VIDEO: Tucker Carlson on the Transgender Line of Attack on Civilization and Reality thumbnail

VIDEO: Tucker Carlson on the Transgender Line of Attack on Civilization and Reality

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By Vlad Tepes Blog

This is on someone named, Yen Vy’s YouTube channel so there is no way to know when this was actually broadcast. Rather, there is a way to know but I don’t know when it was broadcast.

Below is our favorite video explaining the nature of the Trans lie.

An explanation of how the trans-issue is a Marxist dialectic attack

Yeah, it’s the usual suspects. If a bunch of us were to sit around a table at a restaurant with a few drinks and a meal and take our time, several hours, and the only topic of discussion was, ‘what would be the most outrageous lie we could foist on the public’, it would have to be that a man who claimed he was a woman, was in fact a real woman.

EDITORS NOTE: This Vlad Tepes Blog column with videos posted by Eeyore is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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Unrestricted Immigration Is a Real Problem

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By Steven Camarota

Pretending it’s not happening will only make the consequences worse

The Biden administration’s continuing effort to conceal or lie about the historic rates of immigration into the country is fast becoming a crisis in its own right—a socially-toxic version of The Emperor’s New Clothes. “It’s not unusual,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre casually remarked in late December, a month that saw the highest number of recorded migrant encounters in U.S. history. The Department of Homeland Security finally disclosed last Friday that more than 2.3 million migrants have been released into the country during the administration’s time in office.

From Biden’s inauguration in January 2021 to October 2023, the foreign-born population increased by an average of 137,000 per month—double the monthly average under Barack Obama and triple the rate under Donald Trump before COVID. If current rates continue, there could end up being some 12 million encounters by the end of Biden’s first term—equal to the entire populations of New York City and Los Angeles combined.

The attempt to convince Americans not to worry about or even discuss the most consequential public policy issue facing our country cannot be healthy for American society or American democracy. Census Bureau data from October show that the total number of foreign-born immigrants (legal and illegal) in the U.S. has now reached nearly 50 million, amounting to 15% of the total current U.S. population. Both the total number of immigrants and their percentage of the U.S. population are also new records in U.S. history.

The enormous scale of immigration over the past three years has implications for nearly every aspect of American society—from public coffers, to labor markets, to the balance of political power, to culture. The rate of increase has been so fast that it appears to have already made the new Census Bureau population projections, published just two months ago, obsolete. The bureau projected on Nov. 9 that the foreign-born share of the U.S. population would not hit 15% until 2033. And yet here we are.

By comparison, the 15% foreign-born mark reached in October 2023 is higher than the prior record of 14.8% set in 1890, during what is often called the Great Wave of immigration. World War I and restrictive legislation in the early 1920s caused immigration to fall significantly. The law was reformed in 1965 to allow in more immigrants, but even in 1970 the foreign-born still comprised less than 5% of the total population—less than one-third of current levels.

The foreign-born number and share are higher now than at any time in American history

The long-term growth in the foreign-born population primarily reflects legal immigration. In the 1970s, new green card holders (permanent residents) averaged roughly 400,000 per year, but immigration tends to build on itself. By the 1980s the U.S. was welcoming 600,000 new permanent residents per year. Recipients of the 1986 amnesty for illegal immigrants began to sponsor their relatives after a few years, stimulating more legal immigration. Legislation in 1990 increased legal immigration even further, and since the mid-1990s we have handed out about 1 million green cards per year.

Many illegal immigrants come to join their legal friends and family already here, and many native-born Americans are born to parents who immigrated illegally. It is therefore common for legal and illegal immigrants to live in the same household. As a result, many of the top source countries for legal immigration are also the top ones for illegal immigration.

The decision by certain universities not only to refrain from suspending foreign students who endorse or espouse the activities of foreign terrorist organizations like Hamas, but to also actively scrub the internet in order to protect the identities of these students—who in many cases are violating the conditions of their visas—should be viewed in part against this reality: Namely, it is paving the way for some foreign nationals, who by law are inadmissible, to remain indefinitely in the U.S., as part of a wave of immigration being encouraged from above, by federal authorities who have simply decided to no longer enforce existing laws, and in doing so to change the character of American society in ways that the administration seems unwilling to even begin to explain or discuss.

While legal immigrants make up most of the growth in the foreign-born population since 1965, the recent surge under Biden appears to be driven primarily not by legal but by illegal immigration. Since Biden took office, there have been 1.6 million “got-aways” at the border—individuals seen entering illegally but not stopped. That is three or four times the pre-COVID annual rate.

The sheer number of people stopped at the border or at ports of entry has been enormous. From January 2021 to October 2023 there have been nearly 8 million “encounters” of aliens not authorized to enter the country at U.S. borders and ports of entry, though in some cases it is the same person being stopped more than once. Encounters include individuals who are stopped at ports of entry, including at border entry points and interior U.S. airports, and those apprehended after crossing the border illegally, some of whom request asylum. Many of those encountered are subsequently let go within the United States…..

*****

Continue reading this article at Tablet Magazine.

TAKE ACTION

As we move through 2023 and into the next election cycle, The Prickly Pear will resume Take Action recommendations and information.

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GOP Experts Warn Candidates to Stop Treating Abortion ‘Like a Hot Stove’ They Won’t Touch

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By Family Research Council

Nobody likes a wimp — and on the issue of abortion, the Republican Party has plenty of them. After the Dobbs ruling put the issue back in legislators’ hands, a shocking number of GOP candidates spent the 2022 and 2023 elections cowering in the collective corner, hoping voters would take their silence as confirmation that they had a reasonable position on life (despite the Democrats’ 24/7 ads to the contrary). Now, staring down a high-stakes November where this issue has the potential to upend all of the GOP’s momentum, more voices are urging the party to get off the sidelines and fight.

National Republican Congressional Committee Chair Richard Hudson (R-N.C.) was the latest to demand more guts from candidates. “You need to tell voters your position [on abortion],” argued the head of the House’s Republican fundraising arm. The idea that conservatives can continue letting the Democrats mischaracterize their positions is a losing recipe for 2024, he insisted. It’s time to stop being scared and start getting aggressive, Hudson urged.

“[Our candidates] need to articulate their position to the voters,” he pointed out, “because [right now] the voters think the Republican position is like, ‘We’ll throw you in jail if you get an abortion.’” And unfortunately, that lie has become the perceived reality in the face of very little GOP pushback. “We could have done a better job handling [abortion] last cycle,” Hudson lamented, “where the Democrats spent hundreds of millions of dollars on that topic, and we pretty much just treated it like a hot stove and didn’t touch it.”

And this year, Joe Biden’s party is betting even more money on the topic — an unsurprising move for leaders with nothing to run on but three years of catastrophe. Already, one of the Left’s super-PACs has pledged an eye-popping $200 million on television, social media, radio, and mail advertisements focused on the GOP’s supposedly “radical” position on life.

“Another Donald Trump presidency would mean disaster for Americans who value their rights,” the founder of America Bridge 21st Century said. “We know exactly how to beat Donald Trump. We’ve done it before, and our paid media strategy is a big part of how we’re going to do it again.”

What Democrats are careful not to say — and what Republicans should begin to — is their actual position on abortion. That, strategists say, is where conservatives have a powerful edge. “Republicans don’t have a policy problem,” Hudson insisted. “We have a branding problem,” Hudson said. “We need to point out that the Democrat position is abortion for any reason, up until the moment of birth, paid for by taxpayers. That’s extreme.”

Family Research Council Vice President Brent Keilen agreed that the GOP’s silence created “a huge messaging disadvantage.” “Attempting to avoid this conversation — a conversation that was and is on many voters’ minds — allowed the opposition to completely set the terms of the debate,” he told The Washington Stand. “Candidates should make sure to do two things: first, let the voters know where you stand; second, draw a contrast with what the radical abortion lobby is actively pushing for.”

Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel has been beating that drum since Dobbs. “We shouldn’t be silent,” she insisted late last year. “Listen, we’re proud to be a party that stands for the unborn. And I think coming out of Roe, after 50 years of … people not having to navigate this issue, it’s really important that we define ourselves before the Democrats do. Let’s talk about pregnancy [care] centers. Let’s talk about getting rid of cumbersome regulation to adoption. But let’s also put the Democrats on the defense because they stand for late-term abortion. They stand for gender-selection abortion.”

“I will work alongside every single candidate,” McDaniel vowed, “but Democrats have nothing to run on except for abortion, and they spent $350 million on it in 2022. They are going to use the same playbook in 2024, and our candidates need to get up to speed and be able to go on TV and articulate where we stand — because when we do, we win.”

If they need motivation, check out the polling data. “The first step in addressing the public perceptions of Republicans’ stance on abortion restrictions is to get a handle on the basics,” urged Amanda Iovino, polling director for Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin’s 2021 campaign. “Americans generally favor some limits on abortion. As an October 2022 WPA Intelligence poll found, by a two-to-one margin, voters see no restrictions on abortion as ‘more extreme’ than limiting it with exceptions for rape, incest, and the mother’s life.”

In a country as divided as ours, that’s as close to a statistical slam-dunk as you can get. Another August 2022 survey from the same group discovered that “62 percent of likely voters support limiting abortion to 15 weeks or earlier, similar to the European standard.” This is the line of public consensus that Republicans like Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) have been urging the GOP to draw — with surprising pushback from fellow pro-lifers.

“If we can’t muster the courage, post-Dobbs, to tell the country that we’re against late-term abortion, then we’ve lost our way,” he’s argued. That doesn’t mean, Graham has said, that states can’t be more restrictive. If Arkansas or Louisiana want to outlaw abortion entirely, they can. But there also needs to be a clear, nationwide boundary, Graham argued, so that children in extreme places like California, Illinois, or Maryland have a fighting chance. So “at 15 weeks, we draw the line as a nation. [That’s a] minimum federal standard.”

It’s also a strong public preference, Iovino pointed out. But for Republicans to seize on this support, they have to also realize the mountain of misconceptions they’ll have to climb — the tragic result of months of Republican silence on the issue. “The same poll found that 44 percent of Americans mistakenly thought the Supreme Court has outlawed abortion nationwide, and half of those voters think Republicans also want to ban contraceptives. This misinformation makes it easier for Democrats to foster distrust towards Republicans.”

Americans witnessed that first-hand in Virginia and Ohio, where radical abortion won on the ballots by popular vote — stunning states that had made positive pro-life strides. “Heading into the 2024 cycle, the Republican Party must craft clear, effective messaging to counter misinformation and rebuild trust,” Iovino warned. “… The lessons for the GOP from Virginia and Ohio are clear: prioritize policies that support women and directly confront trust issues and misinformation.”

One of the first things a candidate learns, FRC Action Director Matt Carpenter pointed out to TWS, “is to not allow your opponent to define you on an issue.” “Issues don’t just go away because a campaign refuses to engage,” he warned. “In fact, if Republicans don’t engage, a vacuum emerges, one that pro-abortion forces are happy to fill. They want the issue to be about removing someone’s rights when in reality what we’re really talking about is protecting unborn lives. Chairman Hudson’s advice is solid — candidates need to tell the voters where they stand.”

The stakes are too high not to.

AUTHOR

Suzanne Bowdey

Suzanne Bowdey serves as editorial director and senior writer 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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Here’s Why the Florida Surgeon General Wants to Halt COVID Shots

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By MERCOLA Take Control of Your Health

STORY AT-A-GLANCE
  • With shockingly little data, questionable benefits and a high likelihood of adverse events, the continuing campaign for COVID-19 shots raises many red flags
  • The documentary “The Unseen Crisis,” detailed by investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson, scratches the surface of the many lives ruined by COVID-19 shots
  • For every 1 million shots, an estimated 1,010 to 1,510 serious adverse reactions, such as death, life-threatening conditions, hospitalization or significant disability may occur — but only about 75 hospitalizations would be prevented among those aged 18 to 49
  • Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo has called for an end to the use of COVID-19 mRNA shots, citing concerns about DNA fragments in the products
  • The FDA provided no evidence that appropriate DNA integration assessments have been conducted on mRNA COVID-19 shots; in a statement, Ladapo says, “DNA integration poses a unique and elevated risk to human health and to the integrity of the human genome”

As the number of people injured by COVID-19 shots rises, U.S. health officials continue to advise Americans to get more doses. Neither the U.K. nor Australia recommend repeated COVID-19 jabs for those who are under 65 and low risk.1 But in the U.S., official guidance suggests virtually everyone should get multiple COVID-19 shots, beginning at just 6 months of age.2

With shockingly little data, questionable benefits and a high likelihood of adverse events, the continuing campaign for COVID-19 shots raises many red flags. “The only clear winners are Moderna and Pfizer … they have convinced the CDC and the FDA that perpetual COVID vaccination is necessary without robust data,” writes Dr. William Ward in Sensible Medicine.3

The documentary “The Unseen Crisis,” detailed by investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson in the video above, scratches the surface of the many lives ruined by COVID-19 shots — and the ongoing efforts to keep their stories quiet. Meanwhile, Americans are expected to keep rolling up their sleeves, no questions asked.

Benefits and Risks of COVID-19 Shots Don’t Measure Up

After pushing multiple doses of COVID-19 shots on the American public for years, in September 2023 the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced the rollout of the updated 2023-24 COVID-19 shot. “CDC recommends everyone 6 months and older get an updated COVID-19 vaccine … Vaccination remains the best protection against COVID-19-related hospitalization and death.”4

While the updated shot boosts antibody levels against new COVID variants, there’s no proof that this translates to a reduction in severe illness and death. Further, the CDC’s estimated benefits from the updated shots were paltry at best. According to Ward, for every 1 million COVID-19 shots given in the following age groups, the following benefits were estimated:5

  • 6 months to 4 years — Avoid 103 hospitalizations
  • 5 to 11 years — Avoid 16 hospitalizations
  • 12 to 17 years — Avoid 19 to 95 hospitalizations, five to 19 ICU admissions and “perhaps one death”
  • 18 to 49 years — Avoid 75 hospitalizations

Meanwhile, randomized controlled trials estimate the risks of COVID-19 shots are much higher.6 For every 1 million shots, an estimated 1,010 to 1,510 serious adverse reactions, such as death, life-threatening conditions, hospitalization or significant disability, may occur.7 When compared to the flu shot, data from the European Medicines Agency Eurovigilance Database shows that COVID-19 shots cause more:8,9

Allergic reactions Arrhythmia
General cardiovascular events Coagulation
Hemorrhages Gastrointestinal, ocular and sexual organs reactions
Thrombosis

A real-world case-control study from Israel10 also revealed that the Pfizer COVID-19 jab is associated with a threefold increased risk of myocarditis,11 leading to the condition at a rate of 1 to 5 events per 100,000 persons.12

As Ward points out, the CDC often states the risk of myocarditis is greater after COVID-19 infection than COVID-19 shots, but a JAMA Cardiology study refutes this. It found a higher rate of myocarditis in young men after a COVID-19 shot compared to COVID-19 infection.13,14 But by ignoring the real risks while continuing to push ongoing shots, health officials are quickly losing the public’s trust. Ward notes:15

“A large randomized trial to simultaneously evaluate the ongoing harms and benefits of boosters should be enacted. This was not required by the FDA for the newest vaccine. Instead, the FDA only required Pfizer to study the new vaccine on 10 mice. Moderna only studied theirs on 50 humans. One person (2%) had a serious adverse reaction.

… As the only country pushing boosters to healthy 6-month-old infants, we better produce the best data in the world. Instead, we get antibody titers from 10 mice. The CDC and FDA are whittling away at public trust by forgoing their duty to protect and inform. Meanwhile, their recent actions are aligned with the financial interests of Pfizer and Moderna. Consent to perpetual COVID boosters is not informed, it is manufactured.”

Past COVID Boosters Quickly Stopped Boosting

The updated COVID-19 shot targets the XBB.1.5 Omicron subvariant, which was the dominant strain in the U.S. for much of 2023. However, this strain “has since been overtaken as the virus continues to evolve,”16 raising questions about whether the “updated” shots are already out of date, which could render them ineffective, as we’ve seen many times in the past with flu shots and COVID-19 shots.

Even the CDC states, “When flu vaccines are not well matched to some viruses spreading in the community, vaccination may provide little or no protection against illness caused by those viruses.”17 SARS-CoV-2 is known to mutate rapidly, even faster than other human viruses like influenza.

Remember the last round of “updated” COVID-19 shots — the bivalent booster? They’re no longer available. “The 2022–2023 bivalent vaccines were designed to protect against the original virus that caused COVID-19 and the Omicron variants BA.4 and BA.5. These vaccines were replaced with the 2023-2024 updated vaccines that more closely target the XBB lineage of the Omicron variant,” according to the Illinois Department of Public Health.

At the time, there were questions about the bivalent boosters’ effectiveness. While Pfizer cited strong antibody responses from its retooled boosters, the booster shot studies did not reveal whether the shots prevented COVID-19 cases or how long they were effective.18 Even vaccination proponent Dr. Paul Offit, director of the vaccine education center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, was underwhelmed.

As a member of the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC), Offit sat in on the June 28, 2022, presentation, when Pfizer and Moderna presented data on their bivalent shots:19

“The results were underwhelming. Bivalent boosters resulted in levels of neutralizing antibodies against BA.1 that were only 1.5 to 1.75 times as high as those achieved with monovalent boosters. Previous experience with the companies’ vaccines suggested that this difference was unlikely to be clinically significant.”

Soon, data rolled in showing the bivalent boosters did not offer better protection than the former COVID-19 booster shots,20 which were already failing.21 Steve Kirsch, executive director of the Vaccine Safety Research Foundation, pointed out that the data is crystal clear that boosters aren’t working and are dangerous.

“Paul Offit is no dummy; he’s not getting any more boosters,” he says. “Neither should you.”22 Yet, here we are a year later, being sold another promise that another round of “updated” COVID-19 shots is necessary.

Florida Surgeon General Calls for Halt on COVID Shots

Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo has called for an end to the use of COVID-19 mRNA shots, citing concerns about DNA fragments in the products.23 In a December 6, 2023, letter sent to the U.S. FDA and CDC, Ladapo outlined findings showing the presence of lipid nanoparticle complexes and simian virus 40 (SV40) promoter/enhancer DNA.

“Lipid nanoparticles are an efficient vehicle for delivery of the mRNA in the COVID-19 vaccines into human cells and may therefore be an equally efficient vehicle for delivering contaminant DNA into human cells. The presence of SV40 promoter/enhancer DNA may also pose a unique and heightened risk of DNA integration into human cells,” according to a news release from the Florida Department of Health (DOH).24

In a 2023 preprint study, microbiologist Kevin McKernan — a former researcher and team leader for the MIT Human Genome project25 — and colleagues assessed the nucleic acid composition of four expired vials of the Moderna and Pfizer mRNA shots. “DNA contamination that exceeds the European Medicines Agency (EMA) 330ng/mg requirement and the FDAs 10ng/dose requirements” was found.26

So, in addition to the spike protein and mRNA in COVID-19 shots, McKernan’s team discovered SV40 promoters that, for decades, have been suspected of causing cancer in humans, including mesotheliomas, lymphomas and cancers of the brain and bone.27 Fact checkers have called out the preprint study for using expired vials, but as McKernan tweeted:28

“Factchokers keyboards will melt as they regurgitate the same fake taking [talking] points. 1) vials were old Wrong- newer studies used good vials. RNA integrity was measured and fine. Expired vials were used on people. Expiration doesn’t spontaneously generate DNA.”

Further, the FDA published guidance on DNA in vaccines in 2007, which outlines important points that must be considered. According to the Florida DOH, the FDA’s 2007 guidance states:29

  • “DNA integration could theoretically impact a human’s oncogenes — the genes which can transform a healthy cell into a cancerous cell.
  • DNA integration may result in chromosomal instability.
  • The Guidance for Industry discusses biodistribution of DNA vaccines and how such integration could affect unintended parts of the body including blood, heart, brain, liver, kidney, bone marrow, ovaries/testes, lung, draining lymph nodes, spleen, the site of administration and subcutis at injection site.”

FDA Didn’t Perform DNA Integration Assessments

The FDA responded to Ladapo’s letter on December 14, 2023, but provided no evidence that appropriate DNA integration assessments had been conducted on mRNA COVID-19 shots. In a statement, Ladapo calls for a halt in their use as a result:30

“The FDA’s response does not provide data or evidence that the DNA integration assessments they recommended themselves have been performed. Instead, they pointed to genotoxicity studies — which are inadequate assessments for DNA integration risk. In addition, they obfuscated the difference between the SV40 promoter/enhancer and SV40 proteins, two elements that are distinct.

DNA integration poses a unique and elevated risk to human health and to the integrity of the human genome, including the risk that DNA integrated into sperm or egg gametes could be passed onto offspring of mRNA COVID-19 vaccine recipients. If the risks of DNA integration have not been assessed for mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, these vaccines are not appropriate for use in human beings.”

Ladapo, a graduate of Harvard Medical School, previously issued an alert about a “substantial increase” in reports of adverse events from COVID-19 mRNA shots in Florida. He also recommended against COVID-19 shots for healthy children in 2022 and, in 2023, suggested that those under age 65 should not get COVID-19 booster shots.31 Board-certified internist and cardiologist Dr. Peter McCullough states:32

“The Florida State Surgeon General’s announcement today is a milestone as more government officials join a chorus calling for recall of COVID-19 vaccines including myself (US Senate, multiple State Senates, EU Parliament, UK Parliament), 17,000 physicians representing the Global COVID-19 Summit, Australian scientists, the World Council for Health, and the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons.”

In the meantime, considering their questionable effectiveness and significant health risks, it would be wise for most to “just say no” to further boosters. Should you develop symptoms of COVID-19 infection, remember there are safe and effective early treatment protocols, including I-MASK+33 and I-MATH+,34 which are available for download on the COVID Critical Care website in multiple languages.

 Sources and References

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

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Congressman: Border Chaos ‘Is Ripping Apart America Right Now’

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By Family Research Council

One of the many obstacles to solving the southern border crisis is the lack of cooperation from the Democrats, according to Senator Roger Marshall (R-Kan.). In December, Marshall, who serves on four Senate committees, discussed on “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins” how the president’s party had been focused on Ukraine funding rather than the border, putting progress at a complete standstill. However, as the threat to the southern border continues to swell, more Democrats are changing their stance on the issue.

Sam Joshi, the Democrat mayor of Edison, New Jersey, said migrants are “not welcome” in his town. Although he received backlash, the mayor stood his ground. “They’re illegal, and they belong on the other side of the border. We don’t want them in Edison, period,” he said. And recent polls indicate this opinion is growing — among unlikely groups.

A January 5 poll conducted by YouGov and CBS News revealed 60% of white people, 50% of black people, and 47% of Hispanics oppose settling illegal immigrants locally. And although the Democrats surveyed largely support local housing for the undocumented migrants, 62% of independents oppose it.

Separate data collected by Rasmussen Reports showed 65% of “likely U.S. voters” consider the immigration crisis as an “invasion” with an additional 43% who strongly view that statement as “very accurate.” Only 31% disagree, and another 15% felt that statement was completely inaccurate.

On Monday’s episode of “Washington Watch,” Representative Mark Alford (R-Mo.) shared about his experience when he joined Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and several others on a trip to the southern border last week. “We saw firsthand the chaos,” he said. “Chaos that this administration [and] Secretary [Alejandro] Mayorkas … will not classify as a crisis.”

Instead, Alford noted, they call it “a challenge.” “This has been languishing for years,” he said, insisting that it’s not accurate to say it is simply a challenge. “Look,” he added, “this isn’t selling used cars. … [It’s] a crisis that [Mayorkas] and President Biden created.” And “with a wink and a nod … almost nine million illegal aliens” have been admitted into the nation.

Notably, most Americans welcome immigrants who enter the country legally. “Legal immigrants are part of the fabric of America,” Alford said. “But this process, this crisis, this chaos, is ripping apart America right now.” And in addition to the madness caused from having nowhere to place them or ways to treat their needs, America’s national security is under severe jeopardy, Alford observed. But he stressed that most Democrats won’t “admit” that “because they want these illegals to eventually become voters” for the Democratic Party who let them in.

Another shocking consequence of the border crisis is the correlation it has to the rise of human trafficking in America, Alford pointed out. During his visit to the border, Alford learned that “$32 million a week is going back to the cartels who are ferrying these people over.” Broken down, these trips can cost “anywhere from $5,000 to $8,000 per trip” per individual, he emphasized. Last week on “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins,” Speaker Johnson noted the money going back to the cartels from the border crisis would total about “$1.6 billion annually.”

Alford continued, “[The migrants] don’t have that money. So, they go to work in the human sex trade” in the U.S. to “pay off their debt to these cartels. One hundred thousand children are unaccounted for in America in this process. That’s despicable.”

On top of the border crisis, “[T]here’s a lot of work yet to be done in getting … [the] spending bill addressed, all the appropriations bills across the finish line, and avoiding a potential shutdown,” guest host and former Congressman Jody Hice chimed in. But Alford mentioned the most recent text for a spending bill had no mention of border security. And as far as he and his conservative colleagues are concerned, no matter how dressed up the spending bill appears, border security is non-negotiable. Or, as he stated, “[Y]ou can put lipstick on a pig, but I’m not kissing this pig.”

Alford concluded that his only priority right now is border security. “That is my number one concern, number two concern, and number three concern right now,” he said. “Whatever it takes to secure the border.”

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.

What More Proof Do You Want That Abortion Is Satanic? thumbnail

What More Proof Do You Want That Abortion Is Satanic?

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By MercatorNet – Navigating Modern Complexities

I’m not in the habit of reading Cosmopolitan and I can’t honestly say that I regret my negligence. However, many women do; it is one of the biggest magazines in the United States, with an estimated readership of more than 32 million, both in print and on the web. It knows what interests young career women – sex, health, gossip and fashion, mostly.

But the November-December issue promoted another interest – Satanism. It featured a “Cosmo special report” titled “The Satanic Abortion Clinic That’s Pissed Off Pretty Much Everyone…and Might Beat the Bans Anyway.”

The focus of the article is one of America’s weirdest enterprises: “Samuel Alito’s Mom’s Satanic Abortion Clinic”. Based in New Mexico, which has very liberal abortion laws, the telehealth clinic offers 24/7 advice about abortion and supplies abortion pills until the eleventh week of pregnancy.

It’s not just your average abortion clinic – it’s run by The Satanic Temple, an organisation for Satan worshippers, and it has ambitious plans for providing “free religious reproductive healthcare” across the US. The Satanic Temple claims that it is a religion and that providing abortion is an important element in its rituals. In fact, American tax authorities have recognised The Satanic Temple as a religious group with nonprofit tax-exempt status.

And now The Satanic Temple is trying to persuade courts in Idaho and Indiana to follow New Mexico’s lead. An expert on religious freedom legislation told Cosmo:

It’s a layered plan, crafted with backup arguments to the backup arguments … “The logic flows, step-by-step. It all holds together.” If TST were to win an exception to state bans, it could become the biggest, and only, abortion medication provider in either Idaho or Indiana.

True, it’s a strange sort of religion, as The Satanic Temple denies that it believes in God, Satan or the supernatural. “To embrace the name Satan is to embrace rational inquiry removed from supernaturalism and archaic tradition-based superstitions,” it says. However, it argues that it is a religion in the sense that it has a coherent narrative with its own rituals and community.

Cosmo’s journalist, Arielle Domb, painted an enthusiastic picture of the project, although she noted that few people had attended the clinic and it is burning through its cash. The magazine illustrated the article with fiery-red images evoking the Devil.

Up to a certain point, it all sounded like a tasteless adolescent joke. But then I read The Satanic Temple’s abortion ritual. It was hellish, truly hellish. Here is the way that Domb describes it:

First, you find a quiet space. Bring a mirror if you can. Just before taking the medication, gaze at your reflection and focus on your personhood. Home in on your intent, your responsibility to you. Take a few deep, relaxing breaths.

When you’re ready, read the following tenet aloud: One’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone.

Take the medication and immediately afterward, recite, Beliefs should conform to one’s best scientific understanding of the world. One should take care never to distort scientific facts to fit one’s beliefs.

Later, once your body expels the aborted tissue, return to your reflection. Focus again on your personhood, your power in making this decision.

Complete the ritual by reciting a personal affirmation: By my body, my blood; by my will, it is done.

This is not a joke; it is selling some poor woman’s soul to the Devil. Hell is a place where souls care nothing for one other; each is obsessed with the self. As C.S. Lewis said, “There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done’, and those to whom God says, in the end, ‘Thy will be done’.”

I don’t think that Cosmo and I will ever see eye-to-eye about religion. You could sum up its hedonistic theology in the terrifying maxim of the English poet William Blake: “Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires.” But on one thing we do agree: abortion is literally Satanic.

AUTHOR

MICHAEL COOK

Michael Cook is the editor in chief of Mercator. He lives in Sydney, Australia.

RELATED ARTICLE: Biden Reelection Campaign Makes Abortion ‘Front and Center’

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

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Prominent Psychologist Talks Nonstop About Gender-Transitioning 3-Year-Olds During Medical Training Course

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By The Daily Caller

Psychologist Dr. Wallace Wong argued that three-year-olds know their gender better than their parents while defending transitioning young children, according to a video obtained exclusively by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

In November 2022, Wong was featured in a training video for the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), an international organization that trains medical and mental health professionals on how to treat transgender patients, including minors. Wong told the trainees that kids “are at your mercy” when it comes to convincing their parents to transition them, and claimed that three-year-olds “know their authentic self” better than their parents, according to a video the DCNF obtained through a public records request.

Parents are so nervous and don’t know what to do when [their] three-year-old kid presents this kind of problem,” Wong said in the video. “They may think that ‘my child is gonna have a vasectomy or phalloplasty,’ but that’s not true. We need to let them know that our goal is helping the kid move step by step, one step at a time, getting to what is their authentic self. Where that will be I don’t know, the parents don’t know. The kids will know when it is time.”

WPATH’s Global Education Institute (GEI) Online Foundations courses teach medical professionals how to treat transgender patients in line with its Standards of Care. In the standards section on adolescent treatment, WPATH argues that while current research supports “early medical intervention” for transgender youth, there is a lack of studies to show the effects long-term.

Wong is also listed as the co-lead for WPATH’s GEI Diversity, Inclusion and Community Engagement committee, which is designed to “find creative ways to include marginalized or under-utilized contributors to the curriculum development and/or course delivery in every topic area,” according to its website.

WATCH:

Wong said that he had “quite a few” three-year-old patients, and that the “first thing” many children say is not “‘Mommy, I love you,’ but ‘Mommy I am not a boy’ or ‘Mommy, I’m not a girl.’”

“[Parents] really have that wishful thinking that ‘this is not true and I cannot let that happen.’ So they have a lot of different irrational thinking to deny it, undermining it, so having equal time with the parents is important,” Wong later said in the presentation.

During the training, Wong explains that when medical professionals work with families, it is very important that they “always” reassure parents that it is good to talk about sex and transgender issues with their young children. He said that often parents express fear that by introducing their children to these concepts that young they will “really become transgender” but Wong argued that is not the case.

“I wish it was that easy but it’s not,” Wong said to a laughing audience.

Wong also discussed the role schools must play in helping kids transition during the end of his lecture, saying that they need to accept using preferred pronouns and have resources for transgender students. He dismissed the idea that using pronouns like “they” would be confusing for other children.

“They need to learn,” Wong concluded. “They just need to learn. I’m sure [people] are confused when they call me by my Chinese name, I’m sorry … you cannot pronounce it, learn it, just like you have to learn [to] use they.”

Wong previously said in 2019 that he had treated a patient younger than three years old with gender dysphoria, according to a transcript of an event hosted by Vancouver Public Library.

In 2021, a Canadian father was arrested after refusing to consent for his teenage daughter to transition, according to City Journal. Wong was the doctor who encouraged the child to begin socially transitioning with the school’s help, despite the father not being informed and later encouraged her to go on cross-sex hormones.

Wong and WPATH did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s requests for comment.

AUTHORS

MEGAN BROCK AND KATE ANDERSON

Contributors.

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POST ON X: WARNING GRAPHIC

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.

Abortion, Trump And Censorship Headline Supreme Court’s Docket In The New Year thumbnail

Abortion, Trump And Censorship Headline Supreme Court’s Docket In The New Year

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By The Daily Caller

  • The Supreme Court will grapple with issues involving former President Donald Trump, the Biden administration’s communication with social media companies to censor speech online and the abortion pill in the lead up to the 2024 election. 
  • Abortion is back at the Supreme Court just two years after it issued a major ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, with two cases on the issue.
  • The justices will hear oral arguments on Trump’s eligibility for office under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment in February.

Issues involving the chemical abortion pill, former President Donald Trump and the Biden administration’s encouragement of censorship online top the Supreme Court’s docket in the New Year.

Though only one decision has been released so far this term, the justices have already heard arguments on gun restrictions for subjects of domestic violence restraining orders, government officials blocking constituents on social media and Purdue Pharma’s bankruptcy settlement. Other pending cases will require the Supreme Court to grapple with multiple hot-button issues in the lead up to the 2024 election.

Abortion

Just two years after overturning Roe v. Wade in June 2022, the justices agreed to hear another major abortion case challenging the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) approval of the chemical abortion pill mifepristone.

U.S. District Court Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk ruled in April that the FDA must reverse its approval of the pill. The Fifth Circuit later declined to fully remove the pill from the market, but upheld the portion of the decision rolling back FDA rules issued in 2016 and 2021 that had expanded access, allowing the pill to be sent via mail and used later in pregnancy.

However, due to an emergency order issued by the Supreme Court in April, both decisions are paused until the Supreme Court rules on the case.

The Supreme Court also agreed Friday to hear a second big case considering whether the federal law requires emergency room doctors to perform abortions in violation of Idaho’s law, which prohibits abortions unless the mother’s life is in danger. The Biden administration argues the that the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, which instructs doctors not to turn away patients in need of “emergency stabilizing care,” preempt’s Idaho’s ban and requires doctors to perform emergency abortions.

On Friday, the Court agreed to allow Idaho’s ban to remain in effect until it could hear the case in April.

Censorship

The Supreme Court will weigh in on the Biden administration’s coordination with social media companies to suppress speech online in Murthy v. Missouri. District Court Judge Terry A. Doughty called the government’s censorship efforts “Orwellian” in his July 4 ruling finding the Biden administration likely violated the First Amendment, noting the Republican attorneys general of Louisiana and Missouri “produced evidence of a massive effort by Defendants, from the White House to federal agencies, to suppress speech based on its content.”

The Supreme Court paused the ruling in October pending its consideration of the appeal. Justice Samuel Alito dissented, along with Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, writing the decision could be construed in the meantime as “giving the Government a green light to use heavy handed tactics to skew the presentation of views on the medium that increasingly dominates the dissemination of news.”

Election officials in eight states filed a brief urging the Supreme Court to reject the appeals court’s ruling, expressing dismay that communications made with platforms during the 2020 and 2022 election season have “essentially ended” ahead of “a critical and hotly contested 2024 election season.”

The Supreme Court will also hear a case considering former superintendent of New York’s Department of Financial Services Maria Vullo pressuring banks and insurance companies not to do business with the National Rifle Association. Aaron Terr, Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) director of Public Advocacy, told the Daily Caller News Foundation in November there are “clear parallels” between the cases.

“Each case involves government officials exceeding constitutional boundaries by coercing private companies to censor or dissociate from speakers expressing views those officials dislike,” he said.

Trump

As the 2024 election draws near, issues surrounding former President Donald Trump are creeping into the court’s docket.

The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Feb. 8 to consider Trump’s appeal of the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision finding him ineligible to appear on the state’s primary ballot under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. The justices decision will clarify whether other states can take similar actions to remove Trump from the ballot, as Democratic Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows did in a Dec. 28 ruling finding Trump ineligible to appear.

The justices also agreed to hear a case on the scope of an obstruction statute used to charge hundreds of Jan. 6 defendants, as well as Trump.

The statute, Section 1512(c)(2), threatens fines or up to 20 years in prison for anyone who “obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding.” It is connected to two of the four charges in Jack Smith’s indictment of Trump for alleged election interference.

If the Supreme Court limits the scope, it could shake up Jan. 6 cases along with impacting the former president’s case.

Special counsel Jack Smith already asked the justices in December to consider Trump’s presidential immunity appeal before the lower court had a chance to weigh in, a request they ultimately denied. Still, the issue will likely be back before the justices soon, as the D.C. Circuit is slated to hear oral arguments on the issue Jan. 9 and issue a decision sometime after.

Other coming cases to watch

The Supreme Court will hear arguments Jan. 17 for a pair of cases that challenge “Chevron deference,” a legal doctrine that instructs courts to defer to executive agency interpretations of statutes when the language is ambiguous. Critics argue the doctrine enables federal agencies to adopt expansive interpretations of statutes that broaden their power while evading the checks and balances of the judicial branch.

In February, the Supreme Court will hear a case challenging a Trump-era federal ban on bump stocks, along with a pair of cases considering red state laws aimed at preventing viewpoint censorship on social media.

AUTHOR

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RELATED VIDEO: Epstein Files Clear President Trump of Involvement (Duh) | TIPPING POINT

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.

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CDC Champions Addressing Racism, ‘Injustices’ Over Jailing Criminals To Prevent Violence

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By The Daily Caller

The Centers For Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) maintains that putting more criminals in jail does not prevent violent crime but that addressing the “root causes” of violence, like racism, will make communities safer, according to internal documents obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The CDC is set to release new guidance, titled the Community Violence Prevention Resource for Action, on how to address community violence in the coming weeks, according to documents obtained by the DCNF. In a section of a document detailing the CDC’s planned responses to potential questions from the public on its upcoming recommendations, the agency claims that “increasing punitive measures, including incarceration, does not reduce community violence” and that “we can work to prevent violence by addressing the underlying conditions that contribute to violence,” like racism.

The community violence recommendations are based on the “best available evidence,” according to the CDC, and will identify firearm violence as a “public health problem,” in line with the CDC’s past guidance on viewing gun violence and community violence broadly as public health concerns.

The new guidance will “[weave] health equity concepts throughout” and is intended to help “address structural inequities.” Youth impacted by violence are at a higher risk for “mental health challenges, such as substance use, obesity, high-risk sexual behavior, depression, traumatic stress, low educational attainment or suicide,” according to the CDC’s document.

However, the CDC’s internal communications strategy, obtained by the DCNF, sheds further light on how the CDC views criminal justice. The strategy indicates the CDC views crime as the product of underlying social factors like racism and economic inequality, and that it views incarceration as an ineffective means of reducing crime.

“Isn’t community violence caused by criminals who make poor decisions?” and “Shouldn’t we just lock these people up to keep communities safe?” are among the possible questions the CDC is “hoping against hope” it is not asked about their forthcoming guidance, according to the document.

“Racism, economic injustices, and other systemic inequities contribute to the current and persistent increased risk of violence experienced by some communities,” the CDC’s pre-written answer to those questions reads.

“Dominant public narratives” surrounding crime and race “often consider violence primarily a problem of personal responsibility,” the CDC continues. Focusing on personal responsibility as a way to reduce gun crime “invokes images of youth and young adults, and especially Black or African American youth and young adults, as aggressors, troublemakers, or worse,” the CDC says.

“Harmful narratives around race and violence” are “biased and inaccurate” and can “rob youth and young adults of their humanity by failing to value them as complete people and valued members of communities,” the CDC document states.

Instead of buying into these narratives, stakeholders should work toward addressing root causes of violence, according to the CDC. The CDC identifies things like “structural racism” and “historical injustices” as among these root causes.

“The resource and its supporting materials are still undergoing CDC review,” a CDC spokesperson told the DCNF.

“The resource will be a compilation of examples of the best available evidence to prevent community violence based on research showing effects on violence or the behaviors or conditions that affect risk for violence,” they continued. Among the evidence cited in the upcoming guidance will be “meta-analyses or systematic reviews and other rigorous evaluations.”

Though the CDC asserted that putting more criminals in jail would not reduce community violence, it did not provide evidence to support its claim when asked to do so by the DCNF.

AUTHOR

ROBERT SCHMAD

Contributor.

RELATED ARTICLE: New CDC Director Teases Annual COVID Shots

POST ON X:

Joe Biden is calling Trump a “dictator” while simultaneously supporting his chief political opponent getting kicked off the ballot pic.twitter.com/dER9htucqu

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) January 5, 2024

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.

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California to Provide Free Sex Changes for Illegals

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By The Geller Report

G-d help us.

A state memo regarding Medi-Cal stipulated that “gender-affirming care” is a covered benefit only “when medically necessary.”

By: Jarryd Jaeger, The Post Millennial,  Jan 4, 2024:

It has been revealed that sex changes and hormone therapy will be included in the healthcare coverage offered to illegal immigrants in California. As of January 1, everyone, regardless of whether they entered the country via legal means, will qualify for Medi-Cal, the state‘s public health insurance program. This program had typically been reserved for low-income individuals, families with children, seniors, persons with disabilities, people in foster care, pregnant women, and low-income people with diseases such as tuberculosis, cancer, or HIV/AIDS.

Prior to the new rules, illegal immigrants were only able to access emergency and pregnancy-related care, however surgical and non-surgical procedures that “bring primary and secondary gender characteristics into conformity with the individual’s identified gender, including ancillary services, such as hair removal” are now covered as well.

According to the Daily Caller, a state memo regarding Medi-Cal stipulated that “gender-affirming care” is a covered benefit only “when medically necessary.”

“Requests for gender-affirming care,” it added, “should be from specialists experienced in providing culturally competent care to transgender and gender diverse individuals and should use nationally recognized guidelines.”

The decision to include illegal immigrants in Medi-Cal was made in May of last year. State Sen. Maria Elena Durazo called it a “historic investment” that “speaks to California’s commitment to health care as a human right.”

“In California, we believe everyone deserves access to quality, affordable health care coverage – regardless of income or immigration status,” Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office said in a statement to ABC News at the time. “Through this expansion, we’re making sure families and communities across California are healthier, stronger, and able to get the care they need when they need it.”

The children of illegal immigrants first became eligible to receive free healthcare in the state in 2015 thanks to former governor Jerry Brown. That was expanded to those 19 to 25 years old in 2019. Now, all undocumented residents under 50 will have access to the program.

Keep reading.

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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The TikTok Spiral

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By Faith Kuzma

Trauma dumping on the “for you page” sucks young girls into a pit of self-loathing.

The winning TikTok formula is videos produced by teens for their peers. In that sense, it is hugely kid-friendly. Yet in 2019, TikTok paid a settlement for violating the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. Then in 2021 TikTok users were notified by the app they were due compensation after an Illinois lawsuit charged TikTok of using a “complex system of artificial intelligence to recognize facial features in users’ videos.” How might that face data be used as part of what’s called the TikTok spiral? And how does this female-dominated platform affect girls?

Spiraling is an actual psychological term for becoming mentally dizzy. TikTok’s “for you page” (FYP) is overwhelming, piping a steady stream of the most viral videos to kids—a big departure from the social media norms of yesteryear, which mostly shared amateurish updates from kids’ subscribed channels. Girls who would normally say hi to friends and show off their pets now get adult content and other non-age appropriate material direct to their inbox. Feeding “smash-innocence” content to kids is part of the TikTok spiral.

From its inception as a lip sync app, TikTok is based on the inherent kid fun of mimicry. The fast-paced stream of exciting music and dance videos is contagious. Creative collaboration is further encouraged not just by hashtags but through such collaborative interactions as duets, which allow multiple users to record one another’s videos and create mashups. Some hit song is constantly being refashioned or repurposed; interpretative boundaries are endlessly exercised. No one sleeps on TikTok.

It’s a world saturated with an over-abundance of consciousness: self-consciousness, body-consciousness, identity-consciousness. Ideal for getting girls to spiral. Videos designed to provoke envy are common, showing off piercings, tattoos, clothes, a new hair style, making grimaces and grins in the digital mirror. Humor, novelty, and intimate sharing attract a mostly female viewership, and body image content related to gender can be especially compelling.

People have compared “likes” on social media to a continuous dopamine drip, but TikTok is more jacked up: it tightens the emotional screw. It can do this because as Teen Magazine observes: “Every second you hesitate or re-watch, the app tracks you.”

This screenshot shows a comment in response to a post with 314.9K likes by London trans influencer channel tatedalton. TikTok gathers data from the user’s digital face print to push videos from creators with similar demographic indicators, including gender identity. Additional cues TikTok uses are the video’s hashtags, which in this case include #trans #transmasc #nonbinary #dysphoria #lgbt #lgbtq.

In this screenshot, user “Cave” is a bit mystified as to why a video from a trans influencer reappears on each return to the app. But it’s no great mystery: re-watching a video, according to a Wall Street Journal investigation, helps determine which kind of videos will be sent to the person’s feed in the future. Digitally captured user data tells TikTok to keep pitching this video to Cave. TikTok zeros in on emotional response in order to push similar but more intense content: “every second you scroll or re-watch a video on the app counts. It takes less than 3 minutes or until the 15th video for the algorithm to understand what a person is feeling and what videos should be recommended next.”

The TikTok spiral, as described in a special Wall Street Journal series, is like digital cocaine. More than just a successful business model, it’s a mode of mental capture. Munmun De Choudhury, an associate professor at the School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Tech, notes that TikTok is scraping “trajectories of people’s behavior” and tying that to such things as mental health cues and affective cues—in other words, charting how people react to video content emotionally. Face print technology may collect data for the user’s FYP.

Summarizing a 2018 study of facial images online, Christopher Bergland writes: “Disgust is associated with one facial expression that is universally understood in every culture they examined. According to this study, humans use three different facial expressions to convey fear across cultures. The study also showed that we have four ways to convey surprise, five facial expressions for sadness, and five cross-cultural facial expressions that convey anger.”

TikTok provides the perfect milieu for body-image stressed girls to fixate on their perceived flaws and spiral into pathological habits. The Center for Countering Digital Hate set up two 13-year-old female accounts, one of which they pushed toward dieting videos. The researchers found TikTok responded by serving up mental health and body image content, “and the research indicated that the more vulnerable accounts—which included the references to body image in the username—were served three times more harmful content and 12 times more self-harm and suicide-related content.” Already prone to anxiety and depression, girls become disoriented. Spiraling perpetuates a cycle of negative thoughts.

Young girls typically have not yet developed defenses against spiraling. Ash Eskridge said that as a 13-year-old, she and her peers were “brainwashed” by the videos they saw: “I notice that the demographic [trans identification] most affects is teen girls around 12 to 14, as they’re the most vulnerable since they aren’t matured yet.” TikTok parasitizes the typical rhythms of girlhood friendship. David C. Geary, Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience, notes that social networking platforms exploit patterns of female friendship such as over-sharing: “The social dynamics of girls’ and women’s friendship groups, including a desire to fit in and avoid conflict, may make them more susceptible to social contagion.” We tend to sync ourselves with others without even realizing it, and this creates bonds of affiliation over time. The TikTok spiral involves addictive sharing, imitating gestures and movements, and lip-syncing lyrics from pop songs.

TikTok’s spiral exacerbates the roller coaster of upswings followed by depressive states. Dr. Julie Albright, an expert on social media and the brain, explains: “In psychological terms [it’s] called random reinforcement…sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. And that’s how these platforms are designed…they’re exactly like a slot machine. What that’s doing is rewiring their neuropathways in their brains.” This addictive spiral misdirects stress into an internal loathing that can be seen pretty clearly within the female demographic.

TikTok thus represents a bigger threat than other platforms, because it encourages reposting highly relatable videos and sharing deeply personal information with strangers—even the vocal affirmation within the #LGBTQ milieu does not alleviate the distress. Mental health professionals are increasingly speaking out about such effects. For instance, Yim Register, mental health and social media researcher, points out the particular danger to mental well-being posed by the over-sharing tendency on TikTok. Whereas in clinical settings, personal information and disclosure is safeguarded, “The platform spirit of TikTok seems to be about posting very loudly about very intimate and intense things. And people are encouraged to be vulnerable to fit that spirit.”

In a manner analogous to an anorexic’s self-disgust at seeing her own body in a photograph, a gender-questioning girl can begin to hyper-focus on her female body with intensifying animus. Embodiment itself becomes triggering. One popular sound effect features an older woman’s voice musing, “I miss the girl you were,” before a voice representing the user replies, “I gutted that b**ch from the inside out.” Ironically, many videos featuring this audio clip are are glow ups (videos tracking positive transformations), not limited to but very much including trans-influencer videos showing a transformation from female to “male.”

Even factoring in youth posturing, there is something extremely disturbing about “gutting” the sexed childhood self, and those curious about gender issues (i.e., every kid living) can get channeled into harmful spiraling that includes videos by trans influencers. TikTok’s pop music layering and lip-syncing, tailored to attach the most personal meanings to lyrics, seem designed to produce what one Canadian Millennial calls “trauma dumping.”

The TikTok hashtag “I gutted that b**ch from the inside out” includes 226.3 thousand videos. A casual review of the videos for this hashtag will convince you of the universality of female body image issues, but those created by trans influencers are unforgettable for conveying extreme self-hatred. A small sampling of “gutted” videos is enough to suggest typical female dissatisfaction with body image.

In one notable example, a Scottish trans influencer with a 38.5k-follower account called “psychedelicody” flashes a timeline photo as a young girl while lip-syncing the “gutted” sound effect. Cody’s style is cyber punk, but the mood is particularly dark, with Cody literally “giving the finger” to show absolute contempt of the younger self.

Within this viral TikTok trending video category, trans influencer videos show striking antipathy toward an earlier embodied self.

Trans suffering spirals outward, much like the TikTok tics identified as a new disorder spread by watching Tourette syndrome videos on the app. One person talks about self-disgust and gutting her girl-self, and others sympathize, internalizing the mindset that female embodiment was insufferable. The responses and comments to Cody’s videos readily demonstrate that viewers are perceiving life struggles through the eyes of the content creator. Mimetic engagement on TikTok gets kids to adopt others’ dysfunctions before they have fully learned the skills necessary for self-protective emotional gatekeeping. Lacking the experience and wisdom to foresee and foreclose compelling claims on their attention, kids are vulnerable. TikTok encourages them to take on the thoughts and perceptions of those expressing body hatred.

Concerns about invasion of privacy are at the heart of spiraling. Researchers warn that TikTok‘s new user agreement includes biometric data collection that can be used for active full-time surveillance. This goes beyond capturing audio for captioning and visual data for geolocation.

How might TikTok face data, in particular, be used to induce spiraling? Beyond uploaded videos, the app can utilize video capture, which the user agreement apparently classifies as adware used for “other non-personally-identifying operations.” U.S. Commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission Brendan Carr has said: “TikTok collects everything from search and browsing histories to keystroke patterns and biometric identifiers, including faceprints…and voiceprints.” Using TikTok permits access to data including camera and microphone.

Internationally, people are beginning to ask why a Chinese-owned company with no separation from its government might invest the latest technologies in an app that is increasingly recognized as a precision instrument for burrowing into and splitting open the psyches of young users. Well might we wonder—and consider whether this is an influence we want in our homes.

*****

This article was published by The American Mind and is reproduced with permission.

Image credit: Pixabay

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House GOP Raises the Stakes: ‘Shut the Border Down or Shut the Government Down’

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By Family Research Council

While the rest of Congress is soaking up the last few days of holiday recess, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) decided to cut his vacation short, opting instead to take 60 House Republicans on a detour to the southern border before Congress resumes next week. If the goal was to remind them what they’re fighting for in the standoff on immigration with Joe Biden, it succeeded.

With December’s record-breaking migrant crossings as a backdrop, this “show of force,” as many are calling it, aims to put more pressure on the White House to negotiate on reforms in real faith. “Life along the border is turned upside down,” host Congressman Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) told reporters, “and that’s exactly what the speaker and my colleagues are going to see.”

The trip comes as a growing chorus of Democratic leaders plead with Biden to act. From big cities like Denver to small communities like 15,000-population Whitewater, Wisconsin, even liberal politicians say they’re at “a breaking point.” “…[T]here’s just not enough work or housing in the city to support this ongoing [flood],” Mile High City mayor Mike Johnston admitted from his sanctuary city. “… [W]e know we can’t keep growing at this pace,” he warned. “When I took the oath of office six months ago, we had about 400 migrants in shelter[s]. We have more than ten times that number right now. We’ve brought 35,000 through this year.”

Republicans, who know they have the upper hand tying border reforms to less-popular Ukraine aid, are dangling even more drastic measures before the president after seeing Eagle Pass — including a government shutdown. “No more money for this bureaucracy of his government until you’ve brought this border under control,” border state Representative Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) insisted. “Shut the border down or shut the government down.”

That extreme approach might get a warmer reception than Democrats think, given the latest polling. Incredibly, the new Associated Press-NORC numbers show that the emergency at the border has supplanted the economy and inflation in voters’ top concerns. Thirty-five percent now list immigration and the border wall as their biggest worry — up eight points from last month. Making matters worse for this president, only a handful of Americans — 32% — trust Biden to make “wise decisions about immigration policy.”

Speaker Johnson is hoping to change that, telling reporters on the ground in Texas that if the president wants a supplemental bill with aid for Ukraine and national security, “it better begin with defending America’s national security. We want to get the border closed and secured first.”

That commitment was on display Wednesday, Gonzales insisted, in the mere size of the GOP delegation. Convincing 60 members of Congress to go on a border trip “two days after New Year’s … is a small miracle,” he said. And as Johnson pointed out, it was a diverse bunch. “We have everybody from California to Maryland, from Michigan to Florida,” he explained at the group’s afternoon press conference. “We represent over half the U.S. states because every state in America is now a border state. We’ve seen that on vivid display today.”

Frankly, Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-Ala.) pointed out, this is rapidly becoming a bipartisan issue. From the airport, where he was boarding a plane to Eagle Pass Tuesday, the Alabama congressman told “Washington Watch” that the urgency “is across the party lines.” “This is not just a Republican thing or Democrat issue,” he insisted to Family Research Council President Tony Perkins. “… Democrats are hearing from their constituents, just as Republicans are. And obviously, we want a system where people can come freely into the United States of America, but we want it in a situation where people [come] legally. And that’s what we’re trying to do here. … [H]opefully, this will call some media attention to it, and we can try to put some pressure on the Democrats to come together and find some solution[s].”

This situation is “unsustainable,” Perkins agreed, pointing to the soft target America is becoming by not adequately vetting the people crossing the border. “I understand that people want to come here to the United States of America,” Aderholt said, “but we’re in a situation right now where we have to make sure that the people [who] are coming here are coming for the right reason. When they come here illegally … you don’t know why they’re coming. Some of them may be coming because of good reasons, and they’re just trying to provide for their family. But at the same time, there’s a lot of folks that also may be coming illegally that are trying to do harm to the United States. … And that’s what we’ve got to put a stop to. … It’s the people that would want to come for nefarious reasons that we want to keep out.”

Already, House Republicans are showing their sincerity, scheduling its first impeachment hearing on Biden’s embattled Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. The fireworks kick off January 10, when the debate over how to couple massive border reforms with overseas aid will be well underway. A fuller investigation may be on the horizon if the president continues to play coy about the hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants disappearing into every corner of our country.

“I very much think that Speaker Johnson will move forward on this [impeachment of Secretary Mayorkas] if the Biden administration doesn’t act responsibly,” Aderholt cautioned. As he should, his colleague Rep. Mark Green (R-Tenn.) argued. “For three years, the Biden admin has fed the American people lies.”

AUTHOR

Suzanne Bowdey

Suzanne Bowdey serves as editorial director and senior writer at The Washington Stand.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Alejandro Mayorkas Claims Biden Admin Has Removed ‘Record Number’ Of Illegal Immigrants — But There’s A Problem

SHOCKING! Biden Rushing more Illegal Aliens into the U.S. than American Babies Being Born!

‘This Stuff Is Gonna Haunt Biden’: Larry Kudlow Predicts ‘Crisis’ Will Wreck Support For Biden Among Key Voting Blocs

POST ON X:

There are almost no deportations https://t.co/YdrYvnbOyh

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 4, 2024

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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Stop Funding ‘Rights for Migrants’ Legal Scam

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By Betsy McCaughey

As a record number of migrants invade the U.S., wreaking pain on New York City and other communities, one group is winning big-time: the public advocacy lawyers. Their business is to constantly sue to win more so-called rights for migrants. Rights to shelter, rights to meals, rights to health care, and even the right to vote in local elections.

Who pays the bills on both sides of these lawsuits? You do. Taxpayer money largely funds these legal combatants, which include the Coalition for the Homeless, Legal Aid Society, and Vera Institute of Justice.

You’re paying to be legally coerced into providing more for migrants, even at the cost of cutting vital city services—kind of like hiring your own assassin. It’s absurd, but it’s about to get worse.

On Dec. 14, the New York City Council passed Resolution 556, calling on the state Legislature to guarantee, as a right, that all migrants have lawyers paid for by taxpayers when they go to immigration court. It would be a “first-in-the-nation” guarantee.

Resolution 556 would give migrants more rights than American citizens have. No one else is guaranteed a publicly funded lawyer in civil court matters such as housing court issues or divorce.

Yikes, the City Council’s proposal would make the Big Apple even more of a magnet for migrants than it already is.

Who’s behind this push? The Vera Institute of Justice, for one.

Vera claims we “need a federally funded universal legal defense service” for migrants. In short, a national army of left-wing lawyers paid by you. What better place to launch this lunatic idea than at the New York City Council?

The Vera Institute is not the only organization cashing in on migrants’ rights.

In October, Mayor Eric Adams went to court for temporary relief from the rigid rules and settlements that define what the city must provide the homeless, as tens of thousands of homeless migrants arrive. Immediately, the Legal Aid Society and the Coalition for the Homeless swooped in, claiming his plan would “gut” the long-standing rights of the homeless.

These lawsuits are largely funded by you, through grants and contracts from the city and state. Manhattan Judge Gerald Lebovits urged the parties to compromise and arranged for the lawyers on all sides, representing the city, the state, and the migrants, to meet in his chambers several times.

This scam is being repeated all over the nation. The Justice Action Center—also publicly funded—is suing the Biden administration on behalf of Haitian asylum-seekers whose rights it claims were violated by U.S. Border Patrol agents on horseback trying to stop them as they crossed the Rio Grande.

Lawyers for the migrants and lawyers for the Biden administration will cross swords. Never mind who wins. They’re all being paid by us.

It’s a free country. Anyone can sue. But why should we be paying for these legal boxing matches?

Disgraced former Gov. Andrew Cuomo recently wrote that the remedy for New York City’s mounting woes is to sue the federal government for more money. Wrong. That would send more wasted funds down the litigation rathole.

Cuomo also argues that the “right to shelter” should apply to all the counties, instead of just Gotham, and that state lawmakers should “fairly distribute” the migrant burden statewide. Spoken like a pol who is eyeing a city position and no longer cares about the rest of the state.

The notion that there is a “right to shelter” in the state Constitution was concocted by the Coalition for the Homeless in a lawsuit in 1981. It has tied the hands of city leaders ever since. It should be legally challenged. Extending that questionable right to migrants who just arrived here, and then imposing it statewide, would compound the wrong.

Tell lawmakers to stop funding the legal advocacy industry with our money. It’s time to break the stranglehold these publicly funded lawyers, under the guise of doing good, have on our city and nation.

*****

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

TAKE ACTION

As we move through 2023 and into the next election cycle, The Prickly Pear will resume Take Action recommendations and information.

BEST INSPIRATIONAL FILM 2023: OUTRAGE: The Life and Times of Al Katz thumbnail

BEST INSPIRATIONAL FILM 2023: OUTRAGE: The Life and Times of Al Katz

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By Beverly Newman

OUTRAGE: The Life and Times of Al Katz, winner of the World Cinema Awards for BEST INSPIRATIONAL FILM, is the powerful story of the life of the real hero who survived seven years as a Jewish slave in Nazi Europe at the beginning of his life and 70 years later survived human bondage as an elder Ward in Florida’s vast abusive professional guardianship industry along with tens of thousands kept in isolation until their miserable deaths ensue.

As a Jewish slave in his youth, Al Katz was forced into many concentration camps across Europe, starving and working outdoors in frigid conditions of 52 degrees below zero with little clothing; yet, he always kept his faith and knew that he had to survive to warn the world of the depravity of antisemitism.  As a Jewish Ward of the State of Florida, Al Katz once again lost everything – his belongings, house of worship, and all civil rights, trapped in isolation for months, while being forbidden from visits, calls, cards, letters, and all contacts with his family.

Al Katz’s life is an exclusive look into a unique life lived in two worlds of human depravity, unseen and unknown by the masses, and the extraordinary courage to survive with faith in the face of fear and unimaginable terror.  OUTRAGE, winner of the BEST INSPIRATIONAL FILM, will inspire audiences around the world as a once-in-a-lifetime movie of miracles and monsters, hero and unbearable sorrow.

OUTRAGE, by award-winning filmmaker, Stan Moore, has also been nominated for numerous other awards across the globe, including BEST JUSTICE FILM.  Al Katz’s story is featured in the book, Florida Guardianships: Who Shall Live and Who Shall Die? by Dr. Beverly Newman and in the Holocaust education book series, Holocaust Babies, sold in bookstores around the world.

For interviews, book and film orders, and community and school presentations, contact Dr. Beverly Newman, helpelders@hotmail.com.

©2023. All rights reserved.

Biden Admin Caught And Released Enough Illegal Immigrants At The Border To Fill More Than 17 Yankee Stadiums thumbnail

Biden Admin Caught And Released Enough Illegal Immigrants At The Border To Fill More Than 17 Yankee Stadiums

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By The Daily Caller

  • There were enough illegal immigrants caught and released into the country in 2023 to fill more than 17 Yankee Stadiums, according to federal data.
  • Not a single year of encounters under the two previous presidential administrations came close to what federal authorities recorded in 2023, according to the data.
  • “In retrospect, 2023 at the border was a progressively worse version of 2022,” former Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The number of illegal immigrants caught and released into the country in 2023 would be enough to fill Yankee Stadium more than 17 times, according to federal data.

Border Patrol recorded more than 1.7 million encounters with migrants crossing the southern border illegally in 2023, with more than 824,000 released into the interior of the country with future court appearances, according to the data, which doesn’t account for December. Yankee Stadium has the capacity to hold 46,537 people, according to Ticketmaster.

Federal authorities at the southern border also seized more than 229,000 pounds of drugs, roughly 22,000 pounds of which were fentanyl.

During the Obama and Trump administrations, not a single year reached one million encounters, according to federal data.

“In retrospect, 2023 at the border was a progressively worse version of 2022,” former Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Biden continued to double down on his failed border policies, illegal immigration continued skyrocketing to unimaginable levels, the cartels made more money than most people can fathom with less risk than at anytime in history, Customs and Border Protection suspended legal trade and travel to decrease the time in custody for illegal aliens, and the US Border Patrol shut down checkpoints and deployed nearly zero proactive patrols.”

“Biden’s only response was to send Mayorkas and Blinken to Mexico and asks them to control their border,” he said.

The House Homeland Security Committee is preparing to conduct impeachment proceedings against Mayorkas early in the new year, a committee staffer recently told the DCNF.

“The Biden Administration is breaking records everyday and none of them are good. Enough. Time to impeach Mayorkas. No more excuses. This country needs action now,” Homan said.

Despite the record flows of illegal migrants across the southern border, ICE has left thousands of detention beds empty, according to the DCNF’s previous review of agency data. As of Dec. 11, ICE had seven individuals on average in custody each day at its processing center in Adelanto, California, where there is bed space for 640 people, according to agency data.

Court orders limit ICE’s use of bed space in the California facility to mitigate the spread of COVID-19.

The situation is only expected to worsen in the coming year, J.J. Carrell, who served as a deputy patrol agent in charge for Border Patrol, told the DCNF.

“We have never experienced this type of invasion in the history of America,” Carrell said. “And when you look at the totality of the data, meaning Special Interest Aliens, Russian nationals, Chinese nationals, terrorists, criminal aliens, major cities crumbling, social welfare, states of emergencies, I believe that when we look back on 2023 from the viewpoint of 2024, I think 2023 is gonna look tame, and that’s scary. I think that should scare America.”

AUTHOR

JENNIE TAER

Investigative reporter.

RELATED ARTICLE: ‘Breaking Point’: Sanctuary City Mayors Beg Biden Admin For More Help In Addressing Migrant Crisis

RELATED VIDEO: Tucker Carlson Visits Julian Assange

POST ON X:

Hispanic voters TURN on Joe Biden on LIVE TV after Trump crushes him in latest polls— It’s starting… pic.twitter.com/zmOEUJPAku

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) January 2, 2024

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.

PODCAST: A predictable “earthquake” – Surrendering our sovereignty to the WHO thumbnail

PODCAST: A predictable “earthquake” – Surrendering our sovereignty to the WHO

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By Center For Security Policy

A devastating earthquake in Japan yesterday may symbolize a New Year marred by geostrategic tectonic shifts. Some are predictable – and their effects can, therefore, be attenuated if we act in time.

Consider the creation of so-called “global governance” mechanisms that would subordinate us to the dictates of unaccountable international entities like the World Health Organization.

Largely secret negotiations are expected by May to produce agreements that will give the WHO the authority to declare what constitutes a public health emergency here – and what must be done about it. Three Biden administration officials appear to have perjured themselves in testifying last month that would not diminish our sovereignty.

The House of Representatives has voted to cut off funding for the WHO and require Senate approval of any such accords. To prevent irreparable harm to our public health – and America, Congress must concur.

This is Frank Gaffney.

AUTHOR

Frank Gaffney, Jr.

Founder and Executive Chairman

EDITORS NOTE: This Center for Security Policy podcast is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Communist California Rings In the New Year with $2.6 Billion For Illegal Immigrants thumbnail

Communist California Rings In the New Year with $2.6 Billion For Illegal Immigrants

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By Geoff Ross

The Communist state of California will overlook its massive deficits, fiscal instability and unconstitutional legislation to become the first state in our once free Republic to give free health insurance to all the illegal aliens that criminally entered our republic in violation of congressional federal immigration laws.

So commencing January 1st 2024, if you are a criminal illegal immigrant who has violated US immigration laws by entering California from let’s say Iran, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Communist China, Yemen, Iraq, Syria etc., no matter which country or how old you are if you are low income, now you qualify for Medi-Cal, a mirror copy of the federal Communist government controlled Medicaid program.

In 2015, illegal immigrant children could join Medi-Cal under a bill signed by then Gov. Communist sympathizer Jerry Brown. Then in 2019, the Communist dictator of California, Gavin Newsom signed a new law upping the age to use the tax dollars from hard working Americans to fund free health care for illegal immigrants age 19-25.

Then it was expanded to adults age 50 and older. Full benefits folks for all illegal immigrants that have criminally invaded our republic. The best way to maintain a Communist Democrat voter base in California is to give illegal immigrants free stuff.

So on Jan. 1 2024. approximately 700,000 plus more illegal immigrants who have violated congressional immigration laws aged between ages 26 and 49 will be added to the free handouts of full coverage.

This according to full blown Marxist and California State Senator Comrade María Elena Durazo the daughter of two illegal immigrants and the former National Co-Chair of the Barack Obama Presidential Destroy America Campaign. Remember Obama forced nuns in Catholic Charity hospitals to perform abortions.

This statement is from Comrade Newsom’s politburo in Sacramento.

“In California, we believe everyone deserves access to quality, affordable health care coverage – regardless of income or immigration status,” Gov. Newsom’s Communist politburo office said in response to a News request for comment.

“Through this expansion, we’re making sure families and communities across California are healthier, stronger, and able to get the care they need when they need it.”

Basically what the communist dictator of California is saying is criminal illegal immigrants that broke congressional immigration laws (that actually must be deported) will be given priority over American citizens and homeless veteran’s.

And – the do nothing weak spineless useless waste of tax payer money California Senate Republican Caucus only criticized the move in their an analysis of the 2022-23 governor’s budget. Cheap words from a none functioning Republican political party.

What did they do about it ? Not a darn thing.

Because California is being turned into a Communist government dependency nanny state over one third of California’s population is now sucking off the Newsom mammary gland.

This is about 14.6 million Californians. So why not add another 764,000 criminal illegal immigrants to the free stuff list.

So instead of enforcing U.S. congressional immigration law by denying any benefit to an illegal immigrant at the detriment of American citizens including homeless veterans the Communists running the California Health and Human Services Agency is going to spend $835.6 million in 2024 and $2.6 billion thereafter to keep these illegal immigrants fit and healthy.

I am not sure where the Golden Shower State of California is going to get this money from to fund all this healthcare for criminal illegal immigrants but it sure is interesting to watch the slow financial demise of this once prosperous and beautiful economically viable state.

Maybe in the future an American ran California legislature could write a bill to charge the illegal immigrants consulate or embassy in Washington DC for their emergency healthcare costs and a bill to totally deny all benefits to the rest of these criminals instead of using American tax payers dollars.

©2023. Geoff Ross. All rights reserved.

‘I’m Finished With This Stiff’: Trump Blasts Mike DeWine For Vetoing Ban On Child Sex Changes thumbnail

‘I’m Finished With This Stiff’: Trump Blasts Mike DeWine For Vetoing Ban On Child Sex Changes

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By The Daily Caller

Former President Donald Trump blasted Republican Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio Saturday over the governor’s veto of a bill banning child sex changes.

DeWine announced the veto of the legislation, House Bill 68, Friday despite its overwhelming passage by the state legislature. The bill not only banned child sex changes, but it also prohibited biological males from competing in women’s sports. “DeWine has fallen to the Radical Left,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “No wonder he gets loudly booed in Ohio every time I introduce him at Rallies, but I won’t be introducing him any more. I’m finished with this ‘stiff.’”

“What was he thinking,” Trump continued. “The bill would have stopped child mutilation, and prevented men from playing in women’s sports. Legislature will hopefully overturn. Do it FAST!!!”

The issue of biological males competing in women’s sports after identifying as transgender became controversial in the United States following University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas’s participation in the 2022 NCAA championships. The biological male, who previously ranked at #462 as a male swimmer, won the 500-yard women’s final and placed highly in other events.

Many Republicans criticized DeWine over the veto, including Republican Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose of Ohio.

Trump endorsed DeWine during his reelection bid in 2022.

Some detransitioners, including Chloe Cole, who transitioned as a teenager before stopping, have filed lawsuits against medical professionals who carried out so-called “gender-affirming” procedures.

AUTHOR

HAROLD HUTCHISON

Reporter.

RELATED ARTICLE: ‘This Boils Down To Money’: Fox News Guest Blasts GOP Gov Who Vetoed Child Sex Change Ban

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.

Grand Inquisitor Says Oops [A Covid Story] thumbnail

Grand Inquisitor Says Oops [A Covid Story]

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By Jeffrey Tucker

Francis Collins was head of the National Institutes of Health – Anthony Fauci’s parent bureaucracy – during the wreckage caused by the Covid response. Ultimately, Dr. Collins bears a huge measure of the responsibility for the disaster, even if he played the role of the stooge.

It was he who wrote Fauci with the demand for a “quick and devastating takedown” of the Great Barrington Declaration, a statement that merely reasserted traditional public health wisdom in the midst of an insane science experiment being conducted on the whole population.

Five months ago, an organization that seeks political consensus hosted him for some frank talk about what happened. Here is what he had to say:

There is a sense in which he didn’t need to say this at all. We all knew it. They were thinking only about New York City. The rest of the country never had anything approaching a crisis. The government under Collins emptied hospitals out from coast to coast to reserve them for Covid patients who only arrived much later and never came close to overwhelming healthcare services.

Meanwhile, the entire country was plunged into a grave crisis at every level – a man-made crisis of the worst sort. 

Nor did they think about anything other than this one pathogen. It was a wild fanaticism that seized the whole of the ruling class for the better part of two years. None of it made sense but those who objected could hardly get a hearing. Instead, they were smeared, censored, and often fired for non-compliance.

Even as late as December 2021, Collins was still fear-mongering. He told NPR concerning Christmas celebrations: “We were planning to invite some of the trainees at NIH who are far from home to come for a brunch on Christmas Day at our house if they’re all fully vaccinated and boosted. Still planning to go forward, very carefully, with a small group, and everybody will be wearing masks except when they’re eating.”

Note that Collins doesn’t apologize. He takes no responsibility. He just continues his masquerade as a tennis-shoe wearing, guitar-strumming, Jesus-loving grandpa who is open and broad-minded, never mind that he wielded absolute power over all our lives only a few years ago.

Later in the interview, he is singing hosannas to the glorious vaccines and how perfectly they worked. We are nowhere near approaching the point where people like this tell the truth. It’s almost like they cannot bear it.

Even in this interview, Collins’s nonchalant delivery is infuriating. You want to scream back: you wrecked the lives of hundreds of millions of people! And no one ever gave you the authority to do so!

Meanwhile, it was incredibly obvious to many at the time that disaster would be the only result of lockdowns. The bit about masking was never serious; no one in the know seriously believed these things would protect anyone from a tiny pathogen with an animal reservoir. The only solution was the traditional one from public health wisdom: preserve normalcy, treat the sick with known therapeutics, and alert the vulnerable to stay away from large crowds until the virus becomes endemic.

Collins directly attacked this solution and demanded that the government attack it and ultimately censor it!

As we approach the end of the year, we are surrounded by a cultural and economic darkness this generation has never seen before. Most incredibly, public health itself is wrecked. 

Let’s just count the ways. Each consequence dates from the beginning of the lockdowns. That was the turning point, the end of innocence, the great reset, the moment when the choice between freedom and despotism weighed heavily in the most inhumane direction.

Consider:

Homeless people are everywhere at record highs (650K), stemming from rampant mental disorder, substance abuse, and incredibly tight leasing standards stemming from the eviction moratorium.

The middle class can no longer afford to buy a home thanks to high rates from the Fed, deployed in an attempt to mitigate against inflation which is still running hot.

Every merchant has hidden fees in everything, struggling to find some way to hide the hot potato of inflation that has eaten 20-plus percent of the dollar’s purchasing power since 2019.

Shoplifting is a major national problem to the point that thousands of stores have closed.

Shrinkflation affects everything. The groceries have shrunk and the bills have soared – a direct consequence of some $8 trillion in stimulus and money printing.

Office real estate in large cities is approaching an accounting crisis because people are not returning to work, their routines totally shattered by lockdowns.

Travel is uncertain with endless delays and cancellations due to pilot shortages stemming from stay-at-home orders, vaccine mandates, and rampant illness.

The “great reset” is all around us, as we are constantly nudged to drive EVs, live without comforts, buy less meat, and even eat bugs.

A wide-open Southern border has created an immigration crisis as government neglected its core duties in favor of insane methods of virus control.

Restaurants are unaffordable for most people.

Dependency on government handouts is 28 percent higher than in 2019.

All stores close an hour or two earlier because they cannot get workers to stay later.

The learning losses among the kids are unfathomable, two years and rising, and perhaps an entire generation is lost.

There is a population-wide mental-health crisis in addition to rampant substance abuse.

The federal budget has been blown to smithereens.

Political divisions are festering as never before, with neither party willing to discuss the Covid elephant in the room.

Our conception of what it means to live in freedom with a government that knows limits to its power has slipped away.

Arts venues are struggling for dear life to survive.

World trade is shattered, with new trading blocs replacing the old ones.

The rise of maniacal gender dysphoria of the young is probably connected with this: endless hours online, loss of confidence in the world as it is, plus loneliness.

One could argue that even the war in Israel and Gaza is a result: security concerns were neglected in favor of microbial activism and shot mandates, and the loss of a moral center to policy then unleashed successive rounds of violence.

Finally, there is the loss of trust in everything: government, public health, pharmaceuticals, academia, science, media, and each other. Society cannot function without trust. Not even churches are immune from broad incredulity since most went along with the Covid response in every detail.

This only begins to scratch the surface of what we’ve lost and what has replaced it. Ultimately all such tragedies come down to individual lives. These days you hear them only among friends and families. And they are terrible stories of sadness and personal despair. The pain is only intensified by the silence on the part of all corporate media, government, and other commanding heights. Because of the news block on the whole topic, there is mass and festering anger beneath the surface.

And yet here is this granddad – the man ostensibly in charge over the whole operation – telling us old war stories of mistakes that were made. Does he [Francis Collins] have any idea of the carnage he caused? Does he even care?

In Dostoevsky’s version of the Grand Inquisitor, the nemesis predicts: “In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us.”

*****

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

Image Credit: YouTube Screenshot PBS

TAKE ACTION

As we move through 2023 and into the next election cycle, The Prickly Pear will resume Take Action recommendations and information.

Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. and Pope Francis two ‘Catholics’ who are followers of Karl Marx more than Jesus of Nazareth thumbnail

Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. and Pope Francis two ‘Catholics’ who are followers of Karl Marx more than Jesus of Nazareth

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By Dr. Rich Swier

“It is Jesus that you seek when you dream of happiness; He is waiting for you when nothing else you find satisfies you; He is the beauty to which you are so attracted; it is He who provoked you with that thirst for fullness that will not let you settle for compromise; it is He who urges you to shed the masks of a false life; it is He who reads in your heart your most genuine choices, the choices that others try to stifle.” — Pope John Paul II

“If you believe what you like in the Gospel, and reject what you don’t like, it is not the Gospel you believe, but yourself.” ― Saint Augustine of Hippo

As a Catholic I expect my fellow Catholics to live, love and act like, well, Catholics.

Today we have two world leaders who are professed “Catholics” but are acting very much un-Catholic, if not anti-Catholic.

These two Catholics act much more like followers of Karl Marx than followers of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.

Saint Augustine of Hippo wrote, “The truth is like a lion; you don’t have to defend it. Let it loose; it will defend itself.”

Letting Loose the Truth about Sodomy

The truth about sodomy is contained in the Old Testament in the Book of Genesis.

Genesis 18:21 reads, “I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me; and if not, I will know.”

What does Genesis 18:21 mean?

The Lord continues explaining to Abraham His plans for Sodom and Gomorrah. In the previous verse, God states that outcry over the sins of those cities had reached His ears. Now the Lord says that He intends to go down to the cities to see for Himself if such an outcry is justified. The Lord already knows exactly what sins have occurred. He intends to visit the cities to make the case for executing His judgment on them, much as a parent who already knows exactly what a child has done says they are going to “go look” at the situation.

We will tell the truth about Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. and Pope Francis based upon their actions, not their words.

in a video about Pope Francis and sodomy reported, “Has it appeared “odd” to anyone else that there are so many promoters of sodomy around Pope Francis?…Pope Francis at the beginning of his pontificate created international headlines when he admitted privately there was a gay lobby inside the Vatican. Of course, many people became very concerned when the Holy Father appointed Msgr. Battista Ricca to head up the Vatican Bank. Ricca was reported to have carried on a gay relationship with a captain in the Swiss Army during his time in Uruguay  — so notorious in fact that clergy there appealed to the Vatican to have him removed. It was Battista, as a sidebar, that Pope Francis was talking about back in 2013 when he gave his well-documented comment, “Who am I to judge?”

Recently in Wisconsin a Catholic Diocese halted LGBTQIE+ efforts by two liberal Catholic churches.

Like Francis, Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. has, since his inauguration, become the most vocal proponent of sodomy. Biden and his administration have pushed their diversity, equity and inclusion agenda from the school house to the White House and from the school board to every major corporate board in America and beyond.

On June 10, 2023 Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. and his wife Jill hosted a “Pride Celebration” at the White House. Biden stated, “The Pride Celebration is always one of the most exciting events at the White House. But this year, we wanted to do something a little different than before — not just a reception that recognizes the leaders and the activists of this movement, but an all-American picnic here on the South Lawn celebrating you, America’s LGBTQ families.”

At the June, 2023 Pride Celebration Jill Biden said, “Today, we say loud and clear that you belong, that you are beautiful, that you are loved. That’s the miracle that carry us — carries us through the darkest times, that gives us hope for the future that we all want, that strengthen us for the fights ahead. And when you leave here to go back to the place that needs so much change, take that miracle with you. Let it remind you that you don’t have to face these battles alone. You are never alone, and you are loved. Thank you for celebrating with us today.”

Sodomy is a mortal sin in the Old Testament, the New Testament and in the Qur’an.

You cannot be a Catholic and promote, endorse or support sodomy.

Adding More to the Marxist Fire

Not only do Biden and Frances support sodomy they are also fellow followers of the myth of global warming as a threat to mankind.

Both support one world governance, a.k.a the new world order.

Both support massive migration of illegals, primarily from the Middle East, into Europe. Biden has opened America’s Southern Border which created an immigration crisis of untold proportions.

Both have embraced craven images, with Frances actually having pagan statuettes displayed on the Vatican grounds.

Both refuse to defend Catholics and Christians who are being persecuted globally, but primarily in the Muslim controlled Middle East.

Both Biden and Frances do not want citizens to own guns for self-defense. Both are anti-2nd Amendment advocates, except when it comes to their personal bodyguards.

The Biden Administration has gone as far as filing a lawsuit that targets largest Christian University in the United States.

Silence in the face of evil is itself evil.

Neither Biden or Francis are Catholic. They are the followers of Karl Marx.

Their actions speak louder than words.

Today the Vatican is Sodom and the White House in Washington, D.C. is Gomorrah.

God will judge them both as He did those in Sodom and Gomorrah.

Beware the wrath of God al mighty.

©2023. Dr. Rich Swier. All rights reserved.

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