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PA School Board President Sworn In With Pornographic Books – The Federalist

Posted: December 19, 2023 at 1:34 am

A recently elected Pennsylvania school board president made his priorities clear this month when she was sworn in using controversial books, including sexually explicit material.

On Dec. 4, Karen Smith, a Democrat who was elected to lead the states third-largest school district in November, was sworn in with a stack of books, including sexually explicit material.

Thank you for your trust in me, I do not take this hand lightly, Smith said when she became president of the Central Bucks County School Board. To my supporters, I am so very thankful. To those of you who have challenged me, I will do all I can to hear your voices and concerns.

However, based on the books upon which she swore an oath, Smiths pledge to keep an open mind to parental concerns was hardly austere.

According to Fox News, one of the books used in the swearing ceremony included Flamer, by Mike Curato, published in 2020.

[Flamer] tells the story of a character who is bullied at a Boy Scouts summer camp for acting in a manner considered stereotypical of gay men,' Fox News reported. The graphic novel includes characters discussing pornography, erections, masturbation, penis size, and an illustration that depicts naked teenage boys.

Other books included in the stack upon which she was sworn in were Night, by Elie Wiesel; The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison; and All Boys Arent Blue, by George M. Johnson. At least three of the books Smith was sworn in on were listed in the top 5 of the American Library Associations (ALA) most challenged books of 2022. The national library groups activism promoting these books in local curriculums has led conservative policymakers in at least nine states to begin severing ties with the ALA. Last week, Texas, which ended its tax-subsidized affiliation with the ALA in August, passed new rules to keep sexually explicit books out of school libraries.

Smiths decision to use material endorsed by far-left activists to infiltrate classrooms illustrates how identity politics has become embraced as a cynical, secular religion. Had Smith been genuine with a pledge to hear district parents concerns, she might have chosen different material to be sworn in on.

Silvi Haldipur, a mom of two boys in Bucks County schools, said she was previously horrified by LGBT and antisemitic remarks in the boardroom of the east Pennsylvania district. However, parents in this district could have more difficulty being involved in their childrens education moving forward. The school boards new Democrat majority immediately voted to freeze two policies related to library books that passed last year along with other policies. This includes halting a previous update to the Library Materials policy that allowed parents to challenge certain books in the classroom.

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The ‘Ukraine War Is Good For Business’ Argument Is Vile And Also A Lie – The Federalist

Posted: at 1:34 am

By now, as President Joe Biden proposes sending another $61 billion from American taxpayers to Ukraine, most Americans realize supporting the war in Ukraine has been a massively expensive failure. When the Russian army initially invaded, the foreign policy establishment insisted the United States could successfully train and arm the Ukrainians to resist the Russian onslaught. This, it was said, would benefit Americans by preventing Putin from invading American allies in the rest of Europe and promoting democracy. Somehow, the corrupt oligarchy in Ukraine was more democratic than the corrupt oligarchy in Russia.

Hundreds of thousands of lives and more than $100 billion later, its clear nothing about this war is going to change. Now, the only people who want to keep the war going are defense companies and their shills in Washington, D.C. They will fight Putin to the last Ukrainian and happily sink our country even further into debt to do so.

Moreover, as former George W. Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessen celebrated in a recent essay, these war profiteers are legion and quite proud of the business theyre bringing to American workers almost as proud as they were when they hypedVolodymyrZelensky as this generations Winston Churchill.

Funds that lawmakers approve to arm Ukraine are not going directly to Ukraine but are being used stateside to build new weapons or to replace weapons sent to Kyiv from U.S. stockpiles, Thiessen points out. Also, all this aid has become a major cash infusion into factories across the country that directly benefits American workers and is also reinvigorating ourdangerously atrophied defense industrial base.

For good measure, Thiessen calls out Republican politicians who oppose this military aid to Ukraine, especially U.S. Sens. J.D. Vance and Josh Hawley. In his view, these men pretend to champion factory workers, but wont support them where it counts. Now, thanks to the Ukraine aid that Vance opposes, the Pentagon signed a$624.6 million contractlast year tobuild Stinger missilesin Tucson, to replace about 1,400 sent to Ukraine, Thiessen asserts. He accuses Hawleyof impoverishing his constituents in Missouri bytrying to cut fundingfor these [Patriot missile] systems being built in his state.

At no point does Thiessen mention who exactlyis paying for these weapons: American taxpayers. Nor does he mention the other crucial fact that all this money could be going to a whole slew of other things that would benefit the American industrial base far more than producing weapons for endless war. Those include building a wall to keep out cheap foreign labor, promoting domestic energy production, and investing research into new industrial technology.

As the French economist Frederic Bastiat explained almost two centuries ago, Destruction is not profitable. He illustrates this point with the Parable of the Broken Window, in which a boy breaks a window, forcing the store owner to pay for a new one. Some might conclude this is good because it keeps window-makers in business: Good comes out of everything. Accidents like this keep production moving. Everyone has to live. What would happen to glaziers if no window panes were ever broken?

Bastiat points out that people only arrive at this conclusion because they can see the store owner paying to have his window replaced, but they cannot see what the store owner would have done with that money otherwise. For instance, he could have bought shoes, enriching the shoe salesman. As for the glazier, he could have made a window for a new building instead of repairing an old one that was just vandalized.

Saying that pointless wars are good for business follows the same logic. It focuses on what people can see new Abrams tanks, the factories in Ohio making them, and the plants in Mesquite, Texas arming them and neglects what they cannot see: new cars (that are actually affordable), the factories in Ohio making them, and plants in Texas equipping them with GPS systems. Instead of shoveling money to a corrupt foreign government that wants to buy American weapons, American taxpayers could use that money to buy American consumer goods. More jobs, more happy customers, and far fewer dead Ukrainians and Russians.

Without this argument that war is good for business, Thiessen and other Ukraine boosters are only left with the same old arguments used to initially justify American intervention in Ukraine: decimating the Russian military threat to NATO, restoring deterrence with China, dissuading other nuclear powers from launching wars of aggression, and improving American military preparedness for other adversaries.

But all of these reasons are subject to serious questions at this point: Was the Russian military ever a real threat to NATO? Is China really deterred from taking military action in Taiwan? Are any world leaders more afraid of the U.S. military after seeing Ukraine laid wastedespite the support it received to say nothing of the despicable Biden administration withdrawal from Afghanistan? Its time for our leaders to admit that continuing support for Ukraine is a mistake. It has been an utter waste of lives and money, and to suggest otherwise only ensures further destruction. For the sake of everyone involved, the Biden administration should just broker a peace deal and move on or better yet, focus on domestic affairs. American workers should focus their efforts at home, beat their swords into plowshares, and rebuild a once proud country thats currently falling apart.

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Data: Banning Therapy For LGBT People Increases Suicide Risks – The Federalist

Posted: at 1:34 am

Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear a challenge to 26 state laws at least partly based on studies claiming conversion therapy increases LGBT Americans suicide risks. Yet every existing study that makes this claim is seriously scientifically unsound, several research reviews recently found.

Not only do all these studies depend on unscientific methods, but the data from one highly cited such study actually shows the opposite of what its authors claim, says a sociologist who reran the studys data with standard scientific controls the authors omitted.

The evidence shows that SOCE [sexual orientation change efforts] is fairly effective at preventing suicide attempts, said Paul Sullins, a research professor at Catholic University and senior researcher for the Ruth Institute, in a press conference released Friday.

These majorly flawed studies have boosted efforts to ban therapists from helping distressed people across the United States and the world. According to Sullins, some 20 states and the District of Columbia ban therapists from helping people struggling to resolve homosexual desires or gender dysphoria. Six states partially ban such therapy. That means in those states, therapists may only nudge children toward, rather than help prevent, transgender mutilation.

Last week, Republican-appointed Justices John Roberts, Amy Coney Barrett, and Neil Gorsuch joined the courts leftists in refusing to resolve a circuit-court split over whether states can punish therapists who talk to willing clients about unwanted sexual attractions and gender dysphoria. Barrett also voted to let stand a lower-court decision striking laws against children attending transvestite shows.

Every study published since 2009 on therapy for people struggling with sexual orientation distress used the same major scientific flaw Sullins identified in a 2020 paper, Christopher Rosik, a psychologist at Fresno Pacific University, found in 2022 with a research review. All failed to control for suicidal thoughts and actions LGBT people expressed before they went to conversion therapy.

The studies claim conversion therapy caused the LGBT study participants to have more suicidal thoughts and attempts, but not one separated the suicidal thoughts and attempts that occurred before starting therapy. Its not only logically impossible but scientifically invalid to say something that came after a first thing caused the first thing. But thats what every single one of these studies did.

Chart from Rosiks review

Failing to control for preexisting suicidal distress among LGBT people before they went to therapy led to the false but widely publicized claim that conversion therapy causes suicide.

When he reran the numbers with proper controls, Sullins found two-thirds of the LGBT participants suicidal thoughts and attempts in the 2020 study happened before they went to therapy for help with their sexual orientation. That means therapy couldnt have caused the majority of LGBT peoples suicidal thoughts or attempts because most happened before therapy.

In fact, when Sullins controlled for pre-therapy suicidal behavior, he found conversion therapy actually reduced suicide attempts and intentions by up to 80 percent. That means he found the opposite of what the study authors claimed using their own data. If therapy does reduce suicidal thoughts and attempts, these talk therapy bans and the Supreme Courts refusal to end them enable higher levels of distress and self-harm for LGBT Americans.

The reaction to Sullins 2022 published findings, which continues, included respondents insisting on retraction because the findings could endanger queer legal privileges. Amid that debate, Rosik and Sullins note that the studies claiming to find that sexual orientation change efforts increase suicide risks also only include self-identified LGBT people, which excludes people with similar attractions who dont identify as LGBT.

The 2020 Blosnich, et al., study is an elaborate falsehood, Sullins said in the press conference. I dont want to say that their study was fraudulent, but it purposely ignored scientific standards of evidence to point to causation with regard to SOCE [sexual orientation change efforts] harm.

The social sciences are the hardest hit by the replication crisis affecting every domain of allegedly scientific research. Today, replicating a study more often than not does not yield the same results, at least partly because science has become a tool for advancing politics. Thats exactly what these studies appear to be: tools for advancing politics, rather than attempts to find the truth.

In his 2022 review and replication of the Blosnich study, Sullins writes, A disturbing feature of this research is that, at least for some, including Blosnich et al.s (2020) study, the choice to ignore time order in attributing causation was not inadvertent but intentional. He notes that several authors of these flawed studies publicly stated their awareness of the difference between pre-therapy distress and post-therapy distress yet still failed to distinguish between the two in their studies.

Next, Sullins looked at the four most recent studies the American Psychological Association and U.K. Government Equalities Office cited when publicly supporting bans on therapists helping people with unwanted same-sex attractions. All four of the studies made the same error as Blosnich: failing to control for suicidal thoughts and attempts that occurred before starting therapy.

Sullins noted major queer organizations use these scientifically incompetent studies to push for therapy bans. He quoted as an example Shannon Price Minter, an attorney for the National Center for Lesbian Rights, which defended Washington states therapy ban the Supreme Court refused to review.

In a press release celebrating the Supreme Courts refusal to secure therapists and their willing clients free speech rights, Minter said, Every major medical and mental health association in the country has warned that conversion therapy is unnecessary, ineffective, and harmful. That is why nearly half the states in this country have enacted laws to protect youth and their families from these serious harms.

Now, thats a patently false claim, Sullins responded. Its true that this study reported that. But the report, the result is a false, misleading, egregious kind of science.

The national suicide hotline is 1-800-273-8255. Find more resourceshere.

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John Yoo and Jeremy Rabkin, Author at The Federalist – The Federalist

Posted: at 1:34 am

Contributor

John Yoo is the Emanuel S. Heller Professor of Law at the University of California at Berkeley, a nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution. Jeremy Rabkin is a Scalia Law School Professor at George Mason University. Rabkin and Yoo are the co-authors of Striking Power: How Cyber, Robots, and Space Weapons Change the Rules for War (Encounter 2017).

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From Woke Walkouts To ‘Equity,’ Illinois Schools Are Melting Down – The Federalist

Posted: at 1:34 am

Democrats Marxist takeover of Americas education system is rearing its ugly head on an almost daily basis, and the latest stories out of Illinois are further proof of it.

On Thursday, Parents Defending Education reported that students attending the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy (IMSA) orchestrated a protest and walkout on Dec. 8 demanding harsh punishments for individuals who have bias incident reports filed against them. According to the academys website, anyone from IMSA students to alumni and visitors can file on-the-record or anonymous reports alleging incidents of bias committed by other IMSA community members. The reports are then investigated by school staff such as the chief human resources/equity officer and/or the director of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI).

IMSA students who participated in the Dec. 8 demonstration, however, are demanding the high school take its leftist policies even further. Included in their list of demands are requests for the school to publicize a list of possible consequences for students following a bias incident report, including detentions, removal from leadership positions, suspensions, expulsions, and notification to parents.

But the students who chanted Silence is complacence! and Why are our pronouns not used? during the Dec. 8 demonstration didnt stop there. They also want the university to notify any potential future colleges that offending students may consider transferring to or attending in the future, after they are presumably expelled for their supposed transgressions. In essence, the demonstrators want to destroy possible offenders future educational and career prospects based on potentially-anonymous reporting of incidents like not using a persons preferred pronouns.

The list also includes a demand that possible consequences for offending faculty members be publicized, recommending punishments that include, but go beyond only educational conversations and required training.

Meanwhile, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, a far-left Democrat, announced plans this week to cripple the citys high-achieving selective-enrollment schools in the name of so-called equity. During his mayoral campaign earlier this year, Johnson explicitly promised city residents his administration would not end selective enrollment at Chicago public schools.

According to The Daily Mail, the proposal put forward by Johnsons education board would effectively stop gifted children from lower income backgrounds from academically competing to get into high-performing schools. Some of these schools are among the nations highest ranking high schools and offer children who grow up in difficult circumstances opportunities to further their academic careers.

This article has been updated since publication.

Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood

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Hunter Biden Invokes Gun Rights Ruling That Joe Called Unconstitutional – The Federalist

Posted: at 1:34 am

President Joe Bidens son, Hunter, is relying on Second Amendment arguments that his father once slammed as deeply troubling to escape conviction on gun crimes.

On Monday, attorneys for the presidents son filed a series of motions to dismiss federal charges handed down by Special Counsel David Weiss. Among the charges Bidens attorneys want thrown out are firearm charges that were filed on the basis of Hunter Biden purchasing a gun as a drug addict. Hunter Bidens initial sweetheart plea agreement which was derailed this summer after it fell apart in court would have forgiven the felony firearm conviction if Hunter maintained 24 months of sobriety.

Hunter Biden asserts that the gun charges fail as a matter of constitutional law because Congress could not criminalize the possession of a gun by an addict, explained Federalist Legal Correspondent Margot Cleveland. And since Congress could not criminalize possession by an addict, it also could not make lying about being an addict a crime. Therefore, Hunter Biden argues the three gun charges fail.

Hunter Bidens attorneys cited United States v. Daniels, a 5th Circuit decision in August that reversed the firearm conviction of a non-violent drug user.

In short, our history and tradition may support some limits on an intoxicated persons right to carry a weapon, but it does not justify disarming a sober citizen based exclusively on his past drug usage, the court ruled. Nor do more generalized traditions of disarming dangerous persons support this restriction on nonviolent drug users.

The prosecution charges that Mr. Biden violated a rarely used statute that it claims prevented him from owning a firearm as an unlawful user of a controlled substance, Hunter Bidens lawyers wrote in their Monday motion. But that statutes status-based prohibition on gun ownership recently was struck down as unconstitutional under the Second Amendment.

The Daniels decision followed the Supreme Courts decision in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen, a landmark ruling in 2022 that broadly upheld the right to carry a handgun in public.

In another gun rights case that followed Bruen, attorneys for an Oklahoma man who was pulled over with a gun and marijuana in his car argued the portion of federal firearms law focused on drug users or addicts was not consistent with the nations historical tradition of firearm regulation, echoing what the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled last year in Bruen.

Attorneys for Hunter Biden cited the Supreme Courts decision in Bruen 19 times in their motion filed on Monday. And yet, when the court handed down the landmark case in June 2022, President Biden said the ruling contradicts both common sense and the Constitution, and should deeply trouble us all.

Now, Hunters case may further strengthen the Second Amendment protections his father disparaged.

[RELATED: Please Let Hunter Biden Help Overturn Our Unjust And Unconstitutional Gun Laws]

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China’s Cyber Warfare Surges With Hacking Of U.S. Infrastructure – The Federalist

Posted: at 1:34 am

2023 will go down in history as the year that Chinas state-sponsored hackers advanced their ability to wage cyber warfare against the U.S.

Chinese hackers used to focus on stealing Americas commercial secrets and personnel information (see exampleshere and here). But this year, Chinese hackers have expanded their reach by collecting intelligence on U.S. government agencies and breaching systems of infrastructures with strategic value.

In May 2023, The New York Times reported that a Chinese state-sponsored hacking group had installed malware in electric grids in Guam and other parts of the U.S. since February 2023, probably seeking to cut off power to the U.S. military in case China invades Taiwan.

Microsoftdisclosed in July that China-based hackers gained access to email accounts affecting approximately 25 organizations in the public cloud, including government agencies as well as related consumer accounts of individuals, since May 15, 2023. The affected government agencies included the U.S. State Department. U.S. national security officials identified the hackers as affiliated with Chinese intelligence. Google Clouds Mandiant senior vice president and chief technical officer, Charles Carmakal, called Chinese hackers techniques very advanced.

Then, last week,DailyMail.com reported that Chinese hackers affiliated with the Peoples Liberation Army have gained access to essential infrastructure sites in the U.S., including a water utility in Hawaii, a major port, and at least one oil and gas pipeline. The hackers access to the water utility in Hawaii is probably of the utmost concern since the U.S. Pacific fleet resides near the island of Oahu. Chinese hackers had been sitting on a stockpile of strategic vulnerabilities without being detected for almost a year.

Brandon Wales of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agencysaid, It is very clear that Chinese attempts to compromise critical infrastructure are in part to pre-position themselves to be able to disrupt or destroy that critical infrastructure in the event of a conflict.

For example, if the Chinese Communist Party invades Taiwan, Chinese military-affiliated hackers will likely disrupt critical infrastructure in the United States. Wales said the hackers will try either to prevent the United States from being able to project power into Asia or to cause societal chaos inside the United States to affect our decision-making around a crisis.

Chinas state-sponsored hackers are relentless, and they have received the states assistance to enhance their abilities. For example, Beijing passed aData Security Lawin 2021. It includes a provision that requires technology companies doing business in China to report their software vulnerabilities to Chinas Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) within 48 hours after the issue became known. The MIIT then adds such vulnerabilities to a National Vulnerability Database and generates vulnerability reports.

The Chinese government claims such a database and its reports are necessary for researchers to learn how to fix those software vulnerabilities and enhance cybersecurity. Beijing omitted to mention that MIIT shares its software vulnerability reports with other Chinese government agencies. These include Chinas Ministry of State Security (MSS), the nations leading spy agency.

MSSs activities include performing domestic counterintelligence, gathering foreign intelligence, conducting overseas influence campaigns, and organizing hacking. Last year, the U.S. Justice Departmentcharged13 individuals, including a few members of MSS, for alleged efforts to unlawfully exert influence in the United States for the benefit of the government of the PRC. The agency was also behind some of themost disruptive overseas hacking operationsin recent years.

Shanghai Jiao Tong University and the security firm Beijing Topsec, two entities known for working with the PLA to carry out hacking campaigns, also have access to MIITs vulnerability reports.

Another serious concern of this Chinese law is that it mandates companies to disclose any software vulnerabilities within two days of discovery, even though the average time it takes to patch its software flaws is between60 daysandmore than 200 days.

Brad Williams, writing forBreaking Defense,warnedthat Chinas new law essentially has given its state-sponsored hackers a head start. It provides them with nearly exclusive early access to a steady stream of zero-day vulnerabilities of software used by other countries, including the U.S. The law gives Chinese hackers plenty of time to exploit those vulnerabilities and advance their hacking abilities.

How many American companies have complied with Chinas software vulnerability reporting mandate is unclear. Williams named two U.S. companies, Amazon Web Services and Microsoft, which have business operations in China and likely must comply with the software vulnerability disclosure requirement.

Unfortunately, both companies also have a significant presence in both the public and private sectors in the U.S. Their compliance with Chinese law could potentially include those discovered in technologies used by the Defense Department and Intelligence Community in the U.S. Even a mere description of a bug with the required level of specificity would provide a lead for Chinas offensive hackers as they search for new vulnerabilities to exploit, according toWIRED magazine.

It is not a coincidence that since Beijing enacted mandatory software vulnerability reporting, Chinas hackers have demonstrated an enhanced ability to breach into more strategically sensitive systems in the West, especially in the U.S. The Director of National Intelligences 2023 Annual Threat Assessment states,China probably currently represents the broadest, most active, and persistent cyber espionage threat to U.S. Government and private-sector networks.

The PLA has every intention to incorporate cyber warfare as part of its war planning against Taiwan and its allies. Foreign technology companies in China have a decision to make: Will they continue chasing short-term profits and market access in China, even if it means sharing software vulnerabilities? Or should they pack up and leave the hostile legal environment in China? Their decision will affect not only their own data security and that of their customers but also the national security of their homeland and allies.

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Every Biden 2024 Scenario Is Deadly Dangerous – The Federalist

Posted: at 1:34 am

It should have sunk in a lot sooner with the public just how truly fraught and uncharted the territory is that were lurching toward in 2024.

Not a single set of current circumstances spells calm and normal. Its the opposite. Theyre all destined for discord, misrule, and distrust. And it will be at a level that makes the 2020 presidential election from hell look like a furry convention.

Just look at the most likely scenarios.

Joe Biden and his trusty affirmative action ditz Kamala Harris skate to the nomination. Theres a lot of time between now and November 2024, but every bit of publicly available data at the moment spells certain doom for Democrats. Polls consistently show Biden is unpopular and that voters prefer Donald Trump on all major issues, save abortion (which, admittedly, is a big one that has cost Republicans elections before). A normal person looks at that set of circumstances and says, Well, that makes sense. Trump will probably win. But Democrats arent normal people at any given moment, no less in an election year they are likely to lose to Donald Trump. Under those circumstances, theyre desperate to the point of maniacal, and they wont go down quietly or with anything resembling honor.

Biden experiences a health crisis that renders him incapable of campaigning, but he nevertheless refuses to bow out. Maybe its an ugly fall. Maybe its something worse. But whatever it might be, its not out of the realm of possibility that Bidens physical or mental health comes under jeopardy (as it has essentially always been). A normal person looks at that set of circumstances and says, He should take care of himself and back out while he can. But Democrats wont do that. Recall what they did last year when one of their nominees for U.S. Senate suffered a near-fatal stroke. They didnt insist he do whats best for his family and his health. No, they fastened him to a Speak & Spell and doubled up on their ballot-harvesting efforts. Should something similar happen to Biden, they will do the same, even as the stakes are far higher. Get familiar with the phrase President Kamala Harris.

Biden determines on his own or by coercion to step aside. This scenario is only possible if Kamala also agrees not to pursue the nomination. No serious Democrat believes shes capable of doing the job of being president, nor do any one of them believe she should try. But they wont abandon the first black lady woman of color vice president if she doesnt say its okay first. But the timing of such a potential game change is a predicament on its own. When is a good time for an incumbent president, who has said he is running for a second term, to recuse himself?

The only possibility is at the Democrat convention, when Biden, with virtually all of the party delegates, endorses someone else agreed upon by party leaders. A normal person looks at that set of circumstances and says, This is a sh-t show, and I cant believe weve ended up here. Democrats dont waste time on such thoughts. With great assistance from their friends in the news media, they will insist this is normal, that its something the party had to do for the sake of democracy! and that to the extent there is anything amiss, its because Donald Trump has ruined all of Americas democratic traditions, safeguards, and nooooorms.

The last presidential election was anything but normal. The next one is destined to be even more precarious.

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Study Finds NewsGuard Overtly Biased Against Conservatives – The Federalist

Posted: at 1:34 am

In a study published Tuesday, Media Research Center (MRC) Free Speech America found that NewsGuard, the taxpayer censorship giant self-tasked with rating media outlets on reliability, overwhelmingly favored left-leaning outlets over right-leaning ones. This is the third year MRC Free Speech America has exposed NewsGuard for its partisanship, and, according to MRC, NewsGuard has become even worse than years prior.

Using AllSides, an organization that classifies media outlets by their right to left bias, MRC researchers determined that NewsGuard provided a stellar average credibility rating of 91/100 for left and lean left outlets (e.g., The New York Times, The Washington Post, TIME, Vox), wrote MRC researchers. Meanwhile, right and lean right outlets, such as Fox News, the New York Post, and The Daily Wire, were given an outrageously abysmal average score of 65/100.

NewsGuards rating for right-leaning outlets in particular was worse than the still-low 66/100 average rating it slapped on right-leaning media across the prior two MRC studies released Jan. 6, 2023 and Dec. 13, 2021, MRC noted.

One of the strongest examples of NewsGuards brazen bias is how it excused legacy media outlets false labeling of the New York Posts Hunter Biden laptop story as Russian disinformation back in 2020.

The Washington Post, USA Today, and Politico all outlets that discredited the story were given flawless 100/100 scores. The seriousness of what these legacy media organizations did cannot be understated. As MRC noted, polling indicates that suppression of the laptop story played a deciding role in the 2020 election.

According to MRC, NewsGuards decision to ignore the discrediting of the laptop story isnt surprising, given that NewsGuard itself contributed to its suppression. Indeed, NewsGuard co-CEO Steven Brill joined CNBC just before the 2020 election to castigate the Hunter Biden laptop story as a probable Russian hoax, MRC wrote in its report.

While outlets that engaged in journalistic malpractice and election interference are given gold stars, NewsGuard severely punishes conservative outlets like The Federalist. NewsGaurd gives The Federalist a failing 12.5/100 score. After roughly two years, wrote MRC, NewsGuard is still criticizing The Federalists questioning of the efficacy of masks for COVID-19. At the same time, liberal CNBC, which has a 95 NewsGuard rating, cited a study showing that cloth masks were only 37 percent effective at filtering out virus particles, wrote MRC.

In another example of NewsGuards double standard, the organization gave Not the Bee a 62.5/100 score in part because it supposedly does not disclose that the site advances a conservative perspective that is apparent in its content, MRC reported. This is grossly hypocritical in light of NewsGuards perfect scores for blatantly liberal outlets like the explicitly left-wing New York Times, MRC pointed out.

The New York Times maintains its 100-year-old pledge to give the news impartially, without fear or favor, regardless of party, sect, or interests involved. This is the same New York Times that tried to spin the political mayhem surrounding Bidens bribery scandal to make the president seem like a martyr and a helpless victim of paternal instincts to shield him from the fallout, wrote MRC researchers.

NewsGuard also gave pro-life news outlets Life News and Live Action 17.5/100 scores while giving Planned Parenthood a generally credible score of 75/100. As MRC noted, Planned Parenthood is notorious for repeatedly portraying itself as a medical care enterprise that just happens to also perform abortions.

NewsGuard doesnt exist to inform regular Americans about media credibility; it exists to annihilate conservative outlets by scaring off advertisers to prevent them from generating revenue.

NewsGuard wields its ratings as a cudgel, attempting to scare away advertisers from doing business with media and organizations that have been accused of promoting so-called misinformation or wrongthink on a whole host of issues like abortion, climate change, COVID-19 and elections, explained MRC. In so doing, NewsGuard effectively strips media outlets with which it disagrees of their ad money, slowly bleeding out their coffers.

As MRC demonstrates, NewsGuard is a political arm of the left, yet it receives hundreds of thousands of dollars in funding from Bidens Department of Defense. This is the same Biden administration that tried to erect a radical Disinformation Governance Board tied to leftist billionaire George Soros to collaborate with Big Tech companies to target Americans speech on social media platforms, wrote MRC.

News Guard also received funding from Big Pharma. The financing came in the form of a funders consortium that included the consulting outfit Publicis Groupe, reported MRC. The Publicis Groupe happens to represent Pfizer, the pharmaceutical giant that has been at the center of the debate on the efficacy of vaccines against COVID-19. NewsGuard has a documented history of guarding the Big Pharma and government narrative on COVID-19 writ large, which in retrospect appears to be a major conflict of interest.

MRC is calling on Congress to cease illegally funding an organization that is actively destroying free speech in the U.S. in its pursuit to shut down conservative outlets.

Our federal government never should have spent time and taxpayer money on censoring conservatives, members of the Free Speech Alliance wrote in the open letter to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA). That which government is constitutionally prohibited from doing, it cannot contract with others to do.

The governments support of NewsGuard is nothing short of unconstitutional. It is fundamental to living in a free and fair society that agencies of the federal government may not endorse the products and services of private companies they favor, MRC wrote. Nor may they weaponize national power against companies that officials have decided they dislike, absent duly enacted statutes and regulations and appropriate due process.

The political hacks from NewsGuard claim theyll help you decide what news outlets you can trust, said Rob Bluey, the communications director for The Heritage Foundation, which was given a 69.5/100 rating by NewsGuard. In reality, you shouldnt trust anything from this overtly biased organization.

Evita Duffy-Alfonso is a staff writer to The Federalist and the co-founder of the Chicago Thinker. She loves the Midwest, lumberjack sports, writing, and her family. Follow her on Twitter at @evitaduffy_1 or contact her at evita@thefederalist.com.

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Study Finds NewsGuard Overtly Biased Against Conservatives - The Federalist

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Republicans Need To Learn How To Go After The Left – The Federalist

Posted: at 1:34 am

Amid the controversy following recent congressional testimony on the problem of campus antisemitism by the presidents of Harvard, MIT, and the University of Pennsylvania, Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio has introduced a bill that would drastically increase the tax rate on the largest university endowments.

This is something Vance has been talking about for some time now, and while its a good idea on the merits, its also a good example of how conservatives should be willing to use whatever political power they have to fight back against the left. Simply put, unless the right starts treating the left and its institutions like the hostile entities they are, our republic will not likely survive.

This is especially true when it comes to higher education, where the wealthiest and most elite schools have long enjoyed preferential treatment even as they poison the body politic by actively promoting not just antisemitism, but racism, gender ideology, and every other brand of cultural Marxism you can imagine.

The recent spectacle in Congress is a case in point. During their testimonies last week, the presidents of Harvard, MIT, and Penn refused to say the blatant antisemitism on their campuses since the Oct. 7 attack on Israeli civilians by Hamas terrorists including explicit calls for genocide of the Jews violates their schools policies on harassment.

Their equivocation, insisting that whether such antisemitism constitutes harassment depends on the context, elicited understandable outrage from donors. After a major Penn donor pulled a $100 million gift to the school that was made in 2017, Penn President Liz Magill was forced to resign a rare instance of a leftist elite facing real-world consequences for defending her appalling ideology in public.

Vance, for his part, rightly sees these schools as threats to American values and our way of life that in no way deserve special treatment. Currently, the tax rate on endowments at places like Harvard and Penn is just 1.4 percent, making them effectively slush funds for the ultra-rich. His two-page bill would increase the rate to 35 percent on all endowments worth $10 billion or more.

The point here isnt to raise additional tax revenue (although the money raised could be used to pay down the deficit or help working, middle-class families or just be given back to the American people as dividends). The point is to acknowledge, through federal tax policy, that in their current form, these universities dont serve the national interest. If they cant be reformed, at least they can be punished.

Thats the right approach, not just to higher education but to every facet of what has become an all-consuming cultural and political war in this country. Conservatives can no longer afford to shy away from using the institutions they control to defend Western civilization and the Christian values that undergird it.

State legislatures that responded to the overturning ofRoe v. Wadeby passing strong restrictions on abortion, like Texas and Florida, have the right idea. Same with states that have imposed restrictions on transgender interventions and surgeries for minors (they need to take the next step, though, and impose those same restrictions on adults).

A crude but no less effective version of this posture toward the left is what one man did on Thursday in Des Moines, Iowa. Michael Cassidy, a Christian and former military officer,tore down and beheaded an altar to Satan in the state capitol. Why was a Satan altar even there? Because the left has managed to insinuate itself everywhere even into the Iowa Legislature, despite a Republican supermajority. Under the banner of diversity and tolerance, were told we must accept altars to Satan in our legislative halls.

Cassidy begged to differ. The world may tell Christians to submissively accept the legitimization of Satan, but none of the founders would have considered government sanction of Satanic altars inside Capitol buildings as protected by the First Amendment, hetold The Sentinel.

And hes exactly right. Theres no reason to tolerate altars to Satan in public places, no reason to tolerate massively wealthy universities that spread poisonous ideologies, and no reason to accept the ultimate victory of the left as inevitable. For too long, conservatives have foolishly hoped that appeals to a neutral public square, high-minded tolerance, and live-and-let-live winsomeness would be enough to halt the lefts march through the institutions.

But it was a fantasy, a soothing story conservatives told themselves while their culture crumbled around them. William F. Buckley famously said in the mission statement for National Review that the purpose of the magazine was to stand athwart history, yelling stop. That was in 1955. In the nearly 70 years since, its become clear you can yell all you want, but the left isnt listening. They will not stop unless someone stops them.

Buckleys own career began with the publication in 1951 ofGod and Man at Yale, which excoriated the university for foisting collectivist, secular ideology on its students. Today, Yale and its peer institutions like Harvard and Penn are doing far worse than that, actively preaching racism and antisemitism and a virulent form of liberalism that disfigures reason and enslaves the mind.

Its not enough to stand athwart history, yelling stop. At some point you have to do more than yell. You have to act.

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Republicans Need To Learn How To Go After The Left - The Federalist

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