The School Board Queen: How a Florida Mom Is Shaking Up U.S. Education

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My wife – Bridget Ziegler – is a Rockstar.

Anyone who has gotten to know her, already knows that, but for those that haven’t yet… Bloomberg headed down to Sarasota to spend a couple days diving into her story and how she became one of the leading Conservative School Board Members in the country.

As you listen to her story and her impact on Education, it’s important to keep in mind that her recent successes – flipping our School Board from 3-2 Liberal to 4-1 Conservative – are a culmination of almost a decade of non-stop efforts battling The Left & The Establishment.

And during that time, my wife was the target of press smears, some very nasty personal attacks and even vile and dangerous attacks on our children. Yet, she persevered and our School District, local Community and the next generation of children will be better off because of it.

Then reply back and share what you think of the discussion and what your thoughts are about your local School Board & public education.

The School Board Queen: How a Florida Mom Is Shaking Up US Education

Bridget Ziegler is a leader in the parental rights movement focused on US school board elections. The final episodes of the “Bedrock, USA” podcast examine her conservative agenda.

By  and 

After all the talk of a “red wave” in 2022’s US midterm elections, the anticipated Republican sweep failed to materialize. Or did it?

At the school board level, candidates who opposed mask mandates and how gender and race are addressed in schools won about 30% of board seats, according to Ballotpedia, a nonprofit that tracks elections. Faced with new challengers, school board incumbents lost their elections at higher rates in 2021 and 2022 than in the previous three years,  Ballotpedia’s analysis shows.

Up until 2021, “people really weren’t paying a lot of attention to what was going on in these elections,” says Doug Kronaizl, a senior staff writer with Ballotpedia. “And now all of a sudden people are paying very close attention to what’s going on.”

At the forefront of this trend is Bridget Ziegler, a school board member in Sarasota, Florida, and a mother of three. She is a founding member of Moms for Liberty, the right-wing activist group, and she has the support of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis; she says she was influential in helping pass the Florida Parental Rights in Education Act, and is now supporting the governor’s Stop W.O.K.E. Act. Last year, she was put in charge of training people on how to run for school boards for the Leadership Institute, a conservative nonprofit that’s been helping politicians all over the country since the 1970s, including with big wins during the 2022 midterms.

Over three chapters, “The School Board Queen” podcast explores who Bridget Ziegler is, what she stands for, and how she plans to help reshape and influence American education. The miniseries is part of “ Bedrock, USA” — a podcast from Bloomberg CityLab and iHeart Media that examines how the far right is making inroads into local government.

Listen to Chapter 1 here

The first episode looks at why Ziegler ran for school board — it was actually her husband’s idea. (Christian Ziegler is vice chair of the Florida GOP and currently running for chair.) Her goal was to help shape the schools her children would some day attend. Once she got on the school board she encountered members she called “mean” and unprofessional. She didn’t buy into how school boards were being run — too much control was given to the superintendent, she says. We also talk to Caroline Zucker, a school board member who worked alongside Ziegler and switched from Republican to Democrat because she “couldn’t take the shenanigans going on anymore.”

Listen to Chapter 2 here

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In the second episode, we journey back in time to the 1950s and 1960s and discover the origins of the conservative movement in education. We speak to two historians, Michelle Nickerson and Natalia Mehlman Petrzela. Nickerson describes how conservative activists in the 1950s and 1960s pushed back against progressive measures for that era. And Mehlman Petrzela discusses how sex education took center stage in the culture wars of the 1960s and 1970s. We draw a throughline from back then to today, and the big common denominator: the overreaching arm of government in children’s lives.

Listen to Chapter 3 here

The last episode digs in with Ziegler about why she has been called racist and homophobic. She has criticized the Black Lives Matter movement and how it was taught in schools, and she has promoted unscientific ideas around trends in trans youth. She explains her beliefs and why she is supporting Governor DeSantis in his education agenda. We also spend time with an eleventh grade trans teenager who talks about what it’s like to be a student in Florida after the Florida Parental Rights in Education Act was passed.

©Christian Ziegler. All rights reserved.

VIDEO: No Christianity, No Constitutional Liberty!

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Men in Women’s Showers! How? Why?

The minute the Pilgrims/Puritans set-foot on American soil 400 years ago, the foundation for this region of the world to become a Christian-based society/Republic became undeniable. The USA is built upon the teachings of Christ. Our freedoms and Liberty – protected in the Constitution – are straight out of the Gospel.

So, what happened to our Christian-based culture, society and government? In this edition of the Ledger Report, Graham Ledger explains how America is Christ-based and that if we do not return to this foundation, you can kiss our Constitution goodbye.

Please subscribe free to The Ledger Report by clicking here: www.GrahamLedger.com

©Graham Ledger. All rights reserved.

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Faith in Dark Times

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The article below by Bill Muehlenberg was sent to me today by a member of an intelligence network to which I have belonged for over ten years. Not only is the article timely and worthy of your reading, but I wanted to share that there are far more members of law enforcement, intelligence and threat assessment specialists, security professionals and protection agents who are Christians than the public might imagine. It was never easy to be in law enforcement, but the present is far more tenuous and fraught with danger. From the moment one checks “in-service” for his/her shift the pressure is there, the threat is there, the discord and possible dark times are there. As Bill Muehlenberg writes so clearly, God is still in control, He is still on the job, He sees everything – even in times of political and social turmoil and despair.

To all who swear to Serve and Protect, know that prayers truly are being offered for your protection and guidance. While the world is clearly slipping away the Lord of lords and King of kings is not! He is “in-service” working right along side of all of us regardless of our mission or standing.

To all others reading Bill Muehlenberg’s article, stand firm yourself. Look UP and not merely concentrate on the surrounding political and social turmoil. The Lord is very much still in control. While He may appear silent, do not confuse His silence with non-attentive, non-caring, non-involved. There is not even a sparrow that falls in the middle of the night, in the middle of a forest the Lord doesn’t see and had already known would fall. His perfect plan is coming into fruition. Give thanks in all things, not for all things but in all things.

Faith in Dark Times

By Bill Muehlenberg

God is still there, even in times of political turmoil and despair:

It is times like this when many Christians might be really struggling. A horrific election result is just the icing on the cake of a woke, secular left blitzkrieg which is overwhelming not just Victoria and Australia, but all of the West. It seems like one ugly anti-Christian agenda item after another is being implemented, and the war of faith, freedom and family is in the final stages.  With all this going on many believers can be very discouraged and disillusioned. I know I am. We naturally ask where is God, why he seems to be silent, why our prayers are not being answered, and so on. Why is this all happening? Why does not God intervene?

Many believers throughout the centuries have asked these sorts of questions and wondered about these kinds of matters. It can be any number of things that produces such questioning: the death of a loved one, losing your job, coming down with cancer, or getting a divorce. And nationally we can also ask questions about all sorts of things: invasion, civil war, depressions, treason, national disasters, corrupt politicians and so on.

Here in Victoria having another heart-wrenching election result is one of those big ticket items. It is certainly more serious than when your fave sporting team loses, but less serious than being invaded, as in Ukraine. In my short election piece I penned late last night, I mentioned how when God judged rebellious Israel, it was not just those deserving of such punishment who suffered.

It was also the godly remnant, including some of God’s choice prophets. They too experienced the destruction of Jerusalem by the evil Babylonians, and many of them were carried away into Babylonian exile as well. They suffered right along with all the others.  They could easily have been asking similar sorts of questions: ‘Why Lord?’ Of course they did know that the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple was God’s judgment on a rebellious and sinful people, and they heavily grieved about all that. But they also had to undergo these horrible experiences themselves, being exiled from home and dragged off to a strange land.  But they also knew that their time there would not be permanent, and that God would bring them back home one day. Not only that, but God would judge Babylon, the very nation that had been his instrument of judgement upon Israel in the first place. They had all this by prophetic revelation. Things differ today.

When we see one electoral defeat after another, with secular left parties bent on doing so much great harm to faith, family and freedom, we do not have that same prophetic word. Another four years of Labor here in Victoria may well destroy it. And one Liberal MP says it is quite likely it will be at least ten more years before Labor finally gets booted out. I do not think Victoria can last that long. But again, we do not have the divine word on all this, so we can only guess about how things will pan out.  So all we can do is grieve, and ask questions, and plead with God, and hope that some sort of miracle happens. We can repent, individually, and on behalf of a sleeping and often spiritually inert church, and ask for God’s mercy. The fate of the state is often to a large extent dependent on the fate of the church.

If the church was being all it was meant to be under God, things may well have turned out differently. So we as Christians must begin on our faces before God, confessing our own sins and seeking his favour. But many would rightly be asking right now if all that we have been going through of late is not the judgment of God on this state and on this nation – not just on the pagan populace, but on the church as well.

There is much here to think about and pray about. But I know that many believers and conservatives went to bed last night with very heavy hearts, with real grief, and with plenty of questions. I certainly did. A bit past midnight as I headed off to bed I flipped over the page on my daily Bible verse calendar thingee, and it was interesting what I found. The verse for Sunday was the very familiar passage from Romans 8:28.  It says this: “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” I thought it was quite interesting that the last thing I saw before heading to bed and a long night of tossing and turning was this verse. Indeed, in yesterday morning’s daily reading I was also in Romans 8.

So I took it as an indication that God may have been seeking to speak to me and comfort me. And what better verse to do this with than this one. It is such a familiar passage that we tend to take it for granted. But it is a marvellous text indeed, and it is worth offering a bit of commentary on. James Montgomery Boice reminds us that the ‘good’ discussed here has to do with being conformed to the image of Christ:

That is an obvious good. It is impossible to think of a higher good for human beings, to be like one’s Maker. Pastor Ray Stedman rightly calls this “what life is all about.” But at the same time, seeing this allows us to see other not so obviously good things within the greater purpose. We can see how sickness, suffering, persecution, grief, or other ills can be used by God for this good end….

Are the things used in our lives by God for this good end necessarily good in themselves or only in their effect? The answer is the latter. In other words, this text does not teach that sickness, suffering, persecution, grief, or any other such thing is itself good. On the contrary, these things are evils. Hatred is not love. Death is not life. Grief is not joy. The world is filled with evil. But what the text teaches—and this is important—is that God uses these things (and others) to effect his own good ends for his people. God brings good out of the evil, and the good, as we saw, is our conformity to the character of Jesus Christ.

Romans: Righteousness from Heaven
(Preaching the Word) by Hughes, R. Kent (Author)

  1. Kent Hughes makes these remarks:

Romans 8:28 does not mean, as is commonly thought, that “everything will turn out okay in this life.” It means, rather, that everything will work out for our ultimate good. These words have our eternal rather than our temporal good in mind. Bishop Anders Nygren writes:

“Just as the present aeon is to be followed by eternity, it has already been preceded by an eternity. Only when we see our present existence set in God’s activity, which goes from eternity to eternity, do we get it in right perspective. Then man comes to see that everything that comes to the Christian in this life—and consequently the sufferings of the present too—must work together for good to him.”

And R. C. Sproul offers this comment:

What we get from Romans 8:28 is this: in the short run each of us is visited at some point by tragedy. We are actors in the theater of the tragic. Tragedies are on our minds every day, but what Romans 8:28 teaches is that ultimately – not proximately but ultimately – there are no tragedies for the Christian. Tragedy now is a blessing later. In every tragedy we experience, God is working with it, molding it and shaping it, for our eternal blessedness. The tragic is ephemeral and temporary. It is in the world but never permanent.

Sure, it will be quite difficult for us to understand how yet another term in office with one of the most corrupt, evil and anti-Christian politicians in Australian history can be viewed as good. But Paul is talking about goods for the believer. And for the long haul it may be a very real bad thing for the state and the nation, but God can still use it to achieve his purposes in our lives and beyond.  And this is where faith comes into play. It sure does not look like anything good can come out of this disastrous political mess. But we are not God and we have no full idea as to what he is up to. But we do know that he is too wise to make a mistake, and too loving to be unkind.

So that means we CAN trust him, and we can cast all our cares upon him. Things are looking very grim right now, but Jesus is still on the throne, and he is still working out his purposes in our lives and in the nations. That is what gives us hope and that is what helps us to persevere.

About Bill Muehlenberg’s Culture Watch

We live in an age where we see evidence of cultural decline, the erosion of values, the decline of civility, the denial of truth and the elevation of unreason. Many people are asking, “Where is our culture heading?” This website is devoted to exploring the major cultural, social and political issues of the day. It offers reflection and commentary drawing upon the wealth of wisdom found in the Judeo-Christian tradition. It offers reflective and incisive commentary on a wide range of issues, helping to sort through the maze of competing opinions, worldviews, ideologies and value systems. It will discuss critically and soberly where our culture is heading. Happy reading!
https://billmuehlenberg.com/

©Lyle J. Rapacki, Ph.D. All rights reserved.

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“Amazing Grace” and the Abolition of Slavery

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This month, January 2023, marks the 250th anniversary of the classic hymn, “Amazing Grace.”

The Museum of the Bible writes: “It was January 1, 1773. John Newton led his congregation down the road from the parish church in Olney, England, to Lord Dartmouth’s Great Hall to sing…and the hymn he wrote for this day was special. It spoke of his conversion, of his self-proclaimed wretchedness, and of the saving power of God’s grace. Since then, the words of ‘Amazing Grace’ have struck a chord with millions across cultures and generations, and its popularity has never wavered.”

The museum based in D.C. now has a section dedicated to the anniversary of this amazing hymn.

In the hymn, John Newton, a former slave-trader now converted, indeed describes himself as a “wretch,” who was amazed that God would extend His grace to one such as he.

He became a minister after his conversion, and one day, a politician came to visit him for personal guidance. That man was William Wilberforce, who had recently been converted to faith in Jesus.

Everybody should know who William Wilberforce was—perhaps the greatest Christian statesman of all time.

He was a longtime Member of Parliament, who worked tirelessly (with a group of like-minded associates that became known as “The Clapham Sect”) to end the slave trade of the British Empire and then to free all the slaves therein. By the time of his death in 1833, Wilberforce was successful. But it took him about half a century.

Author Dr. Os Guinness once said, “When Wilberforce died, he was described as ‘the George Washington of humanity.’”

William Wilberforce was born in 1759 and inherited considerable wealth which placed him among the landed nobility of England. He was indeed a polished gentleman, and he first ran for Parliament and won at the age of 21.

But not until his conversion a few years later did he begin to take life seriously.

After committing his life to Christ, he briefly dallied with the idea of leaving politics to serve God. But John Newton counseled Wilberforce to stay and let God use him in politics. Newton declared, “The Lord has raised you up to the good of his church and for the good of the nation.”

I shudder to think about someone like Wilberforce seeking guidance today among some modern ministers, who might easily convince him that Christians and politics shouldn’t mix. But John Calvin Coolidge, an often-overlooked president, once said, “If good men don’t hold office, bad men will.”

Soon after meeting with Rev. Newton, God put it on Wilberforce’s heart to fight against slavery. Working to uproot it was a daunting task because the slave trade brought enormous wealth to those involved.

After much prayer, Wilberforce felt that this indeed was the very voice of God speaking to him, calling him to this important mission. He was also concerned by the godless immorality of the age. In 1787, he wrote in his diary: “Almighty God has set before me two great objectives, the abolition of the slave trade and the reformation of manners.” (“Manners” would be comparable to “morals” in modern parlance.)

In an interview I once did with the late Chuck Colson, prison reformer and Wilberforce admirer, he told me: “[Wilberforce] stood up on the floor of the Parliament influenced by his new Christian conviction, took a stand that was enormously unpopular because all of the vested interest opposed him, including the government, and for 20 years he waged that battle.”

Kevin Belmonte, author of William Wilberforce: A Hero for Humanity, observes, “Wilberforce had to travel with an armed bodyguard.” But Wilberforce persevered—despite whatever personal cost he must pay.

Colson said, “One day in 1807 in a February snowstorm, the votes were cast to abolish the slave trade. While members of Parliament were jumping up and down for joy, they looked over and there was Wilberforce, head bowed at his desk, praying, thanking God for what He had done.”

But Wilberforce wasn’t finished. He then set out to emancipate the slaves, who, even after this vote, were still in chains throughout the British Empire. This was a battle to last for another 25 years.

Because of health problems, he had to resign in Parliament in 1825, but the movement he began to free all of the slaves in the British Empire continued without his direct involvement—and when he was already on his death bed, in 1833, he received word that the Parliament decided to free all of the 800,000 slaves throughout the British Empire.

Wilberforce is a great example of what Jesus can do through those fully committed to Him in whatever position in which He has placed them—when God’s “amazing grace” gets ahold of a life wholly committed to Him.

©Jerry Newcombe, D.Min.

Florida College Presidents Pledge To Not Fund Critical Race Theory, Diversity Initiatives On Campus

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The Florida College System (FCS) presidents said on Wednesday that no state funds will be used to support diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) or critical race theory (CRT) initiatives on campus, according to Florida’s Voice.

The presidents confirmed in a collective letter that none of the system’s 28 institutions would use state money to “fund or support any institutional practice, policy, or academic requirement that compels belief in critical race theory or related concepts such as intersectionality, or the idea that systems of oppression should be the primary lens through which teaching and learning are analyzed and/or improved upon,” the letter, obtained by Florida’s Voice, read. The announcement came after Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration requested information about how colleges and universities used state funding to support DEI or CRT initiatives on campus.

“Historically, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives served to increase diversity of thought as well as the enrollment and the success of underrepresented populations and promote the open access mission of our state college system,” the letter reportedly reads. “The presidents of the Florida College System (FCS) also understand that some initiatives and instruction in higher education under the same title have come to mean and accomplish the very opposite and seek to push ideologies such as critical race theory and its related tenets.”

The presidents clarified that any initiative to limit CRT in the classroom will not infringe on academic freedom, but instructors will be required to teach the material in a “objective manner.”

“In the development of knowledge, research endeavors, and creative activities, a college faculty and student body must be free to cultivate a spirit of inquiry and scholarly criticism, and to examine ideas in an atmosphere of freedom and confidence, free from shielding and in a nondiscriminatory manner,” the letter continues. “The FCS presidents remain committed to developing campus environments that uphold objectivity in teaching and learning and in professional development and that welcome all voices- environments in which students, faculty, and staff can pursue their academic interests without fear of reprisal or being ‘canceled.’”

FCS presidents will review and remove any “any institutional instruction, training, and policies” by Feb. 1 considered to be discriminatory, according to the letter.

“I would like to commend our presidents for ensuring our state colleges are environments where all students can embrace educational freedom and acquire the knowledge and skills necessary for a thriving career,” Manny Diaz Jr., Florida’s education commissioner, told Florida’s Voice.

Diaz and DeSantis’ office did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

AUTHOR

ALEXA SCHWERHA

Contributor.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

The Number of Children Growing Up in Intact Families Is Rising

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Amidst the negative news surrounding the state of marriage and the family in the U.S., a bright spot is beginning to emerge: the number of children being raised by their married mothers and fathers is slowly rising.

A new analysis from Lyman Stone, a research fellow at the Institute for Family Studies, found that “[s]ince a low ebb around 2014, the share of kids living with their parents has actually risen by about 1.5 percentage points.” While the relatively low growth rate might seem inconsequential, it stands in stark contrast to the overall pattern of decline in stable American families over the last 50 years. From the early 1960s until around 2014, the share of children living in intact families steadily nosedived from 87% down to around 62%.

As Stone observes, there are a number of reasons behind the increase in stable households for children. Even though marriage rates are falling, so is divorce, which means that the marriages that are happening are more stable. On top of this, the rate of children born to married parents has remained stable. At the same time, writes Stone, “birth rates of unmarried women have fallen very rapidly” over the last 20 or so years. So despite falling fertility and marriage rates, “the children who are born are more likely to live with two married parents.”

This is good news for children, as an abundance of studies show that kids raised in an intact, two-parent household have vastly better life outcomes than their peers who are raised in single-parent households. One recent research brief found that children raised in intact homes are “more likely to be flourishing economically, educationally, and socially” with regard to child poverty, college graduation rates, and rates of incarceration than their counterparts in single parent homes.

In addition, a summary of the effect that family structure has on children noted that kids who grow up with their married mother and father are more often involved in community activities like sports and other extra-curricular activities, spend more time with their fathers, are 20 to 35% more physically healthy, score higher in cognitive tests like verbal reasoning, and are less likely to exhibit problematic behavior at school than their peers from non-intact families.

As family sociologist Brad Wilcox and other researchers have observed, there has been a notable recent challenge to the social scientific consensus on the benefits that intact families give children in outlets including The New York Times, The Atlantic, and The Harvard Gazette, which argue that family structure has negligible consequences on children. But as Wilcox contended, these arguments ignore what the consensus in the sociology field has been for decades. “It is simply the truth that white and black children usually do better when raised by their own mother and father, compared to single-parent and stepfamilies,” he wrote.

According to Stone’s most recent analysis, this means that the future is looking a little bit brighter for America’s children. “All in all, the decline in intact families in America appears to have bottomed out for now,” he wrote. Stone also noted that not even a global pandemic could stop the rising trend of children growing up in intact families.

“Naturally, these trends could change in the future, but as of now, it appears that not only did COVID fail to undo the trend of rising intact families, it may have accelerated it for certain groups,” he pointed out.

AUTHOR

Dan Hart

Dan Hart is senior editor at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This The Washington Stand column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Team Biden Joins the School Library Wars, Launching Federal Investigation

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UPDATE:

“Whoever succeeds in telling the stories to the children gets to control the future.” That was Kirk Cameron’s answer to people wondering why he’s joined the debate over America’s libraries. As parents everywhere fight to keep graphic content out of their children’s hands, Texas officials are warning the battle is taking an ominous turn. It’s not just the forces of the Left that communities will have to contend with. It’s the federal government, whose new investigation into a local school district could upend every grassroots effort to protect kids.

For leaders in Texas’s Granbury School District, the bomb dropped shortly before Christmas. Officials in the Civil Rights Division of Biden’s Department of Education (DOE) said they’d received a formal complaint from the ACLU that the small community outside Fort Worth was somehow violating the government’s definition of “sex” by pulling books from school library shelves.

The ACLU’s beef dates back to November 2021 when Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R) urged the state’s association of school boards to “ensure no child is exposed to pornography or other inappropriate content in a Texas public school.” His letter, which keyed off parents’ growing outrage about the material on school shelves, insisted on greater transparency about the content students can access. Abbott said his office had been contacted by a number of moms and dads who were “rightfully angry” about the “pornographic and obscene” content.

Granbury officials took the governor’s directive to heart, ordering a review of the district’s book titles. But what ultimately landed the district in hot water was a candid conversation Superintendent Jeremy Glenn had with the schools’ librarians — which was eventually leaked to the press. He talked about the conservative make-up of the community and insisted that they would act accordingly. “We do have a very conservative board,” Glenn said in a reference to the two new school board members. “They are elected, and recently more conservative. And so that’s what our community is. That’s what our job is.”

At the end of the day, Glenn insisted, “I don’t want a kid picking up a book, whether it’s about homosexuality or heterosexuality, and reading about how to hook up sexually in our libraries. … And I’m going to take it a step further with you,” the superintendent went on. “There are two genders. There’s male, and there’s female. And I acknowledge that there are men that think they’re women. And there are women that think they’re men. And again, I don’t have any issues with what people want to believe, but there’s no place for it in our libraries. … I’m cutting to the chase on a lot of this,” Glenn insisted. “It’s the transgender, LGBTQ, and the sex — sexuality — in books. That’s what the governor has said that he will prosecute people for, and that’s what we’re pulling out.”

Over the next two weeks, Granbury embarked on what the Texas Tribune called “one of the largest book removals in the country, pulling about 130 titles from library shelves for review.” Two months later, the volunteer review committee inexplicably voted to return all but three books that they’d permanently banned.

By then, the audio of Glenn’s meeting had made its way to the media, and liberal news outlets like the Texas Tribune, ProPublica, and NBC News pounced, accusing Glenn of anti-LGBT bias. That’s when the local chapter of the ACLU got involved, demanding an apology and calling for every book to be reinstated.

Glenn didn’t oblige, conveying through district spokesman Jeff Meador that all the titles they’d pulled from shelves are “sexually explicit and not age-appropriate.” That said, the libraries “continue to house a socially and culturally diverse collection of books for students to read, including,” he pointed out, “books that analyze and explore LGBTQ+ issues.”

Naturally, that didn’t satisfy the ACLU, whose lawyers decided to involve the federal government in a local dispute that could have a chilling effect nationwide. “If the government finds in the ACLU’s favor,” The Washington Post cautioned, “the determination could have implications for schools nationwide, experts said, forcing libraries to stock more books about LGBTQ individuals and requiring administrators — amid a rising tide of book challenges and bans — to develop procedures ensuring student access to books that some Americans, especially right-leaning parents, deem unacceptable.”

Of course, the heart of the ACLU’s allegation — that Granbury (and Glenn, especially) is violating the Left’s new definition of “sex” — is a stretch by almost every legal standard. The Biden administration may have twisted the word “sex” to mean “gender identity” and “sexual orientation,” but that interpretation has never been passed into federal Title IX law.

And yet, the ACLU’s Chloe Kempf maintains (unconvincingly) that the “book removals and also the comments create this pervasively hostile environment.” “Both send a message to the entire community that LGBTQ identities are inherently obscene, worthy of stigmatization — and the book removals uniquely deprive LGBTQ students of the opportunity to read books that reflect their own experiences.”

Conservatives pushed back, insisting that this isn’t about LGBT hostility but age-appropriate content. Meg Kilgannon, senior fellow for Education Studies at Family Research Council, insisted that this whole controversy amounts to a leftist intimidation campaign. “The ACLU is bullying school districts who have responded to parental concerns about pornographic library books offered to children. Access to pornography at school is not a civil right.” Even if the law had been changed to include “sexual orientation and gender identity” in Title IX, “children still do not have a right to sexually explicit or violent content in public school library books. And school systems are under no obligation to support a publishing industry who can’t sell these books to parents and so sells them to librarians instead.”

Frankly, Kilgannon argued, “This is federal overreach into the education system, which is supposed to be a state issue.” Not to mention that “Biden is weaponizing another government agency: the DOE.”

If the president does intervene, dictating how school libraries handle certain book titles, the issue will almost certainly end up in court. “This isn’t the sort of civil rights issue that requires federal intervention,” Will Flanders of the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty argued. “It’s a question about books in schools, not about individual rights being violated.”

Either way, it does show one thing: the potency of the parents’ movement. Cameron, who’s in his own fight to host story hours in the same libraries that allow drag queens, is witnessing the momentum firsthand. As many as 1,000 people turned out in Placentia, Calif. to hear the “Growing Pains” actor read his new book, “As You Grow.”

“I know why parents and grandparents are coming out of the woodwork,” Cameron told The Federalist. “They understand there is a war on children — and nobody’s going to stop it but us.” So if there’s one thing Americans can do, he told the crowd, it’s this: “Don’t just talk about what’s going on. Change what’s going on.”

AUTHOR

Suzanne Bowdey

Suzanne Bowdey serves as editorial director and senior writer at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This The Washington Stand column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Report: U.S. Is ‘Most Permissive Country’ for Minor Gender Transition

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UPDATE:

”The United States is the most permissive country when it comes to the legal and medical gender transition of children,” according to a 12-country policy review by medical advocacy group Do No Harm. The group compared “different legal requirements for gender change-related treatments and actions” among the U.S. and the 11 countries of Northern and Western Europe. These countries — Belgium, Denmark, Iceland, Ireland, Finland, France, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and the United Kingdom — “share the United States’ broad support for transgenderism” yet “reject the gender-affirming care model for children.”

Do No Harm explained that America has adopted a “gender affirmation” policy for children, which “assumes that gender incongruence can manifest as early as age four and that questioning a minor’s gender self-definition is harmful and unethical. The American Academy of Pediatrics has embraced an affirm-only/affirm-early policy since 2018, and most states abide by its guidance despite withering medical and scientific criticism.” By contrast, some European countries “have explicitly abandoned” the gender-affirming care model and “now discourage automatic deference to a child’s self-declaration on the grounds that the risks outweigh the benefits.” They also recommend “months-long psychotherapy sessions to address co-occurring mental health problems.”

The report proceeded with a country-by-country comparison of requirements for the medical and legal gender transition of children.

American restrictions on puberty blockers vary by state, but “the most permissive states do not impose restrictions,” and blockers have been prescribed “as early as age eight.” Oregonians “are legally entitled” to blockers “from age 15,” with Medicaid assistance and without parental consent. In Iceland, there is “no minimum age” except as a “matter of clinical judgment.” The U.K. permits blockers “from the earliest stages of puberty,” while Belgium, France, and Norway permit blockers from Tanner Stage II, or “once physiological signs of puberty manifest.” Denmark, Netherlands, and Sweden allow puberty blockers “from age 12.” Finland allows them “about age 13.” Ireland allows them “under 16 years old.” In tiny Luxembourg, “no official guidance exists,” but “in practice, adolescents almost always receive blockers in a neighboring country.”

Restrictions on prescribing cross-sex hormones (estrogen and testosterone) to minors also vary state by state across the U.S., but “the practice has been documented with parental consent in children under the age of 13.” In Oregon, minors may “access cross-sex hormones from age 15 without consent and with Medicaid assistance.” France has “no age restrictions” on cross-sex hormones, but “clinicians generally will not administer them before Tanner Stage II.” Again, Luxembourg has “no official guidance,” but “Patients almost always receive hormones in a neighboring Country.” In every other European country studied, cross-sex hormones were available “from age 16,” although the U.K. requires that “individuals must have been receiving puberty blockers for at least one year.”

Do No Harm provided few specifics regarding the status of parental consent for these chemical gender transition procedures. They do say that, besides Oregon, “in most states, puberty blockers cannot be administered before age 18 without parental consent,” but they provide no insight on cross-sex hormones. However, California passed a bill in September effectively removing any parental consent requirement.

By contrast, children may not access gender transition chemical treatments until age 16 or 18 in nearly every country. Denmark is the most permissive, allowing children without parental consent to access puberty blockers at 15. In the U.K., “instances of children under 16 receiving blockers without consent are reportedly rare,” although such consent is not required. To access cross-sex hormones without consent in either country, children must be 16. In Iceland, Ireland, Netherlands, and Norway, children must be 16 to access either puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones, although Norway raises the age for cross-sex hormones to 18 “if the treatment is considered irreversible.” Sweden also allows cross-sex hormones without consent at 16, “so long as the individual is deemed sufficiently mature,” while it bars puberty blockers without consent until age 18. In Belgium, Finland, and France, neither treatment is available without parental consent until a person turns 18.

The report also compared the number of youth gender clinics in the various countries. The U.S. led by far, with “more than 60 pediatric gender clinics and 300 clinics” that “provide hormonal interventions to minors.” France also has many locations because “care is decentralized,” and “any doctor can prescribe treatment for medical transition.”

But after that the number quickly dwindles. Sweden administers all gender transition procedures through four hospitals, of which three provide surgery. Denmark administers gender transition hormones at only three locations. There are only two hospitals or clinics providing medical gender transitions in Belgium, Finland, and soon the U.K., which currently has one. Iceland, Ireland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, and Norway have one gender transition facility apiece. Granted, the United States is far larger than many of these countries. But the U.S. has a population 2.5 times larger than all the countries except France, while it has 20 times as many clinics providing hormonal interventions to minors.

Do No Harm also compared the minimum age at which countries allow persons to legally change their gender in civil registries. In the U.S., “there is no minimum age” for federal documentation, such as passports or Social Security cards, but such changes require the consent of both parents. There is more variation in state documentation, such as ID cards and birth certificates, but at least seven states “permit minors to change their birth certificate gender markers with parental consent.”

Three European countries, Iceland, Luxembourg, and the U.K., have policies similar to the U.S. federal government in that there is no age limit, but children under the age of 18 need parental consent to change legally recognized gender. In Norway, gender markers can be changed, with parental permission, from age six, and from age 16 without parental permission. Netherlands also allows 16-year-olds to legally change their gender without parental permission. In Belgium and Ireland, 16-year-olds may change their legal gender identity with parental consent, and 18-year-olds may change it without parental consent. Denmark, Finland, France, and Sweden do not allow minors under the age of 18 to legally change their gender identity.

The U.S. also exceeds most European countries in legally recognizing genders other than male or female. Federal “passports offer an X gender option,” and a sizable number of states allow a gender marker of “X” on identification documents (22 states plus D.C. on driver’s licenses, and 16 states plus D.C. on birth certificates). Only Iceland permits gender variation, allowing “third gender and/or nonbinary designations” on official documents. Denmark and Ireland allow a third gender option on IDs and passports respectively, but their “civil registry is binary.” In the Netherlands, a person may only obtain a gender neutral designation through a court. In the other seven countries, Belgium, Finland, France, Luxembourg, Norway, Sweden, and the U.K., “male and female are the only recognized genders.”

“The United States is the most permissive country when it comes to the legal and medical gender transition of children,” concluded the review. “Only France comes close, yet unlike the U.S., France’s medical authorities have recognized the uncertainties involved in transgender medical care for children and have urged ‘great caution’ in its use.”

“Given the growing body of evidence and the European consensus, which is grounded in medical science and common sense,” pleaded Do No Harm, “the United States should reconsider the gender-affirming care model to protect the youngest and most vulnerable patients.”

AUTHOR

Joshua Arnold

Joshua Arnold is a staff writer at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This The Washington Stand column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Joe Biden: The Bull Connor of the Pro-Abortion Movement

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For a man who ran for president to save the soul of America from racism, former segregationists’ buddy Joe Biden resembles few people more than the infamously abusive police chief Bull Connor. Both allowed domestic terrorists aligned with the Democratic Party to vandalize, bomb, and set fire to their opponents’ churches with impunity while using maximum force to arrest peaceful, Christian, protesters.

Sixty years later, little more than the names and faces have changed: Connor’s allies rallied behind the banner of white supremacy, while Biden’s supporters mobilize around “abortion on demand without apology.” The Biden administration’s refusal to protect pro-life Christians bears an eerie resemblance to Bull Connor’s collusion and selective prosecution. Imagine how civil rights protesters would have fared if George Wallace won the 1964 presidential election, and you get a sense of Biden’s treatment of peaceful, prayerful, pro-life advocates.

‘We’re Going to Allow You 15 Minutes….’

The Freedom Riders, who tested Southern segregation laws from Virginia to New Orleans, planned to stop in Birmingham on May 14, 1961. The Ku Klux Klan — and the Alabama lawman they helped elect Birmingham’s Commissioner of Public Safety, Theophilus Eugene “Bull” Connor — had other plans. The KKK plotted a series of coordinated strikes against the protesters spanning multiple cities. Klansmen knew the details of the demonstrators’ travel itinerary, because the Birmingham sheriff’s department told them — and the sheriff’s department knew, because the FBI told them. As the protesters departed Georgia, Martin Luther King Jr. warned the Freedom Riders, “You will never make it through Alabama.”

In the days leading up to their arrival, Bull Connor personally gave the Klan the green light to rough up Yankee “meddlers.” Connor’s right-hand man, Birmingham Police Department Sgt. Thomas H. Cook, arranged for a meeting with a man named Gary Thomas Rowe, a member of a violent chapter of the Klan — but also an FBI informant. Historian Raymond Arsenault recounts the scene:

Unaware that Rowe planned to relay his words to the Birmingham FBI office, Cook laid out an elaborate plot to bring the Freedom Ride to a halt in Birmingham. He assured Rowe that other members of the Birmingham Police Department, as well as officials of the Alabama Highway Patrol, were privy to the plan and could be counted on to cooperate. “You will work with me and I will work with you on the Freedom Riders,” he promised. “We’re going to allow you 15 minutes. …You can beat ‘em, bomb ‘em, maim ‘em, kill ‘em. I don’t give a s***. There will be absolutely no arrests. You can assure every Klansman in the country that no one will be arrested in Alabama for that fifteen minutes.”

“By God, if you’re going to do this thing,” Cook later told the Imperial Wizard of the Alabama Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, Robert Shelton, “do it right.” Similarly, Bull Connor instructed the Klan to “make them look like a bulldog got a hold of them.”

The Klan didn’t have to be told twice; they planned to strike twice. They swarmed the first of the two vehicles, a Greyhound bus, when it arrived in nearby Anniston, breaking its windows and slashing its tires. Police escorted the protesters as far as the city limits … where the Klansmen were waiting. One Klansman threw an explosive device into the back of the bus and, as protesters scurried out of the door for their lives, the mob beat them savagely. “Then, God Almighty intervened,” remembered Hank Thomas: The bus’s gas tank exploded in two bursts, frightening the crowd away. “A miracle happened in Anniston.”

Klansmen posed as passengers of the Trailways bus carrying the other group of Freedom Riders. In Anniston, the Klan insisted the riders segregate the bus and pummeled several passengers — including Walter Bergman, then age 61 — to make their point. Although Bergman would remained partially paralyzed for the rest of his life and have to learn to feed himself again, a local policeman told his assailants, “Don’t worry about no lawsuits. I ain’t seen a thing.”

Unfortunately, the real violence awaited in Birmingham. Confident they would face no repercussions, the Klan invited CBS News reporter Howard K. Smith to witness the violence as the bloodied protesters descended the bus stairs to desegregate the terminal’s lunch counters. A mob of Klansmen (including the FBI informant, Rowe) and members of the National States Rights Party swarmed, sometimes beating protesters 12-on-one. The melee continued until one of Connor’s detectives, Red Self, told the Klansmen: “Get the boys out of here. I’m ready to give the signal for the police to move in.”

Faced with local intransigence, the FBI would soon arrest the four people responsible for firebombing the Greyhound, but it would be far from the last act of unpunished violence. A tragic 40 unsolved bombings over two decades earned the city the nickname “Bombingham.”

Not content to outsource his brutality to the Klan, Bull Connor ordered his police to use all means necessary to quash the message of Christian civil rights protesters.

Release the Guilty, Jail the Innocent

Bull Connor’s police proved more likely to arrest peaceful protesters than the Klansmen perpetrators. In April 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. wrote his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” courtesy of Connor’s constabulary. As King and his supporters went to jail for “parading without a permit” (holding unauthorized demonstrations), Connor said:

[W]e are not going to stand for this in Birmingham. And if necessary we will fill the jail full, and we don’t care whose toes we step on. I am saying now to these meddlers from out of our city, the best thing for them to do is stay out if they don’t want to get slapped in jail. … I’ve never seen anyone yet look for trouble who wasn’t able to find it.

Volunteers evaporated from the desegregation campaign. King’s group, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), responded with “The Children’s Crusade,” recruiting more than 1,000 schoolchildren to march through Birmingham on May 2 and 3, 1963. As the youngsters left the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church carrying signs with such messages as, “Segregation is a sin,” Connor’s men arrested 959 the first night. But they did not merely apprehend the marchers: Police blasted young children with high-powered firehoses, beat them with batons, and sicced police dogs on them.

The cruelty was the point. The pretense of law masked ruthless hatred, as segregationists used overwhelming force to discourage them from ever again publicly voicing views disfavored by the powerful.

As the French say, “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.” The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Joe Biden Bull-ies the Pro-Life Movement

Fast forward 60 years, and violent hatemongers with powerful political allies have again received free rein to terrorize their nonviolent, Christian foes. But Jane’s Revenge has enjoyed more than a 15-minute reign of terror. Since the leak of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs ruling last May 2, pro-abortion fanatics have launched a wave of arsons, vandalism, and death threats against at least 101 pro-life churches or pregnancy resource centers. Abortion activists firebombed pro-life pregnancy resource centers in the same way Bull Connor let the Klan firebomb Freedom Riders’ buses — with the same number of arrests: zero. Leftist extremists perpetrated 52 attacks before the FBI even announced its investigation.

This wave of violence, like most cowardly violence, targets the powerless — unborn babies, their desperate mothers, and the nonviolent Christian churches and nonprofits that serve them — but this wave also victimized the powerful with impunity. On June 13, two people threw a lit flare into the offices of Washington State Rep. Andy Barkis (R). Eight days later, vandals smashed the windows at the local office of U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.). Like the Klan in Alabama, pro-abortion fanatics feel confident enough to leave their calling card — often scrawling, “If abortion isn’t safe, neither are you” on pro-life women’s centers and churches — and to alert the media they will take “increasingly drastic measures.”

Biden’s nonfeasance embodies the administration’s defiant message that its ideological opponents enjoy no legal protection — a far cry from the promise Biden made the day after the media declared him winner of the 2020 election: “I will work as hard for those who didn’t vote for me as those who did.” The atmosphere of hatred has resulted in an 84-year-old pro-life woman being shot. (The male suspect said he shot her by accident.)

At least one congressman has connected the dots. The wave of anti-life terrorism represents “the death cult’s echo of the KKK’s burning cross — brazen, violent intimidation,” said Rep. Dan Bishop (R-N.C.). “But the federal government responded to the KKK. Where is the Biden Justice Department amid this violent campaign of national scope?” The administration, and Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), instead aim to “put a stop” to pro-life pregnancy resource centers.

“To my knowledge, no one — no one — has been prosecuted under the FACE Act,” noted Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) as House Republicans passed a resolution condemning violence against pregnancy resource centers on January 11. J. Edgar Hoover, who shared the racial views of his time, arrested the Anniston bombers in a matter of days. In a world of high-definition security cameras and facial recognition software, Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland have apparently arrested no one in eight months.

At least, no one who shares the administration’s extreme commitment to abortion. “But if you’re a pro-life activist, and you’re praying outside of an abortion clinic like Mark Houck, guess what happens to you?” asked Jordan. “The FBI kicks in your door, arrests you, puts you in handcuffs, and does it in front of your wife and seven children,” using dozens of heavily armed agents. Biden’s DOJ meted out similar treatment to Paul Vaughn, a 55-year-old father of 11. Just as black-and-white footage of Bull Connor unleashing his dogs on children inspired national revulsion of segregation, Biden’s overreach should inspire outrage at federal collusion with the abortion industry.

As pregnancy resource centers burned, in July Biden’s Justice Department established the Reproductive Rights Task Force to take “proactive and defensive legal action” to protect the abortion industry (and punish its foes) — and tapped as its leader Vanita Gupta, who as a “civil rights” officer in Obama’s DOJ tried to force all public schools to allow men to use women’s restrooms, showers, and overnight accommodations or lose all federal funding. She applied her ideological fervor equally well to abortion. Biden’s Justice Department arrested 26 pro-life advocates by last October, with more following, including:

  • Franciscan friar Fr. Fidelius Mocinski (whose birth name was Christopher), just as local New Jersey prosecutors dropped charges for conducting his “Red Rose Rescues”: entering abortion facilities and giving mothers red roses. In this case, he lay down in front of an abortion facility’s entrance, just as protesters in the ‘60s laid down in front of Lyndon Johnson’s presidential limousine. (“If any demonstrator ever lays down in front of my car,” cracked segregationist Governor George Wallace of Alabama (D) during the 1968 presidential campaign, “it’ll be the last car he’ll ever lay down in front of.”);
  • Nine defendants who entered a Washington, D.C., abortion facility and sang “let there be peace” (as a live-stream of the event shows) in October 2020. At least one of the women had participated in Rose Rescues;
  • Eleven defendants who entered an abortion facility in Tennessee in March 2021. If convicted, some of the defendants stand to serve up to 11 years in prison, three years of supervised release, and fines totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars;
  • Pastor Daniel Courney of Enfield, N.J., one month after it wrung an agreement out of him not to commit “future FACE Act violations” — which, out of fear, would effectively cause him to end his presence outside abortion facilities; and
  • Bevelyn Williams and Edmee Chavannes, who happen to be black women from the South, for allegedly violating the FACE Act as far back as June 2020. (Curiously, their indictment begins with peaceful pro-life activity in 2019.) In one alleged violation in the indictment, Chavannes told an abortion facility employee, “Do not touch me.”

The arrest total seems all the more lopsided, since pro-life women’s centers are 22 times more likely to be attacked than abortion facilities. Both Gupta and Garland touted their work prosecuting pro-life advocates at a civil rights assembly last December. Both invoked Martin Luther King Jr.

As noted, in many cases the Biden administration presses pro-life advocates to sign agreements not to protest any more — a similar tactic employed by the Obama-Biden administration. A federal judge questioned whether the Obama-Biden administration’s prosecution of Mary Susan Pine “was the product of a concerted effort between the Government and the [abortion provider], which began well before the date of the incident at issue, to quell Ms. Pine’s activities.” (Ultimately, the DOJ paid Pine $120,000 in legal fees.) One could be forgiven for asking the same question of these cases.

A trial may conclude some of these acts violated the law, just as civil rights protesters violated the law of their day — the law their peaceful, prayerful actions aimed to change. But today’s prayerful pro-life advocates see their homes raided, not aided, by the federal government led by a vice president who raised bail money for the BLM’s “mostly peaceful” rioters. They face enormous legal bills, a criminal record, huge fines, and perhaps more than a decade in prison.

Despite these pressures, the pro-life movement has not buckled, as the terrorists and their federal government enablers wished. When bombed, they have rebuilt. When denied protection, they have secured their ministries of mercy. When denied justice, they hired their own private investigators. They have suffered long and done good. They have emerged from the fiery crucible of persecution with a stronger resolve to help the weak and save the innocent. The pro-life movement is “hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed — always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body” … And, one day, manifested in our laws.

We shall overcome.

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This The Washington Stand column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Social Determinants of Health: A Trojan Horse

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Yesterday, I told you how government healthcare programs are getting bigger and how this is the wrong direction for the country.  I also mentioned a relatively new theory from the Left – social determinants of health [SDOH] – that is about to make government healthcare programs even bigger.

Social determinants of health is the idea that social factors like housing, income, and employment have more to do with a person’s health than do individual risk factors like behavior and genetics.  So, if you give poor people free housing, free food, free employment services, free education, free transportation, other free services, and guarantee their income, their health will get better.  This will reduce hospital admissions, as well as overall health spending, the theory goes.  At least that’s the cover story.  The real agenda is radical egalitarian redistribution of income.  But the theory sounds good.  It sounds right.  It sounds plausible.  However, there’s just one problem.  There’s very little evidence for this happy-face assertion.  Billions have already spent on the theory, but the track record of real-world results is not good.

Unfortunately, that hasn’t stopped the government from rushing pell-mell into social determinants of health and into the arms of the people pushing it.  The Biden administration recently announced it is giving states discretion to cover social services under their Medicaid programs.

No one is asking how much this is going to cost.  The federal deficit is already $421 billion for the current fiscal year which began in October.  Sorry, but Uncle Sugar doesn’t have unlimited pots of money.  If the true agenda is redistribution, how much more do you think there is to get with a deficit like that?   Would we even be talking about spending money on social determinants of health if we had to balance our budget?    Also, no one is asking about the downsides.  Nothing in life is perfect.  Shouldn’t lawmakers be informed of the negative consequences before being asked to vote on such a thing?  And speaking of Congress, this sounds like a major change that cannot be done by agency regulation alone under recent Supreme Court jurisprudence.  So where is Congress on this?  Are they falling down on the job again by not reining in agencies from committing us to huge new expenditures without congressional authorization?  Why am I the only one asking these questions?

Tax-exempt hospitals spent $2.5 billion on social determinants of health – housing, employment, education, and food security – from 2017 to 2019.  They are obligated to provide community benefit in exchange for their tax exemptions.  But their spending on social determinants initiatives has fallen off more recently because the evidence such initiatives are effective is limited, a study found.  Another study found social spending reduces unnecessary healthcare use but the costs outweigh the benefits.  Other researchers found no association between overall community benefit spending and hospital readmission rates.  These researchers concluded “the evidence for health outcome improvements from interventions focused on social determinants is thin…. This is very little evidence on which to base billions in investment….”  The study concluding the costs outweighed the benefits found $3.4 million in healthcare savings after $22.4 million was spent on a social determinants case management program.  Costs running seven times bigger than the savings – doesn’t sound like a smart investment to me.

This begs the question: if the evidence is so thin and even counter to what proponents claim, why proceed?  Why is the federal government itching to spend more money on social determinants of health?  Especially when social determinants theory has been criticized for ignoring the importance on health outcomes of personal choices and responsibility regarding alcohol, tobacco, junk food, drugs, and gambling.  Moreover, in a previous commentary, I criticized social determinants theory for ignoring the magnet effect of free stuff from the government drawing ever-larger numbers of people into government dependency.  Wrong direction.

The current administration has made no bones about working towards ‘equity’, ensuring equal outcomes, and redistribution.  Social determinants of health theory – which comes from the redistributionist World Health Organization – is tailor-made for the Biden administration’s goals, whether the theory makes any sense or not.

In making its announcement states can add social determinants to their Medicaid programs, the administration said it will require states to show their social outlays are cost-effective, something the research has failed to show convincingly, so far.  Whether the administration really means it is anybody’s guess, but Republicans on Capitol Hill need to police this to make sure the analysis is on the up and up and to shut the initiative down if it turns out it’s just another redistributionist boondoggle without any real benefit, aside from making redistributionists feel good about being so virtuous in giving away other people’s money.

©Christopher Wright. All rights reserved.

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REPORT: DOJ Decided Against Having FBI Agents Monitor Biden’s Lawyers As They Rifled Through Classified Docs

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The Department of Justice (DOJ) considered having FBI agents monitor President Joe Biden’s lawyers as they rifled through classified documents before ultimately rejecting the idea, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported Tuesday.

Biden’s lawyers found classified materials at the Penn Biden Center think tank in Washington, D.C., just before the midterm elections. The president’s legal team then conducted a search of Biden’s properties for other such materials. The president’s lawyers and the DOJ discussed the possibility of having FBI agents monitor the search but later decided against it, according to the WSJ.

The two parties instead agreed to notify the DOJ of any classified materials they found, after which law enforcement would promptly remove the documents from the premises, according to the WSJ.

In addition to the materials found at the Penn Biden Center, Biden’s lawyers found additional documents next to his Corvette in the garage at his Wilmington, Delaware, home in December. More documents have been discovered at his home throughout January.

Attorney General Merrick Garland on Thursday appointed former U.S. Attorney Robert Hur as special counsel to investigate President Joe Biden’s handling of the classified documents. “The extraordinary circumstances here require the appointment of a special counsel for this matter,” Garland said in a statement.

The DOJ did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller’s request for comment about the alleged plan.

AUTHOR

SARAH WEAVER

Social issues reporter.

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Unhinged in Davos: Kerry Likens Self to ‘Extraterrestrial’ Here to ‘Save the Planet’

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Gore blames ‘climate change’ for Xenophobia.

Watch: John Kerry Says WEF Davos Elite Are Like ‘Extraterrestrials’ Here to ‘Save the Planet’ – Touts himself as one of a ‘select group of human beings’

John Kerry at the World Economic Forum:

“And when you stop and think about it, it’s pretty extraordinary that we select group of human beings…are able to sit in a room and come together and actually talk about saving the planet. I mean, it’s so almost extraterrestrial to think about quote ‘saving the planet.’ If you said that to most people, most people they think you’re just a crazy tree-hugging lefty, liberal, you know, do-gooder or whatever, and, and there’s no relationship. But really, that’s where we are.”

Marc Morano comment:

“Kerry and the World Economic Forum, the UN, and Al Gore all seem to believe they are the chosen ones to save the planet. But, Kerry actually said something we can all agree with when he noted, ‘most people they think you’re just a crazy tree-hugging lefty, liberal’. Yes, Kerry is correct, most people do think that.

We have heard this type of elitism before. See: Klaus Schwab At 2022 WEF: ‘The Future Is Built By Us, By A Powerful Community As You Here In This Room’& Klaus Schwab Opens the 2023 World Economic Forum Annual Meeting with a Call to “Master the Future”

Morano: “The Great Reset crowd assembling in Davos genuinely believe themselves to be above the rest of humanity and are able to own multiple mansions and fly private jets while spewing ‘saving the planet’ rhetoric or even picking up environmental awards.

Kerry may be on to something! Kerry’s friend and fellow climate activist Al Gore was born nearly nine months after the Roswell, New Mexico incident, so there may be a linkage to Extraterrestrials! The Roswell incident was on July 8, 1947. Al Gore was born on March 31, 1948.”

Flashback 2015: Aliens Could Attack Earth to End Global Warming, NASA Scientist Frets – The thought-provoking scenario is one of many envisaged in a joint study by Penn State and the NASA Planetary Science Division, entitled “Would Contact with Extraterrestrials Benefit or Harm Humanity? A Scenario Analysis.”

Flashback: Activists compare climate change to alien attack: Former Calif Gov. Jerry Brown: ‘This is almost like we’re suffering an attack from Mars’ & MSNBC’s Joy Reid: If ‘aliens…come & attack us, it’s going to be because we destroyed the planet’

Flashback: UN IPCC Chief Pachauri okes about sending climate skeptics to outer space — ‘When leaders are unable to deal with reality, they just get the critics sent somewhere else’

Money, including philanthropic capital, is key to tackling climate crisis, John Kerry, Al Gore tell World Economic Forum – “The lesson I’ve learned in the last years … is money, money, money,” Kerry said during a panel discussion. “One of the keys to this is philanthropy and public money. But there is no way we can win this battle without partnerships [with the private sector].”

‘Enough already! Enough!’ Watch: Al Gore at WEF Davos rants ‘we need desperately to scale down anti-climate finance’

©2023 Marc Morano – Climate Depot. All rights reserved.

RELATED VIDEO: CAUGHT HIM! Rebel News pummels Pfizer CEO with questions at World Economic Forum

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As He Died To Make Men Holy Let Us Die To Keep Men Free

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“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” — Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in his Letter from Birmingham Jail

In a letter to his father and youngest sister, General Ulysses S. Grant wrote,

“There are but two parties now: traitors and patriots. And I want hereafter to be ranked with the latter and, I trust, the stronger party.”

Faith, family and freedom are now the primary targets of the party of traitors in America.

After serving in our military for 23-years I distinctly remember the mottos of two of the Army units I served with. The motto on the crest of the 321st Field Artillery Regiment, with which I served in combat in Vietnam, is Noli Me Tangere which means Don’t Tread on Me. The motto of the 7th Special Forces Group, to which I was Adjutant, is De Oppresso Libre which means Free the Oppressed.

These mottos are embedded in my heart and soul. I took an oath, before God almighty, to protect and defend the U.S. Constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic.

This oath does not expire until I do, therefore this is the reason for my using as the title of this column “As He Died To Make Men Holy Let Us Die To Keep Men Free.”

This is a paraphrase taken from the last verse of the Union marching song The Battle Hymn of the Republic written by  Julia Ward Howe, in 1861 which is,

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me:
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.

From the Birmingham jail, where he was imprisoned as a participant in nonviolent demonstrations against segregation, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., wrote a letter that warns us of what is happening today. Dr. King was then the president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization operating in every Southern state, with headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia.

Dr. King was invited to Birmingham, Alabama to hold a peaceful “direct-action” march in 1963. In 2021 a similar peaceful “direct-action” march was held in Washington, D.C.

Both marches lead to arrests, imprisonment, torture and brutality by government, prison and police officials.

In his letter Dr. King wrote, “I am in Birmingham because injustice is here.” Those who attended the January 6th, 2021 marched because injustice was also, like in Birmingham in 1963, there in Washington, D.C. 58 years later.

Just as traitors “deplored the demonstrations” that took place in Birmingham in 1963, these same traitors deplored the demonstrations that took place in Washington, D.C.

Dr. King in his Letter from Birmingham Jail wrote:

IN ANY nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: collection of the facts to determine whether injustices are alive, negotiation, self-purification, and direct action.

January 6th was a direct-action nonviolent campaign about a stolen election that was an injustice to the 79 million Americans who voted for President Donald J. Trump. The facts today have proven that their campaign was right.

Dr. King’s 1963 march in Birmingham was labeled as “extremist” but it was not. Just as those who marched peacefully in Washington, D.C. on January 6th, 2021 was not an “insurrection.”

Watch what really happened:

In Birmingham the police used dogs, in Washington, D.C. the Capitol police used stun grenades.

Dr. King in his Letter from Birmingham Jail was concerned about black nationalism. Dr. King wrote,

I started thinking about the fact that I stand in the middle of two opposing forces in the Negro community. One is a force of complacency made up of Negroes who, as a result of long years of oppression, have been so completely drained of self-respect and a sense of “somebodyness” that they have adjusted to segregation, and, on the other hand, of a few Negroes in the middle class who, because of a degree of academic and economic security and because at points they profit by segregation, have unconsciously become insensitive to the problems of the masses. The other force is one of bitterness and hatred and comes perilously close to advocating violence. It is expressed in the various black nationalist groups that are springing up over the nation, the largest and best known being Elijah Muhammad’s Muslim movement. This movement is nourished by the contemporary frustration over the continued existence of racial discrimination. It is made up of people who have lost faith in America, who have absolutely repudiated Christianity, and who have concluded that the white man is an incurable devil. I have tried to stand between these two forces, saying that we need not follow the do-nothingism of the complacent or the hatred and despair of the black nationalist. [Emphasis added]

Today we have black nationalists like Representative Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) who has introduced a bill criminalizing any ‘conspiracy to commit white supremacy’.

Watch this analysis of Sheila Jackson Lee to understand:

We are seeing, as did Dr. King, black nationalists like Sheila Jackson Lee join with Islamic supremacists to attack those who disagree with them on securing our borders from illegal aliens. It seems that anyone, regardless of skin color, are their enemies and a threat to their efforts to gain, keep, expand and maintain power, absolute power over we the people.

Black nationalists do not believe in judging people by their characters. Rather they, like Sheila Jackson Lee, judge people by the color of their skin. This is reminiscent of the propaganda of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis against the Jews, Christians, and others who fought against them in what became known as the Holocaust.

We the people are in a new civil war whether we like it or not. This war was begun by the traitors on January 6th, 2021.

We are now in a battle between the party of traitors and the party of patriots.

Which party do you belong to?

©Dr. Rich Swier. All rights reserved.

New Body Worn Camera Footage from J6 Supports Calls for Release of All Video

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This is why they don’t want the surveillance tapes released.

As one commenter opined, “If the footage supported the leftist narrative it would have been released almost immediately. Instead the left wants to hide the footage because it wants to hide what really happened that day.”

Jan 6 Political Persecution….. more here……

New Body Worn Camera Footage from J6 Supports Calls for Release of All Video

The American people deserve the unvarnished truth, not the Capitol police version of events.

By Julie Kelly, AM Greatness, January 16, 2023

Body-worn camera footage obtained by American Greatness of a D.C. Metropolitan police officer on duty on January 6, 2021, shows the chaos unfolding in real-time that day and how law enforcement’s response to the protest led to rising tension and deadly violence.

Officer Terrence Craig, an 11-year veteran of the force, testified last week in the criminal trial of Richard Barnett, the Arkansas man notoriously photographed with his feet on a desk in then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) office on January 6, 2021. Nearly two-and-a-half hours of video was captured by Craig’s body-worn camera, providing an uninterrupted and shocking view of what happened inside and outside the building.

Never-before-seen interactions with police and protesters bolster demands by House Republicans to release all surveillance video recorded by Capitol security cameras on January 6.

Craig’s video starts with a group of D.C. Metro and Capitol Police advancing toward the west side of the building at 2:30 p.m. The first physical breach occurred about 15 minutes beforehand; Capitol police had used “nonlethal” munitions such as flashbangs, pepper balls, and tear gas on the crowd assembled outside on Capitol grounds for roughly an hour—the first time in department history that officers were ordered to use such dangerous crowd control devices on political protesters.

D.C. police were ordered to dress in full riot gear, including gas masks, face shields, gloves, and ballistic vests. Under cross-examination by Joseph McBride, one of Barnett’s defense attorneys, Craig admitted the officers were “fully geared up” before taking their positions.

McBride: So you’re fully geared up. You’re strapped up from head to toe?
Craig: Yes.
McBride: Ready to rock and roll?
Craig: Yes.

And “rock and roll” they did. The footage showed a dramatic shift in tone from the massive crowd assembled on the Capitol lawn as jack-booted cops arrived on the scene. Craig admitted as much. “[It] was peaceful heading up to the Capitol,” he told McBride. “You can hear the noise and the sounds, and you see the officers on the side.”

But chants of “U.S.A.! U.S.A!” quickly dissipated as the crowd grew agitated at the sight of police officers, faces obscured while dressed in military-type gear, forming groups on the upper terrace. (At least a few SWAT officers can be seen mingling with local police at around 2:45 p.m.)

Police continued to douse the crowd with chemical spray even though protesters were not attempting to breach a line of officers down below.

Craig entered the Rotunda around 2:50 p.m., about five minutes after the fatal shooting of Ashli Babbitt. The area at first appears sparsely populated with protesters and police; in one scene, officers appear to be tending to the injuries of an elderly man lying on the floor.

Physical and verbal confrontations started inside the Rotunda around 3:10 p.m. as police forcibly tried to move the increasingly packed crowd out of the area. “Do you feel big and strong now?” one woman asked the officers. “Does that get you off pushing around a bunch of women? A bunch of fucking unarmed women?” A female voice is then heard screaming, claiming she’s “trying to” get out of the building.

Craig walks throughout the building, at parts chaotic and other parts relatively calm. One man approached Craig to explain that police took his cell phone and asked how he could get it back. Craig’s answers are unintelligible, impaired by the gas mask and face shield. “Sir, I can’t understand you,” the man said as he followed Craig down a set of stairs.

“Wait, is this the Capitol?” the man asked Craig. “Are you serious?” he replied. “I’ve never seen it,” the man said, underscoring the fact many individuals had never before been in the Capitol and did not know where to go or how to exit.

Craig then takes a position outside the building around 3:50 p.m. amid a heavy police presence. The situation is relatively calm. Chants of “We the People” can be heard.

Some police are again confronted by protesters. “Are y’all gonna tear gas us?” one unidentified man said to a line of officers. One D.C. Metro police officer nodded his head. “It’s we the people, not we the cops,” another man shouted. By that point, three Trump supporters were dead, either wholly or partially due to excessive force.

At 4:20, Craig and several other officers suddenly rush back into the building and march toward the lower west terrace tunnel, the scene of the most violent clashes between police and protesters. (This is the same location where police are caught on camera beating women, including Victoria White.)

As Craig approached the mouth of the tunnel, angry shouts can be heard. “You need to stop! Stop!” one individual yelled at police. Several other men can be heard screaming for help while police spray more chemical gas into the crowd.

At least three men and a few officers are seen dragging the lifeless body of Rosanne Boyland to the mouth of the tunnel. Her shirt is pulled up near her head; one man is attempting to administer CPR. Previously-released footage and eyewitness accounts indicate that Boyland, 34, likely died after succumbing to the effects of toxic gas sprayed by police in the enclosed space and what appears to be a beating by another D.C. Metro officer.

“She’s fucking dead! This is on you, motherfuckers!” one man screamed at the officers, who continued to spray the men tending to Boyland. “This is the woman you killed, you fuckers!”

Some throw items at the front line of police as Boyland’s body is dragged face-up through the tunnel and into the building. Physical confrontations with officers continued for another 20 minutes.

Craig relayed his version of events to McBride. “I saw the dead young lady, and they dropped her right in front of me,” Craig calmly explained. “They just brought her and said, ‘Hey, do your job and take care of her.’”

(After prosecutors objected to the line of questions, Judge Christopher Cooper instructed McBride to avoid “[talking] about the circumstances of people dying.”)

Several men involved in the confrontations related to Boyland’s death were arrested, detained, and charged with assaulting police officers. The Department of Justice and news media have carefully controlled the narrative, portraying protesters as the perpetrators of violence rather than the victims, while justifying the fatalities of four Trump supporters on January 6. (Boyland was officially pronounced dead at 6:09 p.m. The D.C. coroner later claimed she died of a drug overdose, a dubious conclusion given public evidence to the contrary.)

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

WATCH: Man Wearing ‘Jesus Saves’ Shirt Kicked Out of Mall of America in Minnesota

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The guard: “We’ve had guests come up saying that they’ve been offended by your shirt…

There is a very large Somali Muslim population….they’re ‘offended.’

Man Wearing “Jesus Saves” Shirt Kicked Out of Mall of America in Minnesota (Video)

By Anthony Scott, TPG, January 16, 2023 at 4:33pm

A man who was wearing a t-shirt that read “Jesus Saves” was reportedly kicked out of the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota for his shirt being too offensive for others.

Footage of the incident went viral and shows security officers telling the man wearing the green “Jesus Saves” shirt that his shirt was “offending” other shoppers in the mall.

The security would continue to tell the man he either had to remove his shirt or leave the mall.

The back of the man’s shirt read “Jesus is the only way” and had the word “coexist” crossed out.

According to Blaze, the video first emerged on Facebook on January 7th and has been making its way around the web ever since.

In the video, the officers were quoted saying, “Jesus is associated with religion, and it’s offending people.”

The man would respond, “I didn’t speak… I didn’t say anything. I just went to Macy’s.”

Many users on Twitter were shocked this occurred in the United States:

https://twitter.com/Kingjewell8/status/1614922308501520384?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1614922308501520384%7Ctwgr%5E9abb8f6ba779ff6541791e7a7807fe3de3854984%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fgellerreport.com%2F2023%2F01%2Fwatch-man-wearing-jesus-saves-shirt-kicked-out-of-mall-of-america-in-minnesota.html%2F

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.