Daily Archives: May 20, 2021

A new grassroots group launched Monday to take conservatives on offense against cancel culture.The group, Unsilenced Majority aims to target unfair firings, cancellation in education, and corporate political activism by constructing a cohesive nationwide grassroots coalition.

Mike Davis, a former senior adviser to Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley who now runs the Article III Project and the Internet Accountability Project, will spearhead the new organization as its founder and president.

Corporate censorship, thought-policing and politically motivated blacklists and boycotts are having a corrosive effect on our country and will ultimately lead to a less free world, Davis said in a statement announcing the launch. The Unsilenced Majority speaks for an emboldened majority of Americans who recognize the imminent threat that cancel culture poses to our nation.

Davis will be joined by a team of prominent conservative attorneys and strategists active in the culture war for years, including Daily Malarkey Co-founder Ian Prior as its spokesman and senior counsel, Human Events Editor-in-Chief Will Chamberlain, and GOP operative Andy Surabian, who worked in the Trump White House.

The groups launch comes weeks after another grassroots organization was launched to target the rise of identity politics infecting K-12 schools, Parents Defending Education, as conservatives mobilize and reinvigorate a new cultural Tea Party 10 years after the arrival of the first.

Cancel culture is the deliberate de-platforming or ultimate unemployment of an individual for views fraudulently held to be outside an increasingly turbulent public square, often featuring past statements dug up in bad faith to deploy online mobs against the dissident. The culture is wielded as a tool to penalize people for things that could otherwise be a justifiable position or an apology-level offense, and excommunicate the guilty culprit from the public square.

The cancel culture weapon has been capitalized by aggressively woke leftists in particular, who, in pursuit of a 21st-century cultural revolution, press the reimagination of historical facts and figures through the modern-day lens of racism.

Six books authored by Theodor Seuss Geisel, otherwise known as Dr. Seuss, are among the most recent victims of 21st century cancel culture. In March, Dr. Seuss Enterprises announced it would cease publishing the titles over racist and insensitive imagery. The books include, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, If I Ran the Zoo, McElligots Pool, On Beyond Zebra!, Scrambled Eggs Super!, and The Cats Quizzer.

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New Group Launches To Take War Against Cancel Culture On Offense thefederalist.com - The Federalist

Multiple corporate media outlets relied on anonymous sources to report that the Colonial Pipeline would not pay the ransom demanded by cyberattackers who targeted the fuel transportation system. That turned out to be false, and Colonial did in fact pay the $5 million ransom, but several outlets have yet to retract any of their previous reporting.

Reuters reported Colonial would not pay the ransom based on sources familiar with the companys response. And while theres a notice on the story headlined Colonial Pipeline has no plan to pay ransom to hackers -sources that this story refiles to fix typographical error in paragraph 10, Reuters did not respond to The Federalists questions about whether they would be issuing a retraction of the article.

The Washington Post also cited two anonymous sources as the basis for its reference to Colonial Pipelines decision not to pay a ransom.

Meanwhile, Colonial and its cybersecurity consultants were working to secure its servers, having decided not to pay a ransom demanded by foreign hackers, according to two people familiar with the matter, one Washington Post article from Wednesday claimed.

Another article, headlined Colonial Pipeline said to have no plan to pay hackers ransom repeated and promoted the information from Posts sources as fact.

Colonial Pipeline has no plan at this point to pay a ransom to decrypt data files, said two people familiar with the matter. Rather, they are working with the cybersecurity firm Mandiant to restore the data from backup systems where possible and rebuild systems where backups are unavailable, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the matter is still under investigation, the article states.

CNN was one of the only outlets to issue a correction on their false reporting. The article, originally headlined Colonial Pipeline not likely to pay millions in ransom demanded by hackers, claimed that anonymous sources and experts familiar with the response confirmed that the pipeline was not interested in paying the cryptocurrency price.

Now, the article is headlined Colonial Pipeline did pay ransom to hackers, sources now say and features paragraphs walking back CNNs former claims. A correction notice is tacked to the bottom of the digital story stating that it had since been modified to reflect new reporting, but the corporate media organization did not respond to The Federalists questions about why the article was not fully retracted.

An earlier version of this story said Colonial Pipeline was not likely to pay a ransom. The headline and story have been updated to reflect new reporting that they did pay and clarify the data recovery process, the correction reads.

The New York Times was one of the first corrupt media organizations to be dishonest in its coverage of the Colonial Pipeline and the ensuing gas shortages. Shortly after the Colonial Pipeline shut down, the New York Times claimed there were no lines at gas stations along the East Coast even though some had already completely run out of fuel.

Colonial Pipeline, a vital U.S. fuel artery that was shut down by a cyberattack, said it hoped to restore most operations by the end of the week. Since the shutdown, there have been no long lines or major price hikes for gas, the New York Times wrote on Twitter on Tuesday.

Jordan Davidson is a staff writer at The Federalist. She graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism.

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Media Won't Retract Anonymously Sourced Claims That Colonial Pipeline Refused To Pay $5 Million Ransom - The Federalist

Country music is gone and its not coming back, said country music icon Alan Jackson in an interview with HITS Daily Double Monday.Jackson, known for his classic 90s country sound and hits like Livin On Love, Little Bitty, Chattahoochee, and Remember When, has a dim view on the future of traditional country music.

Real country songs are life and love and heartache, said Jackson, reminiscing on what country music is not these days. Theyre drinking, singing about Mama and having a good time, sad things, fun things. It reflects the sounds of the instruments I grew up on, steel and acoustic guitar, the fiddle, and the way they all came together. It gave you a sound, but also a real feeling or emotions no other music really had.

Jackson is absolutely right. If you turn on the radio, country musics message and sound have been replaced by bro and boyfriend country, pop and rap singers, and the notorious snap track.

Jackson and country fans can thank Nashville executives for pushing pop- and rap-sounding country. The less authentically country the songs sound, the better chance the execs have of making money by drawing in a larger base of pop and rap fans. Also, as Jackson points out, while modern corporate country may be bringing in the big bucks, they are slowly killing the distinct country sounds like the steel and acoustic guitar, fiddle, and banjo.

While Nashville and the big labels want fans to believe country music is becoming more diverse, with high-profile pop-country and rap-country collabs, it is actually causing all country music to sound homogeneous. And the unique regional sub-genres that make country music the distinctly American art form that it is are no longer getting played on the radio, and therefore losing the chance for the nationwide attention they deserve.

Of course, the message behind the new stuff is also not as wholesome and relatable as the rootsy classic country songs. Justin Bieber and Florida Georgia Lines Yummy country remix can never compare or stand the test of time to Garth Brooks Unanswered Prayers.

Jackson describes his latest album, Where Have You Gone, as harder country, in order to actively subvert the prevailing pop-country sound. But honest as ever, Jackson says he, along with other aging classic country icons, need young artists to also stand up for the integrity of the genre. Im 62 years old; Im not some 30-year-old stud, says Jackson, but somebody has to bring it back, because its not just people in their 50s, its people in their 20s, too.

Just because corporate country is turning its back on what makes the genre so unique and beloved doesnt mean young people no longer enjoy the classic tunes. As Jackson notes, All the kids and young people around my house? The older theyve got, the more hardcore and traditional what theyve leaned into has become. Its not old-school, its the real school. And Im kinda pissed off about whats happened to the format, or whatever they wanna call it.

Thats exactly why Im a little more optimistic about the future of country music than Jackson. When young people are exposed to the original sounds, they love it. With Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, SoundCloud, Spotify, and iTunes available to budding artists, it is becoming increasingly less necessary for musicians to depend on country executives to greenlight their music.

Young artists no longer need the Nashville execs, they can make their own fan bases. Luckily for country music, there are many young rising stars who are fighting to preserve country musics traditional sounds in unconventional ways.

One country singer determined to bring back the country music he grew up on is reality TV star Jon Brennan from MTVs The Real World. Brennan is a talented singer who at one time was an opening act for Kenny Chesney, Toby Keith, and Tim McGraw, among others. Today, he is trying to bypass the big labels and go straight to the fans via technology.

It is the democratization of country music, Brennan told The Federalist. You can put your music out there online, and people that are interested in your genre your grassroots style of music can go find you and they dont have to necessarily look to radio and the major labels.

Technology has really worked in the benefit of artists because we can put our music out there on YouTube, rather than a major label, he continued. And so people are literally making records on their MacBook, rather than spending $200,000 in a recording studio. Its kind of like a Screw you to the huge record companies. We needed you and you werent interested, but now we dont need you.

Fortunately for country, there are tons of artists like Brennan who are excited about working outside of the Nashville corporate machine. Young artists who are sharing their talent with a front-facing camera and TikTok account are everywhere. And fans on social media have become the new big-time executives.

Jackson is right: true country has been ousted from the radio and real budding country singers arent getting big record deals. But all hope is not lost. Country is still alive and well in the digital world. And maybe one day fans will help country execs to once again appreciate the traditional sounds and American storytelling that made the genre great.

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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Alan Jackson Is Wrong. Country Music Isn't Dead, And Here's Why - The Federalist

Meghan Markle and Prince Harryannounced last Tuesday they have made a deal with multibillion-dollar consumer goods corporation Procter & Gamble, despite the company selling skin-whitening creams.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussexs Archewell Foundation said the multi-year global partnership with Procter & Gamble will seek to unleash systemic cultural change by building more compassionate communities.

The creams P&G sells advertise that they reduce the production of melanin in users skin and have been criticized by many who say the products are creating a toxic belief that light skin is superior to dark.

In India, Malaysia, and Singapore, P&G brand Olay sells White Radiance moisturizer, which promises to create radiant and brighter skin, while lightening the tone. The company also sells Olay White Radiance Light Perfecting Essence in the Philippines to inhibit melanin formation in the deepest layer of skin. In Nigeria, people can buy Olay Natural White cream for pinkish fairness.

Meghan has talked a lot about the issue of race and racism, so this does stick out like a sore thumb, said former P&G executive Alex Malouf.

Some cosmetic firms have recently stopped selling skin-lightening creams over accusations that they are deeply racist. Johnson & Johnson dropped its Fine Fairness line, sold in Asia and the Middle East, after an investigation. LOreal stopped using the names white/whitening, fair/fairness, and light/lightening for its products, and Unilever is renaming its Fair & Lovely brand, which is popular in India.

The skin-lightening industry is worth over $7 billion a year, and P&G, unlike other companies, isnt willing to give that up. It has promised to continue selling its White Radiance and Natural White products, and Olay is defending the creams by likening them to tanners.

Nina Davuluri, the first Indian American to win Miss America, slammed P&G for the whitening creams and said she is shocked P&G is still selling them. Davuluri said the creams sell a racist ideology that you need white skin to be beautiful, you need white skin to be successful.

San Jose State University Professor Joanne Rondilla, who has researched skin-lightening creams sold in the Philippines, said Harry and Meghan have a responsibility to speak out about the products. Like everyone else around the world, I saw that interview with Oprah that Meghan did, said Rondilla. It was important for her to bring up these issues of colorism. I dont think this partnership advances that conversation.

The fact that P&G has continued to be complicit in human rights abuses, in environmental devastation, is reason enough why this partnership shouldnt be formed or shouldnt continue, said Robin Averbeck from the Rainforest Action Network. It showed that full due diligence on the company was not done.

When Markle was 11 years old, she wrote to P&G, objecting to sexism in a dish soap commercial that included the line: Mothers around America are fighting greasy pots and pans. She also appeared in an interview with Nick News in 1993 to talk about her campaign, saying she was furious by P&Gs soap advertisement. When they heard this, the boys in my class started saying, Yeah, thats where women belong in the kitchen, Markle said at the time.

The company subsequently changed the ad to people all over America instead of mothers.

Jumping off her five seconds of fame from nearly 30 years ago, Meghan and Harrys partnership with P&G focuses on build[ing] a more equitable and just future for women and girls, according to the Archewell website.

Now that Markle is financially benefiting from her relationship with P&G, shes not so keen on taking morals stands. As the new woke czar of corporate America, shes definitely not above being selective when it comes to her gender and racial outrage. If theres one thing weve learned about Markle, its that her most important social cause has always been herself.

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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Meghan Markle and Prince Harry Partner With P&G Despite Its Skin-Whitening Creams - The Federalist

The controversy roiling Bravos Real Housewives of Dallas reflects two of our countrys broader conflicts. The first is a lack of consensus on the definition of racism, a problem triggered by the lefts intentional effort to expand the term. The second, which is downstream of the first, is our inability to debate contentious issues.

RHOD cast member Kameron Westcott and her family have been engaged in a heated back-and-forth with Dr. Tiffany Moon, Kamerons co-star. Moon is the franchises first Asian housewife. Heres a useful excerpt from Vultures breakdown of the squabble, which flared up last week:

Prompted by Moon and Westcotts sparring during the reunion, Westcotts husband Court and brother-in-law Chart began attacking Moon on Twitter. Court called Moons anti-racist views open vile racism, while Chart claimed Moon was blackout drunk one of the only times he met her. (Court later deactivated his Twitter account.)

Heres the full text of Courts tweet:

@tiffanymoonmd Anti-racism is racism. It discriminates by the color of ones skin. They tried that once in Germany, it did not work out well. I dont understand how many of your patients would be comfortable with you treating them with your open vile racism.

Drawing Nazi parallels is almost always a bad idea, which may explain why Westcott deactivated his account. But his contention that anti-racism is racism is an entirely reasonable opinion. Id argue its the correct opinion, as would many black intellectuals ignored by the corporate establishment.

Indeed, Bravo, a subsidiary of Comcast, cast its opposition to Westcott as a matter of fact in a statement supporting Moon. Anti-racism is, in fact, not a form of racism and the network stands by Dr. Tiffany Moon and her advocacy against racism and violence, the network said last week.

Proponents of antiracism, such as Ibram X. Kendi, explicitly argue all people who fall short of the definition of antiracist are necessarily racist. To be antiracist, according to Kendi and his fellow travelers, is to be fully anticapitalist. To many on the cultural left, it also necessitates being pro-feminism, anti-nuclear family, pro-Palestine, pro-welfare, pro-abortion, anti-police, and more. Anti-capitalism alone, by Kendis definition, renders most of the country racist.

Anti-racists also routinely stereotype white people as white supremacists based on the color of their skin, even using agreement with that judgment as a litmus test for antiracism. The ideology peddled by Kendi and the far left counterproductively engenders bigotry.

Westcotts assertion about anti-racism is hardly racist or unreasonable. This is why the backlash speaks to two broader conflicts. The corporate media has worked hard to mainstream Kendis radical ideology, donating millions to his organization and giving him friendly platforms on major networks like CBS. An expanded definition of racism is at the crux of his ideology, and its sowing deep divisions in the country as moderate, conservative, liberal, and neutral Americans realize theyre being implicated in a heinous and rightfully stigmatized belief.

Downstream of this conflict over the definition of racism is our inability to talk through disagreements. As the left settled on its radical progressive-or-bigot binarywhich categorizes every dissenter from cultural leftism as a bigotconversation has become enormously difficult and risky across the ideological spectrum.

In this example, Court Westcotts clumsy and aggressive disagreement with Moons anti-racism drew cries of bigotry. Make no mistake, the tweet would have erupted into controversy whether or not it included the ill-advised Nazi parallel.

Westcott is not a victim. Moon is not a victim. Theyre both celebrities with the resources to wade into these storms. Indeed, Moon intentionally used her platform on the show to fight perceived racism, as Bravo seems to have instructed a handful of new cast members.

Therein lies the problem. Bravo is trying to brush off criticism of its politically incorrect reality stars by balancing them out with contrived lessons from enlightened new cast members. Its not constructive.

I have zero problems with the housewives wading into politics. It can actually be pretty great. But when forced, its divisive and canned. Further, when the network calls political balls and strikes to placate its employees and social media critics, it reinforces radical leftist standards that hurt working people most, setting norms that chill their speech and put their jobs on the line while enhancing the power of corporate giants.

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How The 'RHOD' Racism Controversy Reflects Our National Divisions - The Federalist

U.S. Customs and Border Protection confiscated more fentanyl in the first half of 2021 than in the last three years.

CBP seized 6,494 pounds of the drug between October 2020 and April 2021, according to recently released data. Nearly 2,000 more pounds of fentanyl have been seized by CBP officials compared to last year amid the southern border surge. CBP seized 4,776 pounds in 2020 and 2,801 pounds in 2019.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott told reporters Friday that the Texas Department of Public Safety has seen an 800 percent increase from April 2020 to April 2021 of the amount of fentanyl that has been apprehended.

We have obtained enough fentanyl coming across the border to kill every single person in the state of New York, Abbott said.

Fentanyl is a fatal drug that is 50 to 100 times stronger than morphine. Around 87,000 Americans died in 2020 from a drug overdose the record in one year. Lora Ries, Senior Research Fellow in Homeland Security at The Heritage Foundation, told The Federalist that this is clearly a crisis and one that the White House caused.

It is of the Biden Administrations own making and messaging. Instead of working to prevent illegal immigration, the current administration works to process illegal immigrants into the U.S. faster and claim they are getting a handle on it, all without any regard for the cost to U.S. taxpayers, Ries said. Americans do not agree with the Biden Administrations handling of the border. He should listen to them and reinstitute order, not raise our taxes to pay for this dereliction of duty.

CBP has noted an increase in fentanyl smuggling since 2018. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., received a memo briefing Tuesday after putting in a request for further information on alleged terrorists arrested at the border. The memo was classified, but McCarthy told Fox News the border crisis has spiraled into a national security crisis.

Although the briefing I received today was classified, I can tell you that Im even more concerned for Americas security than I was before, McCarthy said. More than 1,500 individuals evade law enforcement at the border every day, it must be immediately addressed.

Last week, CBP announced it encountered over 178,000 migrants in the month of April. This is a 900 percent increase in comparison to a year prior. 172,000 migrants were encountered in March and 178,622 migrants in the same category this April. The 172,000 marked the most substantial number in the last 20 years.

As Ries alludes to, the Biden administration has been blamed for much of the influx. Bidens repeal of Trumps Remain in Mexico policy has resulted in migrants being released into the United States. Recent data from Syracuse University indicates that approximately 8,387 migrants previously enrolled in the Trump-era program were allowed to walk free in the U.S. in April.

Back in September 2020, acting CBP Commissioner Mark Morgan said Mexican cartels are bringing more hard drugs across the southern border. One kilogram of fentanyl the equivalent of about 2.2 pounds has the potential to kill 500,000 people, as cited by the United States Drug Enforcement Administration.

The DEA announced a program titled Project Wave Breaker last month to target Mexican crime groups that smuggle fentanyl into America.

While a major entry point for fentanyl is the Southwest border, the cartels are spreading their poison into communities across the Nation, said DEA Acting Administrator D. Christopher Evans. Through this initiative, were tackling a very real public health, public safety, and national security threat, identifying the most egregious street-level networks in our communities and working our way up through the supply chain.

A recent poll shows that voters are discontent with the Biden administrations handling of the southern border. The Associated Press-NORC at the University of Chicago poll found that only 43 percent of voters approve of Bidens actions on immigration and the border. A Harvard-Harris poll conducted between April 27 and 29 indicates that 80 percent of voters determine that there is a surge.

Twenty governors urged Biden to take action on the border crisis last week, saying it is unacceptable for migrants to be housed throughout the country.

We call on you to take action on the crisis at the southern border immediately, the letter states. Contrary to statements from your Administration, the border is neither closed nor secure. In fact, the Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) reports a staggering surge in recent crossings: 172,000 encounters in March, the highest number in nearly 20 years, as well as 18,890 unaccompanied children, the largest monthly number in history.

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More Fentanyl Seized At The Border So Far This Year Than All Of 2020 - The Federalist

If its true that Macys is dropping Chrissy Teigens cookware line over 10-year-old tweets for which shes apologized, that meets the definition of cancel culture. Does that mean she deserves to be saved? No. Teigen is being asked to live by the standards she helped set.

Let us not forget, Teigens cultural leftist social justice ideology is crucial to her brand, earning her uncritical and fawning media coverage that made the Chrissy Teigen brand higher profile and more attractive to companies like Macys. She made money off being woke and attacking our social fabric.

According to the Daily Mail, Chrissy Teigens Cravings kitchen line of cookware has been dumped from retail giant Macys website after she admitted she bullied Courtney Stodden when she was just a teen.Teigen, 35, has come under fire over the past several days, after tweets in which she told a then 16-year-old Stodden, now 26, to take their own life, resurfaced.

Heres more:

In 2011, Teigen published a barrage of tweets telling then-16-year-old Stodden to go to sleep forever.

Stodden said this was only part of the picture, saying Teigen would also privately DM me and tell me to kill myself.

Teigen responded last Wednesday posting a lengthy apology on Twitter saying she was mortified by her past behavior and had tried to reach out to Stodden to apologize.

Stodden claims Teigen did not privately apologize for her bizarrely aggressive bullying of a teenager. None of this is the least bit surprising. Teigens obnoxious conduct has been on full display on Twitter for a decade.

The principle of yanking deals over bad 10-year-old tweets is wrong. When corporations and celebrities make these decisions, they enhance cultural norms that affect people with less power and money than John Legends wife. Those norms include the standard that apologies and grace are insufficient. They also include the standard that brief news cycles induced by social media mobs are bad for business. Both are wrong and dangerous.

Macys move, in this case, will empower those destructive cultural norms. I think the principle is deeply wrong, but Teigen should be happy to live by her own bad standards, which, again, helped make her a lot of money and power. Supporting perhaps even enjoying the attempted cancelation of Teigen is not the same as supporting cancel culture more broadly since the sad reality is that elites will only revoke their own support for these bad standards when they affect elites.

Whats both much more outrageous and interesting is actually Macys decision to work with Teigen in the first place. Shes a sanctimonious political extremist, hypocrite, and a frequent jerk who appeals to the small slice of cultural leftist America that populates coastal newsrooms.

Even from a business perspective, shes polarizing. But the medias extreme cultural leftism warps our countrys self-image to the point where businesses and the broader public dont recognize each other. Further, the niche-ification of our economy and culture means that the slice of the public that inexplicably finds Teigen appealing can exert outsize power over corporations and media outlets.

Shed no tears for Chrissy Teigen. She did this to herself. Worse yet, she did this to our culture.

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Chrissy Teigen Got Rich Setting The Cancel Culture Norms That Now Bite Her - The Federalist

The Middle East is in turmoil again. From Kabul to Riyadh, and Beirut to the Gaza Strip and Jerusalem, people are frightened and forced to hear the horrifying blasts of emergency sirens that had long been silenced. If one were to search anywhere other than in Iran for the detonators of these blasts, they would be wrong again.

An explosion in front of a girls school in Kabul, Afghanistan two weeks ago killed dozens of innocent people, embarrassed the Afghan government, and jeopardized the Biden administrations plan to withdraw U.S. forces by September 2021. There is no question that such a heinous crime, which will cause further insecurity in Afghanistan, only benefits the regime in Tehran, which thrives on crises beyond its borders.

As most victims were from the Shiite Hazara ethnic minority, the Iranian state authorities and media claimed to protect that community and argued that the Afghan government has failed to protect the most persecuted community. Some are already arguing that the Hazaras must pick up arms and defend themselves. Guess whos feeding these talking points?

Similarly, the mullahs reaped the windfalls of sectarian conflict in Iraq because the carnage increased their leverage during every negotiation. Political observers remember all too well how the Islamic Revolutionary Guard CorpsQuds forces killed Shiites in Iraq. They then laid the blame on Sunni groups in order to fuel the cycle of sectarianism in the hopes of pushing the United States out of Iraq, thereby allowing the Iranian regime to fill the remaining vacuum.

Around the same time as the school explosion, the U.S. Navy seized a ship carrying thousands of Iranian weapons and ammunition headed towards Yemen to arm the Houthis. A U.S. Navy initial investigation found that the vessel came from Iran. This is yet more proof that the Iranian regime is actively arming the Houthis despite a United Nations arms embargo.

The Houthis were removed from the State Departments Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) list in February this year, allegedly because some voices in Washington were arguing that the blacklisting was hindering human rights organizations from providing aid to the Yemeni population.

Last week, the same proxy group targeted the Abha International Airport in Saudi Arabia with an explosive-laden drone last Monday. While international media reported that the Saudi-led coalition had intercepted eight drones and three missiles, the Houthis and Iranian state-run media insisted that the operation was conducted successfully and the target was hit accurately.

On the very same day, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps speed boats harassed the U.S. Navy in the Persian Gulf, trying to provoke a military confrontation. Add to this the recent developments in the Gaza Strip and the alarming escalation of hostilities that could lead to a regional war.

One might wonder why is all this happening all at once? The answer lies with the mullahs in Tehran and their representatives in Vienna. Ever since the new administration has taken office, the Iranian regime has resorted to what it does best: terrorism and extortion.

Before the Vienna talks, the regimes economy was suffocating under crippling international and U.S. sanctions, impeding funding its proxies in the Middle East and the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC). Enraged over four decades of oppression and censorship, Iranian citizens were suffering further from the regimes vast and endemic corruption.

Since 2017, several nationwide uprisings and constant street protests have shaken the regime to its core and the religious dictatorship has had to resort to bloodshed to prevent its overthrow. Thus the regimes leadership had no other choice but to accept to engage in talks, albeit indirectly, with a foe it called the Great Satan for decades.

But as it increased its aggression against the U.S. military in Iraq and ramped up uranium enrichment during January, March, and April, Tehran only heard calls for more engagement and diplomacy from Western capitals. That is why it was emboldened to increase its uranium enrichment and to blackmail the Biden administration and its European partners back to the negotiation table.

As the United States started to show signs of goodwill and promised to lift sanctions, the regime demanded lifting all sanctions at once. It detected weakness and reluctance to take firm action against its belligerence on the part of its international interlocutors.

There is one thing that diplomats in Vienna are not discussing: the Iranian people. If Western negotiators were to pay attention to the numerous waves of unrest and daily protests in Iran since 2017, they might be in a better and stronger position.

The regime only understands the language of strength. A coward regime that hides behind proxies and kills innocent people should not be rewarded with international credibility and concessions.

For years, Iranian lobbyists in Washington cried wolf about war with Iran to legitimize appeasement with the biggest state sponsor of terrorism. Now the Biden administration should take stock of how that kind of diplomacy is bearing fruit in the Middle East.

It might be wise to start thinking about a third option: standing with the Iranian people and their resolute and repeated calls for the overthrow of the ruling theocracy, reflected in the chants of death to the dictator by millions during the January 2018 and November 2019 nationwide uprisings.

The West knows that showing weakness in front of bullies invites even more aggression. So it should consider a change in approach.

Ali Safavi is a member of the foreign affairs committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran.

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Biden's Weak Posture Toward Iran Invites More Aggression In The Middle East - The Federalist

Comedian and podcast host Joe Rogan railed against the rapid escalation of aggressive wokeism Thursday for spoiling good comedy and silencing those who dont fit the characteristics of favored groups under the progressive mold of victimhood.

On his program with fellow stand-up comic Joe List, Rogan complained comedy today suffers from risk-aversion to cancel culture, where jokes made even ten years ago would be career-ending in todays environment.

Can you make a good comedy movie anymore, or have they made it so dangerous in terms of being canceled, that comedy movies are no longer something you can do? Rogan said, highlighting how films such as Superbad likely wouldnt survive in 2021 without detrimental scrutiny.

You can never be woke enough, Rogan went on.

It keeps going. It keeps going further and further and further down the line, and if you get to the point where you capitulate, where you agree to all these demands, itll eventually get to straight white men are not allowed to talk. Because its your privilege to express yourself when other people of color have been silenced throughout history.

Eventually, Rogan prophesized, highlighting the direction of leftism at breakneck speed, It will be, youre not allowed to go outside, because so many people were imprisoned Im not joking, it really will get there. Its that crazy.

As cable news ratings slide, Rogans podcast was the most listened to in 2020 with more than 190 million downloads every month. Last year, the Austin-based podcast which migrated to the Lone Star State from Los Angeles was acquired by Spotify for $100 million.

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Joe Rogan: 'Woke' Culture Is Silencing 'Straight White Men' - The Federalist