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How an Occupied Twitter Ruined Countless Lives

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By Jeffrey Tucker

From the beginning of the Covid panic, it felt that something was very wrong. Never had a pandemic, much less a seasonal pathogenic wave, been treated as a quasi-military emergency requiring the upending of all freedoms and rights.

What made it more bizarre was how alone those of us who objected felt until very recently when Elon Musk finally bought the platform Twitter, fired all the embedded federal agents, and has started to release the files.

As Elon said, every conspiracy theory about Twitter was true and then some. And what applies at Twitter pertains equally to Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, and all platforms associated with those companies (YouTube, Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp).

The proof is all there. These platforms colluded with the federal government’s administrative arm to craft a particular Covid narrative, throttling and censoring dissidents and boosting any credentialled expert who was willing to toe the line.

At this point, it is wise to trust no one and nothing but those who fought against this nonsense. As the crisis began, I was blessed with an unusually large reach on most platforms. But I sat by and watched it dwindle to nothingness as the months went on. Yes, I had posts pulled but I was never banned. It’s just that my channels of communication shrunk dramatically by the months and weeks.

This was tragic for me simply because I watched the population gradually fall into a medieval-style disease panic that tore families apart, kept loved ones from traveling, wrecked businesses and churches, and even violated the sanctity of the homes. This “invisible enemy” about which everyone in government was going on about shredded the whole social fabric.

I had been writing about pandemics and interventions for 16 years, warning repeatedly that this was possible. Knowing about this history, and having a platform to speak, I felt a very strong moral obligation to share my knowledge if only to make some contribution to calm people down and perhaps relax some of the impositions on liberty. But at that very moment, my voice was nearly silenced. And I was hardly alone. Hundreds and thousands of others were in the same position but we had a very difficult time even finding each other.

There was one exception early on. I wrote a piece on Woodstock and the 1968-69 flu season. A fact-checker rated it as true and the Facebook algorithms really screwed up. Facebook pushed it out for about two weeks before someone figured out what was happening and then throttled it back heavily. Or perhaps there was one employee there who made it so. I really do not know. In the meantime, this one article garnered millions of views and shares.

It was my first experience with the astounding power of these venues to shape the public mind. People innocently use all these tools without the slightest understanding that there is a reason why they are seeing what they are seeing. Every word or picture you see on your apps is there for a reason, a choice of this or that, and the driving force here is what powerful people what you to see and not see.

We know now that the stream of information is carefully curated by algorithms and human intervention, not to fit with your interests as they once claimed, but to fit with regime interests.

In other words, what people used to say about the CCP role in the management of TikTok applies fully in the US today with all the main tech companies. And please keep in mind, we only know this because of the dump of Twitter files. All of this is still happening at Google, Meta, and LinkedIn. The latter removes posts by Brownstone often. And the rest throttle our reach.

This has been going on for years, but Covid intensified it all. Even from the beginning, something was very off. For example, on March 19 – the day after the Fauci/Birx/Trump press conference and the day before CISA seized control of all labor markets – an obscure digital education entrepreneur named Thomas Pueyo came out with an implausibly documented and comprehensively argued piece called The Hammer and the Dance.

It was an elaborate argument for locking down to flatten the curve, complete with fancy graphs and pseudo-scientific blather of every sort. The author was essentially unknown but within 24 hours, the piece was garnering many millions of shares and being spread everywhere by all the big tech platforms, as if it were some kind of canonical treatise. I doubt seriously that he wrote it – no way in one day; it had to be planned for weeks – but rather that he volunteered his name to be attached to it. It became the most important framing of the lockdown that appeared that month.

Watching that one preposterous article take over so aggressively, even as dissidents’ writings slipped into nothingness, including my own, was quite a bit of digital magic to behold. But we know now it was not magic. It was a policy. It was an intention. It was a propaganda ploy. Again, we must understand that this is still going on right now, with the only real exception among the larger players being Twitter.

There is one solace. We know now that we were not all going crazy. It was all deliberate. Matt Taibbi puts it well:

Sometime in the last decade, many people — I was one — began to feel robbed of their sense of normalcy by something we couldn’t define. Increasingly glued to our phones, we saw that the version of the world that was spat out at us from them seemed distorted. The public’s reactions to various news events seemed off-kilter, being either way too intense, not intense enough, or simply unbelievable. You’d read that seemingly everyone in the world was in agreement that a certain thing was true, except it seemed ridiculous to you, which put you in an awkward place with friends, family, others. Should you say something? Are you the crazy one?

I can’t have been the only person to have struggled psychologically during this time. This is why these Twitter files have been such a balm. This is the reality they stole from us! It’s repulsive, horrifying, and dystopian, a gruesome history of a world run by anti-people, but I’ll take it any day over the vile and insulting facsimile of truth they’ve been selling. Personally, once I saw that these lurid files could be used as a road map back to something like reality — I wasn’t sure until this week — I relaxed for the first time in probably seven or eight years.

So far, thanks to the great work of David Zweig, who has somehow managed to elude the censors all along (he was in attendance at the original Great Barrington Declaration event, god bless him), we have a better accounting of what happened. Names we all recognize as friends are listed, including Martin Kulldorff and Andrew Bostom, but there are thousands more. There is no question in my mind that my own accounts were targeted.

This is about much more than free speech and the operation of media channels without government intervention. The Covid controls utterly smashed American liberty and social functioning, resulting in mass suffering, educational losses, shattered communities, and a precipitous collapse in public health that has shaved off years in life expectancy and caused an explosion of excess deaths.

It might have been stopped or at least lessened in duration with some open discussion. This is not just of interest to tech and legal geeks. The closing down of opinion and debate resulted in unspeakable human carnage. And even as I write, the largest sources of the mainstream media are still refusing to report on this.

Ask yourself: why might this be? I think we all know the answer.

As a final note, I can assure you that this is only the beginning. The full story ropes in the whole of the administrative state, FTX, huge nonprofit organizations, and many back channels of power, money, and truly evil collaboration. We may never get the full story, and justice as always will be elusive, but we cannot let this moment in history slip by without as much accountability as we can provide.

*****

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

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Gratitude

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By Bruce Bialosky

Many Americans believe that Thanksgiving is the time to express gratitude.Families go around the Thanksgiving table and talk about what they are grateful for at that particular time. Gratitude is something that should be expressed all year long. And, during the “holiday season,” even a little more.

I am truly fortunate to have realized long ago that gratitude is the most important aspect of life. You cannot be genuinely happy without first being grateful. One is most likely unhappy without gratitude. Simple as that.

You do not have to be a religiously observant person to understand the importance of gratitude. But I have found that one is more likely to be a religiously observant person if you understand the importance of gratitude.

That is part of the reason in our country the “merchants of ungratefulness” are having their day. They tell people that they are taken advantage of by our society, and they divide people into groups – you know all of them. Then they tell the people over and over again that they cannot be happy because of their gender or skin color. This serves to feed only the merchants of ungratefulness as they feed their coffers and build their ranks with disillusioned.

I believe gratitude starts with the micro and expands out to the macro.

I am grateful I wake up every day full of energy without aches and pains. I told that to one friend and he said he was just grateful to wake up every day. That made me more grateful for the other part. I am grateful I can exercise and watch a wonderful movie on my treadmill.

I am grateful for my music. I listen to a broad array of music. Most know that between Thanksgiving and Christmas, it is Christmas music only. No matter how challenged I am feeling at the time, listening to my music makes me happy and for that I am grateful.

I am grateful someone invented baseball and basketball and football and tennis and more. What a wonderful way to enjoy your life even if your favorite team does not win all the time.

I am grateful for all those people who write the books I read and the movies I watch. They enrich my life and make me a more knowledgeable and better person.

I am grateful for The Beautiful Wife every day. I am grateful there has never been a day where she did not want to see me or talk to me. Everything we do we share with each other. We have our separate activities, but then we share those with each other. What a gift we have been given.

I am grateful for my children, Sam and Hannah. They have never made me feel shame at being their father. Through every life stage from being an infant through their current adult lives they are an undeniable blessing.

Our doggies. All of them, including the ones who have gone to doggie heaven, has been such a joy. Thank you, God, for filling the world with dogs.

I am grateful for the rest of my family, my brother, and his family. My other relatives. It reminds me how wonderful and important family is beyond the immediate few.

I am grateful for all my friends. They sustain me and support me. They give me joy and share good times and challenging times with me. And they tell me they love me. To be able to have lunch with a friend and engage in a heated debate then get up and hug each other is something one just must be grateful for.

I am grateful for my clients and how so many have been with me for decades. I am grateful I have them as part of my life and that I can help them with their challenges.

I am grateful that I say on a regular basis “Yes, this is the United States of America and I get to say that.” Nothing like freedom and particularly freedom of speech.

I am grateful for the fact that my relatives moved to the United States a long time ago. It is amazingly special to live in a place where people from two hundred countries have come here to stake their fortunes. People of all creeds and religions. And we get along together like nowhere else on earth ever has. Sure, there are a few nudniks, but with over 330 million people from every corner of the earth, there is bound to be. As Americans, we can be working with someone from Indonesia and then talking to someone of Danish heritage. I am so grateful to have spent my life in this magical fairyland of a country. What a blessing.

This is just my list of some of the things that keep me grateful daily. I hope that it prodded you to reflect in thought about those things that make you grateful. And if you have not focused on the importance of gratitude in your life then I hope this helps to push you in that direction and puts a smile on your face and love in your heart.

God Bless.

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Why So Many Families Are Uprooting and Fleeing to Freer States

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By Kerry McDonald

Emily Burns had every intention of staying in Massachusetts. A longtime Boston resident, she, her husband, and three children left the city to settle in the upscale suburb of Newton in January 2020.

What followed were two years of ongoing disruption and frustration. Prolonged school closures and continued coronavirus policies such as mask mandates angered Burns. Initially, this mom chose fight over flight.

She announced a conservative run for US Congress, representing Massachusetts’s 4th district, a long-shot attempt in a staunchly Democratic area. Her primary issue was pushing back against COVID policies, particularly those that impacted school children. Her message resonated and Burns collected more than $100,000 in donations for her campaign in just one quarter. She was an outspoken advocate for children and families and called out the Massachusetts politicians who continue to double-down on coronavirus mandates even as elected officials elsewhere eliminate them.

Burns was recently featured in a popular article, “Revenge of the Covid Moms” on Bari Weiss’s Substack, that spotlighted mothers who are fed up with endless virus restrictions and are taking action to end them.

Ultimately, Burns had enough of fighting. This week, she terminated her political campaign and explained that she and her family are fleeing to Texas where her husband has an opportunity to open a new company office.

“My leaving is entirely predicated on what is best for my family,” Burns wrote. “My trust in the political and cultural leadership of this state is totally broken. The past two years have shown me that I cannot protect my children from the ill effects of that leadership. Given the chance to escape those malign forces, I had to take it.”

Fight or flight is a choice that more Americans are facing, especially those who live in parts of the country with continued coronavirus restrictions and the constant threat that, even if ended, those restrictions could re-emerge at any time by political decree.

Indeed, this is the topic of this week’s LiberatED podcast: Should You Move?

In the episode, I talk to homeschooling mom, Bretigne Shaffer, who left California last month for more freedom elsewhere. Like Burns, Shaffer initially tried to fight, to push back against extended COVID policies and build community with like-minded people in her area. Also like Burns, she finally got tired of fighting.

This is a national trend, as US Census Bureau data released in December showed that restrictive states such as California, Illinois, New York, and Massachusetts lost population between July 2020 and July 2021, while states with less-restrictive virus policies like Texas, Arizona, and Florida gained population during that time. Writing about these population trends for FEE, economist Peter Jacobsen explained: “Lockdowns, documentation mandates, school closings, and other COVID regulations are likely just too cumbersome for some to tolerate.”

Fight or flight is a tough choice for families, but at least it’s a choice that Americans can enjoy thanks to federalism and the ability to vote with our feet. We can choose to live in a different city or state, and select different state and local governance, due to the decentralization of power envisioned by our Founding Fathers.

As more people move to states they see as offering greater freedom and opportunity, there is some concern about political change in their new states. Could newcomers bring with them policies and perspectives that could threaten the very freedom they are seeking? FEE’s Fresh Start States project helps to prevent this through outreach and information promoting the principles of personal and economic freedom to those settling in new areas.

What if You Can’t Move?

Still, for a whole host of reasons, many families can’t or don’t want to move somewhere else. In that case, they can keep fighting. Burns has some advice for families staying put.

“Start talking about your concerns publicly–and don’t pull punches,” she told me in an interview this week. “Don’t vacillate and say things work when you think they don’t. That’s how we got stuck here. You will find more people agree with you than you think. Then, if you can, run for something, and run on these issues–lean into them. These issues shouldn’t be Republican or Democrat, so run however you feel comfortable. Talk about the things that concern you–not whatever the party line is supposed to be. Being public about it will help you find the people in your area who are sympathetic, and who will form the base of your support,” she said.

It’s a dynamic moment in the US, and many individuals and families who never before considered uprooting their life for a new one elsewhere are giving it serious thought. Perhaps you are one of them.

Listen to this week’s LiberatED podcast for more insights on this topic. You can listen here, on Apple, Spotify, Google, or wherever you get your podcasts.

*****

This article was published by FEE and is reproduced with permission.

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A Midterm Reality Check

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By Paul Gottfried

The Nov. 8 midterm election, which was preceded by early voting that invariably favors the Democrats, has come and gone. On the basis of what we now know, the Republicans have a small majority in the House of Representatives and—since their misfortune increased Tuesday through Hershel Walker’s loss to Sen. Rachael Warnock in Georgia’s runoff—a 49–51 minority in the Senate.

Save for a few bright spots like Florida, the non-coastal regions of California, and Long Island, the midterms represented a remarkable achievement for the Democratic Party. Despite failing grades in all polls on inflation, crime, foreign policy, and immigration, and a mostly senile president who keeps putting his foot in his mouth whenever he tries to speak, President Joe Biden’s party more than held its own.

Unlike President Barack Obama and other earlier chief executives, Biden did not sustain the huge losses in his party that one would expect. In fact, the Democrats made significant electoral gains, as in my state of Pennsylvania, where a perceptibly brain-damaged representative of the eccentric far left, John Fetterman, coasted to victory against centrist Republican Mehmet Oz.

Such a turn of events cannot be reasonably attributed to a single cause, whether National Review’s fixation on blaming every Republican setback on its bête noire, Donald Trump, or even dishonest vote counts (which may have occurred in some states). I also don’t question that lots of college students turned out for the Democrats, imagining that Joe would cancel their student loan debts, but because of America’s still-in-force “separation of powers,” it is not the president but Congress that is permitted to take such an unwise step.

Curiously, after the Democrats incited mass protests against the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade in June, abortion rights became a less electorally charged issue during the following months. By fall, abortion even sank to third or fourth place in polling behind inflation, crime, and, according to some pollsters, immigration. Abortion rights, however, remained a critical issue that Democrats kept alive throughout the election season, although most Republican campaigns, like Oz’s in Pennsylvania and gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin’s in New York, tried to run away from it.

Democrats typically exaggerated the devotion of Republican candidates to the pro-life cause and attributed to them, usually counterfactually, an unconditional opposition to abortion (including for victims of rape and incest). The Democrats pounced on this divisive question and wouldn’t let it go, because, like the so-called Jan. 6 insurrection and the so-called Republican threat to democracy, it resonated well with their base. Given the Democrats’ lack of popularity on most other issues, hammering on abortion rights, even in states where such rights were fastidiously protected, was a convenient tactic to fall back on.

Abortion, as we now know, was far more central to election outcomes than the polls suggested or than I had previously thought. But it was not an isolated social issue in determining votes. Unrestricted abortion rights, which many voters, particularly single women, seem fixed on, is part of a larger package of woke positions. Democratic candidates like Fetterman, Sen. Warnock in Georgia, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in Michigan, and Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes in Wisconsin have embraced a wide range of woke causes, from LGBT rights and critical race theory to sexual reassignment, the elimination of bail for violent criminals, and open borders.

Those who voted for Democrats were getting behind a lot more stuff than unrestricted abortion rights. They were endorsing a far-reaching woke agenda, which Democratic candidates had backed for years. Democratic voters, I would submit, were voting for Democratic candidates at least partly because they agreed with their cultural radicalism. Despite rampant crime, galloping inflation, deliberately kept-open borders, and other evidence of a disastrous Democratic administration, those who voted for radical left candidates were placing woke politics, and not only abortion, above bread-and-butter and safety issues.

It seems almost childish to pretend that the Republicans brought this on themselves by not nominating the proper candidates. Next to the Democrats they opposed, Republicans like gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake and senatorial candidate Blake Masters in Arizona, Zeldin in New York, senatorial candidate General Donald Bolduc in New Hampshire, and gubernatorial candidate Tudor Dixon in Michigan were brilliant, inspirational political warriors.

Did the Democrats really offer anything more impressive than these Republicans in Fetterman, Whitmer, or Sen. Mark Kelly and Governor-Elect Katie Hobbs in Arizona? In my state, the Democrats won handily with an incoherent stroke victim who backs state-subsidized heroin dens and wants to release from captivity violent criminals, up to second-degree murderers. Fetterman’s campaign won decisively because it appealed to socially and culturally radicalized demographics.

Therefore, blaming Republican defeats on Donald Trump’s endorsement of bad candidates, who in most cases were actually able campaigners, is a questionable explanation for what just took place. One can reach this conclusion even without backing Trump’s further presidential ambitions. Noting Trump’s very limited responsibility for Republican defeats and looking for causes elsewhere is, contrary to the opinion of The National Review, Fox News anchor Bret Baier, and Daily Wire commentator Ben Shapiro, by no means an endorsement of the former president’s candidacy.

Republicans lost key electoral contests for many reasons, but a critical one became clear to me while reflecting on the election results. Republicans have not been radical enough on social issues to appeal to those who voted for the Democrats. Moreover, the Democratic vote in favor of unrestricted abortion rights was not an isolated social stance. The same voters would likely be mobilized if the issue of gay marriage were returned to the states. This of course won’t happen because Republicans are joining Democrats in the Senate to nationalize that right (the Constitution be damned!).

This cultural radicalization was at first gradual but then turned viral after the meteoric rise of former president Obama to quasi-divine status. As president, this gushingly lionized celebrity was supposed to help us transcend our racist (and presumably sexist and homophobic) past.

Obama and his cult have helped us overcome nothing more than the remnants of our constitutional republic. They have also been governmental icebreakers for the cultural left. Even before Biden, these revolutionaries started weaponizing the permanent state, particularly the clandestine services and military, against the so-called radical right, white nationalist threat to democracy. The Biden administration has mobilized the same forces against those who reject their leftist programs, and judging by their most recent election, our radicalized Democrats continue to make headway.

But the left has not been alone in leading us astray. Long after the woke left had marched through all our major institutions, gurus from Conservative Inc. were still assuring us that America remains a firmly conservative country. They were woefully wrong and even delusional. The recently concluded election may not have been a fluke but an accurate indication of where we are as a country.

*****

This article was published by Chronicles and is reproduced with permission.

There’s No Natural ‘Carrying Capacity’ for the Human Population: An Essay Inspired by the Happy News that the Human Population Has Reached Eight Billion thumbnail

There’s No Natural ‘Carrying Capacity’ for the Human Population: An Essay Inspired by the Happy News that the Human Population Has Reached Eight Billion

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By Donald J. Boudreaux

The late, great Julian SimonJulian Simon spent decades battling intellectually against biologists and zoologists who were convinced that human population growth, if governments did not hold it in check with draconian measures, would spell doom for multitudes of humans. (I might as well have used the present tense above, because many of the scientists with whom Simon did battle, including the most prominent, Paul Ehrlich, are still alive.) These students of animal development and behavior insist that every species inhabits an environment with a natural “carrying capacity.” If the population of a species grows in number beyond the limits of its environment’s carrying capacity, the death rate of members of that species will rise, while its members’ birth rate falls, because species members will confront unusual difficulty gaining access to food, water, and shelter. The species’ population is thus confined to the limits of its environment’s carrying capacity by the brutality of uncaring nature.

Simon argued that humans, at least those of us who live in free societies, are a categorically different sort of species. He observed that to the extent to which we, members of the human species, inhabit a social environment characterized by free and innovative markets, our species does not inhabit a natural environment with a finite carrying capacity. Simon’s argument starts with the fact that we humans are uniquely enterprising and innovative. When this fact combines with the further reality that market prices are signals about which specific resources are becoming more scarce relative to other resources, human entrepreneurship and creativity are incited to discover ways both to make currently known stocks of scarce resources go further and, more importantly, to discover either new sources of those resources or more abundant substitutes. When we succeed in these endeavors, as we now normally do, we literally produce more resources.

Simon’s explanation is revolutionary. Contrary to what most people seem to believe, we don’t obtain resources from an existing stock created for us by nature, leaving fewer resources available for use tomorrow each time we withdraw some amount for our use today. Instead, resources are ultimately fruits of the human mind and effort. And so we produce more petroleum, more tungsten, more copper, more bauxite in the same way that, when our demand for apple pies or Apple laptops increases, we produce more apple pies and Apple laptops.

For humans in market economies, therefore, the environment has no natural ‘carrying capacity.’

As Simon tirelessly documented, his account of humans’ relationship with the natural environment is amply confirmed by history, especially by modern history. Over the past few centuries the human population has grown remarkably – earlier this month it hit eight billion. At the same time there’s also been astounding growth in humans’ standard of living. Were there a natural carrying capacity on earth for the human population, history offers no evidence of it. Quite the contrary.

Despite the economic soundness of his argument and its consistency with the data – and despite his famous victory in a 1980 wager with Ehrlich on whether or not a bundle of five natural resources would become more scarce over the course of a decade – Simon’s argument left many biologists and zoologists unconvinced. And biologists and zoologists aren’t alone. Pick at random a professor, student, news reporter, or blogger and ask him if we humans are today threatening our long-term survival by overusing resources. Chances are high that the answer you’ll get is an unhesitating yes. You’ll likely be further told that our only hope of avoiding the terrible fate of billions of us being done in by natural forces is for us, especially those of us in rich countries, to dramatically reduce our consumption.

There is, I suppose, something gratifying in counseling personal sacrifice. Sacrifice often is admirable and worthwhile, as when you sacrifice your time to help a neighbor in distress, or sacrifice your comfort today in order to undergo painful medical treatments that will better ensure that you’ll survive past tomorrow. But sacrifice for sacrifice’s sake is, at best, pointless. Costs are incurred in exchange for no benefits. (I understand that practicing at sacrificing can help to build character. To the extent that such character-building is real, it’s a benefit that potentially makes practicing at sacrificing worthwhile. Such sacrifice, however, isn’t sacrifice for its own sake.)

If Simon is correct, green-inspired efforts to encourage or compel those of us in market economies to reduce our consumption today yield no benefits. Such efforts conserve no resources; they simply result in our producing fewer resources, an outcome that is utterly useless. The uselessness of this outcome lies in the reality that whenever we “need” new resources, we can produce these.

Was Simon naively pollyannaish? Has history’s apparent confirmation of his thesis simply been a matter of good luck? No.

Consider a recent essay in the Wall Street Journal – an essay whose title speaks volumes: “One Man’s Trash Is Another’s Clean Fuel.” The authors, Nick Stork and Joe Malchow, report very Simonesque news:

In a lesson about how the energy transition is likely to play out, landfill operators’ ability to make use of excess gas has exploded in recent years. New facilities are being created to convert trash into renewable natural gas, molecularly identical to the gas that heats homes. The process cuts down greenhouse-gas emissions while creating a low-carbon energy source…

The potential has spurred major sanitation and energy companies to break into this new market. This year Houston’s Waste Management Corp. announced an $825 million investment to boost renewable natural-gas capture. In October the British company BP agreed to acquire Archaea Energy (which one of us founded and the other invested in), a company that designs, builds and operates RNG plants in the U.S. to convert waste emissions. Archaea produces 6,000 oil-equivalent barrels a day through 13 RNG facilities with plans to construct 88 more to serve rising demand. Our only input is trash.

Quiet, private innovation in gas processing made this possible. Archaea sells largely to voluntary buyers who wish to lock in clean gas at fair prices. RNG still comes at a premium compared with other fuel sources, but driving down the cost of producing RNG will mean more of it is available to buyers on attractive terms. We are working to lower the price of RNG by creating standardized and modular production facilities with decreased operating costs, higher processing efficiency, and uptime rates that start above 90 percent.

Energy – indeed, low-carbon energy – from trash!

If turning trash into energy that’s transmissible over long distances nevertheless sounds either fanciful or likely insignificant in its long-term impact, imagine yourself as a native American roaming 600 years ago through the woodlands of what is today western Pennsylvania. You’re thirsty and bend down to enjoy a drink of water from a brook, only to discover that the water at that spot is undrinkable because it’s polluted with a smelly, oily, noxious substance oozing out a few feet upstream. How plausible would this You of 600 years ago have found a prediction that the icky stuff that pollutes your drinking water would, in just a few centuries, be a much-sought-after ‘natural’ resource that powers much of humanity’s activities?

Julian Simon died almost twenty-five years ago, just shy of his 66th birthday. Were he still alive today, he would surely celebrate our population of eight billion and remind anyone who would listen that, far from pushing humans closer to the earth’s carrying capacity, the creative potential of those eight billion human minds will further expand our access to resources. We need only to allow this creativity to operate freely.

*****

This article was published at American Institute for Economic Research and is reproduced with permission.

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Post Roe v. Wade: The States Choose Death

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By Carmel Richardson

What happened on Tuesday was not, by any measure, terribly shocking. The ambitious red wave was a much more realistic red ripple; Republicans will win the House while the Senate will likely be split; the narrow races are yet to be decided (this is apparently now the norm in American politics, vindicating an election prediction from 2020); and once again, the first Tuesday in November marked a slight shift, rather than an about-face, from the condition of electoral politics the year prior.

But while the electoral results will apparently take days—weeks, even, in the case of Georgia—there was one question on the ballot that has already been clearly decided. Abortion, and all its sundry offshoots, will retain protected status in the United States.

Five key ballot proposals on abortion were decided Tuesday night. California, Vermont, Montana, Kentucky, and Michigan all weighed in favor of fewer limits on abortion, with even red Kentucky knocking down a proposal to specify that the state constitution does not protect a right to abortion. Montana narrowly declined to recognize the rights, including the right to medical care, of a child born from a partial or botched abortion. Vermont’s Prop. 5 made it the first state in the Union to enshrine a fundamental right to an abortion in its state constitution, beating California only by a few hours. The constitution of the state of California, too, will now read that “the state shall not deny or interfere with an individual’s reproductive freedom…which includes their fundamental right to choose to have an abortion.” But Michigan’s proposal may just be the most extreme.

Proposal 3, as previously reported, goes beyond enshrining a right to abortion in the state constitution, though it certainly does that. In addition to establishing rights to all manner of “reproductive freedom,” including sterilization, the bill also does away with parental consent for minors in any such reproductive decisions. That opens the door to some very bleak possibilities, like the underage rape victim being coerced to abort her baby to provide cover for her abuser; or the teenaged, gender-confused girl being given hormone therapy behind her parents’ backs, at the permanent cost of her fertility. The proposal was passed by a margin of 13 percentage points at the time of this writing, and would require three-fourths of both chambers of the Michigan state legislature, which just flipped blue, to vote to overturn it. Or, of course, another ballot proposal. Or a federal abortion ban.

Earlier this week, the Los Angeles Times published a piece describing the Michigan proposal and how it was shaping the gubernatorial contest between Gretchen Whitmer and Tudor Dixon. (I made a similar observation a few weeks back.) The Times’ opening interviewee, a woman whose yard was pockmarked with campaign signs for Republican names all the way down the ballot, told the reporter she would vote in favor of Prop. 3, despite her Republican bona fides, because “I’m my own person.”

Clearly, she was not alone. More people, about 100,000 more, voted for the losing Republican candidate, Dixon, than against the proposal. Even more telling were the results in Kentucky, which spans both the Rust Belt and the Bible Belt, and where the measure to restrict abortion failed by 6 percentage points. This is the same state that went for Trump by 62 percent to Biden’s 36 percent in 2020. In many ways, places like Kentucky are the heart of the new right and its voter base—they produced J.D. Vance, after all. But we should not misunderstand what this means.

As commentator Aaron Renn pointed out in his newsletter on Wednesday, the majority of the voting public seems to want abortion to be legal. This is especially true for working class Americans, who comprise a large swath of voters in both Michigan and Kentucky. I am not the first to point out, of course, how many of these blue collar Democrats now vote Republican—in part due to Trump, but also as a result of the leftward shift of the Democratic Party. The voters haven’t moved much, but the parties have.

That means Republicans who prioritize working class concerns are winning again (see: Vance), but it also means that the Evangelical vote, which has never been as significant as folks want to believe, is less relevant than ever. Many Evangelicals have gone left in recent decades, perceiving empathy in the progressive agenda. Those who have stuck with the right often tend to emphasize genuine, if secondary, political concerns (election fraud, Covid policies, critical race theory) over religious ones (the sanctity of life).

It used to be that you could not run in a red state without being loudly opposed to abortion, because they were so reliably pro-life. This is still true in some states, such as my home state of Tennessee. But for many of the winning Republicans on Tuesday, opposition to abortion was not the deciding factor. In some cases, it may even have been a hindrance. Meanwhile, the libertarian tendency of the working class voter led him to prefer fewer restrictions on abortion, purely for the sake of keeping the government out of as much of his personal life as possible—the state is for roads, healthcare, jobs, not morality.

Republicans have secured the working class vote, but it is not the culturally Christian one. The waning influence of the pro-life movement in the Republican party is evidence of this: success at the judicial level seems to have coincided rather ironically with the failure of the popular movement. This may be the fault of the movement’s organizers, or it may just be a reflection on much broader cultural changes in America, tectonic shifts that no organization could have reasonably stopped.

But the culture war without Christianity is a rudderless ship. The success of politicians like Ron DeSantis in Florida means little if in the same breath the American people have said they will abide infanticide, or would rather keep their options open than commit to protecting innocent lives. The Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade to send the decision on life back to the states, and the states chose death.

*****

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

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Hillsdale Imprimis: Education as a Battleground

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By Larry P. Arnn

The following is adapted from remarks delivered on November 3, 2022, at a Hillsdale College reception in Santa Clara, California.

If you want to see the problem with American education, look at a chart illustrating the comparative growth in the number of students, teachers, and district administrators in our public schools in the period between 2000 and 2019. (See the chart below.) The number of district administrators grew by a whopping 87.6 percent during these years, far outstripping the growth in the number of students (7.6 percent) and teachers (8.7 percent).

In illustrating the difference in these rates of growth, the chart also illustrates a fundamental change that has come over our nation as a whole during this period—a change in how we govern ourselves and how we live. To say a change is fundamental means that it concerns the foundation of things. If the foundation changes, then the things built on it are changed. Education is fundamental, and it has changed radically. This has changed everything else.

One way of describing the change in education today is that it provides a different answer than we have ever known to the question: who owns American children? Of course, no one actually owns the children. They are human beings, and insofar as they are owned, they own themselves. But by nature, they require a long time to grow up—much longer than most creatures—and someone must act on their behalf until they mature. Who is to do that?

Not many people raise this question explicitly, but implicitly it is everywhere. For example, it is contained in the question: who gets to decide what children learn? It is contained more catastrophically in the question: who decides what we tell children about sex?

Are these decisions the province of professional educators, who claim to be experts? Or are they the province of parents, who rely on common sense and love to guide them? In other words, is the title to govern children established by expertise or by nature as exhibited in parenthood? The first is available to a professionally educated few. The second is available to any human being who will take the trouble.

The natural answer to this question is contained in the way human beings come to be. Prior to recent scientific “advances,” every child has been the result of a natural process to which people have a natural attraction. “Natural” here does not mean what every single person wants or does—it means the way things work unless we humans intervene.

In its essence, “nature” means the process of begetting and growth by which a mature, living thing comes to be. Not quite every human being is attracted to the natural process of human reproduction, but nearly all are—and when the process works to produce a baby, it works that way and no other way.

This process of human reproduction and growth works for two reasons. The first is that human beings, when mature, are capable of so much more than other creatures. Almost from birth we learn to talk, a rational function that indicates decisive differences from other creatures. Because of reason and speech we are moral beings, capable of distinguishing among kinds of things and therefore of knowing and doing right and wrong. Also because of them we are social beings, able to understand and explain things to one another that other creatures do not understand and cannot discuss. This draws us closer together than even herd or swarm animals.

We are unique in possessing these capacities, and it is in this specific respect that our nation’s founders declared that “all men are created equal.” This equality has nothing to do with the color of anyone. Its source is the unique, immaterial, rational soul of the human being. One of my teachers used to respond to the claims of animal rights advocates that one must not be cruel to any creature, but that only those who can talk are entitled to vote.

The second reason in nature that makes human reproduction unique is our especially long period of maturation. For months, human babies are simply helpless; without constant attention they will starve. For years afterwards they must develop the skills and knowledge that are uniquely available to the human being. Both the skills and the knowledge are natural, meaning all human beings can obtain them, but both take time. Each child does the work of obtaining them, but each child needs help. Modern educators often mistake the work of helping them to learn for actually doing the learning for them. The second is impossible.

The skills of reading, writing, and arithmetic are direct exercises of the rational faculty. They are in principle the same thing as talking, and in principle every child will learn much of them unassisted. Just watch a child grow up to the age of two. He or she begins very early to respond to things with comprehension. Words soon follow. Children copy adults for the use of words, but they are doing all the work of learning. Little wonder that human beings take a long time to mature: they have so much to learn.

Raising a child has always been difficult and expensive. With rare exceptions, it has always been true that the parents who conceive the child raise him the best. And throughout American history, it has been thought that the family is the cradle of good citizenship and therefore of free and just politics. Public education is as old as our nation—but only lately has it adopted the purpose of supplanting the family and controlling parents.

***

The political successes of Governor Ron DeSantis in Florida, Governor Glenn Youngkin in Virginia, and many other politicians in other states have largely been won on this battleground of education. One can look in history or in literature to see the danger of where the idea of supplanting the family might lead. Study the education practices that existed in the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany and that exist today in Communist China. Or read the terrifying account in Orwell’s 1984. They tell us that children, by distorting their natural desire to grow up and end their dependence, can be recruited to the purposes of despotic regimes, even to the extent of denouncing their parents to the state.

We do not yet have this in America. But we do have children being turned against their country by being indoctrinated to look on its past—of which all parents, of course, are in some way a part—as a shameful time of irredeemable injustice. We also increasingly have children being encouraged to speak of their sexual proclivities at an age when they can hardly think of them.

To cite just one example, Christopher Rufo has discovered, on the website of the Michigan Department of Education, detailed instructions for how teachers should open the question with students of their sexual orientation—or maybe I should say sexual direction, since “orientation” implies something constant, whereas children are now being taught that sexuality is “fluid” and can take them anywhere.

Also on the website are detailed instructions on how to keep this activity from the parents. And as we learned last year, when parents get angry and complain of things like this, the FBI is likely to become interested.

Who “owns” the child, then? The choice is between the parents, who have taken the trouble to have and raise the child—and who, in almost all cases, will give their lives to support the child for as long as it takes and longer—or the educational bureaucracy, which is more likely than a parent to look upon the child as an asset in a social engineering project to rearrange government and society.

***

The revolutionary force behind this social engineering project is a set of ideas installed in just about every university today. Its smiting arm is the administrative state, an element of America’s ruling class. The administrative state has something over 20 million employees, many of them at the federal but most at the state level. Directly and indirectly, they make rules about half the economy, which means they affect all of it.

Most of the bureaucrats who staff the administrative state have permanent jobs. The idea behind this was that if they do not fear dismissal and have excellent pay and benefits that can’t be reduced, then they will be politically neutral. Today, of course, the public employee unions that represent this administrative state are the largest contributors in politics and give overwhelmingly to one side. They are the very definition of partisanship.

The fiction is that these bureaucrats are highly trained, dispassionate, nonpartisan, and professional, and that therefore they can do a better job, of almost anything, than somebody outside the system can do. They proceed by rules that over time have become ever more hopelessly complex. Only they can read these rules—and, for the most part, they read them as they please.

Judges have up to now, for the most part, given deference to the bureaucrats’ reading of their own rules. It is a rare happy fact that this judicial practice is under challenge in the courts. If it should ever become settled doctrine that the bureaucracy is constrained by the strict letter of the laws made by elected legislators and enforced by elected executives, that will exercise some restraint upon the administrative state. That explains why, after decades of defending judicial supremacy, progressives are beginning to question the authority of the courts and speak openly about packing the Supreme Court.

***

Public education is an important component of the prevailing administrative system. The roots of the system are in Washington, D.C., and the tendrils reach into every town and hamlet that has a public school. These tendrils retain some measure of freedom, especially in red states where legislatures do not go along automatically. In some red states, the growth of administrators has been somewhat slower than average. But this growth has been rapid and large everywhere. In every state, the result has been to remove authority and money away from the schools where the students learn. In every state, the authority and money drained from the schools have flowed toward the bureaucracy.

The political battle over this issue is fraught with dishonesty. Any criticism of public education is immediately styled as a criticism of teachers. But as the numbers show, the public education system works to the detriment of teachers and for the benefit of bureaucrats. The teachers unions themselves, some of the largest of the public employee unions, claim to be defending teachers and children. That cannot be more than half true, given that they are defending an administrative system that has grown by leaps and bounds while the number of teachers has grown very little.

Worse even than this is the tendency the system sets in all of us. Bureaucracy is a set of processes, a series of prescribed steps not unlike instructions for assembling a toy. First this happens, then that happens, and then the next thing. The processes proceed according to rules. It is a profession unto itself to gain competence in navigating these rules, but nobody is really competent. Today we tend too much to think that this kind of process is the only thing that can give legitimacy to something. A history curriculum is adopted, not because it gives a true account of the unchangeable things that have already happened, but because it has survived a process. The process is dominated by “stakeholders”—mostly people who have a financial or political interest in what is taught. They are mostly not teachers or scholars but advocates. And so we adopt our textbooks, our lesson plans, and our state standardized tests with a view to future political outcomes once the kids grow up.

I have said and written many times that the political contest between parents and people who make an independent living, on the one hand, and the administrative state and all its mighty forces on the other, is the key political contest of our time. Today that seems truer than ever. The lines are clearly formed.

***

As long as our representative institutions work in response to the public will, there is thankfully no need for violence. As the Declaration of Independence says, “Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes.”

The Declaration guides us in our peaceful pursuits, too. In naming the causes of the American Revolution, it gives a guide to maintaining free and responsible government. The long middle section of the Declaration accuses the King of interfering with representative government, violating the separation of powers, undermining the independence of the judiciary, and failing to suppress violence.

And in an apposite phrase, it says of the King: “He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.”

So it is today. And so it is our duty to defend our American way of life.

*****

Larry P. Arnn is the twelfth president of Hillsdale College. He received his B.A. from Arkansas State University and his M.A. and Ph.D. in government from the Claremont Graduate School. From 1977 to 1980, he also studied at the London School of Economics and at Worcester College, Oxford University, where he served as director of research for Martin Gilbert, the official biographer of Winston Churchill. From 1985 until his appointment as president of Hillsdale College in 2000, he was president of the Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy. From October 2020 to January 2021, he served as co-chair of the President’s Advisory 1776 Commission. He is the author of several books, including The Founders’ Key: The Divine and Natural Connection Between the Declaration and the Constitution and Churchill’s Trial: Winston Churchill and the Salvation of Free Government.

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The Other Thanksgiving Story

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By Neland Nobel

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Facebook Works to Deliver Us From Truth

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By Thorsteinn Siglaugsson

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*****

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

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As Murders Soar, FBI Buries the Data

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By James D. Agresti

Overview

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


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

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

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

Burying Crime Data

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Supposedly, “No One Knows”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Murder Data and Trends

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What’s Causing The Bloodshed?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Summary

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

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

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

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

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

*****

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

TAKE ACTION

How Not to Vote in Arizona

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

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

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

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Demand They Strike Their Colors

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By Michael Watson

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

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

In Denial

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

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

No Surrender

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

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

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

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

Until then, alas, the fight continues.

****

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

TAKE ACTION

How Not to Vote in Arizona

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

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

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

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We Must Have Accountability

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By Editorial Staff

By Justin Hart / Brownstone Institute

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

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

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

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

*****

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

Photo credit: DonkeyHotey

TAKE ACTION

How Not to Vote in Arizona

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

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

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

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

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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.

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White and Woke Supremacy

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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

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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

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By Debra Heine

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*****

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

TAKE ACTION

How Not to Vote in Arizona

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

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

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

Identity Crisis thumbnail

Identity Crisis

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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

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By Jordan Conradson

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

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

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

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

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

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

*****

Continue reading at The Gateway Pundit.

TAKE ACTION

How Not to Vote in Arizona

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

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

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

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

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

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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’

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By The Editors

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

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

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

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

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

Continue reading  this article at Breitbart.

TAKE ACTION

How Not to Vote in Arizona

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

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

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

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

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

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