When I was young, my parents always told us they met in college. Given that they went to different colleges for very different majors, that always seemed odd to me. When I was older, I learned the full story. They had actually met in an underground bunker during the Lebanese Civil War. They were both serving in the Lebanese Forces defending their Christian faith and families—my mother choosing to step up after losing her 19-year-old brother to the war.
This war was about their very right to live their Christian faith free from violent threats and governmental oppression. Unfortunately, the Christian forces did not prevail, and my parents ultimately immigrated legally to the United States to forge a new life for their family. They wanted to secure our freedom to live our faith and create a prosperous future.
They had put their lives on the line to secure that freedom in Lebanon. They knew all too well that you could not put your faith in the government to defend you. All too often, the government was the danger. So, from a young age, the importance of the Second Amendment was instilled in me, along with respect for all the freedoms enshrined in our Constitution. For a people to remain free, they must have the right and ability to defend themselves. That was true in 1776, and it’s perhaps even more true today.
When I speak to voters, I hear concerns about safety echoing frequently. Many of my friends and neighbors are gun owners for just that reason. They want to know they can defend themselves against dangerous people who could try to harm them or their family. In blue cities that have adopted soft-on-crime policies, it is the government that has created these conditions. But furthermore, many of us understand gun ownership in broader terms: that as Americans, the responsibility to defend our freedom has always and ultimately resided with us. Our faith is not in government to grant our rights, but rather to uphold rights that have already been granted by God. And if and when it fails on a grand scale to do so, we must be ready.
Many Americans are unaware how quickly their Second Amendment rights can vanish with just one election. And not just a Presidential election. In Virginia, a change in Governor and a number of legislative seats led to sweeping anti-gun legislation criminalizing the sale and transfer of the most common household firearm in the country. This bill (HB217/SB749) was sent to their new-Governor Abigail Spanberger along with 25 other anti-Second Amendment bills.
Arizona’s own Governor Hobbs is equally as radical as Governor Spanberger. The difference? Arizona’s Legislature, where pro-Second Amendment legislators hold a slight majority, would never send her such bills to sign. Were the balance of power in the Arizona House and Senate to shift by a few seats, a slew of similar bills would be promptly sent to her desk by Arizona Democrats and signed.
I’m proud that Arizona’s constitutional defense of gun ownership outpaces the Second Amendment, using the strong verbiage “the right to bear arms shall not be impaired,” and offering some of the strongest constitutional carry protections. We must defend our place as a leading Second Amendment state.
I urge voters concerned about defending this vital freedom to consider the consequences of elections. Vote all the way down your ballot and talk to every candidate about their position on the issue. It’s not just about party, but about commitment to the Constitution, regardless of political winds or the ways in which anti-Second Amendment activists leverage tragedy for political gain. That’s the kind of commitment I’ll always have to the Second Amendment. Freedom can be lost in a generation, but on my watch, I won’t allow it.
George Khalaf is a candidate for the Arizona House in Legislative District 3. You can follow him on X here.
Last year, Katie Hobbs, by executive order, established a “task force” headed by her Office of “Sustainability” to develop a report on energy affordability and reliability. This month, her task force submitted their plan which would do the opposite of that: make energy more expensive and less reliable. This shouldn’t come as a surprise considering the “task force” called by Hobbs is made up of solar special interests, environmental activists, her own agencies, and utilities that have all committed to going Net Zero anyway.
Instead of reading 81 pages that brings nothing new to the table, the only questions that need to be asked (and answered) about the report are below.
Does it call for new natural gas generation? Not really.
Does it call on utilities to keep our coal plants open? No, they want to shut them down and “repower” them to “clean” energy.
Does it pave the way for new nuclear? Not until the mid-2040s, at the earliest.
What, then, does it advocate doing? Subsize special interests by blanketing state trust land and government buildings with even more solar, wind, and battery storage. The very thing causing utility rates to increase and leading to blackouts…
A new edition of a science education manual for judges departs “sharply” from a “longstanding tradition of neutrality,” say three of America’s most distinguished physicists in a letter to U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts.
Writing in an open letter to Justice Roberts were Drs. Richard Lindzen of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, William Happer of Princeton University and Steven Koonin of Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. Roberts is chairman of the Federal Judicial Center, publisher of the Fourth Edition of the “Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence,” whose new chapter on “How Science Works” the letter writers want to be removed.
For decades, the Reference Manual has served as an essential guide for more than 3,000 federal judges and countless state jurists. Cited in over 1,700 judicial opinions, it has helped courts distinguish reliable science from speculation. Its strength has been a commitment to describing how science operates according to the tenets of the 300-year-old scientific method, avoiding political considerations and a drift into pseudoscience.
The letter’s authors, with more than 600 peer-reviewed publications among them, bring unparalleled expertise to the issue. Their concern centers on the replacement of the late David Goodstein’s respected chapter with an overwritten, intellectually deficient 65-page version.
The new chapter’s lead author is philosopher Michael Weisberg, who had a prominent role as a diplomat at United Nations climate proceedings, where he advocated financial payments to small island nations purportedly threatened by a warming planet. The appearance of conflict with his authoring supposedly neutral guidance on scientific evidence is unmistakable — especially in the context of climate litigation involving trillions of dollars in potential liabilities.
The substantive problems are even more serious. Where Goodstein, once a California Institute of Technology physics professor, emphasized the scientific method —generating hypotheses and testing them with data — the new chapter dismisses the scientific method as a “myth.” It elevates “scientific consensus” and “widespread acceptance” as the highest form of certainty, transforming inquiry into a popularity contest.
This inverts the traditional practice of science. As Nobel laureate Richard Feynman observed, the key to science is comparing predictions directly with observation: “If it disagrees with experiment, it is wrong.”
In Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals (1993), the Supreme Court made the same point: Scientific knowledge must be derived by testing hypotheses against reality. Goodstein’s earlier edition said, “Data are the coin of the realm in science,” and theories must make new predictions that can be falsified or verified. Consensus, by contrast, is a sociological phenomenon.
As Michael Crichton famously warned, “If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t consensus.” History bears this out. Popular “consensus” on plate tectonics, causes of disease and 20th-century fears of global cooling were overturned by evidence, not votes.
Further revealing the chapter’s activist inclinations is its opening citation of Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway’s “Merchants of Doubt,” a book that insists there is “zero argument among actual scientists” about catastrophic climate change — a claim countered by mountains of real-world data.
Labeling credentialed dissenters as outside “actual science” has no place in an educational document for judges. Science advances by challenging prevailing views with data, not by enforcing community norms.
The Federal Judicial Center wisely withdrew a chapter on climate science from the manual after 27 state attorneys general documented its conflicts and unsupported claims. Yet the “How Science Works” chapter, written largely to support that now-removed material, remains.
With more than 1,000 climate-related cases pending in state and federal courts, judges deserve guidance rooted in empirical rigor. Lindzen, Happer and Koonin are correct. The Center should promptly withdraw the new chapter and restore Goodstein’s earlier version, which captured the essence of scientific reasoning in language accessible to readers without the scientific background that most jurists lack.
They should also direct the National Academy of Sciences to withdraw both chapters from its version of the Manual. Maintaining the integrity of judicial guidance on science is not a partisan issue.
Justice Roberts and the Federal Judicial Center have an opportunity to reaffirm their commitment to neutrality and restore confidence in the Manual. In an age when science is increasingly politicized, maintaining rigorous standards for what counts as scientific evidence in court is vital.
The credibility of the American judicial system requires nothing less.
Angela Wheeler is a contributor to The Daily Caller News Foundation and executive director of the CO2 Coalition, Fairfax, Virginia. She is a cum laude graduate of Emporia State University, Kansas, where she studied communication, with additional biology and pre-medicine coursework.
National Library Week (April 19–25) arrives each year with cheerful slogans about literacy, community and the joy of reading. But behind the celebration stands the American Library Association (ALA), an organization that has shifted dramatically from its original mission. Today, the ALA functions less like a professional association and more like an activist hub advancing a highly ideological agenda — one that increasingly conflicts with the values of American families and the constitutional rights of parents.
This is not speculation. It is openly acknowledged by the ALA’s own leadership. The organization’s recent president has publicly described herself as a “Marxist lesbian,” a label she embraces as part of her political identity and governing philosophy. Her statements are not the issue; her ideology is. When the head of the nation’s most influential library organization proudly aligns herself with Marxist principles — a worldview fundamentally at odds with parental authority, individual liberty and local control — it raises legitimate questions about the direction of the ALA and the policies it promotes.
And those policies increasingly undermine the rights of parents and the legal protections afforded to minors.
For more than a century, the U.S. Supreme Court has affirmed that parents have the fundamental right to direct the upbringing, education and moral development of their children. Cases such as Pierce v. Society of Sisters (1925) and Troxel v. Granville (2000) make clear that this authority does not originate with the state. Parental rights are fundamental, inferred by the Constitution in the rights bestowed on us by our Creator as opposed to being specifically enumerated.
Yet the ALA’s policy framework treats parents as intruders rather than primary stakeholders. The organization routinely encourages libraries to adopt policies that give minors unrestricted access to sexually explicit or developmentally inappropriate material, even over parental objections. When parents raise concerns, the ALA does not engage them as partners. It labels them “book banners,” “censors” or “extremists.”
This is not merely dismissive. It is legally backwards. Public institutions do not have the authority to override parental rights simply because an activist organization urges them to.
The left has executed one of the most effective rhetorical maneuvers in recent political memory: redefining any parental objection as a “book ban.” By collapsing all distinctions — between adult and minor, between access and placement, between removal and relocation — they have created a narrative in which even the most reasonable boundaries become authoritarian threats.
But the law draws distinctions for a reason.
Courts have long recognized that the government has a legitimate interest in protecting minors from obscene or sexually explicit material. Public schools and libraries are not required to provide children with unrestricted access to everything ever printed. They never have been.
Parents who object to graphic sexual content in a children’s section are not banning books. They are exercising their constitutional right — and moral duty, ordained to us by God — to protect their children.
The ALA’s “book ban” narrative is not a defense of freedom. It is a political weapon designed to silence parents and shield ideological content from scrutiny.
Public libraries and school libraries are funded by taxpayers and accountable to local communities. They are not private advocacy groups. Yet the ALA encourages libraries to adopt policies that elevate activist priorities over community standards and parental authority.
When a national organization with openly ideological leadership pressures local institutions to disregard parental concerns, it is not promoting intellectual freedom. It is undermining democratic accountability.
National Library Week, in this context, becomes less a celebration of literacy and more a branding exercise — a way to sanctify the ALA’s agenda and portray any criticism as an attack on libraries themselves.
The ALA’s recent president’s self‑description as a “Marxist lesbian” is not relevant because of her identity. It is relevant because Marxism is a political ideology that rejects the primacy of the family, elevates the state over parental authority, and views children as instruments of social transformation.
When the leader of the nation’s most influential library organization embraces that worldview, it is reasonable to ask how it shapes the ALA’s policies — especially its insistence that librarians, not parents, should determine what minors can access.
This is not about personal attacks. It is about transparency, governance and the ideological direction of an organization that wields enormous influence over public institutions.
Conservatives should be clear, confident and unapologetic:
Protecting minors from graphic sexual content is not censorship. It is a legal and moral obligation.
Parents have a constitutional right to guide their children’s education and exposure to sensitive material.
Taxpayer‑funded institutions must respect community standards, not override them.
The ALA’s leadership and policies reflect an ideological agenda, not neutral librarianship.
The “book ban” narrative is a political strategy designed to silence parents, not a reflection of legal reality.
National Library Week could be a unifying celebration of literacy and civic life. Instead, it has become a platform for an organization that seeks to redefine parental rights and reshape public institutions according to its own ideological commitments.
The debate is not about banning books. It is about who has the authority to protect children — and the law is clear: that authority belongs to parents.
Sheri Few is a contributor to The Daily Caller News Foundation and the Founder and President of United States Parents Involved in Education (USPIE), whose mission is to end the U.S. Department of Education and all federal education mandates. Few speaks regularly on radio and television across the country and served as Executive Producer for the documentary film titled “Truth & Lies in American Education.” Few is also the host of USPIE’spodcast, “Unmasking Government Schools with Sheri Few,” which educates Americans on the various forms of indoctrination, harmful policies and affronts to parents’ rights occurring in government schools across the country.Listen to “Unmasking Government Schools with Sheri Few” on YouTube, Facebook, Spotify and X.
During the most recent election for the Scottsdale Unified School District (SUSD) Governing Board, one slate of candidates campaigned on fiscal responsibility, academic excellence, parental rights, school safety, and a simple message: Just be honest.
That vision sounds appealing, but it doesn’t reflect where things stand today. For students and parents in SUSD, the reality has fallen short.
Unfortunately for the SUSD community, the three board members elected in the last election have lived up to their promise to “protect SUSD,” meaning protect Superintendent Scott Menzel.
Look at the records of Pittinsky, Sharkey and Lewis. What meaningful policy or solutions to any of the issues in SUSD have they offered? They haven’t. They only attack Member Carney and Member Werner when they make a proposal. Dr. Lewis is basically useless letting Menzel run the show. Pittinsky, Sharkey and Lewis don’t seem to understand that Menzel works for them, and they work for the SUSD community.
SUSD is close to reaching a point of no return. And it may not survive another year of Menzel and this governing board.
Elections have consequences.
A review of the past few months shows just how bad things have gotten in SUSD.
Despite repeated assurances about transparency, open communication, and a willingness to listen, Dr. Menzel has failed to consistently follow through. Keeping the community fully informed and being honest with the SUSD community when it matters most, has often been lacking during Dr. Menzel’s tenure as superintendent.
It’s also worth remembering that during his tenure at SUSD, Dr. Menzel has been cited by the Arizona Attorney General’s Office for multiple violations of the state’s Open Meeting Law. For those who want to review it themselves, see Az Attorney General Opinion I24-004.
As a recent example of Menzel struggling with the truth, during the SUSD Governing Board Regular Meeting 1/6/2026 (@1:23:53 – 1:24:13), explaining what he had said to parents at Copper Ridge and Cheyenne, Dr. Menzel said, “…it made sense to move quickly to get feedback…[Emphasis added]”
Fast forward to SUSD Governing Board Meeting 3/10/2026 (@1:32:20 -1:32:41), where Dr. Menzel told the board that at the meetings with the Phase II families, “…the surveys would go out after we identified the three options to get feedback on what’s possible. So that would likely be late May, early June after the committee gets the chance to do its work [Emphasis added].”
Not only did Menzel tell two different stories about what he told the parents, but he conveniently left out that once the committee completes its work on May 7th, the community will be surveyed, and that feedback will then be filtered and evaluated by District team members. (See slides 6 & 7 SUSD Phase II Design Advisory Team Meeting 1 March 26,2026.)
The results will then be presented to the Governing Board in October for a final decision. By that point, after the District staff has “vetted” the input, it’s hard not to expect recommendations that align with Menzel’s stated goal of “disrupting and dismantling” and reducing the footprint of SUSD.
The discussion at the board meeting on December 9, 2025, offers a revealing look at the kind of leadership guiding SUSD. The SUSD Governing Board Regular Meeting 12/9/2025 is particularly informative if you want to understand who sits on the board and how they approach transparency and community input. While I’ve highlighted a few key moments below, it’s worth listening to the full exchange on forming advisory committees, from the 1:12:36 mark to 1:32:26.
It’s also important to remember that the three newest board members were elected on the strength of their professional backgrounds and extensive experience in public education. The current board president has even been recognized as a superintendent of the year. Yet, based on this discussion, there are questions about their grasp of core aspects of Arizona law and parental rights in education.
Dr. Menzel, for his part, brings a long career in public education. He is clearly experienced in navigating these conversations, often speaking at length while offering few direct answers to the concerns raised by the community. Menzel is much more of a politician than a school superintendent.
The last time Dr. Menzel appears to have spoken most candidly about who he is may have been during his tenure as superintendent of Michigan’s Washtenaw Intermediate School District. On May 14, 2019, he participated in an interview with WISD employee David Spitzel titled, Public Schools and Social Justice: An Interview With Dr. Scott Menzel, which was published on June 7, 2019, about a year before the SUSD Governing Board hired him in 2020.
It’s worth reading that interview. It provides insight into his views on equity, inclusion, and social justice, and offers context for his stated goal of “disrupting and dismantling” SUSD.
That interview was available to the Board prior to his hiring. Either it wasn’t carefully reviewed, raising questions about the thoroughness of the vetting process, or it was reviewed and aligned with what the Board was seeking at the time. Based on the Board’s actions since Menzel’s hiring, the latter seems more likely.
As if his focus on gender identity, social emotional learning (SEL), DEI and the lack of attention to academics haven’t done enough damage to SUSD with its declining enrollment resulting in a $8M-$9M budget shortfall, now he is, with the full support of the progressives on the Board, closing schools.
Elections have consequences.
On April 29, 2025, SUSD staff presented to the Governing Board, reporting a continued decline in district enrollment, which they attributed to factors outside of the district’s control, while at the same time ignoring the feedback from parents who have left the district citing issues that are within the control of the district but are not being addressed (Strategic Enrollment Planning Study Session, slides 29 – 31).
Based on this trend, they projected a budget shortfall beginning in fiscal year 2026–2027. This meeting also marked the first time the Governing Board formally discussed the potential need to consider school closures.
Despite the commitments Dr. Menzel made in his message on the SUSD website titled School Repurposing and Enrollment Review, the process has not unfolded in that manner.
He stated:
“As we work through this process, it is important to remember that while district leadership may bring forward recommendations, the Governing Board makes the final decisions. We are committed to keeping you informed, listening to your input, and ensuring transparency every step of the way.”
— Dr. Scott A. Menzel, Superintendent
Follow the link to the site and note how, even after months, significant portions still read “coming soon.” The page continues to state that a Phase II Design Team is being developed, even though the team has already met multiple times. Under Community Engagement, the site highlights a “commitment to transparency and open communication,” which raises an important question: why were so many parents, and even Board members, surprised by the proposed closures of Echo Canyon and Pima schools?
Listening to comments from parents of those schools during fall Board meetings, it is difficult to reconcile their experiences with claims of transparency and meaningful engagement.
On October 7, 2025, the Board voted to schedule the legally required public hearing on school closures for November 13, 2025. Then, on December 9, 2025, the Board narrowly approved, by a 3–2 vote, the closure of Echo Canyon and Pima Schools as Phase I of the District’s plan to address the projected budget shortfall.
On November 18, 2025, after the public hearing and less than 30 days before the vote to close two schools, Dr. Menzel presented his vision for a “vibrant and thriving SUSD,” outlining a two-phase approach (and a potential Phase III) to addressing the deficit. Phases I and II are focused on reducing the SUSD footprint. Phase I included the closure of Echo Canyon and Pima. Phase II proposed additional closures, including Redfield and Laguna, along with boundary and school reconfiguration changes involving Cheyenne Traditional School, Copper Ridge, Desert Canyon ES and MS. The presentation, A Vibrant and Thriving SUSD: Reducing our footprint to increase our impact, is available for review.
“So, on October 7th, I voted no to scheduling the public hearing regarding the potential closure repurposing of Echo and Pima because I believe that one of the things we should have done first before going down that road or this road of closures and repurposing was to create a board advisory oversight committee to gather data, have community input and weigh in on solutions.”
Her full comments can be heard from 1:12:36 to 1:15:25.
The Board then continued its discussion, with Member Sharkey asking at approximately 1:16:34 what Member Carney was requesting. He stated:
“It’s my understanding, and correct me if I’m wrong, if this is a board committee that really limits the communication, it’s subject to open meeting law the same as we are as opposed to a much more interactive committee, so I just want to make sure what I’m hearing [Emphasis added].”
This raises an important question: what does “much more interactive” mean? A board committee that operates under Arizona Open Meeting Law, where meetings are publicly noticed and open to attendance, or a superintendent-appointed committee operating outside that structure? Member Carney clarified her concerns at 1:16:58 –1:17:32:
“I’m asking for a board advisory committee. We’ve had superintendent committees that came to this conclusion tonight and we don’t even know who was on them or what work was done on them. I’m asking for a board advisory committee that the public is also asking for so that everyone can be involved, everyone has input and we can come to solutions together.”
Dr. Menzel then responded, explaining the distinction between committee types at 1:17:49–1:18:14:
“…that any committee established by the Board is subject to open meeting law, which means all of the agendas have to be posted 24 hours in advance, it’s got to follow all of those rules in terms of reporting of the minutes and that process. It is perfectly acceptable as an alternative, but it slows the process down in part, you can be more nimble with the superintendent-appointed committee [Emphasis added].”
When asked about transparency differences between the two models, he added at 1:18:50–1:19:17:
“So, all of the information that’s collected is still subject to public records request, so that would be available to the public.”
However, access through public records requests is not the same as attending meetings, hearing deliberations in real time, or participating in an open process.
Board President Dr. Lewis then suggested a possible “solution” to the problem. The problem she is trying to solve is whether or not to meet their legal obligations and responsibilities under the open meeting law or continue has they did in Phase I and hide what they are doing from the public. Listen to her comments at 1:19:20–1:19:38:
“So, in the name of flexibility and expediency, and being able to work as a superintendent’s committee keeping minutes and expressing those minutes more transparently might be the solution [Emphasis added].”
She continued at 1:20:58–1:21:17:
“…so, if committees are formed at our suggestion for the work to be vetted and we say it’s a superintendent’s committee, and there’s a posting of welcome … please try and get on this committee with us, we could help advocate for committee members without it blurring the lines.”
Later in the discussion, Member Werner noted at 1:24:26–1:25:35 that:
“Clearly, our community and families and staff have been blindsided, and this process has not been effective…”
Member Pittinsky also acknowledged confusion about the committee distinctions but stated:
“…do I believe that we should have more mechanisms for the community to be involved in the decisions that will follow tonight’s vote, whichever direction it goes as well as the decisions that are ahead? Absolutely.”
That comment can be heard at 1:26:00–1:26:39.
Pittinsky always talks but he does nothing to make anything happen. Rather than offering any kind of ideas to turn his words, (“more mechanisms for the community to be involved”) into action, he just pushes back on Member Carney.
Elections have consequences, and the current direction of SUSD reflects the outcome of those choices.
The governing board now operates with a progressive majority that has supported Superintendent Menzel’s approach to restructuring the district and closing schools. A Phase II Design Committee has already begun meeting outside of public view, with its findings expected to be reviewed by district staff before being presented to the Board in October.
Those recommendations are anticipated to align with the Phase II framework outlined in Menzel’s presentation, “A Vibrant and Thriving SUSD: Reducing our footprint to increase our impact.”
“This team will guide the development of a comprehensive strategic plan designed to increase enrollment across all CLC schools and strengthen academic outcomes for all students. The work of the Design Team will help ensure that the Coronado Learning Community remains strong, sustainable, and focused on student success.”
This raises a broader question: if increasing enrollment and strengthening programs across CLC is a goal, why not make it a goal for the entire district? Why were proposals centered on school closures and consolidation prioritized before broader district-wide alternatives were fully explored?
Members Carney and Werner have argued that school closures should be a last resort and have advocated for earlier, more inclusive evaluation of alternatives, including district-wide strategies to increase enrollment and stabilize schools.
For many in the community, that contrast highlights a concern about process and priorities, particularly whether all viable options are being fully considered before decisions are made.
Elections have consequences, and those consequences are now playing out in how these decisions are being shaped and implemented.
SUSD needs a change in leadership.
Mike Bengert is a husband, father, grandfather, and Scottsdale resident advocating for quality education in SUSD for over 30 years.
Proximity to the people does not prevent abuse of power. In fact, it often does the opposite. Municipal governments enact restrictive policies just as easily as state or federal governments and often with less scrutiny.
There is a myth in America that the closer government is to the people, the more checks exist and the better the governance. By that logic, local governments, city and town councils, being closest to the people, must be the least corrupt and most responsive. Because of this, municipalities and their proponents constantly argue that they should be free to govern their communities without interference, or as it’s often framed, maintain “local control.”
The local control argument might seem intuitive, however, does shifting power from one level of government to another actually protect individual freedom? The burden on the people is the same, if not more, whether bad policy comes in the form of higher taxes, increased fees, restrictive regulations, or costly utility rate hikes from federal, state, or local government.
In Gilbert, residents have been outraged by astronomical water bills and rate increases, decisions made not in Washington, D.C. or in Phoenix, but by their own local government. Proximity did not protect them; it made the impact more immediate. Gilbert is not the only town with unceasing increased costs, municipalities across Arizona are raising taxes, fees, and rates (good thing there is a resolution moving through the legislature to alleviate this)…
