TOPSHOT - An Aedes Aegypti mosquito is photographed on human skin in a lab of the International Training and Medical Research Training Center (CIDEIM) on January 25, 2016, in Cali, Colombia. CIDEIM scientists are studying the genetics and biology of Aedes Aegypti mosquito which transmits the Zika, Chikungunya, Dengue and Yellow Fever viruses, to control their reproduction and resistance to insecticides. The Zika virus, a mosquito-borne disease suspected of causing serious birth defects, is expected to spread to all countries in the Americas except Canada and Chile, the World Health Organization said. AFP PHOTO/LUIS ROBAYO / AFP / LUIS ROBAYO (Photo credit should read LUIS ROBAYO/AFP/Getty Images)
The WHO is at it again.
This transmission electron microscopic image depicts a number of round dengue virus particles that were revealed in this tissue specimen. (Frederick Murphy/U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that cases of dengue fever could reach record highs this year.
Dengue rates are rising globally, with reported cases since 2000 up eight-fold to 4.2 million in 2022, a WHO official said on July 21.
In January, the WHO claimed that dengue is the world’s fastest-spreading tropical disease and alleged it could be a “pandemic threat.”
The disease was found in Sudan’s capital Khartoum for the first time on record, according to a health ministry report in March, while Europe has reported a surge in cases and Peru declared a state of emergency in most regions.
About half of the world’s population is now at risk, Raman Velayudhan, a specialist at the WHO’s control of neglected tropical diseases department, told journalists in Geneva on Friday.
Cases reported to the WHO hit an all-time high in 2019 with 5.2 million cases in 129 countries, said Mr. Velayudhan via video link.
This year the world is on track for “4 million plus” cases, depending mostly on the Asian monsoon season. Already, close to 3 million cases have been reported in the Americas, he said, adding there was concern about the southern spread to Bolivia, Paraguay, and Peru.
Argentina, which has faced one of its worst outbreaks of dengue in recent years, is sterilizing mosquitoes using radiation that alters their DNA before releasing them into the wild.
“The American region certainly shows it is bad and we hope the Asian region may be able to control it,” Mr. Velayudhan said.
Officials in the European Union said that as of June 8, 2023, some 2.1 million cases have been reported around the world, with 974 deaths.
“Dengue is occurring in urban areas where it did not exist before,” Coralith Garcia, associate professor at the School of Medicine at Cayetano Heredia University in Peru, told Fox News this week. The virus is on the rise in Peru because “it’s so crowded that anything can happen,” she added.
“But Peru had the highest COVID mortality rate [in] the world and now we have several patients dying of dengue, confirming that the Peruvian health system is very weak,” Ms. Garcia said.
What Is Dengue?
Dengue fever can be caused by the dengue virus 1, 2, 3, or 4, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The illness is transmitted primarily via the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which the CDC says is active during the day.
The most common symptom of dengue is a fever with nausea, vomiting, rash, aches, and pains, including eye pain, muscle pain, and bone pain. Symptoms generally last between two and seven days, the CDC says.
There is no specific medicine to treat dengue, which is sometimes called breakbone fever. The CDC notes that most cases of dengue reported in the United States occurred in people who traveled elsewhere, although the isolated spread of dengue has occurred in Arizona, Hawaii, Texas, and Florida.
Most patients who contract dengue fever recover without hospitalization, said Dr. David O. Freedman, a former professor with the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
“In a small proportion of patients, just as the fever is resolving, a second critical phase develops where fluid leaks out of the circulation and gets into body spaces, such as the chest and abdominal cavities,” he told Fox News. In that second phase, people should watch four abdominal tenderness or pain, vomiting, fluid in body spaces, bleeding from the mouth or elsewhere, and lethargy, he said.
Patients can also develop “a total body rash often develops during the critical or early recovery phase,” Dr. Freedman said, adding that “if the patient survives the critical phase usually with medical intervention, the third phase, recovery, occurs about three to four days after that.”
Vaccine?
Meanwhile, drugmaker Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. said earlier this month that it has voluntarily withdrawn its application for its dengue vaccine candidate, following discussions with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The Japan-based company cited data collection issues, which cannot be addressed within the current review cycle.
The future plan for the candidate, TAK-003, in the United States would be further evaluated, given the need for travelers and those living in dengue-endemic areas of the United States, such as Puerto Rico, the drugmaker announced.
Sanofi’s Dengvaxia, the world’s first dengue vaccine, was licensed in 2015. However, the use of the French company’s vaccine was scaled back considerably after it emerged that it increased the risk of severe disease in “seronegative” children, or those who had no prior dengue exposure when they got the shot.
Takeda’s vaccine, branded as QDENGA, was authorized in the European Union last year for use in those aged 4 and older to prevent any of the four so-called serotypes of dengue. It has also been approved in the UK, Brazil, Argentina, Indonesia, and Thailand, according to the company.
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is saying “no” to today’s progressive ideology in Italy. No doubt, she has recognized just how toxic this thinking has become, and she is not looking to mimic the outcome.
One might say that she is giving the boot to save the boot from societal unraveling. Meloni sees no progress in moving the needle in a direction that will ultimately hurt the health and welfare of Italy. Thus, she is turning it back through clear, concise action.
At the center of her concerns are safeguarding the family as well as the traditional practices and values fundamental to Italian life. These were the principles she was elected to uphold in October 2022, and she is carrying through.
According to BBC News, Meloni reacted to her win by declaring, “Italians have sent a clear message in favor of a right-wing government led by Brothers of Italy.” They see how detrimental certain changes have been in countries polarized by LGBT lobbyists, gender ideology, mass migration, lost Christianity, and Islamic extremists, and they want none of it.
Of course, this doesn’t make everyone happy. Some see the changes Meloni is making as being archaic and cruel. Included in this group are lesbian couples who consider Italy’s ban on same-sex surrogacy as truly vile.
Italy is now doubling-down on this stance by removing the names of non-biological mothers from the birth certificates of children being raised in LGBT homes. Cries of injustice can be heard loud and clear, with some stating that such decisions place these children in harm’s way, especially in the instance that the biological mother dies. These children may become wards of the state. Then what?
It does give one pause to think, especially when you put yourself in the place of those like Michela Leidi, who learned that her own name would be removed from the birth certificate of her shared daughter with partner Viola. Born to the latter woman, Leidi was not biologically linked to the child, and so she was instructed that her name would be removed, according to the U.K.’s Daily Mail. “It was if I didn’t exist,” she said.
No doubt, we can all feel for this woman and the few like her. At the same time, you can’t ponder the particular dilemma without looking at the entire picture.
As we live at a time when the desires of some seem to overshadow the well-being of the whole, the outcomes that follow are proving exceedingly interruptive and destructive. As Meloni’s job is to lead her country, doesn’t she inherit the difficult position of doing what is right for all of it while keeping it intact in the process?
She doesn’t have the luxury of pacifying the few. Nor does she see it as a pathway to a brighter tomorrow for Italians.
It is the same rational thinking that resulted in Patrizia Mirigliani, the official patron of the Miss Italy pageant, reaffirming the requirement that “you must be a woman from birth to be a contestant,” according to TrendingPolitics. This rule follows the recent crowning of Miss Netherlands, who happens to be transgender.
Italy isn’t closing its eyes to the big problems becoming “woke” is inviting onto countries who are choosing to follow the crowd. Seeing the results of them clearly, Italy is choosing to emphasize efforts to strengthen Italy, placing it in the best of all positions for the future. The current leadership feels this is a much better strategy.
Basic values need to be reinstituted to bolster the foundation of Italian life. This is especially true when facing the decreasing population crisis Italy is currently dealing with.
“In Italy, marriage is only between a man and a woman, and therefore only the biological parent is the parent whose surname can be registered,” Italy’s minister for parliamentary relations, Luca Ciriani, told RTL radio, per the Advocate.
Biden should take note.
Understanding this, when it leads to the conception of biological children, both the father and mother earn the right of being cited on their children’s birth certificates as parents through the process of procreation. LGBT civil unions, despite being recognized by Italian law, do not lead to biological children. So why should they receive the same right as those that do?
It is fine to change the rules. At certain times, it is called for. The difference to Meloni and other leaders like her is that they don’t see any good in how the rules are presently being changed by those who are succumbing to the pressure to do so. That, alone, is why they are taking a stand. The line needs to be drawn somewhere.
There is nothing more important than a stable existence, whether it be for a nation or in a family. Meloni sees her actions as doing both. And her tenacity, fortitude, and correctness will speak volumes to other countries facing the same dilemma.
She, alone, will make it harder for woke ideology to expand further and progressives to claim more ground. A nemesis of their own construct turning the world upright again. The irony or should I say L’ironia.
True leaders make “protecting their country” their highest priority. This includes “from themselves” when need be. Those that don’t ultimately fail their people. Biden should take a note. Then again, by all recent reports, he already has…that and a few million others to boot..
This is notable. While nominally Italy is a religious country — the Vatican is located in Rome, after all — Europeans have a much more ‘relaxed’ view of things than the morally uptight Americans.
Or, as Marlene Dietrich pointed out, “in America, sex is an obsession; in other parts of the world, it’s a fact.” –TPR
University of Pennsylvania swimmer “Lia” Thomas looks on after swimming the 500 freestyle during the 2022 Ivy League Womens Swimming and Diving Championships at Blodgett Pool on Feb. 17, 2022, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. (Kathryn Riley / Getty Images)
A famous transgender athlete and activist is showing his support for domestic terrorism with a T-shirt.
William “Lia” Thomas is the male college swimmer who transitioned to a woman while in college and began dominating the women’s races, taking away titles and opportunities from actual women.
But not content with being an icon for a delusional cultural movement, Thomas has now decided to show his support for a violent fringe political movement as well in his recent social media posts.
Thomas has now decided to endorse the domestic terrorist group Antifa, posting pictures to his social media wearing a t-shirt reading “Antifa Super Soldier.”
#Trans swimmer Lia Thomas, formerly William Thomas, has now embraced the #Trantifa branding in new photos posted on social media.
Trans violent militancy is the current focus of #Antifa. They believe that critics of trans ideology should be silenced, maimed or murdered. Some… pic.twitter.com/qlU0jQXlbK
Antifa, short for “Anti-Fascist,” is a radical leftist group that uses violence and intimidation to try and silence dissenting conservative voices. For years, many conservatives in Congress have tried to pass bills designating Antifa as a domestic terrorist organization.
Now Thomas, an icon of transgenderism, has decided to show his support for this extremist movement.
Naturally, this picture led to a backlash against the transgender athlete, with many seeing it as a disturbing twist in the culture wars.
One Twitter user said that the shirt “it explains so much,” essentially clarifying why violent leftists are so willing to come out and fight for transgenderism.
The first thing to remember is that Thomas is a man, not a woman. He was born a man and no amount of surgery or hormone therapy can change that. He still has a male body and as a result, he had an unfair advantage when competing against actual women in races.
He did not win these races. Rather, he stole them.
Do you think Antifa should be designated as a domestic terrorist organization? Yes: 100% (740 Votes) No: 0% (3 Votes)
Also, despite its name, Antifa is the very definition of fascism, as it uses brute force to quash freedom of speech. By showing his support for Antifa, Thomas is showing that he does not respect the First Amendment.
Political violence of any sort has no place whatsoever in American public discourse.
Antifa is an extremist organization, and Thomas’ embrace of it is disgusting, although not in the least surprising.
We are now being told that producing food is bad for the planet. To “save” the planet, globalists insist, farms must be shut down across the globe.
A family with starving children, Wikimedia Commons.
Under the guise of reducing “methane emissions,” thirteen nations have signed a pledge to engineer global famine by gutting agricultural production and shutting down farms. Announced earlier this year by the Global Methane Hub — a cabal of crisis engineers who exploit public panic to destroy the world food supply — those thirteen nations are:
Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Chile, Czech Republic, Ecuador, Germany, Panama, Peru, Spain, the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, and Uruguay.
Imagine no meat production from Australia, Brazil and the USA. This is the goal of the globalists. And they admit it’s all part of the climate fraud which has been thoroughly exposed as a quack science hoax, by the way. As Luis Planas, Spain’s Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food says, “I am glad to see the shared commitment by the international community to mitigate methane emissions from agriculture as a means to achieve the goals we signed for in the Paris Agreement on climate.”
“Food systems are responsible for 60% of methane emissions,” warns Marcelo Mena, CEO of the Global Methane Hub. She is saying that farming is destroying the planet. Hence, their demand to shut down farms. Without farms, you have no food. And without food, you get exactly what Kamala Harris called for over the weekend: “Reduced population.”
The depopulation agenda is no longer even a secret. They are bragging about it.
And here’s their logic: FOOD = GLOBAL WARMING. So they are attacking food and shutting it down.
Starving child in Africa.
Cows and chickens to be replaced by crickets and insect larvae
Enjoy the crunchy fake meat patties and Cricket McNuggets. Soon, you’ll be eating bugs because meat will be wildly unaffordable due to the governments shutting down farms and ranches. As journalist Leo Hohmann explains:
We can presume from this language that among the practices being considered are replacing a major portion of the beef and dairy cattle, pork and chicken stocks that populations rely on for protein with insect larvae, meal worms, crickets, etc. The U.N., World Economic Forum and other NGOs have been promoting meatless diets and the consumption of insect protein for years, and billionaires have invested in massive insect factories being built in the state of Illinois, in Canada and in the Netherlands, where meal worms, crickets and other bugs will be processed as additives to be inserted into the food supply, often without clear labels that will inform people of exactly what they are eating.
Hohmann also refers to the Deagel forecast which projects an almost 70 percent reduction of the U.S. population by 2025, saying:
There is no more efficient way to depopulate than through war, famine and plagues. Isn’t it interesting that all three of these time-tested methods of murder are in play right now?
In a related story, Michael Snyder from The Economic Collapse Blog writes:
Global food supplies just keep getting even tighter, and global hunger has risen to extremely alarming levels… According to the United Nations, nearly 30 percent of the global population does not have constant access to food right now, and there are approximately 900 million people that are facing “severe food insecurity”…
Chinese children starving.
Gee, add to that the next global PLANdemic, and you can see (if you take off your leftist blinders) where this is headed. And the BIDEN REGIME is particpating in it!–TPR
The Biden administration’s Department of Justice web page on the dangers of child sex trafficking is suddenly missing some very crucial text that raises further questions as to the degree the department has been politicized.
In fact, in recent months, most of the original text on what the public should look for has been deleted — presumably in order to protect an embattled pro-LGBT White House and its failed border policies.
According to an archive of the page, up until recently, the DOJ warned off international sex trafficking rings that use the border to exploit children.
A section on “International Sex Trafficking of Minors” for years read as follows:
“One form of sex trafficking involves the cross-border transportation of children. In these situations, traffickers recruit and transfer children across international borders in order to sexually exploit them in another country.
“The traffickers can be individuals working alone, organized crime groups, enterprises, or networks of criminals working together to traffic children into prostitution across country lines.”
The DOJ reported that once missing and exploited children enter the country illegally, they often are never found and are afraid to come forward.
Other crucial excerpts on the international slave trade are also missing.
One obvious explanation for why this information is suddenly gone is that President Joe Biden and his administration have watched over an open border for the last two-and-a-half years.
Why else would anyone in federal law enforcement in the corrupt federal government feel it is necessary to remove such important information?
But there are also excerpts missing that could be interpreted as pointing toward the LGBT community.
For example, in its previous form, the DOJ warned of predators whose motives might be to take advantage of young people whose backgrounds could match those of confused kids in distress.
One of those excerpts once read:
“Offenders of this crime who are commonly referred to as traffickers, or pimps, target vulnerable children and gain control over them using a variety of manipulative methods. Victims frequently fall prey to traffickers who lure them in with an offer of food, clothes, attention, friendship, love, and a seemingly safe place to sleep.”
Another stated bluntly:
“It is common for traffickers to isolate victims by moving them far away from friends and family, altering their physical appearances, or continuously moving them to new locations. Victims are heavily conditioned to remain loyal to the trafficker and to distrust law enforcement.”
Organizations that cater to children who are confused about sexuality and gender often report they feel ostracized and end up homeless.
For example, the LGBT youth group The Trevor Project states that 28 percent of young people in its community have been homeless.
It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that such a situation would set some of these kids up to be taken advantage of.
We know with the modern left’s extreme views on gender, kids are being urged to undergo life-altering surgeries. Who knows where some of them end up?
That fact might explain why the DOJ’s warning that predators who are known for “altering” the physical appearance of their victims is now gone.
More information about the trafficking of human beings is always better than less — especially in regard to children.
But for some reason that has not been addressed publicly, the DOJ cut out this very important information — whittling it down from more than 1,300 words to only 400.
The department also removed the following 2011 quote from then-Deputy Attorney General James Cole:
“Some of our most vulnerable children also face the threat of being victimized by commercial sexual exploitation. Runaways, throwaways, sexual assault victims, and neglected children can be recruited into a violent life of forced prostitution.”
Given the politicized nature of federal law enforcement under the Biden administration, we can only assume the DOJ removed information about victims who are inconvenient and that it was done for political reasons.
Protesters rail against Moms for Liberty outside this year’s Joyful Warrior Summit in Philadelphia. (Michael M. Santiago via Getty Images)
Attendees at the Moms for Liberty Joyful Warrior Summit stand for the Pledge of Allegiance in Philadelphia on July 1. (Michael M. Santiago via Getty Images)
ByRobert Pondiscio
In a breakout session in a windowless conference room at last weekend’s Moms for Liberty “Joyful Warrior Summit” in Philadelphia, Christian Ziegler, the chairman of the Florida Republican Party and father of three school-aged daughters, is stiffening spines. Dozens of attendees, mostly women, are nodding and taking notes as Ziegler explains how to work with local news media.
“Your product is parental rights. Your product is protecting children and eliminating indoctrination and the sexualization of children. You’re the grassroots. You’re on the ground. You’re the moms, the grandparents, the families that are impacted. The stories you tell help set a narrative,” Ziegler coaches them.
One story above us, the ballroom floor of the downtown Marriott is groaning under the weight of crowded press risers, where camera crews have set up for the parade of Republican presidential hopefuls coming here to curry favor with the more than 600 Moms for Liberty members attending—and a few thousand more watching the livestream.
Ron DeSantis held forth this morning. Nikki Haley is scheduled to speak at lunch. Donald Trump will close things out later this afternoon. Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson are on tap for tomorrow.
It’s an astonishing display of political drawing power, considering Moms for Liberty didn’t even exist three years ago. The candidates have all come to pay obeisance to the animating idea that has galvanized these women: that parents—not the government—should be in charge of how their children are raised and educated.
If you want to understand why these politicians have come, you need to go to the breakout sessions, away from the camera’s gaze, where, hour after hour, Moms for Liberty chapter leaders and foot soldiers learn how to run for school boards—and if they win, how to advance their agenda even when in the minority. There are talks on messaging strategies and mining school board minutes for signs of “woke indoctrination.” There are workshops on how to file public records requests and navigate the legal system.
They aren’t messing around. More than half of the 500 candidates Moms for Liberty endorsed for local school board elections last year won their races. “School choice moms” provided the margin of victory in DeSantis’ first run for Florida governor in 2018. Democrat Terry McAuliffe was leading the race for Virginia governor in 2021 before his debate remark that “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach” handed the win to Republican Glenn Youngkin.
Moms for Liberty is the beating heart of this country’s movement of angry parents—and American education has never seen anything quite like it.
Moms for Liberty launched in January 2021 when frustration with pandemic masking rules had reached a boiling point. Requests to form local chapters started coming in almost immediately after co-founder Tina Descovich called in to Glenn Beck’s radio show. Appearances on The Rush Limbaugh Show, Fox News, and Steve Bannon’s War Room quickly followed. Within six months, Megyn Kelly was hosting a fundraiser. Its slogan, emblazoned on thousands of t-shirts, is “We don’t co-parent with the government.”
That message has found an enormous and growing audience. With 120,000 members and nearly 300 chapters in 45 U.S. states, Moms for Liberty is already the most consequential education advocacy organization since Teach For America—but with none of the halo effect that inspired a generation of elite college grads to put off law school and Wall Street to teach in inner cities.
Moms for Liberty is Teach For America’s dark opposite number. They won’t be talked out of their conviction that malign forces in public schools—gender ideology, critical race theory, Marxism, anti-Americanism—have come for their children, and they’re having exactly none of it.
“I think they’re one of the few truly authentic and responsive edu-parental rights groups that has emerged in recent history,” says a prominent parent choice supporter not associated with Moms for Liberty, who would only speak anonymously because of the group’s radioactive reputation in education and philanthropic circles. “They’re not just mouthpieces on social media; they have a real following. If they weren’t effective, and if their message wasn’t resonant, they wouldn’t be so vilified.”
It’s true the group attracts and frequently abides a lunatic fringe, fueling its critics’ counternarrative that the movement is intolerant, racist even.
Just last week, an Indiana Moms for Liberty chapter put a Hitler quote in its newsletter and the story went national. The quote—“He alone, who owns the youth, gains the future”—was intended to warn parents what happens when a regime targets its children for indoctrination. But when critics are calling you ultra-right wing Christofascists, it’s probably unwise to invoke Hitler in any context.
The local chapter chair apologized, “probably because she hasn’t gone through this” training, Ziegler tells the crowd.
“Frankly, it was bullshit.”
Even before the Hitler controversy, media coverage of the group has been harsh. The Nationdescribed Moms for Liberty as “hateful fascist bigots.” The New Republicsaidthe group has “created nightmares for schools across the country.” An article in Vice reported they have ties to the Proud Boys—a claim that co-founder Tiffany Justice strenuously denied to me. A story in The Washington Post led with the Southern Poverty Law Center’s recent designation of Moms for Liberty as an “extremist group” devoted to spreading “messages of anti-inclusion and hate.”
When Ziegler’s wife, Bridget, one of the original Moms for Liberty, started serving on the school board in Sarasota County, Florida, nearly a decade ago, the negative press coverage reduced her to tears. Now, Ziegler tells the room, the couple compares their bad press clips on date nights.
“You actually get to this amazing moment when you realize, ‘Hey, if they attack me, I can go raise money on this. I can get my message out by piggybacking on that attack,’ ” advises Ziegler.
“It’s brutal to be on defense,” he continues. “Always play offense. Never apologize. Never, ever, never,” he insists.
Ziegler, meanwhile, likes this morning’s Washington Post story just fine, even though it details a litany of complaints and criticisms aimed at the group. “Moms for Liberty didn’t exist three years ago. Now,” the paper says, “it’s a GOP kingmaker.”
“Probably the best headline I’ve ever seen,” he grins.
In 2021, the National School Boards Association (NSBA) was forced to apologize after a letter it sent to the Biden administration went viral, asking for federal law enforcement to stop “domestic terrorism” at school board meetings.
While Moms for Liberty was not mentioned by name, the letter cited several incidents at which members had protested. Since then, 25 state associations have cut ties with NSBA. At the Philadelphia summit, a handful of mothers were proudly wearing “Domestic Terrorist” t-shirts.
Outside the Marriott, protesters from ACT UP Philly and the Young Communist League are registering their displeasure with an all-day “dance party protest”—a strange response to the fascist threat they insist is unfolding four flights up. From beyond barricades several hundred feet away they shout at the hotel and wave signs: “Philly is a Trans City,” “Kancel Klanned Karenhood,” and “Moms for Liberty Go Home!”
But the Moms are unrepentant. They seem almost to revel in the abuse.
On the eve of the Philadelphia Summit, co-founder Tiffany Justice told me, “We are fighting for the survival of America by unifying, educating, and empowering parents to defend their parental rights at all levels of government.”
A few years ago, if you had to bet on which parent organization could influence the 2024 election, the smart wager would have been on the well-funded National Parents Union (NPU), which calls itself an “authentically parent-led organization,” a label that Moms for Liberty would undoubtedly use to describe itself.
The afternoon before Moms for Liberty kicked off their conference, NPU held a sparsely attended rally in Philadelphia’s Love Park to condemn its “evil and divisive” rival, which, it claimed, seeks school book bans and to whitewash history lessons taught to children. What Moms for Liberty insists are efforts to keep pornography out of school libraries and to combat “indoctrination” about critical race theory and gender fluidity, NPU says are attempts to attack and marginalize children of color and LGBTQ youth.
At the Love Park rally, NPU’s president publicly blasted Moms for Liberty, stating unironically that they’re bankrolled by “big checks from the evils of white supremacy.” NPU, for its part, has raised millions in philanthropic support from the Walton Family Foundation, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, and the Charles Koch Institute-backed Vela Fund.
Moms for Liberty’s most recent tax filings from 2021 claim a modest $370,000 of revenue. Descovich says accountants are finalizing Moms for Liberty’s updated Form 990, which “will show that our revenue sources have grown from merchandise sales and small donors to include large donors too.” Justice confirms that she and Descovich now draw full-time salaries for their work. They are two of nine full-time staffers.
Their grassroots appeal is easily observable. At the summit, I ran into a neighbor who last year upended our small town in upstate New York with a failed campaign for school board, pushing back on “government overreach” and demanding a return to “traditional education.”
“What are the chances we’d run into each other here!” he greets me.
“Probably 100 percent,” I reply. I write about education for a living and he’s here with his wife, who’s thinking about launching a local chapter. They are the Moms for Liberty couple from central casting.
Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley speaks during the Moms for Liberty summit in Philadelphia. (Michael M. Santiago via Getty Images)
“I’ve never seen a consensus like this. This is a winning issue.”
Until Moms for Liberty, efforts to organize parents into an effective political counterweight to teachers unions and to impose their will on K–12 education haven’t amounted to very much. Colleen Dippel, the founder of Houston-based Families Empowered, a parent support organization with no connection to the group, says of Moms for Liberty: “They are doing things that other organizations have received millions of dollars to do and haven’t been able to get done. The National Parents Union hasn’t flipped a school board. They haven’t changed a policy that I’m aware of.”
The rise of Moms for Liberty as a force in education policy, local elections, and now the 2024 campaign is, if anything, a function of their refusal to follow the playbook common to parent advocacy organizations, which tend to wither and die when their philanthropic support dries up.
“Philanthropists will never be able to control these women,” says Dippel. “Why? Because these women are college educated and they don’t need their money. They also have time, they have skills, and they’re empowered primary voters. The message they send to elected officials is, ‘No, no, no. My kid, my money, you work for me. And if you don’t, I’ll organize all these other women, tell them what’s going on, and kick you out of office, because that’s democracy, right?’ ”
At a private dinner on Friday night after Trump’s speech, pollster Jim McLaughlin presented Moms for Liberty’s leaders and advisers with the results of a survey he conducted of likely voters in the upcoming general election. A clear majority (67 percent) feel that K–12 public education in the U.S. is “on the wrong track,” including half of Democrats, he says. Nearly three-fourths, including independents and Biden voters, think it’s more important for schools to teach children “basics” like reading, writing, and math rather than “issues of social justice, reproductive rights, sex education, and transgender issues.”
Matt Palumbo, a 30-year veteran Republican political adviser who has worked on seven presidential campaigns and attended the briefing said, “I’ve never seen a consensus like this. This is a winning issue.”
Obviously, schools do not choose between teaching reading and gender ideology, but it was hard to miss the narrative taking shape in real time in Philadelphia. The basic thrust of Moms for Liberty’s advocacy—that parents, not the government, should have the ultimate say in what children are taught in public schools—has legs. Not one subgroup in McLaughlin’s crosstabs—Trump or Biden voters; pro-life or pro-choice; black, white, or Hispanic; urban, rural, or suburban—disagrees.
Education is a state issue, not a federal one; schools are ground zero in the country’s culture war, and Moms for Liberty is positioned to be at the center of it through next November. A majority of Americans simply don’t buy the idea that a person can be a gender other than the one “assigned at birth,” and they don’t want their children taught otherwise in public schools. Every presidential contender who came to the summit talked about it in one form or another. And the crowd leapt to its feet every time.
Moms for Liberty has angered activists and inspired harsh media coverage—and yet the organization’s status as a GOP kingmaker has only grown. (Michael M. Santiago via Getty Images)
But the passion and energy that has rocketed Moms for Liberty to kingmaker status is also its Achilles heel: some overly zealous members have gone too far.
Members of a local Tennessee chapter last year, for example, sued to remove an outstanding English curriculum, Wit & Wisdom, from their school district, on the grounds that its elementary school texts about civil rights icons Ruby Bridges and Martin Luther King Jr. are too dark and disturbing for children and violate state laws against teaching critical race theory. A New Hampshire chapter offered a $500 bounty “for the person that first successfully catches a public school teacher breaking this [state’s anti-critical race theory] law.” An Arkansas Mom was banned from school grounds after an audio recording captured her saying “if I had any mental issues, [school employees] would all be plowed down by a freaking gun right now.”
Neither are the group’s fanatical elements limited only to local chapters. On Saturday morning at the conference, Moms for Liberty fixture James Lindsay painted a picture of the organization as “war moms” fighting a “Maoist cultural revolution” engineered at the highest levels of government and elite institutions. When Mao came to power, Lindsay claimed, his first step was to close schools and reeducate teachers. “They shut down the schools for two years and came back with a whole new program. Does that sound familiar?”
Lindsay’s conspiracy theory earned him a raucous standing ovation.
Erika Donalds, the wife of Florida Congressman Byron Donalds and another former school board member who was present at the founding (she remains on Moms for Liberty’s board), believes the group is ready for its moment in the national spotlight, but she’s clear-eyed about the potential pitfalls of such a rapid rise. “They’re very intentional about who speaks on behalf of the organization. They train their members on the issues, and they get out in front of things,” she says. “But their biggest risk is some rogue woman wearing a Moms for Liberty shirt at a school board meeting acting like a cuckoo.”
Tiffany Justice acknowledges the risk to the brand but minimizes the downside.
“There is no doubt in my mind that there will be things that chapters do that we may not agree with, or we may not be able to stop in advance,” she tells me. “If it rises to something that’s the level of violating our code of conduct, we have no problem removing a chapter chair or taking the steps to remove a member. It’s not all sunshine and rainbows. This work is difficult. And we know that.”
The Moms for Liberty mission statement, “We Do Not Co-Parent with the Government” has animated an enormous audience—with almost 300 chapters in 45 states. (Octavio Jones via Getty Images)
Teach For America, which is now derided by conservatives for its hard left turn into “woke” education, claims that 270 of its alumni serve in elected positions around the country “from state representatives to city council members to school board officials.” Moms for Liberty might have that many or more school board members already, and a multiple of that number weighing a run. Teach For America has been around for 30 years. Moms for Liberty? Thirty months. And the way things are going, their influence is likely to explode in the next few years.
“Today’s school board members are tomorrow’s state legislators,” said Christian Ziegler, the Florida Republican Party chairman, when I spoke with him a few days after the Philadelphia summit. His wife, Bridget, who is serving what she says will be her last school board term in Sarasota, is leading a new program for school board candidates at the Virginia-based Leadership Institute, which since 1979 has trained 250,000 conservative activists in campaigns, fundraising, and communications.
“And today’s state legislators are tomorrow’s congressmen.”
Robert Pondiscio is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of How the Other Half Learns. Follow him on Twitter at @rpondiscio.
I have never had a problem with gays or POCs in and of themselves. And I support any who have legitimate grievances. What I DO have a problem with is those who think they are entitled to special treatment because of what they are or claim to be or who DEMAND others bow down in acquiescence to their lifestyle choices. –TPR
There are certain groups of people that are always crying because their “right” of “free speech” was allegedly denied them.
They have no problem shouting down others whose “free speech” doesn’t agree with their speech, though. Amazing how that is, isn’t it?
There is no such thing as “free speech” without consequences. Some consequences are good. Some are neutral. And some are unpleasant – or worse, deadly. Words of “free speech” have consequences every time, feels don’t count.
To use a clichéd example, yell “Fire!” in a crowded room (or “Bomb!”) and see how your Free-speech butt lands in jail in no time flat.
I started thinking about this after witnessing a couple of obscure websites that supposedly value free speech. One has free speech only for the favored few; the other is a dumpster fire of insults, feels over facts, and NSFW (or for FB) pictures. The denizens of both sites seem to think that rules of common decency – not to mention common sense – don’t apply to them because they’re more equal than those whom they despise.
Thus, they are disingenuously surprised when they show up on someone else’s site, exercise their “right of free speech,” and after being warned, are invited to leave, sometimes forcefully.
Robert H. Heinlein stated his belief that “An armed society is a polite society.”
The reason being that people would be more cautious if they knew that they might have to back up their words with their bodies. Being on the wrong end of a loaded gun barrel does that.
But today, these snowflakes scream to high heaven about how their “free speech” is being suppressed by — whomever. They think they can say or do anything they want to without care or pushback. And the stupidest ones keep coming back to repeat what got them banned in the first place. (I’m looking at YOU, Stan.)
JOS thought that way, repeatedly doxing people, threatening to beat them up, shoot them (from behind, of course), rape, and burn them alive, etc. He lost his all Disqus sites, two or three YouTube channels, and his Rumble channel because of his “free speech.” I’ll bet his DI at Camp Pendleton had some ideas of his own about JOS’s right to “free speech.” He and Jewish Jeff might BOTH be behind bars for all we know, for their “free speech.”
‘Nuff said.
Just like haters gotta hate, idiots gotta keep being idiots.
I love it when these double-digit IQ people think I care what they say about me. dERp and Leslie Lapsitter are two prime examples. And LL proved she lurks her by posting how I’d banned Stan for calling me a ‘fucking moron’ on my own blog. Thanks for alerting me to the fact that I’d accidentally spammed his comment by the way I banned him, Leslie.
Everyone else, feel free to comment or post other pertinent memes.
Dem-Backed Bill Would Force Judges to Consider Race in Sentencing
California lawmakers consider a bill that would require judges to consider a person’s race when deciding how long to sentence them to prison.
The bill, which was introduced in February by Democratic Assembly taxpaying citMember Reggie Jones-Sawyer, was approved by the state Assembly in May and is currently being debated in the state Senate, according to Fox News.
If the Dems didn’t have double standards, they would have none at all.
Assembly Bill 852 would add a section to the California Penal Code requiring courts, when they have the power to decide a prison sentence, to take into account how racial minorities have been affected differently than others in order to “rectify racial bias.”
“It is the intent of the Legislature to rectify the racial bias that has historically permeated our criminal justice system as documented by the California Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans,” the proposed section reads.
“Whenever the court has discretion to determine the appropriate sentence according to relevant statutes and the sentencing rules of the Judicial Council, the court presiding over a criminal matter shall consider the disparate impact on historically disenfranchised and system-impacted populations.”
The task force, which was created from legislation signed by Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2020, published its recommendations in June, Fox News reported. The state legislature will debate whether to implement them.
Jones-Sawyer is a member of the reparations task force, according to NBC News.
Eligible black California residents could receive more than $115,000, or roughly $2,352 per year of residency from 1971 to 2020, in compensation for excessive policing and felony drug arrests, as well as disproportionate incarceration during the alleged war on drugs, Fox News reported.
Jones-Sawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Wow. Give criminals money for being caught. What a novel concept!
Isn’t giving someone preferential treatment because of their skin color RACIST????
Answer: YES! (Unless the parties enjoying the preference are non-White, of course.)
Biden Cartel puts the blame on the whistle blower.
DOJ Announces Indictment Against Biden Whistleblower.
Published on By Citizen Frank
Dr. Gal Luft
Israeli professor Dr. Gal Luft, a key Biden whistleblower who was “missing” for several weeks, has been indicted by the Department of Justice just days after releasing a video in which he accused the Biden family of accepting bribes and assisting the Chinese government.
Luft has been accused of failing to register as a foreign agent while working to advance the interests of China in the United States. In addition to Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), the eight-count federal indictment includes charges of arms trafficking, Iranian sanctions violations, and making false statements to federal agents.
“As alleged, Gal Luft, a dual U.S.-Israeli citizen and co-head of a Maryland think tank, engaged in multiple, serious criminal schemes. He subverted foreign agent registration laws in the United States to seek to promote Chinese policies by acting through a former high-ranking U.S. Government official; he acted as a broker in deals for dangerous weapons and Iranian oil; and he told multiple lies about his crimes to law enforcement,” said U.S. Attorney Damian Williams.
More on the indictment from Fox News:
BREAKING: Gal Luft has been indicted by the DOJ just days after coming forward to detail allegations against the Biden Family. pic.twitter.com/FVfVSyb7iQ
First, LUFT conspired with others in an effort to act within the United States to advance the interests of the People’s Republic of China (“China”) as agents of China-based principals, without registering as foreign agents as required under U.S. law.
As part of this scheme, while serving as the co-director of a Maryland-based non-profit think tank, LUFT agreed to covertly recruit and pay, on behalf of principals based in China, a former high-ranking U.S. Government official (“Individual-1”), including in 2016 while the former official was an adviser to the then-President-elect, to publicly support certain policies with respect to China without LUFT or Individual-1 filing a registration statement as an agent of a foreign principal with the Attorney General of the United States, in violation of FARA.
Among other things, in the weeks before the 2016 U.S. presidential election, LUFT and a co-conspirator (“CC-1”), who is a Chinese national and worked for a Chinese nongovernmental organization affiliated with a Chinese energy company, created a written “dialogue” between CC-1 and Individual-1, in which LUFT wrote Individual-1’s responses and included information that was favorable to China.
The dialogue was then published in a Chinese newspaper online and sent to, among others, individuals in the United States, including a journalist and professors at multiple U.S. universities. When LUFT was writing the dialogue, CC-1 told LUFT that “[i]n these articles, we do not want to spill all the beans yet, just enough to let ‘people’ know he [i.e., Individual-1] is in the corridor of power to be. Just broad stroke policy consideration that leaves plenty of room for interpretation and imagination to be filled in later.”
After the purported “conversations” were published, LUFT told CC-1 that certain information, favorable to China, had been “tucked between the lines.” Shortly after the 2016 election, LUFT and CC-1 also discussed possible roles Individual-1 might have in the incoming U.S. administration and discussed Individual-1 taking a “silent trip” to China. LUFT responded that “[w]e are debating about his role in the new admin. There are all kinds of considerations . . .We should talk ftf [i.e., face-to-face] as there can be a supremely unique opportunity for china.”
Last week, Luft uploaded a video from an “undisclosed location” in which he claimed he was being detained in order to prevent his scheduled testimony before the House Oversight Committee. The professor asserts that the Biden family received payments from individuals with alleged ties to Chinese military intelligence, further alleging the existence of an FBI mole who leaked classified information to China-controlled energy company CEFC.
“I, who volunteered to inform the US government about a potential security breach and about compromising information about a man vying to be the next president, am now being hunted by the very same people who I informed — and may have to live on the run for the rest of my life on the run …,” Luft said.
“I’m not a Republican. I’m not a Democrat. I have no political motive or agenda … I did it out of deep concern that if the Bidens were to come to power, the country would be facing the same traumatic Russia collusion scandal — only this time with China. Sadly, because of the DOJ’s cover-up, this is exactly what happened,” he continued.
House Oversight Chair James Comer (R-KY) recently told Newsmax that Luft was in talks with the committee and would soon be testifying. Comer described Luft as “highly credible,” adding that, “this is a credible witness that the FBI flew all the way to Brussels to interview and sent several agents to interview. This is someone who knew about CEFC in detail long before the laptop ever became public.”
Gee, isn’t it strange how these charges all of a sudden appeared out of left field (pun intended)? An Israeli accused of broking deals with the Iranians — swore enemies of Israel? Really?????
