Want to know how to drive a tractor? It's a common question for those who are planning to get started with homesteading. Read on and get helpful tips on how to drive a tractor safely. Safety Guide On How To Drive A Tractor Depending on the attachments, you can actually make your tractor do the hard labor on your homestead. These tasks include digging a foundation, mowing acres of lawn, baling hay, setting fence post, pushing snow, etc.–all of which are possible with the help of a compact tractor. However, it is important that you properly know how to drive a tractor. Whether you are a regular tractor driver, a student, or dreaming to get started with homesteading, you need to know the 10 commandments of how to drive a tractor before it is too late.   1. Get To Know Your Tractor image via fordsontractorpages Get to know your tractor, its controls and how they work, this is the number 1 rule. Keeping the user's guide handy will allow you to familiarize every part of your tractor and this will help you in operating it safely and properly. And, always keep your tractor in good condition.   2. Never Neglect Using ROPS image via knatolee.blogspot Never neglect using ROPS (Rollover Protective Structure) in every application and always wear your seatbelt. Most tractor accidents are due to overturning.   3. Know Your Terrain image via thatsfarming Know your terrain and always drive safely. Use extra precautions on slopes, decrease speed on all turns and avoid the highway as much as possible.   4. Don’t Start The Engine In An Enclosed Area Photo by FIELDWORK Design & Architecture – Search shed pictures Always remember that you must not start the engine in an enclosed area, such as the garage or shed. Carbon monoxide is odorless and colorless–but hazardous.   5. Keep Your PTO Protected image via helpfulgardener Always keep your PTO (power takeoff) properly protected. It turns with the power of 500 men and that I believe is unstoppable and extremely dangerous.   Learn how you can dig deeper and plant better with these 23 must-have gardening tools! ???? https://t.co/tItsXHiZK4 — Homesteading (@HomesteadingUSA) January 18, 2017   6. Keep Your Hitches Low Always keep your hitches low and dependable on the drawbar. Otherwise, your tractor may have the tendency to flip over in reverse.   7. Never Bounce Off A Moving Tractor image via bobmarklindsay Never bounce off a moving tractor or abandon it with its motor running. A moving tractor can be extremely risky and deadly.   8. Do Not Refuel Your Engine When It’s Hot or Running image via cenex Do not refuel your engine when it’s hot or running and never put water on the radiator when the engine is still hot, hot water can scald and erupt. Gasoline is not only flammable, but it is also explosive in vapor form. The best time to refuel your tractor is during night time after all the day's work is done so the engine will have enough time to cool down. This also helps in preventing condensation that normally occurs overnight in an empty or partially full tank.   9. Watch Out For Children | Watch out for children, never let them be around the tractor. A tractor's task is not for children.   10. Never Be On The Rush image via npr Never be in a rush if your task has something to do with your tractor. I believe it has been established that a tractor is a very powerful machine that can cause serious harm t0 you and even to your property so make sure to take all the time you need when doing chores involving your tractor. Always remember and follow these commandments my fellow homesteaders as this is for your own safety. If you have any questions do not hesitate to consult your dealer.   Want to see how to drive a tractor in action? Check out this video from How Farms Work:  That's all for now, my fellow homesteaders! Remember safety is an affair of our patience and common sense. I believe all machines, like tractors, are created with our comfort and security in mind. However, tractors, just like any machine, are a collection of moving parts with no heart and brain. So the responsibility for its safety operation rests on the shoulders of its operators and that's us!   Did you find this helpful and interesting? Let us know what are your thoughts are in the comments below. Do you want to know what essential tools you should have in your homestead? As a homeowner, you should have every tool necessary to be self-sufficient. Check out the essential tools every homeowner should have for their homestead! Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter!   Featured Image Via FG Insight

Presidential Race Is Not Actually About Issues

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The Sun won’t last forever, but how long do we have before we need to find another home, even if we look after Earth?

The mountain's famous peak is no longer the highest point on the mountain.

PBS News Hour’s White House correspondent just happened to interview four “lifelong Republicans” in Arizona for Tuesday’s edition, none of whom would be voting for Trump, and who further insulted their "lifelong" party as "cowardly" and "lawless" along the way. Certainly such voters exist -- but it’s a bit odd that Barron-Lopez either couldn’t find or didn’t want to amplify any Republicans who were voting for Trump, or against Kamala Harris, in what could be a tight contest in Arizona. PBS would prefer to promote the Republicans as hopelessly lost and demoralized.  Anchor Geoff Bennett: Arizona's 11 Electoral College votes could be key to winning the presidential race next month. Our White House correspondent, Laura Barron-Lopez, recently spent some time there. So, Laura, as you well know, President Biden won Arizona by just over 10,000 votes back in 2020. How's it looking now? Laura Barron-Lopez: Geoff, this year polls show that Trump has a slight edge over Harris in the state. So we traveled to Tempe, Arizona, just outside of Phoenix, to sit down with four lifelong Republicans to get their take on the presidential race, how they view Trump and the future of their party. How many of you have voted for Donald Trump? How many of you voted for Donald Trump twice? And how many of you plan on supporting Donald Trump this November? None of you. How would you describe the Republican Party that you initially became a part of in one word? (Is it PBS’s tax-funded job to boost the anti-Trump contingent in Arizona less than a month before a hotly contested presidential election?). After the four responded with words like "Integrity" and "Freedom," Barron-Lopez turned the question around and got the contrast she clearly craved. Laura Barron-Lopez: And how would you describe the Republican Party now? Kevin Wenker: Cowardly. Dan Barker: Lost. Amanda Stewart Sprowls: Fearmonger. Joel John: Lawless. The four Arizona voters voiced various reasons for their never-Trump stands. Barron-Lopez even pressed the one Harris holdout, while stacking more eggs in the “lifelong Republicans” basket. Barron-Lopez: All four of these lifelong Republicans voted for Nikki Haley for president in the Arizona Republican primary. They're the kind of Republicans Harris hopes will cross party lines, in some cases for the very first time. Can you raise your hand for me if you're going to vote for Vice President Harris in November? Amanda, you didn't raise your hand. Sprowls remained uncommitted. Barron-Lopez burnished the anti-Trump voters as defenders of the U.S. Constitution, whose principles of “freedom” the Democrats have falsely embraced this election year. Barron-Lopez: For the other three, the decision ultimately comes down to character and protecting the Constitution. John found Kamala Harris to be "a decent person" and was confident she would "follow our constitutional process.” He also brought up the January 6 riot. The PBS reporter pleaded to Amanda again: What will it take for you to vote Democrat? Barron-Lopez: Amanda, earlier, you said that you aren't decided yet on Harris. What more do you need to hear from her to get you there? Sprowls wanted to hear more about tax policy. Barron-Lopez, the networks’ most partisan reporter, closed as she opened, quoting her mini-focus group of Republicans who won’t vote for the Republican presidential candidate. Barron-Lopez: For Joel, Dan and Kevin, a return appears more elusive, signaling a potential realignment of the country's political parties for years to come. How would you describe what it feels like to be a lifelong Republican who can no longer vote for the Republican presidential candidate? The answers from each: “Unusual.” “Pretty disgusted.” “Brave.” “Disappointed.” This pro-Harris get-out-the-AZ-vote segment was brought to you in part by BNSF Railway. A transcript is available: PBS News Hour 10/8/24 7:37:14 p.m. (ET) Geoff Bennett: Arizona's 11 Electoral College votes could be key to winning the presidential race next month. Our White House correspondent, Laura Barron-Lopez, recently spent some time there. So, Laura, as you well know, President Biden won Arizona by just over 10,000 votes back in 2020. How's it looking now? Laura Barron-Lopez: Geoff, this year polls show that Trump has a slight edge over Harris in the state. So we traveled to Tempe, Arizona, just outside of Phoenix, to sit down with four lifelong Republicans to get their take on the presidential race, how they view Trump and the future of their party. How many of you have voted for Donald Trump? How many of you voted for Donald Trump twice? And how many of you plan on supporting Donald Trump this November? None of you. How would you describe the Republican Party that you initially became a part of in one word? Kevin Wenker, Arizona Voter: Integrity. Dan Barker, Arizona Voter: Freedom. Amanda Stewart Sprowls, Arizona Voter: Opportunity. Joel John, Arizona Voter: Free enterprise. Laura Barron-Lopez: And how would you describe the Republican Party now? Kevin Wenker: Cowardly. Dan Barker: Lost. Amanda Stewart Sprowls: Fearmonger. Joel John: Lawless. Laura Barron-Lopez: Seventy-three-year-old Kevin winker is a retired pastor who voted for Donald Trump in 2016. Kevin Wenker: For me, character is a major issue, and because decisions in the presidency especially are made by the character of the president making them. Donald Trump does not know how to tell the truth. He deliberately lies and then he lies about his lies. Laura Barron-Lopez: Dan Barker, 71, is a former judge and member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. He's never voted for Trump. Dan Barker: In 2016, during that campaign, he mocked a disabled person. And for me as a Christian, a person of faith, for somebody that actively mocks another person for a disability, that's just completely contrary to what I believe. The biggest deal is the rule of law and spreading the big lie, saying that our elections are rigged. I think that goes to the core of our democracy. If people lose faith in that, that's going to dramatically impact our democracy. Laura Barron-Lopez: Fifty-three-year-old Amanda Stewart Sprowls a mother of three who voted for Trump in both 2016 and 2020. Amanda, you voted for Trump twice, but you're not going to this year. Amanda Stewart Sprowls: I look at his economic policy and he's basically talking about a huge national sales tax without any kind of approval from Congress, and, basically, at his whim, and he's looking at anywhere from 20 percent up to 60 percent of tariffs. It's not even like he's talking like a Republican. He's talking command-and-control economy at this point. He's not even giving us a choice. Laura Barron-Lopez: And Joel John, 45, voted for Trump in 2020, but feels he's no longer able to support the former president. Joel John: I have never voted for a Democratic presidential candidate ever. And then January 6 happened, and I was just livid. No matter all the arguments, pro arguments for Donald Trump, January 6 tips the scales every single time for me, that we just cannot have a sitting president of the United States incite a violent attack on the Capitol like that because he's upset that he lost the election. Laura Barron-Lopez: All four of these lifelong Republicans voted for Nikki Haley for president in the Arizona Republican primary. They're the kind of Republicans Harris hopes will cross party lines, in some cases for the very first time. Can you raise your hand for me if you're going to vote for Vice President Harris in November? Amanda, you didn't raise your hand. Amanda Stewart Sprowls: I know that Trump isn't my choice, and I am still watching and waiting and very hopeful as Vice President Harris keeps moving to the center. And I could see myself voting for her. I definitely do, but I'm still going to remain uncommitted at this point. Laura Barron-Lopez: For the other three, the decision ultimately comes down to character and protecting the Constitution. Joel John: I think, by and large, Kamala Harris is a decent person. We may disagree on some policy positions. I think she's going to protect the rule of law, follow our constitutional process. If she loses the election, she's not going to claim it was rigged. Republicans, we have always said we support the police, back the blue. And 140 police officers injured that day. And I'm just baffled that suddenly the police were the bad guy, and the January 6 prisoners are the good guys and should be pardoned. Laura Barron-Lopez: That means reconciling their personal faith with some of Harris' positions, like on abortion. Kevin Wenker: I, as a pastor, have to remember that our country is a democracy. We are not a theocracy. And my personal religious beliefs cannot be put on somebody else, even though I may consider what they're doing wrong. It has to be, again, by rule of law. And for Roe v. Wade was the law, and now to come along and say that the government has the right to tell you or you as a woman what you can do with your body, I have a problem with that. Laura Barron-Lopez: But, for Amanda, abortion is one of the issues where she aligns with Harris most. Amanda Stewart Sprowls: One of the important parts of Roe was that it made it safe. It made it something that we could regulate as a medical procedure. We don't want to see women in tragic situations where they're still carrying a baby that's no longer even viable and being forced to carry that baby until natural labor occurs, because women have died that way. Women used to die that way. Donald Trump: And we will close the border. We will stop the invasion. Laura Barron-Lopez: Trump's anti-immigrant message and recent lies that legal Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating cats and dogs has only made these Republicans question their party more. Kevin Wenker: What really troubles me about that is, J.D. Vance came out and said, yes, it was a false story, but we have the right to make up false stories to try and get our point across. Do we want an administration that is based on that type of non-integrity? You tell a lie often enough and it's not that people believe the lie, but they don't care about the truth anymore. Dan Barker: Hey, I will be the first to say, do I think the border's been handled that great the last three years? No. Well, but there was a bipartisan bill, a bipartisan bill that would have made a huge difference. Harris would enforce the law. We would get a law and we wouldn't have a president that would try and divide U.S. based upon where we came from. Laura Barron-Lopez: Amanda, earlier, you said that you aren't decided yet on Harris. What more do you need to hear from her to get you there? Amanda Stewart Sprowls: I would like to hear more from her speaking about tax policy, and I'd like to hear more of how she's actually willing to compromise with Congress to get these policies past that we desperately need, whether it's on immigration, whether it's on tax policy, whether it's cutting spending, whether it's giving more power and energy to the Ukrainians, so that they can rally into Russia. Laura Barron-Lopez: What is the deciding factor for you this November? Kevin Wenker: I want to be able to trust what I hear from the person who's going to be president. I don't want to hear lies. I don't want to hear exaggerations. I don't want to hear made-up stories. Dan Barker: Willingness to uphold the rule of law and not to be untruthful about the facts that govern and control our democracy. Amanda Stewart Sprowls: I would like to see a leader who is able to compromise, who can work within divided government, and actually lead by example and compromise, like we all have to on a daily basis. Joel John: Probably the rule of law, like Dan said, someone who's going to follow our constitutional process, someone who's going to honor that. If Republicans win in 2024, but not in 2028, will Vance certify the election? Will he count the votes for the Democratic candidate that won or will he not? Laura Barron-Lopez: Amanda hopes there's a world where she can soon call the GOP home again. Amanda Stewart Sprowls: I think we need to be grownups as Republicans and start looking a little bit long term and more strategically. If Trump can't deliver us what we want on tax policy, but Harris can, potentially with a Republican Senate, that's what we need to be voting for this time, so that we can take the presidency back in '28. Laura Barron-Lopez: For Joel, Dan and Kevin, a return appears more elusive, signaling a potential realignment of the country's political parties for years to come. How would you describe what it feels like to be a lifelong Republican who can no longer vote for the Republican presidential candidate? Joel? Joel John: Unusual. Amanda Stewart Sprowls: Pretty disgusted. Dan Barker: Brave. Kevin Wenker: Disappointed.

Thursday’s White House press briefing appropriately had a central focus of late Wednesday’s landfall of Hurricane Milton on Florida’s Gulf Coast and tornadoes across the state, but the partisan shills chose to ask a slew of questions emphasizing about this vague “misinformation” campaign they claim has had catastrophic consequences in the south as somehow on part with apocalyptic physical devastation and incalculable loss of life and fortune. CNN’s Kayla Tausche first went there with this question to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who obviously went along with angry but also vague claims: You said on CNN yesterday that some of the misinformation that had been perpetuated...was already beginning to have an impact on individuals either applying or deciding not to apply for government relief. Can you elaborate on what exactly you’re seeing and what exactly you determined to be the cause of that? The worst behavior came from Disney’s resident North Korean news lady for the Biden-Harris regime, Mary Bruce: ABC’s @MaryKBruce with the REAL question that matters to those affected by #Helene and #Milton.... Bruce: “You know, we've seen reports that some FEMA officials, including the administrator, are being doxxed and targeted online in the wake of these hurricanes. Are you concerned… pic.twitter.com/rCX66GxqC3 — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) October 10, 2024 Ah, yes, Mary. Definitely put FEMA workers at the center of one’s pity, not those who lost everything in Helene and/or Milton. She dug deeper her pit of selfishness, clearly alluding to Russia: “Do you have any information to suggest that any foreign governments have tried to take advantage and amplify this misinformation about the response and recovery effort?” Bruce came up again when it was Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre’s turn and made it not about the recovery efforts, but whether Trump supporter and St. Petersburg-area Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna received a verbal lashing in a call with President Biden: ABC’s @MaryKBruce on #Milton: “Congresswoman [@realannapaulina], who represents the St. Petersburg area, said that she spoke with the President today about the response. She is one of those people who has been spreading disinformation, misinformation about FEMA assistance. Did… pic.twitter.com/D7KiWLkVXX — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) October 10, 2024 A reporter in the Reuters seat twice tried to have Jean-Pierre commit the regime to going after social media companies: [H]as the White House been in touch with the leadership of social media networks where a lot of this disinformation is being spread? (....) Are the platforms themselves doing enough to police the disinformation? Fox’s Jacqui Heinrich wasn’t having any of this.  Instead, she asked an evasive, prickly, and seemingly unpleasant Mayorkas about the disturbing revelation this week of an Afghan refugee being charged with allegedly wanting to carry out an Election Day terror attack. Heinrich laid out the discrepancies thus far between government agencies: This Afghan national who was working for the CIA in Afghanistan, was arrested for planning an Election Day terror plot. He was brought to the US after Afghanistan collapsed, your agency says, as part of the SIV program. The State Department is telling us he was not part of the SIV program, which had strenuous vetting . They say he was never issued an SIV or immigrant visa, and DHS paroled him into the U.S. They further expect the court document to be updated to reflect this from the DOJ side. So, Mr. Secretary, how was this man brought into the U.S.? What screening did he undergo? What did he apply for to get here? Mayorkas unsurprisingly declared he was “here in North Carolina” talking to those who’ve lost family members and their homes, so he would only address it “in a different setting.” He was such a miffed prick he threw in a condescending, “thank you.”     To Heinrich’s credit, she wasn’t having it and not intimidated by Mayorkas’s rudeness (click “expand”): HEINRICH: I [inaudible] that, Mr. Secretary, but we’re getting conflicting answers from your agency and from the State Department about a man who was arrested for an Election Day terror plot. How do you not have those answers prepared? MAYORKAS: Oh, Jacqui, that’s — uh — not what I said. What I said is I’d be pleased to discuss this issue at a different time, but I am here to speak about disasters that have impacted people’s lives in real time, and that is a subject that I’m addressing today. HEINRICH: But can you assure — JEAN-PIERRE: Okay, we’re gonna — HEINRICH: — Mr. Secretary — can you assure people that appropriate steps have been taken to secure the country against these kinds of threats because the outstanding question is whether this man was radicalized before the U.S. government brought him here or after and people should be concerned about that? MAYORKAS: Jacqui, Jacqui, Jacqui your persistence in questioning can be matched by my persistence and answers. JEAN-PIERRE: Ha ha ha! Alright, we’re gonna go. During Jean-Pierre’s turn, NBC’s Gabe Gutierrez defended Heinrich and asked himself: NBC’s @GabeGutierrez: “I'm following up on [@JacquiHeinrich]'s question from earlier on the Afghan terror suspect. NBC is reporting that he was a security guard for the CIA before he came to the U.S. and that he passed two rounds of vetting. Does the administration believe there… pic.twitter.com/abGh3t0m8v — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) October 10, 2024 To see the relevant transcript from the October 10 (including another “disinformation” question), click here.

The Senate GOP's The Senate Leadership Fund recently released an ad condemning Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown for voting to allow men to compete in women’s sports. On Thursday, PolitiFact slapped a “false” label on the claim, but it had to allow Brown to have it both ways multiple times to do so. Seth Richardson writes, “The ad cited Brown’s 2021 and 2024 votes against failed amendments to two broad funding bills as evidence for the claim.” Richardson says this is wrong because “the amendments would have stripped federal funding from schools and colleges that allowed transgender girls and women to compete in sports matching their gender identity. They did not dictate athletic eligibility. Federal law rarely dictates who is eligible for specific sports.” Senate Leadership Fund communications director Torunn Sinclair attempted to rebut, “You're funding something, which is a vote to allow something to happen." Sinclair is essentially correct. The federal government used to use the threat of withholding federal funding to compel states to have certain speed limits, and this isn’t any different. Still, Richardson continued: Brown spokesperson Matt Keyes described both votes as 'poison pill' amendments — designed to render legislation ineffective — to broader funding bills. [Tommy] Tuberville’s amendments were to the 2021 American Rescue Plan and a 2024 bill funding multiple federal departments. Both failed along party lines. Keyes said Brown supports transgender rights, but Brown’s vote also was to preserve Ohio school funding. Brown 'believes there should be a fair process in place for athletics and will always fight to make sure Ohio schools have the funding they need,' Keyes said. Richardson and Keyes are trying to have it both ways. On one hand, they want to say Brown voted no because Tuberville’s amendments were unrelated to crucial legislation, but on the other, they basically admit that Brown would still have voted no on a standalone bill. Furthermore, Richardson lets Keyes get away with politicianspeak. “There should be a fair process in place for athletics” is an answer designed to avoid having to either offend Brown’s left-wing base or more moderate swing voters in an increasingly red state. Next, Richardson tried to have it both ways again, this time on whether Congress even has the power to regulate the issue. He claims that high school and collegiate sports are run by the states and governing bodies, respectively. However, he also acknowledges, “Some federal laws, such as Title IX, prohibit sex-based discrimination for programs receiving federal funding, which includes nearly all public schools.” In his conclusion, Richardson writes, “Brown did not vote to allow this. He voted against two amendments to much broader spending bills that would have stripped funding from schools that allowed transgender athletes to compete in sports matching their gender identity. The amendments did not pertain to athletic eligibility.” Title IX contributed to the expansion of women’s sports and conservatives now believe it can be used to protect them. States that discriminate against women by allowing men to compete in their sports can have their federal funds taken away, but Sherrod Brown does not think they should. Giving Republicans a “false” rating is itself false.

These days, the well-being of Americans seems to be at the bottom of our government’s priority list. Foreign wars and the millions of illegal immigrants who have invaded our country suck up U.S. dollars by the billions, leaving needy Americans in a state of hopelessness. The most recent example of this includes the victims of Hurricane Helene. FEMA claims it’s out of funds. It showed up a week after the storm ravaged the coastline. Then, it offered a pitiful $750 to families who had lost everything despite giving far more than that to illegal immigrants. There’s even reports of FEMA actively thwarting the private sector’s efforts to fill the gap. What gives? Why does it seem like the plight of Americans is met with hostility from emergency services? Amy LePore, a policy expert on the increased federalization of emergency management in the U.S., recently spoke with Matt Kibbe about this issue. Her take is that the public is misled in thinking that the federal government is prepared to respond when disaster strikes. While there are many reasons for this, there’s one in particular Amy says is especially problematic: States aren’t passing the Defend the Guard Act. — (@) “There are resources stationed in many states, which have the training and capacity to respond to disaster, and half the time, they’re deployed to the Middle East,” she told Kibbe and pointed to the Tennessee legislature that did not pass the Defend the Guard Act, which would prohibit the deployment of the National Guard overseas unless Congress has formally declared war. One day before Helene hit, Tennessee’s National Guard was deployed to Kuwait and was therefore unable to assist the hurricane victims. “The Defend the Guard bill has been in 30 legislatures and has passed in three states but in three chambers only,” Amy explains, adding that what we really need “is a brave state.” “I think all it is going to take is one state (maybe that state will be Tennessee) who takes this seriously, who can get it passed in both chambers. And I think there will be a domino effect in other brave states,” she says. To hear more about the Defend the Guard bill and the unsung heroes who work tirelessly to bring our troops home so that they are positioned to support Americans, watch the clip above. To watch Kibbe’s full conversation with Amy LePore, watch the episode below. Want more from Matt Kibbe? - YouTube www.youtube.com To enjoy more of Matt's liberty-defending stance as he gets in the face of the fake news establishment, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

Dr. Casey Means, the Stanford University-educated chief medical officer of the metabolic health company Levels, further vindicated Alex Jones' longstanding concerns about atrazine, an endocrine disruptor and one of America's most widely used pesticides, in Tuesday's episode of "The Joe Rogan Experience." When asked about the increasing commonality of early onset puberty, Means said, "We are living in this wildly estrogenic environment that is created by humans." Means suggested that the ingestion of plastics — which behave like xenoestrogens when broken down — has proven hugely impactful, affecting humans as early as in the womb. She indicated further that pesticides have also played a starring role, particularly those that increase aromatase — "the enzyme that converts testosterone to estrogen." The physician called out one pesticide by name: atrazine. "So atrazine ... is banned in Europe, but we spray 70 million pounds of it per year in the U.S.," said Means. "We buy it from other countries. So China and Germany and other countries are selling us a chemical of which 70 million pounds are spread on our food — invisible and tasteless, which up-regulates aromatase and converts testosterone to estrogen." "How are we allowing this to happen? Of course it's affecting boys too," continued Means. "It's not like there's a bunch of exogenous testosterones, right. It's not like the plastics are also stimulating testosterone." Means is hardly the only person in the burgeoning Make America Healthy Again movement willing to discuss atrazine and other apparently ruinous pesticides. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently told Dr. Jordan Peterson, "The second-most used chemical in this country, pesticide in this country, is atrazine. It's banned in Europe, banned all over the world, but we use it here. It's in 63% of our drinking water." "We don't know what impact it's having on our children," Kennedy later added. Kennedy noted in June 2022 on his own podcast, "If you expose frogs to atrazine, male frogs, it changes their sex, and they can actually bear young. They can lay eggs, fertile eggs." 'They have zero chance of reproducing.' "And so the capacity for these chemicals that we are just raining down on our children right now to induce these very profound sexual changes in them is something we need to be thinking about as a society," added Kennedy, who warned elsewhere that the entire Midwest's water supply is "coated" with atrazine. Atrazine was the chemical Alex Jones was alluding to in his now-famous 2015 rant, in which he yelled, "I don't like 'em putting chemicals in the water that turn the frigging frogs gay!" Jones, like Kennedy, was referencing the finding by University of California, Berkeley endocrinologist and amphibian biologist Tyrone Hayes that atrazine "wreaks havoc with the sex lives of adult male frogs, emasculating three-quarters of them and turning one in 10 into females." "These male frogs are missing testosterone and all the things that testosterone controls, including sperm. So their fertility is as low as 10 percent in some cases, and that is only if we isolate those animals and pair them with females," Hyes told UC Berkeley News in 2010. "In an environment where they are competing with unexposed animals, they have zero chance of reproducing." Some male frogs morphed into hermaphrodites and mated with other males. 'Do you want to take a chance, what with all the other things that we know atrazine does, not just to humans but to rodents and frogs and fish?' Hayes said, "We have animals that are females, in the sense that they behave like females: They have estrogen, lay eggs, they mate with other males. Atrazine has caused a hormonal imbalance that has made them develop into the wrong sex, in terms of their genetic constitution." The university paper noted: Some 80 million pounds of the herbicide atrazine are applied annually in the United States on corn and sorghum to control weeds and increase crop yield, but such widespread use also makes atrazine the most common pesticide contaminant of ground and surface water, according to various studies. More and more research, however, is showing that atrazine interferes with endocrine hormones, such as estrogen and testosterone – in fish, amphibians, birds, reptiles, laboratory rodents and even human cell lines at levels of parts per billion. Recent studies also found a possible link between human birth defects and low birth weight and atrazine exposure in the womb. Syngenta, an agricultural company that makes the pesticide, tried downplaying the findings. According to the New Yorker, a freelance science columnist whose nonprofit organization received tens of thousands of dollars from Syngenta, wrote a Fox News hit piece attacking Hayes, trying to characterize his paper in the journal Nature as junk science. Hayes doubled down, saying, "Not every frog or every human will be affected by atrazine, but do you want to take a chance, what with all the other things that we know atrazine does, not just to humans but to rodents and frogs and fish?" When Alex Jones picked up on Hayes' findings, much of the ire previously assigned the scientist was redirected. CNBC, for instance, characterized Jones' suggestion that "chemicals in the water are turning frogs gay" as one of his "5 most disturbing and ridiculous conspiracy theories." In a piece disputing Jones' claims that the government could manipulate the weather and that fluoride in the drinking water can dumb people down, Forbes also suggested that Jones had misinterpreted the results of Hayes' study. 'One of the most significant health issues that affects couples is infertility.' The unfortunate truth about atrazine has clearly survived such distortion efforts by Big Ag and the corporate media. Just months ago, the esteemed peer-reviewed journal Scientific Reports published a study confirming that "atrazine exposure is toxic to the testis and affects the normal structure of the seminiferous tubules and sperms." "Pesticides like atrazine which are frequently present in everyday surroundings, have adverse impacts on human health and may contribute to male infertility," said the study. The study makes no secret of the adverse impacts the pesticide can have on reproductive systems: In adult females, atrazine consumption has been linked to early onset of pituitary and mammary cancers, extension of the estrous cycle, decreased weight gain caused by estradiol in the uterus, reduced uterine cytosolic progesterone receptor binding, and reduced estradiol-caused uterine weight growth. Male adults who are exposed to atrazine may experience reduced weights in the anterior pituitary, the prostate, and the hypothalamus, decreased levels of dihydrotestosterone attaching to the androgen receptor, as well as decreased spermatozoa quantity and motility. One of the most significant health issues that affects couples is infertility. Around 30% of these cases are caused by male factors. There are other factors including chemotherapy, environmental toxins, and drug use that can harm spermatogenesis and affect normal sperm production. Like Blaze News? 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