The Left Wants Pro-Lifers to Despair after Tuesday’s Election. Don’t.

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Unlike a lot of things in life, losing doesn’t get any easier the more you do it. If anything, the sting turns to despair, as pro-lifers, who’ve slogged through seven bitter defeats since June of 2022, know well. Over the last several months, the jubilation of seeing Roe fall has been replaced by a sinking feeling that the cause of the unborn is doomed in the very place the justices have entrusted it: the states. But is that true — or are we just experiencing the pains of a battle we only just started fighting?

There had been real hope that Ohio, the first conservative state to weigh in on a radical abortion measure, would reverse the string of losses since Dobbs. When that didn’t happen, and Buckeyes voted 56-43% to let parents take their child’s life right up to the moment of birth, the media’s taunts that life is a political loser felt truer. Maybe, as notorious squishes like Senator Mitt Romney (R-Utah) are already saying, the movement should just give up. Stop talking about abortion.

But, as the editors of National Review so powerfully write, “In the mind of anyone who knows the truth that abortion deliberately kills an innocent human being, giving up on the most important human-rights cause of our time is unthinkable. After five decades of Roe and less than two years from Dobbs, the fight for life in the democratic arena has barely begun.”

Remember, they told discouraged readers, “Advocates of same-sex marriage suffered a string of 32 losses at the ballot box before succeeding for the first time, in the bluest of states, in 2012. … Their success serves as a reminder that a string of defeats at the ballot box is no reason to believe a cause is lost.”

For a half-century, pro-lifers have marched, prayed, volunteered, voted, suffered blows, and stepped right back into the ring — not because the cause was politically advantageous, but because it was morally right. That cause didn’t end when the Supreme Court righted one wrong. It ends when every square inch of this nation is a safe place for children in the womb. Anyone who thought that would be easy has quickly forgotten the lessons of the last 50 years.

We have to do what we’ve done since the beginning — stand up, dust ourselves off, and, as the NRO editors urge, “Take the long view on the fight on life.” “Do not despair,” pro-life scholar Michael New insists. “We were never promised a smooth glide path to victory. This is an important lesson. Because history tells us, when we persist, we win!”

Does that mean we don’t have things to learn? Absolutely not. We’re in a new and volatile political environment that Dobbs created, and if we’re going to turn the tide, it’ll take time. And while we don’t need to rethink our principles, we do need to rethink how we talk about them — if, in some cases, we even are.

In one of the more astonishing statistics from Tuesday night, a whopping 24% of self-described “white evangelical or born-again Christians” supported Ohio’s Issue 1, which not only puts the Buckeyes on par with California’s abortion extremism but gives the green light to minor transgender surgery — without parental consent. We’re expecting voters to act with moral clarity when the church won’t even speak to it. Until that changes, pro-lifers will have a much steeper hill to climb. If Christians have been complacent after the Dobbs victory, we need to ensure they’re no longer complicit after defeat.

Why would Christians be voting for abortion anyway? Family Research Council’s Joseph Backholm thinks the answer “could be the silence on these issues in many parts of the church. Many churches don’t want to be divisive, so they choose to say nothing, but when you say nothing you say something. Many Christians have been left with the impression that it doesn’t really matter what Christians think about abortion because the people they look to for guidance on these issues live and act like it doesn’t matter.”

Elsewhere, in Virginia, where abortion was the only messaging point Democrats had to run on, the media rushed to gloat that conservative agendas like Governor Glenn Youngkin’s had been rebuked. Among the more creative post-election name-calling was Fox Business’s Dagen McDowell, who labeled Youngkin a “damp Dorito” for putting so much emphasis on life.

But the reality is, NRO’s Jim Geraghty points out, “Virginia is shifting from narrow GOP control of the state House and narrow Democratic control of the state Senate, to narrow Democratic control of both chambers. Control of the state legislature is probably going to come down to a couple thousand votes in a handful of districts. It’s a frustrating result for the GOP, but not a sweeping rebuke.”

That step-away-from-the-ledge rationale was echoed by politicos like John McCormick, who noted that what happened Tuesday night isn’t all that different from what happened the year Youngkin won. “The House of Delegates went 52R-48D [to] 51D-49R house now.” And let’s not forget, he posted, Virginia is “a Biden +10 state,” and voters were still “evenly divided [46-47%] on a 15-week [abortion] limit.” Oh, and by the way, the damp Dorito has a 54-38% approval rating. Biden hasn’t sniffed a percentage like that since inauguration.

So losing the legislature by 1%, especially after Democrats banked their whole campaign on the outrageous lie that Republicans want to ban “all abortions without any exceptions” isn’t exactly a death knell for conservatism in the Commonwealth. And yet, McCormack shakes his head, “Twitter is treating it like a political earthquake.”

Even more encouraging, at least in the winning hearts and minds category, is that Americans believe the Democrats’ position on abortion is more extreme — by a two-to-one margin. Pro-lifers just have to figure out a way to continue driving that point home on the road to reasonable compromise.

In other words, Geraghty emphasizes, “The results last night are no reason to panic.” “The elections in the year before the presidential election are a little odd — much lower turnout, governors’ races in a trio of Southern states with their own quirky histories and dynamics, and intense waves of advertising in state legislative races that usually fly under the radar.”

But, he continues, “If you look back eight years to 2015, you see Republicans won two governors’ races (Kentucky, Mississippi) and lost one (Louisiana). This year, Republicans won two governors’ races (Louisiana, Mississippi) and lost one (Kentucky). (Jeff Landry won the Louisiana governor’s race in the first round in October, and everyone seems to have forgotten about that.)”

Tuesday night’s results were disappointing, to be sure, but they don’t negate all of 2023’s other victories. In a year that’s seen the beat-back of Pride, a surge of anti-woke boycotts, an education revolution, the repudiation of ESG, 19 signed SAFE Acts, a nationwide parents’ revolt, and the election of House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), America is a long ways from writing social conservatives’ obituary. The cultural undercurrents continue to be strong on the Right, even if the electoral fruit doesn’t always bear that out.

The outcome in Ohio, Virginia, Kentucky, and other states may not have been what we hoped for, worked for, or anticipated, but even in the midst of it, we shouldn’t once question what we did or what we stood for. In days like these, we have to keep an eternal perspective, remembering that, as Christians, we go from victory to victory. That doesn’t mean every election ends with a parade, because our battle is not temporal; it’s spiritual. Voters may reject the values that have sustained this nation for more than 240 years — but an election is not going to change the sovereignty of God.

Our charge is to not lose heart, to stay faithfully engaged in the struggle, and to pray. “In this world you will have trouble,” Jesus warned. “But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

“It took us 50 years to get here,” Family Research Council President Tony Perkins told TWS. “But the way forward is the same way we arrived at this point — continuing each and every day to win the hearts and minds of people by telling truth. Now, the volume has been ratcheted up where the lies are being fueled by millions of dollars, but that just means we need to speak the truth with more passion and more consistency to break through Left’s deception.” Even so, he insisted, “We’re not going to retreat. We’re not going anywhere.”

AUTHOR

Suzanne Bowdey

Suzanne Bowdey serves as editorial director and senior writer at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2023 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.

Photographers Working for AP, CNN, NYT, Reuters were EMBEDDED with Hamas Terrorists on October 7th Terror Attack in Israel

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Photographers working for AP, CNN, NY Times, and Reuters were embedded with Hamas on October 7and accompanied the terrorist group into Israel. They knew the attack was coming, and participated in it according to an exclusive report at Honest Reporting.

We need war tribunals to prosecute these war criminal news orgs.

The names of the photographers, which appear on other sources, have been removed from some of the photos on AP’s database. Perhaps someone at the agency realized it posed serious questions regarding their journalistic ethics.

Reuters has published pictures from two photojournalists who also happened to be at the border just in time for Hamas’ infiltration: Mohammed Fayq Abu Mostafa and Yasser Qudih.

They both took pictures of a burning Israeli tank on the Israeli side of the border, but Abu Mustafa went further: He took photos of a lynch mob brutalizing the body of an Israeli soldier who was dragged out of the tank.

Photographers Without Borders: AP & Reuters Pictures of Hamas Atrocities Raise Ethical Questions

On October 7, Hamas terrorists were not the only ones who documented the war crimes they had committed during their deadly rampage across southern Israel. Some of their atrocities were captured by Gaza-based photojournalists working…

By: Honest Reporting Staff, November 8, 2023:

On October 7, Hamas terrorists were not the only ones who documented the war crimes they had committed during their deadly rampage across southern Israel. Some of their atrocities were captured by Gaza-based photojournalists working for the Associated Press and Reuters news agencies whose early morning presence at the breached border area raises serious ethical questions.

What were they doing there so early on what would ordinarily have been a quiet Saturday morning? Was it coordinated with Hamas? Did the respectable wire services, which published their photos, approve of their presence inside enemy territory, together with the terrorist infiltrators? Did the photojournalists who freelance for other media, like CNN and The New York Times, notify these outlets? Judging from the pictures of lynching, kidnapping and storming of an Israeli kibbutz, it seems like the border has been breached not only physically, but also journalistically.

Read more.

AP: Photojournalists or Infiltrators?

Four names appear on AP’s photo credits from the Israel-Gaza border area on October 7: Hassan Eslaiah, Yousef Masoud, Ali Mahmud, and Hatem Ali.

Eslaiah, a freelancer who also works for CNN, crossed into Israel, took photos of a burning Israeli tank, and then captured infiltrators entering Kibbutz Kfar Azza.

HonestReporting has obtained screenshots of Eslaiah’s now-removed tweets on X in which he documented himself standing in front of the Israeli tank. He did not wear a press vest or a helmet, and the Arabic caption of his tweet read: “Live from inside the Gaza Strip settlements.”

Masoud, who also works for The New York Times, was there as well —  just in time to set foot in Israeli territory and take more tank pictures.

Ali Mahmud and Hatem Ali were positioned to get pictures of the horrific abductions of Israelis into Gaza.

Mahmud captured the pickup truck carrying the body of German-Israeli Shani Louk and Ali got several shots of abductees being kidnapped into the Strip.

Keep reading.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

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

There is No Moderate Jihad

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And that’s why co-existence is impossible.

Civilized nations have spent generations trying to convince themselves that the primary religious and national impulses of the Muslim world come down to more than conquest and mass murder.

The horrors of the past few years in Afghanistan and Israel both came down to the mistaken belief that you could negotiate and reach an agreement with Jihadist movements.

Both D.C. and Jerusalem had become enchanted with diplomatic initiatives to the Muslim world, from the Abraham Accords to two years of relative peace with Hamas, politicians, generals and diplomats were convinced that they had finally unlocked the secret of coexistence.

But there’s no perpetual motion machine, no diet that lets you eat what you want and no coexistence with an ideology that is built on conquering and destroying all outsiders.

Individually, contextually and circumstantially coexistence is possible. But not in the long run.

How long that long run is depends not on building relationships, but showing strength. Civilized people treat coexistence as a means of developing bonds but the other side uses periods of coexistence to test for weaknesses. Coexistence on their side is a wholly insincere façade, no matter how authentic it may appear, that gathers information to be used when the attack comes.

Israeli Kibbutz residents thought that they were building relationships with day laborers from Gaza. They chatted about life, their kids and their various hardships. Then those same laborers returned to kill, rape and abduct them. But that is how that was always going to end.

That is how it will end for us with the millions of immigrants that we have taken into our nations.

It is a fundamental error to view Hamas as an “extremist” group. It is an arm of the Muslim Brotherhood whose political parties rule a number of Muslim countries. Its political organizations also dominate Muslim communities in America and Europe. Most of Al Qaeda’s leaders were also members of the Muslim Brotherhood. The myth of a split between political Islam and militant Islam, between moderate and extreme Islamic movements was always just that.

As Erdogan, the brutal Islamist tyrant who became the poster boy for moderate Islam said, “Islam cannot be either ‘moderate’ or ‘not moderate.’ Islam can only be one thing.” He has since, despite previous claims of turning more moderate and rebuilding relationships, renewed his support for Hamas, and threatened western nations with a Jihad against the “crusaders”.

The trouble with all the dreams of coexistence is that Islam is Jihad and Jihad is Islam. The most fundamental external expression of Islam is a drive to conquer the entire world, not in some uncertain ‘end of days’ future, but here, now and in the present. The difference between the so-called moderates and extremists comes down to quibbling over when and how that conquest is to begin, where it is to be implemented and who is to take charge of it.

But the actual conquest is an ongoing project. Every Islamic war, whether against Muslims or non-Muslims, is waged as part of an agenda of global conquest. Muslim civil wars are waged between different factions under the banner of Islamic leadership. And the purpose of Islamic leadership is to impose Islamic law in its lands and then invade other lands to impose the same brutal theocratic repression there.

The Jihad is the defining force of Islamic political and religious life. Much as with Communism, coexistence with it is impossible. It was impossible to coexist with members of a movement that believed in conquering and subjugating everyone under the red flag and the little red book. Individually you could chat with a Communist or help them with their groceries, but the ideology doomed any long term relationship with someone who wanted you dead or as a slave.

This was a difficult lesson that we never learned during the Cold War. Is it any wonder that we’re incapable of grasping this concept now when our civilization’s future is once again on the line?

The Cold War was fought on the optimistic premise that everyone wanted the same things we did, and that once we taught them to want them, they would adopt our means of getting them. Convince Communists that color TVs were fun and they become democratic capitalists. What sounded like a good argument to us has failed in every country that it’s been tried, except those that, like Japan and Germany, were originally democratic and capitalist. Instead we convinced China that it should make and sell us the TVs and use the money to build up its military, and convinced the Muslim world to move here, kill us and take the TVs.

We are not the world and the world is not us. Not all religions, cultures and countries are alike. Most have things that they believe in every bit as strongly as our fanciful belief that all people are basically good and that if we could just get them in a room, we would agree on most things. That’s what we did with multiculturalism and it’s why we now have violent riots every few years because we don’t agree on basic things like what we want out of life or how we treat each other.

That’s why we should not delude ourselves into thinking that the Jihad is a fringe, the misbehavior of a tiny minority, and that even that tiny minority doesn’t really buy into it. Every religion and movement has its hypocrites, but the belief that the world must be purified by Islam is as sincerely held by the majority of its believers as by those who fought for Communism. That is the religious impulse, more than any other, at the heart of Islam and its promise to Muslims.

Each religion has elements that make it exceptional. What makes Islam exceptional is not the collection of beliefs, scriptures and rituals often cribbed from Judaism and Christianity, but what it offers that these religions do not, an imminent redemption of the world achieved not in the distant future, but in the present day through the violent actions of its followers. That, and not borrowed scripture and ritual, is what allowed Islam to defeat Jews and Christians.

Western nations view this as ancient history while Muslims see it as an enduring struggle. That is why they talk, as Erdogan does, about “crusaders” and taunt the Jews with the massacre of Khaybar by Mohammed’s bandits. Convinced that history can never repeat itself, we dismiss the idea that it’s relevant or that the people we are dealing with are serious about bringing it back.

Civilized people are shocked by the horrors that ISIS, Boko Haram or Hamas perpetrate because they refuse to learn history or to see how it might be relevant to current events. It’s fashionable to draw a line, whether it’s 5 minutes ago or in 1967, and begin the clock from there. Why is this happening, they wonder, as if this had not been the longstanding practice of Islamic armies to behead fallen enemies, mutilate bodies or to rape women for over a thousand years. They assume without a shred of evidence that such practices must have been abolished.

What we are experiencing is not a reaction to anything we did. It has nothing to do with our views on a ‘Palestinian’ state, whether we draw Mohammed or welcome refugees. The Jihad is the founding religious impulse of Islam with over a thousand years of history behind it. The Jihad not only predates the United States of America and the rebirth of Israel, but dates back to a name when pagan kings ruled the various parts of England. It predates colonialism, imperialism, capitalism, globalism, the dollar, WWI and the Carter administration.

The Jihad made Islam possible. It is also what gives it meaning. It is the precarious reality that colors all relationships with the Muslim world. We have learned to ignore it at our own risk. And every time we unsee it, people die. They die by the dozens, the hundreds and the thousands. And the killing and the dying happen because we mistake what is at best a Cold War for a rich relationship. We think that we are building bridges when we’re really welcoming invaders.

To survive, we need to see all the things that we’ve been unseeing. We have to recognize that these horrors are not aberrations, they are the norm. It’s the pleasantries and periods of coexistence that are the aberration. It’s not a problem we can negotiate away. It’s not solvable by spreading democracy or building up trade relationships. The only reason we weren’t living with these horrors on an everyday basis is that the Western world became too powerful to have our coastlines and ships raided for slaves as used to be common practice in the past.

What the Muslim world and it leftist allies call “imperialism” and “colonialism” meant that kidnapped European women stopped showing up in the harems of the Ottoman Caliphate and European children as slaves in his armies. It also meant that the Jews were able to rebuild their country and, briefly, Christians in the region were also able to freely lift their heads again. We forgot that we had become strong to stop ourselves from falling victim to the endless Jihad. And our sons and daughters came to sympathize with former enemies who would rape and kill them.

Now we have made ourselves weak and the horrors are returning. We struggle to coexist with those who want to kill us. And then we wonder why they keep killing us. There’s our answer.

Coexistence is death, resistance is life. Until we learn to stop coexisting with our killers, they will go on killing us. All else is an illusion. A fantasy that we keep feeding ourselves. There is no moderate Islam because there is no moderate Jihad. And there is no moderate Jihad because there is no moderate way to conquer and enslave non-Muslims. Islam is a state of perpetual war. To know Islam is to never know peace. We coexist with Islam and so we are at war.

AUTHOR

DANIEL GREENFIELD

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

U.S. Conducts Second Round Of Retaliatory Airstrikes In Syria As Attacks On Troops Rises To 41

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The U.S. conducted a second round of retaliatory airstrikes at facilities used by Iran’s elite military and Iran-backed groups in Syria on Wednesday, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said in a statement.

Attacks by Iranian-backed militias on bases in Iraq and Syria hosting U.S. troops numbered 41 on Wednesday after at least one more was confirmed, Fox News reported. The retaliatory strikes marked the second time the U.S. has targeted facilities linked to Iran and its proxy militias since the wave of attempted drone and rocket attacks beginning on Oct. 17.

“This precision self-defense strike is a response to a series of attacks against U.S. personnel in Iraq and Syria by IRGC-Quds Force affiliates,” Austin said in the statement. “The President has no higher priority than the safety of U.S. personnel, and he directed today’s action to make clear that the United States will defend itself, its personnel, and its interests.”

President Joe Biden directed the attacks in eastern Syria on weapons storage facilities used by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and affiliated militias, the statement said. Two U.S. F-15 fighter jets conducted the airstrikes.

“The United States is fully prepared to take further necessary measures to protect our people and our facilities. We urge against any escalation. U.S. personnel will continue to conduct counter-ISIS missions in Iraq and Syria,” he added.

Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder on Monday characterized the operations as repeated “harassing attacks of drones and rockets.” At least 46 personnel sustained injuries including traumatic brain injuries and minor wounds from shrapnel, headaches, perforated ear drums and other conditions, he said.

AUTHOR

MICAELA BURROW

Investigative reporter, defense.

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

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

Republican Challenger Declares Victory Over Soros-Backed Prosecutor

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Republican candidate Bob Anderson claimed victory Wednesday morning in the race for Loudoun County Commonwealth’s attorney while leading incumbent Buba Biberaj by 0.76%, according to vote tallies.

Anderson claimed victory in a post on X while leading by 1,021 votes, according to the Virginia Department of Elections, Fox 5 DC. Biberaj ran on an agenda of reducing incarceration in 2019, and received significant financial support from a super PAC funded by George Soros.

Biberaj gained notoriety after she personally prosecuted Scott Smith, who was arrested during a raucous June 22, 2021 school board meeting in Loudoun County, for disorderly conduct. Smith sought to speak out about the sexual assault of his daughter in a high school bathroom. Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin of Virginia pardoned Smith in September, drawing criticism from Biberaj.

“She is one of the most evil people I ever met,” Smith told “America Reports” co-host John Roberts in a September appearance on Fox News after he was pardoned. “Unfortunately, I had to deal with her face to face with the prosecution of the sexual predator of my daughter. She needs – we need to vote her out.”

Biberaj faced accusations that she used taxpayer funds to target political opponents, including Nicole Wittman and Elizabeth Lancaster, who ran against her in 2019 and 2023 with Freedom of Information Act requests filed from her official government email account.

She also clashed with Republican Attorney General Jason Miyares of Virginia in June 2022 after she was disqualified from a case, according to WJLA.com.

AUTHOR

HAROLD HUTCHISON

Reporter.

RELATED ARTICLE: ‘They Used Me To Silence Moms And Dads’: Pardoned Virginia Father Speaks Out About DOJ Memo, ‘Evil’ Soros-Backed DA

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

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

Universities Hit With Civil Rights Complaints Alleging Tuition Programs Illegally Discriminate Based On Race

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  • The University of North Dakota (UND) and UND School of Law were hit with civil rights complaints this week by the Equal Protection Project over tuition reduction programs they allege violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
  • “These institutions of higher education in North Dakota seem to have taken it upon themselves to institute discrimination, which is not required and is in our view unlawful,” EPP founder William A. Jacobson told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
  • A North Dakota State Board of Higher Education (SBHE) policy encourages institutions to use tuition waivers to “promote enrollment of a culturally diverse student body.”

Two North Dakota higher education institutions were hit this week with civil rights complaints over tuition reduction programs open only to specific racial groups.

The Equal Protection Project (EPP) filed civil rights complaints against the University of North Dakota (UND) and UND School of Law for tuition reduction programs that are “only available to non-white applicants,” according to complaints obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation. UND’s website cites the authority of North Dakota State Board of Higher Education (SBHE) policy that encourages institutions to use tuition waivers to “promote enrollment of a culturally diverse student body.”

“These institutions of higher education in North Dakota seem to have taken it upon themselves to institute discrimination, which is not required and is in our view unlawful,” EPP founder William A. Jacobson told the DCNF.

UND’s Cultural Diversity Scholarship (CDS) program is open to students from underrepresented populations, which the university defines as “African American/Black, American Indian, Alaska Native, Asian American, Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander, Latino/a/x, Hispanic American or Multiracial,” according to an Oct. 30 archive of the website. The UND School of Law offers a similar “Cultural Diversity Tuition Waiver” waiver program.

UND’s website now states that it is “currently reviewing awarding requirements for Fall 2024.”

“It’s particularly shocking to us that the University of North Dakota School of Law would do this,” he said. “Because if anybody should know better, it’s a law school.”

The complaints allege that the programs violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

North Dakota University System (NDUS) Director of Communications and Media Billie Jo Lorius told the DCNF that each institution in the system “develops and administers its tuition and fee waiver programs to meet their needs using locally approved procedures.”

SBHE policy allows institutions to offer waivers and states that, “Institutions are encouraged to use this authority to promote enrollment of a culturally diverse student body, including members of Indian tribes and economically disadvantaged students, for the benefit of all students and the academic community, to promote enrollment of graduate students and research, and for other purposes consistent with an institution’s mission,” according to the policy manual.

EPP filed a complaint in October against another North Dakota school, Bismarck State College, for a “Cultural Diversity Waiver” (CDW) program that offers a $1,250 tuition reduction per semester for “historically underrepresented” racial groups. BSC previously told the DCNF that its program is “in compliance” with SBHE policy.

After the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action in higher education in June, Jacobson said there shouldn’t be any question that these programs are illegal.

“This is much worse than what Harvard and USC were accused of doing,” he said, noting the Court found taking race into consideration unlawful. “Here, you have absolute barriers based on race and ethnicity.”

“We also believe it’s extremely important that [UND] remedy this situation, not just by stopping future conduct, but by compensating students who missed out on these opportunities because of their race or ethnicity,” Jacobson said.

UND, UND School of Law and Republican North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum did not respond to requests for comment.

AUTHOR

KATELYNN RICHARDSON

Contributor.

RELATED ARTICLE: College Faces Civil Rights Complaint Over ‘Blatantly Discriminatory’ Tuition Waiver Program

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

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

VIDEO: Dr. Naomi Wolf ‘Facing the Beast Courage, Faith and Resistance in a New Dark Age’

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Dr. Naomi Wolf is the CEO of Daily Clout and the author of “Facing the Beast: Courage, Faith and Resistance in a New Dark Age.”

Follow Dr. Naomi Wolf on X: @naomirwolf

Daily Clout: https://dailyclout.io/

EDITORS NOTE: This Judicial Watch video is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

There Is No AI Shortcut to Real Education

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Dan Guernsey: Artificial Intelligence can neither love a student nor inspire greatness. Despondency and cynicism result when learning is isolated, unrecognized by other humans, or simply reduced to data sets.

Educational optimists predict that artificial intelligence (AI) will soon provide amazing efficiencies and progress in teaching and learning. There is no doubt that AI will benefit educators in their research, development of teaching materials, analysis of data, and administrative duties. And some older students, charged with creating certain artifacts, may find it of use.

But because it also portends dishonesty and disruption to a degree potentially catastrophic to student learning and to the sanctity of the student/teacher bond, AI’s presence in K-12 schools must be carefully restrained.  Chesterton’s advice that children ought not be subjected to educational projects and ideas younger than they are is prescient here. For it is quite possible that elements of AI in education will work against natural human development and provide not a shortcut to human formation, but a short circuit.

Youth need to be at home in the real world and with others. The world was made for them by a loving God. Educators must guide them in seeking and ascribing authentic meaning to those flawed but real experiences that make up the real world and real relationships. Students need to be re-integrated with themselves, others, and the natural world, and need to be re-enchanted with the beauty and meaning present in all things and share God’s delight in them.

For students inclined to see schoolwork as burdensome or useless, AI is a tempting shortcut. AI can instantly answer complex “show your work” math and science problems and write unique papers. Even so, some pedagogues celebrate this possible dismantling of conventional homework in the hopes teachers will be forced to focus on developing assignments that are personalized and that promote “critical thinking” and “authentic learning.”

While developing creative and effective assignments should be encouraged, educators cannot short-circuit the learning process by giving up on requiring students to engage at times in rote learning, writing, and calculating, even if it is easier now to cheat. AI speedbumps can be integrated into homework by breaking the writing process into multiple submissions, requiring feedback, more in-class writing, presentations, etc. But traditional homework must still be assigned to protect in-class instructional time.

Students and their parents must also be made keenly aware of how AI-aided deception and sloth short-circuit authentic learning and complex development. They must be convinced that a student’s complete human development will be their competitive advantage against AI job replacement.  Those who are grounded in reality and can solve people-based challenges will not want for employment in the future.

Students and parents must also be convinced that undisclosed use of generative AI is plagiarism and lying. Writing assignments, at their best, require multiple levels of critical thinking including synthesis, evaluation, and creativity. Students must be convinced of the need for extensive practice to develop these important human skills and that essays are given not to generate new knowledge for the human species but to develop their own understanding and cognitive power. If they get essays and ideas from generative AI, they will stunt their own capabilities – and the teacher’s ability to evaluate and improve them.

AI can also obstruct the teaching process if educators become bedazzled by AI’s ability to process and use student data. AI assisted by standardized tests can establish a student’s reading or math level and decide what instruction, texts, or problem sets should come next. It can seem like the ultimate personal teacher, who is not distracted by other students and has access to unlimited, perfectly tailored resources. As a perceived bonus, AI-assisted teachers may have more time to be a “guide on the side,” with less time for grading and lesson planning.

This apparent “win-win” is, in reality, a short-circuit.

While intelligent tutoring systems may have a place in homework when a teacher is not present, they can do greater harm than good if used significantly during class time. It may save time and provide individualized data, but this “personalization” can depersonalize instruction. The intoxicating pursuit of reading-level data can stymie real reading, which is much more than getting right responses to the linear text-based questions at the heart of computer-based instruction.

We need to maintain focus on the fact that students are taught to read because they are human beings who love to share stories and insights with each other, not just rack up points on reading levels. Teaching and learning are such fundamental and intimate human-to-human processes that farming out significant elements to computers is quite literally inhuman. Humans are social animals who learn best socially, in person, and in relationships. This was made abundantly and tragically clear during the COVID shutdowns.

The teacher’s modeling of human passion in engaging with truth, beauty, and goodness –wherever it arises – is fundamentally educative and irreplaceable. The teacher is also the source of real encouragement and affirmation for the student who at times struggles and at other times makes spectacular breakthroughs – both of which are access points of human intimacy and therefore demand real human response. AI can neither love the student nor inspire greatness. Despondency and cynicism result when human experiences and learning are isolated, unrecognized by other humans, or simply reduced to data sets.

Because the purpose of AI is to make interfacing with technology seamless, there is little danger that children who do not use AI in their schooling now will somehow not be able to use AI in the future. A much greater danger to children is leaving parts of them underdeveloped and their becoming trapped in addictive, unreal worlds. The proper response to this threat is to counter unreality with reality and the unhuman with the human at every opportunity. Anything that threatens mind/body/spirit unities must be roundly rejected.

Now is the time to re-embrace the humanities as they have been traditionally understood in education. Students need to perfect their humanity as technology de-humanizes it. Unmediated access to the greatest human accomplishments, presented and discussed by other humans who know and love them, even with their blemishes and misshapenness, is what students need and what will help them to love God, learning, and each other.

You may also enjoy:

Randall Smith’s Ed Tech and the Transformation of American Education

Francis X. Maier’s Redeemer of Man

AUTHOR

Daniel Guernsey

Dan Guernsey, Ed.D., is a Senior Fellow at The Cardinal Newman Society and Director of Ave Maria University’s Master of Education in Catholic Educational Leadership Program.

EDITORS NOTE: This Catholic Thing column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. © 2023 The Catholic Thing. All rights reserved. For reprint rights, write to: info@frinstitute.org. The Catholic Thing is a forum for intelligent Catholic commentary. Opinions expressed by writers are solely their own.

NYC: Pre-K Teacher Spreads Pro-Hamas Propaganda to Four-Year-Olds

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UPDATE: It turns out she is a dhimmi Christian, sold out to the Islamic agenda, as so many are.

Raising up a new generation of jihadis.

NYC pre-K teacher pushes anti-Israel agenda with lessons about ‘land theft, displacement and ethnic cleansing

by Deirdre Bardolf and Susan Edelman, New York Post, November 4, 2023:

A Manhattan pre-K teacher is spreading anti-Israel hate to the city’s youngest learners – and offering parents and teachers tips to indoctrinate kids to her left-wing agenda, educators and insiders told The Post.

Siriana Abboud, 29, a city Department of Education teacher at PS 59 in Midtown, offers social-media guides on how to talk to 4-year-olds about “land theft, displacement and ethnic cleansing.”

She encourages parents to take them to pro-Palestinian protests — while blasting Israel as a “fascist ethnostate” in her Instagram stories, even in the wake of the Oct. 7 terror attacks by Hamas terrorists.

Abboud’s exclusive “teach-ins” for educators and activists cover Palestine, Zionism, and the “struggle against colonization.” She proselytized online that “teaching can never be radical or revolutionary, so long as you deny the ongoing and violent colonization of Palestine by Zionism” and that early education can be a “tool for liberation.”

“Justice-informed teaching means breaking down power imbalances I’ve been given as a classroom teacher,” she has said, and that “we aren’t teaching the truth if we’re silent on Palestine.”…

Read more.

AUTHOR

ROBERT SPENCER

RELATED POSTE ON X:

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

House Votes To Censure Rashida Tlaib Over Anti-Israel Comments

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Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan’s 12th District has been censured by the House of Representatives following a vote on Tuesday night.

A privileged resolution to censure Tlaib was introduced on Monday by Republican Rep. Rich McCormick of Georgia following her repeated comments criticizing Israel for its response to terrorist attacks by Hamas on Oct. 7. After a motion to table the resolution failed on Tuesday, the House advanced the final vote on the measure to later that evening where it passed by a vote of 234 yeas to 188 nays, with four members voting present and seven not voting.

“It is a shame that my colleagues are focused on silencing me than they are on saving lives, as the death toll in Gaza surpasses 10,000,” wrote Tlaib ahead of the vote on Twitter, now known as X. “A majority of Americans support a ceasefire, but Congress isn’t listening to their voices,” she claimed.

“We must do the right thing and hold those in the people’s house to account,” McCormick wrote on Twitter, now known as X, ahead of the vote. “This is because of [Tlaib’s] inaccurate statements and inflammatory rhetoric that have literally said a nation, a strong ally of ours, Israel, should not exist.”

Twenty-two Democrats voted in favor of the resolution to censure Tlaib, their colleague, while four Republicans voted against the resolution.

Tlaib’s rhetoric has been criticized by elected Democrats and Republicans in both houses of Congress , which has widely been viewed as not sufficiently critical of Hamas’ actions on Oct. 7, where infants and the elderly were reported to have been killed in a gruesome manner by Jihadist terrorists. She has also been criticized for her appearance at rallies hosted by anti-Israel groups, such as Jewish Voices for Peace, in Washington, D.C.

“From the river to the sea is an aspirational call for freedom, human rights, and peaceful coexistence, not death, destruction, or hate. My work and advocacy is always centered in justice and dignity for all people no matter faith or ethnicity,” Tlaib tweeted on Friday, defending the use of a phrase for which she’s been criticized.

McCormick’s resolution is one of two privileged resolutions that have been offered to censure Tlaib. The other, introduced by Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, was initially tabled by the House on Nov. 1.

Although Tlaib’s comments were widely condemned, a few of her prominent Democratic colleagues took to the House floor on Tuesday to defend her.

“I spent all weekend in Michigan talking to all communities about the meaning of this phrase and there are really strong feelings on all sides,” said Democratic Rep. Debbie Dingell of Michigan during a speech on the floor of the House. “People interpret words in different ways. Personally, I choose not to use the phrase that is offensive to some and perceived as a threat.”

“This resolution is about one thing and one thing only: the punishment of speech,” said Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland. “So we have a chance to show the world what the American Constitution means and how we hold fast to our core principles, even when we are drawn away from them by our passions and our righteous anger.”

So far, only one other member of the 118th Congress, Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff of California, has been censured, a resolution for which was passed on a party-line vote.

Tlaib’s office did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

AUTHOR

ARJUN SINGH

Contributor.

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

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

Mississippi’s GOP Gov. Tate Reeves Wins Reelection

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Mississippi’s Republican Gov. Tate Reeves won a second term Tuesday evening, beating his Democratic challenger Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley, multiple outlets projected.

Reeves beat Presley 52% to 46.6% at the time of this writing, with 86% of the votes in, according to NBC News and CNN. The governor largely campaigned on his administration’s conservative victories on education and the economy, while Presley aimed at tying Reeves to a welfare scandal that took place when he was lieutenant governor. 

Between 2017 and 2020, roughly $77 million in federal funding that was meant to go to the state’s poorest residents was redirected toward some of Mississippi’s most wealthy, politically-involved individuals, or was otherwise misallocated, according to Mississippi Today. Presley sought to blame Reeves for the scandal, which involved former NFL quarterback Brett Farve, in campaign ads, which the governor’s campaign rebuked with its own.

Reeves and Presley secured their respective parties nominations in August, where the governor handily beat two lesser-known Republican challengers and the commissioner won unopposed.

The governor won his first term in 2019, where he beat then-Democratic Attorney General Jim Hood by 5 points, and previously served as lieutenant governor and state treasurer for two terms each. Just days before the election, Reeves secured the backing of former President Donald Trump, who overwhelmingly won the state in 2016 and 2020 by margins of roughly 19 and 17 points, respectively.

Presley, cousin to Elvis Presley, was elected as the Northern District’s public service commissioner in 2008, and previously served as Nettleton, Mississippi’s, mayor from 2001 to 2007. The Democrat significantly out-raised Reeves ahead of the election, with Presley bringing in a total of $12.1 million compared to the governor’s $6.5 million, according to WLBT3.

The Democrat had been hoping to secure black voters in Mississippi, a crucial voting bloc in the state, according to multiple outlets.

Polling for the majority of the race indicated Reeves would beat Presley anywhere from 1 point to 17 points, according to FiveThirtyEight’s survey compilation.

AUTHOR

MARY LOU MASTERS

Contributor.

RELATED ARTICLE: Red State Gov Signs Bill Banning Ballot Harvesting Ahead Of Reelection Bid

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

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

Top Hunter Biden Prosecutor Confirms Key Detail Of IRS Whistleblower Testimony, Jim Jordan Says

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Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss, special counsel in the ongoing Hunter Biden investigation, confirmed a key allegation made by IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley, Republican Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan said Tuesday.

Weiss testified before the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday and said he requested special attorney authority under section 515 in the spring of 2022, Judiciary Committee chairman Jim Jordan told reporters. Weiss was not given the special attorney authority and did not have special attorney authority before his special counsel appointment in August, Jordan said.

“When he was specifically asked, did you ever request special attorney authority under Section 515, Mr. Weiss’s response was yes, in the spring of 2022. So that that goes to the heart of the matter,” Jordan stated.

“So to me, that’s the key takeaway. He won’t answer a lot of questions. But that’s the key takeaway, because this whole deposition was about the changing story we got from DOJ, regarding the authority that he had,” he continued.

“And that answer, I think the key is, is entirely consistent with what Mr. Shapley said after the October 7, 2022 meeting, when he said USA Weiss requested Special Counsel authority when it was sent to DC and Main DOJ denied his request and told him to follow the process.”

Shapley testified to the House Ways and Means Committee in May and recalled an Oct. 7, 2022, meeting where Weiss allegedly stated that he requested special counsel authority and got denied by the Department of Justice (DOJ) after Biden-appointed U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Matthew Graves refused to cooperate on potentially charging Hunter Biden for alleged tax offenses in D.C.

Shapley’s attorneys have released handwritten notes and an email containing Shapley’s account of the Oct. 7, 2022, meeting. Weiss denied Shapley’s accusations in a July letter to Republican South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham.

In his letter to Graham, Weiss said he did not request special counsel authority and alluded to internal discussions about special attorney authority, without disclosing the results of those discussions.

Special attorney authority under section 515 would have authorized Weiss’ office to level charges against Hunter Biden outside of his district without needing to collaborate with the U.S. Attorneys in those jurisdictions.

Two IRS officials testified that Weiss and Shapley developed a rift after the Oct. 7, 2022, meeting, resulting in Shapley being removed from the Hunter Biden case.

Graves testified before the Judiciary Committee in October and confirmed his decision not to cooperate with Weiss in March 2022, according to a transcript reviewed by the Daily Caller.

Likewise, Biden-appointed U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California E. Martin Estrada confirmed he refused to cooperate with Weiss in October 2022, according to a transcript reviewed by the Daily Caller. Shapley accused both U.S. attorneys of declining to cooperate on the case when he testified to the Ways and Means Committee.

Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Weiss special counsel in August after Hunter Biden’s guilty plea agreement collapsed in court and IRS Whistleblowers Shapley and Joseph Ziegler testified publicly.

Garland testified before the Judiciary Committee in September and asserted that Weiss had “full authority” over the Hunter Biden investigation.

He said the U.S. attorneys “could refuse to partner” with Weiss on the case and insisted Weiss could have requested additional authority under section 515 and that he would have approved it.

“All he would have to do is ask me for 515 authority, and I would sign it right away,” Garland said in response to a question from Republican South Carolina Rep. Russell Fry.

Weiss said he had “ultimate authority” over the case in a June 7 letter to Rep. Jordan. He wrote another letter to Jordan in late June in which he said his charging authority was geographically limited. Garland defended the consistency of Weiss’ letters during his September testimony.

Both whistleblowers accused the DOJ of giving Hunter Biden special treatment during its investigation into his taxes and firearms possession. The Ways and Means Committee released a trove of documents in September supporting the IRS whistleblower testimony.

Hunter Biden is suing the IRS for alleged illegal disclosures by the IRS whistleblowers in their testimony and media interviews. Hunter’s defense attorney, Abbe D. Lowell, wrote a letter to Weiss in August making similar accusations against the whistleblowers.

Hunter Biden was indicted in September on three federal gun charges in connection with his October 2018 purchase of a firearm in Delaware while he battled a crack cocaine addiction. He pleaded not guilty to the charges in October and later downplayed them in a Thursday op-ed for USA Today.

This is a breaking news story and will be updated as more information becomes available.

AUTHOR

JAMES LYNCH

Investigative reporter. James Lynch can be reached on Twitter @jameslynch32.

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

Minority Support For Biden Plummets Ahead Of 2024

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President Joe Biden is losing support among minority voters — a key voting bloc for Democrats — ahead of the 2024 election, Axios reported Monday.

Biden is losing support among Hispanic and black voters in a series of recent battleground state and national polls, as well as among youth voters in the crucial voting blocs Democrats typically enjoy, according to Axios. Two polls released Sunday — a New York Times survey of six swing-states, all of which Biden won in 2020, and a national CBS News survey — found that Biden is bleeding support among minority voters.

“Those financial factors may be hurting Mr. Biden with Black and Hispanic voters, key parts of the Democratic coalition, who are not convinced they would be helped financially if he wins a second term,” the CBS News poll found. “Hispanic voters are much likelier to say their finances would improve under Trump than Mr. Biden. And most Black voters do not expect their finances to change if Mr. Biden wins again.”

Support for Biden among minority voters since the 2020 election has dropped by 33 points, according to Axios. The Times survey, which found former President Donald Trump leading Biden by several points in several swing states but Wisconsin, indicated that the more diverse a state was, the worse the president did.

Conversely, support for Trump among black voters has jumped by 22 points, which the NYT described as “unseen in presidential politics for a Republican in modern times.” In Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, Biden is winning with Hispanic voters against Trump by only single digits in the Times survey, whereas Democrats historically win by margins of over 30 points, according to Axios.

Biden campaign spokesman Kevin Munoz told Axios that polling a year out from the election day historically is not predictive of the outcome.

“President Biden’s campaign is hard at work reaching and mobilizing our diverse, winning coalition of voters one year out on the choice between our winning, popular agenda and MAGA Republicans’ unpopular extremism,” Munoz told Axios.

The findings come as a series of recent national and battleground state surveys indicate Trump is leading Biden by several points. The Times poll found Trump leading Biden in Arizona by 5 points, Georgia by 6 points, Michigan by 5 points, Nevada by 10 points and Pennsylvania by 4 points, but losing by 2 points in Wisconsin.

A Bloomberg News/Morning Consult survey released Oct. 19 indicated Trump was leading Biden across the same battleground states plus North Carolina at 47% to 43%.

Biden’s campaign did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

AUTHOR

MARY LOU MASTERS

Contributor.

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

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

‘It Ruins Their Case’: Attorney Reveals Why New York Judge Tried To Hush Trump During Testimony

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A legal spokesperson for former President Donald Trump said that the judge in Trump’s civil fraud trial was trying to hush the former president because Trump’s explanations wrecked the case against him.

Trump and attorney Alina Habba clashed with Judge Arthur F. Engoron during the former president’s testimony Monday, with the judge threatening to remove Trump from the courtroom. Engoron ruled that Trump was liable for fraud Sept. 26, and ordered that several business licenses Trump held were to be rescinded, but an appeals court ruling stayed the order Oct. 6.

“There was a fiery exchange with the judge,” Habba told Fox Business host Larry Kudlow. “Frankly, I can’t even say it was with the judge and I… I’m very polite, I’m very professional when I’m in the courtroom, but the judge did not like him finishing or explaining because it wasn’t good for his case. He is interfering. He made his decision, let’s not forget that, Larry. He made a decision on summary judgment. He found liability already.”

WATCH:

Democratic Attorney General Letitia James of New York sued Trump in September 2022, alleging he overstated the value of real estate holdings in order to obtain loans.

“We’re wasting all this time, and he won’t even let the president, who is the person they’re trying to get to, explain why he certified to certain values,” Habba said. “Why? Because the minute he starts to explain it, it ruins their case. He was worth more than his statement of financial conditions, and Miss James, her politics are not allowing to backtrack. She needs a PR team, I’m telling you.”

Real-estate experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation that Engoron’s ruling greatly undervalued Mar-a-Lago, the Florida estate owned by Trump, which some considered to be worth more than $250,000,000.

“We are obviously going to move to completely dismiss this case. There should be a mistrial based on some of the things you mentioned today that I can’t talk about,” Habba added later. “There should be a mistrial here. Bias in general, I’ll say. There is a judicial code of ethics. Those ethics extend to the entire courtroom and when you violate the rules of judicial ethics there need to be certain things that hold you accountable.”

AUTHOR

HAROLD HUTCHISON

Reporter.

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TUCKER ON X:

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

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

Ohio’s Issue 1 Erases Parenthood

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If Issue 1 passes in Ohio, it will effectively deny parents the ability to protect their minor daughters from predatory neighbors, family members, or industries favored by the Democratic Party. But perhaps its greatest offense comes in its attempt to legally dismantle parents’ rights to direct, guide, or even be aware of the most consequential decisions in their children’s lives.

Issue 1 would establish the right of an “individual” of any age to make “reproductive decisions,” including “but not limited to” abortion. Its sponsors tacitly acknowledge the real battleground in Ohio is the way the amendment affects parental consent. Their latest ad turns the concept on its head, irrationally claiming the amendment somehow protects young girls from child molesters.

In reality, Issue 1 empowers predators to victimize young girls twice, sexually exploiting them and then using abortion to dispose of the evidence. Sadly, Ohio has already proven this.

In 2003, John Haller, a 21-year-old soccer coach, began abusing a 13-year-old eighth grader, getting her pregnant shortly after she turned 14. He took her to a southwest Ohio Planned Parenthood for an abortion, posing as her father to authorize the abortion. Issue 1 would save him the trouble; Planned Parenthood, which has a history of covering up sexual abuse and human trafficking, would not have to go through the motions of asking about parental consent. Issue 1 transforms the child’s rapist into a crusading hero helping the girl exercise her “reproductive freedom” (which her parents might seek to deny). If Issue 1 passes, the Ohio-based pro-life group Created Equal accurately notes, “A sexual abuser could drive your daughter to an abortion, and you’d be left in the dark.”

But a cynic would be tempted to believe the abortion industry (which constitutes the heart of the coalition sponsoring the amendment) specifically designed Issue 1’s sloppily-worded amendment to stave off future legal issues. How did the abortionist react when they learned of their role in covering up the sexual molestation of a young teenage girl? Planned Parenthood sued all the way to the Ohio Supreme Court to deny her parents the right to see full medical records that could establish whether the facility engaged in a pattern of concealing minors’ sexual assaults. Issue 1 would allow the abuse-facilitating abortion industry to say parents have no standing to interfere in their children’s “reproductive decisions” and wash their hands clean of it.

Indeed, one of the sponsors’ ads says the quiet part out loud: Voting yes on Issue 1 “gets government out of the way” and gives the abortion industry free rein when it comes to your daughter.

Even when an underage pregnancy does not result from rape, Issue 1 renders loving parents incapable of shielding their daughters from the harmful mental and emotional impacts of abortion. A 2011 meta-analysis from Bowling Green State University’s Priscilla Coleman found “a moderate to highly increased risk of mental health problems after abortion.” (The evidence of abortion’s harms is far from restricted to Coleman’s work.)

“There are physiological, psychological, emotional consequences of abortion, and the pro-abortion side doesn’t ever want to talk about that,” said Ryan Bomberger, founder of the Radiance Foundation, on “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins” Thursday. “That’s why when they say things like, ‘It’s no different than having a tooth pulled,’ well, there aren’t support groups for people who have their teeth pulled, but there are many hundreds, if not thousands of support groups across the United States for those who are post-abortive.”

That is why the abortion industry refers to its product only in “euphemistic” phrases “about ‘reproductive health and freedom’” — or, in the case of Issue 1, “reproductive decisions,” he said. “When they minimize this and they trivialize the impact of the violence of abortion, it shows which side actually cares about women, which side actually cares about the dignity of human life,” Bomberger insists.

One final point worth pondering: Each state legislates the age of statutory rape. Honest question: If Issue 1 establishes a constitutional right for “individuals” of all ages to make “reproductive decisions,” how would that affect Ohio’s age of consent laws? Isn’t having sex the ultimate “reproductive decision”? Even when statutory rape is illegal, left-leaning legal authorities often forbid parents from protecting their minor daughters on a mass scale. A human trafficking ring victimized more than 1,400 young girls under the nose of British authorities; records show police and social workers often told parents to accept that their 12-year-old daughters were “growing up.” The London Telegraph reported about “two separate cases where fathers who had tracked their daughters down and were trying to remove them from houses where they were being abused, were themselves arrested.” They watched helplessly as their daughters were abused, threatened, and trafficked around the United Kingdom, unable to defend them.

Issue 1 creates the legal environment in which all of this could occur. Every parent has a duty to vote no.

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. ©2023 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.