As a New York resident and female athlete, I was distressed to hear recently of an anti-woman ballot measure that will be on New York ballots in ...
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Incredible Victory for Fairness and Equality: Maud Maron is Restored to Her Elected School Board Seat
Back in June, Independent Women joined a coalition of ideologically diverse national women’s organizations to stand behind Manhattan Mom and former Democratic candidate for office Maud Maron after she was abruptly banished from her elected position on New York City’s Community Education Council for District 2 (CEC 2)—the city’s largest parent council.
Independent Women’s Network launched an action center called Mayor Eric Adams, Stand For Fairness And Equality, urging New Yorkers to tell Mayor Adams to reinstate Maud Maron to her elected school board seat.
Over 3,000 letters were sent through IWN’s action center. In a huge win for fairness and equality, Maud has been restored to her elected school board seat.
Maud knows what a woman is and has been a vocal advocate for protections for women, including prohibiting male athletes from participating in women’s sports. She has also been an unwavering advocate for high-quality education and parents’ rights in New York City. Her reinstatement is a huge win for fairness and equality as well as parents’ rights and free speech.
Maud’s reinstatement is a big win for New Yorkers.
Confused by all the ‘Stolen Valor’ Political Campaign Finger Pointing? Read This.
Hardly after the Harris campaign announced Governor Tim Walz as Kamala Harris’s running mate in the 2024 presidential election, the scrutinizing began of his military service narrative. Everything has been probed, from Walz’s actual rank (sergeant major versus command sergeant major); the timing of his withdrawal/retirement from the National Guard shortly before his battalion was scheduled for an active-duty Iraq deployment; the nature of his service (“garrison duty” in Italy in support of Operation Enduring Freedom versus actual war-fighting in Afghanistan); and his portrayal of citizen-soldier community awards. And with each of these subjects, Walz’s characterization has frequently been found wanting in strict accuracy.
This has prompted charges of “stolen valor” from some (frequently, but not solely, partisan) quarters. A group of 50 Republicans holding office who are also military veterans published a public letter to Governor Walz condemning these “egregious misrepresentations” on August 21. This was answered promptly by the Harris campaign sharing a statement by progressive political action committee VoteVets, calling out several of the letter’s signatories for misrepresenting their own service records. (Notably, Texas Congressman Rony Jackson, for continuing to call himself a retired rear admiral rather than a retired captain despite his rank having been reduced as a result of a 2021 Pentagon investigation into his conduct as a White House physician.)
Is this just another squabbling descent into finger-pointing political partisanship with veteran characteristics due to the latest high-stakes election cycle in the United States? Or does the squabbling reveal the dynamics of legitimate, historical concerns about the uses and abuses of military service—for professional purposes in general, but on the campaign trail in particular?
The answer is regrettably yes and no; it’s complicated. Ben Kesling, himself an author and former Wall Street Journal reporter who served as a Marine Corps infantryman and deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq, has published a succinct, informative little primer for Politico for confused civilians. Kesling notes that one fundamental issue here is language—military terminology. “Just as people might not fully recognize the subtlety of a foreign language’s words and phrases, civilians frequently miss—or misinterpret—the language service members use to talk about the nature and scope of their service.”
But as Kesling also notes, that widespread unfamiliarity of most American citizens with anything having to do with the military also translates into a very humanly understandable, easily exploitable situation when veterans turned political candidates go along with misleading overgeneralizations about the nature of contemporary military service and their own service histories. Kesling points to the educative efforts of (Iraq war veteran) former Rep. Peter Meijer on X (formerly Twitter) to dissect “the complicated nature of understanding Walz’s record and the way he has handled discussing it,” to show how this all can happen in real life situations despite the veteran’s best intentions. But as Meijier also alludes to, even if the veteran doesn’t have the opportunity in the heat of the moment of a live discussion, for instance, to correct an inaccurate description of his or her military service, it’s one thing to clarify after the fact, and it’s another to allow those misrepresentations to continue to be perpetuated in speech and writing, especially by one’s own campaign.
Kesling emphasizes that there’s “generally a code among veterans and the public that anyone who served in the military deserves thanks for their service, but if someone even vaguely claims to have done more than their record bears out, veterans become ruthless in their criticism.” Why this latter is so is part of an open secret in the veteran community, what Kesling calls veterans eating their own. But there are deeper social and historical currents to these surface kerfuffles, as I’ve attempted to explain in previous work.
As I delved into onIWF.org in “Not All Veterans Are Created Equal”, the very word “veteran” doesn’t even have one consistent definition, in part because the U.S. military is no monolith. No individual joins “the military,” but a particular service branch, in a particular designation, with a specific military occupational specialty, at a specific moment in history, that defines the contours of one’s service (wartime, peacetime, All-Volunteer Force, conscript-era, active duty, reserve duty, National Guard, for instance). And, as I explored in “The Veteran” for American Purpose, these differences are very much historical, and tend to bubble up to more public notice, especially during election seasons when politically-minded veterans decide to run for elected office, and mistakenly believe that emphasizing their military record over any policy platforms will result in triumph at the ballot box. Stay tuned for additional pieces from me, exploring further aspects of how veterans and the public alike should think about military service on the campaign trail.
What we are currently terming the “stolen valor” debate (itself an unfortunate overgeneralizing use of the term, as Kesling also points out) is not something new to the 2024 presidential election. It’s been ongoing since America first held elections after ratifying the new United States Constitution. But the persistence of the phenomenon should remind us all of this more fundamental truth: when military veterans run for political office, they are all choosing to act no longer apolitically or nonpolitically. They are now politicians. Given the high electoral stakes for the veteran and the general public’s lack of attention and knowledge of military things, the temptation for the veteran to bank on the public’s “Thank you for your service” attitude and to purposefully misrepresent their service is great indeed. The voting public has every right, and a duty even, to maintain an informed skepticism about those who would use the fact of having worn the nation’s uniform as a proxy for character and actual policy positions.
Leading Lady | Stephanie Lundquist-Arora, Chapter Leader
Stephanie Lundquist-Arora has been pushing back on education indoctrination since the beginning of the pandemic, a reality many parents began waking up to during the lockdowns of 2020 (and beyond). While the Fairfax County, VA Public Schools (FCPS) ignored the rights of students to return to a normal childhood experience, Stephanie was standing against the fray for the health and safety of her three sons.
“I got involved with IWN during the masking wars in schools. My three sons were suspended for a cumulative total of 39 days for not wearing masks to school after Governor Glenn Youngking (R – VA) gave students permission to remove them.”
It wasn’t long after her sons were attacked for exercising their right to breathe freely that Stephanie found herself in need of allies like the Independent Women’s Network (IWN).
“I became more aware that public schools are increasingly teaching our children what to think instead of how to think. I quickly realized that my concerns and objectives aligned with IWN – and that the organization is a fantastic resource and composed of wonderful women.”
Stephanie launched the Fairfax County, VA Chapter in September of 2022. The Chapter, which has grown to 65 members, exists to raise awareness about what is happening in public schools and to advocate for quality education and school choice initiatives.
Stephanie says, “I feel that we collectively need to fight harder to keep our country free for our children, grandchildren and their children. Vaccines and masks should always have been about choice. Speech should not be restricted. Publicly subsidized education is about math, reading, writing, and science. Pushing a political agenda or a religious agenda on public school students is wrong. We need to educate our children, not indoctrinate them.”
As a constitutionalist, libertarian and strong supporter of the Bill of Rights, Stephanie’s political focus has consistently been on freedom and individual rights. While the salience of concerning issues in our country has changed over time, she remains firm in her values. Most of Stephanie’s advocacy work focuses on education but she sees other challenges threatening the safety of the families in our country.
“The most dangerous issue facing our country today is the continued invasion at our southern border. Under the Biden administration, our immigration system is broken and the floodgates have opened. Rather than vetting our newcomers – whether they be economic migrants, asylum seekers under true distress, or refugees fleeing war-torn countries – we have invited and opened our doors to the worst criminal offenders from other countries and are paying for their stay in more ways than one.”
Another concern of Stephanie’s is the government’s encroachment on citizens’ rights. Stephanie affirms Ronald Reagan’s infamous quote that emphasizes the delicate nature of freedom: “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”
There is no doubt Stephanie’s children will be ready to take the baton of her hard work and fight to protect their generation’s freedom.
In addition to being the Chapter Leader of one of the largest IWN Chapters in the country, Stephanie leads the conversation in IWN’s virtual chapter on Effective Engagement in K-12 Schools. The Chapter meets monthly to provide tools, resources, and tactics to help members improve their child’s school. It is a virtual space for members to share specifically what’s happening at their schools and in their communities so they will know how to get started in making lasting change.
Not only does Stephanie share her voice as a published author, she writes for The Federalist and The Washington Examiner and has been published in several others. Stephanie is a frequent guest on major news outlets such as Fox News and Newsmax.
But Stephanie doesn’t just write about her message, she takes action by testifying at the (FCPS) board meetings as much as possible.
While advocacy work is a priority for Stephanie, she loves spending time with her family whether paddle boarding, traveling or trying new foods together. Her sons participate in a variety of sports and activities. She and her husband appreciate the opportunities to volunteer in their sons’ leagues and cheer for them on the sidelines.
When it comes to taking time for herself, Stephanie says, “I adore spending quality time and laughing with great friends, reading, running, learning jiu-jitsu, and from time-to-time…just watching television.”
Will Frivolous Lawsuits Create Another Baby Formula Shortage?
Remember the 2022 baby formula shortages? Welp, buckle up for round two.
It might be a distant memory for many, but families who had infants in the summer of 2022 will never forget it.
Desperate mothers looking for baby formula drove from store to store only to be met with completely bare shelves. Some even tried to create their own formula with risky home recipes. I personally weaned my baby early because our brand was suddenly impossible to find.
The shortages resulted from the “voluntary recall of contaminated products and shutdown of manufacturing facility in February led to increases in the national out-of-stock rate of the baby formula from 18 to 70% over the summer of 2022.”
The Biden/Harris administration’s malfeasance was inexcusable. Their needless delay in reopening facilities cleared to resume safely manufacturing formula caused a public health crisis that took months to correct.
So what makes me think we’re heading for another baby formula shortage?
In the U.S., only two companies are permitted to manufacture specialized formulas that meet the very specific needs of premature newborn babies. According to the Wall Street Journal, “These formulas are administered by doctors in the neonatal intensive care units because breast milk alone often doesn’t contain sufficient nutrients to sustain infants with low birth weights.”
And these companies are currently under relentless attack.
Plaintiff attorneys have filed hundreds of lawsuits against Abbott Laboratories and Reckitt Benckiser, claiming their fortifying products increase the risk of necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) and should come with a warning label.
But these companies cannot add any such label to their products, because the science doesn’t support the claims made in these lawsuits.
Nevertheless, juries are often very sympathetic to parents who have lost children. So these lawsuits—driven by people with no medical knowledge exploiting vulnerable, grieving families in pursuit of money—are coming in droves.
And that would be bad enough—if not for what could come next.
These life-sustaining products could be pulled from the market if immediate action isn’t taken to stop these frivolous lawsuits.
And as we saw in 2022, it only took ONE formula manufacturer shutdown to cause catastrophic ripple effects throughout the whole system.
Every life is sacred. Every baby deserves the best care possible.
That includes access to these life-saving products.
