🚨A Tale of 82 Smurfs: Massive Money Laundering Fraud in the Democratic Party — Showcasing Missouri Congressman Wesley Bell
If I told you that 82 senior citizens that average 75 years old donated $11,516,000 in over 537,000 separate individual donations would you believe me?
Me neither!
According to the FEC, this group of senior citizens that average 75 years of age did just that!
Note: (The ages were determined with google searches that included the addresses and names.)
These donations of more than half a million separate donations (allegedly) only average $21.41 each.
Why?
That way the “masters of political money laundering” had hoped to stay “under the radar”. It worked for almost two decades. In the last few years investigative reporters such as James O Keefe, Peter Bernegger and Bob Cushman have foiled this great conspiracy that is believed to have laundered somewhere over a billion dollars in the last two decades through ActBlue with the probable complicity of the FEC.
This is what we call “smurfing” AKA money laundering.
This is illegal!
What is smurfing? “Smurfing” involves making many small financial transactions to avoid reporting thresholds (e.g., for money laundering). In political campaign law there are two important functions which are “bypassed”.
It is generally required that the actual name of the donor be assigned to each donation.
There are strict limits on how much an individual may contribute.
In “smurfing” (i.e. money laundering) these laws are ignored.
(Note: This report is an expansion of a previous analysis of 72 smurfs. This report adds 10 smurfs that are found contributing to Missouri Congressman Wesly Bell.)
82 Smurfs Exposed!
The 82 smurf table above was accomplished by combining previously discovered smurfs as follows.
➡ 20 smurfs attributed to Cory Booker (Corey Booker was the common denominator in terms of campaign committees that paid large sum of money to the business interests of Judge Mechan’s daughter. All 20 smurfs donated to Bookers campaign committee thru ActBlue.)I have reported my findings of laundered money to the Judge Merchan family in a letter to the judiciary Committee/ Jim Jordan. In my research utilizing the FEC database I identified 20 money mules AKA “Smurfs” whose identities that I believed were stolen to launder money to money to various democratic entities. Isn’t it remarkable that just 20 individuals are shown to have donated about 2.6 million dollars in about 188,000 donations! Note Loren Merchan is the daughter of Judge Juan Merchan.)
➡ 22 smurfs attributed to Mark Kelly (AZ Senator and The Seditious Six Leader) – bjhi89In late 2025 and early 2026, U.S. Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ), a retired Navy captain and astronaut, became the subject of intense scrutiny and administrative action by the Department of Defense (DoD) under Secretary Pete Hegseth, following accusations of “sedition” made by President Donald Trump.
The “Seditious” Allegation – The Video: In November 2025, Senator Kelly and five other Democratic lawmakers with military or intelligence backgrounds released a video message to U.S. service members, stating: “Our laws are clear: you can refuse illegal orders”.
The Reaction: President Trump accused the lawmakers of “seditious behavior,” initially suggesting in a social media post that it was “punishable by DEATH”. Pentagon Action: Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth labelled the comments as “seditious in nature” and a violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). Hegseth claimed that by telling troops to refuse orders, Kelly was undermining the chain of command and engaging in “reckless misconduct”.
➡ 10 smurfs attributed to Fani Willis (Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and her office were removed from the Trump case after the Georgia Court of Appeals ruled there was an appearance of impropriety tied to Willis’ romantic relationship with the special prosecutor she appointed to lead the case. A replacement prosecutor dismissed the case in November.)
➡ 10 smurfs attributed to Tim Walz ( Governor Tim Walz faces intense criticism, primarily from Republicans, for massive fraud in Minnesota’s social programs (like child care and school meals) occurring under his watch, with allegations of “money laundering” through fraudulent claims. President Trump has vowed to get to the truth in this case.)
➡ 10 smurfs attributed to Congresswoman Ilhan Omar. (In January 2026, U.S. Representative Ilhan Omar (D-MN) is at the center of intense scrutiny and multiple investigations related to large-scale fraud within Minnesota’s Somali community and her own personal finances.)
➡ 10 Smurfs attributed to Missouri Congressman Wesley Bell. ◦ Wesley Bell, the U.S. Representative for Missouri’s 1st District and former St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney, has faced several controversies and “problems” involving campaign finances, government spending, and political backlash ◦ Campaign Funds Used for Luxury Vehicle: In 2024, Bell’s campaign reportedly spent $35,000 to purchase a luxury Denali Ultimate SUV, a move that has drawn scrutiny from ethics watchdogs regarding the personal use of campaign funds. ◦ Staffer Altercation: During a heated town hall in August 2025, a staffer or associate of Bell was reportedly involved in a physical altercation with a protester, leading to further local condemnation.
82 Smurfs feeding the Democratic Party Money Laundering
The chart in image 3 below, shows some of the primary recipients of the 11.5 million dollars that pretty much describes the Democratic Party. There are more but this cross-section should serve as a clear indication of the purposeful management/direction of this Massive Money Laundering effort.
Who received this laundered money?
The names include, but are not limited to:
Gretchen Whitmer – Gov MI Fani Willis – DA – Ga Tim Walz – Gov – MN Ilhan Omar – Congress – MN DNC – Democratic National Committee DCCC – Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee DSCC – Democratic Senate Campaign Committee Progressive Takeover – Hybrid PAC Hillary Clinton Kamala Harris Joe Biden Cory Booker Mark Kelly Nancy Pelosi Chuck Schumer Adam Schiff Elissa Slotkin Raphael Warnock Jon Ossoff Elizabeth Warren Amy Klobuchar Gary Peters John Fetterman Hakeem Jeffries Maggie For NH
Why is this happening?
It seems clear to this me that the purpose of this smurfing (money laundering) is to provide “under the cover of darkness” large sums of money to Democratic candidates and committees and escape the limits of contributions and the revelations of the source of this money.
Democratic consultant James Carville says Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker could potentially be his party’s best choice to lead Democrats to victory in the 2028 presidential election.
[Q: do you think Pritzker will be our next president? ]
Carville sat down for a Fox TV interview and said the following:
”If I had to say one guy… I’d take JB Pritzker,” ….this was in a response to the question of who Carville could see carirying the Democrat flag into 2028 
Carville was asked which Democrat he could see carrying the flag into 2028.
Starting January 1, 2026, Illinois landlords (yes — including Chicago) are required to add a new mandatory document to EVERY residential lease and renewal under the Safer Homes Act.
And no — this is not optional.
Here’s the breakdown 👇
🏠 What you MUST do at lease signing:
Attach the “Summary of Rights for Safer Homes” as the FIRST page of the lease
Every adult tenant must sign or initial EVERY page of that summary
This applies to new leases AND renewals
Keep it on file with your lease documents
📌 Why this matters:
This document educates tenants on important safety rights, including protections related to domestic or sexual violence, emergency lock changes, confidentiality, and protections from retaliation.
Whether you agree with it or not — the law requires disclosure.
⚠️ If you DON’T do this:
Your lease signing can be considered non-compliant
Tenants may be entitled to damages
You could be responsible for court costs and attorney fees
And yes — it can be used against you in a dispute
⚠️ What Happens If You Don’t Comply
Failing to include the Summary of Rights and get tenant signatures can be costly:
Potential Consequences
🔹 Tenant can pursue actual damages up to $2,000
🔹 OR the statutory minimum of $100 per violation
🔹 Court costs and attorney’s fees if the tenant wins a claim based on your failure to provide the summary
Even though these amounts may seem limited, fee shifting (tenant’s ability to recover attorney’s fees) can make disputes expensive and time consuming.
That’s why compliance isn’t optional — it’s a legal requirement for all written leases in Illinois as of January 1, 2026.
💡 Bottom line:
This is a paperwork requirement that protects tenants and protects you — but only if you do it correctly.
If you’re still using old lease packets or “winging it” at lease signing… this is your sign to stop.
Education is key.
Process is power.
Compliance saves you money.
📄 👉 Official Document (Summary of Rights for Safer Homes Act):
🚨 “JUDGE, JURY, AND EXECUTIONER”: Rep. Thomas Massie Moves to Defund Vehicle ‘Kill Switches’ 🚨
The battle for the future of your dashboard is heating up on Capitol Hill. Representative Thomas Massie (R-KY), joined by Scott Perry (R-PA) and Chip Roy (R-TX), has officially offered an amendment to defund a federal mandate that could require all new cars to be equipped with “kill switch” technology as early as 2026.
The “Dystopian” Mandate 🏛️⚖️
Massie slammed Section 24220 of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), which directs the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to mandate “advanced drunk and impaired driving prevention technology” in new vehicles.
Massie warned that the tech would allow your car to passively monitor your driving and disable itself if the system “disapproves” of your performance. “How do you appeal your sentence once your car has judged you to be incapable of driving?” Massie asked.
Massie painted a grim picture of a mother stranded with her children in a blizzard after her car “grounded” her for swerving to avoid a pothole or a patch of ice.
From debate:
Chair: It is now in order to consider amendment number one printed in part B of House Report 119-462. For what purpose does the gentleman from Kentucky seek recognition?
Mr. Massie: Mr. Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.
The Clerk: The Clerk shall designate the amendment.
Amendment number one printed in part B of House Report number 119-462, offered by Mr. Massie of Kentucky.
Pursuant to House Resolution 1014, the gentleman from Kentucky, Mr. Massie, and a member opposed each will control five minutes. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Kentucky.
Mr. Massie: Mr. Chair, I rise in support of our amendment. This is co-sponsored by Mr. Perry from Pennsylvania and Mr. Roy from Texas, and I regret that we have to offer this amendment. What I’m going to describe will probably sound like a bad science fiction movie, but that’s what’s written into law. Right now in law, that’s going to be implemented for the—it says for 2026 and beyond. Now the reality is the technology doesn’t exist, but that doesn’t keep legislators from imagining things that they would like to do to infringe on civil liberties. But there’s a law that states that every vehicle manufactured is going to have to have a kill switch in it. The car itself will monitor your driving, and if the car thinks that you’re not doing a good job driving, it will disable itself. So the car dashboard becomes your judge, your jury, and your executioner. Imagine this: we got a snowstorm coming. A mom takes her kids out, they’re going to the grocery store. It’s snowing. They’re trying to get some groceries before the big storm hits. She swerves for a pothole. The neighbor’s pet gets in the way, swerves for that. A first responder goes by. She pulls over. Her car says, you got one more swerve and then we’re going to ground you. There it is. The next thing she has to avoid, an icy patch in the road, the car has adjudicated her as unsuitable for driving. It disables the vehicle and there she’s stranded. My question is, how do you appeal your sentence once your car, the technology in your car has judged you to be incapable of driving? Once it’s disabled you and your children at the side of the road, how do you appeal that? Do you press a button on the dashboard? Do you start talking to an AI? What if it really was somebody who was drunk? Are you really going to send a police car after this disabled vehicle? Do we have the resources to do that? There’s going to be so many false positives. The technology is unworkable. That’s why the DOT is still in the rulemaking process, trying—asking for feedback on how this thing could even exist. And it’s just a bad idea but it’s in law, and so our amendment would defund that. And with that, I’d like to reserve the balance of my time.
The gentleman reserves. The gentleman from Kentucky is recognized.
Mr. Massie: Mr. Chairman, drunk driving is a serious problem, but 31 states already have the technology to keep drunk drivers off of the road with ignition interlock devices that they can mandate. And this technology that’s in the law is not going to fix the drunk driving problem. With that, I’d like to yield two minutes to my friend from Pennsylvania, Mr. Perry.
The gentleman from Pennsylvania is yielded two minutes.
Mr. Perry: I thank the gentleman from Kentucky for his work on this and, of course, the chairman of the full committee for the hard work on appropriations. Look, none of us want to be on the road with drunk drivers, and of course, this was a solution intended to deal with them. And all of us want them to be dealt with, but I’m going to remind everybody, as my friend from Kentucky just said, there is already legislation in multiple states—dozens of states—that deal with drunk drivers through the ignition interlock system. Probably in your family somewhere, someone you know, you’ve dealt with this. I know in my family and the people I know, I’ve dealt with it. But here’s what I don’t want to see in America: everybody being punished for the people that drink and drive, including the ones that don’t drink and drive. I happen not to drink, but I’m going to be forced to have this thing in my car and I’m going to just tell you what’s next. After what Thomas said—after what Representative Massie said—the car is going to be the judge, jury, and sentencer for your crime in the car. The next thing is going to be, well, we need to hook this thing up to the government so we can dispatch the police. I’m just going to tell you what’s going to happen next. They’re going to be shutting your car off when they decide, whatever they decide from wherever they decide it. Ladies and gentlemen, I don’t know about what you think about due process and the Constitution and the Fourth Amendment and the right to not be imposed upon by illegal, unlawful search and seizure, but punishing everybody for this crime—whether they’ve committed it or not, if they’re going to commit it or not—should be unconstitutional. This shouldn’t really be a question. We all want to get to the problem, and we’re happy to work with everybody on all sides to deal with it. But you cannot punish, convict, convict and punish everybody in the country for the sake of the ones that do things that they shouldn’t do. And with that, I yield the balance to the gentleman from Kentucky.
The gentleman from Kentucky is recognized.
Mr. Massie: Last time we offered this amendment, it had bipartisan support. I urge my colleagues to vote for this amendment. It would defund an unconstitutional and unworkable mandate that has already missed the deadlines. And with that, I yield back.
Before the weekend ends and America moves on to the next headline, we need to pause and look at a story that matters more than almost any other—the collapse of Venezuela, and what it warns us about if the last democratic superpower ever falls the same way.
This didn’t happen overnight. It happened step by step, over one generation.
VENEZUELA: HOW A PROSPEROUS NATION COLLAPSED
1992 Venezuela is the 3rd richest country in the Western Hemisphere, powered by oil and a growing middle class.
1997 Venezuelans become the 2nd largest buyers of Ford F-150s—a sign of widespread prosperity.
1998 Hugo Chávez is elected, promising to “redistribute wealth” and fix inequality.
2001 The country votes again for socialism, framed as compassion and fairness.
2003 The government imposes price controls and currency controls. Black markets appear. Shortages begin.
2004 Private healthcare is fully socialized.
2006 Inflation rises sharply as massive welfare programs expand without real economic backing.
2007 All higher education becomes “free.”
2008 Key industries—oil services, steel, cement, telecom—are nationalized. Production drops almost immediately.
2009 Private gun ownership is banned.
2010 The currency is devalued by 50%, crushing savings and accelerating inflation.
2011 Oil production begins a steady decline due to mismanagement and lack of investment.
2012 American politicians, like Bernie Sanders, publicly praise Venezuela’s model.
2013 Chávez dies. Nicolás Maduro takes power and tightens state control.
2014 Opposition leaders are arrested or silenced.
2015 GDP collapses. Hyperinflation begins.
2016 Severe food and medical shortages spread nationwide.
2017 The constitution is suspended. Elections are no longer meaningful.
2018 Inflation exceeds 1,000,000%. Maduro “wins” a widely fraudulent election.
2019 Unarmed civilians are killed by their own government.
2020 More than 8 million people flee the country to escape hunger and repression.
2023 Minor economic improvements fail to relieve mass poverty.
2024 Disputed elections trigger protests and global isolation.
2026 Maduro is removed by force. Venezuela is liberated after decades of ruin.
THE HARD TRUTH
It took one generation of “progressive” leadership to turn one of the richest countries on Earth into a nation defined by hunger, fear, mass graves, and mass migration.
This is the lesson history keeps teaching:
You can vote your way into socialism. But history shows people only escape it through collapse, violence, or foreign intervention.
And here is the part Americans must understand clearly:
If this happens in the United States, there will be nobody coming to save us.
No outside superpower. No rescue force. No second chance.
Freedom is fragile. Prosperity is not guaranteed. And once lost, they are brutally hard to recover.
Venezuela’s people paid the price. America cannot afford to learn this lesson the same way.
I don’t think suspect in yesterday’s confrontation with federal agents, woke up that day planning to get killed. I really don’t. What I do think is that she probably thought she was provoking them in a way that would end with her getting yanked out of the car, maybe shoved to the ground, detained, something ugly but non-lethal. The kind of thing that turns into a viral video where they get to play the victims and paint ICE as monsters. That’s a scenario people assume is safe, especially if they’ve been around activism long enough to believe the script always ends the same way.
If her girlfriend was already outside the vehicle filming, that tells me this wasn’t spontaneous panic. That looks like intent to capture a moment. Maybe they thought, “We’ll push, they’ll overreact, we’ll get content.” I’m sure she didn’t think she’d get shot. I’m sure she thought she was in control of the situation.
But then reality intervenes. Maybe she didn’t see the officer in front of the car. Maybe she had tunnel vision and was focused on the agent next to her. But she did accelerate forward, and once a vehicle is moving toward an officer, the situation changes instantly. At that point, whether she meant to or not, she put herself into a lethal scenario, and she lost her life.
That’s tragic. It’s also not the same thing as “this just happened for no reason.”
And if it turns out there’s evidence that this was coordinated… that the girlfriend was setting this up, encouraging it, orchestrating it to get a viral confrontation… then yeah, I think she should face charges too. Not just because someone died, but because if you help engineer a dangerous situation and someone ends up dead, you don’t get to wash your hands of it afterward.
Sympathy doesn’t mean pretending people had no agency. And accountability doesn’t mean saying someone deserved to die. Both things can be true at the same time.
Trump Isn’t “Pirating Ships” — He Must Seize and Sell 300 Venezuelan Oil Tankers to Satisfy an International Court Judgment Owed to U.S. Companies
A lot of people are reacting emotionally to the idea of oil tankers being seized, but most of the outrage comes from not understanding what is actually being discussed. So let’s slow this down and explain it clearly, legally, and step by step. This is not war. This is not piracy. This is judgment enforcement — the same principle used every day when courts seize bank accounts, property, aircraft, or cargo from someone who lost in court and refuses to pay.
What Venezuela did (the part that always gets skipped) In the 2000s, under Hugo Chávez, Venezuela seized oil projects owned by foreign companies, including major U.S. firms such as ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips. This wasn’t a policy disagreement. It was expropriation: • Contracts were broken • Assets were taken • Compensation that had been agreed to was not paid That is not controversial. It is historical fact.
What the courts decided Those U.S. companies didn’t complain on social media. They went to international arbitration and U.S. courts — the proper legal venues. They won. The rulings were: • Final • Binding • Enforceable Venezuela lost and was ordered to pay tens of billions of dollars in damages.
The real problem: Venezuela refused to pay Here is the key point most critics ignore: Venezuela refused to comply with the court judgments. In any legal system — domestic or international — when a party: • Loses in court • Owes a judgment • Refuses to pay …the law allows creditors to seize commercial assets belonging to the debtor outside its borders to satisfy the judgment. This is called judgment enforcement. Countries do not get a free pass simply because they are countries.
Why oil tankers even enter the conversation Venezuela’s primary commercial asset is oil. Oil moves on oil tankers. Those tankers: • Carry state-owned Venezuelan oil • Are commercial property, not military or diplomatic assets • Can be lawfully seized by court order in cooperating jurisdictions This is no different in principle from seizing: • A bank account • A plane • A shipment of goods Calling this “piracy” is legally incorrect. Piracy is theft without lawful authority. This is court-ordered seizure to collect a debt already ruled on.
The math everyone avoids Let’s use conservative, realistic numbers so no one can claim exaggeration. • Estimated unpaid court judgments: ~$35 billion • Oil price used: $62 per barrel • Typical large oil tanker (VLCC): ~2 million barrels
Value of one full tanker: • Gross value: ~$124 million • Net value after realistic court-sale discounts: ~$115 million
Now do the math:
$35,000,000,000 ÷ $115,000,000 ≈ 300 tankers That’s where the number comes from. Not one tanker. Not ten. About three hundred. One tanker only covers about one-third of one percent of what Venezuela owes.
What this means — and what it does NOT mean This does not mean: • Tankers are being randomly grabbed • This is a military action • The goal is punishment It does mean: • Courts already ruled • A debt legally exists • Enforcement is the only option left when payment is refused When Donald Trump talks about seizing oil shipments, he is not inventing a new power. He is talking about using existing legal authority to enforce judgments Venezuela already lost.
In plain English:
You took property, you lost in court, you refused to pay — so your commercial assets are seized and sold until the debt is satisfied. That is how the rule of law works.
Why you don’t see hundreds of tankers seized Because enforcement is: • Legally narrow • Jurisdiction-dependent • Deliberately targeted Venezuela also structured its exports to: • Avoid enforceable ports • Use intermediaries • Break shipments into smaller pieces So tanker seizures are rare, careful, and strategic, not mass roundups. Tankers are leverage, not a magic wand. The bottom line • Venezuela seized U.S. assets • Venezuela lost in international court • Venezuela refuses to pay • The debt is ~$35 billion • A tanker is worth ~$115 million net • It would take ~300 Venezuelan oil tankers to make the judgment whole This is lawful enforcement, not piracy. This is accounting, not aggression. This is what happens when court rulings are ignored. People arguing “this sounds extreme” are missing the most important fact: The court already decided. Once that happens, enforcement isn’t optional — it’s inevitable. Everything else flows from that reality.
Maduro getting arrested just shook the whole board.
Everybody thinks this is just about Venezuela.
It ain’t. 
This isn’t a victory lap. It’s not bloodlust. And it’s not me excusing anything evil done in the name of “politics.”
It’s an explanation. Because power always has a pattern.
Read this slowly. If it makes you mad, ask yourself who you’re mad at. Then read it again.
Here’s the big idea.
Tyrants don’t fall because CNN suddenly finds a conscience. They fall when the money shifts. When protection runs out. When the cost of keeping them gets higher than the benefit. 
No accidents. No “random timing.”
What happened, in plain English.
U.S. officials say there were strikes in and around Caracas. And President Trump announced Maduro was captured and flown out. 
That ain’t a normal headline. That’s the kind of move you only see when the government wants the whole world to notice.
⸻
Why is this good?
Because Maduro’s been accused for years of running his country like a c•rtel in a suit. The U.S. filed charges back in 2020 for n•rco-t•rrorism and c•caine tr•fficking conspiracies. 
And the U.S. government had a standing reward for information leading to his arrest and conviction, later raised as high as $50 million. 
Whether you love Trump or hate him, this part matters.
A message got sent:
“Some of y’all ain’t untouchable anymore.” 
Why is Maduro a bad man?
Because his rule has been tied to authoritarian control and a nation getting crushed. When a leader won’t let his people choose, won’t let the truth breathe, and keeps the machine fed while families starve, that’s not “leadership.”
That’s oppression wearing a flag pin. 
Now the part folks in the U.S. need to understand.
This can hit America in three ways.
First, dr•gs.
If the U.S. is serious about c•rtel-style regimes pushing poison north, this is a warning shot to every “government” that makes money off tr•fficking. 
Second, immigration.
If Venezuela destabilizes more, people flee. And guess where a chunk of that pressure lands.
Right here. 
Third, energy and money.
Reuters reported Venezuela’s oil facilities were largely unscathed after the strike, but the bigger story is shipping, sanctions pressure, and how fast markets and black markets react. 
And here’s the part the media will play games with.
One side will call it “freedom.” The other side will call it “imperialism.” The uniparty will use it to fundraise, posture, and distract.
Because outrage is a product. And business is good when people are blind and angry.
You knew this already.
A lot of y’all have been saying for years that some leaders aren’t “politicians.” They’re bosses. They’re middlemen. They’re the front man for a dirty pipeline.
And you got laughed at for saying it.
Clean takeaway.
When power finally moves, it moves fast. And when the protection umbrella closes, the “strongman” suddenly ain’t that strong.
I am stunned by where New York is today. Mamdani has appointed an attorney who represented a 9/11-linked al-Qaeda terrorist as his chief counsel. One of his first acts was to repeal executive orders that defined antisemitism and ensured that city agencies enforced that definition. This is truly mind boggling. Palestinian Activist Linda Sarsour: “I would be honored to die a martyr.” Sarsour is one of Zohran’s top advisors. 🚨NYC CONQUERED: NO PLANES. NO EXPLOSIONS. JUST SURRENDER
New York State is lighting 16 buildings green in recognition of Muslim American Heritage Month.
Governor Hochul issued a proclamation. It’s the first time New York has officially done this.
HERITAGE?” – LET’S BE HONEST
What exactly is the “heritage” being honored?
How about instead of lighting buildings green, we honor the Americans murdered in 16 Islamic terror attacks carried out on U.S. soil by jihadists?
Islamic Terror Attack: World Trade Center Bombing — New York City (1993)
Islamic Jihad Terror Attacks: September 11 — New York, Virginia, Pennsylvania (2001)
Parents are the primary authority and steward of their child’s education and moral upbringing. Yet, in today’s public school system, many families are alarmed (if not horrified) by the content being taught to children as young as five years old—particularly in areas like “comprehensive” sex education, gender identity, and radical ideological instruction.
There are also classes, materials, and extracurricular activities being promoted in public schools that directly conflict with Christian beliefs and family values. That’s the bad news.
The good news? Parents still have the right to opt their children out of these harmful programs and agendas.
Parents, grandparents, and church leaders must respond proactively to protect the hearts and minds of children from the wicked propaganda to which too many government school bureaucrats are exposing and encouraging children into early sexual experimentation, homosexuality, and transgender confusion.
Now that Gov. JB Pritzker has signed a new law requiring universal mental health screening in Illinois public schools, Christian parents should be especially alert. Do you want your child’s emotional and psychological well-being assessed through the lens of secular ideologies that reject biblical truth? There are serious reasons to be concerned that the state’s values will not align with your family’s faith.
Who decides what qualifies as a mental health issue? Can we really trust government-approved professionals to make such judgments when many of them reject the foundational truth that God created us male and female—and that God has set clear moral boundaries for sexuality and life?
Also, what happens when a boy who thinks he is a girl is screened by the school district, and this desire is discovered? Will the school notify the parents—or conceal it in the name of “affirmation”? What if the parents disagree with the label or proposed treatment—do they have any rights or recourse? Will the DCFS be called in to interrogate parents, or worse?
And will the same institutions now labeling children as mentally unwell also promote curriculum that normalizes LGBTQ ideology and graphic sex-ed, even in kindergarten?
OPT OUT
Parents, if you’re unable to homeschool your child or afford private education, please consider protecting him/her from radical sex education, mental health screenings, and other godless indoctrination.Two months after the U.S. Supreme Court granted public school parents the right to withdraw their children from materials and discussions on LGBTQ+ issues and other subjects that conflict with their “sincerely held religious beliefs,” conservative leaders in California are predicting schools will be swamped with opt-out demands.
That hasn’t happened yet, but attorneys agree that this latest escalation of the culture wars will likely cause turmoil, confusion, and years of litigation, largely because the court offered no guidance on how opt-out requests should be handled, how religious belief claims can or should be verified, and how schools should handle potential logistical issues.
“There is a lot of trepidation about how to handle this issue in a way that is legally compliant and doesn’t trigger a backlash from one side of the issue or the other,” Troy Flint, a spokesperson for the California School Boards Association, told EdSource via email Saturday night.
“Superintendents have concerns about how to make a fact-specific determination regarding parent requests, and we have heard of districts getting threats of litigation from both sides,” he said.
LGBTQ+ advocates and defenders of the state’s progressive school standards are threatening discrimination lawsuits if opt-outs are granted, Flint said. Parents are threatening to sue if they aren’t granted immediately.
In most districts, he added, leaders “are hesitant to address this publicly for fear of attracting more scrutiny and making the issue even more difficult to manage.”
A leading academic on education law said that while the Supreme Court decision was based on parental objections to LGBTQ+ books and lessons, the religious opt-outs are likely to have a broader reach.
“It is deeply misguided for people to believe that this case is only about LGBTQ+ and equality,” Yale Law School professor Justin Driver told EdSource. The decision “sweeps, given the prevalence of deeply felt religious objections, to lots of material,” he said.
It could “affect everything from reading to science, to literature to history. It’s difficult to overstate the significance of the decision,” Driver said. “Some people think Bert and Ernie are gay. Is ‘Sesame Street’ now suspect?”
California, for instance, requires students to learn the history of gay people fighting for civil rights and the story of the country’s first openly gay elected official, Harvey Milk. The San Francisco supervisor was assassinated in 1978 and posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by former President Barack Obama.
Flint said that parents “in at least one district have hinted at trying to expand the opt-out requests to other types of instructional materials.” He did not identify those materials.
Meanwhile, as school administrators ponder their next steps, firebrand social conservatives are seizing the moment that the nation’s highest court created.
“There should be opt-outs. There are things that go against what God laid down,” pastor Angelo Frazier, of Bakersfield’s RiverLakes Community Church, said of what’s taught in California schools.
“It’s not education. It’s ‘You can touch me here.’ It’s very suggestive and inappropriate.” He said the ruling was a relief to frustrated parents in his congregation. “It gives them breathing room.”
The leader of a Fresno-based Christian group, long involved in parental rights advocacy, said the state is no longer in charge of what children learn in school.
The ruling shows that “parents are the ultimate determination of whose values get taught to the child,” said Greg Burt of the California Family Council. “We’re now in charge of deciding what we think is good and what we think is not good.”
But as opt-outs begin to play out across California’s more than 10,000 public schools as the 2025-26 academic year opens, the only certainty from the case, Mahmoud v. Taylor, is that uncertainties abound — and may for years.
They include:
Can or should parents file blanket opt-out requests stating they want their child removed from any and all instruction about LGBTQ+ topics, and leave school personnel to sort it out? Or should schools ask parents to review reading lists — often available online — and let parents flag those items to which they object?
What do school leaders do with students whose parents opt them out of a class? Their class time still needs to be used for instruction. Where do they go?
Who watches or instructs the youngest of removed students, who can’t be left unsupervised? Some of the books cited in the Supreme Court case, including ones about a child’s favorite uncle marrying a man and a puppy getting lost at a Pride parade, are used in kindergarten and even transitional kindergarten classes.
Will school districts need to budget money to defend lawsuits from parents whose opt-out requests may be denied?
Can parents even attempt to opt out their child from exposure to an LGBTQ+ teacher, or a teacher who displays a Pride flag in a classroom?
Lawyers and academics interviewed for this story said that Justice Samuel Alito’s decision, joined by the court’s five other conservatives, offered little guidance on how opt-outs should work.
Mahmoud v. Taylor happened because the Montgomery County schools in suburban Maryland created an opt-out program to appease parents who objected to the teaching of LGBTQ+ materials on religious grounds. But the program ended in less than a year. Alito noted in his decision that school officials found that “individual principals and teachers could not accommodate the growing number of opt-out requests without causing significant disruptions to the classroom environment.” Parents then sued.
Focusing largely on principles of religious freedom, Alito’s decision doesn’t specifically address how opt-outs might work given the Maryland situation, or how claims of a sincerely held religious belief might be evaluated.
The high court has long recognized the rights of parents to “direct the religious upbringing of their children,” he wrote, a principle at the case’s core.
But in a dissenting opinion, Justice Sonja Sotomayor predicted opt-outs would cause “chaos for this nation’s public schools.”
Giving parents the chance to opt out of all lessons and story times that conflict with their beliefs “will impose impossible administrative burdens,” Sotomayor wrote. It threatens the very essence of public education.
“The reverberations of the court’s error will be felt, I fear, for generations.
Other conservatives said they see a path where Alito’s decision could lead to the removal of books and teaching they oppose by overwhelming schools with opt-outs to the point where the best option is to remove the materials.
“If there are so many people who want to opt out of this curriculum, maybe we should stop teaching it,” said Julie Hamill, an attorney and president of the California Justice Center. School leaders, she said, should be reflecting on whether they are “doing something wrong as a district and educational entity. Those are questions that are not being asked right now. It’s very obvious that’s what needs to happen.”
Sonja Shaw, a Chino Valley Unified School District board member running for state superintendent of public instruction in next year’s election, said she wants opt-outs to “overtax the system to where they just give up, and they stop teaching this stuff.”
If so many opt-outs were filed that books are removed from curricula, that would help, said Burt of the California Family Council, which has urged parents to flood districts with opt-outs. “We’re advocating for good books in school, and we think these are bad books, so we’re not going to be sad if we see them go.”
But an anti-censorship advocate said that would amount to book banning by a different name.
“I’m not at all surprised that this is their plan of attack,” Tasslyn Magnusson, senior adviser to the Freedom to Read team at PEN America, an anti-censorship group, said of conservative activists. “These are books about families. These are books about how we experience the world, and they’re beautiful and well written,” she said. “Remember that it’s important for kids to have a variety of materials in front of them that resonate with their lives and their experiences.”
Another impact of the opt-outs will be how LGBTQ+ students and students from families with LGBTQ+ members will react when classmates leave and when teaching materials reflecting their lives are presented.
That could make “a child feel they’re not only different, but that they’re not accepted or that they should be ashamed of the family that they have,” said Jorge Reyes Salinas, a spokesperson for Equality California, a civil rights group. Although the opt-outs promise to be disruptive, he said, they won’t end the state’s use of an inclusive curriculum. “We’re talking about a very small population of parents that are ignorant and full of hate.”
The presidents of California’s two largest teachers unions both said educators are not going to fold under pressure created by the high court’s decision.
“The role of the public school is to help students develop the critical thinking skills and knowledge necessary to engage in a pluralistic democracy,” said Jeff Freitas, president of the California Federation of Teachers. “We cannot have individuals dictating what is the good of the public. It’s also important that our public schools avoid over-compliance and refuse to capitulate to the weaponization of this decision.”
David Goldberg, president of the California Teachers Association, said that teachers “will obviously follow the law, but we want to make it clear to our members that there are other laws in California around kids’ ability to learn about their own identity, cultures, or all kinds of identities. We’re going to still honor kids’ ability to learn about their own identity and all kinds of identities.”
Goldberg also said it would be a mistake for school administrators to place the burden of opt-outs on teachers. “Teachers are overwhelmed already, just getting through the curriculum,” he said. Opt-outs are “a compliance thing that districts are going to need to figure out.”
The Scopes Monkey Trial
The country has a long history of science clashing with religion.
Driver, the Yale law professor, noted that in a 1987 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit overturned a lower court that ruled fundamentalist Christians could remove their children from public school lessons that depicted women working outside the home, which they argued conflicted with their religious beliefs.
Now, following Alito’s decision in the Maryland case, the losing argument in that case could be successful, Driver said. “It seems to me the Mahmoud versus Taylor decision empowered these sorts of objections to potentially carry the day.”
Alito’s decision also came 100 years after the landmark court case on the teaching of evolution in public schools — the epic clash of science versus religion known as the Scopes Monkey Trial that pitted legendary lawyers Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan against each other.
Jennings, hired to prosecute a high school biology teacher, John Scopes, for teaching evolution against state law, won. But Tennessee’s Supreme Court later overturned Scopes’ conviction, ruling that a state law banning the teaching of evolution in public schools was unconstitutional.
But it didn’t end the debate over teaching science in the face of religious beliefs, said Pepperdine University law and history professor Edward Larson, author of a Pulitzer Prize-winning book on the trial. When it ended, “school districts all over the country and some states banned the teaching of the theory of human evolution,” he said.
Even when religious objections were later banned, “a series of state laws and local actions calling for balanced treatment of either teaching creation science, along with evolution, or later intelligent design” followed, Larson said. Several states, including Alabama, require disclaimers in biology books stating evolution “is just a theory,” he said.
“The issue of evolution in public schools remains a flash point,” Larson said. “It has been for a hundred years, it still is today.”
As the Alito decision plays out in the coming years, Larson said, “Schools may want to force people to provide all sorts of evidence” to prove their sincerely held religious beliefs. “But I’m thinking that most won’t feel it’s worth their time to get too engaged,” he added.
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