Old Guard Audio ❗

Fred Lucas / @FredLucasWH / November 29, 2021

The Heritage Foundation will "fight tooth-and-nail and send the message that our freedoms are not up for debate," Heritage President Kay C. James says. Pictured: President Joe Biden speaks Nov. 3 at the White House about authorization of a COVID-19 vaccine for children ages 5 to 11. (Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

The Heritage Foundation is suing the Biden administration to stop its COVID-19 vaccine mandate for private employers, calling the requirement a “gross abuse of power.”

“The mandate clearly encroaches on the police power of states expressly reserved by the 10th Amendment [to the Constitution],” argues the complaint filed Monday in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. The lawsuit adds: “It also exceeds the federal government’s authority under the Commerce Clause.”

Heritage Foundation President Kay C. James and the think tank’s incoming president, Kevin Roberts, who takes office Wednesday, both issued statements on the lawsuit.

“Dr. Roberts and I, along with the Board of Trustees, unanimously agreed The Heritage Foundation has a vital role to play in the courts to protect and secure the freedom of all Americans to make medical decisions for themselves,” James said, adding: 

To all of our members, to the conservative movement, and to Americans concerned by this unacceptable overreach by President [Joe] Biden and his administration, I say this—Heritage’s leadership is united behind this lawsuit, and we are going to fight tooth-and-nail and send the message that our freedoms are not up for debate.

Heritage’s court action became one of the latest challenges to the vaccine mandate, which imposes a Jan. 4. deadline for businesses and other organizations that employ 100 or more to require their employees either to be fully vaccinated or produce the results of weekly tests for the coronavirus. Heritage has about 270 employees. 

The American Center for Law and Justice, a conservative legal group, filed the lawsuit on behalf of Heritage, which is the parent organization of The Daily Signal.

“The Heritage Foundation has not historically filed lawsuits,” Roberts said in his own written statement. “That we are doing so now should make clear to any observer that we view this mandate as a deadly serious threat to our individual liberty and the values that make America great. Under my predecessors, The Heritage Foundation has stood rock-solid in defense of liberty, freedom, and opportunity for all, and it will continue to do so under my leadership.”

Roberts continued: 

I wish this lawsuit were unnecessary. I wish we had an administration in the White House that respected the Constitution and the rule of law. 

From the unprecedented border crisis, to the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal, to now this unlawful COVID vaccine mandate, it is irrevocably clear that this administration will stop at nothing—even harming Americans and our national interests—in pursuit of the most radical policy agenda in American history. Rest assured, we at Heritage are only just beginning to fight back. …

I am so thrilled to be leading this incredible organization at this pivotal time in our nation’s history, and to be engaged in the trenches on the most important fights we’ve seen in a generation.

On Sept.9, Biden authorized the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to require employers with 100 or more workers to make sure those workers either are fully vaccinated or provide weekly test results showing that they don’t have COVID-19. 

“We’re going to protect vaccinated workers from unvaccinated co-workers,” Biden said in announcing the mandate.

The Biden administration contends that the mandate is necessary because too many Americans refuse to get vaccinated and that OSHA has the statutory authority to impose the mandate.

During remarks Monday at the White House about the omicron variant of COVID-19, Biden said the United States is doing its part to get its citizens vaccinated, and added: “We can’t let up until the world is vaccinated.”

The Heritage Foundation joins other employers as well as state attorneys general in filing lawsuits challenging the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s emergency rule implementing the mandate. 

“The ACLJ is honored to serve as counsel for The Heritage Foundation,” said Jay Sekulow, chief counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice, in a written statement. “This case focuses on the serious constitutional issues raised by the Biden administration’s employer mandate.” 

Implementing the mandate, which would cover at least 84.2 million Americans working for about 164,000 different businesses and other organizations, could be difficult and might rely on employees’ snitching on bosses and colleagues. 

The New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals enjoined the Biden administration’s vaccine mandate on Nov. 6, citing “grave statutory and constitutional issues.” 

The appeals court affirmed its previous ruling, writing that Biden’s vaccine mandate is “staggeringly overbroad” and likely “violates the constitutional structure that safeguards our collective liberty.” 

The Biden administration announced it would not enforce the mandate while the litigation is pending. 

Monday also marked another setback for the Biden administration when a federal court in Missouri halted the federal requirement for health care workers to be vaccinated in 10 states: Alaska, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming. 

The requirement, which came under a rule from the Department of Health and Human Services earlier this year, is separate from OSHA’s emergency regulation. 

In yet another separate regulation, the Biden administration’s Office of Personnel Management announced that it would delay penalties against federal employees who were not vaccinated by a Nov. 22 deadline.

Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email [email protected] and we’ll consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature. Remember to include the URL or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state.

The Daily Signal depends on the support of readers like you. Donate now

Fred Lucas is chief national affairs correspondent for The Daily Signal and co-host of "The Right Side of History" podcast. Lucas is also the author of "Abuse of Power: Inside The Three-Year Campaign to Impeach Donald Trump." Send an email to Fred.

Amy Swearer / @AmySwearer / Zack Smith / @tzsmith / Cully Stimson / @cullystimson / November 23, 2021

John Chisholm, pictured, the rogue Soros-backed prosecutor in Milwaukee County, released Darrell Brooks from custody when he should have sought no bail. On Nov. 21, Brooks drove his car through a Christmas parade, killing five adults and injuring more than 40 people, including children. (Photo: county/Milwaukee.gov)

Amy Swearer @AmySwearer

Amy Swearer is a legal fellow in the Edwin Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation.

Zack Smith @tzsmith

Zack Smith is a legal fellow in the Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation.

Cully Stimson @cullystimson

Charles “Cully” Stimson is a leading expert in national security, homeland security, crime control, immigration, and drug policy at The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Legal and Judicial Studies. Read his research.

After a summer of wildly destructive civil unrest followed by the looming shadow of the high-profile trial of Kyle Rittenhouse, residents of Wisconsin suffered another blow in the form of unspeakable tragedy.

Five people were killed and more than 40 injured when a driver plowed through participants of an annual holiday parade, appearing to intentionally speed up and swerve into lines of marchers, before speeding off.

Hours later, police arrested 39-year-old Darrell Brooks as the suspected driver of the vehicle. He is charged with five counts of homicide.

Investigators are still looking into possible motives, including, according to some reports, the possibility that Brooks did not necessarily target the parade but was instead attempting to flee from a knife fight.

Whether the act was intentional or merely reckless and without regard to others, one thing is already clear—what happened in Waukesha was entirely preventable.

Darrell Brooks should have been in jail several times over. The devastation he wrought happened only because grossly reckless bail policies touted by local officials enabled the release of an unrepentantly violent man whose actions routinely placed members of the community in serious danger.

Brooks is a career criminal with a long rap sheet. His history of violence—including violence toward women—is well documented, and wide-ranging.  

In 1999, Brooks pled guilty to felony battery with intent to cause bodily harm, and was sentenced to six months in jail and three years’ probation. Over the next seven years, Brooks had a series of short stints in jail for various drug and obstruction charges.

In 2006, he was convicted of felony statutory sexual seduction for impregnating a 15-year-old girl. Brooks was 24 years old at the time. He was sentenced to probation and required to register as a sex offender.

In 2010, Brooks pled no contest to felony strangulation and suffocation charges, as well as to violating the terms of his probation. He was sentenced to 11 months in jail and three more years of probation.

Brooks spent much of 2011 and 2012 in jail, serving two separate 180-day sentences for charges of drug possession and bail jumping, and a 37-day sentence for misdemeanor resisting arrest.

In 2016, Brooks was arrested and charged with failing to obey Nevada’s sex offender registration laws. He posted bail, then fled the state and never returned to court. He still has an active warrant out for his arrest in Nevada.

In July 2020, Brooks was again arrested after allegedly getting into a fist fight with his nephew over a cellphone and then firing a gun at the nephew’s car as the nephew drove away. Arresting officers found Brooks still in possession of the firearm as well as a small amount of meth. He was charged with a slew of serious felonies, including possession a firearm as firearm and two counts of second-degree recklessly endangering public safety with the use of a firearm.

Brooks’ bond was initially set at $10,000 but was quickly lowered to $7,500. He remained in custody until his Feb. 9 trial was postponed. His attorney then successfully argued for Brooks’ bail to be dropped even lower, and on Feb. 21, Brooks posted $500 bond and was released.

On Nov. 5, with his 2020 charges still pending, Brooks was again arrested and charged with several serious felony offenses after a woman—reportedly the mother of Brooks’ children—told police that he purposefully ran her over with a vehicle after an argument. According to reports, the vehicular assault left tire marks on the woman’s pants and injured her so severely that she was hospitalized.

Incredibly, despite two decades of violent behavior, an open felony warrant in Nevada, routine failures to abide by his probation or bond conditions, and an active case involving the violent use of a weapon, Brooks was allowed to post $1,000 cash bail. By Nov. 11, he was back in the community.

When all relevant information comes to light about possible motive or premeditation, it seems incredible that no one could have reasonably foreseen that Brooks would commit this specific type of violence and leave this amount of carnage in his wake.

Brooks’ propensity for violence and his lifetime spent disregarding the safety of others made a violent tragedy anything but unforeseeable.

It also could have been foreseen that this kind of tragedy would inevitably occur as a result of the well-intentioned but ill-thought-out and poorly executed bail reform policies that progressives are putting into effect across the country.

In fact, John Chisholm, the rogue George Soros-backed prosecutor in Milwaukee County who released Brooks when he should have sought no bail, issued a prophetic statement in 2007. He said: “Is there going to be an individual I divert, or I put into [a] treatment program, who’s going to go out and kill somebody? … You bet. Guaranteed. It’s guaranteed to happen.” He went on to argue, though, that “does not invalidate the overall approach.”

We disagree. And now that the dire consequences of these rogue prosecutors’ policies are sparking public backlash, Chisholm has called for an investigation into Brooks’ “inappropriately low” bond.

Unfortunately, this is emblematic of the rogue prosecutor movement more generally. They take a criminal-first, victim-last, passing-the-blame approach.

And while the consequences here were undoubtedly tragic, it’s far from the only example of rogue prosecutors’ lax bond policies wreaking havoc on their communities.

In Philadelphia, for example, rogue District Attorney Larry Krasner’s policies led to the murder of Philadelphia Police Cpl. James O’Connor by an individual whom Krasner released through his lenient policies. Former U.S. Attorney Bill McSwain said, “The murder was the direct result of Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner’s pro-violent defendant policies.”

In Chicago, police have pointed to the “skyrocketing use of electronic monitoring as a key factor in the city’s shocking 50% rise in killings” last year.

And no wonder. In Kim Foxx’s Chicago, there are apparently no consequences for violating bail terms. According to the Chicago Tribune, “About 400 people are charged every year with felony escape. During [her predecessor’s] last three years in office, she dropped a total of 55 such cases, compared with 420 for Foxx.”

And then there’s San Francisco’s Chesa Boudin. As two of us (Cully and Zack) have previously written, “Since taking office, Boudin has also been criticized for releasing suspects with long criminal records who have gone on—surprise, surprise—to commit other crimes.”

The events in Wisconsin were tragic. But the nightmare was a completely avoidable consequence of a criminal justice system run by Soros’ rogue prosecutors.

Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email [email protected] and we’ll consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature. Remember to include the URL or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state. 

The Daily Signal depends on the support of readers like you. Donate now

Thomas Jipping / @TomJipping / Sarah Parshall Perry / @SarahPPerry / November 01, 2021

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton speaks outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., Nov. 1. (Photo: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images)

Thomas Jipping@TomJipping

Thomas Jipping is deputy director of the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies and senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation.

Sarah Parshall Perry@SarahPPerry

Sarah Parshall Perry is a legal fellow in the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation.

We are only a month into the Supreme Court’s 2021-22 term and abortion already appears to be this season’s defining topic.

The court heard arguments in two cases on Monday related to the Texas Heartbeat Act, which bans most abortions after the fetal heartbeat is detected (which is usually about six weeks after conception). And in just one month, the court will hear arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which challenges the constitutionality of Mississippi’s ban on most abortions after 15 weeks.

While Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization focuses on the constitutional merits of the Mississippi ban, the Texas cases focus on how the legislature sought to shield the Texas abortion ban from legal challenge in its Heartbeat Act.

Ordinarily, parties that opposed the law would file a lawsuit before it was scheduled to go into effect, asking for an injunction to stop any enforcement while its constitutionality is litigated. That’s what happened in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. The Texas law, however, says that it can be enforced only by “private civil actions” and removes public officials (those normally tasked with the enforcement of state and federal law) from the enforcement process on the Texas Heartbeat Act altogether. As a result, the law went into effect as scheduled on Sept. 1.

In Whole Woman’s Health v. Jackson, abortion providers sued to prevent state courts from handling any private civil actions to enforce the Texas abortion ban. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit put the Whole Woman’s Health v. Jackson case on hold, and on emergency appeal, the Supreme Court left the hold in place, but said that the case raised “serious questions” about the law’s constitutionality.

Even though the 5th Circuit scheduled arguments on the issue of whether federal courts could enjoin state courts from handling these lawsuits for early December, the plaintiffs appealed again to the Supreme Court by way of a rarely used procedural move known as “certiorari before judgment.”

In United States v. Texas, the federal government sued Texas, also asking that the abortion ban be put on hold while its constitutionality is litigated. Like the abortion providers did in Whole Woman’s Health v. Jackson, the Biden administration did not wait for the 5th Circuit to rule, but appealed directly to the Supreme Court.

So, on Nov. 1, the Supreme Court heard arguments in two cases—one brought by abortion providers and one by the federal government—involving procedural issues that must be cleared up before the constitutional merits of the Texas abortion ban can even be addressed.

In Whole Woman’s Health v. Jackson, the question is whether Texas can insulate its state law from federal court review by delegating enforcement to the public instead of state officials.

In United States v. Texas, the question is whether the federal government has an interest in the case sufficient enough to sue state courts and officials to prevent them from enforcing the law.

Texas argues that its new law does not prevent the courts from deciding this underlying constitutional issue. The enforcement mechanism simply prevents blocking the law before it is enforced. But abortion providers can still claim the law is unconstitutional should it be enforced against them in a private civil action.

Besides, Texas says, the federal government’s desire to see the law declared unconstitutional is not enough to justify its intrusion into the state’s legislative business.

At the Nov. 1 argument in United States v. Texas, newly appointed Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar said that the United States has a vested interest in vindicating constitutional law and warned that if the Supreme Court approved of this method of limiting judicial review, it could be replicated in other contexts.

That may be true as a matter of general principle or policy, but the question for the Supreme Court is whether the United States has the legal standing to sue Texas over it. It would appear not—as the United States cannot demonstrate it has standing to bring a suit against an entire state, because it cannot prove it was somehow harmed by the actions of Texas and all its citizens.

Justice Neil Gorsuch appeared impatient with the United States’ broad request for relief, saying that there had never been such an injunction so expansive “in the history of the United States.” This skepticism about the federal government’s desire to intervene in a state’s legislative and judicial process may mean that United States v. Texas is on shakier ground than Whole Woman’s Health v. Jackson.

The justices were concerned not with the choice of enforcement mechanism in the Texas abortion ban—using private citizens to sue for violation of a state law—but were skeptical of the Texas solicitor general’s argument that the mechanism, by its nature, exempts the law from judicial review at all before it goes into effect.

Because of how it’s written, the Texas Heartbeat Act cannot be challenged until after someone has brought suit on the act itself, and this seemed to be a universal hang-up for nearly the entire bench. Justice Sonia Sotomayor in particular cited a long list of constitutional rights, from the Second Amendment to same-sex marriage, that might also be infringed if the Texas act could be replicated in other states. 

This is the crux of the issue in Whole Woman’s Health v. Jackson.

Though that would remedy only one of the issues facing the justices.

Ex Parte Young, a Supreme Court case from 1908, featured prominently in the arguments of the United States. In that decision the Supreme Court allowed suits in federal courts for injunctions against officials acting on behalf of states, despite the state’s sovereign immunity, when the state acted contrary to any federal law or contrary to the Constitution. But at the same time, that decision held that federal courts could not enjoin state courts from hearing cases.

The abortion providers in Whole Woman’s Health v. Jackson argued that they were entitled to an injunction that would prevent state court clerks from accepting complaints (brought by private citizens) that claim the act has been violated. But that seems to run afoul of Ex Parte Young’s prohibition on federal courts enjoining state courts.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh mentioned that the “spirit of Ex Parte Young” ought to apply, and that the underlying holding in that case might be expanded to permit an exception in this case.

Justice Elena Kagan was quick to point out in oral arguments, saying: “Essentially, we would be inviting states, all 50 of them, with respect to their unpreferred constitutional rights, to try to nullify the law [on abortion] of—that this court has laid down as to the content of those rights.”

Texas Solicitor General Judd Stone, arguing for the state of Texas, responded: “The state of Texas has not nullified anything. Abortions have dropped to 50% or 60%. We have not wholly extinguished the right of women to get abortions and Texas judges are [still] bound to follow this court’s precedent fully and faithfully.”

The outcome in the Nov. 1 cases will have little to no effect on the outcome in Dobbs v. Jackson Whole Women’s Health, set for oral argument on Dec. 1. If the Supreme Court decides to ditch 50 years of abortion precedent and overturn Roe v. Wade—and some conservatives have posited there are enough votes from the justices to make it happen—all state abortion lawmaking ability and all related regulations would be sent to the states for determination of what can and cannot be done within their own boundaries on this hot-button issue.

But if the Supreme Court keeps Roe v. Wade alive, Texas may be out of luck, as the Texas Heartbeat Act restricts exercise of a constitutional right. The justices’ line of questioning seemed to betray their desire to let the abortion providers’ case move forward.

In either case, the Texas Heartbeat Act—and not Roe v. Wade—might well be the law sent to history’s dustbin.

Editor’s note: Kagan’s quote has been corrected to reflect the official transcript.

Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email [email protected] and we’ll consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature. Remember to include the URL or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state. 

The Daily Signal depends on the support of readers like you. Donate now

Nicole Russell / @russell_nm / October 14, 2021

A male student sexually assaulted a female student in the women’s bathroom at Stone Bridge High School in Loudoun County, Virginia in May. The girl’s father was arrested on June 22 at a Loudoun County School Board meeting for protesting a proposal that would expand protections for transgender students. Pictured: The Loudoun County School Board discusses transgender issues at a meeting on Aug. 10. (Photo: Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post/Getty Images)

Nicole Russell@russell_nm

Nicole Russell is a contributor to The Daily Signal. Her work has appeared in The Atlantic, The New York Times, National Review, Politico, The Washington Times, The American Spectator, and Parents Magazine.

An explosive piece published this week by The Daily Wire shows what happens when crime, liberal school policies, and leftist law enforcement induce a parent’s worst nightmare.

In “Loudoun County Schools Tried To Conceal Sexual Assault Against Daughter In Bathroom, Father Says,” investigative reporter Luke Rosiak reveals a story about a young man who sexually assaulted a female student in the women’s bathroom at Stone Bridge High School.

This incident is a harbinger of what will happen as school systems, law enforcement, and other powerful groups embrace politically correct social justice agendas over the safety and security of all.

While official juvenile records are sealed, attorneys reveal that a young man wearing a skirt was “charged with two counts of forcible sodomy, one count of anal sodomy, and one count of forcible fellatio,” after he assaulted a young woman in the school restroom.

On June 22, weeks after the incident, the young woman’s father, Scott Smith, was arrested at a Loudoun County, Virginia school board meeting for protesting a proposal that would expand protections for transgender students.

He was dragged out, arrested, and later charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. He was merely upset about his daughter’s sexual assault and the connection to changing school policy so that biological boys can use the women’s bathroom if they identify as transgender. The school banned Smith from its property.

Smith’s arrest has sparked media attention, further humiliating him.

The only person who has been convicted of a crime is the heartbroken, angry father, not the young man who assaulted not one, but two women—the story later reveals—in the women’s restrooms.

“My wife and I are gay- and lesbian-friendly,” Smith told The Daily Wire. “We’re not into this children transgender stuff. The person that attacked our daughter is apparently bisexual and occasionally wears dresses because he likes them. So this kid is technically not what the school board was fighting about. The point is kids are using it as an advantage to get into the bathrooms.”

Many angles of this story are disturbing. Elected Democrats in Loudoun County are implementing liberal policies in school districts despite the obvious ramifications as described.  The school brushed off the sexual assault of a young woman in order to continue pressing for broad bathroom policies that are inclusive to the small transgender population in high school. The school administrators also treated a concerned father disrespectfully.

The story also reveals an obvious truth about criminal behavior: Predatory people will take advantage of any policy that favors them.

Even though a small percentage of society’s citizens are sexual predators, it only takes a few to upend the lives of victims and clog the criminal court divisions. Similarly, it’s also true that among the transgender population, which is already quite small, very few—if any—are sexual predators.

However, that does not mean sexual predators would not readily take advantage of loosened or broad bathroom policies that allow bisexual or transgender people into women’s bathrooms. The nature of predatory criminals is that they can and will find loopholes so they can prey on vulnerable people easier—transgender or not.

This has already happened in California. In January 2021, S.B. 132 was implemented. This law allows prisoners to request which facility they will be placed in based on their preferred gender, along with a few other parameters.

Like clockwork, nearly 30 biological males asked to be transferred to California’s two women’s prisons. Many of these men were in prison for committing murder or sexual assault. Female prisoners must now live in fear and comply with this law, which was passed to protect the feelings of biological males.

The Daily Wire article—worth a subscription and a read—provides harrowing details about how bad things will get if political correctness and law enforcement align to cover up truth. It also provides an inside look at just how sexual predators will use school bathroom policies or loose laws favoring transgender people for social justice’s sake.

This is a watershed moment for conservatives, particularly parents, who wish to shield their children from leftist ideology taking precedence over physical safety.

Most transgender people, like the rest of society, are largely not criminals, but all it takes is a few predatory people to take advantage of well-meaning, politically correct laws, to wreak havoc on the vulnerable.

The Daily Signal publishes a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Heritage Foundation.

Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email [email protected] and we’ll consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature. Remember to include the URL or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state.

The Daily Signal depends on the support of readers like you. Donate now

0

GianCarlo Canaparo / @GCanaparo / Mike Howell / @mhowelltweets / October 05, 2021

Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a memo on Monday that essentially directs the Department of Justice and the FBI to intimidate parents who oppose the teaching of critical race theory in schools. (Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images)

GianCarlo Canaparo@GCanaparo

GianCarlo Canaparo is a legal fellow in the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation.

Mike Howell@mhowelltweets

Mike Howell is senior adviser for executive branch relations at The Heritage Foundation. A lawyer, he previously worked in the general counsel's office at the Department of Homeland Security and, before that, for the chief oversight committees of the House and Senate.

Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a memo on Monday directing the Department of Justice and the FBI to “launch a series of additional efforts in the coming days designed to address the rise in criminal conduct directed toward school personnel.” 

The Garland memo looks like an effort to use the FBI to threaten and silence parents who are outspoken opponents of critical race theory in schools. That alone would be a stunning partisan abuse of power.  What Garland has done, however, is even more disgraceful.

Maybe Garland doesn’t actually intend to use the FBI to go after parents—maybe he knows that he doesn’t have that power. In that case, he’s trying to trick parents into thinking that he does. This tactic, he hopes, will suppress parents’ free speech, and throw a bone to a powerful ally of his political party.

Even a few FBI agents questioning parents may be enough to convince others that standing up for their values is not worth the risk.

To understand what Garland is doing with this memo, you’ll need a short primer on the background facts and government legalese.

Starting with the facts: What is this “rise in criminal conduct” against school officials?  You won’t find any evidence cited in Garland’s memo. You won’t find any evidence in the FBI’s crime data either.

This claim is parroted from a letter sent to President Joe Biden by the National School Boards Association—a powerful leftist group representing many of the school boards around the country pushing critical race theory curricula. That letter made vague claims about “threats and acts of violence” against school board members from parents who oppose critical race theory.

The letter complained about “disruptions” by angry parents but managed to find only one example of violence against a school official (likely a security guard), which was handled by local law enforcement.

Most of the letter is the National School Boards Association clutching its pearls, aghast that justifiably angry parents are zealously advocating for their children’s interest. The tactics thus far employed certainly are nothing compared to the riots of the summer of 2020 that destroyed over a billion dollars in property and resulted in multiple deaths.

Those tactics were not decried by the National School Boards Association and its liberal friends. In fact, the current vice president organized financial support to the criminals engaged.

The National School Boards Association is not really concerned about an isolated instance of violence adequately handled by local law enforcement. It is much more upset that it is powerless to stop parents from exercising their First Amendment rights to push back against critical race theory in the classroom.

And so, in a move that is nearly a reflex among many leftist organizations, it asked the government to lend it some of its law enforcement power to shut up its meddling critics. Garland was only too happy to oblige. In doing so, he has made a hypocrite out of himself and Biden.

When Biden announced Garland’s nomination, he promised to uphold the independence of the DOJ from the political influence of the White House. Garland promised the same, saying:

I have spent my whole professional life looking up to Ed Levi and the other post-Watergate Attorneys General who stood up on behalf of the Department against impermissible pressure and influence. If I am confirmed as Attorney General, I intend to do the same.

There is no clearer example of political influence seeping into the DOJ than a demand letter to the president from a leftist advocacy group turning into a DOJ memorandum in less than a week.

But Garland’s weaponization of the DOJ has a problem: There is no conceivable basis for federal law enforcement action against these parents.

Unlike Attorney General Eric Holder, who twisted and abused the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act to silence pro-life advocates, Garland can’t find any law that he can similarly mangle to silence parents. If he could, he would have put it in the memo.

But the parents don’t know that.

And here enters the government legalese. Garland’s memo fails to cite any basis for law enforcement action by the DOJ or the FBI, but it hides that with a morass of official language that says nothing more than that federal law enforcement will provide some advice to local school boards. 

FBI agents and federal prosecutors (who have nothing better to do, apparently) will travel the country giving school boards the phone number of their local police and the web address of the FBI’s internet tip line.

After the sound and fury calms, nothing beside remains.

What do we make of all this? 

First, there is no reason to bring federal law enforcement into this; local authorities have this under control.

Second, Garland has demonstrated, disappointingly, that he is beholden to powerful leftist political groups and perfectly happy to let them use the threat of federal government’s law enforcement power to suppress their critics’ right to free speech. The promised impendence of the DOJ is a farce.

Third, it is more important to Garland to spend scarce law enforcement resources appeasing liberal interest groups than on more pressing national concerns.

Fourth, some good news, parents need not be afraid. It is their constitutional right to push back in legal ways against schools teaching children critical race theory.

Go forth to the school boards and make your voices heard.

Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email [email protected] and we’ll consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature. Remember to include the URL or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state. 

The Daily Signal depends on the support of readers like you. Donate now

McAuliffe vetoed a law that would have allowed parents to block their children's exposure to sexually explicit books in schools. Such as illustrations of oral sex and masturbation and Evision’s allegedly shows graphic descriptions of a man having sex with children.

Democratic Virginia Gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe said parents should not have authority over what schools teach their children during a debate Tuesday evening.

McAuliffe was challenged on his change in stance, as he previously advocated for protection for transgender students and now supports allowing local school districts to make independent decisions about controversial issues. His opponent, Republican candidate Glenn Youngkin, argued during the debate that local school districts should include parents in decisions regarding the educational content taught to their children.

“In regard to our kids in schools, we are called for everyone to love everyone,” Youngkin said. “And I agree with your conclusion, Terry [McAuliffe], that we should let local school districts actually make these decisions. But we must ask them to include concepts of safety and privacy and respect in the discussion and we must ask that they include parents in the dialogue.”

“I’m not gonna let parents come into schools and actually take books out and make their own decisions,” McAuliffe replied. “I stopped the bill that I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.” He explained that he supports parents having the right to veto books rather than make decisions for the schools on which books are placed in school libraries.

McAuliffe vetoed a bill, known as the “Beloved” bill in 2016 that would have allowed parents to block their childrens’ exposure to sexually explicit books in schools, the Washington Post previously reported. The legislation would have required teachers to inform parents of any “sexually explicit material” being presented in the classroom and give them the option to have their child opt out of the lesson. (RELATED: As Virginia Governor Race Draws To A Close, McAuliffe Will Not Name One Abortion Restriction He Supports) 

Youngkin criticized McAuliffe’s veto of the bill during his time as governor, arguing that “parents should be in charge of their kid’s education.” The Republican candidate mentioned parents’ uproar this past week over Fairfax County High School allegedly presenting “sexually explicit” material in the library without parental consent.

The school system removed the books “Gender Queer” by Maia Kobabe and “Lawn Boy” by Jonathon Evison from the high school library Friday, according to WTOP News. Kobabe’s book reportedly contains illustrations of oral sex and masturbation and Evision’s allegedly shows graphic descriptions of a man having sex with children.

The school board held a meeting Thursday evening during which parents challenged school administrators regarding their children’s accessibility to the books, according to the outlet.

By AL PERROTTA Published on September 27, 2021

By AL PERROTTA Published on September 27, 2021

Happy Monday!

We’d need to be an octopus to handle all the pots that are brewing this morning.

Remember how we were told Trump, along with groups like the Proud Boys were planning a violent “insurrection” on January 6? Further proof that was a lie emerged Saturday.

And the “conspiracy theory” that the Feds were in the middle of everything? One step closer to proven true.

The New York Times revealed Saturday that the FBI had an informant inside the Proud Boys who was with the group on January 6 at the Capitol. That informant had told the FBI the Proud Boys had no plans to commit violence and certainly no plans for an “insurrection.”

This is consistent with news from a few weeks ago that the FBI has determined nobody was planning any insurrection, or anything beyond trying to get in the Capitol … which, of course, was made easy by police actually opening up the doors for so many.

Last week, several videos were released from inside the Capitol that further disintegrated the myth that masses of Trump supporters were storming the Capitol to overthrow the government.

Revolver reported a few months ago that FBI agents and informers were not only active in groups planning to come to the rally, but were helping instigate the trouble that did erupt.

A couple questions:

• Just how many federal agents and informers were involved in the January 6 protests? And to what degree did they instigate the trouble?
• Since the Feds knew nobody was there to launch an insurrection or coup, when did Nancy Pelosi know this? Doesn’t this make the whole second impeachment a fraud? To say nothing of the entire “insurrection” narrative?
• Since Twitter used the notion of an attempted insurrection as an excuse to throw a massive number of conservatives off Twitter – including yours truly — can we have our suspensions lifted?

I know what the media says the Arizona audit found. Joe Biden still won. But that’s not what the report itself says. Biden won Arizona the way Lance Armstrong won the Tour de France. Like Rosie Ruiz won the Boston Marathon.

I lay out what the report actually says, and tie it in with evidence from other states, in “Forget the Spin on the Arizona Audit. It Proves the Election Was Corrupt.”

Interestingly, a draft of the audit report declared: “Based on these factual findings, the election should not be certified, and the reported results are not reliable.”

Joe Biden declared again last week that he is hellbent on raising taxes on the rich. What he failed to mention is he’s not even paying what he owes. According to a bipartisan government report, Biden could owe about $500,000 to the IRS in back Medicare payments.

One Hunter Biden painting sale should cover that. No problem.

Which gets to Biden’s bigger problem. His history of corruption and using his influence to enrich his family and friends. That’s not me saying it. Or Trump. Or Peter Schweiker. Ask Politico’s Ben Schreckinger. He’s got a new book out on the Bidens’ 50 year rise to power. He told CBS News Sunday morning, “I found a number of incidents which there were scandals, questions of favorable treatment surrounding some of their business dealings going all the way back to the 1970s.”

Both Joe Biden and Kamala Harris went to “war” against America’s own border agents, expressing horror at mounted agents “whipping” Haitian migrants trying to illegally cross the border. Biden promised the agents would be punished. “Make no mistake, those people will pay!” growled Biden.

Except it never happened. By the time Biden and Harris were attacking the agents, they knew the allegation was false. On Sunday, CNN’s Jake Tapper ripped Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for the administration’s slander of those protecting our border.

“Some of the initial descriptions of those images were just patently false,” Tapper said. “There’s now video out there that provides more context. Having seen the video are you certain that there was actually wrongdoing?”  (Imagine how Tapper would have framed it for a Trump official. “Why are you lying to the American people, and besmirching honest government workers?”)

Even with Tapper giving him an out, Mayorkas didn’t have the class or honesty to admit the border agents were simply and properly doing their job. Admit nobody was whipping anybody with anything. Only that the investigation would continue.

He also admitted to Fox News at least 12,000 of the illegal immigrants who flooded into Del Rio, Texas in recent weeks have been released into the U.S. And “the numbers could be even higher.”

Meanwhile, if Biden does follow through on his vow to punish the border agents, they won’t be out of a job long. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott told the agents Sunday, “You have a job in the state of Texas. I will hire you to help Texas secure our border.”

Great! But let’s look at the bigger picture: Joe Biden angrily and publicly threatened to punish border agents for successfully doing their job. He has refused to punish anyone in his administration for their abject failure in Afghanistan.  

John Zmirak has kicked off our week shredding the Red Flag bill passed by the House with the help from Republicans. John asks, “Did Matt Gaetz and 134 Other Republican Congressmen Just Swear Allegiance to the Taliban?”

Al Perrotta is the Managing Editor of The Stream, chief barista for The Morning Brew;and co-author, with John Zmirak, of; The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration. You can follow him at @StreamingAl at Gab, Parler, MeWe and now; GETTR.

Like the article? Share it with your friends! And use our social media pages to join or start the conversation! Find us on Facebook, Twitter, Parler, Instagram, MeWe and Gab.

September 22, 2021

This week, President Joe Biden attempted to inject life into his ailing presidency by dragging out of the closet the hoariest of political cliches: "fairness" in taxation. Touting his new $3.5 trillion tax and spending bill, which would radically increase corporate taxes, personal income taxes and so-called sin taxes, Biden stated, "It's not enough just to build back; we have to build back better than before ... I'm not out to punish anyone. I'm a capitalist. If you can make a million or a billion dollars, that's great. God bless you. All I'm asking is you pay your fair share. Pay your fair share just like middle-class folks do."

Of course, those who earn high incomes don't pay like middle-class folks do. They pay far, far more. IRS statistics show that the top 1% of income earners pay more in federal income tax than the bottom 90% combined — while the top 1% earned 21% of all income in 2018, they paid 40 % of all income tax revenue. The top 10 % paid over 70 % of all federal income tax. In fact, according to the American Enterprise Institute, those in the highest quintile of income earners pay, on average, well over $50,000 per year in net taxes — taxes minus government benefits received — while those in the bottom 60% of income earners receive net tax benefits. According to The Washington Post, the top 10 % of American income earners pay nearly half of all income taxes, compared with just 27% for the top 10% of Swedes, 31% for the top 10% of Germans, and 28% for France's top 10%.

So what, precisely, does Biden mean by "pay their fair share"?

Perhaps he means simple sloganeering. Like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez donning a Cinderella ball gown emblazoned with the words "TAX THE RICH" to the Met Gala — a dress made by Aurora James, a woman who owes tens of thousands of dollars in back taxes and who has received over $40,000 in federal pandemic aid — class warfare sloganeering is more about the sloganeering than the class warfare. No Democrat seems prepared to define what "fairness" constitutes, other than "a word I use to pander to the rubes, while hobnobbing with the rich."

And Biden's "fairness" pitch has to do with good economic policy, of course. In 2008, then-Sen. Barack Obama was asked during a debate about raising the capital gains tax, even if it lowered net government revenue. He answered, "I would look at raising the capital gains tax for purposes of fairness." In other words, Obama explicitly stated that he would damage the economy on behalf of a vague, kindergarten notion of equal outcome.

In the end, the "tax the rich to be fair" notion rests on a simple lie: the lie that income distribution is purely a matter of privilege or luck. It isn't. In the main, in a free market system, income distribution is the result of successful decision-making that must be incentivized rather than punished if we wish to see a more prosperous society. Some people game the system; some are indeed beneficiaries of insider deal-making. But most success in capitalism is due to innovation, entrepreneurialism and creativity. Biden's "fairness" cuts directly against these core elements of progress on behalf of political pandering.

If we truly care about fairness — a more nuanced and complete definition of fairness that encompasses rewards for productive decisions and disincentives for counterproductive decision-making — we must abandon the politically convenient notion that those who earn more have somehow stolen from the system and must be punished for their crimes. Lack of distributive equality does not equal unfairness, and anyone who argues differently abandons the real world — and the possibility of a better life for everyone — in favor of the flattering lie that all roads ought to end in the same basic material outcome.

Ben Shapiro, 37, is a graduate of UCLA and Harvard Law School, host of "The Ben Shapiro Show," and editor-in-chief of DailyWire.com. He is the author of the New York Times bestsellers "How To Destroy America In Three Easy Steps," "The Right Side Of History," and "Bullies." To find out more about Ben Shapiro and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Photo credit: Free-Photos at Pixabay

Like it? Share it!

•  
•  
•  

• 1

Mary Margaret Olohan / @MaryMargOlohan / September 22, 2021

Pressure from activists and mandate-minded lawmakers suggests that the religious objections of Americans to COVID-19 vaccine mandates may face more serious inquisition in the coming weeks. (Photo Illustration: photos/Getty Images)

Columbia University’s Robert Klitzman shared a tragic story with CNN Saturday of a woman riddled with cancer who reportedly refused to undergo medical procedures, relied on the power of prayer, and ultimately died.

“Her religious belief contributed to her death, unfortunately,” he said.

Klitzman, who directs Columbia’s bioethics master’s program, stressed that employees should not be able to easily obtain religious exemptions from President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandates, pointing to the extreme beliefs of jihadists and noting, “there are limits in our society to how far religious beliefs can go.”

He also suggested that the Biden administration should create “guidelines” to decide whether Americans’ religious objections measure up.

“The problem is a lot of religious exemptions that people are claiming … are based on myths,” he said. “People saying, for instance, ‘All vaccines are made using fetal cells, and I’m pro-life.’ That’s simply not true.”

A Biden administration official told The Daily Caller News Foundation Tuesday afternoon that protecting religious Americans “will be part of the policy process,” but did not further explain the remark. From the briefing room, White House press secretary Jen Psaki confirmed that some individuals may receive religious exemptions from the Biden mandate.

But pressure from activists and mandate-minded lawmakers suggests that the religious objections of Americans may face more serious inquisition in the coming weeks.

“How much can we ask? How far can we push? Do we have to accommodate this? Those are the questions employers are trying to figure out,” Society for Human Resource Management adviser Barbara Holland told The New York Times. “How do I tease out who’s not telling the truth?”

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, told reporters in early September that she was unaware “of a sanctioned religious exemption from any organized religion,” dismissing the idea that health care workers could be religiously exempt from the state’s vaccine mandate.

“To the extent that there’s leadership of different religious organizations that have spoken, and they have, I’m not aware of a sanctioned religious exemption from any organized religion,” Hochul said. “In fact, they’re encouraging the opposite. They’re encouraging their members, everybody from the pope on down, is encouraging people to get vaccinated. So people will say what they choose.” 

But neither the governor of New York nor any employer has the authority to tell an individual what he or she believes, Ethics and Public Policy Center senior fellow Roger Severino told The Daily Caller News Foundation.

Should an employer rebut the religious objection of a Catholic employee by noting that the pope had encouraged Catholics to get vaccinated, Severino told The Daily Caller News Foundation, that would amount to religious discrimination.

“For employers to say, ‘you are wrong’ about your own beliefs is a) arrogant and b) discriminatory because people are entitled to their own religious beliefs,” Severino said. “Even if they disagree with their own religious leaders.”

Many thousands of Americans are seeking religious exemptions to vaccine mandates, citing reports that some of the vaccines were developed using aborted fetal cell lines. Objectors also cite concerns over the haste with which the vaccines were made, anxieties over the vaccines’ effects on fertility, and distaste for the authoritarian government mandates.

Under the Americans with Disabilities Act and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, U.S. employers are required to accommodate their employees’ “sincerely held” religious beliefs—including potential religious objections to a vaccine. 

“Public institutions should not act like inquisitorial boards, quizzing people’s religious beliefs and trying to find holes because somebody has a different view of things,” said Severino, who is the former director of the Office of Civil Rights at the United States Department of Health and Human Services.  “If separation of church and state means anything, it means that state institutions don’t second guess to try to resolve religious truths.”

There is longstanding legal precedent for workplace religious accommodations to be taken as sincere, Religious Freedom & Business Foundation President Brian Grim told The Daily Caller News Foundation.

“They are viewed as personal religious convictions rather than ecclesiastical, in other words, matters of conscience rather than doctrine per se, given that there is wide variety in how people put to practice their faiths,” Grim said. “The question then becomes whether the accommodation request puts an undue burden on the employer, who is also protected by law and responsible for the health and well-being of all employees.”

U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission guidance warns that “whether or not a religious belief is sincerely held by an applicant or employee is rarely at issue in many types of Title VII religious claims.

“For example,” the guidance said, “with respect to an allegation of discriminatory discharge or harassment, it is the motivation of the discriminating official, not the actual beliefs of the individual alleging discrimination, that is relevant in determining if the discrimination that occurred was because of religion.”

Neither the commission nor the courts should “be in the business of deciding whether a person holds religious beliefs for the ‘proper’ reasons,” the guidance said, but they may examine the individual’s motives or reasons for holding the belief.

An individual would not be deemed insincere in his belief just because he is not scrupulous in his observance, the guidance notes, but an employee’s credibility could be undermined by behaving “in a manner markedly inconsistent with the professed belief,” if the accommodation the individual is seeking would have a “particularly desirable benefit that is likely to be sought for secular reasons,” if the timing of the religious objection is suspect, or if the employer has other reasons to believe the “accommodation is not sought for religious reasons.”

None of these factors are final, however: An individual may inconsistently practice his faith but still hold sincerely held beliefs, or an individual may have “forgone his or her sincerely held religious practice” out of fear of discrimination, according to the EEOC guidance.

Legal experts at the Alliance Defending Freedom are evaluating what the Biden administration mandates mean for religious employers and churches.

“Should these mandates encroach on the First Amendment freedoms and autonomy of religious institutions, ADF stands ready to challenge the administration in federal court,” ADF President and CEO Michael Farris and General Counsel Kristen Waggoner said in a statement.

Some have already taken the mandates to court.

In early September, a group of 17 health professionals represented by the Thomas More Society sued New York and Hochul, accusing the state of violating Title VII and constitutional rights through its vaccination mandate and by disavowing religious exemptions.

The United States District Court for the Northern District of New York granted a temporary restraining order to the medical workers Sept. 14, barring the New York Department of Health “from interfering in any way with the granting of religious exemptions from COVID-19 vaccination going forward.”

New York Medical Workers Su… by Mary Margaret Olohan

Hochul, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Daily Caller News Foundation, has until Sept. 22 to respond in court.

“What New York is attempting to do is slam shut an escape hatch from an unconstitutional vaccine mandate,” Christopher Ferrara, Thomas More Society special counsel attorney, said in a Sept. 14 statement. “And they are doing this while knowing that many people have sincere religious objections to vaccines that were tested, developed, or produced with cell lines derived from aborted children.”

Analysis by the Charlotte Lozier Institute released in December 2020 found that AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson use abortion-derived cell lines in development, production, and lab testing.

Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna, Novavax, and Inovio use abortion-derived cells in some tests but do not use abortion-derived cells in other tests, the analysis found, but these four do not use abortion-derived cell lines in development or production of the vaccine.

Charlotte Lozier Institute Vice President Dr. David Prentice previously told The Daily Caller News Foundation that when abortion-derived cell lines are used in the production of a vaccine, that means the cells are “directly involved in making the final product, the vaccine that is injected in our arms.”

“It is an essential element for the final vaccine,” Prentice said. “Although the connection is distant both in time and space, since the abortion occurred decades ago and the cells have been grown in the lab ever since, that connection to abortion remains and is of concern to many Americans. ”

Laboratory testing using abortion-derived cell lines is potentially less morally problematic, since it is “another step removed” Prentice said.

“When an abortion-derived cell line is used in laboratory testing, that is not done within the production line,” he explained. “It’s a confirmatory test done on the final vaccine, to validate what the scientists believe they’ve produced.”

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities for this original content, email [email protected].

Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email [email protected] and we’ll consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature. Remember to include the URL or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state. 

The Daily Signal depends on the support of readers like you. Donate now

Mary Margaret Olohan is a reporter covering social issues for The Daily Caller News Foundation.