Category Archives: Federalist

As spring quickly morphs into summer, the rotation of Jeopardy! guest hosts continues. Last Monday, NBC News correspondent and Today Show co-host Savannah Guthrie began a two-week stint behind the hosts lectern. During Guthries time as guest host, Jeopardy! will match contestants winnings and donate those funds to the Bowery Mission, a Christian soup kitchen and homeless shelter in New York City.

Guthries spot comes between two neuroscientists with dramatically different backgrounds. Mayim Bialik, an actress who obtained a doctorate in neuroscience from the University of California at Los Angeles in 2007, preceded Guthrie. Sanjay Gupta, a practicing neurosurgeon best known as CNNs chief medical correspondent, will succeed Guthrie for the episodes that start airing June 28.

The switch from Bialik to Guthrie behind the lectern resumed the parade of leftist news anchors as Jeopardy! guest hosts. Guthrie follows the likes of CNN anchor Anderson Cooper, who has compared President Donald Trump to an obese turtle (a comment for which he apologized), and former anchor Katie Couric, who said the former presidents supporters needed deprogramming (a comment for which she did not apologize).

I know of Guthrie most recently, and infamously, for her moderation of an NBC News town hall with Trump last October, during which she interrupted and overrode his answers and voters questions to talk about her own agenda. A simultaneous town hall with Joe Biden on ABC saw George Stephanopoulos (who will host a week of Jeopardy! episodes next month) call on voters who actually turned out to be a former Obama speechwriter and the wife of a former Democrat candidate for the Pennsylvania state senate. Stephanopoulos failed to disclose their party affiliations or connections.

Despite her leftist politics, Guthrie performed well in her first week as Jeopardy! guest host. She sounded encouraging towards contestants, without the overactive enthusiasm Couric occasionally displayed.

Although Guthrie commented how fastidious the Jeopardy! production staff were about proper pronunciation of clues, she did not commit any significant flubs on-camera. However, that accuracy might have more to do with the shows reportedly exacting and lengthy editing process for its guest hosts.

Guthrie is the tenth Jeopardy! guest host since Alex Trebeks final episodes aired in January. According to the shows schedule, another six guest hosts episodes have yet to air. (Following Gupta, the last five guest hosts Stephanopoulos, ABC anchor Robin Roberts, former Reading Rainbow host LeVar Burton, CNBC host David Faber, and Fox sportscaster Joe Buck will spend one week behind the lectern rather than two.)

At this point, the roster of guest hosts is tedious. Jeopardy! has taped all of its episodes for the 37th season, although the last eight weeks havent yet aired. The show has likely already narrowed finalists for the permanent hosting role, even though it may not announce them for several more weeks.

Meanwhile, as the wheel of rotating guest hosts turns, Jeopardy! continues to drop in ratings, shedding roughly 1 million viewers since January. Of course, some of the decrease may have to do with factors completely external to the show. With warmer weather and plummeting COVID-19 cases, many people are likely making up for lost time in other social activities, rather than watching television.

But the rotation of hosts hasnt helped much, either. As the show slowly finishes its round of guest hosts, Jeopardy! producers will have to hope the announcement of a permanent host in September helps bolster Jeopardy!s falling ratings.

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Who Wants To Be The Next 'Jeopardy!' Host: Savannah Guthrie - The Federalist

On this episode of The Federalist Radio Hour, Senior Editor Christopher Bedford and Assistant Editor Kylee Zempel join Culture Editor Emily Jashinsky to break down President Joe Bidens bipartisan infrastructure bill and the Democrats quest to push a progressive version of the legislation through reconciliation.

Any Republican who is stupid enough to agree to this, which there are, is agreeing already to fail, Bedford said. [Democrats]offer themthis horrific deal. Republicans,if they have any brains or fortitude, which they might not, will completely balk at it and the bipartisan deal will completely fall apart.

The dialogue surrounding the infrastructure legislation has tainted it and its chances of getting through Congress, Zempel said.

This is another example of how politics is so downstream from culture because we couldnt be having a conversation about what does infrastructure mean if we hadnt veered so far just from language being accurate, Zempel said.

You dont start with a misnamed infrastructure bill. You start with the AP adopting them and their as like acceptable pronoun use. This is a result of a decade of words being completely misdefined. This is a political result of a cultural phenomenon, not the other way around, she said.

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Splicing Biden's Infrastructure Bill Is A Partisan Ploy To Score Points With Voters - The Federalist

Something strange is afoot in the party of Jefferson.With the Democrats still spinning after the collapse of their election bill and progressives furious with the White Houses seeming lack of commitment to that effort the president has already pivoted, announcing a plan to tackle the violent crime wave besetting American cities.

And the vice president? Shes on her way to the border, 91 days, two countries, and countless laughs after it was first assigned by the boss.

Some might notice that cracking down on rampant crime and tackling a crisis at the border were not topics of discussion when now-President Joe Biden and now-Vice President Kamala (briefly) shared a debate stage two years ago. In fact, it was quite the opposite, littered with jabs and brags about who was more anti-cop or more open-border. So what gives?

If you get your news from Democrats or their palace guards in corporate media, you might think the White House was forced into this by wicked Republicans and dastardly conservative media.

Republicans, led by former President Donald Trump, are attempting to pin the rash of violence on the White House, even though increases in gun violence happened during the previous administration, Politico claimed, as if their readers cant remember a full year of Democratic defund-the-police schemes.

Conservative media outlets are carrying a steady stream of foreboding headlines highlighting the rise of year-over-year shootings and homicides, they added, for good measure.

Vice President Kamala Harris is heading to the U.S.-Mexico border this week, Politico opened another article, amid an unrelenting chorus of criticism from Republicans over her failure to visit there.

Some might say that the other party was for defunding the police, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki even said during Wednesdays press conference, citing the GOPs pushback on a Democratic social-workers bill.

Of course, none of the above scribes actually think Republican Party pressure is the reason for this about-face, and even Psaki is smart enough to look embarrassed to try the talking point, nearly walking it back right away.

They all know that the only real reason a political party shifts focus so dramatically from its goals to issues it wishes it could avoid is terrible internal polling: numbers coming back predicting election disasters, battleground states looking dicey, voters across the country responding negatively.

People dont admit it when this is the reason (unless theyre Don Lemon, who leaked CNNs internal polling and is a special person), but its the same thing we saw when Democrats reversed course on last summers deadly riots and the ongoing lockdowns.

And we saw it in real time in New York City, the liberal capital of the East, when on Tuesday a former New York Police Department captain who promised to tackle crime and put more cops on the streets came in first place in the mayoral election and is likely on the path to victory.

Howd he pull it off? His message, the Intelligencer reports, almost singularly emphasized fighting crime (the top issue among all Democratic voters) He campaigned on increasing the NYPDs budget and presence on the streets after many candidates initially embraced defund the police rhetoric following citywide protests against the police last summer.

Primary elections are about as trustworthy a poll as you can get, and Democrats are finally listening. But heres their quagmire: They dont have a single solution. Both the crisis at the border and the crisis in the cities are the direct results of their policies of dropping enforcement of crime in both places, and what do Biden and Harris want to do in response? Crack down on gun-store owners and fix the economies of Central America.

Lofty goals, both, but it wasnt a gun-store owner who dragged two young parents from their car and executed them in the street over the weekend or shot 52 other people in the city of Chicago alone. Unless theres been the largest single one-year increase in gun store owners illegally selling handguns since the country started keeping such records in the 20th century, it doesnt explain what The Washington Post called the largest single one-year increase in homicides since the country started keeping such records in the 20th century. Bullets dont fall from the sky, and undermining and punishing and demoralizing police isnt consequence-free.

While grueling poverty once trapped Central Americans in Central America, with increased wealth came increased access to internet, cell phones, and the money needed to pay criminal cartels to smuggle humans. While a roaring economy would undoubtedly severely curtail illegal immigration, Harriss ability to create one here or there approaches zero, despite her best efforts, leaving enforcement of Americas border laws the only immediate salve.

The Democratic Party is careening for a collision with reality, and voters are catching on. Their ability to reverse several planks of the new left and avoid the crash, however, looks near-impossible.

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The White House Know Its Police And Border Policies Are About To Crash - The Federalist

Federalist Senior Editor Christopher Bedford said the Democrats are scrambling to adjust their platform as a way to bring up their polling numbers.

If you look at this, going down to the border and tackling the surge in violence are two things that not only were not at all on the Democratic agenda, were not talked about on the debate stage, but they actually run counter to a lot of the policies that theyve been trying to do, which are defund the police, open up the border, and basically drop law enforcement in both those places, Bedford said. Its a very inconvenient place for them to be forced.

One example of this scramble is Vice President Kamala Harriss sudden announcement that she will be visiting the border after a more than 90-day delay.

She recognized that based on what the Democratic agenda was, what the administration was trying to do, fixing the chaos at the border would be pretty much impossible, which is why she came up with, Why dont we fix the economies in Central America and make them so booming so that no one ever wants to leave Central America again, Bedford said.

Harris did not want the responsibility of the border, Bedford noted, which is why she spent so much time away from it.

Shes been trying to avoid this from the start here, Bedford said. She doesnt want the optics of it. She doesnt want to be politically handicapped. She intends to be president someday and she was angry at the president for assigning this. She had been dragged kicking and screaming down there.

The Biden administrations push for gun control amid a surge in crime, Bedford said, is another example of how the Democrats have had to adapt their messaging and policies to fix their polling.

Unless there has been the greatest spike in the 21st century in gun store owners illegally selling weapons since defund the police, its got nothing to do with them. Bullets dont rain from the sky, Bedford said. This is a serious problem, and the Democrats realize it. They are looking at their internal polling theyre looking at the New York mayors race and theyre saying, Holy smokes, our voters care about crime too.

This new focus by the White House, Bedford said, is a temporary one and will not provide long-term solutions necessary to sustain the country.

Thats why none of these policies are going to be able to work because unless they actually reverse course on their policies, Bedford said, theyre headed exactly straight for reality. The reality thats going down at the border is completely ignored and lied to by a lot of reporters. Its a massive criminal human smuggling operation run by cartels and enabled by the Biden administrations lax policies. They cant fix Central America yet, so all they can do is try to enforce the law across the country and protect the innocent, protect Americans.

Read Bedfords article The White House Know Its Police And Border Policies Are About To Crash, But Can They Stop It? here.

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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Bedford: White House Border And Gun Scramble Is Attempt To Improve Polling - The Federalist

Updated June 25, 2021

Just over 100 days into his time in the White House and the end to President Joe Bidens lies is nowhere in sight. Here is part two of The Federalists rigorous coverage keeping the Biden administration accountable with substantive fact-checking throughout the presidents tenure.

You can find part one of The Full List Of Every Lie Joe Biden Has Told As President here.

While speaking at a North Carolina event on COVID-19 vaccination efforts, President Joe Biden falsely claimed that vaccine hesitancy among black Americans stemmed from past experimentation by the U.S. government on the Tuskegee Airman.

The reason why its been harder to get African Americans, initially, to get vaccinated because they are used to being experimented on the Tuskegee Airmen and others, Biden said.

The Tuskegee Airman were the first group of African-American fighter pilots that served in the Army Air Corps throughout World War II. The Airmen were not connected to the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, wherein over 600 black men were experimented on by the U.S. government to observe the progression of a number of diseases, particularly syphilis, untreated in black males. Biden also made the same false claim in May 2021 during an interview with YouTuber Jackie Aina.

During her trip to the border in El Paso, TX after delaying a visit for more than 90 days, Vice President Kamala Harris claimed that it was always the plan to address the effects as well as the root causes of Bidens border crisis.

I said back in March that I was gonna come to the border so this is not a new plan, Bidens border lead told reporters.

Despite her claims, Harris was not always set on visiting the border. Not only did her own spokesperson say in March that there were no plans for the VP to make a trip to the border in the near future, but Harris also laughed off or became defensive when reporters asked her any questions about whether she planned to address the influx of illegal aliens and less-than poor conditions in detention centers for migrant children.

Harris also repeated the lie that its not her first trip to the border during this administration. The last times the vice president visited the border was before she was elected in October when she campaigned in McAllen, TX and in 2018 when, as a Senator, Harris protested the Trump administrations immigration policies in San Diego.

During his remarks on the rise in violent crime, Biden claimed that areas of the US with the strictest gun laws dont have the highest violent crime rates.

The gun lobby wants you to believe that cities that have the toughest gun laws still have the highest rates of gun violence dont believe it, the president claimed without evidence.

Data, however, shows that even those states that leftist gun control groups have ranked as stricter on firearms experience high levels of the firearm death rate. Even though states such as California, New York, Illinois, and Maryland pride themselves on having more restrictions on firearms than most places in the country, they still experience high levels of gun violence and deaths.

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Here's The Full List Of Every Lie Joe Biden Has Told As President- Part Two - The Federalist

The Chinese Communist Party and pro-Beijing Hong Kong authorities forced Apple Daily, the last pro-democracy newspaper in Hong Kong, to cease operation this week. The death of Apple Daily marks the end of a free press in Hong Kong, once one of the freest places on the planet.

The newspaper was founded 26 years ago by outspoken Hong Kong tycoon Jimmy Lai. Born in mainland China, Lai was one of 2 million refugees who wentto Hong Kong to escape communism. He worked his way up from being a laborer at a textile factory to founding a successful clothing company called Giordano, named after a New York pizza parlor.

As The Federalist noted previously: After watching Beijings brutal crackdown on peaceful protesters in Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989, Lai became an advocate for democracy and an outspoken critic of Beijing. When Giordano came out with pro-demonstrator T-shirts, the Chines government pulled its business license in mainland China.

Lai had to sell his Giordano stake, and used the money to started a new media empire, Next Media (later changed to Next Digital). Under the corporate umbrella of Next Media, Lai founded Apple Daily in 1995.

Modeled after USA Today, Apple Daily attracted readers with big and colorful photos, populist opinions, and scandalous gossip about the rich and powerful, as well as a subscription price of two Hong Kong dollars (25 cents), The Federalist noted earlier. Apple Daily quickly became one of the most popular newspapers in Hong Kong, and its success helped Lai become a billionaire in 2008.

Before authorities shut it down, Apple Daily was one of the strongest pro-democracy voices in Hong Kong. It offered the most favorable coverage of the citys pro-democracy movements, from the 2014 Umbrella Movements demand for universal suffrage to anti-extradition protests in 2019. The newspaper also stood out for sharply criticizing the Chinese Communist Partys human rights violations, corruption, and suppression of dissent.

The papers tone and coverage on these sensitive political issues reflected Lais political convictions. Lai was often present at the citys many pro-democracy protests.

Beijing was so enraged it tried both overt and covert intimidation tactics to silence Lai and his newspaper. In addition to banning all of Next Medias publications in mainland China, the CCP pushed Hong Kong businesses to pull advertising from Apple Daily. Between plunging advertising revenue and general gravitation toward digital media, Apple Daily struggled. Next Digital reported five straight years of net losses.

Besides suffering financial losses, Lai survived attacks on his life, including from assailants tossing Molotov cocktails at Lais home and Next Medias headquarters. Despite the increasing danger to his safety and his financial abillity to live anywhere in the world, Lai refused to leave Hong Kong. He explained his resolve to stay in an interview: If we dont fight when you lose freedom, you lose everything.

Last June, Beijing imposed a new National Security Law (NSL) on Hong Kong, criminalizing any act of what Beijing decides is secession, subversion, terrorism, or collusion with a foreign country or external elements. Violating the law invokes a maximum penalty of life in prison.

Each supposed crime and even what constitutes national security have been so vaguely defined, however, that a tweet supporting Hong Kong protests could land someone in jail. Beijing and Hong Kong authorities have weaponized the NSL to crack down on Hong Kongs pro-democracy activists.

Last August, authorities arrested Lai along with his two sons and several Next Media employees for foreign collusion under the new security law. Additionally, Hong Kong police raided and stole materials from Apple Dailys newsroom. Lai, his sons, and the employees were later released on bail.

But on April 16, alongside other long-time activists (including 82-year-old Martin Lee), the 73-year-old Lai was sentenced to 14 months in prison on a trumped-up charge of participating in an unauthorized assembly. It was reported that Lai is still facing six other charges, including two under the NSL that could carry a life sentence.

The day after Lais sentencing, Apple Daily published Lais handwritten letter from the prison, which said: It is our responsibility as journalists to seek justice. As long as we are not blinded by unjust temptations, as long as we do not let evil get its way through us, we are fulfilling our responsibility.

Unfortunately, the authorities have quickly worked to dismantle Apple Daily. Last week, Hong Kong police arrested five top executives of the newspaper including Editor-in-Chief Ryan Law and Chief Executive Cheung Kim-hung and raided their homes.

These executives were accused of publishing more than 30 articles calling for foreign sanctions against the governments of Hong Kong and Beijing. The NSL considers this colluding with foreign forces, even though the law is not supposed to be retroactive. Still, these executives were denied bail and could face life sentences.

Police also raided the newsroom with a blanket warrant to seize any journalistic materials from computers to lists of contacts and sources which means anyone who was interviewed by the newspaper or provided sensitive information is now in danger too. In addition, Hong Kong authorities froze all the newspapers accounts and assets, evaporating the funds for continuing to pay payroll and overhead. Consequently, the newspaper and its online edition ceased operations on Wednesday, and most of its employees have resigned.

Apple Daily was the last newspaper in Hong Kong to support the citys pro-democracy movement, provide a forum for dissenting voices, and call out aggressions committed by the citys pro-Beijing authorities and their CCP masters. Its shutdown marks the death of press freedom in Hong Kong. All the papers left are propaganda machines of the party, and they will never hold the citys authorities nor Beijing accountable.

Without a free press, Hong Kong is just another authoritarian state ruled by the CCP, with no free speech and no one to hold the government accountable. No wonder dictators treat the free press as the first enemy of dictatorship, in the words of Fidel Castro.

As we witness Hong Kongs descent, we must learn a painful lesson. The lack of western outrage over Hong Kongs return to CCP control was based on a naive and delusional assumption that the citys freedom and prosperity and the wests economic engagement with communist China would influence the CCP to gradually embrace liberal values.

The west must finally wake up to the true nature of the CCP, a party that is deeply hostile to democratic values and will crack down on any attempt to promote such values in China. Under the CCPs rule, China will never become one of us. The CCP has taken advantage of the past 30 years of economic engagement to become the most powerful authoritarian state on the dime of the wests economic decline.

The CCP promised to maintain Hong Kongs freedom for 50 years, a promise it never intended to keep. Only 24 years after Hong Kong was officially returned to its control, the CCP discarded its treaty like a piece of useless paper.

Any western government that still works with the CCP must ask: Given the CCPs record on Hong Kong, why should we trust the party to fulfill any commitment it makes? And is it really wise for our own prosperity and security to continue empowering a political party bent on destroying the values we cherish?

This byline marks several different individuals, granted anonymity in cases where publishing an article on The Federalist would credibly threaten close personal relationships, their safety, or their jobs. We verify the identities of those who publish anonymously with The Federalist.

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Shutdown Of Hong Kong's Free Press Is An Indictment Of Western Fools - The Federalist

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