On Wednesday, Texas Monthly senior writer Michael Hardy uncorked a scalding hot take that Senator Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) support for the basic premise of only women and girls being allowed to compete in sports for women and girls puts him on the same plane as Nazi Germany, which went as far as putting gay and transgender individuals in concentration camps alongside Jews and the disabled during the Holocaust. How did Hardy arrive at this dangerous conclusion? Hardy painted a picture of a Cruz campaign – which is locked in a reelection fight against liberal Congressman Colin Allred (D-TX) – as somehow no longer focused on the economy and the border and instead directing its closing argument on “transgender rights.” This, after litigating the issue from a leftist perspective with sympathy for transgenderism (and a warped tale about a biological woman prevented from competing against men), resulted in the wild Nazi claim that Cruz and the state GOP “have joined a long tradition of antitrans fearmongering.” Eye-roll-worthy, but not unheard of, which had the headline, “Can Transphobia Save Ted Cruz’s Political Career? Amid a tight reelection campaign, the junior senator is spending millions on antitrans advertisements.” But this, dear readers, was bonkers and yet, so casual on Hardy’s part: In 1933, Nazi vigilantes ransacked and looted the Berlin library of Magnus Hirschfeld, a pioneering German scholar of sexuality who coined the term “Transvestit” (“transvestite”). Hitler denounced Hirschfield as the “the most dangerous Jew in Germany.” Even as gay and lesbian Americans have gained increasing acceptance in recent decades, transgender and nonbinary citizens have remained at the margins of society, subject to legal discrimination and personal violence. So, Ted Cruz is a Nazi but also the Zodiac Killer and his father may have had something to do with the JFK assassination? It’s hard to keep track of the conspiracy theories! But in all seriousness, Hardy’s shamelessness dragged on in the two subsequent paragraphs as Hardy framed genuine concern about the role of irreparable life decisions young children are pushed into and make as not occurring. He also lazily brought up the transgender idol worshippers’ claim that opposing them means transgender individuals will die by suicide (click “expand”): Medical experts say there’s a legitimate debate to be had over the efficacy of gender-affirming care and whether it’s being prescribed appropriately. But that’s not the debate that statewide leaders in Texas are promoting. Over the past few years, Texas has ramped up its legal assault on transgender children and their families. In 2021, members of the Texas Legislature proposed more than forty bills targeting transgender and nonbinary youth—more than were introduced in any other state. The following year, Attorney General Ken Paxton declared that some forms of gender-affirming care constituted criminal child abuse. Governor Greg Abbott followed up by directing the Department of Family and Protective Services to investigate parents of transgender children. In 2023 the Texas Legislature banned the use of puberty blockers and hormone therapy for kids considering or undergoing transitions. Many families with transgender children have subsequently fled the state.  Many academics, pollsters, and campaign operatives seem to view bashing trans children as clever politics. Abbott political strategist Dave Carney, for one, famously called antitrans policies a “seventy-five, eighty percent winner” in Texas politics. For those who are transgender, though, those policies can be a matter of life and death. A 2022 survey by the Trevor Project, an LGBTQ suicide-prevention group, found that one in five transgender and nonbinary children in Texas had tried to end their lives in the past year; more than half had seriously considered making that choice. Those graphs were followed by gripes from the founder of a group called Parents of Trans Youth who incredibly has not one but “two transgender adult children.” In his interview on The Joe Rogan Experience published yesterday, GOP vice presidential nominee JD Vance dove into this hyper-obsessed world in which transgenderism seems encouraged to achieve peak status on the protected class spectrum. The prior hullaballoo argued Cruz’s focus has turned away from the border, “incompetent utility regulators,” “rising home and rental costs,” and “rural hospital closures” toward transgenderism as “are part of a nationwide push by Republican candidates, who have spent more than $65 million on antitrans ads since August.” He of course found a Texas lobbyist to agree with him, but fretted this issue would be a winning one for Cruz, who has focused on Allred’s opposition to the aptly named Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act. Hardy whined the issue appeals to voters in casting those opposed to full protections for girls as extreme (click “expand”): At first glance, the senator’s going all in on transphobia for his closing argument might seem puzzling, given that he’s spent most of his campaign stressing immigration and jobs. A recent poll conducted by the University of Texas at Austin asked voters to name their top political issue. A plurality (18 percent) chose the economy, which was followed by immigration, inflation, democracy, and abortion. Pollster Jim Henson told me that hardly anyone cited transgender issues as their foremost concern. A national Gallup poll taken in September asked voters to evaluate the importance of 22 campaign issues. “Transgender rights” came in dead last.   So why the last-minute pivot to transgender issues? “It’s an easy way for a Republican to paint their opponent as an extremist,” Henson said. “Even if it’s not a particularly salient issue, it’s very effective in signaling to moderates that your opponent is out of the mainstream.” Last year, a UT-Austin poll found that 63 percent of Texans—including 33 percent of Democrats, 60 percent of independents, and 89 percent of Republicans—agreed that the sex listed on a person’s original birth certificate should be the only way to define gender, with just 25 percent disagreeing. (Twelve percent of respondents said they weren’t sure.) (….) His campaign seems to believe that focusing on high school sports is a way to harness antitrans sentiment without alienating the moderate voters he needs to win. “Texas is sports-centric,” Miller told me. “Everyone here has kids, and most of those kids participate in some kind of athletics. Frankly, I wouldn’t want my two daughters to compete against guys. I don’t think it’s fair.” Hardy continued that this “gambit might be working” since Allred released an ad disingenuously claiming “he doesn’t ‘want boys playing girls’ sports” and in turn has “infuriated some liberal activists, who saw Allred capitulating to Cruz’s antitrans rhetoric.”

This Old Fashioned Potato candy is a favorite. The combination of potato, powdered sugar and peanut butter is a family favorite. If you love this old fashioned candy you will also want to try these wonderful Coconut Pecan Pralines! These are a great addition to any holiday gathering. ❤️WHY WE LOVE THIS RECIPE This recipe...

Amalgamated Bank is one of the smaller and lesser-known U.S. financial institutions, controlling less than $10 billion in assets. Yet it has scored numerous high-powered clients, such as Harris for President and the Democratic National Committee, plus a host of Democratic legislators and candidates. That’s no coincidence: Amalgamated is a partisan, agenda-driven institution. But given that it is both attempting to gaslight America on hate and trying to interfere with contributions to causes with which it disagrees, Amalgamated’s deep associations and influence within the Democratic Party are not only problematic but dangerous. Democratic donors may be unknowingly supporting hate in America, and it’s up to the campaigns to put an end to it. Amalgamated presents itself as not merely above reproach but morally advanced. It provided seed funding for the Amalgamated Charitable Foundation, claiming its mission is to “redefine philanthropy,” while, unlike many foundations, it has commingled its leadership, with Priscilla Sims Brown, president and CEO of Amalgamated Bank, also serving as the chairman of the ACF’s board. It also claims to be in a position to lecture others. Besides operating a donor-advised fund of its own, the ACF also sponsors a campaign called “Hate Is Not Charitable,” directed at other DAF providers. Though it presents itself as reasonable, appropriate, and humanitarian, this campaign is an effort to suppress support for those who oppose Amalgamated’s partisan and even bigoted views. Donor-advised funds are a common vehicle for donors, desirable for convenience and anonymity. Donors give to a DAF, receive an immediate receipt for their gift, and, over time, instruct the fund to disburse parts of the deposited money to causes of the donor’s choice. Besides permitting donors to schedule tax deductions to maximal advantage, having a DAF write the check means the donor’s contribution to an organization never shows up on the donor’s 1040 or the recipient charity’s Form 990. DAFs routinely reveal the donor’s identity only to the beneficiary; this information is not made public, and thus donors cannot be identified or targeted for the charities that they support. Where is the IRS? This is where Hate Is Not Charitable comes into play. Although it claims to be “deeply concerned” that charitable funds can be used to fund “organizations that foment hatred,” Amalgamated’s Hate Is Not Charitable campaign targets other DAFs rather than the organization certifying American charities: the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. “Donor Advised Fund providers,” Amalgamated intones, “should filter out hate,” but not by using the neutral standards of the IRS, which, of course, DAFs are already required to do. Amalgamated arrogates to itself and its partners the ability to decide whom others should consider hate groups. It knows that if deprived of the anonymity of a DAF, donors could be easily targeted and shamed by Amalgamated’s “empowered” activists for supporting unfavored causes. Amalgamated claims that Hate Is Not Charitable was prompted, in part, by “white nationalist violence in Charlottesville,” where marching neo-Nazis chanted “Jews will not replace us.” Yet a site search of Amalgamated returns no mention of anti-Semitism in its literature, and it isn’t mentioned as an issue the bank cares about. Instead, the campaign concerns itself with allegedly “anti-LGBTQ groups, anti-Muslim groups, anti-immigrant groups, [and] a white nationalist group.” Amalgamated’s main resource is the Southern Poverty Law Center. The SPLC’s “Hate Map” is hardly neutral; it was used in a hate-fueled terror attack on the offices of the Family Research Council in 2012. According to the Coalition for Jewish Values, the organization I serve as managing director, the Hate Map is inherently “detrimental and even dangerous to the Jewish community.” The SPLC fails to identify radical Islamic groups as hateful, while besmirching those who confront the dangers posed by those groups as “anti-Muslim.” The SPLC worked together with the Council on American-Islamic Relations on a 40-page guide to “Hate-Free Philanthropy,” which recommends, among other things, Amalgamated’s Hate Is Not Charitable campaign. CAIR was originally identified as a partner in the Biden administration’s national strategy to counter anti-Semitism, only to be unceremoniously dumped after it blamed Israel for the Hamas atrocities of October 2023, a pogrom that CAIR’s director celebrated with glee. Amalgamated not only touts CAIR as a charter signatory of its campaign but also gave the organization at least $175,000. And this is far from Amalgamated’s only association with groups inciting anti-Semitism and endorsing terrorism. Ties to October 7 Earlier this month, U.S. and Canadian authorities identified Samidoun, an organization that helped organize anti-Semitic protests on American college campuses and the Freedom Plaza protests that called for “Death to Israel,” as a “sham charity” that existed to support the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a participant in the October 7 attacks. Samidoun is not independent. It is a project fiscally sponsored by the Alliance for Global Justice, a charity that also sponsors campaigns to boycott Israel and other left-wing causes. According to its own public filings, Amalgamated Charitable Foundation gave over $1 million to AFGJ between 2020 and 2022, the most recent year for which records are available. The Capital Research Center also identifies Amalgamated’s donor-advised fund as a key money conduit for AFGJ. This is especially troubling because, since 2020, credit card companies have blocked donations to Samidoun, and in 2023, several credit providers, including Stripe, PayPal, and Salsa Labs, stopped serving AFGJ directly. House Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith (R-Mo.) in September called for the IRS to strip AFGJ of its tax-exempt status due to its role as the sponsor of Samidoun’s efforts “to incite violence and instill chaos.” If Amalgamated truly wanted to fight hate, it would have already cut ties with AFGJ, Samidoun, CAIR, and other organizations that celebrate or sponsor terrorism. Instead, Amalgamated targets neutral groups to advance its partisan agenda — an agenda partially funded through its financial relationships with major Democratic campaigns and the Democratic National Committee. It’s regrettable that Democratic donors may be unknowingly supporting hate in America, and it’s up to the campaigns to put an end to it.

Donald Trump did not say that he wants to shoot Liz Cheney. On Friday, the legacy media suggested that Trump engaged in "violent" rhetoric against Cheney, a former congresswoman who endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris. They used it as evidence to scaremonger voters into believing their narrative that Trump is a fascist and wannabe dictator. Daily Beast: "Trump Fantasizes About Shooting Female Rival in the Face" CNN: "Trump says ‘war hawk’ Liz Cheney should be fired upon in escalation of violent rhetoric against his opponents" NPR: "Trump, using violent language, attacks 'war hawk' Liz Cheney" The Washington Post: "Trump suggests ‘war hawk’ Liz Cheney should have guns ‘trained on her face’" The New York Times: "Trump Attacks Liz Cheney Using Violent War Imagery" Axios: "Trump suggests Liz Cheney should have guns 'trained on her face'" The Harris campaign even claimed in a statement that Trump suggested he wants Cheney to "face the firing squad." 'You know, they're all war hawks when they're sitting in Washington in a nice building saying, "Oh, gee, well, let's send 10,000 troops right into the mouth of the enemy."' The problem, of course, is that Trump did not say what the media and Harris' campaign claim. Speaking with Tucker Carlson in Arizona on Thursday, Trump was discussing Dick Cheney and Liz Cheney when he criticized the former congresswoman for being a "radical war hawk." "I don't blame him for sticking with his daughter," Trump said of the former Republican vice president. "But his daughter's a very dumb individual, very dumb. She's a radical war hawk. "Let's put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her. OK? Let's see how she feels about it. You know, when the guns are trained on her face," he continued. "You know, they're all war hawks when they're sitting in Washington in a nice building saying, 'Oh, gee, well, let's send 10,000 troops right into the mouth of the enemy.' But she's a stupid person. I'd have meetings with a lot of people, and she always wanted to go to war with people." The context is clear: Trump is criticizing Cheney as a "war hawk" and suggesting that she would not flippantly support sending Americans to die in war if she had firsthand combat experience. Trump did not threaten Cheney, nor did he "fantasize" about shooting her in the face, nor did he say he wants Cheney "fired upon," nor did he say he wants Cheney to stand before a firing squad. He simply suggested that it's easy to send other people to die in war when you yourself will never face and have never faced the physical or life-ending consequences of war. Trump is saying that firsthand combat experience would give American leaders a different perspective about being pro-war. American political discourse, in fact, has invented a term to describe such individuals: chicken hawks, or people who support war but refuse to have any skin in the game. For her part, Cheney claimed Trump essentially issued a death threat against her. "This is how dictators destroy free nations. They threaten those who speak against them with death. We cannot entrust our country and our freedom to a petty, vindictive, cruel, unstable man who wants to be a tyrant," she said. Trump, of course, is no dictator — as his first four years as president proved — and he did not threaten death against anyone. Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

According to Kamala Harris and the Democrats, Donald Trump will weaponize the Department of Justice and jail his political opponents. While Trump was already in office for four years and did not do anything of the sort, the Biden-Harris administration has done exactly what it's predicting Trump will do — and to innocent American citizens who disagree with the administration politically. But weaponization of the DOJ hasn’t happened solely under Biden’s reign, and if you dig a little deeper into Kamala’s past, you’ll see that she’s been using her power to hurt innocent American citizens for more than just political disagreements for a very long time. One horrific example of this is when Kamala was San Francisco district attorney in the mid-2000s. The now vice president filed charges against a handful of San Francisco parents whose elementary school-aged children were consistently missing school. “She was very proud of this endeavor,” Allie Beth Stuckey of “Relatable” comments. “She really bragged about it, and a lot of parents sadly and unjustly lost their jobs, lost their freedom, lost much of their wealth, or their ability to even pay the bills because of Kamala Harris’ overbearing truancy policy.” And brag she did. “I believe a child going without an education is tantamount to a crime. So I decided I was going to start prosecuting parents for truancy,” Kamala said in a clip from 2010 during which she followed up by laughing that her staff was “concerned.” While it was funny to Kamala, it was not funny to those who were actually affected. One mother, Cheree Peoples, was handcuffed in her pajamas in front of the press — who had collaborated with Kamala to capture the moment — because she had been struggling to care for her daughter who had been suffering in the hospital with sickle cell anemia. The school was well aware of Peoples’ plight and was negotiating a plan to provide accommodation so the student could be educated in the hospital and at home. However, because the plan was not yet arranged, she was technically “truant.” “This mother faced jail time because of the policy that Harris advocated for, and even after the facts of the situation were revealed, prosecutors continued to pursue the struggling mother, exacerbating her difficulties,” Stuckey explains. Cheree lost her job, could not pay her rent, and became homeless. Her daughter was hospitalized while she stood trial. “That’s Kamala Harris. She is cruel,” Stuckey says. Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?To enjoy more of Allie’s upbeat and in-depth coverage of culture, news, and theology from a Christian, conservative perspective, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

The first major FF14 Dawntrail patch is almost here, as game director Naoki Yoshida confirms the FF14 7.1 release date in Live Letter 84. He’s joined as ever by community producer Toshio Murouchi, and the pair give us an in-game glimpse at everything coming with the next Final Fantasy 14 update. On the cards is a closer look at the new FF11 crossover Echoes of Vana’diel, the 24-player chaotic alliance raid, and a wealth of the rewards up for grabs. Continue reading The FF14 7.1 release date is confirmed as Live Letter 84 shows off the new patch MORE FROM PCGAMESN: The best MMOs, FF14 Dawntrail release date, FF14 Island Sanctuary guide

LA-HOO-ZA-HER! Conservative Women Chew Mark Cuban Up and SPIT HIM OUT for Trying to 'Clarify' His Remarks

YIKES: October Jobs Report Is ABYSMALLY BAD, but the Media Dutifully Carry Water for Harris

Deceptive SNAKES at Kamala's HQ Straight-Up NUKED for Editing Trump Speech to Look Like Liz Cheney Threat

In just a few short days, Sony's mid-generation refresh of the PlayStation 5 simply dubbed the PS5 Pro, will hit retail, and bring enhanced graphical features to games that support it. If you think that the PS5 Pro was developed in response to the original PS5's shortcomings, that's not the case, as Sony has confirmed that the PS5 Pro was in development even before the PS5 was released commercially.