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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Banned Books Week Looks More Like Porn For Kids Week

By Nicole Solas

Banned Books Week is not about censorship. It’s about power.

Let’s get one thing straight about Banned Books Week: there are no banned books in America. The American government does not prohibit the publishing or importing of books as Czarist or Communist Russia did. Books sexualizing children are not burned in a pyre in front of gender clinics — instead, pornographic books for kids are meticulously collected for displays in school libraries and promoted by the American Library Association’s “Banned Books Week.”

In America, “banned” books are celebrated, commissioned, and distributed on the manufactured outrage that they are “banned.” It’s like having a party every day to protest how you’re never allowed to have parties. Banned Books Week is a marketing campaign pretending to be a protest, and this year they are marketing to groomers. When nine out of the Top Ten Most Challenged Books are “considered to be sexually explicit” or “considered to have sexually explicit images,” Banned Books Week looks a lot more like Porn For Kids Week. Even The Boston Globe rewrote an article after it falsely stated that I called to ban books.

The most challenged book, Gender Queer, is a graphic comic book-style autobiography by Maia Kobabe containing cartoon images of children performing oral sex, numerous penises, pedophilia, masturbation while driving, and “bonding with friends over erotic gay fanfiction.” Although these images sound objectively sexually explicit, the ALA still pouts that these images are merely “considered” to be sexually explicit, presumably by pesky parents protecting their children from the trauma of pornography.

According to the ALA, libraries make “informed choices” about which books to include in (or exclude from) their collections by using a selection criteria that includes “appropriateness to the age and level of the user.” Books in school libraries should “be appropriate for the subject area and for the age, emotional development, ability level, learning styles, and social, emotional, and intellectual development of the students for whom the materials are selected.”

The reading age for Gender Queer is “18 years and up.”

One must ask the ALA: if pictures of children performing sex acts in adult books are appropriate for children in school libraries, is there any book that isn’t appropriate? Saturating pornography in diversity does not sanitize pornography for children’s eyes.

The very existence of ALA’s selection criteria concedes that some books should not be included in school libraries. Selection is not censorship. But who gets to select the books? Banned Books Week would have you believe that parents wield unlimited power in selecting books in school libraries because they are the ones accused of “banning” them. This is a lie.

According to Bannedbooks.org, “Banned Books Week brings together the entire book community — librarians, booksellers, publishers, journalists, teachers, and readers of all types — in shared support of the freedom to seek and to express ideas, even those some consider unorthodox or unpopular.”

The key word in that mission statement is “some.” By “some” who consider certain ideas to be unorthodox or unpopular, ALA means anyone objecting to children’s books with pornography, even when that “some” makes up a majority.

Banned Books Week is not about freedom or ideas. It isn’t about government censorship. It’s about power — the power to influence the values and character of a generation and, thereby, an entire country. And that power lies not with parents, but with librarians, education “experts,” and corporations.

Why isn’t Abigail Shrier’s Irreversible Damage featured during Banned Books Week after Target banned it and Amazon suppressed it? Surely the free expression of ideas includes books that raise questions about the mastectomies and castrations of children. I can’t imagine why incoming ALA President, Emily Drabinski, a self-described “Marxist lesbian,” would NOT want to include a book about the medical abuse of children with gender dysphoria in Banned Books Week. Was there a “selection criteria” for the Top Ten Banned Books too?

The actual banned books aren’t part of ALA’s LGBTQ ad campaign. A book is truly banned when the ideas of the book are so suppressed that the majority of society isn’t even aware that these ideas existed before they were suppressed. None of ALA’s top ten books fit that criterion.

Perhaps ALA’s “banned books” represent a legitimate societal objection to the normalization of a certain criminal behavior that merely naming on Twitter gets you banned yourself.

In that sense, no books are banned in America. Just people are. Well, “some” people are banned…and it’s never a librarian.

*****

This article was published by The Independent Women’s Forum and is reprinted 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.

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Stop the Attacks Against Peaceful, Pro-Life Americans

By Melanie Israel

In the five months since someone leaked a draft majority opinion by the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade—which the high court officially did June 24—pro-life Americans have faced a wave of violent attacks.

Pro-abortion politicians from President Joe Biden on down haven’t just been silent about the attacks on pro-life organizations. They’ve helped fan the flames.

Have you not heard about these attacks that have swept the country? That makes sense. After all, most of the corporate media either has ignored or woefully underreported it.

An Overview of Pro-Abortion Violence

In the past five months, hundreds of attacks have targeted churches, pro-life organizations, and pregnancy centers.

From vandalism to verbal threats to firebombings, groups such as Jane’s Revenge have organized and taken credit openly for such attacks. Crickets from the Justice Department.

Activists protested for weeks outside the homes of Supreme Court justices. Protesters harassed justices’ families, neighbors, and communities.

The Biden administration basically did nothing to address these demonstrations, even though at least some apparently violated federal law.

One abortion supporter even confessed to traveling from California to assassinate Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

In July, a pro-life teenager in Kansas reported being assaulted by an abortion supporter while canvassing for a pro-life amendment to the state constitution.

In September, an 84-year-old Michigan woman was shot in the back by an abortion supporter while she canvassed against a pro-abortion amendment to that state’s constitution. (Thankfully, she is recovering.)

Also in September, Students for Life—no stranger to acts of vandalism and verbal harassment on college campuses—reported that an abortion supporter threw a cup of urine at two pro-life students while the group was peacefully displaying information about a pro-life campaign.

Most recently, FBI agents arrested Mark Houck, a pro-life Catholic activist and father of seven, at his home in Pennsylvania. The FBI’s dubious charge is that Houck violated a law called the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (also known as the FACES Act), which makes it a crime to use force to intimidate or obstruct someone from getting or providing an abortion.

The incident stemmed from an altercation earlier this summer in which Houck reportedly pushed an abortion clinic volunteer away from Houck’s 12-year-old son, who was being harassed by the volunteer. Local officials had refused to bring charges against Houck.

Biden’s Justice Department, however, is pursuing federal charges that carry a penalty of up to 11 years in prison.

Months ago, Houck’s attorneys told the FBI that he would cooperate fully with law enforcement. No matter. The FBI still chose to raid his home at gunpoint in the early morning in front of his wife and children.

Pro-Abortion Leaders Double Down

The wave of violence against pro-life activists and organizations is an outrage.

Biden’s “unity speech” last month in Philadelphia rang hollow for many reasons, his silence on pro-abortion violence among them.

“Joe Biden did get one thing right tonight,” Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts said at the time. “We are indeed fighting a battle for the soul of our nation. The problem is, he’s fighting on the wrong side.”

Also last month, Vice President Kamala Harris applauded Democrat state attorneys general for “taking on” life-saving pregnancy resource centers, even as these groups dealt with threats, vandalism, and worse.

In Congress, pro-abortion lawmakers are promoting legislation authorizing the Federal Trade Commission to fine pregnancy resource centers for “disinformation,” meaning accurate information about the physical and psychological harms of abortion, as well as alternatives to abortion.

Last week, the FBI reportedly questioned a pro-life sidewalk counselor over an altercation outside a Planned Parenthood clinic. The counselor apparently had tried to stop an abortion advocate from destroying a pro-life sign with a boxcutter.

As with the case of the Philadelphia dad, local officials declined to press charges. So why is the FBI engaging? Is another FACE Act raid on a pro-lifer in the works?

Americans Deserve Better

For their part, some members of Congress are demanding answers. Should they get the chance next year, pro-life lawmakers should hold oversight hearings and hear directly from Justice Department employees under oath.

In any case, the Biden administration should—at the very least—call for an end to the violence. The FBI must answer for its selective enforcement of the law.

Congress must follow through on its commitment to conduct oversight on the Biden administration’s policies.

And every American should resolve to uphold our country’s foundational principles of free speech and peaceful expression. We can’t afford not to.

*****

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

TAKE ACTION

Are you fed up? Are you worried that America in rapidly sliding into a neo-Marxist state by the radical left in control of Washington with historically narrow majorities in the U.S. House and Senate and an Executive controlled by unnamed far leftists in place of a clinically incompetent President Biden? They are desperate to keep power and complete their radical progressive agenda that will change America and our liberty forever.

Americans just witnessed the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 without one Republican vote in the U.S. Senate and House (just as Obamacare was passed in 2010). The IRS  will be hiring 87,000 new agents, many armed, to terrorize American taxpayers.

Americans witnessed the FBI raid at the Trump Mar-A-Lago home and property of President Trump, truly a first in all of American history. We know what that is about. 

It is undeniable that the Democrat Party and the administrative state (the executive branches of the DOJ, FBI, IRS, et al) are clear and present dangers to our Republic and our liberty as they increasingly veer further away from the rule of law and the Constitution. What is the solution? At this critical juncture, there is only one action we can all take.

The only viable and timely solution at this critical point is to vote – yes, vote correctly and smartly to retake the U.S. House and Senate on November 8th and to prepare the way to retake the White House in two years. Vote and help everyone you know to vote. Please click the TAKE ACTION link below – we must vote correctly and in great numbers to be sure our votes are counted to diminish the potential for the left to rig and steal the midterms and the 2024 elections as they are clearly intending to do after their success in 2020.

Drag Queens Are the New Black Face thumbnail

Drag Queens Are the New Black Face

By Neland Nobel

It is easy to find on YouTube numerous videos of parents dragging their own children to drag queen shows where the children are encouraged to touch the genital areas of the performers or stuff dollar bills into the same geography. Or they will haul their children to a place of learning, usually a library or school, where they can see strange men dressed up as women.

The ostensible reason for this is the holy cause of “diversity” and the acceptance of gay men.

One area to explore is the danger this is to children. The other less explored area is the danger this is to women.

Recently, a woman on Twitter made the comment that drag queens are the new black face. As is typical with Twitter, she had space only for the floating thought, that was left undeveloped. If I could remember who she was, I would be glad to give her complete credit for an eye-opening observation.

That more women are not speaking frankly about this cultural rot is a source for another essay. A few are, but they are still largely silent. Likely, they feel some sort of sympathy. Having struggled as women, they empathize with people struggling to be gay.

Suffice it to say, this man will attempt his own development of this passing observation. We won’t stay silent. It is time for men, who really love and honor women, to speak up. I hope many more women will follow.

For a man to assume the persona of a woman, is a degrading form of cultural appropriation. Having not held down a job and raised children, and been a good wife, all difficult and exhausting tasks; this man has the temerity to put on garish makeup and clothes for a few minutes and pretend to be a woman.

We are supposed to honor his pretensions and celebrate his kinkiness.

The woman he portrays, of course, is not a woman who has endured labor several times and gotten up to nurse and change diapers at 2 am in the morning and then went on to an 8- or 10-hour job. No, he sees a woman through his own sexual desires and designs a highly stylized version of female entertainment for men. Almost always there is makeup applied with a trowel, garish in color, fingernails that could shred a buffalo, a flamboyant dress, huge eyelashes, and enormous artificial breasts. All this is usually in the cause of “pride”, that is to say, his sexuality trumps the normal.

In this “art form”, women are sexual objects for men, projected by a man pretending to be that sexy woman.

This is deeply offensive to all the courageous and caring women around us. I think of my mother, who found in her the energy to love and raise me, even though I was one of eight. I think of my wife of more than 40 years, who trained as a special education teacher, and wound up with an autistic son. She raised two normal girls, wrote three books, acquired credentials as a life coach, and still cares for our 38-year-old son. He needs 24-hour one-on-one care. She has done all this, and still had time for me. What a woman. I think of my sisters, struggling with their lives and yet accomplished in their fields. I think of both of my daughters, strong and accomplished women, who are above all, really good people. I burst with pride when I think of them. I think of my business associate of 15 years, who helped make my success with her hard work and dedication, all done while raising a young family. I think of the female doctors and nurses who have helped me when I was in pain and physical danger. My personal doctor is a woman, my eye doctor is a woman, heck, my veterinarian is a woman.

These were all women of great courage, compassion, intelligence, perseverance…all noble qualities in a man, and equally so in women.

Does this get reduced to stage porn? A man dressed as a woman cavorting provocatively in heavy makeup and plastic boobs? This usually is all promoted by people who tell us women should be more than sexual objects!

Come to think of it, this is degrading even for legitimately sexy women who entertain men. They at least are real women, who know they are titillating men. They are not a man titillating himself.

What was so offensive about blackface?  It was mostly men dressing up as black people without having their difficult “lived experience” and sort of saying, you are inferior to me, but I like the way you can dance and sing, so I will put on makeup and clothes and pretend I am black.  Because it is insulting to black people, the rubes I entertain will find it funny. I will fake the talent you have and express my art because it benefits me, and not you. And, for the black person who may see my display of fake talent, enjoy the show and the mockery I am making of your difficult experience.

So, to the point made by the woman on Twitter, what really is the difference?

We live in the time of “presentism”, a perverse form of historical analysis that judges the action of people and events in history, through the prism of today’s morality and sensibilities. It is almost always selective and dishonest analysis because it assumes that those we criticize from centuries ago have the knowledge we have today. Ironically, the harsh judgments they make about our forefathers are constantly made by people who say we should not be judgmental!

Well, why is making fun of and degrading women by men, gay or not, acceptable? We say this not judging people from the past, but people in the present, by the standards of the present, who lecture the rest of us on being sensitive to others’ “lived experience.” Why is this acceptable to progressive women?  Why is this display of disrespect something we should take our children to see? Why are female librarians and school officials promoting this crap?

It is fascinating to see that progressives, who are big advocates of presentism and critics of “cultural appropriation”, and who pretend to champion women are the very people promoting drag queens and transgenderism in general.

Now it is true drag shows are not new. But previously, they were limited to specialized clubs and other narrow venues of entertainment where ID was checked or the clients controlled. Now, however, activists want these shows for children. What happened to safe spaces for students?

As they say, the word irony just is not sufficient to convey the level of contradiction and hypocrisy we see on display by our cultural elites. How about storybook time, in blackface with dramatic readings from Little Black Sambo?  How would that go down? Well, that is what you are doing to women. Why should the denigration of women be inflicted on children while blackface is banned?

For men who truly love and respect women, we should simply say, you fake sick fools, you are not even a pale shadow of the women I know. Keep your fetish at home. It is not suitable for children and it is degrading and insulting to the brave and inspiring women all around us.

TAKE ACTION

Are you fed up? Are you worried that America in rapidly sliding into a neo-Marxist state by the radical left in control of Washington with historically narrow majorities in the U.S. House and Senate and an Executive controlled by unnamed far leftists in place of a clinically incompetent President Biden? They are desperate to keep power and complete their radical progressive agenda that will change America and our liberty forever.

Americans just witnessed the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 without one Republican vote in the U.S. Senate and House (just as Obamacare was passed in 2010). The IRS  will be hiring 87,000 new agents, many armed, to terrorize American taxpayers.

Americans witnessed the FBI raid at the Trump Mar-A-Lago home and property of President Trump, truly a first in all of American history. We know what that is about. 

It is undeniable that the Democrat Party and the administrative state (the executive branches of the DOJ, FBI, IRS, et al) are clear and present dangers to our Republic and our liberty as they increasingly veer further away from the rule of law and the Constitution. What is the solution? At this critical juncture, there is only one action we can all take.

The only viable and timely solution at this critical point is to vote – yes, vote correctly and smartly to retake the U.S. House and Senate on November 8th and to prepare the way to retake the White House in two years. Vote and help everyone you know to vote. Please click the TAKE ACTION link below – we must vote correctly and in great numbers to be sure our votes are counted to diminish the potential for the left to rig and steal the midterms and the 2024 elections as they are clearly intending to do after their success in 2020.

FBI, Justice Department Twist Federal Law to Arrest, Charge Pro-Life Activist thumbnail

FBI, Justice Department Twist Federal Law to Arrest, Charge Pro-Life Activist

By Hans von Spakovsky and Cully Stimson

In an early morning raid Friday in Kintnersville, Pennsylvania, about two dozen FBI agents with weapons drawn pounded on the door of Mark Houck’s home, where he lives with his wife and seven children.

The FBI agents arrested Houck based on a federal indictment. Sounds serious, right? Is Houck a domestic terrorist, an American jihadist, a dangerous militia member, a violent felon, or someone with a prior history of violence toward law enforcement who would require such an overwhelming show of force?

Not even close.

Houck is a pro-life activist and president of The King’s Men, a Catholic ministry. He has no prior criminal record. He was arrested Friday morning for an alleged violation of the federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, known as the FACE Act.

Again, sounds potentially serious. But given the Obama-Biden administration’s prior abuse of the FACE Act, as well as what we know already about the facts, we have serious reasons to doubt that this is a legitimate case and prudent use of federal law enforcement resources. More likely, it is a politically motivated abuse of federal law by both the FBI and the Justice Department. 

It is not a coincidence, we suspect, that this takedown of someone who, at best, committed a misdemeanor assault came almost exactly three months after the Supreme Court issued its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overruled Roe v. Wade and abortion on demand in America. The FBI’s raid of Houck’s home was designed to send a warning to pro-life activists engaging in activities protected by the First Amendment.

The FACE Act (18 U.S.C. § 248) forbids physically obstructing, injuring, intimidating, or interfering with anyone “obtaining or providing reproductive health services.” But Congress specified that the FACE Act doesn’t “prohibit any expressive conduct (including peaceful picketing or other peaceful demonstration) protected from legal prohibitions by the First Amendment to the Constitution,” including the “free speech or free exercise clauses,” occurring “outside a facility.”  

Houck apparently would regularly drive two hours from his home to a Planned Parenthood clinic in Philadelphia to pray and speak outside the facility, often taking his 12-year-old son with him.

The federal indictment claims that almost a year ago, Houck “verbally confronted” and “shoved” an escort for an abortion patient “to the ground” and “intentionally injured, intimidated and interfered” with the escort.

What the indictment fails to mention, say Houck’s wife and a family spokesman, is that on multiple occasions this pro-abortion escort said “crude … inappropriate and disgusting things” to the Houcks’ son, such as “your dad’s a fag” and other vulgar slurs.

Houck kept telling the escort to stop harassing his son, they say, but the escort refused to stop and when the foul-mouthed vulgarian got too close to his son, Houck protected him by shoving the escort away.

The escort fell down, but, according to Houck’s family, the only injury he suffered required “a Band-Aid on his finger.”

The incident occurred Oct. 21, 2021. The assault claim against Houck is so weak that not only did Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, a Soros-backed rogue prosecutor, refuse to file any misdemeanor charges against Houck, but, the family says, a civil lawsuit filed by the escort was thrown out of court.

Now, almost a year later, the FBI shows up at Houck’s home in force and the Justice Department charges him with two felonies for an injury that required a Band-Aid. His conviction could result, according to the Justice Department, in a maximum penalty of “11 years in prison, three years of supervised release and fines of up to $350,000.”

No doubt, Houck’s defense attorney will explore any and all defenses, starting with whether the man shoved by Houck even falls within the “obtaining or providing” requirement of the federal statute. It also may be a clear case of self-defense, since Houck apparently was defending his 12-year-old son from an adult who was harassing and intimidating a minor.

The fact is that the Justice Department, under Democratic administrations, has a history of misusing the FACE Act to go after abortion opponents.

In 2012, for example, a federal judge in Florida tossed out a FACE Act indictment against Mary Susan Pine, a  pro-life activist who had been conducting peaceful sidewalk counseling outside an abortion clinic for many years. The judge excoriated the Justice Department for the behavior of its lawyers, saying that the indictment seemed to be the “product of a concerted effort between the government and the [abortion clinic] … to quell Ms. Pine’s activities” rather than to enforce the statute.

The timing of this indictment of Houck also is suspect and calls into question the motive behind the Justice Department’s move. If this situation played out the way the Justice Department claims, even viewed in the light most favorable to the government this was, at best, two minor incidents of misdemeanor assault.

It’s significant that local authorities, including the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office, decided not to file charges against Houck. It means that, for whatever reason, they didn’t even think Houck’s conduct warranted a misdemeanor assault charge, much less the two felony charges that he now faces.

Most likely, the local authorities didn’t file charges because, upon examining the facts, it was, at best, a case of “mutual combat” in which two adults got out of hand and ended up in a minor scuffle. In such cases, typically neither party is charged, and the case goes away. 

If this was such an important violation of the FACE Act, what took the Justice Department 337 days to indict Houck? This is the simplest of simple, factual cases. Houck either pushed the escort twice, unprovoked, or he didn’t.

Perhaps the more important number is 91. That’s how many days elapsed between the day the Supreme Court issued its decision in Dobbs and Houck’s indictment. Or maybe it’s 49—the number of days between Houck’s indictment and the mid-term elections.

And why did the Justice Department decide to send armed FBI agents to Houck’s house in a show of force? Houck has no criminal record, is a man of faith, and is the father of seven children. He is no threat whatsoever.

Contrast this prosecution with the fact that vandals physically have attacked and damaged roughly 70 pro-life pregnancy centers, which also are protected under the FACE Act’s definition of a facility that “provides reproductive health services.”

So why hasn’t the Justice Department filed a single FACE Act indictment against anyone for those crimes?

Clearly, the leadership of the FBI and the Justice Department should be asked these and other important questions surrounding this case, as well as their lack of action against real threats.

*****

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

TAKE ACTION

Are you fed up? Are you worried that America in rapidly sliding into a neo-Marxist state by the radical left in control of Washington with historically narrow majorities in the U.S. House and Senate and an Executive controlled by unnamed far leftists in place of a clinically incompetent President Biden? They are desperate to keep power and complete their radical progressive agenda that will change America and our liberty forever.

Americans just witnessed the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 without one Republican vote in the U.S. Senate and House (just as Obamacare was passed in 2010). The IRS  will be hiring 87,000 new agents, many armed, to terrorize American taxpayers.

Americans witnessed the FBI raid at the Trump Mar-A-Lago home and property of President Trump, truly a first in all of American history. We know what that is about. 

It is undeniable that the Democrat Party and the administrative state (the executive branches of the DOJ, FBI, IRS, et al) are clear and present dangers to our Republic and our liberty as they increasingly veer further away from the rule of law and the Constitution. What is the solution? At this critical juncture, there is only one action we can all take.

The only viable and timely solution at this critical point is to vote – yes, vote correctly and smartly to retake the U.S. House and Senate on November 8th and to prepare the way to retake the White House in two years. Vote and help everyone you know to vote. Please click the TAKE ACTION link below – we must vote correctly and in great numbers to be sure our votes are counted to diminish the potential for the left to rig and steal the midterms and the 2024 elections as they are clearly intending to do after their success in 2020.

Poll: Arizona Democrats Riding on Abortion Rights to Make Up for Poor Biden Approval thumbnail

Poll: Arizona Democrats Riding on Abortion Rights to Make Up for Poor Biden Approval

By Cole Lauterbach

Democrats in Arizona say they’re more interested in November’s election, with abortion laws becoming their battle cry. But, they will have to outwork President Joe Biden’s mid-term approval ratings.

A recent Arizona Public Opinion Pulse poll from OH Predictive Insights found that 59% of Arizona voters think there should be limits on which abortions should be legal in the state, while just 9% say it should be illegal in all instances; the latter category supports a stricter law than the one that is currently on the books in Arizona. Meanwhile, 41% of voters said abortion should be legal in all circumstances.

With most voters thinking that abortion should be legal in at least some circumstances, it’s an issue pro-choice Democrats may try to emphasize in the coming weeks.

“With the reinstatement of the Abortion Ban from 1864 that took effect recently, the data shows that sentiment on this issue among important voter blocs could likely be a deciding factor when they arrive at the ballot box this November,” Mike Noble, OHPI Chief of Research, said in a press release.

A Pima County judge lifted an injunction on Arizona’s pre-Roe v. Wade abortion ban last week, meaning the procedure is legal in the state only to protect the life of the mother. The polling doesn’t reflect that ruling since it was conducted between Sept. 6 and Sept. 9. OHPI surveyed 829 Arizona registered voters, giving the poll a 3.4% margin of error.

“Democratic hopes will be heavily contingent on younger, female, and perhaps Independent demographics showing up in droves for this election, especially those who are more likely to vote for candidates based on their stance on abortion,” Noble added.

Meanwhile, the poll found that Arizonans don’t generally have a favorable view of President Biden. It found that 41% approve of the president’s job performance while 55% disapprove.

Noble said these poor approval numbers give hope to the Republican Party.

“As we get closer and closer to Election Day, voter sentiment begins to turn encouragement for the GOP into a reality for the Democratic party,” Noble said in the press release. “As much as Biden has attempted to rise above water with voters, the impacts of his disapproval are likely to affect Republicans in November.”

*****

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

TAKE ACTION

Are you fed up? Are you worried that America in rapidly sliding into a neo-Marxist state by the radical left in control of Washington with historically narrow majorities in the U.S. House and Senate and an Executive controlled by unnamed far leftists in place of a clinically incompetent President Biden? They are desperate to keep power and complete their radical progressive agenda that will change America and our liberty forever.

Americans just witnessed the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 without one Republican vote in the U.S. Senate and House (just as Obamacare was passed in 2010). The IRS  will be hiring 87,000 new agents, many armed, to terrorize American taxpayers.

Americans witnessed the FBI raid at the Trump Mar-A-Lago home and property of President Trump, truly a first in all of American history. We know what that is about. 

It is undeniable that the Democrat Party and the administrative state (the executive branches of the DOJ, FBI, IRS, et al) are clear and present dangers to our Republic and our liberty as they increasingly veer further away from the rule of law and the Constitution. What is the solution? At this critical juncture, there is only one action we can all take.

The only viable and timely solution at this critical point is to vote – yes, vote correctly and smartly to retake the U.S. House and Senate on November 8th and to prepare the way to retake the White House in two years. Vote and help everyone you know to vote. Please click the TAKE ACTION link below – we must vote correctly and in great numbers to be sure our votes are counted to diminish the potential for the left to rig and steal the midterms and the 2024 elections as they are clearly intending to do after their success in 2020.