Category Archives: Federalist

The House of Representatives passed an extreme election bill on Thursday night meant to control state election processes and impose new regulations on political advertisements and donors so that Democrats in Congress have the ultimate supervisory power over federal elections.

If it passes the Senate, the For The People Act of 2021 will eliminate the opportunity for states to protect themselves against modifications weaponized in the 2020 election, such as expanded vote-by-mail options and lax voter ID laws. Provisions included in the 800-page legislation also give the federal government control over political speech online by expanding the definition of electioneering communications and expose political and nonprofit donors information to the public in connection to the causes they support.

The same party that wants to change Senate rules when they lose a vote pack the Supreme Court when they lose a case and throw out the Electoral College every time they lose the White House now wants to forcibly rewrite 50 states election laws from Washington, D.C., Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said on the floor of the upper chamber Thursday. Its unprincipled. Its unwarranted. Large portions of it may well be unconstitutional.

The corporate media, which more often than not runs cover for the Democrats political agenda, jumped at the opportunity to promote the bill as successful legislation that protects the voting rights of America from racist Republicans who want to restrict voter access.

House passes sweeping election bill that would counter GOP efforts to restrict voter access, one CNN headline brazenly stated.

House Passes Landmark Voting Rights Bill, the New York Times flaunted.

House Approves Major Election Reform And Voting Rights Bill, NPR wrote.

House passes sweeping voting rights, ethics bill, NBC News declared, taking the corporate media virtue-signaling one step further.

But there are many problems with HR 1 that are not necessarily highlighted in corrupt corporate media coverage. Not only will the bill give the federal government control to micromanage state election processes, a possibly unconstitutional offense, but one report suggests it would open the floodgates for partisan activity within the IRS and the Federal Elections Commission, hijack and pivot federal courts away from election criticisms, and violate the First Amendment with respect to a vast range of legal activity, all actions that satisfy portions of the Democratic Partys agenda. The attorneys general of 20 states also agreed that HR 1 would invert that constitutional structure, commandeer state resources, confuse and muddle elections procedures, and erode faith in our elections and systems of governance.

Former Vice President Mike Pence was one of the many GOP leaders to express grave concerns with the bill and urge immediate opposition to it. HR 1 mandates the most questionable and abuse-prone election rules nationwide, while banning commonsense measures to detect, deter, and prosecute election fraud, he wrote in an opinion editorial for The Daily Signal.

HR 1, the so-called For the People Act, will increase opportunities for election fraud, trample the First Amendment, further erode confidence in our elections and should be rejected by every member of Congress and opposed by every patriotic American, Pence continued on Twitter.

Others also warned their congressional colleagues and constituents about the hundreds of pages of legislation dedicated to nuking voting protections and called out the Democrats and their media henchmen for spinning their concerns to fit a narrative.

Lets be very clear. The arguments being distilled on the floor today is that Republicans, my colleagues and I, are bigots. Why? Because they use fancy words like voter suppression to say that we are wanting to tamp down peoples access to polls. And nothing can be further from the truth, Republican Rep. Chip Roy of Texas said on the House floor on Tuesday. Heaven forbid we want to use voter identification. Heaven forbid we want to honor the will of the people, through their legislatures in the states, passing rules to make sure that our system is actually working, using voter identification that the American people use to fly, that the American people use to do everything else. If I demand that, Im a bigot.

Every single American should be OUTRAGED by this: Democrats just voted to ban voter ID nationwide and force every state to permanently expand mail-in voting, House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., posted, prompting a trending topic on Twitter.

Even the American Civil Liberties Union raised concerns about parts of the bill, including the requirements for nonprofit organizations to disclose some donors, noting the provisions susceptibility to exploitation such as harassment and threats of violence to donors for what they believe in.

While Democrats say there are amendments to the original drafting of the bill, giving Republicans the chance to provide input or object to certain provisions, one Republican representative pointed out that 49 of the 56 alterations came from the left side of the political aisle, hand-selected by a small group in the rules committee. (One of these proposed measures, lowering the U.S. voting age to 16 years old, was promptly struck down in a bipartisan vote.)

The bills fate now lies in the hands of the Senate, where Democrats face an uphill battle against the 60 cloture votes required to upend a Republican filibuster.

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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Dems' 'Election Reform' Bill Is A Partisan Scam To Get What They Want - The Federalist

On Thursday, the House of Representatives passed the so-called Equality Act by a vote of 224 to 206. While Democrats have marketed this legislation as a simple civil rights law designed to protect LGBTQ people from discrimination, it is far from that.

The statutory language instead provides for an extreme remaking of all aspects of society, destroys the promise of equality for women, and threatens religious liberty and the privacy rights of all Americans, especially children. The proposed law also will upend state and federal protections of the unbornyes, the Equality Act is about abortion too.

Here are the five facts about the Equality Act Americans need to know.

The statutory language of the Equality Act seems simple enough, with the proposed law adding sexual orientation and gender identity to the list of protected classes in the five major parts, called titles, of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Specifically, the Equality Act would add sexual orientation and gender identity to: Title II, which addresses discrimination in public accommodations; Title III, which covers public facilities; Title IV, which regulates public education; Title VI, which requires nondiscrimination in federally assisted programs; and Title VII, which prohibits discrimination in employment.

Sexual orientation and gender identity would also be added to the Fair Housing Act, the Equality Credit Opportunity Act, and Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972.

Adding sexual orientation and gender identity to the list of protected classes may seem straightforward enough, but the proposed law does moremuch more. These additional provisions will prove devastating on many levels.

The breadth of The Equality Act flows, in part, from the proposed laws expansion of various definitions throughout all titles of the Civil Rights Act. The term sex is redefined to include sex stereotype, sex characteristics, sexual orientation, and gender identity, as well as pregnancy, childbirth, or a related medical condition. Gender identity is defined broadly to mean[] the gender-related identity, appearance, mannerisms, or other gender-related characteristics of an individual, regardless of the individuals designated sex at birth.

The proposed Equality Act also redefines or expands several terms within each separate title of the Civil Rights Act. For instance, public accommodations will now include not merely stadiums but any other place of or establishment that provides exhibition, entertainment, recreation, exercise, amusement, public gathering, or public display, and any establishment that provides a good, service, or program, including a store, shopping center, online retailer or service provider, salon, bank, gas station, food bank, service or care center, shelter, travel agency, or funeral parlor, or establishment that provides health care, accounting, or legal services, as well as any train service, bus service, car service, taxi service, airline service, station, depot, or other place of or establishment that provides transportation service.

Of particular significance is The Equality Acts express statement that an establishment shall not be construed to be limited to a physical facility or place, as that language has the potential to reach federal, state, and private health insurance coverage and plans.

The Equality Act then adds four significant substantive provisions to federal law. First, the proposed law provides that pregnancy, childbirth, or a related medical condition shall not receive less favorable treatment than other physical conditions.

Next, The Equality Act provides that an individual shall not be denied access to a shared facility, including a restroom, a locker room, and a dressing room, that is in accordance with the individuals gender identity. Third, where sex is a bona fide occupational qualification, such as with personal caregivers in nursing homes, the act would require an employee to be considered qualified for that position, based on his or her gender identity, and not his or her sex.

Finally, the bill provides that The Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 shall not provide a claim concerning, or a defense to a claim under, under The Equality Act, or provide a basis for challenging the application or enforcement of a covered title.

The gender identity provisions of the proposed Equality Act are extreme in multiple ways. First, the statutory definition of gender identity incorporates language that is both anti-science and antithetical to Judeo-Christian teachings.

By casting an individuals sex as something merely designated at birth, The Equality Act ignores the scientific reality of the inherent, indelible biological differences between male and female [that] go far beyond external genitalia.Each cell in our body has a sexthesamesex, male or female. It also ignores the theological understanding of the human person as a unity of body and soul.

While Americans may shrug at The Equality Acts Orwellian use of language, they will be made to care because the proposed law defines gender identity so broadly that there is no limit to whom may demand to be treated legally as the opposite sex.

Gender identity, according to the act, means the gender-related identity, appearance, mannerisms, or other gender-related characteristics of an individual, regardless of the individuals designated sex at birth. Anyone, at any time, could declare a gender identity contrary to biological reality.

This conclusion is not some conservative conspiracy theory, either. Heres what the leftist Womens Liberation Front says about the broad definition of gender identity: The bill doesnt mention individuals with clinically diagnosed gender dysphoria, or undertaking surgical or hormonal transition, thus making clear that self-declared gender identity would be sufficient to claim protected legal status.

The broad definition of gender identity is but a part of the problem: The bills substantive provisions will devastate the privacy rights of all Americans, especially girls and women.

Under the proposed law, an employer would be required to treat a man who identifies as a woman as a woman for purposes of sensitive jobs, such as law enforcement officials involved in strip searches or supervisors of locker rooms, or handling intimate care in hospitals or long-term care facility. The law currently allows prisoners, patients, or customers to require the government, hospitals, or businesses to staff those positions with an individual of the same sex. The Equality Act would instead mandate that employers allow men who identify as women to perform such invasive tasks.

The law would also require virtually every restroom, locker room, and dressing room in America to be open to individuals of the opposite sex, in accordance instead with the individuals claimed gender identity. As the Womens Liberation Front explained:

This means that American women will no longer be able to expect any single-sex facilities when using or being required to stay in:

Shared hospital rooms or wards

Locker rooms and public or group showers

Multi-stall bathrooms

Jails, prisons, or juvenile detention facilities

Homeless shelters

Overnight drug rehabilitation centers

Domestic violence or rape crisis shelters

It is not just American womenit is American girls. Whether in elementary, middle, or high school, in gymnasiums or swimming facilities, young girls will no longer have a guarantee of privacy or security.

The Equality Act will also require sports competitions and scholarship programs designated for girls and women to admit males if they proclaim a female gender identity, further harming women.

Although not mentioned by name (or euphemism) in The Equality Act, abortion is also part and parcel of this proposed law. To understand this reality requires a brief legal primer on the current law concerning sex and pregnancy discrimination.

As Richard Doerfinger explained in his must-read article, The Equality Act: Threatening Life and Equality, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits sex discrimination. The Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978 amended that provision to prohibit discrimination based on pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions in employment, including in the provision of health insurance. Title VII, however, expressly provided that an employer was not required to pay for health insurance benefits for abortion, except where the life of the mother would be endangered if the fetus were carried to term . . .

In contrast, while the Equality Act also defines sex to include pregnancy, childbirth, or a related medical condition, it includes no exclusion related to abortion, as there was in Title VII. Significantly, The Equal Employment Opportunities Commission, and at least one federal appellate court have held that medical conditions related to pregnancy includes abortion. Thus, the Equality Acts ban on pregnancy discrimination is also a ban on discrimination related to abortion.

In the employment context of Title VII, this language had a minimal effect, given employers are expressly exempt from providing health insurance coverage for abortion. Yet the Equality Act would add a prohibition of discrimination related to abortion in public accommodations, public facilities, public education, and federal-assisted programs.

Further, the Equality Act makes clear that pregnancy, childbirth, or a related medical condition shall not receive less favorable treatment than other physical conditions. Finally, recall that the Equality Act expressly provides that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 shall not provide a claim concerning, or a defense to a claim under, under the Equality Act, or provide a basis for challenging the application or enforcement of a covered title.

Together, these three aspects of the act would devastate the cause of life. States, local government agencies, educational institutions, and health-care organizations all receive federal funds, and under The Equality Acts plain language could be required fund abortions. As a federal statute, the Equality Act would trump state bans on such funding, and as a later adopted statute it could put the Hyde Amendment at risk. Private, and even religious, health-care facilities could be forced to provide abortions on equal terms with other medical care.

Of course, religious organizations could seek refuge in the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment, but it was the Supreme Courts cramped interpretation of that protection that prompted bipartisan passage of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993. The Democratic-controlled Congress, however, with passage of the Equality Act, would gut the protection of religious liberty.

Absent an outcry from average Americans, that is exactly the outcome our country faces.

President Biden campaigned on making passage of the Equality Act a legislative priority in his first 100 days of office. In May 2019 the House of Representatives passed The Equality Act, in a vote of 236 to 173, with the unanimous support of Democrats and eight Republicans crossing the aisle to vote in favor of the Bill. The Republican-led Senate kept the bill from reaching the floor, but the Senate companion legislation garnered 47 sponsors, including Republican Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine.

The bill has again passed the House, and President Biden has promised to sign it into law, leaving the Senate as the last hurdle. With Democrats now controlling the legislative agenda in the Senate, the bill will assuredly see the floor for debate. The question then becomes whether Democrats will retain the 60-vote requirement to end filibusters of legislation, and if so, whether Bidens party can reach 50 votes with the help of Vice President Vice Kamala Harris.

While things could go either way, given that Democrats have so far succeeded in framing the Equality Act as a civil rights law necessary to protect LGBTQ people from discrimination, passage seems likelyunless average Americans demand defeat of this extremist legislation. For there to be an outcry, however, the public must realize what is at stake. But will they before it is too late?

Margot Cleveland is a senior contributor to The Federalist. Cleveland served nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk to a federal appellate judge and is a former full-time faculty member and adjunct instructor at the college of business at the University of Notre Dame.The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.

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5 Things To Know About The Extremist 'Equality Act' The House Passed - The Federalist

President Joe Bidens pick for Health and Human Services secretary, Xavier Becerra, received no votes from Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee on Wednesday morning, resulting in a tie that could toss the confirmation decision to Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and the rest of the upper chamber.

Now that the White House withdrew Neera Tandens nomination for the administrations top budget office following pressure and questions about her ability to project Bidens message of unity after she spent years hurling insults and mean tweets at conservative and even progressive politicians, congressional Republicans are shifting their focus to keep Becerra out of power.

Reasons for opposition to Becerras confirmation, especially by Republican legislators and conservative activist groups, continue to pile up, with many citing his lack of health experience and qualifications, his radical position and track record on abortion, his refusal to call for free and fair elections in Cuba after meeting with dictator Fidel Castro, his efforts to pursue legal action against the Little Sisters of the Poor for refusing to comply with Obamacares contraceptive mandate on religious grounds, and his promotion of Obamacare, open borders, gun control, and radical climate plans.

Some groups, including Heritage Action for America, are pouring money into television advertisements in states such as Arizona and West Virginia to call senators attention to some of these radical positions, while others are capitalizing on his weaponization of the power that came with his position as attorney general of California to target people of faith for their pro-life convictions and prosecute pro-life citizen journalists. Just last week, more than 60 pro-life leaders urged Senate committees to reject Becerra as the nominee based on his vocal pro-abortion advocacy.

Mr. Becerras confirmation would be divisive and a step in the wrong direction. We understand that the president needs to assemble a cabinet; however, Mr. Becerra has proven himself to be an enemy of the health of women and the unborn, the letter states. He cannot be entrusted with our national health programs and policies and is not qualified to serve as Secretary of Health and Human Services.

Reports suggest that certain Republican senators who may have been on the fence about Becerra, such as Sens. Rob Portman of Ohio and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, are now settled to vote against the HHS nominee, leaving space for the Republicans to possibly sink his nomination with more support.

Democrats and their activist allies, however, are also fighting to confirm Becerra, saying he possesses the leadership and experience they need to accomplish their agenda.

During his confirmation hearings, Becerra not only dodged Republicans questions about these issues, including his previous support of partial-birth abortions, but the former California attorney general also falsely claimedhe never sued nuns.

I have never sued the nuns, any nuns, Becerra said last week. Ive never sued any affiliation of nuns, and my actions have always been directed at the federal agencies.

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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GOP Ramps Up Resistance To Xavier Becerra After Tie Confirmation Vote - The Federalist

Washington Posts fact-checking department is running interference for President Joe Bidens Health and Human Services nominee Xavier Becerra, claiming he didnt actually sue a group of nuns during his tenure as attorney general of California.

Bidens pick for HHS sued the Trump administration, not a group of nuns, the fact check headline definitively states.

The corporate media outlets response follows an exchange between Becerra and Republican Sen. John Thune of South Dakota on Wednesday, in which the attorney claimed he never sued the nuns, any nuns.

It does seem like, as attorney general, you spent an inordinate amount of time and effort suing pro-life organizations, like Little Sisters of the Poor, or trying to ease restrictions or expand abortion, Thune said.

I have never sued the nuns, any nuns, Becerra replied. Ive never sued any affiliation of nuns, and my actions have always been directed at the federal agencies.

Becerra, however, used his position in California to sue a religious order of nuns, the Little Sisters of the Poor, to require their participation in Obamacares contraceptive mandate. Although the case is literally named for the group of nuns targeted by the states legal team led by Becerra, State of California v. Little Sisters of the Poor, the WaPo fact-checker claims that Becerra was technically suing the Trump administration.

Its misleading to say Becerra sued the nuns. The California attorney general has not filed lawsuits or brought enforcement actions against the Little Sisters of the Poor, a charity run by Catholic nuns, the fact-checker wrote, citing the defenses of both reproductive rights lawyers and a Biden administration transition spokesman.

The two sides are in court for a different reason. California is suing the federal government, challenging a Trump administration policy that exempts some employers from providing contraceptive coverage under the Affordable Care Act. The Little Sisters of the Poor voluntarily joined that case, taking the Trump administrations position that the exemptions were legally valid.

Thunes office, however, did not back down from their original comments noting that the technicality of the issue does not take away from the fact that the case was filed to challenge protections for religious organizations the Little Sisters of the Poor had been instrumental in securing, and after the Little Sisters of the Poor was named in the suit, Mr. Becerra pursued the case for an additional three years.

So, yes, Senator Thune does believe its fair to say that Mr. Becerra has sued them he has certainly been engaged in protracted litigation against them and the interests of those seeking to comply with their religious obligations, a spokesperson told the Washington Post.

The fact-checker concluded the article by claiming that legal complexities make it difficult to assign a Pinocchio rating.

Suffice it to say theres a difference between suing nuns and suing the federal government in a case that nuns decide to join, The Post determined.

Shortly after Becerras denial that he ever sued nuns, Twitter users called out the absurdity of his claim and the Posts fact check.

???

Fact-check: Becerra has sued a LOT of nuns.

This is outrageous. https://t.co/a9UYGOK2xB

— Matt Whitlock (@mattdizwhitlock) February 24, 2021

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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(1) Washington Post 'Fact Check' Claims Becerra Never Sued Nuns - The Federalist

Whatever your views of Donald Trumps presidency, it is hard to dispute that he produced a stronger record of achievement across the board when it comes to protecting the American people from a range of foreign threats than any other president in at least a generation. His national security accomplishments in four short years included taking on China, forging the historic Abraham Accords in the Middle East, defeating the ISIS caliphate, countering Iran, and standing up the Space Force. So now, one month into his tenure, how is President Joe Biden doing in preserving and building on Trumps remarkable record?

One month ago, all presidential appointees in the White House wrote standard, end-of-office resignation letters to Trump. In my letter departing as deputy assistant to the president and spokesman for the National Security Council, I singled out 10 key accomplishments he achieved for the American people (most of which were accomplished in the last 18 months of his term, with new NSC leaders Robert OBrien and Matt Pottinger executing efficiently on his priorities across the government). The 10 accomplishments offer a good framework for scoring President Bidens effect on our national security in his first 30 days in office.

The bottom line: The jury is still out on where the Biden administration stands on most of these issues so early into the administration, but on a number of the items, there are worrying signs of a backslide on the historic progress Trump made. Following are each of Trumps key accomplishments and a couple of points from Bidens initial actions on each of them:

1. Building a new international consensus on China by standing up to its aggression in all its forms:

After Trump pulled the United States from the World Health Organization last year over the bodys working with China to cover up the virus, Biden rejoined the WHO on his first day in office, resuming full U.S. funding, and failed to demand specific reforms including the replacement of the disastrous leadership team headed by Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

Further, Biden held a two-hour call with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Feb. 10, and while he echoed Trumps priorities on maintaining a free and open Indo-Pacific and pressing Xi on Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Uighur human rights, at a CNN town hall he later appeared to excuse the treatment of the Uighurs, saying, Culturally, there are different norms that each country and their leaders are expected to follow.

Biden also failed to confront Xi for his partys unleashing the China virus on the rest of the world and for continuing to cover it up.

2. Strengthening critical partnerships with allies such as India, Brazil, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, the Philippines, and Thailand on issues from counterterrorism to maritime security:

Here there is actually good news. In a Feb. 18 call with the Quad countries United States, India, Japan, and Australia Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his counterparts agreed to strengthen cooperation on advancing a free and open Indo-Pacific region, including support for freedom of navigation and territorial integrity. Good work so far. Lets hope that stands.

3. Signing a peace agreement with the Taliban after 19 years of war:

Trump pledged to withdraw the 2,500 remaining U.S. troops from Afghanistan by May 2021, in accordance with that agreement with the Taliban last year. There is a real question about whether Biden will either delay that pullout or cancel it entirely, leaving some U.S. troops in Afghanistan indefinitely.

As a reminder, President Barack Obama and then-Vice President Biden had more than 100,000 troops in Afghanistan in 2011, and it will be important to see whether Biden follows through on Trumps promise finally to end our presence in that country after two decades.

4. Bringing Irans economy to its knees and choking off funds to its terrorist allies:

Here there are real questions. No one was tougher on Iran than Trump, who in 2018 pulled us out of the disastrous Obama-Biden Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, commonly known as the Iran nuclear deal, that included $1.7 billion in funding for Iran, $400 million of which was airlifted into the country on pallets of cash. Now Biden wants to rejoin that widely criticized deal, although for the time being he is insisting on Iran halting the enrichment of uranium before lifting the Trump-imposed sanctions.

A positive move was Bidens decision to launch airstrikes on Iran-backed militia targets in eastern Syria this week in response to several recent rocket attacks against U.S. forces in Iraq, including one that killed a contractor. This response was welcome, if not somewhat surprising, given his strong criticism of Trumps decisive action against malign Iranian actors for similar misconduct a year ago.

5. Eliminating the ISIS physical caliphate, once the size of Great Britain:

Once again, this was a real victory for Trump, where under Obama and Biden, the force reached a peak of tens of thousands of fighters in 2014. Trump effectively eliminated the ISIS caliphate in December 2017, after less than a year in office.

Most notably, Trump made the bold decision in October 2019 to send U.S. troops into northern Syria to capture or kill ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, resulting in the terrorists death by suicide vest when he was cornered in a tunnel. Biden pointedly gave Trump no credit for launching the successful operation at the time, very much of a piece with Bidens opposition to the raid on Osama bin Laden eight years earlier. Needless to say, whether Biden exhibits the same decisiveness to keep ISIS from resurging early in his term remains an open question.

6. Forging a historic peace agreement between the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Israel, the most significant step toward peace in the Middle East in over 25 years:

In September of last year, Biden welcomed Trumps forging of the first of the Abraham Accords and noted that a Biden-Harris administration will build on these steps, challenge other nations to keep pace, and work to leverage these growing ties into progress toward a two-state solution and a more stable, peaceful region. Since that statement, Trump expanded the Accords to include Sudan and Morocco.

Needless to say, this pledge by Biden on the Accords is great news but whether he will, in fact, honor it remains unclear, both in his initial steps on rejoining the Iran deal and in his move in January temporarily pausing the landmark Trump sale last November of 50 F-35 stealth fighter jets to the United Arab Emirates that followed that countrys signing of the Accords.

7. Rebuilding our military and establishing the Space Force, the first new branch of the Armed Forces in 70 years:

Finally some good news here, but not without a push. After initially mocking a reporters question about whether Biden would keep Trumps signature new service branch formed last year, White House press secretary Jen Psaki stated the next day, in response to criticism from Republicans, We are not revisiting the decision to establish the Space Force. Cant anything be easy from this White House?

Whether Biden will continue Trumps rebuilding of our nations military is far from settled, as initial planning suggests he will recommend a flat Defense Department budget for 2022, at $696 billion, rather than Trumps planned $722 billion that included big increases for shipbuilding. Watch this space, as Bidens budget is scheduled for release on May 3.

8. Pressing NATO members to increase their defense spending, resulting in pledges of an extra $400 billion through 2024:

There are good initial signs here. In advance of last weeks NATO ministerial meeting, a U.S. official noted that Biden and his team expect all allies to live up to this commitment on defense spending for the alliance, even as they would seek a change in tone and approach from Trump, whose very tone and approach is exactly what brought the NATO allies to increase their spending massively beginning in 2018 after years of excuses.

Decorous calls for NATO allies to do more are nothing new. What was new under Trump was worrying less about the decorum but actually getting the allies to increase their defense spending.

9. Normalizing economic relations between Serbia and Kosovo:

To build on this important agreement forged by Trump in September, which provided for economic interaction between these two Balkan nations, Biden indicated earlier this month that he will press for the countries to recognize each other politically.

Mutual recognition and ultimate integration of the two countries into the European Union has been a shared goal of the United States and the European Union for the past decade, and Trumps approach was to broker an economic agreement between the two countries as a initial step to pave the way for that goal.

Biden deserves credit for building on Trumps progress bringing the countries together economically, but Serbian President Aleksandar Vucics response to Bidens overture indicates that political recognition of Kosovo remains dead on arrival in his country. This at least demonstrates shared interests between Biden and Trump on Balkan policy.

10. Reducing undocumented migration from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico by 85 percent:

No policy was arguably as important to Trump than securing our southern border, and he delivered on it starting early in his tenure, from building over 450 miles of a border wall, to instituting a remain in Mexico policy that mandated asylum-seekers remain outside the United States while they await their status.

Biden reversed both of those on his first day in office. He called the border wall a waste of money that diverts attention from genuine threats to our homeland security, and has long called the remain in Mexico policy inhumane.

The result? A surge of over 100 percent in illegal border crossings over this time last year. Now Biden is proposing an eight-year pathway to citizenship for millions of illegal immigrants that many fear will itself be a magnet for more illegal immigration as migrants try to get to the United States to benefit from it. Make no mistake, there could be no clearer contrast between Trump and Biden in the area of national security than on border policy.

The record is clear: Trump produced remarkable achievements on national security in four short years, achievements that many Americans are looking for Biden to sustain and build on. This early in his presidency, it remains unclear whether Biden will do just that, but a one-month examination of his initial moves on some of Trumps key wins raises some concerns on that important question.

John Ullyot served as Deputy Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs and NSC Spokesman from 2019-2021.

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Biden vs Trump On National Security: Here's The First Month Report Card - The Federalist

The president of a California teachers union advocating for prolonged, science-denying school closures is facing backlash after videos surfaced of him dropping off his young daughter at an in-person, private school.

In a video posted by a group called Guerilla Momz, Berkeley Federation of Teachers President Matt Meyer is seen escorting his child into an educational facility while wearing a sweatshirt displaying his unions logo and name on Feb. 18. The school, Guerilla Momz claims, has been open and operating since June 2020.

Meet Matt Meyer. White man with dreads and president of the local teachers union, the group tweeted on Saturday. Hes been saying it is unsafe for *your kid* to be back at school, all the while dropping his kid off at private school.

Meyer attempted to justify his actions to Fox News by saying there were no public options for kids her age. He also claimed there are major differences in running a small preschool and a 10,000-student public school district in terms of size, facilities, public health guidance, and services that legally have to be provided while advocating for a safe return to school.

Just one day before Meyer was spotted at the in-person preschool, he lobbied for schools in Berkley to remain closed until all teachers and other district staff members obtain their COVID vaccination, calling it, along with masking and social distancing, the gold standard for reopening. Despite pleas from families and medical experts for the district to reopen according to scientific research, the union led by Meyer convinced the district to keep virtual learning until at least the end of March, which is subject to week-long delays based on when teachers can get vaccinated.

Federalist Publisher Ben Domenech criticized Meyers behavior, explaining that teachers unions around the country are using districts willingness to cave to their counterfactual demands for selfish reasons.

First off, hes wrong when it comes to the differences in this situation, Domenech said. But look again what this whole thing has been. Its been a situation where theyre holding kids hostage across the country in order to try to extract more tax dollars from you, the citizen. Its been this whole game all along this point where not only do teachers feel that they should be able to cut ahead in line, even if theyre young, in order to get vaccinated first, but they also want to be able to extract more money from Washington, money that wont even be spent in order to make these schools safer, but is going to be spent in future years on these different districts. Its all a game, and people I think are frankly waking up to it and realizing that this is something that we shouldnt be allowed to play at dice with our kids.

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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Self-Serving Teachers Union Head Seen Taking His Kid To In-Person School - The Federalist

Its deja vu all over again. A coalition of government- and billionaire-funded nonprofits has a bipartisan plan for national curriculum goals, this time concerning U.S. history and government. Today this state-led coalition is releasing a major report they hope will get the attention of the Biden administration and state governors to collaboratively enact their vision nationwide.

Remember, these sorts of national plans are supported by people on the right and left, so there can be no need for further investigation or any public questioning. The experts have got this problem all figured out. Your children and the nations future are in their hands. Trust them, these are experts under whose leadership the nations civic and historical knowledge not only hasnt improved but may be at the worst point in possibly all of American history, because of oops, I mean in spite of their best efforts!

More than 300 leading scholars have spent 17 months putting together a roadmap for what and how to teach integrated K-12 history and civics for todays learners. Its a cross-ideological conversation about civic learning and history at a time when our country needs it the most, so dont worry your pretty little heads about anything and let the experts sort it out! What could go wrong?

What, you heard that the Smithsonian is saturating its exhibits and materials with social-justice saturated fake history and forking over good taxpayer money for racist propaganda, and therefore youre a bit concerned about their involvement in this project? Whats wrong with you, the Smithsonian is an old and venerable American institution! Republican senators are putting billions of dollars behind its promotion of cultural Marxism!

Did we mention this project is also bipartisan? The education secretaries for Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama are all on board, of course. They presided over a massive decline in U.S. education quality and increase in bureaucracy, so you know its a good idea!

The DC uniparty has just the perfect solution for American kids dangerous ignorance about their nations founding principles, system of government, and history. Its making them into political activists! Its called action civics. Isnt that exciting? Sandra Day OConnor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg were big fans. Remember them? So are Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, those models of respect for the U.S. Constitution!

No, kids dont need to know anything to lobby their local, state, and national governments, that would ruin the effect.Everyone knows learning is boring! Whats fun is action! Action civics! You know, like the nation saw in the past year or so, all those refreshing young people protesting in the streets for racial justice.

Thats the kind of civic entrepreneurship were looking for, not the boring conventional entrepreneurship these civic entrepreneurs destroyed to the tune of an estimated $2 billion. Thats old news, just like the Constitution and Declaration of Independence. Didnt you hear those were written by slaveowners like George Washington to keep black people in chains?

No, what we want is democracy. Thats why this project is called Educating for American Democracy. Out with that old constitutional republic stuff, its so racist. RAY-CIST. Whats new and hip is a living constitution, just like RBG fought for. The Educating for American Democracy Project has a brilliant new report, see, all about why the nations dearth of civic knowledge demands a solution from cooperative federalism, just like Common Core was the obvious solution to the nations shamefully poor-quality math and English education!

Even though this initiative is being created in almost exactly the same way the Common Core rules for math and English were created, this is nothing at all like Common Core. For one thing, it was created by committees of unelected participants funded partially by government and partially by private organizations not subject to transparency laws like open meetings and open records requests. Wait, thats just like Common Core.

But this is NOT, let me repeat, NOT a national curriculum at all. Its only a set of guidelines, lesson plans, curriculum design frameworks, and stuff like that just like Common Core. Um, I mean This is just like Common Core but its totally NOT AT ALL LIKE COMMON CORE. Just trust me, brand-name Republicans are involved. Just like with Common Core!

Why would anyone on the right oppose this almost every single committee for this project includes the one conservative guy we could find to put his name on this thing so we could introduce him to Republicans nervous about this idea. Okay, actually, its maybe 10 conservatives out of more than 300. Theyre not really always comfortable identifying themselves, not sure why, especially since they are paid to be cross-partisan, just like those super-useful Never Trumpers we rent out for special events at a great discount.

Regardless, 10 conservatives would never get steamrolled on a project like this, right? Just ask the five genuine subject-area experts who signed onto the Common Core project and then retracted their support after it in no way resembled defensible curriculum requirements. They werent used and then discarded in a cynical attempt to hide this projects flaws under the veneer of transpartisanship until it was too late. No way. Lefties never do that to conservatives. Ever.

No way action civics will get into place in states and then this project will be cited as the reason for far-left curriculum like that already happening in Massachusetts under the test run for this national project. That was touted as bipartisan, too, and run by the many of same people and organizations that are about to boost this national project.

Too bad, conservatives, you kicked at Leftist Lucys football again, ha! Thanks for playing! We love this game. Kick again, please! Were counting on it.

I mean, Common Core was foisted on states by the Obama administration in exchange for federal funds. Joe Biden was there when that happened, and he would never govern like Obama, now, would he? No way, hes way more aggressive than Obama was! And he yanked that divisive 1776 Commission Report on his first day in office, so you know his U.S. Department of Education supports what is best for children, not all that jingoistic loving your country crap!

Unity in hating America, thats the goal here, and weve almost achieved it. We just need a bit more tinkering, okay, we havent got the formula quite right yet, those insurrectionist Trump voters are clouding Republican senators view a bit too much still. Weve almost trained some to swat them away like gnats. John Cornyn, for sure. Just a few more years of cranked-up indoctrination combined with open borders in Texas, and Beto can finally replace him.

So for the sake of unity, just go along with reinforcing public schools as leftist indoctrination factories. Sing kumbaya with us and none of your precious little public school funds will get threatened. You wouldnt want anything to happen to that money, would you? Its for the children. And civics. Conservatives like civics, right? Pay no attention to all the leftists behind the curtain.

Read more from the original source:

If You Liked Common Core, You're Going To Love Joe Biden's Civics - The Federalist

Vox charged legendary sweetheart country star Dolly Parton as possessed with a dark side Friday for her refusal to frequently engage in divisive political commentary and for rejecting the progressive-or-bigot binary.

The piece, deceitfully headlined How Dolly Parton became a secular American saint, calls into question whether Parton can authentically love a country struggling with divisions in which she refuses to participate.

Dolly Parton is beloved because she has devoted her career to standing for love. And, usefully, she is willing to be ambiguous about what exactly that love means and how much it includes people that those on different sides of the political aisle consider their enemies, wrote Vox culture writer Constance Grady. But in a post-Trump America, is Dolly Partons love enough?

Grady complains several paragraphs down that Parton possesses a dark side for drawing fans of all political stripes, including those deemed deplorable. Grady calls out Partons insistence on radical love in the aftermath of George Floyds death, which Grady falsely claims was by police shooting.

America in the 21st century is no time for a secular pop saint, Grady wrote. And theres a dark side to Dollys ability to appeal, Christ-like, to all people at all times.

Parton was speaking to Billboard in July 2020 as the country was engulfed in protests following the police shooting of George Floyd. The interviewer asked her what she thought of the movement.

I understand people having to make themselves known and felt and seen, Parton said. And of course Black lives matter. Do we think our little white asses are the only ones that matter? No!

This kind of deft political quasi-answer is the sort of move Partons been pulling her entire career. She expresses empathy rather than solidarity she understands why people have to make themselves known, even if shes not showing up at a protest herself and she affirms that she loves everybody. And since she loves everybody, of course their lives matter.

In other words, Partons light defiance to succumb to the lefts militant groupthink on social justice, according to the Vox writer, has made the cross-cultural-loving country star an undercover Dixie villain in disguise. After all, silence is violence, even from the 75-year-old woman who decided to wait and allow other high-risk people to receive doses of the Moderna coronavirus vaccine she helped fund.

Floyds exact cause of death remains unclear, whether it came from a police officers knee or a lethal dose of fentanyl found in his system, as court documents show. What is clear, however, is that Floyd wasnt killed by a police shooting.

Original post:

Vox Peddles Fake News That Dolly Parton Has A 'Dark Side' - The Federalist

By Richard Reeb| For the Victorville Daily Press

Last week, I cited an article in the National Review by Charles C.W. Cooke lamenting the continuing liberal attack on freedom of speech, while I argued that speech has a purpose and therefore limits. Cooke identifies himself as a libertarian and, in so doing, deplores censorship, and, in other writings, cautions against government restrictions on the ostensibly private Big Tech oligopoly that also censors speech.

My quarrel with Cooke is not his argument for free speech but his undeserved tribute to the unprincipled liberalism that gave rise to the idea of unlimited free speech. Blessing (not merely tolerating or enduring) the speech of our countrys enemies is neither wise nor good. When liberals successfully argued for such anti-American speech, they effectively licensed it and, thus, legitimized the now central ideas of the political party that wants to change America from a land of constitutional government and individual rights to an overweening government that treats citizens like children in need of constant care.

For all of that, I share Cookes concern for freedom of speech, which, as he rightly demonstrates, is under serious and widespread suppression. Limiting speech is a perilous enterprise, for the same legal limits placed on alleged miscreants can return to plague the inventor, to use an old and wise saying. That is, the same law that shuts down critics may well, following a losing election, be used against those who made the law. In short, genuine impartiality is, to understate the challenge, very difficult to achieve.

The prime example is the nations first attempt at suppressing allegedly seditious speech in 1798. Passed by a Federalist-dominated Congress and signed by Federalist President John Adams, the law literally proscribed so-called hateful speech intended to bring federal government officials into disrepute.

Sound familiar? It should, as that is precisely what cancel culture is at college campuses, corporate offices, media outlets and now government agencies in an untethered crusade against hate speech, meaning speech that allegedly righteous liberals and progressives find offensive. That can go both ways.

No one was more critical of the old Sedition Law than James Madison, known as the Father of the Constitution, in his Report on the 1799 Virginia Resolutions against the law. Unlike his long-time friend, Thomas Jefferson, who condemned that law simply because the First Amendment denied Congress the right to abridge freedom of speech and press (leaving such matters with the states), Madison more fundamentally argued that it threatens that right of freely examining public characters and measures, and of free communication among the people thereon, which has ever been justly deemed the only effectual guardian of every other right.

Madison also noted that no persons or presses are in the habit of more unrestrained animadversions on the proceeding and functionaries of the state governments than the persons and presses most zealous in vindicating the act of Congress for punishing similar animadversions on the government of the United States. Madisons lofty speech is clear enough, I trust, that the Federalists were essentially arguing for, to use todays lingo, freedom of speech and press for me but not for thee.

The one saving grace of the Sedition Act, if there was one, was its provision that truth was a valid defense for the accused, as Alexander Hamilton pointed out. But that hardly mattered as the only journalists charged or convicted were Republicans. What happened next is revealing.

The Republicans swept the elections of 1800 and the new President Jefferson pardoned all the offenders. That was necessary, he believed, even though the Act expired when he took office. No sooner did the change in party control occur than one Harry Croswell was charged under New York state law with defaming President Jefferson! He was easily convicted because, under the states law, originally passed in colonial times, truth was no defense at all.

But the final twist came when Hamilton joined Croswells defense team and explicitly argued that truth should be a defense. I never did think that the truth was a crime, he said. Then, at the very next session of the New York state legislature, a bill was enacted to ensure that truth was a defense against accusations of libel or slander. That changed with New York Times v. Sullivan, a subject for a future column.

One final note: The original Constitution did not, of course, include the Bill of Rights, as Madison argued that it would be mere parchment and Hamilton that the state of public opinion was a more powerful force in this respect. The constitutional guarantee did not prevent Congress from passing the Sedition Act, which was discredited not by a judicial decision, but by the results of the next election.

Richard Reeb taught political science, philosophy and journalism at Barstow College from 1970 to 2003. He is the author of Taking Journalism Seriously: Objectivity as a Partisan Cause (University Press of America, 1999). He can be contacted at rhreeb@verizon.net.

Excerpt from:

Thinking It Through: Defending the nation of free speech (part II) - VVdailypress.com

Three million students appear to have gone missing since March of last year, according to a new study from the non-profit Bellwether Educational Partners. Those who vanished came primarily among the most educationally marginalized students in the country, an unsurprising statistic given what we know about school closures. A January study from Yale University warned that if schools were to close a full year, high school freshmen in the nations poorest communities would suffer a 25 percent decrease in their post-educational earning potential.

By contrast, their model shows no substantial losses for students from the richest 20% of neighborhoods, a Yale newspaper wrote.

School closures are imposing the longest-lasting effects of the coronavirus pandemic, and its entirely self-inflicted. Millions of students have remained out of classrooms for 12 months and remain at the mercy of power-hungry teachers unions exploiting the crisis for political and financial gain before re-opening, if they ever re-open.

In leftist cities and suburbs across the country, teachers unions are overplaying their hands to resist returns to the classroom, rejecting science finding that in-person instruction can be offered safely to instead demand things that range from priority vaccination to billions of dollars in more funds. Neither is necessary.

Vaccination of teachers is not a prerequisite for the safe reopening of schools, said Centers for Disease Control Director Rochelle Walensky at a February press briefing. There is increasing data to suggest that schools can safely reopen and that safe reopening does not suggest that teachers need to be vaccinated in order to reopen safely.

Of course, this was well known since before the start of the 2020-2021 school year.

The United States became an outlier as one of the only western nations in the world to shut down schools for an extended period on the excuse of COVID. Meanwhile, school closings have devastated many children. Students have fallen behind socially, academically, and developmentally. In Nevada, a surge in suicides provided a dark illustration of the mental health crisis gripping the nations students and pushed Las Vegas schools to reopen.

The conversation over school reopenings, however, has centered on whats best for the teachers unions as opposed to whats best for the students.The Los Angeles teachers union, which represents teachers in the second-largest district in the country, slammed the states plans to reopen schools Monday as propagating structural racism,

We are being unfairly targeted by people who are not experiencing this disease in the same ways as students and families are in our communities, blasted United Teachers of Los Angeles President Cecily Myart-Cruz at a press conference.

Chicago schools only opened this week, after months of the teachers union only agreeing to return to classrooms after securingpriority access to vaccines.

Teachers are in fact, already a priority in the vaccine rollout, yet Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation for Teachers (AFT) representing 1.7 million members told The New York Times Congress must also pass its $1.9 trillion spending bill with $130 billion specifically set aside for schools. According to the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity, however, between $53 and $63 billion in funds to re-open schools passed in last years COVID bills remain unspent.

Teachers unions benefit from a unique power dynamic. They negotiate with those they elect, who in turn toss taxpayer dollars to schools that arent open.

Requests for safety in schools is one thing, but constantly moving the goalposts so that district schools essentially never open is unbelievably detrimental to the physical, emotional, and academic health and wellbeing of our students, Schultz said, noting that most private schools began operating normally at the start of the school year while public school districts lagged and continue to lag.

Tristan Justice is a staff writer at The Federalist. Jordan Davidson is an intern at The Federalist.

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It's Time To Re-Open Schools. It's Time To Defund The Teachers Unions - The Federalist