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2000 Mules Comes to Arizona

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By Neland Nobel

The technical team behind the hit documentary 2000 Mules appeared at a hearing at the Arizona Legislature on May 31, 2022. The hearing was chaired by Shawnna Bolick, Representative from District 20 and a candidate for Arizona Secretary of State.

It was sadly a partisan affair as no Democrat legislators attended the hearing to hear any of the evidence or ask questions.

True the Vote, a Houston-based voter integrity organization, is the team that developed the data for the hit Dinesh D’Souza produced the film, which can be viewed here. 

Founder Catherin Engelbrecht and her chief investigator Gregg Phillips presented and took questions from the panel of state Senators and Representatives.

In the movie, ballot trafficking was described both in Yuma and Maricopa Counties, as well as in other states such as Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Wisconsin. Over 200 mules were determined to be operating in Maricopa County.

An investigation is currently underway by the Yuma Country Sheriff and a recall effort is also underway to remove Yuma Country Chairman Tony Reyes from office.

Much of their presentation was to explain to the legislators the methods that can be used to organize cell phone data to track individuals who are involved in ballot trafficking. These so-called “mules” are believed to be part of an operation funded by nonprofit organizations that statistically were capable of altering the outcome of the 2020 election.

Gregg Phillips spent considerable time explaining technical details such as what is geofence, the threshold criteria necessary to establish if the behavior of an individual is that of a mule, and the quality and accuracy of their data.

Basically, any common cell phone is actually a tracking device that is also capable of making phone calls. By triangulating among cell towers, the location of the phone can amazingly accurate. Each phone has a unique ID or DNA, and thus multiple trips to drop boxes can be scientifically confirmed. Bolstered by data obtained from cameras monitoring drop boxes, a compelling case can be made for illegal voter fraud.

Phillips also spent considerable time responding to critical articles written about the movie in the New York Times and Washington Post. In short, the bulk of the testimony was to build confidence that cell phone tracking is accurate and accepted in a court of law. Phillips made a point that the Federal Government is using just such data to prosecute people that engaged in the January 6th Capitol riot.

Cell phone companies can be requested by law enforcement to “unmask” the owner of a cell phone and thus with video as an additional backup, can actually identify an individual engaged in voter fraud.

With this information available, legislators urged whistleblowers to come forward now, and cooperate with law enforcement or face serious consequences later.

It is not clear from the testimony exactly how nonprofits came into possession of ballots for distribution by their mules. It is not clear who funded these nonprofits and how they can operate in violation of IRS rules.

When asked if such information had been turned over to the Arizona Attorney General, Gregg said they had provided information earlier at a meeting with three individuals from the AGs office. But there is some confusion about that and Gregg said they would provide the information a second time. What happened to the first batch of information, was not made clear.

As to the list of nonprofits engaged in voter fraud, Gregg said they have not made a list public because they did not want to get out in front of law enforcement. However, such a list can be made available at the proper time.

There were a number of concrete suggestions given to the legislators to firm up voter integrity.

Voter rolls need to be regularly purged.

It is necessary that the month, day, and year of birth be used, not just the year of birth as is currently done.

Drop boxes destroy pretty much the “chain of custody”. Ballots that are provided by mail, in combination with unsupervised drop boxes are an invitation to fraud.

TAKE ACTION

Thank you to all The Prickly Pear readers who contacted legislators about the egregious formation of the “Disinformation Governance Board” at the Department of Homeland Security under Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Citizens such as yourselves made the Biden administration and DHS back away from this unprecedented Orwellian and tyrannical step of censorship and suppression of free speech in our Republic. There are critical issues to  ‘TAKE ACTION’ on and The Prickly Pear will serve as a rallying point to stop the left’s assaults on We the People and our liberty. God bless America.

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Bureaucrats in the Dock

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By Peter J. Wallison

On May 18 this year, in Jarkesy v. SEC, a majority of a three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit—an appellate court just below the Supreme Court—challenged some of the powers commonly used by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and other administrative agencies when they charge individuals or companies with wrongdoing. 

The SEC’s actions were not unusual for an administrative agency—requiring a defendant to make his case before an administrative law judge (ALJ) instead of a jury—but the court found that under the Constitution’s Seventh Amendment, George Jarkesy, Jr. was entitled to a jury trial, that many ALJs used by the SEC and other agencies were unconstitutionally independent of the president’s control, and that the authority that Congress had given the SEC to choose an ALJ instead of a jury was also unconstitutional.

The case received an unusual amount of attention in the media, largely because the SEC is a powerful agency, and the actions of administrative agencies are seldom found to be unconstitutional by courts below the Supreme Court. But another reason may be that the Fifth Circuit’s decision reflects a general concern in the judiciary about the power of administrative agencies—which many call the “administrative state”—and how they fit into our constitutional system.      

In Federalist 78, Alexander Hamilton argued that the members of the federal judiciary should have lifetime tenure—even in a republic—because the courts are intended to be the “Guardians of the Constitution.” This role, he said, will require an “uncommon portion of fortitude” when judges’ decisions upholding the Constitution conflict with the views of the more powerful elected branches. “Nothing can contribute so much,” said Hamilton, to the judiciary’s firmness and independence as “permanency in office.”

The protests that we see today in front of the Supreme Court, and even at the homes of the justices themselves, amply demonstrate the difficulties the judiciary faces as it is called upon to interpret how various policies fit within the constitutional structure the Framers wanted them to protect.

Chief Justice John Marshall, established the primacy of the Supreme Court, as Hamilton saw it, with the foundational 1803 decision of Marbury v. Madison. There, he ruled not only that the Court could declare acts of Congress unconstitutional, but also that courts could interpret the laws. These two points, never subsequently challenged, reified Hamilton’s assertion that judges were to be the “Guardians of the Constitution.”

There was little change in the structure of the government, or the respective roles of the president and Congress, until the Progressive Era, from about 1880 to 1920, when Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt argued for major changes in the government’s structure and role in the economy. During this period, the Interstate Commerce Commission, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Federal Reserve were established to address specific issues that had arisen as the US economy grew quickly. But aside from a few tariff cases, there was little need for the judiciary to interfere in the structure or operations of the government.

That changed with the Great Depression and the New Deal, when the Supreme Court—whose members included distinguished jurists such as Louis Brandeis and Benjamin Cardozo as well as Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes—ran head-on into the policies of FDR and the progressive Democratic Congress. This confrontation produced two instances—Panama Refining v. Ryan and Schechter Poultry v. United States—where the 1935 Court determined that acts of Congress were unconstitutional because they delegated too much legislative authority to administrative agencies in violation of the Constitution. 

Chevron became the most cited and interpreted case in administrative law, and administrative agencies reached their greatest level of authority, issuing more than 3000 rules and regulations every year after 1989.

These decisions and others caused President Franklin D. Roosevelt, after the huge Democratic Party victory in 1936, to propose a Court-packing plan. Although Court-packing itself failed, it changed the game. Every member of the 1935 Supreme Court resigned between 1936 and 1941, to be replaced by Roosevelt–appointed justices much less willing to take on the elected branches. 

From then on, the Court assumed a more accommodating posture, finding authority for the vast number of administrative agencies established in and after the New Deal. The Court’s reticence in this respect probably reached its peak in 1984, with Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council. There, a unanimous Court declared that “Sometimes the legislative delegation to an agency is implicit, rather than explicit. In such a case, a court may not substitute its own construction of a statutory provision for a reasonable interpretation” by the agency.

Here, with what became known as “Chevron deference,” the Court was directing lower courts to accept the administrative agency’s interpretation of its statutory authority—if reasonable—and opened the door to the vast expansion of the administrative state that we see today. In short order, Chevron became the most cited and interpreted case in administrative law, and administrative agencies reached their greatest level of authority, issuing more than 3000 rules and regulations every year after 1989. 

What might be called a constitutional awakening, or at least a renewal of the Supreme Court’s interest in its role as guardian of the Constitution, may have begun in 2013, with City of Arlington v. FCC. There, in a challenge to Chevron deference, Chief Justice Roberts (joined by Justices Kennedy and Alito) wrote that  “We do not leave it to the agency to decide when it is in charge.” 

Significantly, in the same decision, the Chief Justice reiterated Hamilton’s view in Federalist 78 that the judiciary has a special role as guardian of the Constitution: it “is the obligation of the judiciary not only to confine itself to its proper role, but to ensure that the other branches do so as well.”

This was followed in 2015, by Perez v. Mortgage Bankers Association, where a majority recognized that the Administrative Procedure Act of 1946 (APA) had already required that courts—and not agencies—should be interpreting the statute. The Senate Committee considering the APA in 1946 stated: “Judicial review…is indispensable since its mere existence generally precludes the arbitrary exercise of powers or the assumption of powers not granted.” Chevron deference, accordingly, and its support for agency determination of their own authorities, now seemed to be on the way out.

An even more determined interest in protecting the constitutional structure seems to have emerged at the Supreme Court with the arrival of Justice Gorsuch in 2017. At that point, there were five justices—Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Thomas, Alito, Kennedy, and Gorsuch—with serious interests in constitutional structure, and the Court reached out to take one issue (among four others) in Gundy v. United States, then languishing in the lower courts. This case raised the claim that in enacting a 2006 statute, Congress had unconstitutionally delegated legislative authority to the Executive Branch—a violation of the so-called nondelegation doctrine.

The Supreme Court’s interest in constitutional issues related to the administrative state has not gone unnoticed, either by litigants or by judges.

As it turned out, when Gundy was argued, there were only eight justices on the bench. Justice Kennedy had resigned, and his successor, Justice Kavanaugh, had not yet been sworn in. Because the Court was split on such an important case, Justice Alito decided not to vote to challenge the reigning nondelegation approach, but he and Justice Kavanaugh later stated that they would be willing to hear another nondelegation case in the future. In any event, Justice Gorsuch wrote a powerful dissent, joined by the Chief Justice and Justice Thomas, in support of the view that the statute at issue in Gundy had unconstitutionally delegated legislative authority to the Executive Branch.

The Court’s interest in considering this issue—and in reaching down specifically to take the nondelegation question from another case—demonstrated that at least five justices were then concerned about constitutional structure, particularly the separation of powers. This is a fundamental element of the Constitution that seeks to preserve liberty by separating the entire government into three branches—a Congress to make the laws, a president to enforce or carry out the laws, and a judiciary to interpret the laws.

This raised new questions about the authority accumulated in administrative agencies, which might be called the fourth branch of government that appears nowhere in the Constitution but had been acquiring increasing power since the New Deal. Moreover, many scholars and students of government have noted that Congress has continued to hand power to administrative agencies as a way to avoid making difficult decisions itself. An important reason for restraining the growth of the administrative state would be to force Congress itself to address difficult issues through legislation.

The Supreme Court’s interest in constitutional issues related to the administrative state has not gone unnoticed, either by litigants or by judges. Without the Court’s interest in the nondelegation doctrine in Gundy, and the questions about Chevron expressed in City of Arlington and Perez, Jarkesy and his counsel might not have challenged the SEC in the Fifth Circuit, and the Fifth Circuit judges might not have gone beyond settled law. Other litigants would not have brought cases challenging Chevron and raising nondelegation issues in the current Supreme Court term. If the Court takes SEC’s appeal of the Fifth Circuit’s Jarkesy decision in its next term, we’ll get a clearer picture of how the Court views the administrative state.

The Fifth Circuit’s Jarkesy decision reflects the Supreme Court’s renewed interest in challenging the administrative state.

*****

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

TAKE ACTION

Thank you to all The Prickly Pear readers who contacted legislators about the egregious formation of the “Disinformation Governance Board” at the Department of Homeland Security under Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Citizens such as yourselves made the Biden administration and DHS back away from this unprecedented Orwellian and tyrannical step of censorship and suppression of free speech in our Republic. There are critical issues to  ‘TAKE ACTION’ on and The Prickly Pear will serve as a rallying point to stop the left’s assaults on We the People and our liberty. God bless America.

A Tale of 2 States: Georgia, Pennsylvania, and the Case for Election Integrity Laws thumbnail

A Tale of 2 States: Georgia, Pennsylvania, and the Case for Election Integrity Laws

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By Jessica Anderson

Georgia held its primary election Tuesday night while Pennsylvania held its primary election over a week ago. The contrast could not be more clear: Georgia held an efficient election where the results were known just hours after polls closed, while Pennsylvania’s Senate result is still in dispute. Between the two states, this year’s elections are already debunking every left-wing myth about election integrity.

A big reason for the difference lies in the details of how each state manages its elections and what, if any, reforms have been made since the disastrous 2020 election. On one hand, Georgia passed a landmark election integrity law last year, while Pennsylvania refused to fix the issues with its elections.

Let’s take a look at Georgia, for example. Last year, Gov. Brian Kemp led the nation in signing a sweeping election integrity bill that expanded early voting, prohibited the influence of private funding, and secured both ballot drop boxes and the mail-in ballot process. The Georgia bill brought to life the recent conservative mantra “Easy to vote, hard to cheat” because the law tackled both sides of the ledger.

In spite of this, liberal politicians and their media allies relentlessly and dishonestly smeared the new law. President Joe Biden described it as “Jim Crow in the 21st Century” and Major League Baseball infamously moved its All-Star Game out of Atlanta to oppose what it called “restrictions to the ballot box” likely to result in voter suppression.

Both of these myths were busted Tuesday when Georgia tested the law’s efficacy and held its first election since the law was signed.

Nearly a million voters used the early voting process ahead of Tuesday’s election, a 168% increase from the last midterm primary in 2018, and we’re already seeing record turnout overall—nearly 1.9 million Georgians voted in the gubernatorial primary, up 60% from 2018.

And remember the long lines voters faced in Georgia during the 2020 election? Well, thanks to Georgia’s new voting law standardizing early voting and holding officials accountable, lines at the polls were virtually nonexistent.

Critics of Georgia’s new election integrity law are eerily quiet—and for good reason. The left’s “voter suppression” narrative has fallen flat amid the overwhelming evidence that it’s easier and more secure to vote in Georgia than ever before.

Meanwhile, Pennsylvania’s primary election has been a total disaster. 

It’s been over a week since the election, and Pennsylvanians still don’t know who their Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate will be. The uncertainty revolves around thousands of mail-in ballots that are undated, which federal courts have deemed legal while current Pennsylvania law and state courts consider them illegal. Meanwhile, the state is grappling with 21,000 misprinted ballots, most of which were unreadable by voting machines.

These aren’t new issues—Pennsylvania’s failures were on display in the 2020 general election, where the same disputes over mail-in ballots muddied the waters and delayed the final vote count.

Last year, the Republican-led legislature passed a sensible bill to clean up mail-in ballot procedures and prevent these issues from precipitating in the future. Unfortunately, Pennsylvania’s liberal Democrat governor, Tom Wolf, vetoed the election integrity bill. 

Now, Pennsylvanians are in limbo and left wondering who their next Republican nominee for Senate will be. It’s already been over a week since the election, and Pennsylvanians will likely be waiting for weeks more to find out the results.

Leftists have continuously insisted that all mail-in ballots are secure and efficient. But Pennsylvania’s recent elections disprove this narrative. Without proper procedures in place, mail-in ballots are susceptible to human error, inefficiencies, confusion, and even intentional fraud.

Had Wolf signed into law some commonsense election integrity measures, we wouldn’t be witnessing this disaster unfold in real time. Instead, we’d be discussing the upcoming general election between the Republican nominee and Democratic nominee Lt. Gov. John Fetterman.

Until all governors, regardless of political affiliation, tackle their broken election systems, we will continue to see chaos. Given the choice between voting in Pennsylvania or Georgia, I choose Georgia.

*****

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

TAKE ACTION

Thank you to all The Prickly Pear readers who contacted legislators about the egregious formation of the “Disinformation Governance Board” at the Department of Homeland Security under Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Citizens such as yourselves made the Biden administration and DHS back away from this unprecedented Orwellian and tyrannical step of censorship and suppression of free speech in our Republic. There are critical issues to  ‘TAKE ACTION’ on and The Prickly Pear will serve as a rallying point to stop the left’s assaults on We the People and our liberty. God bless America.

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48 Senate Republicans Tell Schumer They Will Block Any Bill Undermining Hyde Amendment

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By Henry Rogers

A group of 48 Senate Republicans sent a letter Wednesday to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer telling him they will vote to block any bill that would undermine the Hyde Amendment or any other pro-life protections.

The Daily Caller first obtained a copy of the letter which was spearheaded by Montana Sen. Steve Daines and Oklahoma Sen. James Lankford and signed by 46 other Republicans. In the letter, the lawmakers say any legislation that undermines the Hyde Amendment, which ensures that U.S. tax dollars are not spent on abortions, will be shot down. The lawmakers added that the Hyde Amendment has saved close to 2.5 million preborn children over the course of 45 years.

The only two Republicans who did not sign the letter were Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. The Daily Caller reached out to both Collins and Murkowski for comment, to which Collins’s Press Secretary Christopher Knight said: “Senator Collins has consistently supported the Hyde Amendment to ban federal funding for abortions, and she believes that this prohibition should continue.”

Murkowski’s office did not comment.

“We write to express our unwavering support for the Hyde Amendment and all other longstanding pro-life protections. For more than 45 years, the Hyde Amendment has ensured that taxpayer dollars are not used to fund abortions, saving the lives of nearly 2.5 million preborn children. As you know, the Hyde Amendment is supported by both a substantial majority of the American public and a bipartisan majority of sitting United States Senators, and was most recently signed into law by President Biden in Public Law 117-103,” the lawmakers wrote in the letter.

“There’s a clear message to Leader Schumer: We will not allow the Democrats to force the American people to foot the bill for their radical abortion agenda. The Hyde Amendment has been the law of the land for over 45 years, and my colleagues and I will ensure it stays that way,” Daines told the Daily Caller before sending the letter. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: Sen. Blackburn Warns Dems Could Try To Pack Court With Ketanji Brown Jackson Before Breyer Retires To Try To Save Roe v. Wade)

Republicans in the House sent a letter to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy in June 2021 calling on them to oppose Biden’s budget and reject any budget legislation that does not include the Hyde Amendment. In the letter, the lawmakers noted that every president from Jimmy Carter to Donald Trump included the Hyde Amendment in their budget proposals or signed it into law.

In February of 2021, Republican lawmakers introduced an amendment that would apply the Hyde Amendment to the $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill, however, Democrats removed the amendment from the legislation.

The Daily Caller contacted Schumer’s office about the letter to which they did not immediately respond.

*****

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

TAKE ACTION

Thank you to all The Prickly Pear readers who contacted legislators about the egregious formation of the “Disinformation Governance Board” at the Department of Homeland Security under Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Citizens such as yourselves made the Biden administration and DHS back away from this unprecedented Orwellian and tyrannical step of censorship and suppression of free speech in our Republic. There are critical issues to  ‘TAKE ACTION’ on and The Prickly Pear will serve as a rallying point to stop the left’s assaults on We the People and our liberty. God bless America.

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New Study Challenges CDC Evidence on School Masking

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By David Waugh

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, adults placed a significant burden on children. An analysis from McKinsey & Co. shows pandemic school closures and hybrid learning resulted in a significant drop in student achievement, costing students $49,000 to $61,000 in future lifetime earnings. This outcome in addition to the mental health toll reveals that school closings and various restrictions had significant consequences for students.

As the country revoked masking restrictions, schools came last. Students wore masks for months after business and citywide mandates disappeared. Now large school districts like Philadelphia’s, are reintroducing mask mandates in response to rising cases.

School districts justify these mandates by relying on observational studies produced by the CDC. The most influential of these studies is “Pediatric COVID-19 Cases in Counties With and Without School Mask Requirements — United States, July 1–September 4, 2021”, authored by Budzyn et al.

Unsurprisingly, the authors find that “Counties without school mask requirements experienced larger increases in pediatric COVID-19 case rates after the start of school compared with counties that had school mask requirements.” Yet, one must remember the now overused saying: Correlation does not equal causation. 

However, a new re-analysis of the data used in the study, produced by Ambarish Chandra and Tracy Høeg, finds that school masking is not associated with pediatric case rates. 

Chandra and Høeg’s analysis, which uses a larger population and longer time interval, is more comprehensive than the CDC’s. Their results show no relationship between mandating masks in schools and COVID case rates in students. The authors also highlight problems with the initial CDC study, including context surrounding biases in the CDC’s medical journal and related scientific publications.

Study Methods and Results

The authors maintain that their study serves two purposes: first, to replicate and extend the original study, and second, to illuminate problems with observational studies. Their second purpose is important for public health policy, as observational studies using limited data have been used by the CDC to justify numerous public health interventions.

Using the same methods and criteria as the CDC study, they expand the sample size by analyzing “data from three weeks prior to schools opening to six weeks following opening” in contrast to the two-week timeframe used in the original study. Further, the authors use data from a more recent release (October 25), to create an additional larger sample set of counties which they use to evaluate the robustness of their results.

They find that “using the same methods and sample construction criteria as Budzyn et al., but a larger sample size and expanded time frame for analysis, we fail to detect a significant association between school mask mandates and pediatric COVID-19 cases.”

The authors argue that the discrepancies between the two studies are a result of the CDC’s oversampling of schools in Southern states that start in August. In contrast, their paper includes Northern states that start school in September.

CDC Bias

The new study also highlights issues of biases within the CDC’s research. For instance, the CDC’s own journal, the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) refused to publish Chandra and Høeg’s work. This is curious, given that the authors exactly replicated the CDC’s own paper with additional data and robustness. As they explain,

Certain journals may also only publish findings that fit their preference, as was the case with our analysis; our expanded version of the original Budzyn et al publication was not accepted for publication by MMWR despite using the same methods, but with an expanded population and time frame. This bias can lead to the published “science” being a self-fulfilling prophecy rather than an unbiased pursuit of truth.

Conclusion

The results of this study demonstrate, with more data and robustness than the CDC’s own paper, that masks in schools are an ineffective tool against COVID-19. The CDC’s decision not to publish this study in their journal only further discredits the agency. While unsurprising given their propensity for choosing politics over science throughout the pandemic, the CDC is only doing our children a disservice by promoting policies that may do more harm than good.

*****

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

TAKE ACTION

Thank you to all The Prickly Pear readers who contacted legislators about the egregious formation of the “Disinformation Governance Board” at the Department of Homeland Security under Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Citizens such as yourselves made the Biden administration and DHS back away from this unprecedented Orwellian and tyrannical step of censorship and suppression of free speech in our Republic. There are critical issues to  ‘TAKE ACTION’ on and The Prickly Pear will serve as a rallying point to stop the left’s assaults on We the People and our liberty. God bless America.

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The Texas Shooter And Involuntary Commitment

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By John Hirschauer

It is possible that the Texas shooter was evil, not mentally ill. He should have been committed anyway.

In 1995, Connecticut Governor John Rowland signed a bill to close Norwich and Fairfield Hills Hospitals, two of the state’s three public mental institutions. The hospitals had collectively housed more than 9,000 patients at their peak in the middle of the 20th century. By 1995, fewer than 700 patients remained.

Each of the three hospitals was state-run and staffed by unionized public employees. The hospital campuses were built before the Second World War, and their aging physical plants required significant upkeep to satisfy federal regulators. It cost the state more than $100,000 per patient per year to operate the facilities, and officials estimated that consolidating public inpatient services to the state hospital in Middletown would save the state $13.7 million.

Connecticut, like most states, was winding down its inpatient population. State and federal law had made it more difficult to commit someone who was not imminently dangerous to himself or others to an inpatient facility. By 1995, the average patient who remained at the hospitals was generally sicker and more expensive to treat than the average patient had been 40 years prior. By the time Rowland announced the closures, no one in Connecticut was being institutionalized for “hysteria” or “burnout.”

Civil-rights litigators also pressured the state to reduce its institutional population. In 1990, a group of non-profits brought a class-action lawsuit against the state on behalf of people with traumatic brain injuries and intellectual disabilities in each of the three state hospitals. Attorneys for the plaintiffs argued their clients were placed in inappropriately restrictive settings in violation of federal law. They kept the class-action suit going for more than four years. By the time the case was settled, Connecticut had already announced it was closing the hospitals in Preston and Newtown.

In the decades since two of its three mental hospitals closed, Connecticut, like most states, has suffered an acute shortage of psychiatric beds. The statewide inpatient-utilization rate, which measures the number of psychiatric patients treated in inpatient settings versus the number of beds allocated by the state and private providers, is upwards of 120 percent. In other words, there were more psychiatric inpatients in Connecticut than there were beds allocated to treat them.

This presents several problems. For one, it forces suicidal, homicidal, and otherwise acutely ill patients to wait in emergency rooms for days or weeks on end for a vacant hospital bed. As of this writing, there are no vacant beds in the civil section of Connecticut’s large state hospital in Middletown. For another, it discourages people with acute conditions from coming forward to seek inpatient care in the first place. Finally, by effectively reserving the beds at the large state institutions for the most difficult cases—those immediately dangerous to themselves or others, and those with treatment-resistant psychosis—individuals with mental illness living in the community who need more intensive services than the community can provide are left to devolve until they become so ill that they either make an attempt on their own lives or, in rare cases, the lives of others.

You cannot draw a straight line between the closure of a hospital and an act of mass violence by a person with mental illness, but there is at least a chilling irony in the fact that an 18-year-old man with untreated serious mental illness killed 20 children at Sandy Hook Elementary School less than five miles from the grounds of the abandoned Fairfield Hills Hospital.

Texas’s mental-health system is, in certain ways, better than Connecticut’s.

Texas operates ten state hospitals and funds more than 2,200 public psychiatric beds. Its inpatient-utilization rate is less than 100 percent, reducing the chance that a psychiatric patient will be stranded in an emergency room.

State law also allows prosecutors and family members to initiate commitment proceedings when a person is unable to care for himself or is otherwise so disabled as to require hospital care, allowing families and communities to intervene before a person with serious mental illness deteriorates to the point of violence.

Yet the tragic events of Uvalde demonstrate that robust commitment laws and a well-funded network of state hospitals are of little use if the family and community surrounding a dangerous individual fail to intervene. And while it is unclear whether the shooter who killed 19 children in an elementary last week was “mentally ill”—he was never diagnosed as such and, unlike the Buffalo shooter, never confined for psychiatric treatment—his actions before the shooting suggest he should have been removed from his community regardless.

The Texas shooter reportedly tortured small animals and made regular threats against his classmates. His peers reported that he showed up to school with self-inflicted face wounds. In a sane society, that behavior would be grounds for intervention regardless of its clinical significance. A half-century ago, it would have landed him in a state hospital.

The shooter may have been sane. He may simply have been an evil person who did an evil thing. But whatever his behavior constituted under law—whether the threats he made were criminal in nature or the self-harm sufficient evidence to initiate a commitment hearing—it clearly merited intervention. It demanded a period of retreat, “asylum,” from his milieu.

That was, after all, the foundational purpose of the “insane asylum.” It is the reason that most state hospitals today are located in rural communities, with elegant buildings and bucolic grounds. The purpose of the “asylum” at its inception was to provide the mentally ill with a retreat from the wiles of urban life, a place to pray and reflect, be treated, and work out their neuroses and psychoses in pastoral quiet. Dr. Oliver Sacks, who worked with catatonic patients in New York and in several state hospitals across the country, said the asylum:

“provided control and protection for patients, both from their own (perhaps suicidal or homicidal) impulses and from the ridicule, isolation, aggression, or abuse so often visited upon them in the outside world. Asylums offered a life with its own special protections and limitations, a simplified and narrowed life perhaps, but within this protective structure the freedom to be as mad as one liked and, for some patients at least, to live through their psychoses and emerge from their depths as saner and stabler people.”

That the psychiatric institutions of the past were inadequate in serving this function does not mean that they could not be made adequate in the future.

Many state hospitals were often places of torment. There is a reason Connecticut closed two of its state hospitals. The civil libertarians who made it more difficult to commit a person to a mental facility were responding to real injustices in the mental-health system that should not be ignored.

Yet the words of one of Sack’s patients are worth holding in mind: “Bronx State [Psychiatric Center] is no picnic, but it is infinitely better than starving, freezing on the streets, or being knifed on the Bowery.”

Committing a person like the Texas shooter, who may not have broken the law or been adjudged insane, to a state hospital may not suit our civil-libertarian sensibilities. But to use the words of Saxc’s patient, it strikes me as “infinitely better” than the alternative.

*****

This article was published in The American Conservative and is reproduced with permission.

TAKE ACTION

America is now aware of the Department of Homeland Security’s new ‘Disinformation Governance Board’. DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas called disinformation a “threat” that needs to be addressed with federal law enforcement power. (Is it coincidental that Elon Musk will shortly take Twitter private and re-establish a free speech platform in America?)

This new DHS office is the Biden Speech Police and represents an existential threat to our First Amendment and our Republic. Please click the adjacent red TAKE ACTION link for the resources to inform your Senators and Representatives about this unconstitutional and tyrannical assault on American Free Speech and our fierce rejection of it.

BREAKING: “2000 Mules” Documentary Sparks Recall Against Yuma County Board Chairman and Nonprofit Director Tony Reyes Alleging “Illegal Mules Activities” thumbnail

BREAKING: “2000 Mules” Documentary Sparks Recall Against Yuma County Board Chairman and Nonprofit Director Tony Reyes Alleging “Illegal Mules Activities”

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By Jordan Conradson

Tony Reyes, the Chairman of the Yuma County Board of Supervisors and Executive Director of the Comité de Bien Estar nonprofit in San Luis, Arizona, now faces a recall effort in direct response to the “2000 Mules” documentary.

“We’re seeing a lot of support from that film,” said Andres Rivera, the organizer of the recall submitted on May 19.

True The Vote’s Catherine Engelbrecht and Gregg Phillips premiered their work investigating the ballot trafficking in Yuma County, Arizona, in “2000 Mules”. Shortly after its release, The Yuma County Sheriff’s office opened an investigation into cases of voter fraud similar to those discussed in the movie.

The Gateway Pundit recently reported that law enforcement served warrants at Tony Reyes’ Comité De Bien Estar nonprofit, and Gloria Torres was taken to have her home searched in connection to the Yuma County ballot trafficking conspiracy. Tony Reyes confirmed this to The Gateway Pundit.

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Continue reading this article at Gateway Pundit.

TAKE ACTION

America is now aware of the Department of Homeland Security’s new ‘Disinformation Governance Board’. DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas called disinformation a “threat” that needs to be addressed with federal law enforcement power. (Is it coincidental that Elon Musk will shortly take Twitter private and re-establish a free speech platform in America?)

This new DHS office is the Biden Speech Police and represents an existential threat to our First Amendment and our Republic. Please click the adjacent red TAKE ACTION link for the resources to inform your Senators and Representatives about this unconstitutional and tyrannical assault on American Free Speech and our fierce rejection of it.

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Arizona Ed. Department Reverses Course After Goldwater Demands It Follow the Law

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By Timothy Sandefur & Matt Beienburg

Days after the Goldwater Institute demanded the Arizona Department of Education comply with state law and stop taking away families’ education options, the agency has reopened its Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) portal.

ESAs, which Goldwater pioneered in Arizona more than a decade ago, put money that would otherwise go toward a given student’s public education into an account that parents can use to customize their child’s education experience. The money can be used for a wide variety of education options like private schools, tutoring, textbooks, and homeschool curricula, and it can even be rolled over from one year into the next. Arizona’s ESA program has offered a vital educational option for students for whom traditional government-run schooling is ineffective.

But last week, the Department announced that it had closed applications for program for the fourth quarter, leaving in the lurch countless families wanting to obtain a better education for their kids. That action came despite a legal ruling last year that declared that the Department had violated state law when it closed down applications in February 2021.

Arizona law, the administrative law judge noted, requires the Department to accept applications year-round. Yet Department officials have repeatedly claimed that they have to close the application window for weeks or months at a time because it takes a while to process applications. But nothing in the law allows such a thing, and there is no reason the Department could not process applications for more than one quarter at a time.

Fortunately, after Goldwater sent a letter to the agency last week demanding it follow the law, the Department on Thursday reopened applications for the fourth quarter. Parents who applied in the interim can notify the Department and obtain the funding to which they were entitled. We’re glad the Department has reversed course—and hope that it will continue complying with the law going forward.

*****

This article was published in the Defense of Liberty Blog, a production of the Goldwater Institute and is reproduced with permission.

TAKE ACTION

America is now aware of the Department of Homeland Security’s new ‘Disinformation Governance Board’. DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas called disinformation a “threat” that needs to be addressed with federal law enforcement power. (Is it coincidental that Elon Musk will shortly take Twitter private and re-establish a free speech platform in America?)

This new DHS office is the Biden Speech Police and represents an existential threat to our First Amendment and our Republic. Please click the adjacent red TAKE ACTION link for the resources to inform your Senators and Representatives about this unconstitutional and tyrannical assault on American Free Speech and our fierce rejection of it.

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Reflections on the Failure in Uvalde

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By Neland Nobel

Why did all those well-armed, trained men, stand down for almost an hour, leaving the killer with little kids in a safe gun-free zone? It was a mistake they tell us.

It appears that a bureaucratic change from “active shooter” to “hostage situation” may have led to the mistake. But the shooter wasn’t holding the children and issuing demands, he was shooting them in a room like rabbits in a cage.

For conservatives that pride themselves in support of local police, this was a terrible embarrassment. In addition to the human loss, allowing the slaughter to reach such magnitude, has unleashed another emotional attack on the Second Amendment.

The Border Patrol agent who ended it, what authority was he operating under? Why did he not stand down as the rest of the officers did? What’s the explanation?

Who was the teacher who propped the door open? How can one teacher destroy all the security protocols?

Why did the school “resource officer” have to drive in, missing the suspect in the parking lot? If a resource officer has to drive in from off-site, how can they be called a school resource officer?

Some additional questions we pose may not be the typical question asked by members of the press. Most are focusing on the cowardly and unprofessional behavior of the local police department, which is well worth asking. After blaming the police, they want to blame guns, the NRA, and the Constitution.

Press reports suggest the murderer purchased two AR-15-type rifles on May 18, in a “legal manner.” He also reportedly purchased 375 rounds of .223 ammunition and at least seven magazines. In brief, it was premeditated murder, and apparently, he was making online noises about violence for some time.

Nobody did anything.

It is reported the shooter was a marijuana user, which would mean he lied on the federal paperwork required to be filled out when purchasing a gun. Thus, the purchase may not have been legal. But someone who plans to murder children will break all kinds of laws. Line 11 e.  on the ATF form 4473 asks if you use marijuana or any other controlled substance. That applies whether the state in question has legalized it or not as it remains an illegal substance for Federal purposes. But other provisions could have come into play if mental health and police officials had reacted to earlier signs of mental illness. He had been arrested before for making threats.  Why no restraining order?  See lines f. and h.

How come this young man never got evaluated? Do online statements not count in the evaluation process?

Because of his status prior as a minor, did his earlier infractions not show up in the database for the background check?  If they had, the background check might have prevented him from purchasing the rifles.

Then there is the question of how he got the money to carry out this attack.

The weapons used were made by Daniel Defense and reportedly had Eotech red dot optics mounted on the rifle. The second weapon he left was in his grandfather’s wrecked truck. It is not clear if it was fitted with an expensive optic.

It is noteworthy that this is a high-end rifle in the market place and so is the optic. He bought two of them. Just one would cost in the range of $3,000 and could be higher, depending on the model. If optics were on both rifles, that would bring just the rifles to around $7,000 purchase.

That ammo is about 50 cents per round or $187 for ammo, plus about $150 for magazines. If you include Texas state sales tax of 6.25%, that brings the tab to over $7,500. How does a part-time hamburger flipper get that kind of money?

When he brought them home, nobody saw these items?

It is reported the shooter’s pot usage was a point of contention with his grandmother. Pot is supposed to make you sleepy and dumb, right? Not in all cases.

Alex Berenson, who has made quite a name for himself exposing the medical scams in Covid treatment and policy contends pot is not benign, but often makes users paranoid. Berenson’s book is called, “Tell Your Children the Truth About Marijuana, Mental Illness, and Violence.”

No doubt this suggestion that cannabis use had something to do with his behavior will cause a ruckus with the people at Rolling Stone magazine and some libertarians. But today’s readily available marijuana is so much stronger today and we don’t know how long and how much he was using.

So far, there is no evidence the shooter was on psychotropic medication, but since he had been “troubled” for years, reportedly cutting his face, killing and torturing animals, this connection needs pursuing because quite a number of other mass shooters were on such drugs. 

Some friends also have told the press that the shooter was not bullied as reported earlier, but in fact, was a bully himself. This contradicts relatives that say he was bullied because of a stutter and the fact he wore eyeliner.

Yet, many school officials seem to feel that what is needed at schools is an inclusive environment, welcoming to all, rather than trained police and armed teachers. Maybe schools should not welcome every psychotic with a record of killing animals and making threats.

Insofar as policy, if we defund the police as Democrats suggest, who is going to protect the schools and the rest of us? That is what the Democrats have been calling for. How does that square with their claim of protecting our kids?

The fault lines are predictable. The Left wants to blame guns and bullying as the cause.  But guns are just objects and lots of us got bullied on occasion without resorting to the mass murder of people who were not doing the bullying.  Besides, in our society, the Left is the biggest bully of all.  Just ask a young conservative on a college campus.

Conservatives want to blame the lack of a family, father, too much time online, drugs, violent video games, and evil. We side more with the conservatives.  Activities online do need to be restricted and monitored by parents, not the government.

Guns are ubiquitous in our country and have been for centuries. Before the mid-1960s and you could buy a used M1 carbine by mail order with no restrictions whatsoever.

No, something has changed in our society, not in the nature of guns. And yes, high capacity, semi-automatic weapons have been around a long time, since before 1900 if you count the Mauser Broom handle. There were many handy semi-automatic guns available for mass murder in years past, but such shootings did not take place.

He had a father but apparently, Dad was not active in the young shooter’s life. His mother was a purported drug user and that is perhaps why he was living with his grandmother. So, drugs show up at least twice in this story. He rewarded his grandmother by shooting her in the face, then stealing and wrecking his grandfather’s pick-up truck.

A bit of an ungrateful, mean, evil person, it would seem.

But you can’t say that. Neither can his mother.

One can feel for the mother, but she speaks in the language of the current psychobabble. Her son “had his reasons”, he was “not a monster”, and “don’t judge him.”

Huh? What reasons could a person possibly have to shoot up little school children as a response to anything that might have gone on in his life? He was a monster to do this. Monster is not even a strong enough term. And don’t judge him?  If we can’t judge a person, who with premeditation, stone-cold kills little kids, then nothing can be judged.

That is one of the troubles today. We are not allowed to judge people and the mom wants us to know that murder was not the totality of his life. OK, we are not judging his life; we are judging his actions in the final minutes of his life.

We have defined deviancy so far down today that we have obliterated the entire concept.

Sorry, Mom, you raised an evil murderer, and although it is not all your fault, your drug issues, and your broken home, most likely contributed to the problem. You might have gotten him some help.

That twisted home life likely played a bigger role in the young killer’s life than the NRA.

But we can’t blame the murderer? However, if he was taken alive, he would have been tried as a killer and judged by a jury. But it would seem, that you can blame and judge a person if they are alive for what they did, but not if they are dead?

That makes no sense at all.

There is one guilty party here. Not the governor of Texas, not the NRA, and not even the mother. The guilty party is the killer himself.

Why should such an evil person make me lose the right to protect myself and my family with a gun? Constitutional rights are not suspended because some idiot out there abuses that right. Nor are they suspended because some people become hysterical and want to blame everyone and objects rather than blame the killer.

I will hopefully keep my guns. As demonstrated, the police are slow to show up and there is no guarantee they will act to protect any of us more than they did for the poor kids at Robb Elementary School.

TAKE ACTION

America is now aware of the Department of Homeland Security’s new ‘Disinformation Governance Board’. DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas called disinformation a “threat” that needs to be addressed with federal law enforcement power. (Is it coincidental that Elon Musk will shortly take Twitter private and re-establish a free speech platform in America?)

This new DHS office is the Biden Speech Police and represents an existential threat to our First Amendment and our Republic. Please click the adjacent red TAKE ACTION link for the resources to inform your Senators and Representatives about this unconstitutional and tyrannical assault on American Free Speech and our fierce rejection of it.

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Arizona Department of Education Reverses Course After Goldwater Demands It Follow the Law

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By Timothy Sandefur & Matt Beienburg

Days after the Goldwater Institute demanded the Arizona Department of Education comply with state law and stop taking away families’ education options, the agency has reopened its Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) portal.

ESAs, which Goldwater pioneered in Arizona more than a decade ago, put money that would otherwise go toward a given student’s public education into an account that parents can use to customize their child’s education experience. The money can be used for a wide variety of education options like private schools, tutoring, textbooks, and homeschool curricula, and it can even be rolled over from one year into the next. Arizona’s ESA program has offered a vital educational option for students for whom traditional government-run schooling is ineffective.

But last week, the Department announced that it had closed applications for program for the fourth quarter, leaving in the lurch countless families wanting to obtain a better education for their kids. That action came despite a legal ruling last year that declared that the Department had violated state law when it closed down applications in February 2021.

Arizona law, the administrative law judge noted, requires the Department to accept applications year-round. Yet Department officials have repeatedly claimed that they have to close the application window for weeks or months at a time because it takes a while to process applications. But nothing in the law allows such a thing, and there is no reason the Department could not process applications for more than one quarter at a time.

Fortunately, after Goldwater sent a letter to the agency last week demanding it follow the law, the Department on Thursday reopened applications for the fourth quarter. Parents who applied in the interim can notify the Department and obtain the funding to which they were entitled. We’re glad the Department has reversed course—and hope that it will continue complying with the law going forward.

*****

This article was published in the Defense of Liberty Blog, a production of the Goldwater Institute and is reproduced with permission.

TAKE ACTION

Thank you to all The Prickly Pear readers who contacted legislators about the egregious formation of the “Disinformation Governance Board” at the Department of Homeland Security under Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Citizens such as yourselves made the Biden administration and DHS back away from this unprecedented Orwellian and tyrannical step of censorship and suppression of free speech in our Republic. There are critical issues to  ‘TAKE ACTION’ on and The Prickly Pear will serve as a rallying point to stop the left’s assaults on We the People and our liberty. God bless America.

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Sad, So Very Sad

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By Bruce Bialosky

You are going through your day trying to work or take care of life’s responsibilities. Then the news hits. You stare at the TV or computer feed-in crippling shock. How can such a horrible thing be happening? Why would a “human being” do such a thing? It is all too much. It is sad, so very sad.

We have confronted this before and the aftermath. We just lost ten people of a different creed and age. We are always lurching for answers and too often we are provided false ones by the voices. The voices say it is because of false gods like hatred of a certain group or some imagined philosophy. The voices tell us it is how they killed not the person who did the killing. The voices search through hundreds of pages of ramblings of a sick mind to seize on a few words that enhance their political or philosophical positions when they are simply ramblings of a sick mind. Nothing more.

This incident should give us clarity – it is sick minds, not hatred. What kind of sick mind shoots their grandmother? A grandmother. The same sick mind that can walk into a school and kill nineteen young children and two adults. Children that have barely experienced life and should have lived another eighty wonderful, joy-filled years. What kind of sick mind causes this devastation to the dead, their families, their community, and their nation? How can we be in this place?

Instead of focusing on political arguments, we must focus on root causes. It is not the guns. Guns are just a tool of choice. When Buffalo happened, some were quick to blame racism. Yet the same people who blamed the deaths on racism instead of a sick mind willfully ignore 9,900 blacks slaughtered on our streets last year principally at the hands of fellow blacks. The people in Buffalo were not killed by a rambling racist. They were murdered by a sick mind.

Why do we have these events? Why do we have blacks killing blacks daily in Chicago and Baltimore and other cities? Why are we ignoring the deaths nearing 100,000 annually of our fellow citizens from drugs they should never want to touch? Why do we have the explosion of teenage suicides? Why do we have an epidemic of people willingly living on our cities’ streets instead of being functioning people living a safe and secure life? Why have we become callous to it all?

In 2000, Robert Putnam published Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. Putnam bemoaned the death of bowling leagues even though more people were bowling. The big picture is the death of the community. Those ties to the people around you. The ties that keep you grounded and sane. The bowling leagues are simply a manifestation of the collapse of the community. Whether that tie to the people around us is a church, a club, a sewing or knitting circle. Anything that brings people out of their cocoon to share time with their fellow human beings. Humanizing them.

The forces of our society have been driving us away from that. Smaller church attendance. Being a single parent. Movie watching at home instead of a theater. Meals are delivered and eaten at home alone instead of in a restaurant. Working from home. All these factors add to the isolation and mental destruction and the loneliness.

It was a joy once the mask mandates came off to suddenly see groups of eight, ten, or twelve people sharing a table at a restaurant talking, laughing, and humanizing. It was very uplifting to reverse that period of isolation that the pandemic caused and exacerbated this period of sickness.

A “person” slaughtering fellow humans is no doubt a direct cause. It is not guns. It is guns in the wrong hands. We have seen incidents of people attacking others with knives or even cars. No matter, we need to focus on the sickness itself, not how they manifest their sickness. We must focus on the root causes. We have too long told people they do not need community. We have too long told people they can raise children without a partner. We have too long told men they are unimportant in children’s lives. They don’t need to settle down with a family. We have too long looked for answers from the government when the answers will never be there. It is us; it is how we participate in our society. It is how we treat each other. It is us ignoring the devastation around us.

I wrote a column entitled Estrangement that I ran a few years back over the holiday season. It focused on how people should stop their minor arguments with family members or friends and use the holiday season to knock on the door, open the door and end the bitterness over trivial things.

We need to do that as a country. I don’t know about you, but I cannot stand many more of these days sitting at my desk crying over the mass slaughter of children or any other fellow Americans. We must do better.

Let us not spend another Memorial Day mourning the murder of children instead of mourning the loss of those who fought to provide this country with the freedoms we uniquely enjoy.

*****

The article was published by FlashReport and is reprinted with the permission of the author.

TAKE ACTION

America is now aware of the Department of Homeland Security’s new ‘Disinformation Governance Board’. DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas called disinformation a “threat” that needs to be addressed with federal law enforcement power. (Is it coincidental that Elon Musk will shortly take Twitter private and re-establish a free speech platform in America?)

This new DHS office is the Biden Speech Police and represents an existential threat to our First Amendment and our Republic. Please click the adjacent red TAKE ACTION link for the resources to inform your Senators and Representatives about this unconstitutional and tyrannical assault on American Free Speech and our fierce rejection of it.

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A Call to Defend and Preserve the First Amendment

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By Ellie Fromm

 “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances”.

This is the entire First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America. Our Founding Fathers understood how important freedom of speech and freedom of the press is to a free country. They understood this not only because of their personal experiences with the Crown, but also from their deep study of history. The Founding Fathers faced possible execution for what they said because opposition to the king was not allowed. If citizens are not allowed to think and express their thoughts, a nation is not free.

Think about it. Opposition to the king (or ruler of the time) was not allowed. Does it seen as if we have almost gone back to that time? If you are not 110% in agreement with whatever the left is doing at this moment, you are targeted as a racist white supremacist. Take Elon Musk as an example. Musk is in the process of buying Twitter with the intent of promoting and ensuring free speech for everyone on the platform, regardless of political affiliation. He also just announced that, after watching the Democrat party “become the party of division & hate”, he can no longer support it and  will be voting Republican in the 2022 midterms. Isn’t it telling that the CEO and founder of Tesla (an electric car company) has left the party of the “Green New Deal” because of its suppression of free speech and intolerance for diverse points of view? The self-made wealthiest man on earth who makes electric cars for a living and is African American (yes, born and raised in South Africa and now an American!) will be voting Republican this November and has been cast out by the Democrat party and the media. Oh, the irony!

On a more ominous level, the Department of Homeland Security’s Disinformation Governance Board, appropriately nicknamed the ‘Ministry of Truth’ from George Orwell’s book 1984 by opposers of this board, is a direct attack on citizens’ speech, i.e., the First Amendment. The goal of this Ministry of Truth is to “coordinate countering misinformation related to homeland security”. While nobody likes misinformation, who decides what is misinformation? The simple answer is nobody should be allowed to set a single narrative for a free society and nation. Debate should be alive and rigorous allowing truth to surface. While the media has long been deciding what is misinformation and intensely so for the past six years, it is not an established arm of the federal government.

Nina Jankowicz was chosen to head the Ministry of Truth. Jankowicz, a liberal fact-checker (I thought that was a made-up job, but apparently it’s a real thing) who helped to cover up Hunter Biden’s laptop story during the 2020 election cycle. Jankowicz played a role pushing the Trump Russia Collusion hoax in 2016 out to the media. She also posted a video of herself singing about fact-checking on TikTok, in which she called some views or information held by conservatives disinformation. Changing the lyrics to a Mary Poppins song and then singing it on TikTok is silliness and not professional in any way. Ever. Secondly, what happened to the tolerance liberals always preached? Actually, nothing happened to it. It is who it’s granted to – tolerance for them, Ministry of Truth for us.

Thankfully, the American people recognized the threat to the First Amendment posed by the Disinformation Governance Board and responded across the land. The Ministry of Truth was the headline of conservative news outlets for weeks. Millions took to social media and and contacted their legislators to express their outrage. The Ministry has been put on hold, and Nina Jankowicz has resigned. However, the battle is not over. The Department of Homeland Security announced they have appointed former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and former U.S. Deputy General Jamie Gorelick to advise DHS on how they “can garner public trust surrounding its disinformation efforts”. While Chertoff and Gorelick will not be working under the Disinformation Governance Board’s title, their work sounds a lot like what the Board’s mission was. If the government has the audacity to do this, what is next? This is a direct assault on the First Amendment. This obvious violation of our First Amendment rights cannot be allowed. This shows the current government and bureaucracy lack respect for Americans’ constitutional rights. The Executive and Congressional branches think they know best, but We the People actually do and their paychecks come from our pocketbooks, i.e., our taxes. Never forget that they govern by our consent.

The parallels between Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, written in 1931, and our world today are very disturbing. In Huxley’s classic, society is almost always high on drugs, free sex is the norm, children are indoctrinated from birth, and abortion is rampant. Also, those who marry for life and have children are called barbarians and are separated from “decent society”. Instead of nation states, the world is a global nation. You cannot go anywhere to escape its laws and regulations. And that’s just the beginning of a radical and tyrannical power structure with control over everything we do and how we live. Who would want to live in a Brave New World? I don’t. Such a world is predictably godless, miserable and absent of independent thought and action, opposite to the America we know.

The Founding Fathers knew how important free speech is to a free nation because they were being forced to live without freedom of speech. They knew what it was like to be censored. It was dangerous and will become increasingly so today if conservatives do not stand up and fight to protect our First Amendment liberties. Benjamin Franklin said, “Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech”. The establishment is trying but, God willing, liberty will prevail for future generations by the actions of all good citizens and patriots of this generation.

*****

Ellie Fromm is currently serving at The Prickly Pear as a Journalism Intern. Ms. Fromm is entering her senior year of high school and has been home schooled since preschool.

TAKE ACTION

America is now aware of the Department of Homeland Security’s new ‘Disinformation Governance Board’. DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas called disinformation a “threat” that needs to be addressed with federal law enforcement power. (Is it coincidental that Elon Musk will shortly take Twitter private and re-establish a free speech platform in America?)

This new DHS office is the Biden Speech Police and represents an existential threat to our First Amendment and our Republic. Please click the adjacent red TAKE ACTION link for the resources to inform your Senators and Representatives about this unconstitutional and tyrannical assault on American Free Speech and our fierce rejection of it.

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Nearly 60% of Arizona Voters Support Some Abortion Restrictions, Poll Finds

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By Tom Joyce

Most Arizona voters support at least some level of abortion restrictions, a new poll found.

Residents of the state have mixed opinions about abortion, an Arizona Public Opinion Pulse poll conducted by OH Predictive Insights shows.

The poll found that while 41% of the state’s residents think that abortion should be legal under any circumstances, the majority do not; the other 59% want to limit the circumstances under which abortion is legal.

That includes 13% who support abortion being illegal under all circumstances and 46% who support it being legal only under certain circumstances. The poll doesn’t specify what those circumstances are, but they may include exceptions for rape, incest, the life of the mother, as well as various gestational limits.

The poll found that Arizonans are divided on overturning Roe v. Wade, and sending abortion law back to the states. It found that 49% opposed the decision while 46% did not oppose it; 5% said they did not have an opinion on the matter.

Additionally, the poll also found that 3 in 5 Arizona voters “would be very/somewhat impactful to their decision to vote for them or not.”

“While there are a variety of lenses through which you could assess sentiment on abortion, the biggest takeaway candidates should gain from this data is that their position on abortion will impact Arizona voters’ decisions, but some more than others, so deeply understanding your coalition is crucial this close to election day,” Mike Noble, OHPI Chief of Research, said in a press release.

*****

This article was published by The Center Square and is reproduced with permission.

TAKE ACTION

America is now aware of the Department of Homeland Security’s new ‘Disinformation Governance Board’. DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas called disinformation a “threat” that needs to be addressed with federal law enforcement power. (Is it coincidental that Elon Musk will shortly take Twitter private and re-establish a free speech platform in America?)

This new DHS office is the Biden Speech Police and represents an existential threat to our First Amendment and our Republic. Please click the adjacent red TAKE ACTION link for the resources to inform your Senators and Representatives about this unconstitutional and tyrannical assault on American Free Speech and our fierce rejection of it.

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FBI Reveals How Many Active Shooters Were Stopped By Citizens

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By Harold Hutchison

The FBI announced Monday that citizens stopped six active shooters in 2021, according to a report on active shooting incidents.

Citizens stopped six active shooters, whom the FBI defines as “one or more individuals actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a populated area,” in 2021, killing four of them, according to the report, “Active Shooter Incidents In The United States In 2021.” There were 61 active shooter incidents in 2021, 12 of which met the FBI’s criteria for a “mass killing,” up from 40 the previous year.

“The active aspect of the definition inherently implies the ongoing nature of an incident, and thus the potential for the response to affect the outcome, whereas a mass killing is defined as three or more killings in a single incident,” the FBI said in a Monday release. (RELATED: Active Shooter Quickly ‘Shot To Death By Armed Citizen,’ Police Report)

In one incident, armed employees at the Jefferson Gun Outlet in Metairie, Louisiana, returned fire after an active shooter killed two people and injured two others on Feb. 20, 2021, the report said.

Citizens detained an active shooter in the Gaslamp Quarter of San Diego on April 22, 2021, according to the report. In Rigby, Idaho, a middle school teacher disarmed a 12-year-old female student who was firing a handgun on May 6, 2021 at a middle school.

An armed citizen killed an active shooter in an incident outside the Three Corners Townhouses in Fort Smith, Arkansas, on May 15, 2021, the report said.

An active shooter killed two people and wounded another on Oct. 21, 2021, before an armed employee fatally shot the shooter at Agrex Elevator in Superior, Nebraska, the report said.

The FBI report noted that 14 active shooters were killed by law enforcement, 11 committed suicide, 30 were taken into custody, one was killed in a car crash and one was still at large.

*****

TAKE ACTION

America is now aware of the Department of Homeland Security’s new ‘Disinformation Governance Board’. DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas called disinformation a “threat” that needs to be addressed with federal law enforcement power. (Is it coincidental that Elon Musk will shortly take Twitter private and re-establish a free speech platform in America?)

This new DHS office is the Biden Speech Police and represents an existential threat to our First Amendment and our Republic. Please click the adjacent red TAKE ACTION link for the resources to inform your Senators and Representatives about this unconstitutional and tyrannical assault on American Free Speech and our fierce rejection of it.

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What Memorial Day is Really About

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By Mark T. Cicero

Today is Memorial Day, a day that many think of as just another three-day weekend, yet I encourage every American to take a moment to remember the reason for this day. Today we remember the more than 1.3 million service members that paid the ultimate sacrifice, laying down their lives, in defense of our country and our freedoms. From the estimated 8,000 volunteers who died in the Revolutionary War to the approximated 450,000 who died in our Civil War (still America’s bloodiest war), and the 405,000 who gave their lives in World War II, this country has a long history of service and defense of our Constitution – the entire Constitution including all of its Amendments.

Turn on any popular news magazine today and you will see a conversation to limit the Second Amendment as a result of the tragedy in Uvalde. The previous weeks, there were more than a few suggestions that we should limit the First Amendment because a lifelong Democrat voter Elon Musk was considering a takeover of Twitter and Secretary Mayorkus of the DHS was on the verge of instituting a very Orwellian Disinformation Governance Board. There are long debates on these and all the Amendments and this is not the time for outlining all those arguments.  However, remember both of these attacks on the foundational elements of our Constitution are designed to install greater power in the politicians who no longer serve us but now feel that they rule us.

Is it odd in a sense that we will die to protect our Constitution from attack from abroad, but not from within?

How many of us intentionally voted for double-digit inflation, an unprotected border, a flood of toxic Fentanyl, paying for a war in Ukraine, delivering our national sovereignty to Director-General Tedros of the WHO, a war on fossil fuels, and dramatically rising crime rates in most urban areas of our nation? This is merely the civil backdrop while our children are being indoctrinated with liberal ideologies of ‘gender fluidity’ and are taught that Marxism, totalitarianism, and socialism are far superior to the inefficient government we labor under now. Consider the manic war on religion that is continually waged: any reference to God is being stricken from any public space, people have been dismissed from their positions for engaging in prayer, and only the non-Christian religions are respected. Why press this war on God and religion?  That answer is simple: hope.

Why was it so important for churches to close during the Covid lockdowns? No, it wasn’t fear of transmission – remember the crowds in Costco – it was fear of that we might look to our Creator instead of worshipping the alter of Anthony Fauci. Whether you declare yourself Jewish, Catholic, Lutheran, Episcopalian, or non-denominational: when you recognize that there is a higher power than anything we can see on this earth, you no longer put all your faith in your political leaders. That is what our ‘health officials’ were really driving at.

Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Preamble to our Constitution: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Endowed by their Creator.  Creator refers to the God of the Bible. This is the first reference to God in the Constitution and perhaps the most important. It underscores the Founding Father’s reliance on Judeo-Christian principles in the drafting of the Constitution. This is the first nation in the recorded history of the world that posits that our rights are God-given and not given to us by the government. Jefferson continued in the Preamble: “That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government”. In other words, it is the Government’s role to protect those rights not to limit them.

Our servicemen and women have stood watch over these freedoms for over two hundred years, and over one million have given their lives to maintain them. In 1918, Irving Berlin wrote the beautiful song/prayer “God Bless America” and revised it twenty years later into its current form:

While the storm clouds gather far across the sea,

Let us swear allegiance to a land that’s free,

Let us all be grateful for a land so fair,

As we raise our voices in a solemn prayer.

God bless America,

Land that I love,

Stand beside her, and guide her

Through the night with a light from above.

From the mountains, to the prairies,

To the oceans, white with foam

God bless America, My home sweet home

God bless America, My home sweet home.

This song isn’t sung as much today as it was when I was a child and that is symptomatic of our separation from this nation’s foundational Judeo-Christian principles. While we barbeque our burgers, hot dogs, and ribs this weekend, visiting with friends and family, let us take a moment to remember all those who went before us to create, maintain and preserve our nation and remember: there are no atheists in foxholes.

TAKE ACTION

America is now aware of the Department of Homeland Security’s new ‘Disinformation Governance Board’. DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas called disinformation a “threat” that needs to be addressed with federal law enforcement power. (Is it coincidental that Elon Musk will shortly take Twitter private and re-establish a free speech platform in America?)

This new DHS office is the Biden Speech Police and represents an existential threat to our First Amendment and our Republic. Please click the adjacent red TAKE ACTION link for the resources to inform your Senators and Representatives about this unconstitutional and tyrannical assault on American Free Speech and our fierce rejection of it.

The Sham of White Supremacy thumbnail

The Sham of White Supremacy

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By Thomas C. Patterson

According to President Biden, “terrorism from White supremacy is the most lethal threat to the homeland today”, as he put it in an address to Congress. Attorney General Merrick Garland agreed, noting that “racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists“ are the most dangerous element of domestic violence. Garland declared that we must “bring federal resources to bear“ and “adopt a broader societal response“ to the threat of white supremacy.

But it’s a slur to claim that Americans live in fear of White supremacists like the brown shirts of yore. In reality, White supremacists are a small fringe group of pathetic losers who are despised by all.

Their gatherings often attract more attackers than members. No one raises money for their bail when they get in trouble like Kamala Harris did for BLM when their “mostly peaceful“ protests produced burning buildings and mass looting.

The Left media faithfully performs its task of propping up this imaginary threat. Incidents of white-on-black violence make headline news for days while pundits emphasize the role of systemic hate. Similar incidents with different racial dimensions are often underreported or ignored.

In early May, five outbreaks of violence occurred within a few days. A California Taiwanese church was shot up by a black man. Another black man killed workers in a Dallas salon. A white man killed shoppers in a Buffalo grocery store. Pro-life offices were fire-bombed in Wisconsin and Oregon.

President Biden, as usual, only paid attention to the one that fitted his white supremacy narrative. He seized upon the Buffalo incident as “proof of the poison with which White supremacy threatens America“. He vowed to not “let hate win“.

Even though the media’s over-reporting makes them seem more numerous, incidents like the Buffalo shooting are, statistically, isolated events. But the Buffalo murders don’t even qualify anecdotally as an example of right-wing-inspired terror.

C.E. Cupp on CNN explained the horrific incident by noting how “far right-wing media…stir up racial animus, ethnic animus, religious animus…getting people angry and afraid”. Another CNN expert compared Republicans to 1930s fascists and current Islamic dictatorships. “What these people want is a Christian white nationalist version of what you have in Iran today and Saudi Arabia“.

But the perp’s own 80-page manifesto reveals no hint of any such causation. Yes, he was deranged, a psychopath with an intense hatred of Blacks but no connections to White supremacy groups or ideology. He despised Fox News specifically and said he “wanted no part of conservatism“.

Though he was clearly not inspired by right-wing influences, commentators latched on anyway to the killer’s advocacy of “replacement theory“. The New York Times called it a “racist, fringe conspiracy theory“, but it’s nothing of the sort.

It’s simply the fact that the US white population is shrinking while the population total is growing, mostly due to immigration. The concern isn’t skin color but whether this demographic shift will contribute to the decline of America’s culture and values. Recent trends in minority support of Republicans give hope that this may not happen, but at any rate the observation is immaterial to White supremacy.

The Big Lie of pervasive White supremacy is deeply harmful. First, it serves as the pretext for our overgrown government to react to the “threat“ with a series of banana republic-style measures to suppress opposition.

The so-called Ministry of Truth was paused, but the DOJ has created task forces to counter “racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists”, including members of the military and parents advocating before school boards, but not Antifa, BLM, or Muslims.

Second, the Big Lie precludes a serious discussion of realistic remedies for interracial violence and the ongoing carnage of young black men. We should do away with gun-free zones, which only reassure potential killers. We should work harder to keep guns out of the hands of the clearly deranged without a wholesale sacrificing of civil rights. We need to stop the push to decriminalize crime and denigrate police officers. And much more.

While we chase the chimera of White supremacy, real people continue to die.

Note: This column was written before the school shooting in Texas. Its conclusions are not affected.

*****

Thomas C. Patterson, MD is a retired Emergency Medicine physician, Arizona state Senator and Arizona Senate Majority Leader in the ’90s. He is a former Chairman, Goldwater Institute

TAKE ACTION

America is now aware of the Department of Homeland Security’s new ‘Disinformation Governance Board’. DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas called disinformation a “threat” that needs to be addressed with federal law enforcement power. (Is it coincidental that Elon Musk will shortly take Twitter private and re-establish a free speech platform in America?)

This new DHS office is the Biden Speech Police and represents an existential threat to our First Amendment and our Republic. Please click the adjacent red TAKE ACTION link for the resources to inform your Senators and Representatives about this unconstitutional and tyrannical assault on American Free Speech and our fierce rejection of it.

“Dirty Political Trick”: Bill Barr Says Hillary Clinton Guilty Of ‘Sedition’ thumbnail

“Dirty Political Trick”: Bill Barr Says Hillary Clinton Guilty Of ‘Sedition’

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By Tyler Durden

Former US Attorney General Bill Barr says Hillary Clinton engaged in a “seditious” conspiracy against Donald Trump, and that he named Special Counsel John Durham to investigate what appears to have been a “dirty political trick” to paint the former president as a Russian stooge.

“I thought we were heading into a constitutional crisis. I think whatever you think of Trump, the fact is that the whole Russiagate thing was a grave injustice. It appears to be a dirty political trick that was used first to hobble him and then potentially to drive him from office,” Barr said on an upcoming episode of Glenn Beck’s Blaze TV podcast, adding “I believe it is seditious.”

An FBI investigation into Trump’s campaign over alleged ties to the Russian government during the 2016 election, known as Crossfire Hurricane, was the source of unceasing controversy for Trump throughout his presidency. Leaks from the investigation were used by the 2016 Hillary Clinton campaign to accuse Trump of colluding with the Russians to interfere in the election, spawning conspiracy theories that his victory was illegitimate. After Trump fired FBI Director James Comey in May 2017, congressional Democrats accused him of attempting to obstruct the Russia probe, demanding the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate Trump’s actions.

Barr says that when he appointed Durham to investigate the case, he was “highly confident” that the Biden administration, including Attorney General Merrick Garland, wouldn’t interfere.

“I was highly confident he would remain in office and they wouldn’t touch him,” he said, adding “The Biden administration had no real interest in protecting either Hillary Clinton or Comey.”

“And at the end of the day, for them to lose the capital and appear to be covering something up that would then never get resolved, I didn’t think was in their interest.”

*****

Continue reading this article at Zero Hedge.

TAKE ACTION

America is now aware of the Department of Homeland Security’s new ‘Disinformation Governance Board’. DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas called disinformation a “threat” that needs to be addressed with federal law enforcement power. (Is it coincidental that Elon Musk will shortly take Twitter private and re-establish a free speech platform in America?)

This new DHS office is the Biden Speech Police and represents an existential threat to our First Amendment and our Republic. Please click the adjacent red TAKE ACTION link for the resources to inform your Senators and Representatives about this unconstitutional and tyrannical assault on American Free Speech and our fierce rejection of it.

Americans Flocked to Arizona Cities Amid COVID-19 Pandemic thumbnail

Americans Flocked to Arizona Cities Amid COVID-19 Pandemic

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By Cole Lauterbach

Whether it was following new opportunities or taking advantage of the untethering of remote work, Arizona’s cities saw significant population growth in 15 months of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The U.S. Census released its annual population estimates for cities and counties Thursday, reflecting changes in municipal populations as of July 1, 2021. Four Arizona cities – Queen Creek, Buckeye, Casa Grande, and Maricopa – were among the top 10 in terms of the largest percentage of growth in the 12 months ending July 2021.

The rest were in Texas, Florida, and Tennessee.

“Americans are voting with their feet and among the clear winners – again – is Arizona,” CJ Karamargin, spokesperson for Gov. Doug Ducey, told The Center Square. “People from all over the country are choosing to move here. They are consciously deciding they want to raise their families and run their businesses in a state with an exceptional quality of life, low taxes, and minimal regulations.”

In April, the Arizona Supreme Court nullified a ballot initiative that would have reversed a law Ducey signed to gradually flatten the state’s progressive tax to 2.5%, the lowest flat tax in the country.

As a whole, America’s largest cities struggled to keep their population. New York City’s headcount fell by 336,677 since April 1, 2020. Los Angeles lost a smaller percentage of its population, the city of 3.8 million only losing 44,689 people.

Phoenix was one of only two cities with a population of more than 1 million to add people in the Census period. The city of 1.6 million people gained an estimated 16,830 more between April 2020 and July 2021.

“It’s no accident Phoenix is growing rapidly, attracting global corporations, startups, and legacy companies,” said Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego. “The quality of life here is exceptional and combines with smart policies and a welcoming business operating environment to deliver a diverse ecosystem of opportunities in which workers can obtain high-quality jobs and families can thrive.”

San Antonio, Texas, was the only large city to have added more people than Phoenix in the 12 months ending in July 2021.

Karamargin noted the trend of business relocations or expansions in cities around the valley likely to lure new residents.

“Whether you’re talking about a large metropolitan area like Phoenix or smaller cities like Queen Creek, Buckeye, Casa Grande, or Maricopa, the population growth we’re seeing shouldn’t come as a surprise,” he said. “People know Arizona is a land of opportunity. Our welcome mat is out.”

With growth comes growing pains. The Phoenix area’s housing inventory has lingered at record lows. Home sales have skyrocketed upward by 33%, bringing complaints of overpriced homes and rental agreements significantly increasing.

According to Census data, Maricopa County saw 29,935 new housing units in the 12 months ending July 2021, second only to Harris County, Texas.

*****

This article was published by The Center Square and is reproduced with permission.

TAKE ACTION

America is now aware of the Department of Homeland Security’s new ‘Disinformation Governance Board’. DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas called disinformation a “threat” that needs to be addressed with federal law enforcement power. (Is it coincidental that Elon Musk will shortly take Twitter private and re-establish a free speech platform in America?)

This new DHS office is the Biden Speech Police and represents an existential threat to our First Amendment and our Republic. Please click the adjacent red TAKE ACTION link for the resources to inform your Senators and Representatives about this unconstitutional and tyrannical assault on American Free Speech and our fierce rejection of it.

The WHO Treaty Is Tied to a Global Digital Passport and ID System thumbnail

The WHO Treaty Is Tied to a Global Digital Passport and ID System

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By Aaron Kheriaty

The WHO recently announced plans for an international pandemic treaty tied to a digital passport and digital ID system. Meeting in December 2021 in a special session for only the second time since the WHO’s founding in 1948, the Health Assembly of the WHO adopted a single decision titled, “The World Together.”

The WHO plans to finalize the treaty by 2024. It will aim to shift governing authority now reserved to sovereign states to the WHO during a pandemic by legally binding member states to the WHO’s revised International Health Regulations.

In January of 2022 the United States submitted proposed amendments to the 2005 International Health Regulations, which bind all 194 UN member states, which the WHO director-general accepted and forwarded to other member states. In contrast to amendments to our own constitution, these amendments will not require a two-thirds vote of our Senate, but a simple majority of the member states.

Most of the public is wholly unaware of these changes, which will impact the national sovereignty of member states.

The proposed amendments include, among others, the following. Among the changes the WHO will no longer need to consult with the state or attempt to obtain verification from the state where a reported event of concern (e.g., a new outbreak) is allegedly occurring before taking action on the basis of such reports (Article 9.1).

In addition to the authority to make the determination of a public health emergency of international concern under Article 12, the WHO will be granted additional powers to determine a public health emergency of regional concern, as well as a category referred to as an intermediate health alert.

The relevant state no longer needs to agree with the WHO Director General’s determination that an event constitutes a public health emergency of international concern. A new Emergency Committee will be constituted at the WHO, which the Director-General will consult in lieu of the state within whose territory the public health emergency of international concern has occurred, to declare the emergency over.

The amendments will also give “regional directors” within the WHO, rather than elected representatives of the relevant states, the legal authority to declare a Public Health Emergency of Regional Concern.

Also, when an event does not meet the criteria for a public health emergency of international concern but the WHO Director-General determines it requires heightened awareness and a potential international public health response, he may determine at any time to issue an “intermediate public health alert” to states and consult the WHO’s Emergency Committee. The criteria for this category are simple fiat: “the Director-General has determined it requires heightened international awareness and a potential international public health response.”

Through these amendments, the WHO, with the support of the U.S., appears to be responding to roadblocks that China erected in the early days of covid. This is a legitimate concern. But the net effect of the proposed amendments is a shift of power away from sovereign states, ours included, to unelected bureaucrats at the WHO. The thrust of every one of the changes is toward increased powers and centralized powers delegated to the WHO and away from member states.

Leslyn Lewis, a member of the Canadian parliament and lawyer with international experience, has warned that the treaty would also allow the WHO unilaterally to determine what constitutes a pandemic and declare when a pandemic is occurring. “We would end up with a one-size-fits-all approach for the entire world,” she cautioned. Under the proposed WHO plan, pandemics need not be limited to infectious diseases and could include, for example, a declared obesity crisis.

As part of this plan, the WHO has contracted German-based Deutsche Telekom subsidiary T-Systems to develop a global vaccine passport system, with plans to link every person on the planet to a QR code digital ID. “Vaccination certificates that are tamper-proof and digitally verifiable build trust. WHO is therefore supporting member states in building national and regional trust networks and verification technology,” explained Garret Mehl, head of the WHO’s Department of Digital Health and Innovation. “The WHO’s gateway service also serves as a bridge between regional systems. It can also be used as part of future vaccination campaigns and home-based records.”

This system will be universal, mandatory, trans-national, and operated by unelected bureaucrats in a captured NGO who already bungled the covid pandemic response.

*****

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

TAKE ACTION

America is now aware of the Department of Homeland Security’s new ‘Disinformation Governance Board’. DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas called disinformation a “threat” that needs to be addressed with federal law enforcement power. (Is it coincidental that Elon Musk will shortly take Twitter private and re-establish a free speech platform in America?)

This new DHS office is the Biden Speech Police and represents an existential threat to our First Amendment and our Republic. Please click the adjacent red TAKE ACTION link for the resources to inform your Senators and Representatives about this unconstitutional and tyrannical assault on American Free Speech and our fierce rejection of it.

Joe Biden and Anti-gun Democrats are Fueling Gun Sales, Says SAF thumbnail

Joe Biden and Anti-gun Democrats are Fueling Gun Sales, Says SAF

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By Editors at Second Amendment Foundation

In the aftermath of this week’s murderous rampage by a deranged killer inside an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, gun sales have reportedly “rocketed” and the Second Amendment Foundation said today that President Joe Biden and his Democrat colleagues in Congress have only themselves to blame.

“Whether he likes it or not, Joe Biden is largely responsible for this,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “When he went on national television to provide comfort to a grieving nation, and instead launched a tirade against law-abiding firearm owners and gun manufacturers, he only further divided the country and used the bully pulpit of the presidency to foment irrational fear and loathing of businesses and especially people who have absolutely no connection to the crime.

“In their bid to spread hysteria and hate,” he continued, “Biden and his fellow Democrat gun prohibitionists on Capitol Hill, led by Sen. Charles Schumer, have actually talked more people into buying more guns. Stock prices at Smith & Wesson and Sturm, Ruger & Company have reportedly spiked.

“If Biden and his gun prohibitionist pals are concerned there are too many guns in civilian hands,” he added, “they should lower their rhetoric and cut back on their attacks on our constitutional rights. The public realizes the importance of the Second Amendment, which guarantees we will have the tools to defend ourselves against the kinds of dangerous lunatics that liberal policies have allowed to roam free.”

Earlier this week, SAF and the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms issued a joint statement in reaction to the unspeakable attack at Robb Elementary in Uvalde.

“We are all Americans,” Gottlieb stated, “and we all are devastated by the psychopathic actions of an individual who had, it is now emerging, exhibited warning signs that appear to have been ignored. But Americans are not ignoring the warning signs from gun prohibitionists that they are about to accelerate their crusade against the Second Amendment.

“That’s why more people are rushing to gun shops,” he said. “There is no small irony in the fact that Biden, Schumer and their anti-gun colleagues are the driving force behind this sudden spike in gun sales. Joe Biden may go down in history as a better gun salesman than Barack Obama or Bill and Hillary Clinton, and that’s no small accomplishment. Biden may be remembered as the ‘Top Gun’ of retail firearm sales.”

*****

This article was published by the Second Amendment Foundation and is reproduced with permission.

TAKE ACTION

America is now aware of the Department of Homeland Security’s new ‘Disinformation Governance Board’. DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas called disinformation a “threat” that needs to be addressed with federal law enforcement power. (Is it coincidental that Elon Musk will shortly take Twitter private and re-establish a free speech platform in America?)

This new DHS office is the Biden Speech Police and represents an existential threat to our First Amendment and our Republic. Please click the adjacent red TAKE ACTION link for the resources to inform your Senators and Representatives about this unconstitutional and tyrannical assault on American Free Speech and our fierce rejection of it.

STAY INFORMED

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