Category Archives: Federalist

Its become a clich to refer to whatever election is currently occurring as the most important election in ones lifetime, or maybe even the entirety of U.S. history. Yet we are currently facing the most important American election in my lifetime which is to say, of the last 22 years.

The 2020 presidential race was no exception to this trend of hyping elections. President Trump told the Republican National Convention, This is the most important election in U.S. history, a sentiment shared by the media and voters. While Trump and Joe Bidens race was certainly noteworthy, it cannot claim the title.

Every major election has substantial stakes, but todays runoff Senate race in Georgia will determine the countrys future for years to come. Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue are all that stand in the way of a Democrat-controlled White House, House, Senate, and likely packed Supreme Court.

While neither President-elect Biden nor Vice President Elect Kamala Harris were willing to confirm or deny whether theyd pack the Supreme Court should Democrats win both the presidency and the Senate, their vagueness indicates the option is, at the very least, not off the table. Biden did express an intention to form a commission to reform the Supreme Court, which he considers out of wack, but never ruled out adding additional seats.

With a Democrat-run Senate, radical judges could be approved, who could serve as a rubber stamp for White House and Senate Democrats agenda, rather than their intended role as defenders of the Constitution. The structure of the Supreme Court is outlined in the Constitution as a safeguard against legislators and presidents overstepping the bounds of their roles or the foundations of our countrys law.

Whether the reforms ultimately become adding additional justices or some other method, its clear that Bidens intent is to increase the politicization of the federal branch meant to be impartial. As the Supreme Court involves lifetime appointments and its decisions form binding precedents on federal matters, such alterations could have long-lasting effects.

The left is currently pushing massive policies that are disastrous and costly. Democrats proposed tax plan alone will realize broad tax increases across all income levels, wage decreases, and fewer jobs, according to four independent analyses. Corporate taxes will likewise see an increase to 28 percent.

A Democratic win on Jan. 5 likely entails an end to fracking, costing thousands of jobs and harming the already fragile economy. Both Biden and Harris spent the 2020 primary openly promoting a ban on fracking, which they weekly attempted to backtrack despite video evidence. A fracking ban would cost an estimated 200,000 jobs, which the government is more than comfortable sacrificing in the hopes of offsetting climate change.

Do you like your current health insurance, or even just like having the option of private insurance? Enjoy it while it lasts, because the Biden-Harris administrations health plan is intended cover nearly half of the country, eventually leading to a single-payer system entirely controlled by government. This plan starts at an estimated cost of $2 trillion, while slowly wiping out private insurance.

The Senate has been investigating Big Techs targeted censorship of conservative ideals, seeking to repeal, or at least limit, their immunity under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Movement against Section 230 would be monumental towards ending the suppression of ideas, truth, and dialogue on social media. The left has no incentive to combat unjust censoring, as it directly benefits them, so a Democrat-controlled Senate would allow this to continue, and more important news stories will go unheard.

Substantial policy changes, government spending, jobs, and the structure of the Supreme Court all could hang in the balance of the Georgia Senate runoff. It is clearly a monumentally important election, certainly the most important in my lifetime, and possibly of many more.

Paulina Enck is an intern at the Federalist and current student at Georgetown University in the School of Foreign Service. Follow her on Twitter at @itspaulinaenck

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Why Georgia's May Be The Most Important Election In Recent History - The Federalist

House Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri ended the opening prayer for the 117th Congress Sunday with amen and a-woman, in an apparent effort to be gender- and deity-inclusive while omitting aperson.

The term amen is not even a reference to the two sexes, however, as Pennsylvania Republican Congressman Guy Reschenthaler pointed out on Twitter along with a clip of the pointless passive-progressive virtue signaling.

Cleaver, an ordained United Methodist pastor who appears clueless about basic biblical knowledge such as the meaning of the Hebrew word amen, offered the House prayer as Democrats in the lower chamber have prioritized removing references to the two sexes in House business in an effort to promote inclusion and diversity.

The lower chamber will vote on the new rules package for the fresh Congress Monday.

Democratic Rep. James McGovern of Massachusetts, who chairs the House Rules Committee, said in an announcement the new congressional speech ban, if passed, would change pronouns and familial relationships in the House rules to be gender-neutral or removes references to gender, as appropriate, to ensure we are inclusive of all Members, Delegates, Resident Commissioners and their families including those who are nonbinary.

The new House sworn in Sunday awarded California Rep. Nancy Pelosi her fourth term as speaker with the slimmest majority in her speakership, landing her 216 votes for the gavel with five Democrats defecting. Pelosi will now preside over a 222-member Democratic caucus against a 211-member Republican minority.

Two House seats remain to be officially called, including one race in New York pending legal challenges and another in Iowa where the Democratic candidate has appealed the race divided by six votes directly to the House.The prevailing Republican in the Iowa contest, Mariannette Miller-Meeks, was seated on Sunday.

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Democrat Pastor Ends Congressional Prayer With 'Amen And A-Woman' - The Federalist

In early December 2016, Devin Nunes was growing suspicious.

The political and media establishment, still struggling to cope with the news of Donald Trumps victory, was beginning to claim that Russian cyber meddling explained the surprising outcome. On Dec. 9, 2016, big media outlets such as the New York Times and Washington Post began laying out the contours of what would become the dominant and relentless media narrative of the next several years: Trump had conspired with Russia to steal the election and should not be viewed or treated as a legitimate president.

Nunes, the Republican chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), was a long-time Russia hawk who had spent years concerned about the United States lack of preparedness for Russian cyberattacks. But something didnt sit right about the how the media and other activists were arriving at the narrative.

For one thing, the claims were significantly at odds with the official reports from the intelligence agencies his committee oversaw. For another, the press reports were fed solely by dubiously selective and anonymous leaks from intelligence officials.

I am deeply concerned that these press reports may contain unauthorized disclosures, Nunes wrote on Dec. 12, 2016, to President Barack Obamas Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, instructing him to have intelligence agencies send to Congress any new assessments that had been reported in the press. He expressed concern about the manipulation of intelligence for political purposes two days later. By December 16, having received none of the new assessments that anonymous leakers to the press claimed existed, he vowed to vigorously investigate intelligence agencieshandling of the Russian meddling issue.

He had no idea at the time, but Nuness early skepticism of the Russia collusion plan to undermine the Trump administration put him in the crosshairs of all of the most powerful forces in Washington, including the media, the Democrat Party, left-wing special interest groups, intelligence agency officials, and even many Republicans.

Nuness dogged pursuit of the truth paid off, eventually, but it wasnt easy. The Russia collusion narrative caused untold damage to the Trump administration and its policy goals. It sparked a years-long special counsel probe that pursued scores of Trump associates but found none who had colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 election. Journalists won Pulitzers and other prizes for perpetuating the false narrative. Even now, many Democrats still cling to claims of Trump being controlled by Vladimir Putin.

However, Nunes overcame the media and Democrat hysteria, as well as stonewalling and obstruction by the FBI and Justice Department (DOJ), including threats to his own staff, to uncover the FBIs use of an unverified dossier of outlandish allegations in the warrants to spy on Carter Page, a Trump campaign associate. He revealed rampant unmasking by Obama officials against Trump transition members, and the fact that FBI agents who interviewed Trumps first National Security Advisor Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn didnt think he was lying.

He waged a court battle with the inventors of the dossier to find out that their work was secretly funded by Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee. And he revealed how that group employed Nellie Ohr, the wife of DOJ official Bruce Ohr, who was used to funnel questionable anti-Trump information to the FBI from his wife and her associates.

He also overcame the concerted efforts to destroy him and his reputation, remove him from committee leadership, prevent his re-election, and to get him to pull back from his work through threats against family members.

Later today he is expected to be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the United States.

That Nunes would have the fortitude to take on the political and media establishments was not completely obvious when he was first elected to Congress in 2002. He was all of 29, representing a congressional district in the San Joaquin Valley in Central California, where he grew up. From a family of dairy farmers a point that a critic on MSNBC would later use to dismiss him as ignorant Nunes was known for his fierce advocacy of his constituents interest.

He set up his offices to quickly respond to constituent questions, reminding staff that they were the last line of hope for many of the California residents writing and calling them, and that they were to do what it took to solve their problems related to government services. One former staff member said that the number one, two, three, four, and five issues they worked on were water.

A lot of that effort was due to environmentalists imposing a catastrophic and artificial drought on many Central Valley farmers in the name of protecting a fish called the Delta Smelt. Nunes pushed that story relentlessly until he achieved national awareness of the plight of farmers, getting members to vote publicly on the matter, hosting rallies, and talking about the absurdity of the regulations destroying California farms.

Water policy in agricultural areas is always a hot-button and complicated topic. Hill aides say that many politicians like to complicate topics so people get lost in the intricacies. Nunes, they said, liked to simplify things so everyone could grasp the problem and solve it. He showed he was willing to buck party interests in his quest to serve constituents, calling on Californias Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to resign when he wasnt allowing water to flow to the Central Valley.

Nunes, who also serves on the Ways and Means Committee, was appointed to the Intelligence Committee in 2011. He became chairman in 2015. The committee was an important, but relatively quiet, one. It investigated the Benghazi disaster, and worked to declassify some of the documents seized in the raid on Osama Bin Ladens compound.

Once chairman, Nunes worked with ranking member Rep. Adam Schiff, also of California, to pass the annual funding authorization for the intelligence community. Nunes worked with leadership to recruit and retain a team of hard-working members who were interested in doing oversight and not just having a title.

As the Russia narrative spiraled out of control, Nunes continued to express skepticism. After Flynns phone calls with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak were leaked, Nunes told Bloomberg columnist Eli Lake, There does appear to be a well orchestrated effort to attack Flynn and others in the administration, he said. From the leaking of phone calls between the president and foreign leaders to what appears to be high-level FISA Court information, to the leaking of American citizens being denied security clearances, it looks like a pattern.

Russia hoaxers had managed to get Attorney General Jeff Sessions to recuse himself from any oversight of the probe. They continued to leak like sieves against the president. Anonymous intelligence officials falsely claimed to credulous reporters that the ludicrous dossier was being verified, although details and substantiation were always just around the corner.

In March 2017, Nunes revealed that in the last three months of the Obama presidency, significant personal information from and about the Trump transition was collected and widely disseminated at intelligence agencies. While he said the collection of information may have been legally collected under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), he was alarmed by it. In a free country, where watchdogs care about threats to privacy from government surveillance, this would have been a massive story.

Instead of covering the news, the political and media establishment worked to kill the story. Rather than focus in any way on the spying, they claimed to be upset that Nunes didnt first brief his leaky and highly partisan colleague Schiff before holding a press conference. As for the substance of the claims, the media worked to avoid covering it in any detail.

PBS Judy Woodruff asked Obama National Security Advisor Susan Rice a gentle, very general question about Nuness claims:

JUDY WOODRUFF: I began by asking about the allegations leveled today by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes that Trump transition officials, including the president, may have been swept up in surveillance of foreigners at the end of the Obama administration.

SUSAN RICE: I know nothing about this. I was surprised to see reports from Chairman Nunes on that count today.

It turns out that Rice was completely lying on national television. After word got out that Rice had, in fact, been one of the people to unmask transition officials who had been swept up in surveillance, she went to the Democratic journalist Andrea Mitchell for a damage control interview. Rice, who has a reputation for dishonesty, told Mitchell that her unmaskings werent political and added, somewhat confusingly,I leaked nothing to nobody.

It is interesting, though, that the meeting she unmasked between Trump officials and the crown prince of the United Arab Emirates did happen to leak to the Washington Post.

It wasnt just Rice. Samantha Power unmasked nearly 300 Americans in 2016, despite U.S. ambassadors having little if any legitimate justification for unmasking. She claimed that the unmaskings done in her name were actually done by other, unknown people.

And a whopping 39 Obama officials unmasked Flynn, a frequent victim of leaked communications. Among the unmaskers were officials with little legitimate need to access this kind of intelligence. They include former Vice President Joe Biden, Power, and Obamas Chief of Staff Dennis McDonough.

The media response to the entire Russia collusion hoax was so manic and horrifically corrupt that it marked a turning point in Nuness engagement with them. He began to see that many members of the media werent journalists, but liars, and treated them accordingly. He instructed staff to stop responding to dishonest reporters who had pre-written their stories before contacting him.

Many members of Congress are scared of the media and other powerful interests. If they get attacked by them, they back down. Staff say thats where Nunes is different. If he gets punched by someone, he wonders why and starts looking for answers. The more that he was attacked, the more he wanted to understand what was behind the Russia collusion narrative.

His opponents couldnt have been more wrong in how to contain him.

The media frenzy and coordinated opposition to Nunes led to claims that he had to recuse himself from leading the investigation into Russian collusion. Three left-wing groups filed an ethics complaint that Nuness mentioning of the unmasking constituted mishandling classified information. The claim was picked up by the Ethics Committee. While they eventually dismissed the complaint, they publicly announced the investigation and took the better part of the year to investigate it.

Nunes did recuse himself from leading the probe into Russian meddling, instead focusing on abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) process during the surveillance of Trump campaign affiliates. The task was made significantly difficult by the DOJs general refusal to comply or comply fully with information requests on the surveillance.

The memo broke the news that the Steele dossier formed an essential part of the application to spy on Trump affiliate Carter Page, and that the warrant failed to note that Clinton and the DNC funded the dossier. It showed that Steele should have been fired as a source for blabbing to the press before he was eventually fired for the same reason.

It showed that information from Steele continued to be funneled to the FBI through a DOJ official married to someone else working on the larger dossier project, and that the negative information he provided the FBI about Steeles lack of credibility was kept away from the FISA Court. Ohr, the DOJ official, also funneled to the Bureau his wifes work for opposition research firm Fusion GPS.

All of these relationships were kept concealed from the FISA Court. Nuness memo revealed that the dossier had not been even close to verified when it was used in the application.

All of these things are now common knowledge and have been reported via other means, such as the DOJs inspector general, declassification of underlying documents, and a few media investigations. But at the time they were published, they seriously undercut the Russia collusion narrative and provoked strenuous denunciation of Nunes.

The Department of Justice said that release of memo would be extraordinarily reckless, would be damaging to national security, and would risk damage to our intelligence community or the important work it does in safeguarding the American people. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said it was a gift to Putin.

When the report was released, the media made a variety of contradictory claims, all of them downplayingor dismissing the memo as nothing whatsoever. Why Were The Democrats So Worried About The Nunes Memo? asked The New Yorker. Rachel Maddow said that, far from destroying national security, instead the memo delivered a sad trombone for Trump. Its a joke and a sham, claimed Washington Post writers.

The memo purports to show that the process by which the FBI and Justice Department obtained approval from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to conduct surveillance on former Trump adviser Carter Page was deeply tainted, the Post article says. It does this by straining every which way to suggest that the basis for the warrant was the so-called Steele dossier, which contains Democratic-funded research by former British spy Christopher Steele. (The inspector general later confirmed that efforts to secure a warrant to spy on Page were dropped due to lack of evidence until Steele delivered his dossier memos.)

On the other hand, Salon called the memo fake news. New York Magazines Jonathan Chait, who fervently believes that Trump is a traitor who colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 election, all evidence to the contrary, went even further. The Nunes Memo Is Fake and the Russia Scandal Is Very Real, he claimed. While the evidence that the DOJ has been corrupt or even sloppy in its investigation has disintegrated, evidence for the seriousness of the investigation itself has grown progressively stronger, Chait claimed.

CNN had their good buddy James Clapper, a famously untruthful Obama intelligence chief, on to say that the memo was a blatant political act. John Brennan, Obamas mendacious CIA chief who was also implicated in the spying on the Trump campaign, told Politico that the memo was exceptionally partisan. Politico claimed the memo makes no sense.

Nunes Memo Accidentally Confirms the Legitimacy of the FBIs Investigation, assertedThe Intercept. All Smoke, No Fire, claimed resistance member Orin Kerr in The New York Times. The Nunes Memo Continues To Backfire, declared the hyperpartisan Washington Post editorial board.

Schiff issued a response memo in which he claimed that everything was above reproach in the FISA process. Nail in the Coffin for Nunes Memo, declared the headline of a U.S. News and World Report article that effusively praised Schiff.

Nunes memo was a bad joke from the start, the author wrote, going on to assert that Page was a dangerous agent of Russia, multiple Trump campaign operatives were surveilled for excellent reason, and the ex-British spy secretly Clinton hired to produce the dossier alleging Trump was a secret agent of Russia was simply beyond reproach.

An inspector general report later vindicated Nuness memo and discredited each of the claims in Schiffs memo. Schiff claimed he was unaware of the problems the IG found and continues to defend the FBI investigation even now. He has not held a single hearing on the IG report, nor on the conviction of FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith for doctoring evidence for use in a Page spy warrant.

The daily onslaught of Russia collusion stories made life difficult for anyone who stood against the tide. The media were in a constant state of hysteria. Nunes stood mostly alone in insisting there was no evidence Trump had colluded with Russia, but there were strong indications the FBIs investigation of the issue had been corrupted. It wasnt just Democrats, media operatives, and leftwing groups who were attacking him but even fellow Republicans.

Sen. Lindsay Graham frequently appeared on television in the last year to complain about the Russia collusion hoax. He even held a couple of hearings in the fall of 2020 long after it mattered. But back in 2017, Graham went on NBC News to mock Nunes, saying he was running an Inspector Clouseau investigation. Republican Rep. Walter Jones called on Nunes to resign from the committee leadership.

National Reviews David French called on Nunes to resign his post, and went on left-wing MSNBC to promote his view that Nunes lacked integrity, character, and crucially competence, saying it was time for Nunes to go. French claimed that Trump voters in his area of Tennessee were extremely worried about Trumps ties to Russia and would need someone with better traits to dig into the matter.

It was a vicious claim against a member known as a straight shooter. The attacks were difficult for Nunes and his staff. For decades, he had taught his staff that they should always be honest when dealing with constituents, that they should tell the truth until it hurts. Constituents may not like the congressmans position, but they would know what his true position was. As far as Devin as a politician, straight shooter is a little on the nose, said one former top aide.

MSNBCs John Heilemann repeatedly suggested Nunes wascompromised by the Russians:

[Nunes is] behaving like someone whos been compromised, and there are people in the intelligence community, and others with great expertise in this area, who look at him and say, That guys been compromised, Heilemann told [Senator Chris] Murphy.

Heilemann did not note that Nunes has a lengthy reputation as a Russia hawk, having warned that Russian activity was the countrys biggest intelligence failure since 9/11 and having stridently advocated for a stronger U.S. approach to Putin.

Shep Smith called Nuness memo a weapon of partisan mass distraction, especially at a pivotal moment in American democracy when it behooves the man in charge for supporters to believe the institutions cant be trusted, the investigators are corrupt and the news media are liars. Context matters.

As Nuness influence grew, he was subject to constant media attacks, including tendentious profiles that were error-filled hit pieces. Reporters went after his family. Nunes wife received threats after a Democratic operative files a public records request against her to get her work emails (shes a public school teacher), then published them on the Internet. Then leftwing group Campaign for Accountability cited the emails in an ethics complaint against Devin.

Esquires Ryan Lizza published alengthy story alleging that Nunes had a politically explosive secret, that hes a hypocrite on immigration policy, and that when Lizza went to a small town in Iowa to blow open the conspiracy, he was met by odd townspeople who treated him poorly. It turned out that Nunes didnt have a secret, that he was not a hypocrite on immigration policy, and that the Iowans Lizza met were wary of him slowly driving around town while children were at play because they discovered Lizza had recently been fired from his job for sexual misconduct.

Nunes became a top target of the Democrats, left-wing groups, and the media because they could see early on hed be a problem for their Russia collusion narrative. His seat even became a top Democratic target in 2018. Nunes had enjoyed comfortable leads in his previous re-election campaigns, even if he treated each race as a serious contest. In 2016, he won with 68 percent of the vote.

In 2018, his opponent was a relative unknown, a prosecutor with no political background who had moved into the district. Thanks to a massive, coordinated nationwide effort from leftwing groups, Andrew Janz raised more than $9 million and gave Nunes the closest race hed had in a long while. The race earned national attention from the media and other activist groups.

Leftist groups astroturfed regular protests filled with angry people from outside the district posing as constituents at Nuness field offices. They overwhelmed his robust constituent service operation with angry calls from across the country. Much of it was Russia focused.

At one point, Janz had an actor pose as a Russian official to give Nunes a key to Moscow. Fusion GPS, the group that had been behind the Steele dossier, even admitted that Nunes was the only member of Congress on whom they ran an oppo hit during the 2018 campaign. They gave their information to a McClatchy newspaper and tried, but failed, to link Nunes to a dramatic story involving a separate group of people having a cocaine-fueled fundraiser on a yacht owned by a winery he was loosely associated with.

Targeted in D.C. by media mobs and in his home district by a major coordinated effort to oust him, he kept going.At a time when anybody in D.C. who fought the Russia collusion hoax was hammered and attacked, Nunes went out and pushed for the truth. He did it willingly and refused to quit. He also refused to give in to his many attackers, despite their relentless barrage.

When the White House leaked to the Washington Post about their plans to award Nunes and Rep. Jim Jordan the presidential medal of freedom, the media and political figures who pushed the Russia collusion hoax continued their attacks on him, the same attacks theyd been making for years in an attempt to keep him from uncovering abuses of the intelligence agencies he oversees.

It is unlikely their latest efforts will work any better than their earlier ones.

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Devin Nunes Tells The Truth Until It Hurts - The Federalist

President Donald Trump called for peace in a video after a mob of his supporters violently breached the Capitol building on Wednesday in protest of the certification of the 2020 election results for Democrat Joe Biden.

I know your pain. I know your hurt, Trump stated. We had an election that was stolen from us. It was a landslide election, and everyone knows it, especially the other side. But you have to go home now. We have to have peace. We have to have law and order. We have to respect our great people in law and order. We dont want anybody hurt, he said. Its a very tough period of time. There has never been a time like this where such a thing happened where they could take it away from all of us from me, from you, from our country.

Trump continued his message by telling his supporters to go home even if they were upset about voter fraud and election integrity.

This was a fraudulent election. But we cant play into the hands of these people. We have to have peace. So go home. We love you. Youre very special, Trump said. Youve seen what happens you see the way others are treated that are so bad and so evil. I know how you feel. But go home and go home in peace, he added.

Trumps message which Twitter flagged as a claim of election fraud that is disputed, prohibiting people from liking the tweet, replying to it, or responding to it due to a risk of violence comes after multiple members of Congress condemned the chaos and called on the protesters to leave.

Vice President Mike Pence previously called for people to leave the Capitol building, saying that those involved will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

The violence and destruction taking place at the US Capitol Must Stop and it Must Stop Now. Anyone involved must respect Law Enforcement officers and immediately leave the building, he wrote on Twitter. Peaceful protest is the right of every American but this attack on our Capitol will not be tolerated and those involved will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

President-elect Biden also denounced the Capitol chaos, calling on the disorder to end.

During the breach of the Capitol, a woman was reportedly shot in the chest and is in critical condition.

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 Calls For Peace As Riot Roils Capitol: 'You Have To Go Home Now' - The Federalist

Irina D. Manta, Opinion contributor Published 3:15 a.m. ET Jan. 5, 2021 | Updated 2:20 p.m. ET Jan. 5, 2021

He beat me for president of the Yale Law School Federalist Society by exploiting the rules. He should follow my example and not contest Trump's loss.

Sen. Josh Hawley has made waves with his call for Republican senators to object to President-elect Joe Bidens election victoryand force Congress to voteWednesdayon whether to accept the Electoral College results.I invite Sen. Hawley to reconsider his misguided position and, instead, to do what I did when I lost an election to no other than him: Show grace in defeat.The principle is the same whether the election is for president of the United States or, as with us, for president of a campus club.

Sen. Hawley, R-Mo., and I were both members of the Yale Law School Class of 2006. While we had our differences, we shared a common bond through our joint participation in the schools fairly small Federalist Society, made up of mostly conservative and libertarian law students.

At the end of our first year, we were both electedas vice presidents for events of the YLS Federalist Society. Collaborating in these positions in our second year proved difficult. I organized the lion's share of the groups events and frequently received no responses from him on emails I sent to him and the societys president that year. This puzzled me because I thought ourgoal was to make the organization as strong as possible, and failure to communicate was an obstacle.

This isnt to say that Sen. Hawley didnt have his qualities as a vice president. For example, his marketing skills certainly contributed tostrong turnout at an event with the late Harvard Law School professor William Stuntz. While I did more work that year, Sen. Hawley knew better how to shine the spotlight on his contributions, which is an important skill in the political arena.

The YLS Federalist Societys presidential electionstarted rolling around the spring of our second year, in 2005, and it was traditional for one of the two VPs for events to assume that role. Sen. Hawley and I each announced our candidacies. Shortly before the election, a friend tipped me off to how Sen. Hawley was planning to beat me, given that he was uncertain he coulddo so based onvotes only fromregular members who knew our records best.

Irina Manta on May 22, 2006, in the Lillian Goldman Library at Yale Law School.(Photo: Family courtesy)

Asappearedaccuratebased on the eventual turnout, Sen. Hawley had obtained from the sitting president the student email addresses for the YLS Federalist Society Listserv (and the president, whom I had helped to win the previous year, did not volunteer that information to me at that stage). The rule was that anyone who had signed up for the Listserv by a certain earlier date could vote in the societys elections. This included a bunch of people whodid not attend events and had little or no involvement with the society.

Hawley's White House path:Be No. 1 at pandering to President Trump and trampling democracy

The rule, while easy to administer, was a bad one. It even had the potential for individuals to co-opt the society for the sole purpose of destroying it. Historically, however, nobody had exploited that rule, to my knowledge. Instead, candidates had campaigned for votes from people actively involved withthe society.

Law professor Irina D. Manta and Sen. Josh Hawley.(Photo: Manta by Carlos Farini. Hawley by Getty Images.)

I found out about Sen. Hawleys plans too late to counter them successfully. I lost the YLS Federalist Societys presidential election to him by a handful of votes.The presidency comes with a number of advantages, including entry to key professional opportunities. From my perspective, I was the more deserving candidate and cared more about the organization. The voting rules, again, were problematic, and Sen. Hawley exploited that all the way to victory for himself and the rest of his slate.

But you know what? As far as electoral fairness is concerned, none of that matters. The rules were the rules. The people who showed up to vote had the right to vote. I have no reason to believe that the person who counted the votes miscounted. Based on the system we had, which while flawed was hardly unethical, Sen. Hawley won and I lost. And not once did I attempt to contest that loss.

Sen. Hawley and I both ended up initially aslaw professors, but thenour paths split. He pursued political offices while I remained in academia (though also continued my own political activism). And while he has been one of President Donald Trumps loyalists, I have been the opposite, from my membership in Checks & Balances(a group of lawyers and academics committed to the Constitution and the rule of law)to my volunteer work for the Biden campaign in 2020.

On his way out the door: Congress should impeach Trump again and bar him from holding any future public office

Of course, the stakes are much higher when it comes to the presidency of the United States than that of the Yale Law School Federalist Society. Conversely, however, maintaining the integrity of the democratic system of our country vastly trumps doing so for a law school club. While Sen. Hawley is unlikely to succeed in his bid to hinderBiden from taking office, he is setting a dangerous precedent such that one day, a hostile Congress could overturn a rightful presidential election.

The courts have ruled repeatedly that there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election. Some speculate that Sen. Hawley is simply posturing to position himself for his own presidential run someday. Even if this provided ethical cover for his actions (spoiler: it doesnt), he has the intelligence to find better tactics than erodingour democratic system.

Irina D. Manta is professor of law and founding director of the Center for Intellectual Property Law at Hofstra University'sMaurice A. Deane School of Law. Follow her on Twitter:@irina_manta

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I lost a law school election to Josh Hawley. I moved on then, and he should now on Trump. - USA TODAY

The election of 1800 keeps coming back to inform, console and trouble us. John Adams was the incumbent. Thomas Jefferson was the challenger. After one of the most vituperative elections in American history, Jefferson emerged the winner. He had 73 electoral votes, Adams just 65. Thus, Adams became Americas first one-term president. There have been nine, depending a bit on how you count. Donald Trump is the latest. Before him, it was George H.W. Bush.

The problem in 1800 was twofold. First, a structural weakness in the Constitution: There was no separate balloting for president and vice president. Second, by coincidence Jefferson tied in the Electoral College with his vice presidential running mate (no such term existed at the time) Aaron Burr. That meant that the Constitution could not differentiate between Jeffersons 73 electoral votes and Burrs 73. When this happens, the Constitution requires the election to be sorted out in the House of Representatives, with each state getting only one vote. This has only happened twice, once in 1801 and again in 1825 when the House elected John Quincy Adams even though he lost the popular vote to Andrew Jackson.

The Electoral College in action. In 1800, Jefferson had 73 electoral votes and Adams just 65. But Aaron Burr, running for vice president, also had 73 votes. What to do?

Everyone knew that Jefferson had been elected president. John Adams was disappointed, even bitter, but he was too much a patriot and a gentleman to refuse to accept the voice of the American people. The problem was that the Federalists (the party of Alexander Hamilton and George Washington) could not reconcile themselves to the idea that Thomas Jefferson had defeated the establishment candidate John Adams. Die-hard Federalists determined to do whatever it took to deny Jefferson the presidency. Some partisans suggested that the outgoing Federalist Congress simply vote in an entirely new president. Others said that if they could delay the House vote until after March 4, the date the new president was to be installed, they could name a president pro temp of their choice. Sound familiar?

It was a time of intrigue, panic, conspiracy and chaos. The raw new national capital was beset with small clusters of passionate men devising political strategy, demonizing their political adversaries, fretting in apocalyptic terms about the survival of the young republic. The Washington diarist Margaret Bayard Smith wrote that the conspiratorial Federalists hurried to their lodgings under strong apprehensions of suffering from the just indignation of their fellow citizens for attempting to overturn the election.

Balloting in the House of Representatives began on Feb. 11, 1801. The House immediately determined not to adjourn until they had resolved the issue and chosen a president. Food was brought into the House chamber. The votes went on day and night, deep into the night, and exhausted representatives sacked out on the floor, sometimes on pallets. One representative, Joseph Nicholson of Maryland, was so sick that he had to be carried into the House chamber on a litter through a Washington snowstorm, but he declared that he would cast his vote for Jefferson even if it killed him. He was so frail that his wife had to guide his hand as he marked his ballots. One newspaper reported that it was ludicrous to see [Congressmen] running with anxiety from the committee rooms, with their nightcaps on.

For six excruciating days and 35 separate ballots, the vote was invariably the same: eight states for Jefferson, six for Burr. Jefferson needed the endorsement of nine states to win. It was clear that Burr was never going to win, because that eight-vote Jefferson block would never yield to a junta but neither would Jefferson win unless one of the Federalist states gave up the fight and changed its vote to Jefferson.

Finally, on Saturday, Feb. 14, a Delaware Federalist named John Bayard announced that he had decided to support Jefferson, thus giving him the nine state votes he needed. Someone in the Federalist caucus immediately shouted Deserter! As soon as Bayard announced that he intended to do the right thing, he was subjected by Federalist die-hards to unrelenting criticism. When the Federalist met in caucus after his announcement, the clamor was prodigious and the reproaches vehement. Several Federalists from New England announced that they meant to go without a constitution and take the risk of a Civil War.

James Asheton Bayard (1738-1807) lived in Wilmington, Del., the home of former Delaware senator, vice president, and now president-elect Joe Biden. Bayard served three terms in the House of Representatives, beginning in 1797, ending in 1803.On the principle that no good deed goes unpunished, Bayard was targeted by the Jeffersonian Republicans in the election of 1804 for his opposition to several of the administrations initiatives. Accordingly, Bayard was defeated by Jeffersonian-Republican candidate Caesar Rodney. Fortunately for Bayard, he was soon selected by the legislature of Delaware to serve as a U.S. Senator, a position he held from 1814-1813. He was one of thirteen senators to vote against James Madisons declaration of war against Great Britain.

Why did Bayard decide to switch his vote? Historical opinions vary. Some said he had found a way to negotiate with Jefferson through an intermediary and to wring a few concessions out of the president-elect in exchange for ending the impasse. Jefferson denied this all the way to his death on July 4, 1826, and the historical record appears to support his denial. Some historians say that Aaron Burr began to pull back from his earlier statement that he would accept the presidency if the Federalist-dominated Congress handed it to him. Bayards own explanation was that it was clear that Burr was never going to get to nine votes, and therefore it was absurd to prolong the crisis indefinitely, and that to exclude Jefferson, as he put it, would come at the expense of the Constitution.

Aaron Burr. Did he pull back from his earlier statement that he would accept the presidency if the Federalist-dominated Congress handed it to him?

In other words, when the crisis moment of his life came, James Bayard gave his support to due process, fairness and the Constitution of the United States rather than to the party of men he resoundingly preferred to Jefferson and the Republicans. However much he disliked and distrusted Jefferson, Bayard was devoted to the survival and stability of the Constitution more. The step was not taken, Bayard later wrote, until it was admitted on all hands that we must risk the Constitution and a civil war or take Mr. Jefferson.

Note, however, that at no time did Bayard simply acknowledge that Jefferson was clearly the presidential candidate (not Burr) and he had clearly defeated John Adams, therefore it was only fair to honor the peoples will and install him as president.

When the final vote was cast on Feb. 17, 1801, six days into the fiasco in the House of Representatives, Bayard did not need to switch his vote after all. Bayard cast a blank vote, as did South Carolina, but Maryland now voted for Jefferson, giving him the ninth state vote he needed to be officially certified as the third president of the United States.

John Bayard. OnFeb. 14, 1800, Bayard, a Delaware Federalist, announced that he had decided to support Jefferson, thus giving him the nine state votes he needed.

Jefferson, who was fond of nautical metaphors in spite of the fact that he did not do well on ocean voyages, now wrote, The storm we have passed through proves our vessel indestructible. He called his election the Second American Revolution. He would serve two terms as president, then hand pick his successor James Madison. Archibald Stuart of Staunton, Va., wrote, The minds of men from extreme anxiety seemed to settle down into a firm resolution to resist every attempt to give us a President who had not been the choice of the people. I was pleased to discover this temper as it proves our liberties cannot be lost without a struggle.

When push came to shove (and it nearly did), the Federalists, led by John Bayard, did the right thing and curtailed their attempt to prevent Jefferson from assuming the presidency. But what if they had persisted? Jefferson and many historians have argued that if the Federalists had succeeded in overturning the election, our fragile new republic might have collapsed just a dozen years after its founding. There might have been civil war of secession. The election of 1800 was the first transfer of power from one party of men to another, from one approach to American governance to another. In the end it turned out to be a peaceful transfer of power, though not without some real political chaos.

Rumors always travel faster than truth. During the first five weeks of 1801, Virginias governor James Monroe was warned that the Federalists planned to remove arms and gunpowder from a depot in Virginia to store elsewhere in case the crisis devolved into armed conflict. He sent agents to make sure that did not happen. The Federalists thought they heard that Virginia and Pennsylvania militia troops were on their way to the national capitol to make sure Jefferson was seated in the presidency. Wild talk of secession by one or more sections of the country circulated through the capitol and in neighboring states. The Republicans circulated a rumor that if things fell apart, they would call for a new constitutional convention, a threat that terrified the Federalists, who feared that the United States would be refashioned into the loose association that characterized the discarded Articles of Confederation.

Just how serious did this get? Jeffersons greatest biographer Dumas Malone asked, Were they [Jeffersons republicans] prepared to use force if need be and thus risk the disruption of the Union? Did they contemplate any other form of resistance? At the very least, the political rhetoric was incendiary. Pennsylvania Governor Thomas McKean (a Jefferson supporter) declared, if bad men will dare traitorously to destroy or embarrass our general government and the union of the states, I shall conceive it my duty to oppose them at every hazard of life and fortune; for I should deem it less inglorious to submit to foreign than domestic tyranny. McKean said he was ready to issue an order for the arresting and bringing to justice very member of congress, or other person found in Pennsylvania, who should have been concerned in the treason.

McKean and James Monroe of Virginia both wrote rashly about the possible need to marshal state troops at the border of the District of Columbia to take back the presidency for Jefferson, if necessary, but both acknowledged in more sober moments that they would have sullenly acquiesced if the Federalists had been successful in handing the presidency to Burr. The Republican floor manager of the House of Representatives Albert Gallatin, later Jeffersons Secretary of the Treasury, said, No appeal whatever to physical force was contemplated, nor did it contain a single particle of revolutionary spirit.

Just what impact all this violent rhetoric and brinksmanship had on the final outcome is difficult to determine. In the end, Jefferson took office right on schedule, put together one of the greatest cabinets in American history, cut taxes, reduced the size of the army and navy, balanced the budget, paid off a considerable percentage of the national debt, and doubled the size of the United States with a single stroke of his pen. In other words, he proved to be a sensible centrist president, sometimes even a little Federalist in his actions, and he was resoundingly re-elected to a second term in 1804. Civil war was averted, as was a coup detat by the bitter losing party. The guardrails held barely.

Years later, a little weary from a lifetime of political struggle, but with his characteristic optimism, Jefferson put it all in perspective in a letter to his old friend and one-time rival John Adams: And so we have gone on, and so we shall go on, puzzled and prospering beyond example in the history of man.

At 2021 begins, we seem to be particularly puzzled.

You can hear more of Clay Jenkinson's views on American history and the humanities on his long-running nationally syndicated public radio program and podcast, The Thomas Jefferson Hour, and the new Governing podcast, The Future in Context.

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The Year Another Capitol Siege Almost Took Place on the Hill - Governing

On Wednesday, a dozen Republican senators along with more than half the Republican members of the House will raise a formal objection to Joe Biden electors during the Electoral College count certification. They will object over concerns about election integrity following widespread allegations of voter fraud, reports of irregularities in the counting of absentee ballots, and documented violations of election law in several battleground states.

The corporate media have with one voice denounced these Republicans and dismissed their concerns as nothing more than the ravings of partisans obsessed with peddling conspiracy theories and currying favor with Donald Trump. Chuck Todd of NBC News declared Sunday that not a single court has found a single instance of fraud an assertion precisely no one believes, not even Todd himself.

Yet thats been the medias mantra that there is no evidence of voter fraud or irregularities, none whatsoever. We are all supposed to pretend that 2020 was the first election in American history that was clean as the driven snow.

Speaking to Sen. Ron Johnson, one of the senators planning to object Wednesday, Todd even claimed the only reason tens of millions of Americans question the integrity of the election is because Republicans have been sowing doubt. In a particularly appalling moment, even for Todd, he accused Johnson of using his committee to create the illusion of voter fraud.

Elsewhere in the corporate press, Sens. Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz and all the other Republicans planning to lodge an objection on Wednesday have been vilified as seditionists. George Will called them the Constitutions most dangerous domestic enemies. Even conservative outlets such as National Review have criticized the GOP lawmakers, rather disingenuously claiming the allegations of fraud and irregularities arent so different from those that fueled Democratic doubts about the outcome in Ohio in 2005.

But heres what all these strident denunciations are missing: There really was evidence, lots of it, that voter fraud and illegal electioneering took place on a massive scale in the November election.

Im not talking about exotic theories that voting machines controlled by communists in Venezuela and China switched millions of Trump votes to Biden (a convenient straw-man the corporate media constantly slays). Im talking about old-fashioned, mundane stuff: people voting twice, dead people voting, cash-for-votes schemes, election workers ignoring state laws about the counting of absentee ballots, and courts changing the rules and deadlines for absentee ballots at the last minute. Much of it was perpetrated by Democratic political machines in places like Philadelphia and Detroit cities infamous for corruption and election-rigging.

We at The Federalist reported on it. We talked to poll challengers in Michigan who witnessed election workers counting ineligible absentee ballots and not allowing GOP observers to do their jobs. We talked to political insiders and volunteers in Philadelphia who described an election system thoroughly compromised by a corrupt Democratic machine.

We chronicled an illegal scheme to bribe Native American voters on tribal lands in Nevada and Arizona with cash cards, electronics, and other prizes in exchange for votes. We reported on changes to mail-in voting in multiple battleground states, including Georgia, rammed through by state legislatures or issued by fiat from bureaucrats and judges, that made it easier to cheat with fraudulent or ineligible absentee ballots.

Some of this was made possible by the often haphazard and sometimes unlawful expansion of absentee voting and extensions of absentee voting deadlines, all under the pretext that COVID-19 justified radical changes to how we vote (it didnt). The result, in some states, was what amounted to a chaotic experiment in mass mail-in voting.

Dozens of states made changes to absentee voting, some more drastic than others. Nine states along with Washington, D.C., took the extraordinary step of mailing actual ballots to every voter on the rolls. Others did away entirely with eligibility requirements for mail-in ballots, introducing no-excuse absentee voting. Still others introduced novel procedures for curing incomplete absentee ballots that would normally be thrown out.

The corporate press ignored all of it, just as they ignored any story that might have hurt Biden during the campaign. Their goal was and is to get Democrats elected, period. They dont care about being fair, or telling the truth, or keeping their readers informed about reality. If they did, they would have reported on this stuff instead of lumping it all together as so many conspiracy theories.

That brings us back to the Republican lawmakers who will object to the Biden electors on Wednesday. In a joint statement issued over the weekend, 11 senators and senators-elect noted that the extent of fraud in the 2020 election is disputed but that the allegations of fraud and irregularities in the 2020 election exceed any in our lifetimes. As a result, large numbers of voters dont trust the election results. The statement cites a November Reuters/Ipsos poll that found 39 percent of Americans believe the election was rigged, included a whopping 67 percent of Republicans.

While the formal objections of these lawmakers wont change the outcome of the election or stop the Electoral Colleges certification of the count, the senators call for a bipartisan election commission at least acknowledge that we have a serious problem on our hands when this many Americans dont have confidence in our elections, and that something needs to be done about it. Democrats and corporate media, by contrast, refuse to acknowledge we have a problem at least not this time, because they won.

A commission along the lines of what the senators are proposing isnt the solution. Im not sure anyone knows what the solution is in a country where national elections are conducted differently from state to state, even county to county. But to paraphrase Frdric Bastiat, the best way to ensure voters trust the results of our elections is to make our elections trustworthy.

Until we do that, every national election from here on out will be a crisis.

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GOP Lawmakers Have A Point: Americans Need To Trust Elections - The Federalist

(Photo by Greg Nash-Pool/Getty Images)

As you probably could guess, based on his radically right-wing record and degree from Yale Law School, Senator Josh Hawley was a member of the Federalist Society in law school. And as you also probably guessed based on those two facts, he was a bit of an asshole back then (I mean, probably now too, but this story is about his law school days, so).

Irina Manta, a professor at Hofstra Law School and a FedSoc darling who was spotted trying to make the law hold people accountable for lying on Tinder and branded a Karen after a neighborhood squabble over fireworks, has an opinion piece on USA Today dishing on Hawleys time in law school and urging him to ditch his sure-to-be-failed attempt to prevent Joe Biden from becoming the 46th President of the United States. Manta is also clear to note, that despite her association with FedSoc, she worked on President-elect Bidens campaign this cycle. But enough with the background, lets get to the (old) hot goss.

Manta and Hawley are both members of YLS 06, and were active in their law schools Federalist Society, so, obviously their paths crossed. But more than just casually cross, they were both elected as Vice Presidents for Events for FedSoc as 2Ls.

As Manta notes, Collaborating in these positions in our second year proved difficult. I organized the lions share of the groups events and frequently received no responses from him on emails I sent to him and the Societys president that year. This puzzled me because I thought our goal was to make the organization as strong as possible, and failure to communicate was an obstacle. ALL THE SIDE EYE.

As Mantas version of the story goes, she did way more work in their joint position, so when both Manta and Hawley threw their hats into the ring for President of FedSoc for the following year, she thought she had it in the bag. But thats where the chicanery begins, according to Manta.

Shortly before the election, a friend tipped me off to how Sen. Hawley was planning to beat me, given that he was uncertain he could do so based on votes only from regular members who knew our records best.

As appeared accurate based on the eventual turnout, Sen. Hawley had obtained from the sitting president the student email addresses for the YLS Federalist Society listserv (and the president, whom I had helped to win the previous year, did not volunteer that information to me at that stage). The rule was that anyone who had signed up for the listserv by a certain earlier date could vote in the Societys elections. This included a bunch of people who did not attend events and had little or no involvement with the Society.

The rule, while easy to administer, was a bad one. It even had the potential for individuals to co-opt the Society for the sole purpose of destroying it. Historically, however, nobody had exploited that rule, to my knowledge. Instead, candidates had campaigned for votes from people actively involved with the Society.

I found out about Sen. Hawleys plans too late to counter them successfully. I lost the YLS Federalist Societys presidential election to him by a handful of votes.The presidency comes with a number of advantages, including entry to key professional opportunities. From my perspective, I was the more deserving candidate and cared more about the organization. The voting rules, again, were problematic, and Sen. Hawley exploited that all the way to victory for himself and the rest of his slate.

So his success is based on following the letter, rather than the spirit, of the law. Got it. And now hes all in a tizzy because Democrats followed both the letter and spirit of election laws? Also, got it. He strikes me as exactly the sort of prick who earnestly believes its fine for him to do it but its cheating when you do it. Unsurprising.

Manta closes with a plea for Hawley to drop his objection over the certification of the electoral college results because she didnt object to his shady law school victory, so he should take a lesson. She notes he is setting a dangerous precedent such that one day, a hostile Congress could overturn a rightful presidential election. Shes not the only Yalie who disagrees with Hawley over his position, but all the obvious double standards in the world are still unlikely to change Hawleys position. At least we have a better sense of the exact sort of person Hawley really is.

Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, and host of The Jabot podcast. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email herwith any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).

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Josh Hawley Was The Exact Sort Of Prick Youd Imagine Him To Be At Yale Law School - Above the Law

Christmas is typically a time of joy, family, and the spirit of giving. In the name of social justice, it is important to quash all those good feelings and instead find something at which to take offense.

Attention typically turns to the popular suggestive duet Baby, Its Cold Outside, whether the lyrics are romantic or indicative of assault, but this song is far from the only piece of classic Christmas media that creates a moral panic.

Its a Wonderful Life is widely considered to be one of the greatest Christmas films of all time, with a beautiful and timeless message about the importance of valuing life and community. Its perfect cast, excellent writing, and heartwarming message, however, do not save it from committing the cardinal sin of being made in the 1940s and representing associated cultural values.

While the courtship of George Bailey and his later-wife Mary leads to some of the sweetest moments ever put to film, he engages in creepy behavior toward her. After the pair fall into a pool during a dance, George and Mary are forced to change into bathrobes. As he walks her home, her robe catches on a branch and falls off, leaving her naked. She runs behind a bush and asks George to hand her the only means she has to cover herself, but he pauses, considering using the opportunity to see her undressed (jokingly, but that doesnt matter).

The film also contains the sexist supposition that the worst thing that could happen to a woman is that she remain unmarried. When George sees what his hometown would have been like had he never been born, he is horrified to see that his wife is an unmarried librarian horror of the same magnitude as realizing his brother died young, his old boss and mentor has gone to prison, his friend Violet became a prostitute, and the corrupt businessman took over the town. Of course, the horror has other causes, such as seeing Marys loneliness and unhappiness, having the woman he loves not recognize him, and knowing his children no longer exist. In the search for offense, however, such nuance cannot be engaged.

If classic musicals are more your style, White Christmas has a single song that undoes all the heart of its two-hour runtime. Within the story of two Army friends-turned-performers who work together to surprise their struggling general over Christmas is a song waxing nostalgic for minstrel shows, a wildly racist type of performance that often included blackface and offensive stereotypes. While the song itself is just an excuse to sing pun-filled lyrics and engage in vaudeville-type humor, its still a song pining for a racist type of show, even if the reference will fly over the heads of many modern viewers.

Do you enjoy the 24-hour marathons of A Christmas Story? The semi-autobiographical story about a young boys memories of Christmas in the 1930s, as he attempts to convince his parents to buy him a Red Ryder BB gun, is a lovely film about family and growing up. It also glorifies gun use through protagonist Ralphies various fantasies with the dangerous weapon.

Further, in a Chinese restaurant scene, strong, caricatured accents of the staff singing Christmas songs is the subject of a joke. The only thing done right in the abomination that was A Christmas Story Live was playing on the expectation for the same joke, only to subvert it with lovely renditions of classic carols, asking the Old Man, and by extension the audience, What were you expecting?

Elf is a hilarious film featuring one of Will Ferrells all-time best performances. He plays a human, raised in the North Pole by elves, who goes to New York to find his biological father and interacts with the human world for the first time. As he is unfamiliar with human customs, he gets into trouble due to navet. One such situation occurs when he walks in on his love interest in the shower because he allegedly doesnt know shes naked. To make matters worse, in the shower, shes singing the aforementioned Baby, Its Cold Outside, underscoring the discomfort of the scene in a post-Me-Too era.

In all seriousness, no film will be perfect, especially ones made decades ago. It is good to note where cultural values have progressed, without writing off excellent films with important messages just because small parts of them reflect outdated and offensive values. We should learn from past mistakes, not erase them. Each of these movies contains a timeless message about family, community, and love that we can all learn from all year, but especially around Christmas.

Paulina Enck is an intern at the Federalist and current student at Georgetown University in the School of Foreign Service. Follow her on Twitter at @itspaulinaenck

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We Must Ban These Christmas Classics To Please The Wokesters - The Federalist

The prohibitively long and oddly complex document that bails out states that have decided to harm their own citizens contains ridiculous provisions with no connection to the pandemic.

After a long, arduous process of political agendas taking priority over helping Americans suffering under unending lockdowns, killing their ability to provide for themselves, Congress passed a COVID spending bill on Monday evening, after lawmakers came to a compromise on Sunday. The relief package includes many of the expected items, while also including many bizarre items unrelated to the pandemic and its associated economic issues.

If President Trump signs the bill, direct electronic payments $600 for individuals, $1,200 for married couples, and $600 per dependent will be directly sent to every citizen or permanent resident who makes less than $75,000 a year (or $150,000 for joint filing married couples), with the payment amount phasing out for higher incomes. This proves a substantial change from the CARES ACT this summer, which gave $1,200 per individual and $500 per dependent.

The bill funds state and federal unemployment benefits at $300 a week, extending the period in which workers can claim government money to stay unemployed to 50 weeks, or nearly an entire year. Further, money is allocated to support various industries and businesses harmed by the lockdowns, including but not limited to airports, cinemas, theaters, farms, and small businesses.

However, details of the checks, unemployment benefits, and bailouts do not fill the 5,593 pages. Instead, the prohibitively long and oddly complex document contains ridiculous provisions with no connection to the pandemic.President Trump declared he is unsatisfied with the bailout package, promising to veto the bill unless the individual payments be increased from $600 to $2,000, a decision receiving bipartisan support.

Congress can hopefully reallocate money from some of the following places, all of which have nothing to do with recovering from the public health, economic, and societal crisis brought on by the coronavirus.

Pakistan is receiving $25 million in a package supposedly aimed to help America get through the shutdowns; $15 million is going to democracy programs, while another $10 million is being allocated towards unspecified gender programs.

After receiving $25 million in the first COVID stimulus, the Kennedy Center is receiving $40 million for operations, maintenance, and renovations. Unsurprisingly, several senators and representatives, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., are on the board.

The bill is quite preoccupied with diversity endeavors within the government. The Office of Diversity and Inclusion of the Appropriations Committee are receiving $1.5 million. Further, the bill gives national intelligence 180 days to demonstrate exercising hiring flexibilities to assure quality and diversity of the workforce.

As the entire world is facing the effects of the coronavirus, it might make sense the bill would have a section focused on Global Health. What makes less sense is spending nearly $200 million on new cars for foreign HIV/AIDS workers. Helping federal health workers abroad is doubtlessly important, but in a bill intended to focus on helping the American people and economy though a difficult time is not the place for it, especially after politicians have been deficit spending to record highs with no signs of making plans for how Americans hobbled by COVID shutdowns will ever pay for all of this.

For a stimulus package, this bill is also surprisingly educationally minded, even though the majority of the nations public schools have remained closed and online schooling for the better part of the last year. The bill funds educational campaigns to teach Americans not to put flammable liquids next to open flames. The bill also includes funding for programs to dissuade teenagers from underage drinking, drug use, and sex.

It is also randomly historically-minded, promising funding for researching the 1908 Springfield Race Riot and engaging in archeological study of the associated locations.Aside from allocating hundreds of millions of dollars to wholly unrelated projects, the purported relief bill is filled with arbitrary, vague, oppressive, or merely irrelevant regulations.

The last COVID spending spree severely hampered states ability to increase school choice with their education allocation. In the CARES Act, $3 billion was allotted to Governors Emergency Education Relief Fund (GEERF), which gave governors the flexibility to fund whatever educational initiatives they deemed important. GEERF funds were allocated at the discretion of the governors, but could be used to strengthen school choice programs, as was done in Florida, Oklahoma, New Hampshire, North Carolina, South Carolina.

The new bill specifically undid this flexibility, stating the money cannot be used to provide tax support vouchers, tuition tax credit programs, education savings accounts, scholarships, scholarship programs, or tuition assistance programs or provide indirect help for any organization that grants scholarships for elementary or secondary education.

While Americans struggle financially and psychologically, Congress also focused on the all-important world of horse racing regulations. In a section entitled The Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act of 2020, a committee is formed to enact anti-doping measures. It also bans the use of tranquilizers before races. Because, when people are struggling financially and psychologically due to seemingly ceaseless shutdowns, the rules of fair practices in horse racing is a truly important federal matter.

Paulina Enck is an intern at the Federalist and current student at Georgetown University in the School of Foreign Service. Follow her on Twitter at @itspaulinaenck

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8 Of The Craziest Items In The $900 Billion COVID Blue-State Bailout Bill - The Federalist