Daily Archives: July 21, 2021

Vaccinated aides for both House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and President Joe Biden reportedly tested positive for coronavirus on Tuesday after attending a rooftop reception with lawmakers specifically Texas Democrats, after more than 50 of them skipped town to avoid a quorum vote on an election integrity bill and several contracted COVID-19.

Pelosis aide was tasked with ushering the lawmakers around Washington, D.C., last week, prior to attending a gathering at a hotel with them and a White House official on Wednesday. Six members of the states delegation contracted the coronavirus.

Both individuals have reportedly experienced mild symptoms and have not been in contact with Pelosi or Biden. Yesterday, a fully vaccinated senior spokesperson in the speakers press office tested positive for COVID after contact with members of the Texas state legislature last week, a top Pelosi aide told Fox News in a statement.

A White House official likewise confirmed the report, noting, In accordance with our rigorous COVID-19 protocols, the official remains off campus as they wait for a confirmatory PCR test.

The Texas Democrats received a great deal of flack for flying out of state to avoid executing their duties to the people who elected them. They even took photos of themselves with maskless faces on the plane, while their constituents still suffer from onerous airline mask rules. Peter Doocy, the White House correspondent for Fox News, asked press secretary Jen Psaki about whether the administration views the lawmakers trip as a superspreader event.

Well, I would say, that is not a characterization were making from here, Psaki said. We certainly understand there will be breakthrough cases. Even vaccines that are incredibly effective are not foolproof. Theyre not 100 percent effective, weve seen that. Heres the good news though. We know that these individuals have been vaccinated. It protects from death. It protects from serious illness.

Democrat Vice President Kamala Harris also met with the Texas representatives last week, but she has tested negative for COVID-19, according to Psaki. Left-wing media has repeatedly rebuked Republicans for gathering and identified these as superspreader events.

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Vaxxed Pelosi And Biden Aides Get COVID Hobnobbing With Texas Dems - The Federalist

A new poll indicates a majority of voters, as well as close to half of Democrats, are not confident Vice President Kamala Harris is prepared to step up to fill the role of president should it be necessary.

The Trafalgar/Convention of States poll, which surveyed more than 1,100 likely voters in the 2022 midterm election between July 12 and 13, showed about 64 percent of respondents saying they are not confident Harris is ready to be president, with close to 60 percent being not confident at all.

Our last poll found that most Americans dont believe Joe Biden is actually running the country, and today were learning voters think Kamala Harris tenure as Vice President has been a disaster, and shes absolutely not ready to step in and take his place, said Mark Meckler, president of Convention of States Action. Washington, D.C., has never been more radically out of step with the will of the American people than right now.

The majority of Democrats who participated in the poll maintained confidence that the vice president would be suitable to potentially assume the presidency should it be necessary, but by a slim margin, with 43 percent of them lacking confidence in Harris. Republican responses differed sharply from the left, with 88.4 percent of respondents indicating they are not confident at all or not very confident Harris is prepared to assume the presidency.

In addition to skirting her duties to lead the White Houses immigration response, given that Harris did not visit the southern border for 93 days, a Politico report last month indicated allegations of an abusive atmosphere in the vice presidents office, with staffers noting they often feel mistreated.

It remains unclear if President Joe Biden, the oldest commander-in-chief to date at 78, will run for re-election in 2024.

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Poll: Majority Aren't Confident Harris Has What It Takes To Replace Biden - The Federalist

Supported by the Biden White House, top Democrats plan to hide immigration measures in their massive $3.5 trillion spending bill. While the plan is still in drafting, it would provide citizenship to various illegal immigrants, such as those brought across the border as minors and farmworkers already residing in the United States. The Hispanic Caucus and many other Democrats also want to tuck a section into the bill that would provide green cards to essential workers, including COVID health workers.

The tactic which just months ago seemed like a long shot even to liberals is now widely seen as President Joe Bidens best shot at confronting one of Washingtons policy leviathans and delivering on a decades-long party promise, Politico reported.

Clearly, this isnt just the backdoor scheming of a couple of amateurs. A powerful coalition of House Democrats has recently backed the gambit of tackling immigration through the budget, including leaders of the Progressive Caucus, the Hispanic Caucus and the Black Caucus, Politico noted. In the Senate, Majority Whip Dick Durbin, Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) are among the strongest proponents.

Durbin confirmed to Politico that Democrats want to include citizenship for some immigrants in the budget bill, but added the decision has not been made how many illegal immigrants the provisions would include.

For all the plans Democrat momentum, the Senate possesses obscure budget rules that may not allow the Democrats massive bill to pass without GOP support. Without the approval of the Senate parliamentarian, the Democrats plan wont work. Her job is to decide whether provisions of a bill passed using the legislative power known as budget reconciliation can evade a GOP filibuster and pass with a simple majority.

Immigration provisions have passed parliamentary scrutiny in the past, but theyve enjoyed substantial bipartisan support. This time, that clearly wouldnt be the case.

Earlier this year, the current parliamentarian already stripped out Democrats minimum wage hike in a coronavirus aid bill, meaning this isnt the first time Democrats have hidden controversial policy measures in spending bills. And the parliamentarian knows it.

The potential for failure nonetheless didnt stop U.S. Representative for California and leader of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, Raul Ruiz, from advocating for the Democrats plan as early as January. We have had an every-which-way approach to immigration reform, Ruiz complained. This is currently our best effort.

Some of Ruizs Democrat colleagues were even more transparent, telling Politico they believe the current strategy is their only chance to enact meaningful immigration changes this Congress.

This doesnt mean Democrats will be successful. Multiple lawmakers admitted to Politico that the plan is still a bit messy.

Earlier this year, Sen. Alex Padilla and Rep. Joaquin Castro introduced a bill that would make more than 5 million frontline workers across nearly 20 sectors, including janitors, nurses and farmworkers legal permanent residents. But all Democrats might not be on board with such radicalism, and its still doubtful whether they can force immigration provisions through budget reconciliation. So, theyre embracing trial-and-error.

Taking that backdoor approach to immigration, which wouldnt require a single GOP vote, could cast a chill over any future attempts at bipartisan reform, Politico emphasized.

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Democrats Want To Push Immigration Overhaul And Call It 'The Budget' - The Federalist

The American Booksellers Association apologized on Wednesday for including a book about the harms that come with allowing gender-confused children to transition in their July promotional box.

ABA first labeled Abigail Shriers book Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters as anti-trans after receiving backlash on social media. In response, the association apologized for committing the inexcusable crime of promoting literature offering an alternative perspective.

This is a serious, violent incident that goes against ABAs ends policies, values, and everything we believe and support, ABA tweeted. We apologize to our trans members and to the trans community for this terrible incident and the pain we caused them. We also apologize to the LGBTQIA+ community at large, and to our bookselling community.

The company went on to conclude that apologies are not enough and that moving forward, the people at ABA are committed to engaging in the critical dialogue needed to inform concrete steps to address the harm we caused.

The apology, while filled with regret mixed with extreme claims about Shriers book, did not appear to be enough for the mob who pressured the association into issuing another groveling statement on Wednesday night about the inclusion of Shriers book and another racist incident where the association confused right-wing extremist Candace Owens book Blackout with another novel.

We traumatized and endangered members of the trans community. We erased Black authors, conflated Black authors, and put the authors in danger through a forced association. We further marginalized communities we want to support, ABA CEO Allison Hill wrote. There is nothing that I can say that will make this right. This should not have happened. I want to apologize for both of these harms and for the pain that ABA caused.

But I know only action matters, she continued. These were egregious, harmful acts that caused violence and pain. One negligent, irresponsible, and racist; the other negligent, irresponsible, and transphobic.

The ABA board of directors also weighed in with their own thoughts that the organization has systemic problems and institutional failures and biases that need to be addressed.

These incidents harmed booksellers, ABA board members, and ABA staff who identify as LGBTQIA+ and/or BIPOC, as well as the wider community. They also added to a toxic culture overall, the board wrote. We are not the ABA of two years ago. These actions are antithetical to the values we are working to promote in our organization under the strong leadership of our CEO, Allison Hill, and COO, Joy Dallanegra-Sanger. This is not acceptable behavior and goes against the bylaws changes instituted last year.

Shrier responded to the ABA and said if there were a Hall of Fame for capitulations to Woke bullies, the American Booksellers Association is hereby inducted.

The serious, violent incident they perpetrated? Including my book in a large box of new book samples sent out to independent booksellers, she tweeted.

Trans activists previously tried to cancel Shrier and her bestselling book from Target and other bookshelves all across the nation shortly after it was published. Just this week, two Amazon employees reportedly quit after big tech oligarch Amazon declined to bow to their demands that the company stops selling and profiting off of Shriers transphobic work.

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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NOT SATIRE: Book Industry Apologizes For Not Burning Book Saying Boys And Girls Are Different Before People Could Read It - The Federalist

There isnt a single major problem that the country is currently mired in that cant be directly traced to the actions of Democrats. Not a single one.

President Joe Biden on Monday was moved to finally acknowledge the wild inflation were experiencing and which some experts predict will last for years to come. Biden said his White House team is confident that most of the price increases are temporary.

Wait a little longer! Things will get better!

When have we heard that before?

Biden faulted the natural laws of supply and demand as the reason for inflation, insisting that, You cant flip the global economic light back on and not expect this to happen.

Sure, now that weve beaten back the pandemic, demand is steadily climbing, so we would logically expect prices to increase. But that doesnt explain why gas prices are the highest theyve been in seven years. It doesnt explain why the price of food is surging, something that didnt go out of demand during the pandemic. Eggs are up nearly 6 percent. Milk is up 11 percent.

No one could possibly think the rocketing prices arent in large part a result of Biden and Democrats in Congress passing their multi-trillion-dollar welfare package (sometimes referred to as COVID relief), which flooded the economy with another round of generous goodies for people who are now making more money by not working, plus yet thousands of dollars more in monthly cash payments to people for no other reason than that they gave birth to a human.

Thats a lot of money Biden has sprayed on us, even as he works to get another multi-trillion-dollar infrastructure bill (a phrase Democrats use to mean free money for expensive child care) through Congress which can only make the problem worse.

Nothing has changed at our jungle of a border. Its getting worse there, too. Since March, the month that Biden made Vice President Kamala Harris in charge of the problem he created, Border Patrol encounters of migrants have continued to climb. In April, the number grew from 173,000 to just short of another 179,000. The next month, it was another 180,600. The month after that, just short of another 190,000.

The obscene numbers of migrants coming to the U.S. is 100 percent because of Bidens words and actions. The migrants say so themselves. Biden promised an open border and once he was sworn into office he began dismantling all of the rules his predecessor had put in place to avoid this exact situation. And he bragged while doing it.

Just a little more than a week ago, the Biden administration said it would no longer detain pregnant migrants illegally crossing into the U.S. Hmm Is that likely to reinforce or to undermine Harris direct messages to migrants, Do not come?

Anchor babies aweigh.

Democrats are whining that we seem to have hit a ceiling on the number of adults who want to get vaccinated against COVID-19, with roughly half of the total population having been fully vaccinated. They blame disinformation (aka accurate information that upsets their preferred narrative) put out by right-leaning news outlets like Fox News.

Thats stupid. There are plenty of legitimate reasons why any one person might not want to get vaccinated, but theres one that isnt good and its Democrats fault that anyone holds it.

The pandemic was politicized not because former President Donald Trump wouldnt wear a mask. It was politicized because Democrats blamed every single death caused by a new, highly contagious, airborne virus on him. Then they showered praise on liberal mayors and governors for lockdowns that appeared to do very little, if anything, to slow the spread, while at the same time heaping scorn on Republicans who took actions that more carefully weighed the economy against the virus real threat.

And as much as Biden and Harris would like everyone to forget, they insisted Trump was a delusional idiot telling lies when he said he was hopeful that an effective vaccine would be available before the end of 2020. And then they told everyone to be skeptical of whatever vaccine might come anyway.

If theyre upset that the virus continues to spread Im not convinced they really are they have only themselves to blame.

Lastly, after a year of instigating, excusing, and encouraging violent Black Lives rioting and all of the arson, vandalism and destruction that followed the death of George Floyd in every major city, Democrats are now a little nervous that they may pay a price for of the crime they previously had no problem with.

Homicides in 2020 were up 30 percent from the previous year as local Democrat governments got to work legalizing crime, declining to prosecute looters and hamstringing their police forces.

Who could have ever expected crime to go up under the Democrats banner of defund the police?

Its another problem that could have been avoided but Democrats created. We got here with them behind the wheel.

Continue reading here:

Biden And Democrats Understand The Problems We're Facing Because They Created All Of Them - The Federalist

Facing an ongoing crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border, the Biden administration is on the verge of making a very bad situation worse.

Travel restrictions that have been in place since the onset of the pandemic are set to expire next week. If they do, it means U.S. borders will open up to nonessential travel, reviving cross-border traffic at U.S. ports of entry along the southwest border.

In normal times, that would be a good thing. The economies of border communities that depend on cross-border travel and commerce, especially those in Texas, have suffered greatly as a result of these travel restrictions.But these are not normal times, and opening the border now, amid near-record levels of illegal immigration, could be a recipe for disaster.

Simply put, the federal agencies charged with policing the border are overwhelmed, and have been for months. U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which manages the ports of entry and is charged with processing and transporting anyone caught crossing the border illegally, has had to divert its attention from the ports of entry to help deal with soaring numbers of families and unaccompanied children apprehended by Border Patrol and placed in CBP custody.

Indeed, the Biden administration was so overwhelmed with the volume of minors in federal custody in March, it called for volunteers from across the federal government to help process kids at the border and assist overwhelmed CBP officers in overcrowded border facilities. Even now, thousands of migrant children languish in unlicensed and often dangerous emergency shelters that the Biden administration authorized after revoking a host of Trump-era border restrictions.

One of the only Trump-era restrictions Biden retained is the authority to expel migrants under whats called Title 42, a public health order Trump invoked in the earlier days of the pandemic to prevent the spread of coronavirus in federal border facilities and among federal border officials. Under Trump, the vast majority of all illegal border-crossers, including families, were expelled back to Mexico, where those seeking asylum in the United States were required to wait for the adjudication of their cases under the Remain in Mexico policy.

Biden ended that policy but kept part of the Title 42 authority in place, which has allowed for the rapid expulsion of most single adults apprehended at the border since Biden took office in January.If Title 42 is scrapped as part of the lifting of travel restrictions, it will likely trigger a new and even larger surge in illegal immigration. One CBP official told CNN earlier this month, We dont have the manpower, and that is the reality.

How bad is the border crisis right now? One indication that its getting worse is that the corporate press has largely stopped covering it. Another is that two weeks into July, CBP still has not released the border numbers for June. Theres no good reason for this, unless border authorities are so overwhelmed they havent been able to process the people theyve apprehended or run basic background checks on them.

More likely, the Biden administration doesnt want the numbers to come out for political reasons. In May, federal authorities made more than 180,000 apprehensions at the southwest border, a record for that month. All told this fiscal year, excluding June, border apprehensions have nearly exceeded 930,000 a 20-year high.

Indeed, politics has largely driven Bidens response to a crisis of his own making. This week, Cuban-born Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas seized on widespread protests against the communist regime in Cuba to threaten Cubans with deportation if they try to flee to the United States by sea.

Allow me to be clear. If you take to the sea, you will not come to the United States, Alejandro Mayorkas said Tuesday. The time is never right to attempt migration by sea. To those who risk their lives doing so, this risk is not worth taking.

This is a cowardly and politically motivated line from Mayorkas, whose own family came to the United States decades ago fleeing the very same communist regime. The only reason to make such a statement now, it seems, is to appear conciliatory toward the communists who control Cuba.

Whats more, of all the tens of thousands of people illegally crossing the border each month and claiming asylum in the United StatesCubans fleeing the communist dictatorship have among the best claims for asylum. And large numbers of Cubans have been doing just that for months now. As of May, more than 23,000 Cubans have been apprehended by CBP so far this fiscal year, with more than 2,700 apprehended in May alone (compared to just 539 in May of 2020).

But the way Bidens border policies might be shaking out, Cubans apprehended at sea would be turned away, while Cubans who walk across the border from Mexico would be allowed to stay and pursue their asylum claims in the United States.

All of it speaks to the Biden administrations haphazard, disorganized, and blatantly political approach to managing an increasingly chaotic border, which is about to get worse.

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THE FEDERALIST Is The Biden Administration About To Make The Border Crisis Worse? - The Federalist

As the summer rolls on, Jeopardy! ends its final five weeks of original episodes in season 37 with five new guest hosts. Last week, ABC News anchor and Good Morning America co-host George Stephanopoulos took over from CNN medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta.

As guest host, Stephanopoulos designated Share Our Strengths campaign to end childhood hunger as the recipient of a donation the show gives in the amount of the contestants winnings.

Unlike the past guests, who hosted Jeopardy! for a fortnight (or six weeks, in the case of Ken Jennings), Stephanopoulos hosted only one weeks worth of shows. Because the program traditionally tapes the five shows that comprise a calendar week in a single tape day, Stephanopoulos had only one 12-hour period on-camera with which to master the game and potentially audition for the full-time job. (The guest hosts do get a day to rehearse with production staff prior to the cameras rolling.)

That said, the ABC anchor did a workmanlike job behind the lectern. Stephanopoulos kept the contestants appraised of their scores, ruled definitively when a contestant mispronounced the title of a book, and seemed at ease interviewing the players about their hobbies and interests. For some unknown reason, he also used his glasses as a prop, taking them off and waving them in his hand when he knew the camera was on him.

Like most of the other guest hosts, Stephanopoulos included more monologues than Alex Trebek. Between talking about the honor of hosting Jeopardy!, praising the late host Trebek, and plugging their charities, the guests seem not only to spend more time talking, but more time talking about themselves, which Trebek rarely did. Viewers anxious to test their trivia knowledge, or simply watch the contestants compete, might find themselves muttering at their televisions: Get on with it already!

In an interview promoting his appearance, Stephanopoulos disclosed a somewhat surprising fact: The Jeopardy! producers gave him the clues for his tapings ahead of time. At the end of his rehearsal, the writers handed him a spreadsheet with the next days clues to take back to his hotel and review.

By contrast, Trebek wrote years ago that he would normally receive an entire days worth of clues only on the morning of taping. And because Jeopardy! tapes five shows per day, that meant he would receive 306 clues when arriving at the studio.

Giving guest hosts like Stephanopoulos access to the clues the evening before taping allowed them more time to study and prepare, reducing the need to cram on the morning of taping. But it also presented a new level of security risk, if the guest host lost custody of material to be used in the next days gameplay. Perhaps unsurprisingly then, the shows production staff instructed Stephanopoulos to keep the spreadsheets with the next days clues in his hotel safe.

Starting Monday, Robin Roberts will take over behind the Jeopardy! lectern. Interestingly, Stephanopoulos announced at the end of Fridays show that Roberts would replace him on Monday; heretofore, guest hosts have not announced their replacements, perhaps because Jeopardy! initially kept the identity of its guest hosts something bordering on a state secret.

Roberts, the former womens basketball star and ESPN sportscaster, works with Stephanopoulos in their day jobs, having co-hosted Good Morning America since 2005. Now the two may find themselves competing head-to-head for the Jeopardy! hosting gig.

One can only speculate how Stephanopouloswho reportedly would stay in the ABC anchor chair until 6:29 p.m. to prevent colleague David Muir from covering breaking news stories, and whose feuding with Muir prompted Disney Executive Chairman Robert Iger to fly across country during the pandemic to mediate the disputewould react if his colleague Roberts and not he receives the permanent hosting slot.

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Who Wants To Be The Next 'Jeopardy!' Host: George Stephanopoulos - The Federalist

Virginias Loudoun County Public Schools has emerged as a national representation of the critical race theory (CRT) clash between parents and administrators. A local school board recall effort is gaining traction. But aside from figures like Ian Prior at Fight for Schools or thinkers at The Heritage Foundation that sponsor events, what do normal Loudouners think?

I ventured out to Loudoun County to walk the streets of Leesburg and Ashburn and see who would talk to me about CRT. Most turned me down, understandably cautious about staking a political claim in media.

The owner of one clothing store instructed me to leave after I uttered the phrase critical race theory, questioning why anyone should care. A Taiwanese coffee store owner expressed a worry that his bipartisan customers would repudiate him. A woman who said she is a former public school teacher whispered to me in a Giant Food Store through a mask that she probably shouldnt talk, while her daughter nudged her to keep walking.

Here are five Loudouners who agreed to talk to me using their names, and heres what they had to say about CRT.

Suzanne Byers is a physical therapist at an outpatient clinic. She has kids in middle school and has lived in Loudoun off and on for the last 20 years.

Byers first became aware of CRT in Loudoun when her daughter came home from school, got in the car, and asked if her mother was a member of the Ku Klux Klan. I was like Wait, what. She was at a lesson in history, Byers told me. I asked her what she learned. She couldnt really tell me, and then I kind of joked, Well, you know Democrats started the KKK, right? She was like No.'

Theres a lot of social justice they focus on in seventh grade, she continued. There was an email that went out from her history teacher that said Were going to be talking about a lot of sensitive subjects.'

Byers says shes attended recent school board meetings and spoken, but I dont feel like Im being heard. Like other parents Ive spoken to, she expressed frustration with the format and would prefer a town hall that is more conducive to free expression.

The last straw for Byers was when her daughter was told by her history teacher that 14 years old is a reasonable age to peacefully protest and be excused from school. Her public school was trying to turn her seventh-grader into a leftist activist without her knowledge.

I think its been in the schools [before], she said. But its been very quiet and suppressed and discreet behind the scenes. And now theyve been wide open with all of it.

Gunar Hawes, 30, says he has lived in Loudoun for his entire life. He builds custom log homes. As we spoke, he smoked a cigarette, with his other hand snug in his jeans pocket.

Hawes is a libertarian. He noted he cannot speak on behalf of all Loudouners on CRT, but said he and his friends all oppose what is going on in the public school system.

I believe it is a very racist agenda, he said about CRT, proposed by a very Marxist kind of view Im a very nice person. I dont have any problems with anybody of any different color. And I dont think its a subject that needs to be taught in schools.

Hawes said he believes in equality of opportunity but not equality of outcome, which critical race theorists often call equity. He told me has been outspoken on social media about what is going on in Loudoun County Public Schools, but has not participated in in-person activism like some of his peers.

When I asked if he wants to see CRT banned, he said no.

[We need] a free-market solution, he said. If it wants to be spoken about, those people should have the right to go into those classes if they would like but I do not believe it should be forced on children. They honestly dont know what in the world it is.

Hawes supports the school board recall effort.

An immigrant from Kenya, Fred Rege says he moved to America when he was four. His parents didnt have much money when they came to the United States. Now, hes a living and breathing testament to the American Dream.

Rege works as an IT engineer and has two daughters in middle school. He first noticed CRT during remote learning and recalled reading a slide on equity.

They are teaching them things about the way America is and the way America treats race that I dont necessarily agree with, Rege said. And so for a little over a year, I just said, Okay, I am going to just count on that theyre teaching this in schools, and then at the dinner table give my kids my version and everything.

But then, as this thing started picking up steam, and I started to see more and more about it in the news, I just started thinking about how there are other children in this county who dont have parents like myself that will counter the message, he also said. So I decided to get involved.

He recently signed a petition to recall Denise Corbo, the at-large member on the school board. He has been trying to get neighbors to sign petitions, with some people cursing him out. Rege has also gone to fundraisers and been attending school board meetings.

While he has joined the fight against CRT, many of his friends simply do not understand it all, he says. Most people dont know what it is, he said. And most people believe and think that the teachers and the education system have our kids best interests at heart.

Rege voted for Donald Trump in 2016. Because he also considers himself more libertarian-leaning, he also said CRT should not be banned.

I actually believe a free-market of ideas is the best choice and the best opportunity, he said. I dont think we would be successful in banning.

Bart Ecker works in health care, and he left it at that. He studied English language and literature at Susquehanna University and graduated in 1992. Hes a resident of Sterling.

Ecker has lived in Loudoun for 12 years and has four kids in the schools system: twins who are 12, and a 13- and- 16-year-old.

He is a former Republican who did not align with Trump in 2016. He told me he has been trying to understand critical race theory and what it really means. When asked about equity, he described why he favors equality.

I lean more toward equality of opportunity, he said. But then I see and talk to some people who are non-white, and they talk about their own personal experiences. Ive heard from colleagues who are non-white talk about kind of their experiences growing up in neighborhoods and what they faced.

Ecker noted that he does not believe America is systemically racist but seeks to understand how his minority colleagues think about race.

I dont think thats a fair assessment. And Ive been fortunate. With my experience and work experience, Ive traveled all over Africa and Europe frequently. I think people need to learn about identity, but at its core, the data you read shows America is falling behind. Companies I work with are struggling to find qualified people for engineering and science positions, he reflected.

Joseph Mineo, 18, showed up at the bar wearing a Trump 45 hat and an Enjoy Capitalism shirt. He ordered a Coke and showed me his white privilege card. His father Scott the founder of Parents Against Critical Race Theory got copies for the family as a Christmas present.

Mineo is headed to Liberty University next year, having just graduated from Stone Bridge High School. He attended Academies of Loudoun, which specializes in pre-professional programs like criminal justice. He recently attended a Zoom class where he learned about marginalization, and how he can improve so-called equity in school.

He has been going to school board meetings with his father lately, too: Its getting more and more crowded, with people showing up and supporting [the cause].

When asked if his friends are anti-CRT, he said it depends. His favorite outlet is The Daily Wire, where he recently put in an internship application.

Well, they either have no idea what it is, or they think its completely crazy, Mineo said. For the most part, they have. Theres not really many who support it. Those that are kind of on the schools side us versus them are just saying Oh, [CRT] is not here at all.

Unlike Hawes and Rege, the student thinks CRT should be banned.

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5 Loudoun Residents Describe Where They Stand On Critical Race Theory - The Federalist