Socialism means government dependency, rationed resources, and exorbitant taxation. It means the destruction of every incentive to achieve.

Consumerism is the reason Christmas has morphed into a hollow shopping ritual that leaves too many families with debt hangovers and an empty feeling inside.

Instead of getting swept up in a whirlwind of banal 'holiday' parties, useless gift exchanges and harried shopping, my family tries hard to use the weeks of Advent to prepare our hearts and home in meaningful ways for the Prince of Peace.

You know the adage, when you want something done, ask a busy person. It's so true. Having kids taught me to prioritize, delegate, and accept life's imperfections. I also learned the all-important skill of jumping off the train: taking breaks in career and passion pursuits to tend to the things that last.

In fact, there is an academic blackout about the atrocities perpetrated in the name of communism and socialism.

When my Mexican-born grandfather, Rafael, immigrated to work in the mines of the American Southwest, where he eventually settled with his young bride to raise 15 kids, he did it to give his children a better life.

Feminism should be about liberating women, all women, even Republican women, to be their true selves.

My dad, grew up poor in a copper-mining town in Arizona. The eleventh of 15 children, he learned to be resourceful and entrepreneurial at a young age, shining shoes at local bars and starting his own pinata business at the tender age of twelve.

Pursue your dreams, but don't be afraid to slow down or jump off the train when your heart calls you to tend to things that last - love, marriage, babies, and happy kids. You can always jump back on the train. It's your journey.

Charter schools in particular have proven a lifeline for millions of children stuck in chronically failing schools.

The tropical island of Puerto Rico couldn't be more different than America's rust belt or the mountains of Appalachia, but here too live Americans who feel forgotten by our leaders and left behind by our economy.

We heat our home with wood so the fireplace is always going and it's pretty cozy in here, which is good because we have long winters in Wisconsin.

Hispanics don't want more programs to make them comfortable in their poverty. What Hispanics really want is more opportunity: the freedom to work, leave poverty behind, and rise into the ranks of the middle class and beyond.

Work is at the heart of human dignity.

Indeed, one of the least-talked-about dangers of our ever-expanding entitlement culture is that it threatens the viability of these necessary programs for those who genuinely need and use them as a bridge to a better life.

Well, if you are planning a Caribbean vacation, you can start by booking it to this warm and friendly island paradise as soon as it is ready to receive tourists. As a U.S. territory, your trip to Puerto Rico doesn't require a passport or currency exchange.

Life is tougher for Americans - especially for those who voted by the highest percentages for President Obama's promise of hope and change.

When candidate Donald Trump ran for the highest office in the land, he promised to fight for forgotten Americans. In the presidential election of 2016, the forgotten Americans of the Upper Midwest and the coal country of Kentucky and West Virginia, many of them life-long Democrats, delivered a decisive win for this first-time Republican candidate.

Nothing is more infuriating to me than the way the media and political parties conflate Hispanic-Americans and illegal immigrants. We are not one and the same, and our interests and priorities are often very different.

By granting 4 million undocumented immigrants social security numbers that can potentially be misused through loopholes in our tax code and voting laws, President Obama is poisoning the waters of public perception and reinforcing negative stereotypes of Latinos and all immigrants.

I still remember how me and my husband spent 30 minutes trying to convince our then 10 and 12 year old son and daughter that they really would love this black and white movie called, 'It's a Wonderful Life'.

Words don't define me. Actions, my faith, and the strength of my relationships and family do.

Over the years I have heard all the psychological analysis which says that habitually tardy people are narcissists and I don't buy it. I'm late because I am always trying to do one more thing for my family before I leave the door.

We know that the enemy of upward mobility is not poverty or even other people's success. The enemy of upward mobility is apathy and an educational system that offers choice to the privileged and traps the most vulnerable in unsafe and poor performing schools.

When I was a young co-ed at Arizona State University, my sister was the president of the College Republicans. I was her secretary.

Socialism is the antithesis of opportunity and it's time to reject this failed and dangerous idea once and for all.

Competition works. Ask any parent if their child will run faster from the house to the mailbox if he runs by himself or if he races to the mailbox with his sister. It's a no brainer.

If you were to ask me what the No. 1 lesson I learned from being on 'The Real World', and I challenge you to go back to the episodes and you will see that I'm right: I learned the myth of liberal tolerance.

Indeed the Obamas, the Clintons, and many other elites who oppose school choice and make it harder for charter schools to operate, send their own children to private institutions that cost more than many Hispanic families make in a year.

It's so fun for kids to dye eggs. But on Holy Thursday, we make a special batch of dyed eggs. Instead of pastel, the eggs we dye on Holy Thursday are dyed only red to symbolize the blood of Jesus.

Sometimes well-intentioned programs can lead to dependency and cause us to forget we have what it takes to attain the American dream.

Because a lot of people really associate liberalism and Democrats with tolerance, and I found it to be quite the opposite. They're tolerant as long as you agree with them! I felt like not only was I tolerant, I was curious and open-minded.

I have made a choice to fully enjoy my kids and this particular season of my life. It's a very conscious, powerful decision. In some ways, it takes more guts to buck the financial rewards and adulation that come from a professional career to pursue something so culturally undervalued as at-home motherhood.

On the weekends, it's much more relaxed. I enjoy cooking, so on Saturdays I make a big breakfast of eggs or pancakes, and sausage. Sean makes a mean cup of coffee. We read or put on music and watch the kids dance. We really enjoy hanging out together as a family.

Before I had my first child, I thought women had to decide between being a mom and a fulfilling, successful professional life. I was wrong. Very wrong.

A strong, durable Puerto Rican economy will leave the island better prepared to handle future natural disasters.

We didn't plan one of my kids; they just kind of happened. So I've just kind of taken each one as a blessing sent to me by God.

I would say that the best compliment I have gotten is from teachers who say they can tell that my kids come from a big family because they can see that they anticipate other people's needs and they don't think the world revolves around them.

I wouldn't say that a big family is for everybody, and I've brought my kids, for example, to New York City, and I can tell you it's much harder to raise that number of kids in a city like New York than it is to raise them in rural Wisconsin where I live.

I'm so happy I married a fellow Catholic because I think that marriage is tough enough - that's one area that's just not something we argue about. There's no contention about it because we're both on the same page.

Every kid is going to be his or her own individual, they all have their own style of doing things.

And what happens when you have a lot more kids is you gain more confidence, you figure out what's necessary, what's not, and you learn to manage your time better as a mom with kids who are over the age of 10.

There are a lot of blessings from being a big family, but there's also a lot more work. My kids understand that we are a team and we have to work together, so I don't do it all by myself.

I always say that my motto when it comes to children is: My job is not to get you into Harvard, it's to get you to heaven.

I always give the opposite advice of all the feminists: I say you must get your education or decide what you want to do in that regard, but then get your love life in order.

Progressives control America's schools and text book industry and they dishonestly leave the ugliest parts of the collectivist story out.

If you aren't talking to your kids about socialism, someone else is. So use car time, dinner time, tax preparation time, and time spent together at your work or small business to teach your child about the virtues of capitalism, the system of government that has lifted more people out of poverty.

When it comes to talking to your kids about economics, start early beause the progressive culture-makers are starting earlier than you think! Cartoon storylines regularly denegrate competition and other foundational principles of capitalism.

I don't need my president to be my savior - I already have one.

I am a practicing Catholic, not an evangelical Christian, but in 2016 I stood with millions of evangelicals who decided that Donald Trump would be the best person to fight for our religious liberty.