Half Of Americans Would Support Mass Deportation Of Illegal Migrants: POLL thumbnail

Half Of Americans Would Support Mass Deportation Of Illegal Migrants: POLL

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By The Daily Caller

Just over half of Americans now say they would support the mass deportation of illegal migrants, a poll released Thursday found.

The 51% who approve of the action includes 42% of Democrats, as well as 68% of Republicans and 46% of independents, according to the Axios Vibes/The Harris Poll survey. Approximately two-thirds of respondents believe illegal immigration is a legitimate crisis as President Joe Biden’s administration has seen record numbers of border crossings.

Mark Penn, chairman of The Harris Poll, told Axios that Biden’s “efforts to shift responsibility for the issue to [former President Donald] Trump are not going to work.”

“I was surprised at the public support for large-scale deportations,” Penn said.  “I think they’re just sending a message to politicians: ‘Get this under control.’”

Border Patrol had 137,480 encounters at the southern border in March, and has already seen 1 million in fiscal year 2024, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data. Fiscal year 2022 included nearly 2.2 million encounters and fiscal year 2023 had 2 million.

A majority of White Americans would support mass deportations, while 45% of Latinos and 40% of black respondents said the same, according to the poll.

Increased crime rates, drugs and violence; added costs to taxpayers; and potential terrorism and national security risks are Americans’ top concerns related to illegal immigration, according to the poll.

The survey also found that Americans largely support immigration as long as it’s legal, with 65% saying the U.S. should make it easier for those wanting a better life to legally enter the country so they don’t try to illegally.

“The tradeoff here in the poll is, people would take expanded legal immigration if they saw there’s a crackdown on the border,” Penn said.

Click here, here, here, here and hear to view pictures of the lack of border security.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas was impeached by the House in February over his handling of the border crisis, but the Democratic-controlled Senate dismissed the two articles without a trial on April 17.

The issue has become a main point on the campaign trail as illegal immigration continues to rank among the top concerns Americans have ahead of November. Polling suggests voters trust Trump by double digits more than Biden on the issue.

The poll surveyed 6,251 U.S. adults between March 29-31, April 5-7 and April 12-14, and it has a margin of error of plus or minus 1.5%.

Neither Biden’s campaign nor the White House immediately responded to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s requests for comment.

AUTHOR

MARY LOU MASTERS

Contributor.

RELATED ARTICLES:

‘For the love of god’: Leaked audio reveals Dem gov ripping Biden admin over border security

Americans Are Now Most Concerned About Immigration, Poll Finds

Media Outlets Are Misrepresenting Crime Stats To Biden’s Benefit

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

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Dems Smell Blood In The Water After Arizona Abortion Ruling. Republicans Are Scrambling To Respond thumbnail

Dems Smell Blood In The Water After Arizona Abortion Ruling. Republicans Are Scrambling To Respond

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By Mary Lou Masters

Editors’ Note:  We think the authors are spot on. Abortion is a big issue for Arizona and we have offered our own take that we think is helpful in thinking about the matter. We don’t think the compromise we suggest will satisfy all, but that is the difference between the political realm and the spiritual realm. What is clear to us is that those who support life have a lot more to lose if there is a thundering Democrat victory. Not only will it set back the immediate cause for life, but it will allow the radical Democrats to re-define the family, sex, and impose the transgender agenda on our school children. For those urban women moved by the abortion issue, we have to make it clear how threatening the Democrats are to women. What after all, do women’s rights mean if you define women out of existence? A Democrat victory will attack school choice and parental rights, as well as bankrupt the nation’s finances. A Democrat victory will shred women’s competitiveness in sports and make Title IX advances an historical footnote. All women should be concerned about those issues. We should offer a reasonable compromise, similar to that offered by Governor Ducey, and make the other side look like the unyielding extremists that they are.

On April 9, the Arizona Supreme Court allowed an 1864 law to be enforced that effectively restricted abortion in all cases except when the life of the mother is in danger. The decision has supercharged the issue of abortion amid an already-contentious election year, forcing Republicans running in the battleground state to address not only the ruling, but the legal status of abortion itself.

Conversations with strategists and campaigns reveal that many Republicans are acutely aware of the impact the Arizona Supreme Court’s ruling could have on races up and down the ballot. However, there is no consensus on how to approach the issue.

Meanwhile, with a constitutional amendment to establish a right to abortion likely to be on the ballot, Arizona has become a focal point for Democrats.

President Joe Biden’s campaign launched a seven-figure Arizona ad buy just two days after the decision, targeting young, female, and Hispanic voters; House Democrats’ campaign arm fired off attacks on incumbent Republican members of Congress; and Rep. Ruben Gallego, the Democratic Senate candidate, debuted a digital ad hitting Republican candidate Kari Lake for past abortion comments.

The ruling and abortion ballot measure are also expected to boost Democratic voter turnout; nonpartisan elections analyst Sabato’s Crystal Ball shifted key races in Arizona to more competitive categories, explaining that “we can’t imagine a major ballot fight over abortion rights would hurt Democratic turnout efforts in the state, and it very well could help.”

“I really think that the Supreme Court’s decision upends Arizona’s elections, and you have to almost re-evaluate every race up and down the ballot,” Barrett Marson, an Arizona-based Republican strategist, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Yet Republicans so far have been mixed in their responses.

The DCNF reached out to all major Republican campaigns in the state, as well as the House and Senate GOP campaign arms and major fundraising vehicles, to gauge Republicans’ strategy.

Some groups and campaigns have acknowledged that the ruling could potentially galvanize Democratic turnout and attract donor funding, stressing the need to spend funds accordingly.

“We are fighting back, and we will be running an aggressive, grassroots campaign to protect our state from the radical left,” a spokesperson for the Arizona Republican Party told the DCNF.

Others, meanwhile, are less concerned, arguing that the ruling does little to change the ballot’s dynamic.

“Democrats are already going to turn out; like, Donald Trump’s on the ballot,” one national Republican strategist told the DCNF.

Trump’s national press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, re-emphasized Trump’s recent abortion stance, in which the former president came out against a national ban and argued in favor of leaving the issues to the states, in a statement to the DCNF, but didn’t answer specific questions related to actions the campaign might take.

“President Trump could not have been more clear. These are decisions for people of each state to make,” Leavitt said.

Trump also came out against the Arizona Supreme Court’s decision for going “too far” in a Truth Social post on April 12, and called on the state legislature and Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs to quickly “remedy what has happened.”

Nevertheless, Biden’s ad blitz took aim at Trump’s abortion stance. “Because of Donald Trump, millions of women lost the fundamental freedom to control their own bodies,” Biden says in the video, referencing the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022 with the help of Trump-appointed justices. “Women’s lives are in danger because of that.”

Gallego has also sought to bring attention to the abortion issue since the ruling, running an ad that calls Lake “wrong on abortion,” “wrong for the Senate” and “wrong for Arizona.”

For her part, Lake has come out against the state Supreme Court’s decision, calling for a “common sense solution.” She also announced her support for Trump’s abortion position on April 8, and subsequently released a policy video on the issue.

“I chose life, but I’m not every woman. I want to make sure that every woman who finds herself pregnant has more choices so that she can make that choice that I made,” Lake said in the video. “I never would ever assume that any woman had the same exact feelings I had or situation I had. We know that some women are economically in a horrible situation, they might be in an abusive relationship, they might be the victim of rape.”

“Republicans need to talk about what they believe on the abortion issue. Like, they have to. And I think Kari Lake’s doing a pretty good job of that,” the national Republican strategist said.

Lake’s campaign did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Tate Mitchell, a spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), told the DCNF that “Arizona is one of our top pick-up opportunities this year, and we will continue working to elect Kari Lake and defeat open-borders, far-left radical Ruben Gallego.”

The Senate Leadership Fund (SLF), a super PAC boosting Senate Republicans, emphasized to the DCNF that the only spending decisions they’ve made are in Montana and Ohio. SLF pointed the DCNF toward a June 2023 polling memo released by its affiliated nonprofit, One Nation, encouraging Republicans to make their position on abortion clear.

Another national GOP strategist told the DCNF that “national Republicans are still planning to invest heavily in television ads and ground game in Arizona.”

Meanwhile, the Republican National Committee (RNC) referred the DCNF toward Trump’s Truth Social post criticizing the state Supreme Court’s decision, as well as an April 10 campaign press release calling Biden’s attacks on the former president over abortion “dishonest.” The RNC did not provide further details on its efforts to combat Democrats’ spending in the state.

On the House front, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) is targeting the districts of Reps. David Schweikert and Juan Ciscomani.

Sabato’s Crystal Ball also moved Ciscomani’s seat from “Leans Republican” to “Toss-Up” on Wednesday.

The National Republican Congressional Committee, the House GOP’s campaign arm, did not respond to the DCNF’s requests for comment; neither did the campaigns for Schweikert and Ciscomani.

The Congressional Leadership Fund (CLF), a super PAC boosting House Republicans, said it spent nearly $1 million for Schweikert’s race in the 2022 midterms, as well as over $3 million for Ciscomani.

“CLF was proud to support Schweikert and Ciscomani last cycle, and we are prepared to do what it takes to help these talented Members win again this fall,” Courtney Parella, communications director for CLF, told the DCNF in a statement.

‘Decided By Arizonans’

Arizona Republicans are similarly divided on what should be the legal status of abortion itself.

For instance, Republicans in the Arizona state legislature have twice blocked efforts to repeal the 1864 law after the state Supreme Court’s ruling.

“From a messaging standpoint, [the ruling] makes it a lot more difficult on Republicans, and I think in some of the swing congressional races and legislative races, it’s just gonna make this an issue for the foreseeable future unless the legislature can figure a way out,” Brian Murray, former Arizona Republican Party executive director, told the DCNF.

Lawmakers who blocked the law’s repeal, as well as the state Freedom Caucus, have expressed support for the decision, while Schweikert and Ciscomani, like Lake, have opposed it.

“This issue should be decided by Arizonans, not legislated from the bench,” Schweikert wrote on April 9. “I encourage the state legislature to address this issue immediately.”

“The territorial law is archaic,” Ciscomani said the same day. “We must do better for women and I call on our state policymakers to immediately address this in a bipartisan manner.”

The opposition from prominent Republicans to the Arizona Supreme Court’s abortion ruling could mitigate Democrats’ turnout boost, according to polling analyst Jon McHenry.

“Typically where there’s been something on the ballot, it has helped Democrats — there’s kind of no way around it. The Arizona situation is going to be an interesting case, because you have so many high profile Republicans saying that this really went too far,” said McHenry. “It’ll be interesting to see what happens with turnout when you have Republicans, essentially on the same side, saying, ‘we need to repeal this.’”

Nevertheless, the congressmen’s Democratic opponents have launched salvos against them over abortion, while the House Democratic campaign arm charged that Schweikert and Ciscomani are “backpedaling on their stance on abortion,” adding that “Arizona voters will remember that they remain hell-bent on controlling women and dragging this country backwards.”

The DCCC launched a mobile billboard in Schweikert’s district targeting the Republican over his voting record on in-vitro fertilization, The Copper Courier reported on April 11.

The Arizona GOP has yet to release a statement on the ruling, while the state Democratic Party has launched numerous attacks against Lake, Ciscomani and Schweikert over the issue.

‘Tough Year For Republicans’

Arizona’s importance in the presidential election between Trump and Biden, as well as the relatively narrow margins of victory in past Senate races, make correct handling of the abortion issue all the more important to the GOP. The state’s presidential, Senate and congressional races may be decided by just a few thousand votes this cycle, meaning that potentially increased Democratic turnout is particularly significant.

“This is going to be a tough year for Republicans in Arizona in a year that should be good. I mean, Joe Biden has a lot of headwinds here in Arizona,” Marson said. “[Before the ruling], I would have said that Arizona is a lean-Trump state … And today? I would say that Arizona is a lean-Biden state.” (RELATED: Elections Analysis Delivers Bad News For Arizona Republicans Following Landmark Abortion Ruling)

Trump narrowly won Arizona in 2016, but lost the state to Biden in 2020 by fewer than 11,000 votes.

Yet Trump has led Biden in the RealClearPolitics average for Arizona all cycle, and is currently up by 4.5 points, with Democrats hoping the abortion issue will help cut into Trump’s lead as election day approaches.

Abortion played a significant role in motivating Democratic voters during the 2022 midterms following the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, according to a KFF/AP VoteCast analysis.

However, in a presidential election year, this effect may not be as strong.

“A presidential race is going to have literally armies of get-out-the-vote workers,” Murray told the DCNF. “If you don’t vote this time, or didn’t the last time, it’s because you really didn’t want to. So I don’t think you can get turnout much higher than it’s gonna be.”

Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster for Biden’s 2020 campaign, told the DCNF that the state Supreme Court’s ruling “keeps the issue alive not just in Arizona, but everywhere.”

“It helps the Senate race, it helps the presidential, it helps with turnout, it helps with persuasion of suburban women in Phoenix and Tucson. So it’s very, very positive for winning the state, as well as the initiative in the state,” said Lake. “This is the big difference post-Dobbs — where the pro-abortion side is more energized than the anti-abortion side, and they’re bigger.”

*****

This article was published by the Daily Caller News Foundation and is reproduced with permission.

TAKE ACTION

The Prickly Pear’s TAKE ACTION focus this year is to help achieve a winning 2024 national and state November 5th election with the removal of the Biden/Obama leftist executive branch disaster, win one U.S. Senate seat, maintain and win strong majorities in all Arizona state offices on the ballot and to insure that unrestricted abortion is not constitutionally embedded in our laws and culture.

Please click the TAKE ACTION link to learn to do’s and don’ts for voting in 2024. Our state and national elections are at great risk from the very aggressive and radical leftist Democrat operatives with documented rigging, mail-in voter fraud and illegals voting across the country (yes, with illegals voting across the country) in the last several election cycles.

Read Part 1 and Part 2 of The Prickly Pear essays entitled How NOT to Vote in the November 5, 2024 Election in Arizona to be well informed of the above issues and to vote in a way to ensure the most likely chance your vote will be counted and counted as you intend.

Please click the following link to learn more.

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A Coup Without Firing a Shot

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By Jeffrey Tucker

The last few years can be tracked at two levels: the physical reality around us and the realm of the intellectual, mental, and psychological.

The first level has presented a chaotic narrative of the previously unthinkable. A killer virus that turned out to be what many people said it was in February 2020: a bad flu with a known demographic risk best treated with known therapeutics. But that template and the ensuing campaign of fear and emergency rule gave rise to astonishing changes in our lives. 

Social functioning was wholly upended as schools, businesses, churches, and travel were ended by force. The entire population of the world was told to mask up, despite vast evidence that doing so achieved nothing in terms of stopping a respiratory virus.

That was followed by a breathtaking propaganda campaign for a shot that failed to live up to its promise. The cure for the disease itself caused tremendous damage to health including death, a subject about which everyone cared intensely before the shot and then strangely forgot about after.

Protests against the goings-on were met with media smears, shutdowns, and even the cancellation of bank accounts. However, and simultaneously, other forms of protest were encouraged, insofar as they were motivated by a more proper political agenda against structural injustices in the old system of law and order. That was a strange confluence of events, to say the least.

In the midst of this, which was wild enough, came new forms of surveillance, censorship, corporate consolidation, an explosion of government spending and power, rampant and global inflation, and hot wars from long-running border conflicts in two crucial regions. 

The old Declarations of rules on the Internet put free speech as a first principle. Today, the hosting website of the most famous one, signed by Amnesty International and the ACLU, is gone, almost as if it never existed. In 2022, it came to be replaced by a White House Declaration on the Future of the Internet, that extols stakeholder control as the central principle.

All the while, once-trusted sources of information – media, academia, think tanks – have steadfastly refused to report and respond in truthful ways, leading to a further loss of public trust not just in government and politics but also in everything else, including corporate tech and all the higher order sectors of the culture.

Also part of this has been a political crisis in many nations, including the use of sketchy election strategies justified by epidemiologic emergency: the only safe way to vote (said the CDC) is absentee via the mails. Here we find one of many overlapping parallels to a scenario hardly ever imagined: infectious disease deployed as a cover for political manipulation.

Crucially and ominously, all of these mind-blowing developments took place in roughly similar ways the world over, and with the same language and model. Everywhere people were told “We are all in this together,” and that social distancing, masking, and vaxxing was the correct way out. Media was also censored everywhere, while anti-lockdown protestors (or even those who simply wanted to worship together in peace) were treated not as dissidents to be tolerated but irresponsible spreaders of disease. 

Can we really pretend that all of this is normal, much less justified? The exhortation we receive daily is that we can and must.

Really? At what point did you realize that you had to start thinking for yourself?

We all have a different starting place and journey but each of us has the following in common. We’ve realized that official sources, the ones we’ve trusted in the past, are not going to make any sense of the above for us. We have to seek out alternatives and put the story together ourselves. And this we must do because the only other choice is to accept that all of the above consists of a random series of disconnected and pointless events, which is surely not true.

That leads to the second layer of comprehension; the intellectual, mental, and psychological. Here is where we find the real drama and incalculable difficulties.

At the dawn of lockdowns, what appeared to be a primitive public health error seemed to be taking place. It seemed like some scientists at the top, who gained an implausible amount of influence over government policy, had forgotten about natural immunity and were under the impression that it was good for health to stay home, be personally isolated, avoid exercise, and eat only takeout food. Surely such preposterous advice would be revealed soon as the nonsense it was.

How in the world could they be so stupid? How did they gain so much influence, not just nationally but all over the world? Did the whole of humanity suddenly forget about all known science in every field from virology to economics to psychology?

As time went on, more and more anomalies appeared that made that judgment seem naive. As it turns out, what was actually taking place had something to do with a move on the part of security and intelligence services. It was they who were given rule-making authority on March 13, 2020, and that’s why so much of what we needed to know was and is considered classified.

There were early initial reports that the virus itself might have been leaked from a US-backed lab in Wuhan, which introduces the entire subject of the US bioweapons program. This is a very deep rabbit hole itself, thoroughly exposed in Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s The Wuhan Cover-Up. There was a reason that topic was censored: it was all true. And as it turns out, the vaccine itself was able to bypass the normal approval process by slipping through under the cover of emergency. In effect, it came pre-approved by the military. 

As the evidence continues to roll in, more and more rabbit holes appear, thousands of them. Each has a name: Pharma, CCP, WHO, Big Tech, Big Media, CBDCs, WEF, Deep State, Great Reset, Censorship, FTX, CISA, EVs, Climate Change, DEI, BlackRock, and many more besides. Each of these subject areas has threads or thousands of them, each connecting to more and to each other. At this point, it is simply not possible for a single person to follow it all. 

To those of us who have been steeped in following the revelations day by day, and trying to keep up with putting them together into a coherent model of what happened to us, and what is still going on, the ominous reality is that the traditional understanding of rights, liberties, law, business, media, and science were dramatically overthrown in the course of just a few months and years.

Nothing operates today as it did in 2019. It’s not just that functioning broke. It was broken and then replaced. And the surreptitious coup d’etat with no shots fired is still ongoing, even if that is not the headline. 

Of this fact, many of us today are certain. But how common is this knowledge? Is it a vague intuition held by many members of the public or is it known in more detail? There are no reliable polls. We are left to guess. If any of us in 2019 believed we had our finger on the pulse of the national mood or public opinion generally, we certainly do not anymore.

Nor do we have access to the inner workings of government at the highest levels, much less the conversations going on among the winners of our age, the well-connected ruling elites who seemed to have gamed the entire system for their own benefit. 

It’s so much easier to regard the whole thing as a giant confusion or accident on grounds that only cranks and crazies believe in conspiracy theories. The trouble with that outlook is that it posits something even more implausible; that something this gigantic, far-reaching, and dramatic could have happened with no real intentionality or purpose or that it all fell together as a huge accident.

Brownstone Institute has published more than 2,000 articles and 10 books exploring all over the above topics. Other venues and friends are out there helping us with this research and discovery, issue by issue. Even so, a great deal of responsibility falls on this one institution, the main work of which is providing support for dissident and displaced voices, which is implausible since it was only founded three years ago. We are deeply grateful for our supporters and would welcome you to join them.

As for the intellectuals we once revered for their curiosity and wisdom, most seem to have gone into hiding, either unable to adapt to the new realities or just unwilling to risk their careers by exploring hard topics. It’s understandable but still tragic. Most are happy to pretend like nothing happened or celebrate the change as nothing but progress. As for journalists, the New York Times publishes daily commentaries dismissing the Constitution as a dated anachronism that has to go and no one thinks much about it.

There is a lot to sort out. So much has changed so quickly. No sooner than the dust seems to be settling from one upheaval, there is another and then another. Keeping up with it all causes a level of psychological brain scramble on a scale we’ve never previously experienced.

It’s easier to wait for the historians to tell the next generation what happened. But maybe, just maybe, by stepping up and telling the story as we see it in real time, we can make a difference in stopping this madness and restoring some sane and normal freedom back to the world.

*****

This article was published by the Brownstone Institute and is reproduced with permission.

Photo credit: DonkeyHotey

TAKE ACTION

The Prickly Pear’s TAKE ACTION focus this year is to help achieve a winning 2024 national and state November 5th election with the removal of the Biden/Obama leftist executive branch disaster, win one U.S. Senate seat, maintain and win strong majorities in all Arizona state offices on the ballot and to insure that unrestricted abortion is not constitutionally embedded in our laws and culture.

Please click the TAKE ACTION link to learn to do’s and don’ts for voting in 2024. Our state and national elections are at great risk from the very aggressive and radical leftist Democrat operatives with documented rigging, mail-in voter fraud and illegals voting across the country (yes, with illegals voting across the country) in the last several election cycles.

Read Part 1 and Part 2 of The Prickly Pear essays entitled How NOT to Vote in the November 5, 2024 Election in Arizona to be well informed of the above issues and to vote in a way to ensure the most likely chance your vote will be counted and counted as you intend.

Please click the following link to learn more.

‘Just a Disaster’: Biden’s Title IX Rule Empowers LGBTQ Movement, Erases Women and Justice thumbnail

‘Just a Disaster’: Biden’s Title IX Rule Empowers LGBTQ Movement, Erases Women and Justice

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By Family Research Council

The Biden administration’s revision of a civil rights statute designed to protect women’s rights in education erases women’s protections, rewrites landmark civil rights legislation to advance the LGBT agenda by federal fiat, and waters down legal standards for those falsely accused of sexual harassment.

The Biden administration obliterates the unique rights intended for women and girls by claiming Title IX’s prohibitions of discrimination against females in education apply to men who identify as women — regardless of their outward appearance — as well as those who identify as homosexual. Its “unofficial final rule,” released on April 19, now claims LGBTQIA+ activists may cite protections intended for women to accuse their fellow students of discrimination based on “sex stereotypes, sex characteristics, pregnancy or related conditions, sexual orientation, and gender identity.”

The term “gender identity” appears 289 times in the 1,577-page document.

The new rule also requires that these “discrimination” allegations only meet the lowest standard of proof, known as the “preponderance of the evidence.” The rule — announced by Catherine Lhamon, the Education Department’s assistant secretary for civil rights — also establishes “equitable grievance procedures.”

“They have completely demolished protections for women,” Meg Kilgannon, senior fellow for Education Studies at Family Research Council, told “Washington Watch” guest host Joseph Backholm last week. “It’s just a disaster.” The new proposed rule “impacts speech. It impacts a free and appropriate education.”

In a comment emailed to The Washington Stand, Alliance Defending Freedom Legal Counsel Rachel Rouleau called the new rule “a slap in the face to women and girls who have fought long and hard for equal opportunities.” The Biden administration’s “radical redefinition of sex turns back the clock on equal opportunity for women” and “will have devastating consequences on the future of women’s sports, student privacy, and parental rights.”

The Biden administration’s federal fiat — never approved by legislation — rolls back regulations instituted in May 2020 by then-Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos that reestablished legal norms and standards for those accused of sexual harassment.

Obama administration rules — also drawn up by Lhamon, a former ACLU attorney — allowed college sexual harassment investigations to be carried out by a single investigator, who acted as judge and jury. Vague definitions proscribing any “unwelcome conduct,” whether verbal or “nonverbal,” led school districts to punish students for unwelcome staring.

Under the Trump administration’s revised Title IX rules, anyone accused of sexual harassment on campus enjoyed the presumption of innocence, as in any other legal proceeding. The defendant also had the right to know the charges against him or her, examine all the evidence presented in the proceedings, have an adviser cross-examine any witness’s testimony, and appeal the ruling. The administration had to meet the more robust and normative legal standard of “clear and convincing evidence.”

At the time, Lhamon asserted that the Trump administration’s revised guidelines would make it “permissible to rape and sexually harass students with impunity.” No epidemic of unpunished campus rape followed.

The Biden administration’s new Title IX rule eliminates all these elements, which are standard in other consequential accusations.

“The final regulations restore and strengthen vital protections for students,” Biden’s Department of Education contended in a press release Friday.

All parties seem to acknowledge these rules will supercharge the number of sexual harassment cases on campus after it takes effect on August 1. “This rule is designed to encourage reporting,” a Biden administration official told journalists on a call Thursday.

Newly empowered with looser regulations, activist bureaucrats in the federal government, and on college campuses nationwide, “are going to enforce this rule, and they are going to enforce it aggressively,” predicted Kilgannon. “The Education Department laid down their marker and said, ‘Yes, indeed, you will face a penalty for this.’” States that refuse to implement the strategy will “be losing federal funds for your education programs in your state.”

Since more affluent areas, like the D.C. suburbs, rely more on property taxes to fund their schools, the threat of losing federal education dollars falls heaviest on the most vulnerable students living in underprivileged districts. “It is the poorest places who will be most harmed by this, because they rely the most on federal funding,” Kilgannon added.

To avoid running afoul of an activist bureaucracy’s interpretation of the newly broadened rule, education officials may shut down any speech that could turn into litigation, and threaten federal funding.

“This change reverses decades of progress toward equality, open discourse, due process, and parental rights,” observed the Southeastern Legal Foundation. The new rule will cause students to “self-censor rather than risk being reported for harassment” and “significantly undermines the role of parents — who should be the primary caregivers for their children and who are entitled to raise their children to share certain values and beliefs — by requiring conformity to the federal government’s views on biology and so-called gender identity.”

The regulations drew fire from Congress over these specific concerns. “Evidently, the acceptance of biological reality, and the faithful implementation of the law, are just pills too big for the Department to swallow,” said Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), chair of the House Education and Workforce Committee.

The new regulation pulls off a trifecta of administrative harm, as it “attacks the definition of sex, due-process rights, and free-speech rights,” said Inez Feltscher Stepman, a senior policy analyst at the Independent Women’s Forum.

The regulation also continues the decades-long trend of rewriting legislation through executive action. “Title IX was written in 1972 when ‘sex’ meant male and female, and no amount of interpretive jiujitsu permits a cabinet agency to rewrite the plain language of the law. Efforts to do so have failed repeatedly in Congress for one simple reason: Such an expansion of law is deeply unpopular, with opposition to these changes spanning both political and racial lines,” said Nicole Neily, president of Parents Defending Education, in a comment to TWS. Numerous polls have shown a supermajority of Americans oppose the extending of women’s rights to men, regardless of their self-identity.

“It is grotesque that the White House has chosen to capitulate to extremists in his party, sacrificing the First Amendment” in the process, Neily told TWS.

Women’s rights activists promise not to take the loss of their distinct place in the law lying down. “This is going to be the subject of lawsuits,” Kilgannon told Backholm, citing direct knowledge of multiple civil rights attorneys and organizations. Neiley told TWS explicitly, “This betrayal of students will not soon be forgotten by American parents, and we look forward to suing the administration over this policy soon.” Likewise, Rouleau told TWS that the “Alliance Defending Freedom plans to take action to defend female athletes, as well as school districts, teachers, and students who will be gravely harmed by this unlawful government overreach.”

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

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Medical Groups Silent After Review Finds ‘Weak Evidence’ for Recommending Puberty Blockers to Kids

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By Katelynn Richardson

Editors’ Note: It is appalling that American medical organizations either remain opposed or silent on this latest study. Already Scotland is looking at banning puberty blockers and several other European countries now severely restrict their use. Among these are Norway, U.K. Sweden, Denmark, France, and Finland. In addition, 22 American states have banned the use of puberty blockers. Between the abuses of COVID-19 vaccines and jumping on the transgender bandwagon, the American medical establishment looks less scientific and less medical every day. Maybe they should drop the pretense and just become left-wing political lobbyists. 

Major medical associations remain silent after the results of a four-year review commissioned by the National Health Service England undermined their recommendations for giving puberty blockers to children with gender dysphoria.

The Cass Report, conducted by Dr. Hilary Cass, a pediatrician and former president of the U.K.’s Royal College of Pediatrics and Child Health, found only “weak evidence” for offering puberty blockers to children.

Cass concluded that her findings, released April 10, “raise questions about the quality of currently available guidelines” offered by associations such as the World Professional Association for Transgender Health and the Endocrine Society, yet neither organization has committed to reviewing their guidelines.

The review recommends against treating children with puberty blockers outside of a research setting. It also urged “extreme caution” for providing cross-sex hormones to minors under 18 and stressed the need for a “clear clinical rationale.”

The review further suggested a “full programme of research be established” to “look at the characteristics, interventions, and outcomes of every young person presenting to the NHS [National Health Service] gender services.”

“Although a diagnosis of gender dysphoria has been seen as necessary for initiating medical treatment, it is not reliably predictive of whether that young person will have longstanding gender incongruence in the future, or whether medical intervention will be the best option for them,” The Cass Report noted.

The American Medical Association, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and the Endocrine Society did not respond to multiple inquiries over the past week from the Daily Caller News Foundation asking whether they had concerns with the report’s findings or intended to conduct their own review.

Aside from WPATH, these organizations largely have failed to address the report publicly. In a written statement, the transgender health organization said it “supports policies that increase access to high-quality ethical care for transgender youth” and claimed that the report is rooted in a “false premise.”

The organization’s standards of care, eighth version, states that waiting several years to start a young adolescent on puberty blockers “is not always practical nor necessary given the premise of the treatment as a means to buy time while avoiding distress from irreversible pubertal changes.” However, it acknowledges that establishing a “sustained experience of gender incongruence” can be important before starting.

“The foundation of The Cass Report is rooted in the false premise that non-medical alternatives to care will result in less adolescent distress for most adolescents and is based on a lack of knowledge of and experience working with this patient population,” the World Professional Association for Transgender Health said in a press release. “It is harmful to perpetuate this notion and does not acknowledge the very real fact that medical pathways are an important treatment option for many young people.”

The Endocrine Society characterizes puberty blockers as a “reversible pause to puberty” and “a first step in treatment to allow the adolescent to explore their gender identity and/or to provide relief from distress.” WPATH’s guidelines likewise recommend putting adolescents on “puberty-suppressing hormones” to “alleviate gender dysphoria.”

Physicians at the World Professional Association for Transgender Health acknowledged puberty blockers can cause irreversible consequences in minors such as infertility, bone loss, and disrupted brain development in educational sessions from September 2022 previously obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Both the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry recommend WPATH’s guidance for handling gender dysphoria in children. The AMA often opposes red state laws that ban sex-change procedures for minors, including puberty blockers.

The Cass Report notes that “there is no evidence that puberty blockers buy time to think, and some concern that they may change the trajectory of psychosexual and gender identity development.”

The report also questions WPATH and the Endocrine Society on the “circularity” of their citations, which make support for their positions appear stronger than they are.

Early versions of the two organizations’ guidelines influenced “nearly all” guidelines set by other organizations, the report notes. Their guidelines are also “closely interlinked” because WPATH provided input on the Endocrine Society’s recommendations, it says.

“The circularity of this approach may explain why there has been an apparent consensus on key areas of practice despite the evidence being poor,” the report states.

*****

This article was published by The Daily Signal and is reproduced with permission.

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Medical Associations Silent After Review Finds ‘Weak Evidence’ For Giving Puberty Blockers To Kids

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By The Daily Caller

Major medical associations have remained silent after the results of a four-year review commissioned by the National Health Service (NHS) England undermined their recommendations for giving puberty blockers to children with gender dysphoria

The Cass report, conducted by former Royal College of Pediatrics and Child Health Dr. Hilary Cass and released April 10, found that there is “weak evidence” for offering puberty blockers to children. It concluded that its findings “raise questions about the quality of currently available guidelines” offered by associations like the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) and the Endocrine Society, yet neither organization has committed to reviewing their guidelines.

The review references a letter recommending against treating children with puberty blockers outside of a research setting. It also urged “extreme caution” for providing cross-sex hormones to minors under 18 and stressed the need for a “clear clinical rationale.”

The review further suggested a “full programme of research be established” to “look at the characteristics, interventions and outcomes of every young person presenting to the NHS gender services.”

“Although a diagnosis of gender dysphoria has been seen as necessary for initiating medical treatment, it is not reliably predictive of whether that young person will have longstanding gender incongruence in the future, or whether medical intervention will be the best option for them,” the report noted.

The American Medical Association, WPATH, American Academy of Pediatrics, American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP) and Endocrine Society did not respond to multiple inquiries over the past week from the Daily Caller News Foundation asking whether they had concerns with the report’s findings or intended to conduct their own review. Aside from WPATH,  these organizations have largely failed to even address the report publicly.

WPATH wrote in a statement that it “supports policies that increase access to high-quality ethical care for transgender youth,” claiming that the report’s foundation is rooted in a “false premise.”

The organization’s standards of care 8th version states that waiting several years to start a young adolescent on puberty blockers “is not always practical nor necessary given the premise of the treatment as a means to buy time while avoiding distress from irreversible pubertal changes,” though it acknowledges that establishing a “sustained experience of gender incongruence” can be important before starting.

“The foundation of the Cass report is rooted in the false premise that non-medical alternatives to care will result in less adolescent distress for most adolescents and is based on a lack of knowledge of and experience working with this patient population,” the organization said in a press release. “It is harmful to perpetuate this notion and does not acknowledge the very real fact that medical pathways are an important treatment option for many young people.”

🚨 The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (@AACAP) is refusing to inform its members about the publication of the Cass Review, the biggest news in the field of pediatrics since COVID, and arguably in the 21st century.

On Wednesday, AACAP member Dr. Kris Kaliebe… pic.twitter.com/jtbzwXDFEN

— Leor Sapir (@LeorSapir) April 12, 2024

The Endocrine Society characterizes puberty blockers as a “reversible pause to puberty” and “a first step in treatment to allow the adolescent to explore their gender identity and/or to provide relief from distress.” WPATH’s guidelines likewise recommend putting adolescents on “puberty suppressing hormones” to “alleviate gender dysphoria.”

WPATH physicians acknowledged puberty blockers can cause irreversible consequences in minors like infertility, bone loss and disruption of brain development in educational sessions from September 2022 previously obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Both the AMA and AACAP recommend WPATH’s guidance for handling gender dysphoria in children. The AMA often advocates against red state laws that ban sex-change procedures for minors, including puberty blockers.

The Cass report notes “there is no evidence that puberty blockers buy time to think, and some concern that they may change the trajectory of psychosexual and gender identity development.”

The Cass report also questioned WPATH and the Endocrine Society on the “circularity” of their citations, which make support for their positions appear stronger than they are.

Early versions of the two organization’s guidelines influenced “nearly all” guidelines set by other organizations, the report notes. The two organization’s guidelines are also “closely interlinked” because WPATH provided input on the Endocrine Society recommendations, according to the report.

“The circularity of this approach may explain why there has been an apparent consensus on key areas of practice despite the evidence being poor,” the report stated.

AUTHOR

KATELYNN RICHARDSON

Contributor.

RELATED ARTICLE: Chicago: Leftist Muslim teaches American leftists to scream ‘Death to America’ in Farsi

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

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Gender Politics: Why Is it So Hard to Define Biological Realities? thumbnail

Gender Politics: Why Is it So Hard to Define Biological Realities?

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By Family Research Council

Earlier this month, the revelatoryCass review was published. The report, conducted by former president of the Royal College of Pediatrics and Child Health Dr. Hilary Cass, found “remarkably weak evidence” that “gender affirming services” for children have any positive outcomes. The British Government responded to the results by announcing there will be “a fundamental change” in how they manage the gender identity politics concerning medical care moving forward. It now appears that the push toward acknowledging biological reality in the U.K. is moving beyond clinics.

This week, the British Government’s Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer dove into the males in female sports controversy when she made the argument that biological males have an “indisputable edge” over female athletes, concluding that male athletes who identify as transgender should be prohibited from “competing in top-level female sports events,” Breitbart reported. The biological differences between men and women “not only give transgender women an unfair competitive advantage,” Frazer wrote for The Daily Mail, “but threaten the safety of female athletes in the sports arena.”

She continued, “That’s why this week I called together representatives from key sporting organizations, like the England and Wales Cricket Board and Football Association, to encourage them to follow the lead of other sports in not allowing trans athletes to compete against women at the elite level.” Many are acknowledging how significant this development is, given that the definition of what a woman is can scarcely be answered these days.

The solution Frazer is presenting is that those who understand the biological realities of what a man is and what a woman is must join to proclaim the message more zealously. “The need for clear action from all sports becomes more pressing with each passing week,” Frazer added. “In competitive sport, biology matters. And … this should not be ignored.” And in direct response to the Cass Review, she emphasized “that inaction and a failure to confront the issues at stake cannot be an option.”

But how is progress made on an issue many claim doesn’t exist? Take Harvard University, for example. The editorial board of the Ivy League’s student newspaper published an article on April 16 titled, “There Are Many Obstacles Facing Women’s Sports. Trans Athletes Aren’t One.” In short, The Harvard Crimson’s Editorial Board writer Jonathan G. Yuan made the argument that “the science is … less conclusive” as it relates to whether “transgender women hold a biological edge over their cisgender opponents.”

Breitbart’s Warner Huston does well in pointing out the errors in Yuan’s argument, noting that “in the process of making the” assertions it did, “the article ignored all evidence to the contrary to support their own claim that transgender athlete participation is wholly benign.” But nonetheless, the push against true science continues — not only in a student newspaper, but also in government.

Just Tuesday, Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs (D) “vetoed a bill to codify the meaning of ‘woman’ in state law, becoming the second female Democratic governor to nix such legislation over concerns about transgender rights,” The Washington Times wrote. Similar to a bill passed by Idaho Governor Brad Little (R) last week, Arizona’s Senate Bill 1628 would have provided biological “definitions for sex-based terms used in statutes, administrative rules, regulations and public policies.” But Hobbs’s veto, which was one of 13 in recent days, was not free from backlash.

In a statement, Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen (R) said, “Instead of helping these confused boys and men, Democrats are only fueling the disfunction by pretending biological sex doesn’t matter.” He continued, “Our daughters, granddaughters, nieces, and neighbors are growing up in a dangerous time where they are living with an increased risk of being victimized in public bathrooms, showers, and locker rooms because Democrats are now welcoming biological males into what used to be traditionally safe, single-sex spaces.”

State Senator Sine Kerr (R), the sponsor of the bill, urged, “The madness needs to stop.” She added that “real women must continue to push back, stand for truth, and make their voices heard to advocate for the protection of their rights.” But even though this fight is facing setbacks in some states, Louisiana is taking strides in the right direction.

While it’s not specifically related to the issue of defining gender, Louisiana is fighting to give parents back the right to decide what role gender ideology plays in the lives of their children. According to The Epoch Times, “The Louisiana House and Senate have advanced legislation this week that, if signed by newly seated Gov. Jeff Landry, a Republican, would prohibit sexual indoctrination and the teaching of critical race theory (CRT) in schools.”

Specifically, House Bill 121, also known as the Given Name Act, states that the “Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution … protects the right of parents to direct the care, upbringing, education, and welfare of their children.” As such, the legislation would require parental approval before students can be referred to by any name or pronoun other than their original name and biological pronouns.

Given all this information, the elephant in the room is: Why is it so hard for some people to recognize the biological differences between men and women? It’s a simple question, some would argue, and Meg Kilgannon, Family Research Council’s senior fellow for Education Studies, shared her insight with The Washington Stand. The reason such a simple reality is tossed aside, she explained, is because “they are not accepting there is a reality.”

Kilgannon emphasized what NPR’s CEO Katherine Maher said during a TED talk, namely, that truth is subjective. Maher stated, “[W]e all have different truths. They’re based on things like where we come from, how we were raised, and how other people perceive.” And for Kilgannon, it’s this mindset that leads the Left into a worldview where men can be women and women can be men.

“They don’t believe there is truth,” she added. It’s as though “they don’t believe anything except the fact that they don’t believe anything. It’s the age old trope of [they] say there’s no definitive truth and [they] say that in a definitive statement.” It’s a cyclical argument, she observed, which is hard to escape from.

So, why is it that the question of biological realities is hard for some to answer? As Kilgannon concluded, “If they answer the question, they have to admit that there is a value associated with the item.” Or in other words, a mindset like this means that answering a simple question leads to the collapse of an entire worldview.

AUTHOR

Sarah Holliday

Sarah Holliday is a reporter at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Planned Parenthood Committed 392,712 Abortions, Received $699.3 Million in Taxpayer Funding in 2023 thumbnail

Planned Parenthood Committed 392,712 Abortions, Received $699.3 Million in Taxpayer Funding in 2023

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By Family Research Council

Despite seeing fewer patients and reducing bona fide health care services, Planned Parenthood received a record-breaking amount of taxpayer funding last year, according to Planned Parenthood CEO Alexis McGill Johnson in the organization’s most recent annual report, which she describes as a “love note” to abortionists.

Planned Parenthood committed 392,712 abortions and received a record-breaking $699.3 million in taxpayer funding in the 2022-2023 fiscal year, according to its most recent annual report released on Wednesday.

The Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s affiliates perpetrated an average of 1,076 abortions every day of the year, as they amassed $1.8 billion in revenue and $2.5 billion in net assets.

Government funding for the abortion giant increased, although Planned Parenthood saw 80,000 fewer patients (2.05 million) last year than in 2022 (2.13 million), according to PPFA’s annual report, titled “Above & Beyond,” which covers the fiscal year which ran from July 2022 to June 2023.

Despite complaining of about half the country enacting pro-life protections for children since the Dobbs decision, the number of abortions Planned Parenthood carried out surged in the last year. Abortions increased by 18,557 over last year — when Planned Parenthood committed 374,155 abortions and received $670.4 million in taxpayer funding, during its 2021-2022 fiscal year — an increase of 9,252 abortions over pre-Dobbs levels.

“This report is our love note” to abortionists, writes Planned Parenthood CEO Alexis McGill Johnson.

Pro-life advocates observed Planned Parenthood has inflicted a ponderous number of deaths on innocent Americans last year. “This is a record number of abortions for the organization and represents approximately 40% of the abortions performed in the United States,” said Michael New, a senior associate scholar at Charlotte Lozier Institute, in a statement emailed to The Washington Stand. “This puts abortions performed by Planned Parenthood in the top four leading causes of death in the United States, after heart disease, cancer and COVID-19,” SBA Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser told TWS.

Taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood surged by $28.9 million over last year and $65.9 million since 2021. Taxpayer revenue accounts for one-third (34%) of Planned Parenthood’s revenue. “Planned Parenthood dropped this bombshell report while many Americans are still recovering from Tax Day,” said Dannenfelser. “Bidenomics has turned into abortionomics.”

“Meanwhile, while your average American’s annual income is down,” wrote Hugh Brown, executive vice president of the American Life League, in a statement emailed to TWS. “We can barely afford necessities — and our government’s answer? Funnel $700 million to the elite baby killers.”

The funding increase comes although a majority (53%) of Americans oppose funding abortion in the United States, and larger majorities oppose foreign abortion funding. Although presumptive Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has yet to announce he will protect U.S. taxpayers from funding Planned Parenthood in his second term, he released a Protect Life rule preventing Title X family funding recipients from referring women for abortions in July 2019, his third year in office. Planned Parenthood withdrew from the Title X program rather than curtail or redirect its abortion business.

However, President Joe Biden reversed Trump’s order in October 2021 and subsequently opened multiple funding avenues to the abortion franchise. “The federal government should not be funding the facilitation of abortion in any form or fashion — at home or abroad,” Family Research Council President Tony Perkins has noted.

More Money, Fewer Health Care Services

The increased funding comes despite the fact that the number of genuine health care services Planned Parenthood offers has fallen precipitously. “Between 2022 and 2023, preventive-care visits fell by 31.0%, pap tests fell by 13.5%, cancer screenings fell by 1.4%, and adoption referrals fell by 4.5%. Interestingly, for every adoption referral in 2023, Planned Parenthood performed over 228 abortions,” explained New. “In the past 10 years, the number of abortions performed by Planned Parenthood has increased by 20%. Meanwhile, cancer screenings fell by more than 58%, and prenatal services declined by more than 67%.”

The report highlights PPFA’s commitment to selling women on abortion, say critics. “Once again, pregnant women who walk into Planned Parenthood are sold an abortion 97% of the time, rather than helped to keep their child or make an adoption plan. Meanwhile, they saw 80,000 fewer patients, provided 60,000 fewer pap tests and breast exams, and even gave out less contraception,” Dannenfelser told TWS.

PPFA increased its bottom line by working on the logistics of abortions in pro-life states. Some “90 patient navigators across 41 Planned Parenthood affiliates helped more than 33,000 people get the transportation and travel support, financial assistance, and referrals they needed to get abortion,” its report states.

Planned Parenthood compared its abortion-expansion activities to the miracles wrought by faith in Jesus Christ. “For Planned Parenthood [abortion] staff, this was a year of moving mountains: finding appointments in other states and the resources to get patients there, building as much capacity as possible for abortion appointments, fulfilling increased demand in some places for birth control, and much more,” the organization writes. PPFA claimed it provided financial support to 15,000 people for travel for out-of-state abortion and funding for 50,000 mothers to have an abortion. It did not state how it raised these funds.

Transgender Procedures, Abortion Advocacy, and Abortifacients

The latest update reveals that the abortion business’s concerted drive to profit from expanded transgender procedures advanced in 2023. Planned Parenthood refused to specifically disclose how many transgender procedures the abortion franchise carried out in the last fiscal year, lumping its transgender business among 177,237 “Other Procedures.” PPFA reported a mere 15,902 “other procedures” in its 2020-2021 report.

The report revealed that 45 of Planned Parenthood’s 49 affiliates perpetrated transgender procedures in 2022 — up from 41 the previous year and just 30 in the 2020-2021 fiscal year. This year’s report includes first-person testimonials praising PPFA for administering life-altering, sterilizing, and bone-depleting hormone injections. “As a trans woman, the services provided to me saved my life. I am so grateful for the services you provide to ALL women,” wrote the man.

Planned Parenthood and its international affiliate, Planned Parenthood Global, committed tens of millions of dollars to abortion expansion at home and abroad. Planned Parenthood boasts of its 30 open lawsuits against pro-life protections, winning injunctions preventing seven states from defending unborn children from abortion. Its U.S. affiliates spent $46.7 million on “public policy” and $14.8 to “engage communities.”

Planned Parenthood Global dedicated $113 million to abortion “advocacy,” partnering with 80 organizations in nine countries. Its activities included “community-based access to misoprostol,” the second pill in the chemical abortion cocktail, which can be used on its own to induce abortion (with varying degrees of harm to mothers). The abortion business directed 90% of its efforts toward nations that protect unborn children’s lives in the law, such as Mexico, where its efforts led to “the legalization of abortion in Quintana Roo up to 12 weeks — a decision affecting 470,000 women of reproductive age in the state.”

Contraception remained a cornerstone of the PPFA business model in 2023. PPFA distributed contraception 2,250,913 times, including implanting long-acting reversible contraceptives (LARCs) in 1,548,022 people and distributing 552,721 so-called “Emergency Contraception” kits. All hormonal contraception may potentially act as an abortifacient by making it impossible for a newly conceived/fertilized child to implant in the uterine wall.

PPFA shapes the way young people see sex both through partnerships with public schools and online influencers. “Planned Parenthood is proud to be the nation’s largest sex educator,” writes McGill Johnson in the report’s opening summary. Planned Parenthood’s videos were viewed three million times, and PPFA reached 1.2 million people through education or training sessions. “PPFA launched a national campaign across platforms to destigmatize abortion,” the report notes.

PPFA also plans to shape academic views by producing “scientific” studies promoting its view of the abortion controversy. In all, “34 Planned Parenthood affiliates participated in 47 studies” last year, including one focusing on “potential logistical, financial, and other burdens of travel faced by patients who are forced to travel for their” abortion, the report states.

Planned Parenthood’s report also raises concerns over possible censorship. A section of the annual report titled “Shifting Culture” states PPFA is “leading tech companies to discuss how to improve corporate accountability and address health care misinformation.”

The report takes on added importance as abortion has emerged as the dominant theme of the Biden-Harris reelection campaign and Democratic campaigns generally. “Vice President Kamala Harris even made a campaign stop at a Planned Parenthood abortion center,” noted Dannenfelser. Harris called pro-life laws “immoral” during the visit. “In turn, their political arm spends more than any other abortion-related group to lobby the federal government against commonsense policies like protecting babies born alive after failed abortions.”

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

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Planned Parenthood kills humans. pic.twitter.com/KfVXkppz0l

— Bryan Kemper 🇺🇸 (@BryanKemper) April 16, 2024

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The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

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The Secret Side of Facebook

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By Ralph l. Defalco III

In 2021, Facebook insiders began to leak internal documents that revealed the company’s executives knew its platform was being widely misused. Pornographers, human traffickers, pedophiles, drug cartels, and other unscrupulous users found a home on Facebook. Yet, time and time again, Facebook executives chose to ignore or minimize these problems.

The leaks, however, became the source for a series of articles by The Wall Street Journal investigative journalist and tech reporter Jeff Horwitz. His exposé—tied to the revelations of a whistleblower who eventually went public—prompted other media outlets to begin releasing The Facebook Papers with damning details of widespread abuse of the platform.

Horwitz’s new book, Broken Code: Inside Facebook and the Fight to Expose Its Harmful Secrets, is a behind-the-scenes look at Facebook. The author explores the company’s failed content quality enforcement systems, its role in promoting political zealotry and violence, the negative and even crippling effects of widespread use of social media, and the special treatment afforded celebrities, politicians, and VIPS. Broken Code includes the insights from dozens of Facebook employees who spoke both on and off the record to explain the efforts they made to rein in the worst abuses only to see their work ignored, sidetracked, watered down, and marginalized.

The North Star Metric

From its inception, Facebook and its associated platforms, WhatsApp and Instagram, were measured by one overarching metric: how often, on average, people used the platforms. “Daily Average People” (DAP) was the company’s “North Star,” and that oversimplified metric became, the author explains, an insidious trap for corporate decision-makers. “Making decisions based on metrics alone, without carefully studying the effects on humans, was reckless,” Horwitz writes. “But doing it on average metrics was downright stupid. … In the interest of expediency, Facebook’s core metrics were all based on aggregate usage.”

Horwitz makes it a point throughout Broken Code to amplify the difference between how often people use Facebook and how people use Facebook. Trolls, peddlers of misinformation, and spam farms, for example, could easily drive up usage statistics, as could bots and other programs that simply replicated puerile, pernicious, or pornographic content and reposted it to other pages on the platforms. Hype techniques, including clickbait (sensationalist headlines) and engagement bait (appeals to forward content), and Facebook’s aggressive algorithmic amplification spread content further and drove up DAP still more.

These practices, Horwitz explains, empowered inauthentic actors to accumulate huge followings by rewarding publishers with content that was either stolen, aggregated, or spun (altered in some trivial way). The author claims nearly 40 percent of all posters with significant followings and 60 percent of those posting videos used these techniques—and Facebook had no mechanisms to stop them. The result was that “products routinely garnered higher growth rates at the expense of content quality and user safety.”

The content was easily forwarded by the click of a mouse to any of Facebook’s three billion users or any of thousands of groups. Advertisers paid Facebook to target these click-worthy users and groups. And it drove Facebook’s explosive growth and billions of dollars in revenue and profits.

2016 Election

Facebook’s watershed moment, according to Horwitz, came in the wake of the 2016 elections. “The prospect that Facebook’s errors could have changed the outcome of the election and undermined democracy,” shook executives and employees—and Broken Code tracks the fallout that roiled the company’s corporate culture in the years to come.

The author describes a culture heavily invested in the company manifesto that “changing how people communicate will always change the world” was paired with “the conviction that, thanks to the wisdom of crowds, users would simply suss out falsehoods on their own and avoid spreading them. The revelations around the 2016 election had quickly given the lie to that line of thought.” A hugely woke company, the author argues, came face to face with the reality that misinformation and political diatribes spread on Facebook impacted voter’s decisions.

They also confronted the even harsher reality, Horwitz explains, that not all Facebook users came to the platform with benign intent. Some content on the company’s platforms was clearly problematic—hate speech, human trafficking, child sexual predation, advocacy for genocide and violence, and teen suicide. Employees knew mechanisms to control this content were flawed and even downright ineffective. Moreover, they knew the publishers of this vile content could target select hidden audiences by using code words that triggered users who spread it to others with the speed of the internet.

Broken Code is the inside story of Facebook and the serious and even dangerous problems of social media writ large.

Angry Emojis

Horwitz writes that “there had been no question that Facebook was feeding its users overtly false information at a rate that vastly outstripped other media.” As efforts to combat misinformation took hold, the company’s metrics began to nosedive. People stopped posting and reposting free content that was the lifeblood of Facebook.

The situation was compounded, the author explains, by growing public concern about the effects of social media on mental health. At CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s direction, the company pivoted from providing content services to offering “Meaningful Social Interactions (MSI)”—one of dozens of vacuous terms the company regularly invented. Now the new MSI metric would measure how often people engaged with content by tracking the frequency of their comments. Rushed into use, MSI was badly flawed.

It included no effort at sentiment analysis, meaning it gave equal value to a heartfelt bereavement note and a declaration of intention to piss on the departed’s grave. What mattered was not the content of the message but the fact of the comment itself. The company had already added a host of reaction emojis beyond the basic “like.” … Facebook did not care if you choose a heart or an angry face, as long as you clicked on something.

The company had built its new media platform on the baseless argument that the more users “liked” content, the more likely it was to appeal to others. A mouse click had taken the place of meaningful dialog or any attempt to explain why content had value worth sharing. People had become mere users of content. And now machine-made little emojis could stand in for the emotions at the center of real human social interactions.

The results, writes Horwitz, predictably added “an exponential component to the already-healthy rate at which problem content spread,” as “adoption of MSI turned the rarely used “angry” emoji into the bellwether of political content’s success.” The angry face provoked arguments among users, pushed even more inflammatory content to the fore, and spread it farther and faster with each agitated user’s click.

Whistleblower

Broken Code is the inside story of Facebook and the serious and even dangerous problems of social media writ large. It’s a compelling story but not an engaging one because it lacks a well-crafted narrative that draws in the reader. Much of the book lurches from one episode to the next as Horwitz shares pieces and parts of the recollections of dozens of Facebook employees. There’s a human dimension missing here as the author recounts these employees’ complex reminiscences in language loaded with tech jargon. The truly emotional side to these stories is only captured in fleeting instances.

Horwitz has an encyclopedic knowledge of Facebook executives and employees and their roles and is wholly familiar with the company’s balkanized structure of seemingly always feuding fiefdoms. But, there is no index of names and titles to help the reader through this thicket. Nor is there an organization chart, a list of acronyms, or a glossary with the names and functions of the various Facebook teams, departments, and activities that appear throughout the book.

Broken Code finally gets traction with the reader when Horwitz begins a first-person narrative of his experiences with Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen. While many of the other employees cited and quoted in the book seem to take bit parts, Haugen is at center stage in the last third of the book. The narrative here is crisp, the stakes are clear, and Horwitz’s recounting of the enormous efforts that led to the publication of the Facebook Files is a solid look at the challenges of good investigative journalism.

Horwitz describes how Haugen was disheartened to realize Facebook routinely traded off content safety for platform growth and was unnerved by the scale of what she found. The author recounts the stress, self-doubt, and isolation she experienced as she spent six months collecting thousands of internal Facebook documents. The documents detailed what the company knew about the widespread abuses it failed to check.

Haugen’s findings also led to an investigation of Facebook’s business practices with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Warned she might be sued by Facebook, and the target of a carefully orchestrated back-channel smear campaign, Haugen took her story public on a 60 Minutes broadcast. Her career in the tech industry was over.

In the end—Haugen, like many of the other employees who came forward with the grim details that fill the pages of Broken Code—dealt with both deep-seated regrets and damage to their professional careers to bring to light the problems that plagued Facebook. Theirs is the content that was never posted to Facebook.

*****

This article was published by Law & Liberty and is reproduced with permission.

Image Credit: YouTube Screenshot CSPAN

TAKE ACTION

The Prickly Pear’s TAKE ACTION focus this year is to help achieve a winning 2024 national and state November 5th election with the removal of the Biden/Obama leftist executive branch disaster, win one U.S. Senate seat, maintain and win strong majorities in all Arizona state offices on the ballot and to insure that unrestricted abortion is not constitutionally embedded in our laws and culture.

Please click the TAKE ACTION link to learn to do’s and don’ts for voting in 2024. Our state and national elections are at great risk from the very aggressive and radical leftist Democrat operatives with documented rigging, mail-in voter fraud and illegals voting across the country (yes, with illegals voting across the country) in the last several election cycles.

Read Part 1 and Part 2 of The Prickly Pear essays entitled How NOT to Vote in the November 5, 2024 Election in Arizona to be well informed of the above issues and to vote in a way to ensure the most likely chance your vote will be counted and counted as you intend.

Please click the following link to learn more.

Deborah Birx Gets Her Close-Up thumbnail

Deborah Birx Gets Her Close-Up

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By Bill Rice

Most Americans will remember Dr. Deborah Birx as the “scarf lady” who served on the White House’s Covid Response Team beginning in February 2020.

According to a recently-released (but little-seen) 24-minute mini-documentary, it was Birx – even more so than Anthony Fauci – who was responsible for government “guidelines,” almost all of which proved to be unnecessary and disastrous for the country.

According to the documentary, the guidelines ran counter to President Trump’s initial comments on Covid, but ultimately “toppled the White House (and Trump) without a shot being fired.”

The mini-documentary (“It Wasn’t Fauci: How the Deep State Really Played Trump”) was produced by Good Kid Productions. Not surprisingly, the scathing 24-minute video has received relatively few views on YouTube (only 46,500 since it was published 40 days ago on Feb. 26).

I learned of the documentary from a colleague at Brownstone Institute, who added his opinion that “Birx (is) far more culpable than Fauci in the Covid disaster…Well worth the time to see the damage an utter non-scientist, CIA-connected, bureaucrat can do to make sure things are maximally bad.”

I agree; the significant role played by Birx in the catastrophic national response to Covid has not received nearly enough attention.

Brought in from out of Nowhere…

From the video presentation, viewers learn that Birx was added to the White House’s Coronavirus Task Force as its coordinator in latter February 2020.

Birx worked closely with Task Force chairman Vice President Mike Pence, a man one suspects will not be treated well by future historians.

According to the documentary, “career bureaucrats” like Birx somehow seized control of the executive branch of government and were able to issue orders to mayors and governors which effectively “shut down the country.”

These bureaucrats were often incompetent in their prior jobs as was Birx, who’d previously served as a scientist (ha!) in the Army before leading the government’s effort to “fight AIDS in Africa” (via the PEPFAR Program).

When Birx was installed as coordinator of Covid Response she simply rehashed her own playbook for fighting AIDS in Africa, say the filmmakers.

The three tenets of this response were:

  1. “Treat every case of this virus as a killer.”
  2. “Focus on children,” who, the public was told, were being infected and hospitalized in large numbers and were a main conduit for spreading the virus.
  3. “Get to zero cases as soon as possible.” (The “Zero Covid” goal).

The documentary primarily uses quotes from Scott Atlas, the White House Task Force’s one skeptic, to show that all three tenets were false.

Argued Atlas: Covid was not a killer – or a genuine mortality risk – to “99.95 percent” of the population. Children had virtually zero risk of death or hospitalization from Covid. And there was no way to get to “zero cases.”

Atlas Didn’t Shrug, but was Ignored…

Furthermore, the documentary convincingly illustrates how the views of Atlas were ignored and how, at some point, his ability to speak to the press was curtailed or eliminated. 

For example, when Atlas organized a meeting for President Trump with Covid-response skeptics (including the authors of the Great Barrington Declaration) this meeting was schedule to last only five minutes.

The documentary also presents a report from the inspector general of the Department of State that was highly critical of Birx’s management style with the African “AIDS relief” program she headed.

Among other claims, the report said she was “dictatorial” in her dealings with subordinates and often “issued threats” to those who disagreed with her approach.

Shockingly, this highly-critical report was published just a month before she was appointed medical coordinator of the Coronavirus Task Force.

A particularly distressing sound bite from Birx lets viewers hear her opinion on how controversial “guidance” might be implemented with little pushback.

According to Birx, she intentionally buried the more draconian elements of the lockdowns in text at the end of long documents, theorizing (correctly apparently) that most reporters or readers would just “skim” the document and would not focus on how extreme and unprecedented these mandates actually were.

The documentary points out that Birx’s prescriptions and those of President Trump were often in complete conflict.

Birx, according to the documentary, once pointed this out to Vice President Pence, who told her to keep doing what she believed.

Indeed, the Vice President gave Birx full use of Air Force 2 so she could more easily travel across the country, spreading her lockdown message to governors, mayors, and other influencers.

Several Covid skeptic writers, including Jeffrey Tucker of Brownstone Institute, have noted that President Trump himself went from an opponent of draconian lockdowns to an avid supporter of these responses in a period of just one or two days (the pivotal change happened on or around March 10th, 2020, according to Tucker).

Whoever or whatever caused this change in position, it does not seem to be a coincidence that this about-face happened shortly after Birx – a former military officer – was named to an important position on the Task Force.

(Personally, I don’t give Anthony Fauci a pass as I’ve always figured he’s a “dark master” at manipulating members of the science/medical/government complex to achieve his own desired results.)

This documentary highlights the crucial role played by Deborah Birx and, more generally, how unknown bureaucrats can make decisions that turn the world upside-down.

That is, most Americans probably think presidents are in charge, but, often, they’re really not. These real rulers of society, one suspects, would include members of the so-called Deep State, who have no doubt installed sycophants like Fauci and Birx in positions of power.

I definitely recommend this 24-minute video.

I also enjoyed the Reader Comments that followed this video. The first comment is from my Brownstone colleague who brought this documentary to my attention:

“… As I said, things can change over the period of 20 years but in the case of Birx/Fauci, I do not believe so. I have never seen people entrenched in the bureaucracy change.”

Other comments from the people who have viewed the mini-documentary on YouTube:

“Pence needs to be held accountable.”

“What does Debbie’s bank account look like?”

“(The) final assessment of President Trump at the 23:30 mark is, while painful, accurate. He got rolled.”

“This is very hard to find on YouTube. You can literally search the title and it doesn’t come up.”

“Excellent summary, hope this goes viral. Lots of lessons to learn for future generations.”

“Eye opening. Great reporting.”

Post from One Month Ago…

“37 likes after 3 years of the most controversial and divisive action in recent history. How can this be?”

“Oh never mind. YouTube hid it from the public for years.”

“Probably hasn’t been taken down yet for that reason, relatively low views.”

“Thanks for this! Sounds like everyone below President Trump was on a power trip and I didn’t think it was possible to despise Pence more than I already do.”

“…the backing of CDC, legacy media, WHO and government schools, business folding in fear are ALL responsible. Accountability for every person and agency is paramount!”

“Should be noted that her work on AIDS in Africa was just as useless and damaging.”

“First, any mature, adult woman who speaks with that much vocal fry should be immediately suspect. And the glee with which she recounts her role at undermining POTUS is remarkable and repulsive. This woman should NEVER be allowed to operate the levers of power again.”

*****

This article was published by the Brownstone Institute and is reproduced with permission.

Image Credit: YouTube screenshot

TAKE ACTION

The Prickly Pear’s TAKE ACTION focus this year is to help achieve a winning 2024 national and state November 5th election with the removal of the Biden/Obama leftist executive branch disaster, win one U.S. Senate seat, maintain and win strong majorities in all Arizona state offices on the ballot and to insure that unrestricted abortion is not constitutionally embedded in our laws and culture.

Please click the TAKE ACTION link to learn to do’s and don’ts for voting in 2024. Our state and national elections are at great risk from the very aggressive and radical leftist Democrat operatives with documented rigging, mail-in voter fraud and illegals voting across the country (yes, with illegals voting across the country) in the last several election cycles.

Read Part 1 and Part 2 of The Prickly Pear essays entitled How NOT to Vote in the November 5, 2024 Election in Arizona to be well informed of the above issues and to vote in a way to ensure the most likely chance your vote will be counted and counted as you intend.

Please click the following link to learn more.

Elementary School Denies Request to Start Prayer Club, Approves ‘Pride Club’ thumbnail

Elementary School Denies Request to Start Prayer Club, Approves ‘Pride Club’

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By Family Research Council

In 2015, religious freedom seemed compromised when a Washington high school football coach was fired for praying with his team after a game. Joe Kennedy waited roughly six years for the Supreme Court to hear the oral arguments for his case. He was represented by a Christian nonprofit legal organization, First Liberty Institute (FLI), which took the position that “no teacher or coach should lose their job for simply expressing their faith while in public.” This was a notable case in 2022, and recent events have caused the issue to resurface.

Earlier this year, Laura, an 11-year-old girl who attends Creekside Elementary in Washington State, requested to start an interfaith prayer club at her school. But her request was denied.

When Laura and her mom approached the principal about the matter in February, they were informed that the school’s budget for clubs had been finalized in October. And according to a spokesperson for Issaquah School District, “[C]lubs offered are student-interest driven and meet outside of the school day. At the elementary level, participation in a club also requires parent permission. Once the school year begins, the building budget is set, and additional clubs are usually not added until the following school year.” But the story doesn’t end here.

Laura’s group, which she hoped to start with her friend, was meant to include people of all different religious backgrounds. She shared with Fox News that she was feeling alone, and that she thought this would be a good idea to bring students together. “I think that this is something that I am very passionate about,” she added. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t really want to make this happen, if I didn’t think that it would be a great opportunity for everyone.” It was later discovered that an LGBT club was approved only a week prior to Laura’s club request being denied, which has caused spectators to raise their eyebrows.

As a result of this alleged hypocrisy, Laura filed a lawsuit on the grounds of religious discrimination with the help of FLI. Attorneys pointed out in a letter to the school, “The First Amendment ‘doubly protects religious speech.’ These First Amendment protections extend to elementary school students expressing their sincere religious beliefs through voluntary clubs. Yet the school district flouted its First Amendment obligations when they refused to allow a student-led interfaith prayer club. Its unlawful action violates both the Free Exercise Clause and the Free Speech Clause.”

Kayla Toney, associate counsel at First Liberty Institute, explained, “Denying the formation of a religious student club while allowing other clubs violates the Constitution,” drawing attention to the fact that the similar case with Coach Kennedy occurred “just a short drive away” from Laura’s elementary school. And in comments to The Washington Stand, Arielle Del Turco, Family Research Council’s director of the Center for Religious Liberty, said, “The fact that Creekside Elementary denied a religious club the same month that it approved a Pride club reveals a lot about American culture right now.”

She continued, “Sadly, the promotion of LGBT identities is held sacred while religion is sidelined and marginalized. It’s heartbreaking that Laura, a fifth-grade student, felt alone at school as a religious believer and that she knew other students who felt the same way. She reacted in exactly the right way by making an effort to build community with religious students.”

Del Turco went on to emphasize that, “Oftentimes, when people seek to prevent religious expression in government venues, they will use the excuse that they don’t want to imply that the government favors one religion over another.” However, when it comes to Laura’s case, she pointed out that “the school doesn’t even have that flimsy excuse because the students were seeking to start a … club that would be open to students of different faiths.”

Ultimately, “Any school that allows other clubs while specifically denying religious clubs is acting in a discriminatory manner and violating the First Amendment, which protects freedom of expression and the free exercise of religion.” Del Turco concluded, “Christian fifth graders shouldn’t face viewpoint discrimination from their school leadership. It shouldn’t have had to come to this, but I fully expect this injustice to be rectified in the courts.”

AUTHOR

Sarah Holliday

Sarah Holliday is a reporter at The Washington Stand.

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RELATED PODCAST: Abortion and the Changing Political Landscape

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

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Florida Voters Back Abortion Amendment and Trump

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By Family Research Council

A new poll is reporting that nearly half of voters in the Sunshine State plan to support a constitutional amendment guaranteeing a “right” to abortion. An Emerson College survey released on Thursday found that 42% of Florida voters intend to vote “Yes” on a “Amendment 4” this November, enshrining a right to abortion into the state’s constitution. Twenty-five percent of voters intend to vote “No,” and 32% of voters are unsure which way they will vote. The ballot initiative requires at least 60% support in order to pass.

A majority (56%) of Democrats and a plurality (44%) of Independents plan to vote “Yes.” Following former President Donald Trump’s recently-announced opposition to federal pro-life protections, Florida Republicans are more divided on the issue: 36% plan to vote against the abortion amendment, 30% plan to support it, and 34% are unsure.

Additionally, nearly 60% of Florida voters reported that the pro-life law banning abortion after six weeks — slated to go into effect next month after the state’s Supreme Court upheld a related 15-week abortion ban — is “too strict,” 28% said the law is “about right,” and 15% said it’s “not strict enough.” The previous 15-week ban enjoyed marginally more support, with only 43% saying it’s “too strict,” 36% saying it’s “about right,” and 21% saying it’s “not strict enough.”

Election data analyst Michael Pruser posted on social media, “I don’t think a pro-Republican position has a chance of clearing 60% in Florida, let alone an anti-Republican one. What wouldn’t pass in Kansas and Ohio during off-year special turnout will almost assuredly not pass in Florida during a Presidential year [with] Trump on the top of the ticket.”

Anticipating nearly 11 million voters (4.5 million Republicans, 3.55 million Democrats, and 2.85 million Independents) to turn out in November, Pruser explained, “To make 60% work, you’ll need a share of about 23% Republican[s]/95% Democrat[s]/77% Independent[s] to vote YES (which is always harder than NO). This gives you a total of 6,554,500 votes and a winning percentage of 60.13%.” He added, “You can also bet that [Florida’s Republican governor Ron] DeSantis will do what [Democratic Kansas governor] Laura Kelly and [Republican Ohio governor] Mike DeWine didn’t — use his office’s full weight against the amendment.”

Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, argued before the Florida Supreme Court in favor of pro-life laws. In comments to The Washington Stand, he warned that “Amendment 4” would be challenged even if passed, saying, “There are constitutional challenges that I think are available.”

In addition to questions of both fraudulent signatures in putting the proposed amendment on the ballot and fraudulent votes in potentially passing the amendment this November, Staver noted, “The Florida legislature has — for many, many years — used the terms ‘unborn child’ and ‘unborn person.’” For example, Florida law dictates that if a woman is killed and her unborn child dies as a result, the killer could be charged with double homicide. Similarly, if a will leaves an estate to the deceased’s children or grandchildren, Florida law understands that to include unborn children or grandchildren. “In all these other areas of law,” Staver said, “unborn children have been recognized as legal persons. Consequently, if this were to pass, we would bring a case to the Florida Supreme Court to recognize the rights of an unborn child which already exist in the constitution which supersede this abortion amendment.”

Referring to Republicans who have begun backing away from pro-life messaging in the wake of Trump’s announcement earlier this week, Staver said, “Politicians should stand for life, not run from it. The right to life is the right of all rights, without which there is no other right. Politicians need to stand for life, not run from it.” He continued, “There are some things that transcend geographical boundaries and political parties and time, and the right to life is fundamental among those.” Staver also compared the issue of abortion to the issue of slavery, saying that neither was a matter of “states’ rights” but of universal morality.

The Emerson College survey also found that a majority (51%) of Florida voters back Trump for president, while only 38% support incumbent Joe Biden, with 11% undecided. When undecided voters were asked which candidate they lean toward supporting, Trump’s support shot up to 56% and Biden’s to 44%. Emerson College explained, “Among Biden voters, 32% support him because they dislike Trump, 24% because they like Biden, 19% care about an issue, and 14% support their party’s candidate. Among Trump voters, 31% support him because they care about an issue, 28% because they like Trump, 16% because they dislike Biden, and 14% support their party’s candidate.”

Florida voters ranked the economy as their top issue of concern (27%), followed by housing (16%), immigration (14%), and abortion (10%). Emerson College noted, “The percentage of voters who marked abortion access as their top issue is four points higher in Florida than in the most recent national poll (6%).”

AUTHOR

S.A. McCarthy

S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.

RELATED ARTICLES:

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Pediatrician Responds to Damning Review on Gender Identity Treatment: ‘I Remain Hopeful’

RELATED VIDEO: Florida’s Channel 25 Interview with Pro-Lifer, Willy Guardiola, as he speaks about the state of Abortion today.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

NAIA’s New Rules On Transgender People In Women’s Sports Rebuke The Left’s Insanity thumbnail

NAIA’s New Rules On Transgender People In Women’s Sports Rebuke The Left’s Insanity

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By Kaylee McGhee White

The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics, one of college sports’ governing bodies, announced this week that it would not allow male-bodied athletes to compete in women’s sports, pointing to the importance of “fair and safe competition for all student-athletes.” The decision is a welcome relief in a society that refuses to see sense on this topic.

The NAIA governs 249 smaller, mostly private colleges whose athletic programs would rank in the NCAA‘s Division 2 or 3 categories. Notably, the NAIA’s new rule on transgender participation comes after the NCAA declined to clarify or revise its own guidance on whether to allow transgender athletes to compete in women’s sports. As it stands, the NCAA mandates a sport-by-sport approach that depends largely on what other athletic governing bodies have already decided.

The NCAA’s refusal to issue clear rules on this is driven by cowardice. As the NAIA made clear this week, the question of transgender participation in women’s sports is not complicated. It’s actually quite simple. Should men who identify as women but still enjoy the physical and hormonal advantages of being men compete against comparably disadvantaged women? And should women be required to place themselves at risk in their private spaces and in sporting events to accommodate these men?

The answer to any person whose common sense hasn’t been pummeled into submission by the Left would, of course, be “no.”

That answer is also backed by legal precedent. And the NAIA’s ruling reflects this fact. “For us, we believed our first responsibility was to create fairness and competition in the NAIA. … We also think it aligns with the reasons Title IX was created. You’re allowed to have separate but equal opportunities for women to compete,” NAIA President Jim Carr explained.

Indeed, that is the very reason Title IX was passed — to ensure that women were granted privacy, safety, and fair competition, all of which are now being undermined by a radical ideology that cares only about its own power.

The NAIA took all of this into consideration as it debated how to deal with transgender athletes. According to the head of the NAIA Council of Presidents, Amy Novak, the governing body “spent nearly two years reviewing research, meeting with experts to better understand potential policy challenges, and obtaining feedback from multiple membership groups.” And all of the evidence pointed to one very simple solution: Men, no matter how they “identify,” cannot and should not be allowed to compete against women.

The result is a clear set of guidelines and expectations, approved in a unanimous vote by the NAIA’s Council of Presidents, that leaves no room for equivocating. Unlike the NCAA, for example, the NAIA’s standards do not make exceptions for male-bodied athletes who stop taking testosterone and reach a certain hormonal threshold. Men will not be allowed to compete against women — period. The rules also bar female athletes who start taking testosterone from competing in women’s sports.

This is an excellent step toward busting the Left’s gender insanity and an example bigger sports organizations should follow. Again, the question at the heart of this debate is quite simple: Do women have a right to safety and fair competition or not?

*****

This article was published by the Independent Women’s Forum and is reproduced with permission.

TAKE ACTION

The Prickly Pear’s TAKE ACTION focus this year is to help achieve a winning 2024 national and state November 5th election with the removal of the Biden/Obama leftist executive branch disaster, win one U.S. Senate seat, maintain and win strong majorities in all Arizona state offices on the ballot and to insure that unrestricted abortion is not constitutionally embedded in our laws and culture.

Please click the TAKE ACTION link to learn to do’s and don’ts for voting in 2024. Our state and national elections are at great risk from the very aggressive and radical leftist Democrat operatives with documented rigging, mail-in voter fraud and illegals voting across the country (yes, with illegals voting across the country) in the last several election cycles.

Read Part 1 and Part 2 of The Prickly Pear essays entitled How NOT to Vote in the November 5, 2024 Election in Arizona to be well informed of the above issues and to vote in a way to ensure the most likely chance your vote will be counted and counted as you intend.

Please click the following link to learn more.

VIDEO EXPOSÈ: Chicago Shelters for Illegal Aliens Grapple with Measles and TB Outbreaks thumbnail

VIDEO EXPOSÈ: Chicago Shelters for Illegal Aliens Grapple with Measles and TB Outbreaks

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By Dr. Rich Swier

We wrote in our column America’s ship of state is underwater and sinking faster each and every day!,

America’s Ship of State is Sinking Fast

It took the RMS Titanic two days to sink and because of the ship’s faulty design 1,496 passengers died.

Today, the USS America under the Biden Regime’s faulty designs are bent on killing that many each and every month, be it via chemical or actual abortions, murders in our streets and the mayhem on our borders by criminal illegal aliens.

But it gets much much worse.

Our economy is in the tank. Our national debt is the highest in history, our culture and society are under constant attack by the Red/Green/Rainbow Alliance. BTW, there are two shades of Green in the Alliance, the green of the radical Islamists like Hamas, Hezb’allah, the Houthis, Iran et. al. and those Climate Nazis bent on the total control of our oil and CO2.

The great ship of state is using up its oil reserves at a rapid pace as the Climate Nazis demand we close down all coal, oil and natural gas use. The ship of state can’t run on electricity produced by solar panels. The ship of state will soon be crashing into offshore windmills.

The government of we the people, by the people and for the people is rapidly being replaced by criminal illegal aliens.

It is being replace by the USS Big Government. Today big government is the opiate of Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., and his crew.

Today there are chants in places like Dearborn, Michigan of “death to America.” while Governor Whitman and Rep. Ilan Omar yawn.

Now we are learning that those criminal illegal aliens are bringing with them tuberculosis and measles!

One America News Network reports,

Migrant shelters in Chicago experience tuberculosis and measles outbreak. The Health Department has not specified the number of immigrants who tested positive for TB but is reporting 59 measles cases so far this year, about half of which are. To provide perspective, in 2023, 58 measles cases were reported nationwide. In the first two months of 2024, 41 cases were reported in 16 states, excluding those in Chicago. Vaccine requirements for American school children are waived for illegal immigrants. Some local lawmakers, like Alderman Raymond Lopez, accuse city officials of turning a blind eye to the problem. Double board-certified neurologist, Dr. Russell Surasky, joins Alicia Summers.

WATCH: Chicago Shelters for Illegal Immigrants Grapple with Measles and TB Outbreaks; Officials Under Fire

©2024. All rights reserved.

RELATED VIDEO: REAL AMERICA- Dan Ball W/ ‘Brian,’ Business Owner Alleges Illegals Get Social Security Cards

Terrorist Billionaires and The Future of Food thumbnail

Terrorist Billionaires and The Future of Food

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By Amil Imani

Let us be clear—Consuming insect-based foods comes with potential health risks. These risks are primarily related to food safety and the presence of allergens or toxins in some insects.

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has highlighted several food safety issues associated with edible insects. These concerns include:

Pathogens: Insects can harbor bacteria, viruses, and parasites, which can risk human health if not properly handled or cooked.

Allergens: Some insects contain allergens that can cause allergic reactions in sensitive individuals.

Toxins: Certain insects may contain toxins that can be harmful if consumed in large amounts.

Insects can contain allergens that may trigger allergic reactions in some individuals. These reactions can range from mild to severe, depending on the individual’s sensitivity and the amount of insect consumed. Allergic reactions can manifest as skin rashes, itching, swelling, and, in severe cases, anaphylaxis, which requires immediate medical attention.

Moreover, some insects are known to contain toxins that can be harmful to human health. These toxins can affect various systems in the body, including the nervous, cardiovascular, and respiratory systems. Symptoms of toxin exposure can include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and, in severe cases, coma or death.

Now, enter billionaires with sinister motives.  At the forefront is none other than Bill Gates, who is relentlessly plotting to manipulate the world’s food supply, pushing for the consumption of insects and alternative proteins while buying large amounts of American farmland.

Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft and a prominent figure in the so-called philanthropic sector, advocates for a diet of insects and, through his foundation and investments, works towards a future where traditional livestock is replaced by insect-based foods. All these can be traced back to Gates’s foundation’s investment in All Things Bugs, LLC, a company aiming to develop nutritionally dense food using insect species.

Bill Gates’s agenda-driven interest in sustainable food solutions is not limited to insects. He has also invested in cultured meat, a lab-grown alternative to traditional beef, which has received $50 million in funding. Gates’s investments and advocacy for his so-called sustainable food solutions are part of a sinister effort disguised as global challenges, including climate change and food security. His property acquisitions, including farmland in North Dakota and Texas, have only added fuel to speculations about his intentions, and these actions are likely part of a larger strategy to take our food away and make us eat insects.

Then we have Klaus Schwab and his “The Great Reset” plot to intending to destroy capitalism and enact a one-world government under the cover of COVID-19 and other agendas. Schwab founded the WEF with the help of Henry Kissinger and is actively supported by Prince Charles. Schwab likely established his ties with other influential American advocates of globalization through Kissinger’s International Seminar, which the CIA funded with $135,000. The global elite led by Schwab used the “pandemic” opportunity to roll out radical policies, such as forced vaccination, digital ID cards, and the renunciation of private property. The sinister agenda of the World Economic Forum (WEF) becomes evident from the fact that the unelected Schwab has served as the WEF’s chairman since its inception, and he continues to hold the position of Founder and Executive Chairman today.

In the meantime, we hear about billionaires buying bunkers and islands as if prepping for an apocalypse. The truth is that land acquisitions in Hawaii by billionaires displace local communities, raising concerns about mirroring a modern twist on feudalism. Ultimately, these billionaires aren’t just waiting for the apocalypse but actively shaping their own self-sufficient, controlled environments while we can survive on the insect food they produce.

I rest my case with a summary of the points regarding the risks of eating insects:

Allergic Reactions: Some people may have allergic reactions to insects, similar to allergies to shellfish or shrimp, due to the presence of chitin in their exoskeletons. This can lead to symptoms ranging from mild to severe.

Microorganisms and Pathogens: Insects can harbor pathogens on their surface, in their gut, and as part of their reproductive cycle. The full scope of the microbiota of edible insects is unknown, and whether these extrinsic pathogens may be harmful if eaten. Cooking may not kill them, either.

Biological and Chemical Contaminants: Insects grown on agricultural waste may be exposed to mycotoxins, pesticides, and other chemical hazards like toxic metals and dioxins. High lead levels have been found in dried grasshoppers, leading to elevated blood lead levels in humans.

Processing Risks: When heated or cooked, the chemical-thermal reactions with the toxins on their shells or within their guts can release toxic compounds that accumulate in the protein meal.

The future of food is definitely at stake, and billionaires and their vast wealth continue to influence food systems in concerning ways.

©2024. Amil Imani. All rights reserved.

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Arizona Supreme Court Revives Law Protecting the Unborn

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By Family Research Council

On Tuesday, the Arizona Supreme Court put back in place a 160-year-old ban on abortion, The Wall Street Journal reported. “Abortion in the state has been allowed through 15 weeks of pregnancy under a law that the GOP-controlled Arizona Legislature passed in 2022, shortly before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Abortion opponents and some Republican lawmakers argued that the recent law didn’t override one dating back to 1864 — before Arizona was a state — that banned abortion throughout pregnancy except in lifesaving situations.”

The ruling “agreed that the 19th century law still takes precedence,” WSJ added, but the “court delayed implementation of the ban for at least two weeks to allow for additional legal arguments.” In comments to The Washington Stand, Cathi Herrod, president of the Center for Arizona Policy, clarified, “The focus for [this decision] is that the Arizona Supreme Court did what justices are supposed to do: they upheld the rule of law. They did not make policy.”

She continued, “Arizona law clearly stated that if Roe v. Wade was overturned, our pre-Roe law would go back into effect. So, today’s decision was a statutory construction. It was not a constitutional one, and it was not a policy decision. There’s a lot of misinformation out there, so it’s very important to emphasize that this … is how we want judges to rule.”

Herrod went on to share how a proposed amendment called the Arizona Right to Abortion Initiative could nullify the court decision. “That amendment does not reflect Arizona values or where Arizonans are on the issue of abortion,” she contended. The amendment would “bring in unrestricted and unregulated abortion,” she emphasized. “It would overturn most — if not all — of Arizona’s pro-life laws. It would not require doctors to be part of the woman’s decision, examination, or the procedure itself. Moms and dads would have no role in the abortion of their minor daughters deciding whether or not to have an abortion. It would usher in taxpayer funding of abortion.”

But given the dramatic effects of such a potential amendment, Herrod predicted, “When Arizonans read and see what the proposed abortion access amendment really is about, I’m confident Arizona voters will turn it down.”

In light of the decision by the Arizona Supreme Court, Mary Szoch, director of the Center for Human Dignity at Family Research Council, shared with TWS, “In a huge win for women and their unborn children, the Arizona Supreme Court has ruled that the law on the books protecting unborn babies from the moment of conception will go into effect. Praise God!”

She added, “Acknowledging what an abortion is, the Arizona law states that an abortionist who kills an unborn child can be punished with two to five years in prison. In recognition of the fact that the intent of an abortion is to kill the child, not to save the mother, actions taken to save a mother’s life that sadly result in the death of the unborn child will not be punishable.”

Szoch concluded, “This ruling is on hold for 14 days, but we should all pray it goes into effect. With this decision, the importance of the upcoming election cannot be overstated. Unborn babies lives will be on the ballot. Pro-lifers must turn out to vote.”

AUTHOR

Sarah Holliday

Sarah Holliday is a reporter at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

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Arizona Attorney General Says She Won’t Enforce State Supreme Court Ruling Banning Abortion

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By Arjun Singh

Democratic Attorney General Kristin Mayes of Arizona announced on Tuesday that she would not enforce a ruling from her state’s supreme court upholding an 1864 law that bans most abortions.

On Tuesday, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled that a law criminalizing abortions, except in cases where necessary to save the mother’s life, may be enforced following the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization in 2022, which ruled that there is no constitutional right to an abortion. Mayes, one of the named parties in the case, subsequently issued a statement on X condemning the decision while claiming that her prosecutors would not enforce the law against doctors and women seeking abortions. (RELATED: Arizona Supreme Court Rules Near-Total Abortion Ban Can Go Into Effect)

“[L]et me be completely clear, as long as I am Attorney General, no woman or doctor will be prosecuted under this draconian law in this state,” wrote Mayes. “Today’s decision to re-impose a law from a time when Arizona wasn’t a state, the Civil War was raging, and women couldn’t even vote will go down in history as a stain on our state.”

“Absent the federal constitutional abortion right…there is no provision in federal or state law prohibiting [the 1864 law]’s operation. Accordingly, [it] is now enforceable,” wrote Justice John R. Lopez, an appointee of former Republican Gov. Doug Ducey of Arizona, for the court’s four-member majority. While the court’s entire bench was appointed by Republican governors, two of its members — Chief Justice Robert Brutinel and Vice Chief Justice Ann Timmer — dissented from the decision.

Republican leaders of the Arizona House of Representatives, which is empowered to impeach officials under the state constitution, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

*****

This article was published by The Daily Caller News Foundation and is reproduced with permission.

Image Credit: YouTube screenshot

TAKE ACTION

The Prickly Pear’s TAKE ACTION focus this year is to help achieve a winning 2024 national and state November 5th election with the removal of the Biden/Obama leftist executive branch disaster, win one U.S. Senate seat, maintain and win strong majorities in all Arizona state offices on the ballot and to insure that unrestricted abortion is not constitutionally embedded in our laws and culture.

Please click the TAKE ACTION link to learn to do’s and don’ts for voting in 2024. Our state and national elections are at great risk from the very aggressive and radical leftist Democrat operatives with documented rigging, mail-in voter fraud and illegals voting across the country (yes, with illegals voting across the country) in the last several election cycles.

Read Part 1 and Part 2 of The Prickly Pear essays entitled How NOT to Vote in the November 5, 2024 Election in Arizona to be well informed of the above issues and to vote in a way to ensure the most likely chance your vote will be counted and counted as you intend.

Please click the following link to learn more.

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Principleless, Panicked and Power-Hungry

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By James Allan

Pandemic Panic was a fascinating book to read, especially for a lawyer like me. It very quickly had my blood pressure way up as it reminded me of the nearly three years of governmental thuggery, heavy-handedness, imposition of idiotic and often irrational rules, and resort to lockdown lunacy. If that last sentence sounds as though I was a lockdown skeptic, full disclosure I was. From virtually day one this native born Canadian, who has lived in Australia for two decades, was an open skeptic of the lockdowns on the pages of the Spectator Australia, the British Lockdown Sceptic website (now Daily Sceptic), and once or twice in Law & Liberty in the US. I even had a couple of published peer-reviewed law articles on the topic rejected for listing by SSRN (presumably because only public health types were then deemed suitable to comment on this fiasco, and only lockdown cheerleader ones at that). Right from the start it seemed silly to me, verging on crazy, to think that in conditions of great uncertainty what you ought to do is proceed directly to some version of the precautionary principle on steroids, thereby mimicking the authoritarian response of the Chinese politburo – and in the process throw away a hundred years of data that informed the then pandemic plans of the British government (and the WHO for that matter) and that unambiguously rejected lockdowns.

The smart response in an information vacuum is to carry on as you are making changes at the margins to protect those most at risk as you wait for more information. And very early on it was known that this virus was over a thousand times more deadly to the very old than to the under-thirties. In most countries, for most of the pandemic, the average age of those dying from COVID was over the country’s life expectancy. For governments to proclaim that ‘we are all in this together’ was not true in any sense that could lead to the sort of policy response we saw everywhere in the democratic world outside of Sweden, Florida, South Dakota and a few other outliers that got their responses more or less correct (a fact that today’s cumulative excess deaths data, from start of the pandemic to today, brings home in the bluntest fashion going). Nor should it have led to the sort of massive government spending and debt and money printing that effectively (in part via asset inflation) transferred huge wealth from the young to the old and from the poor to the rich. Or that shut down schools in a way that will see many children, especially poor ones, disadvantaged for life.

So full disclosure, I came to this book very sympathetic indeed to the authors’ underlying position that the national and provincial government responses in Canada were seriously wrong-headed. The authors detail the ‘sometimes inane, often unprecedented and unusual public health measures taken over the roughly three-year pandemic period’. They recount public policy absurdities, including the Province of Quebec requiring unvaccinated people to be chaperoned in plexiglass carts through the essential aisles of big-box stores and the city of Toronto taping off the cherry blossoms and of quarantine hotel nightmares and incompetence. You can read of police heavy-handedness, sometimes more aptly described as thuggery, and of the differential treatment of anti-lockdown protesters as compared to, say, BLM protesters (both during the pandemic). Readers learn that Canada imposed a vaccine mandate for citizens to travel by plane, train or ship domestically or internationally. And that the provinces of Ontario and Quebec had some of the world’s longest lockdowns. Oh, and there are two chapters that touch on the truckers’ Freedom Convoy, especially how the Trudeau government needlessly invoked the Emergencies Act (think ‘threats to the security of Canada’, martial law type legislation) to deal with non-violent – though clearly loud, disruptive and annoying to many – truckers’ protests in Ottawa of the sort that had been dealt with elsewhere in the country using parking by-laws and the Highway Code. This emergency legislation, by the way, allowed the government to seize the bank accounts of anyone participating and assisting the convoy, which it did of many.

Having said all that, the book is very much focused on the law and the legal aspect of the governmental responses to the pandemic. The overarching approach starts with Canada’s entrenched bill of rights, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The two authors, both constitutional lawyers, look at how some of the key enumerated rights fared in protecting Canadians against government overreach. The book is structured so that each chapter considers a different one of the key rights provisions. For example, chapter two considers freedom of assembly, chapter eight freedom of expression, chapter seven the equality right, and so on including religious freedom and privacy rights. Moreover, in terms of running readers through some of the key decisions by the top judges in Canada (and occasionally the US) the book is a handy little primer of cases brought, their outcome, and how the judiciary treated attempts to wind back government pandemic regulations and rules. The short answer to that, of course, is that in case after case after case the judges upheld governments’ COVID measures. The Charter of Rights did nothing. Nor, for that matter, did any bill of rights in any jurisdiction in the democratic world – leave aside one or two ‘churches can open if big stores can, too’ cases in the US and Scotland. But essentially one way to read this book is as a compendium of the myriad failures as regards the attempt to beat (or at least to ameliorate or even just to take the edge off) the lockdown heavy-handedness through the courts.

Thus far thus good then. The book is interesting, informative and with an underlying sense of a pervasive disbelief at just how panicked, principleless and even power-hungry the public health and political castes were during the pandemic. Throw in most journalists too if you wish.

Yet having conceded all that, for my way of thinking the core premise of this book is all wrong. You see I am a long-time skeptic of the desirability of bills of rights and in a way that many Americans will not have encountered. In essence my view is that when you buy a bill of rights you are ultimately just buying the views of the lawyerly caste and of the unelected ex-lawyers who are the top judges. Worse, if you are outside the US there is no way to import US First Amendment jurisprudence, along with your post-WWII Bill of Rights, so that you will almost certainly end up with outcomes that downplay free speech outcomes much more than in the US. In Canada and Europe rights analysis takes place in two steps – first judges decide on the proper scope of the enumerated right and then they move on to consider whether the governmental legislation is a reasonable, justifiable and proportional inroad on it. So stage one is something of a freebie and allows judges to virtue signal because all the work is done at stage two. Worse, this proportionality analysis is at its core plastic and – much as with the claim of Lon Fuller’s hypothetical judge in his famous The Case of the Speluncean Explorers – allows its user to reach either outcome in play perfectly plausibly. You tell me the answer you want, said Justice Keen in that Fuller mock hypothetical Speluncean case, and I can use the approach to give it to you. Ditto proportionality analysis or the second stage in Canadian Charter analysis. (Of course this is not to say that rights in the US are treated as absolute. They are not. It is just to say that in American analysis there is only one step, deciding the scope of the right. This may impose slightly more constraints on the deciding judges. Maybe.)

At any rate, during the lockdowns judges in Canada (and let’s be blunt, around the democratic world) were as panicked as all the other elites. Retired UK Supreme Court Justice Jonathan Sumption may have noted early on that the authoritarian response to COVID amounted to the biggest inroads on our civil liberties in two hundred years. Yet he was a very solitary voice. Nearly all the judges were as frightened and panicked as most everyone else. There was next to no chance litigants were going to roll back governmental regulations through the courts. I said so in print at the start of the crisis and I believe events have proved that true. My take was that we would have to wait till everyone calmed down and the panic subsided and then you would see the judges discover a bit of a willingness to overturn some of these rules and regulations. But as far as the COVID years were concerned the entire edifice of human rights law, and all its accoutrements, was totally useless. Worse than useless in fact.

But I suppose my deeper objection to the foundational worldview on which this book rests is that I do not think we really should even want to live in a world where the lawyerly caste – whose political and social views the evidence today clearly shows to be an order of magnitude or more to the left of, and more ‘progressive’ than, that of the median voter’s – could decide these sort of issues through the courts. And that is true even when we strongly, even vociferously, disagree with what the government is doing, as I did throughout the pandemic. The remedy here had to be political. Elect someone who will stand up to the panic and show what should be done. If we lived in a world where unelected judges could roll back what elected governments did (however stupidly and pusillanimously) trying to deal with a worldwide pandemic then it’s not clear to me what would ultimately be left to the voters and democracy. Put more bluntly, after decades of working in university law schools around the Anglosphere and knowing the lawyerly and judicial caste very well indeed I can tell you that I fully agree with the sentiment William Buckley conveyed when he said that he would rather be governed by the first 2,000 people in the Boston telephone directory than by the Harvard University faculty. For me, make that also the lawyerly caste that gives us our top judges. The authors of this book implicitly disagree with that core sentiment of mine, though our view of the pandemic overreach is much the same. Wherever readers stand on both those issues, this is a book well worth reading.

*****

This article was published by AIER, American Institute for Economic Research, and is reproduced with permission.

TAKE ACTION

The Prickly Pear’s TAKE ACTION focus this year is to help achieve a winning 2024 national and state November 5th election with the removal of the Biden/Obama leftist executive branch disaster, win one U.S. Senate seat, maintain and win strong majorities in all Arizona state offices on the ballot and to insure that unrestricted abortion is not constitutionally embedded in our laws and culture.

Please click the TAKE ACTION link to learn to do’s and don’ts for voting in 2024. Our state and national elections are at great risk from the very aggressive and radical leftist Democrat operatives with documented rigging, mail-in voter fraud and illegals voting across the country (yes, with illegals voting across the country) in the last several election cycles.

Read Part 1 and Part 2 of The Prickly Pear essays entitled How NOT to Vote in the November 5, 2024 Election in Arizona to be well informed of the above issues and to vote in a way to ensure the most likely chance your vote will be counted and counted as you intend.

Please click the following link to learn more.

Pro-Life Leaders React to Trump’s Abortion Statement: ‘Rebuild America’s Spiritual Walls’ thumbnail

Pro-Life Leaders React to Trump’s Abortion Statement: ‘Rebuild America’s Spiritual Walls’

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By Family Research Council

Pro-family leaders reacted to President Donald Trump’s announcement that abortion policy should be handled exclusively by the states by saying that “pro-life policies should be pursued at every level of government” to rebuild “the spiritual walls of our nation.” Although pro-life advocates expressed gratitude for the president’s role in overturning Roe v. Wade and restoring voters’ democratic control over the issue of abortion, they say his “work is not over” when it comes to protecting innocent life.

The 45th president delivered on a promise he made last week to present his position on abortion in a four-minute-long video posted on social media Monday morning. The president said abortion should be handled at the state level, endorsed exceptions for abortion in the cases of rape and incest, and strongly supported in vitro fertilization (IVF). “Democrats are the radical ones” on abortion, by endorsing abortion, for any reason, until the moment of birth, he said.

“The states will determine by vote or legislation — or perhaps both — and whatever they decide must be the law of the land,” said Trump. “Many states will be different, many will have a different number of weeks, or some will have more conservative [respect for life] than others.”

“I was proudly the person responsible for the ending” of Roe, he said. But the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision “took [the issue of abortion] out of the federal hands and brought it into the hearts, minds, and vote of the people in each state,” he stated. “Now it’s up to the states to do the right thing.”

Trump thanked the six justices who voted for the Dobbs decision by name — Chief Justice John Roberts, as well as Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett — for allowing “this long-term, hard-fought battle to finally end.” Trump nominated three of those jurists to the nation’s highest court, including Justice Barrett, whom the Senate confirmed just seven days before the 2020 election.

But justices on both sides of the 2022 Dobbs ruling agreed the federal government can play a role in setting abortion policy. “On the question of abortion, the Constitution … leaves the issue for the people and their elected representatives to resolve through the democratic process in the [s]tates or Congress — like the numerous other difficult questions of American social and economic policy that the Constitution does not address,” wrote Justice Brett Kavanaugh in his concurrence to Dobbs.

In their dissent, liberal justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan agreed Dobbs gives voters absolute freedom of choice to set abortion policy nationwide. “Most threatening of all,” they wrote, “no language in today’s decision stops the [f]ederal [g]overnment from prohibiting abortions nationwide, once again from the moment of conception and without exceptions for rape or incest.”

After Trump’s statement, pro-life leaders urged the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential candidate to use the full authority his judicial policy successes had won to pass pro-life protections in his second term. “Former President Trump has played a vital role in bringing our nation to this pivotal point of being able to restore the fundamental right to life in America,” said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, in a statement released first to The Washington Stand. “I applaud President Trump for the work he has done, but that work is not over.”

“As voters continue to elect pro-life legislators at both the state and federal levels, pro-life policies should be pursued at every level of government until every child, born and unborn, is welcomed into this nation and protected under our laws, federal and state,” Perkins continued. “The effort to protect innocent life is crucial as we work toward a day when we will once again see the spiritual walls of our nation stand high and secure.”

President Trump on Monday continued to highlight that “Democrats are the radical ones on this [abortion] position, because they support abortion up to and even beyond the ninth month,” and “even execution after birth.” Trump likely referred to former Virginia Governor Ralph Northam (D), who declared in 2019, “I can tell you exactly what would happen” if a child is born alive during a botched abortion: “The infant would be delivered. The infant would be kept comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother.” Similarly, in 2013, Alisa LaPolt Snow, a lobbyist for the Florida Alliance of Planned Parenthood Affiliates, told the Florida legislature the decision about whether to save a baby born alive during a botched abortion “should be left up to the woman, her family, and the physician.” Philadelphia abortionist and mass murderer Kermit Gosnell made the infanticide of newborn premature babies his regular “abortion” procedure.

Perkins said defunding abortion and ending the federal government’s role in facilitating abortion would win Trump voters, as it already enjoys broad support. “The legal authority to protect this fundamental right to life has not only been restored to the states but also to policymakers at the federal level, where broad support exists to not force taxpayers to pay for abortion. The federal government should not be funding the facilitation of abortion in any form or fashion — at home or abroad,” said Perkins.

The Democratic Party platform calls for taxpayer-funded abortion-on-demand for any reason a matter of “health, rights, and justice.” But polling data show the national consensus diverges sharply from prevailing liberal orthodoxy. As this author has noted:

  • 67% of Americans oppose funding abortion overseas, according to a 2024 KofC/Marist poll;
  • 66% say people with religious objections should not be legally required to carry out abortions;
  • 58% of the American people believe abortion should not be legal past the first trimester, except for rape or incest;
  • 61% of Americans oppose sending abortion-inducing pills through the mail;
  • 53% of Americans oppose funding abortion in the United States;
  • 55% said employers with religious objections should not be forced to pay for abortion coverage in their employees’ insurance in a 2023 Marist poll; and
  • 55% of all Americans support laws protecting a child from his or her first fetal heartbeat in a 2019 Hill-HarrisX survey.

Additionally, “a clear majority (59%) of voters say they would support Congressional legislation that would prohibit abortions after a baby can feel pain at fifteen weeks of pregnancy,” with exceptions for rape and incest, a poll from last June found. That majority would allow states “to pass even more protective laws.”

On the other hand, polls consistently show a minority supports the right to an abortion for any reason, at any time: just over one in four Americans (29%) in the most recent Marist poll. Only 9% of young people belonging to the Millennials and Gen Z “supported the Democratic Party’s radical agenda of abortion through all 9 months without limits,” according to a poll conducted for Students for Life of America.

Nonetheless, Democrats plan to nationalize the issue of abortion, endorsing a national abortion approval bill and taxpayer subsidies for abortionists. Biden has centered his reelection campaign around a promise to strike down pro-life protections nationwide. The legislation he endorses, the Women’s Health Protection Act, goes much further than the abortion regime foisted on America by Roe, Doe v. Bolton (1973), and Casey v. Planned Parenthood (1992) — erasing more than 1,300 laws passed while Roe, Doe, and Casey remained binding legal precedent.

“Saying the issue is ‘back to the states’ cedes the national debate to the Democrats who are working relentlessly to enact legislation mandating abortion throughout all nine months of pregnancy. If successful, they will wipe out states’ rights,” warned Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser in a statement emailed to The Washington Stand. “Unborn children and their mothers deserve national protections,” she added, saying she was “disappointed in President Trump’s position.”

Jeanne Mancini, president of the March for Life, agreed the next president must use the power available to advance the right to life. “There remains an urgent need to advocate for the unborn at the federal level, which is one of the reasons we continue to march annually in our nation’s capital even after the Dobbs decision. Pro-abortion politicians relentlessly work to enact federal legislation like the deceptively titled Women’s Health Protection Act, which would cancel every states’ ability to limit abortion through all nine months of pregnancy, and erases existing pro-life protections for vulnerable women and children nationwide,” said Mancini in a statement emailed to TWS.

After rejecting Roe’s sweeping, top-down abortion policy, voluntarily adopting an anything-goes abortion policy would make the United States a global outlier, pro-life leaders noted. “The overwhelming majority of European nations reject such barbaric policies with minimum protections for children after the first trimester. We as a nation need to work toward federal minimum protections for the unborn, and advocate for policies that support pregnant women and families in need,” Mancini told TWS.

Trump’s video statement also generated controversy for endorsing exceptions for the one percent of abortions due to rape and incest, respectively. “I am strongly in favor of exceptions for rape, incest, and life of the mother” — a position he has long held, and which he has consistently noted polls well. “We have an obligation to the salvation of our Nation, which is currently in serious decline, to win elections, without which we will have nothing other than failure, death, and destruction,” Trump posted on Truth Social Sunday evening. (Emphasis in original.)

“There’s no ‘salvation of our Nation’ while we are permitting killing children,” replied Lila Rose, founder of Live Action. “This includes helpless children conceived in rape.” Ryan Bomberger, the founder of the Radiance Foundation, who was conceived in rape, asked whether “lives with origin stories like mine should die to Make America Great Again.”

“Unborn children and their mothers deserve national protections,” said Dannenfelser, saying she was “disappointed in President Trump’s position.”

Seeming to anticipate their reactions, President Trump said Monday, “You must follow your heart on this issue — but remember, you must also win elections to restore our culture” and “save our country,” which three years of Democratic rule has placed “at the brink.”

Perkins agreed with the president’s diagnosis that America teeters on the knife’s edge of catastrophe, which requires America to be rooted on a solid rock of abiding values. “To restore our nation to a place of political greatness, we must first restore our moral goodness, and foundational to that is the respect for and protection of all human life. After 50 years of spiritual, cultural, and political engagement, we thankfully reached a point where Roe v. Wade was sent to the dustbin of history, but the effort to restore the inalienable right to life is far from over as we continue working to protect children from the moment of conception,” he said.

“Always follow your heart. But we must win,” Trump said. “We are a failing nation, but we can be a failing nation no longer. We will make our nation great. We will make our nation greater than ever before.”

Trump also voiced strong support for in vitro fertilization. “We want to make it easier for mothers and families to have babies, not harder. That includes supporting the availability of fertility treatments like IVF in every state in America,” the president said, stating his view is supported by “the vast majority of Republicans, conservatives, Christians, and pro-life Americans.”

Democrats injected IVF into the national discourse to attack the Dobbs decision. Despite President Joe Biden’s false assertion during the State of the Union address that “the Alabama Supreme Court shut down IVF treatments,” the ruling had nothing to do with IVF’s legal status. Yet IVF presents deep moral concerns for those who believe life begins at conception. Mary Szoch, director of the Center for Human Dignity at Family Research Council, has noted that “93% of the embryos created through IVF never result in a live birth.” Sometimes, the doctor implants multiple embryos and then selectively aborts less robust fetuses. Millions more remain frozen, often abandoned — or later destroyed — by their parents.

“We clearly have some work to do to educate the GOP on the lawlessness of a predatory IVF industry, whose own sloppiness has caused the painful headlines we all have seen,” said Kristen Hawkins of Students for Life of America in a statement emailed to TWS. “It’s an industry in need of regulation.” Others contrasted Trump’s states’ rights view of abortion with his commitment to “supporting the availability of fertility treatments like IVF in every state in America.” Fox News Digital Editor Ken Shepherd pointed out that former President Trump “seems to be saying abortion is a matter for the states, but his language on IVF regulation seems to suggest every state should protect IVF as a right. This seems a bit incongruent.” (Emphasis in original.)

Yet pro-life leaders took heart at the palpable difference in focus between the two parties’ presumptive presidential candidates. “Unlike President Biden, President Trump begins his remarks on abortion celebrating ‘the ultimate joy in life’ – children and family,” said Hawkins. While pro-life advocates “clearly have some work to do to educate the Trump administration” on federal pro-life protections, sharing “the mutual goals of supporting families and welcoming young children” proves that “we can work together to restore the culture of life stripped away by the national Democratic Party and their leadership.”

“Fighting against that kind of abortion extremism is a reason to vote for Donald Trump,” Hawkins told TWS. Dannensfelser also promised SBA Pro-Life America will “work tirelessly to defeat President Biden and extreme congressional Democrats” in November.

Talk show host Steve Deace questioned the political viability of Trump’s abortion stance. “Is there truly a constituency of people who vote on this issue who will find this reasonable?” he said. “[I]f you’re voting on abortion you feel strongly about it, one way or the other. And if you have anything close to the position Trump has, you’re not even voting on that issue, so it doesn’t matter.”

But Perkins believes President Trump “is going to continue to pursue a pro-life policy” once elected, based on the counsel of his advisors and the political calculus of the Republican Party.

“I saw today’s statement with a comma behind it, not a period,” Perkins told “Greg Kelly Reports” on Newsmax Monday evening. “I’ve had conversations leading up to this with the former president. If Congress were to reach a consensus on a piece of legislation and send it to his desk, I have no doubt he would sign it.”

“His record is very clear; he’s the most pro-life president that we’ve had,” Perkins concluded.

Pro-life leaders hope a second Trump presidency will live up to his words Monday morning: “The Republican Party should always be on the side of the miracle of life — on the side of mothers, fathers, and their beautiful babies.”

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved.  ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Honey Am I Male? thumbnail

Honey Am I Male?

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By Craig J. Cantoni

In advance of an upcoming elective surgery, I have been on the phone with personnel from a local Tucson hospital to provide my medical history, insurance coverage, and other required information. The hospital does a great job and its employees are personable, professional, and thorough.

A charming woman asked me on one of the calls what my gender identity is.

Before answering the question, I said, “I know you’re required to ask the question, but I bet you get a lot of grief over it.”

She responded with a sigh, “For sure.”

The question is silly on more than one level, but particularly so in light of the fact that the surgical procedure in question can only be done on men who are biologically male, have all of their natural appendages, and want to keep all of them.

Anyway, I answered the question by saying, “I am a male.” Then I added, “But let me get a second opinion from my wife, who is standing here.”

“Honey, am I a male?”

She answered, “You’re not only a male but also an Italian stallion.”

Okay, that’s not what she said, but I’m not going to lose more of my male pride by repeating what she actually said.

After chuckling, the hospital employee said, “I’m required to ask a related question: What are your preferred pronouns?”

All kinds of smartass answers came to mind, but not wanting to exceed the patience of the employee, I replied, “he, him, his.”

Reflecting on the conversation, I am struck by how the idea of tolerance—of living and let live—has morphed into a national fetish for fairness and a mass pathological fear of possibly being seen as insensitive, intolerant, and unenlightened.

Small but vocal groups, claiming to be victims of horrendous injustices, have people and institutions jumping through hoops, engaging in inane communications, and wasting time and money in keeping records of the inanities so as not to be sued or canceled.

And it’s happening with regard to many more issues than just gender identity.

In going along with the silliness and being powerless to do anything about it, I feel like a gelding instead of a stallion.

TAKE ACTION

The Prickly Pear’s TAKE ACTION focus this year is to help achieve a winning 2024 national and state November 5th election with the removal of the Biden/Obama leftist executive branch disaster, win one U.S. Senate seat, maintain and win strong majorities in all Arizona state offices on the ballot and to insure that unrestricted abortion is not constitutionally embedded in our laws and culture.

Please click the TAKE ACTION link to learn to do’s and don’ts for voting in 2024. Our state and national elections are at great risk from the very aggressive and radical leftist Democrat operatives with documented rigging, mail-in voter fraud and illegals voting across the country (yes, with illegals voting across the country) in the last several election cycles.

Read Part 1 and Part 2 of The Prickly Pear essays entitled How NOT to Vote in the November 5, 2024 Election in Arizona to be well informed of the above issues and to vote in a way to ensure the most likely chance your vote will be counted and counted as you intend.

Please click the following link to learn more.

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