From Celebrating a Pro-Life Milestone to Protecting Kids Online, Here are the Week’s Top Stories:

Current Events,
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Here’s a quick recap of the week’s top stories from Family Council and our friends:

From Family Council

Here are Two Ways to Help Oppose Chemical Abortion in Arkansas. Family Council is encouraging everyone to take two simple steps to help oppose chemical abortion drugs in Arkansas. The first is to send a message asking Congress to support the Safeguarding Women from Chemical Abortion Act. The second is to ask the federal government to stop letting abortionists deliver abortion drugs through the mail. Keep Reading.

Arkansas Supreme Court Dismisses Lawsuit from Ballot Measure Campaign. On Wednesday, the Arkansas Supreme Court dismissed a lawsuit from Protect AR Rights, the group backing the Arkansas Ballot Measure Rights Amendment. The decision means the measure will not appear on the ballot. Keep Reading.

Pro-Life Efforts in Arkansas Hit a Milestone. Back in 2021, I received a call from someone in eastern Arkansas who felt called to do something impactful in her community. Keep Reading.

New Lawsuit Filed to Block Assisted Suicide in Illinois. On December 12, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker signed legislation letting healthcare providers help terminally ill patients end their lives. The law is slated to take effect next month, but a new lawsuit is asking the federal courts to block the law. Keep Reading.

Speaker Johnson Warns About the Threat Socialism and Communism Pose to Americans. Recently, Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins sat down with House Speaker Mike Johnson to discuss some of the issues facing our nation. Among them was the rise of socialism and socialist candidates as well as the threat that socialist ideology poses to everyday Americans. Keep Reading.

California Shows Legalizing Marijuana Does Not Stop the Black Market. Marijuana has been legalized to varying degrees under different state laws, and the Trump Administration has eased federal restrictions on the drug. But instead of weakening drug cartels or decreasing crime, legalization has created new problems for law enforcement. Keep Reading.

Colorado Says No to “Bet Now, Pay Later.” Arkansas Should Too. As of last week, Colorado gamblers can no longer use credit cards to fund sports betting apps, and they are limited to six deposits per day. The new rules come from a bipartisan bill passed in May after lawmakers grew alarmed by rising addiction rates — especially among young men and boys. Keep Reading.

Gambling’s Toll on College Students. Gambling has exploded in recent years, and studies show more than half of men ages 18-49 now have an active sportsbook account online. But experts are also questioning what this type of gambling may do to our society. Keep Reading.

Facebook Owner Faces Avalanche of Lawsuits for Allegedly Harming Kids. The U.S. Surgeon General says 95% of American teenagers use social media, and about one-third use it “almost constantly.” But federal lawsuits have raised concerns about the harm that Big Tech can do to kids. Keep Reading.

In Louisiana, Ten Commandments Go Back to School. KSLA reports some Louisiana schools began displaying the Ten Commandments during the past school year while others plan to begin displaying them this year. Keep Reading.

From Our Friends

Update: Baby Gabriel Survives First Heart Surgery; Biological Parents Sue Surrogate. From Daily Citizen.

Forced Abortion in America is Rising and Abortion Pills are the Weapons. From LifeNews.

Inoculating Your Children from Socialism. From Breakpoint.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.

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Arkansas Supreme Court Dismisses Lawsuit from Ballot Measure Campaign

Elections, ,

On Wednesday, the Arkansas Supreme Court dismissed a lawsuit from Protect AR Rights, the group backing the Arkansas Ballot Measure Rights Amendment.

Protect AR Rights sued Arkansas Secretary of State Cole Jester earlier this month after his office announced the group failed to submit enough petition signatures to place the amendment on the November ballot. In his decision, the Secretary of State cited examples of “potential signature forgery” and other shortcomings on the measure’s petitions.

The lawsuit from Protect AR Rights called Secretary Jester’s signature count “unlawful and unsupported.” It asked the Arkansas Supreme Court to force Secretary Jester to begin verifying signatures and “order a preliminary certification” of the amendment while the group worked to correct any deficiencies with its petitions.

Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin defended Secretary Jester’s decision in the lawsuit over the Arkansas Ballot Measure Rights Amendment. On Wednesday, the Arkansas Supreme Court dismissed the lawsuit, meaning the Secretary of State’s decision will stand.

The Arkansas Constitution lets canvassers circulate petitions to place measures on a general election ballot. Its original intent was to give citizens a way to function as a “legislative body.” But instead of giving everyday people a way to enact their own laws, special interests have hired people to circulate petitions to place misleading, deceptive, and poorly written measures on the ballot in Arkansas.

Last year, Arkansans testified in legislative committees about petition canvassers allegedly trying to provoke altercations and encouraging people to sign petitions multiple times.

In response, the Arkansas Legislature has passed several good laws intended to address petition fraud and other problems with the initiative process, but those laws have been tied up in court.

The Arkansas Ballot Measure Rights Amendment would have amended the Arkansas Constitution to keep the ballot initiative process wide open and prevent the legislature from enacting safeguards against petition fraud and other offenses.

Most of the ballot measure’s financial support appears to have come from out of state.

Ethics filings show the National Education Association in Washington, D.C., donated nearly $1.4 million to the campaign for the Arkansas Ballot Measure Rights Amendment this year. The National Education Association is the largest teachers union in the United States.

Another $250,000 came from The Fairness Project in Washington, D.C. According to its website, the Fairness Project has opposed pro-life efforts in Missouri and supported a pro-abortion measure in Virginia.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.

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Speaker Johnson Warns About the Threat Socialism and Communism Pose to Americans

Culture,

Recently, Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins sat down with House Speaker Mike Johnson to discuss some of the issues facing our nation. Among them was the rise of socialism and socialist candidates as well as the threat that socialist ideology poses to everyday Americans.

Earlier this year Rasmussen reported that support for capitalism has declined since 2023, and a growing share of likely voters now say socialism is better. On the whole, most Americans still support free markets — but that support has dwindled.

During their conversation, Speaker Johnson discussed socialism’s appeal among younger Americans, saying,

You have a lot of young people who are swayed with this idea that they’ll get free stuff, you know, and no one seems to want to finish and explain to them, you might get a few free things for a short while, but you’re going to give up your freedom and ultimately you might have to give up your life. That’s what’s happened in history.

Last November, Zohran Mamdani won New York City’s mayoral election. Mamdani, 34, belongs to the socialist Working Families Party. In his victory speech, Mamdani promised New Yorkers a “new age,” saying, “We will prove that there is no problem too large for government to solve, and no concern too small for it to care about.”

Unfortunately, there is nothing “new” about what Mamdani is saying. During the last century, Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Fidel Castro, Mao Zedong, and others made similar promises to their citizens, and they all met with the same results. Many young people have been taught that socialism and communism failed in the past because they weren’t properly implemented, but that’s not the case. Socialism and communism failed every time they were implemented, because they are fatally flawed. 

After the election, our friend Joseph Backholm published a list of some of socialism’s and communism’s basic flaws:

1. Socialism misunderstands human nature and implies that people will be virtuous as long as they have enough money. Then, ironically, it assumes everyone with money is sinister.

2. Socialism takes from the capable and gives to the less capable, ensuring that resources won’t ever be used productively. 

3. Socialism destroys competition and consequently destroys innovation.  

4. Socialism destroys people’s incentive to be productive by denying them the benefit of their labor. It always produces fewer, lower-quality products.    

5. Socialism assumes I have the right to other people’s property just because they have more than I do. It depends upon and incentivizes greed.

6. Socialism denies people the dignity of having what they earn and earning what they have. 

7. Socialism assumes people engaged in commerce always operate with corrupt motives, but people in government never do. 

8. While claiming to decentralize power, it always centralizes power with a handful of bureaucrats. 

9. Socialism assumes it’s always unjust for one person to have more than another, when real justice means the dishonest and unskilled shouldn’t have as much as the honest and skilled. 

10. Socialism assumes humanity’s natural state is prosperity and rages over the fact that we aren’t all rich, when in reality the natural state is poverty, and capitalism is the only reason we aren’t all poor.

Joseph concluded by rightly pointing out, “Of course, none of this means a capitalist system doesn’t have weaknesses, but it can produce good outcomes and has. Communism never has because it assumes a world that does not exist and never will.”

Over the decades, other pundits have pointed out that socialism and communism are oppressive because they cannot work without using force against everyday citizens.

Americans — and especially Christians — need to understand socialism’s basic problems and its track record. This is a fatally flawed belief system that has produced disastrous results every time.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.

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