Biden State Department Funds Training of 2,500 LGBT ‘Allies’

The Biden administration is using the State Department to fund LGBT activism abroad — again. According to federal spending database USASpending.gov, the U.S. State Department awarded a $15,000 grant to Washington State University (WSU) for a “public diplomacy program.” The government website explains that the program is designed to train 30 “master trainers” to become “LGBTQI+ allies, followed by these master trainers training another 2500 individuals on this theme.” WSU hosted its three-day “train-the-trainer workshop” in India at the end of September.

According to WSU’s official new site, the program’s “priority” was “promoting a better understanding of diversity and inclusion and LGBTQIA+ rights…” The three-day program included sessions on “LGBTQ+ ally training,” “What it means to be an ally,” “Evolution of language/Defining LGBTQ+ language,” “LGBTQ+ history: Worldwide, in the United States, and in India,” “LGBTQ+ individuals and faith,” and others. The workshop concluded with the U.S. Consul General of Hyderabad awarding participants with certificates of completion. The program’s stated goal was to “[i]ncrease the comfort levels of all participants regarding issues faced by members of the LGBTQI+ community and work toward a more equitable company, university, and society for all.”

Meg Kilgannon, a senior fellow at Family Research Council, commented to The Washington Stand, “Hardly a day goes by without a revelation about talent or treasure being spent on perversion by the U.S. State Department. It’s the worst kind of colonialism — sexual colonialism.” She continued, “And don’t think that promotion abroad means the home front is safe from these manipulations. American school children and college students are offered the same content. Unrest at home and abroad is exacerbated by the Biden administration’s maniacal push to normalize the dangerous and abnormal.”

This is not the first time that the Biden State Department has used American taxpayers’ money to fund LGBT activism abroad. Last year, Family Research Council published a report detailing the Biden State Department’s commitment to LGBT ideology in foreign nations, including hundreds of thousands of dollars in grant money to LGBT organizations and programs. The U.S. Mission in Botswana, for example, offered $300,000 in grant money to “carry out a program to promote greater social acceptance of LGBTQI+ persons, including among influential religious groups and traditional groups…”

Another grant was awarded to an Ecuadorian group to finance drag shows and produce LGBT films and documentaries. A similar State Department grant in Portugal was used to fund a film festival called “Queer Lisboa,” which featured drag queens and media centered on incest and pedophilia. Other instances of State Department funds going to LGBT causes include supporting “queer Muslim writers in India, paying for classes for “transgender women makeup entrepreneurs” in Nepal, and promoting puberty blockers for children in Poland.

In some cases, the State Department’s LGBT activism has strained or jeopardized diplomatic relations with other nations. Promotion of Pride month and same-sex marriage has landed U.S. diplomats in trouble with the Foreign Ministers of nations like Kuwait and Hungary, where same-sex marriage is illegal. When U.S. Ambassador David Pressman, who openly identifies as homosexual, criticized Hungary’s laws, Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó fired back, “[I]f he wishes to use his stay in Hungary to criticize the actions of a government elected by a clear majority of the Hungarian people and legitimized by the Hungarian people, he will have a very difficult job in working effectively to improve cooperation between the two countries.”

The Biden administration has also funneled funding into LGBT causes abroad via the U.S. Agency for International Aid (USAID). Through USAID, the White House has often partnered with other governments and private firms to sink further millions into LGBT activism in foreign nations. According to the Washington Free Beacon, the Biden administration has spent nearly $5 million promoting LGBT ideology in foreign nations as of June, 2023.

AUTHOR

S.A. McCarthy

S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.


The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Queers for Palestine: An Unholy Alliance

Queers for Palestine. What an unlikely slogan. It makes my brain stop working. It’s a thought-terminating cliché along the lines of “Trans rights are human rights” or “Black Lives Matter.” At the heart of Christian mysticism lies a pathway to knowing God, and it is contained in contradictory or paradoxical speech. The “dazzling darkness” of Pseudo-Dionysius, who also talks about “knowing all by knowing nothing” (how is that possible?). Right there, in that spot, we can meet God, but let’s not confuse this with whatever it is the rainbow mob is doing linguistically. While they might feel as though they are part of a religious organisation, with their grievances and gripes and demands being their liturgy, and their rainbow flag their symbol of adoration, it is the opposite in content and character. It is more in line with a cult, and its members display all the signs of having been brainwashed.

Queers for Palestine turned up to support the Free Palestine brigade in London recently, and one blue-haired person was asked why she was there. Her answer: “We’re not free until we’re all free.” It’s catchy-sounding, but devoid of all meaning. She should have said, “We’re not free until those whom we selectively choose to use for our own cause are also free.” That, at least, would have been honest. She sagely continued: “We’re here because there are queers in Palestine.” The logic is that queers in Palestine need also to be freed from the atrocities that Israel is allegedly perpetrating on the citizens. The assumption is that if Israel simply stops what it’s doing, queers will go back to having a fantastic life under Hamas, Islam, and sharia. If I were she, I’d be demanding the release of all queer people in Palestine. I’d be viewing them along the lines of being in a hostage situation at the hands of Hamas. But even then, queers couldn’t simply raise their hands in the rubble and say “I’m queer, I’m here, see me, free me.” They’d be instantly killed or tortured. So the queers attach their grievances to those of the terrorists for whatever reasons they might have, but both parties’ hatred needs an outlet, and they’re not above or below using their own as human shields when they need to score a political point over someone.

Queering the Map is an online digital platform which allows queer users “to make anonymous geotagged posts.” Some of the posts read, “Pls know despite what the media says there are gay Palestinians. We are here, we are queer. Free Palestine.” Free it into what, you might ask. While another post reads, “I knew I was different from a young age… But society demands it remains hidden. I live elsewhere now… I cannot live a lie.” Two things apparently can be true at once — that gay Palestinians support living under sharia, but they also have to flee from a probable public honour killing.

Leftists try to blame the UK for criminalizing same-sex relations in Gaza due to the British Mandate Criminal Code Ordinance 1936, while ignoring Islamic laws and attitudes towards the act. Owen Jones was spouting this nonsense recently, until he was reminded that the mandate ended in 1948. Owen Jones is a mouthpiece for the LGBT+ mob. He’s nothing more than an agitator, and he will gleefully twist facts and deliberately leave out information in order to create an imaginary crisis, and in order to sensationalize a thing to fit his agenda. His argument is standing on quicksand if he’s reaching back almost 100 years to try and score a modern-day point. It was illegal to be publicly gay in Scotland as recently as 1980, but so what? Life progresses and laws change. Scotland now has the most progressive laws in all of the UK, albeit over-the-top, misogynistic, and bang out of order. If Islam is stuck in a rut, it’s not the West’s problem. If five million Scots can change their ways, so can 1.8 billion Muslims.

Why are gay groups being drawn to Islam? The truth is that LGBT+ movements are predatory and parasitic in nature, just as Islam is. Today, they are like sharks circling bloody waters whenever they see a perceived victim group that they can devour. They like to vampirically suck the life out of groups of people. It’s what sustains them: victims. Vampires make other vampires, and we see this with all the new additions to the rainbow flag as it changes every couple of years now to include each newly-made monster. Recent inclusions being brown stripes for POC (who were never actually excluded), the trans triangle, and a circle for intersex. Of course, further additions will be made ad nauseum. Even though they’re running out of room on the thing, we are told that “The placement of the new colours in an arrow shape is meant to convey the progress still needed… work is still needed in terms of POC and trans rights. This arrow design is meant to highlight that.” I’d bet they’d love nothing more than a Muslim/Islamic/Palestinian stripe or circle or arrow on that flag. How to go about getting it, though? Simple, turn up at the rallies and pretend to be an ally. It’s the gay equivalent of a dawah stall.

The pro-Palestine mob isn’t buying what the gays are selling, no matter how mightily they flirt and flutter their eyelashes at them. Gays are just going to have to learn that no means no. A skirmish broke out upon the sighting of a Pride flag at a recent protest. The flag was ripped down and trampled on. The only thing both groups have in common is that they both want special treatment under the law. Neither one of them are happy with equality. It’s a hate crime to criticise both groups these days. A man was recently arrested for criticising the number of Palestinian flags that had been put up in his street in East London. Meanwhile, in South London, a man was arrested for pushing over planters in a school’s gardening display. He was arrested and held in custody for causing alarm and distress: “Officers are treating this incident as a motivated hate crime attack on our LGBTQ+ communities.”

The truth of the matter is that the LGBT+ movement in the UK, and certainly the West, is a privileged class. There is nothing left to fight for, because they have rights that the majority of people don’t have. In Scotland, they can change their gender on a daily basis and enjoy the protections under the law afforded to whatever gender they are that day. To quote Captain James T. Kirk from Star Trek, they can boldly go to places where “no man has gone before”: into the women’s bathrooms and locker rooms. It is a criminal act to deliberately misgender someone. The war has been won for these groups and these people, but I put the blame on the organisations. They need to remain funded, and in order to receive money they need to create gripes on a regular basis. It has all culminated with men dominating women in sports. That’s what gay progress looks like in the West. It is the very worst of a religious cult.

White liberals are incredibly racist, we already know this. They have a tendency to view all non-white people as being invalids or basket cases who simply have no control over their lives or behaviour. Islam comes with a colour attached to it in their minds – brown – therefore, it is a group for marginalised people who need help. I find it all patronizing and very condescending. And they are doing their utmost to align themselves with it. I wonder what colour or stripe or shape they’ll find to represent Islam on their flag. It could simply be a ragged hole in the middle of it, to symbolize a bomb explosion? Can someone please tell them that Islam doesn’t want them, in spite of their best attempts at seduction?

AUTHOR

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. All rights reserved.

Oral Arguments begin February 7th, 2024 before the Florida Supreme Court on Proposed Amendment that Codifies Unrestricted Abortion

Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver will be presenting oral arguments before the Florida Supreme Court on Wednesday, February 7, 2024, beginning at 9:00 a.m. EST, regarding a proposed amendment that would codify unrestricted abortion as a right in the state constitution.

Liberty Counsel represents Florida Voters Against Extremism which is urging the Florida Supreme Court not to approve the wording of a proposed amendment that is misleading and deceptive and violates the single subject rule.

The proposed amendment, “Amendment to Limit Government Interference with Abortion,” would create a new section in the Florida Constitution “limiting government interference with abortion.” The full text of the accompanying ballot summary states: “No law shall prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patient’s health, as determined by the patient’s healthcare provider. This amendment does not change the Legislature’s constitutional authority to require notification to a parent or guardian before a minor has an abortion.”

The proposed amendment is sponsored by Floridians Protecting Freedom, Inc., a political committee supported by the Florida Alliance of Planned Parenthood Affiliates, the American Civil Liberties Union, and other groups that support unrestricted abortion on demand up to birth.

The effect of the proposed amendment would prevent the State of Florida from regulating all abortions that a vague and undefined “healthcare provider” may deem “necessary” to protect the woman’s “health.” The amendment leaves the terms “necessary” and “health” purposefully undefined and vague. The proposed amendment would permit Partial-Birth Abortion, which is banned by the federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. This conflict alone with the federal law disqualifies the proposed amendment. The proposed amendment also violates the Florida Constitution’s single-subject requirement by addressing multiple subjects, including pre-viability abortions and health in the same proposal. Those are distinct issues that cannot permissibly be put into a single ballot initiative.

According to the Florida Department of Health, a “healthcare practitioner” includes nearly 60 categories — everything from a massage therapist, audiologist, 911 public safety telecommunicator, and a tattoo artist. According to this proposed amendment, any of those professions could refer a woman for an abortion.


Please text or call Jack Kinnett, Vice President of Constituency Affairs for the Liberty Counsel @ 407.702.7478 or email Jack@LC.org for information if you are interested in attending or want additional info.


Hear Live Argument Here:

Oral Argument Broadcasts & Ceremonial Sessions

Liberty Counsel’s Briefs:

FL Voters Against Extremism PC (PDF)

Brief FL Voters Against Extremism – Filed (PDF)

Press Releases:

FL Supreme Court Will Hear Abortion Initiative Argument

Deceptive Abortion Initiative in Florida Must Be Rejected

FL Supreme Court Asked To Reject Deceptive and Misleading Abortion Amendment

Media:

(AUDIO) The Florida Supreme Court Will Hear Oral Arguments Regarding This Deceptive Amendment

(AUDIO) Florida Supreme Court Will Hear Abortion Initiative Argument

(AUDIO) Florida Supreme Court Must Reject Misleading Abortion Amendment

©2024. Dr. Rich Swier. All rights reserved.

Moms For Liberty: Exposé on Slander by NYC Democrat Politicians and Leftwing Media

From Moms For Liberty after the Town Hall on Jan. 18, 2024: “We had an open conversation on the state of education in New York with NYC elected leaders and parents in the community. Plus a keynote speech from Billboard Chris.

THEY CARE ABOUT THE CHILDREN – Photo Pamela Hall 2022

Inside Bohemian Hall, “questions were answered, and voices from all viewpoints who wanted to engage in collaborative conversation were welcomed. We loved being in NYC.”

Unable to attend but that will not stop me from reporting on the event and the  anti-Moms propaganda parroted by the leftists, politicians and media.

Moms for Liberty is a hate group, plain and simple. And hate has no place in New York City.” Tony Simone: Assembly member, 75th District

They used the hate grouSPLC (the infamous Southern Poverty Law Center) as their authority on mislabeled hate groups.

The SPLC Is Massively Over counting ‘Hate’ Groups—and It’s Not Just Moms for Liberty” (Reason.com)

Map Southern Poverty Law Center, 2022

”At this rate, the Southern Poverty Law Center‘s HATE MAP might eventually describe everyone as an extremist.”

Southern Poverty Law Center’s Despicable Attack on Parental Rights Is a Sign of Leftist Panic”

The Southern Poverty Law Center does one of the Left’s filthiest jobs: It smears political enemies as “hate groups,” putting these organizations’ staff at risk. It thus spreads hatred while mawkishly pretending to fight it. It foolishly believes its wall of sanctimony will obscure its ruthless tactics.” [The Heritage Foundation]

NOTHING that was said inside by a very diverse panel was going to change the stories they had already written. What follows is a look at some of the slanted reporting as well as videos from left and right, leading off with the NY Daily News one-sided headline.

In this video of Manhattan Borough President, Mark Levine , outside Bohemian Hall, he rants the predictable slander  (Freedom News TV)

Other videos and articles, like this from the Daily Beast‘s Kate Briquelet Senior Reporter is an example of leftist journalism, all slant. No matter what she heard inside, the Moms for Liberty were racist BIGOTS.” (mobbed?). Noisy, but easily contained by the police.

Protesters flocked to Manhattan on Thursday to oppose the right-wing extremist group, which hosted a “town hall” for “an honest conversation on the state of education” that featured anti-trans and school choice activists. (Among them were state and city lawmakers and Moms for Liberty opposition group Defense of Democracy.)

Jo Macellaroa public school teacher in the Bronx, stood near the entrance with a sign reading, “I’m the trans teacher you’re so scared of.”(pronouns they/them)

…”they’ve” worked with trans students in elementary school and said, “It’s hard for me to imagine how hard it is for them,” especially when “most of the information from people like Moms for Liberty is false. Trans kids I know just want to be kids.” (also) …   protect kids …. students (need) access to books, therapy, medical care, and the ability to ask questions.”

Kate Briquelet continued with her negative report:

“But most of the airtime was spent listening to panelists stoke fears about the usual conservative bugbears: transgender care for minors and critical race theory. For about 15 minutes at the end, a handful of people in the crowd were able to ask questions, which resulted in anger and several fraught interactions. This, despite an event flyer claiming that “all viewpoints are welcome.”

My reaction: The full length video shows the only “fraught interactions” were caused by lefties who asked questions that were out right lies: ALL viewpoints were permitted doesn’t mean everyone has to like it.

Panelists included “Billboard Chris,” a frequent Moms for Liberty collaborator who travels the continent railing against gender-affirming care for minors, and Nicholas Giordano, a community college professor and occasional Fox News contributor.

Other “parents rights” adherents included NYC community education council member Maud Maron, who called trans-identifying children “a social contagion” and Paul Rossi, a former private school teacher fired for challenging anti-racism lessons. He is now a consultant for affluent parents concerned about “woke” ideology, the New York Post reported.

Another participant, Wai Wah Chin of the Chinese American Citizens Alliance Greater New York, was reportedly instrumental in ending affirmative action.”

Briquelet ended with this bit of “drama” while omitting his name:

“After the town hall ended amid bickering and shouts and one man being escorted out .

(“The One Man” ejected was Leftist troublemaker WALTER MATHESON – a Sascha Baron Cohen wanna-be) [screen grab photos – AOK News ] 

A few days later he harassed people leaving Henry Kissinger’s memorial with a ‘F**k Kissinger” sign. [picture of sign-Freedom News TV]

Sonni Mun (MD), a Manhattan parent told The Daily Beast, “It wasn’t a town hall. It was a disinformation campaign.”

[I’m familiar with Sonni–  a dedicated hard-core leftistMY pictures of her include Sonni and her pro-abortion friend’s UnF**k the world t-shirt in 2023 and her cute “It’s the f-ing guns” PINK t-shirt at an anti-gun rally in 2022.

Sonni’s quote is an incorrect assessment of the Town Hall: “This is New York City and I didn’t expect it to be as insane as it was,” she added. “I was sort of shocked at the amount of hate and misinformation and that they basically talked about everything except curriculum and education.” (The full video at the end of this article verifies that curriculum and education was very prevalent in the discussions.)

To be expected, Kate Briquelet, made these non-question plants VICTIMS of the Moms. [both photos Pamela Hall 2022/23]

“Moms for Liberty advertised their NYC event as a “town hall” but so far no audience members have been able to ask questions & it’s supposed to end in 10 minutes. Ahead of audience Qs, they showed us a clip from a COVID documentary.” – [The 15 minute documentary teaser was 01:09]

“How they’re responding to people’s concerns. People are telling this woman to shut up but they wouldn’t let her finish her Q.” [This woman would not let the panelist respond. SHE was yelling over him—so the audience did tell her to be quiet, to let him talk.]

This man repeated the leftist lies that claim curriculum and education were not discussed, despite the FACT that they were discussed.

Moms 4 Liberty posted a complete video of the Town Hall (2 hours)

.The leftists were planted around the room, knowing full well there would be vocal reactions to their snarky comments, so the left-media can accuse the so-called chaos of impeding an open town hall.

They ask who gave M4L the right to dictate how to educate their children without explaining “why it is okay for THEM to tell parents how to educate their children”. It’s one-sided. The left-media skips that part ’cause they know it’s one-sided.

Government schools fill hours of so-called education with “how to protest white people and conservatives and Christians and now : Jews and Israel.” Left-media does not admit they are the hypocrites.

Yes, the Three R’s are important but they are seriously neglected by the LEFT, not the Mom’s For Liberty crowd.  Children fail maths, can’t write in cursive (or at all) and only know the rewritten history foisted on them by leftist teachers who idolize Marxists like Howard Zinn and promote the fake history of the 1619 Project. Without apology, they ban Thomas Sowell, the Bible, Conservatives, Republicans, the real history of Israel as well as historians like Paul Johnson.

Bastardized history that teaches  hatred, to reshape our country while creating a dystopian world ; this is our future,  the New World Order, the Great Reset if they are not stopped by groups like Moms For Liberty.

This clip is rife with falsehoods as Joy Reid of MSNBC rudely talks over Tiffany Justice. She begins with Tiffany Justice (at 1:05) (16 min clip- MSNBC)

Joy  could not let go of the misinformation re banning,  ignoring the books LEFTIST have banned (books with racist or what they label offensive language.)

“All Boys are Blue”/rape of minor child/strap-on dildo/incest- pedophilia- predators- Joy claims moms take it OUT OF CONTEXT.
Joy lobs the “expertise” question with a snarky quip that Tiffany is  NOT AN EXPERT and WHO gave Tiffany the right to ‘ban’ books’

Joy mentions library OPT OUT FORMS for students. For books like  Ruby Bridges. Tiffany says graphic sexual contact is at issue, but Joy won’t let Tiffany talk; to explain.

Tiffany points out that Moms 4 Liberty have not BANNED books.

Found a conservative reading list that a leftist school removed from approved reading. 

Open picture in new tab to enlarge.

Outside the Town Hall was a table set by the People for the American Way with BOOKS supposedly ‘banned’ by the Mom’s and their ilk. [photo by hate speech]

Check out this outrageous alternative to Moms 4 Liberty, a stomach turning website: Defense Of Democracy.

“In the spring of 2022, two moms in a small upstate New York town came together to fight back against three school board candidates endorsed by the hate group Moms for Liberty. “

We support educators who present historically and scientifically accurate information…”

https://linktr.ee/defenseofdemocracy
https://www.instagram.com/dofdnational

Since book ‘banning’ is such a hot topic for the left-media and the leftist orgs, these excerpts from a few articles (with links at end) reveal more about the hypocritical Left’s actual banning of BOOKS.

Liberals cannot open the door to censorship for reasons they consider good without also opening the door for reasons they consider not-so-good.

There were at least 2,532 book challenges from July 2021 to June 2022, affecting 1,648 book titles, according to a report by the “free expression protection group” PEN America. According to the American Library Association,… any book that is challenged is considered to be a “banned book.”

.… liberal efforts criticized or restricted books in the name of anti-racism or progressive ideals.

Books like “Of Mice and Men;” “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” and several Dr. Seuss titles have been challenged in some schools and libraries due to racist language or imagery throughout the years, including the use of the n-word or insensitive imagery of racial stereotypes, according to the ALA.

Just as conservatives have gained traction on gender identity by asking leftists to define the word “woman,” they could also reframe the book debate by asking them to define the word “ban.” They shouldn’t let the Left avoid acknowledging the explicit or graphic content of many of these books, and they should ask defenders of these titles whether they want their own children reading them. When movies and television programs are rated PG–13, R, or X—and consequently restricted for younger viewers—that doesn’t mean that they’re banned. The same principle goes for books.

… “progressive” education is designed to teach a single position as the only position. There can’t be debate over abortion, evolution, climate change, homosexuality, transgenderism, and any number of other leftist positions.

Students must be shielded from well-reasoned contrary positions. Just seeing a list of 31 books might give students the wrong impression of what they’ve been taught for 12 years. “You mean there is another position?”

1984, perfect example of how teaching its intended allegory has been lost

It’s hard for many Americans to believe, but their schools have been taken over by an alien worldview designed to shape their children into non-thinking wards of the State as THE LEFT CONTINUES to PERVERT the EDUCATION of our CHILDREN.

Bill Maher doubled down. “Everything I read, whatever source, it’s only half the truth. They print the narrative. They don’t print truth.” 

The left claims
 that progressive books are being censored in public schools. But my research proves the opposite is true…. students complained that their school libraries had become one-sided, offering only books in line with progressive orthodoxy.

FACT: the Public Library System is controlled by the LEFT.

The ALA has long been notoriously liberal. While many other library associations around the world condemned the Cuban regime’s closure of libraries and jailing of dissident librarians, the ALA never did.

America’s one-sided school libraries are failing students. No wonder only 16% of Gen Z says they are proud to live in America, according to a January 2023 Morning Consult poll. They don’t have access to books that present our country in an honest light.”

It’s no secret that many school libraries have become reflections of politicized librarians. Take Emily Drabinski, president of the American Library Association and a self-proclaimed Marxist, who said during a socialism conference last September in Chicago that public education “needs to be a site of socialist organizing. I think libraries really do, too. We need to be on the agenda of socialist organizing.”

YET MOMS FOR LIBERTY ARE THE EXTREMISTS?

Click here to view infographic: My Power and Privilege.

Click here to view infographic: Wheel of Power/Privilege

WHAT NONSENSE.

[All pictures articles and videos are attributed]

LINKS For articles that focused on Left Book Bans:

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Prosecution of Pro-Lifers Continues under Biden’s DOJ, with 6 More Convictions

On Tuesday, a guilty verdict was announced for six pro-life activists for violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act at an abortion facility near Nashville, Tenn. The Biden administration’s Justice Department brought the charges, which stemmed from a peaceful protest on March 5, 2021, in which a group of pro-lifers prayed and sang hymns at the entrance to the Carafem Health Center Clinic.

Video of the protest shows a group of approximately 20-30 pro-life activists peacefully praying and singing hymns while standing and sitting along the walls of a hallway leading to the door of the abortion facility, with a small segment of the group sitting directly in front of the facility’s entrance. Roughly two hours into the vigil, a number of protestors were arrested for blocking the entrance without incident.

In October 2022, the Biden administration’s Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that it was charging 11 individuals involved in the protest with violating the federal FACE Act, which bars individuals from physically blocking the entrance to an abortion facility. Six of the defendants were eventually convicted on Tuesday, with each facing “up to a maximum of 10 and a half years in prison, three years of supervised release and fines of up to $260,000,” with sentencing set for July 2. Four other defendants are scheduled to stand trial for misdemeanor violations of the FACE Act.

The Thomas More Society, which is representing the defendants, is expected to appeal the convictions.

The DOJ’s FACE Act prosecutions are the latest in a series of legal actions directed at pro-life activists under the Biden administration, in which at least 24 cases have been prosecuted since January 2021. At the same time, there have only been four FACE Act indictments of pro-abortion individuals related to a single attack on a pregnancy resource center in Florida, despite the fact that there have been hundreds of attacks that have occurred against churches and pregnancy resource centers during Biden’s tenure.

As noted by Family Research Council’s Arielle Del Turco during a House Judiciary Committee hearing last year, the FACE Act was originally designed to protect abortion facilities, pregnancy resource centers, and places of worship. The types of attacks committed against churches have included “vandalism, arson, bomb threats, gun-related incidents, and interruption of worship services — all of which are punishable under the FACE Act,” she emphasized.

The disparity in prosecutions has led to Congress taking notice. In October, Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) introduced a bill to repeal the FACE Act, citing the biased enforcement that is being carried out by the Biden administration. “We need to repeal it and then stop giving authority to the Department of Justice to be able to go after [pro-life] people,” he told Tony Perkins in September.

In comments to The Washington Stand, Mary Szoch, director of the Center for Human Dignity at Family Research Council, questioned the priorities of the Biden administration’s DOJ in targeting pro-lifers amid a spiraling border crisis and the spreading conflict in the Middle East.

“As countless little boys and girls are being trafficked across the border and wars wage across the world, the Biden administration thinks the most important thing to focus on is prosecuting peaceful protestors attempting to save unborn babies from a brutal death,” she pointed out. “Yes, these protestors violated the FACE Act, but the Biden administration should consider spending taxpayer dollars to protect America’s border — not to stop non-violent men and women who are simply singing hymns while defending the unborn.”

AUTHOR

Dan Hart

Dan Hart is senior editor at The Washington Stand.

RELATED ARTICLE: Report Catalogues Dozens of New Incidents of Persecution against Christians in the West

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.


The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Opponents Call SAFE Acts ‘Extremist,’ but 5 Veto Overrides Suggest Otherwise

The Ohio state legislature on Wednesday became the fifth to override a governor’s veto to enact a law protecting minors from gender transition procedures. With every successful veto override, claims of “extremism” lodged against the bill appear more and more far-fetched.

Accusations of extremism began with the very first Save Adolescents from Experimentation (SAFE) Act, passed by the Arkansas legislature in 2021 (HB 1570). The bill sailed through the House (70-22) on March 10 and the Senate (28-7) on March 29. Despite these wide margins, Human Rights Campaign (HRC) President Alphonso David complained on March 13 of that year, “The furious pace of these bills shows that hateful anti-equality groups across the country and extremist legislators alike realize that equality is gaining momentum.” After then-Governor Asa Hutchinson vetoed the bill, the Arkansas legislature responded by overriding the veto (72-25 in the House, 25-8 in the Senate) on April 6.

The campaign to protect children accelerated in 2023, when 20 state legislatures joined those of Arkansas (2021), Alabama (2022), and Arizona (2022) in passing laws to protect children from gender transition procedures (although the Ohio veto override occurred this month). As the movement grew, so did the opposition. When Tennessee enacted a bill in March, a coalition of left-wing groups including the ACLU and Lambda Legal claimed that they had “chosen fearmongering, misrepresentations, intimidation, and extremist politics over the rights of families and the lives of transgender youth.”

“Extremist, anti-LGBTQ+ politicians and their allies are waging a dangerous and cruel misinformation campaign that seeks to stigmatize not only gender-affirming care but transgender and non-binary people as well,” claimed HRC’s new president Kelley Robinson. “Through fear-mongering and propaganda, extremist leaders are working overtime to manufacture panic, rile up their base, and coax them into opposing healthcare for transgender people.”

Left-wing groups were not above indulging in a little fear-mongering of their own. “Across the country, anti-transgender extremists and politicians are putting the lives and well-being of transgender people at risk,” said Movement Advancement Project Senior Policy Researcher Logan Casey, “by attempting to outlaw access to best practice medical care not only for youth but for all transgender people.” No states have passed laws to ban gender transition procedures for adults because, although these procedures harm adults too, society recognizes that adults are competent and therefore free to make their own decisions.

Nevertheless, “extremism” remained the buzzword across the left-wing activist-sphere, especially when a governor’s veto raised the bar for passage and gave activist groups time to pile on additional pressure. “For the extremist groups that are pushing these laws, the guard rails are off,” insisted Campaign for Southern Equality executive director Rev. Jasmine Beach-Ferrara of Louisiana’s SAFE Act-style bill. GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis claimed that “Ohio’s extremist lawmakers inexplicably refused facts, expert testimony, and deeply personal pleas” by overriding the governor’s veto.

Despite the pressure and accusations of extremism, four state legislatures have overridden their governor’s vetoes in the past 12 months. On March 29, 2023, the Kentucky Senate (29-8) and House (76-23) voted to override Governor Andy Beshear’s (D) veto of a bill to protect minors from gender transition procedures, which also included protections for women’s sports and parental rights. On July 18, the Louisiana House (76-23) and Senate (28-11) voted to override then- Governor John Bel Edwards’s veto of the Stop Harming Our Kids Act, which told doctors to do just what the title said. On August 16, the North Carolina House (74-45) and Senate (27-18) voted to override Governor Roy Cooper’s (D) veto of that state’s bill to protect minors from gender transition procedures.

Then, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine (R) vetoed that state’s SAFE Act at the end of the year (December 29), the first Republican governor to oppose such a measure since Hutchinson in 2021. Almost immediately, nearly every other statewide official criticized the veto, and legislators in both chambers announced plans to override. The House overrode the veto 65-27 on January 10, and the Senate overrode the veto 24-8 on January 24, 2024.

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins extracted a lesson for governors from the veto override trend. “Given that five legislatures have overridden gubernatorial vetoes of legislation protecting minors from the transgender activists pushing experimental drugs and surgeries,” he remarked, “any governor who vetoes these SAFE Act-type laws is either politically tone-deaf or being influenced by those who profit from this morally devastating, but financially lucrative, industry.”

Another implication of the trend is that protecting minors from harmful, experimental gender transition procedures is not an “extremist” position, as its opponents keep on insisting. This is because of the role that executive vetoes play in America’s system of checks and balances.

In Federalist Paper 73, Alexander Hamilton explained that an executive veto “furnishes an additional security against the enaction of improper laws. It establishes a salutary check upon the legislative body, calculated to guard the community against the effects of faction, precipitancy, or of any impulse unfriendly to the public good, which may happen to influence a majority of that body.”

Hamilton was defending the veto power given to the U.S. president under the not-yet-ratified U.S. Constitution, but his reasoning is general enough to apply to gubernatorial vetoes against state legislation, too.

The “propriety” of a veto, Hamilton added, turns “upon the supposition that the legislature will not be infallible.” He articulated three general scenarios in which a veto could serve as a useful check. First, “the love of power may sometimes betray it into a disposition to encroach upon the rights of other members of the government.” Second, “a spirit of faction may sometimes pervert its deliberations.” Third, “impressions of the moment may sometimes hurry it into measures which itself, on maturer reflexion, would condemn.”

While the first scenario is not relevant to the SAFE Act debate, claims of “extremism” certainly suggest a “spirit of faction,” and they may also suggest the legislature itself would change its mind upon “maturer reflection.” The multiple vetoes issued against SAFE Acts provide case studies to see whether these applications prove true.

If the SAFE Acts were imprudent bills that legislatures passed too hastily, we would expect to find many legislators switching their votes during the veto override attempts, perhaps even enough that the bill would fail to reach whatever supermajority threshold was required. That is emphatically not what we find. The Arkansas bill lost one vote between its first passage and the veto override. The Kentucky bill lost one vote in the Senate but gained one in the House. The Louisiana bill lost one vote in the Senate, while four House members switched their votes two-and-two, canceling each other out. The North Carolina bill actually gained two votes. In Ohio, no legislators switched their votes.

Thus, after hundreds of legislators voted on these bills, and then voted on them again after they had been vetoed, the net effect was a change of zero votes (excluding different vote totals caused by absent legislators). These five bills lost a total of five votes and gained a total of five votes between first passage and the veto override.

The other claim raised against the SAFE Act is that it is the product of an extremist faction — in this case, its detractors allege, having swept through nearly the entire Republican Party. This claim would be more plausible if all the legislators who voted for the SAFE Act were of the same party, but that is not what we find. In Louisiana, multiple Democrats in the Senate voted for the bill both on initial passage and in overriding the governor’s veto — a governor of their own party. In North Carolina, two House Democrats actually switched their votes during the veto override, to approve the bill against the wishes of their own party’s governor.

For that matter, the North Carolina legislature would not have even taken up a SAFE Act-style bill if not for the extremism of Democrats in the chamber. Earlier in the year, Representative Tricia Cotham had switched from the Democratic to the Republican Party because her fellow Democrats were bullying her over introducing a school choice bill. Her party switch gave the Republicans the supermajority they needed to advance legislation the governor would likely veto.

There is a tendency today to view things like veto power and legislative supermajorities as simply a matter of who has power to do what. Succumbing to that tendency would be a mistake, because it capitulates to a Marxist view of politics that sees everything through the lens of power dynamics. Sometimes, the usual political divisions break down, and government officials make decisions based upon what they believe is best for society, a certain group in society, or at least for their reelection chances. As noted above, some Democratic legislators voted for SAFE Act-style bills, while some Republican governors vetoed them. The veto even exerts a restraining influence in the far-Left, one-party state of California, where in September Governor Gavin Newsom (D) vetoed an anti-parent bill. The more statesmanlike use of the veto propounded by Hamilton may not always exert itself, but it still plays a role too large to dismiss.

An executive veto serves to “increase the chances in favor of the community against the passing of bad laws, through haste, inadvertence, or design,” said Hamilton. “The oftener the measure is brought under examination, the greater the diversity in the situations of those who are to examine it, the less must be the danger of those errors which flow from want of due deliberation, or of those missteps which proceed from the contagion of some common passion or interest.”

SAFE Act-style bills have now been considered a great many times across a great many states. In just a three-year span, nearly half of all U.S. state legislatures (23, to be exact) have seen fit to implement protections for minors suffering gender dysphoria, who lack the long-term vision and decision-making prudence to clearly see the harms of irreversible gender transition procedures. Each of those states conducted extensive hearings, featuring testimony from both sides of the debate, and were exposed to public input (including rather rude protests from the Left) on the bills’ potential merits and effects. There has been no lack of examination or due deliberation.

In almost every state, a supermajority of the legislature (often two-thirds, or even three-fourths) voted in favor of the measures. In five states, a supermajority enacted the bills of a governor’s veto. Such overwhelming support, almost by definition, implies that these bills enjoy support from more than just an “extremist” faction, notwithstanding the slanders of their detractors.

AUTHOR

Joshua Arnold

Joshua Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.


The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Here Are Three Unanswered Questions About Biden EPA’s Massive Green ‘Slush Fund’

As Republican lawmakers prepare to grill a senior Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) official about one of President Joe Biden’s massive green grantmaking programs, several questions about the program’s structure and potential beneficiaries remain unanswered.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is sitting on a $27 billion fund known as the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF), a program established by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), Biden’s landmark climate bill. The House Energy and Commerce Committee is holding an oversight hearing on the program featuring Senior Advisor to the EPA Administrator Zealan Hoover on Tuesday in Washington, D.C., with Republican lawmakers describing the program as possibly spawning “the next big government boondoggle.”

The GGRF intends “to mobilize financing and private capital to address the climate crisis” using several subprograms, according to the EPA. The program’s expeditious timeline, as well as the connections that several of those groups share to the administration and the broader Democratic party apparatus, have attracted the scrutiny of government watchdog groups and elected Republicans alike in recent months.

How is the EPA ensuring that political connections do not interfere with selecting grantees?

Up to $14 billion of GGRF cash could go to so-called “green banks,” or financial institutions that provide financing specifically for climate-related investments, according to the EPA. Three of the five “green bank” consortiums reportedly on the shortlist to potentially receive multi-billion dollar payouts from the GGRF have considerable ties to the Biden administration or the wider Democratic Party and its allies. The coalitions are variously composed of environmental groups, nonprofits and smaller “green banks” that would distribute the awarded funds to projects they deem worthy of the material support.

“Many prospective recipients and sub-recipients are chock full of political operatives as well as individuals and organizations with ties to the current administration and its Democratic predecessors,” Michael Chamberlain, the executive director of Protect the Public’s Trust, a watchdog organization that has closely monitored the GGRF, told the DCNF. “This raises serious questions about the likelihood of the GGRF being used to advance partisan interests or reward former political appointees and those who helped elect the President or create the program.”

For example, the board of directors for the Coalition for Green Capital — one of the groups reportedly in contention for a major payday — includes David Hayes, a senior fellow for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and formerly a climate adviser for Biden; Cecilia Martinez, who is now the Bezos Earth Fund’s chief of environmental and climate justice after a stint in the Biden White House Council on Environmental Quality; and Julie Greene Collier, chief of staff for the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO).

The committee could choose to dig into these connections and call on Hoover to provide a detailed description of internal EPA safeguards to ensure a competitive grantmaking process on Tuesday, as well as whether the agency is concerned about potential appearances of ethical impropriety or political patronage with its award decisions.

Why did the agency meet with major green groups about the program in November 2022?

The EPA met with several organizations connected to officials in the agency and the wider administration behind closed doors to discuss the fund in November 2022, about 11 months before the application window closed in October 2023. The meeting served as a chance for groups like the NRDC and the Center for American Progress to “provide early feedback” and “ask clarifying questions” about the GGRF process.

“Holding a chummy meeting with special interest organizations with deep connections to political leadership isn’t a good look,” Chamberlain said at the time.

Protect the Public’s Trust described the meeting as “highly irregular” back in September 2023, and Republican lawmakers could test his theory by asking Hoover to explain why this meeting was held, what specific issues were discussed and whether it is standard EPA practice to meet with activist organizations about major programs like the GGRF behind closed doors before the application window has closed.

How is EPA ensuring due diligence while also rushing to get funds out by September 2024?

The agency is endeavoring to shell out the bulk of the GGRF money by September 2024 per the terms of the IRA, but elected Republicans have suggested that this timeline significantly raises the risks of inadequate oversight. Watchdog groups that have previously raised the alarm on the program concur.

“Haste really does make waste, as we should have learned from the government’s COVID response. When federal programs are fast tracked at the expense of appropriate oversight, they’re vulnerable to waste, fraud, and abuse,” Pete McGinnis, the spokesman for the Functional Government Initiative, told the DCNF. “The Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund sure looks like a taxpayer-financed $27 billion slush fund for Biden administration insiders pushing unproven technologies.”

Other similar government programs designed to boost green energy development with taxpayer-funded cash infusions have also shelled out money with a sense of urgency, leading to potential lapses in the due diligence process. the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Loan Programs Office (LPO), one such program reportedly trying to move funds quickly, agreed to provide one fledgling company a $375 million loan package while it was allegedly defrauding its investors, and another $3 billion package to another company that reportedly exploited elderly customers by having them sign long-term, expensive solar panel installation contracts.

Given the relatively quick timeline and the fact that GGRF grantees may serve as functional grantmakers outside of typical agency controls, Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee could press Hoover for detailed plans that demonstrate the agency is prepared to give out the money in a way that appropriately mitigates the inherent risks.

“While we are heartened to see the GGRF on the radar of Congressional overseers, we are equally disturbed about the reasons it has come to their attention. Members of the committee have expressed similar concerns as ours about the tremendous potential for abuse, conflicts, and cronyism inherent in this massive program,” Chamberlain told the DCNF. “The more details that emerge about the $27 billion GGRF, the more disturbed we become of the possibility this could turn out to be a colossal Greendoggle, or worse.”

For its part, the EPA has expressed to the DCNF that it is administering the program by the book.

“All applications submitted to the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund competitions are being put through a rigorous evaluation and selection process in line with the high standards of EPA’s Competition Policy, which ensures that the competitive process for EPA funds remains fair, impartial and free of undue influence,” an EPA spokesperson previously told the DCNF.

There are several key questions about the program that remain unanswered, and the House Energy and Commerce Committee has a chance to address the underlying risk factors when they convene Tuesday morning on Capitol Hill to hold a hearing examining the program.

AUTHOR

NICK POPE

Contributor.

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DAVID BLACKMON: The Biden Admin And Its Buddies Are Waging Foolish War Against Abundant Clean Energy

On Thursday, the Biden administration announced it was invoking a hold on permitting processes for proposed new export projects for liquefied natural gas (LNG). It was a nakedly partisan act designed to appease the Democrat party’s climate alarmist funder base, one that will create ripple effects across the global economy and energy space. It will also create uncertainty and alarm among consumers of US LNG, especially among European nations who are supposedly America’s allies.

Reacting to the policy decision, Tom Pyle, President of the DC-based Institute for Energy Research, told me that, “With this decision, President Biden is continuing to place his environmental donors over the American people.  A delay of a decision on [permitting] until after the November 5, 2024, U.S. presidential election could spare President Biden from criticism from environmentalists, but it will likely cause havoc to markets and the energy security of our allies who may question the reliability of the United States as a secure energy supplier.”

Fortunately for the United States and its LNG customers, an array of new export facilities already in the construction phase of development will add up to 12 billion cubic feet per day of new export capacity over the coming three years. These projects would be unmolested by this latest authoritarian move by the White House, absent efforts to expand it.

One of the biggest of these is the Rio Grande LNG project being constructed outside Brownsville, Texas near the mouth of the Rio Grande River. Operated by developer NextDecade, Rio Grande LNG will have the capacity to export 11.74 million tonnes of LNG per year once its three trains go into service in the coming years. That equates to enough energy to heat and cool 34 million households, more energy than all the Biden administration’s planned offshore wind projects combined.

Even better, Rio Grande LNG is being designed to produce LNG that will rank among the lowest carbon-intensive production in the world. That’s because NextDecade is simultaneously building out a massive carbon capture and storage project in conjunction with the export facility.

But, even though Rio Grande LNG and other planned facilities under construction appear to be untouched by the Biden delay, no one should think they are moving ahead unopposed. A pair of activist groups, the Private Equity Stakeholder Project (PESP) and the Oregon Investment Council (OIC), groups with no real connection to the community, have worked to drum up opposition to the project that is providing hundreds of jobs and ultimately billions of dollars in economic impact for the local area. Ironically, this PESP group is working in opposition to the development despite major investments being made into it by ESG-focused investor groups, potentially including Larry Fink’s BlackRock if a planned acquisition is completed.

Part of the opposition’s advocacy claims to be protecting the interests of the Carrizo Comecrudo Nation with a somewhat specious claim that the project is being sited on sacred lands. But this Carrizo nation is not a federally recognized tribe, likely because a review of its history indicates it is in fact native to Mexico rather than Texas. The claim of sacred lands appears to hold no merit and be purely motivated by politics, no different than the White House delay on permitting announced Thursday.

An email missive from PESP that landed in my email inbox this week also claims that “… the facilities would significantly degrade local fishing, shrimping and natural tourism industries putting communities’ livelihoods at risk.” But the only evidence offered in support of these claims is a “study” authored by a group of leftwing climate alarm groups like the Rainforest Action Network and the Sierra Club. If the claims had been truly quantified by any credible source, the Biden administration would have no doubt been eager to act on them to advance its Green New Deal-based agenda.

The world needs America’s LNG, and is likely to need more and more of it as time goes on. The White House’s action to delay the already-ridiculously slow permitting process in such an obvious political move is as reprehensible as it is, frankly, stupid.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.

AUTHOR

DAVID BLACKMON

David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.

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All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Republican Lawmakers Set Their Sights On Abortion ‘Trafficking’ In Latest Post-Dobbs Fight

  • Republican state lawmakers are going after abortion “trafficking” in an effort to stop abortion advocates from evading state bans around the country and protect pregnant minors. 
  • Idaho, Texas and now Tennessee have all pushed legislation on the issue and Republican state Rep. Jason Zachary of Tennessee told the Daily Caller News Foundation that his bill was personal after he had been “directly involved” with a family whose 14-year-old daughter had been taken away to get an abortion without their knowledge.
  • “It should be the easiest thing in the world to say it’s unacceptable for an adult to take somebody else’s kid anywhere without their parents knowing,” Katie Daniels, state policy director for Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, told the DCNF.

Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, Republican state lawmakers have proposed a variety of pro-life laws, with three states placing a new focus on abortion “trafficking.”

Following the Dobbs decision, Idaho became the first state in 2023 to pass a bill enforcing criminal penalties for individuals “trafficking” a minor to another state to get an abortion and since then, Texas and Tennessee have followed suit on both the state and local levels. Republican state Rep. Jason Zachary of Tennessee told the Daily Caller News Foundation that he introduced his bill Monday after having been involved in a situation where a 14-year-old girl was taken without her parents’ knowledge to get an abortion last year.

“A young girl, a 14-year-old girl in East Tennessee, unbeknownst to her guardian was taken to West Tennessee and was not notified until the child was taken to West Tennessee. The child called the parents and said, ‘I’m in West Tennessee and I’m being taken to get an abortion.’ I was on the phone with the dad and the mom, [who were] crying asking me what I can do to help stop it. There was nothing I could do,” Zachary told the DCNF.

Zachary’s bill would make it a “criminal offense” for anyone other than a parent or guardian to take a minor out of Tennessee for an abortion and also “provide for a civil action against a person committing the offense of abortion trafficking of a minor for the wrongful death of an unborn child that was aborted,” according to the text. If passed a minor could not travel with someone other than their legal guardian to get a chemical or surgical abortion.

Texas has taken a slightly different approach than Idaho or Tennessee as multiple city councils have established new ordinances barring its citizens from being transported on their state highways to get an abortion, according to the Texas Tribune. The city council in Amarillo, Texas, is one of the latest to consider a travel ban but postponed any vote during a meeting on Dec. 19 for further review.

If passed, Amarillo’s ordinance would allow private citizens to sue anyone who “aids and abet[s]” someone to get an abortion using the highways, according to the Texas Tribune. Similar measures have been proposed in other counties, such as LubbockLlano, Odessa, Dallas and San Antonio, according to The Washington Post.

Some city council members have expressed concerns that the ordinances and their framing may be too extreme, according to the Post.

“I hate abortion. I’m a Jesus lover like all of you in here,” Llano councilwoman Laura Almond said during a meeting in August, according to the Post. She explained that in college she had once picked up a friend from an abortion clinic and that the law would have put her at risk of a lawsuit despite her personal beliefs on the subject.

“It’s overreaching,” Almond said during the meeting, according to the Post. “We’re talking about people here.”

Republicans have struggled on the issue of abortion over the last several elections due to poor messaging and a divided base regarding how strong candidates should be on pro-life issues. With the presidential election coming up in November, Katie Daniels, state policy director for Susan B. Anthony (SBA) Pro-Life America, told the DCNF that it will be important for Republican candidates endorsing any kind of abortion legislation, including anti-trafficking measures, to “talk about what they are for” and not just what they are against.

“It should be the easiest thing in the world to say it’s unacceptable for an adult to take somebody else’s kid anywhere without their parents knowing, let alone to another state for a medical procedure that’s illegal in their state. That should be a real point of consensus, regardless of political party,” Daniels said. “Beyond that, candidates should be talking about what they’re for. They’re for resources being available to women and their children, they’re for the pregnancy centers that help these women and they are for the life of both the mom and her baby.”

Daniels argued polling had found that “two-thirds of Americans” support parental notification and consent before minors can get a chemical abortion through the mail and a Rasmussen poll from July 2022 found that 64% of Americans support parental notification before a child gets an abortion.

“This is a very common sense position if you ask normal people. It’s politicians who are tied up to the industry that seem to have trouble with it,” Daniels told the DCNF.

AUTHOR

KATE ANDERSON

Contributor.

RELATED ARTICLE: CVS Employee Sues After Company Allegedly Revoked Religious Exemption To Avoid Prescribing Contraceptives

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FRANK RICCI: How The Teachers Unions Embed Socialism Into Their Contracts

From Boston to Los Angeles, teachers’ unions and their progressive counterparts have quietly devised an unprecedented method to bypass the legislative process by embedding unrelated policy issues deep within the intricate terms of teacher contracts.

This new, covert strategy, hidden in plain sight, allows state and municipal officials to create sweeping policy changes that evade the scrutiny typically associated with customary legislative procedures, which include publicly available draft legislation, committee hearings, amendments and comprehensive floor debates.

In Boston, teachers’ union president Jessica Tang announced they secured “an unprecedented $50 million to commence bolstering the affordable housing that Boston students and families require.” Similarly, Los Angeles teachers incorporated “housing justice provisions” into their contracts.

Whatever the merits of affordable housing, it’s quite a stretch to argue that the issue is relevant to the matters properly encompassed within a teachers’ contract.

Yet the Boston contract is being utilized as a template by the AFL-CIO to advance housing and environmental “justice.” During the recent Connecticut AFL-CIO biennial convention, during a panel on Labor-Community Partnerships, the President of the New Haven Federation of Teachers stated on film, “Engage in negotiations and address the issues our community cares about, as it’s a win-win situation, and this is how we sustain those relationships and continue to advance our collective agenda.”

Collective bargaining agreements, which can range from dozens to hundreds of pages in length, encompass virtually all aspects of compensation such as wages, working hours, and conditions, in addition to medical and retirement benefits. These agreements are often intentionally drafted in vague terms laden with industry jargon, and require knowledge of local bargaining history for proper interpretation.

Although these agreements are negotiated in the name of taxpayers, in practice, the taxpayers are frequently overlooked in the process. Contracts do receive a vote from a legislative body, but it is typically a binary, up-or-down choice for the elected officials. There’s no open, deliberative process to review individual contract provisions or offer amendments.

Public sector unions have long used their significant political influence to draw attention to social issues that far extend beyond the scope of their work in the public sector, but this strategy takes that advocacy to an entirely new level. A growing trend sees them transitioning from vocal proponents of socialist reforms to using labor agreements negotiated in dimly light backrooms to impose their agenda on an often unwilling public.

This pernicious tactic will be used by unions and unscrupulous state and municipal negotiators to enact a laundry list of far-left social programs that could never win support through the democratic process. It conveniently provides cover for government officials eager to evade political accountability.

By creating an omnibus policy package within a collective bargaining agreement, the political class is able to silence any dissenting views and distract from the merits of reasonable objections. It’s far easier to claim that anyone who votes against the collective bargaining agreement is anti-teacher or anti-worker than to defend expensive (and potentially unpopular) new social programs.

Unions are telling us what they plan to do. We can no longer afford to ignore this reality.

Municipal negotiations, teacher unions and their progressive allies are leveraging the fine print of labor agreements to advance a collective agenda rooted in Marxist ideology, pushing for social programs they could never pass through the typical legislative process. Even if their intentions seem noble, bundling unrelated policy issues into teacher contracts raises concerns about transparency and accountability, and blurs the lines between union advocacy and the public’s interests.

In an era where we have witnessed a decline in student outcomes — the achievement gap has been widening, with students reading, math, science and civics scores falling — teachers’ contracts need to be focused on education.  Yet more and more attention is focused on non-education related distractions.

The union agenda of enacting radical policy change through collective bargaining must be exposed, with negotiators trained to block these proposals. What’s more, reforms are desperately needed to limit the scope of collective bargaining and bring the negotiations into the light, so that the public paying for the contracts can view the entire process. That’s our best hope for bringing the interest of the taxpayers and the well-being of the workforce into a sensible balance.

Frank Ricci is a Labor Fellow at Yankee Institute, Retired Union President for New Haven (CT) Fire Fighters, and Battalion Chief. He was the lead plaintiff in the landmark Supreme Court case Ricci v. DeStefano and has testified before Congress. Frank is the Author of book Command Presence.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.

AUTHOR

FRANK RICCI

New Havin Battalion Chief, Union President.

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All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Top Peer Reviewed Study Calls for Global Ban on Covid Shots

“Given the extensive, well-documented SAEs and unacceptably high harm-to-reward ratio, we urge governments to endorse a global moratorium on the modified mRNA products…”Cureus, Journal of Medical Science.


No media. No mea culpa. They are on a death march.

Think of all those poor souls who lost their jobs, their college placements, their livelihoods for having the temerity to think.

Cureus, Journal of Medical Science, is a web-based peer-reviewed open access general medical journal using prepublication peer review.

Top Study Calls for Global Ban on Covid Shots

By: Frank Bergman, Slay News, January 26, 2024:

A group of world-renowned researchers has published a groundbreaking new study on soaring sudden death rates and called on governments to ban Covid mRNA shots globally.

In a peer-reviewed paper published on Wednesday, researchers re-analyzed the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine phase 3 trial data.

However, the researchers uncovered evidence of far more serious adverse events among those in the vaccine group.

This is not what published reports from Pfizer’s phase 3 trials said.

“Many key trial findings were either misreported or omitted entirely from published reports,” the researchers said.

The study was conducted by seven top researchers:

M. Nathaniel Mead
Stephanie Seneff
Russ Wolfinger
Jessica Rose
Kris Denhaerynck
Steve Kirsch
Peter A. McCullough

In the study’s paper, the researchers explained that they set out to re-analyze Pfizer’s trial data because:

our understanding of covid vaccinations and their impact on health and mortality has evolved substantially since the first vaccine rollouts; and, problems with the methods, execution, and reporting of the pivotal phase 3 trials have emerged.

On Wednesday, they published their findings in a peer-reviewed paper titled “Covid-19 mRNA Vaccines: Lessons Learned from the Registrational Trials and Global Vaccination Campaign.”

The paper was published in the renowned Cureus, a journal of medical science.

“Re-analysis of the Pfizer trial data identified statistically significant increases in serious adverse events (SAEs) in the vaccine group,” the researchers wrote.

Adding, “Numerous SAEs were identified following the Emergency Use Authorisation (EUA), including death, cancer, cardiac events, and various autoimmune, hematological, reproductive, and neurological disorders.”

The EUA the researchers are referring to is the authorization granted to Pfizer by the U.S. Food and Drugs Administration (FDA).

As the paper noted, Pfizer’s Covid vaccines never underwent adequate safety and toxicological testing, according to previously established scientific standards.

Read more

AUTHOR

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

DISASTER: Biden Regime Kills Enormous Natural Gas Projects in Victory for Left-Wing Extremists

“[Environmentalism]  as a social principle . . . condemns cities, culture, industry, technology, the intellect, and advocates men’s return to “nature,” to the state of grunting subanimals digging the soil with their bare hands.” — Ayn Rand


The illegitimate regime is KILLING us. They are killing the country.

Democrats are pushing for natural gas bans, mandates on electric sources.

The immediate goal is obvious: the destruction of the remnants of capitalism in today’s mixed economy, and the establishment of a global dictatorship. This goal does not have to be inferred—many speeches and books on the subject state explicitly that the ecological crusade is a means to that end.’ Ayn Rand, Return of the Primitive: The Anti-Industrial Revolution

‘White House halts enormous natural gas projects in victory for environmentalists

‘This isn’t just bad policy, it’s bad politics,’ former FERC chairman

By Thomas Catenacci, Fox News, January 26, 2024:

Dems pushing for natural gas bans, mandates on electric sources

The White House is halting the permitting process for several proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminal projects over their potential impacts on climate change, an unprecedented move environmentalists have demanded in recent months.

In a joint announcement Friday morning, the White House and Department of Energy (DOE) said the pause would occur while federal officials conduct a rigorous environmental review assessing the projects’ carbon emissions, which could take more than a year to complete. Climate activists have loudly taken aim at LNG export projects in recent weeks, arguing they will lead to a large uptick in emissions and worsen global warming.

Keep reading.

AUTHOR

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Corporate Media In Crisis As Outlets Grapple With Biden’s Economy

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EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Social Media Goes Ballistic As Biden Speech Devolves Into Word Soup And Supporters Clap ‘Like Brainless Seals’

Social media went ballistic after President Joe Biden gave a speech that devolved into a word salad bad enough to rival his vice president and yet his supporters clapped enthusiastically.

Biden, speaking alongside Vice President Kamala Harris at a rally in Virginia on Tuesday, tried to emphasize the issue of abortion heading into the 2024 race.

“We’ll teach Donald Trump a valuable lesson, don’t mess with the women of America unless you want to get the benefit,” Biden said, slurring the entire time and forcing people who are transcribing it to listen several times.

Yet for some reason, the crowd went BALLISTIC. Enthusiasm not seen since for Biden since, well, never.

But social media sleuths took Biden to task for his speech.

Greg Price, who does communications for the State Freedom Caucus Network and is also a former Caller employee, tweeted, “I love how nothing he said made any sense here yet the people still clapped and cheered like brainless seals.”

Outkick’s Tomi Lahren challenged viewers to “caption this.”

Other users joked that “idiots just blindly cheer while Grandpa has a stroke on stage.”

Another user said, “Bosses in news companies are going to torture their least favorite employees by assigning them Biden subtitles duty.”

But perhaps the question shouldn’t be “what the hell did our president just say?”

Maybe we should start with something a little easier.

Mr. President, what is a woman?

AUTHOR

BRIANNA LYMAN

News and commentary writer. Follow Brianna on Twitter.

RELATED ARTICLE: McDonald’s, Missiles & Marches: Biden’s Thursday Devolves Into All-Time Gaffe Reel

RELATED VIDEO: Incapacitated: Biden fiddles while the world burns with guest Lee Smith

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Red State Senate Kills Gov’s Veto On Bill Banning Child Sex Changes

The Ohio Senate voted Wednesday to override Republican Gov. Mike DeWine’s veto of a bill that would prohibit doctors from performing sex-change medical procedures on minors.

The state’s House of Representatives voted 65 to 28 on Jan. 10 to override the governor’s veto of the bill, which would bar doctors from performing transgender surgeries or prescribing cross-sex hormones and puberty blockers to minors. State senators voted 28 to 4, largely among party lines, to pass the legislation.

“The Governor does not have [a] new comment today. His previous comments on the bill and his veto reflect his position on the issue,” Dan Tierney, DeWine’s press secretary, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

DeWine signed an executive order earlier this month that banned transgender surgeries for minors, but allowed children to obtain cross-sex hormones and puberty blockers. DeWine argued that he never disagreed with his Republican colleagues on the issue, but that other procedures should be left up to parents and medical professionals.

The bill, which is set to go into effect in 90 days, will also prevent men who identify as transgender women from competing in women’s sports, a decision DeWine has publicly come out against in the past. DeWine also received $40,000 in donations between 2018 and 2023 from several state children’s hospitals, at least one of which he visited in December to discuss the bill with families, patients and medical professionals.

A training video from one of the hospitals, Cincinnati Children’s, revealed staff teaching doctors how to work around parental consent when treating a minor transgender patient. The hospital’s CEO, Steven Davis, claimed in his December testimony against the bill that the hospital always gets consent from the parents before performing transgender medical procedures on minors.

AUTHOR

KATE ANDERSON

Contributor.

RELATED ARTICLES:

State Legislatures Are Taking On Gender Ideology In First Weeks Of 2024

Swing State Spent Millions On Sex Changes And Trans Hormones, Including For Those Under 18

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.


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Pro-Choice Is a Misnomer

Around this time of year, we remember the infamous Supreme Court decision of Roe v. Wade of January 22, 1973, which condemned some 65 million preborn people in America to death in abortions. Although Roe was overturned, abortion is very much a pressing issue today.

And it has been and continues to promoted in the name of “choice.” Pro-choice is a misnomer. Those who are pro-choice are in reality pro-abortion.

Although the proponents call themselves “pro-choice,” many studies indicate that the majority of women who have an abortion felt compelled to seek the procedure.

I spoke with Eric Scheidler of the Illinois-based Pro-Life Action League in a recent radio segment on this very topic.

He told me, “When someone tells me now that they’re ‘pro-choice,’ I say, ‘I’m glad to hear that because everyone should have the right to choose to become a parent.’ Then we get into the question of women having a right to motherhood taken away from them by those who are pushing abortion on them.” That includes, says Scheidler, the parents, the boyfriends, the employers, the politicians, and the abortion industry.

OB-GYN Ingrid Skop, M.D., wrote recently: “It is usually assumed that most women in the U.S. freely choose abortion and consider it to have been the best decision for them, all things considered. However, an expanding body of literature calls this assumption into question.”

Skop continues, “A recent peer-reviewed study conducted by [Charlotte Lozier Institute] scholars found that only one-third of abortions are ‘wanted.’ Nearly one in four described their abortion as ‘unwanted’ or ‘coerced.’ An additional 43% described the abortion as ‘accepted’ but ‘inconsistent with their values and preferences.’”

And she adds, “A majority, around 60%, said their preference would have been to give birth had they received more emotional support or had greater financial security….In another 2023 peer-reviewed survey, 61% of women reported “high levels” of pressure to abort.”

So much for choice. As Dr. D. James Kennedy once declared, “The only ‘choice’ the abortionists ever give anybody is ‘Tuesday or Friday? When do you want to have the abortion?’”

Meanwhile, there are crisis pregnancy centers out there doing the Lord’s work as they provide loving options for those seeking abortions. They provide real choice.

Yet these crisis pregnancy centers are often targeted by pro-abortion extremists. For example, on June 7, 2022, in Amherst, New York, the Compass Care crisis pregnancy center was firebombed, causing half-a-million dollars in damages.

I’ve interviewed Jim Harden, the president of Compass Care, about the destruction of his center and on other issues related to abortion. For this piece on how pro-choice is a misnomer, I asked him if he cared to give me a comment.

Harden said, “It is telling that a recent study revealed that nearly 70% of women are coerced to abort their babies….When a woman faces an unplanned pregnancy, she considers abortion because she feels trapped… like she has no choice. Mercenary abortionists masquerade as medical professionals to profiteer from this tragic reality” [emphasis his].

However, Senator Elizabeth Warren has the audacity to claim that these crisis pregnancy centers are “harmful” to women.

Harden continues, “Yet pro-life pregnancy centers help a woman with everything but abortion…for free. Pro-life pregnancy centers are the abortion industry’s only competition, delivering up to 2 million women nearly $358 million worth of free medical care and support every year. And while pro-abortion politicians get re-elected on the coat tails of abortion propaganda, it is the pro-life pregnancy centers that are empowering women with true informed consent and support.”

Thankfully, through the Lord, there is healing and forgiveness available for those who have had an abortion, by choice or otherwise. I saw a news item where a former female rock singer said she is very sorry for her three abortions, which she regrets deeply, but very grateful to God for His forgiveness.

Speaking of regrets, OB-GYN Vivina Napier, M.D. said recently: “In my years in practice, I have never met a woman who has expressed regret over giving birth to her baby, but I have met plenty who shared their regret for having abortions.”

Katie Daniels of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America says, “There is an abortion industry that makes billions of dollars killing children and hurting their moms, and that is who we’re up against. So we need to speak clearly and honestly about that reality while also contrasting our compassion for moms and babies.”

Our nation’s founders declared independence from Great Britain and dependence upon God. They said that our Creator has endowed us with certain inalienable rights, and that first among these is the right to life.

Real choice is as American as apple pie. But “pro-choice” only chooses one option—and a grisly one at that. America can do better than this.

©2024. Jerry Newcombe, D.Min. All rights reserved.

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