Category Archives: Federalist

In 2021, not a week goes by without Loudoun County, Virginia making the news as a result of its push to implement critical race theory in its schools. Parents are frustrated and looking for answers, while Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS) remains largely silent as this affluent county outside of Washington, D.C. has become ground zero in the fight against critical race theory in schools.

The story of how this all happened seems relatively straightforward, but it is in fact a complicated story of gaslighting, big money contracts, and unfairly throwing teachers under the bus.

It all started in February 2019 when Loudoun County made national news after the president of the Loudoun County NAACP claimed that students at Madison Trust Elementary were instructed to pretend to be slaves during a gym class activity. This exercise was presented to the media as a runaway slave game.

The school was quick to issue an apology and then-Superintendent Eric Williams said the school system would take corrective action, which included hiring [a]n outside expert [to] conduct an equity audit, requiring all teachers to receive cultural competence and implicit bias training, and creating a new position related to equity and cultural competence.

LCPS immediately began taking action. In April 2019, it hired The Equity Collaborative, a consulting firm in California that specializes in critical race theory. LCPS paid that company $422,000 to conduct focus groups, coach and train teachers, and produce an equity assessment. That assessment was supposedly submitted to LCPS on June, 6, 2019. The report was titled: Initial Report Systemic Equity Assessment: A Picture of Racial Equity Challenges and Opportunities in Loudoun County Public School District.

On May 22, 2019, prior to the equity assessment release, the Loudoun NAACP filed a complaint with the Virginia attorney general alleging systemic racism at LCPS. On September 9, 2019, the Loudoun NAACP supplemented its complaint by submitting the $422,000 equity assessment.

This complaint triggered an attorney general investigation into LCPS in October 2019 and resulted in a November 18, 2020 determination by the Office of Attorney General Division of Human Rights that there was reasonable cause to believe that LCPSs policies and practices resulted in a discriminatory impact on Black/African-America and Latinx/Hispanic students. The AG report indicated that it relied heavily on the findings in the $422,000 equity assessment. Ultimately, in February 2021, LCPS settled the case with the attorney general.

As pointed out above, the event that triggered this course of events was the so-called runaway slave game at Madison Trust Elementary. When I first wrote about this as the origin of the LCPS critical race theory drama in October 2020, I said about the game played at Madison Trust: This was no doubt a misguided attempt at teaching about the Underground Railroad. Upon further research and discussions with teachers and parents across the county, I now realize that I bought into some serious gaslighting by LCPS and the Loudoun NAACP.

In reality, the exercise prepared by the gym teachers at Madison Trust Elementary is known as the Underground Railroad Simulation. It is a 30-year-old program derived from critical race theory studies that is part of the Dare 2 Be Real program, founded by anti-racism and equity coach Anthony Galloway. Dare 2 Be Real describes it as simulat[ing] southern slaves frightening and sometimes brutal experiences as they fled to the north and to freedom.

Courageous Conversation is a framework used by The Pacific Education Foundation for effectively engaging, sustaining and deepening interracial dialogue. The founder of Pacific Education Foundation is Glenn Singleton, who wrote a book entitled Courageous Conversations About Race, in which Galloway and Duffy contribute a chapter to discuss the Underground Railroad simulation.

Here is where things get very interesting as it relates to Virginia. In the Final Report of the Virginia Commission on African American History Education in the Commonwealth, released in August 2020 by Gov. Ralph Northam, Singletons book Courageous Conversations is listed as a resource to support implementation, as is the Pacific Education Foundation. Singletons book is also highlighted in at least one training presentation made by LCPSs director of equity.

Meanwhile, the head of the Loudoun NAACP was on the commissions Professional Development Subcommittee. That would be the very same person who said the Underground Railroad Simulation at Madison Trust Elementary was either willful ignorance, white privilege, intentional racist action, or a combination of all three.

Relatedly, the head of the Equity Collaborative that conducted the equity assessment for LCPS worked for Singleton as director of learning and teaching at the Pacific Education Group before starting The Equity Collaborative.

According to an anonymous source with direct knowledge of the planning and performance of the simulation, one of the teachers learned of the Underground Railroad Simulation at a featured session during the Virginia Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance 2011 Convention. Further, according to documents reviewed by the author, the Underground Railroad Simulation was presented to the schools Project Based Learning (PBL) Committee in fall 2018, including all of the fourth grade teachers, and no issues were raised.

The lesson was on the agenda of all subsequent PBL Committee meetings leading into February 2019 and 21 staff members, including the principal and assistant principal, were aware of the lesson.

The simulation itself was divided into seven stations. Those stations were:

The principal and the schools dean came to watch the exercise, both said that it was awesome, according to a source present during the simulation. The principal also tweeted: TY for doing this with the students. They were 100% engaged in this learning experience. A second school staffer tweeted: This is amazing. Theyre going to love it. Thank you for working with us on our unit.

It wasnt until after the Loudoun NAACP complained that LCPS changed its tune. The Madison Trust principal deleted his tweet and apologized for insensitive physical education. The principal then sent out an email to the whole school stating that Loudoun County Public Schools does not endorse the use of instructional strategies that place elementary students in role-playing situations depicting the institution of slavery.

Several weeks later, after continued press coverage, six members of the Black Panthers of Virginia entered the school to protest the use of the Underground Railroad Simulation. Since that time, one of the gym teachers has left the profession and another has moved to a different school.

Meanwhile, money started flowing to consultants. The Equity Collaborative received an initial contract and is still under contract with LCPS. The Loudoun Freedom Center, run by the head of the Loudoun NAACP, also received a long-term contract for consultation in curriculum review that began the month after the Underground Railroad simulation.

Then the Loudoun NAACP leveraged the Equity Collaborative assessment to trigger an AG investigation and settlement to require critical race theory in Loudoun County Public Schools. All because two teachers used an exercise invented and used by anti-racist and equity coaches across the country. What an absolute scam.

Ian Prior is the cofounder of DailyMalarkey.com, a former principal deputy director of public affairs at the U.S. Department of Justice, and a Loudoun County resident.

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You Won't Believe How Activists Pushed Loudoun Into Critical Race Theory - The Federalist

Footage captured Tuesday on the anniversary of the death of George Floyd shows a Black Lives Matter demonstrator in Kansas City threatening to murder law enforcement.

Cause were tired of being shot and killed because were gonna get pulled over for air fresheners, the woman said. Im waiting for one of those motherf-ckers to pull me over. Cause, baby, where Im from, we dont give two f-cks about the police. Let them kill one of ours. Guess what we doing? We kill one of theirs in Chicago, baby, they continue. We gonna knock on your door. We gonna blow your motherf-cking head off.

Additional footage of the protest shows people in vehicles trying to make their way through the blocked-off intersection.

In addition to protests in Kansas City, police declared a riot in downtown Portland, Oregon, on Tuesday after rioters smashed windows and blocked traffic. Gunshots were fired in Minneapolis, where a festival had been planned, and caused reporters to scramble while live on-air. One person was reportedly injured in the incident.

Floyds family went to the White House to meet with President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, as Democrats seek to pass the Justice in Policing Act, a bill that was received in the Senate in March. The measure would ban chokeholds, which Rafael Mangual, a senior fellow and deputy director of legal policy at the Manhattan Institute, previously told The Federalist is a bad move.

Obviously no one wants to see excessive force used on anyone when its not necessary, Mangual said, but the mere fact that weve had a handful of controversial cases involving chokeholds, Im not sure that that should justify a blanket ban, particularly when you consider the fact that there are going to be situations in which using that kind of neck restraint could probably mean less force than what might otherwise end up being used because an effective grappling technique was taken off the table. Proposals like that kind of failed to appreciate some of the nuance involved in policing.

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BLM To Kansas City Police: 'We Gonna Blow Your Motherf-cking Head Off' - The Federalist

Republican California gubernatorial candidate Caitlyn Jenner contradicted a previous claim that biological boys should not be permitted to compete in girls sports. Jenner said on Fox News Wednesday that boys who identified as girls at a very young age ought to be able to do so.

Im not running as a trans activist, Im running as a California citizen that has lived there for 48 years, said Jenner. What I would do as governor is I would put together a commission. Trans women compete in the Olympics, they compete in the NCAA, but when it gets down to the high school level, theres no guide rules, theres no rules and regulations how they can.

And trans women who are truly trans, who at a very young age, you know, started proper medical treatment, theyve grown up as girls of course, they should be able to compete in girls sports, Jenner said. But yeah, some guy who hasnt done any therapy, hasnt done anything, there has to be a review board. And I would be the first governor to put together a review board to review each case, Jenner added. Such a small issue. Its like a nonissue thats out there. And I would be surprised if theres 30 trans athletes in the entire state.

These remarks are in contrast with Jenners espoused position in early May. This is a question of fairness, the former gold-medal Olympian said less than one month ago. Thats why I oppose biological boys who are trans competing in girls sports in school.

The candidate held an even different position in 2020. Every trans person should have an opportunity to compete in sports, Jenner said on a podcast at the time. And yeah, I want to, hopefully, theyll have the opportunity in the future to do whatever they can do. Im all for it. Im all for it.

Jenners campaign did not immediately respond to The Federalists request for clarification on the candidates position.

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Jenner Flips: Boys Who Start Trans Treatment Young Should Be Able To Play Girls' Sports - The Federalist

Hundreds of universities are choosing to mandate the COVID-19 vaccine for students and staff no matter their risk level or concerns about the shot.

Some schools are highly encouraging students and staff to get the COVID-19 vaccine while other universities are blowing past the potential legal issues that come with an immunization that only has emergency approval to mandate the shot for everyone who plans to enroll or set foot on campus. Vanderbilt University is one of the most recent colleges to join the ever-growing list of schools requiring the virus immunization shot.

Vanderbilt first sent an email to its students in mid-May informing them that they must receive the COVID-19 vaccine to return to the undergraduate and graduate programs in the fall.

To keep our community as safe as possible and help ensure our ability to continue to conduct in-person teaching and learning,we will require all new and returning students to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 for the 202122 academic year, the email stated.

The university later clarified that all faculty, staff, and even postdoctoral fellows are also expected to be fully vaccinated before returning to the school in the fall 2021 semester. Those concerned about the vaccines lack of FDA approval are allowed to appeal for an exemption for medical or religious reasons but all requests for the exception must be submitted by June 15, giving students just one month before their options expired.

The Tennessee university never specified what would happen to students or staff who refuse to take the COVID shot, have their exemptions denied, or even how the school plans to validate that someone is vaccinated.

This lack of communication paired with the looming threat that they might be able to return to school is frustrating for some students like Carolyn Kraft who is still grappling with taking an ethically questionable vaccine for a virus that has significantly low chances of killing healthy people in her age group.

I am constructively indebted to the school, and so is anyone else who has taken more than one year at the school. At this point, my option is to take the backseator get kicked out or drop out and lose all the money all the time and effort I put into this university to get the degree that I worked so hard to get and thatI honestly deserve, the Vanderbilt law student told The Federalist.

Like many universities, Vanderbilt has its fair share of leftist professors who control narratives and push partisan agendas in their classrooms. Political educators combined with the social pressures created by activist students on campuses all around present a new challenge to incoming and also returning students who may have grown accustomed to attending in-person classes during the fall 2020 and spring 2021 semesters. It also dampens and even discourages healthy discussion and debate about the COVID-19 vaccine and Vanderbilts mandate and even scared some students away from speaking to the media about their skepticism.

A lot of people are scared of losing friends, Kraft told The Federalist. I dont really care if people dont like me because of my opinion, but some people, they just havent had to deal with people disliking them for their opinions before in their life so theyre really apprehensive about that. They want to be invited to social gatheringstheyre scared that theyre gonna not be employed. Theyre scared that theyre going to get a bad grade [if they speak out].

Kraft is not alone in her skepticism and worry. Surveys show mixed results when it comes to students willing to take the COVID vaccine, especially if it is required. Forced vaccinations also raise questions about the disproportionate effect universities could have by barring low-income students, who as a whole, tend to be more skeptical about the COVID-19 vaccine than other groups, from returning to school until they get their immunization.

More than 100 other universities have issued vaccine mandates. Here is a state-by-state look.

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

Photo St. Leo University

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More Than 100 Colleges Are Requiring The COVID-19 Vaccine For Students On Campus This Fall - The Federalist

Leftist publications ridiculed California Republican lawmaker Devin Nunes this week over a Trump Justice Department subpoena withdrawn under the new Biden administration that sought to unmask a parody Twitter account.

The Justice Department under Trump, went the tale narrated in an MSNBC column Thursday, attempted to abuse its power with a grand jury subpoena to find the identity of an online troll who was targeting one of the presidents top allies.

Twitter filed a motion in response to quell the subpoena and protect the anonymous users identity, who goes by @NunesAlt. The company mocked Nunes in the process as a thin-skinned politician engaging in repeated efforts to unmask individuals behind parody accounts critical of him.

Other outlets perpetuated the narrative peddled by MSNBC and Twitter that the Trump Justice Department took undue advantage of its subpoena power to intimidate an anonymous parody Twitter personality. The usual culprits participated, including Vanity Fair,Washington Post, and New York Magazine.

Subsequent reporting from The New York Times on Wednesday evening, however, shows Nunes likely had nothing to do with the subpoena filed by the Trump Justice Department.

The Times wrote the DOJ effort to identify the user behind the account was related to an online threat targeted at Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. The paper explained in the first line:

The Trump-era Justice Departments attempt to identify the person behind a Twitter account devoted to mocking Representative Devin Nunes, Republican of California, stemmed from a U.S. Capitol Police investigation into a purported online threat to Senator Mitch McConnell, not to Mr. Nunes, according to two law enforcement officials.

While MSNBC reported federal prosecutors who pursued the case failed to show the specific threat to warrant the reveal, the Times wrote, the offending post had since been deleted or removed, citing one of the officials consulted.

The paper reported law enforcement officials said the post in question came from a threat to McConnell around the time he drew bitter backlash from Democrats when he pledged to move forward with the confirmation process of Justice Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court.

The new information suggests that Mr. Nunes, whose office has not responded to a request for comment, may have had any role in the subpoena, the Times wrote.

A Nunes spokesman did respond to The Federalist.

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Lefties Mock Nunes On Twitter Troll Subpoena He Had Nothing To Do With - The Federalist

Since announcing a gubernatorial bid in California, Caitlyn Jenner has ignited a conversation about who the qualified Republican candidate to run in the left-wing stronghold is. Jenner sat down with Sean Hannity on Fox News and ridiculed Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom for his hypocrisy in handling COVID-19. Jenner also released a campaign video about the California dream that displayed clips of the retired athlete competing in the 1976 Olympics decathlon.

Jenner deserves a fair critique and to be considered based on all his public policy proposals. The Federalists Emily Jashinsky laid out several key questions those in the GOP would be wise to ask him.

Still, as you may have noticed, I used the pronoun he to refer to Jenner. The reason for this is quite simple. Bruce Jenner was born a biological male in 1949, changed his name to Caitlyn in 2015, and is still a man regardless of any attempts to look or act like a female. It is not imprudent to adhere to science in describing his sex. It is the moral thing to do.

Some on the political right, particularly those who are more fond of fusionism or libertarianism, are quick to pump the brakes on using a biological pronoun. It is rude to the person and it is important to be friendly, the person will often plead. If they wish to be called by a false pronoun, I will honor that request. Its a free country! One conservative I spoke with said using inaccurate pronouns for transgender identifying people is being respectful and every single conservative ought to do so.

This could not be further from the truth. In actuality, it is disrespectful to both you and the transgender person to use the anti-science pronoun. It demeans your knowledge of reality and perpetuates lies harmful to you and the transgender person, as well as to the rest of society.

Jenner is running as a Republican. This means many conservatives who determine that there are two sexes, and most do, could punch the ticket for his female name in 2022. Yet these voters should not feel obliged to forfeit their intrinsic and prescriptive understanding of sex in order to accommodate another persons feelings about what sex he or she claims to feel like.

If a person knows Jenner can only be a male or a female, and that he is in fact a biological male, that person is contradicting his own knowledge by referring to the candidate as she. One should not have to abandon ones morals and sanity to appease gender activists, those who have been brainwashed by such ideology, and those struggling with gender dysphoria. Being manipulated into telling what you know to be a lie is not good for anyone.

Second, conservatives ought to foster the common good. What is good includes what is true. It is harmful to perpetuate false gender theories. The person using a false pronoun violates the truth and obfuscates our cultures understanding of biology. Since truth and goodness are intertwined, bowing to transgender ideology threatens both.

Given that identifying as transgender has been considered by physicians to be a mental disorder, promoting its anti-biological basis renders no ultimate good to transgender people either. One poll from 2019 found 29 percent of transgender and non-binary youth respondents have attempted suicide, and 47 percent of the sample underwent psychological or emotional counseling. 90 percent of transgender veterans, in particular, were found in a 2016 study by The Endocrine Society to have at least one mental health diagnosis.

It is important to be kind and recognize humans struggle with mental health, especially on the tail end of months of lockdowns. Pew Research Center data from March indicated that a fifth of Americans experienced high levels of psychological distress in a portion of the second year of coronavirus transmission.

But using the incorrect pronoun only furthers the false notion that biological sex is interchangeable. Biology is fixed, and human nature cannot be transformed with words.None of this means being impolite to transgender-identifying people, because being kind is part of what makes a good person. But it does mean being honest and polite, and using the pronoun that recognizes a persons genuine sex.

Manipulating words erodes our language and therefore thinking. Graham Hillard, an English professor at Trevecca Nazarene University, made this argument in National Review a few years ago. What is at stake, however, is the irreplaceable right to say of one thing, true, and of another, false to define the basic realities from which our politics proceed, Hillard wrote. A man is a man. A woman is a woman. Let us not pretend otherwise.

When Big Brother arrives in the 21st century, he will appear not on posters but in grammar handbooks, HR manuals, and social media, the professor concluded. Not as a tormentor but as a disappointed neighbor or friend.

Conservatives should seek to be kind and foster the common good, but using the wrong pronoun to refer to Jenner is neither. It is giving into perverse postmodernism and its subset known as queer theory, an academic discipline built on the subjectivism of poststructuralism.

This also does not mean Jenner is necessarily the wrong candidate for the GOP in California given other considerations in play. That is a calculation for those on the right to make based on the policies he brings to the table and the voters he must appeal to.

But in order for conservatives to faithfully engage in the ensuing culture war, which one libertarian writer claimed Wednesday gets conservatives too worked up, Americans have to practice what they preach. If one knows a man is a man and a woman is a woman, then referring to Jenner as feminine violates the truth. Worse, doing so concedes to a powerful left ambitious enough to attempt an overhaul of reality.

Jenner has been a public figure for decades, and his decision to enter the political sphere bolsters the number of people attentive to his transgenderism. The broad standards for the candidate require us all to critically deliberate on our positions, in any regard, including on sexuality.

One might decide to use the opposite pronoun when referring to a psychologically struggling transgender friend or family member to preserve an fragile relationship. But preserving order in the public square in discussions of someone who has chosen to become a public figure means always telling it like it is. It means ensuring we are doing our part to preserve basic and necessary human truths.

How people refer to Jenner wields immense influence on the trajectory of the culture given how it could sway, among other things, gender-dysphoric children. Reinforcing a frequent cycle of self-harm is the danger. If Americans wish to uphold the societal order, now is the time to not waver on affirming false pronouns the left recognizes can fundamentally shift hearts and minds.

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Conservatives Who Call Caitlyn Jenner 'She' Forfeit The Truth - The Federalist

The woke may regret going after Jane Austen. Last month it was reported that exhibits at the Jane Austen Museum were being revamped as staff arere-evaluating Jane Austens place in Regency-era colonialism in the wake of Black Lives Matter protests. This attempt to evaluate Austen according to the American upper classs current racial obsessions mostly reveals the blind spots those obsessions encourage.

Many of Austens fans were furious at this attempted denigration of the great authoress. This anger was intensified by the paucity of the charges against her. Personally, she was accused only of having enjoyed tea and cotton, which were produced in questionable surroundings. Of course, so are Nikes and iPhones; then as now, it is difficult to avoid some contact with morally compromised goods in a global market. And as the museum itself acknowledges, Austen is generally thought to have opposed slavery.

The outcry induced the museum to quickly backtrack. It issued a statement protesting that it had been misrepresented and that its plans were meant to highlight Jane Austens brilliance and that placing Austen in the context of her time at her home will only make her genius shine more brightly. Even if one buys this excuse, it is nonsensical to evaluate Austen and her work by current American ideological fashions. But when America has an ideological fever, the rest of the world is in danger of inflammation.

Indeed, the folks who want to read Austen through the lens of Black Lives Matter are just the sort who would make fine comic characters in her novels. It is much more informative to consider them through Austens lens of class, character, and society than to look at her through their racial preoccupations.

The realities of social class with its combination of money, manners, family, education, and connections are the foundation of Austens novels. But they are often absent or downplayed by the same current agitators who are keen to emphasize other group differences. The American left has all but abandoned class analysis in order to focus on almost everything else: race, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, and so on.

This new version of cultural leftism is more compatible with upper-class life than old-fashioned economic leftism. Indeed, emphasizing non-economic divisions may even serve upper-class interests.

For instance, the current emphasis on race lets the upper classes off the hook. They can excuse the decline of the white working class as the natural comeuppance of racists, and blame the plight of poor and working-class minorities (especially blacks) on racism, rather than on economic and social policies that serve the professional and upper classes.

But such cynically utilitarian benefits are far from the minds of most of those eagerly parroting the latest racial dogmas. Todays elites may be less concerned with ancestry than those of Austens day, but class is still about more than money. Manners, connections, and fashion still matter a great deal, and caring about the anti-racism of someone like Ibram X. Kendi is a marker of status, which is why Kendis core constituency iswhite readers of The Atlantic.

That Kendis anti-racism is a lot like the old racism is irrelevant to those primarily concerned with having the correct views for the class they belong to, or at least aspire to. Therefore, it is no surprise that upscale white progressives are to the left of even black voters on race. The survey data just confirms the observable predominance of Black Lives Matter signs in upscale white neighborhoods.

As would therefore be expected, most of the elite response to racial grievances consists of symbolic gestures. It is much easier to focus on renaming things than to, say, reform the public school system that encourages all those white BLM supporters to cluster together.

As Megan McArdle has put it, a lot of high-performing public schools are really private schools that come bundled with hardwood floors and granite countertops. Rhetorical radicalism provides cover for the class disparities that, especially in strongly Democratic urban areas, often follow racial divisions.

But critical race theorys march through schools, both public and private, is creating dilemmas for these well-to-do radicals. On one hand, if they give in to ideological instruction and mediocrity, such as Virginias plan to abolish most accelerated math courses in the name of equity, then the schools that they have fought to get their kids into will lose the academic excellence that makes them worth attending. On the other hand, standing up to the radicals is social suicide.

For example, consider the recent kerfuffle at Manhattans expensive and exclusive Grace Church School. A teacher who spoke out against the indoctrination of critical race theory was effectively fired, only to then release audio of the schools head admitting that the school is demonizing white people for being born. The alternative to the administrators cowardly hypocrisy would have risked not only his career, but his status, and so he publicly supported what he privately knew to be wrong.

In contrast, the outcry over the Jane Austen museum shows how this toxic racial ideology may be beaten back. In a word, it is love. People who love Jane Austen do not want a museum dedicated to her to become one more source of insufferable Black Lives Matter posturing.

This shows how to defeat this ideology elsewhere. In schools, for example, critical race theory will be defeated when parents love their children enough to challenge it, even at the risk of status. Love is likewise the answer to the racial divisions that this ideology only exacerbates.

In this, Jane Austen is an excellent teacher. She did not write about race, but she wrote about people. She could analyze folly, individual and social, with the best of them, but we may, like her heroines, learn to resist such errors.

Austen refused to reduce people to their social memberships. Although she gave social status and class their due as realities her characters must navigate, her heroines exceed them.

Nathanael Blake is a senior contributor to The Federalist and a postdoctoral fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

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Jane Austen Is The Latest Victim Of Rich Whites' Obsession With Race The attempted denigration of - The Federalist

Federalist Publisher Ben Domenech said on Fox News Thursday the obsession with race in K-12 education threatens to undermine the constitutional ban on government favoring one religion over another, warranting school choice as a constitutional right.

Domenechs comments came after former Attorney General Bill Barr critiqued President Barack Obamas opposition to school choice programs to keep inner-city children locked in failing institutions while the White House children attended private school.

The real issue of systemic racism is our public school system in the inner cities, Barr said.

One of the things that really comes out in this speech, Domenech said, where Barr demanded school choice as a constitutional right given public schools entrenchment of far-left indoctrination, was him branding this new woke religion as such that it threatens the Establishment Clause in essentially creating a religious document, a religious set of rules that are being propagated at taxpayer expense.

The leftist theology infecting K-12 classrooms nationwide, Domenech said, possesses nearly all the elements of a religion.

They have sins, they have indulgences, they have demands, and guilt put on you, but they dont have grace, and they dont have forgiveness, Domenech said. Thats something that I think we all should come to appreciate as being at the center of Americas culture war today.

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Domenech On Bill Barr: Critical Race Theory Is Schools Pushing Religion - The Federalist

One of the top Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials who was included in emails between the agency and the nations second-largest teachers union on schools reopening will step down from her position this summer, POLITICO reports.

Anne Schuchat, the CDCs principal deputy director, was one of multiple government health officials included in emails between The American Federation of Teachers union, who repeatedly lobbied against in-person schooling, and the agency over the school reopening guidelines which were released earlier this year.

Schuchat says she is leaving the agency to allow more time for creative passions after spending the last seven years in her spot as the CDCs second-in-command. And while the shifting sands and reported clashed with current Director Rochelle Walensky could be a contributing factor, it is still unclear why she chose to resign now.

Schuchat is the second major CDC official to resign in the last few weeks. Days before Schuchats announcement, Dr. Nancy Messonnier, the former director of the National Center for Immunization and Diseases, announced that her last day would be May 14.

Messonier was the center ofa disproven theory peddled by corporate media outlets and leftist anchors such as CNNS Jake Tapper that claimed she was silenced by the Trump White House for urging American preparedness in the early stages of the pandemic.

Tappers claims, however, simply echoed the false and unsubstantiated talking points from the Biden Campaign in March 2020 about Messonnier, along with others, being silenced and removed from giving public briefings soon, which were already debunked by factcheck.organd givenfour Pinocchiosby the Washington Post.

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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The Federalist Top CDC Official Steps Down After Emails Surface Showing Collusion With Teachers Union Anne - The Federalist

President Joe Biden inherited a nation poised for a tremendous post-COVID resurgence, requiring only mid-level competence to keep things on track. Unfortunately for America, he hasnt been up to the task.

The biggest issue facing the nation for the past year obviously has been the coronavirus, which has killed more than 600,000 Americans, infected nearly 34 million, and forced the economy into a near standstill last year.

As he entered office, however, the good news for Biden was that multiple vaccines already had been developed and with doses ramping up, thanks to former President Trumps Operation Warp Speed. The economy was rebounding, and millions of jobs had returned. What was required of the new president was to not screw things up.

But at the four-month mark of his administration, Biden has badly mismanaged things, contributing to a cluster of problems that are increasingly spiraling out of control.Punchbowl News, an inside-the-Beltway email newsletter, downplayed Bidens predicaments as mere brushfires, as though they were minor headaches to be addressed without much concern. But the nation is facing serious problems either immediately or lurking around the corner.

Millions of Americans had to calculate whether they had enough gas in their cars to keep them mobile after acyber attack on the Colonial Pipeline, which carries 45 percent of the fuel used by the east coast of the United States. With almost immediate gasoline shortages, rising prices, and gas stations shutting down, the nation would rightly expect the president to snap to attention. Instead, administration officials seemed to shrug at the growing calamity and declined to even offer an opinion on whether the pipeline operator should pay a ransom to the hackers.

Its a private sector decision, and the administration has not offered further advice at this time,said Anne Neuberger, the deputy national security advisor for cyber and emerging technologies. This was three days after the attack had shut down the pipeline.

Despite the public nonchalance, the Biden White House was acutely sensitive to the images of lines outside gas stations before Memorial Day,reported Axios, which also noted Biden was being likened to former President Jimmy Carter, who oversaw dramatic fuel shortages in the 1970s and a national malaise. This comparison was made somewhat easier by the recent release of a bizarrely proportioned photoof the Bidens visiting the Carters at home just a few weeks earlier.

In the end, despite longstanding warnings against making payments to terrorists largely because it incentivizes future attacks the pipeline company paid a $5 million ransom.

While the gas shortages were occupying Americans daily lives, there was all-out war brewing in the Middle East between Israel and Hamas. Trump had shepherded historic diplomatic agreements between Israel and Arab nations through the Abraham Accords, but Biden seems determined to disrupt the delicate peace in the region.

Biden restored$235 million in aid to the Palestinians, clearly signaling to Hamas designated as aForeign Terrorist Organizationby the Clinton administration in 1997 that American support for Israel had weakened.Prominent criticssay such a shift invites precisely the kinds of violence we are seeing in the region today. As a result, the Palestinian militants areemboldened.

Not content with roiling conditions in other parts of the world, Biden has also caused a catastrophe on our southern border. He campaigned for president promising amnesty for illegal immigrants, taxpayer-provided health care, work permits, support for sanctuary cities, and ending deportations.

Upon assuming office, he began dismantling Trumps effective policies. This naturally created a border surge. Its little wonder that migrants quickly began arriving at our border wearing Biden-themed T-shirts.

Despite months of the White House refusing to call the situation a crisis, thats exactly what it is. In April alone, border apprehensions by federal officials jumped to178,622, an increase from 173,348 apprehensions the previous month. Even more shocking is the fact that Aprils number represents a more than tenfold increase compared to April 2020.

Many of those seeking to enter our country illegally are doing so to find work, something that millions of legal residents are declining to do. The April report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics was expected to show more than 1 million jobs added, but came in at only 266,000 new jobs, with the unemployment rate ticking up to 6.1 percent. For an economy that should be roaring through a strong recovery, these were dismal numbers, causing many to charge that federal unemployment benefits were too much competition for employers looking to hire.

Yet Biden rejected the notion that unemployment checks had anything to do with the weak jobs totals. No, nothing measurable, he said.

The data show, however, that 8.1 million jobs are currently available in America and small businesses across the country are complaining no one will accept their offersof employment. This is despite businesses offering higher wages, signing bonuses, cash just for showing up to an interview, and other enticements.

Now? There is credible fear ofinflation. So what is Bidens proposed solution to the problem? Why, more of what likely helped cause it, of course.

Coming into office, Biden was set up nicely for a smooth glide toward nearly effortless success. Like a golfer going into the final hole of a tournament with a three-shot lead, he needed only to keep the ball in the short grass to win. Instead, Biden has been in the woods, in the bunker, and in the water, seeing his chances for easy glory fading away.

Tim Murtaugh is a visiting fellow at The Heritage Foundation. He is the former communications director of President Donald J. Trumps 2020 reelection campaign.

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All Biden Needed To Not Screw Up Was Stay In His Basement. He Failed - The Federalist