Category Archives: Federalist

DEL RIO, Texas What happens in border states when the federal government refuses to enforce immigration laws amid a record surge of illegal immigration? Are those states, and the elected officials charged with maintaining law and order in them, supposed to stand back and accept the ensuing chaos in their communities? Or do they have a right, even a duty, to take action and fill the void left by the federal government?

In Texas, where the border crisis that began as soon as President Biden took office is still in full swing, the answer appears to be that in the face of federal inaction, states must act on their own.

Thats the idea behind Operation Lone Star, Gov. Greg Abbotts evolving and expensive plan to secure the U.S.-Mexico border using thousands of state troopers and Texas National Guardsmen. The operation, launched in March, was initially billed by Abbott as an effort to deny Mexican Cartels and other smugglers the ability to move drugs and people into Texas, but has since become a sprawling and controversial experiment in the use of state power to secure an international border.

Democrats have denounced it as illegal and unconstitutional, and called for a Justice Department investigation. Republicans have praised Abbott for taking a stand and pushing the envelope.

Abbott has not asked the Biden administration for permission because he does not believe he needs it. Indeed, the entire operation has been designed to operate exclusively with state resources and agencies, and within the existing confines of state law. Thats both a strength of Abbotts approach and, as I saw for myself in Del Rio, Texas, a major weakness.

Its a weakness because it severely limits what the operation can achieve. The basic idea is that Texas state troopers and National Guard troops will arrest illegal immigrants, who will in turn be prosecuted for misdemeanor criminal trespass in hopes that such prosecutions will serve as a deterrent. Whatever the merits of this approach to border security, it comes with a host of caveats and constraints.

To begin with, Texas is only arresting single adult men, not women, children, or family units, which means the state is targeting the migrant population most likely to be quickly expelled to Mexico under Title 42, the pandemic public health order that allows federal immigration officials to send migrants back over the border with minimal processing. The migrant men arrested by Texas law enforcement, by contrast, will remain in state custody for weeks or longer, rather than being sent back to Mexico.

Up until last week, migrant men arrested under Operation Lone Star who posted bond would be transferred to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which would typically expel them under Title 42. But last week ICE told the state it would no longer take custody of these migrants. That means Texas will have to transfer them to U.S. Border Patrol, and as of this writing it remains an open question whether Border Patrol will expel them as they would have under Title 42, had federal agents arrested them, or process them as asylum-seekers.

If the latter, then Operation Lone Star might have the unintended effect of rewarding migrants caught by state authorities: once theyre processed and released by Border Patrol to pursue their asylum claims, migrants have legal status, are allowed to work, and can remain in the United States as their case wends its way through federal immigration courts a process that can take up to five years.

But even before these problems arise there are strict conditions that have to be met before state authorities can even make an arrest. Migrants can only be arrested on private land where landowners have agreed to press charges, and only on those parcels of land where the Texas National Guard has managed to erect temporary barriers, usually some arrangement of concertina wire that migrants must cut or go over, to ensure the trespass charges will stick.

And before Texas National Guardsmen in particular can arrest anyone, theyre supposed to go through 40 hours of police training (in practice, Im told that its more like a day-long training). Also, the migrants who are arrested have to be transported to state prisons that have been retrofitted to comply with state jail standards, since migrants are being held in pretrial confinement. That in turn means all the corrections officers have to be trained as jailers.

On top of all these requirements, the entire operation depends on the willingness of local county attorneys to prosecute a deluge of misdemeanor criminal trespass cases arising from all these arrests. In Kinney County, which has a population of less than 4,000, the county attorney is a young man named Brent Smith who just took office in January and has never before worked as a prosecutor. He now has about 1,300 cases and counting thanks to Operation Lone Star. (For context, in normal times the Kinney County prosecutor would only take on a couple dozen cases per year.)

By contrast, in neighboring Val Verde County, the local prosecutor, David Martinez, a Democrat, has rejected nearly half the cases that have come through his office from Operation Lone Star. Last month, Martinez told a local news station he rejected the cases either because the migrants in question were seeking asylum or because there was some other problem with the case. (He cited one case in which state troopers re-directed a group of migrants to cross onto private property so they could arrest them for trespassing.)

For all this, out of about 1,500 criminal trespass cases filed since July through Operation Lone Star, only about 3 percent have resulted in convictions, according to a recent report by the Wall Street Journal, which also cited court records showing that of the 170 Operation Lone Star cases resolved as of November 1, about 70 percent were dismissed, declined, or dropped. The remaining cases ended in plea agreements, with most migrants sentenced to time already served.

Meanwhile, all of this is costing Texas hundreds of millions of dollars. Earlier this year, Abbott shifted about $250 million in the state budget to launch the operation, and the GOP-led state legislature later approved an additional $3 billion. In Del Rio, you can see these dollars at work all over town: every hotel parking lot is full of Texas state trooper trucks and SUVs. Uniformed National Guardsmen drive around in armored Humvees. Along some stretches of private land near the Rio Grande, sparkling new chain-link fencing topped by concertina wire stretches out for miles.

Locals seem to appreciate the effort and money being poured into their communities, especially landowners who feel betrayed and abandoned by the Biden administration. One woman told me her familys ranch has been repeatedly vandalized this year by migrants trashed, in fact, for the first time in generations. When they called Border Patrol, the answer came back that no one could be spared to come out and investigate. Their advice was, stay away from your ranch, or move. Their message was, incredibly, we cant protect you.

Indeed, under the direction of Biden and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Border Patrol has for the past ten months been overwhelmed with the endless task of processing and releasing migrants as fast as it possibly can, with little time or personnel available for patrolling the border. In Del Rio, I spoke to former Border Patrol chief Rodney Scott, who was forced out by the Biden administration in August, and he said agents are demoralized because theyre unable to do their jobs. Instead of intercepting drug and human traffickers or arresting criminals trying to evade detection the actual job of Border Patrol agents theyre stuck processing and transporting asylum-seekers.

Scott sees the border as a national security issue, but says the Biden administration has a completely different set of priorities. Unfortunately since January 20, I havent seen a single action or even a single conversation while I was still in the chiefs position, to try to slow the flow to actually create a deterrent to illegal entry, he says. Every single action has been to basically be more welcoming. How can we process faster? And thats just going to continue to be an invitation worldwide.

Texas, then, really is on its own. Abbott is right that under the circumstances something must be done by the state, but so far his solution seems overly lawyerly and cautious, designed specifically to pass legal muster and win lawsuits rather than create a real deterrent to illegal immigration.

A cynic might suspect that Operation Lone Star, for all its complex interagency coordination and mass deployment of manpower and expensive price tag, is in the end mostly political theater. Its purpose might not be to secure the border so much as to secure Abbotts right flank against a pair of Republican primary challengers, former GOP Texas Chairman Allen West and former state senator Don Huffines, who accuse Abbott of being too soft on the border.

Given the resources at Abbotts disposal, West and Huffines along with plenty of Texas conservatives who are frustrated about the ongoing border crisis arguably have a point. Former Virginia attorney general Ken Cuccinelli, who led U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services under Trump, has argued that border states have a strong constitutional case for securing their own international borders in the face of federal inaction. Cuccinelli and others cite Article I, Section 10, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution, which stipulates that no state can engage in diplomacy or war without the consent of Congress, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit delay.

The ongoing border crisis, which has seen a record 1.7 million arrests at the southwest border in the last 12 months, constitutes both an invasion and an imminent danger that will not admit delay, the argument goes, and states have a right to act. Not only could border state governors like Abbott invoke emergency powers to return illegal immigrants directly to Mexico, state legislatures could pass laws making it more difficult for illegal immigrants to remain in those states, mostly through strict licensure and screening requirements for sponsors and refugee resettlement organizations.

All of these things, and much else besides, lie far outside the scope of what Abbott is doing in Texas. There is no question at this point that Operation Lone Star, whatever its merits, will not significantly change the situation along the Rio Grande. The border crisis created by the Biden administration is here to stay a new normal along the southwest border for as long as the White House desires it.

What could change that? Texas could. Abbott could. He has already demonstrated an impressive ability to mobilize and deploy thousands of Texas law enforcement and military personnel, along with every manner of vehicles, barriers, and transports. Nothing like Operation Lone Star has ever been undertaken, yet it is too little, too late too pinched and small-minded a response to a rolling crisis that now appears to be permanent.

Abbott could wield these tools to press the constitutional question about what border states can do when the federal government leaves them to their own devices. If he doesnt, he might find the people of Texas are ready to listen to someone who will.

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In South Texas, The Border Crisis Is Becoming A Constitutional Crisis - The Federalist

The Illinois Association of School Boards voted during a Thursday meeting to end its membership with the National School Boards Association, effective immediately.

The decision follows previous attempts by IASB to initiate changes to the governance structure, transparency, and financial oversight of the national association, the Illinois group said in a press release, adding that although states depend on a healthy national association, the IASB no longer believes that NSBA can fill this important role.

The Illinois association cited the infamous domestic terrorism letter that the NSBA sent to President Joe Biden without knowledge or support of its state association members.

The NSBAs president and interim CEO sent the letter to the Biden administration on Sept. 29. In it, they asked the administration to use domestic terrorism laws as a way to deploy federal law enforcement against parents who are concerned about critical race theory in schools, other curricula, and ongoing COVID-19 protocols.

The letter, which has since been walked back, was sent after the NSBA colluded with Biden administrationofficials in crafting it. On Oct. 2, NSBA President Viola Garciaconfirmed that the organization had been engaged with the White House and Department of Education for several weeks now.

Attorney General Merrick Garland used the letter as evidence of rising threats of violence to justify using the FBI to target parents who attended school board meetings to voice their concerns.

NSBA officials wrote the letter without consulting or notifying its state groups, prompting backlash from many. Including Illinois, 26 state school boards associations have now distanced themselves from the NSBA, with 13 of those groups ceasing participation, no longer paying dues, or completely cutting ties.

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Illinois Association Of School Boards Cuts Ties With NSBA - The Federalist

The Federalist Publisher Ben Domenech joined Jason Chaffetz to talk about The Federalists inception, and the current campaign by Big Tech companies to shadow-ban outlets like it, on Fox Newss Jason In The House podcast Wednesday.

Noting how the old guard of conservative media was not engaged in the culture war in a way that I felt they needed to be, Domenech said that he, along with Mollie Hemingway, David Harsanyi, and Sean Davis felt like there was a need for some new voices that could command some direction or come to represent a space of ideas that was being lost.

There was a need for some new blood, some new injection of an entity that would both report and analyze the news, be laser-focused on media bias and what we felt like was a truly organized combination of the left and the media working in tandem together, going beyond bias to really be propagandistic in a lot of ways, Domenech added.

He also cited Andrew Breitbarts influence in furthering the idea that politics is downstream of culture.

After The Federalists launch in 2013, we pretty quickly added to our team, built a number of younger voices into it, and one of the things we particularly made an aspect of what we were trying to do was to get younger women involved in key positions from the beginning, Domenech said.That was not so much out of any kind of affirmative action attempt, but it was long past time that we had mastheads that actually resembled the people who are most important in terms of directing American culture.

Since then, Big Tech companies including social media sites and search engines have targeted outlets like The Federalist to suppress their reach. The point where [search engine and social media supression] really started to be noticeable was that we were pretty aggressive in calling for the investigation of the lab leak thesis from the beginning, Domenech said.

While a lot of right-wing sites took serious hits in the summer during George Floyd, we sort of started to get it earlier in April or May, he added.

Most of these tech giants, they dont actually want to have a public story about anything, so instead what they try to do is essentially shadow-ban you, to diminish your sharing, to turn the knobs and flip the switches that basically prevent things that would have gone viral from going viral, and to particularly slow down the sharing of content from channels that they deem to be ones that they just dislike.

The Federalists YouTube channel is so shadow-banned that I can search for videos of myself and not find them, Domenech added.

While we shouldnt treat these companies as good-faith actors anymore and we should do everything we can to eradicate the kind of corporate welfare that they enjoy, he said, I also dont know that theres a policy solution, and so thats why I think that this whole thing is sliding more toward break-up and antitrust versus bureaucratic regulation.

Listen to the full interview here.

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Why A Media Counter-Narrative Matters (And How Big Tech Targets It) - The Federalist

The New York City Council plans to pass a bill that would authorize approximately 800,000 immigrants who are not citizens of the United States to vote in local elections.

The Our City, Our Vote legislation would ensure that migrants who hold green cards, migrants who maintain a legal work status in the United States, and DACA recipients are granted special voter registration forms that are used to obtain a local-only ballot at the polls.

The legislation calls for training poll workers and community education campaigns to ensure every voter receives the correct ballot, The New York Times reported.

Outgoing Democrat Mayor Bill de Blasio said he has mixed feelings about the legislation because it could dissuade migrants from obtaining citizenship, and he reaffirmed his belief that giving immigrants special voting privileges has to be decided at state level, according to state law. The veto-proof majority in the Council, however, plans to move forward with the bill on Dec. 9.

One councilman, Ydanis Rodriguez, told The New York Times that the bill is a good thing for Democrats who can use it to further the talking points claiming that voting rights are being attacked across the country.

Its important for the Democratic Party to look at New York City and see that when voting rights are being attacked, we are expanding voter participation, he said.

Republicans, however, are already fighting Democrats efforts to legislate noncitizen voting into permanency in other places around the country. In October, the Republican National Committeeannounced it would sue Montpelier and Winooski, Vermont, for altering their town charters to accommodate municipal voting by noncitizens.

Democrats are trying to dismantle the integrity of our elections. In addition to attacking widely supported safeguards like voter ID, Democrats also want foreign citizens to vote in American elections. Republicans are fighting back on this far-left assault against election integrity unlike radical Democrats, we believe that our elections should be decided solely by American citizens. This is a matter of principle and we will fight in all 50 states to ensure this remains the case, RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said.

Jordan Davidson is a staff writer at The Federalist. She graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism.

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NYC Is About To Let 800K Noncitizen Immigrants Vote In Its Elections - The Federalist

The White House fears that an impending Congressional Budget Office analysis will say Democrats spending bill would increase federal deficits. The dispute seems unsurprising, given the myriad budgetary gimmicks in the billbut not for the reasons one might expect.

Ignore for a moment the fact that the bill contains ten years of tax increases to pay for a few years of spending that Democrats later hope to extend, meaning that independent budget analysts have pegged the bills true ten-year cost not at $1.75 trillion but nearer to $5 trillion. Ignore too the fact that front-loading the bills spending means it will almost certainly increase federal deficits in the short-term, exacerbating inflation at a time price increases are already at 30-year highs.

Instead, the proximate dispute with CBO concerns whether an increase in tax enforcement will yield as much revenue as Treasury claims. On that front, one of the biggest arguments against the Biden administrations position comes via Joe Biden himself.

The New York Times reported Monday that the White House has begun bracing lawmakers for a disappointing estimate from CBO, and is urging lawmakers to disregard the budget office assessment, saying it is being overly conservative in its calculations. While administration officials say additional tax enforcement will generate $400 billion in new revenue, CBO Director Philip Swagel on Monday said he stood by the agencys September estimate that enhanced enforcement authority will net roughly $120 billion.

The difference between the lower and higher revenue figures could determine whether the bill gets scored as a budget-saver or budget-buster. Treasury has therefore come out swinging at CBO, with Assistant Treasury Secretary Ben Harris calling the offices methodology patently absurd in an interview with the Times.

But given his own boss conduct, Mr. Harris doth protest too much on tax enforcement. After leaving the vice presidency in early 2017, Joe Biden and his wife Jill created two S-corporations, and characterized most of their book and speech earnings as profits from those corporations rather than taxable wages.

These maneuvers allowed the Bidens to dodge nearly $517,000 in payroll taxes. The Tax Policy Center called the Bidens actions pretty aggressive. And a recent Congressional Research Service report outlined several instances in which federal courts agreed with the IRS in requiring S-corporations to pay back taxesall of which arguably applied to the Bidens.

Yet despite the Bidens public release of their returns, and coverage of the irregularities surrounding them, no news has yet emerged of an IRS audit. Why?

Political bias provides one possible explanation, given past IRS harassment of conservative non-profit organizations, and unanswered questions regarding the leak of tax returns to the liberal activist site ProPublica. The Times reporting on Donald Trumps taxes last year confirmed the IRS had initiated audits of his returns well before he attained the presidency, so its reasonable to ask why Bidens pre-presidential returns have not come under similar scrutiny.

Yet a more basic explanation comes from the fact that people like the Bidens can hire high-priced lawyers to defend their actions. If audited, Biden would likely engage experts to validate taking a salary of only $145,833 in 2017, against more than $10 million in corporate profits, as reasonable compensation in line with IRS guidelines.

He might offer a low-ball amount to settle a potential audit quickly, but could also engage the IRS in years of costly litigation. After all, if the public release of his returns did not compel Biden to use less aggressive tax strategies, an IRS audit would have little effect.

Ironically, the bill in question would close the tax loophole the Bidens spent the past four years exploiting. Treasury says the change would reform a system that is unfair and provides tax planning opportunities for business owners, particularly those with high incomes, to avoid paying their fair share of taxes.

Therein lies the problem with that particular tax increase, the proposals for increased IRS enforcement authority, and the Democratic bill in general. Honest individuals and struggling small businesses, who try hard to pay their obligations to the federal government, will face higher taxes, new regulatory burdens, and a greater potential for IRS harassment. But those who have the money and tools to game the systemthe Joe Bidens of the worldwill carry on much as before.

White House claims lawmakers should ignore a CBO analysis showing the spending bill increases the deficit, because CBO underestimates revenue gains from tax enforcement, have an easy retort: How can Bidens IRS get other rich people to pay their fair share if Biden himself wont pay his?

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Joe Biden Wants To Have The IRS Harass You While Dodging It Himself - The Federalist

Paramount Networks hit western drama Yellowstone has surpassed viewing records for any show currently on television, earning three spots on the Digital Entertainment Groups list of top 20 most-watched. Yellowstone earned the lists second, 11th, and 19th spots. The modern-day ranch show is the No. 1 series on television right now, including broadcast and cable.

More than 14 million viewers tuned in to Yellowstones season four premiere on Sunday, the most-watched premiere on cable since a 2017 episode of AMCs The Walking Dead. The show gained popularity for its non-polarizing message, focusing on rural America and small-business USA instead of divisive political affiliations.

Over 14 million viewers tuned in for our Yellowstone premiere, which will now serve as a massive launch pad as we sneak episodes of Taylor Sheridans new series Mayor of Kingstown, whose full season will be rolling out exclusively on Paramount Plus starting Sunday, said CEO of MTV Entertainment Group Chris McCarthy. Taylor has created a cinematic experience that our remarkable cast led by Kevin Costner brings to life in a way audiences cant get enough of and we are excited to deepen our relationship with him and capitalize on this tremendous momentum by building out the Yellowstone franchise together.

The four-season show is only available on cable television. According to Philos streaming insights, Yellowstone attracted audiences near Montana (where the show is filmed), Wyoming, and agriculturally-based cities. Since its 2018 premiere, the show has drawn a groundbreaking audience.

The show stars Oscar winner Kevin Costner who plays a Reagan-era Republican, as well as Kelly Reilly, Cole Hauser, Luke Grimes, Wes Bentley, and Kelsey Asbille, and was created by John Linson and Taylor Sheridan.

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Record-Breaking 'Yellowstone' Is #1 Show On Television Right Now - The Federalist

When Donald Trump was president and filling the federal court system with conservative jurists, some leftists yearned for a national divorce. Richard Kreitner, in Break It Up: Secession, Division, and the Secret History of Americas Imperfect Union, argues that a unified America does terrible things such as promoting slavery, instituting Jim Crow, starting wars, and incarcerating minorities. Kreitner asserts, Secession is the only kind of revolution we Americans have ever known and the only kind were ever likely to see.

But now the left is once again in charge, with a tenuous hold at the federal level fortified with near-monolithic control of elite institutions corporate media, social media, Hollywood, academia, and big business. In the face of the lefts remorseless quest for totalitarian power, some conservatives are now also calling for a national divorce.

According to a September survey by the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, theyre not alone, with 52 percent of Trump voters and 41 percent of Biden voters agreeing to some extent that America should split up.Into this mix comes conservative writer David Reaboi, who has posted thoughtfully on the topic, writing that National Divorce Is Expensive, But Its Worth Every Penny. Reaboi is hardly alone, with Michael Anton, Michael Malice, and others pointing to the utility or inevitableness of a national breakup.

That something should happen or will happen doesnt mean it would be easy. Even more grimly, Reaboi points out the obvious that one day, the United States will end. History teaches us that regimes, like all human creations, rise and fall and world-bestriding empires fall harder, faster, and more surely than that.To drive the point home, he draws from Allan Bloom to argue that the differences between Red and Blue America are far deeper than any issues we interact with on the surface; theyre essentially pre-political.

Lest we believe our times unique, Americans have been at each others throats before.

In the presidential campaign of 1800, Federalists and Democratic-Republicans were no strangers to partisan strife. Personalizing the political divide, Thomas Jeffersons supporters smeared President John Adams as having a hideous hermaphroditical character, which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman. Adamss campaign labeled Jefferson, the vice president, as a mean-spirited, low-lived fellow, the son of a half-breed Indian squaw, sired by a Virginia mulatto father.

The election of 1860 was even worseand it was followed by a civil war in which one in 25 men killed one another or succumbed to disease in a fight to make men free.We tried a national divorce once and it didnt work so well. A modern national divorce would require a practical path to governance. Its not as easy as it looks.

The America we know today almost didnt make it. Much has been written about the challenges faced by the colonists, the struggles of the War for Independence, and the brutal carnage of the Civil War. But little has been said about that dim time in the American experience between 1783 and 1789, after victory over the British and before the ratification of the Constitution.

That was also a time of maximum danger, intrigue, and heated passions when Americans were not yet sure whether bullets or ballots would decide the fates of governments. The infant America was governed under the Articles of Confederation, a weak system of national government in which the states reigned supreme.In the six years that elapsed from the end of the Revolutionary War to the ratification of the Constitution, America was nearly torn asunder by rebellion.

In 1786, farmers in western Massachusetts rebelled. Desperate over their inability to pay taxes and angry about a system that favored wealthy Boston merchants, they burned courthouses to destroy tax and loan records, then marched on Boston. In nearby Poughkeepsie, N.Y., sympathy riots broke out. Capt. Daniel Shays almost toppled the commonwealths government before his followers were defeated by the state militia.

Shayss Rebellion so shocked the political leaders that it proved to be a major consideration in the minds of those who drafted and ratified the Constitution a few months later. On Sept. 17, 1787, they agreed to present the Constitution for ratification by state conventions.

The success of the Constitution was by no means assured. It almost failed in Philadelphia when the constitutional convention almost broke apart over the vexing issue of slavery that would tear the nation a little more than threescore and 10 years later. The delegates also wrangled with how to apportion representation in the new Congress.

Under James Madisons Virginia Plan, both houses of Congress would have had proportional representation. The small states would have none of it and rallied behind the New Jersey Plan, which would have preserved each states equal vote in a one-house Congress. It took another month of discussions before the Great Compromise resulted in todays present system of House and Senate, with the House representing the people and the Senate representing the states.

Then the Constitution almost failed when it was sent out for approval. The Constitution needed to be ratified by nine of the 13 states to go into effect. The first five ratifications were quickly accomplished.

But on Feb. 6, 1788, Massachusetts constitutional convention ratified the new form of government on the narrow vote of 187 to 168, and only after Gov. John Hancock and Samuel Adams negotiated a demand that the Constitution incorporate a Bill of Rights should it pass. The no votes mostly came from the western part of the state, where Shayss Rebellion saw widespread support.The Constitution was then rejected by Rhode Islands grassroots democracy 2,708 to 237.

After the Massachusetts convention recommended amendments to the Constitution, all subsequent state conventions, except Marylands, agreed that a Bill of Rights was needed. Still, it wasnt enough to prevent very close votes in New Hampshire (57 to 47); Virginia (89 to 79); and New York (30 to 27). Then North Carolinas convention adjourned without voting on the Constitution.

In October 1788, after setting up the timetable for the new government to take over, the Congress of the Confederation achieved a quorum for the last time. On March 4, 1789, the new republic was born, and the coup dtat was complete.

A national divorce? No, thank you. Breaking up is hard enough creating a new government that can both secure liberty and survive is even harder. Rather, let us strive to repair the nation we have.

Returning to the Constitution would be a great first step. The surest route to doing that would be to end federal primacy over state power via restoring the original meaning of the Commerce Clause, while forcing Congress to legislate rather than hiding behind unelected bureaucrats by rediscovering the nondelegation doctrine.

There are reasons to be hopeful that these limitations will be enforced with renewed vigor. Just this year, the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF), of which I am a part, successfully had the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions federal eviction moratorium struck down as exceeding federal power under the Commerce Clause. It was the first federal regulation struck down under the Commerce Clause in 20 years.

As for the nondelegation doctrine, in 2019 four justices of the Supreme Court expressed a willingness to reinvigorate the long-dormant doctrine, even though it had gone unenforced for more than 80 years. The lower courts seem to be taking those justices statements seriously. In another case brought by TPPF last week, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals stayed the Biden administrations federal vaccine mandate, citing concerns that it may violate the nondelegation doctrine.

Taken together, a proper application of the Commerce Clause and the nondelegation doctrine could loosen the national relationship enough that a formal divorce would be neither necessary nor desired.

Chuck DeVore is vice president of national initiatives at the Texas Public Policy Foundation and served in the California State Assembly from 2004 to 2010.

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A National Divorce Wouldn't Be As Easy Or Worthwhile As Advertised - The Federalist

An at-home COVID-19 testing kit that the Biden administration spent $231.8 million to produce was just recalled, due to higher-than-acceptable false positive test results, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The 2.2 million faulty kits were manufactured by Australian company Ellume, the company that produced the first over-the-counter antigen test. It was granted emergency authorization use on December 15. Ellume was also the first company to garner FDA approval for over-the-counter COVID-19 tests, on February 11.

Ellume is recalling certain lots of the COVID-19 Home Test because they have higher-than-acceptable false positive test results for SARS-CoV-2, said an FDA press release. The reliability of negative test results is not affected. For these tests, a false positive test result shows that a person has the virus when they do not have it.

In February, the Biden administration authorized a $231.8 million deal with Ellume to speed up the production of at-home tests. Making easier tests available to every American is a high priority with obvious benefits, White House senior adviser Andy Slavittsaid in February. Each test, Slavitt claimed at the time, would produce 95 percent accuracy in 15 minutes.

Now, the FDA has classified the recall of these tests as a Class I recall, which is the most serious type of recall for products that could cause serious adverse health consequences or death, according to the administration. The recalled tests were manufactured beginning on February 24, just days after the Biden administration handed Ellume millions.

So far, 35 false positives have been reported to the FDA. While no deaths have been reported, a false positive could result in delayed diagnosis or treatment for an individuals actual illness, unnecessary COVID-19 treatments which can have dire side effects, or needless isolation, according to the FDA.

At Ellume, we understand that trust is central to fulfilling our purpose as a company, and we recognize that this incident may have shaken the confidence of some of those who trusted Ellume to help them manage their health and to take back a bit of control of their lives during this pandemic, said Ellume CEO Sean Parsons. To those individuals, I offer my sincere apologies and the apologies of our entire company for any stress or difficulties they may have experienced because of a false positive result.

The defective tests make up more than 10 percent of the millions of tests the company has distributed. The Biden administration spent an additional $2 billion on rapid at-home kits in September and the administration announced it would spend another $1 billion on tests in October.

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FDA Recalls More Than 2 Million Biden-Funded COVID-19 Tests - The Federalist

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has admitted it has no record of an unvaccinated person spreading COVID after having previously recovered from the virus.

The admission from the government agency came in response to a September Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request from a New York attorney, who asked the CDC to provide documents reflecting any documented case of an individual who (1) never received a COVID-19 vaccine; (2) was infected with COVID-19 once, recovered, and then later became infected again; and (3) transmitted SARS-CoV-2 to another person when reinfected.

In its response, the CDC said that a search of its records failed to reveal any documents pertaining to the attorneys request.

The CDC Emergency Operations Center (EOC) conveyed that this information is not collected, the agency added.

The bombshell revelation comes on the heels of a wave of scientific data that has shown natural immunity to be extremely robust at preventing coronavirus reinfection. Studies from the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Emory University, the Cleveland Clinic, and others have found natural immunity to be incredibly strong months and even a year after infection.

Moreover, a preprint studyconducted by researchers from Maccabi Healthcare and Tel Aviv University in Israel, which has not been peer-reviewed but has been shown to use more accurate methodology than a similar CDC study, found that people with natural immunity to COVID-19 could be 13 times less likely to contract the respiratory virus than those who were solely jabbed with the Pfizer-BioNTech shot.

Natural immunity confers longer lasting and stronger protection against infection, symptomatic disease and hospitalization caused by the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2, compared to the BNT162b2 two-dose vaccine-induced immunity, the study concluded. Individuals who were both previously infected with SARS-CoV-2 and given a single dose of the vaccine gained additional protection against the Delta variant.

Shawn Fleetwood is an intern at The Federalist and a student at the University of Mary Washington, where he plans to major in Political Science and minor in Journalism. He also serves as a state content writer for Convention of States Action. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood

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CDC Admits It Has No Proof Of Healed COVID Patients Spreading Virus - The Federalist

Grammy-nominated Five For Fightings John Ondrasik joins Culture Editor Emily Jashinsky on The Federalist Radio Hour, where he discusses and performs his new song titled Blood On My Hands.

Ondraski said he wrote the song in reaction to the recently botched withdrawal from Afghanistan and to call for accountability of our leaders. Blood On My Hands has already surpassed well over a quarter of a million views on YouTube.

Ondrasik discusses how some band members disagree with the message of his song, how the music industry is no longer interested in fighting the system, and how artists can confront cancel culture.

You would think in this day and age, the usual suspects who usually like to write protest songs about oppression, and womens rights, and gay rights, would be all over Afghanistan, Ondrasik said. Its ironic that the music industry and the music media have frankly become The Man and they have little to do with rock and roll anymore which is disappointing.

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Musician John Ondrasik Sings The Protest Song That Other Rock Artists Won't - The Federalist