Does America Still Have a Prayer?

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As of this writing, tens of thousands of Americans have reportedly died from the coronavirus. Also, 30 million have abruptly lost work.

Scan the headlines these days, and the bad news because of the coronavirus seems to get worse and worse:

  • April’s unemployment is described by the Wall Street Journal as “the largest one-month blow to the U.S. labor market on record” (5/3/20). The worst job loss ever.
  • “Universities across the country are being hit with lawsuits by students who aren’t satisfied with the refunds they’re being provided after being told to leave campus” (Campusreform.com, 4/27/20).
  • As one of six workers are suddenly out of a job, hunger is a growing problem. The AP reports, “Before the pandemic, food policy experts say, roughly one out of every eight or nine Americans struggled to stay fed. Now as many as one out of every four are projected to join the ranks of the hungry” (5/4/20).

Amidst all the bad news, is there any hope? Does America still have a prayer?

Yes. Thursday, May 7, 2020 is the National Day of Prayer. And, boy, do we need it.

America, it could be said, was born in prayer. We can even see an example in the rotunda of the

U.S. Capitol, where there are eight large paintings dedicated to aspects of our history.

One of them shows the Pilgrims having a prayer meeting with a large open Geneva Bible. The Pilgrims experienced one setback after another. But they also experienced answers to prayer.

For example, when they were finally settled in the New World in 1621, after a disastrous winter where half their number died, they planted their crops. But then they experienced a great drought.

The parched conditions threatened their first crop of corn, and it looked like the year’s harvest of corn was all but dead. But the Pilgrims called for a day of fasting and prayer. By the end of the day, it was raining.

The rain saved the corn, which miraculously sprang to life. The harvesting of that corn was part of what they celebrated in the first Thanksgiving.

A couple of paintings in the Capitol rotunda have George Washington as the central character. Although modern scholars like to discount the notion of Washington as a man of prayer, there were many contemporary witnesses who said otherwise. In our book, George Washington’s Sacred Fire, Dr. Peter Lillback and I document that Washington was a dedicated Christian who read the Bible regularly and spent much time in prayer.

Washington often said that as a nation we should be grateful for God’s repeated help. He once said, in reference to God’s help during the War for Independence, “The hand of Providence has been conspicuous in all this, that he must be worse than an infidel that lacks faith, and more than wicked that has not gratitude enough to acknowledge his obligations.” (Letter to Thomas Nelson, 8/20/1778).

Susie Federer has written two books on miracles in American history, Miracles and Miracles II, based on the research of her husband, Bill. He is a bestselling author and speaker.

Bill Federer describes a time—not unlike today—when there was a plague of sorts ravaging the land in the mid-19th century. President Zachary Taylor declared a National Day of Fasting and Prayer, July 3, 1849, during a cholera epidemic: “A fearful pestilence which is spreading itself throughout the land…it is fitting that a people whose reliance has ever been in His protection should humble themselves before His throne…acknowledging past transgressions, ask a continuance of the Divine mercy. It is earnestly recommended that the first Friday in August be observed throughout the United States as a Day of Fasting, Humiliation and Prayer.”

The Federers note that soon after that day of prayer, the cholera epidemic in America tapered off.

Many of our presidents throughout our history have called on God and have called on Americans to set aside a time (usually a day) of prayer. For example, FDR, in the wake of the Pearl Harbor attack, called for 1/2/1942 to be, “a Day of Prayer, of asking forgiveness for our shortcomings of the past, of consecration to the tasks of the present, of asking God’s help in days to come.”

President Truman even systematized the day of prayer as an annual event. Thus, the first Thursday of each May is the National Day of Prayer. Truman declared in his proclamation (6/17/1952): “from the earliest days of our history our people have been accustomed to turn to Almighty God for help and guidance.”

If ever America needed God’s help and guidance, this would seem to be that time—as the coronavirus crisis devastates the land. We need to pray and repent and seek His face. May He provide a vaccine soon, and may He heal our land.

©All rights reserved.

PODCAST: Fear Factor — What Our Virus Concerns Say about the Two Parties

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Nobody is thrilled to be stuck inside, but a lot of pollsters have been surprised by just how popular The Great Lockdown has been. Despite the state protests and rallies, there’s been a lot of support for the stay-at-home orders that have canceled schools and disrupted life as we know it. “Worth it” said 80 percent in a Kaiser survey last week. “Appropriate” another 66 percent told the Washington Post. But is that mindset starting to change? Some surveys say yes.

For the first time since he’s been asking, Scott Rasmussen thinks the focus of concern is changing. A slight plurality of people — 49 percent — said they now fear the economic threat more than the health threat (45 percent). In statistics, that’s essentially a split down the middle, he told me on “Washington Watch.” “But it’s a big change from a month ago, when 55 percent were more worried about the health components of the coronavirus.” But the longer this goes on, Scott explained, the more Americans are starting to count the other costs. “It’s not just, you know, stay home and stay safe, or go out and work and put your health at risk.”

One of the more interesting findings of his survey is just how differently the two parties respond. There’s a significant divide over which concern should take precedence. By a 73-21 percent margin, Republicans say the economic threat is more serious — while Democrats, 64 to 31 percent, worry more about health. Of course, that’s consistent, in a lot of ways with the two political philosophies. “The Republican base, by and large, is going to be far more suspicious of the media culture, and of the government, and of government’s efforts to take liberty away from them,” the Hill’s John Feehery speculates. And as the president pushes to reopen the economy, Republicans — who’ve been concerned about this issue from the start — are naturally going to rally behind him.

But there are also two competing political philosophies at work here. Republicans have always been more attached to the free market than government. And Democrats, on the opposite side, tend to find comfort in more government and this idea that it can provide and protect. “It’s almost,” Scott agreed, “a broader definition of civil society. Conservatives tend to think there is a very active role for churches and trade associations and small businesses making things work, as opposed to a top-down mindset of the government should set the rules and we all play by them. So that absolutely factors into these numbers.”

We talk about these things as absolutes, Scott pointed out, but there are a lot of moving parts. The timing aspect is important. The infection rate is important. Freedom is important. The fact is, life, however it resumes, will look differently. But the president and his team are doing the best they can to make sure nothing has to suffer more than it already has — not our health and not the economy.

Tony Perkins’s Washington Update is written with the aid of FRC senior writers.

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EDITORS NOTE: This FRC-Action podcast is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

VIDEO: Our New Press Secretary is a Savage

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White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany destroys the Fake News!

EDITORS NOTE: This TPUSA video is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

PODCAST: A New Type of Contract With America

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Back in 1994, the Republicans in Congress led a movement to implement sweeping government reforms in what was called a “Contract with America.” This was a clever political ploy by the party to elect congressmen and, to their credit, they delivered on their promises. Whether you agreed with them or not is immaterial, the “contract” concept captivated the public’s imagination as the politicians felt compelled to comply with it. Perhaps it is time to implement another “Contract with America,” not so much to enact any particular legislation but to enforce how our politicians will act and behave while serving in office. Think about it, aside from their oath of office and the congressional rules by which they operate, there currently isn’t anything committing an elected official to how he will represent his constituents. Polls tell us the American public believes government is broken and, consequently, have lost faith in their elected leaders. A formal contract would go a long way towards reestablishing trust.

If such a contract existed, what would it consist of? My first reaction is that it should include something to have the politician promise to support and defend the Constitution of the United States, but since this is already a part of their oath of office, it probably shouldn’t be included in a new “Contract with America.” Aside from this, I can think of seven articles to include in such an agreement:

That you, the elected government official, hereby promises and swears to…

  1. be mindful that you serve the constituents who elected you (your employer) and, as such, you will put their best interests ahead of your own. Further, you will regularly and consistently report on your activities to them.
  2. constantly seek to improve the livelihood, well-being, prosperity, and standard of living for your constituents.
  3. be mindful of your fiduciary responsibilities, whereby you pledge government will live within its means, in accordance with an approved budget.
  4. lead by example. This means you will not engage in illegal activities or moral turpitude. Violations of ethical standards will not be tolerated and you will be held accountable for your actions.
  5. deliberate the issues of the day with honesty, candor, courtesy, and a professional attitude. You will do what is best for your constituency and not your political party.
  6. not vote to place military or public personnel in harm’s way without first being absolutely convinced of the necessity to do so.
  7. endeavor to do what is fair and equitable for the citizens of our country.

There is nothing startling here. This is how we expect all of our elected officials to behave, and why we become disillusioned when they do not live up to these standards. Perhaps if this became an official document though, such as the type of contract employees regularly sign in business, they may be more inclined to abide by it.

Come to think of it, maybe we should include having them read the Constitution now and then. I can’t imagine it would hurt anything, can you?

Keep the Faith!

P.S. – Also, I have a NEW book, “Before You Vote: Know How Your Government Works”, What American youth should know about government, available in Printed, PDF and eBook form. DON’T FORGET GRADUATION DAY. This is the perfect gift!

EDITORS NOTE: This Bryce is Right podcast is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. All trademarks both marked and unmarked belong to their respective companies.

VIDEO: NRA Endorses ‘Big Dan’ Rodimer for US Congress

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LAS VEGAS/PRNewswire/ — Nevada Congressional candidate “Big Dan” Rodimer is proud to announce that he has received the official endorsement of the National Rifle Association in his run for the 3rd District. The NRA officially gave Rodimer an AQ rating, the highest rating possible for a candidate who has not previously held office.

In response to the endorsement, Rodimer stated, “I am very honored and proud to have the endorsement of the National Rifle Association in my run for Congress. The NRA is America’s longest-serving civil rights organization, with tens of thousands of members right here in Nevada and in the 3rd Congressional District. The NRA knows that I will fight to defend our 2nd Amendment Rights against gun-grabbers like Dan Schwartz and Susie Lee. Thank you to the NRA and all of their members here in Nevada.”

The NRA endorsement comes as a major boost to the Rodimer campaign since his primary opponent, former Nevada Treasurer Dan Schwartz, has openly spoken out in favor of Bloomberg-style, anti-2nd Amendment proposals, including a ban on alleged “assault rifles” in Nevada.

Big Dan Rodimer has made it clear time and again that he is the pro-2nd Amendment candidate in the race for Nevada’s 3rd Congressional District. Rodimer has often described gun rights as “human rights” and proudly possesses a CCW permit.

Since announcing his campaign for Congress last year, Rodimer has received endorsements from House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy, the Nevada Right to Life and National Right to Life organizations, former Nevada Attorney General and current Nevada Trump Campaign Co-Chairman Adam Laxalt and highly successful Las Vegas businessman and reality TV star from the hit show “Pawn Stars”, Rick Harrison, among many others.

In February, Rodimer was placed on National Republican Congressional Committee’s (NRCC) Young Guns “Contender” status, the highest-ranking status of any congressional candidate in Nevada, signifying continued strength and momentum of his campaign, and opening the door for continued support from across the country. Every other Republican candidate in Nevada’s 3rd Congressional District has either refused to fill out the NRA survey or received an “F” rating.

You can learn more about Big Dan Rodimer click here. For regular updates on the campaign of Big Dan Rodimer for Congress, you can follow him on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

The Washington Post Wants You to Fast for Ramadan

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My latest in PJ Media:

The far-Left anti-Trump propaganda organ masquerading as a news source and operating under the name the Washington Post on Thursday published an inspiring op-ed entitled “As American Muslims fast this Ramadan, maybe the rest of America should consider joining in.” The Post’s articles exhorting people to keep the Lenten fast or the Yom Kippur fast have not yet been published, but I’m sure that they will be when the appropriate times for them roll around again. Won’t they?

In the meantime, I’ll consider fasting for Ramadan, but I have a fairly good idea of what my conclusion will be. The article’s author, the imam Omar Suleiman, “founder and president of the Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research and an Islamic studies professor at Southern Methodist University,” writes: “The end result of Ramadan for Muslims, according to the Koran, is for ‘you to complete the period and glorify God for that which He has guided you, and that you may be amongst the grateful.’”

That sounds terrific, but what exactly does the Qur’an mean by glorifying God? According to the Islamic holy book, one way that Muslims can glorify God is by fighting and killing infidels (cf. 2:191. 4:89, 9:5, 9:29, 47:4, etc.). In fact, according to the prophet of Islam, there is no better way to glorify the supreme being. A hadith has a Muslim asking Muhammad: “Instruct me as to such a deed as equals Jihad (in reward).” Muhammad replied, “I do not find such a deed.” (Bukhari 4.52.44) A jihad group explained: “The month of Ramadan is a month of holy war and death for Allah. It is a month for fighting the enemies of Allah and God’s messenger, the Jews and their American facilitators.”

Somehow that doesn’t sound as appealing as Omar Suleiman made it out to be. But the good imam can’t be faulted for walking through a door that the Washington Post opened. His article was published in response to a Post call: “The Opinions section is looking for stories of how the coronavirus has affected people of all walks of life. Write to us.” Suleiman saw an opportunity for dawah, Islamic proselytizing, and seized it.

Still, if someone had sent in those stories about how Americans should join in the Lenten fast, or the Yom Kippur fast, would the Post have published them? Almost certainly not. Suleiman’s article, however, is just one example of a general tendency: it is imperative in today’s society to be solicitous to Muslims and warmly positive toward even the aspects of Islam that are oppressive.

There is much more. Read the rest here.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Media Barely Try to Hide Bias in Covering Sexual Assault Accusations

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Perhaps our country’s most powerful media organizations now simply don’t care how utterly one-sided their political coverage is.

This appears to be the case with how the media has treated the accusations of Tara Reade, who has accused Joe Biden, a former senator and vice president, of sexual harassment and sexual assault.

This treatment is of a piece with how (little) the media scrutinized sexual assault allegations last year against Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax.

Reade accuses Biden of sexually assaulting her in 1993, when she worked in his Senate office. Several people have said that Reade told them of the Delaware Democrat’s alleged behavior at the time.

In these trying times, we must turn to the greatest document in the history of the world to promise freedom and opportunity to its citizens for guidance. Find out more now >>

Since early last year, Reade had been vocal about her allegations that Biden treated and touched her inappropriately. Then, on a March 25 podcast, she accused him of sexual assault

Yet little of this story broke into legacy media coverage for nearly a month.

Analysis of the coverage by FiveThirtyEight shows that the story got almost no interest from prominent networks and really received considerable attention only on conservative-leaning websites.

The most that The New York Times editorial board could come up with, while being inconclusive about the Reade allegations, was that further investigation was needed—an investigation put together by the Democratic National Committee.

Fox News Channel political analyst Brit Hume’s response to this on Twitter was perfect.

After months in which this story has festered, Biden finally commented directly about the allegations in a May 1 interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” with co-host Mika Brzezinski, who actually asked some serious and tough questions.

Biden said that Reade’s account “is not true.”

Predictably, many on the left were unhappy even with this level of questioning.

Maria Cardona, a Democratic strategist, wrote that Reade’s accusations simply have been used by Republicans to “weaponize the issue” in an effort to delegitimize the #MeToo movement.

The lack of media scrutiny seems all the more inconsistent with evidentiary standards pushed by the left back in 2011 in the context of sexual assault on campus.

At that time, the Obama administration, in an effort spearheaded by Biden as vice president, issued a “Dear Colleague” letter to college administrators. In it, the Obama administration directed them to adjudicate sexual assault cases under Title IX, a provision in federal law that prohibits discrimination based on sex by institutions receiving financial assistance. The standard there is “preponderance of evidence” rather than “clear and convincing evidence.”

As commentator David Harsanyi pointed out on National Review Online, a college student accused of sexual assault under this standard often was “denied the ability to question his accuser, denied the right to review the allegations and evidence in an ensuing investigation, denied the right to present exculpatory evidence, and denied the right to call witnesses”—and often while facing adjudication by a single investigator with minimal training.

So a college student can have his life destroyed quickly based on fairly thin evidence and nothing like the standards of a trial in court, but a lieutenant governor and a former senator and vice president can just skate on by?

The message, it seems, is that sexual assault allegations are supposed to be “weaponized” only against conservatives.

But in the era of “believe all women,” one would think that at least our putatively nonpartisan press would be quite active in pursuing what could be a big story.

Isn’t the media about bringing truth to power or something like that?

It doesn’t take much to see how differently Biden and Fairfax have been treated by the traditional news media compared to, say, Brett Kavanaugh.

The standard that the left and so many in the #MeToo movement set up is that we must simply believe all women, that presumption of innocence—a cornerstone of American law and concept of justice—is a tool of oppression.

This is certainly what was applied to Kavanaugh, a D.C. Circuit judge whose reputation and nomination to the Supreme Court by President Donald Trump were nearly destroyed by an accusation of sexual misconduct at a high school party some 30 years ago. To date, that accusation has gone uncorroborated by a single witness, or even someone who can confirm that the party took place.

Although I am not addressing the full merits of any of these allegations, I note here that the media nevertheless subjected the nation to a steady barrage of increasingly lurid allegations made against Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearings, passing them along uncritically on such thin evidence that many of them had to be corrected.

With Fairfax and Biden, mainstream media outlets such as The Washington Post, CNN, and NBC News tread slowly and tepidly to investigate. The common thread is that the mainstream media shirked its duty to seriously investigate the truth about a public figure.

The bottom line is, sexual assault allegations should be treated seriously, especially for men and women in power. However, it undermines the media’s credibility when they treat such allegations so differently based on what side of the political spectrum the subject of the allegations is on.

Again, it seems many of these outlets don’t even really try to hide the bias at this point. The only credibility they are concerned with is appealing to predominantly left-wing viewers, colleagues, and institutions while maintaining a thin glaze of “objectivity.”

That’s not inherently wrong. But at the very least, Americans should know what these media institutions are really about and not be deceived into thinking they are the only authoritative word on what the truth is.

COMMENTARY BY

Jarrett Stepman

Jarrett Stepman is a contributor to The Daily Signal and co-host of The Right Side of History podcast. Send an email to Jarrett. He is also the author of the new book, “The War on History: The Conspiracy to Rewrite America’s Past.”Twitter: .

A Note for our Readers:

This is a critical year in the history of our country. With the country polarized and divided on a number of issues and with roughly half of the country clamoring for increased government control—over health care, socialism, increased regulations, and open borders—we must turn to America’s founding for the answers on how best to proceed into the future.

The Heritage Foundation has compiled input from more than 100 constitutional scholars and legal experts into the country’s most thorough and compelling review of the freedoms promised to us within the United States Constitution into a free digital guide called Heritage’s Guide to the Constitution.

They’re making this guide available to all readers of The Daily Signal for free today!

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Signal column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

VIDEO: Melania Says Nurses Are An ‘Inspiration To Us All’ As She Honors Them On National Nurses Day

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Melania Trump said nurses are an “inspiration to us all” as she honored them Wednesday on National Nurses Day.

“On #NationalNursesDay, I would like to take a moment to extend my sincere appreciation to our nation’s nurses,” the first lady captioned her post on Instagram, along with a video praising nurses for their efforts during the coronavirus outbreak.

“You are an inspiration to us all and your actions show us the true power of the American spirit,” she added.

WATCH:

“In addition to the work you do each day, you have gone above and beyond your call of duty in responding to our nation’s invisible enemy, COVID-19,” FLOTUS shared on the clip. “You have devoted your lives to help protect the health and well-being of the American people.”

Melania continued, while praising them through “these times of uncertainty,” for showing “immense courage and selflessness. You are an inspiration to us all and your actions show us the true power of the American spirit.”

“Thank you for your care and compassion,” the first lady concluded. “Our nation will continue to pray for your safety and strength. May god bless you and your families. And may god bless the United States of America.”

The touching tribute comes one day after FLOTUS reached out on National Teachers Day to the “amazing” teachers and educators across the country to praise them for all they do.

She captioned her post on social media, “On #NationalTeacherDay I had the honor of speaking to some incredible teachers & educators from across our great nation. Thank you for your dedication to our students always, but especially in these unprecedented times.”

COLUMN BY

KATIE JERKOVICH

Entertainment reporter.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Judicial Watch Sues on Behalf of Daily Caller News Foundation for Dr. Fauci and WHO Communications!

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Washington, DC – Judicial Watch announced today that it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit on behalf of the Daily Caller News Foundation against the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) for communications and other records of National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci and Deputy Director H. Clifford Lane with and about the World Health Organization (WHO) concerning the novel coronavirus (Daily Caller News Foundation v. U.S. Department Justice (No. 1:20-cv-01149)).

The suit was filed after HHS failed to respond to an April 1, 2020, FOIA request seeking:

  • Communications between Dr. Fauci and Deputy Director Lane and World Health Organization officials concerning the novel coronavirus.
  • Communications of Dr. Fauci and Deputy Director Lane concerning WHO, WHO official Bruce Aylward, WHO Director General Tedros Anhanom, and China.

The time period for the request is January 1, 2020 to April 1, 2020.

Additionally, the DCNF requested and was granted expedited processing of its request.

In March 2020, Fauci praised the work of the WHO and their chairman, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, saying: “Tedros is really an outstanding person … I mean, obviously, over the years anyone who says that the WHO has not had problems has not been watching the WHO. But I think under his leadership they’ve done very well.”

In April, President Trump announced a halt to funding the World Health Organization. According to the president, the WHO put “political correctness over lifesaving measures.” Additionally, President Trump said: “The WHO failed in this duty, and must be held accountable,” adding that the WHO ignored “credible information” in December 2019 that the virus could be transmitted from human to human.

Daily Caller News Foundation Co-Founder and President Neil Patel said: “This virus has killed hundreds of thousands of people and turned the whole world upside down. We know that China and WHO could have done a lot more to prevent or reduce this catastrophe. We therefore have a legitimate and urgent news purpose for seeking these documents regarding U.S. officials’ communications with WHO and demand that the agencies in question stop stalling and start following the law that entitles us to this vital information.”

“It is urgent that the NIH follow transparency law during the coronavirus crisis,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “It is of significant public interest to learn what WHO was telling our top medical officials about the coronavirus that originated in China.”

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Watchdog group sues for Fauci, World Health Organization communications Source: The Washington Times

FOIA lawsuit seeks access to documents regarding China and WHO Source: Washington Examiner

EDITORS NOTE: This Judicial Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

PODCAST: Democrats, Please Stick With Biden for Your Presidential Nominee!

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GUESTS AND TOPICS:

RACHEL ALEXANDER

Rachel Alexander is a senior editor at The Stream. She is a political columnist and the founder and editor of Intellectual Conservative. She is a regular contributor to Townhall.com. She frequently appears on TV and news radio as a conservative commentator, and hosted a radio show on 960 KKNT in Phoenix She previously served as an Assistant Attorney General for the State of Arizona. She was ranked as one of the 50 Best Conservative Columnists and is a recipient of Americans for Prosperity’s RightOnline Activist of the Year award.

TOPIC: Democrats, Please Stick With Biden for Your Presidential Nominee!

CLAUDIA ROSETT

Claudia Rosett is a foreign policy fellow with the Independent Women’s Forum, and an award-winning journalist. She is widely credited with groundbreaking reporting on corruption at the United Nations. Ms. Rosett was a staff writer at The Wall Street Journal, serving as a member of the Editorial Board Ms. Rosett has contributed to numerous publications, including The New York Times, The Weekly Standard, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and Forbes.com . She makes frequent appearances on TV and radio, and has appeared before six U.S. Senate and House committees and subcommittees.

TOPIC: China is exploiting the coronavirus chaos to advance its agenda!

MATT MARGOLIS

Matt Margolis is author of Trumping Obama: How President Trump Saved Us From Barack Obama’s Legacy, the bestselling book The Worst President in History: The Legacy of Barack Obama and The Scandalous Presidency of Barack Obama. His new book, Airborne: How The Liberal Media Weaponized the Coronavirus Against Donald Trump, will be released this summer.

TOPIC: Biden’s Call for a Search of National Archives for Reade Complaint Just Backfired!

The Nation’s Report Card Shows a Sorry State for Eighth-Graders

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The Department of Education just released results of the quadrennial National Assessment of Educational Progress tests in U.S. history, civics, and geography given in 2018 to thousands of American eighth-graders: “Grade 8 Students’ NAEP Scores Decline in Geography and U.S. History; Results in Civics Unchanged Since 2014.”

The tests were administered from January to March 2018 to a nationally representative sample of 42,700 eighth-graders from about 780 schools. The news is not very good.

Only 24% of students performed at or above the “proficient” level in civics. Worse yet, only 15% scored proficient or above in American history and 25% were proficient in geography. At least 25% of America’s eighth-graders are what NAEP defines as “below basic” in U.S. history, civics, and geography.

That means they have no understanding of historical and civic issues and cannot point out basic locations on a map.

In these trying times, we must turn to the greatest document in the history of the world to promise freedom and opportunity to its citizens for guidance. Find out more now >>

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos referred to the recent national report card as “stark and inexcusable.” She blamed “antiquated” education methods for low test scores among the nation’s eighth-graders. That’s nonsense.

I’d bet the rent money that eighth-grade students of earlier periods, say during the 1920s, ’30s, and ’40s who were burdened with “antiquated” education methods such as having to learn algebra and geometry, identifying parts of speech, and memorizing poems like “Old Ironsides” could run circles around today’s eighth-graders, high school graduates, and perhaps some college graduates. I think we need to bring back these authentically antiquated education methods.

Part of the solution to our education problem is given by Jeffrey Sikkenga, professor of political science and executive director of the Ashbrook Center at Ashland University. He said:

Students need to go back to America’s past and ask it questions, starting with our founding. They need to study great documents like the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, Abraham Lincoln’s ‘Gettysburg Address,’ and Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech. Not just read about them in boring textbooks, but read the documents themselves, for themselves. Have great conversations with those great minds—discover for themselves the story of America in the words of those who lived it.

The school climate, seldom discussed, plays a very important role in education. During the 2017-18 school year, there were an estimated 962,300 violent incidents and 476,100 nonviolent incidents in U.S. public schools nationwide. Seventy-one percent of schools reported having at least one violent incident, and 65% reported having at least one nonviolent incident.

Schools with 1,000 or more students had at least one sworn law enforcement officer. About 90% of those law enforcement officers carry firearms.

I bet that decades ago, one would be hard put to find either armed or unarmed police officers patrolling the building. For example, between 1950 and 1954, I attended Benjamin Franklin High School in Philadelphia. The only time we saw a police officer in the building was during an assembly where we had to listen to a boring lecture on safety. Today, police patrol the hallways.

Another school in north Philadelphia, Strawberry Mansion High School, once had 94 security cameras, six school police officers, and two metal detectors. Students had to walk through the metal detectors to enter the building and were often searched by police officers. It was on the list of those most persistently dangerous schools in Pennsylvania.

Aside from violence, there are many instances of outright disrespect for teachers. First- and second-graders telling teachers to “Shut the f— up” and calling teachers “bitch.” To note the attitude of some school administrators, a New Jersey teacher was seriously assaulted by a student. When she asked her principal to permanently remove the student from her classroom, the principal told her to “put on her big girl panties and deal with it.”

Years ago, the behavior of young people that we see today would have never been tolerated. There was the vice principal’s office where corporal punishment would be administered for gross infractions. If the kid was unwise enough to tell his parents what happened, he might get more punishment at home.

Today, unfortunately, we’ve replaced practices that work with practices that sound good and caring, and we’re witnessing the results.

COPYRIGHT 2020 CREATORS.COM

COMMENTARY BY

Walter E. Williams

Walter E. Williams is a columnist for The Daily Signal and a professor of economics at George Mason University. Twitter: .

A Note for our Readers:

This is a critical year in the history of our country. With the country polarized and divided on a number of issues and with roughly half of the country clamoring for increased government control—over health care, socialism, increased regulations, and open borders—we must turn to America’s founding for the answers on how best to proceed into the future.

The Heritage Foundation has compiled input from more than 100 constitutional scholars and legal experts into the country’s most thorough and compelling review of the freedoms promised to us within the United States Constitution into a free digital guide called Heritage’s Guide to the Constitution.

They’re making this guide available to all readers of The Daily Signal for free today!

GET ACCESS NOW! >>

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Signal column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

A Wizard of Oz Virus: The COVID-19 Hoax

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When I speak of a hoax and The Virus, I don’t mean there isn’t in our population a pathogen identified as SARS-CoV-2 or, as the “unwoke” might say, the Wuhan Flu. As with past respiratory diseases, it’s also dangerous to the vulnerable. But as data increasingly show — and as I and some others have been saying all along — this current situation is very different from past pandemics in one significant and deadly way: It’s not being treated as only a medical/health issue.

It’s being treated as a political issue.

And as the Soviet Union’s Lysenkoism demonstrated, politics kills science.

I recently dubbed the Wuhan Flu the “Wizard of Oz Virus” because its reputation greatly exceeds its power. This was evident long ago, too. We only had to look at the early data coming out on Italy and a certain quarantined cruise ship, after all.

While the following might have changed a bit over time, we heard early on that 99-plus percent of the Italian victims had comorbidities and that their average age was 79.5. Italy is also a graying nation, with 23 percent of the population in its most affected area (the north) more than 65 years old.

Additionally, Italy has a wanting healthcare system, and stories emerged about askew triage-oriented priorities causing certain elderly to be denied care. Italy’s economic ties with Beijing also meant there were direct flights from Wuhan and 100,000 Chinese working in its factories.

There are other differences, too. One I pointed out is that Italy has an “un-social-distancing” culture, with acquaintances engaging in a lot of touching, and personal space between them only two to three feet (vs. four in North America).

Then there was the cruise ship Diamond Princess, which was quarantined off Japan’s coast in February and at one time had more than half the Wuhan virus cases outside of China. Of the 3,711 people on board, 712 (19.2 percent) contracted the disease and 13 (1.8 percent) died.

Yet note that this ship was called a disease incubator; the average age of those aboard was 58, with 33 percent over 70; and medical care was sub-par. Note, too, to illustrate the latter group’s (the elderly’s) vulnerability, that they were dying during a four-week stretch in 2018 at “a rate of 169 people a day [in the U.S.], or seven people per hour” of the common flu, reported the AARP.

In other words, there was never a reason to believe the Wuhan virus would transform America into Black Plague-ravaged medieval Europe. The Enemedia pretended to know this at one time, too.

Right after President Trump wisely announced his China travel ban (Jan. 31), the Enemedia, busy calling him “racist” for doing so, ran headlines such as this Feb. 1 Washington Post gem: “Get a grippe, America. The flu is a much bigger threat than coronavirus, for now.”

It was also around this time that Nancy “Let ‘em Eat Ice Cream” Pelosi, Bolshevik Bill (de Blasio) and other leftist pols were encouraging New Yorkers and San Franciscans to visit their Chinatowns, as they played the race card. Now they criticize Trump for not doing more when they counseled doing less.

(Know, too, that Dr. Anthony Fauci said on TV Feb. 29 that Americans didn’t need to change their behavior to combat the virus.)

But the Enemedia weren’t all wrong back then. Consider the following past flu pandemics, with the number of Americans dead accompanied by what that translates into today adjusted for population.

The Spanish Flu pandemic (1918-19) killed 675,000 Americans. Today: equates to a bit more than two million dead.

The “Asian Flu” pandemic of 1957 killed 116,000 Americans. Today: equates to approximately 223,000.

The “Hong Kong Flu” pandemic of 1968 killed at least 100,000 Americans. Today: equates to 164,915.

Thus far, the Wuhan virus has claimed approximately 63,000 Americans — if you can believe the allegedly exaggerated numbers our governments produce.

Moreover, each year the flu claims tens of thousands more U.S. victims, including 61,000 during the 2017-18 winter season and 358 children during 2009-10. (In contrast, there are three “unconfirmed” Wuhan virus pediatric deaths.) But we didn’t run around back then like a jack-booted Chicken Little trampling civil rights and economic fortunes, shutting down schools and complaining about naming the disease after its place of origin.

But, again, in those times disease wasn’t a political issue.

Now, of course, data are showing what cooler heads have long theorized: The Wuhan flu mortality rate may end up being similar to the flu’s; the doom-and-gloom computer-model projections were way off; lockdowns are deadlier than what they supposedly combat; perhaps 80-plus percent of the afflicted are asymptomatic or only mildly affected; the infection rate is far higher than most “experts” suspected; and as with the flu, going outside, living relatively normally and establishing herd immunity (while protecting the vulnerable) is the best way to eliminate the disease.

Yet the Enemedia and leftist politicians, far from correcting their mistakes, are doubling down on destructive policies. Given this, it’s time to examine how the Wuhan Flu was turned into the Wizard of Oz Virus.

Anatomy of a National Hysteria

How we got to where we are now is complex, as man’s events usually are, but here’s a summary:

  • Back when the Democrats and their Enemedia were focused on impeachment, video was emerging from China of government thugs in hazmat suits forcibly extracting people from their homes and spraying down wide areas with disinfectant. (This reaction lends credence to the increasingly accepted thesis that the virus originated in a Wuhan lab, mind you.)
  • With the impeachment effort’s collapse, the Enemedia turned its attention to the pandemic. After first downplaying it and calling Trump xenophobic, they then began exaggerating it and calling him criminally negligent. They simultaneously commenced showing that alarming Chinese footage, along with reporting massive death in Italy (which also might have been exaggerated) and continually showing videos of coffins, from Italy and later N.Y.C.
  • Hearing only the Enemedia horror stories and apocalyptic projections, Americans became terrified and panicked — and panicked people don’t make wise decisions. They are easy to control, though.
  • The Enemedia’s malpractice was devastating. With polls showing up to 80 percent support for lockdowns because of it, it became politically impossible for officials to implement rational policy. Trump and the governors were likely terrified that they’d be blamed for every death if they didn’t “take action.”
  • The pseudo-elites had and have incentive to keep the hoax going. The Enemedia know that if it bleeds, it leads, but they and the Democrats also wanted to damage Trump. Note that his strong economy has been crashed, and his popular rallies — central to his campaign effort — have been cancelled. Moreover, leftists have used the manufactured crisis to remove rights and advance their agenda, with some actually confessing this Machiavellian goal. Why, some rank-and-file leftists even admitted they’d prefer millions of Wuhan Flu deaths to Trump being re-elected.
  • It doesn’t help that Trump is a known germaphobe counseled by apparently incompetent and/or corrupt officials such as Fauci and Coronavirus Response Coordinator Deborah Birx.

And now those officials have formulated a standard for opening the economy that has been called “rigged” and that may be impossible to satisfy. This is despite the Wizard of Oz Virus narrative’s collapse, with a study showing lockdowns don’t work and it becoming clearer, by the day, that they’ll actually lead to more disease and death.

It would be nice to think that the malicious Machiavellians in media and politics will be held accountable for visiting one of American history’s greatest blunders upon us. But that appears just a dream. It’s lamentable, surely, and can make one understand why G.K. Chesterton once remarked, “It is terrible to contemplate how few politicians are hanged.”

Contact Selwyn Duke, follow him on Gab (preferably) or Twitter, or log on to SelwynDuke.com.

©All rights reserved.

PODCAST: Why Are Millennials Leaving the Left? This Author Has Answers

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Why did some millennials vote for Barack Obama in 2012 and Donald Trump in 2016? Jonathan Jakubowski, author of “Bellwether Blues: A Conservative Awakening of the Millennial Soul,” joins The Daily Signal Podcast to discuss.

“There’s a lot of reasons that motivated these millennials to change their votes over the course of time,” says Jakubowski. “It didn’t happen in one single event. It didn’t happen because of one podcast or one show or one friend. It was conversations. It was things that they read. It was life events that ultimately culminated in a deep change.”

Read the lightly edited transcript, posted below, or listen to the podcast:

We also cover these stories:

In these trying times, we must turn to the greatest document in the history of the world to promise freedom and opportunity to its citizens for guidance. Find out more now >>

  • A new study has revealed that the drug remdesivir might be very effective against COVID-19.
  • Secretary of State Mike Pompeo continues calls for the United States to be able to access labs in Wuhan, China, as the country continues to investigate the origins of the coronavirus.
  • Sen. Ted Cruz introduces legislation aimed at “cutting off Hollywood studios from assistance they receive from the Department of Defense if those studios censor their films for screening in China.”

The Daily Signal podcast is available on Ricochet, Apple Podcasts, Pippa, Google Play, or Stitcher. All of our podcasts can be found at DailySignal.com/podcasts. If you like what you hear, please leave a review. You can also leave us a message at 202-608-6205 or write us at letters@dailysignal.com. Enjoy the show!

Rachel del Guidice: We’re joined today on The Daily Signal Podcast by Jonathan Jakubowski. He’s the author of the soon to be released book on May 5th called “Bellwether Blues: A Conservative Awakening of the Millennial Soul.”

Jonathan, it’s such an honor to have you on The Daily Signal Podcast. Thanks for joining us.

Jonathan Jakubowski: Thank you, Rachel. The honor is mine.

Del Guidice: Well, it’s a pleasure to have you with us. So your book coming out on May 5th, “Bellwether Blues,” talks about how millennials have switched over from a more liberal outlook in voting to conservative.

Before we get into the book itself, can you break down for us the millennial generation today and what you saw? And where they were leaning toward when it comes to politics and policy?

Jakubowski: Sure, yeah. The millennial generation is incredibly important to our electoral demographic because it’s the largest electoral demographic.

Now, traditionally, the hit against millennials has been that they don’t come out and vote. They might register to vote, but they don’t vote.

Well, that changed in the midterms of 2018. They came out in droves and affected the turnout in the votes in a number of states.

So that’s a very important demographic to pay attention to. And it’s only going to be growing in importance in the future.

Del Guidice: Can you tell us a little bit about the book, “Bellwether Blues,” and also the inspiration for the title? It’s such an interesting title and I want to hear about the title itself—why you decided on that title—and then just a little bit about the book, unpacking what all is in it.

Jakubowski: Yeah, absolutely. I think one of the fun parts of the book was diving deep into this generation. I think there’s a lot of ideas out there as to who a millennial is. And a lot of stereotypes that certainly a lot of millennials fit. But the thing that I’ve found is there’s also a lot of millennials that don’t fit those stereotypes.

As I do research with a variety of sources, what I found is there’s really a split in the millennial generation. And, ironically, the generation that most dislikes the millennials who fit the stereotypes are the millennials who don’t fit the stereotypes.

So what I’ve found over the course of time—and it’s a Winston Churchill quote that people might be familiar with—is that if you’re not liberal at the age of 25, you have no heart. If you’re not conservative at the age of 35, you have no brain. That quote, which I think brings a lot of humor to the table. … The question is, is that true? Is that true of American millennials?

And what I saw and what inspired the title is there’s a lot of millennials that are indeed leaving the left. There’s movements out there like #walkaway. We use the hashtag #lefttheleft, which we’ve seen before.

There’s a lot of millennials that have become deeply disillusioned with the nature of political affairs. And as the left has gone further to the left, it’s alienated a base of voters who would otherwise be predisposed to their ideology—millennials who passionately care about things like classical liberalism or First Amendment freedoms.

The more they’ve abandoned that base, the more that base has gotten the blues. Which led to the title “Bellwether Blues.”

There was a statistic that I have early on in the book that talks about how 71% of millennials would prefer for there to be a third party. So they’re tired of Democrats in that platform and how far to the left they’ve gone, but they can’t necessarily yet stomach the idea of voting for Republicans.

So they’re kind of stuck in the middle and they have this symptomatic case of the blues and they’re down and out.

That really is what builds my case at the end of the book for arguing to conservatives [that] we have to use a different level of persuasion to win the soul. And if we can win their souls, I think we can also win their votes.

Del Guidice: The book, as you mentioned, is a compilation of seven stories of millennials in “swing country America” that swung from [President Barack] Obama to [President Donald] Trump. …

I obviously don’t have time to go into super big detail, but can you talk about and introduce each of these seven people and give us a little bit of a teaser as to what their story was?

Jakubowski: Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for that question.

I wanted to use empirical evidence to demonstrate that there is a move away from the left. But then I wanted to use anecdotal evidence to demonstrate what’s happening in swing country America.

I happen to live in one such swing county of 3,142 counties in America. There are 59 that are classified as swing, as having voted for Bush, Bush, Obama, Obama, Trump. And then in the state of Ohio, my state, there’s only four that fit that designation.

My county is the youngest of those counties. So going deep into that county and then looking at the stories of millennials in those counties, I thought would have important lessons to offer us as we consider this generation.

Through the anecdotal evidence with the stories that I have—and [they are] very, very powerful and persuasive stories—there’s a lot of reasons that motivated these millennials to change their votes over the course of time.

It didn’t happen in one single event. It didn’t happen because of one podcast or one show or one friend. It was conversations. It was things that they read. It was life events that ultimately culminated in a deep change in persuasion.

By the way, Rachel, it wasn’t just about the persuasion of an individual candidate. President Trump is not necessarily the favorite candidate of all of these millennials.

Some of them really love him, but some of them just went for him because they really believed in issues that he stood for—like pro-life, like the Second Amendment.

I saw a factor of Blexit, where there’s African Americans who are leaving the left because they saw lack of progress in the cities with their friends and family. Certainly the blue-collar vote. So … all seven stories have a lot to offer us, I believe.

Del Guidice: … I know this is probably going to be hard to say because all of them are compelling in different ways, but was there one story in particular that really stood out to you or was really especially powerful for a particular reason?

Jakubowski: Yeah, I think there’s one that stands out in Wood County especially. We have a blue perimeter—I don’t know if you’re familiar with the blue wall concept, where we had Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, the northern parts of Ohio that had never gone for a Republican candidate. And then Trump scaled the blue wall.

Well, in Wood County, what makes it so perfect and bellwether is we have multiple demographics mixing together. But around the perimeter of our county, there’s this really strong blue-collar vote. That’s represented, at least in 2016, maybe an eighth of the entire voting population.

There’s one story of a millennial who is blue collar, grew up in a union family, voted for the Democratic Party their entire life.

And then in this election, through the course of events—really seeing things like Benghazi, seeing the alienation of patriotism, seeing a hatred toward “court’s country” and deep values, the Second Amendment—that really led him to embrace not only President Trump, but also the values that the Republican Party stands for.

Del Guidice: I know when we were talking about the book a couple months ago, you had mentioned to me that there was a particular person, I’m not sure who it was, but one of the seven people was a little bit nervous about speaking out, but then eventually ended up saying, “The story is really important and I’m definitely going to share.”

Are you able to talk about that at all and maybe, just more even generally, if people were a little bit hesitant to speak up? And what made them change their minds and want to go on the record about this?

Jakubowski: Yeah, that’s a great question. And we have to consider the fact that … I’m a millennial as well. So there’s a lot of peer pressure in the other direction. And depending upon where you grow up, especially if you’re in the coast.

I think there’s a ton of pressure that if you’re going to express a different opinion than the status quo, you’re going to face a lot of peer pressure. Well, that peer pressure might be lessened in “swing America.” But it’s still there.

So the considerations of having a political book, sharing their stories, took a lot of courage. And I really admire the seven individuals that came forward and said “yes.”

Because, Rachel, I found a lot of other stories that fit the same kind of story, demographic, title, switch and change. But they weren’t willing to come on the record.

In fact, the blue-collar story I just referenced with Jeremy Harpal, I talked to over a dozen people who had the same exact story but didn’t want to go public because they were concerned about whether or not people in their job might look at them a different way.

In some cases, they were angry at pollsters and wanted to continue having pollsters thinking that they’re going to be voting for a Democratic candidate. When in reality they’re going for President Trump.

So there’s a variety of reasons that I saw that led people to say “no.” But, thankfully, we had these individuals who said “yes.”

Del Guidice: Is it your hope? And do you think that because these seven people were able to speak out and share their stories that this will help [give] other millennials who maybe are nervous about how their paradigm is shifting the courage to speak out and talk about these things as well?

Jakubowski: I hope so. And I do believe so. I think as we phase and get older in life, we start thinking more about other people, namely children.

As we have a family and growing relationships, when our thoughts start moving to other people in our families, we’re less concerned about what people think about us and more concerned about the livelihoods, the future of our children.

I think that the conservative platform—faith, family, and freedom—which I talk a lot about in the book, those ideals that resonate lead people to become more emboldened, to stand up for what they believe to be the best possible future hope for their children, and for their children’s children.

Del Guidice: Mentioning faith, family, and freedom, obviously, very important issues to so many people across the country, but looking at specific issues that [brought] these seven people … over from a more liberal background and conviction to conservative point of view, was there any one or two issues that you saw as common threads that kept resurfacing as to why people are leaving the left?

Jakubowski: Yeah, I think I can sum it up in the word “freedom.”

A freedom is something that we as Americans have in our DNA. It’s a part of who we are. It’s in our anthems, it’s in our pledges. It’s basically in anything and everything we talk about is freedom.

We value freedom to the core. But we don’t really understand the depths of freedom until we lose it.

… We’ve seen the Democratic Party move all the way over to the left, abandoning the tenants of classical liberalism.

I mean, we had a president as recently as 1996 sign bills like things similar to [what] would be on a Republican Party platform, but also Religious Freedom Restoration Acts that would speak toward the expression of freedom.

I think the millennial generation and younger generations really value that freedom. And while they’re being sold a false bill of goods on things like socialism and the benefits of it, they still also, at the same time, value freedom. And the more they come to understand socialism and its negative effects on society.

The more they embrace freedom and the better we can communicate it, the more they’ll go in our direction.

Del Guidice: In writing “Bellwether Blues,” what would you say was the biggest challenge or the hardest part about writing the book?

Jakubowski: Honestly, it was the acknowledgement. I sat there at the very end of the book and, Rachel, I learned a lot about writing a book.

I’m a first-time author. But it was so fun writing the book. Everything seemed to come together so naturally.

[At] the very end, I realized they say that a dream is a goal with a plan. What I learned is it’s not just a goal with a plan, it’s also a goal with a plan with patrons—people who are willing to support you, who are willing to invest into your life.

I had so many people, encouraging voices, people that were willing to be involved in the book. People that were willing to give me advice, people like yourself [who] are willing to bring me on a podcast, as a first-time author. That’s incredible. I look at that and just have an incredible depth of gratitude.

And I was thinking about, who am I going to not include on this list? It feels very long and I feel like it should be longer. Honestly, that was the hardest part of the book for me to write.

Del Guidice: What was the thing that surprised you the most, either in your research or the interviews of the people you did? Or just maybe left the biggest impact on you in this whole process?

Jakubowski: I think that I understood the power of story. But when I’m sitting there writing these stories and then getting deeper into people’s lives, what surprised me is that, over the course of time, somebody doesn’t change their mind, usually, instantly. It happens over the course of time.

And there were a lot of people who spoke truth … without any expectation that there would be some shift or ramification to something they did or something they said.

Then the fidelity of relationship that endured over time as they walk those long miles of relationship. That led these individuals to change their votes.

I guess I never thought about it that deeply. I thought about it more being like the talk-show hosts, the media, the press, what you read. But there was a lot of power in relational equity. And relational equity with truth equals transformation.

Del Guidice: Speaking of that, I know earlier on in our discussion you talked about winning hearts and minds and the power of these interpersonal relationships.

Speaking to maybe other millennials or even Gen Zers out there, who maybe do come from a conservative background, or maybe they have left the left themselves and they’re trying to have these discussions with friends or family members, how would you encourage them to talk to peers in this kind of mindset of maybe they come from that background or maybe they’ve always been conservative? How do you encourage them to connect on that heart level?

Jakubowski: That’s a really good question. I would say, first, you want to think smaller and deeper.

We have the tendency to believe that a post that we send on social media might be the best way to influence a thousand people because it’s kind of quick access. And our society has led us to have all of these incredible benefits. So immediately, we can have instant gratification in terms of responsiveness.

But what we’ve forgotten is there is a deeper art that reaches deeper into the soul and that is individual relationship. So if you can spend time with somebody, even if they reject your worldview, but you cultivate relationship with them, over time, [you influence] them.

Even if they reject your ideas, they’re going to see your lifestyle, they’re going to see your character, they’re going to see what you stand for and believe in. And that’s going to deeply persuade those individuals that you’re in relationship with.

Del Guidice: Thanks for sharing that. Lastly, where can people get “Bellwether Blues”? We’re in the midst of COVID right now, so bookstores and the like aren’t on their usual mode of operations. So if people want to get it, how do they get it?

Jakubowski: Yeah, thank you. Our website is currently selling pre-orders on bellwetherbluesbook.com. But the official launch date, as noted earlier, is May the 5th. So it should be available on Amazon. I think Barnes & Noble and Books-A-Million will also have links, so they’ll be able to ship books out.

I don’t know exactly when they’re going to reopen so that we can get books out on shelves, but, certainly, online through those channels you can get a book.

Del Guidice: Awesome. Jonathan, thank you so much for joining us on The Daily Signal Podcast. It’s been great to have you.

Jakubowski: Rachel, I’m a big fan, so it’s really, really an honor to be here. Thanks so much for having me.

Del Guidice: Well, thank you.

PODCAST BY

Rachel del Guidice

Rachel del Guidice is a congressional reporter for The Daily Signal. She is a graduate of Franciscan University of Steubenville, Forge Leadership Network, and The Heritage Foundation’s Young Leaders Program. Send an email to Rachel. Twitter: @LRacheldG.

A Note for our Readers:

This is a critical year in the history of our country. With the country polarized and divided on a number of issues and with roughly half of the country clamoring for increased government control—over health care, socialism, increased regulations, and open borders—we must turn to America’s founding for the answers on how best to proceed into the future.

The Heritage Foundation has compiled input from more than 100 constitutional scholars and legal experts into the country’s most thorough and compelling review of the freedoms promised to us within the United States Constitution into a free digital guide called Heritage’s Guide to the Constitution.

They’re making this guide available to all readers of The Daily Signal for free today!

GET ACCESS NOW! >>

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Signal column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved

PODCAST: ‘We Can Protect Lives and Livelihoods,’ Says North Carolina Lt. Gov. Dan Forest

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North Carolina Lt. Gov. Dan Forest thinks his state is ready to reopen. “I believe right now many of our counties could start to open back up and you could start to do that in a safe and healthy way,” Forest, a Republican, says.

The lieutenant governor joins The Daily Signal Podcast to propose how America can begin to reopen at a local level to protect both lives and livelihoods. Plus, he discusses what he experienced traveling through North Carolina the past several weeks, and how he’s been helping those struggling. Listen to the podcast below or read the lightly edited transcript.

We also cover these stories:

  • The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention predicts coronavirus-related deaths will reach 3,000 per day by June 1.
  • House GOP members are investigating China’s influence on U.S. university research of COVID-19.
  • The Supreme Court broadcasts teleconference arguments, allowing the public to listen in real time for the first time ever.

The Daily Signal podcast is available on Ricochet, Apple Podcasts, Pippa, Google Play, or Stitcher. All of our podcasts can be found at DailySignal.com/podcasts. If you like what you hear, please leave a review. You can also leave us a message at 202-608-6205 or write us at letters@dailysignal.com. Enjoy the show!

In these trying times, we must turn to the greatest document in the history of the world to promise freedom and opportunity to its citizens for guidance. Find out more now >>

Virginia Allen: I am joined by North Carolina Lt. Gov. Dan Forest. Lieutenant governor, thank you so much for being here.

Lt. Gov. Dan Forest: Virginia, thanks for allowing me to.

Allen: You have made it clear that your greatest concern during CCOVID-19 is helping the people of North Carolina. You’ve personally donated over $200,000 to the people in your state during the pandemic. Can you tell me about some of those people that you’ve helped?

Forest: Well, it was obvious, Virginia, right out of the gate when things started shutting down, that this was going to have devastating effects to people’s livelihoods, to a lot of business owners who, as you well know, and I’m sure you’ve covered them, have poured their life savings and their heart and soul into growing their business, maybe even over decades.

And then you can see how fragile things actually are and how quickly things can turn the wrong direction.

What we decided, really at the beginning, was … we were going to just start spending our time helping people across the state, and that’s what we did.

My wife Alice and I, we’ve spent the last six weeks traveling around the state and just trying to help people where we can.

Sometimes it’s helping a restaurant owner, write him a check, and help them to make their payroll or pay their rent or keep their lights on or even keep their employees fed.

Sometimes their employees have been furloughed and these restaurants are still trying to feed them and their families and it just goes on and on.

I know you’ve heard all the stories, but it’s truly devastating out there. And there’s two sides to this virus, there’s the virus side, which is devastating to a lot of people, and then there’s the economic side, which is devastating.

Allen: Last week you learned about a retired Army officer who is struggling to pay his bills and he was considering selling something very special and valuable to him. Can you tell me a little bit about that Army officer?

Forest: We actually found out about this online and the Bronze Star recipient, he was trying to help his wife keep her business afloat. So he posted online that he wanted to sell his Bronze Star to the highest bidder, which is sad enough in and of itself.

So we contacted him and said, “Listen, we will come and purchase your bronze star from you on one condition: that we can give it back to you at the same time.”

So last week … I went to Winston-Salem and met him and his wife and daughter and purchased his Bronze Star, and then turned around and handed it back to him.

Obviously, people that have put their lives on the line for our nation and earned metals shouldn’t have to be selling their metals in a time of crisis, but like a lot of people, they’ve fallen through the cracks on the bailout programs, the stimulus programs, and all those kinds of things, as you well know.

So, again, just trying to do a little part to help people out, to let people know you care. I think that’s [important] during times like this.

Allen: It’s so important. It really is. And those are the stories I think that just are giving all of us hope right now. To be reminding ourselves that, all right, when you turn on the news it might look bleak, but then, on the other hand, we’re seeing so much generosity of individuals.

I do just want to take a few minutes and talk a little bit about that issue of not only protecting lives but also livelihoods, like you mentioned.

You’ve made it very clear that you think North Carolina needs to begin reopening the state once again, and, of course, this is a big concern as well of The Heritage Foundation … we’ve been having those same discussions with the National Coronavirus Recovery Commission.

What plan are you advocating for in North Carolina to begin reopening the economy?

Forest: Well, the president laid out two platforms, one was state by state and the other was the states have the ability to open up county by county.

Our state is very diverse. Obviously, we have several large cities. The impact of the virus has been felt in those cities in particular, but not quite as heavily in many of the other counties. So we still have many counties that don’t have any deaths.

We have many counties who, I would suppose, if we were getting the correct data from our state, that we would find out that the people that have had the virus have recovered from it.

So the approach that I’ve suggested is the one that the president suggested, too, you can go county by county and open up.

We’re the second-most rural state in the United States of America, even though we have 10.5 million people, and we’re the eighth-largest state. So very diverse in nature and geography and so forth.

I believe right now many of our counties could start to open back up and you could start to do that in a safe and healthy way.

And, Virginia, I’ve said it from the beginning, this is the United States of America, we can protect lives and livelihoods at the same time. And you’ve seen governors across the country doing this.

You have these kind of two schools going on. You have governors who really have the perspective of saying we need to get the economy going, and we’re going to protect the most vulnerable. And then you have those governors who say we’ve got to lock everything down until there’s no other case of coronavirus left—and that’s not a reasonable approach for our country.

Allen: In your mind, how can North Carolina really balance both public health and reopening the economy? Is that kind of held within that county-by-county plan?

Forest: I think you just have to look at the facts here. The statistics line up, really, across the world. We know who the people are that are actually at real risk of this virus. It is the people that are the elderly and those that have immune issues already.

So people that are at risk fall into those categories, and so you can protect those people by quarantining them, having them stay at home for extra periods of time, creating shopping hours for those folks that don’t interfere with other people, creating times at restaurants where those people could actually go and get their food without coming into contact. All these kinds of things.

We know the demographics of the people that are hospitalized and the people that are dying. And I think we need to let the healthy folks get back to their livelihoods and allow freedom to reign again in America.

Personal responsibility and freedom is really important, but the government picking winners and losers in the economy based on their own preferences is, I think, a pretty bad thing.

You look at small-town America, a lot of these shops that exist in small towns have just a handful of visitors a day and you’re saying they can’t remain clean and they can’t social distance, but you’re going to close them down because they’re not essential.

I think every business is able to set those rules for themselves, and then if they don’t, then you come in with the stick. But I think the government should offer the carrot first and assume that personal responsibility is going to rule the day in America.

Allen: When the nation shut down about seven weeks ago, there was still a lot that we didn’t know about COVID-19. What have we learned about the coronavirus since the lockdown? And has that information affected your views?

Forest: I think everybody was probably in the same position. A couple months ago people were fearful and the statistics that people were presuming were 2 million people were going to die in the United States and this thing was going to be devastating.

So from a political leader’s perspective, I don’t blame anybody for any of the decisions they made with a lack of information. I think that is kind of the reactionary approach that people take when mayhem is on the line.

I think what you’ve seen is, again, you have seen the statistics start to tell us who the people are that are being hospitalized, and who the people are that are dying from this, and we know what categories they fit into.

So extra measures taken to test those population. Extra measures taken to screen people going in and out of those populations, of things like nursing homes and in places like that. And extra precautions taken by the business class of folks when they start to reopen again to continue to protect that population.

So we know a lot now. The statistics are really starting to show us who the vulnerable are and who the vulnerable are not. And we can go on about life and livelihood while protecting people at the same time.

Allen: How do you think that the president has handled the situation with COVID-19? And have you and the folks of North Carolina been working with the Trump administration on this?

Forest: Well, I have conversations, obviously, separately from our governor. Our governor is a different party. We don’t really communicate much, which is too bad. I wish that was the case, but it’s just not here.

And so yes, I’ve had conversations with the administration. I asked them a lot of questions. I get feedback. They’re very responsive.

I think the president actually has shown amazing restraint through all this. I think the first thing is he and his team had the foresight to close down travel from China as early as they possibly knew about this, while China was doing the opposite and sending people around the world still.

The president said, “Hey, let’s shut that down.” As you well know, and I’m sure you’ve talked about it a lot, he got criticized heavily for doing that, but that was probably a great major step.

Then after that, Virginia, I think he’s really shown amazing restraint. He has allowed federalism to do its job, allowing the governors to make the decisions for their state, and I think that is really the way it should be.

Again, just like I believe there’s not a one-size-fits-all approach for our counties across our state, there’s not a one-size-fits-all approach for the United States of America either.

So he laid out a framework and said, “Here’s a healthy framework for moving forward and you guys go make the choices.”

Allen: Now we are beginning to see different states, like you say, take different actions.

You know North Carolina has about 11,000 cases compared with a state like Georgia that has over 28,000 or Texas that has over 30,000, but the governors of those states and many others have already begun to reopen their economies.

Do you think that this is wisdom? Should many, many states now be reopening specifically across the South?

Forest: I think they should be. I think we’re doing incredibly well compared to other states our size. If you line us up against the top 10 states, we’re at the bottom of the list for cases and deaths and so forth. So we are doing extremely well in that category.

I think we are in a position to pass through the first gates, and we are not receiving the data from the state that we should be receiving that other states are producing.

I’ve been asking for that for a solid six weeks now. We need to know how many people have recovered from this.

Continuing to count the number of cases and watching that hockey stick go up as you test more and more and more, you’re going to continue to have more cases. You’re going to have more cases until you have a reliable vaccine for this thing, in fact.

So how many people are actively infected with this virus right now is a really important number. How many people have recovered, obviously, is an important number.

But also, we’ve asked for the data surrounding people that have been hospitalized. What’s the exact number of people hospitalized? Not the daily number because that’s not as important as how many people.

And then on the people that have been hospitalized or the people that have died, what’s their exact age, not within a broad range category? What’s their exact age and did they have other complications associated with their situation as well?

They’re just basic questions to help give the kind of data that we need to make clear, intelligent choices in our state about how to protect people and how to move forward at the same time.

Allen: Yeah, absolutely. Well, summer’s right around the corner and, of course, many parts of North Carolina and states all across the country really depend on tourism during the summer to fuel a lot of the business. Are you optimistic that we can reopen our economy in time for summer vacations and trips?

Forest: I’m very optimistic. In fact, I think the people of North Carolina are ready for it. I think the people of North Carolina have done a phenomenal job of making great sacrifices to protect their state and to protect their neighbors and do all the right things. And we’ve seen that across our state.

I happened to be down east a couple of days ago, I guess it was on Friday, Saturday, and there were hundreds of boats out in the water. People were out there, the sun was shining, and it was a beautiful day. It was a warm day.

There are so many people that are just eager to get back about life right now, and I don’t think you can really hold them down. That’s why leadership is tough during these things.

It’s very difficult, and you have these two schools of leadership, one that is kind of the police state that’s going to try to tell everybody what to do every second, but the government is here to protect us, but not to run and control our lives. And that’s really, really important.

We have to make sure that when we come through this thing, we learn a lot of lessons.

I think the biggest lesson that we’re going to learn through this is how do we protect our Constitution and our constitutional freedoms as we move out of this and make sure that we don’t move into a police state mentality every time something starts to go down in our country?

So that’s going to be a very tough one to navigate and I’m sure it will play out in the elections coming up in November.

Allen: Absolutely. Well, you’ve been serving as lieutenant governor since 2013. You have certainly witnessed a lot of policy and political changes over the past seven years. From where you sit in a place of leadership, how have you seen America change over the past several years?

Forest: Oh, boy, I think it’s actually been quite drastic. I think that this whole notion of identity politics and dividing people into identity politics subgroups out there and then using fear to divide and separate is a dangerous thing. I think we’ve seen that over the last handful of years especially.

I’m hoping that one of the things that usually happens during a time of disaster, whether it’s a natural disaster or something like this, is people come together and they get unified.

I think that we have a lot of work to do in America to unify people and unite people, and we even see different schools during a pandemic.

You kind of have those that say, “At all costs, stay home and stay locked down.” And they cross all political spectrums and ideologies.

And then you have people that say, “Let’s get back to work, let’s get the economy going.” And they cross all spectrums and ideologies.

So it’s not just a right-versus-left kind of thing. So it’d be very interesting to see how that unity plays out as we go forward.

I think we can have empathy and compassion for both the sides of this challenge that I mentioned earlier. And we should have empathy and compassion for it.

Again, I think protecting our freedoms based on our constitutional ideas is the most important thing we can do going forward.

Allen: Yeah, absolutely. What policy issues do you feel you’ve been most proud to play a role in implementing in North Carolina?

Forest: We do a lot of policy work behind the scenes as lieutenant governor. I preside over the Senate. I don’t have the opportunity to actually put my name on a lot of policy, but we have a lot of friends in the House, a lot of friends in the Senate, and we write a lot of policy. So it’s really across the board.

I spend a lot of my time in education. So I’m really proud of a lot of things we’re doing in education to move to competency-based education.

We’re the first state in the nation to have every single classroom connected to high-speed broadband and providing the kinds of access and technology, especially to people who haven’t had it before across our state, that’s been important to me.

Human trafficking, we’ve spent a lot of time on the human trafficking issue. We were No. 6 in the nation for human trafficking in our country, on the bad side, not on the good side. So we have a lot of work to do there, and we passed some really good bills to help push that forward.

I think that I could go on, but there’s a lot of things that we do at the small level as lieutenant governor that I’m very proud of and we have a great team.

Allen: Lieutenant governor, we certainly thank you for your service to our country and we just really appreciate your time today.

Forest: Thank you, Virginia, for having me on. And thanks to Heritage for all the great work you do to protect freedom in our country.

PODCAST BY

Virginia Allen

Virginia Allen is a news producer for The Daily Signal. She is the co-host of The Daily Signal Podcast and Problematic Women. Send an email to Virginia. Twitter: @Virginia_Allen5.

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The Heritage Foundation has compiled input from more than 100 constitutional scholars and legal experts into the country’s most thorough and compelling review of the freedoms promised to us within the United States Constitution into a free digital guide called Heritage’s Guide to the Constitution.

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Virginia Anti-gun Activist Unveils 2021 Gun Control Agenda

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On April 10, disgraced Virginia Governor Ralph Northam signed five pieces of anti-gun legislation into law. Those measures criminalize the private sale of firearms, ration handgun sales to one a month, create a “red flag” gun confiscation scheme, punish property crime victims who fail to hastily report a firearm as stolen, and restrict how Virginia parents may store and introduce their children to firearms. Northam sent two pieces of anti-gun legislation back, including legislation that erodes the Right-to-Carry and the state firearms preemption statute, to the general assembly with governor’s amendments. The General Assembly enacted both items of legislation on April 22.

As bad as this session was for Virginia gun owners, it could have been much worse. The General Assembly did not pass the proposed legislation that would have banned, and in some cases confiscated, commonly-owned semi-automatic firearms and their magazines and accessories that Northam demanded. Moreover, moderate members of the Senate Democratic caucus helped to limit the background check legislation to sales, leaving gun owners free to loan and gift firearms to their friends and family without government intrusion.

The worst case scenario was avoided thanks to the herculean efforts of NRA members and other gun rights activists across the Commonwealth. Between the sanctuary county movement that now covers the vast majority of the state, NRA members contacting their lawmakers and meeting with them in person, and the massive gun rights rally on January 20 in Richmond, Virginia gun owners have become the model for how a passionate grassroots movement can influence government policy.

That same passion will be needed going forward.

On April 19, podcast Transition Virginia, which describes itself as “an edgy, political news-commentary podcast on the transition of power in Virginia from a red to blue​,” released an episode featuring Secretary of Public Safety Brian Moran and Lori Haas of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence (CSGV). Virginia gun rights advocates may remember Haas as a vocal cheerleader for Attorney General Mark Herring’s 2015 attempt to remove reciprocity for 25 states Right-to-Carry permits. Haas opposed the compromise legislation with then-Governor Terry McAuliffe that reversed Herring’s maneuver by granting reciprocity to all state Right-to-Carry permits. Longtime gun rights supporters will know that CSGV is the handgun prohibition organization that until 1990 was known as the National Coalition to Ban Handguns.

On the podcast, Haas laid out gun control activists’ plans for the 2021 legislative session. Haas told the interviewer, “We’ll be back… a couple people joked with me [Secretary Moran] one of them, ‘Lori we’ve got seven bills what are we going to do next year?’ Oh I’ve got a big list for you secretary.” Haas made clear that a renewed push to ban commonly-owned semi-automatic firearms and their magazines was at the top of gun control advocates’ agenda, claiming that such items “have no place in civil society.” Haas also noted that her group is already working with legislators to pass a ban next year.

For his part, Moran claimed that commonly-owned semi-automatic firearms are not protected under the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The secretary also approvingly pointed to Maryland’s ban on commonly-owned firearms.

Banning commonly-owned semi-automatic firearms or their magazines is unconstitutional. The U.S. Supreme Court has made clear that governments cannot ban these firearms as they are “in common use” for lawful purposes.

Taken alone, Justice Antonin Scalia’s opinion in Heller is enough to dispose of Moran’s comments. In the decision, Justice Scalia made clear that the types of firearms protected by the Second Amendment include those “in common use at the time” for “lawful purposes like self-defense.”

The firearms industry has estimated that Americans own more than 17.5 million semi-automatic rifles. The AR-15 is the most popular rifle in the U.S. and therefore indisputably “in common use” and protected by the Second Amendment.

All doubt as to whether the Supreme Court’s decisions in Heller and McDonald preclude bans on commonly-owned semi-automatic firearms was settled in 2015. That year, Justice Scalia joined Justice Thomas in a dissent from the denial of certiorari in Friedman v. Highland Park, a case concerning a local ban on commonly-owned semi-automatic firearms.

Justice Thomas explained,

Roughly five million Americans own AR-style semiautomatic rifles. The overwhelming majority of citizens who own and use such rifles do so for lawful purposes, including self-defense and target shooting. Under our precedents, that is all that is needed for citizens to have a right under the Second Amendment to keep such weapons.

A sweeping gun ban isn’t all Haas and her gun prohibitionist allies are seeking to accomplish in 2021. Haas also told the podcast that gun control advocates are working on measures to restrict both concealed and open carry, so-called “safe storage” legislation, and a bill to enact an onerous firearm permit to purchase regime. In a decidedly regressive move, Haas even shared her interest in attacking Virginia’s restoration of rights procedure, whereby former criminals who have paid their debt to society are able to regain their civil rights.

Moran and Haas’s interview makes clear that the enemies of freedom are not satisfied with the gun controls enacted in Virginia this year. Therefore, the commonwealth’s gun rights activists must remain vigilant in order to combat this perpetual threat to freedom. Virginians should start by informing their friends, loved ones, and other like-minded individuals of the continuing threat gun owners face in the commonwealth. This year gun owners proved that a determined grassroots effort can preserve freedom. Virginian gun rights supporters must continue to exhibit the same tenacity and determination in the years to come.

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