Daily Archives: June 22, 2022

The International Swimming Federation (FINA) recently voted to limit the participation of males in female water competitions but the new policy rewards the chemical castration and mutilation of preteen boys by promising them a place in womens competitions as long as they start sex experiments before they turn 12 years old.

On its face, FINAs decision looks like a win for women who have begged and pleaded for fair, female-only sports competitions that cant be infiltrated by males. While its true that men such as infamous University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas will not be permitted to compete in upcoming FINA competitions, the organizations new policy has caveats that allow men to compete against women so long as they undergo irreversible and risky sex experiments as young minors.

The corporate media and leftists may have lamented FINAs change for restrict[ing] transgender women from competing at elite level and deeply discriminatory, harmful, unscientific but the organizations gender inclusion policy doesnt actually stop men masquerading as women from participating and still apologizes to individuals and groups [who] may be uncomfortable with the use of medical and scientific terminology related to sex and sex-linked traits.

FINA President Husain Al-Musallams spokesman James Pearce clarified that this is not saying that people are encouraged to transition by the age of 12, but his so-called reassurance that transitions for children are not encouraged (nor allowed in many countries) and that puberty is what gives males an advantage in female competitions should raise eyebrows.

Being male isnt something that happens just because of puberty. Its something that begins in the womb and lasts in DNA for a lifetime no matter how many bodily alterations are applied. Limiting participation in womens competitions to men who took castration drugs when they were prepubescent boys is still a rejection of biology and the fact that sex is intrinsic. It also neglects the primary concerns of women who simply want a fair chance to compete against other females.

Thats not something to be celebrated or tolerated. Especially since other organizations such as the International Olympic Committee and the National Collegiate Athletic Association, which have long operated under reality-denying policies that claim sex is something that is measured by hormone levels in the body, have abandoned the truth about biology for a brand of inclusion that edges women out of their own sports.

Theres already a cultural push to brainwash and mutilate children. Even without sports organizations encouraging the castration of preteens, the recommendations for irreversible sex experiments on children get younger and younger each year. The last thing this world needs is elite, global sports associations rewarding parents of children still too young to join the JV team at school for carving up their little boys.

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

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FINA's Trans Policy Rewarding Preteen Castration Is Nothing To Celebrate - The Federalist

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is engaging in the same conduct her deputies on the Select Committee to investigate Jan. 6 have depicted as impeachable.

On Monday, Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., spent the final portion of the committees second hearing complaining that former President Donald Trump fundraised off stolen election claims.

The big lie was also a big rip-off, Lofgren said twice in the hearing, referring to Trumps affiliated political action committees collecting donations to litigate 2020 election claims that were made in the press.

The former president laid the groundwork for these false claims well in advance of the election, Lofgren added, airing a video of Trump talking about his well-founded concerns of ballot fraud ahead of a contest that included underhanded, last-minute rule changes across key states.

The only way were going to lose this election is if the election is rigged, Trump said in one video played at Mondays hearing. Remember that. Its the only way were going to lose this election. This is going to be a fraud like youve never seen.

Except just one week prior, a Pelosi-affiliated super PAC solicited donations with an email campaign raising doubts about the legitimacy of the fall midterms.

I will NOT let McConnell, McCarthy, and their special interest donors steal the House from us and roll back our fundamental freedoms, Pelosi wrote in a message to supporters for her leadership PAC, Pac to the Future.

Nearly identical emails amplifying Democrats hysteria over a GOP effort to steal the House majority were also sent by the PAC on at least five other occasions, including May 27, April 11, April 17, July 18, and Aug. 3.

Pelosis fundraising campaign is far from an isolated double standard presented by the Jan. 6 Committee. Democrats on the panel spent Mondays hearing criminalizing objections to the certification of election results in the Electoral College. Some of the same members, however, objected to the 2017 certification of the 2016 results, alleging Russian interference. In fact, Democrats objected to more states in 2017 than Republicans did last year and they fundraised off of it. Democrats also objected to electoral certification in 2005 and 2001.

The Jan. 6 Committee will reconvene for its third hearing on Thursday after postponing a hearing originally planned for Wednesday.

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

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Dems Fundraise Off Claims The GOP Is Trying To 'Steal' Elections - The Federalist

With news that Congress is on its way to passing new gun control laws that will make it easier for bureaucrats to disarm law-abiding Americans, the United States is once again repeating the egregious mistake of responding to a perceived emergency by crippling constitutional protections for Americans unalienable rights.

First we had the post-9/11 passage of the Patriot Act and its creation of a national security surveillance state that tracks and records Americans digital communications despite the absence of probable cause, legal warrants, or explicit consent. Then we had the Department of Homeland Securitys recent flirtation with a disinformation board meant to regulate speech and censor points of view at odds with the governments officially sanctioned narratives.

Now we have a renewed push for red flag laws intended to deprive Americans of their weapons without proper due process or criminal conviction. Over the last 20 years, Americas First, Second, Fourth, and Fifth Amendments have been under sustained attack, and, amazingly, it has been elected officials sworn by oath to support and defend those same amendments who have led much of the charge.

Theres nothing so dangerous as a politician who undermines the Bill of Rights during a moment of tragedy or crisis. Those rights, set forth as the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution as a redundancy to make explicitly clear what is beyond the scope of the federal governments enumerated powers, are not wishy-washy suggestions meant to be ignored during times of emergency. On the contrary, it is during such times when their safeguards become most critical.

After suffering a terrorist attack, or enduring the ravages of lockdowns, or reeling from the staggering loss of young murder victims, trading freedom for the alluring promises of peace and security is at once reckless and irresistible. That is why our first ten amendments are a necessary line in the sand, so to speak, a caution from one generation of Americans to the next about the dangerous predilection of ever-encroaching government power to descend toward outright tyranny.

In this way, the Bill of Rights represents both a prohibition against illegitimate government action and a kind of easily digestible warning label counseling ordinary citizens: should your government attempt to infringe these most basic rights, then you will know that your continuing freedom is in jeopardy.

Too many elected officials today speak of the protections within the Bill of Rights as if they were created out of thin air and can be erased as indiscriminately as they are perceived to have been written down. It should be noted that many of the original ratifiers of the U.S. Constitution and its subsequent first ten amendments feared later generations would come to this erroneous conclusion.

Some opposed to the explicit adoption of a Bill of Rights thought it unnecessary, since the federal governments powers were already strictly limited to those enumerated. They also worried that guaranteeing certain specific rights might have the perverse effect of endangering American freedoms not affirmatively recorded.

The Ninth and Tenth Amendments dual assurances that The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people and that The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people were meant to redress this risk. The Bill of Rights, in other words, provides expansive protection for individual liberty, constrained only by those powers constitutionally delegated to the federal government.

This moral idea that personal freedom should be maximized and government power minimized has always been revolutionary. It recognized that all legitimate power first originates with the people before they voluntarily cede some of their power to a functioning government. Conversely, when Congress decides that it may disregard the express prohibitions set forth in the Bill of Rights in order to pursue its own policy preferences, then it resurrects that same system where those with power rule and those without power obey.

To have any value, individual rights must belong wholly to the people. If personal freedoms were understood as nothing more than gifts from the government to the people, then they would be reduced to mere privileges either granted or denied according to the states prerogative. For unalienable natural rights to have substantive meaning, they must be inherently possessed by individual Americans, immune from the vagaries of government whim.

For free speech, the right to self-defense, freedom from unreasonable search and seizure, and due process to protect Americans ably from the potential threats of government tyranny, they must exist irrespective of any government action seeking their dilution or outright abrogation. Whereas man-made laws may sway from side to side when a nation faces heavy winds, it is imperative that unalienable natural rights never bend.

Congress always has a good reason for disregarding the Bill of Rights. Its just a red flag law targeting crazies with guns. Its just a little warrantless surveillance meant to stop domestic extremists. Its just a little regulation of speech necessary to counter disinformation and lies. Every new restriction on Americans freedom is always touted as instrumental to saving lives.

Theres never any time, it seems, to stop and ask: who will be empowered to judge which Americans are crazy or extremist or spreading lies? Who will be given the authority to decide which Americans have unalienable rights and which Americans do not? When rights are reduced to nothing more than government privileges, after all, it matters a great deal who will be handing out those gifts.

As Congress and President Biden look to undermine the Second Amendment with new gun control laws this year, dont forget the hidden costs. When rights remain as strong as oak, they endure regardless of any perceived emergency. When rights become as malleable as plastic, though, they melt quickly under even the gentlest sun.

J.B. Shurk is a freedom-minded, anti-establishment, sometimes unorthodox, committed generalist and a proud American from Daniel Boone country.

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Congress Finds Even More Reasons To Disregard The Bill of Rights - The Federalist

This past week, a group of ten Republican senators, led by Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, met with the ten Democrat senators, led by Sen. Chris Murphy, in a bipartisan committee to write new federal gun control legislation. According to The Independent, the legislation will include an expansion of background checks for people under age 21 to include a search of juvenile justice registries, as well as a federal grant program that will encourage states to pass red flag laws, which allow family members or law enforcement to petition courts to temporarily restrict certain persons from owning firearms.

While Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is hailing this as a great example of compromise and placating the do something! crowd, this is rather a shameless concession that will make Americans less safe, less free, and less represented while emboldening todays toxic Democrats to wreck the country even further.

Obviously, the proposed bill is meant to be a response to the mass shootings in Uvalde and Buffalo. Democrats want to disarm potential psychos by placing more barriers to owning and using a gun, and Republicans want more intervention with individuals who suffer from mental health problems. On the surface, their bill seems to be a win-win: fewer guns and fewer crazy people.

Except that these two incidents have almost nothing to do with guns or psychopaths, and everything to do with the profound dysfunction of American law enforcement. There were plenty of red flags with both shooters that warranted earlier intervention and immediate action, but nothing happened.

In Buffalo, there were already red flag laws, and no one bothered to enforce them. And in the Uvalde shooting, police officers actively impeded any kind of intervention while the shooter was shooting people, mostly children, for at least an hour.

So this new legislation would only empower and enrich incompetent police officers and punish and disable law-abiding Americans. Instead of deterring these monsters with armed civilians, the government will deter those civilians from becoming armed in the first place. Added to this is the costly and politicized bureaucracy to enforce these regulations on people who have done nothing wrong.

On a deeper level, it must be reiterated that these types of regulations are an unconstitutional violation of civil liberties. The Second Amendment guarantees Americans the right to use firearms to defend themselves according to Justin Trudeau, Canadians have no such right.

Like the right to free speech, the right to due process, or the right to be treated equally, the Second Amendment empowers individuals against all forms of tyranny, whether that be from the state, the corporate elite, the mob, criminal organizations, or any other oppressor. Take it away, and Americans have one less tool to protect their freedom, their property, and their lives.

For people who dont own firearms, this may be too abstract. Therefore, as a good analogy they can consider restrictions on their right to own and drive a car (which, by the way, kills thousands more Americans each year than firearms). At that moment, all people would be forced to depend on the governments approval to drive a car of the governments own choosing or rely on government-run mass transit.

Perhaps some may be fine with this, living in an urban area where they have a semi-functional bus and subway system and few places to go, unless they are rich, leftist, and own a fleet of Teslas. However, the great majority of people would resent being restricted in this way, and object that their right to automobility (which isnt an amendment, but probably should be) was being infringed.

In response, those who oppose such freedoms could always claim that there are fewer traffic accidents, and the United States is finally starting to resemble the rest of the developed world. The matter would finally rest there, and the government would put another freedom on the chopping block.

As it is with driving a car of ones choice, so it is with protecting oneself with a gun of ones choice. So many social reforms may fall under the heading of safety, but they inevitably translate to more government control. This is Democrats whole agenda. Whether its gun restrictions, diversity quotas, ending economic security in the name of climate change, or eliminating poverty, all of it amounts to the government having more control and making Americans less independent and self-sufficient.

All of this is why Republicans need to stop meeting their political opponents halfway. G. K. Chestertons criticism made more than a century ago is still quite apt: Compromise used to mean that half a loaf was better than no bread. Among modern statesmen it really seems to mean that half a loaf is better than a whole loaf. With this new bill, McConnell and the rest of the ilk are celebrating yet another half-loaf while their constituents already suffer from malnutrition.

Its a mistake to view todays Democrats as fellow Americans who share the same values and goals but have different ideas of how to get there. Rather, they have completely different goals and will employ any means to achieve them, even if that means putting on show trials, exploiting mass shootings, and intimidating and threatening opponents to say nothing of rigging elections, bankrupting the country, and ushering in millions of illegal immigrants.

The time for negotiation and crossing the aisle is over, and has been for a long time. Democrats have figured this out and continue to push their failed policies with impunity. Republican leadership continues to play political patty cake while their country goes up in flames. The American people are on their own right now. And its times like these where an individuals freedoms matter most, particularly the freedom to defend oneself.

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This Is The Wrong Time To Compromise With Democrats On Gun Rights Or Anything Else - The Federalist

The House Select Committee on Jan. 6 continued its show trials Thursday in the panels third hearing on the Capitol riot probing everything but the riot.

Retired federal judge Michael Luttig and former White House counsel for Vice President Mike Pence, Greg Jacob, testified before the committee on the vice presidents role certifying the election results over President Donald Trumps objections.

Luttig told the committee Pences compliance with Trumps orders to halt certification of the 2020 contest would have been the first constitutional crisis since the founding of the republic.

If I had been advising the vice president of the United States on Jan. 6, Luttig said, I would have laid my body across the road before I would have let the vice president overturn the 2020 election.

The panel spent hours reviewing Trumps efforts through theories espoused by attorney and law professor John Eastman to convince the vice president to thwart the electoral process on Jan. 6. Pence ultimately rebuked the president and continued with certification until the mob breached Capitol security interrupting the joint session of Congress. The vice president was taken to a secure location under the complex while rioters chanted hang Mike Pence above.

The Jan. 6 Committee characteristically dedicated little time to the Capitol security failures that put Pences safety in jeopardy, and instead blamed Trump for doing so through a pressure campaign to stop the count.

After about two hours, the House panel finally detailed Pences whereabouts at the Capitol as rioters overwhelmed police and entered the chambers.

California Democrat Rep. Pete Aguilar, who led Thursdays questioning, asked Pence counsel Jacobs, who was with the vice president throughout the riot about the days events.

Forty feet between the vice president and the mob, Aguilar said after playing footage from the Capitol. Mr. Jacob, you were there, seeing that for the first time, does it surprise you to see how close the mob was to the evacuation route that you took?

I could hear the din of the rioters in the building while we moved but I dont think I was aware that they were as close as that, Jacobs said, and was later asked to recount how his faith comforted him amid the riot.

The questioning was obviously designed to solicit emotion for a committee operating with the sole purpose of smearing political dissidents without any legitimate legislative value. If Aguilar and the rest of the panel were seriously concerned about Pences safety and the circumstances that led to the vice president being forced to shelter in a secure location, a more appropriate subject for questioning would have been former House Sergeant at Arms Paul Irving. If not Irving, then any other top official involved in maintaining Capitol security or Pences secret service detail, which must have coordinated with officials at the complex.

As House Speaker Nancy Pelosis chief security officer in the lower chamber, Irving is at the center of the controversy surrounding the failures that led the mob into the Capitol. According to former Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund, Irving and Pelosi refused to deploy the National Guard to reinforce the Capitol security team six times. Irving said the National Guard presence would be bad optics.

Capitol Police, meanwhile, were ill-equipped and ill-trained to handle the horde of demonstrators who flooded the Capitol, according to a 128-page bipartisan Senate report, and were only half-staffed on Jan. 6. Irving, however, refused cooperation with lawmakers in the upper chamber.

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

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J6 Committee Ignores Capitol Security Failures In Third Show Trial Hearing - The Federalist

Tim Sale died Thursday. He was one of the best and most iconic comic book artists of the last 30 years. He was known primarily for a handful of major collaborations with writer Jeph Loeb on Batman and Superman in particular. Their two most important works were probably Batman: The Long Halloween and Superman for All Seasons. But my personal favorite was Spider-Man: Blue.

Superman for All Seasons was probably their greatest work. Several years ago I picked it as the greatest Superman story ever, and I stand by that. And Batman: The Long Halloween is an amazing piece of art. But it was the six issues they did on Spider-Man that have always had my heart. They were maybe the most normal thing the two ever did, which highlights what made Sale so special: Nothing about his art was normal.

Sales work was incomparable. It was both sloppy and precise, passionate and calculating, obtuse yet highly relatable. There are probably many better artists working in comics, but no one has ever drawn like Sale. His work was always instantly recognizable. No one could draw a cover that looked like a Tim Sale other than Tim Sale.

Every great comic book artist is unique and different, and they all have things that make their work distinctive. Jack Kirby, for instance, was known for his power and action. His panels were overflowing with comic book wonder and consistent disregard for human anatomy. Then you have Alex Ross, who does oil painting based on actual human models. Frank Miller is abstract and animalistic. Jim Lee is a perfectionist, Neal Adams is a classicist, John Romita Jr. is chaos incarnate, Steve Ditko was the industry standard, etc. The list of amazing comic artists is endless. But they all seem to be having a kind of conversation with each other over the decades. Theyre all playing a similar game, in essentially the same medium.

But Sale always felt like something else entirely.

Sure, he had influences. Superman for all seasons is at least 50 percent Norman Rockwell. But he also basically drew Superman like a huge thumb, and somehow we loved the Kryptonian even more that way. Sale had this ability to exaggerate and somehow make things feel more relatable at the same time.

Whats maybe most amazing about Sale is how little impact hes had on the industry in terms of overt influence. That sounds like a bad thing, imitation being the most sincere form of flattery. But Sales style was so precise, so specific to him, that it couldnt be imitated or even borrowed from. His artwork feels like a dream come to life; his pencil marks imbue characters with breath. Peter Parker and the Green Goblin seem like they are about to waltz right off the page, but not into our reality where bodies obey physics rather, into some other plane of real existence.

Thats one of the reasons Spider-Man: Blue is my favorite by him. Its so full of life, in a story about death. Each stroke of his pencil was laden with epic whimsy and romantic sadness. And his take on Spider-Man was pretty straightforward the character looked like a normal Spider-Man, instantly recognizable, the way Ditko and Lee had designed him all those years ago, yet somehow completely original. Sale always made every character his own, and converted them into his own visual language.

Spider-Man: Blue is the tale of an older Peter Parker, now married to Mary Jane, remembering his first love and how they finally got together. For the uninitiated, Peters first and arguably truest love was Gwen Stacy who was killed by the Green Goblin. Peter is recording the story of their romance on tapes in the attic, but because its a true Spider-Man story their romance involves just about every one of the major villains from his rogues gallery. And Sale nailed the look for all of them. But what is even more impressive is how he got the more mundane characters so perfectly. Using the most subtle implications of shape and form he makes the reader see Gwen Stacys soul and understand why losing her was so tragic.

Theres never going to be another Tim Sale. Comic purists and more sophisticated art snobs than I may not see the great sadness that conveys, but his utter uniqueness is still breathtaking to me. When he drew the bat cape it would magically change sizes, becoming ridiculously huge, and yet it never seemed silly. Whatever he did made emotional sense of what was happening in the writing at that moment. His Joker has teeth that appeared to be 5 or 8 inches long, and yet you never questioned it. Whatever Sale gave the reader, we simply devoured in an act of sheer gratefulness.

Thank you, Tim, for all the beauty you put into this world while you were here. I pray that you rest in peace.

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

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Tim Sale Was Not A Normal Comic Book Artist, And There'll Never Be Another One Like Him - The Federalist

Nebraska joined the ranks of states cutting ties with the National School Boards Association on Saturday, making it the 25th state to boycott the organization after the NSBA sent a letter to President Biden in September 2021 urging the federal government to use domestic terrorism laws to go after parents at school board meetings. The Nebraska Association of School Boards voted to withdraw less than a month after its executive committee voted to cancel its membership, the Omaha World Herald reported.

The NSBAs letter to President Biden has enraged half of the states in the union now by suggesting that parental involvement in school board meetings amounts todomestic terrorism and by calling on the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and the U.S. Secret Service to quash parent interference. The letters first draft apparently included a petition for use of the Army National Guard but a different copy was sent.

[W]ith such acute threats and actions that are disruptive to our students well-being, to the safety of public school officials and personnel, and to interstate commerce, we urge the federal governments intervention against individuals or hate groups who are targeting our schools and educators, the letter read.

The only supposed hate group referenced in the letter was one that posted watchlists about school boards.

As states like Missouri, Ohio, and Pennsylvania began to drop out of the association almost immediately, the NSBA issued an apology for the letter in October 2021, but the public backtracking hasnt stopped the mass exodus.

Nebraska politicians joined the state school board association in criticism of the NSBA letter, with Sen. Ben Sasse labeling the NSBAs collusion with the Biden Justice Department a political hack job and Gov. Pete Ricketts insisting that following the letters requests would be an absolute outrageous abuse of federal power meant to browbeat parents into not going to school board meetings.

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

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Half Of The 50 States Have Now Ditched The NSBA For Targeting Parents - The Federalist