Teens are More Pro-Life and Having Fewer Abortions Than Ever Before
BRAD MATTES MAR 25, 2021 | 6:30PM WASHINGTON, DC
Over time there has been a sharp decline in the number of pregnancies, births and abortions in America.
Those who support abortion are quick to claim that an increase in contraceptive use is responsible, however, the facts don’t support this theory.
The real reason is much more encouraging.
Actually, one of the best sources of data on abortion is the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute, originally founded as the research arm of Planned Parenthood. Recently, Guttmacher published statistics on the long-term rates of pregnancies, births and abortions.
Dr. Michael New, an associate scholar at Charlotte Lozier Institute, wrote an eye-popping analysis of the data provided in their report. It’s such good news, I’d like to share some highlights with you.
Between 1980 and 2017 the data shows a long-term, jaw-dropping decline of over 82% in the abortion rate among females 15-19. At the same time, the abortion rate for women 35-39 dropped by only 8.5%. Adding to that impact were over 10% more pregnant females 15-19 who chose life for their babies.
But more importantly, teenagers are now much less likely to become pregnant. After peaking in 1990, the pregnancy rate for girls 15-19 dropped by 73%.
Dr. New credits the “substantial long-term decline in teen pregnancy” to the fact that between 1988 and 2015, more teens avoided sexual activity – 22% more boys and 9% more girls.
This is great news, worthy of headline coverage across the nation! However, it runs counter to the agenda of media gatekeepers who perpetuate a scheme of additional tax funding for Planned Parenthood and their failed programs.
Why the decline?
Teens and young adults are more pro-life than the generations before them. My own observation supports this reality. When I started attending the March for Life in the late seventies in my early twenties, young people were in a distinct minority. Now, easily two-thirds of the marchers are 25 and younger.
This young tour de force is a significant reason we are on the winning side. But it didn’t happen overnight. It is in part due to the consistent, dedicated effort to educate all Americans to the stunning beauty of the unborn child, juxtaposed with the dark and deadly reality of abortion. That’s why Life Issues Institute’s mission is to provide pro-life educational tools to the movement and public at large. We now reach over 18-million people each week with effective pro-life messaging.
Dr. New agrees, and he rightfully points out that in addition to pro-life education, the passing of state legislation that protects both mother and her unborn child, as well as the efforts of pregnancy help centers turn more heads and hearts toward LIFE.
Our focused strategy is winning. That’s why we need your continued prayers and financial resources to reach our ultimate goal of ending legal abortion in America.
LifeNews.com Note: Bradley Mattes is the President of Life Issues Institute, a national pro-life educational group.
Two education majors at Cleveland State University did not realize when they signed up for a class titled “The Social Context of Urban Education” that they would be lectured on white privilege, implied racism, and forced to learn critical race theory from a Robin DiAngelo textbook. DiAngelo, the famous “antiracist” educator who was exposed as providing Coca-Cola’s now-deleted “try to be less white” training to employees, has become one of the leaders in the insane movement.
“Every week it’s something different, and our textbook has nothing to do with my major, middle childhood education,” said the whistleblower, a sophomore from Lake County, who first contacted The Federalist. “Last week, we had this presentation from people who hold positions at CSU about the likewise relation between the riots in the 1960s to the riots that took place in Cleveland in 2020. … All the assignments have nothing to do with being a teacher. It all has to do with how I have white guilt apparently. We also had to give a presentation in class on how our positionality and intersectionality interact with us in society.”
The course is being taught by Molly Feghali, who students say has prohibited white people from using the word “ghetto” in the classroom due to its supposedly racist connotation. One paper prompt Feghali has assigned for the class asks students to spend time “reflecting on your educational journey thus far,” and describe “how has your positionality/intersectionality impacted your journey?” Another asks students to “create a graphical representation of how prejudice, discrimination, implicit bias, power, oppression, and socialization are interrelated and impact the isms.”
The radicalism of Feghali is unsurprising given the substance of her doctoral thesis. The 2018 thesis, titled “Interracial Contact at a Diverse High School: How School and Community Structures Shape Students’ Experiences,” is 126 pages of leftist buzzwords. It states that “unconscious bias” manifests in “micro-aggressions,” and that “white privilege” means white students are inherently ignorant.
The required textbook for the course, which also surely has nothing to with the intended focus of the class on gaining field experience, is DiAngelo’s “Is Everyone Really Equal?: An Introduction to Key Concepts in Social Justice Education.” The syllabus says the “course rationale” is for “teacher candidates [to] examine their own identities and experiences, and think critically about how their identities and experiences will shape their practice as a teacher and a learner.” Better put, students are forced to write and erroneously acknowledge in class that because of their various biological factors, they form molded positions on the intersectionality totem poll, which the left views as a determinative factor in gauging their racist nature.
“We have to write weekly reflections about our book. Today, Dr. Feghali discussed a video from DiAngelo on how we need to ‘erase our whiteness’ and realize that because we are white, that is how we participate in racism,” said the other student, who requested full anonymity to avoid backlash in the classroom. “My professor has said before that even if you may not identify yourselves as racist or you don’t consider yourself part of white supremacy, the fact that you are white, you are therefore contributing to white supremacy.”
Students are also expected to produce a “Social Justice Project,” part of which involves creating racial profiles of “identities” in a school district neighborhood of their choice in Cleveland. After analyzing racial and ethnic composition, as well as other factors of a given population, students are tasked with defining who is inherently disadvantaged due to biological factors.
“I think that the paper we have to write is honestly bullsh-t,” said the anonymous student. “When you are born in America, you are born with equal opportunity and equal freedom. It’s what you do with that opportunity, and if you work really hard in school and you go to college, no one is stopping you from doing what you want. It’s not the ’50s and ’60s anymore. Granted, some people will have to struggle more than others and have to work extra hard, but it’s when you put in that hard work and dedication that you get to have that reward in the end. No one is going to hand it to you.”
This week, the class watched a lecture video titled “Deconstructing White Privilege with Dr. Robin DiAngelo” that the Lake County sophomore said put forth the claim that all white people are automatically racist, even if they treat all people fairly and have black friends.
“As a white person, I have a white frame of reference and a white experience,” DiAngelo says in the video. “Racism is a deeply embedded system that our country was founded on and that all our institutions were created out of.”
“[My child] called my husband into the room and said, ‘You need to hear this.’ It was this video that was their lecture today,” said the Lake County student’s concerned mother, describing how she was uncomfortable when she found out the class was relying on a DiAngelo textbook. “It was telling them that if you are white, you are racist and privileged and that you don’t even know it. It was making all these broad accusations that are totally false.”
According to the students, a classmate disagreed with Feghali’s notion that an application called SketchFactor, which notifies people if they are nearing a region that is statistically more dangerous based on crime rates, is racist. The student was reportedly told that since they are white they have a racist way of thinking, and was told to be quiet.
“I assumed this class would be on how to deal with things in the classroom, like what happens if a kid throws up on the desk or has an emotional issue. I did not expect it was going to be just completely bashing white people, saying we’re all racist. Not everyone is against people of the opposite race. America is not black versus white,” the anonymous student said.
Every day, the course seemingly includes a new form of indoctrination. The course outline obtained by The Federalist below depicts the precise learning content week to week. Week five notably focuses on “Understanding the Invisibility of Oppression Through Sexism,” and week seven addresses “Understanding the Structural Nature of Oppression Through Racism” and “Understanding the Global Organization of Racism through White Supremacy.” This is merely the tip of the iceberg. See this link for the entire syllabus, pages 10-13 specifically.
“We need to oppose ‘antiracism’ training because the training itself is more like racism than its opposite. This training attributes guilt and innocence, insight and blindness, to individuals because of their race,” Stanley Kurtz, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, told The Federalist. “This training, and the critical race theory that inspires it, is fundamentally at odds with the classically liberal principles that form the foundation of our constitutional system. In America, we judge people according to their individual character and abilities, not their race. Critical race theory and training based on it takes the opposite point of view.”
According to the two students who spoke to The Federalist, other classes at Cleveland State are structured similarly. One education class reportedly about pre-k and kindergarten teaching is entirely about how capitalism is “corrupt” and why America should be more socialist.
As is seemingly the case with most “antiracist” educators, Feghali is a white woman who thinks it permissible to vilify white students she deems not “woke” enough for the radical ideas she espouses. By the standard of the educator — that all white people are inherently bigoted — she herself would also be.
“[Feghali] is white like me,” the anonymous student said. “And she is telling me I’m racist? I just want to know how?”
The Office of the Dean at Cleveland State did not immediately respond to a request for comment, nor did Feghali.
Update: A parent of one of the students reached out to the Federalist Thursday evening and said that Cleveland State University “pulled” Molly Feghali from teaching her child’s education course.
“She has been pulled from teaching the class. They are no longer going to have zoom classes. The students need to do their assignments and finish out the semester,” the parent said. “The head of the department sent out an email to all the students explaining what happened. Of course, they made it sound like Dr. Feghali was the victim and they had to stop the zoom classes because the link was on the published syllabus.”
CSU Dean Meredith Bond did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Federalist. This article will be updated if the university provides a statement.
Gabe Kaminsky is an intern at The Federalist and a student at the University of Pittsburgh. His work has appeared in Fox News, The Daily Wire, Townhall, The American Conservative, RealClearPolitics, The Washington Examiner, and other outlets. Follow him on Twitter @Gabe__Kaminsky or email gkaminskycontact@gmail.com.
Democratic senators plan to introduce legislation that would repeal the Hyde Amendment, arguing that the decades-old legislation is both “anti-choice” and “blatantly racist.”
The Equal Access to Abortion Coverage in Health Insurance Act will be introduced in Congress Thursday, the HuffPost reported, by Democratic Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth and Democratic California Sen. Barbara Lee. The legislation demands the reversal of the 1976 Hyde Amendment, which bans the use of federal funds for abortions.
Duckworth and Lee argue that the Hyde Amendment prevents low-income women and women of color from accessing abortions.
“This isn’t about what side you’re on in the abortion debate, it’s about equality and opportunity plain and simple,” Duckworth said Wednesday, HuffPost reported. “Whatever you think about the procedure, we should all agree that what’s legal for wealthy Americans should not be so inaccessible for Americans of color and low-income Americans.”
“Let’s call this amendment what it is: It’s anti-choice and it’s blatantly racist,” Lee said during a Wednesday call with reporters. “We know it disproportionately impacts low-income people and women of color. It should never have been signed into law and it’s way past time that it was repealed. The Hyde Amendment has been used by anti-choice politicians to keep abortion care out of the reach for people already marginalized by our health care system.”
Reverend Dean Nelson, the Human Coalition Action Executive Director, told the Daily Caller News Foundation Thursday that the Hyde Amendment is one of the few remaining legal barriers to “the abortion industry’s systematic and racist exploitation of people of color.”
“Across the country, Black women experience the highest abortion rate of any demographic, nearly five times higher than white women,” Nelson told the DCNF. “And even with the Hyde Amendment in place, the abortion industry already targets the poor with great success; close to half of the women who get abortions in America live below the federal poverty line.”
“The Hyde Amendment alone won’t halt the advance of abortion in America, but it does do something to protect Black lives,” Nelson said. “If the Democratic party seriously wants to fight racism, then it won’t repeal one of the few legal measures standing in the way of abortion’s Black genocide.”
Education commissioner runs into possible conflict with $8M contract
March 22, 2021
Tennessee Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn signed a multi-million dollar deal in March with a New York-based company as part of the state’s reading initiative, a move lawmakers say creates a potential conflict of interest because her husband works for the vendor.
As part of the state’s plan to help students rebound from the COVID-19 pandemic, Schwinn inked the $8.06 million contract with TNTP Inc. on March 1 for prek-4 foundational reading skills educator training, according to a document obtained by Tennessee Lookout. The contract took effect March 12 and is to run through fiscal 2022 at a rate of $4.032 million for each year, even though only four months remain in this fiscal year.
First, though, she obtained approval from the state’s Central Procurement Office, promising to distance herself from the agreement, according to a letter to the department’s legal counsel from Michael Perry, chief procurement officer for the state’s Central Procurement Office. Perry approved the matter based on Schwinn’s proposal dealing with conflicts to ensure she and her husband, Paul, didn’t get involved in the work.
During a special session early this year, the Legislature approved four programs costing about $160 million to bolster education amid the COVID-19 pandemic, mainly to help children catch up from time out of school and possible learning loss from online courses rather than classroom teaching. Summer reading programs are to be a foundation of the program, and teachers are to undergo training for those courses.
TNTP Chief Executive Officer Daniel Weisberg signed the contract for the teacher training program. Yet the education commissioner’s husband is a leadership coach with PhillyPlus TNTP, according to his Zoom page. He was previously chief academic officer at STEM Prep Academy.
In a separate letter, Commissioner Schwinn wrote regarding a potential conflict of interest on the bidding process for the contract, she disclosed that her husband works for TNTP Inc. as a contractor for school systems.
Schwinn stated in the letter that her husband discloses projects with her to make sure they don’t concern work in Tennessee. She also said he is not part of any solicitation with the state and that under the terms of his contract he is not to perform any work in Tennessee.
The commissioner assured the procurement office she would not be involved in evaluating solicitations for the contract, delegating final approval to a deputy commissioner or engaging in discussions with her husband relating to the contract.
The Department of Education responded to questions Monday evening and pointed out the department and commissioner adhered to all laws governing procurement. Schwinn filed a conflict of interest report with the Central Procurement Office “out of an abundance of caution,” the department said.
The department noted Perry’s letter indicated Schwinn’s “mitigation plan” addresses any conflict of interest or potential conflicts. The state received two bids and TNTP’s was the lowest, and the state scored the diversity and cost, including Education Department staff, except Schwinn.
Still, some lawmakers remain unsatisfied.
“It just so happens they get the contract and (we’re) writing a family a check. That sounds like a huge conflict to me,” said state Rep. Bo Mitchell, a Nashville Democrat and frequent critic of Gov. Bill Lee’s Administration. “I’ve been warning of this for some time, and it’s coming to fruition if it hadn’t been going on from day one.”
If lawmakers call Schwinn on the carpet, it wouldn’t be the first time. The General Assembly passed legislation in 2020 removing the education commissioner as a voting member of the Tennessee Textbook and Instructional Materials Quality Commission and took away the commissioner’s ability to grant waivers for school districts seeking to use unapproved books and materials.
Tennessee Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn’s husband, Paul, works for TNTP, Inc. Commissioner Schwinn just signed an $8 million contract with the company, leading some to say the deal has the appearance of a conflict of interest.
Sen. Mike Bell, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and a Senate Education member, grew interested in the matter after hearing from principals that Schwinn was too involved in the textbook adoption process, which is to be independent of the Education Department.
Bell, who has a copy of the contract, said Monday that Schwinn’s husband’s role in the company “appears to be a conflict of interest.” He plans to investigate the matter to determine Paul Schwinn’s role with the company, how the contract was procured and whether it uses federal or state money.
In March 2020, Bell raised questions about whether the Department of Education could have a potential conflict with a private vendor. Lawmakers put a hold on the early childhood reading initiative in 2020 because of concerns certain portions of the work would be steered to a certain vendor.
“I was assured at that time the commissioner’s husband didn’t work for any of the companies that would be potentially getting contracts from the state,” Bell said. “I absolutely plan on looking into it.”
This isn’t the first time the Schwinns have run into a possible conflict of interest, either. According to a report by Exceptional Delaware, Penny Schwinn took a post as chief of accountability and performance officer with Delaware Department of Education around 2014. Shortly after that, the Delaware Leadership Project hired her husband as director of leadership development. The group was funded by the Delaware Department of Education, Rodel Foundation of Delaware and The Vision Network, according to the report.
Schwinn was selected by Gov. Bill Lee to run the Education Department in early 2019 even though a Texas audit found she failed to follow rules for a no-bid $4.4 million contract on special education.
Since then, she caught the ire of Democratic and Republican lawmakers for approving a $2.5 million no-bid contract with Florida-based ClassWallet, using Career Ladder funds, to run the Education Savings Account program. That voucher program, Lee’s first major education initiative, was found unconstitutional and remains tied up in court.
In addition, Republican legislators chastised her in summer 2020 for trying to start a well-being check program for every child in the state by sending people to the homes of children to inquire about their welfare. Conservative lawmakers called it “overreach,” and Gov. Lee killed the program before it could begin.
Senate Advances Confirmation of Pro-Abortion Radical Xavier Becerra as HHS Secretary
MICAIAH BILGER MAR 17, 2021 | 5:43PM WASHINGTON, DC
The U.S. Senate advanced the confirmation of pro-abortion radical Xavier Becerra as health secretary Wednesday, voting to end debate and move forward with a final vote.
The 50-49 vote to invoke cloture was largely along party lines. U.S. Sens. Bob Casey Jr., of Pennsylvania, and Joe Manchin, of West Virginia, two Democrats who profess to be pro-life, voted with their party to advance Becerra’s confirmation. U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, of Maine, a pro-abortion Republican, split from her party and also voted yes.
Republican and Democrat pro-life leaders have been speaking out against Becerra’s confirmation because of his radical pro-abortion record.
“Mr. Becerra’s confirmation would be divisive and a step in the wrong direction,” more than 60 pro-life leaders told U.S. Senators in February. He “has proven himself to be an enemy of the health of women and the unborn. He cannot be entrusted with our national health programs and policies and is not qualified to serve as Secretary of Health and Human Services.”
They said Becerra has abused his powerful position “to target pro-life health centers and journalists,” and he cannot be trusted.
“Mr. Becerra is an enemy to every pro-life policy and law and has demonstrated complete disregard for the religious and moral convictions of those opposed to the brutal act of abortion,” they wrote. “His radical record in public office as California’s Attorney General and member of Congress leads our organizations to ask you to reject Mr. Becerra’s nomination.”
Pro-life Democrat leaders also are urging the U.S. Senate to reject Becerra, noting his lack of medical experience and his extremist position on abortion.
“We need someone to lead HHS who values the fullness of life and won’t actively work to advocate to expand the opportunity to end it through abortion,” said Kristen Day, executive director of Democrats For Life of America, in a statement. “The nomination of a state AG with little medical experience only serves the purpose of appeasing the abortion cultural warriors in the Democratic Party. This runs counter to the Biden Administration’s stated goal of healing divisions in the United States.”
Though Becerra claims to be Catholic, his record involving unborn babies and those who work to protect them is terrible. As head of HHS, Becerra would have even more power to advance a radical anti-life agenda, including expanding late-term abortions on babies capable of feeling pain and forcing taxpayers to pay for their deaths.
Becerra’s record as a former congressman and attorney general do not bode well for the future of religious freedom, free speech or unborn babies’ right to life.
He defended a California law that forced pro-life pregnancy centers to post signs advertising abortions; however, he lost at the U.S. Supreme Court. And he challenged a Trump administration rule that defunded Planned Parenthood of about $60 million in Title X funds.
Becerra also sued the federal government in 2017 because President Donald Trump has instituted a pro-life rule to protect Christian charities from having to pay for forms of contraception that may cause abortions through Obamacare. The Little Sisters of the Poor, a charity of nuns who serve the poor and elderly, is involved in defending the rule against Becerra.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas released a factually challenged and misleading statement Tuesday about the crisis on the border.
As specialists in immigration policy at The Heritage Foundation, we’re going to correct the record here on Mayorkas’ erroneous claims in a comprehensive response. (The last name after each section identifies which of us responded.)
Claim No. 1:“The expulsion of single adults does not pose an operational challenge for the Border Patrol … ”
Rating: False. One wonders whether Mayorkas ran this line by the men and women of the Border Patrol before saying it publicly, because if he had, he would’ve been embarrassed to make such a claim. Our Border Patrol agents are apprehending 4,500 to 6,000 illegal aliens per day.
Former DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson said in 2019 that under the Obama administration, 1,000 apprehensions was a crisis. We are at six times this volume today, and to suggest that dealing with this massive increase is not an operational challenge for the Border Patrol is to deny not just reality, but basic math. (Morgan)
Claim No. 2:“We are expelling most … families.”
Rating: False. The Biden administration is not utilizing all of its authorities with regards to the surge of family units. The facts tell us that the administration is not expelling “most” families under Title 42, as it claims.
According to DHS data, the administration expelled only 41% of family units in February, down from 76% in December under the Trump administration. Washington Post reporter Nick Miroff pointed out this fact just this week. This is important, as the smugglers and cartels will capitalize on this fact and continue to push family units across the border, knowing that a majority will remain. (Wolf)
Claim No. 3a:“We are not expelling unaccompanied children.”
Rating: False. The Biden administration is expelling unaccompanied children who are from Mexico every day. Administration officials have made a policy decision not to expel these children from the Northern Triangle countries, and the cartels and smugglers know this. The administration wants to have its cake and eat it, too, in desiring credit for supposedly treating unaccompanied minors more “humanely” without any criticism for detention of increasing numbers of these minors. (Morgan)
Claim No. 3b:“We are encountering 6- and 7-year-old children, for example, arriving at our border without an adult.”
Rating: Misleading. The Biden administration would have the American people believe most of the unaccompanied minors coming across the border are young children. This is false. The vast majority of unaccompanied children are between the ages of 15 and 17, with 75% over the age of 14. Many of these young people are coming to the border hoping to gain illegal entry into the U.S. for economic reasons.
Minors should be treated humanely regardless of their age, but the administration’s reliance on trying to pull the heartstrings of Americans is just more evidence it is interested in manipulation, not facts.
Mayorkas’ later accusation that the Trump administration put more children at risk for human trafficking is mind-blowing, since the Biden administration’s undoing of Trump-era immigration policies has unleashed a historic flood of unaccompanied minors to the border, many of whom we know were trafficked or smuggled there. The Biden administration has empowered the cartels and human traffickers after President Donald Trump severely cut their profit margins. (Morgan)
Claim No. 4:“Mexico does not have the capacity to receive families.”
Rating: Misleading. There are numerous misleading components to this answer. First, the surge in family units is a direct result of the Biden administration’s push for amnesty and undoing of effective Trump-era immigration policies. Mexico had been able to handle the return of family units under the Trump administration’s “Remain in Mexico” policy.
Second, Mexico is not the only country that can receive these illegal aliens, as they can be deported back to their country of origin. Third, the answer for Mexico is to help it build capacity—which both the State Department and other nongovernmental organizations can help enable. The answer is not to release illegal aliens and let them into the U.S., knowing that 90% will not qualify for asylum. (Wolf)
Claim No. 5:Reasons for the surge.
Rating: Misleading. The Department of Homeland Security blames the Biden border crisis on violence in Northern Triangle countries, hurricanes, and the pandemic. To be clear, conditions are not so dramatically different in the Northern Triangle from years past to explain this historic surge.
Not once does the administration take responsibility for disastrous messaging and the removal of effective immigration policies without a clear plan in place. This is absurd. Monthly apprehensions nearly doubled between summer 2020 and February 2021, because the Biden campaign and then the Biden administration was sending a clear signal to the world: If you arrive soon, you will receive amnesty. (Wolf)
Claim No. 6:“The prior administration completely dismantled the asylum system.”
Rating: False. Mayorkas’ claims are simply false. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services hired approximately 500 additional asylum officers to advance the Trump administration’s priority of reducing the asylum backlog. The Trump administration also shifted resources to prioritize the asylum backlog and those seeking protection at our own border.
The Trump administration inherited a backlogged asylum system, and wisely chose to focus on reducing this backlog throughout Trump’s term. More individuals were granted asylum by DHS and the Justice Department during the four years of the Trump administration than under the final four years of the Obama administration. Total grants of asylum in 2019 alone—46,508—were the highest annual total since at least 1990. (Ries)
Claim No. 7:“The previous administration cut foreign aid funding to the Northern Triangle.”
Rating: Misleading. Under the Trump administration, we demanded results before handing over millions of dollars in foreign assistance funding. As a result, we signed over a dozen border security agreements and saw unprecedented cooperation and results from the Northern Triangle countries.
These agreements helped slow the flow of illegal migrants through Central America, especially massive caravans, to our southern border. The Trump administration also made millions in funding available to these governments. (Wolf)
Claim No. 8:“There was no appropriate planning for the pandemic at all.”
Rating: False. This statement is a slap in the face to the men and women at the Department of Homeland Security, who worked tirelessly to put plans in place to deal with the challenge of a pandemic on top of keeping our immigration system running. We implemented extensive plans—to include vaccine distribution to front-line officers when the vaccine would be made available—to ensure our front-line workers would be protected.
We worked with other federal agencies to ensure Title 42 would be available to our immigration enforcement officials. We knew that putting illegal aliens in crowded Border Patrol facilities during the COVID-19 pandemic was not the answer. Unfortunately, the Biden administration believes it is.
We provided the Biden transition team with extensive briefings on the border and the tools we had in place to address illegal border crossings. We warned the transition team about the consequences of removing these policies.
They heard it directly from Customs and Border Patrol law enforcement officers. They heard that Border Patrol stations did not have capacity, and they heard that the Department of Health and Human Services did not have capacity. They knew it all and still rushed to dismantle the system for political reasons. (Wolf)
Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email letters@DailySignal.com and we will consider publishing your remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature.
There’s a new sheriff in town and he cares not a whit for you, your family, or your country. The rescinding of the “public charge” rule was the latest domino to fall in the Biden administration’s abandonment of all Trump-era measures to restrict immigration and protect the border.
People breaking into our country, now do so with impunity. They are still breaking the law but there is no enforcement in the wokeisphere.
In the old America, if you wanted to become a citizen, you had to show proficiency in English, a basic understanding of American civics, and the ability to support yourself. Then you would get in line with all the other applicants.
The impact of those requirements would now appear to be negligible with most immigrants coming here illegally. The Biden administration sees only votes and will promote any law or take any executive action that makes it easier to enter the country.
Once they’re here, Biden wants to ease and shorten the path to citizenship. This will provide the left with an endless supply of Democrat voters and undermine the fabric of the American culture that they so loathe. Two birds with one stone. Welcome to wokeworld.
Illegal immigrants enjoy a special status that American citizens do not. They are largely ignored or protected in many states and municipalities, and they are eligible for benefits they have not paid for. The vast majority work hard and simply want a better life for themselves and their families, but the fact is that they broke our laws to come here. In Biden’s woke America, they will be rewarded for it.
This situation is not sustainable. With open borders and open benefits, the millions that are coming today will soon be tens of millions. With such an abrupt change in demographics, the American culture will likely start to dissolve under the pressure. When foreigners can come into the United States with little more than an obligation to attend a hearing two years down the road, and over ninety percent don’t show up, then we have no border. If we have no border, we have no country.
The last great migration to America ended around 1920. This was almost entirely legal immigration, so we knew who was coming and how many. It took a forty-year cooling-off period for the country to absorb the new immigrants and for those immigrants to assimilate into American culture. They’ll be no such luxury this time. The new numbers dwarf the last wave, and they will only be accelerating.
Even the “wokest” of western nations understands the necessity for a secure border. Most, despite the boatloads of refugees they take in each year, are quite strict in administering and protecting their borders. How is it that America has come to forsake its own security and that of its people?
The answer lies with America’s leftist elite. They are a caste of preening, narcissistic, would-be-aristocrats and they need an ever-burgeoning underclass to keep voting for Democrats to support their lifestyles and egos.
They import voters from third-world countries and tear down America’s middle class while claiming to be their champion. They build walls around their houses. They build walls around their communities and now they have built a wall around the capital. All this while fiercely opposing a wall at the southern border where all varieties of turpitude and criminality are imported into the United States.
The rank hypocrisy is hiding in plain sight. The new Marxist elites can live behind walls but average citizens are left to fend for themselves. The woke folk have armed guards and state of the art law enforcement while community policing is defunded and our Second Amendment rights are threatened with new restrictions and taxation. There is increasingly nowhere for the average person to turn to for justice and security.
The Cloward- Piven plan from the 1960s called for overwhelming America’s social welfare system to topple capitalism and usher in a new utopian, socialist government. With the backdrop of an overtaxed citizenry, massive illegal immigration, a rapid increase in violent crime, endless wars, endless crises, and an exploding national debt, the pieces are all in place for large-scale social unrest. Just the way they planned it.
A government watchdog organization is suing the Department of Health and Human Services to gain access to communications between the Centers for Disease Control and major social-media platforms about the coronavirus pandemic.
Judicial Watch previously filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the information, but the CDC failed to respond.
"The public has the right to know about CDC’s involvement in Big Tech's outrageous censorship of Americans, including doctors, who raise questions about the COVID-19 response," said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. "The Biden administration should stop stonewalling and release the records about the CDC's role in suppressing the free speech of Americans."
The complaint seeks any and all records "of communication between CDC officials and/or employees and employees, agents, and/or representatives of Google, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube concerning, regarding, or relating to COVID-19 related content on company platforms. Such records include, but are not limited to, any advice or instructions issued on disinformation re COVID-19."
The court filing notes that the CDC acknowledged receipt of the request but has not responded.
"The CDC has failed to: (i) determine whether to comply with the request; (ii) notify plaintiff of any such determination or the reasons therefor; (iii) advised plaintiff of the right to appeal any adverse determination; or (iv) produce the requested records or otherwise demonstrate that the requested records are exempt from production," the filing charges."
The complaint seeks a court order that HHS search for any and all appropriate records and produce "any and all non-exempt records responsive to plaintiffs' FOIA request."
Is there an effort by the powers that be to keep you in the dark on coronavirus?
It also seeks an order to stop the agency from continuing to withhold records.
Social media played a large role in censoring information about certain possible coronavirus treatments. For example, multiple platforms removed comments, even from experts in the field, regarding the possible benefits of hydroxychloroquine in the fight against COVID-19.
You are probably wondering if this is satire, but I assure you it’s not. This is real life, and it’s as ridiculous as it seems.
Apparently, there’s a group called “Pro-life Evangelicals for Biden” and they are really, really upset. As supporters of Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential run, they were under the illusion that he’d somehow be transactional on abortion. What could have given them that impression is anyone’s guess.
In the end, that assumption was shattered by the recently passed COVID “relief” bill. It includes an exception to the Hyde Amendment, which is supposed to prevent federal dollars from going toward performing and promoting abortions.
Now, my first thought is exactly why exactly does a COVID relief bill need an exemption to the Hyde Amendment? What spending is in there that will be going toward abortion in a piece of legislation that is supposed to be pointed toward helping people recover? But these are Democrats we are talking about so it’s not surprising at all that something like that would end up in there.
Regardless, I can’t help but laugh at the idea of a pro-life group supporting Biden in the first place. What exactly did they think would happen? This is a man who has never been pro-life a second of his political career. Throughout his entire campaign in 2020, Biden assured the left he would be the most pro-abortion president in American history. There has been no hint that he even opposes partial-birth abortion, and he’s been outspoken in his opposition to the Hyde Amendment.
In other words, only a complete idiot would vote for Biden if one was opposed to any facet of the despicable act that is abortion.
This is actually all a sad testament to how shallow our politics have become. How could someone who is against the killing of children in the womb be so wrapped up in opposition to mean tweets and Trump’s personality that they could actively support Joe Biden? Shouldn’t a life and death issue such as that take precedence? You’d think so, but I guess some convinced themselves otherwise. Now, they have to live with their decision and all the repercussions of it.
President Joe Biden’s Southern border czar Roberta Jacobson admitted on Wednesday during the White House press briefing that the recent surge of migrants at the border is directly correlated with the new administration’s open border policies.
“Do you think it’s a coincidence that as soon as Trump and his immigration policy were on the way out and Biden and his stated policy were on the way in, this historic surge at the border started?” asked Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy.
“We’ve seen surges before. Surges tend to respond to hope and there was a significant hope for a more humane policy. After four years of, you know, pent-up demand,” Jacobson responded. “So I don’t know whether I would call that a coincidence, but I certainly think that the idea that a more humane policy would be in place, may have driven people to make that decision.”
Doocy pressed Jacobson further, asking if she thought the influx of migrants, especially the projected 117,000 unaccompanied minors, was good, the border czar walked back some of her enthusiasm.
“I don’t think that’s what I just said. I think it’s a reflection of how migrants feel at a particular time. I think what we are doing is making sure that we respond to that hope for people who need protection, we respond to that hope in a way that their cases can be adjudicated more quickly, but I don’t think anybody would say that coming to the United States in an irregular fashion is a good thing,” Jacobson said, blaming the increasing amounts of people crossing the border on disinformation spread by smugglers.
When another reporter asked about the Biden administration’s mixed messaging on the border including dissuading migrants from crossing but promising them a prosperous path to a future in America, Jacobson admitted the administration is trying to “walk and chew gum at the same time.”
“We are trying to convey to everyone in the region that we will have legal processes in the future … But at the same time, you cannot come through irregular means,” Jacobson said.
Jacobson joined other heads in the Biden administration in refusing to call the surge at the Southern border a crisis, merely stating that Biden is “clear-eyed about the challenges” his administration faces in the coming days. Despite her optimism, Jacobson urged potential migrants to avoid coming to the U.S., accidentally telling them the “the border is not closed” in Spanish and then later correcting her message to “the border is closed.”
Jordan Davidson is a staff writer at The Federalist. She graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism.
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Biden sued by 12 states over climate executive order: 'Enormous expansion of federal regulatory power'
Lawsuit argues that Biden does not have the authority to set a 'social cost' for greenhouse gases
EXCLUSIVE - A coalition of 12 states is suing President Biden's administration over a climate executive order that they claim has the potential to have a serious economic impact across the country through the expansion of federal regulatory power.
The suit, which is being led by Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, was filed on Monday. State attorneys general from Arkansas, Arizona, Indiana, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Utah also joined the action.
It alleges that Biden’s Executive Order 13990, titled “Protecting Public Health and the Environment and Restoring Science to Tackle the Climate Crisis,” does not have the authority to issue binding numbers for the “social cost” of greenhouse gases to be used in federal regulations.
The breakdown of the social costs shows $269 billion for carbon dioxide, $990 billion for methane, and $8.24 trillion for nitrous oxide – totaling approximately $9.5 trillion, according to the lawsuit, which cited interim values determined by an interagency working group that was created by Biden’s order.
Schmitt said that those potential regulations will stifle manufacturing and harm agriculture in Missouri, where state figures show that hundreds of thousands of people work in those industries.
“Under President Biden’s executive order, which he didn’t have the authority to enact, these hard-working Missourians who have lived and worked this land for generations, could be left in the dust,” Schmitt said in a written press release.
But the suit claims that the impact from the $9.5 trillion “social cost” of greenhouse gases will stretch farther than just Missouri.
“In practice, this enormous figure will be used to justify an equally enormous expansion of federal regulatory power that will intrude into every aspect of Americans’ lives— from their cars, to their refrigerators and homes, to their grocery and electric bills,” the suit states.
The lawsuit argues that Biden’s order does not have the authority to set values for the social costs of carbon, methane, and nitrous oxide that will be used by regulatory agencies.
“It will be used to inflict untold billions or trillions of dollars of damage to the U.S. economy for decades to come,” the suit states.
In claiming that Biden’s order cannot set these values, the suit claims that the action violates the separation of powers, “the most fundamental bulwark of liberty.”
In 2016, Therese Johaug, a Norwegian three-time Olympic cross-country skiing champion, received an 18-month suspension from the sport she loved after it was discovered that the team-approved lip balm she was using to treat her badly sunburned lips contained a performance-enhancing steroid.
A devastated Johaug lamented, “I feel I did everything right. I went to an expert who gave me the ointment, and I asked him if the cream was on a doping list. The answer I got was ‘no.’”
But the powers that be were undeterred from their well-established hard line of fairness, and Johaug was forced to watch the 2018 winter Olympics from the sidelines.
It’s an unfortunate set of circumstances that raises the question: If chemicals from a necessary, medicated lip balm can be construed as such an unjust physical advantage, how on Earth can athletic authorities continue to turn a blind eye to the litany of physical advantages the transgender men increasingly competing in women’s sports so obviously possess in their male bodies?
The ‘Standards’ for Trans Athletes Are Ludicrous
This question remains unanswered, as the International Olympic Committee continues to waffle over the rules for participation in Olympic women’s events. Their rules presently allow men to participate as women, provided their testosterone levels are below 10 nanomoles per liter for at least 12 consecutive months.
These standards completely fail to consider the host of other advantages inherent in the male body: increased 02 capacity, overall musculature, bone size and density, increased joint stability, and lower body fat, to name a few. These advantages don’t magically disappear with the wave of a synthetic estrogen wand.
For those tempted to believe the male takeover of women’s sports is such a fringe issue that it’s not likely to be an important or frequent enough problem to merit any concern, think again. Here are just a few of the many ways women and girls are losing to their impersonators.
Men Easily Dominate in Women’s Sports
Fallon Fox is a male, American mixed martial arts fighter who competes in the women’s division. Fox ended the career of his opponent, Tamikka Brents, within the first three minutes of their fight when he shattered her eye socket, an injury requiring seven staples in her head, prompting her to declare, “I’ve never felt so overpowered in all my life.”
Hannah Mouncey is going to injure someone if allowed to continue dominating on the Australian women’s national handball team. He played on the men’s national team before deciding to grow out his hair and declare himself a woman.
Rachel McKinnon is a man and two-time women’s world cycling champion, who also uses his status as a professor of philosophy at College of Charleston in South Carolina to bully those who disagree with him, responding to dissenting opinions on Twitter with threats such as, “Abigail Shrier got wrecked on FOX Nation. I’ll do it to you, too.”
Gabrielle Ludwig is a 6-foot-6-inch man who took a starting spot on the women’s basketball team at Mission College in California. He was named first team all conference and mysteriously led the league in rebounds.
Fewer than 5,000 spots are available on NCAA Division III women’s volleyball teams. That didn’t prevent Chloe Anderson, a male, from taking one of them at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Some of Alaska’s finest female track athletes watched the state final race from the sidelines after Nattaphon Wangyot, a male, edged them out of their places in it.
Terry Miller and Andraya Yearwood are a dynamic duo from Connecticut, where the unmedicated, post-pubescent boys took first- and second-place state championship titles in girls’ track events. When asked about his obvious physical advantage, Miller flippantly said the girls “should work harder.”
Similarly unmoved by the inequity of his male advantage is Cece Telfer, a man who ran on the Franklin Pierce University men’s 2016-17 track and field team before deciding he would rather race against women. He became the women’s 2019 Division II national champion in the 400-meter race, beating his closest opponent by a second and a half.
Amelia Galpin is a man who competes against women in the Boston Marathon. He, ironically, was featured on “the body edition” of Women’s Running Magazine, sending the message loud and clear that the ideal woman’s body includes a penis. How very progressive.
Laurel Hubbard and JayCee Cooper are two men doing their darndest to dominate women’s powerlifting. Hubbard took gold in two women’s heavyweight categories at the Pacific Games. Cooper filed a discrimination claim against USA Powerlifting, demanding a right to lift against women.
Caroline Layt is a man who was once voted “Women’s Rugby Player of the Year.” Britney Stinson, also a man, has broken into the Women’s Football Alliance and USA Baseball. Maxine Blythin is a man who just recently won the title “Women’s Cricketer of the Week.” Cate McGregor — you guessed it, another man — is on the Canberra women’s cricket team.
Lies Are Informing Public Policy
The list goes on and on, and so does the utterly nonsensical rhetoric relentlessly shoved down the public’s collective throat as fact. In the Human Rights Campaign’s “Guide for Schools in Transition,” the section related to trans-identified people in sports reads, “Concerns about competitive advantage are unfounded and often grounded in stereotypes about the differences and abilities of males vs. females.”
This is the kind of rhetoric informing public policy — the notion that men’s advantage in sports is nothing more than a sex stereotype that can be overcome with a little more elbow grease and courage from the females. It’s fascinating, is it not, that given this newfound clarity, we don’t somehow see females identifying their way onto the starting lineups of NFL or NBA teams.
Does anyone else remember what happened when Serena Williams challenged the 203rd-ranked player from the men’s league? I’ll give you a hint: She lost. Badly. The dominant U.S. women’s soccer team routinely loses to high school boys teams.
Sex-Based Protections Exist for a Reason
I take no pleasure in acknowledging this reality. As a former small-college basketball player, I’ll never forget the day a group of meathead-looking men showed up for our open gym and asked to play against us. I had a bit of a chip on my shoulder and something to prove, so I played as hard and aggressively as I possibly could.
At one point, I decided to try to stop one of the men from completing a fast-break layup. I sprinted in front of him, planted my body on the block outside the key, and braced myself for impact.
I was still seeing stars 10 minutes later. I had never been hit by so much brute force in my entire life. I later discovered I had, in fact, taken a charge from then-Seattle Seahawks running back Shaun Alexander, so my bravado was actually sheer stupidity, but the point has stayed with me, stamped into my memory for more than a decade now: No amount of 5 a.m. practices or extra drills or mental toughness or “working harder” would ever be sufficient for me to overcome the physical gap between our abilities.
That’s why sex-based protections exist in the first place. Without them, women like me would never be able to afford our college educations, as men would have swept up the scholarships we received. And that’s exactly what’s starting to happen.
Fight Back to Protect Women’s Sports
I hesitated to write this article for quite some time because it’s so profoundly discouraging to know that every time I talk about this, plenty of men are sitting around saying, “Women’s sports are a joke anyway,” or, “Feminists made their bed; now they need to lie in it.”
The fact that I feel compelled even to consider writing an extra paragraph unpacking the merits of women’s sports is evidence of the volume of work we have left to do. Ambivalent men will always find a way to blame women for our mistreatment, and it’s why feminism will always continue to exist: Someone has to care about this stuff. It’s not right, and it needs to stop.
Men’s and women’s bodies are different. It’s not rocket science, it’s biology, and it turns out biology is one bigoted son of a gun. Anatomy discriminates. Women have known this for centuries. Biology is science, however, and as the left is constantly reminding us, science denial is pretty dangerous.
It’s time to step up and speak up and stop this nonsense once and for all. It’s going to take all hands on deck. Women, girls, and the people who love them need to complain loudly and often whenever they’re faced with the prospect of having to compete against the men who would cheat them out of what is rightfully theirs. Film the lunacy of it all. Share it broadly on social media.
Women had to fight loud and hard to acquire athletic opportunities in the first place. Unfortunately, it has become increasingly clear we will have to fight long and hard to keep them.
Tennessee: An All-Volunteer Force for Common Sense
March 2, 2021 Tony Perkins
In one of the more colorful descriptions of the Equality Act, Senator John Kennedy (R-La.) told reporters that he doesn't believe in discrimination against anyone but said, "this bill guts religious freedom... like a fish. And anybody that's suggesting otherwise is either not telling the truth, or they didn't graduate from kindergarten." While he and the rest of the GOP brace for the bill to hit the Senate, the good news is, the states aren't waiting. They're racing to put up shields of protection now.
In Tennessee, liberals are getting a taste of just how unpopular their radical agenda is becoming. Days after the U.S. House decided to strip girls of sports, privacy, rights, and religion in the Equality Act, the Volunteers sent a message of their own. With one of the biggest vote margins yet, leaders sent a bill saving women's sports out of the state senate by a 27-6 vote. "To say it's not a problem in Tennessee may be true, but it will be a problem in Tennessee probably sooner than we think," state Sen. Kerry Roberts (R) warned.
Legislators seemed to agree, including some who refused to back the proposal last year. A handful of members switched sides, acknowledging that the march to include biological boys is gaining steam. "To deny that it's a problem is to deny reality," Roberts agreed.
There were the predictable arguments from the Left -- fears over what the corporate culture would do and how the decision would impact tourism. "We're looking at events like the Super Bowl, we're looking at the World Cup in 2026. We all love our NCAA basketball tournaments, [and] all three of those organizations have said they will seriously consider not bringing their events to locations that have discriminatory laws on the books," a local Chamber of Commerce CEO cautioned. Fortunately, most leaders chose to look past those threats to the real issue: fairness, opportunity, and safety. If the Left wants to hold states hostage for refusing to bow to their transgender agenda, fine. Let them explain to America why they want to strip women of the programs that they fought decades for. Or why our daughters' futures are a worthwhile trade for a few rounds of March Madness revenue.
The more the mob pushes, the harder conservatives are starting to push back. At this point, what do they have to lose? Sixty-four percent of Americans are already worried the cancel culture is destroying their freedom. And if the last few weeks are any indication, the last thing they're going to do is roll over and let it. Even Republicans who might have been reluctant to tackled the issue before are starting to openly challenge this ridiculous idea that transgenderism is good for kids. Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) went toe-to-toe with Joe Biden's nominee for assistant secretary of HHS, who wouldn't even give a straight answer on whether he thought children should be sterilized without their parents' knowledge. The fringe called Paul a "transphobe." The rest of the country called him courageous.
These are the kind of leaders who are going to make a difference in the growing number of states trying to fend off this onslaught. Will the pressure keep coming? Absolutely. But, as Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) said at CPAC, "You know what? The Leftists, the Democrats, the radical progressives, they can go ahead and crank up the heat seven times hotter. We're going through with Jesus, and we're coming out not even smelling like smoke. We are not going to be singed by the radical flames of this cancel culture."
So join the team who refuses to be canceled. Contact your state leaders and urge them to protect kids from this dangerous movement. Then, email your senators and tell them to vote no on the Equality Act. For more on what the bill would mean for Christians, check out David Closson's blog post, "The Equality Act Demands Conformity to Moral Anarchy."
"I was stunned by the allegations because there is absolutely no truth to them. I have spent the last 27 years building my law practice and serving in this community which has created my reputation for fairness, sincerity and integrity. ... For people who know me, these allegations are absurd. To those who don’t, it provides reason to sneer and hate," Ramirez said of the charges.
Ramirez, a Republican, was arrested after a Bandera Grand Jury indicted him, Leonor Rivas Garza, Eva Ann Martinez, and Mary Balderrama on Feb. 9.
Garza, Martinez, and Balderrama each face one charge of organized election fraud, as well as multiple counts of illegal voting, unlawful possession of a ballot or ballot envelope, election fraud, and other charges.
“This election was rigged, and the Supreme Court and other courts didn’t want to do anything about it,” Trump said during his speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Sunday. “Had we had a fair election, the results would have been much different.”
A viral video surfaced Sunday that had conservatives rushing to decry the over-sexualization of young children, while progressives defensively argued that normalizing non-heterosexual identities was necessary for children to be respectful of others.
The video shows a woman reading through a book called the "Gay BCs," with a young, seemingly special needs boy, learning the alphabet by associating the letters with sexual or gendered terminology like "B is for bi," "C is for coming out," "I is for intersex," and "Q is for queer."
It's not immediately clear when the video was recorded, but the book that is apparently being used was released in 2019 by Matt Webb, who said he wanted to create a work that allowed children aged 4 to 8 to begin dialoguing about sexual orientation and gender identity early in their lives.
"I just thought of other little 5-year-olds who are just kind of starting to notice things and thought what would be the best thing for them that would be something that is inviting, but also something that they could use their own words to communicate," Webb said. "You think about school and how you're taught the same lessons year after year, and you think it really doesn't matter, but at the same time, it's reinforcing. The book is normalizing how people identify and normalizing how allies see themselves and their friends."
Where Webb sees "normalization," conservatives and Christians see indoctrination and brainwashing. "It's a peculiar religion," one such commenter remarked.
