Monthly Archives: August 2021

On the pandemic as a 2020 election issue, Joe Biden was the medias preferred candidate for president, not so much because he screamed confidence that he could stop people from dying. (He was literally underground for most of his public appearances.) But because he properly showed that he cared people were dying.

He had a soft voice and manner that soothed cable news anchors and brought comfort to reporters who find no greater arousal than in a man who cries in public.

The trick has earned Biden a lot of stock with the media, which then assured the public that he is the staid, competent leader this country needed after four years of Donald Trump.

He tried it again Thursday during a highly anticipated press conference to address the ISIS suicide bombing in Kabul, Afghanistan, that left 13 U.S. service members dead and more than a dozen others injured.

They were part of the bravest, most capable, and the most selfless military on the face of the Earth, Biden said. And they were part of, simply, what I call the backbone of America. Theyre the spine of America, the best the country has to offer. Jill and I our hearts ache, like Im sure all of you do as well, for all those Afghan families who have lost loved ones, including small children, or been wounded in this vicious attack. And were outraged as well as heartbroken.

Later in the conference, Biden bowed his head in what I assume was anguish or maybe frustration while a reporter asked him about his responsibility in the fallout.

The problem with the performance, though, is that the dead didnt lose their lives because of a freak virus that the entire world is grappling with. They died because under Bidens command, our military did not secure the perimeter of the Kabul airport that Americans are using to exit. And it has been under his command that the administration is scurrying against the clock to evacuate as many Americans as possible, lest we further tick off the new Taliban government that Biden has allowed to call the shots.

Biden and Jills hearts can ache 1,000 times over but this is his fault, and putting that tried and true empathy on display doesnt change anything.

The very quality that the media used to assist in Bidens election has us where we are right now. Since Inauguration Day, 200,000 people have died of the coronavirus with infections continuing to surge; a wave of just under 1 million new migrants have crushed the border; and now at least 13 Americans are dead, not while fighting a war, but while trying to leave one.

Empathy was nice for getting Biden into the White House. It hasnt been much use since.

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This Is Where Joe Biden's Great Empathy Has Landed Us: 13 US - The Federalist

Former President Donald Trump rejected President Joe Bidens attempts to blame him for the botched Afghanistan withdrawal and American lives lost due to the chaos in Kabul.

While Biden continues to point the finger at Trump for negotiating with the Taliban, the former president said the agreement his administration orchestrated was clear about consequences.

We had a very strong agreement. It was conditions-based. Now there were many other parts of the agreement also. And if they violated them, you know that, we went in and bombed the hell out of them, and they never would. They never would have come into Kabul. And they just wouldnt do it, Trump said on the Hugh Hewitt Show. Now what happened is one day, Biden said take the soldiers out. And it went back to the leaders of the Taliban, to the whole group of them, that the soldiers are leaving. And I would say that they were shocked, okay? I am surmising that they were shocked, because we had that thing so tight.

He also noted that we would not have stood for any soldiers or any Americans being killed or shot at or hurt in any way.

That was in there. And Hugh, for 18 months, not one American soldier was killed. Not one. Eighteen months. And that was because of the agreement, and because of my talk with Abdul, who is now the boss, as you know, He is now the boss, Trump said.

When asked what do you make about his availability to the press, Trump said he doesnt think Biden knows what is going on.

I dont think he knows whats happening. And its frankly a horrible thing thats going on. I think its the most embarrassing moment for our military and for our country. Ive never seen anything like it. Ive never seen, it just doesnt make sense, Trump said. How theyre doing it, what theyre doing, we had it in perfect shape. Just like we had the southern border in perfect shape, and then he destroyed it. We had the fewest number of people coming in. Now, we have the most number of people, and drugs and other things coming in. We had that in the best shape in the history of our country. And now, for this long period of this war, this horrible 21-year war, we had it in such good shape to get out, and get out with pride, get out with, really, a moral victory. And for some reason, it doesnt make sense, he pulled the military out first.

Trump also said he didnt have faith that the rest of the administration was fully tuned into the situation either.

We could have thousands of hostages. I dont think they know what theyre doing. Yesterday, they said 500. So the 35,000 all of sudden is 500, and yet most of the people taken on the plane, most of those people, as you know, are Afghans, right? Trump asked. So how are we down to 500? Nobody knows what the number of hostages is. I dont think the United States has a clue. I think there are thousands of people that are hostage.

In addition to promising he wouldve had a plan to evacuate civilians, allies, and Afghan interpreters, as well as military equipment (against the wishes of woke generals like current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley) before fully withdrawing troops, Trump said he made it very clear to the Taliban in their conversations that they shouldnt mess with the United States.

And even the introduction, I say hello, and he screamed something very tough. And I then started with him. I said listen, before we start the longtime conversation and conversations that were going to have, I have to say one thing, and Ill never have to say it again to you. And heres what I say. If you do anything bad to the United States of America, if you do anything bad to any of our civilians, to any American citizen, or if you do anything out of the normal, you know, theyve been fighting for 1,000 years, but out of the normal, because youve had your wars, and if you do anything out of the normal, but anything bad to America or any American citizens, I will hit you harder than anybody has ever been hit in world history. You will be hit harder than any country and any person has ever been hit in world history, Trump said. And we will start with the exact location and the exact town, and its right here. And I believe I repeated the name of his town. That will be the first place that we start. And I wont be able to speak to you anymore after that, and isnt that a very sad thing? But that is the story.

Trump also said he followed through on his threat when the Taliban missed conditions.

I wanted to be out by May 1st. I had spoken to him quite a bit before May 1st, but we had a condition of May 1st. But they missed conditions, and so therefore, I bombed and we hit them very hard. And then we said we will agree to those conditions. I said no, youve already agreed to them. Dont play games. We had them so good. They werent in Kabul, Trump said.

You take a look at when they started taking over Afghanistan. Its when I left. When I left, thats when it started, they started going wild, because they were dealing with another president, he added. And I never realized, and of course I realized the importance and power of the presidency, but I never realized how important the office of the president is until this happened, because when I watched what happened over the last week and a half with some horrible, stupid decisions that were made, number one being allowing our military to leave before the civilians and before we get all of our equipment back, $83 billion.

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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Trump Rejects Biden's Blame For Taliban Takeover: 'We Would've Bombed The Hell Out Of Them - The Federalist

Interested to know what the top liberal legal minds of the United States Supreme Court think about government power and your private property? First, take 10 minutes to read Justice Brett Kavanaughs opinion, written for the majority, in the courts Thursday night decision to stop the ban on rental income; then spend another 10 minutes on Justice Stephen Breyers dissent.

Heres a hint: The left thinks its power is so overarching as to impact nearly every citizen, so broadly interpreted as to be essentially limitless, and so singularly vested as to be checked virtually solely at the discretion of the bureaucracy itself.

The absurdity begins in the opening paragraph of Breyers dissent, which was joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Sonya Sotomayor. There, he lauds what he describes as the governments limited and judicious use of its power, writing, the [Centers for Disease Control]s current order is substantially more tailored than its prior eviction moratorium, which automatically applied nationwide.

Therefore, he reasons, theres no reason to even consider if the CDC has any authority on the matter.

How tailored is it, though? He gets to that two paragraphs later, when he cites the number of American counties the order applies to: Ninety percent; the vast majority of the country. This, he openly admits, is the lefts idea of substantially more tailored; its right there in the open.

So where does this tailored power come from, exactly? According to the CDC, it comes from the Public Health Service Act, a law Congress passed in 1944 to handle outbreaks of serious disease. It reads:

The Surgeon General may provide for such inspection, fumigation, disinfection, sanitation, pest extermination, destruction of animals or articles found to be so infected or contaminated as to be sources of dangerous infection to human beings, and other measures, as in his judgment may be necessary.

Whats that got to do with banning property owners from doing business with renters? To forbid them from ejecting squatters from their land? As written, not much at all: Every one of these powers is specific to, as Kavanaugh writes, identifying, isolating, and destroying the disease itself.

But according to Breyer, the Public Health Act essentially says we can kill your dog in a plague, so we also have the power to say you dont have to work during COVID a broad interpretation of congressionally authorized power at best.

How does he get there? Simple: the part of the law that grants the surgeon general the power to enact other measures, as in his judgment might be necessary.

Or, by not specifically naming every single means of identifying, isolating, and destroying COVID, Congress gave the CDC limitless authority to do as it pleases. If Congress, Breyer assures us, had meant to exclude these types of measures from its broad grant of authority, it likely would have said so.

Compare that reasoning with Kavanaughs, who maintains the court expects Congress to speak clearly when authorizing an agency to exercise powers.

The latter is the kind of reading that fits more soundly with, say, the 10th Amendment. written by men who had seen abuse of power, and hoped to curtail it. The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, it reads, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

In fact, this is clear in recent Supreme Court precedent. Our precedents, the court wrote in 2020, require Congress to enact exceedingly clear language if it wishes to significantly alter the balance between federal and state power and the power of the Government over private property.

A tenants relationship with his landlord falls under state law completely; thats the reason, for example, you dont hear about government rent-control outside of a number of cities in New York, Maryland, New Jersey, or California.

Congress, of course, could change this, as the 2020 decision notes, and for a while they did: thats where the ban on moratorium came from in the first place.

So what happened? The congressional moratorium expired on Dec. 31.

But couldnt Congress just extend it if they wanted to? Yes, and under Biden they did, adding one more month in the second COVID stimulus; and then they declined to extend it further.

So why is still going on? Because the CDC decided it didnt need Congress anyway, extending the moratorium on its own apparent authority through March, then through June, then through July, and all the way to Thursday night, when Kavanaugh joined Justices John Roberts, Neil Gorsuch, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Amy Coney Barrett in putting a stop to it.

That decision down didnt come quickly, either. In June, Kavanaugh joined the other side, staying the courts hand in order to, he reasoned, allow long-appropriated government funds to go toward relief. Thats all the time it would need, the CDC insisted; but they lied, and here we are.

None of that matters, Breyer claims, because this is an emergency, and by going to work, people put themselves at risk of dying. Nevermind that nurses, grocery clerks, flight attendants, bartenders, police officers, construction workers, cab drivers, soldiers, cooks, trash collectors, cameramen, janitors, plumbers, warehouse employees, bouncers, pilots, firemen, musicians, engineers, and a whole host of others have long been back at work. Nevermind that the United States economy needs workers so badly some businesses are going under for lack of them. Just look at the charts!

Breyer is so convinced of this, he openly admits that backlogged government funds and renters refusing to pay rent is an injury, but claims the court has to compare that injury with the irreparable harm of eviction.

What irreparable harm, exactly? Only the chart is offered. Breyer completely neglects to even try to explain how evictions are more dangerous than the masses of Americans freely moving out of New York, California, Oregon, D.C., and other COVID-obsessed areas, or going about their day to day business, but in his thinking, he doesnt need to: The CDC is not to be questioned on law or constitutional authority by any court in this land.

The public interest, he writes, is not favored by the spread of disease or a courts second-guessing of the CDCs judgment.

Fortunately, his colleagues in the majority disagree: It is indisputable, Kavanaugh writes in his conclusion, that the public has a strong interest in combating the spread of the COVID19 Delta variant.But our system does not permit agencies to act unlawfully even in pursuit of desirable ends.

It is up to Congress, not the CDC, to decide whether the public interest merits further action here.

And thats where the split is: Breyer and his political allies on the left and throughout the Democrat Party have unfailing faith in the technocracy; its near-religious, and were all living in it.

For the past 18 months, weve suffered under the thumb of this sort of unchecked bureaucracy: Closed schools, masked children, shuttered businesses, canceled weddings, restricted hospitals, forbidden funerals even the public drug dens and homeless camps now filling major cities are products of CDC guidance. For public health and safety, were told.

But while its been in full public view these past 18 months, the reality is we have increasingly suffered under the thumb of unchecked bureaucracy since President Woodrow Wilson; its power and influence growing stronger each year, while the executive and congressional power and will to curb it have lessened.

Some of that growth is natural: influence craves influence, power craves power. But much of it is the result either of active policies in favor of it (or a failure to enact policies restricting it), driven by men like Wilson and men like Breyer highly educated and seriously intelligent men who think that we, the people, ought not rule ourselves; the experts will take care of that.

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Latest SCOTUS Dissent Is A Window Into The COVID Bureaucracy's Mind - The Federalist

On this episode of The Federalist Radio Hour, President of Americans for Prosperity Tim Phillips joins Culture Editor Emily Jashinsky to break down how Democrats are using the taxpayer-funded infrastructure and reconciliation bills to push their leftist, progressive agendas.

In the next four months, what can the left do to move our nation further down the road, fastest toward their vision, their goal? Phillips asked. Its not Afghanistan, its not the [critical race theory] battle, its not any cultural battle in the next four months. Its pass the three and a half-trillion-dollar infrastructure bill, jam it as full of regulations and provisions that basically bring in the Green New Deal, and the socialized medicine, and Medicare-For-All, and also elements of this union PRO Act, get that passed and signed by Biden and you literally have a third inflection point from the left to follow up on the Great Society of the 1960s.

While Phillips noted bad policy normally is also bad politics in regards to some Republicans willingness to support the infrastructure deal, he believes there are some things the GOP must seek out as common ground to bring people in.

I see the anger and the frustration and its legitimate and real. Its not the final vehicle to winning the country for our beliefs and principles and hopes and aspirations. To do that, weve got to turn outward and woo people to us, bring people to us, Phillips said. Weve got a country to win. And again, the way we do it is not by subtraction well, that person is not pure enough, this group needs to be kicked out. We do it by multiplication.

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Should Conservatives Care About Spending As The Culture Is Crumbling? - The Federalist

South Dakota Republican Gov. Kristi Noem claimed in a podcast interview published Thursday she never planned to sign a transgender sports bill to protect female athletes.

Noem was pressed over the debacle that began to sink her political stardom on the Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show. Sexton brought up the issue in the context of the governor turning down piece after piece of legislation that protected individual liberties from vaccine mandates and erasure of womens sports.

By the way, you said you would sign the trans bill, and then backed off of it, we know that happened, Sexton said.

That is not true, Buck, Noem responded, months after she reneged on that exact pledge.

In South Dakota, were celebrating #InternationalWomensDay by defending womens sports! Noem wrote in a March 8 post responding to the successful passage of the Womens Fairness in Sports bill. Im excited to sign this bill very soon.

The next week, Noem issued a style and form veto of the legislation which would have barred males from competing among female athletes. Noem sent the bill back to the legislature with edits that would gut the laws mechanisms for enforcement. The changes were rejected by the South Dakota House of Representatives.

Noem changed her position on the bill after intense lobbying by the state Chamber of Commerce and other powerful business groups, raising hysteria the legislation would provoke a corporate boycott. The governors own advisers include business leaders who opposed the bill.

After she effectively vetoed the legislation she had promised to sign days earlier, the governor who ascended to GOP stardom for her adamant rejection of coronavirus lockdowns tried to save her political ambitions with claims the law as written would have invited an avalanche of unwinnable litigation.

Ive been bullied for the last year by liberals, Noem said on a Fox News appearance with Tucker Carlson, later framing herself as a victim of cancel culture as grassroots opposition tanked her influence within the GOP. Im not going to let anybody from the NCAA, from any big business, Im not even gonna let conservatives on the right bully me.

Federalist Staff Writer Jordan Davidson branded Noems claim of cancellation as, merely a mask for the fact that a once-up-and-coming politician favored for a national stage is learning that her actions have consequences, especially when she backtracks on her word.

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Noem Falsely Claimed She Never Planned To Sign Women's Sports Bill - The Federalist

General Kenneth McKenzie Jr. told reporters Thursday military evacuation efforts in Kabul depended on Taliban protection after a pair of ISIS suicide bombings killed at least 12 U.S. servicemembers and dozens of civilians.

We expect those attacks to continue and we are doing everything we can to prepare for those attacks, McKenzie said at a Pentagon press briefing. That includes reaching out to the Taliban who are actually providing the outer security at the airport.

According to Politico, U.S. officials have shared intelligence with Taliban officials identifying those who have been cleared for evacuation.

Thursdays military casualties are the first since two service members were fatally shot in February last year, where six others were wounded in the same operation. Afghan authorities told the New York Times another 30 to 40 were confirmed dead from the blasts in Kabul that wounded another 120.

U.S. forces are scheduled to leave the country on Aug. 31, a deadline the Biden administration haspledged to maintain at the Talibans red-line demand despite thousands poised to remain stranded under terrorist rule.

While the U.S. has depended on Taliban cooperation for evacuation efforts, the radical Islamist group has prevented people from accessing the airport, and said Tuesday it would prohibit Afghan passage.

How many Americans are still in Afghanistan is unclear. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken put the estimate at1,500on Wednesday.

The United States has evacuated more than 82,000 people from the country since Aug. 14, thevast majorityof whom have been qualifying Afghans. The U.S. embassywarnedAmericans to disperse from the airport Wednesday over the terror threat which came to fruition one day later.

Because of security threats outside the gates of Kabul airport, we are advising U.S. citizens to avoid traveling to the airport and to avoid airport gates at this time unless you receive individual instructions from a U.S. government representative to do so, read the alert.

Despite the warnings, U.S. Marines continued to process those trying to enter the airport anyway and land a seat on an evacuation flight leaving every 45 minutes.

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Commander Says US Military Is Relying On Taliban Protection In Kabul - The Federalist

The Republican Party of Virginia filed alawsuitThursday against the Virginia State Board of Elections and the Virginia Department of Elections, asking the courts to remove the states gubernatorial candidate Democrat Terry McAuliffe from the ballot for failing to sign a required form declaring his candidacy. This means the former Virginia governor might not be getting his old job back any time soon.

The Virginia Republican Partys lawsuit also contends that McAuliffesDeclaration of Candidacycontains signatures from two individuals claiming that they witnessed McAuliffe sign the Declaration despite his signature appearing nowhere on the face of the document.

When asked about the lawsuit by Fox News, McAuliffe campaign spokeswoman Christina Freundlich said the former governors campaign submitted the required paperwork and that the suit was a desperate Trumpian political move to force McAuliffe, who is consistently leading in the polls, out of the race.

In the past, however, enforcement of election laws and procedures has been carried out irrespective of political party. In 2019,Republican candidate Nicholas J. Freitas was forced to run as a write-infor Virginias House of Delegates after failing to submit the required paperwork to the Board of Elections by the deadline.

For all their cries that the lawsuit is a desperate Trumpian move, the Democrat Party itself works very diligently every election cycle to win on technicalities and kick legitimate third-party candidates off the ballot.

In the 2020 election, Wisconsin Democrats disenfranchised the Green Party presidential ticket. They did this apparently because many people believe Trump carried Wisconsin in 2016 because Green Party candidate Jill Stein won more votes than Clintons margin of defeat. In 2020, the Green Party filed double the necessary number of signatures to be on the ballot yet was illegally disqualified by the Wisconsin Election Commission on an absurd interpretation that violated Wisconsin law.

Ironically, when McAuliffe was the chair of the Democratic National Committee, 2004 third-party presidential candidate Ralph Nader alleged that the DNC engaged in groundless and abusive litigation to bankrupt his campaign and force him off the ballot in 18 states.

While the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that Naders allegations exceeded the statute of limitations in 2009, Nader and former members of his campaign maintain that McAuliffe employed crooked politics.

In her book The Myth of Voter Choice in a Two-Party Tyranny, Nader aide Theresa Amato who managed his 2000 and 2004 presidential campaigns revealed how McAuliffe tried to bribe Nader to stop campaigning in key states. According to Amato, McAuliffe allegedly offered Nader an unspecified amount of money, presumably in the form of contribution checks from big Democrat donors, if he avoided campaigning in 19 battleground states.

Free and fair elections are the cornerstone of our democracy, and Terry McAuliffes clear violation of the law severely jeopardizes the integrity of our elections in Virginia, Virginia Republican Party Chairman Rich Anderson said in a Thursdaypress release.

For decades, Terry has used his political connections and proximity to power to avoid consequences for his reckless behavior and disregard for people and laws, but no amount of political favors and back-slapping can refute the fact that McAuliffe is a fraudulent candidate and cannot be Virginias next governor, Anderson stated.

These are very serious questions, and the McAuliffe campaign seems to be claiming that Terry McAuliffe doesnt have to follow the law like everyone else who runs for office in Virginia,saida spokeswoman for Glenn Youngkin, McAuliffes Republican opponent. We will be closely monitoring the situation to ensure all legal requirements are followed.

Evita Duffy is an intern at The Federalist, co-founder of the Chicago Thinker, and a senior at the University of Chicago. Follow her on Twitter at @evitaduffy_1

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Terry McAuliffe Didn't Follow VA Election Law And Should Be Off The Ballot - The Federalist

George Mason University Professor Todd Zywicki isnt a pushover to anti-science COVID-19 policies. Zywicki has natural immunity to the virus, and thanks to his own hard work and that of his legal team, Zywicki has been granted a medical exemption from his employers vaccine mandate. Hes also created a blueprint for others to potentially follow suit.

George Mason University (GMU) tried to penalize Zywicki for possessing the wrong type of COVID immunity, but he wasnt having it. As a law professor beginning his 24th year teaching at Virginias largest four-year public university, Zywicki enjoys well-documented, robust natural immunity from COVID because he already contracted and fully recovered from the virus last year.

My immunologist says that my antibody level is comparable to somebody whos been vaccinated, Zywicki told The Federalist. The science is quite clear that natural immunity is at least as effective as the most effective vaccines, meaning 90-95 percent, which the Pfizer and Moderna claim they have, clearly more effective than a less effective vaccine like Johnson & Johson, which is only 66 percent. And its not even a serious discussion whether its more protective than Sinovac and Sinopharm.

Clinical studies from the Cleveland Clinic, Israel, and England support these assertions. Natural immunity is a powerful, long-lasting defense against COVID, and Zywicki said it protects against a greater array of variants than the vaccines on the market. The protection afforded by vaccines is reportedly waning, and breakthrough infections are spreading globally.

When GMU tried to coerce Zywicki into getting vaccinated anyway, he had his lawyers at the New Civil Liberties Alliance file suit against GMU on his behalf. Zywicki also slammed his employers broad vaccine mandate via a Wall Street Journal op-ed, in which he argued that theres no justification for a coercive violation of [his] bodily autonomy.

Thanks to his willingness to stand up for his convictions, Zywicki himself wont have to get vaccinated this fall, he wont be subject to disciplinary action, and hell be able to hold office hours and attend in-person events. Zywicki must maintain six feet of distance from others and get tested for COVID on a weekly basis, however, meaning there are still strings attached to his medical exemption.

For some reason, the science isnt enough for GMU. Strangely, despite solid scientific evidence, GMU continues to refuse to recognize that Covid-19 vaccination is medically unnecessary for ALL students, faculty, and staff with naturally acquired immunity demonstrated with antibody testing, Zywickis legal team said in a press release.

Zywicki said that according to his employers blanket policy, employees who dont receive religious or medical exemptions must get injected with a vaccine thats been approved by the World Health Organization.

As Zywicki put it, employees who receive the low-quality Chinese vaccines such as the Sinovac vaccine, which the WHO concluded was only 51 percent effective at preventing symptomatic disease, and the Sinopharm vaccine, which has performed so poorly that some countries are systematically revaccinating their populations with higher-quality options, meet GMUs vaccine requirements. But unless they receive an exemption, GMU employees with natural immunity do not meet such requirements.

After Zywicki got shingles this spring, he had an epiphany. When I recovered I said to my doctor OK, now that Ive recovered from shingles, should I get the shingles vaccine? he recollected. [My doctor] looked at me, and he was kind of thinking, How could somebody as stupid as you possibly be a professor of anything? He said, like he was talking to a kindergartener, Well, no, you obviously dont get vaccinated for a virus right after youve recovered from the virus.

He says, Look, heres your antibody levels [for] the shingles virus. You are protected from getting reinfected by the shingles virus for a long time. And then he said, And if you get vaccinated, you have a really high risk of hyper-inflaming your immune system, Zywicki continued. I walked out of his office and I said to myself, COVID is also a virus. And Ive had COVID. I should find out what my antibodies levels are. I should find out whether its necessary and safe for me to get vaccinated.

Zywicki quickly concluded that he shouldnt get the COVID vaccine. Its really not that complicated. So whats the counterargument? [T]here is no counterargument, Zywicki said.

Zywicki said that those who possess natural immunity have been largely excluded from vaccine clinical trials, meaning that any claims about the safety of vaccinating people with natural immunity are predominantly speculative. Zywicki also said, Clinical evidence has suggested that COVID survivors suffer more frequent and more serious side effects from vaccination than those who have never been infected, presumably because their healthy immune systems are prone to hyper-inflammation.

It is irresponsible, it is vicious, to force college students who have recovered from COVID to then go get vaccinated, Zywicki said. We know the baseline risk is really, really low. Its already an open question as to whether the risk-benefit for a younger person even makes sense, considering their low baseline risk. Now add to that, they not only have the baseline risk, theyve actually gotten COVID and recovered and they have natural immunity. That is as close to bulletproof as you are ever going to find.

Moreover, Zywicki said that the younger you are, the more likely to have a severe adverse reaction to vaccination.

And so the lesson here is clear, Zywicki continued. Its completely wrong for somebody like me to get vaccinated after [developing] natural immunity. My immunity is durable [and] more resistant, he emphasized. [And] with respect to college kids its literally just sick to do this to college kids who have natural immunity to make them get vaccinated indiscriminately.

The American establishment has decided, for whatever reason, [that] this is the agenda they want to push. And they are going to force it on people, the corporations, the universities the Democratic politicians are going to do it, Zywicki reflected.

As Democrats continue to push vaccine mandates, more than 700 American colleges and universities have already taken that step. The University of Virginia disenrolled 238 of its students days before classes resumed because they werent in compliance with the universitys vaccine requirements. Meanwhile, countless corporations are similarly coercing their employees into getting the jab. Thanks to Democrat Mayor Bill de Blasio, New York City recently became the first major U.S. city to announce plans for medical segregation via vaccine passports.

The public health community now has become completely compromised, Zywicki lamented. In terms of pushing bogus information designed to do this, we all know about the ongoing censorship of people who want to talk about vaccine side effects. People feel crushed under the wheel, [they feel] that the entire machine is just grinding over them.

The medical journals are now suppressing and refusing to publish very, very high-quality studies that do not comport with the narrative that they want to push, which is indiscriminate mass vaccinations, Zywicki argued. The medical societies and establishment are now threatening to take away the licenses of doctors who they deem to be spreading misinformation about vaccines. Were talking about a system of control and censorship that all of these institutions have just fallen in line with.

The Biden administration is also in on it. U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy recently released a report encouraging Facebook, Twitter, and others to penalize, censor, and surveil COVID dissidents who promote commentary that the establishment deems to be misinformation.

Earlier this year, Facebook was reportedly suppressing posts and comments expressing doubts about the coronavirus vaccine. Meanwhile, Twitter silenced a video showing a mom discussing her daughters adverse reactions to the Pfizer shot.

Consequently, its difficult for people to get correct information. Confronted by a machine that censors scientific inquiry and incessantly promotes vaccines, Zywicki said, Most people just dont have the wherewithal to understand this.

Americans are starved for the truth and suffering. There are millions of Americans right now with natural immunity [who] are basically being forced to choose between an unnecessary medical procedure, with elevated risk, that will give them no benefit versus losing their job, Zywicki said. And I think that is really tragic and outrageous that there are so many people who are so callous and cavalier about other peoples health and well-being, that they wont even look at the science, the completely compelling science here and treat their employees, their students, whoever they are, with dignity and respect, and allow those people to consult with their doctors like I did, and decide what the right thing is when its clear that natural immunity is as good as vaccine immunity.

Zywicki is relieved by his medical exemption, but he argues the struggle isnt over. Meanwhile, the New Civil Liberties Alliance continues to explore litigation against GMU. And it welcomes input from others on public-university campuses in Virginia particularly tenured faculty who have naturally acquired immunity backed by antibody testing and whose schools are similarly disregarding the scientific facts surrounding naturally acquired immunity.

I speak for tens of millions of Americans in the same circumstances I am in, and I call on leaders across the country to develop humane and science-based approaches as opposed to one-size-fits-all policies, Zywicki emphasized.

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George Mason University Prof Who Challenged Vaxx Mandate Speaks Out - The Federalist

In college, Gilmore Girls was a staple for my roommate and me. Night before a final and too braindead to keep studying, or feeling an introverted Saturday morning? Wed hunker down with our morning coffee or evening snack as Carole Kings iconic vocals led off the opening credits. Intent on seeing our tradition through to the end, we watched every season as well as the 2016 A Year In The Life special.

As a sophomore bound and determined to earn every A and every extra credit point available, I related to early Rory. I admired her because everyone loved and respected her, and she was consistently the mature one beside her flighty and spontaneous mother Lorelai. But by the end of the series (and even more so by the end of A Year In The Life), I couldnt stand her.

Rory took the love and respect of the people around her and squandered it. Used to being revered, she took for granted that her view was always right, opening herself up to glaring moral blind spots (like, infamously, sleeping with Dean and wrecking his marriage).

As her sense of self-importance grew, so did her sense of self-pity. Anytime she didnt get what she wanted (even as a 32-year-old in the 2016 special), she threw a tantrum worthy of a spoiled teenager. With narcissism came painful smugness toward everyone who wasnt in the elite, Yale-educated, pampered shoes of Rory Gilmore.

Rory dreamed of becoming a journalist, and the original shows treatment of the media establishments atmosphere when it aired (2000-2007) is interesting because its a vestige of the self-serious, Walter-Cronkite-esque media world in which CNN was still assumed to be objective and fair.But the corporate media establishment is no longer Walter Cronkites turf, and its arc toward the self-inflated, pompous, and out-of-touch cabal it has become today is remarkably akin to Rorys fall from grace.

Like Rory, the corporate press used to be respected. Just like Miss Patty and Taylor Doose and Babette and the rest of the town running to Rory for her opinion on the latest town festival, America looked to journalists for the final word on what was happening around the country and the world. Outlets were trusted, assumed to be knowledgeable, and taken as reliable.

Then, just as Rory took that respect for granted and stopped earning it, the corporate media got complacent. They still see themselves as the hallowed arbiters of truth they were once thought to be, but instead push politically efficient lies and propaganda with the smug assumption that Americans will buy it because they said so. The pages of Twitter are now just as much an echo chamber as Rorys self-congratulating mind.

Just a few examples: Defenestrating conservatives for suggesting the Wuhan coronavirus could have come from a lab leak, only to (months later) quietly backtrack after realizing those suggestions might have been right. Covering up and lambasting as false news about Hunter Bidens incriminating laptop right before the 2020 election, only (again) to eventually have to stealth-edit those claims. Standing in front of a burning city and calling the riots involved mostly peaceful.

Targeting Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in a baseless smear campaign that even the Democrat mayor of Palm Beach County called intentionally false. Cheering what a competent, expert job Joe Biden would do in withdrawing from Afghanistan, then looking like idiots when he completely botched the withdrawal. Lying about what happened in Lafayette Park in June 2020 and inventing scandal after scandal to bring down former President Trump.

The corporate press, like Rory Gilmore, will not be unconvinced of its own omniscience, even as example after example proves how wrong they usually are. Instead, they award themselves accolades. The corporate media, after all, are democracy defenders just ask the Washington Posts Perry Bacon Jr. Meanwhile, they touted as actual hard-hitting news the love affair they carried on with now-disgraced New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, including the giggly segments with giant Q-tip props that Cuomo did with his CNN anchor brother.

Then, like Rorys tantrums of self-pity when she decides she doesnt want to go to Yale anymore or has boy troubles or shoots her own career in the foot or gets upset that the man shes cheating with (Logan this time) is engaged to another woman, the corporate press has its meltdowns. There was the time a sitting U.S. senator wrote an op-ed in The New York Times calling for the military to help control the violent riots that swept the country for an entire summer, and NYT staffers complained so loudly about the article putting them in danger that the paper retracted the article post-publication. Just recently, there was the time the Associated Press put out a baseless hit piece on DeSantis and got Twitter to suspend DeSantiss press secretary when the story met blowback.

Finally, theres the noxious looking down on everyone else. Rory looks down her nose at everything from a solid job offer at a newspaper she doesnt deem elite enough to the wisdom of the people around her. Meanwhile, the media establishment shrugs off as unenlightened rubes the hardworking Americans who either voted for Donald Trump, live somewhere between the coasts, still believe in God, acknowledge boys and girls are different, or heaven forbid all four.

They also get morbid glee out of mocking the deaths of COVID-19 patients who chose not to get injections, and haughtily appear to think taking selfies of themselves getting the shot is the key to convincing the rest of the country to do the same. As The Federalists Emily Jashinsky noted,These sort of legacy media journalists think of their audience as sheeple who must take instruction from us.

Unfortunately, that attitude permeates the corporate press far beyond the topic of vaccines. Like Rory, the media establishment sees itself as the golden darling, unfazed by the dumpster fires its constantly setting by its willful ignorance and brassy arrogance.

It was always Rorys dream to become a journalist. Whether she succeeded, sitting at the editorial desk of the nearly-defunct Stars Hollow Gazette, is up for debate. Whats glaringly obvious, though, is that in the meantime, the modern corporate media became Rory Gilmore.

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

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Rory Gilmore Is Every Out-Of-Touch, Self-Absorbed Corporate Journalist - The Federalist