Category Archives: Federalist

An already disturbing plot thickens in a deeply blue, wealthy school district located outside of Chicago.

Last Friday, Naperville school district 203 Superintendent Dan Bridges quadrupled down in a recorded video on the Feb. 26 Countywide Equity Institute critical race theory training. The district also sent a reportedly mandatory Google survey on March 9, due on March 16, for faculty and staff to select a book by one of the speakers to further their learning after the training. One teacher says the district has been sending mandatory surveys out every week.

Bridgess response to community concerns over leaked materials from the districts training of teachers in critical race theory, which teaches that people of paler skin than others are born racists, was to demand that taxpayers stop complaining about what he is doing with their money.

Let me be perfectly clear with our community today. We will not tolerate hateful comments and threats, the superintendent alleged, equating disagreement with violence. While everyone is entitled to their own opinions, threats to the safety of our staff and presenters will never be tolerated. This is unacceptable. Naperville 203 is supporting teachers and other staff and building their capacity to create inclusive learning environments, where all students are represented, have equitable access, can meaningfully participate in all aspects of teaching and learning.

The district has disabled all comments for the superintendents video on YouTube, most certainly calling into question Bridgess claim that all students and staff ought to be able to participate in all aspects of teaching and learning.

Teachers in the district, as well as parents, have contacted The Federalist because they fear retribution if they speak openly about their concerns about the districts advocacy for racism.

What hes really trying to say to me is that he wants to flush us out and reprogram our brains, said an elementary school teacher in the district who spoke to The Federalist on condition of anonymity. He doesnt want to understand diverse perspectives. He wants me to be on the woke-side and he wants me to understand why Im white and why Im privileged, and how that affects my classroom.

A former teacher and parent whose children are enrolled in the district said its not threatening to let citizens share different opinions.

Initially, I wasnt aware of the training that happened, the parent noted. My kids did not have school, they were off Monday and Tuesday for conferences, and then again on that Friday, they had two days of school and only one was in person. And I dont know, I was unaware of it until [The Federalist] reported on it so I just think its reporting from the other side.

We cant just allow one side to make their comment and believe that its correct unless we challenge it, said Jim Ruhl, chairman of the Naperville Township Republicans. Its just a political statement theyre making, with no real results or direction.

A lot of times the drive comes from the union more than anything, Ruhl added, whose kids graduated from Naperville North High School.

Two weeks ago, local teachers union representative Dan Iverson sent a letter to faculty and staff arguing for a more equitable district and a more equitable society. See Iversons letter here.

The Federalist has attempted to contact keynote speaker Dena Simmons, as well as other speakers, multiple times for a statement. None have responded. Bridges and Assistant Superintendent Jayne Willard have dodged emails and calls, even after district employees connected The Federalist reporter to their direct line.

Simmons even took to posting The Federalists comment request on Twitter, demonstrating her unwillingness to engage in civil discourse with those who think differently than herself.

They say everything about Lets have open discourse and everything but, obviously, thats not what they want, the initial whistleblower, a district high school teacher said. They dont want open discourse unless they are being supported in their views. This shows by you trying to contact them and all their tweeting. Dena Simmons playing the victim role is crazy.

In alignment with new racist statewide civics mandates, Naperville 203 required district employees last week to fill out a Google Form. Teachers had to select one of six books written by the antiracist speakers to further [their] equity learning. It is due Tuesday.

Any time theres a disagreement over whether or to what degree to follow the new CRT-based standards, the pro-CRT side will have the upper hand now, said Stanley Kurtz, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Who will dare to go against state policy knowing that superiors can use that policy as the rationale for a poor performance review and such? Ive heard that some Illinois teachers are thinking of retiring early because of the new standards. I dont blame them.

Below is the form obtained by The Federalist, which has been marked up to conceal the selection of an educator at the persons request.

Coaching for Equity by Elena Aguila argues that America is rooted in white supremacy. It also claims that white people cannot be discriminated against. Racism, as we know it, Aguilar writes, wouldnt exist without white supremacy. Racism is based on the ideology that white people are superior. When I use the term white supremacy in this book, which I do a lot, I mean the mindset and belief system of white superiority that has become institutionalized in policy (page 7).

Structural racism is at the root of educational inequities. People created inequitable systems and, intentionally and unintentionally, we perpetuate unjust systems, Aguilar writes on page 30. Inequitable systems were constructed by ruling powers to subjugate large populations and keep people enslaved, disempowered, disenfranchised, and marginalized. Educational inequity is the result of intentional design.

One elementary school teacher with children in the district read Coaching for Equity and was deeply disturbed, the teacher told The Federalist.

The entire tone of the book was racist, the teacher said. To me, arent we treated with racism when I have to read stuff like this? I felt like I was being judged for my thoughts and beliefs because of the color of my skin. The [book] is categorizing me into that Ive had this privileged life. They are drawing a wedge between all of us.

The teacher also noted that Naperville school district employees were required to go into Zoom breakout rooms to agree with being depicted as racists based solely on the color of their skin.

They are forcing conversations on us, the educator said. I felt forced to speak in a way that fit their narrative and not the narrative of my heart.

Naperville School District officials are promoting the books of Woke Ed Inc., a multimillion-dollar industry peddling the propaganda of critical race theory ideologues to our K-12 students, through their teachers, said Asra Q. Nomani, a former reporter for the Wall Street Journal and a parent advocate in northern Virginia. Author Sara Ahmed hijacks young brains with the notion they are racist with unconscious bias and microaggressions against people they dont even know. And recommended author Paul Gorski sells services through a consulting firm, Equity Literacy Institute, which monetizes equity assessment and equity planning leadership among his goodies for sale.

The other required readings are just as radical.In Sara K. Ahmeds book,

Christopher Emdins

The book by Paul Gorski is titled Bias and inequity reside in every crevice of institutional culture and practice: policies, curricula, communication practices, decisionmaking processes, Gorski writes (page 168).

On March 9, Fox News anchor Shannon Bream reported on the second Federalist Naperville training article,which educators claim caused an uproar among district leaders.

Teachers in a suburb of Illinois doubling-down on antiracism training that suggests Trump voters are racist and white supremacists. The Federalist reporting on a Countywide Equity Institute training in which a PowerPoint slide reportedly said the slogan Make America Great Again is covert racism comparable to the N-word, hate crimes, lynching, and the KKK, Bream said.

The rise of critical race theory is the product of decades of leftist dominance at Americas colleges and universities. A generation has been educated in postmodernism, neo-Marxism, and their spin-offs in various schools of identity politics, said Kurtz. Many people believed these ideas would fade once graduates hit the real world and began to pay taxes. That turned out to be wrong. The survival of our republic rests on how we educate the next generation. Decades of leftism in the schools have put our republic at risk.

Teachers said an email Bridges sent on March 10 included a notice that said distribution of this message will be considered a violation of the Acceptable Use Policy and subject to potential discipline. They say this is the first time to their knowledge that such a notice has been provided on district communications. But what is Naperville 203 trying to hide?

Bridges said the following in regard to the Countywide Equity Institute at Naperville 203 school district in the email obtained by The Federalist:

I want to thank everyone for their participation in the Countywide Equity Institute. Discussions about systemic inequities and/or institutional racism help one understand how our current state (well-documented disparities and inequities) came to be. The next phase of this learniing is to increase discourse among staff and understand diverse perspectives and determine the next steps in our learning plan based on the needs of all stakeholders. Equity work can be uncomfortable and we expect that. It is how we respond to it that matters. Even when uncomfortable, it is through open dialogue that healing and change will begin. I am continually proud of our work in this are and all of our staff who are on this journey with us

If Bridges seeks to permit ideological diversity and fair treatment of all, why are comments turned off on his YouTube video? Why is he threatening with calls of potential discipline for any faculty and staff who might seek to hold him to account in the public square by potentially circulating taxpayer-funded emails?

For [Bridges] to label me as a racist through the emails that hes sending makes it even more worrisome that hes the leader of our district, said one of the Naperville elementary school teachers. Hes not only misdirected in his guidance towards what the real issue is but now hes putting it on our district, creating a division with comments that are not true about teachers in our district, saying that we are targeting and were threatening. Not true at all.

If you dont fall into the sheep category of saying the right things, and you want to say something different, youre automatically going to be labeled and emails will be written about you, the teacher added.

Bridges is an employee at a large public school district and should be accountable to those who provide his extremely comfortable salary. According to public records, the superintendent is raking in $266,542 annually, the highest salary in the district. The budget for Naperville 203 was reported to be $293.6 million in 2020with revenue from local property taxes, state funding, and federal funding amounting to $258,030,941.

All teachers who spoke to The Federalist continue to request anonymity, worried about the potential repercussions from the far-left, publicly funded institution, as well as the anti-free speech standards in the public school district.

All the teachers in my department that I work with share my point of view, but are too afraid to speak out, said the whistleblower.

If Dan had the time and money to do this training, he should have used it to get our kids back in school, the parent and former educator said, alluding to the districts remote learning, which only recently changed. Theyre just trying to cover their own -sses. Our children should not feel bad because they have Trump flags on their house or they say Make America Great Again. Now were being discriminated against.

We are the people that do not see color. We are the people that want to lift every child up. But you sir, want to make me see color, said a dissenting elementary school teacher in the district, referring to Bridges.

Read the original post:

Ill. Superintendent Tries To Silence Community Over Critical Race Training - The Federalist

A Fulton County, Georgia lawsuit claiming fraud in the 2020 presidential election has led the judge overseeing the case to heavily consider unsealing ballots, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

We want to do this in such a way that dispels rumors and disinformation and sheds light, Henry County Superior Court Judge Brian Amero said at a hearing Monday.

An investigation was conducted on the allegations that illegal activity transpired at State Farm Arena in Atlanta on the night of the election. The secretary of states office dismissed them in December.

If Amero were to unseal the ballots, they would reportedly be reviewed by several election experts, including the co-founder of VoterGA Garland Favorito, who filed the lawsuit. Favorito notably said in December on a Georgia radio station that Trumps loss in the state cant be a human error. More than 30 lawsuits have been filed in Georgia over the election.

On Monday, former President Donald Trump released a statement in response to The Washington Post and other outlets correcting articles on a widely reported phone call between Trump and Francis Watson, the Georgia secretary of states chief investigator. The Wall Street Journal released the audio of the Dec. 23 phone call, forcing outlets to retract previously reported quotes from anonymous sources.

Fulton County has not been properly audited for vote or signature verification, the former president said in his statement. They only looked at areas of the State where there most likely would be few problems, and even there they found large numbers of mistakes. We are seeking to find and reveal the large-scale election fraud which took place in Georgia. Many residents agree, and their anger caused them not to turn out and vote for two Republican Senators in the January election.

A risk-limiting audit in November announced by Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger concluded, Georgias historic first statewide audit reaffirmed that the states new secure paper ballot voting system accurately counted and reported results.

Subsequently, the board of elections election chief Robert Brady was terminated after a Floyd County hand-count revealed over 2,500 uncounted ballots.

We are aware of a significant number of election irregularities, said Brad Carver, a partner at a prominent Atlanta law firm who led the effort to recommend state laws be amended for elections. And, yes, if those election irregularities had been remedied, then there would have been a different outcome in the election on Nov. 3.

In December, election officials in Ware County found that Dominion machines had malfunctioned and switched votes from Trump to Biden. Favorito has continued to assert that it is vital to take a look at ballots in Fulton County, which earned Biden about 72 percent of the vote. Nearby counties Clayton, Douglas, Gwinnett, DeKalb, Cobb, and others leaned heavily blue in Georgia.

Original post:

Georgia Judge Eyes Unsealing 2020 Election Ballots In Fulton County To 'Shed Light' On The Truth - The Federalist

Democratic Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney and city officials acknowledged the city is on track for a record number of homicides, shootings, and confiscated guns this year, following months of Black Lives Matter and Antifa riots.

It makes me absolutely sick to know that so many Philadelphians have suffered these preventable deaths, Kenney said at a press conference Wednesday. Its painfully clear that we must take new approaches.

According to new data from the Philadelphia Police department, homicides are up 30 percent in 2021 year-to-date. There have been 412 nonfatal shooting victims, whereas there were 258 last year. In total, 690 individuals have been arrested for illegal firearms compared to 355 last year. African Americans accounted for 86 percent of the shooting victims.

The city will now be holding bi-weekly briefings for the public that will be streamed on Facebook Live. The violent crime increase in Philadelphia can partially be attributed to Democratic District Attorney Larry Krasner, who upheld a court diversionary program titled Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition that gives violent criminals a second opportunity to be released after a probationary period.

Krasner received $1.7 million from billionaire George Soros in 2017 in his election campaign. The Krasner campaign and Soros PAC spent about $1.9 million, which pales in comparison to the second-highest campaign money spent by Michael Untermeyer.

Soros notably invested $220 million in Black Lives Matter and other racial equity groups in July. He is also a backer of the Minnesota Freedom Fund that bailed out rioters and looters in response to the death of George Floyd. Krasner has come under fire for his controversial past of suing the Philadelphia Police department 75 times and calling law enforcement systemically racist.

In 2020, when Philadelphia was ravished by radical left organizations like Black Lives Matter and criminal opportunists who rioted, looted, and torched police cars, District Attorney Larry Krasner failed to hold the perpetrators accountable, nearby Montgomery County Commissioner Republican Joe Gale, who is currently running for governor in the Commonwealth told The Federalist.

The Philly DA is clearly more concerned with placating progressives and furthering his political agenda than maintaining law and order. This toxic attitude of indifference is why Philadelphia suffered nearly 500 homicides and over 2,200 shootings last year, Gale said.

We dont give up. We dont give in, said Kenneyin January. We are determined to save lives and create peace. We will turn the page on this dark chapter in the history of our city, and we will write the new book together. I vow to be with Philadelphians every step of the way as we take on this challenge.

In June, Kenney dropped his prior proposal to increase police funding, and instead vied to slash budgets.

We think we can police better and make sure we put the resources in the departments that can affect change and make the situation in our neighborhoods better, he said this summer. We want to approach this open-mindedly, but some of these things have to happen.

Cities across the country experienced notable shootings and homicide increases this summer, with as much as 265 percent in Atlanta, 130 percent in New York City, 250 percent in Los Angeles, and 525 percent in crime increases in Seattle.

At the 2020 presidential debate in September, then-President Trump harped on the corruptness of Philadelphia.

Bad things happen in Philadelphia, Trump said, bad things.

We are all responsible for what goes on here. This is our community and these are our children, said Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw.

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Philadelphia's Violent Crime Rate Is Spiking Thanks To Failed Leftist Political Agendas - The Federalist

Don Lemon is no pastor. Hes the prime-time muckety-muck over there at CNN who never fails to grace us with his ageless face, his drunken New Years Eve shenanigans, and every once in a while, a sermon.

This weeks message came courtesy of Lemons appearance on The View, but it brought to mind several other times Lemon preached.Here are his top five, in no particular order.

Lets start with the latest. Talking to Meghan McCain of The View about the Vaticans recent declaration that the Catholic Church cannot bless same-sex unions because God cannot bless sin, which is consistent with scripture and thousands of years of church teaching, Lemon, who is gay and engaged, had a strong message communicating what he personally thinks God is about.

I think that the Catholic Church and many other churches really need to reexamine themselves and their teachings because that is not what God is about, Lemon insisted. God is not about hindering people or even judging people.

God actually hinders his people from many things. Theyre called sins, and theyre our natural, rotten tendencies that would lead us to death. Of the many messages contained in the Bible, few are as explicit as the teaching that God is, in fact, a Judge a Judge who is holy and sinless.

That leads us to another Lemon sermon.

In the middle of one of his signature rants about Donald Trump and systemic racism, Lemon launched into another sermon with Chris Cuomo, another CNN anchor who has a habit of mocking Christians and broke from his comedy routine with his scandal-ridden brother long enough to join the segment.

Jesus Christ, if thats who you believe in, Jesus Christ, admittedly was not perfect when he was here on this Earth, Lemon said.

Admittedly? Who ever admitted that, Lemon? A big part of the believing in Jesus Christ thing is confessing that he was completely perfect. Otherwise, his venture down to Earth would have been kind of a waste.

In other news, God might be gender fluid, according to the Church of Don Lemon.

God: Does he exist? More and more young people doubt he does or she, Lemon opened a 2012 segment about atheism.

While Lemons friends on the left work tirelessly to pass the ill-named Equality Act and neuter our norms, God Father, Son, and Spirit is still God, not gxd.

Churches who have clos[ed]their houses of worship amid the pandemic are doing the right thing, Lemon announced during the early days of the Wuhan virus. I want you to take a look at this scene, he said, as a picture of a church worshipping together flashed onto the screen. Look at that. Can you believe it? All those people crowded together, apparently not taking the slightest precaution.

Everyone around this country, I want you to listen to the sound of my voice, said Lemon (who loves to listen to the sound of his voice). Hear my words. Remember this: This virus does not care what you believe.

Viruses dont usually care about much. But for Christians, virus or no virus, gathering with other Christians is one of the most essential activities of all.

Did you know Jesus was black? Thats right, according to Lemon, thats the true identity of the Son of God.

If you are a person of faith in this country a good way of starting is to present the true identity of Jesus and that is as a black or a brown person, Lemon told the women of The View this week. I think we should start with a true depiction of what Jesus looked like, and put that in your home either a black Jesus or a brown Jesus, because we know Jesus looked more like a Muslim or someone who was dark rather than someone who was a blond-looking carpenter.

Well, Jesus certainly wasnt blond, although most depictions of him arent either. As Stand With Us Executive Director Michael Dickson correctly and succinctly pointed out, Jesus was a Jew.

Its curious that in a culture that clings to identity politics and frowns upon a member of one group speaking authoritatively about another group for instance, if white people talk about race issues, theyre racist, and if men talk about womens rights, theyre mansplaining that Lemon would speak so self-importantly about Christianity, but he does.

These proclamations are all from the same Don Lemon who said it was common sense that no amount of prayer would transform him into something that wasnt natural and who wrote that a belief in inerrant scripture is nave, even dangerous.

That type of thinking or non-thinking keeps many religious people enslaved to beliefs that they havent truly stepped back from and examined, Lemon penned, failing to realize that men are all enslaved to something. The question is whether we will be slaves of sin or of God.

We can all hope and pray Lemon meets God the true God, not gxd or a fake Jesus who wasnt perfect but until then, turn off Lemons CNN bully pulpit, and dont take your theology tips from him.

Read more:

5 Times Don Lemon Preached Garbage Theology From The TV Pulpit - The Federalist

U.S. intelligence agencies just issued yet another post-presidential election analysis claiming Russia meddled in the election to help Donald Trump defeat his Democratic opponent. The report also cited limited efforts by Iran and China to defeat Trump. But it appears that just like a similar intelligence report issued after the 2016 presidential election, there are good reasons to believe the new report was rigged to hurt Trump.

In early January 2017, U.S. intelligence agencies, under pressure from the outgoing Obama administration, rushed out an Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA), which concluded Russia meddled in the 2016 presidential election to help Trump win.

The media and congressional Democrats immediately seized upon the 2017 ICA to discredit the legitimacy of Trumps 2016 election win. Over time, however, it was discovered that this ICA was not a fair and objective analysis because the rules were not followed to draft this assessment and some intelligence agencies were excluded. The ICA also was heavily criticized because it was drafted by a small, hand-picked group of intelligence analysts.

Moreover, a House Intelligence Committee investigation learned that intelligence indicating the Russians actually wanted Hillary Clinton to win the 2016 election was suppressed by then-CIA Director John Brennan.

Questions about the credibility of the new ICA revolve around a so-called minority view at the end of the report.

The ICAs minority view is one paragraph at the end of the ICA that says China took limited actions to undermine Trumps reelection and engaged in some efforts that met the definition of election interference. The strained and heavily caveated language of this so-called minority view did not follow the normal format of a dissenting view to an Intelligence Community assessment.

The reason for this almost certainly was to whitewash a Jan. 6, 2021 report by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence Analytic Ombudsman, which presented disturbing findings on how analysis of election interference was being distorted. This report found that intelligence analysts who follow China were hesitant to produce an evaluation suggesting Chinese interference in the 2020 election because they disagreed with Trumps policies and did not want their analysis to be used to support them. On the other hand, the Intelligence Communitys Russia analysts assessed there was clear evidence of Russian meddling in the 2020 election and accused senior intelligence officials of slowing down or not bringing this analysis to policymakers.

The ICAs failure to mention these issues, which affect the truthfulness of its analysis, or the analytic ombudsmans report are serious omissions. The fact that such a deeply flawed report critical of Trump was issued after Joe Biden took office and by a DNI named by Biden completely undermines the credibility of the ICA.

Controversy over the new ICA could have been easily avoided by allowing intelligence officers who disagreed with its conclusions to add a standard and well-argued dissent as a footnote or annex. Instead, intelligence officials included a few heavily-caveated sentences as a minority view only because they were forced to do so and because our intelligence agencies have been captured by the politically correct left, which does not tolerate dissenting views that help Republican presidents or hurt Democratic ones.

Due to the analytic ombudsman report, the new ICA on foreign interference in the 2020 election has even less credibility than the 2017 version and will further damage the reputation of American intelligence agencies in the eyes of Congress, the American people, and future Republican policymakers. This erosion of credibility is dangerous for our security because it could discourage future presidents from trusting and using U.S. intelligence to make crucial national security decisions.

This problem can be fixed with strong leadership from the White House and top Intelligence Community officials, who must initiate significant reforms to reorganize and depoliticize our intelligence agencies. Although I see no chance of this happening during the Biden presidency, it is my hope that a new Republican president will begin to implement these urgently needed reforms after he or she wins the 2024 presidential election.

Fred Fleitz is president and CEO of the Center for Security Policy. He served in 2018 as deputy assistant to the president and chief of staff of the National Security Council. Fleitz held national security jobs for 25 years with the CIA, DIA, Department of State, and the House Intelligence Committee staff. Twitter: @fredfleitz

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US Intel Just Released Another Rigged Report On Russian Election Meddling This Time In 2020 - The Federalist

Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis denounced critical race theory at a press conference Wednesday afternoon, vowing to expressly exclude it from the states public schools.

Florida civics curriculum will incorporate foundational concepts with the best materials and it will expressly exclude unsanctioned narratives like critical race theory and other unsubstantiated theories, DeSantis said. Teaching kids to hate their country and to hate each other is not worth one red cent of taxpayer money.

No matter if your family came on the Mayflower or you became a naturalized citizen, these principles belong to you, DeSantis said.

DeSantis said Florida would receive $106 million in pandemic-associated federal dollars. A new proposal by DeSantis would provide an additional $3,000 to public educators who are credentialed to teach American civics. About $16.5 million of the pandemic funds would be allocated to training educators and principals in civics.

In his speech, the governor laid out a plan to put $6.5 million toward public service advocacy programs between schools and the government, and $7 million for civics curricula that provide students with foundational concepts.

The proposed plan directly opposes civics mandates in the state of Illinois that call for critical race theory training, for instance. Illinois recently approved Culturally Responsive Teaching and Leading Standards that call for educators to assess their biases, and how those biases affect, how they access tools to mitigate their own behavior (racism, sexism, homophobia, unearned privilege, Eurocentrism, etc).

In February, a House bill in West Virginia was introduced by Republican Reps. Riley Keaton, Josh Holstein, Trenton Barnhart, and Johnnie Wamsley, to prevent critical race theory in education. In New Hampshire, Republican Rep. Keith Ammon sponsored a bill to ban the promotion of race essentialism, collective guilt, and race-based harassment, in schools.

On day one of his presidency, Joe Biden issued an executive order to rescind former President Trumps ban on critical race theory training for employees in federal agencies and contractors.

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Ron DeSantis: Florida Schools Will Not Teach Critical Race Theory - The Federalist

I feel like its time we had a discussion about a now very topical subject. Our rights. Specifically as laid out in the Bill of Rights. Beautiful, God-given rights that would have been lost long ago without the Second Amendment.

Our founders put the right to bear arms in the number two spot for a very good reason. It was their way of saying, Here are your top five God-given rights, and here is how you defend them.

With very serious enemies of those rights and specifically the right to bear arms, in the White House the Second Amendment is once again a very hot topic of conversation. As such, it needs to be understood as thoroughly as possibly. What does it mean sentence by sentence? Lets find out:

A well-regulated militia: This has been interpreted to mean different things depending on the view of the interpreter. The Left wants it to mean the National Guard or similar force. The Right says it means the people. George Mason of Virginia famously said, What is the militia? It is the whole of the people. Those words are used to support the people argument.

However, if you read the Federalist Papers and the letters of the Founders you come to a slightly different meaning.

In essays 27 through 29 of the Federalist Papers (written by Alexander Hamilton), you clearly see that the term, a well-regulated militia, means a standing professional army. An army in the control of the central or federal government.

It is important to know that the citizens of the new United States of America had a very strong aversion to the government having a professional army. Such armies have been used throughout history to subjugate societies everywhere. The people of the USA did not want that.

This desire creates a problem because a nation, any nation, absolutely needs a military to remain free and sovereign.

That brings us to the second portion of the sentence, being necessary to the security of a free state,

Hamilton and Madison were attempting to convince the people of the necessity and assure them it could be done without threat of subjugation.

If it were to be written in the common speech of today, we might say it like this: A professional military, including a Navy, is necessary for the security of a free nation; however, because it is a danger to allow the government to have that military and navy, every citizen must be armed and trained if possible.

They wrote it as a constitutional right.

Far too often these days, we tend to use the term self-defense and that allows the enemies of the Constitution to claim its not necessary, because the police protect us. The police and that very military.

As citizens of our country, we are always ready to respond in a minute, (Minute men and women) are the militia in waiting. We are not a well-regulated militia. We are armed because of the inherent danger of that very necessary well-regulated militia. It really is very simple and straight forward.

I read one book of letters from the Revolutionary War period and do not remember the name of the writer, but he stated The Second Amendment allowed the average citizen to remain armed in a fashion equal to or in excess of the common soldier. A fairly high percentage of the people that owned their own firearms had rifles.

Today we call them Kentucky rifles, though most were made in Pennsylvania. Accurate to sometimes 300 or 400 yards. The weapon used by military was a musket, unrifled, and very inaccurate.

When Biden says we dont need AR-15s for self-defense, hes right. We do, however, need them to remain armed equal to or in excess of the common soldier, or as close as possible on a budget. We need them to prevent the subjugation of ourselves.

When we speak of the Second Amendment we need to speak of it in those terms, the ability to defend our freedom. Stopping a burglar or killing a trophy elk are just very nice bonuses.

In the future when you hear Biden or Harris say that you dont need an AR-15 to hunt deer understand its a distraction. Dont fall for it.

Rusty Rogers is a resident of Saratoga who pens a weekly article for the Rawlins Times.

Originally posted here:

The Second Amendment | Opinion | wyomingnews.com - Wyoming Tribune

Consider the following scenario, rooted in the actual experiences of some parents.

Your 14-year-old daughter, who has never before questioned her gender identity, comes home from school one day declaring herself to be a boy after hearing a transgender teenager speak at a school assembly. She persists in her claims and demands cross-sex hormones, even though her experiments with a transgender identity seem more about winning peer approval in school and on social media than about any deep-seated discomfort with being female.

Scenarios like this, which were unheard of a decade ago, are now increasingly common, particularly among adolescent girls. Abigail Shrier documents this in her disturbing new book Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters.

You take a cautious approach. You delay allowing your daughter to begin taking powerful hormones or undergo surgeries that will irreversibly masculinize her appearance and eventually render her sterile. You also seek a therapist who wont unquestioningly affirm her transgender identity, but will probe more deeply to see if underlying psychological or social issues might be the real cause of your daughters transgender identification (psychiatric comorbidities are highamong those with gender dysphoria).

Enter the so-called Equality Act, or its so-called compromise bill, the Fairness for All Act. Both would imperil your right to protect your daughter from risky and unproven gender reassignment treatments. They would also make it even more difficult than it already is for all parents to prevent their children from falling prey to gender ideology.

Advocates of the Equality Act want you to think of it as a basic civil rights measure necessary to protect people who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender from unjust discrimination. What it actually does is impose a radical ideology with sweeping implications on all Americans, including making it a form of unlawful discrimination to act on the belief based on actual science that maleness and femaleness are determined by biology rather than feelings, even in the way you raise your own children.

The Fairness for All Act isno better. The only significant difference is that, unlike the Equality Act, which explicitly exempts itself from the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the Fairness for All carves out limited and insufficient religious exemptions. But it still elevates sexual orientation and gender identity to protected classes in the Civil Rights Act, defining adherence to biology (and to traditional understandings of marriage and sexuality) as bigotry, akin to the racist belief that blacks are inferior to whites.

Religious exemptions wont do anything to help those whose objections are based on common sense, science or medical evidence rather than religion. And once the idea that objections to same-sex marriage or gender ideology are akin to racism becomes enshrined in law, religious freedom exemptions will offer extremely limited and short-lived protection.

Returning to our not-so-hypothetical case, if the Equality Act or the Fairness for All Act becomes law, you would not only find it difficult to protect your daughter from the irreversible harms of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, but your failure to unquestioningly affirm your daughters new identity and your refusal to consent to hormone treatment for her could be considered abusive or neglectful.

You would also have a hard time finding a therapist who supports your cautious approach because both of these bills would likely make it illegal for therapists to question a clients transgender identification. Such an approach could be considered conversion therapy, which the activist group GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) defines as any attempt to change a persons sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression. Both bills outlaw conversion therapy as a form of discrimination.

If, despite your best attempts to be understanding and empathetic, your daughter calls a hotline or complains to her school guidance counselor, saying that your lack of unqualified support for her new identity makes her feel unsafe or causes her psychological distress, you might be investigated by state child-protection officials.

Your daughter could be removed from your custody, and a judge could rule that your daughter can begin receiving testosterone without your consent even though such treatments are experimental (as the U.K. High Court has recognized), with no proven long-term benefits and many known harms; and despite growingevidencethat,particularly for adolescent girls, gender dysphoria is spreading via social contagion among peer groups in person and online.

This is not just hypothetical. In 2019 a loving and supportive father lost custody of his 14-year-old daughter because he did not want her to begin taking hormones to transition to a male gender identity until she was older. His daughter, who had previously not questioned her gender identity, started identifying as a boy after being released for the third time from a psychiatric hospital to which she was admitted for self-harm.

He accepted her transgender identity, agreeing to use her preferred name and pronouns, but did not believe she was mature enough to decide to undergo medical treatments that would permanently alter her body. Similarly, in 2018, Ohio parents lost custody of their 17-year-old daughter for refusing to consent to transgender hormone injections.

The Equality Act (and Fairness for All Act) will make such tragic cases much more common, by codifying the ideology underlying these decisions into federal anti-discrimination law. It will also make it even more difficult for parents to shield their children from confusing and harmful ideological indoctrination in public schools, like curricula that encourage children to question their gender identity and teach there are no male bodies or female bodies, but only bodies with penises and testicles or bodies with vulva and ovaries.

If either of these bills becomes law, all public schools and any private school that receives federal funds must adopt this unscientific newspeak. A host of other gender-inclusive policies will be forced on students, such as giving access to bathrooms, locker rooms, and athletic participation on the basis of gender identification. Schools will be forced to facilitate a childs gender transition while hiding this from parents (as manyschool districts already do.)

Of course, all people should be treated with respect, and no one should be subject to unjust discrimination. But affirming biological reality is neither bigotry nor discrimination. And protecting children from confusion or from harmful experimental treatments is neither abuse nor neglect.

On the contrary, it is a fundamental right and duty of parents that the state has an obligation to respect. These are views held by millions of Americans across the political spectrum.

Adopting the Equality Act or Fairness for All Act will not be a victory for civil rights. It will be the imposition of a contested and dangerous ideology on all Americans, and your children may be among the casualties.

Dr. Melissa Moschella is the author of "To Whom Do Children Belong: Parental Rights, Civic Education and Childrens Autonomy," Associate Professor of Philosophy at the Catholic University of America, and a Visiting Scholar at the Heritage Foundations Simon Center for American Studies.

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The Equality Act Would Make Protecting Your Child An Act Of Bigotry - The Federalist

On this episode of The Federalist Radio Hour, DePaul Professor Jason Hill joins Federalist Intern Evita Duffy to discuss the hostility towards free speech and expression in academia, and how to navigate higher education when facing backlash and silencing.

The merging of theradicalism of what was forged in the crucibles of the late 1960sthegoal of those movements that were Marxist and oriented was the cancellationand the abolition of Western civilization and the chickens have come home to roost, Hill said.

Those movements were driven by a complete hatred of America, hatred of capitalism,hatred of achievement. They were, what I call, systemic nihilistic groups. We are seeing the result of that today in the form of cancelculture and the abolition of complete Western civilization, everything that our civilization has stood for. This is a terminal endpoint that were seeing.

Teaching multiple viewpoints is good, according, to Hill, but shutting down the flow of ideas and professors or students abilities to speak their minds is not.

Theres no sin in teaching a multiplicity of ideas left-wingand right-wing, Hill said. But when you criminalize reason when you criminalize logic, and when you penalize your students for offering rejoinders, then there is something very nefarious and evil because the learning process has stopped and youre using your classroom asan indoctrination centerwe must become more vigilant and become watchdogs.

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Tales From The Frontlines Of The Woke Revolution - The Federalist

Last week, Jeopardy! began its run of guest hosts not affiliated with the show. For the first six weeks after longtime host Alex Trebeks death, former champion Ken Jennings hosted the show. Executive producer Mike Richards followed for two weeks, filling in at the last minute after scheduling conflicts precluded Jennings from hosting.

In addition to taking a turn behind the lectern, the guest hosts will all have a chance to earn money for charities of their choice. Jeopardy! will donate the winnings of all contestants for each of the shows they host the amount earned by the winner, plus the $2,000 earned by the second-place contestant and $1,000 earned by the third-place contestant.

First up: Katie Couric the first female ever to host Jeopardy! who pledged her honorarium to Stand Up to Cancer. The cause comes near to Courics heart; she lost her first husband to colon cancer in 1998, and her older sister Emily to pancreatic cancer (which also took Trebeks life) in 2001.

Courics appearance on the Jeopardy! set comes approximately two months after the former network anchor made news of her own and not necessarily in a good way. In an appearance on Bill Mahers show this past January, Couric cheered on the possibility of President Trumps removal from office via a second impeachment, speaking of the need to really almost deprogram these people who have signed up for the cult of Trump. For self-evident reasons, those comments drew controversy from conservatives as condescending and elitist.

Shortly after the January incident, unnamed Jeopardy! sources told Page Six that Courics comments meant she already appears to have ruled herself out of becoming the permanent host of the show. Couric has not apologized for the incident, nor did she address it in any of the first weeks episodes. But the memory lingers, and some conservative groups called for a boycott of her two weeks of episodes.

Beyond the political controversy that went unspoken on-air, Jeopardy! viewers got a sense of the effervescent persona that made Couric a fixture on NBCs Today show for a decade and a half. She started her first episode with a quick and peppy monologue, and the enthusiasm continued from there.

One theme running through the hosts to date: They all seem focused on relating to the contestants. For instance, Couric commented that a sailor luckily buzzed in first on a clue regarding maritime history Im glad you got that one. Jennings and Richards acted similarly during their hosting duties, in a way that Trebek normally did not. On the one hand, this kind of banter slightly slows down the competition, but on the other, it gives the show more personality.

Another theme comes through from watching these episodes: The producers appear to have given the guest hosts supplemental information about certain clues on the board. For instance, after a contestant on Thursdays show responded correctly to a clue about the late celebrity chef James Beard, Couric added a nugget about the onion sandwiches that helped make Beard famous (my producers on Who Wants To Be a Millionaire? called such factual flourishes by the host frills).

Alex Trebek would occasionally interject after clues to add some flourish, distinguish between a correct and incorrect response, or offer a quick quip. But he did so almost effortlessly, either because he knew the material from his knowledge base and research or felt comfortable enough to improvise on the fly (or, more likely, both). The producers are taking steps to maintain that tradition with the guest hosts, but it feels more scripted likely because it is more scripted, and in a way that serves to reinforce Trebeks skill as a host.

Following Courics appearances, celebrity physician Dr. Mehmet Oz and Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers will each take their turns behind the lectern. While Jennings, Richards, and Couric have most of their experience in television, the next two guest hosts come primarily from a background outside the studio the operating room in the case of Dr. Oz, and the gridiron in the case of Rodgers.

How will the non-traditional guest hosts perform when set loose on the Jeopardy! soundstage? Stay tuned.

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Who Wants to Be the Next 'Jeopardy!' Host: Katie Couric - The Federalist