Category Archives: Federalist

Theres a scene in 1994s Pulp Fiction in which Uma Thurman describes Fox Force Five, a pilot she appeared in, to John Travolta. In Thurmans words, the show was Fox, as in were a bunch of foxy chicks. Force, as in were a force to be reckoned with. Five, as in theres one, two, three, four, five of us. There was a blonde one, Somerset ONeal, she was the leader. The Japanese fox was a kung fu master, the black girl was a demolition expert, the French foxs specialty was sex

Why Thurman is playing Arianna Huffington instead of revisiting her fictional pilots character in the film The 355 is a question well never get an answer to, although its probably because they already had two white girls one of whom was the producer and in Fox Force Five 2022, you need three women of color.

For this, the star and producer Jessica Chastain went with Penlope Cruz, Fan Bingbing, and Lupita Nyongo. Diane Kruger plays the part of the other white girl and the second main protagonist. The antagonists, all males, are also diverse, thanks in part to the globetrotting nature of the story.

This isnt to say The 355 is about that sort of identity politics. Its not. Its about a quaint form of identity politics, one from way back in, I dont know, say 2018, a time when things were simpler and focused more on sex. Blessings of liberty, I suppose.

But identity politics isnt The 355s problem. Its a feature, because the producers, and the producer (ahem), had a chance to make a really awesome movie with a predominantly female cast, with lots of fighting and explosions, and all she/they had to do was greenlight a film with a semi-coherent plot and a plausible storyline.

On those points, she/they failed. As a man, this bothers me. This doesnt bother me from a Seinfeld perspective, but from my perspective as a father of daughters. They deserve better. It doesnt even have to be that much better.

For example, during the previews, I was treated to Michael Bays latest upcoming film, Ambulance, a totally fresh idea with no resemblance to 1994s Speed. During that short preview, I was provided with backstory, motive, and suspense.

After sitting through some two hours and four minutes of The 355, I cannot say the same. In fact, I cannot even recapture it. If you want a fairly charitable summary of what it is to watch this movie, the Critical Drinker has you covered.

When I say that his review is charitable, its because the Critical Drinker could have dunked so much harder. Theres basically zero plot, the McGuffin a high-tech doomsday device is just ridiculous, and theres almost nothing compelling about the plot. All they had to do was make it slightly compelling.

And they (she) couldnt do that. They (she) instead offered two hours and four minutes of a three-year-old telling a story. If you like all exposition and lots of jumping around with basically no backstory or purpose offered at any point, The 355 is there for you.

In a nutshell, Jason Flemyng is some sort of supervillain who, naturally, wants the doomsday device. Chastain, working for the CIA, and Kruger, working for Germanys BND, are on separate, competing missions to get the device.

They fight a lot before realizing the Colombian operative who had the device and was supposed to give it to Chastain had instead given her a dummy bag. They continue trying to shoot one another for a few minutes, then team up and go off in search of the Colombian operative together, along with Nyongo, a British agent and surveillance/tech genius.

Cruz, a psychologist with Colombias DNI, ends up with a cell phone that can track the device when one of her patients, the Colombian operative, gets double-crossed by the Colombian government and killed. Just before dying, he grabs Cruzs hand and sets the fingerprint password on his phone to hers, making her crucial to the mission. Shortly thereafter, the tracker is removed from the doomsday device as other bad guys get it and Cruz continues to be in the movie for some reason, despite desperately wanting to return to her husband and children and not having any experience with anything thats going on.

At this point, the doomsday device begins changing hands a ton, although none of these characters are identified. Flemyng, one of the few non-generic bad guys, finally gets it. Chastains former bestie, Sebastian Stan, whom she slept with just before the failed mission to retrieve it from Cruzs patient and who was killed in the process, ends up being not dead and working for Flemyng. Bingbing shows up, rescues the other four foxes, and they all team up together to get it back.

There are a lot more explosions and gunfights and fistfights, Cruz shoots Stan but doesnt kill him, and the team gets the doomsday device back and destroys it. Two months pass. Stan is now in a leadership position in the CIA, they team up again to help Chastain get revenge on him, and then wrap things up by teasing a sequel.

I have bad news for Chastain: that sequel is not going to happen. This is a shame, because I kind of pine for that quaint form of identity politics.

Do I think most women, foxes or otherwise, yearn to go out and get in gunfights and save the world? No, and I live with four women, three under the age of 18. While their fights are vicious and mean boys call each other a stupid name, slug one another in the shoulder, and get over it while girls go straight for one anothers souls none have expressed any desire to get into demolition. Well, none have expressed a desire to get into professional demolition. They are all pretty into freelance demolition inside the house.

Nevertheless, they do enjoy watching women on the screen. Weve watched WandaVision and Black Widow together. Weve watched Wonder Woman and Wonder Woman 1984, which, while terrible and not anywhere close to the previous three female-led offerings, wasnt as bad as The 355.

In short, you cant just take a stupid movie, possibly written by Philip J. Fry under a pseudonym, stick a bunch of foxes in it, and call it a success. You still have to tell a compelling story, otherwise you just end up with a less diverse iteration of The Eternals.

Our wives and daughters and female friends are not one-dimensional characters, defined solely by their sex. Theyre complex creatures with different strengths, talents, and weaknesses. And for entertainment designed to celebrate them, they deserve better than The 355 offers.

However, if youre looking to score what is likely to be virtually a private screening of a movie for under $10, then The 355 is an option. Its a solid 3.7 film thanks to its depiction of the CIA as totally corrupt. Plus, while youre there, you might see the preview for Michael Bays remake of Speed, which clocks in at 8.5.

Richard Cromwell is a senior contributor to The Federalist. Husband. Father of three rambunctious daughters. Arkansan. Fan of whiskey and whisky. Originally an English major, Rich earned a degree in music business from Belmont in 2002. By day he produces shows and events for a local museum with a focus on giving back to the community. His writing can also be found at Pocket Full of Liberty. Follow him on Twitter, @rcromwell4.

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Women Deserve Better Representation Than They Get In 'The 355' - The Federalist

In whats now being called the Great Resignation, a record number of employees have quit their jobs since the lockdowns started. Month after month since 2020, the number of people leaving jobs voluntarily has broken historical records. All told, some 36.3 million people quit in 2020. Through November of 2021, some 43.1 million Americans quit their jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Thats approximately one-quarter of working Americans.

In the inimitable words of country songsmith Johnny Paycheck, employees are saying, Take this job and shove it! Employers are left holding the bag, with some 10.6 job openings against only 6.8 million unemployed Americans looking for work.

Some of the quitters are walking out of one job into another, others are retiring, stepping back to part-time, or leaving the workforce entirely. Industries losing the most employees include leisure and hospitality, with 15.8 million quitters, and retail with 7 million leaving their ranks. In professional and business service firms, 7.5 million employees walked off the job this year.

With all this turmoil in the employment scene, record numbers of Americans are discovering what the Wall Street Journal calls their inner entrepreneur as they pursue their personal American Dream.

Many of these corporate-American quitters are joining the gig economy. More than nine million Americans are classified as self-employed unincorporated workers by the BLS, but that number vastly underestimates the total number of people doing freelance gig work.

Some 51.1 million Americans participate at some level in the gig economy, a 34 percent increase over 2020. While the majority (34.1 million) are occasional or part-time freelancers, another 17 million are full-time independents, according to MBO Partners State of Independence in America report.

Of these freelancers, about half are highly skilled knowledge professionals working in computer programming and IT, marketing, and business consulting. They are attracted not just by the flexibility of freelancing, but because they can make as much or more working for themselves. An Upwork survey found 75 percent of full-time freelancers said their earnings are on par or even higher than when they were employed. Upwork is an online freelancer-employer matchmaking service.

Further, Upwork expects the number of freelancers to increase as employers demand employees come back to the office. Some 20 percent of people working remotely during the pandemic said they planned to leave their full-time jobs for freelancing.

Emboldened by success in the gig economy, some will use it as a springboard to form their own companies and eventually hire people to work for them. A recent survey by Digital.com found that nearly one-third of people who quit their jobs post-Covid did so to start their own businesses.

On the flip side of the Great Resignation are record numbers of new businesses being formed. Some five million entrepreneurs have applied for a federal tax-identifier number in 2021, the largest number on record since the Census Bureau began tracking it. This followed a previous record set in 2020 when 4.4 million startups were registered.

To put the record-setting new business numbers in context, consider that over the last decade, an average of 2.9 million businesses were started each year from 2010 through 2019. By comparison, some 50 percent more new businesses were formed in 2020 and the number of startups grew over 70 percent above the decade average in 2021.

Only three industries out of 19 accounted for 40 percent of all startups in both 2020 and 2021. Retail made up 20 percent, making it the top industry gainer, and number two ranked professional services and third-ranked other services at 10 percent each. In 2021, more entrepreneurs stepped in to tackle the many challenges in the nations supply chain, with the number of new businesses in the transportation and warehouse services sector up nearly 40 percent over 2020.

It is reasonable to assume that all those entrepreneurs starting retail, professional services, other services, and transportation companies came out of and know those industries well enough to bring new perspectives and innovative solutions to each. Its just what the U.S. economy needs after the blow its taken from the lockdowns and the Biden administrations failed economic policies.

Writing in Harvard Business Review, Ian Cook, vice president of people analytics at Visier, reported the most significant increase in corporate resignations is among those in mid-career, between 30 and 45 years old. The number of mid-career resignations rose by 20 percent from 2020 to 2021. Workers aged 45 to 60 years also resigned at elevated levels in 2021.

Specific times in peoples lives are predictive of major career moves, like starting a company. Milestone birthdays, work anniversaries, the birth of a child, and children leaving the nest correspond to times of personal reflection that become the catalyst for major life changes.

With the lockdowns came more time to reflect on life goals and ambitions. Many have found their current careers and employers wanting. After being housebound for many months while corporate offices were closed, mid-career professionals discovered they liked the flexibility of working from home on their own schedules. They could accomplish more in less time without all the office distractions.

Any number of reasons explain why people quit their jobs to go solo or form companies, but a few stand out. The first is the control and autonomy that comes with being your own boss. Being in control of ones work and time is a compelling motivation to pursue an entrepreneurial journey. While an entrepreneur still has people to answer to, whether clients, customers, or investors, self-employment is a way to get out from under a boss thumb and do your thing.

The second is the ability to pursue a job with meaning and purpose. Meaning is deeply personal and inwardly focused. Research has shown the meaning behind the work is more motivating than any other aspect of work, including pay and rewards, opportunities for promotion, or working conditions.

Purpose is how ones personal meaning is expressed outward into society, or how ones job is making a difference in the world. A McKinsey study found that the uncertainties caused by the pandemic response have turned peoples attention toward more purposeful work. Those who find it are better for it, with those who say they are living their purpose at work reporting five-time greater levels of well-being compared with those who are not.

The third reason Americans are risking it all on their own is to create more wealth. Achieving greater financial means and the social status that goes with it is another motivator to start a business, although it is probably the weakest reason to do so.

The statistics dont favor startup businesses. More than 20 percent of startups dont make it into their second year, yet few people get wealthy working for someone else. And if one builds a successful business, the business itself becomes a valuable asset.

As the new year dawns, the resignation trends weve seen throughout 2020 and 2021 can be expected to continue, and even accelerate if Bidens vaccine mandates go through. Many Americans also find themselves at cross purposes with the woke agenda of much of corporate America. Their consciences wont allow them to support businesses that promote causes they cant, so theyll take their chances going out on their own.

Since its founding, even before, the United States of America has been a country of dreamers, people driven to escape the tyranny of kings and rigid hierarchical social structures to forge a better life free of those constraints. Its the dictionary definition of the American Dream: The ideal that every citizen of the United States should have an equal opportunity to achieve success and prosperity through hard work, determination, and initiative.

If entrepreneurship is the foundation of Americas economic success, then America is headed for even greater greatness in the years ahead as growing legions of enterprising entrepreneurs turn their talents, energy, and experience to new businesses. The American Dream is alive and well in America in 2022.

Pamela Danziger is a market researcher specializing in the study of consumer behavior and motivation. Author of ten books, she shares insights as a senior contributor on Forbes.com. And as a Christian, she is co-founder of Faith Underground. She holds an M.L.S. from University of Maryland and B.A. in English Literature from Penn State.

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A Record Number Are Quitting Their Jobs And Starting Businesses - The Federalist

CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin took a break from punishing his colleagues by toggling his joystick at work on a Zoom call to opine on who he thinks President Joe Biden might nominate to the Supreme Court in the event Associate Justice Stephen Breyer steps down at the end of the term.

The media and other Democrat Party activists are re-upping the campaign they ran last Supreme Court term to bully Breyer into retiring. Because the Democrat Partys policy failures at home and abroad have become so disastrous that not even the corrupt corporate media can cover them up anymore, the Republican Party has a chance to re-take control not just of the U.S. House, but also the U.S. Senate, which handles all presidential judicial nominations. As a result, getting Breyer to retire so Biden and Senate Democrats can select Breyers replacement has become something of an existential necessity for the left.

Toobin offers the conventional wisdom with his first two suggestions. Jackson and Kruger are both established judicial activists so political that radical group Demand Justice has them on their list of suggested Supreme Court nominees.

But Toobins longshot suggestion is silly.

Harris is simply not a serious pick. Remember that anyone Biden nominates would have to get through the Senate. Currently the Senate is tied with 50 Democrats and 50 Republicans. Harris, as the president of the Senate, is tasked with breaking tie votes.

Its not entirely clear Harris would even be allowed to vote for her own nomination. But if she were allowed to do so, and she voted to confirm herself to the Supreme Court, that would leave a vacancy in the vice presidency, meaning the Democrats would no longer have a Senate majority since there would be no Democrat vice president to break a tie. The 25th Amendment holds that presidents may nominate a replacement in the event the vice presidency is vacated, one who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress.

Would putting Harris on the Court be worth losing the Senate and having no leverage in who becomes vice president?

Thats where the argument gets really silly. If it wasnt obvious to everyone before 2020, it is certainly difficult to hide now that Harris is not the most incandescent bulb in the intellectual chandelier. Her performance in the Kavanaugh trial, er, confirmation, did receive the accolades of sycophantic media fans, but was completely unbecoming. In one memorable scene, she attempted to lay a perjury trap against Kavanaugh relating to whether he had ever had a conversation on the Democrats Russia collusion hoax with anyone at one particular large law firm. He successfully avoided the trap, but it would not have been allowed in a court of law.

In her public appearances, Harris reminds observers of a completely unprepared high school student asked to answer a question. One recent interview included the following memorable line.

One media outlet mocked her comments in a rip-off of Saturday Night Lives Deep Thoughts with Jack Handey.

And thats the real reason Harris wont be nominated. She simply isnt up for the job. In 1970, President Richard Nixon nominated G. Harrold Carswell of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in Florida for the seat left vacant by Abe Fortas resignation. Carswells Democrat opponents tried to castigate him as unqualified.

Conservative Sen. Roman Hruska of Nebraska replied, Even if he were mediocre, there are a lot of mediocre judges and people and lawyers. They are entitled to a little representation, arent they, and a little chance?

Even if its true that mediocrities deserve representation, some might argue that they got it when Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor was confirmed to the Court under Obama. The New Republics legal affairs editor brutally questioned her capabilities ahead of Obamas nomination of her in a blistering 2009 piece The Case Against Sotomayor:

They expressed questions about her temperament, her judicial craftsmanship, and most of all, her ability to provide an intellectual counterweight to the conservative justices, as well as a clear liberal alternative.

The most consistent concern was that Sotomayor, although an able lawyer, was not that smart and kind of a bully on the bench, as one former Second Circuit clerk for another judge put it. She has an inflated opinion of herself, and is domineering during oral arguments, but her questions arent penetrating and dont get to the heart of the issue. (During one argument, an elderly judicial colleague is said to have leaned over and said, Will you please stop talking and let them talk?)

Rosen went on to say her opinions were not especially clean or tight, and sometimes miss the forest for the trees and Some former clerks and prosecutors expressed concerns about her command of technical legal details. That the criticisms came from the political left were indicative of concerns the liberal judicial movement had about whether she would be able to move the Supreme Court in the direction they preferred. Harris would likely only compound the problem.

Fortas, incidentally, resigned after he was unable to survive multiple conflict of interest scandals. President Lyndon B. Johnson had gotten Chief Justice Earl Warren to step down, to be replaced by Fortas. But the Senate blocked the elevation of the associate justice to chief. Nixon won the presidency, during which Fortas resigned from his associate justice seat. Nixon nominated Clement Haynsworth, who was not confirmed. The allegedly mediocre Carswell also was not confirmed. In the end, Nixon nominated Harry Blackmun. Blackmun was succeeded by Stephen Breyer.

There would be something humorous about the seat once denied to Carswell on the grounds he was mediocre going to Harris after all.

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No, Jeffrey Toobin, Biden Is Not Putting Harris On The Supreme Court - The Federalist

Well before the Supreme Court struck down the Biden administrations authoritarian Occupational Safety and Health Administration vaccine mandate, I quit my professionally and financially rewarding c-suite position after my company issued this coercive edict to its U.S. employees. I am vaccinated against Covid-19, so theorder would not affect my employment, but I toldthe company that if I, as a top executive, were expected to cheerlead for such an immoral and anti-science imposition of brute economic force by the powerful upon the weak, I would have to resign.

I tendered my resignation from the pharma company Insmed Incorporated, headquarteredin Bridgewater, New Jersey. It was accepted. In so doing, I forfeited what could amount to millions of dollars over the coming years.

That said, my decision was easy. I can comfortably afford to be unemployed. Other colleagues at Insmed I spoke to are not so fortunate. Some would even have to sell their homes. The economically weak are hurt by these mandates imposed by the economically strong.

The edict waswholly optionalon the companys part, as it was issuedbeforethe federal government announced its OSHA mandate. Thus, even though the mandate is now history, the edict still stands. And my company went even further than the government.

Under the OSHA rule, employees had the option to get tested regularly instead of vaccinated. There is no such option in Insmeds fiat. Barring an exemption, the choice is to get vaxxed or get fired, with no testing alternative.

Nor is there any consideration of natural immunity, which compelling data from Israel and elsewhere suggest provides superior protection. When asked about natural immunity at a Town Hall meeting, the company said, inresponse to an employee question and without supportingdata, that even those who have had the virus should be vaxxed. This is from a company that claims to follow the science.

The stated rationale for the mandate? To keep our employees and customers safe. However, we know with certitude despite what certain Supreme Court justices heard on CNN that both the vaxxed and unvaxxed can acquire and transmit the virus. How then, does sending a vaxxed but infected sales representative to visit a customer keep everyone safe, but sending out an unvaxxed yet virus-free sales rep does not? It belies both scientific and common sense.

Even more egregious is the fact that the get vaxxed or get fired order applied only to U.S. employees. Local laws prohibit such mandates on the companys employees in Europe and Japan.

In Japan, the company may not even inquire as to a colleagues vaccination status. So U.S. employees are targeted while non-U.S. employees are protected. Thus is created a Covid caste system, under which those in the lower caste, American employees, enjoy fewer rights.

The attitudes and views of my fellowexecutives towards the unvaxxed were patronizing and factually erroneous. They took the pronouncements of Anthony Fauci and the Centers for Disease Control as the Gospel Truth, and anyone who dissented was derided as a science denier.

Before the vax mandate was issued, the company polled employees about their opinions. I was present when severalof my colleagues mocked the responses of their fellow employees who expressed reservations about vaccines and mandates. They howled withderision when reading the response of one employee who cited the Nuremberg Principles prohibiting drug experimentation on non-consenting subjects. Even though I thought the response was a bit over the top, the sneering condescension irked me.

Otherexecutives bubbled with anticipatory glee about the coming prospect of getting their kids under 12 vaccinated. When I asked them if they knew the data concerning Covid risks to this age group, one retorted: You sound like an anti-vaxxer! In a private moment, away from the others, one of the executives, an M.D., quietlyconceded that the risk to kids was very low.

After Insmed publicly announced I resigned because of the vax mandate, numerous employees contacted me. Some had health reservations; others objected on religious grounds. Still, others objected simply on personal autonomy grounds.

All expressed profound anxiety over how they would support their families if they were fired. They told me how much they admired me for taking a principled stand. I was deeply embarrassed by this,as I could easily afford to stick by my principles. They could not. They were the brave ones, not me.

Even before the Supreme Courts decision, I learned that Insmed had, at least temporarily, granted all requested mandate exemptions. Although the edict is still in force and can be invoked at any time, no one has yet been fired based upon their vax status. That is great news, as the company has thus recognized that the health and safety of its employees and other stakeholders can be protected through less coercive and draconian means than mass firings.

Perhaps the seeming omnipresence of omicron among the vaxxed moved the needle on the mandate. Perhaps my resignation led to introspection about its nonsensical nature. And now that the Supreme Court has ruled, maybe the exemptions will be permanent; or better yet, the mandate will be reversed.

It is lamentable, though, that my former employer reached this rather obvious conclusion only after its get vaxxed or get fired edict, absent any government requirement whatsoever, caused the roiling anguish and distress that former colleagues shared with me. What a shame.

Mr. Soriano, a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School, started his professional life at New York's Simpson Thacher & Bartlett before working in law and compliance in Corporate America, most recently as Chief Compliance Officer at Celgene Corporation and Insmed Incorporated, both pharmaceutical companies. Follow him on Twitter and GETTR @sorianojohnd.

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I'm A Triple-Vaccinated Executive Who Quit Over A Vaccine Mandate - The Federalist

The FBI paid tribute to civil rights icon Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on Monday to commemorate the federal holiday honoring the assassinated leaders birthday.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, Lifes most persistent and urgent question is, What are you doing for others? the bureau wrote in a Twitter post. This [MLK Day], and every day, the #FBI remains dedicated to service and committed to protecting our communities.

Except the agency wasnt dedicated to protecting MLK. In fact, the peaceful pioneer of 20th-century civil rights was targeted by the law enforcement agency as a domestic enemy. The FBI once told King in a letter to kill himself.

King, the FBI wrote in a memo highlighted by a new documentary out last fall, was the most dangerous Negro in America, and warranted the use [of] every resource at our disposal to destroy him after Kings 1963 I Have a Dream speech.

Two months later, then-Attorney General Robert Kennedy authorized wiretaps of MLKs Atlanta residence and Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) offices under the pretense of investigating ties to communism. In whats become typical of agency probes, however, the bureau went on to expand its surveillance operation by tapping hotel rooms King visited. Collecting blackmail information on Kings extramarital affairs, the goal was to ruin his reputation and stifle the movement.

As Kings rise continued to bring change to a segregated country, criticism of the FBI came with it. The SCLC president condemned the law enforcement agency for its apathy toward civil rights abuses, angering the bureaus leaders who were eager to bring him down.

After then-FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover called King the most notorious liar in the country, during a 1964 press conference over Kings criticism, the agency sent a letter to King with tape recordings of the civil rights leaders promiscuity in a D.C. hotel. The letter said that with a 34-day deadline before your filthy, abnormal fraudulent self is bared to the nation, King ought to kill himself to save from embarrassment.

The FBI investigated King up until his assassination in 1968, with the suicide letter not coming to light until nearly 10 years later when it was revealed by the Senate Church Committee. When brought to light from former FBI domestic intelligence chief William Sullivans files, Sullivan evaded responsibility and blamed Hoover.

When the agency was sued for its King surveillance saga in 1977, a federal judge blocked records requests and ordered that relevant documents be sent to the National Archives where they remain under seal until 2027.

The story of the FBI being weaponized to routinely investigate political opponents with virtually no accountability is continuing to replay itself decades later.

After agency operatives orchestrated a years-long witch hunt to undermine former President Donald Trump as a puppet of Russia, the FBI is now being used to target political dissidents to the Biden regime.

On Tuesday, FBI officials revealed to Senate lawmakers that the bureau is creating a new Domestic Terror Unit, inspired by the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6 last year. The same officials in the same hearing repeatedly refused to disclose how many agency informants were involved in the violence hysterically branded by Democrats as an insurrection. Agency officials also refused to offer details on its military-style raids conducted on Jan. 6 defendants.

Meanwhile, officials have colluded with the House Democrats Select Committee on Jan. 6 to bar genuine oversight of the executive agency or probe security failures amid the Capitol unrest.

Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com.

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This MLK Day, Remember How The FBI Targeted Him - The Federalist

The Federalist staff joined Ben Domenech on Fox Newss The Ben Domenech Podcast to share their predictions for the year 2022.

Republicans will have an extremely good November, they will have a massive takeover of the House of Representatives, and theyre on pretty good footing in the Senate as well, Senior Editor Mollie Hemingway said. The failure of Democratic uni-party control of D.C. is so profound and so undeniable that Republicans will benefit mightily.

I think the Supreme Court will have a very interesting term and something that pro-life activists and other human rights activists have cared about for a very long time, which is moving away from the Roe v. Wade jurisprudence that the Supreme Court put the country into in 1973. I think that will finally go away in June when they rule on the Dobbs case, Hemingway continued.

Finally, she predicted that Hunter Biden will get off without any prosecution from the feds, even though hes being investigated right now for some of the crimes involved with the Biden family business. And I predict this is also a pretty safe prediction that nothing will be done about it.

One thing I am very sure of is Big Tech will continue to censor The Federalist, our writers, and other conservative outlets with a vengeance, Staff Writer Jordan Boyd predicted. Hopefully, we wont get deplatformed. But I wont be surprised if that happens.

I do predict that SCOTUS will rule in favor of pro-lifers in handing the life issue back to states, she added. It may be a narrow ruling, but I do believe that Dobbs v. Jackson will pull out some victories for the pro-life community, thats definitely going to be something that everyones paying attention to when that decision comes down and could have a momentous effect on our politics.

I really do think that people are starting to get sick of kind of the what another horrible year blues. And I think thats going to show in 2022, Assistant Editor Elle Reynolds said. Thats not to discount how bad the Biden administration has made things, from inflation to Afghanistan to the border crisis. But Ive also spoken to people in person, noting that they had a good year, personally. And so I hope people will stop kind of automatically victimizing their year, based on the medias doom and gloom.

After the debacle that took place in Loudoun County public schools in 2021, Reynolds said, I really think that the whistleblowing and the revelations about the radicalization of public schools are going to prompt more people to pay attention. I think thats going to create more opportunities for things to come out about what school boards are doing.

One of the things I think well see a lot more pushback with is transgender athletes competing against female athletes, predicted Features Editor Eleanor Bartow. The left is just denying science. And it cant go on much longer like this. Its simply unfair to women. Liberals are supposed to be the ones that believe in womens rights. And its just such a dichotomy. It makes no sense.

Another expectation thats almost too predictable, Bartow said, is that Democrats will continue to just drag on the January 6, select committee investigations, theyll bring that up to the midterms.

One thing that we can just expect to continue is Biden misspeaking, she added. And lastly, one thing that I do hope well see is that as COVID drags on and on and more people have their own experience with it theyll know what the real risks are more than what theyre hearing from the biased media and scaremongering politicians.

Madeline Osburn, The Federalists Texas-based Managing Editor, predicted that Beto ORourke, whos running against the [Texas governor] incumbent, Greg Abbott, is going to say or do something really, really stupid. Hes just notorious for sticking his foot in his mouth. So I think youll probably see him do that several times this year and the media will continue to just kind of laugh it off.

Californians are going to continue to show up and buy all our houses with wads of cash, she added. Further, this is going to be another interesting year for the king and queen of Texas, Chip and Joanna Gaines. I think theyre going to continue to ascend in their power and fame. And so I think with that fame and power and money, there will probably be another cancellation attempt this year.

My first prediction is about the NFL. I would love to predict a Packers Super Bowl win. But Ive been a Green Bay fan long enough to know that they almost always choke and let me down in a big way, Assistant Editor Kylee Zempel said. So Im hoping that a prediction against them might result in them actually winning. Im predicting a full Tom Brady sweep. So Im predicting a Bucs win. And that Brady will be MVP after the Rogers vax dust-up.

Additionally, Zempel predicted another Bachelor controversy coming down the pike.

Finally, my only other prediction is just that Sean Davis is going to get banned from Twitter, because all my favorite accounts get banned from Twitter. And hes at the top of the list.

Well probably get a new variant at some point this year. But no one will care by then, said Senior Editor John Davidson. And theyll go on with their lives as normal, except for a handful of blue checks on Twitter that will still try to keep milking the COVID hysteria, you know, the gravy train. And along with that, we may get a fourth or fifth booster in the course of 2022. But no one will take it.

Additionally, Davidson predicted, theres going to be some kind of a foreign policy crisis. It could have to do with Russia and Ukraine, it could have to do with China and Taiwan. Something will happen and the Biden administration will very badly bungle it and they will turn what is a challenge or a problem in the foreign policy sphere into a crisis or a full-blown catastrophe.

My last one is a pop culture prediction and the one I care the most about by far, and that has to do with Amazons Middle Earth Lord of the Rings series that premieres in September, and my prediction is that its going to suck, Davidson said. How does he know? Theres only one image theyve released for the series, but theres a glaring problem with it. In the distance, there are two glowing trees. Presumably these are the trees Telperion and Laurelin, which are the two trees of Valinor. The problem is, this is supposed to be set in the second age. The trees of the Valinor were destroyed in the first age, okay?

I think were going to see new levels of censorship this year come from Twitter and Facebook, predicted Western Correspondent Tristan Justice. I also think its going to be a bad season for wildfires again. It seems like every year we have this routine coverage of mega wildfires ripping across the American West but the real culprit of these wildfires is really bad land management and we really havent made much progress on that front.

I also think when it comes to COVID were going to see enhanced federalism, Justice added. I think blue parts of the country are going to remain locked down and cling to their pandemic measures.

Finally, I think its going to be another big year for space, Justice concluded. I think were going to get some of the first pictures that come back this summer from the James Webb telescope, and then China is going to finish its space station, and then the Dart mission is set to explode in September and were gonna find out if we can survive in armageddon.

My prediction is that [the Beijing Olympics] are not going to go as well as the CCP might think that its going to go, Culture Editor Emily Jashinsky said. You will see more and more mainstream voices being very very critical of the Chinese Communist Party over the course of the Olympics, of their human rights records and I think thats actually going to amp up the pressure on corporate America to be way more wary of their entanglements with China than they already are.

I do think some of this is going to make Hollywood sort of memory-hole its relationship with China, she added. Theyre not making the money they expected to from China, and I think that in combination with the clear publicity problems is going to make them suddenly act as though they are deeply outraged about the human rights abuses in China more and more.

Jashinsky also predicted Hollywood will have a deceptively good year at the box office, though I dont think thatll mean much in the long term.

Republicans and Democrats are really going to be called out in some of the things that theyve both been promising, Senior Editor Chris Bedford said. One of the big things I expect is this to be a thousand-papercut year for Big Tech. The American people have largely given up on them. The right and the left have completely different ideas about what exactly theyre going to do with that but both know that something ought to be done.

Additionally, Bedford guessed, theres going to be a big push to get rid of Kamala Harris and to start to replace her by Democrats, which is going to be difficult because shes not going to put the interests of the party before herself, shes not just going to leave office since shes been elected. And I think the Democrats are going to be unable to accomplish anything and were going to see some real infighting.

In November, were going to see a real swath of new Republicans coming into office on Capitol Hill and across the country, but I think one of the things that people underestimate about whats going on within this whole development is that, as we saw during the rise of the Tea Party, youre going to end up with a lot of people winning who really come out of nowhere, Publisher Ben Domenech predicted. And with that, they bring with them a lot of passion for what they do, but also not necessarily a willingness to go along with the way that things have gone in the past.

This is going to be a year where we see really a test of the plethora of new streaming services that are out there, Domenech added. People are going to drop off from these streaming services and I think youre going to see more bundling, more combinations, and more of an effort on their part to really create something that changes the conversation.

Finally, Domenech emphasized the likelihood of having a major international event that pulls in the United States and our allies in a really negative way. I think that weve gone on too long without something like this happening and with such tension building in places around the world, it seems inevitable to me that 2022 is going to contain a foreign policy crisis that is going to test the Biden administrations approach and also lead to potentially our allies getting involved in a way that America may not be the leading name in the midst.

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The Federalist Staff Present: An Hour Of 2022 Predictions - The Federalist

The Office of Special Counsel (OSC) exonerated National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Director Dr. Anthony Fauci earlier this month in a close call case of a Hatch Act violation.

In June, the government transparency non-profit Protect the Publics Trust filed a complaint against Fauci over an October 2020 interview with the Washington Post. Published days before the election, the White House medical adviser branded then-candidate Joe Biden as taking the novel Wuhan coronavirus more seriously.

In the article,headlinedA whole lot of hurt: Fauci warns of COVID-19 surge, offers blunt assessment of Trumps response, Fauci told the Post, you could not possibly be positioned more poorly to confront the pandemic and emphasized the United States needed an abrupt change.

When asked about the differences between the two major presidential candidates on their pandemic plans, Fauci said Biden is taking it seriously from a public health perspective, but that incumbent President Donald Trump was looking at it from a different perspective.

Right now, the public health aspect of the task force has diminished greatly, Fauci told the Post with Trump still in office.

The Hatch Act, passed in 1939, explicitly bars a federal employee from us[ing] his official authority or influence for the purpose of interfering with or affecting the result of an election. Fauci, the complaint said, exceeded the mere exchange of opinions and in fact, participated in impermissible political activity.

Despite personally categorizing similar statements as political just days before, the group filing the complaint wrote, Dr. Fauci nevertheless offered his evaluation of the Biden campaigns approach to the COVID-19 pandemic relative to the approach taken by President Trump and connected differences in the nations likely health outcomes to the different approaches.

In a letter dated Jan. 3, the Office of Special Counsel issued its ruling on the groups complaint.

OSC generally advises employees that it is best not to discuss candidates for partisan political office when speaking in their official capacity, Deputy Chief of the Hatch Act Unit Erica Hamrick wrote. But, she added, public testimony must still show that the employee engaged in political activity to establish a Hatch Act violation.

Here, while a close call, Dr. Faucis comments, without more, do not appear to be directed at the electoral success or failure of either candidate, Hamrick ruled. The timing of the interview coincided with the upcoming winter season and Dr. Faucis assessment of the viruss impact leading into that season.

The Washington Post, Hamrick concluded, may have written it from a particular perspective and tried to use Dr. Faucis words to make a political point, but wrote OSC cannot impute the authors intent.

Michael Chamberlain, the director of Protect the Publics Trust, said the group respect[s] OSCs determination.

Unfortunately, as the Office of Special Counsel noted, Dr. Fauci disregarded its best practices around the Hatch Act and enabled his official position to be used to make a political point even if his motives were unclear, Chamberlain said in a press release.

Since the pandemics inception, Fauci, the highest-paid employee across the federal government, has leveraged his White House role as a political animal to undercut the Trump administration and forge a media-manufactured consensus to prolong lockdowns.

In December, new emails surfaced that exposed Fauci colluding with National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins to discredit alternate approaches to approach the pandemic to lockdowns.

Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com.

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Did Fauci Interfere In The Election? Special Counsel Says It's A 'Close Call' - The Federalist

In late July, Chinas Peoples Liberation Army tested a nuclear-capable hypersonic missile. According to reports from the Financial Times, U.S. officials were surprised by the maturity of the Chinese technology.As one source put it: We have no idea how they did this.

Yet we do have an idea how they did this, because we know that American technology was used at a Chinese hypersonic test facility that models the heat and drag on hypersonic missiles. The sobering implication: U.S. technology directly contributed to Chinas new military capability to strike the American homeland with nuclear and conventional weapons.

While this example is particularly egregious, there is nothing new about American technology and capital directly supporting the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its malign behavior. Through its military-civil fusion strategy, the CCP seeks to eliminate all barriers between its civilian and commercial sectors and its military and defense apparatus. This means there is no purely civilian industry in China any commercial research or investments can be co-opted at any point by the Party to serve its objectives.

In recent years, Washington has taken bipartisan steps to defend against technology transfer to China, such as giving the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States enhanced authority and restricting the ability of U.S. companies to export certain technologies to Chinese companies such as Huawei. Yet there is still very little oversight of outbound U.S. investment in China. As a result, U.S. policy is filled with self-defeating contradictions such as billions of dollars in federal incentives for domestic semiconductor production while American capital continues to fund Chinas growing semiconductor industry.

Despite the growing bipartisan consensus on the need for selective technological and financial decoupling from the CCP and despite dealing with a pandemic from Wuhan that exposed our dangerous dependency on China Wall Street cannot seem to get enough of the Chinese market.

In 2021, JP Morgan Chase became the first international firm to take full control of a securities business in China, after years of negotiating with Beijing. The CCPs leverage over the firm recently led CEO Jamie Dimon to apologize after joking that the firm would outlast the Communist Party. BlackRock, the largest asset manager in the world, has recommended tripling investments in China and recently became the first foreign-owned company allowed to set up a wholly owned mutual fund business in China.

Bridgewater, the worlds largest hedge fund, launched a fund in China in 2018 and raised $140 million for a second fund in 2020. Apple CEO Tim Cook revealed more than he intended about corporate Americas mentality when he recently began parroting IBMs 1930s justification for doing business with Nazi Germany: world peace through world trade.

Such financial institutions manage trillions worth of assets on behalf of American universities, pensions, and others that have been at the forefront of so-called ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) investing. The ESG movement encourages investors to consider factors such as climate and social impact alongside the financial bottom-line of potential investments.

Take the University of Californias nearly $18 billion endowment, roughly half of which is invested in funds that exclude tobacco and fossil fuel companies. Yet those same funds, which attempt to signal the universitys virtuous priorities, invest in Chinese companies like Hikvision, which the U.S. government has sanctioned as a Chinese military-industrial complex company and restricted due to its role in the ongoing genocide in Xinjiang.

Or consider the University of Virginia (U.Va.), where President Jim Ryan wrote in a preface to the schools sustainability plan: The University of Virginia is committed to making the world a better place As a community, we want to live our values consistently. Key among those values is being a good neighbor, locally in our community, and also on a global scale. We should always consider our collective impact on our community and the world.

The U.Va. endowment is housed within a series of investments it calls the Long Term Pool, which totals about $14.5 billion. Three-quarters of the Long Term Pool is benchmarked against the MSCI All Country World Index, which includes malign Chinese entities like Hikvision and telecom giants ZTE and China Mobile. The Uyghurs detained in Xinjiang concentration camps monitored by Hikvision surveillance technology probably wouldnt consider U.Va. a good neighbor.

Likewise, the University of Michigan recently announced a strategy under which it will cease investing in funds focused on fossil fuels and discontinue investments in publicly traded companies that help drive greenhouse gas emissions. Yet as former Reagan official Roger Robinson has outlined, one-third of Michigans venture capital investments, which comprise roughly 15 percent of its $12 billion in assets, are Chinese. Given that Chinese firms contribute more to greenhouse gas emissions than the companies of any other nation on earth, it remains to be seen whether Michigan will hold Chinese polluters accountable or solely single-out western firms.

Some schools are starting to do the right thing. After Catholic Universitys student government passed a unanimous resolution calling for the university to shed any Xinjiang-related investments it had, Catholic commissioned an independent audit of its endowment to eliminate any exposure to mass internment, forced labor, mass surveillance, and other crimes against Uyghurs.

Likewise, in 2018, the University of Texas/Texas A&M Investment Company updated its compliance procedures to strengthen oversight and accountability relating to investments in companies on U.S. government blacklists. Just recently, Wisconsin state Sen. Roger Roth introduced legislation to prohibit the University of Wisconsin system from investing its trust funds in companies owned or controlled by the Chinese government. These examples demonstrate that a better path is possible, but university leadership needs to get on board.

Blatant hypocrisy is only part of the problem with American universities and investment firms that lecture Americans about ESG but continue to chase profits in China. The real problem runs deeper to something that lawmakers can fix.

Almost every major American research university enjoys preferential tax status as a federally recognized non-profit and receives federal funding. Until recently, universities paid no tax at all on endowment income. Even now they enjoy preferential treatment compared with other types of investment income. The federal government effectively subsidizes these universities because of the national benefits they purportedly provide. By extension, American taxpayers are unwittingly subsidizing the CCPs ongoing malign efforts around the world.

This needs to stop. This is why I am crafting legislation to force American university endowments to either divest from China or give up the benefits they receive from the American taxpayer. This provision would also apply to any pension funds that receive tax breaks from the federal government, so that the retirement security of tens of millions of Americans totaling more than $10 trillion is not tied to the success of Americas greatest enemy.

It is time to choose. Are American universities committed to their professed values, or are they willing to profit from the CCPs ongoing efforts to commit genocide, destroy the environment, and build weapons designed to kill Americans in a future war? The choice should be clear.

Congressman Mike Gallagher proudly represents the 8th District of Wisconsin.

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How To Defund The Chinese Communist Party - The Federalist

Back in September I got Covid, and got it bad. For two weeks I was too sick to work or do much of anything except sit on the couch or lie down in bed. The initial (and very intense) flu-like symptoms turned into a bad cough, which slowly faded into persistent fatigue and what many have described as a kind of Covid brain fog. It was nearly a month before I had recovered enough to work out and resume a normal schedule.

For all that, though, I was relieved. Having contracted Covid and recovered from what was by no means a mild case, I knew that my natural immunityconferred longer lasting and stronger protection against future infection and illnessthan the immunity I could get from any of the Covid vaccines.

But I was also relieved because it irrevocably settled a question for me: No matter what else happens in this pandemic, Im never going to get a Covid vaccine. Ever. Im one of the unvaccinated, and Im going to stay that way.

A lot of people, upon hearing this, wont want to listen to anything else I have to say. Theyll conclude Im a crank and a conspiracy theorist or just a blithering idiot. The unvaccinated, for too many Americans, are nothing more than selfish rabble whose continued intransigence is, at best, needlessly putting the vulnerable at risk and, at worst, outright killing people.

If anyone is to blame for the terrible toll of Covid, their thinking goes, its people like me, who are perpetuating what President Biden hasrepeatedly calleda pandemic of the unvaccinated. Were so awful, according to Los Angeles Times columnist Michael Hiltzik, that although it might be ghoulish to mock us if we die of Covid, its necessary. After all,were just getting what we deserve.

Yet at least 40 percent of the country remains unvaccinated. You cant just write off 130 million Americans as conspiracy theory-addled rubes, or decide its okay to dance on their graves if they die of Covid. Thats a recipe for a poisoned public discourse, and its fundamentally un-American.

Besides, one thing the omicron variant has made clear is that were going to have to learn to live with Covid, at least for a while. So its time for the vaccinated to try to understand the motivations of the unvaccinated, and learn to live with them, too, instead of incessantly scapegoating and demonizing them.

Like millions of other Americans, I chose not to get a Covid vaccine for a variety of reasons. Before I caught Covid, I knew that my age, fitness level, and medical history all put me in a very low-risk category for severe illness or hospitalization.

I also knew that, because the Covid vaccines have only been around for about a year, we dont have any data on their long-term effects but we do know about some of the risks they pose,especially to young people. In short, I concluded that the unknown risks of taking the vaccine were, in my case, greater than the known risks of catching Covid. That risk-benefit analysis will be different for everyone, but everyone needs to do it and come to his or her own decision.

Another factor for me was the contradictory and ever-shifting messaging about masks and lockdowns throughout 2020 that led me to question the honesty and competence of our public health experts and the pharmaceutical industrial complex. When the vaccines came out, the credibility of our experts was already in serious jeopardy. Things have since gotten much worse.

After I recovered from Covid, I was even more confident in my decision not to get a vaccine. Like the vast majority of healthy Americans who survive Covid, I gained natural antibodies that conferred a level of protection from future infection I otherwise couldnt get, not even with two doses of the vaccine and a booster shot.

Here, too, the experts unwillingness to discuss or even acknowledge the existence of natural immunity made me deeply suspicious. Some 60 million Americans have now contracted Covid. Fewer than a million have died from it. That means, at a minimum, tens of millions of Americans have some level of natural immunity. Why isnt that part of the conversation? Why doesnt that seem to factor into any policy decisions, especially drastic ones that affect peoples livelihoods, like employer vaccine mandates?

Now we have the omicron variant, and everything weve learned about it thus far has confirmed my decision, along with tens of millions of other Americans, not to get vaccinated. It turns out Covid vaccines are not very effective against omicron, and whatever protection they do offerseems to drop sharply as vaccine-generated antibodies wane. Case numbers worldwide right now are at record levels, despite mass vaccination efforts across the globe and ever-increasing numbers of the vaccinated.

Indeed, omicron is now tearing through countries that have vaccination rates of 90 percent or more. The data so far suggest the best protection against omicron isnt vaccination at all, but natural immunity from a previous infection.

One studyin Qatar found that previous infection offered about 90 percent protection from symptomatic reinfection by earlier strains of Covid, and about 60 percent protection against reinfection from omicron. Thats far higher than the 37 percent effectiveness against omicron from two doses of an mRNA vaccine and a booster shot, according toa separate study in Ontario.

I hesitate, though, even to cite studies to support my argument, because in online Covid-world anyone can dig up counterfactual data or some other study (however shoddy or underpowered) to dispute any assertion about vaccine efficacy. As Cory Zue wrote ina long blog post last week, one of the problems with our Covid discourse right now is that science and data about the vaccines are being used to affirm our previously-held beliefs, rather than help us see truth.

And the truth is, every one of us has to make our own decision about the Covid vaccine, about whats right for us and our families, assessing the risks and rewards for ourselves.

But whatever one believes about the vaccine, its getting hard now to maintain the position that the way out of the pandemic is through mass vaccination. In fact, mass vaccination might even prolong the pandemic, depending on how future variants react to fully-vaxxed immune systems that have had multiple booster shots in a relatively short timeframe.

If you want to get a vaccine and multiple booster shots, go ahead. Thats your decision. But Ill never do it, especially now that Ive had Covid. There are tens of millions of Americans like me, and were never going to change our minds. Thats something the rest of the country, at this point, is just going to have to accept.

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

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I'm Never Getting A Covid Vaccine, And I'm Not Alone - The Federalist

The woke-o-meter in public schools is about to ramp up. Parents who think they dont have time to homeschool may soon realize that, compared to the effort involved in monitoring and countering the nonsense from leftist classrooms, homeschooling is the relaxing alternative.

Not all teachers buy into the leftist narrative of race-obsessed anti-Americanism. But leftist K-12 administrators want to ensure that, eventually, all teachers will present only approved ideas and counter any wrongthink children are taught at home. Many of these educrats are now embracing a technological fix.

Trade publication Education Week recently reported that about 500 school districts around the country are rating teacher applicants according to their cultural competency, another code for wokeness. Many of these districts are contracting with a teacher-hiring company called Nimble, which uses artificial intelligence to examine applications and interview answers to determine which candidates harbor the correct political and cultural attitudes.

A central concern of Nimble and its leftist clients is mindsets about race. The goal is to hire only teachers who are anti-racist activists, who will reject equal treatment of all students in favor of discrimination against some (whites) for the supposed benefit of others (racial minorities). Note that under this rubric, Asian students, who as a group work hard and consequently excel, dont qualify as an oppressed racial minority.

Now that weve become a little more aware of the concept of anti-racism and maybe a little more woke as a culture, I do think that districts have started to emphasize these questions a little bit more, Nimble CEO Lauren Dachille told EdWeek. They might be more common, they might be more explicit.

Anti-racism as a motivating societal force was popularized by Ibram X. Kendi, who along with other savvy race grifters is profiting handsomely from the concept. Getting points for honesty if not integrity, Kendi teaches that discrimination against white people is a positive good, and indeed necessary to establish the equity of equal outcomes for all regardless of intelligence or effort. This is what is meant by anti-racism: If discrimination is creating equity, then it is antiracist.

What types of discrimination do Kendi and his disciples approve? Examples abound. White students may be shamed in classroom privilege walks or privilege deconstruction sessions. Black or Hispanic students may be held to lower standards of behavior. Programs for gifted students may be abolished.

Note the racism inherent in anti-racism. Anti-racists assume that black and brown children are less than white or Asian kidsthey cant excel in academics, they cant follow basic rules of personal conduct. Its necessary to change all standards to accommodate these presumed inferior beings. Such a theory ensures minority kids will never overcome personal obstacles because theyre told they dont have to.

This is the system that, with Nimbles help, many schools are trying to establish and perpetuate.

EdWeek identified a Boston elementary school principal who will tell candidates the schools priorities around anti-racism and ask them to respond. To make crystal clear the political attitudes expected from successful candidates, she will ask them what theyve done personally or professionally to be more anti-racist. Presumably, getting arrested at a Black Lives Matter riot would be, as Rush Limbaugh used to say, a resume enhancement.

Applicants in Indianapolis may be asked how [they would] ensure that student outcomes are not predictable by race, ethnicity, culture, gender, or sexual orientation. Of course, theres only one way to ensure such an outcome: manipulate it to guarantee that all students end up at the same low level. Any students who threaten the leveling by working too hard or achieving too much will have to be brought to heelat least, if theyre the wrong race.

Indianapolis teaching applicants may also be asked, Why do you think that low-income students predictably perform lower on standardized tests than their more-affluent peers? One would be pretty safe to assume a preferred answer would be because of systemic racism, not because those students, largely due to decades of misguided government policies, are more likely to come from fatherless families and grow up in a dysfunctional environment.

Throughout the article, district officials emphasize the importance of hiring teachers who are amenable to the schools priorities and values. But how is it appropriate for a public institution, funded by taxpayers who hold a wide range of political opinions, to institutionalize one set of those opinions? Even worse, how is it appropriate for the institution to guarantee the propagation of those opinions by limiting hires to candidates who agree with them?

These questions illustrate the bubble mentality of the left. Leftists are so certain of the objective correctness of all their views that they cannot conceive of any person of goodwill taking a different position. In the leftist mind, anyone not willing to engage in discrimination against whites or Asians in the name of equity is the moral equivalent of a Klansman. And who would object to screening out Klansmen from the teacher corps?

Parents who hope the public schools are still salvageable might want to reconsider. The skyrocketing wokeness of administrators who control teacher hiring will ensure that all classrooms are increasingly devoted to indoctrination rather than education.

How exhausting it is for parents to constantly monitor what their children are being fed in every class and then try to repair the intellectual and moral damage at home. Viewed in this light, does choosing another schooling arrangement really seem so hard?

Jane Robbins is an attorney and a retired senior fellow with the American Principles Project in Washington DC. In that position she crafted federal and state legislation designed to restore the constitutional autonomy of states and parents in education policy, and to protect the rights of religious freedom and conscience. She is a graduate of Clemson University and the Harvard Law School.

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500 School Districts Publicly Declare Only Woke Teachers Need Apply - The Federalist