Good morning!

Donald Trump said over the weekend he expects to be arrested tomorrow. In today's One Click Survey, we ask if you will be voting for him in the 2024 GOP primary. 

But first, here is the Texas Minute for Monday, March 20, 2023.

– Michael Quinn Sullivan 

Texas Senate: Fentanyl Distributors Are Murderers

• Production and sale of fentanyl would become a first-degree felony of murder punishable by a lifetime imprisonment under legislation unanimously approved by the Texas Senate last week. Emily Wilkerson has the story.
     
• “It’s a fact that fentanyl is flooding our borders. It is absolutely without a doubt killing our citizens on a daily basis,” said State Sen. Joan Huffman (R-Houston), who authored the legislation. “And it’s time that we take a comprehensive approach to combat this.”
      
• More than 800 Texans overdosed on fentanyl-related pills in 2022, while the federal Drug Enforcement Agency has seized 8.1 million pills and more than 1,600 pounds of fentanyl powder already in 2023.

Texas Mom Sends Lawmakers ‘Filthy Books’ Found in School Libraries

• Christin Bentley is taking a novel approach to get sexually explicit books out of kids’ libraries: she’s sending daily samples of the “filthy” books to all state lawmakers. Erin Anderson has the details.
      

• Bentley started working on the book issue locally in 2021 with an audit of a Tyler high school library. Since then, she has done audits of school libraries across the state. “Unfortunately, I haven’t come across a school district that does not have sexually explicit books in their school libraries.”
     

• Her goal with the Filthy Books campaign is to get legislation passed this session that will protect Texas kids across the state from sexualization in their schools and libraries.
      

• By the end of Bentley's campaign, lawmakers will have received 72 sexually explicit book titles, with detailed content reports.

Legislation Targets Trafficking of Illegal Abortion Drugs

• Proposed legislation would hold the manufacturers and distributors of abortion pills accountable in Texas for wrongful deaths of women and children. As Soli Rice reports, these out-of-state abortionists are currently not held liable under state law for harm caused to Texas' women and children.   
       
• Pro-life advocates say telehealth marketers and doctors have continually failed to inform women of the risks of performing a chemical abortion. A new analysis from the Human Coalition reveals 35 percent of women who take an abortion pill end up in the emergency room within 30 days.
      
• In states where abortion is illegal, when a woman’s illegal chemical abortion goes wrong, they are encouraged to go to the hospital immediately but to lie to the healthcare workers about the situation.
      
• “We have enacted transformative pro-life laws in Texas, but more must be done,” explained State Rep. Cole Hefner (R-Mount Pleasant), who authored the legislation. “The deadly abortion pill regimen is everywhere, including in our state. Companies and smuggling networks are profiting from the barbaric death of children in the womb and neglecting the women who are harmed by taking these pills."

Senate Holds Hearing On 'Child Gender Modification' 

• In an emotionally charged meeting of the Texas Senate's State Affairs Committee late last week, testimony was taken on so-called "gender modification" procedures. Darrell Frost reports legislation under consideration would prohibit medical providers from performing “gender transition” surgeries or prescribing cross-sex hormones or puberty blockers to children under the age of 18 suffering from gender dysphoria.
      
• State Sen. Donna Campbell (R-New Braunfels) is an emergency room doctor who authored the proposed ban. She told her colleagues that “gender-affirming care” for children is a lucrative industry that promotes treatments that are not backed by science and cause irreversible physical harm and profound emotional trauma.
      
• Campbell noted that several countries in Europe – including Sweden, Finland, and the United Kingdom – no longer recommend gender transition surgeries for minors because evidence suggests they do not improve long-term well-being.
     
• Prisha Mosley, a 25-year-old woman from Michigan, described how she suffered from depression, anorexia, and borderline personality disorder as a teenager and was persuaded that transitioning into a male would resolve those issues. She said her parents didn’t initially approve of the transition but were asked by her gender therapist, “Would you rather have a dead daughter or living son? Do you want to pick up her hormones or her body from the morgue?”
     
• “I don’t believe that any parent has the right to mutilate and sterilize their child,” Mosley told State Sen. José Menéndez (D–San Antonio). 
      
• The Texas Pediatric Association came out in opposition to the ban.
     
• If your child's doctor is a member of the Texas Pediatric Association, you might want to find a doctor who doesn't believe children should be sterilized to fulfill the sexual fantasies of adults.

ONE CLICK SURVEY

Former President Donald Trump said over the weekend he expects to be arrested Tuesday on charges related to hush-money paid to a porn actress ahead of his 2016 presidential bid. Meanwhile, he is scheduled to hold his first 2024 campaign rally this coming Saturday in Waco.

If Trump's campaign for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination continues, will you vote for him?

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