Category Archives: Federalist

Teachers unions are pushing a radical Marxist-inspired agenda that is destroying public education in America.

Over the past several years, the left has aggressively infected the minds of the youngest children with the tenets of critical race theory (CRT) and gender ideology, while academic excellence has been shoved to the back of the bus. As a result, public schools are hemorrhaging students.

In my home state of Minnesota, 2022 marks the second consecutive year the states public school system has lost thousands of students, the Center of the American Experiment, a Minnesota think tank, reported in February. Why should parents in Minnesota or any other state keep their children in public schools?

In 2021, the Minnesota Department of Educations statewide test results showed another drop in the number of students meeting or exceeding grade-level criteria. Overall, reading scores fell 7 percent, math scores dropped 11 percent, and science scores shrank 8 percent.

In another example, New York City public schools which compose the nations largest school district have already lost about 50,000 students over the past two years and are expected to lose nearly 30,000 more by the time school begins this fall.

Minnesota Education Commissioner Dr. Heather Mueller explained the poor student achievement outcomes thus: The statewide assessment results confirm what we already knew that the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted our students learning and they need our help to recover.

The problem with blaming poor student outcomes in Minnesota on Covid is that the states public schools actually had little to show for decades of increased spending, wrote Catrin Wigfall of the Center of the American Experiment in a July 2020 report titled Allergic to Accountability.

The consistently increased flow of dollars into Minnesotas public schools has not translated into improved student achievement outcomes or more learning, Wigfall wrote.

For insight, look to what the Minnesota Department of Education now values in professional teacher training when it comes to hiring licensed teachers.

In 2021, Minnesotas professional educator licensing and standards board proposed an addition to what proficiency standards for teachers to be licensed. Proposed requirements include:

After shutdowns and the abysmal remote learning results, mask mandates, and a further decline in students academic performance, the response of the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT) was to go out on strike for more than two weeks in March, cancelling classes once again for 28,000 students.

In addition to demanding increased wages, the MFT stated they are at war against capitalism. At a rally with her union members, Greta Callahan, president of the teachers chapter of MFT, asserted, Our fight is against patriarchy, our fight is against capitalism, our fight is for the soul of our city.

American Federation of Teachers (AFT) President Randi Weingarten told her delegates at their convention in mid-July that the union is working hard on the issues keeping families up at night, from climate change, to accessible healthcare, to the crushing crisis of student debt, to the terrifying safety issues plaguing too many workplaces.

Its highly unlikely that parents who endured teachers union-directed shutdowns, mask mandates, vaccine shaming, CRT, and the new hyper concern with students gender identity have been up nights worrying about climate change.

Instead, many parents are fast coming to the realization that public education as they knew it is a thing of the past.

Its amazing what we accomplished in our public schools and universities when we had little more than classic literature, chalkboards, and chalk in our schools.As centralized education and the teachers unions have gotten bigger and stronger, the quality of education and student performance have declined.

Public schools are no longer the place to send your children to prepare them to succeed in life, or to learn critical thinking skills or high standards of excellence. Nor will they be taught the concept of judging people by the content of their character, not the color of their skin.

Its time for all Americans to reject the woke agenda that has permeated all aspects of society including public schools. We must find alternative solutions before the damage is irreversible.

Some people still believe we can get our public schools back if we can get control of school boards, eliminate CRT, and the eradicate gender indoctrination fluidity programs. But, even if we are successful in achieving these feats, the DNA within the school systems has been radically altered along with administrators, teachers, and many students.

Its time for parents and local leaders to make decisions that are best for their children. Passing school choice legislation is a starting point. Lets make quality alternative solutions for education broad and accessible.

Kendall Qualls is a former Republican Candidate for Governor of Minnesota and was recently reinstated as President of TakeCharge. He is a former Army officer and healthcare executive. Kendal has been married for 35 years and has five children.

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Public Schools Are Irreversible Cesspools Of Wokeness - The Federalist

Following the Supreme Courts reversal of Roe v. Wade, abortion activists and their friends in the media rushed to attack pro-life states, not by defending abortion itself but by deceiving and distracting. Directly talking about abortion means proponents must answer what (or whom) is being aborted. Abortion activists seek to avoid the question entirely and instead scare Americans into supporting their position by conflating abortion with other issues, the most tragic of which is miscarriage.

Leftists and the corporate media wasted no time in disseminating harmful information about the threat abortion bans pose to women who suffer miscarriages or ectopic pregnancies. Their propaganda campaign is not about saving women; instead, it highlights how they will go to any length necessary to preserve the ability to kill the babies nestled safely within the womb with impunity.

Elective abortion is the termination of a pregnancy by intentionally causing the death of a living unborn child. In a miscarriage, the child passes away naturally. Miscarriage care often involves similar terminology, drugs, and procedures as elective abortions. In a clinical setting, miscarriage is even referred to as a spontaneous abortion. They are differentiated, legally and morally, by intent. If a doctor prescribes mifepristone or uses a D&C procedure to treat a miscarriage, the intent is to remove the deceased childs body. The doctor does not cause the childs death in a miscarriage.

The media likes to point to Texas for their scare campaign because Texas, more than any other state, modeled a post-Roe America by enacting the Texas Heartbeat Act, which took effect in 2021. This law bans elective abortion once the preborn childs heartbeat becomes detectable. However, Texas law is exceptionally clear: Miscarriage treatment does not constitute an abortion.

As stated in the Texas Health and Safety Code, a procedure is legally considered an abortion if it is done with the intent to cause the death of an unborn child of a woman known to be pregnant. The definition further clarifies that [a]n act is not an abortion if the act is done with the intent to remove a dead, unborn child whose death was caused by spontaneous abortion.

This means that if a procedure is done to remove a deceased child who passed away by spontaneous miscarriage, there was no intent to end that childs life, and it is therefore not defined as an abortion. Additionally, under Texas law, removing an ectopic pregnancy is not considered an abortion. Texas law also does not prohibit removing a living child with the intent to provide treatment to the child or to save a mothers life, such as in an early induced delivery or a C-section.

Claims that miscarriage and ectopic pregnancy treatments are prohibited in states where elective abortion is banned or restricted are not only legally incorrect but also cause confusion among medical practitioners, policymakers, and pregnant women.

If the unfounded and blatantly false hysteria continues to proliferate, especially with the corporate media as the biggest accomplice, dangerous confusion can occur among pregnant women and physicians. We know the abortion-at-all-costs crowd wont let a little truth stand in their way of a useful narrative, so pro-lifers and the medical community must fill the gap.

National and state medical associations from the American Medical Association to the state-specific chapters such as the Texas Medical Association not only have a powerful lobbying presence in our legislatures but also have a responsibility to release guidelines and clarifications for practitioners when new legislation impacting the practice of medicine goes into effect. Unfortunately, these organizations have not used their vast financial and institutional resources to push back against the false narrative that has spread like wildfire in the pro-abortion media.

Instead of being silent or adding fuel to the fire, these organizations should pointedly educate the medical providers regarding their respective state laws. State legislatures across the country have anticipated these circumstances and included explicit provisions. Equating tragic situations such as miscarriages and ectopic pregnancies with elective abortion peddled by Planned Parenthood and radical leftists is despicable.

Miscarriages are incredibly heartbreaking to expectant families. Ectopic pregnancies are tragic and terrifying experiences, catching women and families by surprise, accompanied by very complex feelings. The emotional, physical, and psychological turmoil inherent in such instances deserves to be respected and acknowledged for what it is: an absolute tragedy.

These tragic situations do not deserve to be the rallying cry of woke leftists who demand abortion on demand for whatever reason, paid for by taxpayers, through all nine months of pregnancy.

Emily Cook is the General Counsel of Texas Right to Life.

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Abortion Activists Are Lying To Scare Americans - The Federalist

Kansans head to the polls Tuesday to vote on the proposed Value Them Both constitutional amendment that seeks to overturn the Kansas Supreme Courts decision in Hodes & Nauser v. Schmidt that declared that the state constitution guarantees a fundamental right to abortion. Many Kansans may not realize, however, that the votes they cast on Tuesday may have been heavily influenced by out-of-state abortion apologists who contributed a whopping 71 percent of the $6.54 million spent by the lead group campaigning against the amendment.

The proposed Value Them Both amendment passed the Kansas House and Senate in January 2021 by the two-thirds threshold required under the state constitution to place the proposal on the ballot for the citizens of Kansas to decide. The amendment would overturn Hodes holding that a state constitutional right to abortion exists by adding to the Kansas Bill of Rights a section defining the propriety of abortion regulation, stating:

Because Kansans value both women and children, the constitution of the state of Kansas does not require government funding of abortion and does not create or secure a right to abortion. To the extent permitted by the constitution of the United States, the people, through their elected state representatives and state senators, may pass laws regarding abortion, including, but not limited to, laws that account for circumstances of pregnancy resulting from rape or incest, or circumstances of necessity to save the life of the mother.

At the time of the Hodes decision, Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey remained the law of the land under the federal Constitution. Pro-life Kansans nonetheless responded to the opinion by pushing for the Value Them Both amendment for two reasons.

First, the Kansas Supreme Courts Hodes opinion created a so-called right to abortion even broader than the then-controlling right established in Roe and tweaked in Casey a state constitutional right so expansive it would guarantee a right to taxpayer-funded abortions.

Second, pro-life Kansans wanted to ensure that if the Supreme Court overturned Roe and Casey, its legislature would regain the right to regulate abortions. While opposition to the amendment by Kansass supposedly pro-life Democrat lawmakers initially delayed the state legislatures approval of the Value Them Both amendment, early last year, the proponents of the amendment garnered the votes necessary to put the proposal on the August primary ballot, which occurs tomorrow.

But then came Dobbs, in which the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe and Casey and held there is no federal constitutional right to abortion. The Dobbs decision makes the outcome of Tuesdays vote crucial to the question of whether Kansans will now be able to decide on the appropriate regulation of abortion through their elected officials or whether it will be a Midwest abortion haven.

While politicians and pundits see the outcome of Tuesdays vote on the Value Them Both amendment as registering the pulse of the public on abortion policy, the disparity in out-of-state money flooding the airwaves with the deceptive talking points of abortion apologists, and the reality of the actual issue on the ballot, render the outcome less prophetic then billed.

For the period of January 1, 2022, through July 18, 2022, campaign finance reports summarize the source of donations to the two competing campaigns. The Value Them Both Campaign, led by Kansans for Life, Kansas Family Voice, and Kansas Catholic Conference, supports passages of the amendment, while a group calling itself Kansans for Constitutional Freedom heads the anti-amendment campaign.

The anti-amendment campaign group raised $6.54 million during the approximate half-year reporting period, of which 71 percent of the donations came from out of state and only 29 percent came from in-state sources. In contrast, the Value Them Both Campaign received donations of $4.69 million during the same time period, with less than 1 percent of the donations originating from out-of-state and more than 99 percent of the donors residing in Kansas.

One would think Kansas politicians would resent such out-of-state influence, but rather than condemn the outsiders interference in a matter of state law, Kansas Democrat Sen. Cindy Holscher attacked Catholic churches and dioceses in Kansas for donating money to support the Value Them Both Campaign. In a Friday op-ed for the Kansas City Star, titled Kansas Constitutional Amendment on Abortion is a Bailout for the Catholic Church, Holscher argued the church doesnt value them both. No, she wrote, the support for the amendment is the church valuing its bottom line.

Beyond Holschers dizzying logic and nonsensical thesis that Kansas Catholic churches want to ban abortion in their state so they wont lose more pro-abortion parishioners yes, that truly is her argument the Kansas senator completely ignores the donations made by the Planned Parenthood Action Fund ($850,000) and Planned Parenthood Great Plains Votes ($492,000) to the Kansans for Constitutional Freedom campaign. Now there you have a money motive.

Even more appalling is the false framing of the amendment Holscher posed in her op-ed, inaccurately claiming that the Legislature currently has the power to pose limits on abortion. To date, there are dozens of restrictions. What the Legislature cant do is ban the procedure, as the Kansas Constitution currently guarantees access. Thats what this amendment is about, contrary to the confusing language that appears on the ballot.

It is not the ballots language that is confusing, however, but rather the spin put on the Value Them Both amendment by Holscher and her fellow Kansas Democrats. As the Democrats know full well, a state constitutional guarantee to abortion access means virtually every law passed by the legislature will be declared unconstitutional by the state courts. Waiting period: struck. Parental notification: struck. Informed consent provisions: struck. But taxpayer funding of abortions to ensure access for poor women that will be required. Conversely, the passage of the amendment merely means that the authority to regulate abortions will be returned to the legislative branch, where it rightly belongs.

Many of the political advertisements funded by out-of-state donors repeat the same false claims about the Value Them Both amendment as peddled in Holschers Friday op-ed. And it is not merely the Planned Parenthood types flooding Kansas with money in the hopes of defeating the amendment. An out-of-state billionaire heiress who promotes left-wing causes contributed 15 percent of the total raised by the anti-amendment group, or $1,000,000. A further 23 percent of the donations to the anti-amendment Kansans for Constitutional Freedom campaign came from liberal super-PACS, including groups that the Atlantic and Politico have classified as leftist dark-money networks, such as the 1630 Fund and the North Fund. North Fund operates an umbrella group for various left-of-center advocacy organizations and has spent millions to promote causes that included opposing a 22-week abortion ban.

With such huge influxes of cash from outsiders, those pushing to defeat the Kansas amendment have been able to blanket the airways with distortions about the legal import of the Value Them Both amendment. And according to Danielle Underwood, the director of communications for Kansans for Life, out-of-state, radical activists and politicians in Washington, D.C., are trying to force their extreme pro-abortion agenda on the people of Kansas. These unwelcome intruders include the Biden administration and far-left congressional members like Nancy Pelosi and Elizabeth Warren, Underwood told The Federalist, and they do not represent the people of Kansas or our values.

At this critical moment, Underwood added, Kansans can and must fight back against outside interests aggressive tactics by voting yes on the Value Them Both Amendment. It is the only way to safeguard the common-sense abortion limits we already agree on and show the world our state believes in protections for both women and babies.

Kansas voters may not recognize the outside influences in play, however, but if they take the time to actually read the proposed amendment before marking their ballots tomorrow, theyll realize that the no side of the debate has been lying to them for the last year-and-a-half. Or Kansas voters can instead learn the truth the hard way when, once the amendment has been defeated, abortion activists turn to the state courts to start striking the current abortion regulations on the books and obtain taxpayer-funded abortion. Conservative Kansans will then learn what so-called abortion access really means.

Correction: This article has been updated to reflect that the reporting period during which the anti-amendment group raised $6.54 million was approximately a half-year, not one-and-a-half years.

Margot Cleveland is The Federalist's senior legal correspondent. She is also a contributor to National Review Online, the Washington Examiner, Aleteia, and Townhall.com, and has been published in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prizethe law schools highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. As a stay-at-home homeschooling mom of a young son with cystic fibrosis, Cleveland frequently writes on cultural issues related to parenting and special-needs children. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.

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Out-Of-State Dems Dump Millions Into Kansas Election Because Abortion Is On The Ballot - The Federalist

I have led the fight in the Senate to hold Big Tech platforms such as Google accountable for their manipulation and use of machine learning that unfairly censor communications from political campaigns and rob the electorate of their options. Our latest demands for transparency and fairness apparently spooked Google. But instead of moving to treat all political emails the same and filtering Republican versus Democrat communications as they are now, the tech giant has proposed a pilot program in the form of an Advisory Opinion, currently with the Federal Election Commission.

This proposal would eliminate all spam filter algorithms for participating candidates and organizations. While this proposal may appear to be in the best interest of all political emails, Gmails current deliverability practices have disincentivized Democratic campaigns from joining the program due to the increased chance of unsubscribes. Further, Google has created a loophole in the program allowing them to change the rules whenever its convenient to them, requiring participants to adhere and comply with no exception.

Let me be clear: Googles pilot program is the wrong approach. We should have the expectation that if a voter signs up for a Republican campaigns email, they should receive those emails in their inbox.

I know political bias in Silicon Valley better than most; as someone who was branded a terrorist by an engineer at Google and whose pro-life campaign video was removed by Twitter for being inflammatory, Ive learned when to laugh it off and when to stand my ground. This is a case of the latter.

Email is the norm for how we conduct business, stay in touch with friends and family, learn about sales from our favorite retailers, and receive updates from political campaigns and organizations. Millions of Americans have signed up to receive emails from political candidates through campaign websites, petitions, surveys, or events, signaling their interest in receiving updates and information from the campaign trail.

But this is unfortunately not how its been playing out. Though email communications have been normalized on campaigns for several election cycles and email use continues to grow globally, the disparity between Democratic and Republican email inboxing has reached a breaking point this year. Google, the most dominant email provider, has been a particularly bad actor. Unfairly gatekeeping inboxes and censoring the voices of hundreds of conservative candidates, committees, and causes by sending their emails to spam or, worse, failing to deliver messages. A recent study by North Carolina State University found that nearly 80 percent of emails sent by conservatives ended up in spam folders.

Meanwhile, the Democrats had a banner year in 2020, with the Democratic National Committee flaunting best practices and recommendations by emailing a list of dormant email addresses, and instead of triggering spam filters, reactivating 875,000 supporters. In a Substack post written a month after the 2020 election, the DNC Mobilization Team bragged they sent every single emailable inactive at least two emails and reactivated millions of supporters who accounted for 16% of our online fundraising revenue in the last quarter of the election. These levels of engagement and activity are unheard of.

Its clear that the liberal elites in Silicon Valley are once again placing their thumb on the scale, manipulating communications that could lead to consequential outcomes. When a conservative supporter goes to a Republican website to sign up to receive emails, we should be confident that they will get the emails they signed up to receive. But even after consultation with top email specialists to achieve and execute best practices, Republicans still cannot guarantee that to be the case. This is shameful and wrong.

Its absurd, isnt it, that in 2022, Big Tech elites have made the practice of delivering an email from point A to point B so complicated and polarized?

Conservatives are not asking for the ability to send unsolicited emails in an unchecked manner. We believe in the protections used to defend consumers against malicious attacks, bad actors, and unwanted communications. We are simply asking that Google treat Republican emails the same as those of our Democratic counterparts, and to make transparent the rules used to place emails in inboxes.

When I ran for Senate, I vowed to the people of Tennessee that I would never back down from a fight. I never thought one of those fights would be about something as simple as email, but this just demonstrates how out of control Silicon Valley and the liberal elites are and why this fight is more important than ever. If email is under attack now, whats next?

Marsha Blackburn is a United States senator from Tennessee.

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Google's Solution To Its Campaign Email Problem Is A Phony Fix - The Federalist

The corporate media had a collective meltdown this week after realizing that the Republicans they love to bash and smear are no longer giving members of the press the benefit of the doubt. Much to their dismay, some GOPers are even refusing to engage with or acknowledge journos desperate to write hit pieces.

In one New York Magazine Intelligencer article, headlined Why Republicans Stopped Talking to the Press, David Freedlander complains that former President Donald Trump ushered in a new era of media disdain in GOP politics that encourages actively courting the medias scorn while avoiding anything that may be viewed as consorting with the enemy.

One anonymous GOP adviser explained bluntly, We know reporters always disagreed with the Republican Party, and outlets now are just chasing resistance rage-clicks.

Freedlander, however, rejects those valid concerns and suggests that there is really not much Republicans can say after supporting Donald Trump. (Maybe Freedlander and the New York Timess Bret Stephens, who recently penned a disingenuous article further exposing his contempt for Trump supporters, are friends?)

According to Freedlander and his pal New York Times writer Jeremy Peters, Republicans dont want to have to defend Donald Trump and his falsehoods about the election.

Freedlander notes that most top 24 contenders are media-makers in their own right, hosting their own podcasts or, at minimum, building out robust social-media feeds. Instead of acknowledging thats because conservatives have faced endless political censorship from Big Tech and grave dishonesty from the press, Freedlander says thats because Republicans want to find places where they dont have to face any questions about Trumps election integrity concerns.

Vanity Fair published a similar article on Tuesday whining about the Republican Party of Floridas decision to limit which media outlets were allowed to cover their Sunshine Summit, a conference headlined by one of the most skilled media rejectionists, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.

GOP politicians are increasingly shirking sit-down interviews, barring journalists from 2022 events, and skipping debatesan aversion to media scrutiny that could upend how the next presidential election cycle is covered, the subheadline warns.

Vanity Fair, which has had no shame in attacking DeSantis and other Republicans before, clearly published the article with the intent to spark fear about the growing distance between the party and the press. Thats why the headline asks, Will Republicans Shut Out The Press in 2024?

I sure hope Republicans shut out the press, especially if that means red legislators will refuse to cede ground to corrupt actors who have no problems meddling in elections to fulfill their political aims.

After all, history proves that the corporate media is hostile toward the GOP and red voters. When journalists bother to try to talk to Republicans, they are more likely than not acting in bad faith. Why should Republicans, who know the corporate media have a clear left-wing bent, buy into the Democrat-informed narratives peddled by media activists?

Even normal people know the media are not to be trusted. Recent polling suggests Americans confidence in media is at an all-time low. Only 16 percent of Americans claimed to have a great deal/quite a lot of confidence in newspapers. That confidence falls even lower to 11 percent for TV news.

As GOP strategist Dave Carney bluntly put it for Freedlander: No one gives a f-ck what the New York Times writes.

And neither should Republican politicians.

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 @jordanboydtx.

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Republicans Are Finally Done Obsessing Over The Media. Good. - The Federalist

In a New York Times/Sienna College Research Institute poll this month, only 1 percent of participants said that the most important problem facing the country today is climate change. Twenty percent of those polled, the highest percentage, said that the economy (including jobs and the stock market) was the greatest problem, and 15 percent said that inflation and the cost of living were their greatest concern.

Republicans were the demographic most likely to name the economy as their top priority, at 29 percent, with Hispanics right behind them at 28 percent. In comparison, exactly 0 percent of Hispanics said that climate change was at the top of their list of pressing problems. These numbers grow in significance when you consider that major heat waves had just struck much of the country around the time the poll was conducted.

Ten days after finishing the poll, The New York Times commented on these numbers, displaying some confusion at such low numbers of the publics concern for an issue they describe as widespread and catastrophic. Even among voters under 30, the group thought to be most energized by the issue, the Times reported, that figure was 3 percent.

Their only explanation was that people are distracted from significant issues like climate change by the daily economic issues that eat into their pocketbooks. The Times quoted former Republican Rep. Carlos Curbelo from South Florida, saying, In healthier economic times, its easier to focus on issues like this [climate change]. Once people get desperate, all that goes out the window.

Despite spending the entire first half of the article outlining a supposed climate crisis occurring throughout the country, the Times quoted Curbelo noting that these crises are not things that most people face every day, while issues like inflation are readily apparent to anyone who pulls up to the gas pump.

Beth Whitehead is an intern at The Federalist and a journalism major at Patrick Henry College where she fondly excuses the excess amount of coffee she drinks as an occupational hazard.

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As Dems Go All In On Climate, 1% Of Americans Call It Top Fear - The Federalist

Former Trump White House Communications Director Alyssa Farah Griffin is reportedly the new permanent co-host of ABCs The View. Since Meghan McCains departure from the show, the network has struggled to find someone to fill the conservative seat, apparently searching for someone who claims to hold conservative values but is willing to abandon and even assail those values for the sake of The Narrative. It seems Farah Griffin finally proved to producers she was up to the task.

When Farah Griffin made her first appearance at the Hot Topics table last October, she began by desperately apologizing for serving in the Trump administration and bent the knee with nervous laughter to every insult her co-hosts threw at her.

She attempted to distance herself from Trump by noting that she was initially working under Vice President Pence. Co-host Sunny Hostin shot back, So youre not working for Darth Vader, but youre a stormtrooper.

Corporate media outlets called the exchange embarrassing for Farah Griffin, and it was, but not for the reasons they assume. Whats embarrassing is disowning your own previously held beliefs, convictions, and careers work in exchange for seal claps, media attention, and the approval of Whoopi Goldberg.

In Farah Griffins subsequent appearances on The View, as well as on CNN and MSNBC, she contradicted her own publicly stated opinions on voter fraud, Jan. 6, Hunter Biden, and even former President Trumps Covid response.

Secondhand embarrassment aside, this isnt so much a loss for conservative media representation or even for Farah Griffin herself. The real mistake here is on ABC producers and their failure to understand their audience and their major ratings problem.

Under Meghan McCains reign in the conservative hot seat, The Views ratings skyrocketed. The New York Times lauded it as the Most Important Political TVShowin America, and appearing as a guest on the show became a must for any politician running for office. Yet, the permanent talking heads and producers cant see where that success was derived.

Even while remaining staunchly anti-Trump, McCain was never bullied into submission by her far-left co-hosts. Of course the heated exchanges and must-see-TV catfights drove ratings, but more than that, McCain represented the opinions of millions of American women who do not see their views shared anywhere else on network television. With McCain gone, and a weak-kneed Trump defector filling her place, whats to keep those women tuning in when they can hear the same earful of leftist talking points from literally every other form of corporate media?

Perhaps now that Farah Griffin has earned her permanent spot (and her paycheck), she can grow a spine without worrying so much about nailing the audition, but I wouldnt hold my breath. For people like Farah Griffin, Mediaite headlines and Twitter seal claps are far more rewarding than the affection of women in Middle America.

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Alyssa Farah Griffin Gets Conservative 'View' Slot By Trashing Conservatism - The Federalist

Nate Silvers FiveThirtyEight website claims to use statistical analysisto tell compelling stories about elections, politics, sports, science and life and attempts to present itself as a moderate voice, alongside its fellow Disney-owned media properties such as ESPN and ABC News, both of which have endured heavy criticism for erroneous and ideologically driven reporting in recent years. FiveThirtyEights recent abortion article, however, goes a long way toward disabusing readers of the notion that it is an empirical or centrist media outlet.

The inaccurate screed argues that the pro-life movement is intrinsically rooted in racism, even though the modern abortion industry is an outgrowth of blatantly racist and eugenicist thought among early 20th-century progressives. Even more bizarrely, it argues the pro-life movement has ties to replacement theory, an oft-quoted idea in corporate media that the left will politically dominate due to a massive influx of immigrants.

The article, How The Fight To Ban Abortion Is Rooted In The Great Replacement Theory, written by Alex Samuels and her colleague Monica Potts, even openly contradicts its own thesis.

In order to make this tenuous assertion, the article invokes the recent racist mass shooting at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York. The authors note that in the shooters 180-page manifesto, he expressedconcern about the declining birth ratesof white people. Thats because the anti-abortion movement, at its core, has always been aboutupholding white supremacy.

However, the shooter never once mentioned the word abortion, and thats probably for a very obvious reason: Racists understand that legal abortion is very helpful for their twisted cause. Abortion rates for black women are about four times that of white women, and abortion advocates routinely oppose laws designed to prevent abortion based on the sex and race of the child being aborted. Planned Parenthood has 62 percent of its abortion centers strategically placed within two miles of concentrated African American populations.

FiveThirtyEight also launches into a very dubious history lesson: Declining white birth rates, along with the rising eugenics movement a now-discredited pseudoscience focused on the genetic fitness of white Americans were connected to the practice of abortion, and this helped bolster flawed, racist arguments for a total ban of the procedure. FiveThirtyEight makes no attempt to explain how opposition to euthanasia and abortion would lead to flawed, racist arguments for a total ban of abortion, since abortion reduces the black population and euthanasia has historically been a means of targeting minorities and those with disabilities.

The founder of Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger, spoke to the KKK and was a proponent of euthanasia and birth control, known for her saying, Eugenics without birth control seems to us a house builded upon the sands. It is at the mercy of the rising stream of the unfit. In 2020, Planned Parenthood took Margaret Sangers name off a New York City facility, and said the move was the first of many organizational shifts to address Sangers legacy and system of institutional racism.

And while it might be understandable that reporting on an issue as polarizing as abortion would cause reporters to rely on ideologically driven sources, FiveThirtyEight resorts to fringe voices such as the co-founder of the Institute for Research on Male Supremacism.

Finally, in a key paragraph, the authors seem to admit that the premise of their own article is contradictory and incoherent:

Even on its own terms, though, the logic of tying the anti-abortion movement to the racist great replacement theory is deeply convoluted and downright inaccurate. For instance,fewer women are seeking abortions, and women of color particularly those who are Black are more likely than white women to seek an abortion.

This idea that they are writing about the nation, that the fight over abortion rights is somehow tied to great replacement theory theres just no evidence for in what theyve written, Dr. James Sherley, stem cell biologist and associate scholar of the Charlotte Lozier Institute, told The Federalist. If you look at all of the causes of deaths for African Americans, that rate is still less than all the deaths due to abortions so abortion is the number one killer of black people in America. That just really flies in the face of this article by FiveThirtyEight.

Its just really a terrible article, he added. Its a random assortment of random observations.

Beth Whitehead is an intern at The Federalist and a journalism major at Patrick Henry College. Mollie Hemingway is editor-in-chief of The Federalist.

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FiveThirtyEight Contradicts Its Own Claim That Pro-Life Movement Is Racist - The Federalist

An Arizona mother who works with refugee families is fighting a state agencys decision to place her on a child neglect no-hire list. Represented by attorneys from Pacific Legal Foundation and the Goldwater Institute, she is asking a state court to give her due process before allowing the agency to blacklist her.

According to the stay motion, while Sarra L. was Thanksgiving shopping in 2020, she let her 7-year-old son and his 5-year-old friend play at a park. She knew the park was safe, and a friend of hers was there. While Sarra was in the store, the friend called and said a police officer was talking with the children.

The officers charges against Sarra two counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor were ultimately dropped by prosecutors, the motion said, but the Arizona Department of Child Safety investigated the matter and concluded there was probable cause that Sarra neglected her son. DCS recommended putting Sarras name in the Central Registry.

The Central Registry is essentially a no-hire list, Adi Dynar, an attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation and the lead attorney for Sarras case, told The Federalist. If someones name is on the list, no employer can hire them if, as part of their employment, they have to work with children.

He said this would threaten Sarras job, where she works with refugee families from Eastern Europe, including those affected by the Russia-Ukraine war. Shes working with them, getting them situated, getting them the services they need to rebuild their lives and flourish in America, Dynar said.

If her name appears in the list, then her job is in jeopardy, she cant work with refugees, and ultimately we are all impoverished as a result, he added.

Before she could take the case to court, Dynar said Sarra appealed the DCS decision to an administrative law judge and then to the DCS director, a process he said has inherent constitutional problems. There is no jury trial, Dynar said. There is no cross-examination of witnesses. They do not follow any rules of evidence or any specific rules of procedure that we have come to recognize as necessary for complying with the due process clause.

To add insult to injury, he continued, the standard of proof that is used in these cases is probable cause. Probable cause, according to the stay motion, is equivalent to a form of substantiated suspicion. Dynar said the process also violates the separation of powers in Arizonas Constitution, as executive officials exercise judicial power.

Sarras team filed the stay motion on July 15, asking that the court order DCS not to place her name on the registry or to remove it if the agency already has until the case is resolved.

If Sarra wins, this could affect more than just her case. Her attorneys argue the administrative hearing process itself violates the separation of powers as well as Sarras constitutional rights. If we win that argument in the Court of Appeals in Arizona, we would be able to establish favorable precedent, at least in the state, that is critical of administrative adjudication, Dynar said.

Olivia Hajicek is an intern at The Federalist and a junior at Hillsdale College studying history and journalism. She has covered campus and city news as a reporter for The Hillsdale Collegian. You can reach her at olivia.hajicek@gmail.com.

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AZ Mom Fights Due-Process Denial That Would Put Her On No-Hire List - The Federalist

Inflation is at a 40-year high, an economic recession may be just around the corner, the presidents approval rating is plummeting, and the 2022 midterm elections are less than four months away. Desperate times call for desperate measures, right?

At least, that must be what the Biden administration is thinking. Why else would a U.S. president launch a thinly veiled get-out-the-vote campaign designed to give the Democrats an electoral advantage?

The presidents plan was outlined in Executive Order 14019, which ultimately directs all federal agencies to do what they can to increase voter registration and turnout, including by working with a select group of third-party organizations approved by the White House. Sounds harmless on its face, until you consider the fact that it is being carried out by political appointees whose job security literally depends on Democrats being reelected in 2022 and 2024, and that the person charged with collecting the plans and leading this effort is President Joe Bidens domestic policy advisor, Susan Rice.

Even more concerning, when pressed for more information about these plans through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests from the Foundation for Government Accountability, the Biden administration has opted to stay silent. If the plans are harmless, why not share them with Congress and the American people? It makes you wonder what theyre hiding.

But even without the details publicly outlined, its not difficult to see what the executive order hopes to accomplish. By interjecting the might of the federal government and all of its taxpayer-funded offices and resources into the state-run voter registration process, the Biden administration hopes to drive out the Democrat vote in both the midterm elections and for generations to come.

Weve seen a similar scheme once before. Mark Zuckerberg and his wife funneled millions of dollars to state and local election officials for the administration of the 2020 election. And as it turns out, the vast majority of those dollars were spent in localities that ultimately voted for Joe Biden. The not-so-secret attempt to drive out Democrat votes through a targeted distribution of resources was seen as highly unethical. And thanks to a flurry of new laws passed in more than 20 states, it is now also illegal across much of the country. Yet now, these so-called Zuckerbucks have proven to be just a precursor to an even larger scheme: the presidents use of Bidenbucks the use of taxpayer dollars to meet the same end.

Sadly, the scheme is already underway. Several federal agencies have initiated plans to designate their state offices as voting registration agencies, including the U.S. Department of Labors 2,300 American Job Centers. But its imperative that these centers remain non-partisan free from even the appearance of becoming vote mills that churn out political support in exchange for work.

The same should go for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which has also announced plans to designate Public Housing Agencies as voting registration agencies. Votes in exchange for benefits should not be the slogan of any federal agency.

There is good news, though. The Biden administrations plans have not gone unnoticed. The Foundation for Government Accountability has filed a lawsuit to compel the U.S. Department of Justice to respond to our initial FOIA requests. Last week, the Federal District Courtordered the DOJto provide us all requested documents required under the FOIA requestbefore the midterm elections.

Also, legislation has recently been introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives to prevent the Biden administrations plans to take over state-run elections from moving forward. The legislation, introduced by Rep. Ted Budd, R-N.C., would prohibit federal agencies from using federal funding to carry out any plans to comply with the presidents order to use the immense resources of federal agencies and their state offices to carry out an unprecedented get-out-the-vote effort designed to benefit the left.

It will also prohibit agencies from partnering with politically like-minded outside groups hand-selected by Susan Rice to carry out Executive Order 14019. While its unlikely that it would become law before the upcoming election, this legislation is an important step toward ensuring our elections are free, fair, and secured against unconstitutional influence in this case, from the White House itself.

President Biden may be feeling the pressure build as his economic policies have continued to fall flat with the American people, but that does not justify an illegal executive power grab to attempt to keep his party, and himself, in control. And executive branch attempts to systematically affect elections for generations to come must be stopped at both the state and federal level.

Tarren Bragdon is president and CEO of the Foundation for Government Accountability.

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Biden's Illegal Election Hail Mary Might Still Be Intercepted - The Federalist