Category Archives: Federalist

On February 4, a car plowed through a group of demonstrators against Covid restrictions in Winnipeg, Canada. The driver fled the scene, leaving four adult males injured.

Videos taken by surveillance cameras and bystanders show the moment of impact. The white Jeep Patriot speeds up past the trail of cars and aims directly at a group of protesters. One of the victims can clearly be seen being driven over, as the Jeeps operator indiscriminately steers into others.

Thankfully, no one was killed in the incident. Winnipeg police apprehended the suspect, a 42-year-old man from Headingley, this past Sunday. He faces 11 counts of assault with a vehicle with failure to stop at the scene of the crime.

Although the police were able to quickly detain the suspect, why isnt there major media coverage of this? Wheres the legacy media calling out violence aimed towards peaceful protesters? Corporate media would be talking of nothing else if this happened at a Black Lives Matter protest.

Yet apart from Fox News, local Canadian news outlets, and some British publications, there isnt much talk of this violence at all. CNN published an article about the growing Freedom Convoy, offering only a brief summary about the Friday evening hit-and-run.

It seems as if once again large news corporations want to sweep the incident under the rug, much like they did with the Waukesha Christmas parade hit-and-run hate crime that killed seven and injured more. Notice that legacy media isnt talking about that anymore?

Commentators on the left never waste an opportunity to bring up the Charlottesville, Virginia car attack, a horrible assault that killed one and injured 35 others. It seems as if whenever freedom-loving patriots congregate, leftist media eagerly reminds the world of the dangers of supposed emerging fascism and alt-right conspiracy theorists, while dodging the true issues at hand. Here, those issues are the right to bodily autonomy and the Covid-19 responses gross abuses of governmental authority.

It is not convenient for the media to address the Winnipeg violence with the respect and depth it deserves. It doesnt serve their agenda. Why shed light on a serious crime against peaceful Freedom Convoy supporters when you can just cry wolf and falsely equate them with Nazis and white supremacists?

Government elites fall directly into the latter camp: decrying the movement whenever and however they can. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called the movement a small fringe minority that spreads hateful rhetoric and doesnt speak for Canadians, yet the movement is growing every day with supporters from all parts of Canada, with Americans now joining in.

In fact, the Convoy inspired sister movements around the world, such as in Helsinki, where truckers are protesting rising gas prices and vaccine mandates. So much for being a fringe minority.

If Trudeau is such a champion of peace and civility, why didnt he condemn the actions of the 42-year-old driver who appears to have aimed to seriously harm and even kill peaceful protesters that Friday? Perhaps he was too busy fleeing to an undisclosed location to make any remarks. Trudeau still has yet to address the demands of the Freedom Convoy and has remained in hiding since the demonstrators moved on Ottawa from Vancouver at the end of January.

Even if the public peacefully protests and makes its concerns known through justified means like boycotts and public demonstrations, corporate elites and government officials turn a blind eye. Why? Because the growing popularity of the Freedom Convoy throws a wrench in the leftist narrative that it is a movement of white supremacists looking to harm innocent Canadians by refusing to take a vaccine that has been shown to not curb the spread or transmission of Covid-19. So what is this game theyre playing at?

It seems the consensus on social media is that those in the convoy are self-interested rebels with no consideration of the greater good. Although they had many chances to address the Friday evening attack, media outlets chose instead to cherry pick information, focusing on anecdotes, such as isolated instances of vandalism or racial slurs, in order to paint the truckers and their supporters in a deplorable light.

Interestingly enough, the truckers have repeatedly voiced their dedication to protesting peacefully, and have consistently distanced themselves from fringe individuals who carry swastika signs and try to deface property. The media is clearly conflating the actions of select individuals with that of the group, something a 4th grader could point out for its gross oversimplification.

If those who oppose these truckers and their deeply held belief in self-autonomy insist that all the demonstrators are violent due to unsubstantiated reports of a few instances, should the same case not be made of them? Four people almost lost their lives to a crazed driver who appears to have deliberately chosen to ram his car into peaceful demonstrators. Arent all pro-mandate supporters the same, then?

Of course not, and it would be insane to entertain that notion. Yet the legacy media and opponents of self-responsibility and autonomy have no shame in using that smear tactic whenever it suits them.

This is why the truth needs to be let out. If leftist media stays silent, it is our responsibility to ensure that what is happening here is amplified for the world to see and hear. Do not let the elites memory hole this attack; do not let them sweep it under the rug like they have done for so many others. If the tables were turned, they would never let you forget it. So why should you?

Connor Vasile holds a BA in political science from New York University. He is also applying to law school.

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Why Aren't Media Covering The Car That Smashed The Freedom Convoy? - The Federalist

For nearly two years, bureaucrats have ignored the data on kids and Covid-19 to force children to wear masks. Its clear that the decisions made for children during the pandemic were not rational and have hurt not only their development but also their mental health. Parents are rightfully furious.

Unmask the Kids America is a group dedicated to advocating for children whose interests were neglected during the pandemic. Not only is the parent-run organization pushing for schools to truly follow the science on masking, but the group is also empowering parents to stand up to the mask bullies who are hindering their childrens development.

I think our kids have been used as political pawns, Jen Harrison, a mother of three and founding member of Unmask the Kids, told The Federalist. I have a 7-year-old, a 5-year-old, and a 2-year-old. My 5-year-old and 2-year-old dont know anything different. They think this is normal. They have never been to a school without their faces covered.

In Harrisons home stateof Illinois, where Unmask the Kids began, masks are still required in indoor public spaces for anyone over the age of 2, including in schools. The risk of young children getting extremely ill or dying from Covid is exceptionally low, and even the World Health Organization says young kids shouldnt be forced to cover their faces. But that hasnt stopped Democrat Gov. J.B. Pritzker from using his emergency powers to repeatedly extend tyrannical restrictions that cause harm on vulnerable populations, and children are suffering the most.

I see the detriment of not being able to see faces. This age group develops through social interactions and they learn to read by watching somebodys mouth. Their speech is delayed. Their ability to interact with people when they see them without a mask, when they see a classmate without the mask is really challenging to watch, Harrison said. I think the parents of the young kids can see such immediate ramifications to this. Enough is enough.

Unmask the Kids started as a local movement in a North Shore Chicago suburb that gave parents a chance to voice their concerns with repressive Covid-19 regulations. Now the grassroots organization has caught the attention of thousands of parents from different states and political backgrounds who want to take back freedom of choice when it comes to masks.

The group uses an Instagram account, which has already amassed nearly 6,000 followers, to communicate the urgency behind unmasking kids. Moderators regularly post links to articles and resources detailing why theres no science behind forcing children to wear face coverings. Moderators also post pictures of peaceful parent protests against masks, especially in schools, with hopes that it will inspire others who have been too nervous to speak up thus far.

Theres just been a lot of fighting and big protests happening at all these schools with this dynamic happening, Harrison explained. My 7-year-old son was kicked out of school today for not wearing a mask. At another Catholic school, two fifth-graders were locked in a room and they had to text their parents from their school iPad to come get them because they were locked in a room for not wearing a mask. There are instances of high schools filling their auditoriums with students that are refusing to wear their masks and quarantining them in rooms. Its really just imploded.

Already, Unmask the Kids has faced opposition from Big Tech and others who dont believe in parents rights to advocate for their childrens freedom. LinkTree, a tool used by organizations to collect resources and present them under one link, canceled the groups account due to inappropriate use of this service. This tools removal was detrimental to group members such as Harrison, who is raising children, working, and trying to share resources with other concerned parents via the Unmask the Kids Instagram.

We just basically run an Instagram account that spreads awareness, spreads medical journals, spreads mainstream, mostly, news articles just to raise awareness for unmasking the kids, Harrison said. Its literally just some parents trying to, you know, spread awareness on social media and empower the community.

A judge in Illinois ruled on Friday that Pritzkers statewide mask mandate for students is null and void. The governor and his administration scrambled to appeal the misguided ruling, but Harrison said the decision was a big victory for a lot of people.

They sent their kids for the first day without a mask to school in two years [on Monday], but the next steps are just to keep it this way and to protect our children and to protect parents rights, to have choice, Harrison said. If somebody is comfortable wearing a mask, we support that. One thing that we said is wewill fight for your ability to keep your mask on as much as well fight for our ability to not wear our masks.

The continued fight for parental rights is much bigger than Illinois. In Virginia, the state Supreme Court rejected a challenge to Gov. Glenn Youngkins ban on mask mandates just a few days after an Arlington judge, whose spouse is a teacher in the Virginia education system, temporarily prevented enforcement of the order. While multiple Virginia school districts have ignored the governors orders and have repeatedly suspended maskless students, parents continue to fight for the right to unmask their children.

The tide is shifting across the nation. Just look at New Jersey and Connecticut, who just lifted their school mandates. Not only are parents across the country tired of being ignored, but the students have started walking out of classrooms and wearing defiant masks on their own accord. At the street level, people are fighting to change the masking narrative and politicians and courts are finally beginning to listen, Virginia mom Stephanie Lundquist-Arora told The Federalist.

For the past couple of years, we have repeatedly heard messages that if we dont wear a mask, were unkind, stupid, or, now in Loudoun County, racist, she continued. Those words were powerful and effective at controlling our behavior. What were seeing now is a societal self-reflection: Why are we doing this?

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

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Mask Bullies Have Tormented Kids For Two Years But Parents Are Done - The Federalist

Former Vice President Mike Pence is getting roundly lauded for his bravery in standing up to his ex-boss Donald Trump. At a Federalist Society event on Friday night, Pence expressly said Trump was wrong in asserting that as vice president, Pence had the power to overturn the 2020 election.

The former VPs courage is being wildly overstated. It consisted of little more than restating a position he has already taken, and one he necessarily has to endorse if he is to have any running room to get to the presidency, an office to which he plainly aspires.

Instead of being lauded, Pence should be called out for his failure to oppose Trump on far more important grounds.

Heres Pences grand declaration of independence: President Trump is wrong. I had no right to overturn the election. Trump, for his part, had (falsely) said the opposite in a statement a few days earlier.

So yes, Pence used the words Trump and wrong in the same sentence which may sound like an act of breathless courage in these strange times, but only in the context of Pences sycophantic loyalty over the last six years.

When Pence did his job in the wee hours of Jan. 7, 2020, certifying the electoral college vote, his actions rebuffed Trumps pressure campaign to violate the Constitution, which clearly limits a vice presidents role in a presidential election to opening the electors envelopes.

Pence said as much later, and just as expressly as he did on Friday. For example, in an interview on the Christian Broadcasting Network in December, he said, From the founding of this nation forward, its been well-established that the only role that Congress has is to open and count the electoral votes that are submitted by states across the country, no more, no less than that.

It is true that at the Federalist Society, Pence added some bromides to his position. He called the very idea of a vice president overturning an election un-American (something he also said earlier on the Christian Broadcasting Network) and he called Jan. 6 a dark day but all of it was well within the safe harbor of what is an uncontroversial constitutional analysis.

Indeed, while Pence gets patted on the back for his boldness and independence, the fact is that even the person who authored the thought experiment, aka gonzo notion, that the vice president could undo presidential election results lawyer (and former Chapman University professor) John Eastman apparently never bought it.

Eastman, who recently invoked the 5th Amendment nearly 150 times before the Jan. 6 committee, told the National Review that he was asked by someone he doesnt remember who to write up the theory. Despite what the memo says, Eastman claims he orally advised Trump and Pence that the idea wouldnt fly.

Anybody who thinks that thats a viable strategy is crazy, Eastman explained to the National Review.

Thats the reality of the legal idea that Pence so valiantly denounced.

Pences Federalist Society speech was clearly meant to bolster his attempt to become the leader of the GOP. Just hours earlier, the Republican National Committee had adopted a resolution characterizing the actions of those who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 as legitimate political discourse. That will go down as among the most shameful moments in the history of American politics. The party has thoroughly lost its way, and it is now sinking ever more deeply into a trough out of which it cannot climb without acknowledging the truth.

Pence, no less than the leaders of the RNC, well understands that Trumps claims of having been cheated out of the election are a crock. He is uniquely positioned to call out Trumps lie and his partys shame, and begin to fight for the future honor of the GOP.

A true act of emperor-has-no-clothes bravery would have looked like this: Pence stepping up to outright denounce the fantasy that the 2020 election was stolen, stating in no uncertain terms that it was free and fair, and that Joe Biden is the rightful U.S. president. That would have demonstrated real leadership.

Instead, Pences tepid repetition of an uncontroversial constitutional analysis did nothing more than allow the toxic Trump version of events, the big lie, to continue to flourish at the highest reaches of the Republican Party.

Mike Pences speech on Friday was far from a profile in courage. Call it rather a profile in political pragmatism. And a huge missed opportunity to do something truly brave for his country and party.

@HarryLitman

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Column: Mike Pence is no hero for stating the obvious - Los Angeles Times

WASHINGTON, DC Last Wednesday night, a woman was attacked while she drove with her 11-month-old child, just three blocks from Union Station and five from the Supreme Court.

The criminal held her at knifepoint as he forced his way into her car, brushing past the bright Baby On Board sticker. Video surveillance recorded her desperate screams and pleas for mercy echoing through the streets, while a passing pedestrian barely flinched. The perpetrator is still at large.

Two weeks earlier, just across the river, a gang of gunmen stole the car from a candidate for city council as he filled his tank. The highspeed operation, launched in broad daylight from an SUV, looks more like Baghdad than the United States. No arrests were made.

At 10 in the morning a month prior, at a small park across the street from the city polices First District Substation, a father walking with his two young children was attacked by a vagrant throwing bricks. Bleeding from his head, he begged his attacker to let his infant baby and toddler be, but the man threw a second brick, fracturing the face of his eleven-month baby girl in her stroller, and leaving her with 12 stitches across her face.

A neighbor running out after he heard the screams found the father covered in blood, cradling his screaming baby.

One week before, just two blocks away in busy Eastern Market, a man smashed a brick over a young mothers head while she walked with her child. Both of her front teeth were knocked out. The man escaped.

The nights between these awful attacks are filled with stolen cars, break-ins, car-jackings, assaults, robberies, and homicides.

You would never guess, however, that ours is a city in crisis this past year literally suffering the largest percentage drop in population in the United States, while homicides increased by 15 percent from how the D.C. City Council is spending its time and money.

Indeed, the 2022 budget cut the police department by 7.8 percent. Fighting back, the mayor requested a supplemental $11 million to hire 170 officers to work toward replacing the 400 four hundred who quit or retired since 2020s Black Lives Matter riots, but even this was thwarted by the council; particularly arch-anti-police Member Charles Allen.

In a compromise led by Allen, the council approved only $5 million of the emergency request enough to hire a mere 60 recruits sending the remaining $6 million of the emergency request to community violence interrupters, an activist wet dream with little data to support its efficiency.

The council also made sure to award themselves, increasing the budget for public election financing a program that makes it so every dollar a resident donates to them earns them another $5 from the taxpayer.

The system is allegedly designed to give everyone a chance (and curtail corporate-influenced corruption), but in practice it protects incumbents with higher name recognition multiplying their larger hauls by five times, effectively burying lesser-known challengers.

Mayor Muriel Bowser had opposed the campaign finance overhaul in 2018, but after signing the bill she claimed shed been convinced by the outpouring of voter support for her taking tax dollars to strengthen our democracy.

I have heard them, she wrote, and I have been moved by their passion. Her campaigns received $2 million from the program so far this year.

People are stoked, one D.C. Democratic consultant on a city council campaign bragged to Axios. People really feel empowered.

Still, the councils largesse doesnt extend to public safety: In the same period of time they quadrupled their public campaign contributions, theyve cut $100 million from the police and overseen a simultaneous 36 percent increase in homicides.

Residents want safety, not politics, the council wrote in a press release explaining the decision to cut the polices budget yet again.

Not all was lost, though: They managed to find $1,385,000 for the Office on Asian and Pacific Islander Affairs, an office that supports things like multicultural development, including a Dominican Republic culture party called Fiesta DC.

They also approved $6,386,000 for the Office of Latino Affairs, which operates along the same lines.

The top result of a Google News search for this offices most recent community impact is an article titled, Theyre Targeting Latinos: DC leaders asked to help after robberies of contractors. The article tells the story of a rash of armed robberies targeting Hispanic immigrant construction workers. One criminal, arrested last month, was suspected of at least 19 other attacks.

It happens, one victim said, on a weekly basis.

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Murder Capital: Charles Allen And Selling DC Out To Crime And Activists - The Federalist

It was both sad and uncomfortable to watch as Kanye West and Kim Kardashian West hashed out their messy divorce and parenting disagreements publicly over Instagram on Friday. But as damaging as the public feud is for their children and family, Kanye is right to protest his 8-year-old daughters use of TikTok.

I NEED TO KNOW WHAT I SHOULD DO ABOUT MY DAUGHTER BEING PUT ON TIK TOK AGAINST MY WILL ? the rapper wrote on Instagram Friday morning.

Kim, who is typically extremely private, stoic, and rarely makes public comments about her divorce, responded with a statement on her Instagram.

Kanyes constant need for attacking me in interviews and on social media is actually more hurtful than any TikTok North might create, she wrote via her Notes app. As the parent who is the main provider and caregiver for our children, I am doing my best to protect our daughter while also allowing her to express her creativity in the medium that she wishes with adult supervision because it brings her happiness.

Kanye responded with two more posts (now deleted), one alleging that Kim tried to keep Kanye from his children and forced him to take a drug test, and another of a screenshot of TikToks terms of service about not allowing users under the age of 13.

Putting aside the fact that Instagram is perhaps the worst possible way to mediate marriage and parenting disputes, Kanye is not wrong to take drastic measures when it comes to protecting his children from social media, especially apps such as TikTok.

The obvious and well-documented negative consequences of letting children and teenagers use TikTok are too great in number to fully account for here. Federalist Culture Editor Emily Jashinsky happened to write about the broader consequences of TikTok on our children, and thus the future of our nation, just hours before Kanyes first post went up. She wrote:

If you browsethisBuzzFeed roundup of the top trends on TikTok in 2021, youll find explicit dances, songs, and gender-bending alongside adorable dogs and easy recipes. In 2020, Seventeenincludedthe WAP dance on its roundup of the apps most popular trends, meaning millions of American kids were watching and making video after video of a song about wet ass p-ssy.

From the exposure to age-inappropriate content to the well-established findings of how screens affect childrens cognitive development and mental and physical health,Kanyes reasons for not wanting his daughter on TikTok really need no explanation or justification. The real issue here is Kims suggestion that healthy parenting means letting children do whatever brings them happiness.

Half the battle of parenting is implementing rules that interfere with a childs happiness, but we do it anyway because we know whats best for them. We limit sugar, strap them into car seats, and enforce bedtimes, even despite their often loud protests. Why would we not do the same with technology?

In Naomi Schaefer Rileys book, Be the Parent, Please: Stop Banning Seesaws and Start Banning Snapchat, she addresses our cultural and moral failure to help parents actually be parental. Riley sternly calls out parental ignorance, explaining that by ignoring common sense and choosing to hand our kids screens anyway, we are choosing not to parent.

Riley calls for drastically limiting childrens screen time, and intensively surveilling online behavior. Many kids will be fine even without these restrictions, and some kids will fall into trouble even with them. But as parents, its time for us to stop playing the odds, she writes.

Kanyes protests may come off as unhinged or outspoken, but his drastic measures only underscore just how far, rightly, he is willing to go to parent and protect his children.

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Of Course Kanye West Is Right Not To Want His 8-Year-Old On TikTok - The Federalist

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It was so easy to ignore the Whoopi Goldberg controversy (since when did being an ignorant cohost on ABCs The View become newsworthy, let alone a great offense?) but then the Washington Post published the headline, Whoopi Goldbergs Holocaust comments show why we need critical race analysis.

Race hustlers see opportunity everywhere.

Post writer Karen Attiah, who has talked publicly about calling for revenge against white women, wrote in the column Thursday that Goldberg was obviously wrong to assert this week that the Holocaust isnt about race because these are two white groups of people. But, Attiah said, Goldbergs misguided rant shows why there is a need for including critical race-based analysis of how we teach world history. By silencing her, ABC demonstrates how American media continues to show a near-complete inability to responsibly interrogate whiteness and White Christian supremacy.

Goldberg is a high school dropout who once joked about cooking a recipe called Jewish American Princess Fried Chicken. There is absolutely nothing that including critical race-based analysis in how we teach world history would have done for her.

The show host apologized for what she said but was suspended for two weeks by ABC anyway. Attiah said the corporation should have instead provided a space to educate Goldberg and the rest of its audience about the centuries-old history of global white supremacy, and to push back on current efforts to marginalize the voices of the oppressed.

Yes, if theres one thing this country needs, its a space on national TV for the public to get lectured about white supremacy. Its never been done before. A truly innovative concept. In fact, outside of CNN, MSNBC, every columnist at The New York Times and The Washington Post and the 80 Oscar-nominated movies each year about slavery, Americans have no authoritative source on the subject. Its a national embarrassment.

In any event, critical race analysis, otherwise known as critical race theory, and most appropriately, critical race ideology, isnt controversial and upsetting to so many because it would uncover an ugly and uncomfortable past. Its not a curriculum or an alternative version of historical events. Its opposed precisely because its not fact-based at all, but merely a worldview as to how people should feel about race. Namely, that white people should feel a never-ending sense of guilt and need for atonement and that black people should feel ultimately helpless in overcoming obstacles to success.

Critical race ideology is how you end up with leftist attorney generals who effectively legalize crime by declining to prosecute offenses overwhelmingly committed by blacks. The system that created the would-be criminals, so the ideology goes, is a product of white supremacy and therefore invalid. Its how you end up with prominent journalists who claim that rampant homophobia among American black men is the fault of whites.

Adopting that view doesnt change the facts of the Holocaust and it doesnt uncover new information about the world.

Goldberg was, more likely than not, misinformed about the German Nazis pursuit of a master race, which didnt include the Jews, even if they were fair-skinned. Her decision to cling to her initial remarks before her apology (despite the stakes for just admitting she said something stupid being comically low) wouldnt have been remedied by learning more about how terrible white people should feel at present.

Goldberg didnt need new race ideology literature. She needed Mein Kampf.

Sorry, Attiah. Goldbergs lack of basic grade-school knowledge isnt a reason to make white guilt part of public education curricula.

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WaPo Writer: Whoopi's Holocaust Controversy Is Kind Of Like White Supremacy - The Federalist

If former Miami Dolphins head coach Brian Flores gets a head coaching job after his widely publicized lawsuit against the National Football League for systemic racism, it will come at the expense of future black head coaches.

In a lawsuit filed February 1 that appeared to be written from the perspective of getting maximum press (even including a Martin Luther King Jr. epigraph on the first page of the filing), Flores accuses the NFL of following systemic patterns, practices and/or policies that are discriminatory towards the Proposed Class of black coaching candidates. His lawsuit was released after the New York Giants passed over Flores for Buffalo Bills offensive coordinator Brian Daboll.

The lawsuit contains a number of interesting tidbits and allegations, including that New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick had been informed of Dabolls hiring even before Flores was slated to interview with the Giants and that Dolphins owner Stephen Ross offered Flores $100,000 per game that Flores threw, so the Dolphins could gain better draft positioning for Tua Tagovailoa in the 2020 NFL draft.

What the lawsuit doesnt contain, however, is actual proof that the NFL is a systemically racist organization and needs to be punished for discriminatory behavior.

Most of Flores allegations dont come close to proving legally actionable systemic discrimination, which must involve finding racist intent or internal statistical patterns of inequity. He points out that the NFL currently employs only one black head coach (and three minority head coaches, counting Ron Rivera and Robert Saleh) in Mike Tomlin of the Pittsburgh Steelers. But judging an organization by one year of results is not actionable.

Flores also attacks race-norming used in the NFLs concussion settlement with players to demonstrate the leagues racist malintent. Race-norming is a controversial medical practice that seeks to reduce the number of false positive findings in medical research by normalizing scores to the average of ones biological race. This is controversial since medical data reveals that the average cognitive score as measured by a battery of tests is lower for a black person than the average score for a white person of similar background.

Yet the medical community frequently endorses the use of biological race to diagnose susceptibility to various diseases (i.e., groups originally descended from Africa have a higher propensity for kidney disease). That is not to say that race-norming doesnt deserve criticism. Kristen Dams-OConnor has a point when she says that race is a terrible proxy for the things that actually matter in medicine, such as obesity, genetic disease, and stress levels.

It is entirely possible, and likely probable, that NFL adopted race-norming on the advice of the lawyers and doctors they employed, not because of racist malintent. Or, more cynically, they insisted on race-norming to lower the number of players who could file for settlement.

But the NFL already agreed to end race-norming in a $1 billion settlement, and there are valid medical reasons they would try to implement race-norming in the first place. Flores is trying to dishonestly stretch a medical issue into a political one, which lowers his credibility to speak on behalf of black NFL players and coaches.

If that wasnt enough, Flores then goes after the disparity in contracts for white head coaches versus black ones by pointing out the particular case of disgraced former Las Vegas Raiders head coach Jon Gruden, who lost his job after revelations of text messages that some consider racist, sexist, and homophobic. Sure, Gruden had banked the largest contract deal in history in 2018 in the form of a 10-year, $100 million contract with the Raiders, but at that point he had a long record of coaching and winning, as well as being a commentator on ESPN.

The NFL has been no stranger to giving black head coaches massive deals, either, even with fewer qualifications. In fact, Todd Bowles, who had never been a head coach except in relief, bagged a four-year, $4 million-per-year head coaching deal with the New York Jets in 2015.

Despite being demoted after several losing seasons, he also recently bagged the largest defensive coordinator contract ever for any coach with a three-year, $9 million contract with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. All this is probably deserved. But Flores examples of coach pay inequity do not prove systemic racism of any kind.

It is Flores criticism of the NFLs diversity practices that will hurt black head coaches futures the most. In the lawsuit, Flores goes after the NFLs longstanding diversity rule entitled the Rooney Rule, accusing it of being a sham and insisting on a much more radical position of forced hiring of more black coaches and black hiring evaluators.

The Rooney Rule is a highly regarded diversity rule that requires NFL teams to interview at least one (with a recent revision, two) non-white candidates before choosing a candidate for head coach. This rule, which was devised in conjunction with the NFLs diversity group, The Fritz Pollard Alliance, was designed to create more pathways for black head coaches to access the interview process. It was not designed to force NFL owners to hire minority candidates for equity.

In fact, Kevin Sheehan of his eponymous popular football podcast noted as much, saying I do think that one of the intents [of the Rooney Rule] was to create the process where teams were forced to interview minority candidates because they werent interviewing minority candidates on the regular, and that the experience and the exposure that the candidate, that the African-American or minority candidate, would get would be super helpful.

In ripping the rule, Flores selfishly attacks one of the primary ways black coaching candidates can gain access to valuable experience to build up their knowledge of the NFL interview process.

The really disturbing part of the lawsuit is that, without real evidence the NFL is a systemically racist organization, Flores is creating an unhealthy relationship dynamic between the NFL and the NFLs many qualified head coaching candidates, such as Leslie Frazier of the Bills, Eric Bieniemy of Kansas City Chiefs, and Bowles of the Buccaneers. With Flores breaking confidentiality norms and going public about his private interview experiences, teams in the future will become more afraid even to bring in minority head coaching candidates for fear that they might retaliate with racial discrimination lawsuits if they dont get the job, especially with so little real evidence.

After all, Flores just publicly embarrassed Stephen Ross, the owner who employed him for three years, and John Elway, the general manager of the Denver Broncos who considered him for head coach, accusing him of appearing hungover for his interview. If theres one thing you dont do as a head coach, it is publicly embarrass the owner and general manager of an organization.

Maybe Flores has some valid concern regarding his treatment in the NFL hiring process. But blaming it on his race really shows contempt for the many white coaches who have also been hung out to dry for bad behavior in the NFL.

Take Scot McCloughan, a white former general manager of the Washington Redskins. An anonymous source (possibly former team president Bruce Allen) leaked stories about McCloughans alleged drunkenness to tarnish his reputation in an effort to fire him from the organization. That is cold behavior at the top of the NFL, but it wasnt because of McCloughans race. Its because the NFL unfortunately retains people without integrity.

One can think Flores is a quality candidate who deserves a head coaching job without making his lack of such a job about his race. Unfortunately, Flores chose the low road, the litigious road, on this issue by making unfounded allegations of racism. Even if he personally benefits from making them, the rest of the leagues talented black coaching staff will suffer for his choice.

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Brian Flores' Lawsuit Against The NFL Will Damage Black Head Coaches - The Federalist

The attempt to cancel Joe Rogan has moved through its predictable stages. First, you had a slew of concerned doctors which included a large number of people who were not, actually, doctors raise their stethoscopes outside Spotify headquarters about Rogans meandering lengthy interviews with people they deem unacceptable sharing their perspectives regarding the Covid pandemic.

This was framed in the press without any regard for the actual expertise of those raising the claims. Nor was there any investigation into whether these people themselves held views now deemed dubious about masking, school shutdowns, economic lockdowns, treatment methods, or how effective the vaccines would be all of which would be relevant to the veracity of their Rogan critiques.

The approach was very obviously an activation of the Cathedral that is, the organized combination of elite power represented by a priesthood of media, academia, politicians and activist groups all funded by corporate tithes. They cracked open a similar playbook to the many open letters which assured the American people the powers that be possessed incontrovertible evidence that Donald Trump was elected via a Russian conspiracy, or that Hunter Bidens laptop was a fraudulent Russian creation.

The experts are concerned. The media dutifully reports. The institutes release their findings. And the people must listen for our safety and security and the sake of our democracy. The clerisy of the all-powerful woke religion has declared what reality is. So let it be written, so let it be done.

Whats so interesting about the Rogan attack is that, at least initially, it failed. It failed because Rogan occupies a seat of influence and power that is far above his station, from the Cathedrals perspective. There is power in numbers, and even if they view his listeners as rabble listening to the rambling queries of a barbarian Khan from the steppes, they are too numerous and engaged to not know whats going on and recognize the playbook for what it is.

Keep in mind, of course, that it is this rabble that is the problem. The Cathedral cant cancel them all, they are too numerous, so instead they seek to take down Rogan both to deny his followers a gathering point, and to send a message of any other lower tier podcaster or commentator lest they entertain ill-advised contrarian ideas.

The tactical failure of this attack of the nursing students is of a piece with why Rogan is popular in the first place his willingness to bring in interesting, contrarian guests who break with elite consensus on all manner of topics.

So they moved on to Spotifys business model. If the experts couldnt break things open, perhaps aging Boomer musicians can! Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, and an assortment of corrupt has-beens dutifully went along as Boomers do. This had as much of an effect as the wind off a ducks back, except perhaps to inform Twitter that Mary Trump and Roxane Gay had Spotify podcasts, lost now to the mists of time. The Cathedral needed much bigger names, and they couldnt get them.

The failure of these initial sorties was driven in part by Spotifys investment in Rogan as the tentpole of their podcasting effort. The Swedes who own it (kind of) realize internal critics like Harry and Meghan are lazy entitled people who will never deliver on their contract, while Rogan, despite his wealth, still approaches his job with the blue collar values of a working stand-up.

Remember: This is how they do things. This is how they have always done things. In the very recent past, it worked. They are only frustrated now because they find that it no longer works.

So the anti-Rogan forces moved on to yet another new tactic in their campaign. If they could not cancel him for featuring the views of contrarian experts many of whom have vastly more experience in the areas of work at the center of debates about Covid, and who are trusted by audiences in part because they are far more humble in applying their perspectives than your typical paid CNN commentator the Cathedral would have to cancel him for something more conventional: in this case, being a racist.

They had to dredge up something else, and what they chose was his use of the n-word, frequently via quotations of other peoples work, but not always, and his affinity for racially insensitive jokes.

Of course, if this is the justification for taking Rogan down, it would create a blast radius that would envelop an enormous number of authors and comedians like King Kong teetering atop the Empire State Building, such a fall would crush those whose careers he helped launch and anyone who dared to laugh at his inappropriate humor. And any smart listener will notice that it was only after Rogan began to bring on guests who regularly challenged the Cathedrals Covid narrative that his past jokes became a problematic issue where celebrities of all kinds must take a side.

But its important to understand this is not the end of the playbook, not by far. Fans should expect him to be forced to face allegations of sexual misogyny, of inappropriate behavior backstage, of a litany of sins both understandable and predictable.

Rogan seems largely unprepared for this because he did not set out to become the most influential podcaster in the country. He didnt think in terms of what was acceptable to say in mixed company or while drinking with his comedian friends. He set out to bring an everyman quality to the interview process, and to talk to interesting people about things that interest him. But this is the way this works now. Run afoul of the Cathedral, and eventually the Grand Inquisitor shows up at your door, confident as always that the persecution you are about to receive is for the benefit of the people, and of you.

In this case, the target is big enough that he cannot be thoroughly eradicated, but his power can be diminished. The guest lists can be more restricted. The corporate sponsorships can disappear. Rogan can be forced from Amazon servers, his clips from Google and YouTube, sharing of his work banned by Facebook and Twitter, and all will be legal and allowable and fine according to all the people who dont know what time it is.

It is an approach particularly familiar to those who have engaged in lengthy court cases in recent years battling for their right to exercise their religious freedom. If you run any kind of business which achieves success without genuflecting to the right causes, the powers that be media, academic, administrative, bureaucratic, legal will be turned on you. Comply, or your access is cut off. Self-censor, or else.

As George Orwell wrote:

The chief danger to freedom of thought and speech at this moment is not the direct interference of any official body. If publishers and editors exert themselves to keep certain topics out of print, it is not because they are frightened of prosecution but because they are frightened of public opinion. In this country intellectual cowardice is the worst enemy a writer or journalist has to face The sinister fact about literary censorship in England is that it is largely voluntary.

Unpopular ideas can be silenced, and inconvenient facts kept dark, without the need for any official ban the same kind of veiled censorship also operates in books and periodicals, as well as in plays, films, and radio. At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas which it is assumed that all right-thinking people will accept without question. It is not exactly forbidden to say this, that or the other, but it is not done to say it Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness. A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing, either in the popular press or in the highbrow periodicals.

What is positive for Americans who favor freedom of thought is that the problem of the Cathedral is now a well-established fact, receiving universal recognition. The threat, once dismissed, is now known. What we lack are uniting solutions.

Some think that just being politically powerful enough that the threat merchants back down is the answer. They could cite a similar situation, though one with legal ramifications, which played out in the GoFundMe treatment of the fundraiser for the freedom-minded trucker convoy. But there, the threat of investigation from Florida and Texas was enough to put fear into the online fundraiser. If the only answer is win more elections, I remain unconvinced.

What we should consider now is: how do we prevent this from happening not for Rogan, for whom the rabble will still follow him wherever he goes, or for the convoy, because any effort that raises 10 million dollars will get attention for where the money goes (exception: BLM), but for the next Joe Rogan.

Somewhere, at this very moment, there is a podcaster doing their work with a tenth or a hundredth of his listenership, who labors without an audience and whose guests are nowhere as prominent but just as compelling, and this very day the Cathedral can, without any thought or ramifications at all, decide to crush them like a bug.

So for those of us who want to fight back in defense of freedom of thought the question becomes: What weapons do we offer her?

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When It Comes To Joe Rogan, The Real N-Word That Matters Is 'No' - The Federalist

It remains controversial 20 years later. In recent weeks, it arguably influenced the hiring of Josh McDaniels as Oakland Raiders head coach. Given that it helped launch the career of Tom Brady, who just announced his retirement, its as relevant as ever.

The latest installment of ESPNs 30 for 30 series, The Tuck Rule, examines the circumstances that led to the (in)famous incident in the waning stages of a game in the 2001-02 NFL playoffs. It also explores the way this one incident affected the lives of the two players involved.

In an ironic twist, they had played together a few years before the incident at the University of Michigan. The fact that the two came together for the documentary gave the film a subtle yet unmistakable signal about the value of sportsmanship and friendship in athletics.

The former Michigan Wolverines, Brady and cornerback Charles Woodson, reunited at Bradys mansion in Tampa to watch film of the game. The last game ever played at Foxboro Stadium, the Jan. 19, 2002 clash between Bradys New England Patriots and Woodsons Raiders took place in a winter wonderland, with several inches of snow falling during the game on a chilly New England night.

The snow made footing difficult, and both teams struggled to score. Late in the game, with his team trailing 13-10, Brady needed to lead his team down the field for a field goal to tie the match and force overtime.

With just under two minutes remaining in the game, Raiders cornerback Eric Allen heard Brady receive the call for the next play while lurking on the Patriots sideline. He then relayed the play call to his Raider teammates. Allen dropped back in coverage, trying to bait Brady into throwing an interception that would seal the game for Oakland.

Brady never got the chance. While misreading the defensive coverage, the then-young Brady admitted that he fell for the veteran Allens trap. Woodson came on a corner blitz to Bradys blindside. Brady had cocked his arm to pass, but upon discovering Woodson, attempted to pull the ball back. As he did so, the ball came out of his hands Oakland recovered, and officials awarded the Raiders possession.

Thats when things got interesting. The officials reviewed the play, and referee Walt Coleman called the play an incomplete pass, meaning New England would keep the ball. In calling the play an incompletion, Coleman cited a rule put into place in 1999:

NFL Rule 3, Section 22, Article 2, Note 2.When [an offensive] player is holding the ball to pass it forward, any intentional forward movement of his arm starts a forward pass, even if the player loses possession of the ball as he is attempting to tuck it back toward his body. Also, if the player has tucked the ball into his body and then loses possession, it is a fumble. [Emphasis added.]

Although he bungled the explanation of the rule to the crowd that day, Coleman said in the documentary that because Brady had not completed the process of tucking the ball, the rule meant the play had to be called an incomplete pass. In re-watching the game film with Woodson, Brady admitted that he wanted to tuck the ball, but had not yet done so while Woodson believed he had completed the process of tucking the ball, meaning the play should have been called a fumble under the rule then in effect.

Ironically enough, this same tuck rule had affected a Patriots game earlier in the 2001 season. In a game against the New York Jets that September, what officials first called a sack-fumble that New England recovered got converted into an incomplete pass upon review.

In the documentary, Patriots coach Bill Belichick said he knew Coleman made the correct call, because the Patriots had been on the other side of the rule months before. But to this observer at least, the September play appeared more clear-cut Jets quarterback Vinny Testaverde hadnt yet begun the process of tucking the ball, whereas Brady had begun the process, and some could argue had completed it, which would have made the play a fumble.

Colemans ruling didnt give the Patriots the victory, but had it gone the other way and the Raiders received possession, they could have run out the clock, guaranteeing New Englands defeat. Instead, Brady led the Patriots into position for a game-tying field goal to send the game into overtime and upon winning the coin toss in overtime, led a drive for another Adam Vinatieri field goal to seal the New England win.

The documentary spends time pondering the many counter-factual arguments that have turned the tuck rule game into lore. What if the Raiders had successfully converted their fourth-and-inches with just minutes left in the game, rather than punting back to the Patriots? What if the Raiders and not the Patriots had recovered a Patriot fumble of that punt? In both cases, the controversial play would never have happened. The Raiders would have run out the clock, and Brady would never have gotten a chance for the game-tying, and eventual game-winning, drives.

But the most interesting counterfactuals involve Coleman ruling the play a fumble and not an incompletion. Under that scenario, Bradys misreading of the coverage would have cost the Patriots the game, and ended their season. Brady had only become the starter when Drew Bledsoe got hurt during the second week of that 2001 season, and Brady admitted to ESPN his belief that he would have returned to Bledsoes backup in 2002 had the tuck rule gone the other way.

Instead, the Patriots defeated the Raiders, and advanced to the Super Bowl after beating the Steelers in the conference championship game the following week (with an assist from Bledsoe, called on in relief after Brady suffered an injury). Bradys late-game heroics against the St. Louis Rams in Super Bowl XXXVI cemented his status as starting quarterback and began both the Patriots dynasty and Bradys legend. Instead of regaining his starting job, Bledsoe got traded to the Buffalo Bills in the 2002 off-season.

Belichick told ESPN that he would not have taken the starting job away from Brady had the tuck rule gone the other way something that is of course easier for him to say with the benefit of hindsight. The other participant in the tuck rule incident, Charles Woodson, eventually got a Super Bowl ring, but it took him nine more years and a move to the Green Bay Packers to do so. As for the rule, which received widespread derision following the Patriots-Raiders game, NFL owners finally agreed to nix it from the rule book in 2013.

For this observer, living overseas at the time of the tuck rule game, the documentary provided helpful context about an incident I had heard about, but not fully understood. The way it provided the launching pad to Bradys career means it will always stand as a turning point in sports history.

But ESPNs re-telling of this tale had a special quality to it, because it brought together the two participants who, though on different teams that day, continue to share a special bond as college teammates. Their banter while watching the game film Brady pointing out an uncalled penalty when Woodson hit Bradys helmet, Woodson jeering at Brady for tripping a Raider player trying to recover what Brady thought was his fumble showed the light-hearted side of a lingering controversy.

As with so much in our society these days, bar-room arguments over things like the tuck rule can often turn acrimonious. The 30 for 30 documentary shows how two Hall of Fame players (Woodson received the honor last year, and Brady will as soon as he becomes eligible) can argue over a play and a game with enormous real-world consequences for both of them, yet still remain friends. The value of this kind of relationship extends far beyond sports.

The 30 for 30 special The Tuck Rule will re-air on ESPN, and is available on demand via the ESPN+ app.

Continued here:

'The Tuck Rule' Explores The Controversial Call That Launched Tom Brady - The Federalist

My family was late to see Encanto and I had heard numerous positive reviews of the film. Having now seen the movie and finding much to enjoy, I nonetheless see problematic cultural undertones from the character of Luisa.

On the surface, the character trope is merely another tired example of Hollywood being unable to present womanly strength in any way other than This woman is literally physically strong. This particular storytelling rinse-and-repeat is both exhausted and exhausting. Hollywood has collapsed feminine strength into this singular presentation: one that most conceals the ways in which women are distinctly strong.

Luisas hulky physiology is the most immediate aspect of her characterization and the component of Encantos visual world that grabs the viewer most viscerally. The most superficial reading of her as a character is that her design is about representation for women who arent shaped like the typical Disney stereotype. This idea apparently carries some weight in the broader culture despite the simple reality that no one who sees Encanto has ever met a woman who looks like Luisa.

Now, that isnt to say that women do not exist who share some characteristics or even combinations of characteristics with Luisa. Luisa stands above not just the men in her life but even enormous natural features in her world. She has a jawline to rival Dick Tracy. Scouring the entirety of the internet for a handful of women who can resemble Luisa under special circumstances is to prove the rule by demonstrating how scarce the exceptions are.

We know what Disneys bigger-than-size-zero women look like. We also know what their muscular men look like. Below youll find an example of each. Which does Luisa most resemble?

That Disney is up to something no good with Luisas character design is easy to see within the narrative as well. Luisa is just one member of a magical family imbued with wonderful powers. Luisas uncle Bruno has the magical power of seeing the future. One cannot help but notice that his powers did not come with enormous physical eyes. (Bruno, as a man the family is comfortable exiling because he continues to tell the matriarchal community truths they find unappealing, must be reserved for another day.)

Luisas cousin Dolores can hear anything. Again, the viewer notes that her powers did not come with giant elephant ears on the side of her head. The other Madrigals look quite normal, all things considered for a cartoon, but Luisas gift, her great strength, is accompanied by an entirely unique physiology unlike anything seen in the real world she is alleged to represent.

The image of Luisa nonetheless does not account for all of the bizarreness of Luisas character. For my money, the two catchiest songs in Encanto are We Dont Talk About Bruno and Luisas Surface Pressure. Wouldnt you like to inject whoever at Disney made the voice-casting choice with truth serum and ask, Now, why did you conclude Luisa needed a husky-voiced actress?

The song Luisa sings that defines her character is filled with the imagery and angst of bearing responsibility for a family in the most masculine sense possible. Of course, it could have been a song from an eldest daughter about caring for her family as a woman. Twitter user Royal Blue Raptor has made this point exceedingly well here and I recommend you read it. But that isnt what Luisa sings about. She sings about doing combat with the world on behalf of her family.

Luisa is, in fact, regularly paralleled with Hercules. At one point in the story, Luisa is asked by a villager to redirect the course of a river, one of Hercules legendary labors. This parallel is made even stronger during the Surface Pressure song: Hercules is named, then seen running away from Cerberus. Who picks up the sword and shield to slay the beast? Luisa, of course.

Encanto clearly isnt ignorant of traditional female stereotypes. In fact, the portrayal of women drawn from the traditional family culture of Colombia, which woke Disney feels okay portraying is quite excellent otherwise. Mom heals people by feeding them.

Even stereotypical criticisms of women make it into the movie. One womans emotions swing wildly from sunny skies to literal storm clouds. Another woman hears everything and is seen as an untrustworthy gossip.

Then there is Luisa. I believe the best way to understand Luisas role in Encanto is to take a look at another, older story. C.S. Lewis 1945 novel That Hideous Strength has risen in recent years from a book that merely anticipated some of our contemporary challenges to an outright predictive prophecy of chilling accuracy. One of the facets of our cultural moment that Lewis saw coming is the insistence that the absurd be affirmed in order to maintain an individuals standing among societal elites.

In Lewis book, the character Mark Studdock is taken to a particular place within the progressive N.I.C.E. institute named The Objective Room, where Studdock is pushed to reject the idea of objective reality through an act of blasphemy. Completing the task in The Objective Room is the initiation ritual into the inner ring of N.I.C.E., an act that draws the participant into the institutes program of replacing humanity with a new, more evolved version set free by escaping embodied existence.

Writing about Studdocks crisis in The Objective Room for The Discovery Institute, Cameron Wybrow says:

[Mark] sees that the intellectual habits of his whole life of mocking traditional values, of belittling traditional institutions, of ignoring beauty, of regarding nature as purely stuff to be used or an enemy to be conquered, of preferring glib abstractions to the concrete reality of living people, of thinking that a reductionist science is the source of all truth and more important than humanity itself must lead to the insane doctrine of amoral, motiveless action which produces ex-human monstrosities

Readers might resonate with what Wybrow calls the intellectual habits of Studdocks life: mocking traditional values, regarding nature as merely moldable material to be shaped and reshaped according to human whims, and being powerfully pre-committed to the dictates of what travels under the name science. If the reader does not resonate with those habits, then surely those habits of mind can be readily observed in contemporary society. The question of how those particular habits the kind that Lewis says prepare us for a post-human future might be cultivated is exactly why, unlike her brother Bruno, we really must talk about Luisa Madrigal.

Luisa functions in Encanto like The Objective Room at N.I.C.E. did for Studdock in Lewiss novel. She pushes the viewer to affirm reality is plastic, free from all norms, and subjected to being formed and reformed as fashions shift.

The developing human brain is a sponge, and its ability to uptake complex patterns of information is remarkable. Disney executives know their stories shape what children think of as normal. Can we hope that parents who rightly control what media shapes their childrens sense of normal are equally aware?

Women are wonders of Gods creative goodness and wisdom. As part of an ongoing assault on reality, Luisa masks that truth by substituting masculinity for femininity. Women are strong, indeed, in uniquely feminine ways, and in ways that contrast with currently fashionable destructive nonsense.

Families who want to see their children live well (and come out healthy on the far side of our cultural descent into actual madness) better get on this: Decide where Disney gets to come into your house, and how to talk to your kids in a way that helps them love the true, good, and beautiful while recognizing and rejecting the kind of dehumanizing messaging Luisa represents.

We live in a constant propaganda onslaught. This isnt the time to get lax.

Jeff Wright is a family man, teacher, and pastor. He co-hosts The Pop Culture Coram Deo Podcast and regularly writes for Servants and Heralds.

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'Encanto's' Luisa Is Way Too Beefy For A Woman, And It's Wrong - The Federalist