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Well before the Supreme Court struck down the Biden administrations authoritarian Occupational Safety and Health Administration vaccine mandate, I quit my professionally and financially rewarding c-suite position after my company issued this coercive edict to its U.S. employees. I am vaccinated against Covid-19, so theorder would not affect my employment, but I toldthe company that if I, as a top executive, were expected to cheerlead for such an immoral and anti-science imposition of brute economic force by the powerful upon the weak, I would have to resign.

I tendered my resignation from the pharma company Insmed Incorporated, headquarteredin Bridgewater, New Jersey. It was accepted. In so doing, I forfeited what could amount to millions of dollars over the coming years.

That said, my decision was easy. I can comfortably afford to be unemployed. Other colleagues at Insmed I spoke to are not so fortunate. Some would even have to sell their homes. The economically weak are hurt by these mandates imposed by the economically strong.

The edict waswholly optionalon the companys part, as it was issuedbeforethe federal government announced its OSHA mandate. Thus, even though the mandate is now history, the edict still stands. And my company went even further than the government.

Under the OSHA rule, employees had the option to get tested regularly instead of vaccinated. There is no such option in Insmeds fiat. Barring an exemption, the choice is to get vaxxed or get fired, with no testing alternative.

Nor is there any consideration of natural immunity, which compelling data from Israel and elsewhere suggest provides superior protection. When asked about natural immunity at a Town Hall meeting, the company said, inresponse to an employee question and without supportingdata, that even those who have had the virus should be vaxxed. This is from a company that claims to follow the science.

The stated rationale for the mandate? To keep our employees and customers safe. However, we know with certitude despite what certain Supreme Court justices heard on CNN that both the vaxxed and unvaxxed can acquire and transmit the virus. How then, does sending a vaxxed but infected sales representative to visit a customer keep everyone safe, but sending out an unvaxxed yet virus-free sales rep does not? It belies both scientific and common sense.

Even more egregious is the fact that the get vaxxed or get fired order applied only to U.S. employees. Local laws prohibit such mandates on the companys employees in Europe and Japan.

In Japan, the company may not even inquire as to a colleagues vaccination status. So U.S. employees are targeted while non-U.S. employees are protected. Thus is created a Covid caste system, under which those in the lower caste, American employees, enjoy fewer rights.

The attitudes and views of my fellowexecutives towards the unvaxxed were patronizing and factually erroneous. They took the pronouncements of Anthony Fauci and the Centers for Disease Control as the Gospel Truth, and anyone who dissented was derided as a science denier.

Before the vax mandate was issued, the company polled employees about their opinions. I was present when severalof my colleagues mocked the responses of their fellow employees who expressed reservations about vaccines and mandates. They howled withderision when reading the response of one employee who cited the Nuremberg Principles prohibiting drug experimentation on non-consenting subjects. Even though I thought the response was a bit over the top, the sneering condescension irked me.

Otherexecutives bubbled with anticipatory glee about the coming prospect of getting their kids under 12 vaccinated. When I asked them if they knew the data concerning Covid risks to this age group, one retorted: You sound like an anti-vaxxer! In a private moment, away from the others, one of the executives, an M.D., quietlyconceded that the risk to kids was very low.

After Insmed publicly announced I resigned because of the vax mandate, numerous employees contacted me. Some had health reservations; others objected on religious grounds. Still, others objected simply on personal autonomy grounds.

All expressed profound anxiety over how they would support their families if they were fired. They told me how much they admired me for taking a principled stand. I was deeply embarrassed by this,as I could easily afford to stick by my principles. They could not. They were the brave ones, not me.

Even before the Supreme Courts decision, I learned that Insmed had, at least temporarily, granted all requested mandate exemptions. Although the edict is still in force and can be invoked at any time, no one has yet been fired based upon their vax status. That is great news, as the company has thus recognized that the health and safety of its employees and other stakeholders can be protected through less coercive and draconian means than mass firings.

Perhaps the seeming omnipresence of omicron among the vaxxed moved the needle on the mandate. Perhaps my resignation led to introspection about its nonsensical nature. And now that the Supreme Court has ruled, maybe the exemptions will be permanent; or better yet, the mandate will be reversed.

It is lamentable, though, that my former employer reached this rather obvious conclusion only after its get vaxxed or get fired edict, absent any government requirement whatsoever, caused the roiling anguish and distress that former colleagues shared with me. What a shame.

Mr. Soriano, a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School, started his professional life at New York's Simpson Thacher & Bartlett before working in law and compliance in Corporate America, most recently as Chief Compliance Officer at Celgene Corporation and Insmed Incorporated, both pharmaceutical companies. Follow him on Twitter and GETTR @sorianojohnd.

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I'm A Triple-Vaccinated Executive Who Quit Over A Vaccine Mandate - The Federalist

The FBI paid tribute to civil rights icon Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on Monday to commemorate the federal holiday honoring the assassinated leaders birthday.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, Lifes most persistent and urgent question is, What are you doing for others? the bureau wrote in a Twitter post. This [MLK Day], and every day, the #FBI remains dedicated to service and committed to protecting our communities.

Except the agency wasnt dedicated to protecting MLK. In fact, the peaceful pioneer of 20th-century civil rights was targeted by the law enforcement agency as a domestic enemy. The FBI once told King in a letter to kill himself.

King, the FBI wrote in a memo highlighted by a new documentary out last fall, was the most dangerous Negro in America, and warranted the use [of] every resource at our disposal to destroy him after Kings 1963 I Have a Dream speech.

Two months later, then-Attorney General Robert Kennedy authorized wiretaps of MLKs Atlanta residence and Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) offices under the pretense of investigating ties to communism. In whats become typical of agency probes, however, the bureau went on to expand its surveillance operation by tapping hotel rooms King visited. Collecting blackmail information on Kings extramarital affairs, the goal was to ruin his reputation and stifle the movement.

As Kings rise continued to bring change to a segregated country, criticism of the FBI came with it. The SCLC president condemned the law enforcement agency for its apathy toward civil rights abuses, angering the bureaus leaders who were eager to bring him down.

After then-FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover called King the most notorious liar in the country, during a 1964 press conference over Kings criticism, the agency sent a letter to King with tape recordings of the civil rights leaders promiscuity in a D.C. hotel. The letter said that with a 34-day deadline before your filthy, abnormal fraudulent self is bared to the nation, King ought to kill himself to save from embarrassment.

The FBI investigated King up until his assassination in 1968, with the suicide letter not coming to light until nearly 10 years later when it was revealed by the Senate Church Committee. When brought to light from former FBI domestic intelligence chief William Sullivans files, Sullivan evaded responsibility and blamed Hoover.

When the agency was sued for its King surveillance saga in 1977, a federal judge blocked records requests and ordered that relevant documents be sent to the National Archives where they remain under seal until 2027.

The story of the FBI being weaponized to routinely investigate political opponents with virtually no accountability is continuing to replay itself decades later.

After agency operatives orchestrated a years-long witch hunt to undermine former President Donald Trump as a puppet of Russia, the FBI is now being used to target political dissidents to the Biden regime.

On Tuesday, FBI officials revealed to Senate lawmakers that the bureau is creating a new Domestic Terror Unit, inspired by the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6 last year. The same officials in the same hearing repeatedly refused to disclose how many agency informants were involved in the violence hysterically branded by Democrats as an insurrection. Agency officials also refused to offer details on its military-style raids conducted on Jan. 6 defendants.

Meanwhile, officials have colluded with the House Democrats Select Committee on Jan. 6 to bar genuine oversight of the executive agency or probe security failures amid the Capitol unrest.

Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com.

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This MLK Day, Remember How The FBI Targeted Him - The Federalist

The Federalist staff joined Ben Domenech on Fox Newss The Ben Domenech Podcast to share their predictions for the year 2022.

Republicans will have an extremely good November, they will have a massive takeover of the House of Representatives, and theyre on pretty good footing in the Senate as well, Senior Editor Mollie Hemingway said. The failure of Democratic uni-party control of D.C. is so profound and so undeniable that Republicans will benefit mightily.

I think the Supreme Court will have a very interesting term and something that pro-life activists and other human rights activists have cared about for a very long time, which is moving away from the Roe v. Wade jurisprudence that the Supreme Court put the country into in 1973. I think that will finally go away in June when they rule on the Dobbs case, Hemingway continued.

Finally, she predicted that Hunter Biden will get off without any prosecution from the feds, even though hes being investigated right now for some of the crimes involved with the Biden family business. And I predict this is also a pretty safe prediction that nothing will be done about it.

One thing I am very sure of is Big Tech will continue to censor The Federalist, our writers, and other conservative outlets with a vengeance, Staff Writer Jordan Boyd predicted. Hopefully, we wont get deplatformed. But I wont be surprised if that happens.

I do predict that SCOTUS will rule in favor of pro-lifers in handing the life issue back to states, she added. It may be a narrow ruling, but I do believe that Dobbs v. Jackson will pull out some victories for the pro-life community, thats definitely going to be something that everyones paying attention to when that decision comes down and could have a momentous effect on our politics.

I really do think that people are starting to get sick of kind of the what another horrible year blues. And I think thats going to show in 2022, Assistant Editor Elle Reynolds said. Thats not to discount how bad the Biden administration has made things, from inflation to Afghanistan to the border crisis. But Ive also spoken to people in person, noting that they had a good year, personally. And so I hope people will stop kind of automatically victimizing their year, based on the medias doom and gloom.

After the debacle that took place in Loudoun County public schools in 2021, Reynolds said, I really think that the whistleblowing and the revelations about the radicalization of public schools are going to prompt more people to pay attention. I think thats going to create more opportunities for things to come out about what school boards are doing.

One of the things I think well see a lot more pushback with is transgender athletes competing against female athletes, predicted Features Editor Eleanor Bartow. The left is just denying science. And it cant go on much longer like this. Its simply unfair to women. Liberals are supposed to be the ones that believe in womens rights. And its just such a dichotomy. It makes no sense.

Another expectation thats almost too predictable, Bartow said, is that Democrats will continue to just drag on the January 6, select committee investigations, theyll bring that up to the midterms.

One thing that we can just expect to continue is Biden misspeaking, she added. And lastly, one thing that I do hope well see is that as COVID drags on and on and more people have their own experience with it theyll know what the real risks are more than what theyre hearing from the biased media and scaremongering politicians.

Madeline Osburn, The Federalists Texas-based Managing Editor, predicted that Beto ORourke, whos running against the [Texas governor] incumbent, Greg Abbott, is going to say or do something really, really stupid. Hes just notorious for sticking his foot in his mouth. So I think youll probably see him do that several times this year and the media will continue to just kind of laugh it off.

Californians are going to continue to show up and buy all our houses with wads of cash, she added. Further, this is going to be another interesting year for the king and queen of Texas, Chip and Joanna Gaines. I think theyre going to continue to ascend in their power and fame. And so I think with that fame and power and money, there will probably be another cancellation attempt this year.

My first prediction is about the NFL. I would love to predict a Packers Super Bowl win. But Ive been a Green Bay fan long enough to know that they almost always choke and let me down in a big way, Assistant Editor Kylee Zempel said. So Im hoping that a prediction against them might result in them actually winning. Im predicting a full Tom Brady sweep. So Im predicting a Bucs win. And that Brady will be MVP after the Rogers vax dust-up.

Additionally, Zempel predicted another Bachelor controversy coming down the pike.

Finally, my only other prediction is just that Sean Davis is going to get banned from Twitter, because all my favorite accounts get banned from Twitter. And hes at the top of the list.

Well probably get a new variant at some point this year. But no one will care by then, said Senior Editor John Davidson. And theyll go on with their lives as normal, except for a handful of blue checks on Twitter that will still try to keep milking the COVID hysteria, you know, the gravy train. And along with that, we may get a fourth or fifth booster in the course of 2022. But no one will take it.

Additionally, Davidson predicted, theres going to be some kind of a foreign policy crisis. It could have to do with Russia and Ukraine, it could have to do with China and Taiwan. Something will happen and the Biden administration will very badly bungle it and they will turn what is a challenge or a problem in the foreign policy sphere into a crisis or a full-blown catastrophe.

My last one is a pop culture prediction and the one I care the most about by far, and that has to do with Amazons Middle Earth Lord of the Rings series that premieres in September, and my prediction is that its going to suck, Davidson said. How does he know? Theres only one image theyve released for the series, but theres a glaring problem with it. In the distance, there are two glowing trees. Presumably these are the trees Telperion and Laurelin, which are the two trees of Valinor. The problem is, this is supposed to be set in the second age. The trees of the Valinor were destroyed in the first age, okay?

I think were going to see new levels of censorship this year come from Twitter and Facebook, predicted Western Correspondent Tristan Justice. I also think its going to be a bad season for wildfires again. It seems like every year we have this routine coverage of mega wildfires ripping across the American West but the real culprit of these wildfires is really bad land management and we really havent made much progress on that front.

I also think when it comes to COVID were going to see enhanced federalism, Justice added. I think blue parts of the country are going to remain locked down and cling to their pandemic measures.

Finally, I think its going to be another big year for space, Justice concluded. I think were going to get some of the first pictures that come back this summer from the James Webb telescope, and then China is going to finish its space station, and then the Dart mission is set to explode in September and were gonna find out if we can survive in armageddon.

My prediction is that [the Beijing Olympics] are not going to go as well as the CCP might think that its going to go, Culture Editor Emily Jashinsky said. You will see more and more mainstream voices being very very critical of the Chinese Communist Party over the course of the Olympics, of their human rights records and I think thats actually going to amp up the pressure on corporate America to be way more wary of their entanglements with China than they already are.

I do think some of this is going to make Hollywood sort of memory-hole its relationship with China, she added. Theyre not making the money they expected to from China, and I think that in combination with the clear publicity problems is going to make them suddenly act as though they are deeply outraged about the human rights abuses in China more and more.

Jashinsky also predicted Hollywood will have a deceptively good year at the box office, though I dont think thatll mean much in the long term.

Republicans and Democrats are really going to be called out in some of the things that theyve both been promising, Senior Editor Chris Bedford said. One of the big things I expect is this to be a thousand-papercut year for Big Tech. The American people have largely given up on them. The right and the left have completely different ideas about what exactly theyre going to do with that but both know that something ought to be done.

Additionally, Bedford guessed, theres going to be a big push to get rid of Kamala Harris and to start to replace her by Democrats, which is going to be difficult because shes not going to put the interests of the party before herself, shes not just going to leave office since shes been elected. And I think the Democrats are going to be unable to accomplish anything and were going to see some real infighting.

In November, were going to see a real swath of new Republicans coming into office on Capitol Hill and across the country, but I think one of the things that people underestimate about whats going on within this whole development is that, as we saw during the rise of the Tea Party, youre going to end up with a lot of people winning who really come out of nowhere, Publisher Ben Domenech predicted. And with that, they bring with them a lot of passion for what they do, but also not necessarily a willingness to go along with the way that things have gone in the past.

This is going to be a year where we see really a test of the plethora of new streaming services that are out there, Domenech added. People are going to drop off from these streaming services and I think youre going to see more bundling, more combinations, and more of an effort on their part to really create something that changes the conversation.

Finally, Domenech emphasized the likelihood of having a major international event that pulls in the United States and our allies in a really negative way. I think that weve gone on too long without something like this happening and with such tension building in places around the world, it seems inevitable to me that 2022 is going to contain a foreign policy crisis that is going to test the Biden administrations approach and also lead to potentially our allies getting involved in a way that America may not be the leading name in the midst.

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The Federalist Staff Present: An Hour Of 2022 Predictions - The Federalist

The Office of Special Counsel (OSC) exonerated National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Director Dr. Anthony Fauci earlier this month in a close call case of a Hatch Act violation.

In June, the government transparency non-profit Protect the Publics Trust filed a complaint against Fauci over an October 2020 interview with the Washington Post. Published days before the election, the White House medical adviser branded then-candidate Joe Biden as taking the novel Wuhan coronavirus more seriously.

In the article,headlinedA whole lot of hurt: Fauci warns of COVID-19 surge, offers blunt assessment of Trumps response, Fauci told the Post, you could not possibly be positioned more poorly to confront the pandemic and emphasized the United States needed an abrupt change.

When asked about the differences between the two major presidential candidates on their pandemic plans, Fauci said Biden is taking it seriously from a public health perspective, but that incumbent President Donald Trump was looking at it from a different perspective.

Right now, the public health aspect of the task force has diminished greatly, Fauci told the Post with Trump still in office.

The Hatch Act, passed in 1939, explicitly bars a federal employee from us[ing] his official authority or influence for the purpose of interfering with or affecting the result of an election. Fauci, the complaint said, exceeded the mere exchange of opinions and in fact, participated in impermissible political activity.

Despite personally categorizing similar statements as political just days before, the group filing the complaint wrote, Dr. Fauci nevertheless offered his evaluation of the Biden campaigns approach to the COVID-19 pandemic relative to the approach taken by President Trump and connected differences in the nations likely health outcomes to the different approaches.

In a letter dated Jan. 3, the Office of Special Counsel issued its ruling on the groups complaint.

OSC generally advises employees that it is best not to discuss candidates for partisan political office when speaking in their official capacity, Deputy Chief of the Hatch Act Unit Erica Hamrick wrote. But, she added, public testimony must still show that the employee engaged in political activity to establish a Hatch Act violation.

Here, while a close call, Dr. Faucis comments, without more, do not appear to be directed at the electoral success or failure of either candidate, Hamrick ruled. The timing of the interview coincided with the upcoming winter season and Dr. Faucis assessment of the viruss impact leading into that season.

The Washington Post, Hamrick concluded, may have written it from a particular perspective and tried to use Dr. Faucis words to make a political point, but wrote OSC cannot impute the authors intent.

Michael Chamberlain, the director of Protect the Publics Trust, said the group respect[s] OSCs determination.

Unfortunately, as the Office of Special Counsel noted, Dr. Fauci disregarded its best practices around the Hatch Act and enabled his official position to be used to make a political point even if his motives were unclear, Chamberlain said in a press release.

Since the pandemics inception, Fauci, the highest-paid employee across the federal government, has leveraged his White House role as a political animal to undercut the Trump administration and forge a media-manufactured consensus to prolong lockdowns.

In December, new emails surfaced that exposed Fauci colluding with National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins to discredit alternate approaches to approach the pandemic to lockdowns.

Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com.

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Did Fauci Interfere In The Election? Special Counsel Says It's A 'Close Call' - The Federalist

In late July, Chinas Peoples Liberation Army tested a nuclear-capable hypersonic missile. According to reports from the Financial Times, U.S. officials were surprised by the maturity of the Chinese technology.As one source put it: We have no idea how they did this.

Yet we do have an idea how they did this, because we know that American technology was used at a Chinese hypersonic test facility that models the heat and drag on hypersonic missiles. The sobering implication: U.S. technology directly contributed to Chinas new military capability to strike the American homeland with nuclear and conventional weapons.

While this example is particularly egregious, there is nothing new about American technology and capital directly supporting the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its malign behavior. Through its military-civil fusion strategy, the CCP seeks to eliminate all barriers between its civilian and commercial sectors and its military and defense apparatus. This means there is no purely civilian industry in China any commercial research or investments can be co-opted at any point by the Party to serve its objectives.

In recent years, Washington has taken bipartisan steps to defend against technology transfer to China, such as giving the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States enhanced authority and restricting the ability of U.S. companies to export certain technologies to Chinese companies such as Huawei. Yet there is still very little oversight of outbound U.S. investment in China. As a result, U.S. policy is filled with self-defeating contradictions such as billions of dollars in federal incentives for domestic semiconductor production while American capital continues to fund Chinas growing semiconductor industry.

Despite the growing bipartisan consensus on the need for selective technological and financial decoupling from the CCP and despite dealing with a pandemic from Wuhan that exposed our dangerous dependency on China Wall Street cannot seem to get enough of the Chinese market.

In 2021, JP Morgan Chase became the first international firm to take full control of a securities business in China, after years of negotiating with Beijing. The CCPs leverage over the firm recently led CEO Jamie Dimon to apologize after joking that the firm would outlast the Communist Party. BlackRock, the largest asset manager in the world, has recommended tripling investments in China and recently became the first foreign-owned company allowed to set up a wholly owned mutual fund business in China.

Bridgewater, the worlds largest hedge fund, launched a fund in China in 2018 and raised $140 million for a second fund in 2020. Apple CEO Tim Cook revealed more than he intended about corporate Americas mentality when he recently began parroting IBMs 1930s justification for doing business with Nazi Germany: world peace through world trade.

Such financial institutions manage trillions worth of assets on behalf of American universities, pensions, and others that have been at the forefront of so-called ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) investing. The ESG movement encourages investors to consider factors such as climate and social impact alongside the financial bottom-line of potential investments.

Take the University of Californias nearly $18 billion endowment, roughly half of which is invested in funds that exclude tobacco and fossil fuel companies. Yet those same funds, which attempt to signal the universitys virtuous priorities, invest in Chinese companies like Hikvision, which the U.S. government has sanctioned as a Chinese military-industrial complex company and restricted due to its role in the ongoing genocide in Xinjiang.

Or consider the University of Virginia (U.Va.), where President Jim Ryan wrote in a preface to the schools sustainability plan: The University of Virginia is committed to making the world a better place As a community, we want to live our values consistently. Key among those values is being a good neighbor, locally in our community, and also on a global scale. We should always consider our collective impact on our community and the world.

The U.Va. endowment is housed within a series of investments it calls the Long Term Pool, which totals about $14.5 billion. Three-quarters of the Long Term Pool is benchmarked against the MSCI All Country World Index, which includes malign Chinese entities like Hikvision and telecom giants ZTE and China Mobile. The Uyghurs detained in Xinjiang concentration camps monitored by Hikvision surveillance technology probably wouldnt consider U.Va. a good neighbor.

Likewise, the University of Michigan recently announced a strategy under which it will cease investing in funds focused on fossil fuels and discontinue investments in publicly traded companies that help drive greenhouse gas emissions. Yet as former Reagan official Roger Robinson has outlined, one-third of Michigans venture capital investments, which comprise roughly 15 percent of its $12 billion in assets, are Chinese. Given that Chinese firms contribute more to greenhouse gas emissions than the companies of any other nation on earth, it remains to be seen whether Michigan will hold Chinese polluters accountable or solely single-out western firms.

Some schools are starting to do the right thing. After Catholic Universitys student government passed a unanimous resolution calling for the university to shed any Xinjiang-related investments it had, Catholic commissioned an independent audit of its endowment to eliminate any exposure to mass internment, forced labor, mass surveillance, and other crimes against Uyghurs.

Likewise, in 2018, the University of Texas/Texas A&M Investment Company updated its compliance procedures to strengthen oversight and accountability relating to investments in companies on U.S. government blacklists. Just recently, Wisconsin state Sen. Roger Roth introduced legislation to prohibit the University of Wisconsin system from investing its trust funds in companies owned or controlled by the Chinese government. These examples demonstrate that a better path is possible, but university leadership needs to get on board.

Blatant hypocrisy is only part of the problem with American universities and investment firms that lecture Americans about ESG but continue to chase profits in China. The real problem runs deeper to something that lawmakers can fix.

Almost every major American research university enjoys preferential tax status as a federally recognized non-profit and receives federal funding. Until recently, universities paid no tax at all on endowment income. Even now they enjoy preferential treatment compared with other types of investment income. The federal government effectively subsidizes these universities because of the national benefits they purportedly provide. By extension, American taxpayers are unwittingly subsidizing the CCPs ongoing malign efforts around the world.

This needs to stop. This is why I am crafting legislation to force American university endowments to either divest from China or give up the benefits they receive from the American taxpayer. This provision would also apply to any pension funds that receive tax breaks from the federal government, so that the retirement security of tens of millions of Americans totaling more than $10 trillion is not tied to the success of Americas greatest enemy.

It is time to choose. Are American universities committed to their professed values, or are they willing to profit from the CCPs ongoing efforts to commit genocide, destroy the environment, and build weapons designed to kill Americans in a future war? The choice should be clear.

Congressman Mike Gallagher proudly represents the 8th District of Wisconsin.

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How To Defund The Chinese Communist Party - The Federalist

Back in September I got Covid, and got it bad. For two weeks I was too sick to work or do much of anything except sit on the couch or lie down in bed. The initial (and very intense) flu-like symptoms turned into a bad cough, which slowly faded into persistent fatigue and what many have described as a kind of Covid brain fog. It was nearly a month before I had recovered enough to work out and resume a normal schedule.

For all that, though, I was relieved. Having contracted Covid and recovered from what was by no means a mild case, I knew that my natural immunityconferred longer lasting and stronger protection against future infection and illnessthan the immunity I could get from any of the Covid vaccines.

But I was also relieved because it irrevocably settled a question for me: No matter what else happens in this pandemic, Im never going to get a Covid vaccine. Ever. Im one of the unvaccinated, and Im going to stay that way.

A lot of people, upon hearing this, wont want to listen to anything else I have to say. Theyll conclude Im a crank and a conspiracy theorist or just a blithering idiot. The unvaccinated, for too many Americans, are nothing more than selfish rabble whose continued intransigence is, at best, needlessly putting the vulnerable at risk and, at worst, outright killing people.

If anyone is to blame for the terrible toll of Covid, their thinking goes, its people like me, who are perpetuating what President Biden hasrepeatedly calleda pandemic of the unvaccinated. Were so awful, according to Los Angeles Times columnist Michael Hiltzik, that although it might be ghoulish to mock us if we die of Covid, its necessary. After all,were just getting what we deserve.

Yet at least 40 percent of the country remains unvaccinated. You cant just write off 130 million Americans as conspiracy theory-addled rubes, or decide its okay to dance on their graves if they die of Covid. Thats a recipe for a poisoned public discourse, and its fundamentally un-American.

Besides, one thing the omicron variant has made clear is that were going to have to learn to live with Covid, at least for a while. So its time for the vaccinated to try to understand the motivations of the unvaccinated, and learn to live with them, too, instead of incessantly scapegoating and demonizing them.

Like millions of other Americans, I chose not to get a Covid vaccine for a variety of reasons. Before I caught Covid, I knew that my age, fitness level, and medical history all put me in a very low-risk category for severe illness or hospitalization.

I also knew that, because the Covid vaccines have only been around for about a year, we dont have any data on their long-term effects but we do know about some of the risks they pose,especially to young people. In short, I concluded that the unknown risks of taking the vaccine were, in my case, greater than the known risks of catching Covid. That risk-benefit analysis will be different for everyone, but everyone needs to do it and come to his or her own decision.

Another factor for me was the contradictory and ever-shifting messaging about masks and lockdowns throughout 2020 that led me to question the honesty and competence of our public health experts and the pharmaceutical industrial complex. When the vaccines came out, the credibility of our experts was already in serious jeopardy. Things have since gotten much worse.

After I recovered from Covid, I was even more confident in my decision not to get a vaccine. Like the vast majority of healthy Americans who survive Covid, I gained natural antibodies that conferred a level of protection from future infection I otherwise couldnt get, not even with two doses of the vaccine and a booster shot.

Here, too, the experts unwillingness to discuss or even acknowledge the existence of natural immunity made me deeply suspicious. Some 60 million Americans have now contracted Covid. Fewer than a million have died from it. That means, at a minimum, tens of millions of Americans have some level of natural immunity. Why isnt that part of the conversation? Why doesnt that seem to factor into any policy decisions, especially drastic ones that affect peoples livelihoods, like employer vaccine mandates?

Now we have the omicron variant, and everything weve learned about it thus far has confirmed my decision, along with tens of millions of other Americans, not to get vaccinated. It turns out Covid vaccines are not very effective against omicron, and whatever protection they do offerseems to drop sharply as vaccine-generated antibodies wane. Case numbers worldwide right now are at record levels, despite mass vaccination efforts across the globe and ever-increasing numbers of the vaccinated.

Indeed, omicron is now tearing through countries that have vaccination rates of 90 percent or more. The data so far suggest the best protection against omicron isnt vaccination at all, but natural immunity from a previous infection.

One studyin Qatar found that previous infection offered about 90 percent protection from symptomatic reinfection by earlier strains of Covid, and about 60 percent protection against reinfection from omicron. Thats far higher than the 37 percent effectiveness against omicron from two doses of an mRNA vaccine and a booster shot, according toa separate study in Ontario.

I hesitate, though, even to cite studies to support my argument, because in online Covid-world anyone can dig up counterfactual data or some other study (however shoddy or underpowered) to dispute any assertion about vaccine efficacy. As Cory Zue wrote ina long blog post last week, one of the problems with our Covid discourse right now is that science and data about the vaccines are being used to affirm our previously-held beliefs, rather than help us see truth.

And the truth is, every one of us has to make our own decision about the Covid vaccine, about whats right for us and our families, assessing the risks and rewards for ourselves.

But whatever one believes about the vaccine, its getting hard now to maintain the position that the way out of the pandemic is through mass vaccination. In fact, mass vaccination might even prolong the pandemic, depending on how future variants react to fully-vaxxed immune systems that have had multiple booster shots in a relatively short timeframe.

If you want to get a vaccine and multiple booster shots, go ahead. Thats your decision. But Ill never do it, especially now that Ive had Covid. There are tens of millions of Americans like me, and were never going to change our minds. Thats something the rest of the country, at this point, is just going to have to accept.

John Daniel Davidson is a senior editor at The Federalist. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, National Review, Texas Monthly, The Guardian, First Things, the Claremont Review of Books, The New York Post, and elsewhere. Follow him on Twitter, @johnddavidson.

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I'm Never Getting A Covid Vaccine, And I'm Not Alone - The Federalist

The woke-o-meter in public schools is about to ramp up. Parents who think they dont have time to homeschool may soon realize that, compared to the effort involved in monitoring and countering the nonsense from leftist classrooms, homeschooling is the relaxing alternative.

Not all teachers buy into the leftist narrative of race-obsessed anti-Americanism. But leftist K-12 administrators want to ensure that, eventually, all teachers will present only approved ideas and counter any wrongthink children are taught at home. Many of these educrats are now embracing a technological fix.

Trade publication Education Week recently reported that about 500 school districts around the country are rating teacher applicants according to their cultural competency, another code for wokeness. Many of these districts are contracting with a teacher-hiring company called Nimble, which uses artificial intelligence to examine applications and interview answers to determine which candidates harbor the correct political and cultural attitudes.

A central concern of Nimble and its leftist clients is mindsets about race. The goal is to hire only teachers who are anti-racist activists, who will reject equal treatment of all students in favor of discrimination against some (whites) for the supposed benefit of others (racial minorities). Note that under this rubric, Asian students, who as a group work hard and consequently excel, dont qualify as an oppressed racial minority.

Now that weve become a little more aware of the concept of anti-racism and maybe a little more woke as a culture, I do think that districts have started to emphasize these questions a little bit more, Nimble CEO Lauren Dachille told EdWeek. They might be more common, they might be more explicit.

Anti-racism as a motivating societal force was popularized by Ibram X. Kendi, who along with other savvy race grifters is profiting handsomely from the concept. Getting points for honesty if not integrity, Kendi teaches that discrimination against white people is a positive good, and indeed necessary to establish the equity of equal outcomes for all regardless of intelligence or effort. This is what is meant by anti-racism: If discrimination is creating equity, then it is antiracist.

What types of discrimination do Kendi and his disciples approve? Examples abound. White students may be shamed in classroom privilege walks or privilege deconstruction sessions. Black or Hispanic students may be held to lower standards of behavior. Programs for gifted students may be abolished.

Note the racism inherent in anti-racism. Anti-racists assume that black and brown children are less than white or Asian kidsthey cant excel in academics, they cant follow basic rules of personal conduct. Its necessary to change all standards to accommodate these presumed inferior beings. Such a theory ensures minority kids will never overcome personal obstacles because theyre told they dont have to.

This is the system that, with Nimbles help, many schools are trying to establish and perpetuate.

EdWeek identified a Boston elementary school principal who will tell candidates the schools priorities around anti-racism and ask them to respond. To make crystal clear the political attitudes expected from successful candidates, she will ask them what theyve done personally or professionally to be more anti-racist. Presumably, getting arrested at a Black Lives Matter riot would be, as Rush Limbaugh used to say, a resume enhancement.

Applicants in Indianapolis may be asked how [they would] ensure that student outcomes are not predictable by race, ethnicity, culture, gender, or sexual orientation. Of course, theres only one way to ensure such an outcome: manipulate it to guarantee that all students end up at the same low level. Any students who threaten the leveling by working too hard or achieving too much will have to be brought to heelat least, if theyre the wrong race.

Indianapolis teaching applicants may also be asked, Why do you think that low-income students predictably perform lower on standardized tests than their more-affluent peers? One would be pretty safe to assume a preferred answer would be because of systemic racism, not because those students, largely due to decades of misguided government policies, are more likely to come from fatherless families and grow up in a dysfunctional environment.

Throughout the article, district officials emphasize the importance of hiring teachers who are amenable to the schools priorities and values. But how is it appropriate for a public institution, funded by taxpayers who hold a wide range of political opinions, to institutionalize one set of those opinions? Even worse, how is it appropriate for the institution to guarantee the propagation of those opinions by limiting hires to candidates who agree with them?

These questions illustrate the bubble mentality of the left. Leftists are so certain of the objective correctness of all their views that they cannot conceive of any person of goodwill taking a different position. In the leftist mind, anyone not willing to engage in discrimination against whites or Asians in the name of equity is the moral equivalent of a Klansman. And who would object to screening out Klansmen from the teacher corps?

Parents who hope the public schools are still salvageable might want to reconsider. The skyrocketing wokeness of administrators who control teacher hiring will ensure that all classrooms are increasingly devoted to indoctrination rather than education.

How exhausting it is for parents to constantly monitor what their children are being fed in every class and then try to repair the intellectual and moral damage at home. Viewed in this light, does choosing another schooling arrangement really seem so hard?

Jane Robbins is an attorney and a retired senior fellow with the American Principles Project in Washington DC. In that position she crafted federal and state legislation designed to restore the constitutional autonomy of states and parents in education policy, and to protect the rights of religious freedom and conscience. She is a graduate of Clemson University and the Harvard Law School.

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500 School Districts Publicly Declare Only Woke Teachers Need Apply - The Federalist

If the recent spread of the newly surfaced omicron variant has taught us anything, its that we cant stop the spread of COVID-19 with vaccine mandates.

While progressive cities in the U.S. trip over each other to mandate vaccine passports for entry to restaurants, gyms, and stores, and the Biden administration claims its vaccine mandates are necessary to combat the pandemic, vaccinated people everywhere are contracting the omicron variant. Even the U.S. Supreme Courts left-wing justices tried to defend COVID-19 vaccine mandates by falsely claiming that getting the jab prevents the spread of the virus, but the truth is, the vaccine isnt preventing the spread of COVID.

Despite being vaccinated and boosted, Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently showed symptoms and tested positive for the virus. She is one of the hundreds of thousands of people, many of who have received the COVID jab, who fell ill with the virus in the last few weeks. As a result, the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention recently admitted that COVID-19 vaccines and boosters are not stopping people from getting infected or infecting others.

Our vaccines are working exceptionally well but what they cant do anymore is prevent transmission, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky previously said on CNN.

This concession by the CDC shows that vaccine mandates are not the answer to limiting COVID spread. As a matter of fact, there is no effective way to curb the virus. Omicron is here to stay.

On average, the U.S. is adding approximately 700,000 COVID cases a day as omicron rips through the country, sparing no one regardless of their vaccination status. These crazy case numbers skyrocketed even though many Americans concerned that they had the virus were unable to confirm their suspicions due to a testing crisis.

Multiple studies indicate that those infected with the omicron variant, including those who have received multiple COVID shots, usually only experience mild and minor symptoms if any at all. Even Dr. Anthony Fauci admitted that now-preliminary data indicate a decreased severity with omicron.

All of these developments have led people like Cory Zue, a Democrat blogger who explained why he did not get the COVID shot, to wonder: So now we have an impossible-to-stop virus that looks a lot like the common cold. And we have a heavy-handed global mitigation strategy based on vaccination that does very little to stop it.Surely, I thought, we will now see that these policies, and especially vaccine mandates, do not make any logical sense? Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Its a question that many are thinking but far too few are asking.

Shortly after South Africa was hit with a wave of omicron, dozens of countries banned travel from South Africa with hopes of stopping the variant from crossing borders. Health bureaucrats in the African country, however, noticed that hospitalizations with omicron were less frequent and most people were recovering from the virus without any significant problems. As a result, the South African health department scaled back its COVID-19 guidance and ruled the pandemic basically over. People were no longer asked to isolate or quarantine.

The government acknowledged what is now obvious:this virus is here to stay, its not that bad anymore, and we need to live with it and get back to our lives, Zue noted.

But after acknowledging that most people in the country had developed some level of immunity and a number of people including children who are in contact with COVID-19 positive people, lose their income and valuable schooltime while staying at home without symptoms, health officials walked back their guidance after a flurry of media, stakeholders and public enquiries and comments.

Its apparent that COVID jabs arent stopping the virus, but that hasnt stopped health bureaucrats from repeatedly forcing them on the public. Even when they do make minor concessions about the vaccines failings, most wont admit what South Africa did just a couple of weeks ago.

Next, health bureaucrats in the U.S. will probably be tempted to demand N95 masking from everyone. Much like they have in the past, talking heads on CNN and MSNBC will claim that proper masking will be our ticket out of this pandemic.

But as Dr. Leana Wen recently noted, most masks are little more than facial decorations that dont stop COVID-19 infection.

Theres no good way to stop the raging omicron variant. But why should we? People will get sick with COVID regardless of their vaccination status, but most of them will recover just fine. In the next few weeks, hundreds of thousands of Americans will have natural immunity against the virus. They should have the freedom to return to their jobs, schools, and lives without the threat of mandates that cant protect them hanging over their heads.

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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We Can't Stop The Spread Of Omicron, So Stop Trying To Mandate It - The Federalist

The FBI refused to answer questions about the agencys possible provocative involvement with the Jan. 6 Capitol riots during a Tuesday hearing on Capitol Hill.

How many FBI agents or confidential informants actively participated in the events of Jan. 6? Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz asked the Executive Assistant Director for the FBIs National Security Branch Jill Sanborn.

I cant go into the specifics of sources and methods, Sanborn said.

Did any FBI agents or confidential informants actively participate in the events of Jan. 6, yes or no? Cruz pressed.

I cant answer that, Sanborn said, despite The New York Times revealing in September the presence of federal agents within the crowd that stormed the Capitol. Earlier this month, Newsweek revealed in a blockbuster story the presence of secret commandos with shoot-to-kill authority.

Did any FBI agents or confidential informants commit crimes of violence on Jan. 6? Cruz followed up.

I cant answer that, Sanborn repeated.

Did any FBI agents or FBI informants actively encourage and incite crimes of violence on Jan. 6? Cruz asked.

I cant answer that, Sanborn said for a third time.

Cruz went on to ask the agency executive about Ray Epps, a suspect captured on tape encouraging people to enter the Capitol who disappeared without explanation from the FBIs Capitol Violence Most Wanted List last summer, according to an October report from Revolver.

Who is Ray Epps? Cruz asked.

Sanborn said she was aware of the individual but lacked specific background.

Well, there are a lot of people who are understandably very concerned about Mr. Epps, Cruz said, highlighting Eppss encouragement of Trump supporters to get into the Capitol. This was strange behavior, so strange that the crowd began chanting Fed, fed, fed, fed, fed. Ms. Sanborn, was Ray Epps a fed?

I cant answer that question, Sanborn said.

After outlining Eppss mysterious disappearance from the agencys Most Wanted List, Cruz asked one more time.

Did federal agents or those in service of federal agents actively encourage violent criminal conduct on Jan. 6? Cruz asked.

Not to my knowledge, Sanborn said.

Moments later, Arkansas Republican Sen. Tom Cotton pressed Assistant Attorney General for National Security Matthew Olsen about Eppss mysterious disappearance.

He was on the FBIs Capitol Riot Most Wanted page just days after Jan. 6. In fact, he was one of the first 16 suspects added to that Most Wanted page on your website, Cotton said. It does not appear he was arrested or charged with any offense. In July, without explanation, he was removed from the FBIs Most Wanted page. Mr. Olsen, who is Ray Epps and why was he removed?

Olsen referred Cotton to Sanborn after she repeatedly refused to offer details on the same case.

Senator, I dont have any information about that individual. I would defer you to Ms. Sanborn, Olsen said.

Youre the assistant attorney general for national security. You run the National Security Division. The department has said that these Jan. 6 prosecutions are one of their highest priorities, Cotton said. This is a man who was on the Most Wanted page for six months. Do you really, do you really expect us to believe that youve never heard of the name Ray Epps? You dont know anything about him?

I simply dont have any information at all about that individual, Olsen said.

What other suspects on the Most Wanted page do you know nothing about? Cotton asked.

Olsen didnt offer an answer before Cotton pressed again.

Can you name anyone else on the Department of Justices Most Wanted page? Cotton asked.

Im not familiar with the Most Wanted page, Olsen said.

In the same hearing, Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee asked the panel about the agencys double-standard treatment of left-wing rioters in 2020 versus the Jan. 6 defendants who are being held as political prisoners in solitary confinement.

How many individuals who may have committed crimes associated with the riots in the spring and summer of 2020 were either arrested by law enforcement [with] pre-dawn raids with SWAT teams or had search warrants served on them through those means? Lee asked.

Sanborn said she didnt have the particular numbers available to answer the question.

Could you tell me at least an approximate number or whether its a comparable number to those who had those executed or arrested in connection with the spring and summer riots of 2020? Lee asked.

Sanborn said again she did not have the data with her at the hearing.

You have any way of telling me how many of these individuals who were arrested in connection with the spring and summer riots of 2020 were placed in solitary confinement? Lee asked.

I dont have that, Sanborn said. Im not exactly sure that the FBI would house that data.

Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com.

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FBI Refuses To Say How Many Informants Were Involved In Jan. 6 - The Federalist

The 2020 presidential election was unlike any in American history.

Hundreds of laws and processes were changed in the months leading up to the election, sometimes legally and sometimes not, creating chaos, confusion, and uncertainty. Tech oligarch Mark Zuckerberg, one of the worlds wealthiest and most powerful men, spent $419 million nearly as much as the federal government itself to interfere in the governments management of the election in key states.

Powerful tech oligarchs and corrupt propaganda press conspired to keep indisputably important news stories, such as allegations of corruption regarding the Biden family business, hidden from voters in the weeks prior to voting. Information operations were routinely manufactured about President Trump in the closing months of the campaign, including the false claim that Russians paid bounties for dead American soldiers and Trump didnt care, and that Trump had called dead American soldiers losers. Both were disputed by dozens of on-the-record sources.

Effective conservative voices were censored by the social media arms of the Democrat Party. And all this was done after the establishment spent years running an unprecedented Resistance that falsely claimed Trump was a traitor who had colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 election.

Its not surprising that polls show most Republicans are deeply concerned about the integrity of such an election. If anything, its surprising that all of them arent screaming from the rooftops about it. But it is interesting and telling how little the media and other Democrats are willing to talk about efforts to rig the election.

With the exception of a single Time Magazine article admitting there was a conspiracy by a a well-funded cabal of powerful people who worked to change rules and laws, steer media coverage and control the flow of information, to create a revolution in how people vote, corporate media have largely kept silent about or downplayed how the establishment secured its victory for their man Joe Biden.

Times article didnt come out until February 4, 2021, but in the months prior to its publication, Republicans grew increasingly concerned that the rigging it described had, in fact, happened.

Their desire for free and fair elections they could trust, elections that well-funded cabals of powerful people werent able to rig, resulted in mass protests following the November election. The fact that the election was exceedingly close didnt help matters.

Media and other left-wing pollsters had put out preposterous suppression polls to help Biden get over the finish line. For example, the Washington Posts final poll claimed Biden would win the swing state of Wisconsin by 17 points, indicating a nationwide blowout of historic proportions. (He won it by seven-tenths of a percent.) The actual outcome took weeks to calculate and came down to just 43,000 votes across three states, even closer than Trumps close victory over Hillary Clinton in 2016.

The media and other Democrats have used the January 6 riot at the Capitol as a way to ignore legitimate concerns about what they did to the election system, and as a way to continue the assault on election security.

As part of their political operation, they have used a propaganda technique of redefining efforts to secure the integrity of elections as attacks on democracy.

The 2020 campaign to destroy election security by flooding the system with tens of millions of mail-in ballots was run by Marc Elias, a braggadocious Democrat attorney and former general counsel for Hillary Clinton who also ran the Russia collusion hoax that seriously damaged the country. In fact, one of his partners in the scheme was recently indicted by prosecutor John Durham for lying about his role in the hoax. Elias and his well-funded cabal of powerful people are hoping to make permanent or even expand the weakening of election security.

The propaganda press have also downplayed Zuckerbergs staggering $419 million expenditure, or falsely presented it as non-partisan help to voters. Independent researchers have shown that the funding dollars overwhelmingly poured into Democrat counties, and particularly such counties in swing states.

The money was used to enable the private takeover of government election offices, erasing the bright red line between campaign operations and government administration of elections. The massive grants were used to run Get Out The Vote operations through these government offices, in a manner that benefited Democrats in overwhelmingly disproportionate ways. The funds were used mostly to register Democrats to vote, encourage Democrats to vote, harvest Democrat ballots, cure defective Democrat ballots, count Democrat ballots, etc.

No right-wing billionaire could have gotten away with even thinking about such an operation, but had he, the media would be all over it. A few hundred thousand dollars in Russian Facebook ads for both Clinton and Trump generated years of hysterical media coverage from the corrupt press. Yet Zuckerberg funding the private takeover of elections to secure Democrat victories has barely been mentioned much less obsessed over by most of corporate media.

The media and Democrats J6 hysteria is meant as a distraction to keep Americans from properly dealing with the very real problems with how the 2020 election was overseen.

The future of the country rests on the ability of both winners and losers to trust our elections, to make it easy to vote but difficult to cheat, and to have some reasonable level of confidence that voting is conducted privately and without coercion, harvesting, or undue third-party influence.

The media and other Democrats are cartoonishly overhyping the J6 riot to avoid being held accountable for the many ways in which they destroyed election integrity in the months and years leading up to November 2020. Wise people are not fooled by their distraction attempt.

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J6 Hysteria Is To Avoid Accountability For Rigging Of The 2020 Election - The Federalist