Category Archives: Federalist

As our historic border crisis continues, teeming thousands of migrants are camped under a bridge in Del Rio, Texas, waiting to be processed and transported to various locations throughout the country. It is within this perilous context that a new Texas law signed Friday will help better secure Americas southern border and fill the gap due to the federal governments intentional reduction of immigration law enforcement.

With substantial bipartisan support, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law HB 9,which allocates a hefty $1.8 billion to enable state agencies and border counties to deter illegal crossings, protect private property, and increase prosecution of state crimes committed by unauthorized migrants.

The single largest chunk of the new funding, $750 million, is being dedicated to the construction of up to 730 miles of border wall, a security need previously identified and approved by both Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. Congress, including the current president, but abruptly and irresponsibly canceled at the outset of his administration. This appropriation is on top of the $250 million in emergency Texas border wall funding already allocated by Abbott.

In testimony before state legislators, Texas National Guard Adjutant General Tracy Norris explained that more than 100 landowners along the states unsecured international border with Mexico have asked for the wall to be built on their land. Initially, temporary fencing will be built by 12 of the Guards engineer teams at a pace expected to exceed more than one mile per day, up from the current few hundred feet per day being built by only one engineer team. Eventually, the temporary fencing will be replaced by a permanent barrier.

During floor debate over the measure, state Sen. Eddie Lucio, a Brownsville Democrat, responded to objections by some fellow Democrats by saying, I have talked to many of my constituents in Cameron and Hidalgo County and I can tell you the vast majority of those people want border security and want the wall, believe it or not. And some of us come up here fighting against it, were actually speaking against what our constituents want.

Lucio was among several Democrat lawmakers who supported the measure, including Sen. Chuy Hinojosa of McAllen, Sen. Royce West from Dallas, and Sen. John Whitmire of Houston.

In addition to the wall funding, the measure allocates several hundred million dollars to enable both the Texas National Guard and Texas Department of Public Safety to place additional boots on the ground. Up to 2,500 Texas National Guardsmen will be deployed to the border region and, in addition to building the border wall, they have been deputized to execute criminal trespassing arrests of unauthorized migrants. Single males who are illegally crossing the border and trespassing are being targeted for these enforcement efforts.

The historic Texas border security effort is rounded out by $170 million in funding for three migrant intake centers, $100 million to reimburse border counties for related expenses, and additional funds for court administration and the Border Prosecution Unit.

None of the legislators or state officials testifying in support of these actions are under any illusion that it is enough to fully compensate for the reduction of effort by the federal government in meeting its obligation to secure the border.

Many of the legislators on both sides of the aisle also lamented that the state has to incur such massive expenditures. Col. Steve McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, told legislators that prior to the crisis that erupted this year, he was hoping to see the state be in a position to reduce its border security expenditures.

However, the data is clear that both Texas and the nation are being inundated by a spike in the trafficking of both people and illicit drugs across the border. Current federal leadership shows no signs of being willing or able to fulfill its obligation. Thanks to Abbott and the courageous and creative efforts of state lawmakers, Texas can and will work to fill the gap and take its border back.

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As Federal Government Fails, Texas Steps In To Secure The Border - The Federalist

We failed to take several steps required to win an armed conflict: identifying an achievable end-state, defining the resources we are willing to expend, and considering the lengths we are willing to go to.

With the defeat in Afghanistan coming at the end of a long line of self-inflicted catastrophes, America appears to be waking up to the notion that our foreign policy is disconnected from reality. As we watch our allies in the Northern Alliance flee the Panjshir valley and head into the mountains for a last-stand struggle against the Taliban an enemy we spent thousands of lives and trillions of dollars fighting its time for some much needed introspection.

Those of us who served in Americas continuous stream of counterterrorism adventures and nation-building interventions have long been suspect of U.S. foreign policy. While busy with the daily dirty work of warfighting and dying, we could see the disconnect between the situation on the ground and the focus groupdriven rhetoric of the generals and foreign policy establishment back home. It was like there were two worlds. Ours was noisy, bloody, and chaotic, encompassing a very real battle between good and evil. Theirs was diverse, inclusive, and superficially rational composed almost entirely of PowerPoint fantasies reinforced by government stenographers posing as journalists.

What began as a robust response to the deadly terrorist attacks on 9/11 was quickly redirected and emasculated by a ruling elite with their own agendas none of which included the safety, sovereignty, or national security of our beloved America. At some point, the smart people in Washington D.C. decided that our Islamic extremist enemies were actually oppressed BIPOCs suffering under colonizing American commandos, and we were ordered to stop brutalizing them. This epiphany was unanimously recognized by our ruling elites through their lens of magical thinking, as Thaddeus McCotter described our foreign policy establishments disconnected reality in a superb essay.

Yet the war machine could not be stopped. There was too much money to be made, laundered among the donor class of the military-industrial complex and nongovernmental organizations, and subsequently funneled into political donations for the uniparty. The war, the elites decided, just needed to be nicer, more diverse, and less lethal.

Americans now need to ask the key question: How, exactly, did we lose an armed conflict to a 7th-century religious cult?

We failed to take several steps required to win an armed conflict: identifying an achievable end-state, defining the resources we are willing to expend, and considering the lengths we are willing to go to.

First, before committing to armed conflict, a nation must identify an achievable and specific end-state. It must decide what success would look like. This kind of decision-making is done at the national level, by the president and his national security advisor, in consultation with the Cabinet-level national security principals and, in some situations, Congress.

Next, as a nation, we need to establish what type and amount of resources we are willing to expend in pursuit of this end-state. These resources need to be roughly defined in terms of personnel, equipment, money, casualties, political capital, and reputation. If we dont know what our end-state looks like, and if we do not have sufficient resources to achieve that end-state, then embarking on armed conflict is futile.

Additionally, what are we willing to do to achieve our desired end-state? In World War II, we wanted to defeat the Axis powers and destroy their ability to conduct war. To achieve this, we were willing to do things like drop nuclear weapons on the Japanese civilian population and firebomb the German city of Dresden. A more recent example of will, or rather the lack thereof, was the Battle of Mogadishu, which is depicted in the movie Black Hawk Down. The U.S. mission to capture and kill Somali Militia leader Mohamed Farrah Aidid was cancelled by President Clinton after an October 1993 raid resulted in the deaths of 19 American servicemen and 315 Somali militiamen. The Clinton administration was mortified by the casualty counts as well as the optics of wounding an additional 812 people. Clinton decided the United States no longer had the will to capture or kill Aidid.

Will is not just what we are willing to do to our enemy, it is also what we are willing to do to ourselves. As we have seen already in America, our extended war resulted in drastically diminished civil liberties, an increasingly corrupt national security apparatus that has turned inward on ordinary Americans, and a veteran suicide rate of more than 20 men and women per day a heavy price for any republic.

Time is also a factor. For a nation to succeed in armed conflict, it must have the support of its population. Protracted warfare not only increases the financial cost to the nation but also wears down the population and diminishes its support. The longer an armed conflict continues, the more difficult it is to maintain the will to do what is necessary to achieve victory. Thus, Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu stated in the Art of War, There is no instance of a nation benefiting from prolonged warfare.

We did not define these above elements in the war in Afghanistan. We failed to identify a realistic end-state. Our will faltered as we vacillated between making Afghanistan a punitive expedition versus a nation-building exercise. Surprisingly, we were willing to commit an almost unlimited amount of resources to the effort, and time only became a consideration as we reached the point of absurdity at 20 years.

Was Afghanistan winnable? Of course it was. Winning is always a choice, but you go to war with the leadership you have, not the leadership you wish you had. Simply put, our leaders decided that winning wasnt their priority.

Instead of defining and holding to an achievable end-state that supported the interests of the American people, someone decided that, following the punitive removal of Mullah Omars Taliban in 2002, Afghanistan could function as a giant ATM. A war-based revenue stream that could provide a continuous flow of money to Washington, D.C.s donor class, which consists of the military-industrial complex, the intelligence community, and the NGO industry.

Sadly, in the end, even though countless ordinary Americans gave their all in Afghanistan, winning and returning home victorious was never in the cards.

Now, after 20 years of war, we have come full circle. We are left with a new and stronger Islamic emirate led by designated terrorists aligned with al-Qaida, the same mortal enemy that attacked us on Sept 11, 2001. Our foreign policy establishment is enraptured in their magical thinking that somehow America will partner with a Taliban government.

Our foreign policy elites think that by dumping truckloads of cash onto their new jihadist partners, they can make diversity and inclusion new Taliban virtues. In their minds, if they can just convince the world to look the other way during the coming genocide, theyll succeed in bringing some murderous savages into the fold of the international diplomatic community.

In southwest Asia, respect and honor are often more important than money. Our bungled departure from Kabul certainly did not win us any respect. We did not have to so willingly bend the knee to our enemies on the way out. We did not have to leave our citizens behind while simultaneously evacuating tens of thousands of unvetted Afghans. We did not need to abandon the National Resistance Front, our former comrades-in-arms, fighting in the mountains of Panjshir, Parwan, and Baghlan. We shouldnt have left that way. It was dishonorable and will come at a cost.

But what to do with Afghanistan next? For now, we are prisoners of the magical group-think of a failed foreign policy establishment, but soon its fantasies will collide with reality. Soon we will have to deal with the jihadist nature of the new Islamic emirate and its benefactors in Pakistan and China. Soon someone will have to figure out a way to contain the Islamic emirate before it becomes a problem again.

It will have to be done without parachuting pallets of taxpayer dollars to shady warlords or committing U.S. forces back into Afghanistan. The corrupt Afghan benefactors of Western cash-based diplomacy have all fled to Dubai with hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars.

However, not everyone in Afghanistans military and leadership has surrendered. The former vice president, now acting president of Afghanistan, Amrullah Saleh, and Panjshiri leader Ahmad Massoud (son of the late Panjshiri commander Ahmad Shah Massoud) are still in Afghanistan, fighting for their freedom. With them are whats left of the Afghan special forces, commandos from Afghanistans National Directorate of Security, and Panjshiri fighters. Right now, the Taliban, with the help of the Pakistani intelligence services (ISI), are working hard to hunt down and eliminate the last of this resistance.

The Taliban fears the National Resistance Front because they know that the only credible threat to their consolidation of jihadist power comes from the Panjshir. Here is a pro tip from a greybeard Afghanistan vet: If your enemy fears something, its best to give them as much of that thing as you can muster. Perhaps, instead of allowing the Pakistani ISI to exterminate the only Afghans willing to fight for their freedom, we should find a way to support the NRF as both an ally and a regional counterbalance to a dangerous and rising Islamic caliphate. Perhaps we can learn from our previous mistakes and this time, consider what we are willing to do to reach an end-state that serves the actual security interests of the American people.

Max Morton is a retired USMC lieutenant colonel and former CIA paramilitary operations officer. He is a veteran of multiple armed conflicts, revolutions, and contingency operations.

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How Did We Lose Afghanistan? Our Leaders Were Never Willing To Win - The Federalist

House Democrats are seeking to exploit the reconciliation process with a $3.5 trillion dollar package in pursuit of high priority progressive programs. That wish list includes a litany of items on the left-wing green agenda, with protections against Arctic oil exploration at the top.

Tucked into the massive legislation last week by the House Natural Resources Committee are restored protections to bar drilling within the Arctic National Wildlife Refuges (ANWR) 1002 Area, a nearly 1.6 million-acre patch along Alaskas northern coast opened for oil and gas extraction in 2017.

There isnt a more clear example of congressional confusion than the current move by wildlife-above-human-life extremists to ban oil and gas drilling in ANWRs Coastal Plain, said Rick Whitbeck, the Alaska state director for the energy nonprofit Power the Future. They forget that Congress authorized and encouraged development in that exact area previously, and that banning future development puts the local indigenous people in peril of having to out-migrate from their village to find jobs to sustain their families.

If passed, the package would likely seal the fate of drilling prospects in ANWR until Republicans reclaim both chambers of Congress and the White House to reverse course. The Biden administration, meanwhile, has continued to pull every lever to keep operations offline, from suspending oil and gas leases on federal lands to ordering new environmental reviews reassessing proposed projects.

The 1.6 million-acre stretch opened for exploration in 2017 amounts to less than 10 percent of the total refuge (which is roughly the size of South Carolina) off limits to development in northeast Alaska. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, somewhere between 4.3 and 11.8 billion barrels of recoverable oil remain underneath the surface of the 1002 Area, which would make it one of the most productive oil fields in the country as gas prices reach seven-year highs.

The only tribe living within the proposed boundary for drilling, the Iupiat, have lobbied Congress for decades to allow development projects to move forward. Radical environmentalists seeking to preserve the entire state which constitutes nearly a fifth of the entire nations landmass as an untouched museum theyd maybe like to visit one day, however, have successfully exploited the opposition of a rival tribe hundreds of miles south of the 1002 Area to cloak opposition under the moral righteousness of environmental justice.

The Gwichin Nation, living in Alaska and Canada and 9,000 strong, make their home on or near the migratory route of the Porcupine caribou herd, and have depended on this herd for their subsistence and culture for thousands of years, wrote California Democrat Rep. Jared Huffman as he re-introduced legislation in February to permanently ban the Iupiat from harvesting the resources in their own backyard.

A look into the Gwichin tribes past, however, raises questions about its genuine opposition to drilling in the Arctic Refuge, which remains entirely outside the tribes territory.

In the early 1980s, the Gwichin sought to lease every last inch of its Alaskan Venetie Reserve to oil companies seeking to drill what many thought would be lucrative underground reserves. After exploration turned up short of any prospects for profitable drilling, the Gwichin became vehemently opposed to oil and gas development across the state and partnered with progressive interests in the campaign.

The caribou, meanwhile, remain unbothered by the oil and gas activity on the North Slope 60 miles southwest of the 1002 Area, with populations continuing to rise and decline with their natural cycle.

Matthew Rexford, the tribal administrator for the Iupiat village of Kaktovik within the 1002 Area, labeled his own people refugees on their own lands, prohibited from accessing the lucrative resources under them even though they are located on a flat plain rarely even visited by Alaskans, let alone elites who can afford the high-dollar trip.

We are frustrated that we are not being heard and the Iupiat living in Kaktovik and elsewhere on the North Slope are an inconvenient truth to an administration dead set on shutting down Arctic development, Rexford told The Federalist.

In an August interview, Alaska Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy shared the tribes frustrations.

If we were able to do what we wanted to do, wed be one of the richest states by far, Dunleavy told The Federalist.

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Democrats Aim To Choke Off Arctic Drilling In Reconciliation Package - The Federalist

The Washington Post published extremely serious allegations against Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley yesterday, although of course the paper tried to make the centerpiece of the story former President Donald Trumps erratic behavior.

From WaPo:

Fearful of Donald Trumps actions in his final weeks as president, the United States top military officer twice called his Chinese counterpart to assure him that the two nations would not go to war, a senior defense official said Tuesday after the conversations were described in excerpts from a forthcoming book.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley told Gen. Li Zuocheng of the Peoples Liberation Army that the United States would not strike. One call took place on Oct. 30, 2020, four days before the election that defeated Trump. The second call was on Jan. 8, 2021, just two days after the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol by supporters of the outgoing chief executive.

Milley went so far as to promise Li that he would warn his counterpart in the event of a U.S. attack, according to the book Peril, written by Washington Post journalists Bob Woodward and Robert Costa.

The story here, however, is not Trump, no matter how much the corrupt corporate media would have it be so. The story is that a military leader defied civilian control over the direction of Americas foreign policy, and did so through secret talks with our chief adversary on the global stage.

Under every president, we hear about [name] derangement syndrome; there was Bush Derangement Syndrome, and Obama Derangement Syndrome. But only Trump Derangement Syndrome seems to have led the ostensible upholders of norms and democracy to treat as no big deal actual violations of democracys most sacred norms in the service of thwarting Donald Trump.

Civilian control over the military is not something to be jettisoned when you disagree with the peoples choice. Generals playing politics at the highest levels of the military is a game as old as the country, but secretly speaking with Americas foreign enemies to defy the policy decisions of the elected leader of the United States crosses a line, a bright red one. With all the blabber about norms, here is one that truly matters.

The American people deserve to know the content of those phone calls. If this reporting is true and it must be taken with a grain of salt given Bob Woodwards track record Gen. Milley must be fired and, depending on the content of the calls, may even be justly prosecuted.

Under the guise of saving democracy from Trump our media, intelligence services, government bureaucrats, and corporate overlords have kamikazed faith in every one of the institutions keeping America the stable democracy it has blessedly remained for over 200 years. Millions of Americans feel the system is so rigged that they despair of anyone in our ruling elite being held responsible for any action, no matter how obviously over the line.

Let us hope that, in the case of Gen. Milley and his alleged flaunting of bedrock principles not only of the American system, but any non-banana republic, those Americans are wrong.

Inez Feltscher Stepman is a senior contributor at The Federalist. She is also a senior policy analyst at Independent Women's Forum and the Thursday editor of BRIGHT, a women's newsletter. Find her on Twitter @inezfeltscher.

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Milley's Alleged Secret Calls Are One More Reason Americans Think The System Is Rigged - The Federalist

France announced on Friday that the country will pull its ambassadors from the U.S. and Australia after Australia ditched its existing submarine deal with France in favor of a U.S. partnership.

President Joe Biden announced on Wednesday that the U.S. struck a deal with Australia and the United Kingdom that administration officials said would provide the Land Down Under with the technology and capability to deploy nuclear-powered submarines. Its a move that, even though it hurt an ally, the administration claimed was necessary to push back on Chinas desire to control the South China Sea.

We need to be able to address both the current strategic environment in the region, and how it may evolve, Biden said. Because the future of each of our nations and indeed the world depends on a free and open Indo-Pacific enduring and flourishing in the decades ahead.

It is believed to be the first time France withdraws ambassadors from the two countries, BBC reported, referring to the United States and Australia. French diplomats in Washington had already cancelled a gala to celebrate ties between the US and France in retaliation.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said that the retaliatory decision to remove ambassadors, which was ordered by President Emmanuel Macron, comes in the wake of unacceptable behavior between allies and partners whose consequences directly affect the vision we have of our alliances, of our partnerships and of the importance of the Indo-Pacific for Europe. He also said it feels like a stab in the back after Australia canceled its roughly $40 billion deal with France for diesel-electric submarines in favor of another deal with the United States.

We built a relationship of trust with Australia, and this trust was betrayed, Le Drian said. This is not done between allies.

Le Drian also said he is angry and bitter and that this brutal, unilateral and unpredictable decision reminds me a lot of what Mr. Trump used to do.

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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Is This What Global Respect Looks Like? France Recalls Ambassadors From US - The Federalist

Less than a week after President Joe Biden announced his tyrannical vaccine mandate, Knox County Mayor Glenn Jacobs said his county would not comply with the lawless order.

In Knox County, we know what we stand for. We stand for freedom. We stand for the rule of law. We stand for the Constitution, Jacobs, who is also professional wrestler Kane of WWE fame, said in a letter addressed to the president. And you can rest assured that we will stand against your blatant and egregious executive overreach.

The order mandates that all businesses with 100 or more employees require COVID-19 vaccines or weekly testing for all workers. The Tennessee mayor, who also defended his county from statewide stay-at-home orders, said citizens would suffer drastically from vaccine mandates.

As the chief executive of an organization that employees 2,700 individuals, your action adds financial, legal, and regulatory burdens that will ultimately impact Knox County taxpayers, he said. In addition, it potentially hinders our ability to attract quality employees since many folks in our community will not work somewhere that unjustly imposes vaccine mandates.

Tennessee Attorney General Herbert H. Slatery III wrote a similar letter to Biden on Thursday, saying the mandate likely violated federal law. He is one of 24 Republican state attorneys general demanding that Biden remove the unlawful and harmful mandate.

This vaccine-or-test mandate appears to be an unprecedented expansion of federal power and fails to consider the steps individuals, employers, and our state have already made, Slatery said.

Slatery mentioned specific concerns about the mandate, including that the order fails to recognize religious liberty, free speech, and bodily autonomy.

As a fellow elected official who has sworn an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution just as you have, I am alarmed by the alacrity with which you issued this order, contradicting both Article 1, Section I which vests legislative power in the Congress and the Tenth Amendment which recognizes the sovereignty of the states or the people over matters the Constitution does not delegate to the federal government, Jacobs wrote.

Referencing a retweet by Ron Klain, Bidens chief of staff, that said, OSHA doing this vaxx mandate as an emergency workplace safety rule is the ultimate work-around for the Federal govt to require vaccinations, Jacobs said the Biden administration was intentionally abusing its power and gloating like the cat who ate the canary.

Mr. President, if we, as elected officials, ignore, disregard, and contravene the laws which bind us, how can we expect our fellow citizens to respect and follow the laws which bind all of us as a society? he asked.

We are not the country we claim to be, Jacobs continued. America needs to figure out what this nation stands for or risk losing freedom.

As an American, I am appalled by your statement: This is not about freedom or personal choice, Jacobs admonished Biden, quoting Bidens speech last week. On the contrary, in America, it is always about freedom.

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Knox County Mayor: We Will Not Comply With Biden's 'Egregious' Mandate - The Federalist

The Biden administration is cutting back on sending free doses of monoclonal antibodies to red, southern states where they were used as ahighly effective treatment for COVID-19 patients.

In a new policy shift that began Monday, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced the distribution of monoclonal antibodies to states will now be centralized, moving away from the previous process which was based on direct orders and demand.

HHS will determine the amount of product each state and territory receives on a weekly basis, an HHS spokesman told the Washington Post. State and territorial health departments will subsequently identify sites that will receive product and how much.

HHS did not explicitly explain the reasoning for restricting delivery of the treatments but claimed its new system will help maintain equitable distribution, both geographically and temporally, across the country, providing states and territories with consistent, fairly distributed supply over the coming weeks.

Florida is just one of the Republican-led states affected by this change. For weeks leading up to the change, Florida was one of seven southern states including Alabama, Texas, Mississippi, Tennessee, Georgia, and Louisiana that have been using about 70 percent of the national supply.

Now, its leaders are scrambling to reckon the states COVID-19 treatment regimes with the newest bureaucratic for no specific reason. Gov. Ron DeSantis office said that the treatment reduction came with no warning and little explanation from the federal government.

They had a vague statement about equity but sorry that doesnt cut it. No explanation of how the allocation was determined. No explanation of why its only Florida and a few other red states being restricted. No warning, a DeSantis aide told Real Clear News Philip Wegmann.

Days before the HHS announcement, Biden promised that the administration would increase the average pace of shipment across the county of free monoclonal antibody treatments by another 50 percent. The White House also pledged in the presidents Path Out of the Pandemic plan that the administration would implement this change in September.

Monoclonal antibody treatments have been shown to reduce the risk of hospitalization by up to 70% for unvaccinated people at risk of developing severe disease. As hospital systems experience increased COVID-19 cases, many have identified monoclonal antibody treatment as a key tool to improve health outcomes, prevent hospitalizations and reduce the strain on overburdened hospitals, the plan reads.

Now, its clear that the White Houses goal will fall short as the national supply has considerably decreased and states should expect lower amounts of therapeutics available for shipment in the coming weeks, as a Texas health department spokesman warned.

This reeks of politics. This is the Biden administration punishing Florida, Sen. Marco Rubio said in a video posted to Twitter. Theyre saying to states like Florida, Oh yeah, youre not gonna have mandates? Youre not gonna do what we want you to do? Well then guess what, were gonna cut off your antibody treatments and your access to them.'

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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Biden Cuts Back Highly Effective COVID-19 Therapy From Red States - The Federalist

Congressional Democrats proposed tax hikes, which are endorsed by the Biden administration, will violate the White Houses promises to spare Americans who make less than $400,000 annually from any tax increases.

President Joe Biden and the White House are framing the Democrat-led tax increases as a historic middle-class tax cut, but their promises to put the dollar burden on just the wealthy and large corporations are false.

New data from the Joint Committee on Taxation shows that the Democrats $3.5 trillion spending bill would raise taxes for middle-class Americans in less than six years.By 2027, Americans making as little as $30,000 a year would be subject to tax hikes. In 2031, these increases are designed to climb even more for Americans making $50,000 or more annually. Millions of businesses will also be affected by these increases.

Its a plan that Biden and his team appear to endorse but one that clearly violates their promises on the campaign trail and from the Oval Office that normal Americans would be spared from paying more money to the government.

The President remains committed to his pledge from the campaign that nobody making under $400,000 a year will have their taxes increased, White House press secretary Jen Psaki repeated in March. Later, she qualified her statement by claiming that only families would be spared by the $400,000 limit and that any married individuals who bring in $200,000 or more each could be affected by the hike.

If you make less than $400,000 per year, Ill never raise your taxes one penny. But if youre at the very top, its time to pay your fair share. We need to reward work in this country not just wealth, the presidents Twitter account stated.

The White Houses official Instagram account posted the same quote days later and claimed, The Build Back Better Agenda is a historic tax cut for the middle class paid for by making sure the wealthy pay their fair share.

Republicans called out the Biden administration for misleading Americans with enticing rhetoric and said that climbing taxes will absolutely bankrupt America for future generations.

Democrats have already broken their promise not to raise taxes on anyone making less than $400,000 per year.Whether its higher prices or higher taxes, Democrats are taking a sledgehammer to Americans paychecks, National Republican Congressional Committee Spokesman Mike Berg said in a statement.

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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Report: Democrat Tax Hikes WILL Raise Taxes On Middle Class - The Federalist

The funniest man in the world has died.

Norm Macdonald is often spoken of as a comedians comedian, which serves as a backhanded compliment, implying that hes an acquired taste, and if you dont get him, well, go watch some more Kevin Hart.

In my experience, the opposite is true. A Norm Macdonald joke is best understood as a feat of strength, almost as if it were designed in response to a dare: how can I make you laugh at this horrible, terrible thing? How can I make an audience explode at an absurd pun? How can I take a two-line street joke and turn it into a six-minute tale of Russian sadness?

It is the comedy equivalent of deciding out of nowhere to lift a car with your bare hands, and Norm seemed to love it every time.

We didnt have cable growing up, and I was too young to watch Norms original SNL run as Weekend Update anchor. So it was only when I got to college and Comedy Central ran old SNLs on repeat all afternoon that he became the permanent background to my life. The plethora of clips on Youtube today create the ability to take your darkest day spent in a hospital and turn to a clip of Norms combination of acid tongue and impish glee and spur unrestrained laughter and relief.

Please, if you have not done so before, consume them. I cant do justice to the amount of funny there is contained within. There is no line he would not cross, there was nowhere he would not go for a joke he believed in. Or as he told it:

I did this joke in which I showed that picture of the girl running away from napalm in Vietnam. I said, In gossip news, Woody Allens dating again. Lorne told me not to do it, and I told him he was wrong, that people would like it. Then I did it in dress rehearsal and there was this insane audience reaction that went on for two minutes: hate. I was completely wrong.

Or was he? If the point of the joke is that the audience loves you, cheers for you, claps for you, is it really a joke? Does it deserve the laugh if no one is offended? Norm is often held up as a model for the newsy jokesters that followed him to far more popularity and hit shows and money but he didnt just seem disinterested in clapter, he seemed actively interested in turning it against the audience. That remains my favorite Weekend Update aside, about the pie charts on car accidents: So, now you dont know what the hell to do.

Norm was an incredible talk show guest, perhaps the last of his kind a connection that extends to Rickles and Rivers.

You never knew what you would get with him. There was no need for canned stupid games or singalongs or skits he could talk about anything and find humor in anything and turn things around on a dime. The Moth joke so famously associated with him occurred to him in the break, since he didnt know he had an extra segment with Conan. The segment was six minutes, so he took that long to tell the joke.

He was also a surprisingly skilled interviewer. His show, Norm Macdonald Live, which morphed into a Netflix property unfairly stomped on by an interview where he criticized the excesses of MeToo, features a surprising number of moments where he asks famous and oft-interviewed guests questions that probe more deeply into their methods or beliefs than youve ever heard before. And then in classic Norm fashion, he would do his best to get them to tell offensive jokes which he repeatedly swore he did not write.

I met him during his book tour in Washington, D.C., at the event where he told the baby harp seal story.

Afterward, Norm made me one of the handful of people he followed on Twitter, where we had lengthy intermittent conversations about Charles Portis who he called the greatest comic novelist since Mark Twain the state of comedy, family life, and more. I told him honestly that the Moth joke was the first video I played for my daughter. Last year as New York was going through hell, he said we must have a steak dinner when the empty panic dissolves. This spring, when Fox gave me the opportunity to host Primetime, I tried, repeatedly, to have him come on he demurred, but offered words of support, and said he was waiting on a vaccine so he could cross the Canadian border. Ill keep you posted, he wrote to me in June.

There is a loneliness to Macdonalds comedy, particularly in his book, which you all should read the eulogy at the end is particularly moving now. It doesnt surprise me that he didnt tell anyone he was sick as Anthony Jeselnik, himself a darker inheritor to much of Norms acid approach, observed.

Norm could talk about anything. At that dinner that never happened, Id probably talk to him about God, which he raised with Jerry Seinfeld at around the 26-minute mark.

Where his comedy touched on issues of faith and death, he could surprise you by turning from utterly sarcastic to incredibly thoughtful. His bit about fighting cancer came to mind immediately upon the news yesterday, perhaps the only commentary he wanted to offer on his own ordeal:

Im pretty sure, Im not a doctor, but Im pretty sure if you die, the cancer dies at the same time. Thats not a loss, thats a draw.

RIP, you old chunk of coal. I still owe you that steak.

Originally posted here:

There Will Never Be Another Norm Macdonald - The Federalist

A newly released study has found that nearly half of those hospitalized for COVID-19 in 2021 may have been admitted for another reason entirely, or were mild or asymptomatic for the respiratory virus.

Conducted by a team of researchers from Harvard Medical School, Tufts Medical Center, and the Veterans Affairs Healthcare System, the yet-to-be peer-reviewed analysis examined electronic records for nearly 50,000 COVID hospital admissions at more than 100 VA hospitals across the country.

According to The Atlantic, researchers checked to see whether each patient required supplemental oxygen or had a blood oxygen level below 94 percent and if either of these conditions was met, the authors classified that patient as having moderate to severe disease; otherwise, the case was considered mild or asymptomatic.

The study found that from March 2020 through early January 2021before vaccination was widespread, and before the Delta variant had arrivedthe proportion of patients with mild or asymptomatic disease was 36 percent, the report read. From mid-January through the end of June 2021, however, that number rose to 48 percent. In other words, the study suggests that roughly half of all the hospitalized patients showing up on COVID-data dashboards in 2021 may have been admitted for another reason entirely, or had only a mild presentation of disease.

The report later notes the increase was even greater for vaccinated hospital patients, with 57 percent experiencing mild or asymptomatic disease. Moreover, the study found unvaccinated patients have also been registering with less severe symptoms, on average, than earlier in the outbreak, with 45 percent of cases being mild or asymptomatic since January 21.

The studys findings raise serious concerns over whether similar trends are playing out in hospitals across the country. According to Dr. Shira Doron, one of the studys co-authors, refining the definition of hospitalizations is critical when discussing COVID-related public policy measures that affect entities such as schools and businesses.

As we look to shift from cases to hospitalizations as a metric to drive policy and assess level of risk to a community or state or country, we should refine the definition of hospitalization, she said.Those patients who are therewithrather thanfromCOVID dont belong in the metric.

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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Study: Nearly Half 2021 COVID Hospitalizations Weren't For Severe Cases - The Federalist