Category Archives: Federalist

Next month, Alaskans will vote in a special primary election for the states single congressional seat, left vacant by the death of Republican Rep. Don Young in March. Young, the longest-serving Republican in the history of the U.S. House, was Alaskas sole congressman for 49 years, so the election to replace him is in some ways an historic event for the state.

But its also historic in another way: it will be Alaskas first ever statewide mail-in primary election. That is, there will be no in-person voting at all. Every single voter on the statesbloated and error-riddled voter rollswas automatically mailed a blank ballot.

Whats more, there will be no verification requirements for these mail-in ballots. Voters will simply need to fill out their ballot and have a witness observe them sign the envelope. The states Division of Election has explicitly saidit will not verify the authenticity of the signatureson the ballots.

Normally, to vote by mail in Alaska you have to submit an absentee ballot application ahead of time, which includes a signature that can be used to verify the signature on the completed ballot. But not for this special mail-in election, which is already a chaotic and confusing mess, with48 names on the primary ballotand a new ranked-choice voting process in place that will send the top four vote-getters from the primary to the in-person general special election in August (which is on the same day as the regular statewide primary election for the November midterms).

By any measure, Alaskas special election is a mess. But why should the rest of the country care? Because Alaskas insane statewide mail-in election is a template for how the left wants to run elections nationwide. Democrats and left-wing activists would love nothing more than to hold elections entirely by mail with as few safeguards in place to prevent ballot fraud.

Indeed, Alaska presents a unique and in some ways ideal test case for the left. For one thing,Alaskas voter rolls are a mess. As of 2020, voter registration was 118 percent of the estimated vote age population, meaning there were more registered voters than actual people who could vote (this problem is getting worse in Alaska; in 2018 it was only 103 percent). Making matters worse is a 2016 Alaska law that automatically registers residents to vote when they submit an application for the states permanent fund dividend.

If you want to make an election less secure, you pair bloated voter rolls with mass mail-in voting and then strip all safeguards and verification requirements from the mail-in ballots, which is exactly what Alaska has done.

The state governments weak excuse for conducting a statewide mail-in election is that, because a special election must be held within 90 days of the vacancy (in this case, Youngs death on March 18) there simply wasnt time to hire and train the 3,000 poll workers a standard in-person election would require. But even if you buy that, the state has not yet explained why it decided to conduct the mail-in election without any mechanism to verify the authenticity of the signatures on the ballots.

On top of all this, the special primary election next month and the special general election in August will be the first election cycle in Alaska that employs ranked-choice voting, which voters approved in 2020.

Its hard to imagine an election scenario more ill-suited to such a convoluted and confusing scheme than this special election, partly because voters will be choosing among an unheard of 48 candidates in the special mail-in primary election and partly because the special in-person general election will take place on the same day and perhaps even on the same ballot as the regular primary. (The special election is to choose someone to serve out the remaining months of Youngs current term, the regular general election is to choose the states next at-large congressman.)

As Sarah Montalbano of the Alaska Policy Forumnoted recentlyin the Alaska Watchman, that means the bifurcated ballot will have both a special election chosen by [ranked-choice voting] and a general primary election instructing voters to choose only one!

Montalbano calls Alaskas special election a perfect storm, and for anyone concerned about election integrity and fairness, it certainly is a perfect storm. But for anyone who wants to make elections as unsecure and as open to fraud as possible, whats about to happen in Alaska is ideal.

It represents the institutionalization of the extraordinary changes to absentee voting in some states during the 2020 presidential election amid fears of in-person voting amid the Covid-19 pandemic. Those changes, which got rid of nearly every safeguard for mail-in voting, were supposed to be temporary, necessitated by the pandemic.

But the left never lets a crisis go to waste, which is why were about to see in Alaskas special election a dry-run for what Democrats would like to do nationwide: use every trick in the book to make our elections less secure.

John Daniel Davidson is a senior editor at The Federalist. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Claremont Review of Books, The New York Post, and elsewhere. Follow him on Twitter, @johnddavidson.

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In Alaska, A Special Election Reveals How The Left Wants To Rig The Vote - The Federalist

Pro-abortion groups this past week have called for increased lawlessness to express their opposition to the expected reversal of the Supreme Courts decision in Roe v. Wade. Apparently having failed to persuade either the court of the soundness of their legal position or Congress of the necessity of codifying Roe in a federal statute, these groups are committing, or threatening to commit, hate crimes targeting churches and worshippers.

The real or intended victims of these outrages are not defenseless. The legal system affords them robust protections against violations of their right to free exercise of religion. These include both federal and state criminal and civil remedies and private civil actions under federal and state law.

Churches and congregants alike should make full use of our legal system to protect themselves against pro-abortion forces that are vandalizing church property and attempting to intimidate believers as they worship. Not only do they owe it to themselves to defend their religious liberty, they have a duty to the larger community to combat these unmistakable hate crimes.

To date, President Biden has failed to personally denounce these threats to religious liberty by the pro-abortion forces that are Democrats political allies and core constituents. So has his Justice Department, which was quick to condemn parents appearing at public school board meetings. An unnamed White House official made a meaningless comment, and Press Secretary Jen Psaki finally condemned violence, threats, or vandalism on Twitter Monday, but the president himself has yet to speak out against pro-abortionists recent violent tactics.

Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland should be publicly shamed if their inaction continues. And if the administration chooses to turn a blind eye as the legal rights of American believers are trashed, state attorneys general can and should fill the breach.

Private persons can also bring tort actions under federal and state law, and if successful might obtain monetary damages in amounts that could be a significant blow to the pro-abortion movement and its (often undisclosed) donors.

The assaults on religious liberty are coming in two forms. One is the vandalization of church property, such as happened in Boulder, Colo., soon after the leak of the draft Supreme Court opinion in Dobbs. Vandals broke the windows and spray-painted over the doors of the Sacred Heart of Mary Church and left pro-abortion messages, including keep your religion off our bodies and my body, my choice.

Over the past two years, Colorado has seen a series of attacks (not all proclaiming pro-abortion views) on Catholic churches. These attacks include one last October on the Cathedral Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Denver, and another in September on St. Louis Catholic Church in a Boulder suburb (involving pro-abortion graffiti).

What is happening in Colorado unfortunately has been happening throughout the country. In January, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops reported that there had been at least 129 attacks on Catholic churches in 35 states and the District of Columbia since May 2020. Secular sources like The Wall Street Journal have noted the increase in desecration of Catholic churches as well. If Roe is indeed overruled, expect worse.

In a second line of attack, the shadowy pro-abortion group Ruth Sent Us has called, not only for demonstrations outside the homes of six Supreme Court justices, but also for the disruption of services in Catholic churches on Mothers Day during Sunday mass. The group posted a message on Twitter, stating Whether youre a Catholic for Choice, ex-Catholic, of other or no faith, recognize that six extremist Catholics set out to overturn Roe. Stand at or in a local Catholic Church Sun May 8.

Protesters disrupted planned services at Old St. Patricks Cathedral in New York City, some engaging in grotesque pantomimes of abortion immediately outside the church grounds.Christopher Plant, whose bio says he is the pastor of St. Bartholomew the Apostle Catholic Church in Katy, Texas, took to Twitter on Monday to report that the churchs tabernacle had been stolen the night before.

Meanwhile, a Molotov cocktail was thrown into the headquarters of pro-life group Wisconsin Family Action in Madison, Wis., with the words If abortions arent safe you arent either graffitied outside. A pro-life center in Denton, Texas was also defaced.

These dangers to the peaceful exercise of religious liberties must be confronted and overcome. Even if the Biden administration refuses to quell threats and intimidation, believers have and should use the remedies that the law provides for them.

Of these remedies, one powerful option is, ironically, The Freedom of Access to [Abortion] Clinic Entrances Act (FACE). In an obvious legislative compromise, FACE protects not only abortion facilities, providers, and clients, but also criminalizes actions or attempts intended by force or threat of force or by physical obstruction to injure, intimidate or interfere with any person lawfully exercising or seeking to exercise the First Amendment right of religious freedom at a place of religious worship. Likewise, FACE criminalizes the actions of anyone who intentionally damages or destroys the property of a place of religious worship.

Enforcement of these criminal provisions is, however, in the hands of the vehemently pro-abortion Biden administration, which can be expected to tailor the execution of the laws to its political ends. Even so, FACE offers other means for vindicating religious liberties.

This is because FACE also authorizes churches and individual worshippers injured by the relevant misconduct to bring private actions on their own behalf. If entitled to relief, they may obtain either (or both) an injunction against the misconduct or compensatory and punitive damages, along with an award of reasonable legal fees. These legal awards, especially if they include punitive damages, could be crippling for pro-abortion defendants.

Finally, FACE authorizes state attorneys general who find reasonable cause to believe that a violation is being, has been, or may be occurring, to bring civil actions. The Virginia attorney general has already signaled his intention to refer any criminal violations for prosecution. Concerned citizens should demand that their state attorneys general follow suit.

States also commonly have hate crimes statutes that are similar to these federal civil rights laws. Colorado, for example, has at least two statutes that might apply to the vandalization of a Catholic church in that state. One statute makes it a crime knowingly to desecrate (which includes defacing) any place of worship. It will be interesting to see if the states Attorney General Phil Weiser, who served in the Clinton and Obama administrations, will bring a case under the states anti-desecration law on behalf of the Catholic churches in his jurisdiction.

Lawsuits against the pro-abortion extremists who attack churches or worshippers can also be brought under state tort laws by the injured parties. Professor John Banzhaf of George Washington University Law School has argued that civil actions, especially if class actions, can bring justice to those who suffered injuries when peaceful protests have turned into violence that damaged their lives or property. For instance, journalist Andy Ngo sued those who beat when while he was covering a peaceful protest that turned into a riot, alleging the torts of assault, battery, and intentional infliction of emotional distress as well as a violation of the states anti-racketeering act.

Finally, churches and worshippers should remember that they have a legal right of self-defense against threats to life and limb.The choice of forms that self-defense should take churches might install security cameras, provide cans of pepper spray to their congregations, or even bring in defenders who openly bear arms is best left to the consciences of pastors and congregants within the confines of applicable law.

Robert Delahunty is a Washington Fellow of the Claremont Institute for the American Way of Life. Teresa S. Collett is a Professor of Law at the University of St. Thomas School of Law in Minneapolis, where she directs the Pro-Life Center.

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Legal Ways States And Pro-Lifers Can Stop Abortion Radicals' Violence - The Federalist

Defending a womans license to kill her child has always been a nasty business, and the nastiness is back with a renewed vengeance in the wake of the leaked Dobbs v. Jackson draft opinion that could overturn Roe v. Wade. Obvious in the tone and substance of the reaction from the pro-abortion crowd is the deep-running selfishness that permeates our individualist society.

Any sinful culture as all are between Eden and glory might allow or excuse the killing of an innocent child. But the times such an act has been celebrated have historically been tied to religious rituals in which a child was sacrificed to a supposed deity. In our post-religious culture, that sacrifice is laid on the idol of self.

That self-obsession and self-worship help explain why the arguments for abortion have shifted from safe, legal, and rare to open fetishizing the deaths of babies.

Im killing the babies! an activist in front of the Basilica of St. Patricks Old Cathedral in New York City screamed while wearing a one-piece swimsuit with dolls stuffed inside.

Kill those f-cking babies, one demonstrator screamed at the Supreme Court last week.

I am pro-abortion. PRO. ABORTION. if I dont want to be pregnant? vacuum that sh-t out of me like a dental assistant with my saliva, one particularly crude Twitter user remarked.

A video posted by Libs of TikTok compiled clips of people who responded to the question, Are aborted babies being burned and used for electricity? with I hope so, cackling, and other deeply disturbing responses. I wont embed it below it cant be described as anything short of demonic.

Back in December, abortion activists gleefully took what appeared to be abortion pills in front of the court.

Mankind has been committing the sin of selfishness for millennia. Indeed, it was elevating his desires and conceit above the commands of God that separated man from his perfect communion with God in Eden. He has continued to practice selfishness and greed ever since.

Its why civilizations have gone to war, overthrown governments, raped conquered provinces, abused the vulnerable, robbed, murdered, lied, and cheated. Selfishness is nothing new, and neither is abortion, which was practiced by the ancient Egyptians (and surely even earlier).

But in the Christianized West, although its application was far from perfect, the concept of lifes intrinsic value began to take root. For a time, our society could agree that to kill your own child was an act of deep cruelty, selfishness, and depravity.

The enlightenment of the 18th century, with its presumption of mans perfectability, heralded a social ethic that assumed man was (or at least could be) intrinsically good. The darker effects of this political and moral philosophy became evident in the next century, when aspirations of perfectibility prompted Darwinian ideas of survival of the fittest and a disturbing eugenics movement (in which our modern abortion movement has its roots).

By the 20th century, society began to rebel against this modernism, especially after Nazi Germany demonstrated the extreme (but consistent) culmination of such social Darwinism. In its place, jointly fueled by the political individualism of democratic thought, came postmodernism, and its rejection of objective moral reality.

With postmodernism came the idea that each person could define his own truth and therefore his own reality. Its fed our social revolt against biology, and the craze to find ones own identity often in external qualities like race or sex, or in imagined gender identities. Our culture of victimhood only serves to further the self-preservation ethic.

Selfishness isnt unique to our moment, but it does manifest today in a particularly straightforward way. If we believe the highest telos of our existence is self-discovery, our lives cease to serve any higher purpose than ourselves.

It makes sense, then, that our culture would glorify abortion because, by that paradigm, killing an inconvenient baby is a means to self-empowerment. If eugenicist abortionists pushed to kill off babies for the good of society a century ago, now they purport to do so for the good of the individual woman.

Its why abortion activists can, in complete seriousness, advocate for the murder of a full-term child. It doesnt matter to them that the baby is a living being if he or she conflicts with a womans self-love, that baby doesnt deserve to live. Its perfectly consistent with our cultures increasingly popular perception of having children as a fulfillment of their parents wants instead of a responsibility to cherish that requires sacrifice and self-denial.

Thats not to say people in previous times have been any less selfish; the fallen status of man is not measured in degrees. But the traits our culture chooses to elevate are linked to our celebration of abortion in especially obvious ways.

If self-gratification is our highest good, then any act (up to and including the murder of a child) becomes good if done in its pursuit. If we are our own arbiters of truth, then moral reality ceases to become an inhibition, and life itself ceases to become an inherent good. If limiting the licentious indulgence of our own desires is oppression and therefore the greatest sin, then the anti-abortion crowd becomes the bad guys.

Until we confront the self-idolatry of our culture, many people will truly believe abortion is not just a necessary evil but a self-empowering good. Merely convincing them that abortion takes the precious life of a baby does nothing to shatter that paradigm, if they value their own imagined empowerment more than that life. The message their mania requires is that something true, good, and infinitely worthy could exist that is greater than themselves.

Elle Reynolds is an assistant editor at The Federalist, and received her B.A. in government from Patrick Henry College with a minor in journalism. You can follow her work on Twitter at @_etreynolds.

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Why Today's Left Will Admit Abortion Kills A Child And Still Support It - The Federalist

While blue states floundered to resume classroom learning for large swaths of students, Republican-led states protected working-class, minority children against the severe learning losses caused by Democrats Covid-19 overreach by encouraging classroom teaching, new data suggests.

According to a study conducted by Harvard Universitys Center for Education Policy Research, students in low-income areas suffered years worth of academic depletion, especially in math, after spending larger amounts of time in remote learning.

Within school districts that were remote for most of 2020-21, high-poverty schools experienced 50 percent more achievement loss than low-poverty schools, the study noted.

All students suffered educationally during the pandemic due to forced remote learning. Ultimately, however, it was the low-income, minority kids who suffered the most. While red states eagerly ushered kids of all backgrounds back to school, blue states led by Democrats campaigning on solving racial inequality kept impoverished black and Hispanic children at home, thus widening learning gaps between vulnerable, low-income students and high-income students.

Most of these students attended schools in large, Democrat-controlled urban hubs in California, Illinois, New Jersey, Virginia, Washington, and Washington D.C. which, even The New York Times admitted, were far more susceptible to anti-science lockdowns and pressure from teachers unions to keep kids remote than those schools in red areas. As a result, these high-poverty students often lacked the parental oversight, home stability, electricity, strong internet, or even a computer required to fully participate in online schooling.

Early in the pandemic, science showed that school closures were not only unnecessary to protect children who are far less likely than adults to contract severe Covid-19 or die from it, but also harmful. While kids in countries like Sweden safely attended class during the height of the virus, students in the U.S. were sentenced to learning online for large portions of 2020 and 2021.

On average, red states such as Florida and Texas were much quicker to resume classroom learning, some as early as the summer of 2020. Republicans cited massive learning losses across the board as their main motivator to reopen schools.

Their fears were correct. The Harvard study shows that even students who largely attended school in physical classrooms in the 2020-2021 school year lost nearly 20 percent of a school years worth of unfinished learning in math. If they hadnt reopened, those numbers had the potential to become even more dismal and undo even more of the immense math and reading skills progress recorded for American students, especially minority students.

The Covid closures have reversed much of that progress, at least for now, The New York Times noted.

Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire and Fox News. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.

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Red States Protected Working-Class Minority Kids From Covid Overreach - The Federalist

Since the conflict in Ukraine and Russia began, high-profile elites have demanded that the United States back Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky with finances, food, weaponry, and even the threat of war against Vladimir Putin, but this is out of step with the will of the people.

What started as a call to fund and defend a nation against an invasion from a dangerous dictator, however, quickly morphed into a quest to undermine the Russian regime by whatever means necessary including ordering NATO warplanes to shoot down Russian aircraft and issuing full-blown declarations of war.

A majority of Americans do not want the U.S. to go to war with Russia over Ukraine. Recent polling from The Washington Post and ABC News suggests that 72 percent of U.S. adults oppose the United States taking direct military action against Russian forces. Even in the early days of the overseas conflict, only 17 percent of Americans were willing to risk a direct war between the U.S. and Russia to do whatever it can to help Ukraine.

Congress has yet to vote to officially authorize acts of war against Russia, but that hasnt stopped some of the most high-ranking officials in the U.S., from President Joe Biden and sitting members of Congress to intelligence agencies and even institutions such as the corporate media, from promoting a clash in Eastern Europe.

Just this week, sitting Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., admitted that the United States is in a proxy war with Russia.

At the end of the day, weve got to realize were at war. And were not just at war to support the Ukrainians. Were fundamentally at war, although, its somewhat through proxy with Russia and its important that we win, Moulton said.

Similarly, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., claimed this week that we can win this war on behalf of Ukraine.

There is no off-ramp in this war. Somebody is going to win and somebody is going to lose, and I hope and pray and do everything in my power to make sure Ukraine wins, Graham said.

Grahams march toward war has significantly increased in the last few months. In March, he called for the assassination of Putin by Russians to end the conflict.

The only way this ends is for somebody in Russia to take this guy out, Graham tweeted.

Now he says its up to the U.S. to fight for Ukraine and other nations such as Taiwan, which faces a threat of invasion from China.

Even though some legislators havent engaged in the same kind of reckless rhetoric to promote war with Putin, they have fed into the escalation narrative by voting to forward the nations role in the conflict. On Tuesday, just weeks after authorizing $13.6 billion of aid money to Ukraine, the House of Representatives voted to send nearly $40 billion more to the Eastern European country.

Only 57 House Republicans and no Democrats voted against the spending package, which lacked regulation and specification.

So far, neither Biden nor the Republicans or Democrats in Congress have laid out a peace plan or spending limits for Ukraine. Instead, theyve used reckless rhetoric to escalate U.S. involvement and explicitly signaled their intent to take down a nuclear power against voters desires.

Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire and Fox News. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.

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Americans Don't Want War With Russia But Republicans And Democrats Are Forcing It Anyway - The Federalist

Despite promises of transparency, the Biden administration is hiding its plans to undermine state control over election laws. Last spring, the White House issued Executive Order (EO) 14019, Promoting Access to Voting. The EO required every federal agency to submit a plan to register voters and encourage voter participation. It also required agencies to form strategies to invite non-governmental third parties to register voters.

To date, few details have been releasedand naturally, there are questions. What will these plans involve? To what degree and why will federal agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Defense, the Bureau of Land Management, and others be involved in get-out-the-vote drives? Who will determine that third parties selected to register voters are appropriately non-partisan?

The Foundation for Government Accountability (FGA) responded to rising concerns about the ambiguity and radio silence on the details of this EO by submitting a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request in July 2021. We wanted answers to completely reasonable questions about the EO, but the administration ignored our FOIA request.

To date, no federal agency has responded with the records we requested. What is the administration trying to hide?

Weve got an answer: Their silence is an attempt to get America to look the other way while they illegally involve themselves in state elections, which is far, far beyond the constitutional purview of the executive branch.

Its not difficult to see the motive behind this executive order. In the 2020 election, Facebook billionaire Mark Zuckerberg funneled more than $350 millionZuckbucksto the Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL) through the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, which was then sent to election officials across the country. While supposedly intended as assistance to operate elections during Covid-19, most jurisdictions used it for get-out-the-vote efforts. The funds were also targeted to predominantly Democrat districts and had the effect of boosting voter turnout in left-leaning areas.

Zuckbucks happened because no laws prevented it from happening. Once the extent of Zuckbucks was brought to light, states took action banning third-party funding in future elections. Several states also closed other loopholes and increased protections to stop any potential interference in local elections.

Attempts to block states efforts failed in Congress, so this EO became the administrations only option as a backdoor into state elections.

Despite state legislatures taking the security of their elections into their hands, as they are expressly elected to do, the Biden administration is strong-arming the executive branch and trespassing in state elections, where it does not belong and is not constitutionally permitted. This violates the separation of power embodied in our Constitution and is clearly at odds with both the Elections and Electors Clauses of the U.S. Constitution.

The president lacks the legal authority required for the executive branch to intervene in elections the way EO 14019 directs. This means those federal agencies that comply with this order will surely exceed the scope of their authority, providing grounds for either Congress to intervene, or states to sue.

FGA is taking the next logical step in obtaining the transparency that the administration so emphatically promised. On April 20, we filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration in Middle District of Florida to compel them to provide us answers to pressing questions about the plans and strategies involved in this EO.

The clock is tickingmidterm elections are less than six months away. Yet when asked about an EO that essentially turns the daily business of federal government agencies into voter registration and mobilization drives, the American people are met with silence from the White House.

Americans should be wondering what the administration is trying to hide by their evasiveness. And every American voter should be demanding answers and the transparency that was originally promised by this administration.

Chase Martin is the legal affairs director for the Foundation for Government Accountability.

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Why Won't Biden Explain Why Federal Agencies Will Meddle In Elections? - The Federalist

What is conservative? columnist Bret Stephens asked in Tuesdays New York Times.

It is, he posits, above all, the conviction that abrupt and profound changes to established laws and common expectations are utterly destructive to respect for the law and the institutions established to uphold it especially when those changes are instigated from above, with neither democratic consent nor broad consensus.

Stephens was responding to the broad conservative and Christian excitement that Americas extreme abortion regime might finally be struck down by the Supreme Court; but Stephens might as well have been writing about J.D. Vances hard-fought Tuesday night victory in Ohios Republican primary. Or Blake Masters primary race to represent Arizona. Or Tucker Carlsons intellectual ascendancy. Or the rise of a young and invigorated American New Right.

Stephens is wrong, of course. Conservatism isnt remotely about process: Its about traditional wisdom and values; its about conserving things of generational, transcendent value.

It means understanding that man is fallen, and society must protect families, workers, traditions, and, yes, the unborn from being wiped aside; oppressed from above.

It means conserving the truth the truth about men and women,the truth about the unborn, the truth about humanequality, and the necessary limits on government power.

Thats not to say there isnt still an important place for process: In a civilization governed by prudent and benevolent institutions that buttress and strengthen traditional wisdom and values, process protects those cherished things from rapid change.

In a world governed by imprudent and vindictive institutions, however, that claw, gnash, and tear at traditional wisdom that usurp traditional values the process merely fools us into believing that what these institutions are doing is normal, when in reality it is profoundly abnormal.

In the September 1961 issue of Young Americans for Freedoms New Guard magazine, a young M. Stanton Evans asked, Can a conservative be a radical? Yes, he concluded: Confronted with an established revolution, the conservative must seek to change the status quo; he has no other means of affirming his tradition.

Vance understands this. That is why, Axioss Jonathan Swan and Lachlan Markay report, The Republican establishment privately regards [him] with the same disgust many felt toward Donald Trump when he entered the White House on Jan. 20, 2017.

Its why Senate Minority Whip John Thune looked forward to reading the coverage of Vances loss.

Its why one senior Republican aide told The Hill 70 percent of Senate Republicans share that sentiment.

The reality is, they should all fear Vance. Hes a man who doesnt care if Google is a private company, because they have too much power; and if you want to have a country where people can live their lives freely, you have to be concerned about power whether its concentrated in the government or concentrated in big corporations.

He thinks our corporate overlords would happily satiate us with whirling gizmos and gadgets while capturing our culture and selling us out to China. This places him directly at odds with tired, established Republicanism, which would prefer to slander the ghost of Ronald Reagan while they simp for corporations that work to undermine our national economy, our traditions, our families, and even our childrens sexuality.

Vance is also a man who doesnt really care what happens to Ukraine one way or another, and thinks its ridiculous that we are focused on their border over our own.

Far more than Ukraine, he cares about the fact that in [his] community right now, the leading cause of death among 18- to 45-year-olds is Mexican fentanyl. This places him directly at odds with all of established Washington, where $5 billion for our countrys border security is too much to ask, but politicians crow about sending six times that amount to defend the sacred territorial integrity of anothers.

Vance is a man who thinks, If any of us want to do the things that we want to do for our country and for the people who live in it, we have to honestly and aggressively attack the universities in this country.

So much of what we want to accomplish, he recognizes, is fundamentally dependent on going through a set of very hostile institutions, specifically the universities, which control the knowledge in our society, which control what we call truth and what we call falsity, that provides research that gives credibility to some of the most ridiculous ideas that exist in our country.

This once again places him directly at odds with Washington, which every years sends billions in federal aid to colleges and universities, with nary a whimper of a fight.

More broadly, Vance, Harpers editor James Pogue writes, believes that a well-educated and culturally liberal American elite has greatly benefited from globalization, the financialization of our economy, and the growing power of big tech.

This, he continues, has led an Ivy League intellectual and management class to adopt a set of economic and cultural interests that directly oppose those of people in places like Middletown, Ohio, where he grew up.

In other words, Vance knows what time it is.

Hes joined in this understanding by Blake Masters, another New Right candidate for Senate who Republican leadership would rather see lose his primary.

Theyre joined by Tucker Carlson, whose influence over the New Right was enough to trigger The New York Times into putting 10,000 words, 1,150 hours of television-watching, nine reporters, and three pieces toward taking him out.

Theyre joined by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, whose fights with teachers and corporate America have earned him the ire of process-loving conservatives.

Theyre joined by the broader American New Right rising across the country.

And there are signs that together, were beginning to earn wins: that the rock of the permanent, institutional left-wing-revolution is showing cracks. In the past month alone, weve seen a bellwether American state choose an outspent New Right candidate to run for Senate, adding a young face and new voice to conservative leadership.

Weve seen elected politicians in Florida stand up and say, no, you wont get corporate carve-outs and perks, and use those to attack the parents and children of our state without consequence.

Weve seen the worlds richest man, Elon Musk, pick a fight with the entire ruling class, causing them to get so angry they exposed how anti-free speech they really were and then winning the fight to control Twitter.

Weve seen The New York Times full-body blow on a New Right cable host land as impotently as a limp-wristed pat.

Weve seen CNN Plus put down, with Chris Wallace finally (if only temporarily) off TV; his lasting legacy reduced to the Republican Party withdrawing from the liberal-dominated Commission on Presidential Debates.

Weve seen a leaked draft opinion from the Supreme Court imply that finally after a half century of political dodging and hiding the Supreme Court might strike down Roe v. Wade and Casey v. Planned Parenthood.

And weve seen Senate leaders sit silently, or chuckle along with reporters, as they anticipate the New Rights failings. Weve seen columnists like Stephens complain that curtailing one of the worlds most barbarous abortion regimes would be a radical, not conservative, choice.

Thats not surprising, though. These men arent actually conservatives: theyre simple institutionalists. And in an age where Americas institutions her colleges and universities, corporate media, Wall Street, Silicon Valley, hospitals and medical associations, Pentagon, Hollywood, childrens entertainment are dominated by the left, their acquiescing makes them what M. Stanton Evans derisively called silent partners in the work of destruction; silent partners in the lefts permanent revolution.

In this moment, we dont need silent partners: We need rebels willing to break the institutions of the left; to battle their champions in their own halls of power. We need men and women willing to fight for traditional wisdom and values; men and women who understand mankind is fallen, and that our elected leaders must protect families, workers, traditions and the unborn.

In an age where our institutions have become so used to living in the dark that they hate the light, we need men and women who are willing to fight for the truth.

In America today, we need radicals.

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JD Vance And The New Right Are Racking Up Wins Amid Backstabbing - The Federalist

While the deal is not yet final, Elon Musk is buying Twitter and hes promising to make changes to the platform, most notably by lessening the censorship that goes on behind the scenes.

While those of us who doomscroll the hellscape that is the bird app have seen some signs of life in response to Musks pledge long-banned accounts being reinstated, dormant users returning, people on the right finally getting their blue checks it increasingly seems like those still in charge want to leave as much of a mess for the next owner to clean up as possible.

An example of such began showing itself last week when podcaster Eliza Bleu sent her first op-ed to a friend and asked her to share it. When the friend opened the message, she was greeted with a warning stating Message hidden due to suspicious content.

So much for being a place to give everyone the power to create and share ideas and information instantly without barriers. Our business and revenue will always follow that mission in ways that improve and do not detract from a free and global conversation.

Bleus inaugural op-ed was about Twitter, but that doesnt seem to be what triggered the algorithm, or person masquerading as an algorithm, as the article was more specifically about how Musks changes could help lessen child predators ability to use the app to share media showing sexual abuse. It was not a broadside against Twitters current modus operandi. It was not a call for digital anarchy. It wasnt even that pro-Musk. Nonetheless, whatever algorithmic changes that have been rolled out in recent days caught her message.

And shes not alone. This also happened to me when I attempted to share a link to an article I wrote in 2014 about becoming pro-life. Granted, I was knowingly engaging in thoughtcrime given the leak of Justice Alitos draft opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson, and Twitter would love nothing more than to silence opposition and cow any wavering justices into submission. Regardless, this is what my friends saw:

While my friends, as well as Bleus, were able to view the message, this development is reminiscent of Twitters reaction to The New York Posts reporting on Hunter Bidens laptop. At the time, users could not only not tweet a link to the piece, they couldnt even direct message it, content warning or otherwise. Jack Dorsey may have called that decision a mistake, but some of the coders behind the scenes evidently do not share that opinion, even today.

When announcing his acquisition of the company, Musk wrote, Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated. Today, with these subtle changes, Twitter is now still trying to not only limit debate but prevent friends from sharing their work with one another.

Look, were all free not to use Twitter. Honestly, the world would be a better place if none of us did, but Musks observation that its become the digital town square is accurate. And while physical town squares also feature content moderation in the form of various local laws, theres no way to totally silence us as Twitter does. If one were to go old school and write a message on a piece of posterboard with a Sharpie, it would take some time for the police to remove us from our chosen corner of the square, assuming wed actually broken a law.

When it comes to social media, there are no such laws, or even norms, which are supposedly all the rage these days. Instead, its totally dependent on the whims of the Wizards of Oz, pulling strings behind the curtain. And Twitters wizards are obviously pulling as many strings as possible ahead of the sale, hoping to create a Byzantine mess so large that its impossible to clean up. Elon, though, can fix it.

If he were feeling truly philanthropic, hed immediately delete Twitter in its entirety upon completion of the sale. Thats unlikely to happen given that his goal is to not only free up the platform, but also make it profitable. Musk may be after more conversation, and hes obviously not trying to destroy it.

But since the rot is still deep within the company, seeking to control which conversations get to happen even now, Musk must channel one such banned user, roll in on day one, and tell a whole lot of employees, Youre fired. If he truly wants a digital town square, its the only way to remove the chains that a bunch of lefty nerds are trying to keep us in.

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Even As The Elon Musk Sale Closes, Twitter Is Still Ramping Up Efforts To Suppress Content - The Federalist

Conservative candidates won a bunch of closely watched school board elections in Texas on Saturday.

One of the higher-profile losses was suffered by Jim Rice, a member of the Fort Bend Independent School District (ISD) since 2010. He is also the immediate past president of the Texas Association of School Boards (TASB) where he has served on the board since 2012. TASB is a state affiliate of the National School Boards Association (NSBA)the same group that crafted the infamous letter to the Biden administration that accused parents who showed up to school board meetings of domestic terrorism. At least 22 states have severed ties with the NSBA, but not Texas yet.

Rice was beaten by Rick Garcia, a small-business owner who was a seventh-grade Texas history teacher in the district. Garcia will be joined on the board by David Hamilton, who ran for an open seat. Both winners were backed by the Republican Party. Fort Bend ISD serves around 80,000 students with more than 10,000 staff, just southwest of Houston.

There are 1,204 public school districts in Texas, with about 5.4 million students and 424,699 instructional staffthe most school districts and staff in the nation and second only to California in student enrollment. The May 7 election covered at least 47 major school districts with a combined enrollment of 1.4 million students (about 26 percent of Texas public school students), plus hundreds of other smaller districts in rural Texas.

This past Saturday, there were a number of outstanding victories for parents across Texas. This election was a referendum on the radical policies and indoctrination that have taken place in classrooms across the state. Parents are taking back control and getting schools back to basics, said Christopher Zook, Jr., who runs FFOT PAC. The PAC focuses on electing freedom-minded candidates to school boards of all sizes across Texas.

In Tarrant County, school board candidates backed by three conservative PACs were doing very well, with one group spending $500,000 to support candidates in four school districts in Fort Worth suburbs. With campaigns focused on critical race theory and pornographic books in libraries, 10 of 11 conservative candidates in the four districts won election, with the eleventh making the runoff scheduled for June 18. Only two of the 11 were incumbents.

In Hays County, a suburb of Austin that tipped to Joe Biden in 2020, two conservatives, Olivia Barnard and Tricia Quintero, won election to the Dripping Springs ISD, ousting a liberal incumbent and winning an open seat. Quintero said, This election cycle, conservative school board candidates swept into office statewide, proving that voters want parental rights and family values defended. The results leave no doubt that Texans do not want CRT in the classroom, cannot afford soaring tax bills, and will not stand for the politicization of the classroom. She added, Its time for us, as a state, to move toward a better, brighter future.

The election results caught the attention of Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who tweeted: Conservatives won school board elections across Texas. Parents are more involved and active in school elections and school policies than ever before. No one cares more about children than their parents. The power of parents will continue to expand in Texas.

Campaigning for reelection, Abbott called for a Parents Bill of Rights in January along with expanding families access to course material, preventing the collection of personal information unless required, and cracking down on educators who provide minors with access to explicit material. These issues largely powered Republican Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkins upset victory last November.

Abbott will face former Democratic U.S. Rep. Beto ORourke in November. ORourke lost a close election to Sen. Ted Cruz in 2018 and subsequently performed poorly in the Democratic presidential nomination contest in 2020. At a recent campaign stop, ORourke called for more spending on education, including $8,000 a year more for teachers. He also called for canceling the states STAAR standardized tests.

ORourkes allies in the teachers unions more bluntly criticized Abbott. Andrea Chevalier, a lobbyist for the Association of Texas Professional Educatorseffectively, a teachers unionsaid that Abbotts remarks pit educators against parents and creating this narrative thats really harmful for public schools (making) it seem that parents need to take these bold actions.

This heightened effort by conservatives and concerned parents will have to be sustained for future success. As a right-to-work state with no collective bargaining for government employees, Texas technically doesnt have teachers unions. But many teachers have a fear of being sued for classroom actions and the teachers associations offer legal protection against that for some $500 a year in feesa portion of which goes into politics.

Further, national unions will have a significant interest in beating back a conservative surge in the second-most-populous state. School boards serve as important benches to develop talent for higher political officeone thats been largely unpopulated by conservatives in recent decades.

These election results were not happenstance, Zook said. They were the culmination of years of sunlight that has been shone on the radical ideologies being taught in classrooms across Texas. Parents spoke up with one loud voice and said they do not want radical indoctrination in our schools.

Chuck DeVore is vice president of national initiatives at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a former California legislator, special assistant for foreign affairs in the Reagan-era Pentagon, and a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army (retired) Reserve. He's the author of two books, "The Texas Model: Prosperity in the Lone Star State and Lessons for America," and "China Attacks," a novel.

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Conservatives Who Promise To Stop Racism Win Texas School Boards - The Federalist

Many people on the right are seeking ways to escape the dumpster fire of Twitter. Since its Screen-Free Week, this seems a good time to ponder strategies for reducing our consumption of the propaganda and biased garbage proliferated by leftist corporate media and disseminated on social media.

While I still read publications like the Washington Post regularly, I really do try to limit my consumption of such outlets for my mental and emotional health. Actually, my personal rule applies to all digital media, regardless of political affiliation.

Thats for good reason, given the ever-growing evidence of how digital media affects us and even reshapes our brains. Its for this reason that I take time every day often in the evenings when Im trying to wind down to consume good, intellectually stimulating print media. Below are some of my favorite print magazines that are well worth the price of an annual subscription.

At a recent small gathering of prominent conservatives, a friend I trust and admire declared the Claremont Review of Books to be the best magazine in print today. Its increasingly difficult to argue otherwise. The quarterly review of politics and statesmanship has been around in its current form for more than 20 years, under the helm of conservative academic Charles R. Kesler.

Recent editions certainly can claim their fair share of big names on the intellectual right: Victor Davis Hanson, Michael Anton, Christopher Caldwell, Nathan Pinkoski, Helen Andrews, Sohrab Ahmari, Kyle Smith, Amy Wax, Charles Murray, Hadley Arkes. And thats just in the most recent issue! Perhaps more than any other publication, the CRB in recent years has provided intellectual ballast to conservative repudiations of the activist lefts obsession with racial, gender, and sexual identity politics, while providing a plethora of interesting and sometimes surprising book reviews.

Worth mentioning, it published one of the most important pieces of opinion journalism in the last ten years: Antons 2016 The Flight 93 Election, which made a compelling case for Americans to elect Trump that year.

I have been a faithful subscriber to First Things longer than any other print magazine 20 years now, since my grandfather first ordered me a student subscription while I was a first-year at the University of Virginia. Then, as now, it has continued to offer some of the most insightful religious-based commentary on the public square. Indeed, as a religious studies minor, I found First Things to often provide me with the intellectual ammunition to debate my leftist, a-religious fellow students, and even professors, in the classroom.

First Things also features some of the most important voices in conservatism, including R.R. Reno, Mark Bauerlein, Darel Paul, Carl Trueman, Gary Saul Morson, Theodore Dalrymple, Glenn C. Arbery, Matthew Rose, and Algis Valiunas, among many others. Some of the best critiques of critical race theory and the 1619 Project have appeared in its pages, as well as some of the most thoughtful and spiritually uplifting theological commentary. As an ecumenical journal, it has something for everyone, including Catholics, Protestants, Orthodox, and Jews.

Im also an old supporter of The American Conservative, beginning my subscription while still at the University of Virginia. At the time, I was a confused and frustrated conservative, a wayfarer looking for an intellectual home among friends who were all supportive of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, conflicts I detested (although, little did I know, I would in a few years serve in the former one, more than once). A fellow student suggested I try TAC. I was in love from the first issue.

TAC promotes what it calls Main Street Conservatism, by which it means a conservatism that is focused on the values of communities, families, and faith. Always opposed to benighted foreign interventionism (something that made it an ostracized outsider in conservatism for many years), it was also years ahead of its time in arguing for economic policies that would protect American workers and their families.

Indeed, one of its founders, Patrick Buchanan, ran for president (unsuccessfully) on that agenda twice in the 1990s. TACs content in the print edition is not only engaging, but intellectually provocative, daringly willing to put ideas over ideology.

Think of The New Criterion, published out of New York, as the more stolid, artistically knowledgeable counterpart to CRB. It features many of the same writers, but its content is much heavier on the arts: not only poetry, but theater, sculpture, art exhibits, music, etc.

Nevertheless, the New Criterion always has something for everyone the monthly review by Roger Kimball and James Bowmans reflections on the media are alone worth the price of admission. So too are Kyle Smiths witty and often hilarious reviews of the theater scene in New York (lets just say theres not much in contemporary drama to recommend itself!).

I wouldnt be a very good contributing editor if I didnt put in a plug for the place where Im a contributing editor: New Oxford Review. Of all the magazines Ive mentioned, its the oldest, founded in 1977.

Although a conservative Catholic monthly, it has featured the work of a wide variety of intellectuals, writers, and even politicians, including Walker Percy, Sheldon Vanauken, Bobby Jindal, Stanley L. Jaki, Peter Kreeft, Avery Dulles, James V. Schall, John Lukacs, Robert N. Bellah, L. Brent Bozell Jr., Christopher Lasch, and Robert P. George. It has also been willing to feature diverse content with sometimes opposing viewpoints something I believe to be a sign not only of intellectual health but moral courage.

For the sake of intellectual honesty and journalistic professionalism, it is willing to take the risk of offending even its most loyal readers. Not many journals can claim to do that in 2022!

These magazines, and a few others (e.g. The Spectator, The Lamp), provide me the intellectual and spiritual stimulation and comfort to help guide me through the confusion and anger-inducing emotions of the daily battles in the digital realm. All are worth paying their very affordable subscription fees, which are all well under $100 per year.

All should be read with a hearty cup of tea or coffee, or, in the evenings, a good beer or whiskey. For those looking for a break from or perhaps a counter to the grind of our digital age, consider one of the above excellent print magazines. You wont be disappointed. Happy reading!

Casey Chalk is a senior contributor at The Federalist and an editor and columnist at The New Oxford Review. He has a bachelors in history and masters in teaching from the University of Virginia and a masters in theology from Christendom College. He is the author of The Persecuted: True Stories of Courageous Christians Living Their Faith in Muslim Lands.

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5 Print Magazines That Will Make You More Informed - The Federalist