Daily Archives: November 28, 2021

On this episode of The Federalist Radio Hour, Federalist Western Correspondent Tristan Justice joins Culture Editor Emily Jashinsky to discuss what he learned about the state of the GOP from the Republican Governors Association annual conference in Phoenix earlier this month.

Its important to note that all these different states have different issues to run on, but education is really at the focal point of the culture war, and Republicans, I think, would be wise to follow the model of Glenn Younkin and adopt this issue and become champions for kids education. But again, they have other issues to run on as well, Justice said.

Other issues that the GOP plans to harness in the 2022 midterms include immigration, inflation, and energy costs.

Republicans ought to worry more about governors than anything else next year, considering just how just how the pandemic illustrated how important it is to maintain these governorships, Justice said.

Read Justices dispatch Youngkins Win Bolsters GOP Optimism, But Did Governors Learn? here.

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Will GOP Governors Engage The Culture War To Keep States Red? - The Federalist

On this episode of The Federalist Radio Hour, author and Daily Signal columnist Jarrett Stepman joins Culture Editor Emily Jashinsky to discuss the history of Thanksgiving and why, despite attacks from the left, the holidays traditions live on.

When you have a national day of Thanksgiving, you have to understand 1863 was really the heart of the American Civil War. There were Americans dying in the tens of thousands, a country that was at that point entirely torn apart. You had literally families that were at war with one another. It says a lot about the character of the nation that at that moment, they took a step back to give thanks for what they had as Americans, Stepman said.

And it was, I think, a combination of giving thanks for the things that they were given, giving thanks to the fact that they even had a country, the United States of America, something that many take for granted, he added.

Stepman said varying visions leave many of the far-left feeling contempt for the U.S. but the nations origins are important.

I think that the Thanksgiving tradition, which, of course, the pilgrims are very much a part of in this country is incredibly important. Its important to remember how our origins as a country, even though this was hundreds of years before the United States as we know it existed, you can see the seeds of our own origins as a people, Stepman said.

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Why America's Future 'Depends' On Thanksgiving - The Federalist

The Los Angeles Unified School District, the second-largest public school district in the nation with more than 640,000 K-12 students enrolled, discouraged students from celebrating Thanksgiving this year, instead offering an alternative holiday in its place.

The LAUSD Office of Human Relations, Diversity & Equity prepared a number of presentations called Advisory Lessons that push left-wing beliefs and are intended to be shown to students. The website also describes the need for teachers to talk to students about power, privilege, oppression, and resistance.

One such lesson is called Lets Talk About Thanksgiving. It starts out innocently enough, asking students if they prefer pie or turkey. Then the presentation lists a number of objectives, one of which is Reflect on how you can honor the true meaning of Thanksgiving.

What exactly is this true meaning, you might ask? The presentation doesnt waste any time, jumping into a video from MTV titled Everything You Know About Thanksgiving Is Wrong. It challenges the finer details of the first Thanksgiving, like the nature of the food that they ate and the clothes that the pilgrims wore. The video goes on to entirely overshadow the three-day pilgrim festival at which 90 members of the Wampanoag tribe were present, the event that would later go on to be called Thanksgiving.

It does, however, discuss the extensive history of violent conflict between Native peoples and the pilgrims, all while falsely framing such conflict as if it was exclusively initiated and carried out by the European settlers. The rest of the presentation maintains this theme.

One slide contends that unnamed researchers doubt that the pilgrims and natives ever had a celebration of unity, despite a historical record that documents a three-day festival where members of both groups celebrated together. It once again cites settlers attacks against the natives while not mentioning aggressive actions taken by the natives against settlers.

Students are then directed to a website where they can discover whose land you are on. It also says that LAUSD headquarters is on Chumash, Tongva and Kizh land. Note that the slide show does not refer to the land in the past tense but instead says that the area is currently Chumash, Tongva, and Kizh land, implying that these tribes, not the state of California or the United States of America, continue to have a legitimate claim to the area a century or more after they were conquered by settlers and U.S. armies.

The presentation concludes with a videofrom Teen Vogue that claims thatthe true story of Thanksgiving is that after every killing of a whole village, these European settlers celebrated it and then called it Thanksgiving and thatpeople who celebrate Thanksgiving are celebrating the deaths of many people. The video ends with a group of girls flipping over a Thanksgiving table.

LAUSD isnt content with simply deconstructing Thanksgiving, theyre also intent on replacing it with a different holiday. Thats why they made a presentation labeled National Day of Mourning, which bears the subtitle Learn about the day of protest held by Native Americans to mourn ancestors and the theft of their lands.

The presentation provides a historical overview of the Day of Mourning, citing the original protest that was held in Massachusetts in 1970. It goes on to note that The National Day of Mourning hopes to educate folks about the true history of the colonization of America and end the national myth and that it is a way for Indigenous people to remember their ancestors and grieve their genocide. This holiday is held on the same day as Thanksgiving.

The presentation also includes a reflection page that asks the question Do you think people are starting to re-think their understanding of Thanksgiving? One doesnt have to read very far into these two presentations to realize that the administrators at LAUSD who created these lessons fully intend for their students to reconsider Thanksgiving, specifically to see it as a celebration of racist violence rather than how it has traditionally been regarded as a celebration of unity and gratitude.

There is nothing wrong with a person mourning the loss of aspects of his culture, or the evils that accompany war. But both presentations were permeated with an air of faux impartiality. This is the exact danger. By disingenuously framing their politics as legitimate academic disciplines or good-natured attempts at intellectual inquiry, they shroud their real aims.

To naively accept that the LAUSD was simply motivated by a desire to engage in historical or cultural preservation rather than to indict American traditions as uniquely racist is to ignore what weve learned from a year thats been replete with controversies surrounding critical race theory.

Their presentation on Thanksgiving sheds light on their motives. Notice how all historical nuance had been discarded. In the name of telling the true history of the holiday and native settler relations, they entirely ignored that violence between the two populations went both ways, the barbaric practices of many indigenous tribes including the abuse of women and ritual torture, that the violence was punctuated by periods of peace and treaties, or even that the Native American population was segmented into different tribes, each of which had distinct experiences with each other and settlers.

Furthermore, if decrying conquest and the cultural erosion that stems from it, not engaging in grievance politics, was their goal, where are the mentions of any of the numerous cases of violence between native tribes? The unfortunate reality is that violent conflict has been a defining feature of the human experience, regardless of the people, place, or time one studies. Acting as if conquest is specific to a population or a country is dishonest, serving only to engender animosity against peoples or countries that have been deemed as uniquely guilty.

This rejection of historical nuance is highly politically expedient and has, in this instance, been leveraged by LAUSD to needlessly push division and erode a quintessential American holiday. While fighting back against the critical race theory thats invaded American schools is a long and arduous process, there is a simple way you can push back against those who undermine our traditions. Keep celebrating.

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Los Angeles Schools Teach Students That Celebrating Thanksgiving Is Evil - The Federalist

The point of the obviously unjust prosecution of Kyle Rittenhouse was to deter Americans from standing against the lefts routine use of mob violence. After all, mobs cannot be checked if citizens are afraid to defend themselves and their communities when Democratic mayors, governors and prosecutors refuse to stop leftist riots.

This is why left-wing politicians and their media supporters hate effective self-defense. For example, Farhad Manjoo of the New York Times used the Rittenhouse trial to argue against the foundational tenets of gun advocacy, starting with the claim that guns are effective and necessary weapons of self-defense. He claimed that Rittenhouses gun transformed situations that might have ended in black eyes and broken bones into ones that ended with corpses in the street.

As National Reviews Kevin Williamson replied, Well, yes. Thats the idea. The point of effective self-defense is avoid relying on the mercy of aggressors, hoping they will be satisfied with only seriously injuring you.

In addition to disdaining the right to self-defense, Manjoo also wants to remove police protection from citizens. He was ebullient over the violent Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, and elated that acceptable public discourse about police reform has shifted to include terms like demilitarize, defund and abolish.

This in folly, but at least he is honest enough to admit that he believes that the police (if they are not outright abolished) should stand down during leftist riots, and that citizens who defend themselves should be prosecuted. The only people who should be punished for riots are those who try to stop them.

The lefts leadership, and not just the fringe, is pro-riot, as illustrated by the constant labeling of rioters as protestors. The only reason to conflate the two is to give moral cover to the riots.

As Nellie Bowles, formerly of The New York Times, noted regarding the papers suppression of her reporting on Kenosha, the mainstream liberal argument was that burning down businesses for racial justice was both good and healthy. If you lived in those neighborhoods on fire, you were not supposed to get an extinguisher. The proper response the only acceptable response was to see the brick and mortar torn down, to watch the fires burn and to say: thank you.

In short, either get with the mob or get out of its way. And dont forget to cheer as rioters destroy your neighborhood. As Nikole Hannah-Jones, mastermind of The New York Times Pulitzer Prize-winning 1619 Project said during the 2020 riots, Destroying property, which can be replaced, is not violence.

This attempt to justify mob destruction by pretending that it only targets replaceable property could only be believed by the ideologically intoxicated and the very privileged. Even if we ignore those killed and injured by the riots, the truth is that property is often irreplaceable, and even when it can be replaced its destruction harms people.

The idea that insurance will fix everything is ridiculous, especially coming from those who otherwise tend to denounce insurance companies. Furthermore, even when insurance companies are not difficult to deal with, there are things that are uninsured, or not insured for the full value. And some things are just irreplaceable, often because they have value beyond their physical functionthe furniture that my father built can be functionally replaced by something from a store, but the personal value cannot.

We are embodied beings, and naturally develop emotions regarding objects with special significance. Furthermore, it is still harmful to destroy more mundane objects. Businesses and homes, even if fully insured, cannot be rebuilt in a day, and in the meantime people will be out of work or out of a home.

Rebuilding, even with money, takes time, and to force people into it is stealing parts of their lives from them. The injury is multiplied when entire neighborhoods are destroyed, even if no one is physically hurt.

This is why people will not simply acquiesce to rule by rioters. Citizens taking up arms is inevitable when the authorities are unable or unwilling to defend people and property. It may have been foolhardy for an untrained 17-year-old to take that task on himself, but that does not negate his right to self-defense, let alone excuse the rioters and their media cheerleaders and political enablers.

For those of us not high on ideology, it was obvious that the violence of Black Lives Matter riots would not result in fruitful criminal justice reform. As for defunding the police, it has been a disaster, and left-wing cities that cut police budgets are having to increase funding due to crime surges.

Increases in crime are a natural result of excusing and encouraging riots. Evil attracts evil, and excusing riots if they are for a supposedly good cause ensures that many wicked people will flock to that cause as an excuse for their crimes. It is no coincidence that the men Rittenhouse shot in self-defense were all criminals, beginning with pedophile rapist Joseph Rosenbaum.

The response of left-wing media and politicians to Rittenhouses justified acquittal shows that they have learned nothing. They doubled-down on the lies that the rioters were peaceful protestors and that Rittenhouse was a white supremacist murderer, and they called everyone who agreed with the verdict racist.

That reveals why they support riots and hate self-defense. They want to punish the nation. They want to inflict pain as part of some bizarre national catharsis that purges the sins of the people and puts the left in permanent power.

This strange hatred for their own country is a large part of why the leadership of the leftpoliticians, media, academics, and suchlikeis losing support from ordinary, working-class voters, who do not want to see their neighborhoods burned down and the police defunded. Other than criminals, rioting is largely the province of faux-radicals who view destruction as a lark or a tool, and who are safely insulated from the long-term consequences.

Politically, the lefts leaders view riots as tools of punishment and intimidation used by their side, which may be part of why the capitol riot of Jan 6 looms so large for themit carries the threat that the right might be able to summon mobs of its own. In contrast to the lefts embrace of violence, conservatives must oppose escalating, tit-for-tat, riots. We will win by standing for law and order against mob rule, not by emulating the left.

Rittenhouse should never have been charged. But even more, the left should never have encouraged and enabled the riots that led to him being attacked and having to defend himself.

Nathanael Blake is a senior contributor to The Federalist and a postdoctoral fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

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Rittenhouse Verdict Reveals Once Again That The Left Wants Riots - The Federalist

If, as recommended, you spent your Thanksgiving enjoying football along with excessive amounts of food, you were treated to a curious sponsorship: Crown Royal.

While it isnt curious that the Canadian whiskey is working with the NFL, a league not known for its aversion to marketing or booze, to have Thanksgiving games sponsored by a Canadian company is a visible sign of decline. For starters, it was Thanksgiving, the quintessential American holiday. For seconds, its Canadian whiskey. For thirds, Im pretty sure this is still America, decline notwithstanding.

But thats where we are as a country, reduced to letting hosers help bring us an annual tradition. And while we should probably blame President Biden for this, even if this one thing isnt his fault, we should definitely blame NFL commissioner Roger Goodell for selling us out, once again.

Football on Thanksgiving brought to us by Canadian whiskey, as if there arent many, many, many bourbons that could have done the same job, except better.

Im not trying to disparage Crown Royal. Its a fine whiskey. There was a time before the bourbon craze when a friend busting out the velvet bag would be treated with reverence. I still wouldnt look down upon it, even though there are many, many, many bourbons that could do the same job, except better.

The time for reverence, though, has long since passed. Its Crown. Its easily accessible, not too expensive, and not too demanding of the drinker. Its a great bottle for elevating your and Coke or passing around the room for celebratory shots after the game. Its also suitable for remorse shots when the game doesnt go so well.

But the thing is, in case I havent mentioned it, its Canadian. And not to talk trash about Canada, but, well, it is Canada. As much as people love to elevate its stature, no one ever actually moves there, threats aside. Its a place people love in theory. Even ex-pat Canadians extolling its virtues stop short of moving back and they presumably have family there. Its like the Unitarian Church of countries.

On Thanksgiving, though, there was Crown Royal, sponsoring our game, rubbing decline in our faces. As Americans, we should be accustomed to Goodell and the NFL rubbing our faces in various things. That doesnt mean we shouldnt fight it.

Roger Goodell was unlikely involved in the decision to accept Crown Royal as an official sponsor. That move probably came from the NFLs chief marketing officer or some other marketing lackey who saw the dollar signs American, of course and said Yes. Goodell, though, created the environment in which that could happen, most likely because he hates America.

If you doubt that undeniable truth, remember how Goodell treated Americas son Tom Brady and the New England Patriots. The Patriots! Roger Goodell hates America and now hes stopped hiding it, going so far as letting Canada sponsor our pastimes, even if he didnt personally approve the deal and instead just trusted someone to ink it for him. Fish do rot from the head down.

America has never been big on banishing people, but we live in a brave new world and maybe its time to rethink that. When it comes to Roger Goodell, its definitely time to rethink it. It is now undeniable that the commissioner should at least be banished to Canada, if not some remote outpost with semi-reliable electricity. No longer can we let this megalomaniacal ginger make a mockery of our holidays, our people, and our sports.

As it is always darkest before the dawn, so is our current moment. This is no time for excessive despair, or to give up. We must, though, fight, and thats why its time to send Goodell packing to colder climes. Politically, Canada obviously suits him better than his current country, so its not that harsh of a punishment. And when it comes to whiskey, he might at least start learning how to drink.

Richard Cromwell is a senior contributor to The Federalist. Follow him on Twitter, @rcromwell4.

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It's Time To Banish Roger Goodell To Canada - The Federalist

In the year since last Thanksgiving, no one has been more influential in shaping the course of my career than MSNBCs Joy Reid.

Others on the left come close, but no one is quite as good at representing, day in and day out, just how awful Democrats and the media have become. Watching Reids show is the surest way to get a sense of where the lefts depravity stands and where its headed. Her program has been a godsend in providing me with direction in explaining and answering any given lie that Democrats and the media are excitedly spreading.

Whatever Reid says, odds are you can count on the opposite being the truth. And thats why this year, Im deeply thankful that Joy Reid has a nightly show on prime-time television.

I appreciate in December 2020, Reid continued the media campaign to make Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis look bad on the pandemic. As Floridas governor, Ron DeSantis has made one hideous move after another, she babbled. But, she said, his biggest screw-up had been when it comes to the coronavirus.

Reids leading data point to back up that accusation was that Florida at the time was only one of the three states with more than 1 million cases, and those case numbers are rising.

Such breathless declarations on DeSantis were routine for the past year but they had the unintended effect of inspiring interest in what actually was happening in Florida and all indications are that even without obsessing over masks and resisting draconian economic restrictions, the DeSantis administration has done relatively well in limiting the damage of COVID-19.

At the time, Florida did have more than 1 million cases. But so did deep-blue California, with 1.5 million. The third state with more than 1 million was Texas. Incidentally, all three states have the largest populations in the country. Of course they had the highest total number of positive cases.

But even though Florida has a higher population than blue state New York (and an older one), Florida to this day continues to have the lower COVID death rate. Florida has suffered 285 deaths per 100,000 people. In New York, its 292.

Average person: Wow, so mask mandates and lockdowns dont necessarily mean COVID success? Good to know for 2022 and 2024! Thanks, Joy!

I also appreciate Reid bringing my attention to the Kyle Rittenhouse homicide trial in advance, something I had not planned on paying attention to until she claimed on her show in late October that an acquittal would reinforce white supremacy. When Reid says its about race, you know its actually devoid of race.

Reid hadpondered whether there was anything prosecutors could do to make sure that this doesnt wind up being a jury that essentially approximates the Emmet Till jury back in the 1950s. Spotting the red flag, I refreshed my memory on the details of the Rittenhouse shootings from August of last year, curious as to where Reid was drawing the dubious race link.

Couldnt find it. Other than that the riot scene where the shootings took place had also been a place where Black Lives Matter protests were taking place, nothing about it was racial. Others around the country apparently noticed the same and while on that fact-finding crusade, we all noticed something else that Rittenhouse was in fact the victim!

Had not half the country realized theyd been told a lie, pressure on the jury from the left to deliver a guilty verdict might have been successful.

Good thing Reid was putting out the alerts. Thanks, Joy!

And thanks to all of you who have been reading along. Happy Thanksgiving.

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This Thanksgiving, I'm Thankful For Joy Reid - The Federalist

The following is a song of thanksgiving written by the great Psalmist, in Psalm 111. Its presented here in the King James version, which is in the public domain.

1 Praise ye the Lord. I will praise the Lord with my whole heart, in the assembly of the upright, and in the congregation.

2 The works of the Lord are great, sought out of all them that have pleasure therein.

3 His work is honourable and glorious: and his righteousness endureth for ever.

4 He hath made his wonderful works to be remembered: the Lord is gracious and full of compassion.

5 He hath given meat unto them that fear him: he will ever be mindful of his covenant.

6 He hath shewed his people the power of his works, that he may give them the heritage of the heathen.

7 The works of his hands are verity and judgment; all his commandments are sure.

8 They stand fast for ever and ever, and are done in truth and uprightness.

9 He sent redemption unto his people: he hath commanded his covenant for ever: holy and reverend is his name.

10 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: a good understanding have all they that do his commandments: his praise endureth for ever.

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'The Beginning Of Wisdom': An Ancient Song Of Thanksgiving - The Federalist