The Other Thanksgiving Story thumbnail

The Other Thanksgiving Story

By Neland Nobel

It really is about being grateful, which is something too few of our spoiled citizens appreciate.  But since the holiday is being weaponized by “woke culture”, there are some other elements of the story to think about.

The short version, the way it is taught today, is that greedy Pilgrims landed in Plymouth Bay.  Half of the Pilgrims died from disease and starvation the first winter. Befriended by kind Indians, they barely survived and gave thanks to the Almighty.  Then, the Pilgrims went on to colonize the natives.  Today, one of the Indian tribes most closely associated with the Pilgrims regrets they gave them help.

Thus like Columbus Day, much of the meaning of Thanksgiving gets lost in the culture wars of today.  It has been turned into a story about the evils of colonizing and European culture, and an elevation of the indigenous to almost mythical levels.

It really is about being grateful, which is something too few of our spoiled citizens appreciate.  But since the holiday is being weaponized by “woke culture”, there are some other elements of the story to think about.

What are the sheer odds of things coming together the way they did?  If not a product of Devine Providence, the story is remarkable by the extremely low odds things could unfold the way they did.

One of the first is being blown off course and landing precisely at a spot where native people had been wiped out by a plague.  If one had to land in cold Massachusetts, they by chance found a good spot.  They found depopulated villages, mass graves, and a Wampanoag society devasted well before the Pilgrims arrived.  They did not seize native land, it was abandoned.

As to the help they received, the story of Squanto is remarkable just for its improbability.  Taken likely by English sailors fishing the region, he was sold into slavery, wound up in Spain, learned European languages, was befriended by religious monks, and remarkably then returned to his people who had been wiped out. He did not die in slavery, did not succumb to European diseases, and was likely one of the only English-speaking natives in the whole region.  And, he showed up just in the nick of time and preferred to live his life among the English until his death.  What are the odds of that?

His introduction was just as improbable.  Another Indian, who had learned some English named Samoset contacted the Pilgrims.  His first words were reported to be “do you have any beer”, a question that can be appreciated today as well.  It was through this colorful introduction that Squanto met the Pilgrims and helped them learn planting procedures.

Then there is the strategic alliance formed between the Wampanoag and the Pilgrims. 

The Indians of North America had not reached the level of sophistication of their fellow tribesmen in South America.  They did not have the wheel, work metals, a recorded language, or writing.  They were stone age people set on a collision course with a more technologically advanced “alien” civilization.  Wherever that occurred, in Mexico, Peru, New Zealand, or Australia, the outcome would not be good for the natives.

The leader of the Wampanoag, Massasoit, knew his plague-weakened tribe was in serious trouble.  But the threat was not the Pilgrims. An aggressive and more powerful tribe, the Narragansetts, would likely subjugate his people.  It was not uncommon among North American tribes to kill and torture their rivals, seize their land, enslave their women and children, and on occasion, eat them.

Lost by most is the diplomatic maneuvering that occurred.  Massasoit sought out the Pilgrims for a military alliance against another tribe.  The Pilgrims entered into a peace treaty with them.  The treaty provisions basically said that none of Massasoit’s men would harm the Pilgrims, and if they did, they would be sent to the Pilgrims for punishment and if anyone went to war with Massasoit, the Pilgrims and their flintlocks would come to their aid.  Does that sound like colonizing to you?

To be sure, unjust things to native Americans occurred later, but why blame the Pilgrims?

Further, several years later, Massasoit became gravely ill and went blind.  The Pilgrims were sent out to visit him and were told he was dead.

But, they found Massasoit alive but near death, and one Edward Winslow gave him medicine, scraped his throat, and gave him chicken soup (no kidding). The chief regained his eyesight, began to eat once again, and recovered.  

Grateful for the care, Massasoit revealed a plot by other Indians to wipe out the Pilgrims.  Armed with this vital intelligence, Miles Standish, with the help of Massasoit’s men, defeated the plot before it could materialize.  Massasoit remained a friend of the Pilgrims until his death. Does that sound like colonizing to you?

What are the odds that the primitive medicine practiced by the Pilgrims could work such miracles on Massasoit, and that he in turn would reveal a plot by other Indians to destroy the Pilgrims?

Isn’t it interesting that those today who hate the idea of migrants from Europe landing in North America are the ones in favor of migrants displacing the people in Texas and Arizona?

And as to the Indian leaders today who take to the Washington Post to voice their regrets about helping the Pilgrims, both the Post and the Indian leaders are guilty of “presentism”, or view all historical events through the prism of today’s woke ideology.

Both sides cooperated with each other for good reason.  They needed each other for survival. It might not be too much to say that descendants today of the Wampanoag might not be around to criticize the Pilgrims were it not for the alliance formed between Massasoit and the Europeans.

Finally, in the diary of William Bradford, we learn about another challenge the Pilgrims beat.  This is one of their own makings.  It was socialism.

At first, all production was to be shared, regardless of one’s effort.  Individuals farmed collective land.  As a result, production dropped and starvation stalked the land.  There was no incentive to work.  Basically, it was “universal basic income”. Bradford reversed course, allowing private plots and making individuals responsible for themselves.  The Pilgrims were not only saved by Squanto, but by capitalism.

So there is a lot of interesting history in the back story to Thanksgiving to reflect upon if you can get through the distortions so frequently pedaled today.  Even the nature of history itself is a subject of the Thanksgiving experience.  It is said that history is written by the victors.  Today, it is written by the victors on behalf of the losers. 

The Pilgrims put much of their history down in writing.  The natives used oral history.  The quality of the two is not equivalent.  It is hard enough to get the facts straight and interpreted fairly from original written documents. But oral history has no objective tether to the facts.  Just listening to the yarns of relatives should prove that to you.  Ever notice how events you were party to get changed over the years, embellished sometimes beyond recognition?

Try to have an accurate depiction of events passed on down from 400 years ago.  It is just not possible.  This truth is likely painful to those that revere “oral history.”

No, the Pilgrims were not perfect, but they were not devils either.  The treaty with the Wampanoag, initiated by Massasoit is evidence of that, as was their medical care of him.

It is not a good thing for a nation to have every element of its history turned into an evil crime.  A strong civilization should be able to critique itself, but constant exaggeration and selective negative history can undermine belief in one’s country and civilization.  Why defend it, if that is the case?

A nation’s history is not solely defined by its shortcomings, nor is its destiny. The Pilgrims conducted themselves pretty well given the time in which they lived.

Those who want to undermine America use distortions of history for their own purposes.

Thanksgiving is actually a remarkable and improbable story.  It either was divine intervention or one of the most implausible sets of circumstances one can imagine.

Those actually participating in the events were religious and saw their salvation in religious terms.  Their survival hung on a miraculous set of events.

Today, we can look back at the development of a wonderful country that has its warts to be sure, but still remains a beacon to those who want to find a better life.

We have not been wiped out by war, disease, socialism, or starvation.  Lots of people have had that fate.  We haven’t.  Be thankful for that.

Facebook Works to Deliver Us From Truth thumbnail

Facebook Works to Deliver Us From Truth

By Thorsteinn Siglaugsson

This morning, a friend published a short post on Facebook, drawing attention to how it seemed to him the company was not even bothering any more to refer to the so-called “independent fact-checkers” to justify their censorship. He had re-posted a clip where Fox reporter Tucker Carlson discussed the negative effectiveness of the Covid-19 vaccines, referring to peer-reviewed studies. The clip is available here.

No reference to the twenty-something undergrads at the censorship agencies, just this label:

How on earth can peer-reviewed results constitute “misinformation”? The peer review process isn’t perfect, far from it, but after all it is the accepted standard. The first conclusion therefore is that the word “misinformation” does not refer to misinformation any more, it simply refers to any information the censor wants suppressed. The word has become meaningless.

The action, then, is suppression of a certain kind of information, but what about the reason? The reason for suppressing uncomfortable information about Covid-19 vaccines is that seeing this information may “make some people feel unsafe”. What does this mean precisely?

There are at least two possibilities, and here I’m talking only about those who believe in the narrative. The first is that people may feel unsafe seeing evidence that contradicts what they’ve been told by the authorities, the mainstream media and the social media giants; the “safe and effective” mantra. Watching Tucker Carlson’s review of the evidence might make people feel unsafe, uncertain, sceptical towards the propaganda relentlessly pushed towards them; this is what happens when you discover you’ve been deceived by someone you trusted. You feel unsafe for you don’t know who to trust any more.

Secondly, people may feel unsafe because their worldview is being threatened, while they still cling to it with all their might. They still believe the lies; they have no doubts, but discovering how some other people do not share their view of the world makes them frightened. Perhaps they’ve taken part in ostracising others, ridiculing them, wishing them harm, fearing for themselves if the truth comes out. Perhaps they suspect, deep down, that they are being deceived, but fear the consequences of the full realisation.

They may even have been so thoroughly brainwashed that they actually believe young and healthy people, an age-group with a demonstrated Covid mortality rate on par with the flu, will drop like flies in case they get infected, like this unfortunate young woman, willing to risk her life to protect her ill-advised belief.

Notice the wording in Facebook’s label. It does not say the alleged “misinformation” will make people unsafe, it says it will make them feel unsafe. When your view of the world is threatened you may certainly feel unsafe, but that doesn’t mean you are any less safe than you were before.

If someone points out to you the bridge you cross every day, and have been assured is well built and robust, is rusting away and may collapse any day, you may feel unsafe in the way you will doubt some other things you’ve been led to believe by the same people who assured you of the safety of the bridge, but avoiding that bridge will surely make you safer in the future.

If you find out that a medication you’ve been led to believe is safe and effective actually isn’t, you may feel unsafe in the same way. But avoiding that medication will surely make you safer in the future.

Having to think may make you feel unsafe, but it will not make you unsafe. A true belief is the result of thinking; to arrive at the truth we must have all the relevant information we can come by, evaluate it and in the end come to an informed conclusion. It may not hold forever, new evidence may present itself, we may have to reconsider our conclusion.

This is the essence of science, the prerequisite of progress, and also the prequisite of making the best and safest decisions for ourselves.

Facebook’s aim is not to make their users safe. Their aim is to make them feel they are safe, to prevent them from discovering challenging information, prevent them from thinking. They are the apostles of a new god, and his followers do not ask him to deliver them from evil, they ask him to deliver them from truth.

*****

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

As Murders Soar, FBI Buries the Data thumbnail

As Murders Soar, FBI Buries the Data

By James D. Agresti

Overview

Based on a misunderstanding of new FBI data, NewsNation is reporting that 14,677 murders occurred in the U.S. during 2021, a supposedly large decline from 2020. In reality, that figure is far from complete, and comprehensive records from death certificates show that about 24,493 people were murdered in 2021. This is about:


  • 1,000 more murders than in 2020.
  • 6,000 more murders than in 2019.
  • 10,000 more murders than NewsNation reported.

Murders have become so common over the past two years that if the murder rate remains at the 2021 level, one out of every 179 people in the U.S. will eventually be murdered. Yet, certain politicians and media outlets are downplaying this bloodshed, while others are blaming it on Covid—a claim at odds with the facts.

A major source of confusion about this issue is the FBI, which is releasing fragmentary and inaccessible data on murders and other crimes. The FBI is part of the U.S. Department of Justice, which is under the authority of President Biden.

Burying Crime Data

In 2021, the year Joe Biden became president, the FBI began making it far more difficult to access national estimates of murders and other crimes. The agency did this by dramatically changing the manner in which it reports such data.

Every year for more than eight decades, the FBI has published a report titled “Crime in the United States” which contains national crime estimates for the previous year. Before 2021, the FBI published this report with a simple overview page containing links like “Violent Crime,” “Property Crime,” and “Homicide.” These led to webpages with clear summaries and straightforward datasets for such crimes.

Since 2021, the FBI has published those reports only via a “Crime Data Explorer” which contains a maze of vaguely worded links, drop down menus, and acronyms. To locate the FBI’s estimate of murders for 2021 with this system, readers must:

  • go to the Crime Data Explorer home page and scroll past three prominent links named “Crime Data Explorer,” “Law Enforcement Explorer,” and “Documents and Downloads” which lead to webpages with scores of menus and files that don’t contain the data.
  • scroll to a section of the webpage titled “Explore by Location and Dataset: State participation depicts current year.”
  • click on a dropdown menu under a header named “Dataset” and select the menu item that says “NIBRS Estimation Data,” which leads to another webpage.
  • scroll to a section of the webpage called “NIBRS Estimation Viewer” and read the report that contains the data via a file viewer that sometimes fails to display the report or click on a link that says “Download NIBRS Trend Analysis Report.”

Nevertheless, the FBI claims that its Crime Data Explorer enables “law enforcement and the general public to more easily use and understand the massive amounts” of crime data it collects. Belying that statement, Google shows that only five news outlets have reported the fact that the FBI’s 2021 estimate for murders ranges from 21,300 to 24,600. Moreover, two of the outlets obtained these figures from two of the other outlets, not from the FBI. The sole place where the FBI reveals these figures is in the above-mentioned buried report.

So where did NewsNation obtain the much lower figure of 14,677 murders in 2021? From an easy-to-access webpage on the FBI’s Crime Data Explorer. Specifically, NewsNation linked to a page that can be accessed by clicking the first prominent link on the home page of the Crime Data Explorer and then clicking on “Expanded Homicide Data.” This leads to a webpage with a chart showing 14,677 murders in 2021, a large decline from 2020, just as NewsNation reported:

The FBI’s webpage contains two notes above the chart indicating that it shows incomplete data, but these caveats may not have been direct enough for NewsNation to fully grasp them:

  • “In 2021, the FBI expanded homicide crime statistics for the nation are based on 11,794 of 18,806 law enforcement agencies in the country that year who elected to submit an expanded homicide report.”
  • “2021 Expanded Homicide Data includes fewer homicides due to an overall decrease in participation from agencies that are not yet reporting via NIBRS.”

The fact that this incomplete data can be accessed so easily may have also led NewsNation to assume it was complete.

Supposedly, “No One Knows”

Compounding the confusion, the FBI switched to a new crime measurement system in 2021 which is leading journalists to report that there is no way to know if murders increased from 2020 to 2021. This new system is reliant upon electronic submissions from local and state law enforcement agencies, and many of them are not using it yet.

Non-reporting agencies cover 35% of the U.S. population, including the nation’s largest cities—New York and Los Angeles. Thus, the FBI explains that its crime estimates for 2021 are based on a “complex estimation process to account for unreported data” to “bridge this gap.”

That is why the FBI’s murder estimate for 2021 ranges from 21,300 to 24,600, an enormous uncertainty of 3,300 murders. Without quantifying this margin of error, the FBI issued a press release in October 2022 that provides a mid-point estimate for murders near the bottom of the release. There, the FBI states that:

  • “the estimated number of murders increased from 22,000 in 2020 to 22,900 in 2021.”
  • “it is important to note that these estimated trends are not considered statistically significant” by the FBI’s “estimation methods.”
  • “the nonsignificant nature of the observed trends is why, despite these described changes, the overall message is that crime remained consistent.”
  • “the complete analysis is located on the UCR’s Crime Data Explorer.”

The FBI published a similarly worded crime summary in the same month, buried in an accordion menu of its Crime Data Explorer.

As a result of this uncertainty, news outlets that have managed to find the FBI’s homicide estimates for 2021 have made statements like these:

  • “Good luck figuring out what happened with crime in 2021.” Vox
  • “Did Murders Rise in 2021? No One Knows.” Reason

In reality, however, we do know that murders rose because there is a more reliable source for this data than the FBI.

Murder Data and Trends

The broadest measure of homicides in the U.S. is death certificates, which are commonly completed by medical examiners or coroners. As explained by the Department of Justice in a 2014 report, death certificates provide “more accurate homicide trends at the national level than” FBI data because:

  • the reporting of death certificates is “mandatory,” while the FBI relies on “voluntary” reports “from individual law enforcement agencies that are compiled monthly by state-level agencies.”
  • death certificates include homicides that “occur in federal jurisdictions,” while the FBI rarely counts “homicides occurring in federal prisons, on military bases, and on Indian reservations.”
  • death certificates include homicides caused by the deliberate “crashing of a motor vehicle, but this category generally accounts for less than 100 deaths per year.”

The report concludes that the death certificates “consistently” show “a higher number and rate of homicides in the United States compared” to the FBI data, “likely due to the differences in coverage and scope and the voluntary versus mandatory nature of the data collection as described above.”

The FBI tries to account for incomplete coverage by estimating the number of murders that aren’t reported to the FBI, but over the past decades, this process has yielded about 1,500–2,700 less murders per year than homicides listed on death certificates:

On the other hand, death certificates tend to overcount murders because they include justifiable homicides by civilians acting in self-defense, which are not murders. Such cases amounted to about 2.5% of homicides in 2015–2019.

Death certificates also include some justifiable homicides by police, even though these are supposed to be coded as “legal intervention deaths,” not as homicides. A study of 16 states during 2005–2012 suggests that such miscoded cases accounted for roughly 1.7% of homicides.

If the two rates above are currently applicable to the nation as a whole, the actual number of murders is about 4.2% less than the number of homicides recorded on death certificates.

Homicide counts from death certificates are published by the CDC via two online data extraction portals. Both of these report 24,576 homicides in 2020, but they don’t yet present data for 2021. However, another CDC portal provides provisional homicide rates through 2021, reporting 7.5 homicides per 100,000 people in 2020 and 7.8 in 2021. Combining these three figures yields 25,559 homicides in 2021.

Removing justifiable homicides to obtain an estimate of actual murders, about 24,493 people were murdered in 2021. This is about 1,000 more murders than in 2020, a 5% increase on top of a 28% increase the year before that.

To provide a sense of scale for this bloodshed, one out of every 179 people in the U.S. will eventually be slain if murders remain at the same rate as 2021.

Even in previous years when murders were much less common, the lifetime likelihood of murder was so shocking to some people that they sent repeated emails to Just Facts insisting it was wrong. Yet, the methodology used by Just Facts to compute this figure was developed by a licensed actuary, double-checked by a Ph.D. mathematician, and triple-checked by a Ph.D. biostatistician.

In other words, the numbers are correct, but some people’s perception of the problem is disconnected from reality. Beyond NewsNation, others who have recently downplayed the severity of crime in the U.S. include but are not limited to President Biden, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Joy Behar of ABC’s The View, and the New York Times (Hat Tip: Tim Graham).

All of those individuals and organizations are proponents of the notion that the U.S. doesn’t have a severe crime problem but is simply too hard on crime. Hence, they argue that reducing arrests, eliminating bail, and lessening jail terms will make America more just without making it less safe.

That agenda has been rapidly advanced by the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement since the death of George Floyd in May 2020, and murders have soared. In 2021, the U.S. murder rate was even worse than in 2001 when America was attacked by terrorists who slaughtered 2,977 people:

Historical FBI data that stretches back to 1960 shows that the current murder rate is still far below the U.S. murder peak of 1980. Still, the rapid increases since 2019 translate to 11,000 more lost lives, including 5,000 more in 2020 and 6,000 more in 2021.

Because correlation does not prove causation, one cannot assume the BLM movement is the cause of these increased murders. However, other facts detailed below reveal that this is a distinct possibility—and far more likely than the common journalistic explanations for this carnage.

What’s Causing The Bloodshed?

Many media outlets have implied or explicitly reported that the massive increase in murders over the past two years is largely due to the Covid-19 pandemic. A small sample includes the New York Times, Politico, Axios, CBS News, and CNN. This claim, however, is at odds with two key facts.

First, it is based on the childish notion that correlation proves causation, a fallacy that high schoolers are taught to avoid. This is because the occurrence of two events in the same year can be a mere coincidence or caused by numerous other factors. A failure to recognize this reality is a common feature of junk science and political propaganda. In the words of an academic textbook about analyzing data:

Association is not the same as causation. This issue is a persistent problem in empirical analysis in the social sciences. Often the investigator will plot two variables and use the tight relationship obtained to draw absolutely ridiculous or completely erroneous conclusions. Because we so often confuse association and causation, it is extremely easy to be convinced that a tight relationship between two variables means that one is causing the other. This is simply not true.

Second, there isn’t even a correlation between the Covid-19 pandemic and murders. This is evidenced by:

  • a study in the journal Crime Science, which found that despite over one million reported Covid cases and 80,000 Covid-related deaths in the U.S. during the first two months of the pandemic, “there were no significant changes in the frequency of serious assaults in public” or “serious assaults in residences.”
  • murder rates in England, which actually declined in 2020 and 2021, even though the nation is demographically similar to the U.S. and had slightly higher Covid death rates throughout this period.
  • a study published by the University of California Press, which documents that the recent rise of murders does not accord chronologically or geographically with the onset of the pandemic.

In stark contrast, the same study found that the timing of the 2020 murder surge in multiple major U.S. cities can be pinpointed to “the death of George Floyd” and the “subsequent antipolice protests,” which “likely led to declines in law enforcement.” Floyd died on May 25, 2020, but the pandemic began more than two months earlier on March 11.

The study’s author, criminal law professor Paul G. Cassell, summarizes the evidence as follows:

  • “Social science research can rarely provide unequivocal answers to complex criminal justice issues,” but “my view is that the best available evidence points to de-policing as the dominant (but not necessarily exclusive) factor in the ongoing surge in gun violence.”
  • “While these estimates are stated in the cold precision of an economic calculation, it must be remembered that behind these grim numbers lies a tremendous toll in human suffering—lives lost, futures destroyed, and families left grieving.”

Similar results have been found by other studies which have examined murder increases in the wake of analogous events like the protests and riots that occurred over the police killing of Michael Brown in 2015.

One of the most telling of these studies was conducted by Ph.D. sociologist Richard Rosenfeld, former president of the American Society of Criminology. An article in The Guardian explains the implications:

For nearly a year, Richard Rosenfeld’s research on crime trends has been used to debunk the existence of a “Ferguson effect,” a suggested link between protests over police killings of black Americans and an increase in crime and murder. Now, the St. Louis criminologist says, a deeper analysis of the increase in homicides in 2015 has convinced him that “some version” of the Ferguson effect may be real.

Looking at data from 56 large cities across the country, Rosenfeld found a 17% increase in homicide in 2015. Much of that increase came from only 10 cities, which saw an average 33% increase in homicide. …

“The only explanation that gets the timing right is a version of the Ferguson effect,” Rosenfeld said. Now, he said, that’s his “leading hypothesis.”

Another common explanation for the murder increase is recent rises in gun sales, but this notion doesn’t hold water. Cassel’s study examined this possibility and found that the increases in firearm purchases don’t accord with the murder surges in time or place. He also notes that:

the United States already has a huge number of firearms in private hands—about 400 million by some measures. Against this backdrop, a recent increase of 2 million gun sales (about 0.5% of the total) seems like a poor candidate for explaining sudden and dramatic changes in homicides.

Summary

Murders in the United States have soared by 34% over the past few years—growing from about 18,342 victims in 2019 to 24,493 in 2021. Yet, certain Democratic politicians and media outlets are downplaying this problem.

If the murder rate remains at the 2021 level, one out of every 179 people in the U.S. will eventually be murdered.

As murders have skyrocketed, the FBI has made it far more difficult to access its national estimates of murders and other crimes. The FBI has also switched to a new crime measurement system which currently has a large degree of uncertainty. As such, FBI data cannot resolve whether murders rose or fell from 2020 to 2021.

For decades, the FBI has undercounted murders, while death certificates have overcounted them. Starting with data from death certificates and removing justifiable homicides provides a more reliable estimate of murders.

Identifying the cause (or causes) of the recent rise in murders is complicated by the fact that correlation does not prove causation. Paying no heed to this reality, many media outlets have pinned the blame on Covid-19 and gun sales. However, the data are more consistent with the possibility that the BLM movement is responsible.

*****

This article was published by Just Facts and is reproduced with permission.

TAKE ACTION

How Not to Vote in Arizona

Election Day is tomorrow – Tuesday, November 8th. The system for voting in Arizona is predominantly by mail-in ballots (around 80% of all ballots – 90% in Maricopa County).

If you have not submitted your mail-in ballot yet, DO NOT MAIL IT IN OR ‘DROP IT OFF’  ON TUESDAY AT YOUR POLLING STATION. It won’t be counted on Tuesday and may not be counted for many days or at all. 

If you have failed to ‘mail-in’ your ballot yet, surrender the ballot at the polling station on Tuesday, show your driver’s license and actually fill out a new ballot and vote in person. Your vote will be tabulated and counted for the evening announcement of election results.

Demand They Strike Their Colors thumbnail

Demand They Strike Their Colors

By Michael Watson

Emily Oster, an economics professor at Brown University, caused a stir with an opinion piece in The Atlantic, the venerable magazine now owned by liberal mega-donor Laurene Powell Jobs through her Emerson Collective. In it, Oster called for a “pandemic amnesty” for those who encouraged ultimately pointless intrusions on life amid COVID-19.

This was seized upon by one of the worst actors of the crisis, American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten, with a simple Twitter statement: “I agree.” To those who endured the school closures in states institutionally loyal to Weingarten and her fellow teachers’ unionists, this is like seeing a warship’s ensign flying: a sign that the adversary, whatever the reality of the situation, does not believe itself defeated.

In Denial

First, one must remember Weingarten has attempted to obscure her role in extended school closures, which are increasingly proven to have been utterly destructive to American students. Weingarten has affirmed that she and her union “wanted kids in school,” a claim that is “true” only in the most technical sense and contrary to the reality that teachers unions lobbied the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to issue the most restrictive “reopening” guidance possible. It is also inconsistent with the reality in states most loyal to the teachers union agenda, which saw the most extended closures long beyond the point at which a reasonable person could assume them to be necessary for public health.

Second, one looks with concern upon teachers unionists’ unwillingness to admit the costs of school closures. Consistent with her support for “amnesty,” Weingarten has attempted to deflect criticism of school closures by claiming that all students, in-person and remote alike, suffered learning loss. Unless those who discouraged school openings acknowledge the harm done by the policy, it remains “on the table” if the political winds shift again. And then there are those in Weingarten’s AFT who are more openly radical, like United Teachers Los Angeles president Cecily Mayart-Cruz, who told a journalist in 2021, “It’s OK that our babies may not have learned all their times tables” in response to questions about Los Angeles’s school closures. That does not sound like a leader prepared to accept responsibility for her atrocious public policy demands.

No Surrender

Finally, one must ask if the ultra-restrictionists to whom Oster would give amnesty have in fact struck their colors and ended hostile action. Bethany Mandel—the conservative writer and children’s book editor who was famously tarred as “grandma killer” for advocating the reopening the National Zoo in Washington, DC, among other things—notes,

Even now, at the end of 2022, children who are speech-delayed—thanks to being surrounded by masked caregivers during a critical developmental stage—are, in some areas, expected to do speech therapy while wearing a mask, with a masked therapist.

Like the crew of a stricken warship that “has not yet begun to fight,” the forces of pandemic theater have not demonstrated surrender. They are suing in courts to retain their powers to force masking and even proposing new federal pandemic powers, with blame only for the supposed “tsunami of misinformation” that led “rural and conservative areas” to doubt their diktats. (For her part Mandel was proved prescient. The Friends of the National Zoo, a private nonprofit that had supported programming at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo since 1958, dissolved its partnership with the Zoo “following the debilitating financial impact of COVID-19 on both organizations” in 2021.)

There cannot be amnesty; there cannot be ceasefire, in the COVID-19 response debate until the side that engaged in hostile actions ceases those actions and gives up. Oster is in no position to offer such surrender: By the standards of her professional managerial class, she was remarkably lenient, advocating for school reopenings before they became politically necessary. The side that followed the teachers unions’ demands must strike its flag and vow never to carry out hostile action again.

Until then, alas, the fight continues.

****

This article was published by Capital Research Center and is reproduced with permission.

TAKE ACTION

How Not to Vote in Arizona

Election Day is tomorrow – Tuesday, November 8th. The system for voting in Arizona is predominantly by mail-in ballots (around 80% of all ballots – 90% in Maricopa County).

If you have not submitted your mail-in ballot yet, DO NOT MAIL IT IN OR ‘DROP IT OFF’  ON TUESDAY AT YOUR POLLING STATION. It won’t be counted on Tuesday and may not be counted for many days or at all. 

If you have failed to ‘mail-in’ your ballot yet, surrender the ballot at the polling station on Tuesday, show your driver’s license and actually fill out a new ballot and vote in person. Your vote will be tabulated and counted for the evening announcement of election results.

We Must Have Accountability thumbnail

We Must Have Accountability

By Editorial Staff

By Justin Hart / Brownstone Institute

The failures and harms from our pandemic public policies are legion!

Fauci-endorsed lockdowns were ineffective (and damaging!); risks from COVID-19 are not uniform for the entire population but directly aligned to your age; the mortality impact on children is almost immeasurable but we burdened them with mandates and school closures; mask mandates have shown zero impact on quelling the spread of the virus; denied by Fauci and Co., natural immunity offers strong protection; and vaccines (designed for a 2-year-old variant) have proven ineffectual at stopping the current crop of feared COVID variants.

Dr. Fauci and his cadre of unelected health officials were on the wrong side of every one of these outcomes. They were made aware of every data point above but their one-size-fits-all policies have not changed in the face of the evidence. In their minds, there is only the panic.

Recently, Professor Emily Oster of Brown University, admits in a recent article that interventions like social distancing “were totally misguided” but begs for amnesty for the serious damage wrought by health overlords like Dr. Fauci.

*****

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

Photo credit: DonkeyHotey

TAKE ACTION

How Not to Vote in Arizona

Election Day is tomorrow – Tuesday, November 8th. The system for voting in Arizona is predominantly by mail-in ballots (around 80% of all ballots – 90% in Maricopa County).

If you have not submitted your mail-in ballot yet, DO NOT MAIL IT IN OR ‘DROP IT OFF’  ON TUESDAY AT YOUR POLLING STATION. It won’t be counted on Tuesday and may not be counted for many days or at all. 

If you have failed to ‘mail-in’ your ballot yet, surrender the ballot at the polling station on Tuesday, show your driver’s license and actually fill out a new ballot and vote in person. Your vote will be tabulated and counted for the evening announcement of election results.

Victor’s Endorsement of Masters Shows GOP is the Best Chance for Liberty thumbnail

Victor’s Endorsement of Masters Shows GOP is the Best Chance for Liberty

By Ryne Bolick

On the first day of November, Libertarian candidate Marc Victor announced his withdrawal from the race for U.S. Senate in Arizona. This was not all that he announced. Victor also announced his endorsement of Republican candidate Blake Masters. This shows that the Republican Party is the best vehicle for liberty-minded individuals to enact change.

Prior to the announcement, Blake Masters and Marc Victor had an open discussion and exchange of ideas that was recorded and included in Victor’s endorsement video. Victor opens the discussion with Masters by saying he was impressed with the Republican candidate’s recent appearance on Ron Paul’s podcast.

The discussion touched on a variety of issues, including foreign policy, the non-aggression principle, economic issues, taxes, COVID shutdowns, education, the federal reserve, energy, guns, immigration, social security, abortion, the separation of church and state, medical freedom, drug policy, and marriage.

Foreign policy

The libertarian view on foreign policy has traditionally found more common ground with the left. However, in recent years, prominent figures in the Republican Party have challenged the GOP’s pro-intervention reputation. The Democrat and Republican parties are even showing signs of trading platforms on foreign policy, and this grows more apparent with Biden’s criticism of some Republicans’ reluctance to send aid to Ukraine.

The shift of the Democrat Party toward a pro-intervention platform is also apparent in former Congresswoman and 2020 presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard’s withdrawal from the Democratic Party. She was one of Congress’ most vocal critics of interventionist foreign policy. Tulsi Gabbard has since endorsed Kari Lake and Blake Masters, further showing that liberty lovers on both sides of the aisle can find sanctuary in the GOP.

In Victor’s video with Masters, the two agreed on foreign policy.

“I have been a long critic of U.S. interventionism and some of these formerly forever wars”, said Masters. He went on to criticize current lawmakers saying, “The foreign policy block in D.C., they’re always itching to intervene.”

Masters acknowledged their common ground saying, “You and I agree about having a strong military, but the goal is defense.”

COVID shutdowns and mandates

Libertarians are always skeptical of government intervention in private business; but during the COVID-19 pandemic, Republicans were the strongest critics of COVID shutdowns and mandates. Meanwhile, Democrats did little to speak out against authoritarian government overreach.

Little discussion was needed for Victor and Masters to know they were on the same page regarding mandates. They both agreed the shutdown of private businesses was unconstitutional.

Education

Libertarians reject nearly all federal funding, and that includes education.

Victor asked Masters if they were on the same page regarding the separation of school and state; and Blake Masters confirmed their common vision and went on to say we need to further separate government and schools, “starting with getting rid of the federal Department of Education.”

Both additionally rejected the federal funding of student loans.

Immigration

Immigration is the one issue mentioned during this discussion in which the respective stances from the Republican and Libertarian party platforms are most distant. Some more extreme libertarians advocate for open borders; whereas border security is a hot topic within the Republican party.

Nevertheless, the two again found much common ground.

The two mostly agreed on a need to reduce the welfare state associated with our current immigration system and to have a secure border, but still allow good people into our country. Masters said, “[we should] attract the world’s best and the brightest; and stop the Mexican drug cartels from selling people into slavery in our own country.”

Abortion

The libertarian philosophy regarding abortion is complex, but boils down to little government intervention.

While government intervention characterized by libertarians may include Republican legislation that hinders abortion access; libertarians can agree with Republicans that abortions should not be funded by taxpayers. Victor and Masters agreed that there should be no taxpayer-funded abortions.

Both Victor and Masters agreed overturning Roe v. Wade was the right thing since it returned decision-making on abortion back to the states.

Masters’ stance reflects a broader notion that when the federal government does not need to step in, it should not step in. Issues such as these should be kicked out to state governments to make decisions more reflective of local beliefs supporting the federalist system of governance intended by our founding fathers.

Liberty’s place in the GOP

Victor and Masters wrapped up their discussion by discussing libertarian philosophy. Masters said he largely agrees with the theory of libertarianism, but he disagrees with libertarianism on the grounds that he believes we need to fight back against left-wing (or right-wing) authoritarianism.

The key takeaway of Masters’ discussion with Victor is that Masters will be an advocate for liberty in the U.S. Senate. It is apparent that the two share a liberty-oriented philosophy on a variety of issues where they share common ground. Without Victor in the Senate race, there is still an advocate for liberty, and for this reason, Victor was comfortable withdrawing from the race.

As Ronald Reagan said, “The person who agrees with you 80 percent of the time is a friend and an ally – not a 20 percent traitor.”

Masters represents at least 80 percent of the views of those passionate about liberty, such as Victor or myself; so we can count on Masters to be an ally for liberty.

While the party is not without fault, the GOP continues to be the best vehicle for liberty.

*****

This article was published by Western Tribune and is reproduced with permission.

TAKE ACTION

How Not to Vote in Arizona

The 2022 midterm election is fast approaching. The system for voting in Arizona is predominantly by mail-in ballots (around 80% of all ballots). On October 12th, he ballots were mailed to all voters registered for mail-in voting in the 2022 midterm elections. ‘Election day’ is next Tuesday November 8.

Once upon a time when all voters went to the polls on the day of election, the tabulated results were announced the night of the election date. If the result of a specific race was razor thin and less than a legislated margin, a recount might prevent the naming of a winner. That was the exception for calling the results of the election.

It is still this way in most first world countries but not the United States and certainly not Arizona. Voting rules (some unconstitutional) were dramatically altered in many states in 2020 because of the Covid pandemic.

We at The Prickly Pear are very concerned about the flaws in Arizona’s predominant ‘mail-in’ voting system.

Please click on the red TAKE ACTION link below to learn How Not to Vote in Arizona as a mail-in ballot voter and to be certain your vote is included in the count the evening of November 8th.

White and Woke Supremacy thumbnail

White and Woke Supremacy

By Craig J. Cantoni

The forgotten white supremacists whose descendants pretend to be woke and virtuous.   

Below are vile, racist comments spoken by white supremacists about minorities. The supremacists and minorities will be identified after the comments.

These races have “crooked faces, coarse mouths, bad noses, heavy jaws, and low foreheads.”

They “lack the conveniences for thinking” and are “a degenerate class.”

They are “uncleanly, intemperate, quarrelsome, ignorant, and hard on women and children.”

The distinctive shape of their nose arises from “the habitual use of the quadratus muscle, the muscle of disgust, contempt, and disdain, which lead to scorn, acknowledging guilt.”

They are “vast masses of filth.”

We are imperiled by “multitudes of men of the lowest class, men out of the ranks where there was neither skill nor energy, nor any initiative of quick intelligence.”

The “hirsute, low-browed, big-faced persons of low mentality clearly belong in skins, in wattled huts at the close of the Great Ice Age.”

Note: The source of the above and much of what follows is the outstanding book, The Guarded Gate, by Daniel Okrent.

Clearly, the foregoing disgusting comments were said by Southern rednecks and right-wing extremists. Just as clearly, they were said about African Americans, Chinese Americans, Mexican Americans, and other minorities of color. And they were spoken in the dark recesses of the internet.

Wrong, wrong, wrong!

The comments were uttered in the early twentieth century and beyond by New England intellectuals, academics, politicians, and other members of high society—all of whom were white Anglo-Saxon Protestants, most of whom were progressives, and many of whom claimed that their lineage went back to the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

The comments were about Jews, Catholics, eastern Europeans, and southern Europeans, especially Italians—all of whom were seen as non-white and genetically inferior.

Such comments were published and/or praised by leading publications and universities. The publications included the Atlantic Monthly, the New York Times, the New York Times Book Review, the Saturday Evening Post, Good Housekeeping, Ladies Home Journal, and the American Economic Review. The universities included Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, Northwestern, and Carnegie Mellon. Even the American Museum of Natural History joined the bandwagon.

Leading politicians and influencers also agreed with the sentiments, including Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Henry Cabot Lodge, Eleanor Roosevelt, Margaret Sanger, Charles Scribner of publishing fame, and J.H. Kellogg of cereal fame. Others included Walter Lippmann, the famous journalist and founder of the New Republic; and Mary Harriman, the wealthiest woman in America, who had inherited her wealth from her father, E.H. Harriman, the baron of the Union Pacific and Southern Pacific Railroads.

Supremacist thinking was especially rife in the early decades of the twentieth century but also extended into later decades. For example, Look Magazine, which was a popular and widely circulated periodical, wrote that baseball great Joe DiMaggio was not a typical Italian, in that he didn’t reek of garlic and put bear grease on his hair. Another baseball great, Yogi Berra, was compared to an ape in appearance.

Incidentally, my dad and uncle grew up with Yogi in the Italian section of St. Louis, which was known as Dago Hill when I was a kid.

Return to the early twentieth century, the Breeders Association was an influential organization at the time. Its mission was not to breed better dogs but to breed better people—namely, people who were like WASPs and not people who were like Jews, Poles, Hungarians, Italians, Greeks, and so on. The organization dovetailed with the eugenics movement.

This was white supremacy for sure, or more accurately, WASP supremacy.

Another WASP supremacist was Madison Grant, the author of a popular book, The Passing of the Great Race. The book’s theme was that Americans of Nordic blood were being overrun by the “barbaric blood” of non-Nordics.

The San Francisco Chronicle said that Grant was “a thoroughly qualified ethnologist.” The Nation editorialized that his book gave “a historical concept of truths of racial evolution which as a whole is unanswerable.” The New York Times featured the book over two pages of its Sunday magazine. The National Research Council honored Grant with an appointment to its Anthropology Committee, and he was lauded by the Association for the Advancement of Science.

Another book of the same genre was Applied Eugenics, which became a leading textbook that went through four printings in six years. Its authors, diehard progressives, wrote that suitable eugenic material couldn’t be found in the “fecund stocks” of people marked by “illiteracy, squalor and tuberculosis, their high death rates, their economic straits.”

The epitome of white supremacy was William Earl Dodge, a Manhattanite, heir to three large fortunes, and breeder of horses. He authored the book, The Right to Be Well Born, which, among other supremacist themes, contended that the lower classes should have their own registry, like Clydesdales, so that potential mates could see where each other ranked on a eugenics scale.

Today, many of the descendants of the foregoing white supremacists are no doubt privileged, progressive, and well-off, having used their inherited advantages to become leaders in business, academia, the arts, and government. They are also probably woke, due to knowing their ancestral history and feeling guilty about it. As such, they embrace critical race theory, diversity and inclusion initiatives for non-whites, as well as reeducation workshops in which white students and white corporate employees are forced to confront their privilege and subconscious racism—inanities that don’t affect the privileged progeny of white supremacists, because, from their lofty heights, they are above the fray.

It’s a double travesty that the progeny are projecting their guilt and penance on the descendants of those who suffered at the hands of the progeny’s forebears. And to make it worse, today’s media, academia, and industry let them get by with it.

TAKE ACTION

How Not to Vote in Arizona

The 2022 midterm election is fast approaching. The system for voting in Arizona is predominantly by mail-in ballots (around 80% of all ballots). On October 12th, he ballots were mailed to all voters registered for mail-in voting in the 2022 midterm elections. ‘Election day’ is next Tuesday November 8.

Once upon a time when all voters went to the polls on the day of election, the tabulated results were announced the night of the election date. If the result of a specific race was razor thin and less than a legislated margin, a recount might prevent the naming of a winner. That was the exception for calling the results of the election.

It is still this way in most first world countries but not the United States and certainly not Arizona. Voting rules (some unconstitutional) were dramatically altered in many states in 2020 because of the Covid pandemic.

We at The Prickly Pear are very concerned about the flaws in Arizona’s predominant ‘mail-in’ voting system.

Please click on the red TAKE ACTION link below to learn How Not to Vote in Arizona as a mail-in ballot voter and to be certain your vote is included in the count the evening of November 8th.

CHILDREN: Majority of Americans Believe Transgender Movement Has Gone Too Far thumbnail

CHILDREN: Majority of Americans Believe Transgender Movement Has Gone Too Far

By Susan Berry, PhD

A new poll finds 75 percent of likely American voters believe the transgender movement has gone too far by encouraging underage minors to use drugs and surgery to transition to the opposite sex.

The survey, co-sponsored by Colorado-based Summit Ministries – which embraces a Christian worldview – and national polling firm McLaughlin & Associates, also finds 69 percent of voters who have an opinion on the issue believe the rise in transgenderism among teens is the result of influence to question their gender by social media and other cultural forces.

The poll of 1,000 likely general election voters across the country was conducted October 12-17, and has an accuracy of +/- 3.1 percent at a 95 percent confidence interval.

“What is your opinion on why transgenderism is rising amongst underage minors?” respondents were asked. “Underage minors feel free to question their gender without judgement, OR, Underage minors are being influenced to question their gender due to social media and other cultural influences.”

Among the 860 participants who answered this question, 69 percent said underage minors are being influenced to question their gender, while 31 percent said they feel free to question their gender without judgment.

“Do you believe the transgender movement has gone too far by encouraging underage minors to use drugs and surgery to transition to the opposite sex?” participants were asked.

Among the 858 respondents who answered this question, 75 percent answered “yes,” while 24 percent said, “no.”….

*****

Continue reading at The Star News Network.

TAKE ACTION

How Not to Vote in Arizona

The 2022 midterm election is fast approaching. The system for voting in Arizona is predominantly by mail-in ballots (around 80% of all ballots). On October 12th, he ballots were mailed to all voters registered for mail-in voting in the 2022 midterm elections. ‘Election day’ is next Tuesday November 8.

Once upon a time when all voters went to the polls on the day of election, the tabulated results were announced the night of the election date. If the result of a specific race was razor thin and less than a legislated margin, a recount might prevent the naming of a winner. That was the exception for calling the results of the election.

It is still this way in most first world countries but not the United States and certainly not Arizona. Voting rules (some unconstitutional) were dramatically altered in many states in 2020 because of the Covid pandemic.

We at The Prickly Pear are very concerned about the flaws in Arizona’s predominant ‘mail-in’ voting system.

Please click on the red TAKE ACTION link below to learn How Not to Vote in Arizona as a mail-in ballot voter and to be certain your vote is included in the count the evening of November 8th.

Mark Kelly Staffer Caught on Tape Admitting Campaign “Plays Both Sides” on Abortion to Win Over Undecided Voters thumbnail

Mark Kelly Staffer Caught on Tape Admitting Campaign “Plays Both Sides” on Abortion to Win Over Undecided Voters

By Debra Heine

A staff member of Senator Mark Kelly’s re-election campaign was caught on hidden camera telling a Project Veritas Action (PVA) undercover journalist how she lies to obfuscate his position on policy issues like abortion.

In the undercover video, released on Tuesday, Evynn Bronson, Mission for Arizona Field Organizer for the Mark Kelly for Senate Campaign, explains how the Democrat has to “play both sides” in order to win over undecided voters.

“I would say [to pro-life voters that] Mark Kelly is pro-life, but also pro-keeping the government out of our healthcare. I don’t know, something stupid like that,” Bronson told the PVA journalist.

“I wouldn’t say [he is] pro-choice…even though he is,” she continued. “I’d go to something like, ‘You know, after his wife was in a shooting, he values life so much. It’s just a shame.’”

Bronson explained that Kelly “can’t be too far-left leaning otherwise that’ll scare away a lot of those independents, and that’s 40 percent.”

“Even though he’s not pro-life?” the undercover journalist probed.

“Absolutely he is not pro-life,” she replied, adding that he avoids saying so to remain viable with those undecided voters.

“He has to play both sides,” she explained. “Forty percent of the people voting are undecided whether or not they’re going to vote Republican or Democrat.”

Bronson added: “He is not going to say anything outright about what he’s going to do unless it will garner support from independents and some of the moderate Republicans.”

Bronson later noted that Kelly will not discuss on the campaign trail all of the “very liberal” policies he supports.

“He’s not going to say anything outright about what he’s going to do unless it will garner support from Independents and some of the moderate Republicans,” said Bronson.

“Because he needs them?” The Project Veritas journalist asked.

“Well, yeah, he needs them otherwise he won’t win,” Bronson replied.

The journalist continued to press, asking, “Oh, so if he’s outright said it then he wouldn’t win?”

“It would scare people away, yeah,” Bronson acknowledged.

The journalist later asked Bronson what issues she avoids in order to tempt Republicans to vote for Mark Kelly.

“I wouldn’t say—I wouldn’t say pro-choice, even though he is,” Bronson said, who later said that Blake Masters, the Republican Senate candidate, “believes that the election was a fraud,” calling it as “crazy, crazy, crazy far-right conspiracy as you can get.”

“So it’s just like, look at the alternatives and they’re not super beautiful,” Bronson said.

Kelly is in a tight race with Masters, with about a 2.5 point edge in the polls, according to the RealClearPolitics average.

*****

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

TAKE ACTION

How Not to Vote in Arizona

The 2022 midterm election is fast approaching. The system for voting in Arizona is predominantly by mail-in ballots (around 80% of all ballots).The ballots will be mailed out to all voters registered for mail-in voting on October 12th. The actual ‘day’ of the election is Tuesday November 8th..

Once upon a time when all voters went to the polls on the day of election, the tabulated results were announced the night of the election date. If the result of a specific race was razor thin and less than a legislated margin, a recount might prevent the naming of a winner. That was the exception for calling the results of the election. We at The Prickly Pear are very concerned about the flaws in Arizona’s predominant ‘mail-in’ voting system.

Please click on the red TAKE ACTION link below to learn How Not to Vote in Arizona as a mail-in ballot voter and to be certain your vote is included in the count the evening of November 8th.

Identity Crisis thumbnail

Identity Crisis

By Kelsey Bolar

In the early Spring I began working on a documentary series for Independent Women’s Forum called “Identity Crisis.” The project tells the stories of four mothers whose daughters fell victim to gender ideology, two detransitioners who now warn of the harms this movement is causing, and one mental health professional who rails against her profession for prioritizing political correctness over public health.

This series was inspired by the censorship and media blackout these individuals have faced. The number of transgender-identifying youth has nearly doubled in recent years, which has left politicians, educators, medical professionals, and the public at odds over what policies are best suited to protect the health and well-being of children. Despite the high stakes, the media is only telling one side of the story. We’re here to change that, and I’m here to shed light on some of the personal devastation that these individuals and families have faced.

The most recent story published in our series features Vera Lindner, an immigrant mother from California who says gender ideology drove her autistic, gender-confused daughter into a “catastrophic” mental breakdown. Her daughter faced a slew of mental health issues that needed to be addressed: she was diagnosed with autism, ADHD, depression, anxiety, and an eating disorder. But all the therapist who was supposed to be treating her wanted to do was “affirm” her new male identity. From the moment her daughter declared her transgender identity, the therapist started referring to her daughter as a boy. No questions asked.

This mother’s story explores a huge aspect of the transgender movement that politicians, medical professionals, media, and activists don’t want to acknowledge, let alone explore—the connection between autism and transgenderism. It’s malpractice.

The first story featured in our series involved Jeannette Cooper, a Chicago mother who lost custody of her 12-year-old daughter for insisting that she is a girl. After a regular custodial visit to her father’s house, Jeannette’s daughter decided she was trans and felt “unsafe” around her mom. In the last 3 years, Jeannette has seen her daughter for a total of 8 and a half hours. It’s been so long that Jeannette doesn’t even know how tall her daughter is anymore. She’s only allowed to communicate with her by postal mail. As Jeannette said, “People who are in prison have more communication with their child than I do. It’s wrong.”

Then came Jennifer, a mother from a Seattle suburb who in 2019 received an email from her daughter’s 5th-grade teacher. The teacher, a male, was using a different name for her then-10-year-old daughter. Jennifer thought it was a mistake—the teacher must have accidentally emailed the wrong parent. But Jennifer later found out that for six months, her daughter was meeting with a school therapist once a week who was treating her as a boy, using male pronouns and a made-up male name.

In February 2020, right before COVID-19 hit, that therapist emailed Jennifer to schedule a meeting where the therapist would assist her daughter in officially “coming out” to her parents as a boy, and to obtain parental permission to allow her daughter to stay overnight in the boy’s cabin for an upcoming school trip. At this point, Jennifer’s daughter was only 11 years old, so the school had to obtain permission. But had she been 13, Jennifer wouldn’t even have had a right to know because she lives in Washington state, where children as young as 13 years old can access their own medical and mental health services without parental knowledge or consent.

Parents in these cases are billed by insurance companies with no explanation of benefits, meaning they’re stuck with the tab but have no ability to know what services or treatments their child received. California is trying to take it one step further, making itself a “sanctuary state” for children to receive hormones, puberty blockers, and irreversible “gender surgery” without parental consent.

Next came Susie, a mom from Alaska who came face-to-face with the growing phenomenon of adolescent girls identifying as the opposite sex due to a social desire to appear transgender. Critics call the social contagion theory “unfounded” and “absurd,” but after returning in 2020 to the U.S. from a four-year assignment abroad, Susie’s family settled into a house on a street where two out of the eight girls identified as boys. At the local high school where their daughter would soon attend, at least another 10 girls identified as the opposite sex. Shortly after moving there, Susie’s oldest daughter, who had just turned 15, also said she felt like a boy. Susie’s daughter had previously never expressed any discomfort about her gender, but the Left considers this a complete coincidence.

Susie disclosed to her new school counselor in Alaska that her daughter was struggling with mental health issues including anxiety, depression, and gender confusion. Susie thought the school was on the same page with how she and her husband wanted to handle their daughter’s sudden transgender identification—by giving their daughter time to experience and explore her feelings, without changing her name or pronouns. But in fall 2021, at the start of the next school year, Susie found her daughter’s student ID, which featured her new, made-up name.

The fact that the school was socially transitioning Susie’s daughter behind her back came as a surprise to Susie, since the entire year, the school was communicating with Susie using female pronouns and her daughter’s real name. When she eventually decided to confront the school and ask how her daughter’s name would appear in the yearbook, school officials told Susie that she has no say over anything her daughter wants to go by or what’s in her record, erroneously citing federal Title IX requirements.

Every one of these mothers’ stories are different. They’re all horrifying in their own way. But all of them have a common theme: A deep and painful sense of betrayal.

The Serpent’s Sting

Mothers, many of them former Democrats, are sickened and betrayed by Democrat politicians whom they spent a lifetime supporting. Democrats who’ve chosen to affirm a toxic ideology that exploits vulnerable children instead of protecting them.

They’re sickened and betrayed by public school educators and administrators lying to them and changing their children’s names and pronouns in-secret, behind their backs. They’re sickened and betrayed by a legal system that was designed to protect children, but is instead using gender ideology as a weapon to sever one of the most fundamental bonds in life—the bond between a mother and her child.

They’re sickened and betrayed by health professionals who took an oath to protect patients from harm and injustice, yet perpetuate just that. They’re sickened and betrayed by a media echo chamber convincing the public that lying to children about their gender is the “kind” and “compassionate” thing to do, when doing so leads children down a path of lifelong doctor’s appointments and medical complications.

They’re sickened and betrayed by seemingly every adult with an ounce of authority, from so-called “support groups” to the President of the United States, sending this message: “We know better than the parents do what’s best for this child,” as if anyone in the world could know and love a child more than that child’s own parents.

I started working on this project when I returned from maternity leave with my second child. To be honest, I wasn’t ready at all to get back to work when I did—even with the privilege of being able to work from home. But I believe God purposefully put this project in my lap, giving me, a fellow mom, the opportunity to give these parents a voice. With a 4-month-old baby sleeping on my chest, I spent hours on the phone listening to these moms and wondering, “How did we let this go so far?” Then with my 2-year-old daughter knocking at my office door asking, “Mommy, are you done with work?” I looked at her through tears wondering, “What if this happened to her?”

I believe what we’re talking about today is a generation of young girls being manipulated and mutilated in a way not much different from female genital mutilation. Which is ironic, because my inspiration for entering this field of work in college was learning about exactly that. But when I was studying them in college, these abuses were always taking place in some far-off country. Never did I imagine reporting on them here at home.

As part of our series, I chose to also tell the stories of two young women who went down the path of a medical transition, only to regret it a few years later. One of them, Daisy Strongin, went so far as to chop off her healthy breasts only to realize shortly after that objectively, she could never actually be a boy. Just a few weeks ago, Daisy gave birth to a beautiful, healthy baby boy. It was the fear of never being able to conceive a child due to medical mutilation that ultimately drove her to give it all up.

During our interview, Daisy told me, “If you told me two years ago that in 2022 you would be married and pregnant, I wouldn’t believe you. My parents told me that I would change a lot, but I just could not conceptualize it.”

Daisy’s now happily married and a new mom. But she’ll never be able to breastfeed, she still grows facial hair, and her voice has been permanently deepened. She doesn’t know in what other ways the years of testosterone may have damaged her body, but she knows she’ll do everything in her power to stop her own child from going down this path.

Another detransitioner who I interviewed, Cat Cattison, told me this:

My parents didn’t affirm me, and at the time it did make me very angry. But looking back, I’m very thankful for that. I think that if I would have been able to transition as a child and gone onto puberty blockers, gone onto cross sex hormones at a young age and cut off body parts, I think I would be looking back and I would be thinking, how could you enable this? How could you have gone along with this when I was too young to consent? I do think that, in the future, we’re going to see a lot of children who have detransitioned being angry with their parents and feeling betrayed by them.

Making Up for Lost Time

Here, then, we come full circle. Not only are parents being betrayed, but children are, too. Thousands of parents are suffering at the hands of the gender ideology movement. But it’s their children who are the greatest victims in it.

As the mom of a young girl, I can sleep at night knowing I’m on the right side of this fight, despite the nasty attacks we face. But what makes it hard to sleep is knowing how as a movement, conservatives were too late. We have already failed thousands of vulnerable young girls, who’ve already started puberty blockers and sterilized themselves. We have already failed thousands of young girls who’ve already cut off their breasts or worse, cut off their own skin from their arms or their legs to make a fake penis.

Families have been ripped apart; parents, children, and siblings have been pitted against each other. Doctors, teachers, media, politicians, and activists have normalized young, healthy children mutilating themselves under the guise of tolerance and compassion. It’s literally normal for doctors today to prescribe gender confused children drugs, surgery, and medical treatments—as if it would ever be normal for doctors to prescribe anorexic girls gastric bypass surgery.

How did we get here? As a movement, we were too late. And even today, we’re not doing enough. But these parents and detransitioners aren’t giving up. They’re refusing to be silenced. They’re using their voices to fight for their children, and we’re doing everything in our power to support them. In some cases, like that of Jeannette Cooper, the Chicago mother who lost custody of her daughter simply for insisting that her daughter is a girl, they’ve made the ultimate sacrifice. They’ve lost the basic ability to even see their own child. Why? What makes these unimaginable costs worth it? Here’s Jeannette explaining, in her own words:

I see that my child is at sea in a boat. She is struggling. She is in tumultuous seas. I know that. I have seen that. And what I have been told is to follow her lead, to follow her in this journey.

I am not willing to do that. I don’t think that is good parenting. It is my responsibility not to hook my boat to hers. It is my responsibility to be a lighthouse, to be something stable that she can see, some guide that she has, that will always be there, that is consistent.

That is my responsibility. I still do that today even though I have no custody of her. I have no medical decision making. No educational decision making. And no way to communicate with her other than by mail. I don’t have her phone number. I know where she lives, but I’m not allowed to go there. I know where she goes to school and I’m not allowed there either. But this is parenting. What I’m doing, even though I have no real contact with her, I am still her parent. I am still her mother. And I am still parenting now.

I’ll close my remarks with this. As conservatives, we give a lot of attention to the idea of leftist policies teaching Americans to hate their own country—as we rightly should. But with gender ideology, the reality is far worse than that: leftist policies are teaching children to hate their own parents and to hate their own bodies. There is something fundamentally wrong with that. It’s perverse, destructive, and needs to be stopped.

*****

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

TAKE ACTION

How Not to Vote in Arizona

The 2022 midterm election is fast approaching. The system for voting in Arizona is predominantly by mail-in ballots (around 80% of all ballots).The ballots will be mailed out to all voters registered for mail-in voting on October 12th. The actual ‘day’ of the election is Tuesday November 8th..

Once upon a time when all voters went to the polls on the day of election, the tabulated results were announced the night of the election date. If the result of a specific race was razor thin and less than a legislated margin, a recount might prevent the naming of a winner. That was the exception for calling the results of the election. We at The Prickly Pear are very concerned about the flaws in Arizona’s predominant ‘mail-in’ voting system.

Please click on the red TAKE ACTION link below to learn How Not to Vote in Arizona as a mail-in ballot voter and to be certain your vote is included in the count the evening of November 8th.

BREAKING: Project Veritas Strikes Mark Kelly’s Campaign thumbnail

BREAKING: Project Veritas Strikes Mark Kelly’s Campaign

By Jordan Conradson

Project Veritas Action Releases Undercover Video Of Mark Kelly Staffer Deceiving Independent Voters By Lying About His Radical Left Views On Gun Control, The Border, And Abortion

Blake Masters recently destroyed Democrat Mark Kelly on the issue of our southern border in the US Senate debates, and he is gaining ground on Kelly in the polls. Mark Kelly and his staffers are anti-border security and pro-illegal immigration.

When asked to lie about Mark Kelly’s stance on abortion, the journalist asked if Mark Kelly is pro-life, and his staffer responded, “absolutely, he’s not pro-life.”

The staffer advised the journalist to say, “Mark Kelly is pro-life but also pro-keeping the government out of our healthcare. I don’t know, something stupid like that” because ” he can’t win with just Democrat votes.”

They even laughed as they told the journalist to invoke Mark Kelly’s wife, Gabby Gifford, a mass shooting victim in 2011, and say that Mark Kelly values life because of this tragic incident.

These people are disgusting, and they only value life when they’re pushing their pro-death agenda….

*****

Continue reading at The Gateway Pundit.

TAKE ACTION

How Not to Vote in Arizona

The 2022 midterm election is fast approaching. The system for voting in Arizona is predominantly by mail-in ballots (around 80% of all ballots).The ballots will be mailed out to all voters registered for mail-in voting on October 12th. The actual ‘day’ of the election is Tuesday November 8th..

Once upon a time when all voters went to the polls on the day of election, the tabulated results were announced the night of the election date. If the result of a specific race was razor thin and less than a legislated margin, a recount might prevent the naming of a winner. That was the exception for calling the results of the election. We at The Prickly Pear are very concerned about the flaws in Arizona’s predominant ‘mail-in’ voting system.

Please click on the red TAKE ACTION link below to learn How Not to Vote in Arizona as a mail-in ballot voter and to be certain your vote is included in the count the evening of November 8th.

Christine Marsh – AZ LD4 Parents and Voters Should Not Send this Woke, Leftist Candidate Back to the Arizona Senate thumbnail

Christine Marsh – AZ LD4 Parents and Voters Should Not Send this Woke, Leftist Candidate Back to the Arizona Senate

By John R. Ammon

The Prickly Pear recently published an article about Senator Nancy Barto running in Arizona Legislative District 4. Her opponent is Democrat Christine Marsh, also an Arizona State Senator. The Senate race in AZ LD 4 is a consequence of redistricting and pits two individuals truly on opposite sides of the issues that are of great importance to all Arizona parents, families and children.

The 2022 election at every level of government, from local communities to the United State Congress, are stark choices between pro-family, pro-children, pro-law and order and pro-America candidates and the radical leftist, progressive candidates that voters seem to be preparing to reject in less than two weeks on November 8th.

Christine Marsh is the candidate of the latter, a candidate and former school teacher of the radical left. Last elected in 2020 after receiving the endorsement of President Joe Biden, she has demonstrated her left-wing ideological beliefs in many Senate votes clearly against the interests of children (born and unborn), Arizona taxpayers, parental rights and families, border security, and police. Marsh supported the damaging, union supported mandates forced upon our children during the Covid pandemic with the now well documented learning loss our K-12 students suffered, always marching in step with the teacher unions.

Legislators campaigning to remain in office should always be judged on their voting history and policy priorities which typically reflect their ideologic approach to governing. Christine Marsh’s voting record and the priorities and ideology expressed by those choices are clear. Examples of her voting record and her approach to Arizona children, families, and parental rights follow.

  • Voted against curriculum transparency that allows parents to inspect their child’s classroom learning materials and activities
  • Voted for sex education for children in the K-4 grades in Arizona and to protect sexually explicit curriculum in schools that is being rightfully rejected by parents across America
  • Voted to block parents’ access to their children’s school medical records
  • Voted against limits to radical abortion in Arizona and voted for legislation to leave children who survive an abortion to die without care
  • Voted to promote illegal immigration and prevent the urgent attempts to close the southern border. Marsh has openly expressed the view that ICE should be abolished.
  • Voted against law enforcement’s ability to prosecute criminals bringing fentanyl into the state with the open border which she supports
  • Voted against making all Arizona K-12 students eligible for Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (ESAs), a law that did pass making Arizona a leading state in America for school reform
  • Voted against civics education being part of the curriculum for Arizona students
  • Voted to force female student athletes to compete again boys ‘identifying’ as girls

Christine Marsh’s voting record and the radical leftist ideology it reflects is on the ballot this election in every state and district in America. In Arizona LD 4, parents and grandparents and concerned citizens are awake – Christine Marsh is woke on all the issues affecting our children, our safety, our border, our police, our taxes and preserving both an Arizona and American way of life. She has no place in determining what is best for the children, parents and families of LD4 and certainly should not be voting on the issues that affect the quality of family and civic life for all Arizonans and especially the future of our state’s children after November 8th.


TAKE ACTION

How Not to Vote in Arizona

The 2022 midterm election is fast approaching. The system for voting in Arizona is predominantly by mail-in ballots (around 80% of all ballots).The ballots will be mailed out to all voters registered for mail-in voting on October 12th. The actual ‘day’ of the election is Tuesday November 8th..

Once upon a time when all voters went to the polls on the day of election, the tabulated results were announced the night of the election date. If the result of a specific race was razor thin and less than a legislated margin, a recount might prevent the naming of a winner. That was the exception for calling the results of the election. We at The Prickly Pear are very concerned about the flaws in Arizona’s predominant ‘mail-in’ voting system.

Please click on the red TAKE ACTION link below to learn How Not to Vote in Arizona as a mail-in ballot voter and to be certain your vote is included in the count the evening of November 8th.

Soros-Backed Maricopa County District Attorney Candidate Praised Groups that Hope to ‘Abolish Prison’ thumbnail

Soros-Backed Maricopa County District Attorney Candidate Praised Groups that Hope to ‘Abolish Prison’

By The Editors

Editors’ Note: Attention Maricopa County voters – Democrat Julie Gunnigle is exactly the type of candidate, if elevated to the position of Maricopa County Attorney, will devastate the rule of law and unleash the horrific crime wave seen in blue cities in America with a police defunding, pro-criminal, and anti-victim ideology. The George Soros backed and financed far-left Democrat county and district attorneys in cities such as New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, et al are a major reason for the rampant violent crime devastating the residents and businesses of these locales. A vote for Julie Gunnigle is a vote against Maricopa County law and order and the well-being of all its residents. Current Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell is an experienced conservative, law and order prosecutor who represents the best in those responsible for holding dangerous criminals accountable and maintaining law and order and the safety of our streets and communities. The choice for this critical office is not hard but critical – Rachel Mitchell will defend the rule of law and prosecute crime. Julie Gunnigle will work to defund police, protect criminals and degrade the safety and well-being of all in Maricopa County with her progressive far-left ideology.

“I can’t say enough good things about Mass Liberation AZ,” Soros-backed Maricopa County District Attorney candidate Julie Gunnigle said in reference to an extreme, pro-criminal organization.

Gunnigle also stated that Mass Liberation AZ brings a “valued voice” to the conversation on criminal justice reform, “I’ve built relationships with other community organizations and I’m in conversation with folks like Mass Liberation and LUCHA because I think they bring a valued voice,” the Soros backed candidate remarked.

Mass Liberation AZ advocates for the abolition of prisons. Their website states unambiguously, “We believe all prisons, detention centers and jails should be abolished.”

The pro-criminal organization is also co-hosting an event titled “Do Black Lives Matter to White Women” alongside Planned Parenthood. The description of the anti-white event reads, “White Women need to show up now and support the movement for Black liberation. Join us to unlearn toxic whiteness.”

Continue reading  this article at Breitbart.

TAKE ACTION

How Not to Vote in Arizona

The 2022 midterm election is fast approaching. The system for voting in Arizona is predominantly by mail-in ballots (around 80% of all ballots). The ballots will be mailed out to all voters registered for mail-in voting on October 12th. The actual ‘day’ of the election is Tuesday November 8, 27 days later.

Once upon a time when all voters went to the polls on the day of election, the tabulated results were announced the night of the election date. If the result of a specific race was razor thin and less than a legislated margin, a recount might prevent the naming of a winner. That was the exception for calling the results of the election.

It is still this way in most first world countries but not the United States and certainly not Arizona. Voting rules (some unconstitutional) were dramatically altered in many states in 2020 because of the Covid pandemic.

We at The Prickly Pear are very concerned about the flaws in Arizona’s predominant ‘mail-in’ voting system.

Please click on the red TAKE ACTION link below to learn How Not to Vote in Arizona as a mail-in ballot voter and to be certain your vote is included in the count the evening of November 8th.

Nancy Barto – A Dedicated Arizona State Senator for Education, Parental Rights and Life Advocacy thumbnail

Nancy Barto – A Dedicated Arizona State Senator for Education, Parental Rights and Life Advocacy

By John R. Ammon

Americans are hearing a constant drumbeat that the 2022 midterm election is the most consequential ever for our nation. There is much reason to consider this given the radical and foreboding leftist tilt of many in power on the Democrat side and the consequences of their exercised power in the past two years.

The choices made in this election cycle are unquestionably critical for families, parental rights, our children’s physical safety as well as the quality and appropriateness of what they are taught and exposed to in school, and certainly the protection of the most vulnerable in our society, born and unborn.

We are bombarded in this election cycle with constant political advertisements and propaganda from candidates, especially those with a radical progressive ideology contributing to the nation’s ills and the threats to American life. Voters are looking for candidates who have proven records of achievement and dedication that reflect the values they, the voters, possess.

A candidate that fits this description here in Arizona is Republican State Senator Nancy Barto representing AZ Legislative District 4. Senator Barto has a record of tirelessly working for education reform, curriculum transparency and safety for the children attending school in her district and throughout Arizona.

She has sponsored and championed legislation for school choice, increased funding for public school education (almost one billion dollars in the last budget), and the parental right to prospectively inspect curriculum and the content of material in school libraries.

Nancy Barto has led the fight against the invasive sexualization, promotion of gender confusion, and indoctrination of our children with Critical Race Theory (CRT) and its Trojan Horse, Social and Emotional Learning (SEL), and the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) movement of the progressive left.

Senator Barto has stood firm against the Covid mandates that have been so damaging to our students across America and can be counted on going forward. She has supported and sponsored legislation that is against the mandating of Covid ‘vaccine’ and booster injections for school attendance.

The recent CDC vote to add the Covid ‘vaccine’ and boosters to the childhood vaccine schedule will bring the issue of school attendance and mandatory Covid injections before parents again. Count on Nancy Barto to stand strong.

In a subsequent article, The Prickly Pear will present Senator Barto’s opponent in the AZ District 4 Senate race. The midterm election of 2022 is often referred to as the choice of opposites throughout the United States. This race between Nancy Barto and Christine Marsh is that – we will present the opposite choice for State Senator for Arizona Legislative District 4 in coming days.

For more information about Senator Nancy Barto’s advocacy for children, education, parental rights and life advocacy, and much more, click here.

TAKE ACTION

How Not to Vote in Arizona

The 2022 midterm election is fast approaching. The system for voting in Arizona is predominantly by mail-in ballots (around 80% of all ballots). The ballots will be mailed out to all voters registered for mail-in voting on October 12th. The actual ‘day’ of the election is Tuesday November 8, 27 days later.

Once upon a time when all voters went to the polls on the day of election, the tabulated results were announced the night of the election date. If the result of a specific race was razor thin and less than a legislated margin, a recount might prevent the naming of a winner. That was the exception for calling the results of the election.

It is still this way in most first world countries but not the United States and certainly not Arizona. Voting rules (some unconstitutional) were dramatically altered in many states in 2020 because of the Covid pandemic.

We at The Prickly Pear are very concerned about the flaws in Arizona’s predominant ‘mail-in’ voting system.

Please click on the red TAKE ACTION link below to learn How Not to Vote in Arizona as a mail-in ballot voter and to be certain your vote is included in the count the evening of November 8th.

U.S. Representative Andy Biggs – A Model of Constituency Service and Real Care of Those He Representatives thumbnail

U.S. Representative Andy Biggs – A Model of Constituency Service and Real Care of Those He Representatives

By John R. Ammon

Arizona U.S. Representative Andy Biggs is a unique federal legislator. He is a strong advocate for liberty and the foundational and constitutional basis of the United States and aggressively fights to defend our liberty and opportunity for all Americans. We should expect no less from all our federal and state legislators who govern by our consent but in these foreboding times, we are often deprived of that passion and commitment. Andy Biggs gets a loud A+++ in this department for his work in Washington, DC on our behalf.

What isn’t as well known about this unique and superb U.S. Representative is the very real attention he and his staff pay to the actual needs of his individual constituents and their families. There are many examples that demonstrate the dedication of Andy Biggs and his staff that reflect his leadership in this key role for the constituents of Arizona Congressional District 5. He and his office staff are a model of constituency service and genuine, highly effective care for those he represents. We may call that a ‘personal touch’ or playing to the voters but in Representative Andy Biggs case, it speaks to his quality as a person, a man of faith and a dedicated public servant.

Please watch the following short videos of examples of the testimonies given about Andy Biggs’ service to his constituents and the role he has played for individuals and families in AZ District 5, all in addition to his work, stature, and leadership as a federal legislator in the United States Congress.

In addition to what Representative Biggs has done on the local level for his constituents, this last video is about the frightful and destructive invasion of our Arizona and national border and the fight he is waging to protect all of his constituents and all Americans. He is at the center of this battle and must be on the front line as we move beyond November 8th and then January 3, 2023 in the new Congress.

TAKE ACTION

How Not to Vote in Arizona

The 2022 midterm election is fast approaching. The system for voting in Arizona is predominantly by mail-in ballots (around 80% of all ballots). The ballots will be mailed out to all voters registered for mail-in voting on October 12th. The actual ‘day’ of the election is Tuesday November 8, 27 days later.

Once upon a time when all voters went to the polls on the day of election, the tabulated results were announced the night of the election date. If the result of a specific race was razor thin and less than a legislated margin, a recount might prevent the naming of a winner. That was the exception for calling the results of the election.

It is still this way in most first world countries but not the United States and certainly not Arizona. Voting rules (some unconstitutional) were dramatically altered in many states in 2020 because of the Covid pandemic.

We at The Prickly Pear are very concerned about the flaws in Arizona’s predominant ‘mail-in’ voting system.

Please click on the red TAKE ACTION link below to learn How Not to Vote in Arizona as a mail-in ballot voter and to be certain your vote is included in the count the evening of November 8th.

The Illusion of Being Offended thumbnail

The Illusion of Being Offended

By Gayle Nobel

I cannot offend you.

You cannot offend me.

People seem to be offended all over the place today and wear that badge on their sleeves like an honor or a cause. So much so, that freedom of expression has been under attack in an unprecedented way in our country.

There have been successful attempts at controlling speech, topics of conversation, and opinions, all under the guise of protecting people from being offended.

There is righteousness in being offended. At the drop of a hat, I can become a victim when I believe I can be offended by something someone has said or done. Or even something I assume or believe someone is thinking.  And today, what higher rank is there than victimhood?

If you say something I disagree with, I may take it personally and voila, I can invoke the “O” word. Offensive. It has been elevated to have quite an energetic charge around it.

Something you call offensive may not be considered offensive by me. Something that you stew on for days will slide right through my consciousness like water.  How can this be explained?

By clearing up a simple yet profound misunderstanding of the human experience. Once we begin to understand the true source of our experience, even a tiny inkling,  the entire notion of being offended begins to unravel. That you can actually offend me and I might need protection, will look ludicrous.

The key is seeing that you do not have the power to offend me. In fact, you don’t have the power to create or cause any experience or feeling in me. Seeing this for the first time can be a game-changer.

In a nutshell: at any and every moment, we experience our own thinking. Our thinking is a function of the energetic power of thought. Thought creates every experience and feeling we have. We can’t have an experience or feeling without thought. The colored lenses we all wear from which we look out at the world are made of the energy of thought. Thought filters everything we take in through our senses, creating our experience of life. The illusion is that our experience comes from the outside in. The truth is that it comes from the inside out via the energy of thought.

This would account for why it seems we are each living in our own separate realities. We are!

And how we each can have a different experience of the same words or events. We can and we do!

And how our experience can change from moment to moment. Thought is fluid. It is truly like the river in which you can’t put your foot in the same place twice.

And how you can hear something and declare “I am offended” and yet it will roll right off the other person’s back. Or in one moment you are not offended yet in the next, someone says you should be, and you are.

This understanding of thought would account for how real things appear when we dream at night. How we can feel truly frightened while we are asleep in a bed under some cozy blankets? How our hearts can pound or we can break into a sweat while running from demons in a dream.  This thought energy is the same energy that creates our daytime experiences.

I recently got to wear virtual reality goggles and fly a plane in my son-in-law’s basement. My heart was beating so fast as I looked down at the ground far below me. I got scared when he asked me if I wanted to land the plane. I was afraid of crashing!

Sitting at a computer in front of a plane’s instrument panel, my mind got tricked into believing I could actually crash that plane. I felt it in my belly. A mix of fear and excitement. I knew I was sitting in a chair in front of a machine, yet the power of thought created an entirely different reality. What a powerful illusion!

Being offended by something we have heard with our ears, and read with our eyes, is also an illusion. We confuse thought with reality. Your beliefs/thoughts are creating your reality, as are mine.  And if they are in opposition in some way and the topic at hand feels big to one of us,  the “I am offended” sword might come out.

What would the world be like if we were able to shed light on the misunderstanding of where our experiences and feelings come from? What if we all knew it was an inside-out job rather than outside-in? What if we all knew it was impossible for one person to offend another?

This looks like it would be a game-changer. Censoring speech would seem silly. Needing a safe space because someone might feel offended by words would look ridiculous. Open and honest debate and a wealth of different viewpoints would be respected rather than shunned or censored. We might be willing to truly listen to another’s point of view and attempt to understand where they are coming from.

Understanding you do not have the ability to offend me is powerful. I keep my power where it belongs. Within. And I know that any hurt I am experiencing is created from my own thoughts about something you have said. You cannot push my buttons because buttons do not exist. They, too, are made of thought.

It is a relief to know, deep down, that my comfort level is not controlled by another. What a gift. I cannot offend or be offended.  I may get fooled from time to time but if I wait awhile, my thoughts will flow through and I will see clearly again.

Humans are unbelievably resilient. Safe spaces exist within each one of us rather than outside of us. We can feel the full gamut of human emotions (joy to hurt and everything in between) yet be safe within our core.  I cannot offend you. You cannot offend me.

Understanding this is a gift and a stepping stone on the road to harmony.

*****

Gayle Nobel is a life coach, author of 3 books, and blogger who is passionate about sharing a simple, yet profound understanding of the human experience.

TAKE ACTION

How Not to Vote in Arizona

The 2022 midterm election is fast approaching. The system for voting in Arizona is predominantly by mail-in ballots (around 80% of all ballots). The ballots will be mailed out to all voters registered for mail-in voting on October 12th. The actual ‘day’ of the election is Tuesday November 8, 27 days later.

Once upon a time when all voters went to the polls on the day of election, the tabulated results were announced the night of the election date. If the result of a specific race was razor thin and less than a legislated margin, a recount might prevent the naming of a winner. That was the exception for calling the results of the election.

It is still this way in most first world countries but not the United States and certainly not Arizona. Voting rules (some unconstitutional) were dramatically altered in many states in 2020 because of the Covid pandemic.

We at The Prickly Pear are very concerned about the flaws in Arizona’s predominant ‘mail-in’ voting system.

Please click on the red TAKE ACTION link below to learn How Not to Vote in Arizona as a mail-in ballot voter and to be certain your vote is included in the count the evening of November 8th.

Katie Hobbs Says She Supports No Limits on Abortion, Even Up to Birth thumbnail

Katie Hobbs Says She Supports No Limits on Abortion, Even Up to Birth

By Corinne Murdock

In a Sunday interview, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Katie Hobbs said she wouldn’t put any limits on abortion. Hobbs also evaded questions about her strength to handle a debate with Lake, as well as who caused the present border crisis.

Hobbs’ remarks occurred during her 8-minute one-on-one interview with CBS host Major Garrett, as part of a “Face the Nation” segment that also featured a separate one-on-one with Lake. Concerning abortion limits, Hobbs stated repeatedly that no laws should exist limiting abortion.

“I support leaving the decision between a woman and her doctor, and leaving politicians entirely out of it,” said Hobbs.

Hobbs said she didn’t agree with the state’s 15-week limit on abortions. She didn’t denounce late-term abortions but claimed that they’re never elective.

When pressed about her refusal to debate Lake, Hobbs claimed that her opponent would create a “circus” of no benefit to voters. Hobbs refused to answer Garrett when he asked if she were strong enough to handle the “circus” Lake might concoct. Rather, Hobbs said voters had plenty of other opportunities to see her performance under crisis, referencing controversy over the 2020 election.

Hobbs said there were no circumstances under which she would debate Lake.

Hobbs again refused to answer Garrett when he asked who she considers responsible for the present border crisis, and whether the Biden or Trump administration policies were safer for immigrants. Rather, Hobbs said that decades of bad policies from both parties were to blame.

Garrett pressed Hobbs, reminding her that she’d criticized “current immigration policy” — which would be that of President Joe Biden’s administration. Hobbs admitted that Biden should do more to mitigate the border crisis, but didn’t say he was to blame. She noted that former President Donald Trump failed to fulfill his promise of a complete border wall.

“Biden does need to step up immigration and border security,” said Hobbs.

Hobbs also claimed that her economic plan, which includes upending Arizona’s universal school choice, would reduce inflation.

During her one-on-one interview, Lake took the opposite stance on all issues. Lake answered nearly all of Garrett’s questions directly, except for his question about whether she believed that President Joe Biden was the legitimate president. Rather, Lake said that distrust in elections has been a pervasive issue since the early 2000s. She said that the ability for people to question elections ceased with the 2020 election, though doubts over the 2016 election continue to be permitted.

“All of a sudden in 2020, we don’t have free speech anymore,” said Lake. “All I’m asking for is the ability to speak out: when our government does something wrong, we should be able to speak against it.”

Concerning her plan to form an interstate compact to secure the border, Lake explained that the Constitution granted her plan the legal authority to act. She disclosed that other governors agreed to join the compact.

“We meet all three criteria [of Article I Section X of the Constitution]: we have an invasion, our people are in danger, and time is of the essence,” said Lake. “I hope that Joe Biden doesn’t fight us, because then it will really look like he’s on the side of the cartels.”

Lake said that the “lust” for cheap illegal immigrant labor exists not only in Arizona, but nationwide. She pointed to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA-12) press conference remarks that Republican-led states should welcome illegal immigrants because they can “pick the crops” there. Lake expressed concern not only for the quality of life for illegal immigrants,

On abortion, Lake said that she would uphold the law as governor. She said that she was for “true choices” which would entail more than just abortion. Lake asserted that abortion was the only choice offered at abortion clinics, not other choices like adoption.

Lake agreed with last week’s arrest of an Iowa man who threatened a Maricopa County supervisor over the 2020 election. She opined that the root cause of these threats were frustrations from restrictions on free speech and expression that occurred during the pandemic.

The latest polling shows Hobbs and Lake tied among likely voters.

Read the full transcript of the Hobbs and Lake interviews here.

*****

This article was published by the Arizona Free News and is reproduced with permission.

TAKE ACTION

How Not to Vote in Arizona

The 2022 midterm election is fast approaching. The system for voting in Arizona is predominantly by mail-in ballots (around 80% of all ballots). The ballots will be mailed out to all voters registered for mail-in voting on October 12th. The actual ‘day’ of the election is Tuesday November 8, 27 days later.

Once upon a time when all voters went to the polls on the day of election, the tabulated results were announced the night of the election date. If the result of a specific race was razor thin and less than a legislated margin, a recount might prevent the naming of a winner. That was the exception for calling the results of the election.

It is still this way in most first world countries but not the United States and certainly not Arizona. Voting rules (some unconstitutional) were dramatically altered in many states in 2020 because of the Covid pandemic.

We at The Prickly Pear are very concerned about the flaws in Arizona’s predominant ‘mail-in’ voting system.

Please click on the red TAKE ACTION link below to learn How Not to Vote in Arizona as a mail-in ballot voter and to be certain your vote is included in the count the evening of November 8th.

The Coming Radical Political Shift thumbnail

The Coming Radical Political Shift

By Bruce Bialosky

Editors’ Note: The following article defines today’s Democrat party accurately. One no longer has to dissect through their ‘moderate’ messaging that has hidden their true agenda for decades. What you are seeing is what we get when today’s Democrats have unbalanced power. The Founders’ design of our Republic made every citizen sovereign rather than the government being sovereign and established that we are governed ‘by our consent’. Your vote is your consent. As you cast your ballot between now and November 8th, remember that the consequences of the consent you give will be how we are governed going forward. It is time to de-radicalize our governing class. Our future is in great jeopardy. The GOP is not a perfect party but it is not the party that engineered the southern border invasion and that is undermining our liberty, the rule of law, our children’s innocence and the security and safety of our neighborhoods and personal well-being. Let us resoundingly move the Democrats aside with this election by voting Republican all the way down your ballots and then demand the best from those we consent to govern us.

Many people believe that the current state of the Democrat Party is a danger to our constitutional structure and the underpinnings of what has made America the great country it has become. If you believe that is true you have not seen anything yet.

This column purposely strays from making predictions and rarely has done so in the last fifteen years of publishing weekly. The case that is being laid out is based on everything that is historical, facts you know, and historical reality.

We do not know for sure, but it is highly likely that the Republicans will take over the House of Representatives. It is hard to tell what will happen with the U.S. Senate. But with the current societal factors, particularly the economic ones, the chances of the Republicans taking control of the Senate increase daily. The overruling of Roe v. Wade changed little.

Let’s look at where that will leave the Democrats. They currently have leadership in the House and Senate that is collectively octogenarian. The last time the Dems took a beating, losing 63 seats in 2010, political normalcy would have seen the leadership tossed to the side. That did not happen because the remaining members of the house were the most liberal Democrat members and they kept Nancy Pelosi as their leader. However, this time she will be 82 years old and her top leadership team is just as old. There are legitimate questions about whether they will even remain in their seats.

There will also be pressure from the younger members to replace them and to toss Chuck Schumer in the Senate. The good thing is that the new leadership will not hide their leftist political leanings. They will be unabashed Leftists which will at least make matters clear to the voting public. Though many of the candidates supported by the far-left wing of the party have lost their primaries, many have won. There are already 100 members of the so-called “progressive caucus.” Now the caucus will completely control the House and members in the Senate will be in a greater position of control.

As for the presidency, the last two Democrats ran as moderates. They were barely disguised. We all remember then-candidate Obama proclaiming, “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.” He lied about being a moderate right up to the time his team realized McCain and his team were incompetent and Obama believed his election was a lock. Obama was tame compared to Biden who we were told was moderate. Biden signed 22 executive orders in his first week demonstrating he was even more prepared than Obama to transform America.

The Democrats remaining in Congress will feel even bolder and express no need to disguise their plans. They were a lot more forthcoming in 2021 than they were in 2009. Many of these far-Left elected officials expressed no indication they wish to hold back on their plans. They believe that not only are their policies the correct ones for our country, but they believe the reason the Democrats have failed is that the policies have not been implemented. In their minds, if the policies were enacted we would be so much better off as a country.

Here is where the radical political shift happens. Republicans will not stay in power forever. The history of our country shows a back-and-forth when the electorate gets upset with the party in power. We vote out one party and hand over the control of government to the other. We did in 2020 even though we had no clue what Biden really stood for. He had campaigned from his basement in Delaware. People were upset with Trump and dumped him even though we got someone totally unprepared to be President. Look what he has wrought.

The next time is going to be different. The leaders of the House and Senate will come from the radical wing of the Democrat party. The President will as well. They will enact some of their extreme plans which to them are mainstream, such as expanding the Supreme Court or ditching the electoral college. Fortunately, our Constitution is very difficult to amend though they will do their best to try.

If you believe some of the actions of the Left are over-the-top now, I can only advise you have not seen anything yet.

*****

This article was published by Flash Report and is reproduced with permission from the author.

TAKE ACTION

How Not to Vote in Arizona

The 2022 midterm election is fast approaching. The system for voting in Arizona is predominantly by mail-in ballots (around 80% of all ballots). The ballots will be mailed out to all voters registered for mail-in voting on October 12th. The actual ‘day’ of the election is Tuesday November 8, 27 days later.

Once upon a time when all voters went to the polls on the day of election, the tabulated results were announced the night of the election date. If the result of a specific race was razor thin and less than a legislated margin, a recount might prevent the naming of a winner. That was the exception for calling the results of the election.

It is still this way in most first world countries but not the United States and certainly not Arizona. Voting rules (some unconstitutional) were dramatically altered in many states in 2020 because of the Covid pandemic.

We at The Prickly Pear are very concerned about the flaws in Arizona’s predominant ‘mail-in’ voting system.

Please click on the red TAKE ACTION link below to learn How Not to Vote in Arizona as a mail-in ballot voter and to be certain your vote is included in the count the evening of November 8th.

Arizona Democrat Won’t Say If She Supports Any Limits On Abortion

By Nicole Silverio

Democratic Arizona gubernatorial nominee Katie Hobbs refused to give a direct answer as to whether she supports any limitations on abortion during a Sunday appearance on “Face the Nation.”

The candidate said she opposes the national 15-week abortion ban proposed by Republican South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, prompting host Major Garrett to ask if she would put any limitations on the procedure. Graham’s abortion proposal is based on scientific research indicating that an unborn child can feel pain at 15 weeks gestation.

“If it’s not 15 weeks, what is it?” he asked.

“Abortion is a very personal decision that belongs between a woman and her doctor,” she replied. “The government and politicians don’t belong in that decision. We need to let doctors perform the care that they are trained and take an oath to perform.”

“So if an Arizona voter were to conclude from your previous answer that you do not favor any specific week limit on abortion, would they be correct?” Garrett asked.

“I support leaving the decision between a woman and her doctor and leaving politicians entirely out of it,” she answered.

Hobbs also criticized her opponent, Kari Lake, for supporting Arizona’s near-total abortion ban passed in 1864 that is currently being deliberated in the courts. She then claimed that Lake referred to women seeking abortions as “murderers” and “executioners.” (RELATED: ‘Why Not Go Into Specifics?’: Doocy, Jean-Pierre Spar On Abortion Limits)

“Under a Kari Lake administration, we would have government-mandated forced births that risk women’s lives. Her position is the one that’s extreme, it’s out of touch with where the majority of Arizonans are, who support access to safe and legal abortion, and under her administration, women would not be safe.”

Lake, who joined “Face the Nation” in the previous segment, told Garrett that Hobbs and the Democrats support abortion up to the point of birth. She then vowed to uphold the abortion law in the state once it is firmly decided and to help provide resources to pregnant women to ensure that they can raise the child or choose adoption.

“I will uphold the law, whatever that law is, and I want to see to it that we’ve saved more lives,” Lake said. “Right now, the Democrats have started pushing so far from that rare but safe to anything goes.”

Democrats have remained silent on whether they support abortion limits while decrying the Republicans’ 15 week limit proposal. All Senate Democrats except Joe Manchin of West Virginia voted in favor of legislation that would have lifted restrictions on partial-birth and sex selective abortions in May.

The party has made abortion a central issue in the midterm elections campaigns due to the overturn of Roe v. Wade by the U.S.  Supreme Court in June. Ahead of the upcoming gubernatorial election, Democratic Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers attempted to repeal the state’s current 1849 abortion ban in a special session Tuesday, which Republicans immediately adjourned.

*****

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

Mark Kelly Can’t Hide From His Embrace Of Joe Biden thumbnail

Mark Kelly Can’t Hide From His Embrace Of Joe Biden

By Tristan Justice

Mark Kelly is in lockstep with flailing President Joe Biden, and there’s no denying it.

There’s one statistic Sen. Mark Kelly can’t run from: The Arizona Democrat has voted with President Joe Biden’s radical agenda more than 94 percent of the time. With a White House approval rating below 43 percent, that’s not a number to run on during an election cycle historically hostile to the president’s party in power.

On the Arizona debate stage Thursday night, Republican Senate nominee Blake Masters made it a point right out of the gate to highlight the incumbent Democrat’s record being in lockstep with the Biden administration.

“Sen. Mark Kelly has messed everything up. Our border is in chaos. We’ve got drugs and illegal aliens just pouring in. Crime is up. The cost of groceries, actually the cost of everything you need to live, keeps going up and up,” Masters said in his opening statement. “It wasn’t like this two years ago. What changed? Joe Biden took over, and in Washington, Mark Kelly backed Joe Biden every single time.”

Kelly turning the traditionally red seat into one of the most reliable votes for the White House agenda has already been the subject of numerous ads in the state, and for good reason. In 2020, Biden carried Arizona by fewer than 43,000 votes, an even narrower margin than Kelly, who was elected the same year by a margin of fewer than 80,000.

While Masters scored quick hits on crime and inflation in the debate’s first quarter, the knock-out blow came when Kelly couldn’t answer in the affirmative when presented with a critical question posed by the Republican challenger.

“I just want to ask one question,” Masters said, pivoting to face Kelly to his right. “Sir, have you done everything in your power to secure our southern border?”

Masters asked the question after the junior senator tried to distance himself from Biden, characterizing himself as an independent lawmaker who has “pushed back on this administration multiple times.”

When confronted on stage over his record on border security, Kelly began talking about various tours he took with law enforcement.

“That, my friend, is called evasion,” Masters interjected. “We have a wide-open southern border so if that’s the best you can do, I respectfully request you resign.”

On stage, Kelly tried to frame himself as a champion for border security, but the senator has voted to reject reinforcements for law enforcement and denied agents more equipment for drug detection. Kelly also voted to end the Trump administration’s “Remain in Mexico” policy, opening the migrant floodgates.

“Call me old fashioned, but I think the correct amount of illegal immigration is zero,” Masters said. Moments earlier, Masters pointed out Kelly’s vote for an army of 87,000 IRS agents in the dubiously-named Inflation Reduction Act while the Arizona lawmaker denied residents an army of agents to secure the southern border.

“Mark Kelly said no to 18,000 more border patrol agents but yes to 87,000 new IRS agents,” Masters said. “That shows you what his priorities are.”

Later in the match-up, Kelly sought to frame Masters as an extremist on abortion.

“He has supported state and national abortion bans that will deny the right for a woman to make this decision by themselves,” Kelly said.

But Masters didn’t shy away from his own platform, which is far more in line with public opinion and the rest of the developed world than the Democrat Party’s stance of taxpayer-funded, on-demand abortion for any reason at any time.

“I’m pro-life, and that means I believe in limits,” Masters said. “Now I support restrictions because I don’t believe in being extreme on this issue.”

The Republican venture capitalist branded Kelly as the “abortion radical” for sponsoring the Democrats’ legislation mandating that all 50 states legalize abortion for all nine months of pregnancy up until birth. In contrast, Masters reiterated his support for a state and federal ban on the procedure after 15 weeks, which is the policy in a bill Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., introduced in September.

When the Democrat senator was pressed on his support for late-term abortion, Kelly kept returning to his support for the now-extinct Supreme Court precedent in Roe v. Wade.

“Have you supported sixth-, seventh-, eighth-month [abortions]?,” the debate moderator asked, seeking to nail down whether the senator supported any hard limit.

“I have supported Roe v. Wade,” Kelly said in an effort to dodge his own record of voting for a law that was more extreme than the five-decade-old precedent.

Kelly tried to play down his abortion extremism by claiming that “late-term abortion only happens when there’s a serious problem.” But according to an analysis of the medical literature by the pro-life Charlotte Lozier Institute, the majority of late-term abortions are not performed for “maternal health complications or lethal fetal anomalies discovered late in pregnancy.”

*****

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

TAKE ACTION

How Not to Vote in Arizona

The 2022 midterm election is fast approaching. The system for voting in Arizona is predominantly by mail-in ballots (around 80% of all ballots). The ballots will be mailed out to all voters registered for mail-in voting on October 12th. The actual ‘day’ of the election is Tuesday November 8, 37 days later.

Once upon a time when all voters went to the polls on the day of election, the tabulated results were announced the night of the election date. If the result of a specific race was razor thin and less than a legislated margin, a recount might prevent the naming of a winner. That was the exception for calling the results of the election.

It is still this way in most first world countries but not the United States and certainly not Arizona. Voting rules (some unconstitutional) were dramatically altered in many states in 2020 because of the Covid pandemic.

We at The Prickly Pear are very concerned about the flaws in Arizona’s predominant ‘mail-in’ voting system.

Please click on the red TAKE ACTION link below to learn How Not to Vote in Arizona as a mail-in ballot voter and to be certain your vote is included in the count the evening of November 8th.

STAY INFORMED

Receive regular news, commentary, and analysis straight to your inbox.

POWERED BY

DrRichSwier.com | ThePricklyPear.org

As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.