There’s a lot at stake Nov. 5. In 10 states, the lives of unborn children—and women’s health and safety—are on the ballot. These measures, if passed, would enshrine abortion as a fundamental right in state constitutions. That means state legislatures essentially would be blocked from meaningfully protecting women and unborn children from abortion. That means no protection for babies with beating hearts. Say goodbye to commonsense health and safety regulations for abortion facilities. Vague definitions for “viability” mean there no longer will be strong protections against late-term abortion. The measures also could open the door to requiring taxpayer funding for elective abortion procedures. Here’s what you need to know about where abortion is on the Nov. 5 ballot and what it could mean for these states if pro-abortion activists get their way. Pro-Abortion States: Overview Colorado, Maryland, Montana, Nevada, and New York all have ballot measures to protect abortion in their state constitutions. In these five states, there are already few—if any—restrictions on abortion. Right now, Colorado has no gestational restrictions and a right to abortion already is protected by statute. If voters approve it, the Colorado ballot measure would enshrine a right to abortion in the state Constitution and repeal a previous ballot initiative prohibiting funding for abortion in health insurance plans and state Medicaid funds. Right now, Maryland has broad health exceptions for late-term abortion and a right to abortion already is protected by statute. If approved by voters, the ballot measure would enshrine a right to abortion in the Maryland Constitution. Right now, Montana allows late-term abortions if a woman’s life is in danger. Previous court decisions have found that the Montana Constitution protects a right to abortion via a right to privacy. This largely has prevented the state Legislature from passing additional pro-life policies. If voters approve it, the ballot measure would explicitly add a right to abortion to the Montana Constitution and limit the state’s ability to protect unborn children after viability. Right now, Nevada has broad health exceptions for late-term abortion. If approved by voters, the ballot measure there would enshrine a right to abortion in the state Constitution—maybe. In Nevada, ballot initiatives must be voted on twice in order to amend the state Constitution. If a majority of voters approve the initiative, it will go on the 2026 ballot and have to be approved again. Right now, New York has broad health exceptions for late-term abortions. The ballot measure before voters would expand the state’s “Equal Rights Amendment” antidiscrimination protections, including in the context of abortion. Proponents hope the measure will be a “bulwark against any future efforts” to enact pro-life laws in New York. Pro-Life States: Overview Voters in Arizona, Florida, Missouri, Nebraska, and South Dakota also will decide ballot initiatives that propose to enshrine unrestricted abortion into their constitutions. Nebraska also will offer voters a separate option that proposes to protect unborn children in the second and third trimesters of pregnancy. Arizona currently protects unborn children after 15 weeks’ gestation, with exceptions for a life-threatening medical emergency. If voters approve it, the ballot measure would enshrine a right to abortion up to viability in the Arizona Constitution. Nebraska currently protects unborn children after 12 weeks’ gestation, with exceptions for sexual assault, incest, and to preserve a woman’s life. If approved, a pro-abortion ballot measure would enshrine a right to abortion up to viability in the Nebraska Constitution. Nebraska also has a dueling pro-life measure on the ballot. If approved, the state Constitution would be amended to align with current law. Unborn children would be protected from abortion in the second and third trimesters, with exceptions for a medical emergency, sexual assault, or incest. Florida currently protects unborn children after a heartbeat can be detected (roughly six weeks’ gestation), with exceptions for rape, incest, and human trafficking, and to preserve a woman’s life. If voters approve it, the pro-abortion ballot measure would enshrine a right to abortion up to viability in the Florida Constitution. Missouri currently protects unborn children from conception with an exception to preserve a woman’s life. If approved, the ballot measure would enshrine a fundamental right to abortion in the Missouri Constitution and allow only for limited protections after viability. South Dakota currently protects unborn children from conception with an exception to preserve a woman’s life. If approved, the ballot measure would enshrine a right to abortion in the first trimester and allow only limited protections in the second and third trimester. A Trojan Horse for Abortion Up to Birth, Paid for by You Don’t be fooled by language in ballot initiatives that suggests, if voters approve, abortion would be prohibited after viability. Activists are sounding the alarm that these deceptively worded measures are much more sinister. When you dig into the details, terms such as health and viability are defined vaguely. An abortionist’s self-certification that a woman’s health is at risk, or that a baby can’t survive outside the womb, is nowhere near enough legal protection. Legally enshrining the falsehood that abortion is a “fundamental” right opens the door to taxpayer-funded elective abortions. In fact, we’ve seen the pro-abortion crowd make precisely this argument in Michigan. In 2022, Michigan voters approved Proposition 3, which enshrined a right to abortion in the state Constitution. As a result, abortion activists quickly sued to undo the state’s 24-hour reflection period, informed consent requirements, and a provision that only licensed physicians perform abortion. But that’s not all. Now pro-abortion activists also are suing to overturn a decades-old law against taxpayer dollars being used to pay for elective abortions. We see the same playbook in Ohio. In 2023, voters decided to enshrine a right to abortion in the Ohio Constitution. Now pro-abortion activists are suing to repeal policies such as the 24-hour reflection period, requirements that only physicians prescribe abortion pills, and a prohibition on dangerous, do-it-yourself abortion with risky pills (the same DIY pills that recently claimed the lives of two women in Georgia). These pro-abortion ballot measures also make it more difficult for states to enforce critically important safety measures. Sweeping language means that, if approved by voters, abortion proponents can turn around and argue that basic safeguards and regulations for abortion clinics infringe or impede an individual’s ability to get an abortion. Of course, many voters don’t realize just how radical and expansive these ballot measures are. That’s by design. After all, most Americans don’t support abortion through all nine months of pregnancy, paid for by taxpayers. In South Dakota, for example, pro-abortion activists have been accused of misleading voters about the scope of the initiative to convince people to sign a petition to put the pro-abortion measure on the ballot. Pro-life activists say abortion proponents in South Dakota have resorted to doxing and other intimidation tactics against pro-lifers who try to tell voters the truth about the radical proposition. In June 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court rightly overturned Roe v. Wade and 50 years of court-sanctioned abortion on-demand. Since then, many states have made great strides to protect women and unborn children from abortion. But pro-abortion forces are energized and well-funded. Let’s hope that Michigan and Ohio will serve as a warning as voters head to the polls, whether early or on Election Day. Because when the abortion industry sinks its claws into pro-abortion initiatives, voters can end up with far more radical policies than they meant to vote for. The post Life Is on the Ballot in These States. Here’s What You Need to Know About Abortion-on-Demand Measures. appeared first on The Daily Signal.

According to a recent poll, fully 75% of Hispanic voters think the country is on the wrong track. Even among self-identified Hispanic Democrats, 63% of those polled held that view.  The survey—conducted online by Public Opinion Strategies for Americans for Prosperity, a libertarian conservative political advocacy group—found that Hispanics, by margins of 90% or more, want to keep the current tax rate and are opposed to increasing it.  The LIBRE Initiative, an Albuquerque, New Mexico-based organization aimed at educating and empowering Hispanic Americans, analyzed the poll’s findings on what 300 Hispanic voters thought about economic issues, such as the economy, taxes, government spending, and the cost of living.   Among the key findings:  80% of Latino voters say their taxes are too high.  80% of them say it’s a bad time to increase taxes.  Of the tax cuts in 2017, a plurality, 44%, of Hispanic voters thought cutting taxes for American families did the most to grow the economy. Sixteen percent cited increasing the standard tax deduction, and another 16% cited cutting global business taxes to enable America to better compete with China.  The survey, conducted online from Sept. 5 to 11 but released Friday, had a margin of error of plus or minus 6.45 percentage points.  At the end of 2025, a series of tax cuts is set to expire. If the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is not renewed by Congress, taxes will increase for 62% of American households in 2026, reducing take-home pay for Hispanics and non-Hispanics alike.  The LIBRE Initiative calculated that a joint-filer Hispanic household with two children that makes $65,540, the median income for Hispanic households in 2023, would see a tax increase of about $1,242.70. Their take-home pay would drop by 2.04%.   In a statement, Jose Mallea, the CEO of the LIBRE Initiative, said many Latino families are “feeling the squeeze.”  “This poll confirms what we’ve been hearing in communities across the country: Americans want leaders to focus on pro-growth policies, protect hard-earned incomes, and prevent tax hikes that would make life even more expensive,” he said. “Congress must act before it’s too late.”  The post ‘FEELING THE SQUEEZE’: Most Hispanics Say Country’s on Wrong Track, Taxes Are Too High appeared first on The Daily Signal.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. After three years, Meta’s apps will once again include facial recognition (this is currently in the testing phase). The giant is “selling” the move to its users as a way to fight scammers and make account recovery easier. The feature was abandoned because of widespread criticism of this tech, but Facebook and Instagram users can now expect to have it back on their apps. The first scenario involves deploying facial recognition to remove what is known as celeb-bait ads, which use photos of public figures to get users to visit scam websites. Meta said that if it suspects this is happening, faces in the ad will be compared to the public figure’s Facebook and Instagram profile photos using facial recognition. For now, the feature is applied to a group of celebrities and public figures, on an “opt-out” basis. The company also revealed that since it is happening in real-time, the process is “faster and more accurate” than when done manually. And now, onto “ordinary people.” The second test involves getting the apps’ users to take video selfies and upload them to Meta. Once again, facial recognition will be used to match these to people’s profile photos, this time in order to speed up the account recovery process. Meta is clearly counting on the “convenience factor” to persuade users that subjecting themselves to facial recognition carried out by a tech juggernaut is a good idea. Another promise is that the process will help when accounts are believed to be compromised by hackers logging in with stolen credentials. The inevitable question is, what happens to this sensitive personal biometric data, especially once in the hands of Meta? The company said it will not use it for any other purposes, that it will be encrypted, and “immediately” deleted once a comparison has been made. While Meta stated that public figures will be automatically enrolled but can opt out, it isn’t explicitly said that for other users facial recognition will be an opt-in, although a post on the company blog says that the video selfie verification “expands on the options for people to regain account access.” Left out of the new scheme for now, due to obvious legal reasons, are Illinois and Texas, but also the UK and the EU. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post Meta Brings Back Face Scanning appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post Cookies Aren’t Dead Yet: Google’s New Plan To Keep You Tracked All Over the Internet appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The authorities – and legacy media – in the UK are trying to deploy, and are promoting a number of initiatives that have an even more expansive forms of mass surveillance as one of their common denominators. Health Secretary Wes Streeting has declared that the National Health Service (NHS) will have to be “turned on its head” in order to be “saved” – and the Labour government has prepared a 10-year-plan to get this done. Developing a digital health ID, referred to as a “single patient record” on the NHS app containing “all information” is one of the changes that will be proposed during the upcoming “national conversation.” Another the current authorities aim for is not to build more hospitals, equip them better, train and employ more staff – as one might expect – but to get as many people to monitor their own health at home, by giving them devices tracking some health parameters, like blood pressure and glucose. The plan is to make even recovering cancer patients track that recovery themselves. And to achieve it, millions of people will get smart watches and other wearable tech. “Moving more care from hospitals to the community,” is how those behind the plan describe it. Other than announcing that the NHS is “broken,” “in a critical condition,” etc., and therefore in need of being “saved,” Streeting distinguished himself recently by pushing for things like giving obese unemployed persons weight loss drugs “to help them get back to work.” But Streeting’s not the only one apparently alarmed by the state of the NHS – or the only one trying to use the service’s infrastructure and reach to achieve other goals. The Observer Economics Editor Phillip Inman has penned a piece calling for mass government surveillance, where the NHS is a potential “testbed for a national ID card.” Other ideas Inman supports concerning highly invasive monitoring methods include taxing zero-emission vehicles via “satellite surveillance.” Inman advises Streeting to make sure “everyone” has the NHS app on their phone. “If UK households offer their information to the NHS in the way they do to Google et al, health service provision could be cheaper and more effective,” writes the Observer editor. The cynical implication that people “offer” their data to Big Tech – while in reality most are genuinely unaware of the extent of Big Tech’s data harvesting – aside, but Inman has more thoughts about the usefulness of the NHS. “The health service could be a testbed for a national ID card that allows for the digitization of more areas of government, reducing costs and tackling fraud,” he writes. If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post Tracking Health or Tracking You? The UK’s Expanding Health Surveillance appeared first on Reclaim The Net.

Kamala Harris' Unhinged Speech; UPDATE: Trump Responds

Exhausted: New Harris/Forbes Poll Puts Kamala Down Eight In Battleground States

Nate Silver: It's a 50-50 Race but My Gut Says Trump

The United Nations, of all groups, is surprisingly standing up for female athletes. Well, at least one of their representatives is. A recent UN report titled “Violence Against Women” reveals female athletes have lost nearly 900 medals to men competing in women's sporting categories. “According to information received, by 30 March 2024, over 600 female athletes in more than 400 competitions have lost more than 890 medals in 29 different sports,” the report, covered by the New York Post, added. “That is just the number that has been reported and accounted for,” Women’s sports advocate Riley Gaines reacted in an interview with Fox & Friends Wednesday morning.  Despite the number being “shocking to your average person,” Gaines told Fox even just “one girl” cheated in her sport by a biological male is “one girl too many.” She highlighted females “being exploited in locker rooms,” and “injured in their sport.” Reem Alsalem, the UN special rapporteur on violence against women and girls who complied the report agrees.   She considers “any country that allows biological men to compete in women’s sports is allowing violence against women.” “Women and girls already have many odds stacked against them that impede their equal and effective participation in sports,” Alsalem, who presented her report to the UN General Assembly, said. She added that “their ability to play sport in conditions of safety, dignity and fairness has been further eroded by the intrusion of males who identify as female in female-only sports and related spaces.” It doesn’t matter that some sport federations limit the testosterone levels of men competing against women, Alsalem asserts. This “will not eliminate the set of comparative performance advantages they have already acquired,” she explained.

ABC’s Good Morning America went full bore against half the country on Wednesday, going all out with over 10 minutes (10:28) of hyperbolic tailspins eagerly touting as fact wild claims from former White House chief of staff John Kelly that Donald Trump is a fascist, danger to democracy and the American people, and enthralled with Adolf Hitler. In turn, they hurled nothing but venom toward Trump and his supporters as they were calmly soothed by Vice President Harris’s camp. Co-host and former Clinton official George Stephanopoulos — who views defeating Trump as a duty — gushed over the “truly extraordinary breaking news this morning” of Kelly “speaking out with things you have never heard before from someone who has served a president.” “He says Donald Trump fits the definition of a fascist. He says Donald Trump praised Adolf Hitler, demeaned American war heroes, calls Donald Trump a man who would govern like a dictator if allowed,” he added. Fact-check: Pants on fire. A simple internet search would reveal Kelly first leveled these claims in August 2022 in a book for liberal elitist snobs Peter Baker and Susan Glasser and doubled down in March 2024 to CNN tool and former Obama official Jim Sciutto.     Correspondent Rachel Scott — who has a idolatrous level of hate for Trump — eagerly shared that Kelly has “paint[ed] a picture of a former President and Republican nominee who has no regard for the Constitution or rule of law, warning that he would rule as a dictator if he could” and a “fascist”. Scott not only invoked Kelly’s tall tales about Hitler, but implied Trump is pining for a genocide: “Kelly describing how Trump would praise Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, who orchestrated the systematic murder of six million Jews and caused World War II.” Scott left no stone unturned, playing one soundbite after another from Kelly’s phone conversations with The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg and The New York Times’s Michael Schmidt (who’s married to MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace) and gave zero time to anything Trump said Tuesday about the 2024 race (click “expand”): KELLY: He commented more than once that, you know, that Hitler did some of those things, too. SCOTT: Kelly’s on-the-record, first-hand accounts following similar reporting in The Atlantic, including a private conversation at the White House where, according to Kelly, Trump asked why his generals couldn’t “be more like” Hitler’s generals. KELLY: Well, I would tell him that, sir, you know, first of all you should never say that. But if you knew what Hitler was all about, from the beginning to the end, everything he did was in support of this racist, fascist, life, you know — the — you know, philosophy, so that nothing he did you could argue was good. SCOTT: The Trump campaign calling that an outrageous lie. Just as The New York Times published their interview with Kelly, Trump was on stage in Greensboro, North Carolina praising authoritarian leaders like Chinese President Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin. TRUMP: He’s smart. He’s a smart man. He’s a fierce man. I got along with him very well. Putin, these are people that are tough people. SCOTT: Kelly insisting to The Times, if given the chance, Trump would rule as a dictator himself. KELLY: Oh, I think he’d, you know, love to be just like he was in business. He could tell people to do things and they would do it and not really bother too much about whether — what the legalities were. SCOTT: Kelly also says Trump often questioned why people would serve the country in uniform and referred to service members who were injured or killed as losers and suckers multiple times, something the former President has repeatedly denied. KELLY: His not wanting to be seen with amputees — amputees that lost their limbs in defense of this country fighting for every American to — him included, to protect him, but didn’t want to be seen with them. SCOTT: Kelly, a retired four star marine general, who spent 45 years in uniform, lost his own son to combat in Afghanistan. He was handpicked by Trump to lead the Department of Homeland Security before serving as his longest chief of staff. TRUMP: General Kelly will go down, in terms of the position of chief of staff, one of the great ever. SCOTT: He says he made the decision to speak out now after Trump talked about using the military against what he calls the enemy within. TRUMP [on FNC’s Sunday Morning Futures, on 10/13/24]: I think the bigger problem are the people from within. We have some very bad people. We have some sick people, radical left lunatics. And I think they’re the — should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard or, if really necessary, by the military. SCOTT: In a statement, the Trump campaign writing, “John Kelly has totally beclowned himself,” calling the stories “fabricated,” and adding “Trump has always honored the service and sacrifice of all of our military men and women.” Scott ended with a laughably absurd claim from Kelly: ABC’s Rachel Scott: “John Kelly insists he is not trying to tell people how to vote, but he is asking this country to consider character over policy, George.” George Stephanopoulos: “And that all comes from someone who served former President Trump.” pic.twitter.com/1bOV1a9gvC — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) October 23, 2024 After the two hurled more invective (this time about rumored Attorney General candidates) at a man who’s been nearly assassinated twice, ABC gave a few moments to the fluff the pillows of Harris’s campaign. Of course, Mary Bruce obliged: Here was as sample of how ABC’s ‘Good Morning America’ covered the Kamala Harris campaign in between its two opening segments oozing over John Kelly. Mary Bruce -- Disney's in-house North Korean news lady for Kamala Harris -- was on the case, fawning over Harris being “focused… pic.twitter.com/7vftsgobhR — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) October 23, 2024 Bruce was so predictable that she had to end with celebrities, cheering the Obamas and Bruce Springsteen. Stephanopoulos took back control of what would be nearly 10 minutes straight of campaign coverage and brought in three-time anti-Trump author Jonathan Karl for more fear-mongering. “One of the things you’ve reported in your books. I have reported it in my book as well. We’ve seen it again today: some of the most damning critiques of Donald Trump’s character and competence come from those who served in these top national security positions,” Stephanopoulos solemnly huffed. Karl has more money to bank in book sales to Resistance liberals, so he needs more grist to keep readers hiding under their covers and lamented “[t]he most damning critiques of Donald Trump and the most dire warnings about what it would mean if he came back into the White House came from people who served him closest in his administration in the most sensitive and important positions.” He even came with a graphic of former officials who’ve, at a minimum, voiced dismay with Trump.     For good measure, Karl trotted out another anonymous source who believes Trump is guilty of treason. Karl obviously ignored how the implication of that would be such a crime would be punishable by death (click “expand”): Let me just go through a few of them. I’ve written them down so I don’t leave any out, but I’m going to leave some out because there are a lot. Obviously, there are his former Vice President. There’s Rex Tillerson, who was his secretary of state, Bill Barr, who was attorney general, John Kelly, Mark Milley, Mark Esper, who was his defense secretary, Jim Mattis, who was his earlier defense secretary, Dan Coats who was in charge of the national intelligence. All of these people have come out to issue dire warnings about Donald Trump. And, George, it — I have to say, it’s not just the people who have come out publicly. A lot of others, and you can see they are not endorsing Trump, but they’re not speaking publicly. They are worried about feed back. Let just me read something that — an anonymous, very top official who spent every day time with Donald Trump, served many years in the administration, told me about Donald Trump: “Trump lacks any shred of any decency, humility, or caring. He is traitor and a malignancy on our nation and represents a clear and present danger to our democracy and rule of law.” Again, that is somebody who, just like Jon Kelly, who was with Trump every day for more than a year in the White House. Stephanopoulos had more anxiety to cause among his superficial audience, which ended with him telling Karl that, if Trump were to become president, “[t]he guardrails” of our democracy in these former officials would “be gone” (click “expand”): STEPHANOPOULOS: Traitor. Let’s put that graphic back up there cause I want to make a point here of when see that graphic of all the people who have surrounded Donald Trump, these are people who were in The Situation Room during the times of crisis. If Donald Trump is election [sic] again, none of those people will be there? KARL: Well, I have spoken to Trump many times about some of the people that have crossed him and I asked him what his next administration would be like. What he told me is he didn’t know anybody. He had to rely on advice to hire people last time. Now he knows people. He will put people in who are loyal to him. He will put people that will carry out his orders. STEPHANOPOULOS: The guardrails will be gone. Jon Karl, thanks very much. Robin. ROBERTS: Thank you, both. For good measure, Stephanopoulos reiterated the topline talking points in a news brief to begin the second half-hour and, for the second hour, he brought Scott and Bruce for more pom-pom waving. To see the relevant ABC transcript from October 23, click here.