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Virginia Parents Fight Ill-Founded School Mask Mandates

Virginia Parents Fight Ill-Founded School Mask Mandates

By John R Guardiano on January 25, 2022

But this time, their governor, newly inaugurated Republican Glenn Youngkin, has their back and is fighting for them.

Brave parents, teachers and schoolchildren in Northern Virginia are waging a valiant struggle for students to attend school unmasked, even as the public schools bureaucracy acts to punish them for their heresy.

This latest skirmish arose because Virginia’s new Republican Governor, Glenn Youngkin, signed an executive order that allows individual parents to decide whether their children will attend school masked or unmasked.

In so doing, Youngkin is keeping faith with the voters who elected him, as parental rights was a major campaign issue in his 2021 race for governor.

Virginia parents, like parents nationwide, had reached their wits end because of schools that would not open, teachers who would not teach, and a curriculum that would not steer clear of far-left political and cultural indoctrination.

Yet, some prominent school districts in Northern Virginia remain obstinate and unmoved. They literally are turning away unmasked students, or isolating them and segregating them from the classroom.

The issue will soon be taken up by the Virginia State Supreme Court. Gov. Youngkin says he is confident that his executive order will be vindicated by the Virginia jurists. Virginia code § 1-240.1, he notes, says “a parent has fundamental right to make decisions concerning the upbringing, education, and care of the parent’s child.”

The problem is that the Virginia state legislature passed a law in 2021 requiring school boards to adhere

to the maximum extent practicable, to any currently applicable mitigation strategies for early childhood care and education programs and elementary and secondary schools to reduce the transmission of COVID-19 that have been provided by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The CDC recommends “universal indoor masking by all students (ages 2 years and older), staff, teachers, and visitors to K-12 schools, regardless of vaccination status.”

Of course, the science behind this CDC recommendation is utterly lacking.

Students are not efficient transmitters of the coronavirus and teachers are not at serious risk of contracting COVID from students. “A North Carolina study conducted before vaccines were available,” write Drs. Marty Makary and H. Cody Meissner

found not a single case of student-to-teacher transmission when 90,000 students were in school. The faster-spreading Delta [and Omicron variants have] emerged since—but many teachers, parents and children 12 and over have also been vaccinated.

And masks—especially the cloth masks that most students have been wearing and are still wearing—do little to nothing to stop or slow the spread of COVID.

In fact, when, in 2020, the CDC actually studied the efficacy of masking schoolchildren, it found that, in Georgia, “the lower incidence in schools that required mask use among students was not statistically significant compared with schools where mask use was optional.”

To date, some 862,000 Americans have died with or from COVID. Nearly 75 percent of these deaths have been people 65 years of age or older.

Only 4.2 percent of these deaths have been people 45 years of age or younger. And only a minuscule fraction of one percent, less than 1,000 deaths, have been people 17 years of age or younger.

The idea that schoolchildren need to be masked to protect them and others from COVID simply is not borne out by either the science or the data.

Thus the Northern Virginia school districts that insist on masking schoolchildren are acting in defiance of the science and, arguably, in contravention of state law. They also are acting against the express wishes of most Virginia parents as shown by Youngkin’s election as governor.

For this reasons, school districts ought to allow parents to decide whether their children should be masked, especially while the issue works its way through the judicial system. That is the right, just, and honorable thing to do.

Instead, schools are punishing students for following a lawful gubernatorial executive order. This is wrong and unconscionable, and the school administrators who are doing this ought to be held accountable by their school boards and by the parents whom they are supposed to serve.

Feature photo credit: Parents protest against school mask mandates and remote learning in Trenton, New Jersey, June 3, 2021, courtesy of Jose F. Moreno, in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

A Lesson in Left-Wing Media Bias: the NYT Obits of Sen. Tom Coburn and Fidel Castro

A Lesson in Left-Wing Media Bias: the NYT Obits of Sen. Tom Coburn and Fidel Castro

By John R Guardiano on March 29, 2020

The media lean overwhelmingly to the left. This should be obvious to anyone who is a serious consumer of news and information. But here’s a very timely and illustrative example of this bias, courtesy of eagle-eyed John Tabin.

It concerns the New York Times’ coverage of former Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Oklahoma), a highly principled conservative who, sadly, passed away Saturday at the age of 72 due to complications with prostate cancer.

Coburn was always “direct, thoughtful, and principled,” tweets Washington Examiner executive editor Philip Klein. “He will be sorely missed. RIP.”

He “was one of the finest public servants of my lifetime,” adds Klein’s colleague, Washington Examiner columnist Quin Hillyer:

[A] practicing obstetrician, [Coburn] combined fierce devotion to principle with rigorous intellectual integrity and tremendous personal decency.

One of the most hard-line conservatives in first the House and then the Senate, he nonetheless enjoyed the respect and friendship of many liberal Democrats.

Not the least of these was President Barack Obama, with whom he reportedly spoke in private, as a friend and sounding board, almost weekly throughout Obama’s White House tenure…

When Coburn arrived on Capitol Hill in the “Gingrich Revolution” Republican class of 1994, he was an unyielding ideologue.

Even then, though, there was a difference: Whereas some super-hard-liners are full of sound and fury without much thoughtfulness, Coburn obviously had depth and intellect…

Rather than being a gadfly, Coburn became an effective leader, without ever doing the “go-along to get-along” kind of games.

He began publishing an annual Wastebook highlighting absurd government spending and also a weekly “pork report” listing egregious examples of wasteful projects from almost every federal agency.

He took the lead in opposing Obamacare while pushing real healthcare reforms of a conservative variety, some of which have gone into law piecemeal over the years even without passage in a single, comprehensive bill.

And, often working with Democrats, he became a leader in providing effective congressional oversight and insisting that government operate with public transparency.

As Democratic Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan put it, Coburn was “tough, fearless, and more interested in facts than politics.”

Yet, the lead sentence of the New York Times obituary of Coburn describes him as an “ultraconservative” “crusader” and legislative obstructionist whom “frustrated legislators” called “Dr. No.”

In other words, Coburn wasn’t a very pleasant fellow. He was ornery and disagreeable, and he was always blocking and obstructing legislative progress. Boo!

By contrast, the lead sentence of the New York Times obituary of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro describes him as

the fiery apostle of revolution who brought the Cold War to the Western Hemisphere in 1959 and then defied the United States for nearly half a century as Cuba’s maximum leader, bedeviling 11 American presidents and briefly pushing the world to the brink of nuclear war, died on Friday.

The Times’ obit is accompanied by a glamorous photo of Fidel smoking a cigar and looking cool, thoughtful, and contemplative. Castro must have been an interesting and colorful character! the reader is lead to believe.

I mean, who is this “fiery apostle of revolution” who, almost miraculously, outfoxed the United States decade after decade?!

In fact, Castro was a sadistic dictator who authorized the murder of tens of thousands of Cubans, while forcing the island into a decades-long immiseration that continues to this day.

People streamed out of the country, if they were able,” recalled National Review…

Over the years of the Castro regime, one million Cubans have gone into exile. Some Cubans have been shot in the water, in their attempts to flee.

On one day—July 13, 1994—there was an infamous massacre, the Tugboat Massacre: Castro’s forces killed 37 would-be escapees, most of them children and their mothers.

What kind of regime does this? What kind of regime would rather kill people, in cold blood, than see them leave? Than see them have a free life?

The Castro regime, and it has been very popular, though not in Cuba.

This is how the media’s left-wing bias works. It’s not that they report outright lies and falsehoods, or blatantly “fake news.” That would be too egregious and noticeable.

Instead, it is that they use language and prose that shows real sympathy, understanding, and indulgence toward political figures on the left, but considerable skepticism and hostility toward political figures on the right.

And that is how and why the New York Times—one of the greatest newspapers in history and one of the greatest newspapers still even today—can write admiringly of a vicious tyrant like Fidel Castro, while writing critically of a dedicated family man and patriot like Tom Coburn.

Don’t call it fake news. Call it twisted and distorted news.

Feature post credit: Poynter.

Is Fox News’s LTC Daniel L. Davis (Ret.) on Putin’s Payroll?

Is Fox News’s LTC Daniel L. Davis (Ret.) on Putin’s Payroll?

By John R Guardiano on March 6, 2022

It’s not just Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham. Fox’s pro-Putin appeasers include a retired Army Lieutenant Colonel named Daniel Davis.

There has been a lot of criticism of Fox News primetime hosts Laura Ingraham and Tucker Carlson for their jarring pro-Putin, anti-Ukraine commentary.

This criticism is well-deserved. But retired Army Lieutenant Colonel Daniel L. Davis, a featured Fox News military commentator, is a far worse Putin shill or stooge.

And, alarmingly, insofar as I have seen, Davis’s pro-Putin propaganda on Fox goes unchallenged by the network’s anchors and reporters:

I report and truth decides. Here is Davis on Fox News, Feb. 24, 2022:

Davis: I think that we’re really misreading what’s going on with Putin here. I don’t think that he’s after trying to rebuild the Soviet Union. I think he means what he’s been saying for 15 years: that NATO and Ukraine is a redline that he will fight to prevent. And he proved it in 2008 with Georgia.

He proved it in 2014 with Crimea. And even as recently as last December, he was saying, “You guys just aren’t believing me. I was serious about this. This is a redline.” And then when he started building up these forces, he was showing us.

We [the United States] had every opportunity to just acknowledge reality and we should have pulled the NATO offer off the table for Ukraine.

That could probably have been the one thing that might have prevented this war entirely. But instead, we wanted to hold with principles and stuff and now the people of Ukraine are paying for that.

Now, let me be very clear: Nobody is responsible for the blood except for Vladimir Putin. Nobody. But we could have mitigated this. We could have.

Fox News Anchor Trace Gallagher: And, you know, Tulsi Gabbard kind of echoed that, Colonel, if you will. She was saying, you know, maybe somebody should have listened at least a little bit to what the President of Russia was saying.

Because if you were saying: Listen, I don’t want weapons. I don’t want NATO weapons that close to my country.

And you know, an example somebody gave tonight was: listen, the United States didn’t want Cuba to have NATO weapons [sic] that close to their country. So, you know, countries are very territorial and they don’t want that.

So, nobody is letting Putin off the hook by any stretch here, Colonel. But what you’re saying is that there might have been a pathway to resolve, earlier in this diplomatic debate.

Davis: One-hundred percent. I’ve been saying for months on this network that that very thing right there: that we had a shot to deescalate this and remove Vladimir Putin’s reason for actually launching an invasion.

Notice: Davis gives a quick and obligatory, pro forma denunciation of Putin as the person responsible for the Russian war against Ukraine. However, the thrust of his commentary is altogether different.

NATO Expansion. The thrust of Davis’s commentary is that America and NATO could have stoped Putin from invading Ukraine if they had simply recognized his “red line” concerning NATO membership.

But this is patently untrue, and we know it is untrue because Putin himself has explicitly said that his concern about Ukraine extends far beyond NATO. Putin views Ukraine as an allegedly lost Russia territory whose sovereignty and independence must be destroyed regardless of what becomes of NATO.

As I’ve explained here and in the Wall Street Journal, NATO’s expansion after the Cold War resulted from Russian threats and aggression; it did not cause Russian threats and aggression.

For Putin,

NATO expansion was always a convenient pretext, but never the reason, for Russia’s invasions of Ukraine… NATO [moreover], saved Europe from Russian military domination, and it would have deterred Russia this time had Ukraine been a NATO member.

Yet, despite this clear and unambiguous history, Gallagher adds insult to injury by agreeing with Davis (!) and saying “somebody should have listened at least a little bit to what the President of Russia was saying.”

Cuba. Gallagher then references Cuba and says, essentially, that when, back in 1962, the Soviet Union placed missiles in Cuba, the United States took this as a hostile act. So of course, he argues, Russia views NATO encroachment in its near abroad as a hostile act.

Finally, Davis chimes in:

We have to acknowledge that if Russia was trying to have a military alliance with Mexico, and they were gonna put Russian troops on the ground there, there is no way we would ever be satisfied and okay with that.

And it is unrealistic for us to expect Putin to have the exact same thing on his border and be okay with it.

What Davis and Gallagher conveniently ignore: NATO is a defensive alliance of free, sovereign, and independent states.

Putin knows full well that Poland and other NATO countries have absolutely zero intention of ever invading Russia. Nor do non-NATO countries, such as Ukraine, have any interest in invading Russia or acting as a platform for a NATO invasion of Russia—and again, Putin knows this.

Historically speaking, in fact, the East European countries have never threatened Russia; Russia has threatened them, and that remains true today.

The Soviet Union, by contrast, was bent on world domination, which is why President Kennedy, in 1962, acted to ensure that Russian missiles were removed from Cuba.

So no, NATO in Europe near Russia today is not at all the equivalent of the Soviet Union in the Western hemisphere near the United States at the height of the Cold War. This is an utterly false equivalence.

Nor does Mexico have reason to fear an American invasion, which is why there never will be any Russian troops in Mexico. Again, this is a ludicrous analogy divorced from all political and historical reality.

Davis goes on:

All we have to do is just treat Russia the way we did all during the Cold War… We cooperated with them and we had an understanding: We wouldn’t get into their territory and they wouldn’t get into ours, and that was that balance there.

We have to now recognize that this is not 1994 anymore, and we can’t just tell them what is gonna happen, or we’re gonna have an even worse situation than we have now.

Again, this is factually and historically inaccurate and it is the counsel of appeasement. Seldom has so much disinformation and blatant pro-Putin propaganda been crammed into so few words.

What Davis euphemistically calls “cooperation” is appeasement, and that is not what guided American and NATO policy during the Cold War.

Instead, the United States and NATO checked the Soviets—in Greece, Turkey, Korea, Berlin, Cuba, Africa, Asia, Central America, and around the globe. And it is because we checked the Soviets that the Cold War ended and Eastern Europe was freed of Russian domination.

Yet, Davis says that Eastern Europe, including Ukraine, is “their territory,” meaning Russian territory. Putin, of course, agrees; but this is a lie. The countries of Eastern Europe—including Poland, the Baltic states, and Ukraine—are free and sovereign states, not “Russian territory” that ought to be ruled by Moscow.

So I ask you: is Daniel Davis a Russian stooge? Is he on Putin’s payroll? Or is he simply too historically illiterate and ill-informed to separate fact from fiction?

More to the point, why does Fox continue to feature Davis as a military commentator when he spouts such blatantly pro-Putin, anti-America propaganda? Does this enrich the public dialogue and debate? Is this fair and balanced?

Feature photo credit: Fox News military commentator Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Davis (L) and Fox News anchor Trace Gallagher (R), captured via screen shots of a Fox News broadcast, Feb. 24, 2022.

DeSantis’s Ukraine Statement Shows He Follows Trump, Not Reagan

DeSantis’s Ukraine Statement Shows He Follows Trump, Not Reagan

By John R Guardiano on March 14, 2023

Because DeSantis has adopted Trump’s foreign policy of appeasement, Reagan conservatives no longer can support him. Instead, they must look to other 2024 GOP presidential candidates.

The war for the Republican Party can best be understood as pitting Reaganites against Trumpsters.

Reaganites believe in fiscal responsibility, debt reduction, free trade, peace through strength, a proactive and assertive U.S. foreign policy, and honest, judicious administration of government.

Trumpsters believe in fiscal irresponsibility, debt expansion, protectionism, appeasement and retreat, a go-it-alone, hidebound U.S. foreign policy, and a chaotic and suspect administration of government.

Those of us who had supported Florida Governor Ron DeSantis for the 2024 presidential nomination had hoped that he would pick up the Reagan mantle, take the fight to Trump, and reclaim the Republican Party, so that, once again, we can enjoy conservative political victories and not the steady and mounting stream of political losses brought about by the Trumpsters.

DeSantis’s Statement. Alas, as we now know, through the release of DeSantis’s statement about Russia and Ukraine to MAGA political boss Tucker Carlson, it is not to be. DeSantis has revealed himself as a political disciple not of Reagan but of Trump.

Indeed, like his mentor, Donald Trump, DeSantis calls Russia’s illegal and horrific war on Ukraine a “territorial dispute” that is not a vital interest of the United States. And he warns against becoming “further entangled” in this “territorial dispute,” because it “distracts from our country’s most pressing challenges.”

Of course, much the same could have been said, and was said, about Nazi Germany’s “territorial disputes” with Poland and Czechoslovakia.

But farsighted conservative leaders then (Winston Churchill, for instance) recognized that the attempted Nazi German subjugation of Europe was not a “territorial dispute”; it was an attempt to conquer and enslave other countries and other peoples.

The same is true today of Russia’s war on Ukraine: It is not a “territorial dispute.” It is a naked attempt by one country to conquer and subsume another. And, as every American president, Republican and Democrat, has recognized since at least the Second World War, the United States has a vital national interest in ensuring that Europe remains peaceful, stable, and free.

China. DeSantis points out that the United States must devote its efforts to “checking the economic, cultural, and military power of the Chinese Community Party.”

This is true. But China is formally aligned with Russia and will draw either inspiration of perspiration from our success or failure in Ukraine.

After all “nothing succeeds like success. Countries respect the prerogatives of the strong or successful horse. Failure, by contrast, breeds more failure.

DeSantis doesn’t seem to understand this. Nor does he seem to realize that the United States needs allies to confront China. But how likely are the Europeans to help us confront China if we abandon them on Ukraine?

China has designs on Taiwan. Is that also a “territorial dispute” which DeSantis thinks we should avoid becoming “entangled” in? Certainly, the analysis that he applies to Ukraine applies as well to Taiwan, a fact that is not lost on the Communist leaders of China.

DeSantis says that “the Biden administration’s policies have driven Russia into a defacto alliance with China.”

But the historical record clearly shows that China and Russia have had a defacto alliance against America and the West for many years. DeSantis suggests that appeasing Russia in Ukraine will somehow make Russia nice again.

Really? Why would anyone think this, given Russia’s two decades of antagonism toward the United States?

Arming Ukraine. DeSantis says that we mustn’t provide Ukraine with F-16s and long-range missiles, because these would enable Ukraine to “engage in offensive operations beyond its borders.”

This, he warns, “would risk explicitly drawing the United States into the conflict” and possible result in a “hot war between the world’s two largest nuclear powers. That risk is unacceptable,” he declares.

But aircraft and long-range missiles are needed to help Ukraine defeat Russia. Is DeSantis opposed to Ukraine winning and retaining its independence and sovereignty?

Moreover, how does Ukraine defeating Russia increase the likelihood of a hot war between Russia and the United States? If anything, the opposite is true, no?

A defeated and chastened Russia exhausted from its war in Ukraine is far less likely to confront the United States simply because it lacks the means and wherewithal to do so.

Escalation. Finally, DeSantis warns against “regime change” in Russia and an “escalation” of the war in Ukraine.

But the Ukrainians obviously are not fighting for “regime change” in Russia. They are fighting for their territorial integrity, independence, and sovereignty. And an “escalation,” or further war, is likely if Ukraine loses, not if it wins.

If Ukraine loses, then an emboldened Russia will seek to cause further mischief for the United States in Asia and the Middle East, even as it looks for new “spheres of influence” (read: territorial subjugation and conquest) within Europe.

DeSantis warns against a “blank check” for Ukraine, but it looks like he would give Putin a “blank check” in Ukraine and Eastern Europe. Is that in the American national interest?

Conclusion. For these reasons, GOP voters who take foreign policy seriously cannot possibly support DeSantis for president in 2024.

Instead, they must look elsewhere: to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, Senator Tim Scott, and Vice President Mike Pence. These men and women appear to be Reagaites. DeSantis, unfortunately, is a Trumpster.

Feature photo credit: Trump and DeSantis, two peas in the same isolationist or non-interventionist foreign policy pod, courtesy of Vanity Fair.

Why the West Mustn’t Give Putin an ‘Off-Ramp’ or a ‘Face-Saving’ Way Out

Why the West Mustn’t Give Putin an ‘Off-Ramp’ or a ‘Face-Saving’ Way Out

By John R Guardiano on March 1, 2022

Defeat and discredit Putin so that a new Russian leader and a new Russian leadership class can emerge.

Putin’s invasion of Ukraine had barely begun when the councils of caution warned that we must tread carefully and give Putin an “off-ramp” or a way that might allow him to “back down while retaining some semblance of face.”

It sounds so reasonable and so judicious—especially after Putin intimated that he might be prepared to use nuclear weapons. But in fact, this is exactly the wrong approach.

Giving Putin an “off-ramp” and allowing him to “save face” will allow him to retain power in Russia. It will inspire and motivate like-minded Russian politicians who wish to inherit his mantle of political authoritarianism, military imperialism, personal plunder, and misrule.

It will mean that Putin will live, politically, to fight another day and to continue menacing Europe, America, and the West.

Thus the only wise and acceptable course of action is to defeat and discredit Putin: so that he is replaced by a new Russian leader who respects international norms, international law, and the territorial sovereignty of free and independent states.

The Russian Elite. This is achievable. Russia, after all, is not Iraq or Afghanistan. Despite its myriad problems, Russia has a well-educated elite that can assume the reins of political power and exercise political authority.

But this will not happen, and it cannot happen, unless and until Putin is defeated and thoroughly discredited in the eyes of his countrymen, especially the Russian elite.

As we have noted, Putin serves at the pleasure of a rich and cosseted Russian mafia oligarchy. If and when this oligarchy finds that Putin is bad for business, it will force him from power.

But that won’t happen if we insist on creating a safe space for Vladimir and a zone of comfort in which he can “save face.”

As for Putin’s brandishing of nuclear weapons, perspective is needed.

First, nuclear saber rattling is nothing new for the Russians. During the Cold War, the Soviets often intimated that they might use nukes, or that a nuclear conflagration might result should America and the West not accede to their demands. So take their latest threat with a big grain of salt.

Second, as Russia’s poor military performance in Ukraine thus far is amply demonstrating, the Russian military is subpar.

Their conventional military units are formidable on paper, but surprisingly weak in battle. Nuclear weapons and cyber warfare capabilities are about all the Russians have to intimidate and frighten the West. So of course they play that card diplomatically and in communications designed for public consumption.

But in truth, as Alexander S. Vindman points out:

Despite Putin’s bluster, the rules of great-power competition and confrontation have not changed since the beginning of the Cold War. But we have forgotten how to confront a belligerent, saber-rattling Russia.

A previous generation of policymakers would have managed tensions while standing up to intimidation and calling out incendiary rhetoric. In truth, Russian leaders have no interest in a nuclear war or a bilateral conventional conflict that they would certainly lose.

The West has far more room to maneuver than it appears to grasp.

In other words: nuclear saber-rattling by Putin is a reflection of Russian weakness, not Russian strength.

The bottom line: America and Europe need a new Russian leader and a new type of Russian leadership. We need Russian leaders who, at a minimum, respect international norms, international law, and the territorial sovereignty of other states.

But this objective never will be achieved if we insist on accepting Putin’s misrule as inevitable and as something that we must recognize and accommodate.

“Off-ramps” and “face-saving measures” for Putin are inimical to achieving the West’s desired end state: a Russia free of Putin and Putinism.

Feature photo credit: Associated Press photo of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin (L) and jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny (R) courtesy of Sky News.

COVID19 v. Religious Liberty in America and at the Supreme Court

COVID19 v. Religious Liberty in America and at the Supreme Court

By John R Guardiano on December 6, 2020

The Court broke important new ground when it struck down New York’s discriminatory COVID19 public health restrictions.

The Supreme Court decision striking down COVID19 public health restrictions that discriminate against religious observers in contravention of the First Amendment is important for several reasons which have not been fully remarked upon.

This is in part because of the timing of the Court’s decision. Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn v. Cuomo was handed down just hours before the start of the Thanksgiving Day holiday and soon was eclipsed by the political drama surrounding the 2020 election.

Moreover, the losers in this case—Cuomo and other Democratic governors indifferent or hostile to the imperatives of religious liberty—have downplayed the importance of the decision.

Cuomo, for instance, said the ruling “doesn’t have any practical effect” because, prior to the Court’s decision, he had removed the restrictions on religious services.

Cass Sunstein, likewise, says “the decision is hardly pathbreaking”; and that “it’s wrong to say the decision shows the sudden ascendancy of a new conservative majority” on the Court.

Really? In truth, as Jacob Sullum observes:

This is the third time that the Court has considered applications for emergency injunctions against pandemic-inspired limits on religious gatherings.

In the two earlier cases, involving restrictions imposed by California and Nevada, the Court said no.

Those decisions were backed by Chief Justice John Roberts, along with Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor. Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh dissented both times.

This time around, the replacement of Ginsburg with Amy Coney Barrett proved decisive, as the recently confirmed justice sided with Thomas et al. in granting the injunction sought by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn and Agudath Israel of America, which sued on behalf of the Orthodox synagogues it represents.

In short, contra Sunstein, there is a new conservative or originalist majority on the court, thanks to the arrival of Justice Barrett. And, as Sunstein correctly points out, this new conservative majority “will be highly protective of the rights of religious believers.

“The core of the case,” he explains, “was a claim of discrimination against churches and synagogues…

[Despite the 5-4 decision], everyone on the court agreed that if New York discriminated against houses of worship, its action would have to be struck down, pandemic or no pandemic. That idea breaks no new ground.

Of course, the principle at stake here—religious liberty—breaks no new ground because it is explicitly inscribed into the First Amendment of the Constitution.

But where new ground is broken is in the willingness of the Court, finally, to protect religious liberty against government encroachment during a pandemic or public health emergency.

“Even if the Constitution has taken a holiday during this pandemic,” writes Justice Gorsuch, “it cannot become a sabbatical… [The] courts must resume applying the Free Exercise Clause. Today, a majority of the Court makes this plain.”

The four dissenters argued that the Court should refrain from providing injunctive relief to religious observers because Cuomo had since rescinded his discriminatory restrictions against religious ceremonies. But as the majority pointed out:

It is clear that this matter is not moot… Injunctive relief is still called for because the applicants are under a constant threat that the area in question will be reclassified as red or orange…

The Governor regularly changes the classification of particular areas without notice. If that occurs again, the reclassification will almost certainly bar individuals in the affected area from attending services before judicial relief can be obtained.

The Court’s decision is important for two other reasons:

Secular Indifference. First, as Ron Brownstein notes in The Atlantic, demographically, America is becoming much less religious and far more secular. The danger, then, is that Americans will become increasingly indifferent to religious liberty and willing to countenance state encroachments on fundamental First Amendment rights.

Of course, this would be unthinkable to earlier generations of Americans who came to this country fleeing religious persecution precisely to enjoy religious liberty. This is significantly less true of recent generations of Americans, who are much more secular in their outlook.

Justice Gorsuch, in fact, warns that, “in far too many places, for far too long, our first freedom has fallen on deaf ears… We may not shelter in place,” he writes, “when the Constitution is under attack. Things never go well when we do.”

That the Court will act to protect religious liberty and the Constitution from an increasingly secular populace for whom religious liberty means very little is no small thing.

Justice Gorsuch. Second, Justice Gorsuch’s concurring opinion is a ringing defense of religious liberty. This is important because, less than six months ago, Gorsuch wrote the majority opinion in Bostock v. Clayton County, which many feared might upend religious liberty in America.

In Bostock v. Clayton County, Gorsuch discovered that, unbeknownst to the legislators who drafted the law, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employment discrimination because of sexual orientation or gender identity.

As David French observed, for religious institutions, the consequences of that ruling are potentially dramatic.

Should Christian colleges and schools be subject to lawsuits for upholding church teachings on human sexuality?

Does this case mean that the law now views Christians as akin to klansmen, and thus brings religious institutions one step closer to losing their tax exemptions?

French did not think so, noting that, in his decision,

Justice Gorsuch goes out of his way to reassure that the guarantee of free exercise of religion “lies at the heart of our pluralistic society.”

…[Moreover], there are a series of cases already on the court’s docket that are likely (based on judicial philosophy and court trends) to [protect religious liberty to a considerable extent].

…Stay tuned!

I, too, was skeptical that Bostock v. Clayton County was a far-reaching defeat for religious liberty. “Don’t be too despairing,” I wrote.

While the result in this case is regrettable and worrisome, all is not lost. This is one case that hinges on one statute. And while its effects will be longstanding and widespread, the damage can be contained by both Congress and the Court in future legislation and in future cases.

Well, the ruling in one such future case is now in, and it is a resounding win for religious liberty, with a ringing concurring opinion authored by the very same justice (Gorsuch) who wrote the majority opinion in Bostock v. Clayton County.

This surely bodes well for religious liberty on the Court and in America.

The bottom line: Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn v. Cuomo is a very important decision because it heralds the rise of a new conservative or originalist majority on the Court that will act to protect religious liberty against government encroachment even if doing so is politically unpopular.

And Justice Gorsuch at least sees no necessary contradiction between jurisprudence that protects religious liberty and jurisprudence that protects the rights of gay men and women.

Stay tuned.

Feature photo credit: Justice Neil Gorsuch in The Federalist.

The House Article of Impeachment Is No Bar to Trump’s Conviction

The House Article of Impeachment Is No Bar to Trump’s Conviction

By John R Guardiano on January 24, 2021

Incitement of insurrection may not perfectly capture Trump’s wrongdoing, but it is close enough for the Senate to do its Constitutional duty.

One of the excuses that Congressional Republicans and their media partisans are using to avoid impeaching and convicting Trump is that the 45th President of the United States, they say, did not actually incite the Jan. 6, 2021, riot that cause five deaths and scores of serious injuries.

Yet, the Article of Impeachment that the House of Representatives approved Jan. 13, 2021, charges Trump with an “incitement of insurrection.” Therefore, they argue, Trump cannot fairly be impeached and convicted because the charge against him does not match or correspond with what he did and did not do.

Acknowledgements. Some Congressional Republicans acknowledge that Trump may have provoked or inspired the mob to march on the Capitol to pressure Congress into not ratifying the electoral college results. However, they say, what he did is not legally defined as incitement.

Moreover, say many Congressional Republicans, the House Article of Impeachment errs by calling the violent riot at the Capitol an insurrection when it was, in fact, a riot.

Ergo: while Trump should be condemned for acting irresponsibly, he should not have been impeached by the House of Representatives and he should not be convicted of impeachment.

These are interesting legal arguments that address ancillary technical issues, but they are utterly irrelevant to the question of impeachment.

To paraphrase the former Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, in a different context: You impeach and convict a dangerous and derelict president with the Articles of Impeachment you have, not the Articles of Impeachment you wish you had.

Again, impeachment is a political and not judicial act. Thus the power of impeachment is vested in the legislative and not judicial branch of government. Consequently, the legal standard for impeachment and conviction is less strict and exacting than it is in a court of criminal law.

At issue is not whether Trump violated a specific criminal statute, but rather whether his conduct as president was so grossly derelict and dangerous that he ought to be impeached and convicted by Congress.

Admittedly, this is a judgment call; but by the same token, very little judgment is needed to ascertain that what Trump did and did not do Jan. 6 was an utter abdication of his responsibilities as President of the United States.

And it isn’t just that one day, Jan. 6, for which Trump is being impeached. Instead, it is the entire two-month period that preceded Jan. 6, during which our disgraced ex-president willfully propagated lies about voter fraud while pursuing unconstitutional and extra-legal means for overturning a free, fair, and lawful election.

When that failed, Trump summoned the mob to Washington and urged them to march on the Capitol to steal the election that he had lost. He promised the mob that he would march with them (he lied); and, when violence erupted, Trump dithered.

He did nothing to restrain the mob, and he did nothing to ensure that peace, not violence, would prevail.

Oh, to be sure, Trump belatedly issued a couple of perfunctory tweets and a canned, scripted speech calling for the mob to be peaceful and respectful of law enforcement; but at the same time, he expressed love and empathy for the violent rioters while clearly making excuses for their violence:Irrelevant Legalisms. So, did Trump “incite” the mob as the lawyers define it? Who knows and who cares? It doesn’t matter! What does matter is that Trump summoned, inspired, and provoked the mob.

Would it have been better if the House of Representatives had impeached Trump for dereliction of duty, as Andrew McCarthy argues? Perhaps. At the very least, Trump should have been impeached for dereliction of duty in addition to being impeached for incitement of insurrection.

But in the grand sweep of history, this is quibbling: because what history demands, and what history will remember, is that Trump committed heinous and impeachable acts; he was rightfully impeached; and he should, by all accounts, be convicted.

The exact article or charge that is used to impeach and convict Trump really is of secondary importance.

An incitement of insurrection is, as they say, close enough for government work. The charge adequately, if not completely, captures the impeachable offenses for which Trump is clearly and obviously guilty.

Now, if this were a criminal court, the actual charge would be of paramount importance. But again, this is not a criminal court; this is a legislative Court specifically empowered by the Constitution.

As such, the impeachment charge or article does not need to meet a criminal standard of exactitude.

Impeachable Offenses. Grossly undermining a free, fair, and lawful election conducted in accordance with the Constitution, while summoning a mob to attack and intimidate Congress so as to overturn the results of that election, is grounds enough for Congress to impeach and convict the president.

A charge of incitement of insurrection may not perfectly capture Trump’s wrongdoing, but it is close enough for the Senate to do its Constitutional duty, which it must.

Feature photo credit: The Trump insurrection against America, Jan. 6, 2021, courtesy of The London Economic.

Reaction to Biden’s ‘Regime Change’ Comment Is Wrongheaded

Reaction to Biden’s ‘Regime Change’ Comment Is Wrongheaded

By John R Guardiano on March 27, 2022

Biden never called for “regime change.” Instead, he acknowledged an obvious truth: that real peace in Ukraine and Eastern Europe necessitates a new Russian leader.

During his speech in Warsaw, Poland, yesterday, President Biden never called for “regime change” in Moscow.

Yet, this hasn’t stopped the peanut gallery, in the media and on Twitter, from insisting that he did. Nor has it stopped the critics from clucking over the President’s alleged gaffe.

“For America,” wailed AllahPundit,

it seems, the endgame isn’t an independent Ukraine but the decapitation of Russia’s government. The whole premise of the conflict, that NATO is a defensive alliance whose members pose no threat to Moscow, has been undermined.

Biden’s comment, agreed Senator Rob Portman (R-Ohio), “plays into the hands of the Russian propagandists and plays into the hands of Vladimir Putin.”

And this “may well make it harder to negotiate with Mr. Putin over Ukraine or anything else,” warned the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board.”

“At a time of war, with WMDs in the hands of our foe, this kind of gaffe—massively altering war aims in an aside—risks millions of lives. It’s a huge unforced error,” cried Andrew Sullivan.

But this outcry from the critics reflects a willful misreading of the President’s speech.

Moreover, it attributes to Russian leaders an inability to think and act rationally; and it presupposes that America and NATO ought to aim to accommodate Putin through a compromise agreement in Ukraine.

If, however, you believe, as I do, that the West ought to defeat and discredit Putin in Ukraine, then Biden’s comment is hardly a gaffe.

Instead, it is an explicit acknowledgement of a hard political truth: that Putin has no interest in peace; and that, therefore, a real peace in Ukraine and Eastern Europe necessitates a new Russian leader who respects international law and the territorial integrity of Russia’s neighbors.

‘Regime Change’. A peaceful Russia can be realized in myriad ways, but “regime change”—meaning a Western attempt to topple Putin from Power a la the 2003 Iraq War or the 2001 U.S. invasion of Afghanistan—which is, obviously, what “regime change” connotes—that has never been under consideration, and Putin knows it.

He knows this because again, Biden never called for “regime change.”

Here’s what the President actually said at the very end of a long speech on the need to defend NATO against Russian aggression while standing with Ukraine in its fight against Russia

For God’s sake, this man, [Putin], cannot remain in power.

When coupled with Biden’s oft-repeated insistence that American troops will never step foot in Ukraine, let alone Russia, and that America will not risk any sort of military confrontation with Russia, it becomes blindingly obvious that a Western military-forced “regime change” is not a policy option in the Biden administration.

Russian Realism. For this reason, as even the dovish Tom Nicholas admits:

So far, the Russians seem to have taken Biden’s remarks more calmly than the American media.

Dmitry Peskov, a Kremlin spokesperson who never misses a chance to castigate the United States said only that this was a question for the Russian people, and not for Biden.

The Russian people, of course, have no say in who rules them, but Peskov’s answer amounted to a shrug.

Ironically, albeit not surprisingly, Russian leaders are more sanguine and realistic than hyperbolic American commentators and politicians. They realize that of course America and NATO are opposed to Putin and would like to see him gone.

But they also realize that America and NATO have absolutely no intention of invading Russia; and that, regardless of what Western leaders think about Putin, the hard realities of nuclear deterrence still apply and constrain the behavior of Russia and the West.

In short, Biden was right to acknowledge that Russia needs a new political leader, and the critics are wrong to fault him for saying so.

The President’s “gaffe” was “undeniably morally true and the implications are inescapable anyway,” explains Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-New Jersey). “No president can have a normal relationship with Putin ever again,” he told the Washington Post.

Biden’s “gaffe,” obviously, won’t incite Putin to react wildly and irrationally. He still must contend with hard political and military realities.

However, by publicly calling out the Russian dictator, as he did in Warsaw, the American President may well have hastened the day when Putin is ousted from power, by Russians and from within Russia, and a new Russian leader takes the helm. Then and only then can a real peace ensue.

Feature photo credit: Screenshot of President Biden delivering an historic and consequential speech in Warsaw, Poland, March 26, 2022, courtesy of Sky News.

Trump Administration’s School Meals Reform Will Help Reduce Childhood Obesity

By John R Guardiano on January 19, 2020

The Trump administration announced Friday that it is rolling back Obama-era regulations that govern nutritional requirements for school meals and giving local schools greater latitude and flexibility in the choice of food that they offer students.

The media have depicted these changes as a sop to the food industry and a disservice to children nationwide—especially disadvantaged children from lower-income families, since they depend more on school meals. These youngsters supposedly now will be consuming less nutritious and unhealthy food as a result.

I hate to be the bearer of good news, but this is simply untrue. And the reason it is untrue is that much of what we think we know about nutrition simply ain’t so.

The longstanding proscription on fatty food is the most commonly held misconception. In a separate post, I report why this misperception and other conventional ideas about health and nutrition are wrong.

For the purpose of this post, suffice it to say that bad and dated nutritional science helps to explain why school administrators and cafeteria workers welcome the Trump administration’s move to make the school meals program less rigid and more accommodating of ground truth, so to speak.

It is not, obviously, that they are indifferent to children’s health, nor that they are shills for the food industry. Instead, their concerns are very practical. Students, they observe, are too often rejecting the food that is being offered to them.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) conducted a “School Nutrition and Meal Cost Study” that found “children are throwing 25 percent of nutrients straight into the trash can. This is not serving children well,” says the USDA.

Science Says. Why are students rejecting the food that is being served them? Because school meal plans too often are based on bad and dated nutritional science that says fat and sodium are bad, but fruit and whole-grains are an unalloyed good.

“Completely eliminating or limiting fat from your diet can actually make you gain weight, often because it leaves you feeling so deprived,” reports CNN. “Conversely, some studies have found that fatty foods can aid in weight loss.”

“The problem with most diets,” writes Mark Hyman, MD, author of the Eat Fat, Get Thin Cookbook, “is that they lack the key ingredient, [fat], that makes food taste good and cuts your hunger.”

It is not hard, then, to discern why students have rejected the ostensibly healthy meals foisted upon them by Michelle Obama and her coterie of self-anointed “children’s health advocates”:

First, these meals are not as healthy as advertised—mainly because they seek to radically reduce fat and sodium in a student’s diet; and second, because of their inflated reliance on carb-laden whole-grains, fruits and vegetables, these meals leave students hungry and longing for greater sustenance.

Local schools and school cafeteria workers know this, which is why they have pushed for greater latitude and flexibility in the choice of food that they offer students.

The Trump administration has wisely responded to their request, with regulations that retain legitimate nutritional standards (i.e., vegetables are still part of every student’s meal), while simultaneously ensuring that these standards are not so rigid and inflexible as to be counterproductive and self-defeating (because students discard the food given to them and procure unhealthy snacks elsewhere.)

Childhood Obesity. To be sure, Michelle Obama identified a real problem. Childhood obesity in America has become an epidemic—so much so that “roughly 31% of American youths [are] disqualified [from military service] because they are overweight.”

This is a national disgrace and a bona fide public health problem, which we ought to address and remedy as a nation. And, to the extent, that we are eliminating empty calories and excess carbohydrates from school meals, this is an indisputably good thing.

Indeed, soda and sugar water have no discernible health benefits whatsoever; they are genuinely harmful. Soda and sugar water induce obesity by replacing, crowding out, or superseding calories with real and requisite health benefits.

But trying to reduce or eliminate fat in a student’s diet is a big and health-debilitating mistake. Ditto the attempt to reduce or eliminate high-sodium food. And fruits and whole-grains are no panacea either because they are laden with sugar and carbohydrates, which are the real culprit in the obesity epidemic.

Even were it otherwise, students, like the rest of us, crave variety in their diet and food that is satisfying, satiating, and savory.

While well-intended, Michelle Obama’s school meal regs lost sight of this reality and were based on bad and dated nutritional science. Consequently, they were rejected by the very students they were designed to help.

The Trump administration, to its credit, recognizes that we can and must do better. Its reform of the school meals program is a promising start.

Democrats Botch the Iowa Caucuses and Biden Is the Biggest Loser

Democrats Botch the Iowa Caucuses and Biden Is the Biggest Loser

By John R Guardiano on February 5, 2020

The Iowa Caucuses took place Mon., Feb. 3, but have not had the same catalyzing effect on the presidential race that they have had in past election cycles. That’s because, remarkably, Iowa Democrats were unable to announce an actual winner Monday evening.

In fact, only now, two days later, are we getting what appear to be final, clarifying results.

Iowa Democrats blame the delay on “inconsistencies” in the reporting of election data, and insist that the online app they developed for the caucuses was not hacked or compromised.

Maybe, but their failure to launch, so to speak, has invited understandable skepticism and snark. National Review editor Rich Lowry, for instance, wryly observed that “after years of obsession with the Russians, the Democrats somehow managed to hack their own election.”

“Cybersecurity experts,” reports the New York Times, “said that the app had not been properly tested at scale, and that it was hastily put together over the past two months…

“This is an urgent reminder of why online voting is not ready for prime time,” J. Alex Halderman, a professor of computer science at the University of Michigan, told the Times.

Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale gleefully piled on: “Democrats,” he said

are stewing in a caucus mess of their own creation with the sloppiest train wreck in history. It would be natural for people to doubt the fairness of the process. And these are the people who want to run our entire health care system?

This lack of clarity and confusion allowed all of the Democratic Party candidates—Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and and even Andrew Yang—to give what essentially were victory speeches Monday evening.

After all, if it can’t be shown that you lost, then you might as well say you won, while vowing to fight on to New Hampshire! And indeed, that’s pretty much what all of the Democratic presidential candidates did.

But, as the Times notes, the award for real chutzpah has got to go to Buttigieg:

“What a night!” he yelled to a mass of cheering supporters late Monday, declaring—with zero percent of precincts officially reporting—that “by all indications, we are going on to New Hampshire victorious.”

“Because tonight, an improbable hope became an undeniable reality.”

In truth, that reality was very much deniable…

“So we don’t know all the results,” Mr. Buttigieg said. “But we know by the time it’s all said and done, Iowa, you have shocked the nation.”

Well, that much is certainly true, albeit probably not in the way Buttigieg meant it.

As it turns out, Buttigieg wasn’t blowing smoke. He and Sanders are in a virtual tie for first place in Iowa. However, their momentum has been dampened and blunted by the delayed reporting of the results.

The Biggest Loser. What was clear Monday night, and is even clearer today, is that Biden is the big and perhaps irreparable loser in Iowa. He finished fourth, well behind Buttigieg, Sanders and Warren, and not much higher than Klobuchar.

“His poor performance in Iowa this year reflected the ways in which Biden is bad at winning elections,” argues Tim Carney in the Washington Examiner.

He was in first or second place in all statewide polls. That makes sense, given his high name recognition. Yet despite this advantage, Biden was out-fundraised by Warren, Sanders, and Buttigieg. Biden was clearly out-organized, too, as the caucuses showed.

“Biden had every advantage in Iowa,” adds Quin Hillyer. “If he couldn’t make Iowa at least close, he evinces a politically hollow campaign.”

Indeed, polls show that Biden may also lose next week’s New Hampshire primary and is poised to win only in South Carolina and Alabama. Sanders, meanwhile, appears to be the frontrunner in most other states.

That would mean Buttigieg and Warren are Sanders’ only real opponents. But despite being slick and brainy, Buttigieg’s only real accomplishment in public life has been to serve as mayor of a small city (South Bend, Indiana) that most people have never heard of, and for good reason.

Warren, meanwhile, is fading in the polls and is hardly a plausible moderate alternative to Sanders. Instead, she occupies much of the same political space (on the far left wing of the Democratic Party) as Sanders.

All of which is to say: get ready for Bernie Sanders to be the Democratic Party’s 2020 presidential nominee, but this time largely in spite of Iowa, not because of it.

Feature photo credit: Google News.