Monthly Archives: March 2022

Everything Democrats and the experts got wrong and lied about for the past two years with Covid is not their fault. Its yours!

Thats the only conclusion to be drawn from the shockingly candid remarks made last week by Rochelle Walensky, the head of President Bidens Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. I have frequently said, you know, were going to lead with the science, science is going to be the foundation of everything we do. That is entirely true, she said. I think the public heard that as, science is foolproof, science is black and white, science is immediate and we get the answer and then we, you know, make the decision based on the answer. And the truth is science is gray and science is not always immediate.

In other words, the certitude with which Walensky, Anthony Fauci, and their adoring media spoke should not have been interpreted by the public as actual confidence. How silly that we might have thought otherwise.

Walensky went on to say sometimes it takes months and years to actually find out the answer but you have to make, you know, decisions in a pandemic before you have that answer.

To be sure, those obnoxious Follow The Science and Listen to the Experts slogans popularized by Democrats were never a suggestion or a plea that everyone survey information about the coronavirus as it became available in real time. They were demands that we do as they said.*

*Subject to change at any moment and dont complain when it does!

Up until recently, The Science was an objective, ironclad concept beyond reproach and dissent. There was no debate over the dictates sent down from God himself, Dr. Fauci.

If he said dont bother with masks, its because The Science backed it up. If he said masks were imperative, its because The Science backed it up. If he said herd immunity from Covid could be reached when 60 to 70 percent of the public had antibodies, its because The Science backed it up. When that number changed to 75 percent, then 80 percent, then 85 percent, then went as high as 90 percent, its because The Science backed it up. (Just kidding! Fauci admitted he was manipulating the American people and confessed, We really dont know what the real number is.)

At the initial rollout of the Covid vaccines, the experts said all three in production were close to 100 percent effective in blocking infection and transmission of the virus. If you doubted The Science, you were putting the health of others at risk.

Then The Science supposedly changed and, well, vaccination prevented neither infection nor transmission.

When The Science is whatever they say it is, even as they admit they dont actually know if what theyre saying is true, its not science at all. Its deception.

When its okay for experts to be endlessly wrong no matter the disruption and cost, its not the science. Its the absence of accountability.

Its too late to admit that science is gray and its not the fault of the public that Walensky, et al. are just now getting around to it. The experts squandered their credibility and can never be trusted again.

Excerpt from:

It's Far Too Late For 'The Experts' To Admit That Science Is 'Gray' - The Federalist

Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, should be eating crow these days but is instead deflecting from her agencys litany of Covid failures. In keeping with her track record of getting things wrong, she got them woefully wrong again this time, not with regard to Covid but with regard to the people who disagree with her expert guidance.

During a visit to the Washington University School of Medicine on Thursday, Walensky threw a one-two punch at her critics, but it didnt quite land. It instead only broadcast more elitist hubris and reinforced why federal health bureaucrats havent retained a shred of credibility.

Talking about the vaccine, she said the following:

So many of us wanted to be hopeful. So many of us wanted to say, OK, this is our ticket out, right? Now were done. So I think we had perhaps too little caution and too much optimism for some good things that came our way. I really do. I think all of us wanted this to be done. Nobody said waning. You know, Oh, this vaccines going to work. [Nobody said,] Oh, maybe itll wear off. Nobody said What if its not as potent against the next variant?'

In response to a different question about risk-benefit assessments a few moments later, she said, chuckling snidely (or as she characterized it, a little bit tongue in cheek), I know Im going to be wrong for half the country, so now that Ive accepted that.

The obvious implication of her remark, of course, is that no matter what she says, half the country will disagree with her expert opinion. Throughout the pandemic, this half has included those who have resisted mask mandates for schoolchildren (which Walensky admitted have not been dictated by science but by teachers union demands), those who have hesitated to get the Covid shot, those who have gathered with friends and family, and those unvaccinated with natural immunity who declined to wear a mask, just to name a few.

But the irony is that this half the country also included the people who said precisely the same things Walensky now insists nobody said.

Countless Americans have remained unvaccinated for now, and anyone who has ventured into Middle America to talk to people outside the Beltway and the halls of academia knows that theyve declined the shot for many reasons. Some havent gotten it because they have never been at a significant risk of severe illness or death. Others havent gotten it for religious reasons.

But others wondered how long vaccine immunity would last and if natural immunity might be stronger something the most rigorous studies have supported. Some non-vulnerable people wanted to see if the vaccines would really stop transmission or if they would only aid the individuals who got the shot. Others knew viral mutation was inevitable and wondered whether vaccinating against one variant would do them any good against the next wave, so they waited to find out.

Perhaps Walensky doesnt know these things were being said because her friends in the Biden administration were working overtime to ensure these unsavory opinions were slapped with a misinformation label and nuked from the internet. Big Tech got trigger-happy with their bans, issuing fake fact-checks against contrary opinions to keep them from seeing the light of day.

Meanwhile, dissenters had their opinions shouted out of the public square. The vaccine hesitant had their faith scrutinized and their employment terminated. And corrupt media churned out its daily dose of propaganda, which often featured disconnected pundits reinforcing the bureaucracys narrative that the wrongthinkers are selfish rubes, without ever bothering to ask them about their questions and concerns. So maybe Walensky really thinks nobody ever said these things.

It seems more likely, however, that Walensky knows full well that Americans have been saying these things since the beginning. Given the desperate scramble to improve poll numbers and recover their blown credibility, Walenskys remarks in context look more like a CYA attempt and a limited hangout operation.

How else are we to interpret her blameshifting to the public at large for believing The Science (TM) to be black and white? Its so incredibly irksome to hear Walensky now admit after Dr. Anthony Fauci declared that he is the science and Covid cultists chanted follow the science that the science is gray, as she did on Thursday. Its beyond annoying to listen to her say the pandemic could make masking a regular exercise because she hasnt had a cold in a really long time and we dont miss those.

None of it, however, is as infuriating as watching the director of our countrys premier public health agency backhand the half of Americans who are rightly skeptical of her pronouncements and then pretend that nobody said nor could have foreseen the outcome of Covid vaccine mandates after those same Americans did foresee and did say all of those things and were punished for it. Like elitist hubris, the gaslighting never stops.

Read more:

Half The Country Said The Correct Things Walensky Insists 'Nobody Said' - The Federalist

The Senate currently finds itself in the unusual situation of a tie evenly split between 50 Democrats and 50 Republicans. As a procedural matter, a Senate tie requires some interesting maneuvering. A power-sharing agreement must be passed to hammer out how the majority-minority dynamics will play out. Also, in theory, the vice president must be on notice to break any tie votes that occur something that would be happening a lot more if so many Republicans werent happily voting for so many of Joe Bidens nominees.

But a tied Senate also creates opportunities. As Ive written previously, the Senates Rule 26 comes into play in a tied Senate in a way that would hardly matter otherwise. The rule requires that a majority of the committee be physically present to report a matter (either a bill or a nomination) out of committee. This is true regardless of what an individual committees rules say about minority members being present.

Normally, a single party can present a physical majority of members because the committee makeup reflects how the Senate is constituted. But in a tied Senate, the committee ratios are also tied meaning that if one party denies a quorum (that is, fails to show up), the committee cannot report matters to the floor of the Senate. A physical majority of members is not present. The bill or the nomination is stuck.

This is how the Senate Judiciary Committee could block Bidens nominee to the Supreme Court from reaching the Senate floor. But it also applies in every other committee. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Small Business Committee Republicans have been using this strategy for months to hold up the confirmation of deputy administrator of the Small Business Administration over illegally disbursed Covid relief funds to Planned Parenthood.

Most recently, Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Penn., and the Banking Committee Republicans denied a quorum in order to prevent the committee from reporting out the nomination of Sarah Bloom Raskin to the Federal Reserve.

Senate Republicans are primarily interested in Raskins lack of clarity in answers to committee questions related to revolving door issues, particularly how she used her influence following her tenure at the Federal Reserve and the Department of Treasury during the Obama years.

After leaving Treasury in 2017, Raskin joined the board of directors of the Reserve Trust Company, a financial technology (fintech) firm which provides payment processing and other services for business-to-business payment companies. While there, Raskin appeared to use her connections at the Fed to help secure Reserve Trust a Federal Reserve master account, making them the only nonbank fintech company to have access to the Fed payment system.

Raskin not only appeared to help Reserve Trust secure the coveted status, which gives fintech companies direct access to Federal Reserve clearing, payment, and settlement systems, she did so by helping overturn the denial of their initial application. Several applications for fintech companies were either stalled or denied at the Fed, seemingly due to Fed Chair Jerome Powells hesitancy about granting access to these firms. Reserve Trust was initially denied its application until Raskin intervened.

The master account designation later led Reserve Trust to receive more than $30 million in venture capital funds from QED investors a fund led by Raskins former Treasury Department colleague, Amais Gerety. Following the infusion, Raskin cashed in her shares of Reserve Trust for close to $1.5 million.

Yet, when pressed, Raskin told the Senate Banking Committee she didnt know why Reserve Trust wanted a master account, and reportedly couldnt recall querying the Kansas City Fed on their behalf, even though the Kansas City Fed confirmed that a call on the matter did indeed take place.

There remain other outstanding issues with Raskins nomination, particularly her previous engagement in campaigns to use the Federal Reserve to pressure banks into choking off credit to traditional energy companies. This, as U.S. energy prices soar, the Russia-Ukraine conflict threatens U.S. crude sources and we remain overly reliant on international sources of energy. Considered in this light, Raskins nomination not only has ethical concerns but serious domestic policy problems as well.

Senate Banking Committee Republicans have since submitted follow-up questions to Raskin about her role at Reserve Trust. Raskin has refused to answer, choosing instead to respond to written questions submitted by the committee claiming she could not recall or was unaware no fewer than 36 times.

As a result, the Banking Committee Republicans have simply used the Senate rules to their advantage. In failing to provide a quorum, the conditions of Rule 26 (which supersedes any committee rule) make it impossible for Raskins nomination to move forward.

Ironically, the same tactic was tried by Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, now Banking Committee chairman, in the Senate Finance Committee in 2017 over Trump Treasury nominee Steven Mnuchin and Health and Human Services nominee Tom Price. Brown and his Finance Committee colleagues led a boycott on the nominees, holding a press conference down the hall from where the vote was taking place. The concerns they felt justified the boycott were the same as what Republicans are taking issue with now: unanswered questions about the nominees business dealings.

Ultimately their gambit failed because, regardless of committee rules that require participation of the minority, Rule 26 only requires that a physical majority be present to vote out a matter, regardless of party affiliation. Republicans, who then held a clear Senate majority, were able to provide that. (Its the same reason Sen. Lindsay Graham was able to overcome a Democratic boycott of Amy Coney Barretts nomination to the Supreme Court.)

But what doomed Democrat efforts in 2017 and 2020 is what makes Republican efforts in 2022 successful. A tied Senate (and the corresponding tied committee membership) prevents a physical majority from being present, and keeps the nominee bottled up in committee.

Toomey and his members have made clear that, while they wildly disagree with Raskins ideology on climate change, their blockade of the nomination is solely related to her refusal to answer their questions. [O]ur actions to deny a quorum were not the result of Ms. Raskins radical public comments and beliefs about using federal financial supervisory power to advance climate change policy, the senators wrote in a letter to President Biden. Rather, it was the continual evasion and lack of candor about her time on the board of Reserve Trust.

Republicans have also stated their willingness to report out the four remaining Federal Reserve nominees considered alongside Raskin. Committee Chairman Brown, however, refuses to separate them.

The Senate is a body of parliamentary equals, and this is especially true when the chamber is tied 50-50. A tied Senate gives Republicans a uniquely powerful position to express their will. Thus far Sens. Paul and Toomey, and the Republicans they lead on their respective committees, have been the only senators willing to use the leverage available to every Republican senator. Who will be next?

Rachel Bovard is The Federalist's senior tech columnist and the senior director of policy at the Conservative Partnership Institute. She has more than a decade of policy experience in Washington and has served in both the House and Senate in various roles, including as a legislative director and policy director for the Senate Steering Committee under the successive chairmanships of Sen. Pat Toomey and Sen. Mike Lee. She also served as director of policy services for The Heritage Foundation.

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GOP Is Blocking Biden Nominees, And His SCOTUS Pick Could Be Next - The Federalist

Former President Donald Trumps Truth Social wants to make itself cancel-proof against leftist demands that Big Tech preemptively deplatform it.

So far, the increasingly popular free speech platform has already survived attacks from the corporate media hellbent on smearing anything associated with Trump. Now, leftists are wielding Jan. 6 as an excuse to demand Big Tech companies such as Apple thwart Truth Social before it even becomes fully operational at the end of the month.

In Big Tech Could Save Us From Truth Social,' author Samuel OBrient, who has a history of demanding censorship because he believes Limiting Free Speech is Essential to Democracy, argues that Big Tech companies should preemptively nuke the anti-political censorship platform simply because it is associated with the former president.

Trump clearly wants to use Truth Social to rally his troops again and fire them up for another run at the White House. Theres almost no way that such a mission wont include inciting violence in some form, OBrient wrote this week. If Truth Social becomes a venue for hate-spewing and further insurrection-plotting, these big tech giants can buy themselves a lot of goodwill by honoring their credos and standing up to protect American democracy.

While corporate media are still largely focused on downplaying the number of people abandoning propaganda sites run by the political actors in Big Tech, leaders at Truth Social know that a war on their attempt to offer a family-friendly social media site is coming and they are prepared to stop it in its tracks.

The campaign by the left and the mainstream media to censor and suppress other viewpoints is a shocking threat to democracy, Devin Nunes, CEO of Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG) in charge of launching Truth Social, told The Federalist. The fact that theres even a need and a demand for Truth Social a social media platform that wont censor content based on viewpoints is unsettling in itself. Once you begin censoring, the suppressions develop a momentum of their own. This naturally leads to demands for preemptive censorship, which until recently was a concept you only found in dystopian science fiction novels.

Despite the difficulties presented by a market largely controlled by Big Tech monopolies, Truth Social built most of its platform from the ground up. Parler previously tried a similar strategy but was eventually nuked by dozens of companies who wanted the platform gone for political reasons. Unlike in Parlers case, Apple is really the only Big Tech company that has the power to remove Truth Social from its app store and the new social media platform is already working to keep the illegal activity that censors use to justify suppression off of the platform.

While some are calling for Truth Social to be wiped off of the web, the leaders of the social media company are confident that their lack of reliance on corrupt, political actors for web services will guard them against sudden deplatforming.

Were building as much of our own infrastructure as possible from scratch. We wont be relying on Big Tech firms to keep our website on the internet, and were partnering with companies that are fundamentally committed to free speech, such as Rumble, Nunes said.

Big Tech is filled with political entities that have used their influence and authority to suppress narratives about Covid-19, biological sex, and political stances they dislike. During the 2020 election alone, social media oligarchs did their best to alter the election outcome in favor of now-President Joe Biden. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was caught red-handed funneling money into poor election practices that benefit Democrats and Twitter, aided by the corrupt corporate media, deliberately blacked out any coverage of the Hunter Biden laptop story. After the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, Facebook, Twitter, and others justified wiping Trump off of their platforms for inciting violence but have let actual warmongers like Russias Vladimir Putin stay on.

Users are hungry for a social media platform that doesnt threaten them when they think or speak differently than the regime desires and Nunes said they will find it with Truth Social.

The Big Tech companies generally did not begin as leftwing propaganda projects. In fact, the founders of a lot of these companies were idealistic proponents of free speech. But over time, they got corrupted and transformed their platforms into appendages of the Democratic Party and the left, Nunes said. Truth Social wont do that, no matter the pressure from the media, the government, the left, or anywhere else. President Trump, myself, and others here have spent years fighting back against the lefts ridiculous attempts to silence us.

Nunes is all too familiar with political censorship that is strategically used to justify false narratives circulated by the corrupt corporate media. When he served as the Chair of the House Intelligence Committee, Nunes was quick to call out the fraudulent stories about Trump colluding with Russia which were repeatedly promoted by the dishonest press. Nunes also helped expose Twitter for shadowbanning conservatives like him.

You cant eliminate one side from the public debate and expect to keep a healthy democracy. Everyone is entitled to have their say, and were not going to hire a bunch of Big Tech-style politicalenforcers and ideological goons to force-feed you the viewpoints we decide you should be reading. Thats condescending and unfair, and we wont do it, Nunes said.

Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire and Fox News. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordangdavidson.

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Leftists Demand Big Tech Preemptively Censor Trump's Truth Social - The Federalist

Wisconsins Supreme Court adopted Gov. Tony Evers congressional and legislative redistricting maps on Thursday in what looks, on the surface, like a big win for Democrats. What the news headlines wont tell you, though, is how conservatives largely won the redistricting battle before it began.

The 4-3 decision, which prompted a hell yes from Evers and featured the courts conservative swing vote Brian Hagedorn siding with the benchs liberal judges, doesnt appear to be a win for the right. Yet the devils in the details.

Redistricting is a process predictably fraught with intense bickering as the parties each seek to advantage themselves politically with maximum congressional apportionment. But in Wisconsin, while Evers and Republican legislators were fighting over the maps, one proactive group was quietly devising a legal strategy to box out activist federal judges from manipulating the redistricting process when it inevitably reached the courts.

From restricting which court could hear the case to limiting what factors judges would be allowed to consider in their decision, the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty successfully set the rules of the game so progressive jurists couldnt unconstitutionally hijack the process from the states and become the social justice cartographers of district maps and it worked.

Since Wisconsin is a battleground swing state, this situation is more than a small legal victory for constitutional loyalists. Its also a pattern for other states to follow as they try to prevent the type of left-wing election overhaul that occurred in the 2020 election from happening in congressional and state legislative races.

It all began with recognizing that this cycles redistricting fight would ultimately occur in the courts because there was virtually no chance Evers would sign into law a district map passed by the GOP-controlled legislature. In recent memory, these redistricting impasses get resolved in federal court.

Hearkening back to a Wisconsin Supreme Court decision from 2002, WILL insisted that based on the Constitution, redistricting is a process that belongs to the states, meaning a battle over map-drawing should be resolved by the state Supreme Court, not by some federal court. To that end, WILL attorneys filed a rules petition in June of 2020, but the Supreme Court denied it.

The conservative legal group was undeterred, however, because the results of the 2020 Census were on the horizon. After these numbers came out in mid-August 2021, WILL was teed up to file an original action with the state Supreme Court the very next week, representing plaintiffs from areas of the state where, according to the new population totals, the maps were malapportioned. And this time, the Supreme Court the same one that said 20 years ago that these matters do belong to the state agreed to take it.

At the same time, there was a similar case already moving through federal court. It was filed on behalf of Democrat plaintiffs represented by Marc Elias of Russia collusion hoax infamy, who alleged that their legislative and congressional districts were unconstitutionally malapportioned according to the census numbers.

So WILL intervened in the federal case on Sept. 16, telling that court that the conservative legal group had filed in the state court and that the federal court should defer to that action.

On Oct. 6, the federal court stayed the case, saying it would defer to the state court but only for so long. The redistricting issue must be addressed, it said, so if the state court didnt act fast enough, the federal court would have to. The federal court agreed, however, that since redistricting is a state issue, it should be resolved in state court. That was victory No. 1.

Meanwhile, while the Wisconsin Supreme Court was prepared to step aside in the highly unlikely event that Evers and Republican lawmakers were able to agree to a map, it began moving forward and to the surprise of no one, Evers vetoed Republicans map on Nov. 18.

In October and November, it asked for merits briefing regarding things like how quickly it had to act and what legal principles governed the drawing of maps so WILL told the court exactly what it should do.

WILLs brief centered on two main principles. First, it said the court shouldnt consider partisan factors when deciding maps.

Our objectives we wanted the case to be in state court but we also wanted the court to say that we are not going to take into account the expected partisan outcome of these maps because its not our job, WILL President and General Counsel Rick Esenberg told The Federalist. We arent going to make up for the natural disadvantage that Democratic candidate might have. Were just not going to take that into account at all.

Second and along the same lines, it said the court should adopt a least changes approach, whereby the judges would use the last legal district map in this case, the map from 2011 and change it at little as possible to make it constitutional under new population totals.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court agreed and adopted these principles, which now have the power of precedent, on Nov. 30. Then in December, it accepted eight proposed maps and briefs from lawmakers and advocacy groups, heard oral arguments over their merits in January, and issued its decision this week.

While Republicans are rightly frustrated that the conservative-majority court chose Evers map, its important to understand how hampered the Democrat governor was by the court implementing the least changes principle. The operative map from 2011 was passed by a GOP-controlled legislature and signed into law by then-Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican.

Therefore because of WILLs proactive strategy and thus the court setting the least changes rules, Evers couldnt even try submitting the type of gerrymandered map he would have preferred to the court, or it would have been dead on arrival. He was forced to go back to the drawing board and adhere closely to the 2011 map.

Evers won! read the headlines but how did he win? By drawing maps that had the fewest changes from Republican maps. Not exactly the Democrat victory Evers would like you to think.

While it depends on differences between state constitutions and whether other state courts are receptive to the arguments WILL made in Wisconsin, Esenberg said this strategy is possible for other states to employ.

And after the rigging of the 2020 election through Mark Zuckerberg infiltrating government elections offices, election commissions ignoring rules or illegally changing them, and corrupt Big Tech and the corporate press suppressing crucial information its not only possible for states to get ahead of redistricting in the courts. Its crucial.

If youre gerrymandering every legislative district to make them as close as you possibly can, then that increases the chance that a wrongdoer will be able to flip an election through improper means, Esenberg said. It would just be easier to do it.

If states want to avoid some of the disasters of the 2020 election and prevent leftists from making constitutional redistricting decisions a matter of equity, they must be proactive and recognize that not all victories have an R next to them. Wins like WILLs in Wisconsin are a product of playing offense, not defense.

Original post:

How Conservatives Won Wisconsin's Redistricting Battle Before It Began - The Federalist

The world is captivated by Ukraines resistance to Russian invasion, especially since much of Ukraines resistance comes from ordinary citizens taking up arms in defense of their homeland.

Ukraine has a fighting chance in part because it has taken dramatic steps to provide its people firearms. More than 25,000 automatic rifles and 10 million rounds of ammunition have been distributed to volunteers in Kyiv.

In the United States, even supporters of draconian gun control are announcing they stand with the brave Ukrainian people in their armed resistance. The glaring contradiction between these positions supporting gun confiscation one day and gun distribution the next seemingly hasnt dawned on many of these ideologues.

Their contradiction is apparent in actions, as well as in words. President Joe Bidens rush to arm Ukrainians stands in contrast with his desire to disarm ordinary Americans.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is another prime example: engaging in tyrannical gun control at home while supplying the Ukrainian resistance with machine guns, pistols, carbines, and 1.5 million rounds of ammunition. The European Union shows a similar hostility to the self-defense rights of its people, even as it gives Ukraine about half a billion dollars worth of lethal aid.

Arming average citizens hasnt always been the Ukrainian way, either. A 2014 report noted that the country had inherited the Soviet civilian gun control system, which provides for restrictive gun owner licensing and the registration of all firearms. According to that report, Ukraine initially considered imposing comprehensive gun laws during the 1990s. But politicians gridlocked over whether or not private [gun] ownership would increase crime or improve security.

Hopefully the events of 2022 have settled that question once and for all. An individuals natural right of self-defense applies equally to the defense of his life as to the defense of his nation and neither individual nor nation is secure without the ability to exercise it. This should never have been a question.

As it happened, Ukraine was tragically late to expand legal protection of gun rights. Its parliament acted on an emergency basis just before Russia invaded.

Better late than never, certainly. But imagine if the people of Kyiv had been training with these weapons their whole lives. Imagine if they knew them like the back of their hands, instead of quickly learning to handle them during an invasion. Their resistance, as well as their example to the world, would be all the more powerful.

Its also unfortunate that Ukraines government has left some significant restrictions on the self-defense rights of the Ukrainian people, and has only codified these rights in a statute rather than giving them full constitutional protection. In reality, the right to bear arms in public and private is a natural right that the Ukrainian people need no government permission to exercise. They just need the government to stay out of the way of their natural rights.

But in a time even many U.S. jurisdictions violate that natural right, its not surprising if other countries are confused about it.

Ukraine is certainly moving in the right direction on gun rights, something that cant be said of the entire United States. The chairman of Ukraines parliament, Ruslan Stefanchuk, says the new law is meant to ensure that every citizen receives the sacred right to self-defense.

The people of Ukraine have a chance because they are armed. Its a lesson the world should never forget.

Cody J. Wisniewski (@TheWizardofLawz) is the Director of Mountain States Legal Foundations Center to Keep and Bear Arms. He primarily focuses on Second Amendment issues but is happy so long as he is reminding the government of its enumerated powers and constitutional restrictions.

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Ukraine Shows The World Why Gun Rights Are Human Rights - The Federalist

It would appear that leftists dont actually like a lot of the radical policies they have been advocating for since the beginning of the lockdowns and the death of George Floyd in spring 2020. From homelessness to crime to Covid policies, the left is backtracking on much of its platform in the face of disastrous results and frustration from rank-and-file liberals. Recent developments in our nations capital provide some of the most dramatic examples.

Cities across the country are taking a more aggressive stance on homeless encampments in response to residents complaints, including Washington, D.C. An early February poll conducted by The Washington Post found that three-fourths of Washingtonians support the districts plan to clear the camps of homeless persons that now proliferate across the city.

That the American Civil Liberties Union and even some D.C. council members oppose Mayor Muriel E. Bowsers cleanups have not stopped their enforcement. Bowser has quite a mandate for this: the number of city residents who want these camps cleared does not substantially change based on respondents race, and is above 70 percent for white, black, Hispanic, and Asian residents.

That the district is pursuing this policy with substantial local support is a bit ironic, given that so many prominent leftist organizations, local leftist leaders, and Democratic politicians have been trying for more than a year to protect these encampments. This included Ann Marie Staudenmaier, wife of Maryland gubernatorial candidate Tom Perez, who last year advocated for homeless camps in the district to be permitted and protected. Dont evict them from the only place that they have to call home, she urged.

Perhaps it has something to do with how large numbers of homeless persons affect the cleanliness, security, and attraction of neighborhoods. A separate recent WaPo article cited residents who noted homeless persons in the camp have harassed them. One D.C. resident said downtown is not pleasant and that the ubiquity of the encampments threatens the security of local residents.

Although many on the left would likely grimace to say it, national trends on curbing these camps indicate a significant percentage of the rest of America feels the same way.

Mayors of Americas largest cities, once responsive to calls to defund the police, have done a dramatic reversal in response to local frustration with higher crime rates. Now refund the police has become the cry of many liberal residents.

In D.C., residents opinions on crime and police have experienced this shift, given increased crime and murder rates in the city since 2020. According to a recent WaPo poll, a sizable majority (59 percent) now agree that increasing the number of police officers patrolling communities would reduce the amount of violent crime in D.C.

The share of Washingtonians who say they are not safe from crime has risen to 30 percent this year from 22 percent in November 2019 and is the highest in more than two decades of Post polls, reports the WaPo.

This is quite a change from the defund the police initiatives city residents and various activist groups so loudly endorsed after the death of George Floyd. The D.C. government in 2020 supported measures in June 2022 to cut $15 million from the police department budget. At the time, the police chief warned this could lead to the loss of hundreds of officers and that underfunding training and equipment might result in officers using more excessive force.

Thankfully, D.C. is not alone in wanting to refund the police. As NBC reported in February, Democratic politicians are calling the defund the police movement dead and mayors in San Francisco, New York, and Chicago are moving to increase police budgets and end the reign of criminals.

Democratic states are also ending many Covid restrictions in the face of rising complaints from their constituents. Consider D.C. Mayor Bowsers mid-February announcement that she would lift the citys vaccine requirement for businesses and dial back the citys indoor mask rules. This announcement followed a number of states including many governed by Democrats that have also eased their restrictions as polls come back showing their rising unpopularity. Now D.C.s party scene is returning to normal, reports the WaPo, even though coronavirus case counts in and around Washington remain high.

This is a remarkable and speedy shift, especially considering D.C. had some of the most strict Covid restrictions in the country. Perhaps the Districts dramatic about-face has something to do with widespread annoyance with pandemic restrictions, even among liberal voters. Perhaps it results from the rising tide of Democratic politicians listening to their constituencies despite public health guidance claiming the country is moving too fast in loosening the rules.

Perhaps all of these changes also relate to the fact that the District of Columbia is no longer experiencing the population boom and gentrification that have defined the last couple of decades. The capitals population declined by 2.9 percent from 2020 to 2021, according to the Census Bureau. Living in an increasingly dangerous, filthy nanny-city is apparently not that appealing, even to the Districts majority leftist population. This has been part of a broader national trend as people across the nation in 2021 left Democratic-run states.

To borrow a phrase from the late Irving Kristol, D.C. residents (and liberals across the country) have been mugged by reality and in some cases actually mugged. Perhaps living in a lefty utopia where the homeless camp wherever they like, undisturbed by a defunded police force, with fickle and irrational health-related restrictions isnt all that its cracked up to be.

Democrat D.C. residents, like the rest of Americans, dont actually like their public spaces overrun by homeless persons, their neighborhoods suffering increased violent crime rates, or their cities stuck in a cycle of never-ending draconian public safety regulations.

What this all means is that, thankfully, certain activist narratives that threatened all Americans have lost considerable steam. It also means these policies are likely political liabilities in upcoming elections. Perhaps it also shows there are certain things that all Americans can still agree on.

Casey Chalk is a senior contributor at The Federalist and an editor and columnist at The New Oxford Review. He has a bachelors in history and masters in teaching from the University of Virginia and a masters in theology from Christendom College. He is the author of The Persecuted: True Stories of Courageous Christians Living Their Faith in Muslim Lands.

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Facing The Results Of Their Ideas, Leftists Are Backpedaling Like Mad - The Federalist

A recent Harvard-Harris poll found that 62 percent of Americans believe that Russia would not have invaded Ukraine if Donald Trump were still in the Oval Office. As former senior intelligence officials under President Trump, we agree with that view.

Russia invaded Georgia in 2008 when George W. Bush was president. Russia took Crimea in 2014 when Barack Obama was president. Russia has now invaded Ukraine with Joe Biden as president. However, when Donald Trump was president, Russia did not seize territory from any of its neighbors.

During his four years in office, Trump not only successfully deterred Russia from acting against Ukraine, he effectively deterred a lot of bad behavior across the planet. He focused on ending Americas foreign wars rather than launching new ones. At the same time, he brokered the Abraham Accords to expand peace in the Middle East.

The exercise of American power to deter adversaries is a complicated business. It involves a mix of military, economic, political, and diplomatic strategies and actions that together communicate the costs of threatening U.S. national interests.

Ultimately, the art of statecraft boils down to whether a president projects American strength that deters adversaries, or projects American weakness that emboldens our adversaries.

So how did Trump succeed in containing Putin while the Russian autocrat has run wild with others in the White House? Why was he so successful at spreading peace elsewhere? We believe the long answer begins with these ten ways that Donald Trump projected American strength and kept the bad guys in check:

Each of these points are worthy of unpacking in-depth, but there are several that illustrate the dramatic difference in approach between Trump and Biden, starting with Afghanistan.

When President Trump initiated the process of ending Americas longest war, senior officials huddled in the Situation Room to discuss tactical challenges on the ground. The president reminded the group of Americas humiliating withdrawal from Saigon at the end of the Vietnam War, and said we must do whatever it takes to leave in a safe, orderly, and dignified way. When military leaders bemoaned the costs and logistical challenges of bringing home our equipment, the president said that he did not care if it was a helicopter or a styrofoam cooler. If it had an American flag on it, it was either coming home or getting destroyed to keep it from falling into the hands of our enemies. He vowed that we would leave on our terms, or we would not leave at all.

Tragically, President Bidens approach which included the decision to abandon the strategically important Bagram Air Base prior to the evacuation cost the lives of 13 American servicemembers and led to the Taliban parading victoriously through Kabul with billions of dollars of American combat equipment. The administrations stunning incompetence detailed in an official U.S. Army report made the United States look weak and vulnerable on the world stage, and Putin was watching.

The world took notice when Trump ordered the killing of Iranian terrorist general Qassem Soleimani, who had operated with impunity throughout the Middle East until the U.S. military sent two Hellfire missiles through his vehicle. As a candidate for president, Biden released a statement condemning the righteous attack as a hugely escalatory move that brought us to the brink of a major conflict across the Middle East. This, of course, proved to not be the case, but it illustrated Bidens unwillingness to do what it takes to establish credible deterrence.

This principle of deterrence applies across the globe, which explains why the Chinese military has sent a record number of airplanes into Taiwans air defense identification zone since Biden took office.

To the specific case at hand, Trump was much tougher on Russia than the media have led people to believe, while Biden has been far softer.

Trump deployed such aggressive sanctions against Russia that President Obamas Secretary of Defense Robert Gates called them the toughest in history, and he withdrew from one-sided treaties that hamstrung the U.S. while Russia violated the terms.

Biden has taken the opposite approach, appeasing Putin by handing him his top two geopolitical priorities on a silver platter. He unconditionally extended the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, allowing Russia to continue building tactical nuclear weapons while constraining our ability to modernize. And while Trump imposed sanctions to stop Russias Nord Stream 2 pipeline in its tracks, construction was allowed to resume when Biden took office.

President Trump understood the power of building American energy dominance. By slashing onerous regulations, Trump sparked an American energy boom that ensured we would never be reliant on any other nation to meet our energy needs. Geopolitically, Americas increased export capacity reduced Putins leverage over our European allies, who depend on Russia for 40 percent of their gas and more than a quarter of their oil.

Trump approved the Keystone XL oil pipeline at home and shut down Russias Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline in Eastern Europe. Biden reversed both decisions, meaning he has been harder on Americas energy producers than he has been on Russias. To add insult to injury, as the Russian army pushed into Ukraine, Bidens climate envoy John Kerry hoped aloud that President Putin will help us to stay on track with respect to what we need to do for the climate.

Vladimir Putins appetite for expansion did not wane during the four years Trump was in office, and the world was not just miraculously a safer place. Bad actors like Putin simply knew that they had to restrain themselves or deal with the consequences. In nearly every way possible, President Biden has weakened the United States and our allies and empowered Putin. As a result, Russia is on the march, even as the Ukrainian people have inspired the world with their courage and resilience. And in the wings, Americas greatest threat Xi Jinpings China waits, and watches.

John Ratcliffe served as the 6th U.S. Director of National Intelligence. Cliff Sims served as U.S. Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Strategy and Communications.

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Fear Of Donald Trump Kept Putin From Invading Ukraine. Here's How Trump Pulled It Off - The Federalist

The corporate media and U.S. politicians didnt miss a beat jumping from the drawn-out Covid panic of the past two years to panicking about impending war with Russia over Ukraine. But while media distracts with war in Europe, Democrats from the White House to American cities have been quietly adopting the common-sense Covid policies that conservatives have championed this whole time, and which the Covid panic cabal shamed and censored us for ad nauseam. They dont deserve to get away without a massive we told you so.

After blaming Covid on the unvaccinated and threatening them with a winter of severe illness and death, Biden used his State of the Union address Tuesday night to pretend it wasnt himself and his fellow Democrats making Covid a partisan issue all along. Lets stop seeing each other as enemies,and start seeing each other for who we really are:Fellow Americans, he said.

He also invoked the opening of schools and businesses, a position many conservatives have held for at least a year and a half. Tonight I can say we are moving forward safely, back to more normal routines, said the president, two years into ruined businesses, schooling, and other consequences.

Bidens hogwash speech came just days after his Centers for Disease Control and Prevention conveniently updated their guidelines. The new guidelines suggest that 70 percent of Americans can now stop wearing masks, and no longer need to social distance or avoid crowded indoor spaces, reported The New York Times, noting the new rules only recommend masking in high-risk areas, and would allow eased restrictions in most schools. The Capitol physician also abandoned Capitol Hills mask mandate just in time for Bidens speech.

Washington D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser let her vaccine mandate for indoor venues expire mid-February, and the indoor mask mandate expired on Tuesday. While students are no longer required to wear masks outside at school, the classroom mask mandate remains.

The mayor of New York City on Sunday announced plans to lift school mask mandates and the vaccine mandate for restaurants, gyms, and entertainment venues. By the next day, California, Oregon, and Washington all announced they were relaxing mask mandates in schools and other indoor settings. This all comes right after Bidens polling firm Impact Research advised Democrats to take the win on Covid or risk paying dearly for it in November.

Im all for letting the poor constituents of blue state autocrats breathe again, but this is not a win critics of lockdowns should accept quietly. These are the same people who spent the greater part of two years demonizing everyone who championed the very policies theyre now adopting.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was an especial target of the Covid panic police, as he spearheaded policies that reopened the economy and pushed back against mask and vaccine mandates. CNN, The New York Times, The Washington Post, MSNBC, CBS, and other outlets spun sob and scare stories making the governor out to be a child-killing villain.

Joy Reid called DeSantis a maniac and claimed she was in horrified disbelief that any Florida governor would condemn his own states citizens to sickness and death, purely for his own political ambition. Six months later, she had no criticism for governors of her own political stripe following suit.

Charles Blow of The New York Times unsatirically wrote that there have been multiple peaks in the G.O.P.s utter disregard for public safety even the safety of their own supporters, adding, It isnt a single mountain but a range. The death dealing of Covid amounts to the Appalachians of ignorance.

Its not just conservative political leaders theyve villainized and blamed. Youve probably encountered dirty stares or worse too for just trying to get your life back to normal. Maybe your kids have been ostracized or denied entry to school for refusing to comply with mask theater. Or maybe youve lost your job for wanting medical autonomy over your own body, or know someone who did.

Suddenly, the same people who derided you as selfish, anti-science rubes are trying to sheepishly align with what youve said all along. To top it off, theyre trying to claim that as a win.

It might be one thing if Covid restrictions actually worked (they dont), and Covid numbers were at their sky-highest when Republicans championed freedom-minded policies and had actually dropped off to minuscule levels now (not what happened either). But a quick look at the numbers will show that hasnt been the case.

There were fewer than 100,000 average new daily Covid cases (96,138) when Blow wrote his Appalachians of ignorance line in August 2021. That number was 60,335 in October 2020 when Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf posted his tweet lambasting Republicans for their irresponsible lack of concern.

When the CDC posted its updated guidance this past Friday, the new daily average was 68,661. (Its also worth considering that fewer people are probably getting tested now, as Covid panic subsides.) Less than two months ago, the nation hit its all-time high for new Covid cases, over 800,000 every day, dwarfing any previous numbers. Yet, on the heels of that spike, Democrats are declaring that Covid is more over than it ever was when some Republicans tried to ease restrictions.

Youll hear them claim that transmission risk levels are lower now, per the CDC. Funny enough, the CDC has changed its parameters for what qualifies as low, moderate, and high community transmission levels.

The agency used to count 0-9 new cases per 100,000 people in the past seven days as low, 10-49 new cases as moderate, 50-99 as substantial, and 100 or more as high. But new guidance released in the past week suddenly considers anything less than 200 new cases per 100,000 twice the previous threshold for the high risk category as low risk, provided hospital admissions and the number of beds occupied by Covid patients are below a certain number.

So suddenly, places that would have been labeled high risk a month ago can suddenly be lumped into the low risk category. Meanwhile, the Democrats declare victory over Covid.

Dont let them do it not until they admit it was their power-hungry policies that drove young people to suicide, damaged kids learning, stole jobs, left patients dying in facilities without their family members present, and pitted Americans against their neighbors. Theyre two years too late in adopting the policies they berated us for, and they dont deserve to get away with it.

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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Democrats Adopt The Covid Policies They Insisted Would Kill Grandmas - The Federalist

Disney has announced that six Marvel TV series including Daredevil and The Defenders all rated TV-MA for extreme violence and explicit content will land on streaming service Disney Plus on March 16. Many fans are excited by the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is uniting on one platform, while some leading family entertainment advocates question the move.

Years before Disneys own streaming plans took shape, in 2015 their Marvel division partnered with Netflix to take a group of lesser-known, street-level heroes (the Defenders) from past comics and produce shows for adult viewers that push the boundaries of superhero TV.

Their first entry, Daredevil, about a lawyer-turned-vigilante whose Catholic faith motivates his quest for justice, in particular gained a loyal following over three seasons.

Its smart, sophisticated, and delivers big-screen action on a small screen, said Christian Toto, founder of the entertainment website Hollywood in Toto and author of Virtue Bombs: How Hollywood Got Woke and Lost Its Soul. Daredevil is one of the MCUs more complex heroes, and that makes for compelling content. Seeing these shows shift to Disney Plus is a marketing coup.

Yet Melissa Henson, program director at the Parents Television and Media Council (PTC) based in Hollywood, called it off-brand for these edgy series to make the leap from Netflix to Disney Plus.

Its certainly counter to how most parents perceive Disney Plus, she said in an interview. Out of the gate, Disney Plus branded itself as: Everything on here, you can be comfortable sitting down and watching these shows and films with your kids.

Signaling their change in brand identity, Disneys press release about The Defenders notes subscribers will have to opt in to these new titles. Still, for families with young kids at home, the move presents new challenges to navigate.

Michael Foust, an entertainment writer for Crosswalk, has sampled all the top streaming services and become an expert on the best options for families. Raising four kids in rural Illinois, he and his wife seek to guard their kids from explicit content as they enjoy a weekly family movie night.

No streaming service should be used as a babysitter, he and parents advocates are quick to note. But with a trusted family brand like Disney, parents dont constantly worry about kids stumbling upon something that conflicts with your values, Foust said in an interview.

That changed for him recently, after his nine-year-old watched a promoted show without a parents permission. We actually deleted Disney Plus off of our Roku (TV device) for several weeks, he said, preferring not to disclose the specific adult animation title. We have Disney Plus back now, but with parental controls on. I think thats a lesson for every parent.

These conflicts arise from confusion about genres, he says. The problem is kids automatically believe animated shows and superhero films are kid-friendly. Companies like McDonalds are partly to blame for that. One of my boys, four years old at the time, got a Happy Meal and started playing with toys promoting Avengers: Endgame. We wouldnt let him see that.

Marvel has become a cornerstone of Disneys streaming strategy, which is why in late 2018 Netflixs Daredevil and companion series were abruptly canceled as Disney began a process of pulling Marvel content from other platforms. Last year, Disney Plus premiered five original Marvel series. All were rated either TV-PG or TV-14, usually featuring bloodless battles rather than the brutal decapitations and grisly violence seen on Marvel Netflix shows.

Rolling out this slate of TV-MA series signals a sea-change, bringing Disney Plus closer to Netflix. These shows really increase the violence, along with adding innuendo and sexual content, says Henson. This is a dramatic departure. Its puzzling why these edgy shows arent heading to Hulu instead, which is known for adult-targeted content.

For some observers, its a welcome shift. From R-rated Joker to Prime Videos The Boys, a years-long trend of hyper-violent comic adaptations has rejected formulaic storytelling.

Toto praises Daredevil as a gritty show for grown-ups, no doubt. He adds: It also has a real-world feel that some MCU shows lack. Like the Dark Knight trilogy, you can imagine Daredevil existing in our current times.

Considering Disney Plus has lagged behind streaming competitors in building up its library, the sudden influx of series makes sense. Families seeking a show within existing Marvel rating boundaries some coarse language and non-gory violence in TV-14 territory at worst should note theyre also adding ABC drama Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. on March 16.

Although known as critics, Parents Television and Media Council has often praised Disney Plus as mostly family-friendly, according to Henson. Theyve created a lot of original shows in the Star Wars franchise, from The Mandalorian to animated titles, that are really on-brand. I think it would be a mistake for them to depart from what has drawn many people to their streamer.

For others, it was a foregone conclusion that Disney Plus would eventually be home to all Marvel titles. Despite the explicit nature of The Defenders shows, Toto says, It adds gravitas to what Disney is trying to build with their platform.

Justifying explicit content in superhero stories, Toto points to X-Men spin-off Logan, with its themes of pain and redemption. It proved an R-rating wasnt just about more blood being spilled but mature themes that arent always suitable for young minds, he said. The comic book world is vast and layered, leaving room for many different, and valuable, interpretations.

To redraw content boundaries on a platform trusted in households with young kids, Foust says it gives parents an assignment. We have a couple of weeks to learn and then use parental controls, which he and Henson say are fairly adequate on Disney Plus.

This move creates a dilemma of having to more closely monitor Disney Plus, he said. Similar to Netflix, Disney is becoming more of an antagonist than an ally. Maybe they always were.

Josh Shepherd covers culture, faith, and public policy for several media outlets including The Stream. His articles have appeared in Christianity Today, Religion & Politics, Faithfully Magazine, Religion News Service, and Providence Magazine. A graduate of the University of Colorado, he previously worked on staff at The Heritage Foundation and Focus on the Family. Josh and his wife live in the Washington, D.C. area with their two children.

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Disney Plus Will Soon Feature Marvel Series With Explicit Content. Parents Beware - The Federalist