Monthly Archives: March 2021

On this episode of The Federalist Radio Hour, DePaul Professor Jason Hill joins Federalist Intern Evita Duffy to discuss the hostility towards free speech and expression in academia, and how to navigate higher education when facing backlash and silencing.

The merging of theradicalism of what was forged in the crucibles of the late 1960sthegoal of those movements that were Marxist and oriented was the cancellationand the abolition of Western civilization and the chickens have come home to roost, Hill said.

Those movements were driven by a complete hatred of America, hatred of capitalism,hatred of achievement. They were, what I call, systemic nihilistic groups. We are seeing the result of that today in the form of cancelculture and the abolition of complete Western civilization, everything that our civilization has stood for. This is a terminal endpoint that were seeing.

Teaching multiple viewpoints is good, according, to Hill, but shutting down the flow of ideas and professors or students abilities to speak their minds is not.

Theres no sin in teaching a multiplicity of ideas left-wingand right-wing, Hill said. But when you criminalize reason when you criminalize logic, and when you penalize your students for offering rejoinders, then there is something very nefarious and evil because the learning process has stopped and youre using your classroom asan indoctrination centerwe must become more vigilant and become watchdogs.

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Tales From The Frontlines Of The Woke Revolution - The Federalist

Last week, Jeopardy! began its run of guest hosts not affiliated with the show. For the first six weeks after longtime host Alex Trebeks death, former champion Ken Jennings hosted the show. Executive producer Mike Richards followed for two weeks, filling in at the last minute after scheduling conflicts precluded Jennings from hosting.

In addition to taking a turn behind the lectern, the guest hosts will all have a chance to earn money for charities of their choice. Jeopardy! will donate the winnings of all contestants for each of the shows they host the amount earned by the winner, plus the $2,000 earned by the second-place contestant and $1,000 earned by the third-place contestant.

First up: Katie Couric the first female ever to host Jeopardy! who pledged her honorarium to Stand Up to Cancer. The cause comes near to Courics heart; she lost her first husband to colon cancer in 1998, and her older sister Emily to pancreatic cancer (which also took Trebeks life) in 2001.

Courics appearance on the Jeopardy! set comes approximately two months after the former network anchor made news of her own and not necessarily in a good way. In an appearance on Bill Mahers show this past January, Couric cheered on the possibility of President Trumps removal from office via a second impeachment, speaking of the need to really almost deprogram these people who have signed up for the cult of Trump. For self-evident reasons, those comments drew controversy from conservatives as condescending and elitist.

Shortly after the January incident, unnamed Jeopardy! sources told Page Six that Courics comments meant she already appears to have ruled herself out of becoming the permanent host of the show. Couric has not apologized for the incident, nor did she address it in any of the first weeks episodes. But the memory lingers, and some conservative groups called for a boycott of her two weeks of episodes.

Beyond the political controversy that went unspoken on-air, Jeopardy! viewers got a sense of the effervescent persona that made Couric a fixture on NBCs Today show for a decade and a half. She started her first episode with a quick and peppy monologue, and the enthusiasm continued from there.

One theme running through the hosts to date: They all seem focused on relating to the contestants. For instance, Couric commented that a sailor luckily buzzed in first on a clue regarding maritime history Im glad you got that one. Jennings and Richards acted similarly during their hosting duties, in a way that Trebek normally did not. On the one hand, this kind of banter slightly slows down the competition, but on the other, it gives the show more personality.

Another theme comes through from watching these episodes: The producers appear to have given the guest hosts supplemental information about certain clues on the board. For instance, after a contestant on Thursdays show responded correctly to a clue about the late celebrity chef James Beard, Couric added a nugget about the onion sandwiches that helped make Beard famous (my producers on Who Wants To Be a Millionaire? called such factual flourishes by the host frills).

Alex Trebek would occasionally interject after clues to add some flourish, distinguish between a correct and incorrect response, or offer a quick quip. But he did so almost effortlessly, either because he knew the material from his knowledge base and research or felt comfortable enough to improvise on the fly (or, more likely, both). The producers are taking steps to maintain that tradition with the guest hosts, but it feels more scripted likely because it is more scripted, and in a way that serves to reinforce Trebeks skill as a host.

Following Courics appearances, celebrity physician Dr. Mehmet Oz and Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers will each take their turns behind the lectern. While Jennings, Richards, and Couric have most of their experience in television, the next two guest hosts come primarily from a background outside the studio the operating room in the case of Dr. Oz, and the gridiron in the case of Rodgers.

How will the non-traditional guest hosts perform when set loose on the Jeopardy! soundstage? Stay tuned.

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Who Wants to Be the Next 'Jeopardy!' Host: Katie Couric - The Federalist

ABCs The View co-host Joy Behar denied the militant left-wing group Antifa existed on Monday.

During a segment on Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson claiming he wasnt concerned by rioters who stormed the Capitol at the start of the new year, but might have had they been militant Black Lives Matter or Antifa demonstrators, Behar condemned the Midwestern Republican as worried about racist fiction.

Hes right out there with his racism, theres no dog-whistle for him you know, its like Im a racist, have a nice day.' Behar said. Hes scared of this fictitious idea of Antifa, a thing that doesnt even exist.

Behar claimed the militant left-wing group, which was responsible for repeated outbursts of routine record-breaking destruction, was nothing more than a racist idea in the second segment on the topic following a commercial break. In fact, Antifa racked up a total of damages 66 times greater than the estimated expenses of the Capitol riot on Jan. 6.

Its an idea, not a real thing, Behar repeated to fellow co-host Meghan McCain who challenged her on the issue.

What separates Antifa is their willingness to use violence. I have very good friends who have been reporting on Antifa for months, and months, and months, McCain said. We can say Ron Johnson is an absolute moron, we can say that not all activism is violent, but the idea that Antifa doesnt exist is just factually inaccurate and wrong and a lie.

Just last week, Antifa rioters in Portland mounted another assault on the Hatfield Federal Courthouse, a federal building demonstrators lit on fire while people remained inside.

The Portland carnage follows a summer of siege where demonstrators rioted for more than 100 consecutive days injuring at least 277 officers, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

Behars comments are reminiscent of how Democrats and their allies in legacy media endorsed, excused, and encouraged the far-left demonstrations which routinely tore through the country last year, only for the same enablers of the violence to exploit the Capitol riots in January which were similarly condemned in a consistent fashion by the political right.

As Portland was undergoing an epidemic of summer violence that featured mortar-style fireworks blown up at police officers, New York Democratic Rep. Jerry Nadler said Antifa was nothing more than a myth that was only being spread in Washington D.C.

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'The View' Co-Host Joy Behar Claims Antifa 'Doesn't Even Exist' - The Federalist

Biden Tells Nation There Is Hope After a Devastating Year.

Hopeful Biden Says, I Need You.

Biden Sets Vaccine Goal That Would Allow Americans To Gather By July 4.

These headlines, from the covers of the printed New York Times, LA Times, and Boston Globe, greeted Americans Friday morning, 51 days into the Biden presidency and a full year into the beginnings of Americas long lockdown experiment.

Seven Takeaways From Bidens Prime-Time Address topped CNNs site. Chris Cillizzas first two takeaways? Donald Trump dug the hole was number one. Number two? A return to empathy. Chris Cillizza, its worth noting, is a 45-year-old man and does not work for the White House.

Last night is why Joe Biden won the presidency, Politico Playbook opened with a straight face.

If you hadnt watched the presidents prime-time address, you might think it was something anything other than the most depressing, defeated, and resigned speech since President Jimmy Carter held the office. You might think he hadnt devoted his third sentence to a baseless attack on his predecessor, and the entire rest of his address to death, sadness, loneliness, and despair. You might think he hadnt literally threatened the American people, warning, We may have to reinstate restrictions to get back on track, please, we dont want to do that again.

Rather, to read The Washington Post homepages featured commentary on the address, youd think Much of that speech was about hope.

It was about seeing a shaft of light at the end of a dark horror, Robin Givhan, a 56-year-old woman who once won a Pulitzer for witty, closely observed essays that transform fashion criticism into cultural criticism, wrote. His white French cuffs and his crisp pocket square, she went to tell us, evoked all of the institutional power and authority at his disposal to make things better.

[H]is mere presence on television, she insisted, was a declaration of his pride in the countrys progress.

If youre wondering why you didnt see any of this, dont worry: It didnt happen. But more and more, we all have to take a step back, throw some water on our faces, and look around in disbelief at the state of our corporate media.

Take the other big story of the week: Fox Newss Tucker Carlson dared say that our country, faced with a vicious China growing stronger every day, shouldnt pat itself on the back for its military featuring maternity flight suits. This is so obvious it shouldnt need to be said at all, but the Pentagon felt the need to react anyways, launching a full-on broadside on his heresy.

Sen. Tammy Duckworth, a veteran whose Blackhawk was shot down by insurgents, launched a fundraiser for her campaign called F*ck Tucker Carlson. The commander of Space Force filmed an unintentionally hysterical video on his webcam reminding his delicate troops that Tucker thinking pregnant women arent ideal fighting machines is based off of actually zero days of serving in the armed services.

So what does this have to do with corporate media? Reporters, in unison, chased the ball. And like that, just one day after the Pentagon (or someone at it) leaked the classified report showing the Chinese military dominating the United States in a Pacific war game, the news cycle changed to Tucker Carlson Bad.

Throw the ball and theyll chase it. Its a good trick. President Donald Trump knew it well, if he played it differently.

But thats not all! This week also marks the Biden administration setting a record as the longest a president has gone without a press conference in an entire century. So do reporters even need a ball to chase? As we saw on the campaign trail and as we read Friday morning, the answer is no. While easily distracted from actual news, our corporate media is also perfectly content with, perfectly skilled at, perfectly shameless over crafting their new presidents propaganda for him basically regardless of what he says. The only question is, are you listening?

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If You Heard Biden is 'Hopeful' And Tucker Carlson Is Evil, Congratulations, You've Been Lied To - The Federalist

The government response to COVID-19 has mostly been a failure. Theatric, yessee New York Gov. Andrew Cuomos Emmy. Symbolic, yes. But there is no evidence shutdowns did anything but deepen the economic suffering, increase suicides, and prevent lifesaving medical tests and treatments.

With the exception of former President Trumps effort to speed research, approval, and rollout of a COVID vaccine through Operation Warp Speed, and efforts to discourage the spread of the virus through border restrictions (now abandoned by President Biden), what policies can objectively be shown to have worked?

Last May, in The Federalist I examined state-level unemployment through April, using job losses as a proxy for the severity of government-imposed shutdowns, finding these even then suggested lockdowns had no effect on the course of a virus released by what appears to be sloppy lab procedures in Wuhan, China. I also found a statistical connection between a states reliance on mass transit and a higher fatality rate.

One year on, has anything changed? What does the data say? Does anything suggest that the shutdowns were worth it?

The change in private employment among the states from January 2020 to December 2020, the latest month for which data is available, can be used as a proxy for the severity of government edicts to slow the spread of the virus. It represents closed restaurants and family-owned businesses, destroyed lives and lifes savings.

In theory, this pain should have been rewarded with a lower COVID fatality rate. Thats what we were told as we obediently stayed at home. Yet the data shows no benefit earned by the states that inflicted the largest destruction on their job base, judging by the fatality rates from COVID. Graphically, it looks like this.

Another constant feature of the corporate medias COVID-19 coverage was the claim red states were killing their people. Again, the data after a year shows no correlation between a states level of freedom, as measured by the Fraser Institute in their annual Economic Freedom of North America survey, and COVID fatalities.

However, there is a modest correlation between economic freedom and the strength of the job market over the past year, although it is important to note that the correlation between freedom on the state level and job creation has been a long-term trend, one that COVID-19 did not change.

Digging deeper into the data, a regression analysis seeking correlations to per capita COVID-19 fatalities at the state level to five variablesuse of mass transit, change in private-sector employment, economic freedom, share of the population 65 and older, and the percentage of adults with obesity in 2020finds only a weak connection (adjusted R square of 0.19). Only two variables are significant in this correlation: the share of mass transit use (P-value of 0.001) and prevalence of obesity (P-value of 0.009).

This would suggest that the virus takes its course regardless of the severity of shutdowns. Thats not to say that any government action is futile. For instance, the Trump administrations effort to speed development of an effective vaccine appears likely to save a significant number of peopleassuming the vaccines retain their effectiveness as the virus mutates.

If the preceding macroeconomic analysis isnt convincing, there are also peer-reviewed studies that find the same. For instance, Ioannidis, Bhattacharya, et al. publishing in the European Journal of Clinical Investigation, concluded, we do not find significant benefits on case growth of more restrictive NPIs (nonpharmaceutical interventions) such as mandatory stayathome orders and business closures.

Thus, with no statistically consistent difference in virus fatality outcomes between Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New Yorks 11.9 percent drop in private-sector jobs, Gov. Gavin Newsom of Californias 8.3 percent loss of jobs, Gov. Greg Abbotts Texas decline of 3.7 percent, and Gov. Ron DeSantiss Florida drop of 5.1 percent, it makes sense to encourage opening the economy while protecting the most vulnerable populations.

Lastly, as a crowning example of our politicians proclivity to reward failure, it is illuminating to see that more than 90 percent of the $1.9 trillion Biden stimulus is not directly related to COVID-19. Some $350 billion of the behemoth spending bill bails out the same state and local governments that inflicted the greatest damage on their own economies, realizing no measurable gain in public health.

As the Foundation for Economic Education notes, Bidens bill spends more than twice as much lining the pockets of bankrupt blue states than it does actually addressing public health. But then, spending, not public health, is the purpose of the bill.

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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Did The Shutdowns Save Lives? A Year Later, Stats Suggest Not - The Federalist

On this episode of The Federalist Radio Hour, Dr. Marty Makary, a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Bloomberg School of Public Health and chief medical adviser to Sesame Care, joins Federalist Culture Editor Emily Jashinsky to discuss what the so-called experts are getting right and wrong about COVID-19, the vaccine rollout, and how Americans should navigate the newest Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines.

I dont know how we ended up in a world where infection control epidemiologists are running public policy, Makary explained. What do they know about education and poverty and substance abuse and loneliness and deferred medical care? So weve got to put things in perspective.

Makary said that theCDC has been consistently late and missed the mark on multiple COVID-19 protocols, handing out advice that some medical experts warned against. The problem, Makary noted, is that the CDC did not want to listen to critical or dissenting opinions.

We have groupthink in medicine just like we do in society right now and theres groupthink that results in everybody believing the same thing and if you dont, then youre kind of sidelined a little bit. And that groupthink is very dangerous, Makary explained.

Were seeing it with delaying the second dose and the data around that. Weve seen it with natural immunity from prior infection there is a cancel culture in medicine right now. We see it in the public health community, you know we saw it with a sort of, you can selectively criticize certain political demonstrations but not others.

Read Makarys book The Price We Pay: What Broke American Health CareAnd How to Fix It here.

Listen here:https://mp3.ricochet.com/2021/03/Makary.mp3

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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What Groupthink Caused The CDC To Get Wrong About COVID-19 - The Federalist