Daniel Patrick Moynihan published his landmark report, “The Negro Family: The Case for National Action,” 60 years ago this month. His warnings in 1965 about the collapse of the traditional black family now seem prescient. In response, one of the country’s most prominent historically black colleges and universities is working to revive the culture of marriage and family that prevailed from the end of the Civil War through the Civil Rights era.Known today as the "Moynihan Report," the document was written during Moynihan’s time as assistant labor secretary under President Lyndon Johnson. Moynihan feared that civil rights victories alone would not lead to full social equality. He argued that racism would remain a barrier to black progress for at least another generation. But he also pointed to a deeper challenge: the breakdown of married, two-parent black families in urban communities. In his view, that collapse posed an even more significant obstacle to upward mobility.The new norms established in the 1960s enabled Uncle Sam to play ‘daddy’ to millions of women. Moynihan had good reason to be concerned, but the family statistics that alarmed him in 1965 would look like progress by today’s standards. Nearly one in four black children in 1965 were born to unmarried parents at a time when the black poverty rate was roughly 40%. Today, the black poverty rate has dropped by half, but the rate of nonmarital births has surged to 70% — far higher than the 27% among white children and 13% among Asian children. Similarly, while about 25% of all American children live in single-parent households, that figure rises to 50% for black children. From ‘big brother’ to ‘big daddy’Sobering statistics like these brought scholars, pastors, elected officials, and community leaders to Hampton University’s Virginia campus for the 43rd annual Conference on the Black Family. The university’s National Center for Black Family Life hosted the three-day event, which covered topics ranging from marriage rates to mental health.I led a session titled “The Black Family Blueprint: Restoring Marriage and Rebuilding the Home.” Speaking to a room of students, I addressed the current state of the black family and how, in just three generations, the idea of “marriage before carriage” has shifted from being the norm to the exception.My presentation unpacked the perfect storm of government policy and shifting cultural norms in the 1960s that destabilized the family structure in black America. The expansion of the welfare state made the government the de facto husband and father in millions of homes. In 1950, total federal expenditures on public aid programs totaled $1.1 billion. By 1975, it increased to $27 billion and topped $60 billion by 1985.The rise of second-wave feminism encouraged women to see marriage as oppressive and children as a burden. Black feminists wanted to see women pursuing higher education and filling the roles they believed were needed to wage a revolution. One contributor to the "Black Women’s Manifesto" wrote that black women “sitting at home reading bedtime stories to their children are just not going to make it.” The new norms established in the 1960s divided the home by disrupting the relationship between the sexes and enabling Uncle Sam to play “daddy” to millions of women. One welfare rights activist wrote an essay in Ms. magazine that underscored the nature of this relationship: “Welfare is like a super-sexist marriage. You trade in a man for the man. But you can’t divorce him if he treats you bad.”If a 25% nonmarital birth rate in the 1960s caused Moynihan to sound the alarm in the federal government, a 70% rate should be the top priority for every institution that claims to serve the black community. Media outlets like Essence, Ebony, the Root, and TheGrio should be running stories about the future of the black family if these trends continue. Other historically black colleges and universities should be devoting resources to strengthening black families. Civil rights organizations and black churches should take the same energy they have for boycotting Target and apply it to a national boycott on broken homes. What can be done?Hampton’s most renowned graduate, Booker T. Washington, is a conservative figure celebrated for his embrace of self-reliance and community empowerment. His ethos is needed now more than ever, particularly as progressive social commentators appear increasingly dismissive of individual agency and slavishly committed to outsourcing racial uplift. They seem to think bigger government and better white people are viable strategies for addressing every social ill. Nothing could be further from the truth. Rebuilding the black family requires a new call for national action, but unlike 1965, it will only happen if black leaders — not white liberals — make this a national priority.

Five years ago this month, the government effectively declared martial law. In doing so, it made what may be the worst decision of our lifetime — crushing civil liberties, wrecking the economy, and causing untold deaths through mismanagement of the virus and widespread use of a dangerous vaccine. We continue to suffer the economic and health consequences of those decisions. Meanwhile, at both the federal level and in many states, lawmakers have failed to address the core liberty issue: preventing those powers from ever being used again. It took just three years after the Civil War to ratify the 14th Amendment. Yet five years after COVID-era abuses, no comparable protections have passed at the federal level. After the civil rights abuses that helped spark the Civil War, the country passed sweeping constitutional amendments to protect basic freedoms. Yet Congress has taken no such action after the COVID catastrophe. The same goes for many red states, which have done little over the past five years. Still, it’s never too late to do the right thing. The following checklist outlines what Congress and state legislatures — especially those with Republican majorities — must do to fix it. End biomedical tyranny The COVID-19 era revealed a dangerous truth: It is neither scientifically sound, morally justified, nor constitutionally acceptable to force one person to undergo a medical intervention for the sake of another. Congress and state legislatures must act immediately to codify the following protections: No mandates: No federal or state agency should ever require individuals to use a therapeutic, vaccine, prophylactic, or medical device. No limitless emergencies: A president or governor may not declare a public health emergency lasting more than 30 days unless both legislative chambers approve an extension by a supermajority. No lockdowns: Except for narrowly targeted, short-term quarantines of individuals exposed to deadly, quarantinable diseases like Ebola, the federal government must not restrict individual or property rights under the guise of pandemic control. No masks: Outside surgical or clinical settings, no federal or state government should compel individuals to cover their faces as a condition of participating in public life. These protections must be enacted at the federal level. While several Republican-led states have passed laws addressing parts of the issue, few have permanently banned public and private vaccine or mask mandates in all settings. Additionally, county health directors should not have the authority to declare emergencies with criminal or civil penalties unless the county’s legislative body explicitly approves it. Even during such declarations, constitutional rights — such as the right to worship — must remain fully protected. No experimentation without representation Ban all mRNA shots: Except for terminally ill cancer patients, mRNA technology should not be used. Data now shows that mRNA does not stay localized, contains DNA contamination, and causes widespread inflammation. After five years of studies and real-world outcomes, mRNA technology has surpassed the threshold that would normally prompt the FDA to pull a product from the market. States should either ban its use or at minimum prohibit state agencies from promoting it. Repeal the 2004 PREP Act: The Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act shields all public health “countermeasures” from liability, including vaccines, therapeutics, and testing tools used during emergencies. Even cases involving willful misconduct can only be brought by the federal government. Congress must repeal this law and restore accountability. Repeal the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act: This law exempts all vaccines on the childhood immunization schedule from liability. Congress should repeal it to restore legal recourse for vaccine injuries. End marketing of emergency-use products: Any product approved only for emergency use should not receive government-backed promotion or special status. These products should be treated solely as private medical decisions between doctors and patients. Restore informed consent The FDA and state governments must not mandate or promote new vaccines or biologic products unless they undergo proper safety evaluation. No product should receive approval without long-term, placebo-controlled trials that test for: Allergenicity — potential to cause allergic reactions Carcinogenicity — potential to cause cancer Fertility impact — effects on reproductive health Immunogenicity — ability to generate an immune response Genotoxicity — potential to damage genes or cause mutations Approval should require evidence of reduced all-cause mortality over time. No vaccine should gain approval if trial data shows more deaths in the vaccinated group than in the placebo group. Regulators must not approve vaccines for one age group while ignoring safety concerns in another, unless they can clearly demonstrate that risks do not apply to the targeted population. For example, after acknowledging that RSV shots caused Guillain-Barré syndrome and walking back its recommendation for people over 60, the FDA continued to promote the shots for those over 75. Additional protections should include: Banning self-spreading viruses and biologics. Criminalizing the release of any pathogen, including self-spreading vaccines, and allow individuals to sue those responsible. Prohibiting the placement of vaccine-related materials in the food supply. Congress should also establish a commission to audit the childhood immunization schedule and review new vaccines in the development pipeline. This includes a full review of their necessity, safety data, and efficacy. Enlightened consent must serve as the foundation for informed consent. The right to treat Congress must prohibit the FDA from blocking doctors from prescribing fully approved drugs for off-label use. All pandemic or emergency public health funding for hospitals must remain treatment-neutral. Funding should not favor one therapy over another. Clinicians — not federal agencies or pharmaceutical companies — should guide treatment decisions based on best practices, not profit motives. Given ivermectin’s broad-spectrum antiviral properties and well-documented safety profile, it should be made available over the counter. Arkansas has taken the lead in adopting this approach. Protect doctor-patient autonomy Doctors must not face penalties — such as loss of their licenses or board certifications — for expressing dissenting views on vaccines or mask mandates. State medical boards must overhaul their complaint processes to focus only on cases with actual patient harm. Boards should accept complaints only from: Patients alleging direct injury Immediate family of deceased patients Medical professionals with firsthand knowledge of patient harm All complaints unrelated to patient injury should be dismissed without review. The Trump administration should direct the Department of Justice to drop all prosecutions against physicians charged with so-called “COVID crimes.” These include cases like that of Utah plastic surgeon Dr. Kirk Moore, who faces federal charges for allegedly providing vaccine exemptions and other patient-centered actions taken during the pandemic. Adopt a new ‘Patient’s Bill of Rights’ Some states have taken steps in the right direction, but stronger civil and criminal penalties must be in place to protect patient rights across the country. Every hospital and senior care facility should be legally required to: Prohibit denial of treatment, including organ transplants, based on vaccination status. Allow at least one surrogate or visitor to be present for patients in hospitals or nursing homes. Permit patients to use FDA-approved drugs off-label, prescribed by a licensed physician, at their own expense and with informed consent. Guarantee the right to refuse any hospital-prescribed treatment and the right to leave the facility if the patient is mentally competent — effectively banning medical kidnapping. Provide patients or their families a legal cause of action to file civil suits against facilities that violate these rights. District attorneys should also have the authority to pursue criminal charges when appropriate. Revoke state tax-exempt status for hospitals found in violation of these provisions. It took just three years after the Civil War to ratify the 14th Amendment. Congress codified its principles into law within a year of Lee’s surrender at Appomattox. Yet five years after COVID-era abuses, no comparable protections have passed at the federal level, and only a few states have enacted partial reforms. That needs to change. The time to act is now.

More details are being revealed about the shocking gunshot death of a prominent pastor outside of a Memphis, Tennessee, bar. Community leaders mourned the death of Pastor Ricky Floyd, who was killed at about 1 a.m. in the parking lot outside of Momma’s Bar and Kitchen on March 12. 'She was well within her right to defend her life because her life was absolutely in danger.' Floyd was active in the community and had previously appeared on Fox News to speak out against lax criminal enforcement policies. Attorneys for Samantha Marion, the woman who shot Floyd, told WREG-TV the circumstances that led to the shooting. Marion claimed that she had met a man named Steven Newsom at the bar, and they got into an argument with the pastor. “At the other corner of that elbow was Reverend Floyd,” said attorney John Keith Perry. “She had, prior to that evening, never met Reverend Floyd.”Perry said they got into an intense debate over the Bible because Marion had questioned him for being a pastor at a bar at that time of night. “Reverend Floyd evidently had some, I call them tracts, but the small magazine publication, that are of a religious nature, and passes them to the people that are at the bar,” Perry added. Marion claims she got the better of the pastor in debate and that he stormed out of the bar with his tracts. “What was said exactly is not remembered by everybody, but there was no kind of a threat. Or ‘I’ll see you in the parking lot’ or anything like that,” Perry added. He said that outside of the bar, Newsom tried to get between Marion and the pastor but that Floyd threw him to the ground. This is when Marion started recording on her phone and captured the last moments of Floyd's life. The video shows the pastor stomping toward Marion, and she can be heard warning him before he grabs her phone and throws it to the ground. Moments later, she shot him several times. “She was well within her rights to stand there in a parking lot, well within her rights to video the license plate of a man that just assaulted a friend of hers and her,” said Kevin Massey, the woman's other attorney. “And she was well within her right to defend her life because her life was absolutely in danger.”Footage from Marion's cell phone can be viewed on the news video report from WREG on YouTube.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

The superintendent from a Texas school district — along with two teachers in the district — were arrested Thursday in connection with child abuse allegations, the Parker County Sheriff's Office said.At Monday's school board meeting of the Millsap Independent School District, it was announced that arrested Superintendent Edie Martin was resigning from her position, WFAA-TV reported. The board unanimously accepted her resignation, the station said; the board added that Martin wouldn't receive benefits or severance pay. Millsap is about an hour and 20 minutes west of Dallas.WFAA said Millsap ISD parent Carissa Cornelius on March 10 shared a video showing her 10-year-old son, Alex Cornelius — who has autism and is nonverbal — appearing to be abused by his special education teacher. The station said another teacher in the video appears to yell at Alex and throw an object at him.The sheriff's office said witnesses reported that “life skills” educator Paxton Kendal Bean, 25, physically assaulted juvenile students. Paxton Kendal BeanImage source: Parker County (Tex.) Sheriff's OfficeWitnesses also said Bean — along with life skills educator Jennifer Cain Dale, 44 — committed mental and verbal abuse against special-needs elementary students, including taunting, mocking, giving threats, using profanity, and giving extensive “timeouts," the sheriff's office said.A witness recorded the abuse on a cell phone and told sheriff's investigators that she reported the alleged abuse to Martin on Feb. 19. However, the sheriff's office said Martin did not report the suspected abuse to the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services or the Parker County Sheriff’s Office as required by state law. She did contact the district's law firm to commission an external investigation, the sheriff's office said.Martin on Feb. 28 filed a report with the Texas Education Agency regarding one educator, authorities said, and then on March 3 reported the allegations to the TEA involving the second educator."Another witness reported they advised the superintendent to report the offenses to child protective services and law enforcement," the sheriff's office said. "The superintendent reportedly told the witness that she had already made a report to child protective services as of Feb. 20." The sheriff's office said it first learned about the allegations March 4 when a parent of one of the victims contacted the sheriff's office to make a report. Officials from the state Department of Family and Protective Services told sheriff's office investigators that Martin didn't contact them — and that they first learned of the allegations from the sheriff's office on March 4.Bean was charged with injury to a child and official oppression, Dale was charged with official oppression, and 53-year-old Martin was charged with failure to report/intent to conceal, the sheriff's office said.WFAA said Millsap ISD parent Carissa Cornelius on March 10 shared a video showing her 10-year-old son, Alex Cornelius — who has autism and is nonverbal — appearing to be abused by his special education teacher. The station said another teacher in the video appears to yell at Alex and throw an object at him. Carissa Cornelius said the incident occurred Feb. 18 but that school officials didn’t notify her about the incident until Feb. 28, WFAA reported.You can view a WFAA video report here about the allegations; it includes the in-classroom cellphone video in question.More from the station:The board has also approved Monday a third-party investigation into Principal Roxie Carter and Assistant Principal Drew Casey of the elementary school where the alleged abuse occurred.Carter is related to Kendal Bean, one of the educators arrested in the case. Due to their relationship, the school board voted in favor of not assigning employees to the same campus or in an oversight position of an immediate family member.Casey will return to work at a limited capacity while the investigation is ongoing, according to Millsap ISD. The district said this was due to "multiple requests by the public who said he had nothing to do with one of the suspects or the alleged abuse."According to an earlier WFAA report, Martin and Bean have bonded out of jail, but Dale was being held in the Palo Pinto County Jail on a $2,500 bond. However, Dale's name didn't show up on an inmate search Tuesday evening.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Clearview AI has stirred up quite a controversy, and when you see what the company has been up to, it’s easy to see why. The corporation has built a robust online database of over 40 billion facial images, which it gathered from various online sources, including social media, news sites, and random corners of the web. This has been done without explicit consent from the people pictured. The software is pitched primarily to law enforcement, private security, and some corporate clients who need to identify people quickly. Users can upload a photo of a face, and it scans the database for matches and links to where the images originated — like a LinkedIn profile or a Facebook post. Glenn Beck says it’s trouble. While it may be useful in certain situations, put in the hands of a rogue government, Clearview AI becomes a tool for totalitarianism. Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, however, is fighting to expand Clearview’s use in court cases. On a recent episode of “The Glenn Beck Program,” the two engaged in a debate. In a recent Ohio case, law enforcement used Clearview AI to match a blurry surveillance photo to a suspect. This information was then used to obtain a search warrant, which resulted in cops locating a gun and arresting the suspect. The judge, however, threw out the evidence because the warrant paperwork didn’t mention Clearview’s role, its disclaimer about not being court-ready evidence, or other possible matches it flagged. That’s when Yost’s team stepped in and filed an appeal, arguing that the police’s use of Clearview AI was legitimate and that the evidence should stand. As of now, the court’s decision is undecided. While Glenn agrees that Clearview technology “is a great thing to get the bad guys,” it’s “exactly the kind of technology” China uses “to track everybody.” “I worry about that, too,” says Yost. However, he argues that Clearview AI technology is not a violation of the Fourth Amendment because the images it gathers are from the public domain. It’s different, he says, than the Supreme Court case Kyllo v. United States, in which the court ruled that the cop who used thermal imaging technology to scan for marijuana growing in Danny Kyllo’s home violated his privacy rights. But Glenn isn’t convinced. “I am very, very concerned about this slippery, almost straight-down slope to the cage that AI could build for people,” he says. “We can have all of the best intentions, but it falls into the wrong hands, we lose several elections in a row, and it’ll be a prison; it'll be a panopticon like it is in China.” “I couldn't agree with you more. It scares me what the government can do about this. If you think back to the Biden administration and social media and what they were doing — you multiply that, make that geometrically larger and that's the potential. We've got to be vigilant,” says Yost. To hear more of the debate, watch the clip above. Leave us a comment below. What do you think? Does facial recognition technology catch crooks or pave the way for tyranny? Want more from Glenn Beck?To enjoy more of Glenn’s masterful storytelling, thought-provoking analysis, and uncanny ability to make sense of the chaos, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.