Daily News Roundup - PRICKLY PEAR

Estimated Reading Time: 14 minutes

NOTABLE QUOTES

Helen Raleigh contributor to The Federalist: Today’s digital gulag shares the same objective as its brick-and-mortar predecessors. Its goal is to silence dissent and enforce ideological conformity. While the digital gulag does not yet cause extreme physical harm, its financial punishments have resulted in real-life hardship for those on the receiving end. The fear of being sent to the digital gulag has caused many people to adhere to a strict policy of self-censorship.

Bill Melugin national correspondent for @foxnews based in L.A tweeted: NEW: Email reveals DHS Secretary Mayorkas was alerted by DHS’ top public affairs official that the “whipping” narrative behind horseback BP photos wasn’t true, but at a WH press conference 2.5 hours later, he didn’t refute that narrative, instead calling the images “horrifying”.

ChrisBray.substack looks at government coordinated Covid propaganda: Nearly everything you watched, read, and heard on every form of media pounded you with a coordinated, calculated message about fear and compliance. Media was policed by government and corporations, working together to hide and remove critical discussion about that fear-messaging. Every physical environment you entered pounded you with a coordinated, calculated message about fear and compliance. If you failed to submit to this coordinated fear campaign, you risked arrest in public spaces. Name a historical example of a more aggressive and thorough propaganda campaign. For ubiquity and intensity, I think we have examples that compare, but none that clearly top it.

Joel Kotkin contributor to Spiked Magazine: ‘Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them.’ This colourful quote, sometimes attributed to Lenin, could well apply to the many free-market ideologues and tech oligarchs in the US, who are now pushing for increased welfare payouts and even a universal basic income (UBI). Through the expansion of welfarism at the expense of work, these capitalists could well be hastening the decline of the very economic system they profess to support.

Don Surber retired newspaperman: I reject any guilt trip for being an American. I have enough sins of mine own. My people include some who came here on a little wooden ship called the Mayflower and some came aboard steerage in the late 19th century. They did not come here to make their great-grandson (and in some cases, many greats) apologize for deeds they did not commit.

The Post Millennial tweet: COVID czar Ashish Jha is asked what the message is for Americans after Biden said the pandemic is over: “The President was very clear: COVID is not over.”

U.S. SUPREME COURT

Yeatman: No, Dry Land Isn’t ‘Navigable Water’ For Federal Bureaucrats To Regulate, And SCOTUS Must Say So

The Supreme Court recently kicked off this term with oral arguments in Sackett v. EPA, a blockbuster environmental law case that could provide property owners with long-overdue clarity regarding the enjoyment of their land. To understand the facts of the controversy is to sympathize with the petitioners. In 2004, Chantell and Mike Sackett purchased a 0.63-acre vacant lot near Priest Lake, Idaho, with the intention of building their family home. After obtaining all necessary local permits, the Sacketts began construction. But shortly after starting preliminary earthmoving activities, government officials entered the lot and said to the Sacketts’ construction workers that the homesite contained “wetlands” subject to federal regulation as “navigable waters” under the Clean Water Act. One could forgive the Sacketts for being surprised. Located in a mostly built-out residential subdivision, their property contains no bodies of water. Nor does the lot include any surface water connections to any body of water.

Howe: California law on sale of pork raises concerns about interstate moral disputes in a “balkanized” nation

A case about a California animal-welfare law became a springboard on Tuesday for the justices to explore how individual states might try to impose their moral views on their neighbors. As they considered the constitutionality of California’s Proposition 12, the justices wondered aloud how the case would affect hypothetical state efforts to ban products from out-of-state companies that employ unauthorized immigrants, forbid labor unions, or refuse to fund certain types of health care. Approved by California voters in 2018, Proposition 12 imposes minimum requirements for the confinement of breeding pigs that produce uncooked pork products for sale in the state. Critics argue that the law violates the Constitution by regulating the pork industry outside of California, but over two hours of oral argument revealed that the justices were conflicted. On one hand, some justices expressed . . .

Nerozzi: Pennsylvania to count undated ballots, election official says, despite US Supreme Court ruling

A top election official in Pennsylvania says the state will disregard the U.S. Supreme Court’s guidance on counting mail-in ballots arriving in envelopes with typos or incorrect dates, saying that the state’s Commonwealth Court has already established the practice as licit. Pennsylvania’s election laws have historically required voters to include a signature and date on the outside of return envelopes when voting by mail.

DEMOCRAT PARTY MARXIST PLAYBOOK: CANCEL THE FIRST AMENDMENT

Shurk: The War for Internet Freedom Has Just Begun

If just any old citizen could broadcast news to the world over cyberspace, none of the government’s traditional methods for regulating knowledge would continue to work. Having a White House press corps, after all, has always had little to do with keeping government power in check and an awful lot to do with keeping potentially damaging information in house, supervised, and under control. What better way to monitor and shape the news of tomorrow than to stuff all the White House correspondents into one small space for direct and easy manipulation? Should CBS or NBC or The New York Times stumble upon a story too embarrassing for those in power, there is always some bargain to be made or some threat to be leveled that can keep that information bottled up. The “free press,” in other words, has always been filled with information “gatekeepers” no less corruptible than any other humans and just as capable of intentionally keeping the public in the dark as they are of letting in some occasional light. For what it’s worth, Clinton’s worries were warranted, and a complete unknown named Matt Drudge nearly took down his presidency with a story about a stained blue dress that several prestige news outlets had refused to cover. The somewhat secret war over information would never be the same. […] In reality, however, internet freedom didn’t pit Western liberals against totalitarian communists; it pitted the world’s governing “elites” against ordinary citizens.

BIDEN’S ENFORCERS

Ertelt: FBI Arrests 87-Year-Old Pro-Life Concentration Camp Survivor for Peacefully Protesting Abortion

New information about one of the pro-life advocates arrested recently shows she is an 87-year-old woman who is a concentration camp survivor. A federal indictment alleges that the pro-life defendants “engaged in a conspiracy to prevent the clinic from providing” and patients from receiving abortion services and violated the FACE Act by “using physical obstruction to intimidate and interfere with the clinic’s employees and a patient.” Yet the event was mostly pro-life people staging a peaceful sit in along with signing and praying and it was so lawful and peaceful that local police let them go after minor misdemeanor charges. […] But if convicted on these federal charges from the Biden administration, Vaughn faces up to 11 years in prison, three years supervised release and fines of up to $350,000. One of the pro-life advocates the FBI considers as a danger to the public is an elderly woman, Eva Edl, who is a German survivor of a communist prisoner-of-war concentration camp during World War II. After she escaped that horror, Edl dedicated her life to fighting for human rights for everyone — including people before birth

Olohan: Pro-Life Group Whose Office Was Firebombed Hasn’t Heard From FBI Since May

Wisconsin Family Action, the 501(c)(4) arm of Wisconsin Family Council, said earlier this year that the clinic was attacked by an “elitist anarchist group,” Anarchy 1314, that reportedly threw two Molotov cocktails into the office, broke windows, and firebombed the building early in the morning on Mother’s Day. They also graffitied the building with the message: “If abortions aren’t safe, then you aren’t either.” The militant abortion group Jane’s Revenge claimed responsibility for the attack, calling the firebombing “just a warning” and promising that more would follow if pro-life centers do not cease their work: “We demand the disbanding of all anti-choice establishments, fake clinics and violent anti-choice groups within the next 30 days.” […] But in spite of the national coverage the incident received, and the ongoing threatening or harassing messages the center has received, it is unclear whether authorities are actively investigating the attack. […] “Never anything in writing,” she added. “[The FBI] called one time to check on a phone number…that was mid to late May. Crickets since then.” “Nothing from ATF,” she added, noting that they are taking care of the physical evidence. “Zero.”

THE FIRST AMENDMENT AND ALEX JONES

War Room: Episode 2222: When You Have To Pay For Freedom Of Speech

Darren Beattie founder of Revolver.news is interviewed.

Watch the interview: https://rumble.com/v1nqav6-episode-2222-when-you-have-to-pay-for-freedom-of-speech.html

War Room: Alex Jones Is First Domino To Fall In The Path To The End Of Free Speech

Watch the 8:14 minute interview with Jones: https://rumble.com/v1nqptu-alex-jones-is-first-domino-to-fall-in-the-path-to-the-end-of-free-speech.html

2022 MIDTERM ELECTIONS

ADI Staff Reporter: Clean Elections Commission Accuses AZ PBS Of Breaking “Shared Practice,” To Reschedule Lake Q & A

Today, the Clean Elections Commission was surprised to learn that the Arizona PBS has committed to host a Gubernatorial candidate Q & A next week with Secretary of State Katie Hobbs. This morning’s announcement came the day a longtime scheduled Gubernatorial event was to be taped and broadcast featuring candidate Kari Lake. […] Lake called a press conference immediately in front of ASU’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication to address the situation. “I’m disappointed tonight. We have cleared our schedule twice now for this debate. Unfortunately, I’m running against a coward who’s afraid to stand on a debate stage and talk about what she wants to do for Arizona. Unfortunately, PBS and ASU have done a backroom deal with that coward to give her airtime that she does not deserve. They have canceled this, and it’s absolutely wrong,” said Lake.

Nobel: SPOILER ALERT! Marc Victor, Libertarian Spoiler for the 2022 Arizona U.S. Senate Race

The first thing we would like to make clear is we have great sympathy, even affection, for many libertarian ideas. That is more than just a gratuitous statement. Readers know that over the past few years we have published many articles from libertarian-oriented think tanks and publications. Theoretical ideas and the governing mechanics of politics, are often two different things. We wish we all could live in a libertarian live and let-live world, but unfortunately, we face Progressive Democrats who would not allow such a thing. […] Progressives must be opposed and beaten in this election cycle. To do so peacefully, we need to work through the political process as it really exists, and in the history of the United States, that means the two-party system. […] When a person loses political power, such as a second-term President, they are referred to as a lame duck. Libertarians are duck eggs. They are not even developed enough to limp. They have nothing to trade politically speaking because they have so few officeholders, little if any party infrastructure, and hence can’t form coalitions with other politicians. To form coalitions, you often need something to trade or bargain with, and libertarians rarely hold power, which is the currency of politics. You don’t have to be a libertarian to be a spoiler of course. […] The arguments for running as a libertarian are pretty weak since they have little chance of being elected. One argument is . . . […] A recent article in Newsweek suggests that the libertarian challenger to Blake Masters has risen after the debate to 15% in recent polling. However, the difference between Masters and Kelly has been narrowing to the polling “margin of error”. If the 15% is true, libertarian Marc Victor could well destroy the chances to unseat Mark Kelly. How does electing a man who votes 94% of the time with Biden, and has close ties to Red China, advance the cause of liberty?

The Faulkner Focus: Fetterman health concerns intensify after MSNBC interview

Kevin Walling, former Biden campaign surrogate, and Sunvision Strategies President Chris Prudhome weigh in on John Fetterman’s suitability for office as concerns emerge over his ability to communicate.

Watch the 7:58 minute video: https://www.foxnews.com/video/6313661368112

THE DEMOCRAT LED WAR ON CHILDREN

Libs of TikTok: This woman’s speech at a school board meeting–after a school sent emails advertising a “family friendly” drag show for kids (sponsored by a 21+ gay bar)–is so good I’m going to transcribe it and explain why it’s so effective. Watch the whole thing, and let’s go through it

Watch the 2:03 minute takedown of a local school board: https://twitter.com/wokal_distance/status/1580421155663450112?cxt=HHwWgMCord2q5O4rAAAA

Libs of TikTok: WATCH: Drag queen middle school teacher makes sexual comments to children at drag event

Meet James Miller, a middle school teacher at Mountain Gap Middle School in Huntsville, Alabama. Outside of teaching middle school children, Mr. Miller is alternatively known as his drag persona, Ms. Majesty Divine.

Read more/Watch the 2:57 minute report: https://www.libsoftiktok.com/p/watch-drag-queen-middle-school-teacher?sd=pf

Libs of TikTok: A male middle school student in @ConejoValleyUSD allegedly masturbated in front of female students. When confronted by parents, the superintendent defended the male student and said he “doesn’t think that this is anything outside the norm.”

Watch the 2:20 minute exchange: https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1580329838975406081?cxt=HHwWgsCigbPnuu4rAAAA

Ingraham Angle: Exclusive: Milwaukee school counselor could lose license after challenging transgender orthodoxy

Watch the 4:51 minute interview: https://www.foxnews.com/video/6307174177112

BIDEN’S COVID VACCINE MANDATES

War Room: Dr. Naomi Wolf: Government Overreach Has Hit New Highs

Watch the 9:52 minute interview: https://rumble.com/v1nqqv0-dr.-naomi-wolf-government-overreach-has-hit-new-highs.html

BIDEN/HARRIS/OBAMA REGIME: TRANSFORMING FOREIGN POLICY

VDH: Joe Biden Plays the Old Ugly American

Having shut down America’s oil-producing abilities, Biden believes that he can strongarm his enemies to send us more of such taboo energy that we won’t produce ourselves. he Left used to accuse imperialist, resource-hungry Yanquis in Washington of cutting selfish deals with illiberal dictatorships in Latin America to grab their natural resources. How odd then that Joe Biden is now begging the despicable Maduro regime in Venezuela—corrupt, murderous, and anti-American—to produce more of its oil solely to send northward to America. Biden is quite willing to ease sanctions and condone the human rights abuses of Maduro—if his dictatorship will just open its oil spigots before the November midterm elections. Biden in 2020 campaigned on the supposed evil nature of the Saudi Arabian monarchy. Yet after vainly entreating Venezuela, Iran, and Russia, it was inevitable that Biden would once again supplicate the Saudis to pump more oil. Biden even pleaded with OPEC to increase its output and thus lower the world price of energy—again before the midterm elections.

(Imprimis) Caldwell: Complications of the Ukraine War

Now, whenever people in power tell you something is a no-brainer, there’s a good chance that it’s a brainer. And the Ukraine War is more complicated than we’ve been led to assume. There are reasons why the U.S. might want to project power into the Black Sea region. But we must not ignore that the politics of the region are extraordinarily complex, that the Ukraine conflict is full of paradoxes and optical illusions, and that the theater we are entering has been, over the past 150 years, the single most violent corner of the planet. And unless we learn to respect the complexity of the situation, we risk turning it into something more dangerous, both for Europeans and for ourselves. […] The largest problem America faces is distrust, both at home and abroad. Thus far the war’s most important world-historical surprise has been the failure of the U.S. to rally a critical mass of what it used to call “the world community” to punish Russia’s contestation of the American-led world order. In the past few decades the U.S. has developed a method of intervention against those it considers ideological adversaries. The U.S. first expresses moral misgivings about a country and then tries to rally other countries to pressure it economically and to isolate it until it relents. This time, India and China did not join us in isolating Russia. It seems they fear that this same machinery can easily be cranked up against them if they’re not careful. And in fact it is being cranked up against China.

War Room: Josh Hammer: US Needs To Change Its Course In Ukraine

Watch the 6:39 minute interview: https://rumble.com/v1nnrgm-josh-hammer-us-needs-to-change-its-course-in-ukraine.html

Read Hammer’s Newsweek article: https://www.newsweek.com/us-needs-change-course-right-now-ukraine-opinion-1749740

Bahrami: Effective Ways to Support the Iranian Protests

The current nationwide protests in Iran highlight a genuine and strong potential to overthrow the theocratic regime, and require an appropriate new policy toward Iran. The international community, celebrities and mainstream media fully understand the need for a new approach toward human rights abuses in Iran. Although Canada, the US and its European allies have tried to pressure Tehran by imposing new sanctions on the regime for censorship and other human rights violations, it seems that the Western leaders have not fully understood the main message of Iran’s protests. While the world has witnessed the willingness of the Iranian people to sacrifice their lives to overthrow their oppressors and establish a secular democracy based on liberal values, the Biden administration entered into a deal with the Iranian regime to retrieve two imprisoned dual citizens. Nour News, linked to Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, claimed that the Iranian regime had received billions of dollars in exchange for releasing the hostages. The Biden administration has rejected Iranian reports that the deal led to unfreezing Iranian funds abroad. However, if the US did not unfreeze the Iranian funds, what was given to them in return for releasing the hostages?

BIDEN/HARRIS/OBAMA REGIME: TRANSFORMING AMERICA

Kruptos: Discussing the “Agenda”

You should be talking politics with liberals if you both can take it. The pushback is healthy. It makes your thinking stronger and your arguments more robust. You will also learn much about the thinking of the other side. This was one of those instructive moments for me. The basic thrust of his argument on the call was essentially that the culture war is over. He argued that it must be over because so many corporations support the LGBQT/Diversity, Equity, Inclusion/White fragility agenda…let’s just call it “the Agenda.” Somewhere along the way he picked up a statistic indicating 70 percent of the population supports the trans movement. This is completely validated by the indisputable fact that big business is making this issue a part of their messaging. He assumes corporations are simply responding to market forces and giving people what they want. After all, businesses place profits above all else. They do this because they want to make money. I offered a rejoinder, explaining to him the concept of “The Cathedral”: a distributed, open network of professionals and experts, university educated, sharing the same values, taking their cues from one another, imposing this agenda on the rest of the population whether they want it or not. It all operates at the level of what we might call an “operating system,” that is, through the mechanisms of “scientific management.” This is the stuff of policy manuals, good process, management books and leadership seminars. It is the belief that if we apply the proper expertise and give the right leadership, garner enough resources, that there is no problem that cannot be managed or solved through the application of what Jacques Ellul called “technique.”

Fox News Staff: LAURA INGRAHAM: The DC Swamp’s muck is ‘seeping under the doorway’

Laura Ingraham analyzed the incompetence and corruption of D.C. Swamp elites Wednesday on “The Ingraham Angle.” LAURA INGRAHAM: So how’s that trust looking now? Well, we’re all prisoners, aren’t we, of Washington’s incompetence and corruption? Now, as the Biden economy is devouring your 401(k), if you look at your statements, and giving you heartburn every time you go to the pump, you can rest easy knowing that high-ranking government officials are busy protecting their own bottom lines — because just when you thought that the Swamp couldn’t get swampier, the muck starts seeping under the doorway.

The scandal involves the intersection of power, greed and vanity. A new report in The Wall Street Journal reveals that thousands of senior executive branch employees . . .

Read more/Watch the 6:53 minute opening monologue: https://www.foxnews.com/media/laura-ingraham-dc-swamps-muck-seeping-doorway

Toldja: Impeachment-Level Evidence Surfaces on What Mayorkas Knew in Advance About CBP ‘Whipping’ Controversy

We reported extensively in September 2021 on the “Whipgate” nontroversy stirred up by The Usual Suspects who alleged that Customs and Border Protection officers who were mounted on horseback could be seen in photos “whipping” Haitian migrants trying to cross the southern border.

The story fell apart almost immediately after it broke thanks in large part to the photographer who took the “controversial” pictures, who said in an interview that the images were “miscontrued.” That didn’t stop the Biden White House from jumping on the story as evidence of the supposed “racism” of the agents, with President Biden unequivocally stating that the agents who allegedly “strapped” the migrants “will pay.” Vice President Kamala Harris was among the many Democrats who made comparisons of the agents to plantation slave owners.

War Room: Steve Cortes Exposes Karine Jean-Pierre’s Lies Surrounding Real Wages And Gas Prices

Watch the 2:13 minute video: https://rumble.com/v1nnl2o-steve-cortes-exposes-karine-jean-pierres-lies-surrounding-real-wages-and-ga.html

OTHER NEWS

National Pulse Staff Writer: Biden Donor, Former Mayor Pleads GUILTY To Child Porn Possession, Claims ‘We Make Mistakes’, Is Banned from Holding Office.

Former Oregon Mayor and Joe Biden donor Dennis “Denny” Doyle has pleaded guilty to one count of possession of child pornography, following his arrest in March. Doyle, 73, entered the plea on Tuesday amidst an investigation into pornographic images of children identified as sexually exploited minors by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. According to Oregon Live, Doyle remarked upon his way out of the courtroom, “You know, we make mistakes.” He also told the judge he was “in counseling”.

Glasgow: Amid a nationwide pilot shortage, Frontier recruits cadets with no prior flying experience

“We really want to provide an opportunity for aspiring pilots,” Lambert said. “We also want to be able to control our destiny going forward.” […] “We’ll obviously pull in those applications and rank them according to what we are looking for and we’ll put the applicants through a pretty aggressive vetting process, interviews, aptitude testing, things like that,” said Lambert. The cadets chosen will have to complete the two-year program, spend 15 hours in the sky, and earn an Airline Transport Pilot License. “Our training program doesn’t change, they have to meet all the requirements of our training program. They will be safe, proficient pilots by the time they will come to us,” according to Lambert. “We’ll have a mentor program to keep an eye on them as they go through their training as they go through experience building, we’ll make sure we stay in contact with them every month,” said Lambert.

INTERNATIONAL

O’Neill: Why eco-activists are so hostile to humanity

Something like class war has broken out on the streets of London. On one side stand working people fighting for their right to do their jobs, to attend to their daily business without hindrance. And on the other side there’s the green movement’s plummy predictors of eco-catastrophe. Those Tarquins and Matildas, often privately educated, who think the Industrial Revolution was the worst thing that ever happened and that we’ll all shortly be consumed by a climate apocalypse of the grubby masses’ own making. Once again the working classes are standing up to these silver-spoon prophets of doom, and I am here for it. Just Stop Oil, an offshoot of the lunatic group Extinction Rebellion, is blocking roads around London. It is demanding that the government cease all production of fossil-fuel energy. Yes, in the midst of an energy crisis, with many folk unsure if they’ll be able to keep the heat on over the winter, these upper-middle-class activists are essentially saying: ‘Let’s produce less energy!’ ‘Let old people freeze to death’ is all I’m hearing. Unsurprisingly, people with jobs and lives are not happy about all the road-blocking. Today some of them took direct action. ‘I ain’t fucking about’, said one driver to the anti-oil agitators.

George Gammon: UK Financial Crisis Spreading Fast!! (Now It’s The Repo Market)

Watch the 17:26 minute presentation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3iKO3zjaKs

The Prickly Pear’s TAKE ACTION focus this year is to help achieve a winning 2024 national and state November 5th election with the removal of the Biden/Obama leftist executive branch disaster, win one U.S. Senate seat, maintain and win strong majorities in all Arizona state offices on the ballot and to insure that unrestricted abortion is not constitutionally embedded in our laws and culture.

Please click the TAKE ACTION link to learn to do’s and don’ts for voting in 2024. Our state and national elections are at great risk from the very aggressive and radical leftist Democrat operatives with documented rigging, mail-in voter fraud and illegals voting across the country (yes, with illegals voting across the country) in the last several election cycles.

Read Part 1 and Part 2 of The Prickly Pear essays entitled How NOT to Vote in the November 5, 2024 Election in Arizona to be well informed of the above issues and to vote in a way to ensure the most likely chance your vote will be counted and counted as you intend.

Please click the following link to learn more.

TAKE ACTION