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More and more, any return to normalcy is being subverted by those unwilling to take a look at the clear science.

On Friday the Biden administration released an Operational Strategy for K-12 Schools through Phased Mitigation plan that will leave about 83 percent of counties closed for sports and extracurricular activities. That amounts to 2,599 out of 3,138 counties.

The plan divides counties into statuses: blue for low, yellow for moderate, orange for substantial, and red for high. In the high red transmission category, sports and extracurricular activities are virtual only.

In other words, student athletes can kiss organized sports goodbye for the time being.

According to the most recent CDC guidance, which Biden is relying on for threshold definitions, 391 counties are in the orange phase (12.5 percent), 148 are in yellow (4.7 percent), and only one is in blue phase. CDC Director Rochelle Walensky urged schools to return to in-person learning as soon as possible in the new report, noting that in-person learning in schools has not been associated with substantial community transmission.

Schools should be the safest place in any community, National Education Association President Becky Pringle said in a statement, Now that we have clearer CDC guidance, state and local decision makers need to be able to look educators, students, and parents in the eyes and ensure that with full confidence.

On Thursday, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki contradicted her prior statement, made just a week ago, about only opening 5o percent of schools one day a week, shifting instead to claim the Biden administration will not rest until every school is open five days a week.

Unions continue to be a major barrier to reopening schools for in-person learning, with Philadelphia school district staff members organizing to protest the citys reopening plan last Monday.In Phoenix, one union forced a cancelation of basketball and soccer this week, angering parents and students alike.

They basically canceled the season without saying the season is canceled, said Jeremy Soria, who coaches a varsity basketball team that was whispered to be making a run for the state championship.

More and more, any return to normalcy is being subverted by people unwilling to take a look at the clear science.In an interview with CBS that aired on Super Bowl Sunday, President Biden said that it is necessary for the U.S. to reopen safely, but actions speak louder than words.

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New Biden K-12 Plan Will Cancel Sports For Nearly 83 Percent Of Counties - The Federalist

President Joe Biden likes to present himself as an advocate for racial justice and a man of the people, especially those whose voices are often under-represented. Yet his actions routinely contradict his lofty rhetoric. A recent example is how he has ignored African peoples plea not to fund abortions on their continent.

One of the more than two dozen executive orders President Biden signed recently revokes the so-called Mexico City Policy. The policy, first implemented by President Reagan in 1984, requires any federal grant recipients to agree to neither perform nor actively promote abortion as a method of family planning to receive U.S. aid.

Abortion rights groups and leftist interest groups have opposed this policy since its debut. Every Republican president since Reagan supported the policy, while every Democrat president from Bill Clinton to Barack Obama reversed the policy as soon as they came into office.

The Trump administration not only reinstated the policy but also expanded it to one called Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance, requiring foreign non-governmental organizations that receive global health assistance from affected Federal Departments and Agencies to agree that they will not perform or actively promote abortion as a method of family planning or provide financial support to any other organization that conducts such activities.

During a 2019 campaign event organized by Planned Parenthood, the United States largest abortion corporation, then-candidate Biden claimed that many people around the world died as the result of Trumps Protecting Life order, without providing any supporting evidence for this claim. The number of lives the Protecting Life order saved by extending protections to unborn children meant nothing to him. Candidate Biden then referred to himself and Planned Parenthood as saviors of the world. He then vowed to revoke the Mexico City Policy if elected.

President Biden fulfilled his campaign promise by signing the executive order to reverse the policy on Jan. 28, once again permitting money drawn from American taxpayers to fund overseas abortions. Yet a recent poll shows his decision is extremist and far from the unifying moderate he also portrayed himself as on the campaign trail. The poll finds that 77 percent of Americans, including many independent voters and some pro-choice Democrats, oppose U.S. funding to support abortion in other countries.

Internationally, the loudest voice of objection to President Bidens executive order came from Africa, in the form of a 16-minute videotitled A Message to President Biden: The Unified Voices of Africa. The video was produced and hosted by Obianuju Ekeocha, the founder and president of Culture of Life Africa, an initiative dedicated to the promotion and defense of the African values of the sanctity of life, beauty of marriage, blessings of motherhood and the dignity of family life.

The first half of the video features a dozen Africans, men and women, from students to professionals to entrepreneurs, all pleading with Biden not to fund abortion in Africa. Timeyin asks Biden: What if you werent given the chance to live? What if I was aborted? I wouldnt be here making this video.

Matthew, an operation manager, declares: We all deserve the right to live. I stand against the funding of abortion in Africa.

Marion Lisa, a lawyer, explains three principles the African community is built on: the sanctity of life, equal dignity for all, and protecting the weak and the vulnerable. Reflecting on these principles, she concludes, Since the right to life is inherent, I believe the same should be accorded to the unborn child. The energy should be diverted to other sectors that we need to develop. Therefore, protect the unborn child.

In the second half of the video, another group of African men and women focused on educating the West, especially President Biden, about what African communities genuinely need. Its not abortion.

Rose, a teacher, speaks passionately about what she has seen in her community, children walk homelessly on streets; youth dropped out of schools; [and] people [are] dying of hunger every day. Children being abused and used as slaves in their homes. As she explains, These are things we need funds on, not abortion. God will never bless a nation that destroys its children.

Sonia, a lawyer, agreed. Instead of funding and supporting abortions, why not channel funding to those sectors in need, such as health care, infrastructure, and the eradication of unemployment among the young?Aicha, a family counselor, makes it clear:

Abortion is not an African problem. On the contrary, Africans will live much better having access to clean drinking water, access to good education and by having good governance we beg you not to fund abortion-related programs in Africa. We have real problems in Africa, it is not abortion.

Stella Marris, an entrepreneur in Nigeria, lists five things Nigerians need more than abortions: poverty alleviation, education, employment, electricity, and better infrastructure. She also points out that abortion is illegal in Nigeria. She pleaded with President Biden: Please help us, dont kill us.

These are powerful and heartfelt words from African people. Every leftist who claims to care for poor and underrepresented communities should watch this video and listen to these voices.

African men and women who spoke in this video made it clear that Africans reject abortion on the ground of their faith and their cultural heritage. They see abortion as something detrimental to the very foundation of their communities the sustainability of their people. They understand the real needs of their communities, and they want to see foreign aid go toward areas that will improve the lives of themselves and their children, such as access to clean drinking water and employment.

Their communities may be poor, but they demand to be treated in a respectful and dignified way by the worlds richest and most powerful nation. They demand to be heard. They are understandably frustrated that Western leftists refuse to listen to the cries for help emanating from these communities.

Instead, western leftists insist on imposing their ideology on these communities, providing a solution to a problem that doesnt exist, because these progressives arrogantly believe they know whats best for these communities instead of the people who live there.

At the end of the video, Uju asks:

Will President Biden listen to us? Will he recognize the voice of African people? Will he respect the cry of the heart of the ordinary African person? Or will he just be the neo-colonial master like many western leaders? Will he be the one to come in to force his own ideas and ideologies in the world of the poor?

Instead of heading the heartfelt pleas of so many African people, President Biden chose to impose his will on the worlds poor.

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Africans Plead With Biden To Stop Paying Their Countries To Kill Children - The Federalist

On this episode of The Federalist Radio Hour, the Wall Street Journals Jason Riley joins Culture Editor Emily Jashinsky to discuss his new documentary and book highlighting the life of economist, social theorist, and acclaimed intellectual Thomas Sowell and how his work affects American culture today.

Hes marked the shift from pushing for equal opportunity to pushing for special privileges, Riley said, noting that Sowell started his work early in the civil rights movement. He said this is wrong and that they are barking up the wrong tree here. This is not the road that they should be going down and this is where they eventually, of course, did go down that road in terms of affirmative action and other special privileges.

Sowell, Riley said, follows facts where they lead and isnt afraid to be politically incorrect in his views on race, culture, and social theory. Many progressives, Riley said, find this worldview threatening and counter to their own narratives.

The focus for Tom has always been on building human capital, on developing a group, developing skills and habits and attitudes, and he doesnt see culture as something set in stone, Riley explained. There are different groups that have excelled in the past and then progressed, and then excelled again, and he says you have to look and learn from these different groups of people and what theyve tried, what theyve done, what they havent done, and how things have worked out.

Watch the new Sowell documentary here.

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Thomas Sowell's Legacy Is 'Following Facts Where They Lead' - The Federalist

Its amazing to consider the American apathy towards liberty thats come to light amid the coronavirus pandemic.A nation born by dumping tea into the Boston harbor over a tax 250 years ago now shrugs when the government shuts down livelihoods it has nonsensically declared non-essential.

In California, however, a rightfully outraged public, who have been subject to the harshest lockdowns in the country, are invoking a mechanism designed for this very moment.

Gavin Newsom became the first governor in the country to impose a statewide stay-at-home order last year at the onset of the pandemic, when the cute phrase two weeks to slow the spread quickly turned into a never-ending bureaucratic nightmare. Californians have suffered some of the worst lockdowns, featuring long stretches of rigid restrictions with ambiguous timelines and shifting goalposts from a governor who refuses to follow his own rules.

A recall effort to oust the governor two years before the next election picked up real steam in December, about a month after Newsom was caught enjoying indoor fine dining at a three-star Michelin restaurant in Napa Valleys wine country. Photos of the scene showed Newsom, who had just prohibited gatherings of more than three households before Thanksgiving, at a dinner party with a dozen others with no masks, and no distancing.

I made a bad mistake, Newsom said when the news broke, and then he tightened lockdown restrictions even more. Californians had enough, and a month later a petition to recall the governor had garnered more support than the past five efforts.

By the beginning of February, recall organizers reached the 1.4 million signatures needed to force the statewide referendum. On Thursday, the two state-based groups spearheading the movement, the California Patriot Coalition and Rescue California, told Politico they expect to capture 1.6 million by the end of this weekend, nearing their goal of 1.8 million. The extra signatures are being gathered before the March 10 deadline in case some are declared invalid.

Politico reported the Republican National Committee is also now pledging $250,000 to the Newsom recall effort.

While gathering 1,495,000 signatures might sound like a high bar, its not in a state with a population of nearly 40 million people. Organizers also only need to garner signatures at 12 percent of the voter turnout in the 2018 election, lowering the bar that much more.

Californias governor faces one of the easiest recall requirements in the country, said Joshua Spivak in Politico last December. He serves as a senior fellow at Wagner Colleges Hugh L. Carey Institute for Government Reform.

In addition to the low signature threshold, Spivak said, California also grants 160 days to gather them. In other states, the signature percentage requirement is more than double and the time to gather is less than half.

Such low thresholds are the envy of New Yorkers suffering under Emperor Gov. Andrew Cuomo similarly governing his state into the ground with lockdowns. No laws on the New York books provide for statewide recalls. A Zogby survey out this week revealed 40 percent of New Yorkers said they would vote to recall the governor if they could.

Recall organizers in Michigan have struggled to get off the ground. They need to reach more than 1 million signatures in a much less populated state within just 60 days. Ballotpedia reports 20 efforts so far have been launched to recall Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, none of which have garnered the same momentum as in California.

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Only Thing From California That Should Go Nationwide Is Easier Recalls - The Federalist

If you think state and federal government COVID-19 policies are too restrictive, you havent been to a college campus lately. Schools across the country have imposed extreme, micromanaging rules on 19-22 year oldsa demographic more likely to die from the seasonal flu and pneumonia than COVID.

Paying top dollar at already overpriced institutions for vastly inferior remote learning, university students remain unnecessarily isolated and barred from using the services and facilities they and their families are paying for.

Many schools, like Southern Methodist University, forbid students from having guests in their dorm rooms. Others have even installed security cameras in the hallways aimed at residents doors to monitor adherence.

Most institutions have isolation dorms or, as some students call them, isolation prisons, where students who test positive for COVID are forced to live alone for two weeks (sound familiar?).

Many students must wear masks at all times, including outdoors and in gyms. This is an ironic twist for institutions that train scientists and house overwhelmingly leftist professors and students who chastise anyone for questioning the ever-changing government COVID guidelines and screech at all of us to follow the science as though science is a religion with no growth, questioning, or margin of error.

COVID data strongly suggests that being fit and healthy is essential to protecting yourself from the virus and that those with comorbidities, such as obesity and diabetes, which are often related to lifestyle, are far more likely to be hospitalized or die from the Wuhan virus. Yet pro-science universities have made working out as difficult as possible. Many school gyms are closed. At schools with open gyms, many require students to sign up in advance to use them and can only stay for short periods at a time, usually less than an hour.

At the University of Wisconsin Madison, students are forced to take COVID tests every four days. If they dont, they lose access to university buildings. Their testing catalogue is counted on the Safer Badgers App, which students are required to download and many believe is an invasion of privacy.

They are tracking our movements, said Connor Hess, a junior at UW-Madison studying chemical engineering. Hess explained that while the university claims to not be tracking them, the app constantly asks students to turn on optional location services. The app uses Bluetooth to monitor if clusters of students are congregating together, and who the students are. They say they just have location services so that you can now see where the testing sites are, said Hess skeptically, but I dont know if I fully believe that.

If you miss required COVID tests at UW-Madison, the university has implemented a progressive approach to their administrative consequences. Punishments include being unable to use campus Wi-Fi, barred from accessing your transcripts, and prohibited from adding or dropping classes.

Students may also be put on disciplinary probation, which will be noted on their transcript and affect their ability to study abroad. In the end, consequences for not strictly following university COVID regulations lead to suspension. Similar disciplinary systems have been implemented at universities across the country.

Like many other colleges, my school, the University of Chicago, has created a snitch list, where students can anonymously turn in classmates for having a small gathering or not wearing a mask properly.

Students turned in to the university authorities across the country for having friends have had their class registration put on hold, been kicked out of university housing, and even been suspended. This Soviet software is divisive and disturbing and is often applied unfairly and sometimes used by students to target peers they dont like or seek to take revenge on.

A group of nine freshmen at the University of Chicago were reported to the snitch list after taking a photo in front of one of the university buildings. After the photo was posted on social media, the group was reported for not standing six feet apart, even though the students were outside and every student in the photo was wearing a mask. The majority of the freshmen pictured were members of the Chicago Thinker, a conservative/libertarian student newspaper on campus.

Such is the fear of being socially shamed or harassed on campus over COVID violations that when I asked students featured in the reported photo if I could share it for this article, every one said no and asked that I not use their name in this article. The few who agreed to talk to me said they are afraid of drawing more attention to themselves and the controversy. Most importantly, students are afraid of being discriminated against by future employers.

Students explained that the stakes are high. After one additional infraction, like the reported photo, they could be kicked out of the dorms. One freshman said he is worried if he is identified he will be relentlessly mocked on social media and provoke leftists to maliciously report me out of spite. (The singular male pronoun is used here for sentence clarity, but the anonymous students in this article may instead be females.)

One of the students pictured agreed, saying that he does not know who reported them, but he has noticed that punishment is not equally applied to leftist students on campus who are generally not afraid of being turned in to the snitch list and have engaged in Black Lives Matter rioting on campus with no consequences.

It reeks of targeting when you know leftist students have no fear of repercussions when they post videos of themselves burning things on private property while mask-less and conservative students have to be afraid of taking a masked picture outside in which they are only 5.9 feet apart, said the student.

The hysteria around COVID restrictions has bred an environment of such extreme judgment and fear that we cannot even function as normal human beings without being on edge, said the first student. Its unsettling that people are keeping tabs on you and filing reports just for taking a picture with friends, which of course, everyone on campus does.

One of the conservative freshmen was so fearful of being mentioned that he sent me this frantic email after a cordial phone conversation where I promised not to post the group photo:

Welcome to the new world order, where Americans live under a social credit system like the Communist Party in China uses to control their people. With every Snapchat and retweet, social scores are updated and altered.

If you adhere to left-wing orthodoxy, you will be okay. If you deviate from the norm, you will be punished socially and professionally. Young people today are acutely aware of this. They comply, rather than rebeleven conservative and libertarian students. Its our new reality.

While todays generation is compliant and submissive in the face of university overreach into their personal lives, feminists from the 1960s rebelled against onerous and intrusive rules. Before the feminist movement of the 1960s, women in colleges were subject to excessive and sexist university decrees. They had to adhere to strict dress codes and curfews. The parents of female students had to fill out a form articulating specific permission for their daughter to leave campus during the school year and they had to include how she may travel and with whom she may stay with. These rules contributed to a cultural revolution.

Renowned American feminist academic, professor, and cultural critic Camille Paglia was in college during these repressive times and was on the front lines of the 1960s feminist movement. She joined other women of her time in fighting paternalistic rules over the lives of adult college studentsespecially women.

Over the years, she has been a vocal critic of how modern feminism has changed and embraced the coddling, surveillance, and intrusion of college administrators in the lives and interpersonal relationships on college campuses, specifically in response to hysterical rape culture propaganda.

Paglia, a professor at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania since 1984, explains how 1960s activism, contrary to modern leftism, challenged, rebuked, and curtailed authority in the pursuit of freedom and equality. Students wanted less surveillance and paternalism, not more. Modern leftists and feminists, on the other hand, actively undermine intellectual freedom and diversity at American universities and have walked back important advancements made during the 1960s.

While freedom-loving students like Paglia forced the overbearing administration out of the personal lives of adult students, todays leftists have invited them back in, with creepy surveillance tools to boot.

The truth is, the oppressive COVID rules, many of which violate civil liberties, are an extension of the stifling speech codes and safe spaces so popular on college campuses. Free speech was once the primary weapon of the left, according to Paglia. Todays leftist students beg for more regulation and turn in their non-compliant classmates. Feeling helpless and outnumbered by the loud voices of social justice warriors on campus, most college students are terrified into submission and silence.

This year, the University of Chicago forced me to sign a nearly 2,000-word UChicago Acknowledgement and Attestation Regarding COVID-19 or have my student ID card deactivated. If you need any more proof that college administrators are infantilizing adult college students, here is an excerpt from the COVID-19 agreement I had to sign:

I agree that the University may disclose violations of this attestation and other COVID-19-related protocols or guidance established by the University and public health authorities to my parent(s), legal guardians(s) and other third parties as permitted by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.

This is what happens when universities have more administrators and lawyers than professors. For years, Paglia has warned that swollen campus bureaucracy, empowered by intrusive federal regulation, are the powerful fist crushing freedom at universities.

The societal effects of the university COVID power grab will be felt when students leave college and enter the workforce. Recent college grads will add to the growing number of young people terrorizing executives and co-workers with social justice threats and extortions. The rest of Americans will be helpless in the face of leftist intimidation, having been desensitized at college to oppressive rules and regulations encroaching on their personal lives and individual freedom.

This story was originally published in the Chicago Thinker.

Evita Duffy is an intern at The Federalist and a junior at the University of Chicago, where she studies American History. She loves the Midwest, lumberjack sports, writing, & her family. Follow her on Twitter at @evitaduffy_1

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Insane COVID Rules Train Next Generation To Embrace Totalitarianism - The Federalist

In a generally weak year for Super Bowl commercials, Jeeps stood out for being particularly obnoxious and tone-deaf. Called The Middle, left-wing political activist and world-famous singer Bruce Springsteen narrated and starred in the ad about how the country has been divided, but now it has a bright future as the ReUnited States of America.

While advertisements that appeal to virtues in order to increase sales and profits can work see Toyotas beautiful ad about the joy in adopting a child with special needs this one fell flat and faced mockery and opposition from many viewers. Here are the three main reasons the ad didnt work.

Many Americans love Springsteens music. His successful career has spanned four decades. Many liberals love that he shares their political views and works so hard as a political activist. Springsteen, like so many other wealthy celebrities, regularly speaks ill of Republican voters and politicians.

Just before the 2020 election, Springsteen called for an exorcism in our nations capital as dark music played on his radio show. Of Trumps presidency, he said, I thought it was a fing nightmare, but it was true. The episode, titled Farewell To The Thief, also insulted President Trumps family.

The 71-year-old Springsteen told Australians that he would leave the United States and move there if Trump was re-elected.

Springsteens posture against Republicans is well known and goes back decades. He was angry at President Ronald Reagans positive mention of Springsteens Born In The U.S.A. He endorsed and campaigned for John Kerry, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden.

Of President George W. Bush in 2008, Springsteen said the United States was now suffering the consequences of eight years of rule by a very radical group of people who pushed things in a very radical direction, had great success in moving things in that direction, and we are suffering the consequences. By 2016, he was calling President Trump a moron. In 2017 he bashed Trump in a protest song.

As one Twitter user put it, Thats all I could think of, the whole spot. Being preached to by someone who doesnt respect my views who relishes in suppressing them, having the nerve to pretend to be my community and declare unity. They have no idea how transparently cynical the whole thing came across.

The ad began with images of a tiny Christian chapel in the middle of the continental United States. The chapel, which seats maybe a half dozen, features a cross on top of a map of the United States that is painted like the American flag.

Later Springsteens narration uses biblical imagery evocative of the Old Testament journey of the Jews to the promised land: So, we can get there. We can make it to the mountaintop, through the desert, and we will cross this divide. Springsteen says that the chapel is for all, which is undoubtedly true, but its very particular religious imagery to be used in service of car sales.

While lefties began claiming that Springsteen was endorsing Christian nationalism, others felt that Jeep was using our religion and God to mock us.

The ad featured the Springsteen, who is extremely well known for being from New Jersey, wearing a cowboy hat and boots, small earrings in each ear. He appeared to have continued his regular upkeep of plastic surgery. The overall effect was one of cosplay rather than authenticity.

A Jeep with no top on in the middle of what seemed to be a particularly frigid time in Kansas drove down a dismal road. No Jeep owner would do such a thing.In general, the images were frosty, cold, and dark.

The final image was a map of the continental United States minus, for inexplicable reasons, the upper peninsula of Michigan. In the center was a red star, an image historically associated with communism and more recently with socialism.

The middle has been a hard place to get to lately, Springsteen said at the beginning of the ad. The end features the text, To The ReUnited States Of America.

What made the United States divided until recently, the viewer might ask. Why, according to Jeep, is the country reunited now?

For 74 million Trump-voting Americans who lived through four years of epithets and refusal by elites such as Springsteen to treat the president of the United States as legitimate, its not hard to see why the ad is going over like a lead balloon. One reason the middle has been a hard place to get to is because of wealthy and powerful people like Springsteen spewing hatred toward Republican presidents and their voters dating back to the 1980s.

Joe Biden, after winning a narrow election that came down to about 40,000 votes in three states, began asking the media to run with the narrative that he was a unifier. They dutifully did so, even as he signed radical executive orders and moved not one bit to the center but further and further to the left.

Corporate media, who have ignored or mocked concerns about election integrity despite the widespread sloppiness and rampant mail-in balloting associated with the 2020 election, have cheered on the crackdown of protesters in or near a riot at the nations capitol. They did so after spending months defending and contextualizing violent riots from the left that seized cities across the country, attacked federal buildings, killed dozens of Americans, set churches on fire, and terrorized small business owners.

How could a major corporation not see how propagandistic it comes off to suggest that when Republicans win a national election, thats divisive, but when Democrats win one, thats unifying? The corporate-approved approach is to paper over disagreement while Democrats hold power while amplifying a full-on #Resistance when Republicans are in power.

Jeep sales will not heal the fabric of the country. Jeep ads cant even help toward that goal so long as they are using dishonest and manipulative partisan framing in service of car sales.

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The Federalist The 3 Worst Things About That Terrible Jeep Super Bowl Ad How could a - The Federalist

Corporate media has spent the last year arguing that Donald Trumps claims about 2020 election integrity amount to seditious conspiracy theories. While maintaining that narrative despite the cognitive dissonance, Time magazines Feb. 15 cover story pulls back the curtain on a conspiracy among a well-funded cabal of powerful people in an an extraordinary shadow effort that successfully pushed Trump from office.

In a way, Trump was right, writes Time national political correspondent Molly Ball. There was a conspiracy unfolding behind the scenes. She later describes this conspiracy as something that sounds like a paranoid fever dream a well-funded cabal of powerful people, ranging across industries and ideologies, working together behind the scenes to influence perceptions, change rules and laws, steer media coverage and control the flow of information.

Trump was treated like he had three heads for complaining the election was rigged. In the infamous speech he gave as violence broke out in the U.S. Capitol the day Congress certified the Electoral College votes, Trump said, This year they rigged the election. They rigged it like theyve never rigged an election before. The left and some Republicans like Rep. Liz Cheney have insisted Trumps strong claims like this incited an insurrection.

Yet Ball makes exactly these kinds of claims in the Time article, and goes on to substantiate them. Its really hard to tell if the article is just a gloating bat flip, a horrifying attempt to radicalize more people among Democrats political opposition, or evidence the left believes Americans are so deadened under Democrat control they will not react to such public revelations of conspiracies to betray American self-governance.

The article is above all a striking work of doublespeak. It intones the Trump is crazy mantra at Trumps charges of election-rigging while telling how powerful people conspired to rig the 2020 election. Ball documents a massive election-manipulation conspiracy among the nations rich and powerful. She shows an amazing level of contempt combined with ignorance about how someone who believes in self-government, as opposed to rule by oligarchs, might take this information.

The conspiracys work touched every aspect of the election, Ball writes. They got states to change voting systems and laws and helped secure hundreds of millions in public and private funding. They fended off voter-suppression lawsuits, recruited armies of poll workers and got millions of people to vote by mail for the first time.

This, she and the dozens of conspiracists she interviewed claim, is evidence of their efforts to protect the election. In fact, all of these tactics weaken election integrity.

For example, mail-in ballots are known as an unreliable voting method, even without its potential assistance to criminal fraud such as ballot-stuffing, because they create margins of error well within the margin of actual votes in a close election. Thats why labor unions, Jeff Bezos, and many foreign countries refuse to use them.

Therefore, in a mail-in election such as 2020, in which half of the total votes and most of the Biden votes were mail-in, one can control the outcome simply by controlling the poll-watchers and vote-counters. Even if they are honest, their unconscious bias or the simple mayhem of unreadable handwriting and signatures creates the conditions for untrustworthy results.

We have no way of knowing how many of the approximately 65 million 2020 election mail-in ballots were legal meaning, how many fully complied with all applicable state laws to be validly completed by eligible voters. It could be all of them. It might not be. Nobody with power seems to care to find out. Joe Biden won, and the bad orange man is finally gone. Thats all that matters to them, and anyone who has any concerns or questions is simply a stupid bigot, end of story, move along, nothing to see here, shut up you white supremacist domestic terrorist or well put you in jail without any bail youre so lucky we havent already.

One of the core problems with the 2020 election is that many states did not follow their voting laws, suspending them with the excuse of COVID (which the Centers for Disease Control said the day before the election, after most votes were already cast, was not necessary). States were pressured or forced to do so, not by what Ball hilariously calls Trumps henchmen, but by lawyered-up leftist pressure groups that strategically undermined election protections with pre-emptive lawsuits while courts rolled over for them.

These leftist lawyers were unquestionably the aggressors in this situation, as Hans van Spakovsky and others have documented, filing as many as four times the number of lawsuits Trump or Republicans filed. Their efforts caused the very election confusion Ball claims her vaunted conspiracy was trying to avoid. What do you call people who do one thing while claiming to do the opposite? Idiots or liars. And I dont think these people are idiots.

This conspiracy also rigged the election by pre-emptively controlling the information voters were able to receive about the candidates. They did this by colluding with big tech companies to hide information that made Joe Biden look bad. Post-election research found that just the conspiracys successful information control on Hunter Bidens alleged corruption and its potential links to his father would have been enough to tip the election.

They successfully pressured social media companies to take a harder line against disinformation and used data-driven strategies to fight viral smears They executed national public-awareness campaigns that helped Americans understand how the vote count would unfold over days or weeks, preventing Trumps conspiracy theories and false claims of victory from getting more traction. After Election Day, they monitored every pressure point to ensure that Trump could not overturn the result, Ball writes.

The article shows how these activists pushed a narrative that election results would not be known on election night as part of their campaign to box out Trump. It then openly admits to a subsequent orchestrated attempt to anoint Biden the winner before all the votes had been tallied. This is how leftists made their fever dream a reality.

This coalition had private polling that mirrored the Trump campaigns internal polling, which differed from the public polling released throughout 2020 that consistently appeared to show Trump far behind. A top conspiracy leader was warning everyone he knew that polls were underestimating Trumps support, Ball writes.

To counteract this, he sent data to corporate media networks that got them to telegraph that the election results would take time to massage oops, be counted. The delay made way for a late surge of mail-in ballots that were just what Biden needed in every place he needed them.

Election night began with many Democrats despairing. Trump was running ahead of pre-election polling, winning Florida, Ohio and Texas easily and keeping Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania too close to call, Ball noted. But the conspiracy leader watched the results unperturbed, she says: he could tell that as long as all the votes were counted, Trump would lose. Amazing projection skills, right? Especially considering his cabal in reality pushed to declare Biden the winner before all the votes were counted.

Another major part of this campaign to tamper with the democratic process was leftists influence over the media and tech companies that control what Americans learn about the world beyond their own ears and eyeballs. Ball introduces us to a veteran progressive operative who piloted a nameless, secret project, which she has never before publicly discussed, that trackeddangerous lies that might otherwise spread unnoticed. Researchers then provided information to campaigners or the media to track down the sources and expose them.

It appears from Balls reporting that somebody got this research in front of Mark Zuckerberg, who in November 2019 invited nine civil rights leaders to dinner at his home, where they warned him about the danger of the election-related falsehoods that were already spreading unchecked. Zuckerberg and his wifes foundation was subsequently a massive part of the election 2020 conspiracy.

Not only did Facebook make a massive in-kind contribution to Democrats with information manipulation on the platform, but also Zuckerbergs foundation gave $350 million in 2020 to local governments to run elections, including training election workers. In Georgia, a highly contested state where subsequent Senate runoffs gave Democrats unified control of the federal government, Zuckerbergs money was suspiciously aligned with hugely positive flips for Democrats.

Coincidence? Maybe. Or maybe thats just a conspiracy theory.

The Time article bears close and repeated reading. One last area of observation here concerns its discussion of the alliance between big business and big labor.

The conspiracy leaders purposefully reached out to people dressed in Republican clothing, like Chambers of Commerce, to use them to help cloak Bidens coronation in bipartisan colors. These double agents mission was to convince Republicans to quietly accept the election results, fear violence from leftists, and to provide internal pressure at key postelection choke points like certification votes in cities and states. It all worked.

It is certainly no coincidence that from 2020 to 2021, Republicans satisfaction with big business plummeted 26 points to 31 percent. The Wall Street Journal says thats likely due to corporations increasingly choosing to bypass[] the political process and intervene[] directly to transform highly contested parts of American life. No kidding.

Amid the big business-big labor discussion, Balls interviewees admit the leftist rioters who terrorized America throughout 2020 did so with the tacit permission of higher-ups, who can turn the riots on and off at will. That will be cold comfort to those who lost more than 30 family members in the riots and hundreds more in subsequent murder spikes after the unrest pushed police to stand down.

Activists began preparing to reprise the George Floyd riots as it looked like Trump was about to win, Ball writes. Their Protect the Results coalition had a map listing 400 planned postelection demonstrations, to be activated via text message as soon as Nov. 4. To stop the coup they feared, the left was ready to flood the streets.

But a curious thing happened on the way to this nationwide riot. The white-collar conspiracy leaders called off their thugs. Their nonviolent plan to fortify the election was working. Violence wasnt needed at the moment. [T]he word went out: stand down, Ball writes. What a convenient little violent militia these people have, all at the summons of a text message!

The conspiracy of longtime Democrat activists who want Trump dead wasnt about making sure he lost, Ball repeatedly insists while writing an entire article indicating the opposite. It was about protecting democracy. Left unstated is the context leftists have been stating for Trumps entire tenure: they consider him democracys Public Enemy Number 1.

In this same article, Ball herself writes that leftist activists considered it their mission to oppose Trumps assault on democracy. To them, forcing him from office is synonymous with democracy. As leftists activists made explicit in their plans to shut down the country if Trump clearly won, to them it was impossible for democracy to result in Trumps election.

Every attempt to interfere with the proper outcome of the election was defeated, conspiracy member Ian Bassin told Ball (emphasis added). Heads Joe Biden wins, tails Donald Trump loses. In games, we call that rigging. In sports, we call it cheating.

So when they say they suspended election laws and threatened deadly violence to protect democracy, what all these people really mean is they worked to rig the election against Trump. They just think you are too stupid to put those two statements together. And they are apparently too narcissistic to hide their masterfully successful plotting.

As John Davidson says, the ruling class hates you, and they think you are stupid. In fact, they work to make you stupid and helpless, then laugh about it in your face afterward.

A numerical error in this article has been corrected.

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Time Profiles The Successful 'Conspiracy' To Rig The 2020 Election - The Federalist

On Wednesday night, MSNBC anchor Andrea Mitchell and Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin lost their minds on Twitter over Sen. Ted Cruz saying the second Donald Trump impeachment proceedings are full of sound and fury, like in Shakespeare.

While Mitchell and others thought they were delivering an intelligent blow to Cruzs remarks by pointing out the phrase should be actually attributed to William Faulkner, it turns out the two might need to brush up on their literature. Sparknotes or Cliffnotes is a good place to start.

The phrase full of sound and fury, signifying nothing, is in Act V, Scene Five of Shakespeares famous Macbeth. So much for owning those common folk conservatives!

@SenTedCruz says #ImpeachmentTrial is like Shakespeare full of sound and fury signifying nothing. No, thats Faulkner, Mitchell wrote.

and it says volumes about his lack of soul. Thats Any Thinking Person, Rubin responded.

I clearly studied too much American literature and not enough Macbeth, Mitchell then wrote hours later, My apologies to Sen. Cruz.

The Sound and The Fury is indeed a 1929 acclaimed novel by William Faulkner, yet the author derived the title from Macbeth (first published in 1623).

Faulkner wrote the book The Sound and the Fury. But the phrase comes from Shakespeares Macbeth: It is a tale, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. The whole passage is beautiful, responded New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof.<

While those on the left reacted to Mitchells laughable lack of awareness, Cruz comedically chimed in.

Methinks she doth protest too much. One would think NBC would know the Bard. Andrea, take a look at Macbeth act 5, scene 5: [Life] struts & frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more. It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound & fury, Signifying nothing.

Touche, Mitchell responded, recognizing her blunder that became a spectacle across the political aisle.

The fiasco trended near the top on Twitter Wednesday night, swiftly becoming an issue those on the right and left could agree on.

Um, he was right. The quote originated in Macbeth, tweeted Fox News political analyst, Brit Hume.

Imagine thinking you are dunking on Cruz here by showing your complete ignorance of a little old play Macbeth,' Federalist Senior Editor Mollie Hemingway said.

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Andrea Mitchell Owns Herself Trying To Correct Ted Cruz's Shakespeare - The Federalist

If a nicest guy in the world award was given to famous American pastors, few would disagree New York Times best-selling author Max Lucado should find himself toward the front of that line. Hes the consummate cuddly bear whose central message is Gods boundless and unmerited grace for all people, regardless of their story. This is the hallmark of his ministry and life. It oozes from his pulpit and the pages of his books. He speaks of it in a thousand different ways, always seeking to help people understand this glorious truth from yet another creative, illuminating angle.

Lucados message is clear: No one is too far from Gods inexhaustible love. No. One. If you are human, this includes you. Full. Stop. All you have to do is accept it. It was this very message that earned him the prestigious invitation to preach this past Sunday to the congregation of the celebrated Washington National Cathedral in D.C. This is the church where our national leaders hold their largest and most solemn official religious gatherings.

But Lucados invitation to preach was surprisingly controversial and his cancelation was publicly demanded, according to the Episcopal News Service. Why? Because he has publicly stated that God instituted marriage between a man and woman and only condones married sexuality. And his great sin was not so much how he said it, but that he said it. This was enough to spur calls for his cancelation and for the National Cathedrals leadership to say letting Lucado speak was a mistake.

When the Washington National Cathedral announced on their Facebook page Lucado would be preaching their Sunday service, calls for him to be disinvited flooded in. Someone on the Cathedrals Facebook page baselessly explained, This mans theology makes some people want to kill themselves. The director of faith outreach for the highly influential LGBT lobbying group Human Rights Campaign made their thoughts known about the invitation to church leadership. Activists started an online petition to have Lucados invitation rescinded.

Pastor Lucados message was delivered to the congregation on February 7th. But only after retired Bishop Gene Robinson, the Episcopal Churchs first ordained openly gay bishop, was recruited to preside over the Sunday morning service as a calming device. Robinson provided a meticulously worded eight minute-long explanation for why Lucados was invitation was not revoked. To his credit, Robisons speech was a thoughtful and a classical liberal explanation for why inclusion sometimes includes people we dont agree with much at all. But he put his explanation to the congregation in the simple and binary context of good over bad, right over wrong, us against them.

Let me just say this carefully to those of us who are LGBTQ. Weve won. Weve won! We know how this is going to end. This is going to end with the full inclusion of gay and lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer people, non-binary people, all kinds of people. We know how it ends.

He concluded his side the zero-sum victors, good over evil. That pulpit is their pulpit and they will manage it according to their ascendent beliefs. And Rev. Randy Hollerith, dean of Washington National Cathedral, was also compelled to distance himself from his gentle guest during the Sunday service and did so in his carefully threaded introduction to Lucados sermon.

Max and I differ on many issues, but I know him to be a person of goodwill and deep faith. He has said things in the past that have caused the LGBTQ community great pain. Let me be clear. I dont agree with those statements. And the Cathedral does not agree with those statements. Our LGBTQ brothers and sisters and siblings are the beloved children of God, just as they are.

Lucados basic position on the nature of marriage and sexuality is what made his invitation a bridge too far for the LGBT political class. This incident demonstrates it is no longer possible to hold a belief contrary to LGBT orthodoxy, even in the most genuinely kind and gracious way, and still be considered a decent person by those on the left. It is no longer a matter of how you disagree, but simply that you disagree. That is the take-away here. And every person involved in this decision got the message loud and clear.

Washington, D.C.s Episcopal Bishop Mariann Budde told the Episcopal News Service, I would do it differently now regarding Lucados invitation. My biggest mistake, she explained, was not reaching out to some of my colleagues who are LGBTQ.

Budde, who certainly didnt rise to her position in that denomination without being acutely mindful of and dutiful to LGBT concerns, confessed, It took me a while to appreciate the magnitude of the issue and the magnitude of the concern from those who protested the invitation. Hollerith said, In my straight privilege I failed to see and fully understand the pain he has caused. Gay activists most faithful allies have a hard time keeping up with their demands.

It is critically important for all Christians, and any informed observer of religion in public life, to take note of what this incident marks. Two of the most powerful Episcopal clergy in the nation had to carefully explain, within minutes of his talk, why an evangelical preacher whose whole message is Gods limitless kindness and grace to everyone should be allowed to address the Sunday morning congregation of one of our nations great cathedrals. They admitted Lucados sermon that morning titled, How God Helps Us Through Our Trials, was not controversial in any way.

This pastor is not political, nor a culture warrior, and their concern was with what he wrote 17 years ago. His singular message is Gods unending love for everyone. He has sold over a hundred million books explaining that very truth. His disqualifying feature was not greed, arrogance, graft, sexual misconduct, or abuse of power. It was not ugliness toward any person. It is simply and singularly that he holds to the historic and clearly scriptural teaching of what marriage is as Gods clearly stated plan for human sexual expression, that which is held by nearly all major religions through the millennia and most clergy today.

To this, all orthodox Christians, Jews, and Muslims, as well as any other traditionally-minded individuals, should ask their LGBT neighbors this question: Is it possible for me to not agree with what you believe about sexuality and gender and still be considered a decent person in polite company?

Max Lucado got the answer to those questions this week in a dramatically stark fashion. Yes, Pastor Lucado was permitted to speak, but only by the skin of his teeth. And only with very public and deft distancing from the very people who invited him. Even the liberal clergy of the Episcopal Church received the message loud and clear: Dont invite his kind ever again. No matter how nice and inclusive they might be. Its not how you disagree. Its that you disagree.

This turn should jolt everyone who values civil society, the necessity of religious freedom, and the essential virtue of differing ideas. A new kind of fundamentalism is taking over liberalism, and it is doing so ironically, in the name of inclusion and free-thought. The Lucado incident is simply the latest dramatic dispatch in that story.

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Outrage Over Max Lucado Shows There Is No Room For Dissent In LGBT Church Politics - The Federalist

The case against Donald John Trump in this, his second impeachment trial, is a curious thing. The single charge is that he allegedly incited a riot at the Capitol by contesting the results of the 2020 election. But his actions do not meet the legal definition of incitement. As we are constantly reminded, a Senate impeachment trial is not a criminal trial, so the senators can choose to define incitement however they want, but so far they havent.

The opening statement from the House managers was almost solely focused on feelings and emotion. At one point, Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., literally broke down in tears while describing the riot. But what he did not offer was a standard by which Trumps guilt or innocence on the charge of incitement could be based. This is very important because a precedent is being set here.

Likewise, on day two, the Democrats once again made a mainly emotional appeal, focused on video and images from the riots. The closest that Democrats came to showing Trump had encouraged the events at the Capitol was a kind of incitement by omission. They tried to show that he intentionally refused to tell rioters to stop once they had started.

Even if that is true, and its not entirely clear when Trump was tweeting about the rioters themselves and when he was tweeting about the vast majority of his supporters who stayed peaceful, its not incitement. You cant incite something that already happened. Conservatives in favor of conviction have invented arguments that blend morality, patriotism, and emotion. But they are very short on facts and specifics, which mean any conviction of Trump would be a mile wide and an inch deep.

David French tweeted about the video presentation offered by the Democrats:

I agree that convicting Trump would set a precedent, just not the one French thinks it will. Standards and precedents have to be testable and repeatable, otherwise they are but merely whims. So what standard would we be setting with this novel definition of incitement that does not exist in our law? We saw politically motivated violence from the left all summer long, much of it directed against police. Did the progressive politicians and activists who frankly spread a lot of lies about how deeply racist our police are incite that violence? It seems to me by this definition they did.

When confronted with this problem, namely that the definition of incitement is so incredibly broad here, some in favor of conviction make an appeal to the fact that the riots happened. Here is National Reviews Dan McLaughlin, one of the loudest of the conservatives for conviction:

He is comparing Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters 2018 call for people to get in the faces of Trump officials, to confront them in public, to Trumps actions. His argument here is that since Waters call to action did not lead to immediate violence (although it certainly was a call for aggressive protest), she gets a pass for essentially doing exactly what Trump did. Under this rubric, intention becomes irrelevant. That is a very dangerous road that runs counter to centuries of Western governance. Of course intent matters, and there is not a shred of evidence that proves or even suggests that Trump intended a violent storming of the Capitol.

So if Frenchs argument falls apart because it could capture anyone in the future who disputes an election result, and McLaughlins falls apart because it is unable to grapple with the idea of intention, that really only leaves feelings and an emotional appeal. In some sense, it is like the old saw about trying to define pornography, that you know it when you see it. Thats not good enough for an impeachment conviction. It leaves wide open the door for future impeachments of disgust, where no crime or misdemeanor is committed or proven, but sufficient outrage is manufactured. That is not the purpose of impeachment. It is rather the purpose of elections, the opposite of impeachment.

Of course, emotions do play a role in politics, but the proper role for emotional appeal is as an appeal to voters, not to impeachment juries. If the Senate convicts Trump and bars him from running even though 75 million people voted for him, it would be one of the most anti-democratic actions ever taken by the federal government. That ought not to be done on the basis of feelings, but rather on the basis of facts and circumstances that are testable and repeatable.

Trumps defense team and Republican senators should not now hide behind the process question of whether you can convict a former president. They should defend directly against the charge of incitement and resoundingly reject this new, vague definition of the word. Further, they should make absolutely clear that questioning the outcome of an election or seeking to fix alleged problems with voting methods must never be considered an offense of any kind, let alone an impeachable one.

The facts of this case are not on the Democrats side. The feelings might be, but that must not be allowed to be sufficient. Republicans in the Senate and beyond must show resolve here in the face of furious outrage from those who have been outraged by Trump since before he even took office. Republicans must summon the strength they learned from Trump and stand against this scurrilous impeachment.

David Marcus is the Federalist's New York Correspondent. Follow him on Twitter, @BlueBoxDave.

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(1) This Impeachment Of Donald John Trump Is Trial By Feelings - The Federalist