccination campaign impeding efforts to combat the virus.

Meanwhile, the United States finds itself fending off far more problems this year than it did last. Draconian lockdowns have strangled the economy, provoked a housing crisis, kept kids out of school, traumatized the nations psyche, and exacerbated divisions. Yet Democrats remain laser-focused on impeaching a man already out of office for a made-up crime their own standards would indict themselves for having committed. Once again, Trump Derangement Syndrome controls Democratic priorities.

House Democrats passed the snap impeachment last month within one week of the Capitol riot Democrats charged Trump for inciting. Trump, goes the Democratic tale, rallied his horde of supporters at the White House and ordered them to march down to the Capitol building to storm each chamber certifying the results of the presidential election.

An honest reading of the transcript that day, however, shows no such incitement. However irresponsibly, Trump simply encouraged supporters to demonstrate peacefully in opposition of congressional certification of the Electoral College vote.

I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard, Trump said. Today we will see whether Republicans stand strong for integrity of our elections.

A timeline of the events compiled by The New York Times further shows rioters launched their assault on the Capitol a full 20 minutes before the president had even finished speaking. Its hard to incite whats already started.

Many who stormed the Capitol that day had also already come to Washington prepared to riot, apparently determined to engage in the Antifa-style destruction to make their voices heard. After months of Democrats normalizing political violence when it came from the left, a scattered few felt this was now also their only option.

Some came armed for battle and planning for war,' Reuters reported of the rioters in January, chronicling those who carried weapons and explosives to the riot.

Over the course of the impeachment trial this week and next, no Democrat will read remarks from the president demanding his supporters bring firearms to the Capitol to stop the steal, because they dont exist. Yet one year after their first pointless impeachment, Democrats are once again distracting a nation facing serious problems on multiple fronts to take out a man already out of the Oval Office.

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Democrats Distract Government With 'Groundhog Day' Impeachment - The Federalist

Once upon a time, way back in 2019, it was considered virtuous for pregnant women to obsessively Google or ask their doctors about every behavior that might conceivably affect their baby. Is it okay to go swimming? To eat lunch meat? To use hairspray?

Over the course of mere months, however, one behavior has become taboo to question as safe for pregnancy: mask-wearing.

The TV screen in my OB-GYNs waiting room says its safe, after all. The World Health Organization recommends pregnant women wear a non-medical, fabric mask where physical distancing isnt possible, while the Centers for Disease control unequivocally states that pregnant women can and should wear cloth masks.

If the CDC and WHO abided by their own standards of evidence in use before the pandemic, however, they wouldnt have jumped to recommend masks without so much as a caveat about the unknown level of safety of long-term mask use in pregnancy. The CDC comments in a page last reviewed in October 2019 that some masks make it harder to breathe, and this can sometimes cause difficulties (particularly late in pregnancy).

Summarized on a linked CDC page is a one-hour study of N95 masks during rest and exercise, which found the effects were mild and there was no difference in effect between pregnant and non-pregnant women. The CDC noted that more studies are needed to find out if there are any additional effects from wearing an N95 FFR for longer periods of time.

That page did not mention another study conducted in 2015 of 20 pregnant health-care workers in mid-pregnancy, which showed a decrease [in] oxygen uptake and increase [in] carbon dioxide production as a result of the increased workload on breathing imposed by mask use, both at rest and low work intensity.

In researching this topic, I could find only a handful of studies on mask use in pregnant women, and none on the cloth face masks recommended to this group. Neither could I find any studies with observation periods longer than an hour, much less studies of the long-term impacts of maternal mask use on child development (like the scores we have for drug and alcohol use).

Even if those studies exist, neither the CDC nor the WHO have cited any robust study that says, Yes, long-term mask use during pregnancy is safe for mother and baby. Millions of pregnant women are now guinea pigs for mask use, without health organizations or government agencies even having the decency to be honest about it.

Indeed, the claim that frequent mask use for extended periods of time is completely harmless to the general public has already broken down: Mask mouth puts frequent mask wearers on the path to gum disease, which in other contexts has been found to be connected to other serious health problems, like heart disease, diabetes, and premature birth.

The contention that COVID is so dangerous its worth engaging in an untested behavior in an attempt to avoid it doesnt hold water, either. The CDC has been tracking pregnancy and birth outcomes for women and babies with COVID, including birth defects and pregnancy loss. The most its November report could conclude is that pregnant women with COVID might be at risk for preterm birth. A July 2020 systematic review of published studies found insufficient good-quality data to draw unbiased conclusions on COVID-related health outcomes for mothers and infants.

Neither the WHO nor CDC recommended face coverings for pregnant women (except health-care workers) with the H1N1 outbreak despite the fact that the H1N1 fatality rate among pregnant women was far higher than from other influenza types, and the favorable results for mask-wearing from the first randomized controlled trial of mask use in households came out in 2008. In addition, numerous transmission studies of mask use over the last decade (see this compilation of studies with moderate to high quality of evidence by the WHO) have found against mask efficacy.

For mask use, there should be high demand for clear evidence of safety for pregnant women and their babiesthe same level of evidence the CDC demands of virtually every other health-related behavior in pregnancy. Just compare the CDC and WHOs unflinching support for something so poorly studied to their abstinence-only approach to alcohol use, despite studies of thousands of pregnancies showing no significant effect of minimal drinking on babies health.

If the CDC and WHO were consistent, they would treat long-term mask use by pregnant women more like they treat alcohol use: theres no definitive evidence that its safe, and therefore it cannot be endorsed.

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CDC, WHO Push Masks On Pregnant Women Without Evidence Of Safety - The Federalist

New York Times TikTok reporter Taylor Lorenz has veered from her usual reporting on the activities of online teenagers to the activities of Silicon Valley tech bros in the hopes of catching them in the act of something problematic, but her latest self-own suggests she should stick to her TikTok beat instead.

In her eagerness to slander venture capitalist Marc Andreessen on Saturday night, Lorenz fired off a tweet falsely claiming he said the word retarded in an online audio chatroom on the social media app Clubhouse, which Andreessen is himself an investor in.

A moderator of the chat and several others pointed out Andreessen never used the reported slur.

Instead of issuing a correction or an apology for the inaccurate reporting fired off to her 210,000 followers, Lorenz doubled down with an insufficient excuse for the slander, deleted the tweets, then took her Twitter account private. Her clarifying tweets also condescendingly shamed everyone to think more carefully about using the r-word without explaining any context of how the word was actually used.

For months, Lorenz has obsessed over Andreessen and conversations on Clubhouse. Last fall, Lorenz alleged that several men on the platform were perpetrating malicious sexual behavior on the app, tweeting that it was rife with sexism and misogyny. She quickly blocked other Clubhouse users who challenged her allegations.

On Feb. 2, she bragged on Twitter about circumventing the apps feature blocking journalists from chatrooms by establishing a burner account.

As journalist Glenn Greenwald pointed out, Lorenz is acting as an online hall monitor, deputized by the New York Times, to tattle on and ultimately silence those who they dislike. Journalists are not the defenders of free speech values but the primary crusaders to destroy them, Greenwald wrote.

Greenwald called out CNNs Brian Stelter and Oliver Darcy for similar behavior, but it is Lorenz who has dominated the citizen surveillance beat for years.

In 2018 at the Daily Beast, Lorenz doxed Instagram-famous teenagers for the crime of having parents with conservative political beliefs. The Daily Beast proudly announced it was Lorenzs reporting that got the teens show on Oath canceled.

In 2020, Lorenz lashed out at female entrepreneur Steph Korey for her thoughts on the media. After making factual errors and mischaracterizing Koreys statements, Lorenz played the victim of those calling her out.

When the Times published an op-ed by Sen.Tom Cotton last summer, titled Send in the Troops,Lorenz was one of the outspoken Times employees calling the opinion pages decision one that put black staff in danger.

Time and again, Lorenz shows to be on the side of canceling or shutting down anyone or any speech she dislikes or finds dangerous. She even admitted as much in an interview with Katie Herzog on cancel culture in 2019.

I think the way people use cancel culture is this shorthand way of dismissing whatever accusations are against them, Lorenz told Herzog. My general take on it is that its very toxic but also necessary. We are in the correction phase right now and everyone is indiscriminately calling each other out, and thats because were working to set new standards and norms as a society.

The correction phase is a phrase that comes out of the mouth of a communist dictator or a Gestapo officer, not an American journalist. Lorenz is not committed to the First Amendment or free speech of any kind. Instead, she spends her time trolling social media and online chat rooms looking for fireable offenses, and when she cant find them, she fabricates and falsely attributes instead.

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New York Times TikTok Reporter Is So Committed To Thought Policing She Makes Up Crimes - The Federalist

The war on the rich is escalating on both coasts. While Democrats argue theyre righteously demanding the wealthy pay their fair share, its the middle class who will pay the biggest price.

Legislation labeled a wealth tax targets the wealthy. In Washington state, billionaires would be hit with a 1 percent tax on intangible assets. New Yorks legislation includes tax hikes on income, capital gains, inheritance, and even stock trades.

Seattle state Rep. Noel Frame introduced the legislation to target Washingtons roughly 100 billionaires a list that includes Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and Steve Ballmer hitting them with a 1 percent tax on intangible assets including publicly traded options, futures contracts, stocks, and bonds, and cash without taxing their income.

In an interview with ABC News, Frame claims this isnt really about the billionaires whose bank accounts shell plunder. It actually really isnt about them, its about the working people of Washington who right now are disproportionally paying for community investments like public education, public health, you name it, she said. This is about equity in the tax code.

The argument is that Washington has the most regressive tax code in the United States due to high sales and property taxes but no income tax. Thus, in terms of the share of their earnings, low-income Washingtonians pay more than the wealthy do. Its a noble attempt to sound like Democrats care about the little guy. Its also an argument easy to reject.

The wealth tax doesnt lower sales or property taxes with the estimated $2.5 billion new dollars it brings to the state coffers. In fact, Democrats are currently trying to raise the gas tax to what would become the highest in the country. It would mean Washingtonians could pay nearly $1 per gallon in gas taxes something that seems awfully regressive, indeed.

Frame argues the gas tax is meant to discourage driving because its bad for the environment. Tell that to a single mother who needs to drive to two jobs across town so she can afford the high property tax rates untouched by Frames wealth tax.

While Frame believes a gas tax would push drivers to stop driving, shes convinced a wealth tax wouldnt push billionaires to do anything different like moving. Once again, it would benefit her to talk to some billionaires. While a handful of outspoken wealthy liberals seem content on paying more though for some reason dont just write over checks to the government on their own others understand the dangers of these taxes.

Orion Hindawi, a billionaire CEO of a cybersecurity company, moved to Washington to escape Californias anti-business tax structure. He knows Silicon Valley billionaires looking to move will see it as an unwelcome sign. People can argue that its right or its wrong, but its somewhat irrelevant, he said. The question is actually do you want these people moving to your state or not?

Perhaps Hindawi could ask his wealthy, liberal Silicon Valley friends, reading the writing on the wall in Washington or New York, to realize that theyre likely headed to a tax-friendly, conservative state. The kind of state their tech companies are seeking to destroy, run by politicians their platforms are trying to silence.

Unconvinced the wealthy will flee? Turn your gaze towards New York City, where the wealthiest residents left the city when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. It devastated the city, crushing the housing market.

As they decide what to do next, a report in Bloomberg says the wealthy are looking favorably at Florida due to the states lack of income tax. Indeed, if they return to New York, they may get hit with a series of new taxes considerably more aggressive than whats happening in Washington.

Democratic Party politicians, along with a coalition of socialists and modern leftists like U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and New York state Rep. Jamaal Bowman, are pushing the Invest in Our New York Act that would smack the wealthy with $50 billion in new taxes, including raised income tax rates as well as increased capital gains and estate and inheritance taxes.

Unfortunately, it doesnt end there. Brooklyn state Sen. Julia Salazar is pushing in a Wall Street Tax, which collects 0.5 percent of the value of stock trades, 0.1 percent of bond trades, and .005 percent of derivative trades.

A letter signed by the states most powerful economic groups, including the New York Stock Exchange, warned New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo that the tax could lead financial firms to move their back-office operations and related jobs outside of New York.

Its hard to envision where such burdensome tax proposals will end and if todays radical leftists would ever be satisfied. What is for sure, however, is that itll ultimately be the middle class that pays the biggest price.

As the wealthy flee the oppressive taxes of places like California (and hopefully reevaluate their politics), their flight places heavier burdens on those who cant afford to leave: the middle class in blue states. Even though these folks have so much to give, it wont matter to a radical base pushing these tax policies.

Socialist and leftist activists view anyone approaching a six-figure salary as wealthy, regardless of where they live. If the wild tax proposals in Washington and New York pass, the momentum may well be hard to stop. And, when that happens, say prayers your state wont be next.

Jason Rantz is a Seattle-based talk show host on KTTH Radio and a frequent guest on FOX News. Follow him on Twitter @JasonRantz and subscribe to his podcast.

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The Middle Class Will End Up Paying For The Left's War On The Rich - The Federalist