Daily Signal

There are special-interest groups dotting the landscape in Washington, D.C., for just about any cause you could imagine. They’ve been quite successful, too. 

But as Terry Schilling, a husband and father of five kids, surveyed that landscape, he saw a void. That’s why his organization, the American Principles Project, has embarked on a new initiative called the Big Family. It promises to put the needs of families first. 

"You've got Big Pharma, Big Tech, Big Oil, Big Business," Schilling says. "There are so many bigs, but there's no big family. And that's why we chose the name, Big Family. We want the family to be the big guy in the room when it comes to public policy." 

Schilling joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” for a wide-ranging discussion about family values, the threats facing parents and kids, and how the American Principles Project is taking action. 

You can listen to the full show below—including our letters to the editor and weekly good news story—or read a lightly edited transcript at dailysignal.com.

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The Free to Learn Coalition is a nonpartisan organization that wants to take politics out of the classroom. Alleigh Marre, the president of the coalition, joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” today to discuss how she hopes to do that.

"We started to hear a lot more about how there's been more of an emphasis on activism, rather than academics," Marre says.

"And that includes, certainly, critical race theory," which she says is "extremely prevalent and something that we're starting to hear more and more about, but it's not just isolated to that."

Marre added: "And the big thing that we are hearing from parents is that, as we start to fall behind in the world, countries like China, Russia, Estonia, Slovenia, Canada, they all outperform us. And that's something that's very concerning to parents. We're all taxpayers, we're all paying into a public education system, and our students just aren't prepared for the future."

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The Chinese Communist Party, which has ruled China for 100 years, remains highly secretive in its policies and actions. Fortunately, sources outside China's government have provided the world with a great deal of information about what is really happening within the communist regime.

Compiling what we do know about the Chinese Communist Party, The Heritage Foundation—parent organization of The Daily Signal—just released its 2021 China Transparency Report. The document assesses China’s level of transparency across eight key areas: the economy, energy and the environment, human rights, influence operations, the military, outbound investments, politics and law, and, technology. 

The goal of the report "is partly to bust a myth that China is completely closed off and opaque," says Dean Cheng, a Heritage Foundation senior research fellow for Asian studies who contributed to the report.

"You cannot have a country of 1.3 billion people, you can't have any economy that's the second largest in the world, and the world's largest trading state, and not have some amount of interaction and data flow, etc.," Cheng says. "But part of the problem is that the available information isn't easily available, partly because, well, it's in Chinese."

Cheng and Justin Rhee, co-editor of the China Transparency Report, join “The Daily Signal Podcast” to explain its significance in understanding the actions and goals of the Chinese Communist Party. (You may read the full report here.)

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Lala Mooney, born in communist Cuba, was imprisoned there at age 19. As protests erupt in the Caribbean nation, Mooney, mother of Rep. Alex Mooney, R-W.Va., joins "The Daily Signal Podcast" to talk about what life there is like.

"At the economic level, we lost everything," Mooney says. "My mother's family owned a sugar mill and they put a gun on my uncle's desk and say, 'Sign it over.' We lost everything."

Mooney says her father was dean of engineering at St. Thomas of Villanova Catholic University in Havana, which the communist regime of Fidel Castro confiscated in 1961, expelling American and European Anglicans who administered it.

"Once we were in prison, my father said, 'There's no sense for me to stay here if they put me in prison.'"

"Engineering was a very important topic in Cuba," Mooney adds, "because Cuba was [one of the biggest] producers of sugar in the whole world, and engineering is how you run the sugar mills."

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Tens of thousands of Cubans are protesting in the streets because of dire conditions brought about by the Caribbean nation's communist regime. What is going on there, what will be the repercussions for protesters who have had the courage to gather in the streets, and how should the U.S. respond?

"It's a very dark moment right now," says Mike Gonzalez, a Cuban native who is a senior fellow in the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy at The Heritage Foundation, the parent organization of The Daily Signal.

Gonzalez joins "The Daily Signal Podcast" to discuss the situation.

"The state police is out there. They were called out by the puppet president, Miguel Díaz-Canel," Gonzalez says. "They're rounding up people, beating people up. I know of at least one pro-democracy priest—Castor Álvarez in the city of Camaguey in the east ... of the island of Cuba—who was severely beaten up and I think stripped naked. And his whereabouts are unknown. This is from dissident sources. For all we know, Father Castor could be dead."

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Faith, family, and freedom. The late Sen. William L. Armstrong cherished these values throughout his life as a successful businessman, political leader, and university president.

Today, Armstrong's son Wil is honoring his father's legacy with the William L. Armstrong Award, which recognizes an individual who has made a difference in America’s culture through business, politics, or education. This year's recipient, Heritage Foundation President Kay C. James, received the honor from the Centennial Institute, Colorado Christian University’s (CCU) public policy think tank, in partnership with The Armstrong Project.

Wil Armstrong joined me for an interview to discuss his father's love for America and how he and his wife Kristy are making sure they recognize people who embody the values he held dear.

Also on today show, we read your letters to the editor and share a good news story about two little girls who raised nearly $2,000 at their lemonade stand to help the family of a fallen police officer.

Enjoy the show!

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Amid the debates over Big Tech companies and censorship, a new social media platform has emerged to champion free speech.

The platform GETTR officially launched on July 4 with a mission of “fighting cancel culture, promoting commonsense, defending free speech, challenging social media monopolies, and creating a true marketplace of ideas,” according to the platform's website.

GETTR’s promise to users is “you're never going to be censored or deplatformed or cancel-cultured because of your political beliefs,” Jason Miller, a former aide to President Donald Trump and now the company's CEO, said on "The Daily Signal Podcast."

Miller joins the show to explain why GETTR is a unique social media platform and to discuss Trump’s recently announced class-action lawsuit against Facebook, Twitter, and Google over censorship. 

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When it comes to fighting back against woke indoctrination and critical race theory in schools, Ian Prior is perhaps the happiest of warriors.

Prior is executive director of Fight for Schools, an organization dedicated to exposing bad actors in the public school system in Loudoun County, Virginia and mobilizing parents to improve education for their children.

“We want to have a school system where our teachers are shaping future leaders, mentally tough leaders, hardworking leaders, people that will do the best that they can to get where they need to be. And we don’t need to be dividing along these identity group lines,” Prior says.

Prior joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to discuss his fight against a woke school board and offer advice to others addressing these and similar issues in their school districts.

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The Supreme Court last week ruled in favor of clean elections by upholding two Arizona voting laws designed to prevent fraud, the state's attorney general says. 

In a 6-3 decision, the high court upheld Arizona laws banning ballot harvesting and out-of-precinct voting. 

“[W]e need to recognize that the Constitution allows states to enact election integrity measures,” Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich says. “The framers of our Constitution understood that.” 

After the Supreme Court issued the ruling, President Joe Biden said he was “deeply disappointed” and promised to continue promoting Democrat-backed election legislation. But Brnovich says that his state's laws are designed to protect all votes and won’t negatively affect minority communities. 

“I think it's clear,” Brnovich says, “… that the left, the hard left, the DNC [Democratic National Committee], and other left-wing groups are trying to do everything they can to control the state election process because they think that will benefit them.” 

Brnovich joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to explain why this Supreme Court ruling is a victory for election integrity not only in Arizona but across the country. 

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Jason Beardsley served his country in the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Army Special Forces before taking the helm as executive director of the Association of the United States Navy. Today, he’s speaking out to urge military leaders to focus on their primary mission of defending America—not advancing the left’s woke agenda.

Beardsley recently wrote a commentary for The Daily Signal about the challenges of readiness and morale in the U.S. Navy. “Wokeness is well on its way to poisoning our military, even as it claims the military is moving toward utopia,” Beardsley says.

He tells The Daily Signal that his own military experience taught him radical ideas like critical race theory have no place in our armed forces.

“In a firefight,” Beardsley says, “the one question that never occurred to me was, ‘Do I have enough black guys on the guns down behind me?’ Or, ‘Do I have enough Puerto Ricans on this side?’ Nobody cares. We want talented service members who honor the flag and respect the heritage of this country.”

Following his military service, Beardsley co-founded and was CEO of a patriotic clothing company called The Underground Movement. He tells The Daily Signal about his love of America and the work he’s doing at the Association of the United States Navy. Listen to the interview or read a lightly edited transcript below.

Also on today's show, we read your letters to the editor and share a good news story about a brand new patriotic song written and produced by a high school teacher. Listen to the song here.

Enjoy the show!

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