Daily Archives: June 27, 2021

Vice President Kamala Harris will finally visit the U.S.-Mexico border on Friday, making a stop in El Paso, Texas, along with Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Politico reported Wednesday.

While the vice president is there, she might want to visit the vast, tent-like detention center for migrant youth at Fort Bliss, which is housing some 2,000 migrant teens in deplorable, nightmarish conditions. If she goes, shell be able to see first-hand the grave consequences of the Biden administrations border policies. Thats why she probably wont go.

But if Harris does go to Fort Bliss, she should be careful. According to a recent investigation by the BBC, theres an ongoing COVID-19 outbreak at the shelter, where hundreds of children have tested positive for Covid, according to one employee. The migrant kids there have dubbed a cluster of quarantine tents Covid City.

There have also been outbreaks of strep throat and the flu, as well as persistent lice infestations. One tent of about 800 girls was locked down last month because of lice. The government contractor that runs the facility apparently hasnt been able to procure enough lice kits to deal with the problem.

The vice presidents handlers will probably also want to keep her away from the food at the shelter, which is reportedly undercooked and often inedible, according to BBC interviews with migrant teens recently discharged from there. Sometimes the chicken had blood, the meat very red, one boy said. We couldnt stand our hunger and we ate it, but we got sick from it.

Disease and inadequate food arent the only problems at the overcrowded, unlicensed shelter, which is run by government contractors. Children report that there are too few showers and bathrooms and laundry facilities, so they often go weeks without bathing or changing their clothes. There have also been disturbing reports of staff sexually abusing migrant children, including one report of rape.

The BBC investigation is just one account of the neglect and filthy conditions at the Biden administrations emergency migrant shelters, which were hastily set up to deal with an historic surge of unaccompanied minors illegally crossing the border this spring. An article in Border Report this week outlined similar conditions at other shelters, as recorded in interviews with migrant children that were included in federal court filings Monday.

In their accounts, the children who are not named in the court filings describe waiting for weeks or more than a month in facilities with little to do, minimal education and no knowledge of when they will be allowed to leave, according to the report.

One 13-year-old girl from Honduras, who was on suicide watch, said she couldnt sleep at night because the lights were always on, and that she was eating only popsicles and juice because the food was foul and inedible. At the time of her interview with court-appointed advocates, she had been in the facility for nearly 60 days.

The Biden administration, which earlier this year was criticized for housing migrant kids for weeks on end in crude border facilities run by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, has boasted of moving kids out of those facilities into these emergency shelters. The idea was to quickly get them out of government custody and release them to a parent, relative, or other sponsor inside the United States.

But according to the governments June report to a federal court in Los Angeles, more than 2,100 children were housed at these emergency shelters for more than 40 days, and more than 2,600 were housed at the shelters between 20 and 40 days.

Based on the few accounts we do have news media have not been allowed into these facilities after the administration imposed a media blackout earlier this year these emergency shelters are no place for children to stay long. At a Houston shelter that has since closed, one 17-year-old girl from El Salvador said she couldnt shower for eight days and was told to wear her underwear inside out because there was no laundry. We spent most of the day in our beds at Houston because there was nothing else to do, she said. I felt very desperate.

Make no mistake, this is the Biden administrations doing. Upon taking office, Biden signed a series of executive orders that reversed key Trump-era border policies that had helped to reduce illegal immigration. By rescinding those policies, Biden broadcast to the world that if unaccompanied children cross the border illegally, they will be allowed to stay.

The entirely predictable result was that record numbers of children were trafficked across the border, overwhelming federal authorities and dangerously crowding border facilities during the pandemic.

Now, the administration is preparing to open the border up even more, admitting families and possibly even single adults who, under President Donald Trump, had been quickly expelled as a pandemic precaution. According to Axios, the Biden administration could end all such expulsion for families as soon as July 31.

As of this writing, details of Harriss upcoming trip are scant, but news of the visit comes amid a fusillade of criticism from both Republicans and Democrats at the vice presidents refusal thus far to visit the border amid a worsening crisis. It also comes about a week after Trump announced that he would be visiting the border. A large group of House Republicans said Wednesday they would join Trump. Faced with the prospect of being one-upped by Trump, Harris has finally, begrudgingly assented to a border visit.

This visit, though, will be unlike her last visit to the border. During the Trump administration, Democrats, including Harris, routinely went to the border for photo ops, lambasting Trump for keeping kids in cages and, in the case of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, famously weeping for the cameras outside youth migrant shelters. In 2018, Harris visited a migrant youth detention center in San Diego and said Trumps immigration policies amount to a human rights abuse.

As record numbers of migrant kids now languish in conditions that by many accounts are worse than anything that obtained under Trump, one has to wonder what Harris thinks the Biden administrations policies amount to. Well likely never know, because theres almost no chance Harris will visit the miserable tent-camp at Fort Bliss.

From her perspective, why would she? It would just confirm what everyone already knows: Biden and Harris have created a humanitarian disaster at the border, and they have no plan to fix it.

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There's No Way Kamala Visits This Child Detention Camp At The Border - The Federalist

On this episode of The Federalist Radio Hour, Stanford professor and former Chairman of JetBlue Airways Joel Peterson joins Culture Editor Emily Jashinsky to discuss his recent article, My road to cancellation.

I started my first business when I was 11. I worked a minimum wage job and I put myself through state colleges. I worked from four in the morning for 20 years and so white privilege or male privilege or whatever, it doesnt feel like its part of my past, Peterson said. I think all Americans are privileged at a certain level. Weve all been blessed by certain things.

While there are still dissenting voices ready to push back on wokeism, Peterson said cancel culture is stifling them.

The fear level is still very high on what these mobs can do. Its a little bit of a French Revolution-style, destroy it all. I think its troubling, Peterson said.

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Stanford Professor Reveals His 'Road To Cancellation' - The Federalist

According to newly released video footage, University of Oklahoma instructors want to punish students who defy campus orthodoxy. Their plan is to avoid a rhetoric of dysfunctional silence that closes ears to marginalized voices, by you guessed it silencing marginalized voices.

On Tuesday, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), a nonprofit focused on protecting campus free speech, publicized video footage of an April 14 workshop on Anti-Racist Rhetoric & Pedagogies at the University of Oklahoma (OU). The workshops leaders presented slides about systemic racism, white privilege, and subverting white institutional defensiveness. In an attempt to teach so-called antiracism, the workshops leaders also promoted censorship and indoctrination.

The event was one of nine professional development workshops for instructors and grad students at OU. During the workshop, three faculty members taught their colleagues how to foster an anti-racist environment in their classrooms, brainstorming tactics for dissuading, censoring, and penalizing problematic speech.

One of the workshops spokeswomen, Kelli Pyron Alvarez, said she prohibits white supremacist ideas or sources as well as derogatory remarks, critiques, and hate speech from her classroom unless, of course, students use them to be antiracist crusaders against racism. Pyron Alvarez failed to explicitly define the ideas and sources she forbids, but she plans to reprimand those who deviate from her script.

If [students] use any of those things, if any of those come through in their writing or in their comments, I will call them out on it, she explained. And if a student errs in front of her a second time, she wants him to be formally reported. In the classroom, free speech does not apply, she said.

Unsurprisingly, Pyron Alvarez noted that her students didnt challenge her method of teaching last semester. She successfully chilled all dissenting speech.

Imagine being an OU student who is reported, presumably to the administration, simply for your choice of text to analyze or what sources you include in a bibliography, FIRE wrote in response, highlighting the absurdity of promoting such an intolerant snitch culture. According to FIRE,OUs workshop raises alarm bells about the state of free expression and freedom of conscience at Oklahomas flagship university.

The workshop in question trains instructors on how to eliminate disfavored but constitutionally protected expression from the classroom and guide assignments and discussion into preferred areas all for unambiguously ideological and viewpoint-based reasons, FIRE emphasized.

For example, students in Principles of English Composition must choose independent research projects, but FIRE explained that the faculty conducting the training show the participants how they might lead students not only to topics the instructors find appropriate, but also to the side of the argument that the instructors prefer.

OU instructors exist in an academic climate that seemingly emboldens them to continue dictating student speech. Pyron Alvarez confidently celebrated the power she thinks she and her colleagues exert over those they teach. One of the fears is that were going to get in trouble for this, right? Like we cant tell students that they cant say something in class. But we can! And let me tell you how, she bragged.

Her colleague and fellow workshop spokeswoman Kasey Woody, who is confident she and her colleagues wont suffer consequences for promoting student censorship, elaborated: I, in this case, usually look for my students who might be, like, entertaining the idea of listening to a problematic argument. Then I say, We dont have to listen to that.

Thats right, FIRE wrote, even thinking about listening to a disfavored argument is apparently to be discouraged. Students cant write about unacceptable topics, such as whether refusing to use preferred pronouns is hate speech or whether Black Lives Matter should engage in property destruction.

Meanwhile, Pyron Alvarez wrongly thinks the Supreme Court emboldens her to silence disfavored speech. The Supreme Court has actually upheld that hate speech, derogatory speech,any of the -isms do not apply in the classroom because they do not foster aproductive learning environment, she claimed. And so, as instructors, we can tell our students: No, you do not have the right to say that. Stop talking right now, right?

FIRE disagrees. Professors cannot abuse their power to require students to personally adhere to a particular viewpoint or ideology, the organization said.

Of course, FIRE spends a significant amount of its own time and resources defending the academic freedoms of university faculty. Such individuals possess wide latitude to manage the atmosphere and tone of the classroom, something FIRE often describes in great detail.

FIRE, however, makes a distinction. As the AAUP has written, instructors have academic freedom of instruction, not indoctrination. Furthermore, theres no question that a significant amount of this workshop teaches participants how to indoctrinate instead of how to instruct. The workshop leaders mistakenly conflate disagreement with disruption to such an extent that they call it a valid reason for reporting students for discipline.

This isnt the first time FIRE has criticized OU for to use the workshop leaders own terminology problematic initiatives, and the organization says the universitys [s]tudents deserve better. To demand change, FIRE is collecting submission forms to let leaders in Oklahoma know that this type of indoctrination is not acceptable.

Readers can view the full video of the workshop here.

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OU Training Tells Faculty: 'In The Classroom, Free Speech Does Not Apply' - The Federalist

A new study from the Rand Corporation and the University of Southern California titled The Impact Of The Covid-19 Pandemic And Policy Responses On Excess Mortality, found that the lockdowns that were mandated in response to the Wuhan virus outbreak didnt save lives, and even worse, they may have actually resulted in more deaths than would have occurred if shelter-in-place policies had not been mandated.

The paper, out this month, found that following the implementation of shelter-in-place policies, excess mortality increases, noting that The increase in excess mortality is statistically significant in the immediate weeks following [shelter-in-place] implementation.

We failed to find that countries or U.S. states that implemented [shelter-in-place] policies earlier, and in which [shelter-in-place] policies had longer to operate, had lower excess deaths than countries-slash-U.S. states that were slower to implement [shelter-in-place] policies, the researchers reported. We also failed to observe differences in excess death trends before and after the implementation of [shelter-in-place] policies based on pre-[shelter-in-place] COVID-19 death rates.

Though conservative leaders such as Tucker Carlson and Donald Trump were vocal opponents of the lockdowns, with the then-president supporting anti-lockdown protests, corporate media outlets derided their resistance, dubbing it opposition to science and calling the case against lockdowns half-baked. Democratic leaders did the same, with Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington complaining that Trump was putting millions in danger of contracting Covid-19, and referring to the presidents remarks as unhinged rantings.

It turns out conservatives werent flippantly opposing the science when they resisted lockdowns. In fact, the study also found that shelter-in-place policies likely had several unintended consequences, such as causing an increase in stress and anxiety, increases in child abuse and domestic violence, and worst of all, an increase in substance abuse and suicides.

The science suggests that the lockdown orders that ravaged small businesses, the economy, and American social life may have been more deadly than allowing our economy and society to remain open.

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Study: Lockdowns Didn't Save Lives And May Have Actually Killed People - The Federalist

Shootings broke out across the country during the Juneteenth weekend celebrations, following President Joe Biden declaring it a national holiday.

Biden on Thursday signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act, which commemorates the freeing of Texas slaves on June 19, 1865. The president has not yet commented on the Juneteenth violence but said after he signed the bill that he hope[s] this is the beginning of a change in the way we deal with one another. The way people dealt with one another at the festivities, however, was with violence.

In Clover, South Carolina, three people were shot around 11:30 p.m. Saturday at a Juneteenth celebration, according toABC News. One victim was a 17-year-old who was seriously injured and airlifted to a hospital in Charlotte, North Carolina. Authorities said several cars were also struck during the shooting. No arrests have been made, and the motive is under investigation.

During a Juneteenth celebration in Oakland, California, at least one person was left dead and several others wounded,Fox Newsreported. Bullets struck six victims between the ages of 16 and 27, the Oakland Police said in a statement. Thedepartment also confirmedthat a 22-year-old victim died at the hospital.

Police said two men, allegedly armed with guns, were arrested after running from the scene of the shooting. Tonight, a joyous occasion at our Lake Merritt was marred by a senseless act of gun violence, Oakland Mayor Libby Schaafsaidin a statement.

InAurora, Colorado, an all-night Juneteenth party at a strip mall came to an end at 4 a.m. Sunday when multiple gunmen unleashed up to 114 rounds, leaving one man dead and four other people wounded, according to police. Law enforcement said no arrests were made.

UPDATE: The gathering in the parking lot where the shooting broke out was related to a Juneteenth celebration at a unit in this strip mall. Suspect(s) are at-large. Anyone who witnessed this incident or has information is asked to contact @CrimeStoppersCO.

— Aurora Police Dept (@AuroraPD) June 20, 2021

An emergency responder was shot while working at a Juneteenth rally in Raleigh, North Carolina. The responder was answering a call for a child who was in need of medical assistance, according tolocal news station WRAL.

The first responder was walking back to the ambulance after helping the child when shots were fired. WRAL reported that the responder is in good condition and is expected to make a full recovery. The shooter and motives are unknown.

An officer was working at a Juneteenth parade traffic point in Flint, Michigan, when a car pulled up and open-fired, according to The Detroit News. The officer returned fire, striking the suspect, a 19-year-old female. The woman succumbed to her injuries while at the hospital, police said. The incident is under investigation.

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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Juneteenth 'Celebrations' Repeatedly Turned Violent With Shootings - The Federalist

The Catholic Church benefited enormously from the JFK presidency, pollster Larry Sabato wrote Monday morning. Prejudice against Catholics declined and millions were exposed to church rituals. Church leaders welcomed the JFK effect.'

Now at last there is a second Catholic [president], he continued, and what do some in the hierarchy do? They ruin it.

A little more than 60 years [after President John F. Kennedys speech on accepting Catholics in American politics], a second Catholic president sits in the White House, Washington Post columnist Karen Tumulty wrote Sunday, and the churchs American bishops appear to have forgotten what it took for one of their own to get there.

Its a common take; I remember hearing it from my history teacher in high school. Often compared with then-Sen. Barack Obamas 2007 speech on race relations in America, the basic Kennedy story says that his campaign speech on religious tolerance was a great step for Catholics in America, a death knell for the anti-Catholic bigotry then rampant in the country, and marked a new age for Catholic politicians in national politics. Its a very nice story; too bad it isnt true.

The problems with this civics fairy tale are it is completely ignorant of the real contents of the speech, is built on an elite view of Catholicism in politics, and is bankrupt of any serious religious-minded analysis. In short, as with so many things in American political education, it is a great secular myth.

In the speech, delivered to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association in front of hundreds of Protestant ministers, many of whom were deeply suspicious or openly hostile to a Papist in the White House, the young Massachusetts senator made a series of serious promises that would appease, or at least defuse, the anti-Catholics at the great cost of crippling the moral authority of the Catholic Church in America for decades to come.

First, Kennedy promised that no man of God would advise or even to seek to advise his presidency, saying he believes in an America where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the pope, the National Council of Churches, or any other ecclesiastical source.

I believe in an America where separation of church and state, he declared, is absolute.

The power of the office, he insisted, must not limited or conditioned by any religious oath, ritual or obligation. Americas politicians, he loudly decreed, have nothing more to learn of sin and morality.

Second, he promised to continue his stands against American outreach to the Catholic Church and against Catholic education, calling federal aid to Catholic schools unconstitutional and asking the audience to, judge me on the basis of my record of 14 years in Congress on my declared stands against an ambassador to the Vatican, against unconstitutional aid to parochial [religious] schools, and against any boycott of the public schools.

Third, Kennedy promised to disregard his Catholic faith on birth control, divorce, censorship, gambling or any other subject, declaring that no power or threat of punishment could cause me to decide otherwise.Thats no paraphrasing: on birth control, divorce, censorship, gambling orany other subject and no power or threat of punishment could cause me to decide otherwise.

On Friday, California Rep. Ted Lieu publicly challenged the authority of the Catholic Church, writing to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops that he is a Catholic politician who supports contraception, abortion, reproductive technologies, divorce, and gay marriage.

Next time I go to church, he threatened, I dare you to deny me Communion.

Catholic and non-Catholic observers alike gasped at Lieus open heresy. Few remembered that 61 years earlier, the man who would become Americas first Catholic president had taken virtually the same oath against his religion.

Kennedys speech was a major speech in American civic history and can absolutely be credited with going a long way toward ingratiating American Catholics into elite society. But as in the wake of Vatican II, when empowered modernist priests sought American affirmation by looting the gifts of the poor and stripping their churches of the architectural features and artistic treasures that made them uniquely Catholic, in exchange for political authority Kennedy stripped the Catholic Church of its moral authority.

Today, with the Catholic President Joe Biden and Catholic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi in power and using their power to attack the Hyde Amendment against federal funding of abortion, as well as the Mexico City policy against federal money for foreign abortion, that weakness is on full display.

Kennedys example also stands in harsh contrast with those American Catholic heroes who made great sacrifices for their country, and in doing so earned the admiration of their fellows, making great strides for the acceptance of the Catholic faith and faithful alike.

Men like Charles Carroll of Carrolton, known as the first citizen, who in addition to being the wealthiest and highest-educated man to sign the Declaration of Independence, was the only Catholic to do so at a time his religion banned him from holding office in his home state of Maryland.

Men like Carrolls cousin, John, who became a Jesuit at 18 and was ordained a priest 14 years later, who answered the call of the Continental Congress to try to enlist Catholic Quebec in the American Revolution, and later became the bishop of Baltimore, establishing both the first basilica of the United States and Georgetown University.

Men like Johns older brother, Daniel, who with Thomas Fitzsimmons are the only two Catholics to sign the U.S. Constitution.

Or men like Fr. William Corby, second founder of Notre Dame University, who in his Irish Brigade memoirs of the Civil War writes of the Protestant chaplains amazement at the daily religious observance and devotion of the Catholic soldiers.

When on the second day of Gettysburg the orders were given to prepare for imminent battle, Fr. Corby stood on a rock before the men and lifted his hand to grant the the rite of general absolution, earning the admiration and respect of all those present.Maj. Gen. St. Clair Mulholland wrote, As he closed his address, every man, Catholic and non-Catholic, fell on his knees with his bowed down.

The scene was more than impressive; it was awe-inspiring. Near by stood the brilliant throng of officers who had gathered to witness this very unusual occurrence, and while there was a profound silence in the ranks of the Second Corps, yet over the left, out by the peach orchard and Little Round Top, where [Brigadier Gens. Stephen] Weed and [Strong] Vincent and [1st Lt. Charles] Hazlitt were dying, the roar of the battle rose and swelled and re-echoed through the woods, making music more sublime than ever sounded through cathedral aisle. This act seemed to be in harmony with the surroundings. I do not think there was a man in the brigade who did not offer up a heart-felt prayer. For some, it was their last; they knelt there in their grave clothes. In less than half an hour many of them were numbered with the dead of July 2.

Or men like those who knelt in the brigade, who later erected a statue of Corby at the spot of the absolution and whose Catholic faith girded their storied bravery in battle and won the hard-earned respect of even their most vicious detractors.

Far from the examples of these great Americans, Kennedy earned the acceptance of the American political establishment not by celebrating his faith and proudly wearing it in his role as the countrys first Catholic president, but by shedding it and promising all who would listen that neither the faith nor its bishops would have any bearing on his presidency.

In his 1960 speech, Kennedy dreamed of an America where there is no Catholic vote, and with the help of the bishops he helped achieve this. Thereafter there would be no sizeable Catholic vote. It splintered after the public endorsement of his secularism by most of the bishops.

A little more than 60 years later, a second Catholic president sits in the White House, Tumulty wrote in the Post, and the churchs American bishops appear to have forgotten what it took for one of their own to get there.

Or maybe they didnt forget what it took to get there. And maybe as they consider the long-declining influence of God and morality in American public life, and the rising anti-Catholicism that has come with it, theyll discard the secular myth of Kennedys speech and instead address their predecessors terrible mistake head on. Fortunately, they appear poised to do just that.

It wouldnt be the first time. The church has been grievously wounded from both inside the church and from without it over and again in history, but by Gods grace, the gates of Hell will not overpower it.

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The Great Lie About JFK, The Bishops, And The Catholic Church - The Federalist

All 50 Republican senators barely managed to block Democrats election overhaul bill on Tuesday night that would have ended voter ID requirements supported by 80 percent of Americans, allowed voting up to two weeks after election day, legalize ballot harvesting, and more.

In the nearly 900-page For The People Act of 2021, Democrat Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and fellow Democrats would have barred states from protecting themselves against loose voting structures that permeated the 2020 election such as mass vote-by-mail, lax voter ID, and widely inaccurate voting rolls. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris also supported the election bill, which Democrats made their No. 1 priority for their full control of Congress and the presidency this year.

We cant sit idly by while democracy is in peril here, in America. We need to protect the sacred right to vote and ensure We the People choose our leaders, the very foundation on which our democracy rests. We urgently need the For The People Act. Send it to my desk, Biden wrote Tuesday afternoon.

After all of the GOP legislators filibustered the legislation, however, the 60 votes necessary for the bill to pass a procedural vote were not there. Democrats have repeatedly threatened to end this slim protection for minority interests in the Senate, and its existence appears to rest entirely on the good graces of West Virginia Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin since Republicans lost the Senate through runoff elections in Georgia earlier this year.

Our democracy is stronger when everyone participatesand it is weaker when people are denied meaningful access to participation. Today, as Senate Democrats united around the For The People Act, Senate Republicans voted against advancing it, Harris wrote in a statement.

Whichever label Democrats slap on their bill, the substance remains the same, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said. Its always been a plan to rewrite the ground rules of American politics. Today, the Senates going to fulfill our founding purpose, stop this partisan power grab, and reject S. 1.

Both leftist legislators and the corporate media originally claimed, against all evidence, that the unconstitutional bill would protect Americans voting rights, but Republicans were quick to call the proposal what it was: a political ploy to give Democrats ultimate supervisory power over federal elections. That didnt stop the left from trotting out their usual racist smears of Republicans and making evidence-free claims Republicans want to restrict voter access.

Not only would the bill have let the federal government micromanage state elections, a possibly unconstitutional offense, but one report suggests it would open the floodgates for partisan activity within the IRS and the Federal Elections Commission, hijack federal courts away from election criticisms, and violate the First Amendment with respect to a vast range of legal activity.

The attorneys general of 20 states also agreedthat HR 1 would invert that constitutional structure, commandeer state resources, confuse and muddle elections procedures, and erode faith in our elections and systems of governance.

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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GOP Senators Barely Block Democrats' Bid To End Honest Elections - The Federalist

Democrat Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, who has often spoken out against racial injustice in the United States, shrugged off questions from a local news outlet about his familys membership in an all-white exclusive beach club in Rhode Island this weekend.

When asked by GoLocalProv whether white-only exclusive clubs such as Baileys Beach Club, which is part of the Spouting Rock Beach Association, should continue to exist, Whitehouse refused to offer a straight answer and merely stated that its a long tradition in the state.

Its a long tradition in Rhode Island and there are many of them, and we just need to work our way through the issues, Whitehouse said.

According to the report, both Whitehouse and his wife Sandra as well as their families have been members of the club for decades where they are now one of the largest shareholders in the all-white club.

I think the people who are running the place are still working on that, and Im sorry it hasnt happened yet, Whitehouse said.

Even after the Democrat was confronted in 2017 over the clubs alleged dedication to keeping the club free of minority groups, he and his family continue to frequent the establishment on most summer days without a hitch.

I think it would be nice if they [Baileys Beach Club] changed a little bit, but its not my position, Whitehouse said in 2017 before offering a loose pledge to take up diversity concerns with the club in private.

Whitehouse is one of the many Democrat legislators who are often quick to jump on the race-driven agenda bandwagon. Not only has he pledged his support to Black Lives Matter via Twitter, but he also claimed he is working with his colleagues on the Senate Judiciary Committee to bring lasting change on racial injustice.

Last summer, Whitehouse promised to bring attention to the injustices that Black Americans still face every day by celebrating Juneteenth, which the Democrats led by President Joe Biden have turned into a political football to forward their race agenda despite Americans hesitancy to make it a federal holiday. He also said the United States needs to root out systemic racism in its many forms and meet Americas full promise of justice for all.

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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Democrat Sen. Whitehouse Says His All-White Exclusive Beach Club Is 'Tradition' - The Federalist

Two top House Republicans among big techs thorniest adversaries in Washington remain starkly divided on how to rein in Silicon Valleys empire.

Earlier this month, a group of bipartisan lawmakers led by Rhode Island Democrat Rep. David Cicilline and Colorado Republican Ken Buck who serve as chair and ranking member of the House Judiciary Committees Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law, respectively unveiled a broad package of antitrust legislation to break up corporate tech monopolies.

Big Tech has abused its dominance in the marketplace to crush competitors, censor speech, and control how we see and understand the world, Buck said in a statement announcing the series of five bills proposed after the subcommittee completed an 18-month bipartisan probe into big tech influence.The nations antitrust laws have not seen significant reform in nearly 100 years, according to Bucks office.

The sweeping package includes new powers and funding for the Justice Department (DOJ) and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to enhance oversight with greater ability to sue platforms found to dominate online marketplaces. Each agency for example, would designate companies that generate $600 billion in revenue with at least 500,000 U.S. users as covered platforms subject to a new layer of regulations on data, acquisitions, and corporate conduct.

One bill, the Ending Platform Monopolies Act, sponsored by Buck, with Republicans Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina, Lance Gooden of Texas, and Democrat Pramila Jayapal of Washington, prohibits dominant platforms from giving their products preference in their own search engines. That would bar Amazon from promoting Amazon products above all others on its colossal online retail store, for example.

Another bill requires online platforms to establish avenues for consumers to transfer data from one service to another, just as one would carry a cell phone number from Verizon to Sprint.

While Bucks legislative package has drawn endorsements across the political aisle from former House Democrat impeachment managers to Republicans Matt Gaetz of Florida and Burgess Owens of Utah, its also drawn scrutiny from many others on the right, including in GOP leadership and Ohio Republican Jim Jordan.

In an interview with The Federalist, Jordan characterized the legislation as a trap that would empower tech elites to conspire with bureaucrats who share sympathy for a monopoly on truth through conservative censorship.

This is going to let big tech companies collude with big tech companies to do further harm to conservatives, Jordan said. He faulted the legislative package put forward by a staunch ally in the conservative Freedom Caucus for its absence of anything to do with censorship. Out of the five bills proposed, none deal with Twitter or online suppression of dissident views.

Jordan centered on the expansion of the FTCs authority in particular, now led by Lina Khan, who was sworn in Tuesday last week.

These bills give power to the FTC, the new commissioner we all know is radically left, Jordan said, highlighting Khans prior work for congressional Democrats. I dont really think it breaks up big tech and I dont think it gives a remedy to people who are censored.

While branded as big tech sympathizer, however, Khan has been a longtime antagonist of the Silicon Valley elite. Her confirmation was supported by Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley, a chief crusader against big tech influence.

Others in House Republican leadership remain skeptical of Bucks proposals for similar reasons to those Jordan raised, putting too much faith in the un-elected administrative state to effectively regulate without tackling the issue of censorship.

Big Tech censors conservatives and silences views not rubber-stamped by the Washington elite, an unnamed source complained to Fox News. Giving Washington bureaucrats in the Biden Administration this kind of immense power will not fix Big Techs problems.

Mark Bednar, a spokesperson for House Republican Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, aired a similar claim in the Wall Street Journal.

The House Republican plan to confront big tech wont be influenced by anything other than the commitment to free speech and free enterprise, Bednar said.

Jordan pointed to recent revelations from Dr. Anthony Faucis published emails that exposed the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) director working with Facebook to dictate coronavirus information on the platform as reason to be concerned about a forged allyship between the federal bureaucracy and big tech.

Buck rejected the criticisms in a separate interview with The Federalist Monday.

In my view the only way to address censorship is by breaking up monopolies, Buck said, arguing new antitrust regulation is a prerequisite to protecting an open marketplace of ideas. Big government caused this problem. They gave big tech an antitrust amnesty for years and the result is that we have a serious problem with monopolies.

Buck said his proposals seek to provoke a consumer response to increase competition, whereas the absence of government involvement fostered the environment that exists today.

These bills arent big government coming in and causing harm to any company, Buck told The Federalist.

Jordan said any proposals to curb Silicon Valleys accelerating influence have to do both, targeting monopoly market power and online censorship in the 21st-century digital public square.

Buck emphasized hes open to any proposal dealing with big tech censorship that may emerge from the House Energy and Commerce Committee, but maintained the answer is to address the monopoly situation. Then, Buck said, third-party liability protections afforded to todays tech giants under Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act would lose its relevance in the presence of online variety.

The two power-player allies in the House Freedom Caucus have sparred on the solutions to big tech influence before.Last fall, the two Republicans previewed the legislative debate playing out today when each released competing reports at the conclusion of the Judiciary Committees investigation into Silicon Valleys empire.

The Democrats majority report focused on anti-competitive market practices and privacy violations, Jordans report honed in on censorship, and Bucks third-way report prescribed antitrust laws as the priority over new rules to target viewpoint suppression.

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Reps. Jordan, Buck Illustrate Conservative Divide On Tech - The Federalist

Transgender BMX freestyle riderChelsea Wolfesaid last year that he wants to win in the Olympics sohe can burn a US flag on the podium. It appears his dream might actually become a reality, since Wolfe, a biological male, qualified on Monday as an alternatefor Team USAs womens BMX freestyle event at the upcoming Olympic Games in Tokyo.

My goal is to win the Olympics so I can burn a US flag on the podium. This is what they focus on during a pandemic. Hurting trans children, Wolfe wrote on Facebook in March 2020, along with a link to a PinkNews story about the Trump administrations stance on males in female sports.

Wolfe told Fox News that anyone who thinks that I dont care about the United States is sorely mistaken, arguing that his mere presence at the Olympics would prove to the world that the United States has morals and values. He also said his dedication to tak[ing] a stand against fascism proves he cares for the United States. Wolfe did not say, however, whether he still plans to burn the American flag if he makes it to the podium.

Anyone who thinks that I dont care about the United States is sorely mistaken. One of the reasons why I work so hard to represent the United States in international competition is to show the world that this country has morals and values, that its not all of the bad things that were known for.I take a stand against fascism because I care about this country and Im not going to let it fall into the hands of fascists after so many people have fought and sacrificed to prevent fascism from taking hold abroad. As a citizen who wants to be proud of my home country, Im sure as hell not going to let it take hold here.

In addition to fantasizing about burning the U.S. flag in front of the world, Wolfe made comments in the replies of his Facebook post suggesting that then-President Donald Trump should be assassinated, according to Ian Miles Cheong, who first reported on the story.

Wolfe later clarified his comments, writing in the replies, I would never say that someone should explode the head of the president. That would be illegal. But I will say with dynamite. Because thats just a sentence fragment and doesnt actually mean anything. Its not necessarily related to the sentence that came before it.

This year marks the first Olympic Games in which transgender athletes will compete, with Laurel Hubbard, a 43-year-old biological male, representing New Zealand in womens weightlifting.

In 2015, the International Olympic Committee began allowing biological males to compete in womens sports so long as their testosterone level is shown to be 10 nanomoles per liter or less for at least a year before competition. That criteria is 5 to 33 percent higher than the average testosterone levels in biological females, which is considered to be between 0.3 and 2.4 nanomoles per liter, wrote The Federalists Maggie Hroncich. The rules also let males compete without undergoing surgery to remove their testes.

Earlier this month, Wolfe wrote on Instagram that he deserve[s] a place to exist in the world, presumably meaning he deserves to participate in womens sports.

I searched for so long trying to find out if there had ever been a professional trans bmx rider to show me that who I am would be okay and unfortunately I found no one, Wolfe wrote on Instagram on June 12. Eventually I started to meet some amazing women who helped me accept that I am a woman just like any other and that I deserve a place to exist in the world just like everyone else.

Whether Wolfe will indeed burn the American flag on the world stage if he competes in the Olympic Games against women has yet to be seen.

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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Trans Athlete's Goal Is To Win Olympics 'So I Can Burn A US Flag On The Podium' - The Federalist