Tag Archive for: abortion

This Video Builds A Rock Solid Case For Only Trump As The Commander-in-Chief

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We have written about why Donald J. Trump is the only real choice for America’s patriots to become the 47th President of the United States, here, here and here.

It appears that World Net Daily’s Bob Unruh agrees with us. In his April 15th, 2024 article titled “Stunning video builds case for only Trump as commander-in-chief”  Bob wrote,

A stunning new video has been delivered that makes the case for ONLY President Donald Trump as commander-in-chief.

The Gateway Pundit explains it is the “most powerful pro-Trump ad of the year” – “It is that good.”

It is from Claremont Institute chairman Tom Klingenstein, a philanthropist, public speaker, writer, and playwright.

He explains:

Now that President Trump is the Republican nominee for President in 2024, it’s time for Republicans, including those who doubt him or even can’t stand him to get behind him. The times demand it. We are in a war fighting an enemy of revolutionaries that kick and spit on America. I call our enemy the Woke regime or the Group quota regime. This war is a contest between those who love America and those who hate it. But we do not have a commander-in-chief. You can’t win a war without one. We shouldn’t much care whether our commander-in-chief is a real conservative, whether he is a role model for children, or says lots of silly things, or whether he is modest or dignified.

What we should care about is whether he knows we are in a war, knows who the enemy is, and knows how to win.

Trump does. His policies are important but not as important as the rest of him. Trump grasps the essential things. He understands the Group quota regime is evil and will not stop until it destroys America. He is a fighter, bold, brave, and decisive, who has confidence in himself and his country.

Trump never apologizes for America. He rightly believes America is the greatest country in history. Trump says, in effect, we have our culture. It’s exceptional, and that’s the way we want to keep it. And we won’t keep it if we usher in millions of immigrants with cultures different from our own. Trump knows his job is to protect Americans and just Americans. Protect them not just from enemies abroad, but from the woke globalists within. He knows that America does not need more diversity. It needs more cohesion. The woke radicals tell the Trump voters they are a threat to democracy. Think about that. They’re saying, You Trumpsters are a threat to democracy. The woke radicals also tell us ad nauseam that America is systemically racist. Trump knows this is deadly nonsense, and he says so. This charge of systemic racism bounces off Trump because he has no white guilt, or any guilt for that matter. Trump tells his supporters what they already know. They are not racist, and they do not have white privilege. The woke radicals shut up those who disagree. Trump will not be shut up. If they manage to put him in jail, he will still roar like a lion.

The woke radicals have the moral arrogance of fanatics. Trump, God bless him, knows we are all sinners. Trump rejects the utopian fanaticism of the woke radicals. He is a businessman who takes the world on its own terms and navigates by facts and common sense. Trump’s base knows firsthand the America that Trump wants to recover. They love him, and they know he loves them. They will fight for him because they know he will fight for them. Trump speaks to his supporters as fellow citizens without any condescension or poll-tested BS. Despite his billions, he is one of them, an outsider looking in, a man who takes catsup on his steak. And is as disgusted as they are with the anti-American elite.

This natural appeal has molded everyday patriotic Americans into an army. We cannot stop the left’s revolution and retake the nation without these men and women. Unlike most Conservatives, they will actually fight for America. But they follow Trump. Without him, they stay home. With him, they are united and determined. At his rallies, his audience invariably breaks into chants of USA, USA. In these moments, Trump and his audience mutually pledge to each other their fidelity and their sacred honor.

His enemies hate him with an indescribable fierceness. Another Hitler, they say. Elect him and he will be a dictator. We should take this hysteria as reason for hope.

The America-haters rightly fear that Trump and his party are on the threshold of a successful counter-revolution. Trump hates his enemies every bit as much as they hate him. His enemies are America’s enemies. Trump is the most towering figure of our time. He has changed politics, not just in America, but in the West. If we are to take back America, we need someone who is unmovable, who has proven that he can stand up against the immensely powerful army of woke modernity that will attack him with all its might. Someone who will go after the deep state without pity or compassion. And someone who has the conviction that America is still the last best hope of Earth. That someone is Trump. Trump, the politician, came out of the blue. An unconventional commander against an unconventional enemy. Almost inconceivable as President at any other time.

Trump fits this turbulent moment to a T. Is it too much to wonder whether the appearance of this most unconventional man is providential?

Lincoln spoke of Americans as the almost chosen people. Trump gives us hope that the God who has never forsaken his almost chosen people will not do so now.

Read full article.

WATCH: Claremont Institute chairman Tom Klingenstein on Trump’s Virtues – Part II.

The Bottom Line

In our column Comparing Two Democrats: Confederate Jefferson Davis and Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. we warned that America is in a Civil War 2.0.

American Civil War 2.0 is about destroying our Constitutional Republic and replacing it with a one world order. It also requires the enslaving of the American people.

It is yet to be seen if it will become a fully armed conflict, although we are witnessing groups like the pro-Hamas supporters calling for “the death of America” and their storming of the White House and violent marches across America waving the flag of the terrorist group Hamas and the burning of the American flag.

Unlike the Civil War of 1861, the American Civil War 2.0 is in essence not seceding from the United States but rather destroying it from within by a cabal of traitors.

Abraham Lincoln wrote, “America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.”

We know what President Donald J. Trump must do when inaugurated on January 20th, 2025.

He must drain the swamp from the schoolhouse to the White House, completely and totally.

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

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Florida Voters Back Abortion Amendment and Trump

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A new poll is reporting that nearly half of voters in the Sunshine State plan to support a constitutional amendment guaranteeing a “right” to abortion. An Emerson College survey released on Thursday found that 42% of Florida voters intend to vote “Yes” on a “Amendment 4” this November, enshrining a right to abortion into the state’s constitution. Twenty-five percent of voters intend to vote “No,” and 32% of voters are unsure which way they will vote. The ballot initiative requires at least 60% support in order to pass.

A majority (56%) of Democrats and a plurality (44%) of Independents plan to vote “Yes.” Following former President Donald Trump’s recently-announced opposition to federal pro-life protections, Florida Republicans are more divided on the issue: 36% plan to vote against the abortion amendment, 30% plan to support it, and 34% are unsure.

Additionally, nearly 60% of Florida voters reported that the pro-life law banning abortion after six weeks — slated to go into effect next month after the state’s Supreme Court upheld a related 15-week abortion ban — is “too strict,” 28% said the law is “about right,” and 15% said it’s “not strict enough.” The previous 15-week ban enjoyed marginally more support, with only 43% saying it’s “too strict,” 36% saying it’s “about right,” and 21% saying it’s “not strict enough.”

Election data analyst Michael Pruser posted on social media, “I don’t think a pro-Republican position has a chance of clearing 60% in Florida, let alone an anti-Republican one. What wouldn’t pass in Kansas and Ohio during off-year special turnout will almost assuredly not pass in Florida during a Presidential year [with] Trump on the top of the ticket.”

Anticipating nearly 11 million voters (4.5 million Republicans, 3.55 million Democrats, and 2.85 million Independents) to turn out in November, Pruser explained, “To make 60% work, you’ll need a share of about 23% Republican[s]/95% Democrat[s]/77% Independent[s] to vote YES (which is always harder than NO). This gives you a total of 6,554,500 votes and a winning percentage of 60.13%.” He added, “You can also bet that [Florida’s Republican governor Ron] DeSantis will do what [Democratic Kansas governor] Laura Kelly and [Republican Ohio governor] Mike DeWine didn’t — use his office’s full weight against the amendment.”

Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, argued before the Florida Supreme Court in favor of pro-life laws. In comments to The Washington Stand, he warned that “Amendment 4” would be challenged even if passed, saying, “There are constitutional challenges that I think are available.”

In addition to questions of both fraudulent signatures in putting the proposed amendment on the ballot and fraudulent votes in potentially passing the amendment this November, Staver noted, “The Florida legislature has — for many, many years — used the terms ‘unborn child’ and ‘unborn person.’” For example, Florida law dictates that if a woman is killed and her unborn child dies as a result, the killer could be charged with double homicide. Similarly, if a will leaves an estate to the deceased’s children or grandchildren, Florida law understands that to include unborn children or grandchildren. “In all these other areas of law,” Staver said, “unborn children have been recognized as legal persons. Consequently, if this were to pass, we would bring a case to the Florida Supreme Court to recognize the rights of an unborn child which already exist in the constitution which supersede this abortion amendment.”

Referring to Republicans who have begun backing away from pro-life messaging in the wake of Trump’s announcement earlier this week, Staver said, “Politicians should stand for life, not run from it. The right to life is the right of all rights, without which there is no other right. Politicians need to stand for life, not run from it.” He continued, “There are some things that transcend geographical boundaries and political parties and time, and the right to life is fundamental among those.” Staver also compared the issue of abortion to the issue of slavery, saying that neither was a matter of “states’ rights” but of universal morality.

The Emerson College survey also found that a majority (51%) of Florida voters back Trump for president, while only 38% support incumbent Joe Biden, with 11% undecided. When undecided voters were asked which candidate they lean toward supporting, Trump’s support shot up to 56% and Biden’s to 44%. Emerson College explained, “Among Biden voters, 32% support him because they dislike Trump, 24% because they like Biden, 19% care about an issue, and 14% support their party’s candidate. Among Trump voters, 31% support him because they care about an issue, 28% because they like Trump, 16% because they dislike Biden, and 14% support their party’s candidate.”

Florida voters ranked the economy as their top issue of concern (27%), followed by housing (16%), immigration (14%), and abortion (10%). Emerson College noted, “The percentage of voters who marked abortion access as their top issue is four points higher in Florida than in the most recent national poll (6%).”

AUTHOR

S.A. McCarthy

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

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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.

Must-Read Vatican Document Slams Surrogacy, Gender Theory, War and Abortion

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Earlier this week the Vatican published a 16,000-word document reaffirming Catholic condemnations of a wide range of moral issues, from war to surrogacy and human trafficking. Dignitas Infinita, or “Infinite Dignity”, is both a philosophical and a theological essay, appealing to open-minded people of all faiths and none.

Seldom has there been so much media coverage about a Vatican document which contains so few surprises. It’s no secret that the Catholic Church opposes abortion and euthanasia. Perhaps both the fans and foes of Francis thought that he might open up a crack for sex changes or for surrogacy.

But almost nothing has changed. Under Francis the Church is as severe as ever on life issues. Over at the New York Times, columnist Ross Douthat opined that the Pope’s “style has been to consistently push at the boundaries of his office, testing how far a pope can go in altering Catholic teaching”. He sounded mortified to report that Dignitas Infinita was “a clearer-than-usual line against developments in progressive thought and culture”.

Controversial issues

Here are some notable highlights.

Dignitas Infinita condemns surrogacy, first as a violation of the child’s dignity and second as a violation of the surrogate mother’s. It says:

the legitimate desire to have a child cannot be transformed into a “right to a child” that fails to respect the dignity of that child as the recipient of the gift of life … in this practice, the woman is detached from the child growing in her and becomes a mere means subservient to the arbitrary gain or desire of others.

The document also rejects gender theory. In a few perceptive sentences, it criticises the transhumanist impulse to “self-determination”, describing it as “a concession to the age-old temptation to make oneself God”. Furthermore, it describes the difference between male and female as “foundational”.

In the male-female couple, this difference achieves the most marvellous of reciprocities. It thus becomes the source of that miracle that never ceases to surprise us: the arrival of new human beings in the world.

Sex-change interventions are also condemned. The document quotes the Pope: “creation is prior to us and must be received as a gift. At the same time, we are called to protect our humanity, and this means, in the first place, accepting it and respecting it as it was created.”

One possible innovation in Dignitas Infinita is its approach to war. While lamenting the cruelty and senselessness of wars, the Catholic Church has traditionally supported the possibility of a “just war”. However, with weapons of mass destruction, asymmetric warfare and terrorism, perhaps the nature of war has changed. The document quotes the Pope — “it is very difficult nowadays to invoke the rational criteria elaborated in earlier centuries to speak of the possibility of a ‘just war.’ Never again war!”

Does this mean that requirements for a just war will be updated? Possibly.

Explaining human dignity

Even though there appears to be little novelty in Dignitas Infinita, it was five years in the making. The Pope’s top theologian, fellow Argentinian Cardinal Victor Fernández, explains in an unusual preamble that the document went through several versions, because the Pope had ordered some significant changes. He wanted the list of violations of human dignity to include issues like poverty, the wretchedness of migrants, violence against women, human trafficking, and war.

This is consistent with Francis’s impatience with what he feels is some Catholics’ single-minded focus on abortion and other pro-life issues. Dignitas Infinita endorses the notion that Catholic moral teaching is a “seamless garment” and that abusing migrants and abortion are both horrendous violations of human dignity.

But what is human dignity? The first half of the document offers a very helpful and thoughtful exploration of the topic.

It begins with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights whose 75th anniversary occurred last year. After the barbarism of World War II, the UDHR was a high-minded commitment by its signatories to restore a respect for human dignity. Its opening sentence asserts “the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family”. John Paul II described the UDHR as “one of the highest expressions of the human conscience”.

However, it’s obvious that the concept of human rights has become so muddled that it is almost meaningless. Accompanied by claims to be advancing human dignity, rights have multiplied and morphed. Nowadays internet access, air conditioning and same-sex marriage are claimed as human rights, along with a right to abortion.

Although this is a very complex question, one reason for this proliferation is that people base their approach to human dignity on different foundations.

The Church’s approach is ontological; human dignity flows from the very fact of being a human being created by God. This means that all humans have dignity, not just those who possess privileges like awareness or intelligence or autonomy. Notoriously, Peter Singer (and other philosophers) say that “the life of a newborn is of less value than the life of a pig, a dog, or a chimpanzee.”

In a brief, but very insightful observation, Dignitas Infinita analyses Singer’s notion of human dignity (without naming him):

Some people propose that it is better to use the expression “personal dignity” (and the rights “of the person”) instead of “human dignity” (and the rights “of man”) since they understand a “person” to be only “one who is capable of reasoning.” They then argue that dignity and rights are deduced from the individual’s capacity for knowledge and freedom, which not all humans possess. Thus, according to them, the unborn child would not have personal dignity, nor would the older person who is dependent upon others, nor would an individual with mental disabilities. On the contrary, the Church insists that the dignity of every human person, precisely because it is intrinsic, remains “in all circumstances.”

As well, the document deploys a very important concept: that we humans are relational beings. Fundamentally, none of us are individuals. We are all bound up in a web of relations with other humans, past, present and future: “Indeed, there is an ever-growing risk of reducing human dignity to the ability to determine one’s identity and future independently of others, without regard for one’s membership in the human community.”

The document condemns “a self-referential and individualistic freedom that claims to create its own values regardless of the objective norms of the good and of our relationship with other living beings” Unless one grasps this, it may be hard to appreciate why the Church rejects surrogacy, transgenderism, euthanasia and so on.

Dignitas Infinita may contain no surprises, but its clarity and consistency are admirable. It’s a good springboard for responding to today’s ethical challenges.

Does the Catholic Church have anything valuable to say about human rights? Leave a comment in the box below.

AUTHOR

Michael Cook is editor of Mercator.

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

Arizona Supreme Court Revives Law Protecting the Unborn

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On Tuesday, the Arizona Supreme Court put back in place a 160-year-old ban on abortion, The Wall Street Journal reported. “Abortion in the state has been allowed through 15 weeks of pregnancy under a law that the GOP-controlled Arizona Legislature passed in 2022, shortly before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Abortion opponents and some Republican lawmakers argued that the recent law didn’t override one dating back to 1864 — before Arizona was a state — that banned abortion throughout pregnancy except in lifesaving situations.”

The ruling “agreed that the 19th century law still takes precedence,” WSJ added, but the “court delayed implementation of the ban for at least two weeks to allow for additional legal arguments.” In comments to The Washington Stand, Cathi Herrod, president of the Center for Arizona Policy, clarified, “The focus for [this decision] is that the Arizona Supreme Court did what justices are supposed to do: they upheld the rule of law. They did not make policy.”

She continued, “Arizona law clearly stated that if Roe v. Wade was overturned, our pre-Roe law would go back into effect. So, today’s decision was a statutory construction. It was not a constitutional one, and it was not a policy decision. There’s a lot of misinformation out there, so it’s very important to emphasize that this … is how we want judges to rule.”

Herrod went on to share how a proposed amendment called the Arizona Right to Abortion Initiative could nullify the court decision. “That amendment does not reflect Arizona values or where Arizonans are on the issue of abortion,” she contended. The amendment would “bring in unrestricted and unregulated abortion,” she emphasized. “It would overturn most — if not all — of Arizona’s pro-life laws. It would not require doctors to be part of the woman’s decision, examination, or the procedure itself. Moms and dads would have no role in the abortion of their minor daughters deciding whether or not to have an abortion. It would usher in taxpayer funding of abortion.”

But given the dramatic effects of such a potential amendment, Herrod predicted, “When Arizonans read and see what the proposed abortion access amendment really is about, I’m confident Arizona voters will turn it down.”

In light of the decision by the Arizona Supreme Court, Mary Szoch, director of the Center for Human Dignity at Family Research Council, shared with TWS, “In a huge win for women and their unborn children, the Arizona Supreme Court has ruled that the law on the books protecting unborn babies from the moment of conception will go into effect. Praise God!”

She added, “Acknowledging what an abortion is, the Arizona law states that an abortionist who kills an unborn child can be punished with two to five years in prison. In recognition of the fact that the intent of an abortion is to kill the child, not to save the mother, actions taken to save a mother’s life that sadly result in the death of the unborn child will not be punishable.”

Szoch concluded, “This ruling is on hold for 14 days, but we should all pray it goes into effect. With this decision, the importance of the upcoming election cannot be overstated. Unborn babies lives will be on the ballot. Pro-lifers must turn out to vote.”

AUTHOR

Sarah Holliday

Sarah Holliday is a reporter 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.

Pro-Life Leaders React to Trump’s Abortion Statement: ‘Rebuild America’s Spiritual Walls’

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Pro-family leaders reacted to President Donald Trump’s announcement that abortion policy should be handled exclusively by the states by saying that “pro-life policies should be pursued at every level of government” to rebuild “the spiritual walls of our nation.” Although pro-life advocates expressed gratitude for the president’s role in overturning Roe v. Wade and restoring voters’ democratic control over the issue of abortion, they say his “work is not over” when it comes to protecting innocent life.

The 45th president delivered on a promise he made last week to present his position on abortion in a four-minute-long video posted on social media Monday morning. The president said abortion should be handled at the state level, endorsed exceptions for abortion in the cases of rape and incest, and strongly supported in vitro fertilization (IVF). “Democrats are the radical ones” on abortion, by endorsing abortion, for any reason, until the moment of birth, he said.

“The states will determine by vote or legislation — or perhaps both — and whatever they decide must be the law of the land,” said Trump. “Many states will be different, many will have a different number of weeks, or some will have more conservative [respect for life] than others.”

“I was proudly the person responsible for the ending” of Roe, he said. But the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision “took [the issue of abortion] out of the federal hands and brought it into the hearts, minds, and vote of the people in each state,” he stated. “Now it’s up to the states to do the right thing.”

Trump thanked the six justices who voted for the Dobbs decision by name — Chief Justice John Roberts, as well as Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett — for allowing “this long-term, hard-fought battle to finally end.” Trump nominated three of those jurists to the nation’s highest court, including Justice Barrett, whom the Senate confirmed just seven days before the 2020 election.

But justices on both sides of the 2022 Dobbs ruling agreed the federal government can play a role in setting abortion policy. “On the question of abortion, the Constitution … leaves the issue for the people and their elected representatives to resolve through the democratic process in the [s]tates or Congress — like the numerous other difficult questions of American social and economic policy that the Constitution does not address,” wrote Justice Brett Kavanaugh in his concurrence to Dobbs.

In their dissent, liberal justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan agreed Dobbs gives voters absolute freedom of choice to set abortion policy nationwide. “Most threatening of all,” they wrote, “no language in today’s decision stops the [f]ederal [g]overnment from prohibiting abortions nationwide, once again from the moment of conception and without exceptions for rape or incest.”

After Trump’s statement, pro-life leaders urged the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential candidate to use the full authority his judicial policy successes had won to pass pro-life protections in his second term. “Former President Trump has played a vital role in bringing our nation to this pivotal point of being able to restore the fundamental right to life in America,” said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, in a statement released first to The Washington Stand. “I applaud President Trump for the work he has done, but that work is not over.”

“As voters continue to elect pro-life legislators at both the state and federal levels, pro-life policies should be pursued at every level of government until every child, born and unborn, is welcomed into this nation and protected under our laws, federal and state,” Perkins continued. “The effort to protect innocent life is crucial as we work toward a day when we will once again see the spiritual walls of our nation stand high and secure.”

President Trump on Monday continued to highlight that “Democrats are the radical ones on this [abortion] position, because they support abortion up to and even beyond the ninth month,” and “even execution after birth.” Trump likely referred to former Virginia Governor Ralph Northam (D), who declared in 2019, “I can tell you exactly what would happen” if a child is born alive during a botched abortion: “The infant would be delivered. The infant would be kept comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother.” Similarly, in 2013, Alisa LaPolt Snow, a lobbyist for the Florida Alliance of Planned Parenthood Affiliates, told the Florida legislature the decision about whether to save a baby born alive during a botched abortion “should be left up to the woman, her family, and the physician.” Philadelphia abortionist and mass murderer Kermit Gosnell made the infanticide of newborn premature babies his regular “abortion” procedure.

Perkins said defunding abortion and ending the federal government’s role in facilitating abortion would win Trump voters, as it already enjoys broad support. “The legal authority to protect this fundamental right to life has not only been restored to the states but also to policymakers at the federal level, where broad support exists to not force taxpayers to pay for abortion. The federal government should not be funding the facilitation of abortion in any form or fashion — at home or abroad,” said Perkins.

The Democratic Party platform calls for taxpayer-funded abortion-on-demand for any reason a matter of “health, rights, and justice.” But polling data show the national consensus diverges sharply from prevailing liberal orthodoxy. As this author has noted:

  • 67% of Americans oppose funding abortion overseas, according to a 2024 KofC/Marist poll;
  • 66% say people with religious objections should not be legally required to carry out abortions;
  • 58% of the American people believe abortion should not be legal past the first trimester, except for rape or incest;
  • 61% of Americans oppose sending abortion-inducing pills through the mail;
  • 53% of Americans oppose funding abortion in the United States;
  • 55% said employers with religious objections should not be forced to pay for abortion coverage in their employees’ insurance in a 2023 Marist poll; and
  • 55% of all Americans support laws protecting a child from his or her first fetal heartbeat in a 2019 Hill-HarrisX survey.

Additionally, “a clear majority (59%) of voters say they would support Congressional legislation that would prohibit abortions after a baby can feel pain at fifteen weeks of pregnancy,” with exceptions for rape and incest, a poll from last June found. That majority would allow states “to pass even more protective laws.”

On the other hand, polls consistently show a minority supports the right to an abortion for any reason, at any time: just over one in four Americans (29%) in the most recent Marist poll. Only 9% of young people belonging to the Millennials and Gen Z “supported the Democratic Party’s radical agenda of abortion through all 9 months without limits,” according to a poll conducted for Students for Life of America.

Nonetheless, Democrats plan to nationalize the issue of abortion, endorsing a national abortion approval bill and taxpayer subsidies for abortionists. Biden has centered his reelection campaign around a promise to strike down pro-life protections nationwide. The legislation he endorses, the Women’s Health Protection Act, goes much further than the abortion regime foisted on America by Roe, Doe v. Bolton (1973), and Casey v. Planned Parenthood (1992) — erasing more than 1,300 laws passed while Roe, Doe, and Casey remained binding legal precedent.

“Saying the issue is ‘back to the states’ cedes the national debate to the Democrats who are working relentlessly to enact legislation mandating abortion throughout all nine months of pregnancy. If successful, they will wipe out states’ rights,” warned Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser in a statement emailed to The Washington Stand. “Unborn children and their mothers deserve national protections,” she added, saying she was “disappointed in President Trump’s position.”

Jeanne Mancini, president of the March for Life, agreed the next president must use the power available to advance the right to life. “There remains an urgent need to advocate for the unborn at the federal level, which is one of the reasons we continue to march annually in our nation’s capital even after the Dobbs decision. Pro-abortion politicians relentlessly work to enact federal legislation like the deceptively titled Women’s Health Protection Act, which would cancel every states’ ability to limit abortion through all nine months of pregnancy, and erases existing pro-life protections for vulnerable women and children nationwide,” said Mancini in a statement emailed to TWS.

After rejecting Roe’s sweeping, top-down abortion policy, voluntarily adopting an anything-goes abortion policy would make the United States a global outlier, pro-life leaders noted. “The overwhelming majority of European nations reject such barbaric policies with minimum protections for children after the first trimester. We as a nation need to work toward federal minimum protections for the unborn, and advocate for policies that support pregnant women and families in need,” Mancini told TWS.

Trump’s video statement also generated controversy for endorsing exceptions for the one percent of abortions due to rape and incest, respectively. “I am strongly in favor of exceptions for rape, incest, and life of the mother” — a position he has long held, and which he has consistently noted polls well. “We have an obligation to the salvation of our Nation, which is currently in serious decline, to win elections, without which we will have nothing other than failure, death, and destruction,” Trump posted on Truth Social Sunday evening. (Emphasis in original.)

“There’s no ‘salvation of our Nation’ while we are permitting killing children,” replied Lila Rose, founder of Live Action. “This includes helpless children conceived in rape.” Ryan Bomberger, the founder of the Radiance Foundation, who was conceived in rape, asked whether “lives with origin stories like mine should die to Make America Great Again.”

“Unborn children and their mothers deserve national protections,” said Dannenfelser, saying she was “disappointed in President Trump’s position.”

Seeming to anticipate their reactions, President Trump said Monday, “You must follow your heart on this issue — but remember, you must also win elections to restore our culture” and “save our country,” which three years of Democratic rule has placed “at the brink.”

Perkins agreed with the president’s diagnosis that America teeters on the knife’s edge of catastrophe, which requires America to be rooted on a solid rock of abiding values. “To restore our nation to a place of political greatness, we must first restore our moral goodness, and foundational to that is the respect for and protection of all human life. After 50 years of spiritual, cultural, and political engagement, we thankfully reached a point where Roe v. Wade was sent to the dustbin of history, but the effort to restore the inalienable right to life is far from over as we continue working to protect children from the moment of conception,” he said.

“Always follow your heart. But we must win,” Trump said. “We are a failing nation, but we can be a failing nation no longer. We will make our nation great. We will make our nation greater than ever before.”

Trump also voiced strong support for in vitro fertilization. “We want to make it easier for mothers and families to have babies, not harder. That includes supporting the availability of fertility treatments like IVF in every state in America,” the president said, stating his view is supported by “the vast majority of Republicans, conservatives, Christians, and pro-life Americans.”

Democrats injected IVF into the national discourse to attack the Dobbs decision. Despite President Joe Biden’s false assertion during the State of the Union address that “the Alabama Supreme Court shut down IVF treatments,” the ruling had nothing to do with IVF’s legal status. Yet IVF presents deep moral concerns for those who believe life begins at conception. Mary Szoch, director of the Center for Human Dignity at Family Research Council, has noted that “93% of the embryos created through IVF never result in a live birth.” Sometimes, the doctor implants multiple embryos and then selectively aborts less robust fetuses. Millions more remain frozen, often abandoned — or later destroyed — by their parents.

“We clearly have some work to do to educate the GOP on the lawlessness of a predatory IVF industry, whose own sloppiness has caused the painful headlines we all have seen,” said Kristen Hawkins of Students for Life of America in a statement emailed to TWS. “It’s an industry in need of regulation.” Others contrasted Trump’s states’ rights view of abortion with his commitment to “supporting the availability of fertility treatments like IVF in every state in America.” Fox News Digital Editor Ken Shepherd pointed out that former President Trump “seems to be saying abortion is a matter for the states, but his language on IVF regulation seems to suggest every state should protect IVF as a right. This seems a bit incongruent.” (Emphasis in original.)

Yet pro-life leaders took heart at the palpable difference in focus between the two parties’ presumptive presidential candidates. “Unlike President Biden, President Trump begins his remarks on abortion celebrating ‘the ultimate joy in life’ – children and family,” said Hawkins. While pro-life advocates “clearly have some work to do to educate the Trump administration” on federal pro-life protections, sharing “the mutual goals of supporting families and welcoming young children” proves that “we can work together to restore the culture of life stripped away by the national Democratic Party and their leadership.”

“Fighting against that kind of abortion extremism is a reason to vote for Donald Trump,” Hawkins told TWS. Dannensfelser also promised SBA Pro-Life America will “work tirelessly to defeat President Biden and extreme congressional Democrats” in November.

Talk show host Steve Deace questioned the political viability of Trump’s abortion stance. “Is there truly a constituency of people who vote on this issue who will find this reasonable?” he said. “[I]f you’re voting on abortion you feel strongly about it, one way or the other. And if you have anything close to the position Trump has, you’re not even voting on that issue, so it doesn’t matter.”

But Perkins believes President Trump “is going to continue to pursue a pro-life policy” once elected, based on the counsel of his advisors and the political calculus of the Republican Party.

“I saw today’s statement with a comma behind it, not a period,” Perkins told “Greg Kelly Reports” on Newsmax Monday evening. “I’ve had conversations leading up to this with the former president. If Congress were to reach a consensus on a piece of legislation and send it to his desk, I have no doubt he would sign it.”

“His record is very clear; he’s the most pro-life president that we’ve had,” Perkins concluded.

Pro-life leaders hope a second Trump presidency will live up to his words Monday morning: “The Republican Party should always be on the side of the miracle of life — on the side of mothers, fathers, and their beautiful babies.”

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor 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.

Florida Is Now One of the Most Pro-Life States in America. Here’s How It All Could Be Undone in November.

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In the same day, the Florida Supreme Court handed down two vastly different opinions with life-or-death implications for the preborn. One decision affirmed that there is no right to abortion in the Florida Constitution and the other allowed an abortion amendment to move forward — which would permit virtually unfettered access to abortion — to appear on the Florida ballot.

Until then, Florida will be among the most pro-life states in the country with robust protections for the preborn after the Florida Supreme Court’s 6-1 ruling against Planned Parenthood. On April 1, the court overrode previous abortion opinions dating back to 1989 and upheld the 15-week abortion ban. Because of this, the six-week abortion ban, which corresponds with when a preborn baby’s heart begins beating, will soon be in effect.

But in November, all of this could be undone. While this ruling was a huge win for life in Florida, it could be overridden if Floridians vote to pass the abortion ballot measure the court also approved.

On February 7, I argued before the Florida Supreme Court to reject this abortion amendment from appearing on the ballot for its violation of state law. Unfortunately, the Court ruled 4-3 to the contrary. Should the amendment appear on November’s ballot, it would enshrine abortion in the state constitution and make the Sunshine State a graveyard for the preborn with virtually no restrictions on abortion if voted on by 60% of Florida voters.

It’s important for Floridians to be aware of this extreme amendment’s broad, destructive implications, and it’s equally as important for Americans nationwide to understand that the far-reaching agenda to put abortion on state ballots does not stop with Florida. Other states, such as Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Iowa, Maine, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and South Dakota, are also being targeted by the pro-abortion movement for abortion measures to appear on ballots in November.

Since the fall of Roe, the pro-life movement is zero-for-seven in abortion-related ballot measures, with losses in California, Michigan, Vermont, Kentucky, Montana, Kansas, and most recently, Ohio. This is partially due to the propagation of lies and fearmongering from the pro-abortion movement to sway even moderately pro-life Americans into siding with abortion.

Of particular concern in the deceptive strategy to enshrine abortion through state ballot initiatives is that the language used often conceals the sweeping scope of the initiatives.

The pro-abortion movement relies heavily on lies and gaslighting for public support because promoting what abortion truly is — the killing of preborn babies — is not a winning message. To get around this, the pro-abortion movement uses undefined, deceptive terms and euphemisms like “clump of cells,” “women’s health,” and “reproductive freedom” to mislead the masses. The use of vague language was certainly the case for the Florida amendment, and this was one of my arguments against the amendment before the court earlier this year.

In her dissent to the court’s opinion, Justice Jamie Grosshans agreed with my argument and laid out just how voters can be easily misled by the deceptive ballot summary for the abortion amendment.

“A voter may think this amendment simply returns Florida to a pre-Dobbs status quo. It does not,” she wrote. “A voter may think that a healthcare provider would be clearly defined as a licensed physician specializing in women’s health. It is not. A voter may think that viability falls within a readily apparent time frame. It does not. … And, critically, the voter may think this amendment results in settling this issue once and for all. It does not. Instead, this amendment returns abortion issues back to the courts to interpret scope, boundary, definitions, and policy, effectively removing it from the people and their elected representatives. Perhaps this is a choice that Floridians wish to make, but it should be done with clarity as to their vote’s ramifications and not based on a misleading ballot summary.”

Justice Renatha Francis reiterated the conflict of the amendment’s ambiguity in her dissent, stating that the amendment is a “Trojan horse for the elimination of any recognition of the State’s interest in protecting what Roe termed ‘potential life.’”

A Trojan horse, indeed.

What the amendment’s ballot summary doesn’t say is that the term “health care provider,” the person who could prescribe a post-viability abortion for “health” reasons, includes nearly 60 professions, including tattoo artists and massage therapists.

It leaves out the fact that every pro-life law in Florida (except potentially the parental notification requirement) would be overruled, paving the way for unrestricted abortion access.

It fails to mention that the amendment would authorize abortion for any reason at any time up to birth and endangers women by removing health and safety regulations.

It also neglects to add that the “no law shall prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion” language would tie the hands of the legislature from enacting any laws to protect preborn lives or their mothers.

The reality of the abortion amendment in Florida is that it will hurt women and enshrine the “right” to kill children in the Florida Constitution. The amendments on the ballot in other states follow a similar blueprint and would steamroll existing pro-life protections.

I previously warned the Florida amendment would be a “slippery slope to infanticide” and give the “abortion industry license to murder preborn babies without restriction or regulation.” I stand by these words completely and warn Floridians not to be complicit in the pro-abortion movement’s goal to legalize and normalize the genocide of the preborn by voting for this radical amendment.

The preborn are the most vulnerable and marginalized group in the U.S., and we will continue fighting for Florida to remain one of the most pro-life states in the nation and for pro-life protections to be extended to all 50 states.

AUTHOR

Mat Staver

Mat Staver is the founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel.

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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.

Florida Supreme Court Approves Pro-Life Law, But Sets the Stage for Abortion Showdown in November

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After being thoroughly remade by a popular Republican governor, the Supreme Court in one of the nation’s largest states has upheld a protective pro-life law which allows an even stronger protection to take effect. But the court also authorized a ballot initiative that could erase nearly all pro-life laws in America’s third most populous state.

In a near-unanimous (6-1) ruling, the Florida Supreme Court approved a bill prohibiting abortion after 15 weeks gestation. The Reducing Fetal and Infant Mortality Act “protects babies in the womb who have beating hearts, who can move, who can taste, who can see, and who can feel pain,” said Governor Ron DeSantis (R), who appointed five of the seven sitting justices, when he signed the bill in April 2022. The ruling also paves the way for a more protective pro-life law, which extends human rights to six weeks post-gestation, to take effect next month.

“Good news for life!” said Family Research Council President Tony Perkins. “This ruling by the Florida Supreme Court upholds the state’s 15-week protection of unborn life and allows the state’s new heartbeat law — protecting unborn babies at six weeks — to go into effect in May.”

However, a narrower, 4-3 majority allowed a coalition of abortionists and their lobbyists to put forward a measure, Proposition 4, which would insert a constitutional right to virtually unlimited, late-term abortion in the state constitution. The court also authorized a ballot initiative to legalize recreational marijuana use.

Mat Staver of Liberty Counsel called the ruling the “culmination of 35 years of work.” Staver, who has argued before the court, told “Washington Watch” guest host Jody Hice that the issue began with a 1989 ruling when “the activist liberal Florida Supreme Court at that time twisted this 1980 constitutional amendment that had nothing to do with abortion, but was about the privacy of your documents, to apply to abortion.”

In the case — Planned Parenthood of Southwest and Central Florida v. State of Florida — the majority ruled that Florida’s Supreme Court had wrongly interpreted the word “privacy” in an unrelated statute through the lens of the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling, which has since been overturned. The 1989 Supreme Court decision “associated the language of the Privacy Clause with Roe’s understanding of privacy; but it did not justify how that concept of privacy aligned with our constitution’s text,” the court ruled Monday. The earlier court “also did not ask how Florida voters would have understood the text of the provision and how that understanding would be informed by Florida’s long history of proscribing abortion.”

The decision removes a roadblock to the Heartbeat Protection Act, signed by DeSantis last April, which protects unborn children from abortion the moment a doctor can detect a fetal heartbeat, usually around six weeks. Legislators, noting the legal action over the 2022 law, included a provision in the heartbeat bill that it would not take effect until one month after justices upheld the less protective law. The Heartbeat Protection Act will take effect on May 1.

Pro-life leaders sounded notes of hope, mixed with trepidation, over the two abortion decisions. “We are pleased that Florida’s laws protecting preborn children were upheld. However, the court is allowing an extreme and detrimental ballot measure to move forward,” said Carol Tobias, president of the National Right to Life Committee. “Florida has made tremendous advances in protecting innocent human life and providing support for mothers. This ballot initiative would destroy Floridians’ hard work in creating a culture that supports and protects life.”

“Today’s victory for unborn children who have a heartbeat and can feel pain is in line with the views of the majority of Floridians who want to protect babies and serve mothers and families,” said SBA Pro-Life America State Policy Director Katie Daniel, in a statement emailed to The Washington Stand. “As Florida faces what may be its biggest ballot fight yet, Governor Ron DeSantis must be at the forefront of protecting Florida from Big Abortion’s attempt to eliminate the rights of unborn children, parents, women, and girls” and “lead in defending those protections,” Daniel told TWS.

Proposition 4

In a second ruling, justices also approved the language of a ballot initiative that would expand late-term abortion. The amendment is supported by “Floridians Protecting Freedom,” who describes itself as a coalition of “over 200 local, statewide, and national organizations” but lists just six groups, including Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, and the 1199 Service Employees International Union (SEIU).

Proposition 4 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.”

Opponents say the language is “misleading” and unconstitutionally vague. For instance, Staver noted on “Washington Watch” that the term “healthcare provider” encompasses “about 58 different categories, which includes non-medical personnel such as a 911 operator, a massage therapist, an orthotic shoe fitter, the assistant to the orthotic shoe fitter, a tattoo artist, and the list goes on.”

The inclusion of an exception for the patient’s “health” builds on the precedent established in the 1973 Supreme Court case Doe v. Bolton, allowing an abortion for virtually any reason, including mental and financial reasons. “Really, no abortion would be prohibited through all nine months of pregnancy up to and including birth if this passes,” Staver told Hice.

In a powerful dissent, Justice Jamie Grosshans wrote:

“A voter may think this amendment simply returns Florida to a pre-Dobbs status quo. It does not. A voter may think that a healthcare provider would be clearly defined as a licensed physician specializing in women’s health. It is not. A voter may think that viability falls within a readily apparent time frame. It does not. A voter may think that the comma is an insignificant grammatical tool that would have very little interpretive purpose. It will not. And, critically, the voter may think this amendment results in settling this issue once and for all. It does not. Instead, this amendment returns abortion issues back to the courts to interpret scope, boundary, definitions, and policy, effectively removing it from the people and their elected representatives. Perhaps this is a choice that Floridians wish to make, but it should be done with clarity as to their vote’s ramifications and not based on a misleading ballot summary.”

“I presented part of the oral argument at the court, and the chief justice really got the concern nailed down. He said the voters aren’t being informed that this law can impact other existing laws that recognize the humanity of the unborn child, laws that are criminal, civil wills and trusts, guardianship laws,” Staver told Hice.

Pro-life advocates have dug in for a long fight against the amendment. “We must oppose Proposition 4. Not only will this measure bring dangerous late-term abortions back to Florida, but it will allow girls who aren’t old enough to get their ears pierced on their own get an abortion without” parental consent, said Daniel.

“In a state where 25% of abortion centers failed inspections, it’s no surprise they want to be completely unregulated to increase their profits at the expense of women, girls, and babies,” Daniel, a Tampa resident, told TWS. “Those girls and the women who have abortions will be put at risk when this measure eliminates every abortion health regulation on the books.”

Democrats seized upon the two Supreme Court rulings to tout their viability in November. Biden’s campaign manager, Julie Chávez Rodríguez, believed the rulings gave the president and his party an “opening” in the increasingly Republican state. Christina Reynolds, senior vice president of communications for EMILY’s List, said although “we’ve had our heart broken before” in Florida, she hopes the ballot initiative “draws some focus to Florida that might otherwise not be there.”

All parties acknowledge it would be difficult to defeat President Trump, who lives in his 17-acre Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach. And Republicans have determined not to back down from abortion as a campaign issue in 2024.

The ballot initiative will prove an uphill fight, especially as many party leaders have devoted little money to opposing the well-funded abortion industry’s expansion in a string of state elections. Staver said the “silver lining” in the Proposition 4 ruling is “we could bring another challenge to have the court rule on the personhood of the child based upon the Florida constitution itself.”

But in the meantime, pro-life advocates rejoice over the collective impact Governor DeSantis’s political and judicial decisions will have on the unborn.

“Thousands of lives will be saved by this law,” said Live Action founder Lila Rose.

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

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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.

‘Total Abomination’: $1.2 Trillion Bill Funds Teen Trans Programs, Abortion to 22 Weeks

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A sprawling, $1.2 trillion government funding bill includes funding for abortion facilities, as well as LGBTQ activist centers that carry out transgender injections, target minors, hold drag shows, and help illegal immigrants who identify as gay or transgender gain U.S. citizenship — a bill one congressman calls “a total, total abomination.”

The “Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2024” funds the Departments of Defense, Education, Health and Human Services (HHS), Homeland Security (DHS), Labor, and State until the end of the fiscal year, September 30. Congressional leadership released the text of the 1,012-page bill at 2:30 a.m. Thursday, giving members of Congress just hours to read before an anticipated vote to head off an impending government shutdown at midnight Saturday.

As of this writing, the bill contained the following earmarks:

  • $400,000 requested by Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.) for Briarpatch Youth Services in Fitchburg, Wisconsin. The group promises to hide minors’ struggle with gender dysphoria from their parents while indoctrinating teens in extreme gender ideology. Its “Queer 101 Training” promises to teach “an intersectional understanding on queer oppression” and aims “to demonstrate how limiting the ‘male’ and ‘female’ binary is.” The organization offers “individual counseling services” for children “ages 12-17,” in which a “[c]ounselor can work with children on exploring identity, resiliency, and creating a Gender Support Plan for school support and advocacy.” The group’s website says, “Youth do NOT need parent/guardian permission to join Teens Like Us. We understand not all youth are at a point in their lives where they can safely and confidently ‘come out.’” (Emphasis in original.) The group’s “Queer 101 Training” aims “to demonstrate how limiting the ‘male’ and ‘female’ binary is.”
  • $400,000 requested by Senator Bob Casey (D-Pa.) for the Mazzoni Center in Philadelphia, which carries out transgender hormone shots, clears the way for transgender surgeries, advertises transgender services for minors, and holds drag show fundraisers. Mazzoni carries out cross-sex hormone injections and provides medical letters for transgender surgeries. The center begins targeting teens with its Pediatric & Adolescent Comprehensive Transgender Services (PACTS). Its “Youth Drop In,” which is held each Wednesday night, is aimed at teens “ages 14 to 24” and notes, “Patients under 18 can receive confidential care regarding sexual and mental health without parental permission.” The Mazzoni Center both contributes to and profits from the LGBT movement. Mazzoni invited donors to mingle with “a wide range of acts that include drag queens, drag kings, trans-identifying, bearlesque, and burlesque performers” at its December 3 Code Red fundraiser. “In December, fundraising for Mazzoni Center truly was a drag,” the center cracked. “Drag entertainer Cherry Pop and her fabulous friends united for the 10th annual Code Red fundraiser, a drag/variety show,” which it described as a “powerful night” for a “vital cause.”
  • $1,808,000 requested by Senators Sheldon Whitehouse and Jack Reed (both D-R.I.) for Women and Infants Hospital in Providence, Rhode Island, which carries out first- and second-term abortions at its Family Planning Clinic. “If you need to discuss abortion care for pregnancy, please feel free to contact the Family Planning Clinic,” states its website. Its “services” include “[s]urgical abortion under general anesthesia in the operating room for people up to 22 weeks pregnant” and “[m]edication abortion (the ‘abortion pill’) for people up to ten weeks pregnant.” The facility will also implant a potential abortifacient inside women after the abortion, advertising a “[p]ost-abortion IUD or contraceptive implant.”
  • $650,000 requested by Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) for Dartmouth Hitchcock Nashua in New Hampshire. “We routinely provide both medication and procedural abortion care up to 22 weeks of pregnancy,” the group declares. The facility describes surgical abortion as a procedure “ending a pregnancy by having the pregnancy removed by doctors.”
  • $780,000 requested by Senator Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) for Amador Health Services in Las Cruces, New Mexico, which boasts that it “can provide transgender/gender non-conforming (GNC) health education, therapeutic counseling and referrals, and additional LGBTQ+ support that puts your safety and comfort first. If you’ve felt rejected by family and loved ones, isolated from your community, or are just in need of an ear to listen, we’re here.” It also decries the “social stigma” surrounding “undocumented immigration” (e.g., illegal immigration). “[W]e’re working every day to eliminate that stigma and make all feel like they belong.”
  • $146,000 requested by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) for Apicha Community Health Center, for facilities and equipment. Apicha’s two locations in Manhattan and Queens advertise “transgender and gender-affirming services” — specifically “initiation and maintenance of hormone replacement therapy,” “letters of support for gender-affirming surgeries” and “help with name change process.” They also distribute potential abortifacients Plan B and IUDs.
  • $706,000 requested by Senator Patty Murray (D-Wash.) for Entre Hermanos, an LGBT group that helps put illegal immigrants on a path to U.S. citizenship. It offers legal counseling and “free immigration clinics” to illegal immigrants who identify as LGBTQ to obtain U.S. citizenship and hosts workshops on “the many identities” under the transgender “umbrella” and strategies to minimize “transphobia.” The group’s website currently advertises the upcoming “Drag Brunch” on April 28.
  • $850,000 requested by Rep. Ayanna Pressley, and Senators Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey (D-Mass.) for LGBTQ Senior Housing, Inc. (“The Pryde”), in Massachusetts, a controversial funding provision that House Republicans stripped out of a Transportation funding bill last year.

Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-Ala.), chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, also listed the following concerning earmarks:

  • “Sen. Bennet (D-CO), $845,000 – Envision: You, CO (SAMHSA) – LGBTQ advocacy.”
  • “Sen. Shatz (D-HI), $550,000 – Hawaii Health and Harm Reduction Center, HI (SAMHSA) – LGBTQ services and syringe exchange.”
  • “Sen. Schumer (D-NY), $1,000,000 — SAGE, NY (ACL) – LGBTQ advocacy.”

The “earmarks in it for abortion facilities” make the bill a “total, total abomination,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) told Steve Bannon’s “War Room” on Thursday.

“We continue to fund abortion tourism, we continue to fund transgender surgeries at the Department of Defense,” Roy continued. “It busts the [spending] caps … funds the FBI headquarters, doesn’t secure the border, funds the World Health Organization.”

Even these dedicated funding streams do not cover the full extent of the bill’s harmful funding, say its critics. “I have multiple concerns, among them are the many new social services that this bill would create for the millions of illegal immigrants streaming across our border. Additionally, it would fund facilities providing routine abortion services, including late-term abortions,” said Aderholt.

Experts say the short time frame legislators have to review such massive legislation makes it more likely wasteful or immoral spending will find congressional approval. “Lawmakers are using arbitrary deadlines and shutdown politics to extort the American people and force lawmakers to vote for a bill they don’t have time to read,” said Kevin Roberts, president of The Heritage Foundation. “Conservatives were told that the days of omnibus spending bills shrouded in secrecy were over. But this process and the bill it produced are indistinguishable from typical Swamp behavior that’s taken our economy and country to the brink of disaster.”

Principled lawmakers seem to agree. “This is not the bill that my subcommittee produced and supported,” the chairman added. “The Senate has taken liberties with their Congressionally Directed Spending requests that would never stand in the House.”

“Under no circumstances should [House Republicans] vote for this bill,” said Roy. “A vote for this bill is a vote against America.”

“In good conscience, I cannot and will not vote for these projects or this bill,” Aderholt concluded.

The bill is expected to pass Friday.

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor 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.

Kamala Harris’s Hypocrisy On ‘Women Having Miscarriages In Toilets’

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It almost seems ridiculous to point out that a politician did something hypocritical, but Kamala Harris inverted reality in an especially egregious way during her first (and hopefully last) vice presidential visit to an abortion facility last week. As part of her ongoing campaign against life, she claimed, “I have heard stories of — and have met with women who had miscarriages in — in toilets.” Like most of Harris’s speeches, she had said it all before. The vice president shared a video clip of herself repeating the same story on “The View” in January. Harris said she could not believe states still resist abortion “in this year of our Lord 2024,” before saying, “Women are having miscarriages in toilets.”

Harris presumably said this because she believes having a miscarriage in a toilet is a grave injustice to mother and child. Yet Kamala Harris and President Joe Biden are actively promoting the outcome they claim to be fighting. The Biden-Harris administration has boasted in its proposed 2025 budget it has done all it can to “protect access to abortion, including medication abortion,” and it has taken numerous steps to shut down efforts to halt the distribution of abortion pills.

But having a miscarriage in a toilet is precisely how chemical abortion works. Don’t take my word for it; listen to the abortionists themselves. In a website titled “How does the abortion pill work?” Planned Parenthood notes, “The abortion pill process has several steps and usually includes 2 different medicines: mifepristone and misoprostol. You can also have an abortion using only misoprostol.” The abortion cocktail “causes cramping and bleeding that empties your uterus. The pregnancy tissue will come out through your vagina. The process is very similar to an early miscarriage. … For most people, medication abortion feels like having an early miscarriage.” Planned Parenthood has a list of items for mid-abortion women to “make you more comfortable.”

“Sit on the toilet,” Planned Parenthood’s abortion pill website tells women.

It’s not even merely the United States; the British abortion business BPAS instructs abortion-minded mothers that their aborted child’s remains “can be flushed down the lavatory or wrapped in tissue, placed in a small plastic bag and put in the dustbin [trash can].”

This is not a new phenomenon that Harris, or any reasonably informed person, might not have heard. It dates all the way back to the very first “M&M trials” of the abortion pills in Des Moines in 1994. “I aborted at 6:30 on Friday night. I heard it fall into the toilet. It looked like a blood clot. I cried when I knew it had passed,” recalled “Patient 001.” It permeates the medical advice abortionists give mothers along with the mifepristone and misoprostol that induce the miscarriage-like abortion.

Leslie Wolbert took Planned Parenthood’s advice. Leslie had a chemical abortion using RU-486 at age 21. “I thought I was dying,” because of the pain caused by her cramps, she said. “I was crying hysterically and begging to die because the pain was more than I could handle. I was sweating like crazy and on the toilet while throwing up too.” In the shower, “I bled so much that it clogged the drain.” When she looked down, she saw “the ‘blood clot’ or the ‘blob of tissue’ that the clinic talked about. It was my baby that was clogging the drain of the shower. I had to turn off the water, get out, and clean it up myself and then I flushed it down the toilet.”

“It was even more horrifying than it sounds,” Leslie swore in an affidavit for a 2013 Supreme Court case.

Wolbert’s story is cited in the Supreme Court case to reverse FDA approval of the abortion pill — a lawsuit the Biden-Harris administration has fought tooth-and-nail.

Unfortunately, Leslie’s story is the norm, rather than the exception. “I looked down, and I screamed,” said one mother. “It was not just a blob of tissue. I gave birth to what looked like a fully formed, intact, 14-week-old fetus covered in blood. I scooped my baby out of the toilet. I sat on the floor, and held him, and cried.”

Part of the problem of self-managed abortions comes from discovering the reality of human life, alone, when it’s too late. Mary Szoch, director of the Center for Human Dignity at Family Research Council, has written in The Washington Stand, “It’s hard to put into context the damage caused to a mother who expected to see a clump of cells and instead sees her visibly recognizable unborn child delivered dead into the toilet.” Her words were echoed by “Courtney,” who recounted the grief she experienced precisely over her deceased child’s final resting place. “My cramps were very intense and painful,” she said. “My baby was disposed of in a toilet. A toilet.”

Sometimes the baby doesn’t just look fully-formed. One grieving mother sued Planned Parenthood claiming that during a brief telehealth session, the abortionist miscalculated her full-term pregnancy at six weeks and gave her a prescription for the abortion pill. As a result, in May 2020, the woman gave birth to her dead-but-fully-formed, 30-36 week-old baby on the toilet. “At approximately 3:00 am, while sitting on the toilet, Plaintiff gave birth to a fully formed, stillborn baby boy named J.T.,” says the 2021 lawsuit. “Plaintiff was shocked and traumatized when she saw the lifeless, fully-formed baby in the toilet covered in mucous, blood, and the placenta.”

The abortion industry regularly tells its patients to dispose of their babies in the toilet, and not just during chemical abortions. Dr. Kathi Aultman, a retired OB-GYN and former medical director for Planned Parenthood of Jacksonville, described how a woman once came to her experiencing “prolonged bleeding from a late-term abortion.” The woman’s story shocked Dr. Aultman to the core. The injured mother “described being given medication and then being left in a cold room overnight with no blanket or call button. The next day, she was given more medication, and eventually told to sit on the toilet and push. She delivered a living 20-week-old baby boy into the toilet, where he drowned.”

“The experience traumatized her,” wrote Dr. Aultman.

A counselor at the Dr. Emily Woman’s Health Center in The Bronx told one woman experiencing a late-term abortion what to do if she passes a third-trimester baby in her hotel room. “If it comes out, then it comes out. Flush it,” she said.

The (now deceased) abortionist Carman Landau gave the same advice to a 27-week pregnant woman at Southwestern Women’s Options in Albuquerque, New Mexico. If the child passes, she should “sit on the toilet” and “not move until we come and get you.”

The abortion industry will inevitably claim these “sting” videos were “heavily edited” and imply they are untrustworthy (although Live Action has shared its full, unedited footage of various investigations). Those disinclined to believe Live Action can’t explain away Planned Parenthood and BPAS, nor even numerous left-leaning news outlets.

In a 2022 story published on the feminist website The 19th, republished by PBS (at your expense), a woman named Emma Texas took misoprostol. When it kicked in, Emma “could hardly walk from the pain,” so her boyfriend had to “physically steer her to the toilet.” Since the baby survived that abortion attempt — so much for Planned Parenthood’s medical advice — she took both abortion pills and aborted her baby. “That medication abortion was the most painful experience I’ve ever had in my life,” Emma remembered. “I literally said to my boyfriend — who, that time, knew better and just stayed with me the entire time — I said, ‘I just want to die.’”

The cries, the anguish, the heartbreak of these women are being muffled, multiplied, and ignored each time Kamala Harris and other elected officials promote the use of abortion pills. Women’s suffering is ignored, drowned out by the campaign cash that politicians rake in each election cycle from the abortion industry. These stories should be repeated over and over again, until the manufacturers of the abortion pill note one of its prime side effects is intense grief.

Kamala Harris should spend more time listening to these women and less time hypocritically supporting the industry that victimized them.

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

RELATED ARTICLE: Vice President Kamala Harris tours an abortion mill

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.

Poll after Poll Shows Biden Losing to Trump

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As November draws steadily closer, yet another poll is showing support for former president Donald Trump surging ahead of support for incumbent Joe Biden. According to a HarrisX poll conducted in the days following Biden’s State of the Union address, Trump is leading Biden by five percentage points (46% to 41%), with 13% of voters undecided.

When undecided voters were asked which way they lean, Trump leads Biden 52% to 48%. When Independent and third-party candidates are added to the mix, Trump still maintains his lead (41%), while Biden trails behind at 35%, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. at 12%, and other candidates at 1% each, with 10% of voters undecided. When undecided voters were asked which way they lean in an expanded field, Trump still takes first place with 44%. Significantly, Trump leads among Independent voters in every scenario.

The HarrisX survey also revealed that nearly 60% of voters polled disapprove of Biden’s job performance as president, including nearly a quarter (22%) of Democrats. Nearly 60% of voters (including over a quarter of Democrats) said that Biden’s State of the Union speech served to “divide” the country and more than half (57%) of voters said the speech “raised questions or concerns” about the president’s age, including almost 40% of Democrats. A marginally smaller percentage said the speech raised questions or concerns about Biden’s fitness for office. A strong majority (61%) of voters polled also said that Biden did an “inadequate job addressing immigration during the State of the Union address…”

This follows a Rasmussen Reports survey finding that 61% of voters (79% of Republicans, 45% of Democrats, and 61% of Independent voters) believe immigration will be “very important” in November’s election. Despite all of the attention Democrats are dedicating to it, only 42% of voters (28% of Republicans, 66% of Democrats, and 32% of Independents) said that abortion will be a “very important” issue in November.

A Yahoo News/YouGov poll also found that voters weren’t impressed with Biden’s State of the Union address. According to that survey, Biden’s job approval was at 40% before his speech last week but dropped to 39% after the speech.

A slew of other polls have shown Trump leading Biden in the wake of the incumbent Democrat’s State of the Union address. A recent USA Today/Suffolk University survey found that 49% of voters approve of the job Trump did as president, while only 41% approve of Biden’s job performance. Another Rasmussen Reports survey also showed Trump is not only leading Biden (49% to 41%) but other Democrats teased as potential Biden replacements: Trump leads former First Lady Michelle Obama 50% to 43% and current California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) by a whopping 51% to 34%. Once again, Trump leads among Independent voters in a matchup against all three Democrats, leading Biden by 12 points (45% to 33%) in that demographic.

Pointing to polling data, former Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich said that Biden has “a devastating mountain” to climb in facing off against Trump in November. Gingrich explained that the president “has a problem with everybody because they go to the grocery store, they go to the gas station. Biden-ism isn’t working.” He continued, “Biden has got a huge problem when speeches don’t change and advertising doesn’t change, because people go to the store, and they say, ‘In my own life, I know what he’s doing to me, right?’” The former speaker added, “And if you’ll notice, people consistently now say that they were better off personally, better off under Trump than they are under Biden.”

For months, Biden has been floundering in nearly every major poll. A Harvard CAPS/Harris poll released last month reported Biden’s approval rating at 45%, with nearly half (48%) of voters saying he’s become worse as a leader. Like many current surveys, that one found that over half of voters approved of Trump’s presidential job performance and showed the former president leading the current president ahead of the November election.

Voters have been particularly disappointed with Biden’s management of illegal immigration, inflation, the economy, rising crime rates, and other issues. A Monmouth University poll (also released last month) found that 84% of voters consider illegal immigration a serious issue, including 61% who consider it “very serious.” Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute, identified illegal immigration as “Biden’s weakest policy area, including among his fellow Democrats.”

AUTHOR

S.A. McCarthy

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

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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.

How Biden’s 2025 Proposed Budget Impacts Values Issues

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President Joe Biden released his proposed 2025 budget on Monday. “As the president is fond of saying, a budget is a reflection of our values,” said Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) at Senate hearings on the multi-trillion-dollar proposal. But Biden’s proposed budget would:

  • Place transgender-identifying minors into the foster care facilities of the opposite sex, a policy that has led to sexual abuse and human trafficking;
  • Deny most Americans, especially Christians, the right to participate in foster care for certain children unless they agree to subject those minors to transgender medical interventions, such as puberty blockers and cross-sex hormone injections;
  • Seek to expand abortion;
  • Overturn laws that punish prostitutes for knowingly infecting others with HIV/AIDS;
  • Eliminate abstinence-based sex education;
  • Spike funding for Title X, a program that encourages doctors to give contraception to underage minors without parental knowledge and conceal children’s sexual activity from their parents;
  • Entrust government-funded workers with raising children beginning at the age of three; and
  • Increase funding for controversial, United Nations population programs.

Below is an overview of the budget’s most controversial features in his 2025 budget, which would raise taxes by more than $5 trillion, spend more than $8.6 trillion, enact a constitutionally-dubious wealth tax, implement a global minimum tax, and add $16.3 trillion to the national debt over the next 10 years.

Promoting Extreme Transgender Ideology

Joe Biden has repeatedly committed his administration to promoting the LGBTQ agenda. The Biden administration’s proposed 2025 budget intends to make the LGBTQ revolution permanent by placing children in sex-segregated group homes of the opposite sex, and by denying Christians the right to participate in aspects of foster care.

Buried in Table S-6, on page 153 of the budget (page 157 of the PDF), is a line item committing to “[p]revent and combat religious, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, or sex discrimination in the child welfare system.”

That apparently refers to a proposed rule the Biden administration issued last September requiring the foster care system to place LGBTQ-identifying children with “safe and appropriate” homes — homes that agree to facilitate a child’s social and medical “gender transition.” The rule would “require specific steps before the placement of transgender, intersex, and gender non-conforming children in sex-segregated child-care institutions (CCIs),” specifically that they place children and teens in foster care facilities according to their gender identity. That is, the Biden administration intends to place children who say they identify as transgender into sex-segregated foster care facilities of the opposite sex. Rep. Jason Smith (R-Mo.), chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, pointed out this would open the beds and showers of female foster homes to teenage boys.

Such a policy has already led to tragic results. In Virginia, a 14-year-old girl named Sage began to identify as a boy. Police found the teen after she ran away and got sexually trafficked, but instead of returning her to her home, a judge accused her custodial grandparents of “emotional and physical abuse” by “misgendering” her. Sage was placed in the male section of a foster home, where she was beaten and given drugs. She then ran away again, where she was apprehended by a human trafficking ring in Texas, where she was “drugged, raped, beaten, and exploited.”

The definition of “safe and appropriate” also excludes anyone who expresses skepticism about exposing children to transgender procedures. Christians and anyone who shows “hostility” toward the LGBTQ agenda would be deemed unsafe to foster children who identify as transgender. Similar policies have already denied Christians the right to care for children in Oregon and Massachusetts. This issue stood at the heart of a 2021 Supreme Court ruling, Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, which ruled the city’s policy against contracting with Catholic Social Services because of their religious beliefs “violates the First Amendment,” specifically the Free Exercise Clause. The rule attempts to sidestep this concern by saying Christians can still care for foster children, just not those who identify as LGBTQ.

Multiple U.S. senators expressed concerns with the language of the rule at the time. “We are fighting back against the Biden Administration’s woke gender ideology and pronoun politics,” said Senator Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) “Their new proposed rule aims to exclude faith-based foster care providers from helping children in need.” A coalition of 19 state attorneys general also raised alarms about the policy’s unconstitutional, and religiously discriminatory, language.

To justify these policies, the Biden rule falsely asserts, “when a LGBTQI+ child has their identity respected and supported by the caregivers in their life, their risks of attempted suicide decrease dramatically.” Yet a host of studies, from around the world over multiple decades, have found that transgender procedures do not help, and may harm, those who undergo them. A 2021 study in the Journal of Urology found, “The overall rates of suicide attempts doubled” among trans-identifying men “after vaginoplasty,” commonly referred to as “bottom surgery.” The budget indicates Biden is doubling down on this rule and its flawed methodology.

Abortion

In releasing the 2025 proposed budget, the “Biden-Harris [a]dministration has taken action to protect and expand access to reproductive health care, including abortion and contraception,” said HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra, “in every way possible.”

The budget spreads misinformation while announcing the administration’s intention to expand abortion in all 50 states. “Twenty-seven million women of reproductive age — more than one in three — live in one of the 21 [s]tates with an abortion ban currently in effect. In the last year, women have been denied medical care needed to preserve their health and save their lives,” the budget asserts. In fact, no state bans abortion if the pregnancy threatens the life of the mother. Pro-life advocates say doctors may have been confused specifically because abortion industry lobbyists have repeatedly claimed “miscarriage care” is illegal.

After touting Biden’s actions on behalf of the abortion industry, the budget states, “The [a]dministration continues to call on the Congress to pass legislation restoring the protections of Roe v. Wade in [f]ederal law.” The Biden administration endorses the so-called Women’s Health Protection Act, which goes well beyond Roe.

In concrete terms, the budget proposes giving $390 million to the “family planning” services of Title X, a 36% hike. As this author exposed, training sessions funded by the Biden administration encourage Title X providers to talk about sex with minors behind parents’ backs, hide minor children’s sexual activity from parents both during live conversations and in medical records, and even to have vans roam neighborhoods giving minors federally funded contraceptives.

The budget also “provides $594 million, an increase of $37 million above the 2023 level, for USAID directed high-impact and lifesaving voluntary family planning and reproductive health programs and America’s voluntary contribution to the United Nations Population Fund,” the budget states. UNFPA was long complicit in forced abortions necessitated by China’s one-child policy and remains tied to controversial population control efforts worldwide.

The abortion lobby said the proposed budget proved the Democratic administration is enacting their values. “The Biden-Harris administration is fighting by our side,” said Mini Timmaraju, CEO of Reproductive Freedom for All (formerly NARAL). “[T]his budget is proof. We look forward to partnering with our allies in the White House and Congress to pass a budget where our values are reflected.” Planned Parenthood also greeted the budget as “an encouraging sign of their continued support for sexual and reproductive health care.”

Universal Pre-K

As he did in last year’s $6.9 trillion budget proposal, Joe Biden proposed offering “free” preschool to children beginning at age four and “charting a path” to expanding the program to three-year-olds. The program is a longstanding item on the Left’s wish list, constituting a part of Elizabeth Warren’s 2020 presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, mentioned in Barack Obama’s 2013 State of the Union address, and referenced in Obama’s 2010 report to the UN Human Rights Council. Yet children being raised by daycare are associated with a panoply of negative outcomes for children and, polls show, is unwanted by parents, especially mothers.

Fighting Laws against Spreading AIDS, Combatting ‘Hate Crimes’

The 2025 proposed budget continues President Joe Biden’s fixation on overturning state laws designed to prevent AIDS-infected prostitutes from spreading HIV. “The Budget further supports State and local efforts to promote equity and protect civil rights by including $10 million for a new initiative to modernize outdated criminal statutes with a discriminatory impact on HIV-positive individuals … and $50 million for programs to combat hate crimes.”

The Biden administration sued the state of Tennessee over its aggravated prostitution law (§ 39-13-516), which charges anyone who knowingly sells sex while HIV-positive with a felony. The lawsuit came as the administration is negotiating the World Health Organization’s Pandemic Agreement. In January, WHO Secretary-General Tedros Ghebreyesus instructed “[p]olitical leaders at all levels” to “counteract conservative opposition” and “enact progressive laws” championing “sexual rights.” Specifically, “Countries must repeal laws that criminalize homosexuality, sex work and HIV transmission.”

Ending Abstinence-Based Education

The Biden budget would end funding for the Sexual Risk Abstinence Education program. Instead, he would give $101 million for the Teen Pregnancy Prevention program, despite a 2015 survey which found 40% of teenagers said these classes made them feel pressured to have sex. The Department of Health and Human Services lists eight regional Planned Parenthood alliances among the current Teen Pregnancy Prevention grant recipients.

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

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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.

How Illegal Immigration Defeats the Pro-Life, Pro-Family Movement

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The impact of illegal immigration fill our TV screens, crime blotters, and morgues every day. But too few Americans appreciate how lawlessness at the border advances other liberal policies. Illegal immigration gives Democrats extra votes in Congress and greater control over all three branches of government. It forces you to spend even more of your tax dollars on transgender procedures and masks the failure of big-spending government programs. Most offensively, it drowns out your voice in your own government.

Democrats draw artificial power for all of their plans — including expanded abortion and transgender procedures — from a seemingly unrelated issue: counting illegal immigrants in the U.S. census. Under the Constitution, the number of congressional seats, Electoral College votes, and federal funding each state receives depends on its population. Lumping in illegal immigrants and resident aliens with native-born Americans gives sanctuary states undeserved power. This opaque issue exploded into the open last week, when Senate Republicans introduced a measure to give you back the full sovereignty you are due as an American citizen — and Senate Democrats shot it down.

Senator Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.) introduced the Equal Representation Act (S. 3659 and H.R. 7109), which would ask census-takers if they are U.S. citizens — and count only U.S. citizens when apportioning congressional seats. Chuck Schumer’s Senate would not allow a vote, but on March 8, Hagerty attached it as an amendment to a $460 billion spending package. Senate Democrats predictably voted against an honest census en bloc, 45-51. Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) joined with the Democrats to give them an anti-accountability majority. Senator Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) claimed the measure attempted to “attack vulnerable, underrepresented groups,” because “our country has never excluded undocumented individuals from the apportionment process.”

But Hirono is wrong. The U.S. Census Bureau explains the Constitution’s enumeration clause (Article 1, Section 2) did not count “Indians not taxed,” because these individuals lived “under some sort of separate sovereignty recognized by a treaty, and did not vote or perform other duties related to citizenship.” This held until the American people granted U.S. citizenship to all tribal members born on U.S. soil in the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924, signed by President Calvin Coolidge. By definition, non-citizens have not been granted citizenship — although three states and the District of Columbia allow non-citizens to vote in elections, and only seven states prohibit it (New York City would be on that list absent constitutional limitations.) Non-citizens should not have any impact on the course of U.S. politics. Yet the same politicians continually crowing about mythical Russian attacks on “Our Democracy” want illegal immigrants to shape the course of our everyday government.

Counting non-citizens in the U.S. census has a palpable impact on Congress, transferring power from conservative states to liberal ones. A report from immigration scholars found that counting non-citizens in the census redistributes eight congressional seats: It gives extra seats to California (3), Texas (2), New York, New Jersey, and Florida (one each); and it takes seats away from Alabama, Idaho, Michigan, Missouri, Minnesota, Ohio, Rhode Island, and West Virginia (one seat each). Illegal immigrants alone transfer one seat each from Ohio, Alabama, and Minnesota to California, Texas, and New York.

Imagine a Congress without Eric Swalwell, Ted Lieu, and Maxine Waters. In their place, we would have an extra Jim Jordan, and Alabama voters wouldn’t have had to choose between conservative incumbents Barry Moore and Jerry Carl on Super Tuesday. The scholars similarly broke down some of the congressional districts with the largest share of non-citizens. Among them is New York’s 14th district, represented by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Thus, the legally dubious policy of counting non-citizens in the census empowers the most radical left-wing voices. The prescient John Zmirak wrote in 2019, “Open Borders Equals Abortion.” Today, open borders equals abortion, porn in school libraries, and transgender surgeries for children.

It bears noting, these figures came from 2019, before the Biden administration added an unprecedented number of illegal immigrants to the U.S. population. Without mass deportations, the next redistribution of voting power will be even greater.

Of course, none of these radical representatives truly represent illegal immigrants. Leftists count illegal immigrants much the way slave states lobbied to count slaves: Slaveowners wanted to make their slaves do double labor, working in the fields and giving slave states more political power. Child labor and human trafficking remain a concern for illegal immigrants, as well. “Undocumented migrants” hold down labor costs, undercutting U.S. citizens’ wages (especially black citizens) while handing blue states a greater share of the federal budget and political representation.

Although the immediate impact falls on Congress, counting illegal immigrants in the census also affects the other two branches of government. These illicit congressional seats give states additional votes in the Electoral College, which determines the presidency. Since the president appoints Supreme Court justices, an inaccurate Census creates a whole-of-government distortion of democracy.

Counting illegal immigrants not only gives liberals the votes to implement left-wing policies, it forces you to pay for them. Census figures directed $2.8 trillion in federal spending through 353 federal programs in 2021, the U.S Census Bureau reported. Before the pandemic, the greatest census-related cost to U.S. taxpayers came from Medicaid: The lower a state’s median income, the more money it gets, so it pays to pad the numbers. Now, consider: Medicaid programs in 26 states and the District of Columbia cover so-called “gender-affirming care” (cross-sex hormone injections and/or transgender surgeries). A total of 83% of America’s sanctuary states cover transgender procedures through Medicaid. Overcounting their population means you foot more of the bill for these life-altering procedures. Additionally, eight of the 10 states that cover abortion-on-demand through Medicaid are sanctuary states — and AOC has led the charge to overturn the Hyde Amendment, which prevents federal taxpayer dollars from funding most of these abortions.

This policy should concern fiscal conservatives, as well. Counting non-citizens in the census generally subsidizes high-tax, high-regulation states at the expense of low-tax, fiscally responsible states. Data from the 2020 census showed U.S. citizens fleeing California, New York, and Illinois (all high-tax, sanctuary states) in favor of Florida, South Carolina, and Tennessee. These citizens take federal funding with them — unless blue states can plug the gap with illegal immigrants and non-citizens, effectively transferring wealth from U.S. citizens to foreigners and their left-wing political leaders. “While people continue to flee Democrat-run cities, desperate Democrats are back-filling the mass exodus with illegal immigrants,” said Hagerty.

The Left has reacted radically each time someone suggests this policy, which would bolster citizenship and move America one step closer to constitutional order. The U.S. Census asked about citizenship until the question was removed from the 1960 census. The Left’s histrionics when President Donald Trump tried to reinsert the question into the 2020 census underline how closely they guard their ill-gotten money and power. After the vote, Haggerty declared, “Democrats’ unanimous opposition to this commonsense measure confirms that they’re using illegal aliens and sanctuary cities to increase their political power.” Indeed, I have long argued that the Left’s position on every policy in Washington can be explained based on whether it increases or decreases their political power. It is the one thing that explains everything the Left does.

Jesus said, “The children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light” (Luke 16:8). This scriptural truth plays itself out daily in Washington, D.C. While Christian voters hide our talent in the earth, those dedicated to foisting extreme policies on the nation use every lever to impose their agenda. They are apparently willing to pile up the bodies of Laken Riley, Kate Steinle, and an untold number of angel families in the process.

Christians would point out that the Bible repeatedly condemns false weights and measures (Leviticus 19:36, Deuteronomy 25:13, Proverbs 16:11, Proverbs 20:10; and Proverbs 20:23), thereby excluding efforts to mix non-citizens into a census intended to represent the American people. The Bible provides precedents for taking a census only of citizens (Exodus 30:12, Numbers 26:4, II Samuel 24:1) and excluding some residents (Numbers 1:49). Enrollment in this census sometimes qualified non-citizens (II Chronicles 2:17) and citizens alike (Numbers 14:29) for unique civic responsibilities.

The story strikes me personally, as members of my own spiritual tradition prepare to observe Lent. During this time, we say a beautiful ancient prayer which begins, “O Lord and Master of my life, take from me the spirit of sloth, despair, lust of power, and idle talk.” The thousands of crimes the government documents at the hands of illegal immigrants illustrates the ways an insatiable thirst for fleeting, earthly power hurts some, kills others, and destroys the souls of those so afflicted.

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

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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.

PERKINS: State of Faith, Family, and Freedom Address

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TRANSCRIPT

I am Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C., with this year’s State of Faith, Family, and Freedom in America.

The apostle Peter wrote to believers who had been scattered because of the persecution of the early church, instructing them to “always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you” [1 Peter 3:15 ESV].

Notice where that hope was to reside. Not in the halls of power, the media headlines of the day, and certainly not on the stages of entertainment. Rather, that hope is to be found within us.

As followers of Christ, we have the very presence of God within us, which is our hope and confidence. And in a moment, I want to share with you the tangible results that have come from that hope, results which the godless Left and their lemmings in the legacy media work day and night to keep from you.

So, from that foundation, we look at the state of faith, family, and freedom in America.

The assault on biblical faith continues to accelerate under the Biden administration’s policies, both at home and abroad.

Religious freedom, the top foreign policy objective of the former Trump administration, has been replaced with prioritizing attacks on the unborn, promoting LGBTQ ideology, and the climate, the unholy trinity of the Left.

The Biden administration has found the ideal partner to advance this unholy trinity with the World Health Organization (WHO), which is working feverishly to advance an unprecedented global power grab through a pandemic treaty — or pandemic accord as it is deceptively called to avoid the need for ratification by the U.S. Senate.

This accord grants the compromised WHO the ability to regulate nearly every aspect of life for citizens of every nation when the WHO believes there is a health emergency. The treaty calls for censoring information that would challenge their declaration, which would include silencing dissenting voices. We saw this type of totalitarianism play out here in the United States during COVID-19; we don’t want to see a global sequel.

The consequences of the Biden administration’s misplaced priorities have rapidly manifested in global chaos and instability, along with historic levels of persecution of Christians and other religious minorities.

A case in point is the country of Nigeria, the most populous African nation. As chairman of the bipartisan U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom during the Trump administration, I led the commission in recommending that Nigeria be designated as a country of particular concern. This designation, which the Trump administration adopted for the government of Nigeria, allowed for economic sanctions upon the country and its leaders for allowing the egregious, ongoing, and systematic persecution of people of faith.

But, without adequate explanation, that designation was immediately removed by the Biden administration when they came into office. The result has been a dramatic rise in the death toll. According to the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law, more than 8,000 Christians were killed in Nigeria last year alone.

This indifference to religious freedom abroad is rivaled only by the hostility toward religious freedom here at home, as a congressional investigation revealed the FBI tracked and worked to infiltrate churches in part because of leftist propaganda from the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The role of faith, the Christian faith, has been routinely undermined by President Biden’s policies. Faith-based entities focused on proclaiming truth through charitable service have been assaulted.

At the end of last year, the Biden Department of Health and Human Services put forth a new rule that would shut down Christian foster care services and exclude Christian foster families unless they surrender biblical teaching on human sexuality and gender identity. And this comes at a time when more, not fewer, stable families are needed for children in need of a family.

These policies, which are hostile to biblical truth, have fomented and tacitly approved outright acts of hostility toward churches in America.

Over the last year, there have been 436 identified acts of hostility on churches in the United States, ranging from vandalism to firebombing to shootings. Family Research Council’s recently released Hostility Against Churches Report shows an astounding 800% increase in acts of vandalism and violence towards churches since 2018.

The family has not evaded the hostility of this administration either, as radical gender policies are pushed from the Department of Education onto local schools, demanding parents be kept in the dark as their children are transitioned. Ask Jennifer and Dan Mead, whose autistic daughter was being secretly transitioned at school without her parents’ knowledge or consent. Behind their backs, teachers agreed to call her by a masculine name and male pronouns. The Meads stumbled on the truth when an education plan that detailed their daughter’s life as a boy at school was accidentally sent home. Furious, they pulled her out of classes, started homeschooling, and sued. Now, her mom says, “She’s safe. She knows her real identity.” But who knows how many other parents are living this same nightmare? Or worse, oblivious to what’s happening right under their noses.

The hostility of the Left begins at the moment of conception.

“Think about [it],” Vice President Kamala Harris told reporters after the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos are persons. “Individuals, couples, who want to start a family are now being deprived of access to what can help them start a family,” she said, referring to the potential impacts on In Vitro Fertilization. “So, on the one hand, the proponents are saying that an individual doesn’t have a right to end an unwanted pregnancy, and on the other hand, the individual does not have a right to start a family.”

This faux outrage is the height of hypocrisy. The Alabama ruling did nothing to outlaw IVF, but on the contrary, ensured that parents struggling with infertility don’t experience even more heartbreak because of the carelessness of IVF clinics that treat embryos as if they are merely pieces of property. This feign of counterfeit compassion over infertility comes at the same time the Biden administration is working to overturn every state’s pro-life laws by allowing dangerous mail-order abortions without medical oversight — which is a violation of federal law. And once again, they are peddling the lie that protecting unborn children puts women’s lives at risk. Not a single pro-life law prohibits saving a mother’s life. Instead, these laws protect unborn children from being brutally torn apart.

Innocent human life must be protected, as must the mothers, many of whom think they have no alternative. That’s why Republicans are working to stop the Biden administration in its new Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program from excluding pregnancy resource centers from receiving federal funding for the myriad of services they provide.

More and more families are looking to religious nonprofits for assistance in many areas as families struggle under the present tight economy, where prices have climbed 18% since President Biden took office.

Prices aren’t the only thing increasing under this administration; so has violent crime.

While the Democratic Party wants you to believe that crime has declined over the past year, the reality is that homicides, theft, carjackings, and property damage are astronomically higher than they were in 2019. Violent crimes against young people have actually doubled in the last year. Motor vehicle thefts are up 105% since the pandemic — as even members of Congress have fallen prey to carjackings. The murder rate is up as much as 30% in places like the nation’s capital and about 18% overall.

A contributing factor to violent crime is the skyrocketing illegal immigration on our southern border, made tragically evident again when 22-year-old nursing student Laken Riley was found murdered on the campus of the University of Georgia. The alleged murderer, Jose Ibarra, illegally entered the country in 2022 from Venezuela, was detained, and then let loose or “paroled” into the United States. This is a man who was arrested three times but never detained. And by the way, Athens, Georgia, where the campus is located, is a sanctuary city. A sanctuary for criminals and murderers, not nursing students and law-abiding citizens.

An estimated 10 million illegal immigrants have crossed into the United States since President Biden took office in January of 2021.

Deadly drugs like fentanyl are also streaming across the border, becoming the number one killer of Americans aged 18-45.

It is not just drugs and criminals that are streaming across the border; so are terrorists. At least 342 individuals who are on the terrorist watchlist have been detained at the border; there is no telling how many terrorists have evaded authorities and are now in the United States establishing terrorist cells.

We don’t have to look back far into history to see the savagery of a terrorist border invasion. We simply look at October 7 in Israel when Hamas terrorists invaded peaceful Israeli communities and brutally tortured, maimed, raped, and killed 1,400 innocent people and took 240 hostages. And now, five months later, as Israel seeks to secure its borders and eliminate future threats from Hamas, the Biden administration is breaking with one of America’s most politically reliable and spiritually significant allies. The Biden administration has repeatedly called for pauses or ceasefires, which allows Hamas to regroup and resupply, even as American hostages have not been freed.

Most recently, the Biden administration reversed the policy of the Trump administration that recognized Israel had a right to build in the biblical areas of Samaria and Judea, misleadingly called the West Bank. President Biden has gone so far as to sanction Israelis living in these areas while giving billions of dollars to organizations like the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), which has been directly linked to Hamas and the October 7 terrorist attack.

Friends, I believe America’s support for and stand with Israel has resulted in God extending grace to America despite our accelerating departure from His truth over the last half-century. America’s future is inextricably intertwined with Israel’s.

When we look at and consider these challenges, we don’t do so as people who have no hope of overcoming — to the contrary. Jesus, in the parable about the unjust judge, which is an appropriate analogy as we consider our relationship to our government, said men should always pray and not lose heart or hope.

Jesus was not laying out a prescription to simply feel good. This call to prayer was a prescription for change.

Let me give you just a few facts about the change God has brought forth in our nation because Christians didn’t give up hope but instead continued to pray, vote, and stand for biblical truth.

On June 24, 2022, after 49 years of prayerful, disciplined, and often ridiculed political engagement, Roe v. Wade was overturned, putting the ability to protect women and children into the hands of their elected representatives rather than unelected judges.

Here is something I am sure you’ve yet to hear from the legacy media. We have more Bible-believing Christians in Congress, in state legislatures, on city councils, and serving on school boards than at any time in modern history. Look at the speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, a Christian, a conservative, a Republican. I know Speaker Johnson; he and I have been friends for over 25 years.

Look at the transformation of state legislatures across the country. In 1990, there were six GOP-controlled legislatures. Twenty-four years later, there are 28. And one result has been state pro-life laws have doubled since the Republican election wave of 2010.

We know that we will overcome. That is why we must continue to pray for our nation, that we will return to God and His truth. We need to vote. We need to both raise up and vote for leaders who have the qualities that Jethro laid out to Moses in Exodus 18, leaders who: 1) are able, they know what to do; 2) fear God; 3) are men of truth; and 4) are not looking to get rich; rather, they are seeking to serve.

Finally, we need to stand for truth, no matter who else is standing or not standing. And do so filled with the joy of the Lord. In John 15, as Jesus was warning His disciples of the challenges they would face for following Him, He said this: “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full” [John 15:11].

And we do all of this in love. Paul instructs us in 1 Corinthians 16, to “watch, stand fast in the faith, be brave, be strong. Let all that you do be done with love” [NKJV].

The state of faith, family, and freedom in America is being tested and tried to a degree that is almost unrivaled in our history. But our confidence and hope in the future has never been more solid because we’ve seen the budding fruit of decades of prayer, of biblically guided participation in our republican form of government.

We must let it be known that we will not be intimidated into silence by a weaponized government, nor will we allow Marxist tactics that seek to marginalize the Christian faith to cause us to shrink back into the shadows of society. Why? Because of the hope that is within us and the victory that is before us, it leaves us more resolved than ever to pray, vote, and stand for biblical truth.

AUTHOR

Tony Perkins

Tony Perkins is president of Family Research Council and executive editor of 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.

Who is Speaker Mike Johnson Really?

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“I weep for the liberty of my country when I see at this early day of its successful experiment that corruption has been imputed to many members of the House of Representatives, and the rights of the people have been bartered for promises of office.” — Andrew Jackson

“The fight for justice against corruption is never easy. It never has been and never will be. It exacts a toll on our self, our families, our friends, and especially our children. In the end, I believe, as in my case, the price we pay is well worth holding on to our dignity. Today it is becoming harder to speak out, with the inception of the Patriot Act, the president has legislated free speech to be a crime.” — Frank Serpico

“Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit: by consolidation of power first, and then corruption, its necessary consequence.” —  Thomas Jefferson

“And I am saying, how about the other two branches? And putting the pressure on our representatives in the Senate and the Congress, and the court system. They should be counter-acting this corruption, but they are sitting there silent.” —  Sibel Edmonds

:Despotic power is always accompanied by corruption of morality.” — Lord Acton

When Mike Johnson was elected as Speaker, I had my suspicions regarding his capabilities.  A few things immediately came to light which made me doubt he’d be any better than McCarthy.  I voiced that opinion in emails and one of my friends commented, “But he prays in the House Chapel every morning.”  I said, “So do the Muslims.”

I’ve always felt that anyone who proclaims their Christian faith over and over in public is hiding something.  Mike Pence comes to mind.

My intuition aside, Mike Johnson is only one man.  He has to deal with the Stalinist Party and the neo-con Trotskyites in his own party.  With the Senate and the White House in the hands of the Democrats, his opportunities are few.  However, he can and should completely terminate corrupt and unconstitutional legislation that would be catastrophic to America.  And that includes standing firm against the $95 billion foreign aid package, which includes $60 billion for Ukraine, $14.1 billion for Israel, and around $9.2 billion for “humanitarian assistance” in Gaza passed by the Senate without any border policy changes. Within this bill is a hidden impeachment clause that could backfire on Trump if he’s elected.

McCarthy to Johnson

Speaker Kevin McCarthy was ousted after Rep. Matt Gaetz filed a motion to remove McCarthy for not keeping his promises.  His term as House speaker lasted only nine months.  Republicans dropped him because he broke his promises and made backroom deals with Biden and House Democrats.  McCarthy’s Leadership PAC received funding from Sequoia Capital, an important investment firm promoting business in China.  Critics say McCarthy “shut down” investigations into the CCP’s deals with Sequoia, BlackRock, and other Wall Street firms.

Congressman McCarthy only voted with the US Constitution 50% of the time.

On October 25, 2023, with a vote of 220, Mike Johnson was elected Speaker of the House.  He votes with the Constitution only 67% of the time.

Johnson calls himself a Constitutional attorney, yet he is a proponent of Mark Meckler’s Convention of States (CoS), which is heavily funded by the Koch organizations.  As I’ve stated in past articles, the CoS is an Article V Constitutional Convention.  Council on Foreign Relations and CoS board member, Robert George, has already rewritten the Second Amendment of our unalienable Bill of Rights.  This deceitfully promoted convention is not simply to propose new amendments; it is to totally replace or change our founding document.

The House Republican majority is weakening.  Since Mr. Johnson has become Speaker, Rep. George Santos has been expelled from Congress despite being “innocent until proven guilty.”  The charges against him were brought by United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York.  The House ousted Santos without a conviction or without having committed treason. Democrat Tom Suozzi replaced him.

McCarthy decided to leave the House at the end of December 2023.

The Republicans controlled the House with 221 Republicans to 213 Democrats, making them a majority, but now they’ve lost two.  Rep. Matt Gaetz is again being investigated by the House Ethics Committee.

Should Gaetz be forced to resign, the House would precariously hold the majority by only five votes.

Hannity’s Interview with Speaker Johnson

In introducing the nation to the new speaker, the first hour of Sean Hannity’s interview was a one-on-one interview with Mike Johnson.

Johnson spoke about President Biden’s mental decline which is obvious to both Americans and foreign leaders.

He was asked what he believes, and commented that people need only open their Bibles to understand Mike Johnson.

He mentioned that both Chip Roy (R-TX) and Byron Donalds (R-FL) were working on plans for Continuing Resolutions (CRs) cutting spending by eight percent, securing the border and protecting our military and veterans.  They’ve yet to come up with anything but “clean” CRs and have not even attempted a budget. Both Roy and Donalds support an Article V Constitutional Convention.  (Roy actually nominated Donalds for Speaker.)

Speaker Johnson ended the first hour saying, “Look, this place is filled with people of good faith, deep conviction and they understand the necessity of working together.”

I don’t think so, Speaker Johnson.

His first bill, a $14.3 billion dollar aid package to Israel passed the House 213-200, but was shut down in the Senate and slammed by President Biden.  Nice theatre though.

Johnson, who inherited the problem of a potential government shutdown when he was elected to the role after weeks of paralysis, saw 93 members of his conference in the Republican-controlled lower legislative chamber vote against his proposal.  Almost all Democrats, 209 members, voted for the plan with two voting against it.  Why did 93 Republicans vote against it?  Because almost all “clean continuing resolutions” prolong government funding at current levels without any policy changes.  They don’t want repeats of McCarthy’s CRs, they want changes made!

On February 29th, the House passed another clean CR; 207 Democrats joined 113 Republicans in a 320-99 vote to approve the short-term stopgap measure, which buys Congress more time to agree on funding for the full fiscal year that began Oct. 1.

Again, nothing is in these CRs about the border!  Do the American people realize what this is costing us?  An illegal alien family of four can get government assistance to the tune of $20,000 a month.  You read that right, $20,000 a month!  Watch the eight- minute video!

The 2024 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) bill passed on December 6th, 2023.  It does not overturn the Pentagon’s policy of reimbursing servicemembers who travel to obtain abortions, and it drops House language which would have blocked coverage of transition surgeries for transgender troops.

But there’s more….

Speaker Johnson tossed into the “must-pass” bill yet another extension of Section 702 of the FISA Act; it’s not surprising that he wanted to rush the bill through without the possibility of amendment. Section 702 allows the government to intercept and retain without a warrant the communications of any American who is in contact with a non-US citizen. It is clearly a violation of the Fourth Amendment which is supposed to protect Americans against unreasonable searches and seizures.  The NDAA also contained a $600 million gift to the corrupt government of Ukraine.  Senate votes. House votes.

By a vote of 250 to 180, the House voted against the legislation that would send $17.6 billion to Israel, with 166 Democrats and 14 Republicans opposing the measure. It fell short because it was introduced under an expedited procedure requiring a two-thirds majority for passage. The vote was largely along party lines, although 14 Republicans opposed the bill and 46 Democrats supported it.

In the first vote to impeach DHS Mayorkas, four republicans voted against the impeachment.  One wonders why Johnson called a vote if he didn’t know that Ken Buck (R-CO), Tom McClintock (R-CA), Blake Moore (R-UT) and Mike Gallagher (R-WI) would vote against it.

In the second vote, Blake Moore switched, bringing the vote to 214-213 for Mayorkas’ impeachment.  Doesn’t say much for the 213 who voted against impeachment of the man who is allowing America’s invasion from China and third world countries.

The only Palestinian member of Congress, Rashida Tlaib, was censored for her anti-Semitic rhetoric by House Republicans and Democrats with a vote of 234-188.  The punishment is one step below expulsion from the House.  She should have been ousted like Santos. She’s a Hamas Trojan Horse.

Second Hour Interview

In the second hour of the Hannity interview, House Republicans were brought in and a number of them spoke about various topics. Steve Scalise (R-LA), Elise Stefanik (R-NY) and Tom Emmer (R-MN) are seated next to Speaker Johnson.  Scalise votes with the Constitution 67% of the time, Stefanik 60% and Emmer 70%.

They conversed about border security, Biden and his son, Hunter, energy independence, fiscal sanity, law and order, the rule of law and moral clarity. Hannity asked them about the prospect of domestic terrorism with an open border, the purported weaponization of government, as well as the cognitive state of Joe Biden.

Elise Stefanik is a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum, as are other House Republicans.  On February 17th, I received a form letter from Speaker Johnson.  He requested that we help his loyal friend, Elise Stefanik win her re-election, as she knows exactly what is at stake in 2024.

Mike Lawler (R-NY) and Byron Donalds (R-FL) were also featured with Speaker Johnson.  Lawler votes with the Constitution only 35% of the time.  As for Byron Donalds, he’s no friend of liberty and freedom.

Donalds, has been working with the Democrats to advance digital currency. At the Collier County Republican Men’s breakfast in July of 2022, Byron Donalds said, “The Democrats have promised it will never be used for tracking law abiding citizens.”

Is he naïve or one of them?  The Stalinist Democrat Party is who put J6ers in prison.  It is why Speaker Johnson courageously blurred the faces of people at the Capitol on January 6th on the portions of the videos released.

However, only .04% of the videos are available to the public.  The House January 6th Committee deleted more than 100 encrypted files days before GOP took majority.  Totally unconstitutional, but then consider who was on the committee.  Johnson is allegedly trying to have those files decrypted.

In October of 2022, at Alfie Oakes’ Seed to Table, another public meeting was held where Donalds again was promoting digital currency.  Alfie Oakes is also promoting the destruction of our 1787 Constitution by advocating an Article V Convention, just like Byron Donalds, Ron DeSantis and Mike Johnson.

Donalds is also tied to Americans for Prosperity, a Koch organization, who are for open borders, gay marriage, abortion and UN Agenda 21/30. Link, Link.  They are also funding and promoting another Constitutional Convention, just like Soros’ Open Society foundations.

A few years ago, Byron’s wife allegedly tried to do a hostile takeover of Mason Classical Academy. There’s a lot of bitterness in the community because they wanted to run the charter school, Mason Classical Academy, which has one of the top ratings in the country.  They did not conceive of the charter school, but had, at one time, been on the board. Kelly Lichter and her husband Nick were the founders. As a state Representative, Byron tried to write bills to make it easier for his wife to accomplish the takeover.

At a Republican Executive Committee meeting a few months ago, Donalds and his top staff member, Larry Wilcoxson, tried to start a public argument and disagreement with Kelly Lichter.  They were backing her leftist opponent. Tensions boiled to such a point that Florida Politics reported it.  A video lasting two minutes and 19 seconds mostly shows Donalds, with staffers Jesse Purdon and Larry Wilcoxson, speaking inaudibly with Lichter in a corner of the store.

Larry Wilcoxson allegedly takes home a six-figure salary.  He is the top aide to Donalds and is his best friend.

Wilcoxson has been arrested multiple times including for child molestation. Link

He was arrested in 2014 for grand theft auto, a third-degree felony. In 2006, he was charged with three counts of child molestation of a 13-year-old girl in Indianapolis, Indiana. In 2008, Wilcoxson was arrested for charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and aggravated battery with a weapon. He had previously been fired for allegedly exposing himself to a female school custodian at Indianapolis’ Donnan Middle School while he was a substitute teacher. In 2006, Collier County records indicate Wilcoxson was the defendant in several traffic cases and a paternity suit.

Many of the family grassroots leaders call this man, Wilcoxson, “Byron’s thug.” Before anyone backs Byron, they need to do their homework, and that includes Donald Trump.

Why choose the neo-con Trotskyites, the WEF members, and the likes of Byron Donalds to speak with Hannity as top Republicans?  Why weren’t true conservative House members like Andy Biggs (R-AZ), Eli Crane (R-AZ), Matt Rosendale (R-MT), Clay Higgins (R-LA), Thomas Massey (R-KY) and a few others featured with Johnson?

Unspoken Issues

The invasion at the southern border should be at the top of concerns, yet everything but the border has been discussed.  Four months has passed since Johnson became speaker, and the border is still wide open.  The filth flowing into our country will vote in the November elections, and the increase in crime is already obvious. Ten million illegal aliens have entered our country under Joe Biden, including Chinese communists, Middle East terrorists, and criminals from third world nations.  It is the Cloward-Piven Marxist strategy to overload the system and collapse the economy.

There was no mention of the alleged 2020 election fraud, the J6 prisoners, the January 6th videos being totally released, how they will succeed in closing the border, health care, our military, the perversion in education, how deeply they will cut spending, who those cuts will impact, and the massive debt.

Donald Trump’s name was never mentioned.

Neither was abortion.

Speaker Johnson had killed the abortion ban in Louisiana in 2022 while serving as US Congressman.  Pastors Jeff Durbin and Brian Gunter discussed exactly how Johnson killed the pro-life bill that would have banned abortion in Louisiana.

You’ll want to see the 26-minute video between these two pastors and how disappointed they were.

Pastor Gunter called Johnson’s tactics, “Pragmatism rather than principle.”

All the national, state and local pro-life groups were against this bill, HB813. (Loss of Louisiana funding?)  Mike told Pastors Durbin and Gunter that he agreed with the bill, but it was the wrong time to pass the legislation since they have a razor-thin majority in the US Congress, the Louisiana state house and the Governorship. That was his excuse.  The Pastors asked, “Is there ever a wrong time to do the right thing?”  Amos 5:15, “Hate the evil, and love the good, and establish judgment in the gate: it may be that the Lord God of hosts will be gracious unto the remnant of Joseph.”  Congressman Johnson threatened these Baptist pastors that if they moved forward with this bill, it would damage their careers.

We are 34.4 trillion dollars in debt and the interest payments on that debt dwarfs all other government spending!

A crash will be inevitable.  U.S. National Debt Clock: Real Time (USDebtClock.org)

There is no more time for “business as usual.”

©2024. Kelleigh Nelson. All rights reserved.

RELATED ARTICLE: Chuck Schumer Reportedly Bragged To Colleagues That Speaker Johnson Gave Democrats Everything They Wanted With $95 Billion Foreign Aid Bill | DC Enquirer

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

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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.