Tag Archive for: Congress

DOGE Could Save Taxpayers $1.7 Trillion, Congressman Reveals

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If Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy implemented just one single reform during their new cost-cutting government board, it could save taxpayers $1.7 trillion, enough to shave nearly one full year off of the national deficit, a congressman has revealed.

President-elect Donald Trump has tapped the two billionaires to oversee the soon-to-be-formed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). In addition to eliminating the perennial targets of waste, fraud, and abuse, DOGE promises to “delete” whole federal agencies, if necessary, to make government operate in taxpayers’ interests once again. Experts say streamlining the federal budget could yield the American people abundant savings year after year.

“If you were to set aside all the rules in place, put in place by the Biden administration and this bureaucratic state … you would save $1.7 trillion,” Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) told “Washington Watch” guest host Jody Hice last Friday.

Regulations added to the federal code during the Biden-Harris administration have imposed $1.7 trillion on the private sector over the last four years, “surpassing all predecessors,” according to a recent federal report.

The administration also imposed 300 hours of paperwork on businesses, according to the report titled “Death by a Thousand Regulations: The Biden-Harris Administration’s Campaign to Bury America in Red Tape,” released September 25 by the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability.

A stunning $1.3 trillion of the $1.7 trillion (76%) in added regulatory burden comes from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the report found.

“To cement radical left-wing priorities, the Biden-Harris administration spared no expense and pushed a whole-of-government regulatory blitz on American businesses and consumers,” said House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.). “The Biden-Harris administration’s extreme regulatory overreach has only suffocated the American dream.”

“The Biden-Harris administration has added nearly 200 major regulations — those carrying an annual price tag of $100 million or more — to the books,” noted the Foundation for Government Accountability’s Liesel Crocker in August.

The regulatory state has grown so far out of control that tens of thousands of felonies were “rule-created by the bureaucracy — not created by Congress, but by the bureaucrats,” Biggs told Hice.

Eliminating just the Biden-Harris administration’s regulations would save nearly enough money to erase this year’s entire federal deficit of $1.8 trillion.

Within the last week, the U.S. national debt reached a record high of $36 trillion — $2 trillion higher than at the beginning of the year. Creating such a large federal deficit has moral implications, commentators say. Racking up “$36 trillion in debt is immoral,” said Family Research Council President Tony Perkins on Monday. “Spending money that does not belong to you and you have no intention of paying back is theft.”

President Donald Trump tried to curb regulatory power early in his first term, issuing an executive order mandating that, for every one new regulation added to the federal code, two must be eliminated. He seems poised to expand that margin in his second term. “I’m pledging today that in my second term, we will eliminate a minimum of 10 old regulations for every one new regulation,” President Trump told the Economic Club of New York in September.

The newly formed DOGE will also take a scalpel to the federal budget, its founders promise. In an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, Ramaswamy vowed to abolish the Department of Education and defund National Public Radio and Planned Parenthood. The abortion giant alone receives nearly $700 million in taxpayer funding each year.

At the same time, the House of Representatives plans to form a DOGE Committee, led by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), to assist the DOGE department’s efforts in Congress. The committee is “going to try and identify programs, agencies, departments that are redundant, that are wasteful and slip those over to the legislative branch, which is where we sit. And they’ll have hearings and introduce legislation that will decouple those wasteful programs and agencies from the federal government. And Marjorie Taylor Greene, the new chairwoman, has said that she expects to close agencies and fire people,” said Biggs.

Together, the two DOGE entities will create a “synergistic effect,” he said.

In the end, said Biggs, the House of Representatives must use the normal budgeting process to rein in out-of-control spending. “This is why the bureaucratic state is growing: Every time you do a continuing resolution, you keep funding the same programs at the same levels. Periodically there will be an omnibus that raises all that spending. You’re just on cruise control,” Biggs told Hice. “The way you stop it is you actually do your appropriations bills and you say, ‘We’re not going to fund Planned Parenthood. We’re not going to fund various DEI programs or woke programs in the military or anything else,’ that will be designated by DOGE or designated by Marjorie Taylor Greene’s subcommittee on Oversight.”

Despite America’s polarized nature, Biggs says he believes many of DOGE’s commonsense proposals will find bipartisan support. “Some Democrats have come up to me privately and told me they agree” that Congress has to “get some [power that resides in the federal government] back to the states, where it was always intended to be under the Constitution.”

“The focus is going to be on the fourth branch of government, which is the bureaucracy,” Biggs emphasized. “The federal government is so upside down big that it needs to be turned right side and made right-sized again.”

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

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

RELATED ARTICLE: This Thanksgiving, Walmart’s DEI Retreat Is Just Gravy

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.

Reality Wins: Transwomen Are Men

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We have reached the tipping point on the gender issue. If I had known that electing a trans-identifying man to Congress would so definitively advance the discussion of safety and privacy in women-only spaces, I might have donated to the campaign myself. For over a decade now, women have been speaking out about the problem of men who believe they are women seeking “refuge” in our bathrooms, locker rooms, college dorms, prison cells, and even sometimes our beds.

The pressure has grown as more and more Americans were confronted by the very real demands required by the “inclusion” of “gender diverse” people on their terms. Schools and sports teams have wrestled with whether, when, and how to accommodate the demands of transgender activists while ensuring the safety, privacy, and sanity of those folks unwilling to play along with pretending a person can change his or her sex.

The Biden-Harris administration was remarkable for shattering norms in this regard. In addition to appointing openly transsexual men to roles in the administration and hosting them for media appearances at the White House, President Biden creepily assured transgender students that he “had their backs.”

On the 50th Anniversary of Title IX, the Biden-Harris Department of Education released a sweeping rewrite of the policy that refused to acknowledge biological differences between men and women — while advancing the cause of gender ideology. The staggering scope of the proposed radical rule was met with greater backlash. The rule is now enjoined in 26 states nationwide as court cases proceed. We can be confident that the new folks in charge at DOE will waste no time in withdrawing this rule and offering common-sense protections for all students — and especially women and girls.

Then-candidate Trump and his campaign saw the backlash and heard thunderous applause from the crowds during rally speeches promising an end to the gender madness in our schools and medicine.

But in deep blue Delaware, political operative, former Obama official, and friend of Beau Biden, Sarah (formerly Tim) McBride campaigned for Congress and won election to the U.S. House of Representatives. And now we get to the action. Where would Representative McBride exercise and shower after those workouts? Which bathroom will he slip into during long sessions? And who decides these questions?

As the battle of the schoolhouse rose to the People’s House, South Carolina’s Nancy Mace (R) tried to lay down the law, literally. She wrote a bill that defined sex as male and female and protected sex-specific facilities for men and women in federal buildings.

Then, earlier this week, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) declared that under his leadership, men would be men, and women would be women. Representative McBride wisely agreed to follow these rules and sought to change the subject. Women across the country let out a cheer. After many years of fighting to preserve female-only spaces, this marks a turning point in the “transgender” march through the institutions. The work of ensuring these protections for women everywhere will continue, but now we have a wind at our back.

Women know we need men to protect us and honor each other’s needs for privacy. I’m grateful that Johnson handled this situation so quickly, setting an example for others to follow. I look forward to leadership from President Trump and appointees like Education Secretary nominee Linda McMahon, who I expect to use government power to protect women and children from the radical demands of gender ideology.

And the church will need to attend to the needs of those wounded by the very real consequences of crazy ideas like boys can become girls or vice versa. We have much to do! Let’s thank God for our victories along the way and continue to advance His Kingdom!

AUTHOR

Meg Kilgannon

Meg Kilgannon is Senior Fellow for Education Studies at Family Research Council.

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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.

Trio of Trump Picks Creates Headaches for GOP

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You know it’s a surreal time in Washington, D.C. when Senator John Fetterman (D-Pa.) is the Democrat making the most sense. While his party has a collective “freakout” over Donald Trump’s potential hires, the Senate’s resident hoodie-wearer was asked if he’s as panicked as his colleagues about the president-elect’s Cabinet choices. “It’s still not even Thanksgiving yet,” he told CNN. “And if we’re having meltdowns, you know, every tweet or every appointment or all of those things, I mean, it’s going to be four years.”

And yes, while Trump probably did have fun “trolling” Democrats with some of these picks, as Fetterman said, they’re not the only ones with reservations. At least three of the president’s nominees are giving both parties heartburn heading into the holidays: Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Matt Gaetz, and Pete Hegseth. Welcome to the job, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.). You’ve just been handed a political nightmare.

Philip Wegmann, White House Correspondent for Real Clear Politics, said this all clears up one thing: “This is Donald Trump’s transition and no one else’s.” Wegmann, who joined Family Research Council President Tony Perkins on Saturday’s “This Week on the Hill” thought — like many people — that the president-elect was “playing it safe” with his first string of announcements. “There was a bit of bipartisan consensus behind a pick like, say, Florida Senator Marco Rubio for Secretary of State. That’s someone who is certainly well-qualified for that position. … And then came some of these more unconventional picks. Pete Hegseth for Department of Defense Secretary, Tulsi Gabbard for Director of National Intelligence, and then most recently, Florida Representative Matt Gaetz for Attorney General. What that tells you is that it is Donald Trump, fundamentally, who is making these decisions — and him alone. It’s not an advisor. It’s not any outside group. It’s him.”

The only decision he couldn’t control was Thune’s promotion. While Trump didn’t weigh in personally on the Republican leadership race in the Senate, plenty of his surrogates did. And in the end, the pressure they exerted didn’t sway the more insulated chamber. “The reason why I think that we should still put a pin in this and watch closely,” Wegmann said of Thune and his party, “is that there’s sort of a bubbling frustration among the right flank. … With how things are going … Republicans are of the opinion that Donald Trump has a mandate after winning the Electoral College and also the popular vote. And so, the question is, when someone like Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has shown that he is ready to move the ball down the field, are Senate Republicans also going to be team players here?”

While Senator Marco Rubio, Lee Zeldon, and others are “no-brainers” for the administration, as Perkins called them, there are other question marks, like South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem (R), who, apart from the hysteria her dead puppy created, lost plenty of fans when she caved on popular girls’ sports protections. As Wegmann acknowledged, Noem has had “a bit of a fall from grace certainly.” But, he predicted, “I’m not certain that we’re going to see Republicans abandon ship here.” Heading Homeland Security may seem like a big job, but “I think she is seen sort of as a key piece here who’s going to compliment Tom Homan, the border czar.”

Although Gaetz may lead the pack of controversial picks, equally triggering to Democrats (and many conservatives) is the nod for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to head Health and Human Services (HHS). “You want to talk about a realignment?” Wegmann asked. “RFK Jr. represents so much of what is new from Donald Trump, because of Trump’s ability to reach out to Independent voters who are perhaps homeless among the two-party system,” he pointed out. “But let’s not forget RFK Jr. [is] a Catholic individual, but he also supports abortion rights. He’s very skeptical of pharmaceutical companies, but he’s also anti-Big Bank, anti-Big Business. He’s an environmentalist. This is one of these guys who sort of breaks the mold. And Democrats, I don’t think many of them are going to lend their support to RFK Jr. at HHS. I’m curious to see if there will be many Republican defections.”

If former Vice President Mike Pence got a vote, it would be an emphatic no. “The Trump-Pence administration was unapologetically pro-life for our four years in office. There are hundreds of decisions made at HHS every day that either lead our nation toward a respect for life or away from it, and HHS under our administration always stood for life,” Pence insisted on Friday. “I believe the nomination of RFK Jr. to serve as Secretary of HHS is an abrupt departure from the pro-life record of our administration and should be deeply concerning to millions of Pro-Life Americans who have supported the Republican Party and our nominees for decades,” he declared.

Perkins, for his part, said he’d be “willing to sit down and talk” with the moderate but admitted he has “reservations.” “For me, the sanctity of human life and that moral fabric of our nation, that foundation, is absolutely critical. I’d have to have some assurances there for now. Put me in the skeptical column when it comes to RFK.”

The nomination that has had the most heads spinning is Gaetz’s, which took even his own party by surprise. As Axios tells it, the announcement was met with “audible gasps by House Republicans” in the conference meeting last week. “The reason why this is interesting,” Wegmann believes, “is that if you talk to Gaetz allies, they’ll say that in preparation for this contentious confirmation battle, he’s burning the ships like Cortez. … If you talk to folks who are a bit more cynical, the timing here is very curious. The House Ethics Committee was preparing to release a report concerning [the] activity of Mr. Gaetz and an allegedly underage girl,” he explained, “and by leaving Congress that effectively stymies that effort. … [T]hat was sort of the speculation that perhaps he was leaving early to avoid that accountability.”

Of course, as both men made clear, once a member leaves Congress, they are no longer under the jurisdiction of the Ethics Committee, so the investigation is — for all intents and purposes — dead. But there is the very real possibility that Democrats could leak it out as the nomination advances. What Wegmann has heard is that the report is a “grenade,” and it’s “only a matter of time before it explodes.” Democrats, after all, “have an incentive for this information to get out there, but they don’t want it to go off right now. They want to wait until it’s able to inflict maximum damage. Then there are some Republicans who would rather this information get out earlier, so the president-elect can either reexamine his choice or perhaps Gaetz can bow out.”

The “conference-splitter,” as Axios called him, got a cool reception from senators like Susan Collins (R-Maine), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), and others who don’t seem anxious to give Trump a pass on this one. “This shows why the advice and consent process is so important,” Collins said, hinting that she won’t be so quick to let the president-elect bypass the traditional vetting with recess appointments. Murkowski stressed that Gaetz wasn’t even “a serious candidate.” “If I wanted to make a joke, maybe I would say now I’m waiting for [disgraced former Congressman] George Santos to be named.”

Of the three nominees who are most outside the box, Fox News’s Pete Hegseth is probably getting the most movement support. Several columnists are making the argument that the young veteran is plenty experienced, despite the Left’s shrieks to the contrary. The rumblings over his personal life have certainly given his detractors fodder, but others believe he is skilled enough — and determined enough — to overhaul the military and purge the Defense Department of four years of social experimentation.

Still, the thought “makes the Left go crazy,” Wegmann admitted. “But this is someone who was in the Armed Services for 20 years. He has won medals, and his nomination makes sense if you look at his book, if you look at the Shawn Ryan interview. This is someone who is absolutely on fire for reforming the Pentagon and going after sort of the woke excesses there. I think that’s why Donald Trump picked him. And Hegseth will be prepared for that confirmation hearing. You don’t get to be on TV every weekend if you’re not quick on your feet. I think he’s got a good shot.”

AUTHOR

Suzanne Bowdey

Suzanne Bowdey serves as editorial director and senior 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.

State of the 2024 Election

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Much has been made about what’s at stake in the upcoming 2024 election, and rightfully so. The last three and a half years have seen wars emerge on almost every continent, a dramatically weakened dollar with persistently high inflation and declining standard of living, the deterioration of military readiness, a wide-open southern border, the politicization of our legal system, an unprecedented all-out assault on the unborn and those standing up for life, attacks on religious freedom, a disconcerting rise in political violence, and more. As a result, just 28% of Americans say the country is on the right track, and they are primed to make their voice heard.

Presidential Election

The presidential election between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump has generated most of the attention and campaign spending and will be the main driver of turnout among voters. Every day, there are several new national and battleground polls released to the public, and in general they show a race within the margin of error (give or take 2-4 points depending on the specific poll) at the national level. Harris currently enjoys a two-point edge in the head-to-head polling average at RealClearPolitics. However, this lead is not enough to allow the vice president to rest on her laurels. During this time in 2020, then-candidate Joe Biden led then-President Trump by 10 points, and Hillary Clinton led Trump by 5.8 points. The former would go on to win (thanks in large part to relaxed mail-in voting rules) by less than 85,000 votes and the latter would go on to lose by less than 45,000 votes. Harris is polling significantly behind the other Democratic candidates to have faced off against Donald Trump at this point in the election.

The Democratic candidate has traditionally won the national popular vote, but because of the wisdom of our Founding Fathers, the Electoral College is determinative. If you live in a state like Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan, or Wisconsin, you are no doubt tired of the ads and text messages. Both campaigns know your vote will be important for their candidate to prevail in your state, which could likely determine the outcome of the election. The two-point lead Harris enjoys in the national popular vote translates, at this moment, to an Electoral College loss. At the time this was written, the RealClearPolitics average for the battleground states would give Trump a win in the electoral college 296-242, with the key battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Michigan in the Republican’s column. Among the battleground states Harris is currently projected to carry, Wisconsin and Nevada, she is trailing Biden’s 2020 performance in the polling by five points in each state — again, not where the Harris campaign wants to be.

Control of the U.S. Senate

Sixty-one percent of Americans agree the country is on the wrong track, and while this portends trouble ahead for the Harris campaign in persuading voters to continue the Biden-Harris policies in a Kamala Harris administration, it does translate to some anti-incumbent sentiment among voters, which plays to the benefit of Senate Republicans hoping to take the majority in the upper chamber in Congress. With a slim 51-49 seat majority, the Senate Democrats stand severely disadvantaged this election. Of the 34 Senate seats up for a vote this cycle, 23 are held by Democrats, many of which are in states that are also highly competitive at the presidential level. Pennsylvania, Nevada, and Wisconsin all have Senate Democrats running for reelection in tough matchups — in particular, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are incredibly tight at the moment with incumbents Sen. Bob Casey, Jr., (D-Pa.) and Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) leading their Republican challengers by a mere three points.

In other states, like West Virginia, Montana, and Ohio, Democratic candidates for Senate are running at a disadvantage because their states are expected to vote for Trump by more than 10 points, endangering Democratic incumbents Sens. Jon Tester (D-Mt.) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio). Tester, for example, is trailing his Republican challenger, Tim Sheehy, by seven points. Brown, on the other hand, is doing better in the public polling, leading Republican Bernie Moreno by just two points. West Virginia will not be competitive, as former Governor Jim Justice is favored to win this race comfortably.

In Michigan, incumbent Senator Debbie Stabenow (D) announced she would not run for reelection, which has pitted Democratic Representative Elissa Slotkin against former Republican Representative Mike Rogers, and in Arizona, Democrat-turned-Independent Senator Kyrsten Sinema announced she would also not run for reelection, creating a match-up between Democratic Representative Ruben Gallego and Republican Kari Lake. The Michigan race is a toss-up, with Slotkin leading in the public polling average by less than two points. In Arizona, Gallego leads by just under seven points. Both states feature prominently in the Electoral College calculus of the Harris and Trump campaigns, so it’s possible the coattails of whichever presidential candidate wins the state will play an outsized role in who wins these races; this is true more so for Michigan than Arizona, because Lake is trailing outside the margin of error.

Republican Senators Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Rick Scott (R-Fla.) are also running this year and are facing well-financed challengers, but both are the favorites in their respective races. If the GOP doesn’t lose in either Texas or Florida and wins the Senate races they are expected to win in West Virginia and Montana they will take overcontrol of the Senate with 51 seats. Bernie Moreno in Ohio is likely to benefit from Trump’s coattails in that state, which would bring the GOP to 52 seats. With few exceptions, ticket-splitting is all but gone these days. So, if Trump were to carry Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nevada, and Wisconsin, and carry Republican Senate candidates over the finish line with him the GOP would have 57 seats in the Senate. Some GOP candidates in a few of these states are polling far enough behind Trump that were he to win some of these states his coattails might not be enough to deliver for them, however.

Control of the U.S. House of Representatives

After redistricting in 2020, the number of competitive races in the House of Representatives dipped. Gone are the days of 40-60 seat swings like we saw in the Tea Party era. This year, Cook Political Report has identified just 26 toss-up races in the U.S. House of Representatives. Of these 26, Republicans are defending 14, and Democrats are defending 12. For the current razor-thin, three-seat Republican majority , winning every one of these toss-up races is a must. With just 23% of voters approving of the job Congress is doing, the GOP is swimming against the tide to keep their majority.

Since there are 435 members in the U.S. House of Representatives, pollsters ask respondents to state whether they prefer a “generic Republican” or “generic Democrat” to represent them in Congress to get a sense of how the race for the majority House will play out. Now, the RealClearPolitics generic congressional vote average shows Democrats leading by just one point. In 2022, when the GOP won back control of the House of Representatives after the Democrats held the House since the 2018 midterm elections, the GOP had a three-point lead in the generic congressional polling at this time in the 2022 midterm elections. This victory for the GOP in wresting the speaker’s gavel from Nancy Pelosi was earned by winning just a four-seat majority by a mere 4,500 votes. It doesn’t get much closer than that. I think we’re likely to see a similarly paper-thin result decide which party controls the House this November.

Unlike the Senate, where a presidential candidate’s coattails can be decisive, most of the toss-up races in the House are in states that are not particularly competitive at the statewide or presidential level. Each individual candidate will have to win or lose in their own foxhole. Alaska, California, Colorado, Iowa, Maine, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, and Washington account for 16 of the 24 most competitive House races and will not see a competitive result at the presidential or Senate level, or do not have a competitive Senate race. GOP incumbents in these states will have to win in an environment of supercharged Democrat turnout, and vice versa for Democrat incumbents in toss-up races in Republican states. If you’re the GOP, of particular concern are GOP incumbents in California and New York. There are eight GOP incumbents between these two states alone, and both states are likely to go for Kamala Harris by as much as 20 points, or more. Combine anti-incumbent sentiment with deep blue states and you have a strong headwind for GOP incumbents in these states.

Conclusion

Hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Americans, have updated their voter registration or registered to vote for the first time this year. All this data is important and tells us some early signs of how the election will go. Florida, for example, once the preeminent swing state, is now firmly in the grip of the GOP, as Florida Republicans outnumber Democrats by more than a million voters. Pennsylvania, a state that as recently as 2008 had 1.2 million more Democrats than Republicans and was once firmly within the Democrats’ Rust Belt “blue wall” has replaced Florida as the preeminent swing state, and Democrats have the lowest voter registration edge they have ever held in the Keystone State: 343,000 voters. Republicans have been winning the voter registration battle elsewhere as well.

Similarly, early vote data shows a dramatic decline in the number of mail-in ballots requested compared to 2020. Using Pennsylvania again as an example, the 2020 election saw a total of 2.7 million mail-in ballots requested, or 39% of the total vote came from mail. So far this cycle, just 1.4 million mail-in ballots have been requested (mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania can be requested until October 29th, so this number will go up. But it will likely not be anywhere close to the 2.7 million number from 2020). Mail-in voting is likely to play a smaller role in the 2024 election than it did in the 2020 election when so many were still dealing with COVID-19.

Then there’s the campaign spending. Kamala Harris’s campaign has raised $678 million to Donald Trump’s $313 million. The Democratic National Committee similarly enjoys a fundraising advantage over its Republican counterparts, raking in $385 million to the Republican National Committee’s $331 million. The Republicans enjoy a slight campaign finance edge in the Senate contests, outraising their Democrat counterparts $200 million to $173 million. In the House, the National Republican Congressional Committee raised $183 million to the Democrats’ $250 million. This all amounts to billions of dollars flooding the airways and cell phone towers with campaign messaging.

All of this to say, the respective candidates and political parties have their own advantages and disadvantages. It’s incredibly difficult to say which advantages will determine outcomes, whether it’s a campaign cash advantage or public polling, voter registration or mail-in ballot requests, we will not know for sure until election night. Right now, the presidential race looks like it’s trending toward Donald Trump, the Senate is securely within reach of the Republicans, and the speaker’s gavel is at risk of being handed back over to the Democrats. If that’s the case, then we’ll look back and say 2024 was clearly an anti-incumbent election, and the country is asking for change. If Harris wins, the Democrats retain control of the Senate, and win back the House, then we can say campaign funding is the decisive factor in elections. If Trump wins, the GOP wins the Senate, and retains control of the House, we can say it was a repudiation of the Biden-era with its excessive social engineering, abortion extremism, runaway spending, foreign policy blunders, and all.

As followers of Christ, we know God is sovereign. This is not an excuse for inaction, but an acknowledgement that no election outcome surprises Him. The best day of the republic still falls short of the glory of the New Heaven and New Earth to come. We should pray for righteous leaders to prevail in November and pray that our nation would once again humble itself before the Lord acknowledging how far we have fallen from His righteous standard. The 2024 elections are incredibly important because of the stark differences in worldview represented by the major parties, but their importance pales in comparison to the work needed to repair our nation’s spiritual walls.

AUTHOR

Matt Carpenter

Matt Carpenter is the director of FRC Action.

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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.

To the 41 Million Christians ‘Unlikely’ to Vote This November: ‘You Need to Repent’

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While Kamala Harris’s numbers are starting to come back to earth after a disastrous vice presidential debate, things have never looked better for the Californian’s campaign. As much as people have come to rely on the ebbs and flows of public opinion, longtime strategists know that there’s a better predictor of how Democrats will do — and that’s the evangelical vote. Or, as the 2024 numbers warn, the lack thereof.

According to some truly shocking statistics from George Barna at Arizona Christian University (ACU), as many as 41 million Christians plan to sit this election out — more than enough to hand the country’s keys to the eager and radical Left. For Donald Trump’s opponent, the news that one of the Dems’ biggest obstacles to victory is voluntarily shirking their civic duty is cause for premature celebration.

Incredibly, the research, conducted between August and September, suggests that 41 million self-described born-again Christians are “unlikely” to vote in the November election. To Len Munsil, president of ACU, that spells disaster. “I see two huge takeaways from this blockbuster report,” he explained. “First, that Christians could be the deciding factor in a bunch of federal and state races — and are choosing not to be. And second,” he continued, “that they are longing for their local church to instruct them on how to think biblically about policy and politics. They don’t want to be told how to vote,” Munsil added, “but they do want to know why they should vote and how to view political issues from a biblical framework.”

When Christians were asked to explain their complacency, 68% replied that they aren’t interested in politics, followed by 57% who dislike both presidential candidates, and another 52% who believe their vote won’t make a difference. In a sad sign of where we are as a country, 48% also worry that the election results will be manipulated.

Of course, one of the most problematic aspects of this passivity is that November 5 involves a lot more than the White House. In fact, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins argues, many would contend that there are “much more important decisions than the presidency on the state and local ballot. Control of the House and Senate hangs in the balance. Governors, state attorneys general, local school boards, even comptrollers are amassing major victories in protecting children from radical gender ideology, pushing back on corporate America’s woke agenda, fighting the Biden administration’s lawless overreach, and passing sweeping pro-life and pro-parent laws. While we might not have the ideal situation at the top of the ballot,” he wrote in Decision magazine, “Americans have several other issues to be mindful of as we head to the polls.” In our hands rest “the hopes of soldiers on foreign battlefields, the persecuted church in faraway lands and the peace of God’s chosen nation Israel (Numbers 24:9),” Perkins warned.

And yet, this church-wide short-sightedness threatens to leave everyone from our global neighbors to our next-door neighbors without help or hope. “Think about what has happened here in America in just the last 35 years,” Cornerstone Chapel Senior Pastor Gary Hamrick told the Pray Vote Stand Summit on Saturday. “Think about some of these things. There’s been gender confusion. There’s been marriage redefinition. There’s been a disregard for life. There’s become environmental worship, the stripping of parental authority, the deterioration of religious liberties, and the list goes on and on.”

How “absurd,” he went on, that in a matter of a generation, “people are now trying to figure out what bathroom to use. Businesses are being sued for not baking cakes or doing graphic designs for same-sex weddings. The nanny state has approved pornographic reading material in many public school systems. … It’s illegal to disturb sea turtles in South Florida, but not illegal to abort babies from a womb. This is complete insanity.”

And frankly, Hamrick declared, “We have no one to blame but ourselves.” “There are 90 million self-identified evangelical Christians eligible to vote in the United States of America,” and according to George Barna a healthy slice of them will refuse to.

“Let me tell you what happens when we are not involved in the political process,” he said somberly. “We open the door for every evil ideology to fill the vacuum. When we decide we’re going to check out, we’re not going to be involved, we’re not going to be politically engaged, all we do is open the door for more of the same evil agenda and ideology. Why is it that so many Christians are sitting out on the sidelines? Why [is there] such political apathy in our world? Because a lot of Christians think that politics is a dirty word that they don’t want to be involved in. ‘We will leave the world of politics up to the rest of the world,’ they would say, and then wonder why every evil has filled the vacuum.” If you thought the last 35 years was disturbing, imagine the next 35. “…We are one generation away from losing what is valuable and precious and sacred,” Hamrick warned.

This trend of political indifference and disgust is in spite of the Scripture’s clear teaching that government — like the family and the church — is an institution created and established by God. “Why is it that when it comes to the family, people are protective of the family, Christians in particular? Why is it when it comes to the church, Christians in particular want to care for the church and defend the church? But then when it comes to this third institution, the second one that God ordained, [and] all of a sudden people say, ‘Well, that one doesn’t need my involvement, that one doesn’t need my participation, that one doesn’t need for me to be engaged.’”

Look, church, Hamrick urged, “God has called us in 2 Corinthians 5:20 to be his ambassadors. An ambassador is one who represents another official or dignitary. Our dignitary that we are representing is the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and He calls us to represent him in every facet and aspect of life. That means we represent him in the job. That means we represent Him in the family. That means we represent Him in the church. That means we represent Him in our neighborhood, where we go to school, where we interact on every level with every person. God calls us to be his ambassadors. We don’t stop being ambassadors because we think, ‘Well, government is a dirty word. Politics is a dirty word. We don’t want to be engaged in all that. We’ll just leave that to other people’ — other people who will continue to take it down the progressive path it’s on right now and destroy this nation.”

It’s a point that Calvary Chapel Chino Hills Senior Pastor Jack Hibbs reiterated in his own remarks. “We are citizens of heaven. We are to act like heaven. We are to represent heaven. We are to speak about the things that concern heaven.” Does that mean we have to be excited about the choices before us? Absolutely not. But as God’s people, we should all want a president “that will save more babies’ lives than Kamala Harris,” he argued.

That doesn’t mean Donald Trump can save this country. As Hibbs acknowledged, “There’s no politician, including Trump, that can affect the soul of this nation. You’re the only one. The answer is not in the statehouse. And it’s not going to be in the White House. It’s got to be in your own house. It’s got to be in the [house] of God.” If your response is, “Well, I don’t vote,” then “you need to repent,” Hibbs insisted. “Every opportunity God gives us, we are to use it to the advancement of His kingdom. And voting is the easiest. We fire no bullets,” he pointed out. “We don’t pull out any swords. There [aren’t] tanks in the street. We just get up and go vote.”

And get over trying to find the perfect candidate, Hamrick admonished. “There is no candidate who is the full package because Jesus is not on the ballot. There is no perfect person running,” he pointed out, “and God has used both righteous leaders and unrighteous leaders all through the Bible to accomplish his good purposes.”

But, the Cornerstone leader cautioned, “If we see the rising tide of evil in our land and we decide to do nothing, we are ceding ground to the enemy, and we are being unfaithful to our calling as ambassadors for Christ.”

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. ©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.

Majority of Americans Favor Mass Deportation, but Some Dems Continue to Vote Against It

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Some have estimated as many as 24 million noncitizens are roaming the country. Under the Biden-Harris administration’s border policies, millions upon millions of illegal immigrants have flooded into America. And reportedly, anywhere from 1.5 to 2.7 million of them may be voting in the upcoming presidential election. While Americans are currently divided on many issues, a recent poll helped demonstrate how many citizens are willing to come together on the issue of immigration.

According to the Scripps News/Ipsos survey, in which 1,027 Americans adults were surveyed between September 13 and 15, 54% of the respondents support the GOP’s presidential candidate Donald Trump’s policy of a mass deportation of illegal immigrants. Of this percentage, 86% were Republican, 58% were Independent, and 25% were Democrat — all of whom noted they “somewhat” or “strongly” agree with Trump’s proposal.

At least 39% of the respondents believed immigration was the top issue concerning the upcoming election. And as The Post Millennial reported, “Approximately one-third of Americans say securing the US-Mexico border should be the nation’s top priority, followed by a pathway to citizenship for those who qualify (20 percent), deporting those here illegally (18 percent), and ensuring opportunities remain for those trying to legally enter the country (18 percent).”

The poll also revealed some of why those surveyed agreed with the mass deportation policy. As the data proved, it has much to do with the concern that illegal immigrants serve as a threat to election integrity, with 83% of Republicans, 46% of Independents, and 24% of Democrats feeling this way. Yet, Democratic lawmakers continue to vote against policies that would address these concerns.

For instance, on Wednesday, 158 “House Democrats voted against a bill that would deport illegal immigrants convicted of a sexual offense or conspiracy to commit such a crime.” The Violence Against Women by Illegal Aliens Act ultimately passed 266 to 158 with full Republican support as well as the support from 51 Democrats. But in response to those who voted against the bill, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) asserted, “[W]e’re talking about illegals who are here who are committing domestic violence, rape and murder on women and children — they’ve gotta go. They shouldn’t be allowed into our country.”

But with ongoing turmoil over bills designed to protect U.S. citizens from illegal immigration, where do objections to protective measures lead us? As Family Research Council President Tony Perkins pointed out on Wednesday’s episode of “Washington Watch,” the Biden-Harris administration’s border policies have had “tragic consequences” — some of which include the numerous Americans murdered by illegal immigrants.

In America, Rep. Josh Brecheen (R-Okla.) insisted on Wednesday’s episode, “[Y]ou are less safe than you were a year ago. You’re … less safe than you were two years ago, and definitely than you were three years ago,” all due to “this administration’s policies.” Perkins agreed, adding, “We really don’t know the number of illegal aliens that are in the country,” with the number ranging “from 12 million to 18 million.” But while “not all of them are violent criminals … there are enough to make Americans” feel “insecure” and that “their safety [is] at risk.”

Brecheen agreed, “[T]hese people have to be removed from this country.” America “has to send a signal to people that you cannot come into this country and break the law and expect that you would be first in line” to receiving American benefits. But because this is happening, Brecheen underscored, “[D]eportation is top and center for many of us.”

“[T]he law is the law,” Perkins emphasized, which he felt leads to a conversation occurring within the church of whether “it’s not really the Christian thing to do to uproot these people who have been here in this country and deport them.” But according to Brecheen, this mindset isn’t based on the Bible. Rather, “taking care of the foreigner and sojourner [is] an individual mandate. But there’s also a mandate that you obey the laws of the land.” And in the case of illegal immigration, “we’ve got people who have broken the laws of the land.”

Brecheen emphasized that the problem is rooted in instances where people break the law and do not face consequences, because “it creates the atmosphere where lawlessness is compounded.” Given this, “we’ve got to make sure that the rule of law is upheld in the United States.” Perkins noted how the two recent assassination attempts on Trump “speaks to violence, turbulence, an unsettled country, [and] that lawlessness is manifesting itself at every level.”

Brecheen pressed further, warning that “when we don’t have consequences for infractions … we’re inviting more infractions into a greater level, a greater degree.” Especially in the current administration, it’s clear they’re “time and time again deviating from biblical truths.” But the real question, he insisted, is “where does it end?”

Ultimately, Brecheen concluded, “It’s constitutional in regard to illegal immigration that we are to protect this nation … against an invasion.” And given the quantity of those coming into this country, he added, it “is an invasion.”

AUTHOR

Sarah Holliday

Sarah Holliday is a reporter at The Washington Stand.

RELATED ARTICLE: NYC Council Democrats Silent On Anti-Sanctuary Bill As Migrant Crime Hits Headlines

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.

The Democrats’ War on Reality: Spending Bills Reveal a Twisted Vision for the Future

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It’s almost September, and that can only mean one thing: Congress is returning to Washington, and Americans should hold on to their wallets. Several things could combine to make this fall a budget-buster: The fiscal year end means that $6 trillion worth of federal budgeting must be renewed by September 30th; the last three weeks of September are the last time Congress will be in session before the November 5th election; and, liberals in Washington only know one way to win — by buying reelection with your taxpayer dollars.

Dear taxpayer, September ain’t gonna be pretty, so buckle up.

Already in July, well ahead of next month’s funding fights, several reporters who cover Capitol Hill suddenly began simultaneously reporting that House Republicans are “fighting culture wars” by stuffing supposedly unrelated provisions into congressional spending bills. They are repeating Democratic talking points that characterize the spending bills in the Senate (controlled by Democrats) as neutral and bipartisan. The obvious implication of this reporting is that the “fair” approach would be to reject House conservatives’ “inflaming” language and instead adopt the Senate’s “neutral” language. Look for that framing to be used in force in September, when the House and Senate return to Washington to try to pass a budget.

This framing gets at least two things wrong.

First, the House and Senate are miles apart, not just on moral issues but on basic spending levels. Last year, the House and Senate fiscal year 2024 (FY24) spending bills were more than $150 billion dollars apart. (Neither set of spending bills balanced the budget, much less made a dent in the national debt, but the Republican-controlled House was proposing spending levels that were either pared down or more modestly increased than the Democrat-controlled Senate.)

This year will be no different, and the difference between what House Republicans and Senate Democrats (with some Republicans) want to spend will likely be even greater. With inflation ballooning under the Biden-Harris administration because of government spending, Democrats in Washington and their friends in the media would like nothing better than to deflect attention onto so-called “culture war issues.” Don’t miss the sleight of hand.

Second, when it comes to standing for life, marriage, and religious liberty, it’s important to realize that conservatives on Capitol Hill are actually playing defense against the Biden-Harris administration’s aggressive offense. Last year, for example, Planned Parenthood received one-third of its budget — $699.4 million — from taxpayers. The Biden-Harris administration is actively and aggressively using the levers of government to advocate for false sexual identities (LGBT) in everything from federally-funded school lunch programs to foreign assistance to poor countries. The government is being weaponized against people of faith and people with no faith at all who continue to believe that marriage is between one man and one woman.

In other words, if there is a “culture war,” it is one that the Biden-Harris administration is waging, with the help of Congressional Democrats who dominate the Senate. Meanwhile, House Republicans — the only bulwark to this onslaught — comprise a bare majority that is split into several factions. Conservative House Republicans are pushing back against the Democrats’ radical agenda, but other House Republicans try to stay as far away from the issues as they can, and some Republicans even join Democrats in destructive efforts to underminemarriage and target the unborn. Senate conservatives often do not have the votes to block harmful Democratic policies.

While some Republicans seem embarrassed by conservative principles, Democrats have seemingly no shame in using taxpayer funding to advance a radical leftist agenda. In the Senate, for example, here are some examples of radical, “culture war” earmarks that Senate Democrats have offered in this year’s spending bills:

Supporting abortion providers

  • $5,106,000 in earmarks for a hospital that provides the abortion drug, mifepristone, up to 10 weeks and surgical abortions up to 23 weeks, when some infants would be able to survive outside of the womb (Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., ChristianaCare Health Services, Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies — Labor-HHS appropriations bill, in two separate earmarks).
  • $500,000 earmark for a hospital that provides abortions through 13 weeks and six days (Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., Stroger Hospital, Labor-HHS bill).

Pushing false sexual identities on youth

  • $1,050,000 earmark for an LGBT advocacy organization that pushes this ideology on youth and advocates for them to undergo harmful gender transition procedures (Laphonza Butler, D-Calif., The Trevor Project, Labor-HHS bill).
  • $750,000 earmark to push gender ideology on youth ages 11-18 years old (Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., Long Island Gay and Lesbian Youth, Inc., Labor-HHS bill).
  • $500,000 earmark for a “mental health support initiative” to counsel youth through the lens of LGBT ideology (Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.M., and Schumer, Lesbian and Gay Community Services, Inc., Labor-HHS bill).
  • $356,000 earmark for an all-expenses-paid “training intensive” for self-identified transgender and non-binary theater artists in New York City (Schumer, D-NY, Unremarkable Productions, Labor-HHS bill).
  • $238,000 earmark for an organization said to serve not only girls, but “gender-expansive youth,” signaling that the organization pushes gender ideology on youth (Sen. John Hickenlooper, D-Colo., Asian Girls Ignite, Labor-HHS bill).

Directing funding for women’s services to serve men, and vice versa

  • $2,846,000 in earmarks for a young men’s organization to provide “accessibility” to YMCA programs regardless of certain characteristics, including gender identity, suggesting that the money will be used (in part) to facilitate the provision of services meant for men to women who identify as men (Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, D-Va., Young Men’s Christian Association of Central Virginia, Transportation, Housing, and Urban Development, and Related Agencies — T-HUD appropriations bill).
  • $1,500,000 earmark to provide “gender-inclusive shelter” to victims of abuse, raising the concern that biological men will be housed with women, increasing the latter’s risk of harm in the name of inclusivity (Tina Smith, D-Minn., Alexandra House, Inc., T-HUD bill).

House Democrats are no slouches, either, offering at least one “culture war” earmark and many, many amendments to stop conservatives from pumping the brakes on the radical Biden-Harris agenda.

Here are some examples of ways they have prioritized false LGBT identities:

Pushing false sexual identities on youth

  • $125,000 earmark for a heretical church seeking to establish a taxpayer-funded program that would likely push LGBT ideology on at-risk youth struggling with their gender or sexual identities under the guise of “juvenile justice prevention and education” (Mark Pocan, D-Wis., First Congregational United Church of Christ, Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies —CJS appropriations bill).

Discriminating against Americans who believe in one-man, one-woman marriage

Advocating for false sexual identities

Putting women at risk, paying for false sexual identities

  • Amendment to strike a section preventing the Bureau of Prisons from assigning placements based on gender identity, which would allow the placement of men in women’s prisons (Tlaib, D-Mich., amendment to the CJS bill).
  • Amendment to strike a section that would prohibit placement in federal prisons based on gender identity, and a section prohibiting public funding of gender transition procedures (Lee, D-Pa., amendment to the CJS bill).
  • Amendment to strike sections barring funding for gender transition procedures, defunding Biden’s anti-religious liberty in adoption final rule, and barring funding for schools that allow males to participate in women’s and girls’ sports (Craig, D-Minn., amendment to the Labor-HHS bill).

Here are a few examples of ways House Democrats are prioritizing the promotion of abortion and other policies leading to the destruction of human life:

Advocating for dangerous, do-it-yourself, at-home abortions

  • Amendment expressing the sense of Congress that the abortion drug, mifepristone, was appropriately approved and is appropriately regulated under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, and that this law supersedes any state effort to regulate this drug to mitigate harms to women (Pat Ryan, D-N.Y., amendment to the Ag bill).

Paying for/subsidizing abortions and the destruction of human life

  • Amendment to strike the Hyde Amendment, which has been in place for 47 years and prohibits HHS funds from being used for abortions (Barbara Lee, D-Calif., amendment to the Labor-HHS bill).
  • Amendment to restore Title X Family Planning Funding to FY23 levels. Title X pays for drugs and devices that can destroy human embryos, and programs that bypass parental consent laws for minors; it also heavily subsidizes abortion businesses like Planned Parenthood (Kathy Manning, D-N.C., amendment to the Labor-HHS bill).
  • Amendment to strike a section barring funding for certain organizations that provide abortions, including Planned Parenthood (Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., amendment to the Labor-HHS bill).
  • Amendment to strike a section that would allow an individual to sue in court for a suspected violation of the Weldon amendment, which prohibits funding for programs/agencies that discriminate against healthcare entities that decline to provide/pay for abortions (Sara Jacobs, D-Calif., amendment to the Labor-HHS bill).
  • Amendment to strike a section prohibiting the NIH from using fetal tissue obtained from an elective abortion in medical research (Diana DeGette, D-Colo., amendment to the Labor-HHS bill).
  • Amendment to strike a section barring funding for elective abortions for federal prisoners (Lois Frankel, D-Fla., amendmentto the CJS bill).
  • Amendment to narrow the scope of the Dornan amendment, which prohibits D.C. funds from paying for abortions, allowing the use of local funds for this purpose (Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C., amendment to the FSGG bill).
  • Amendment to prevent the Office of Personnel Management from contracting with Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) carriers unless their plans cover IVF, a procedure that results in the routine destruction and perpetual freezing of living human embryos (Gerry Connolly, D-Va., amendment to the FSGG bill).
  • Amendment to strike a provision prohibiting abortion coverage under the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (Ritchie Torres, D-Calif., amendment to the FSGG bill).
  • Amendment to strike a section prohibiting funds to establish, support, administer, oversee, or issue a grant, contract, or cooperative agreement to provide information on, promote access to, or facilitate an abortion (Lizzie Fletcher, D-Va., amendment to the Labor-HHS bill).

Paying for abortion advocacy

Allowing the District of Columbia to side-step pro-life federal protections

  • Amendment to strike a section requiring D.C. to submit a report to Congress on its enforcement of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003, keeping Americans in the dark about unlawful abortions being performed on (sometimes viable) babies (such as the DC Five) in D.C. (Norton, D-D.C., amendment to the FSGG bill).
  • Amendment to strike a section barring D.C. from enforcing its law allowing physician-assisted suicide and from passing any other similar legislation in the future (Norton, D-D.C., amendment to the FSGG bill).

Discriminating against Americans who are pro-life

  • Amendment to strike a section prohibiting funds to implement the EEOC’s rule requiring reasonable accommodations for employees to get abortions, even if such actions would be against the employer’s conscience (Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., amendment to the CJS bill).
  • Amendments to prevent Republicans from protecting the conscience rights of employers from being forced to provide coverage of or accommodations for abortions and contraception for their employees (Norton, D-D.C., amendment to the FSGG bill).
  • Amendment to strike a section that would bar funding for post-graduate physician training programs if they don’t provide an opt-out option for abortion training or if they discriminate against physicians who do opt-out (Kathy Castor, D-Fla., amendment to the Labor-HHS bill).
  • Amendment to strike a section barring funding for two pro-abortion Biden executive orders — the first contained directives to convene volunteer lawyers to sue against pro-life legislation, use the FTC to go after pregnancy resource centers, and convene an interagency task force to promote abortion while the second set up policies to pay for out-of-state travel for abortion through Medicaid and used sex discrimination laws to go after health care providers that will not provide abortions because of moral objections (Manning, D-N.C., amendment to the Labor-HHS bill).
  • Amendment to strike a section prohibiting funding for HHS to administer, enforce, or finalize its proposed rule that would stop taxpayer dollars from going to pregnancy resource centers, which provide practical support for women facing unplanned pregnancies (Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., amendment to the Labor-HHS bill).

Jim Wallis, a liberal theologian, left-wing activist, and author of the ambitiously titled “Politics According to the Bible,” famously helped coin the phrase, “A budget is a moral document” to argue that it is immoral to cut federal spending. For close to two decades, Democrats have used itto cloak policy prescriptions for everything from wide-open borders to abortion-on-demand in biblical-sounding verbiage and to berate conservatives who opposed the expansion of the federal government far beyond its authority or means.

Maybe it’s time for conservative Republicans to take liberals at their word and take the fight to them. (Hint: They started to last year, and many of those spending provisions either made it into the final package or at least blunted radical Democrats’ counter-proposals.)

Whether or not spending bills are moral documents, they are a battleground. Those are your tax dollars being spent, and you have a right to demand that they reflect your values.

AUTHORS

Chantel Hoyt and Quena Gonzalez

RELATED PODCAST: Pros and Cons of the Child Tax Credit

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.

Biden Admin. Stonewalls Congressional Investigation into Assassination Attempt

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The Biden administration has intervened to prevent the Secret Service from briefing a House committee investigating the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump, a member of the committee told Family Research Council.

“After the Secret Service agreed to brief members of the House Oversight Committee on Tuesday, the Department of Homeland Security took over communications with the committee and has since refused to confirm a briefing time,” said a statement from the Oversight Committee emailed to FRC from Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.). “The Oversight Committee has a long record of bipartisan oversight of the Secret Service, and the unprofessionalism we are witnessing from the current DHS leadership is unacceptable.”

“We were scheduled for a first briefing today,” confirmed Rep. Michael Cloud (R-Texas), but “DHS has stepped in between the communications now of the Secret Service and the Oversight Committee, and are now trying to control the communication between the two committees.”

“Already they’re obfuscating, it would seem,” said Cloud.

The briefing to the House Oversight Committee would precede a full committee hearing on the Trump assassination attempt with the director of the Secret Service, Kim Cheatle, next Monday, July 22, at 10 a.m. Cloud noted that Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) has issued subpoenas to assure Cheatle shows up.

At least three congressional committees are now investigating the near-fatal shooting in Butler, Pa. last Saturday. In addition to the House Oversight Committee hearing, Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) announced the House Judiciary Committee plans to question FBI Director Christopher Wray next Wednesday. And the House Committee on Homeland Security, led by Rep. Mark Green (R-Tenn.), will interview the leaders of the DHS, FBI, and Secret Service.

“The United States Secret Service has a no-fail mission, yet it failed on Saturday when a madman attempted to assassinate President Trump, killed an innocent victim, and harmed others. … [Q]uestions remain about how a rooftop within proximity to President Trump was left unsecure,” said Comer. “Americans demand answers from Director Kimberly Cheatle about these security lapses and how we can prevent this from happening again.”

Several questions hang over the Secret Service’s handling of the near-fatal shooting by 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, who fired eight shots from the top of the AGR International Inc. factory.

Tim Miller, a former Secret Service agent and founder of Lionheart International Services Group, told Perkins, “One of the first things you start with as a site agent, and we learned this in November of 1963,” is to ask, “‘Where are the high places where someone with a rifle could shoot and kill the president?’”

“Unfortunately, the biggest thing that we look at from day one was missed,” said Miller.

Cheatle admitted she placed agents inside the building from which the shooter staged his attempted murder instead of on top of it, because the structure had a sloped roof. Apparently, the Secret Service inside the building could not hear the shooter climbing the side of the business and walking on the roof above them.

Numerous eyewitnesses alerted law enforcement to the presence of a man on the roof with a rifle.

A policeman from the Beaver County Emergency Services Unit took a picture of Crooks and called in a suspicious presence at 5:45 p.m., 28 minutes before the shooting, according to local reporter Nicole Ford of WPXI.

Rep. Cory Mills (R-Fla.) told CNN Tuesday morning that the Secret Service’s serial failures were so amateurish that authorities must investigate whether they were “intentional,” or merely incompetence. “The amount of negligence, the amount of mistakes that were made here, I have a very difficult time not leading myself towards [thinking] this was intentional instead of fecklessness.” He called for Congress to establish a “J-13 commission,” apparently similar to the January 6 Committee.

“These are not difficult advances,” said Mills, a former military sniper. “This is not a political thing,” he said. The American people need “a proper investigation on all levels to ensure this doesn’t happen again and our president can be safe.”

“I’ve been making my own calls to Secret Service agents that I know that are willing to talk to me off the record. And there are a lot of severe problems,” revealed Biggs on “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins” Tuesday. “I would like to find out who is the lead agent who got there and ran the advance. I want to see what the agent asked for as far as material, manpower, etc., and whether he was denied some of that. The other thing I would like to know is where [were] the counter snipers? Were they green-lighted, or were they told that they were going to have to hold? And if they were told they were going to have to hold, I want to know who the supervisor was who made the determination to hold. And when they saw the actual shooter.”

Like many others, Biggs blamed a politically correct culture focused on “equity” rather than quality in hiring Secret Service agents.

“Cheatle has put a focus on DEI,” said Biggs. Cheatle announced she aimed to assure that 30% of Secret Service agents are female by 2030. In 2021, more women than men graduated from the service’s training classes. “This is all about DEI,” said Biggs. He charged Cheatle with laying aside “merit-based hirings” and becoming “willing to take anybody that she thinks” meets “her diversity goals.”

“That’s not the way their mission is designed,” said Biggs. “The DEI hires are so bad.”

Several female Secret Service agents appeared unable to cover Trump’s head on Saturday evening, or even to holster their pistols safely.

Miller said, due to the director’s laser-like focus on DEI — which the Biden-Harris administration has made a whole-of-government undertaking — members of preferred classes “are not being evaluated” thoroughly before being hired. “They’re actually saying, ‘Oh, well, you’re this particular group, so come on in.’ And I think that will compromise the mission.”

“There are a lot of problems and challenges,” said Miller. “And it starts with saying, ‘We’re not going to hire the brightest and the best. We’re only going to hire’” members of specified demographic groups.

These groups tend to vote overwhelmingly for the Democratic Party.

The Biden administration doubled down on its decision to elevate accidents of birth in the hiring process. “Our strength comes from our diversity,” stated Secret Service Chief of Communications Anthony Guglielmi.

The Biden administration has strongly supported Cheatle, who spent 27 years in the Secret Service, including several years on then-Vice President Biden’s security detail, insisting her leadership is not to blame. “I have 100% confidence in the director of the United States Secret Service, a dedicated, career-long law enforcement officer,” DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told NPR.

But Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-La.) said he posed probing questions to Mayorkas “within hours” of the shooting. “He didn’t have a lot of those answers,” said Johnson, who called the impeached secretary’s responses “concerning.”

President Trump’s security team transformed dramatically between his shooting and the moment he entered the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. On Monday evening, Trump strode into the Fiserv Forum to the strains of Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA,” flanked by at least 10 male Secret Service agents and one female.

Critics say the Biden administration has a history of treating the American people as enemies, unworthy of knowing the inner workings of their own government. “This is coming from the same administration who was labeling Catholics as terrorists, people who go to school board meetings as terrorists, yet they fail to protect a former president of the United States and a political opponent. We’ve seen this administration target political opponents before,” said Cloud.

A Senate committee is set to receive a briefing on Wednesday. “It’ll be just the tip of the iceberg,” Senator Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) told “Mornings with Maria” Wednesday morning.

Next Monday’s House Oversight Committee hearing will be livestreamed on the committee’s website, oversight.house.gov.

Biggs acknowledged the heroism and how “the first agent hops up on that podium right away [and] doesn’t look towards where the shot came from. He’s going in to provide cover,” he recounted, even at the potential cost of his life. Comer also saluted “the brave Secret Service members who put their lives at risk to protect President Trump and for the American patriots in the audience who helped innocent victims.”

“There was good, bad, and ugly in this incident with Donald Trump,” said Biggs.

But the bad and the ugly leave disturbing questions House Republicans promise to investigate until the end.

“What we saw play out on Saturday night is the greatest indicator that we have a problem that we are refusing to look in the eye and deal with,” said Miller, “and that’s going to lead to nothing but danger and destruction down the road.”

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.

Congress Inches Closer To Unshackling American Nuclear Energy

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The Senate sent one of the most significant pro-nuclear energy bills in recent history to President Joe Biden’s desk this week, but the bill alone is unlikely to spur a nuclear renaissance in the U.S.

The ADVANCE Act passed the Senate on Tuesday by a strong 88-2 bipartisan vote to the applause of pro-nuclear organizations who described the bill as a major step forward for America’s energy future. The bill is a first step toward freeing up a nuclear industry that has long been shackled, but it does not address some impediments the industry faces, according to nuclear energy experts.

The bill is designed to bring down the costs of nuclear licensing, create new opportunities for old industrial sites to eventually be converted to host reactors and give the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) more staffers and resources to execute their mission, according to the office of Republican West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, a key architect of the bill. The bill is a welcomed development for the nuclear industry, which has struggled to expand for decades despite growing momentum — especially on the environmental left — to decarbonize the U.S. power system and wider economy.

“This bipartisan legislative package ensures the U.S. maintains its leadership on the global stage and helps meet our climate and national energy security goals,” Maria Korsnick, president and chief executive officer at the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), said of the bill. “The passage of the ADVANCE Act allows us to bolster U.S. international competitiveness at this crucial junction, accelerate the domestic deployments of innovative advanced nuclear technologies, and modernize the oversight and licensing of the operating fleet of reactors.”

However, the bill is not a total victory for those hoping to see a speedy expansion of the technology’s footprint, as issues like the NRC’s general attitude of risk aversion and a lack of robust financial protection against cost overruns are not addressed directly by the legislation.

“The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has made recent progress to become more efficient while maintaining its focus on safety, but there is more work to be done,” Korsnick added. “The bill will support efforts to further modernize the NRC as it prepares to review an ever-increasing number of applications for subsequent license renewals, power uprates and next generation nuclear deployments.”

John Starkey, the director of public policy for the American Nuclear Society, told the DCNF that the bill is a “step in the right direction,” but probably will not be enough to singlehandedly usher in a nuclear renaissance.

“ANS applauds the long awaited passage of the ADVANCE Act. This bill provides common sense direction to enable the accelerated deployment of advanced nuclear reactors needed to meet the world’s clean energy goals,” Starkey told the DCNF. “The bill alone won’t open any floodgates, but it’s a necessary step in the right direction due to added workforce and the streamlined approach the NRC can take when regulating advanced reactors.”

While the NRC is set to get a boost from the new bill should it be signed into law, the institution is thought by some energy experts — including Dan Kish, a senior fellow at the Institute for Energy Research — to be too conservative and risk-averse in its approach to regulating the industry. Kish believes that the NRC has created a “regulatory morass” out of risk aversion over time that holds nuclear power back by significantly driving up costs, as he previously told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

As of August 2023, there were 54 operational nuclear power plants and 93 commercial reactors in America, which together provide approximately 19% of America’s power, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). The average nuclear reactor is about 42 years old, while licensing rules limit their lifespans to an upper limit ranging from 40 to 80 years, according to EIA.

Nuclear power capacity grew rapidly between roughly 1967 and 1997, but it has generally stayed flat since then, according to the EIA. Only a handful of new nuclear reactors have come online in the past twenty years, but nuclear generally remains a more reliable low-carbon source of power than solar and wind, an important consideration when taking stock of the Biden administration’s goals to decarbonize the U.S. power sector by 2035 and the overall economy by 2050.

Grid watchers have warned consistently that the nation’s grid may not be able to sustain considerable growth in electricity demand amid simultaneous retirement of reliable fossil fuel-fired generation and its replacement with intermittent solar and wind, for example. Hence, nuclear power may hold the keys to recognizing the decarbonized future Biden and his appointees are pursuing with aggressive regulation and spending.

To that end, the Biden administration evidently recognizes the promise of nuclear power, and is making a big push to advance it.

The Biden administration signed onto a pledge at last year’s United Nations climate summit to triple nuclear energy capacity by 2050, and has also extended “billions and billions and billions” of dollars to spur a nuclear revival in the U.S., as Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said at a nuclear energy conference in June. On Monday, Granholm’s Department of Energy (DOE) announced $900 million in funding to advance deployment of next-generation small modular reactors.

Two of the most recent nuclear reactors to come online are Unit 3 and Unit 4 at the Alvin W. Vogtle Electric Generating Plant, a nuclear power plant located in Georgia. Those reactors finally came online after years of delays and billions of dollars of cost overruns, demonstrating the challenges that the complex nature of nuclear engineering and construction can pose.

Tim Echols, a commissioner on the Georgia Public Service Commission, also praised the bill, but he raised different issues than other energy sector experts who focused more on the role of the NRC. Echols was involved in getting the Vogtle projects over the finish line in his capacity as a commissioner for the entity regulating the state’s utilities.

“What I am most encouraged about with ADVANCE is the bipartisan support for nuclear. For too long, only Republican-run states have been interested in new nuclear — and those times seem to be coming to an end,” Echols told the DCNF. “While ADVANCE doesn’t have the federal financial backstop I have been asking for, which would protect against overruns caused by bankruptcies, it still is very positive. “Speeding up licensing will allow the technology to be deployed sooner — assuming you have states stepping forward with the courage to build new nuclear.”

The backstop that Echols describes would be some sort of federal bankruptcy protection, which would incentivize policymakers and developers to move forward with new projects because “building new nuclear power is still incredibly risky,” and  utility commissioners across America may hesitate to do so without some protection against what we went through in Georgia.”

“Clearly, ADVANCE, and the recent White House efforts on behalf of nuclear energy represent a push to accelerate new nuclear deployment in the United States that we haven’t seen since I was a boy,” Echols told the DCNF.

The DOE did not respond immediately to a request for comment, and the NRC declined to comment because the legislation has yet to be signed into law.

AUTHOR

NICK POPE

Contributor.

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

Harvard Prevents Encampment Ringleaders from Graduating after U.S. House Investigation

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The Harvard Corporation prevented 12 seniors from graduating Thursday for their involvement with the illegal protest encampment in support of the terrorist organization Hamas. The decision is a rare instance of campus anti-Semitic activists facing real consequences for their lawbreaking. It only came after significant congressional involvement.

To inflict these real consequences, the Harvard Corporation, which governs the school, made the decision to override their own faculty, in favor of preserving the integrity of “Harvard College’s disciplinary processes,” the university newspaper noted. At a regular meeting of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, which is usually poorly attended, 115 Harvard faculty turned out to overwhelmingly vote in favor of shielding the anti-Israel protestors from all consequences, and allow the seniors to graduate anyways.

That vote came only three days after the Harvard College Administrative Board had placed 28 students on suspension or academic probation for their involvement with the disruptive pro-terror encampment.

In deciding to overrule the faculty vote, the Harvard Corporation explained that the faculty had simply ignored the Student Handbook, which requires students to be in good standing in order to graduate. “Today, we have voted to confer 1,539 degrees to Harvard College students in good standing,” wrote the corporation. “Because the students included as the result of Monday’s amendment are not in good standing, we cannot responsibly vote to award them degrees at this time.”

While granting that faculty have the right to determine appropriate disciplinary measures for students, Harvard Corporation argued that they didn’t do that. “We respect each faculty’s responsibility to determine appropriate discipline for its students,” they said. “Monday’s faculty vote did not, however, revisit these disciplinary rulings, did not purport to engage in the individualized assessment of each case that would ordinarily be required to do so, and, most importantly, did not claim to restore the students to good standing.”

In other words, the faculty did not argue that the students had not done anything worthy of discipline or that sufficient discipline had already been implemented. They simply declared that the protestors should be immune from the consequences of their actions because it was all for Palestine. It was a political power play.

Acquiescing to this power play would inject more injustice into Harvard’s disciplinary process, protested the corporation. They considered “the inequity of exempting a particular group of students who are not in good standing from established rules, while other seniors with similar status for matters unrelated to Monday’s faculty amendment would be unable to graduate.”

The Harvard Corporation seems to be taking a much harder line against the illegal excesses of pro-Hamas protestors than it did several months ago. This is the same governing board that issued a statement defending Harvard ex-President Claudine Gay before her sudden resignation in early January. Gay faced criticism for refusing before Congress to condemn calls for a genocide of Jews and for widespread plagiarism among her published academic portfolio.

More recently, Harvard executives continued to signal toleration for the anti-Semitic protest. Gay’s replacement, interim Harvard President Alan M. Garber, agreed on May 14 to reinstate suspended protestors and reevaluate the universities investments in exchange for them dismantling their encampment. Harvard University subsequently reinstated over 22 students.

However, the Harvard Corporation seems to have done an about-face after the U.S. House Education and Workforce Committee released a report on Friday, which revealed the university had failed to implement the recommendations of its anti-Semitic task force.

House Republicans have held Harvard’s feet to the fire ever since Gay’s disgraceful December testimony, and apparently Harvard got tired of the scathing media attention. It’s relatively easy to defend the indefensible (failing to protect Jews or enforce campus rules) when no one asks any questions. But holding a giant spotlight over the misbehavior quickly makes it awkward for those tasked with defending it. In this case, it took just under a semester for the Harvard Corporation to decide they had had enough.

The Harvard Corporation can now expect to face “a faculty rebellion,” predicted (or promised?) Government Professor Steven Levitsky. An anti-Semitic campus activist group, Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine (whose name implies the Jews don’t deserve a state), also suggested the encampment might return, saying, “If Harvard won’t live up to their promises, we see no reason to live up to ours.”

The Harvard Corporation previously caved to pro-terror activists because it was afraid of the power of students and faculty. Its new willingness to brave their wrath suggests that it is now more afraid of the power of Congress to keep the spotlight on them if they continue to cave. Even if House Republicans can’t pass conservative legislation through a Democrat-controlled Senate or White House, their investigative power can still have an effect on the behavior of places like Harvard.

AUTHOR

Joshua Arnold

Joshua Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand.

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

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

Does the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act ‘Criminalize the Gospel’?

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With the heated anti-Semitism protests booming on college campuses, lawmakers, school authorities, and even average citizens are wrestling with how to deal with the chaos, hatred, and slander of Jewish people and the Jewish state. Law enforcement has made their fair share of arrests as pro-Hamas protestors violate policies and incite violence. Many have voiced something must be done to reign in the anti-Jew hostility, and last week the House of Representatives responded by passing the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act (AAA).

The bill’s definition of “anti-Semitism” is not new, but one of the examples it includes is drawing greater scrutiny. Back in May 2016, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), a coalition of all of the largest Jewish organizations (conservative and liberal), agreed on a working definition of anti-Semitism that has since been widely adopted, including by the U.S. State Department in 2016 and by the Trump administration (by executive order) in 2019. The definition states, “Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities,” and includes concrete examples (which both the Trump executive order and the current bill included).

While most of the examples have drawn little commentary, there’s one that this time around has sparked concern and controversy, even though it was included in the 2019 Trump executive order: “Using the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism (e.g., claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterize Israel or Israelis.” The words within the parenthesis are drawing all of the attention.

The second phrase in the parentheses, “blood libel,” is not. Blood libel is defined as the “accusation that Jewish people used the blood of Christians in religious rituals,” and this is a form of anti-Semitism widely acknowledged. But the first part has stirred immense tension, causing many to interpret it as a hinderance to the gospel, which teaches that Jesus was hung on a cross by some hateful Jewish leaders. However, what experts want to point out, including the lead sponsor of AAA, is that this section of the legislation has been heavily misinterpreted.

On Thursday’s episode of “Washington Watch,” Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.), the sponsor of the legislation, discussed with Family Research Council President Tony Perkins the details of AAA in order to clear the air of what the law is really saying. But before addressing the controversy, the congressman took the time to explain why the legislation matters, and the importance of getting it right.

Considering the anti-Semitism on college campuses, Lawler said, “[T]hese protests are so overwhelmingly anti-Semitic and need to be rooted out at every turn.” He emphasized how out-of-hand they have become, and how they’re “not a function of free speech,” they’re “not a function of … protesting against decisions made by the Israeli government or the United States government. That’s constitutionally protected. This is anti-Semitic hate at its worst.” As such, sharper definitions are needed to crack down.

Perkins re-emphasized how “the main thrust” of the Act “is to adopt a standardized definition of anti-Semitism, which actually takes a definition that’s already in existence.” But “there’s been some opposition raised about this,” he added, specifically when it comes to that one example. As Perkins explained, some are concerned it “would criminalize the gospel.” But according to Lawler, that’s simply not true.

“I’m a practicing Catholic,” Lawler stated. “[B]orn and raised. [I] go to church. I believe very deeply in the gospel and in Jesus Christ.” And so, when people suggest that the claim of “Jews killing Jesus” is somehow a symbol of anti-Semitism, it’s crucial to understand the context of that kind of statement. Lawler insisted, “[N]obody is saying that the Bible should be criminalized. Nobody is saying that anybody who believes in the context of the Bible is somehow wrong.” What it is saying, he continued, “is if you are trying to use something for the purpose of attacking an entire group of people and trying to associate them with some action that someone else may have taken for the purpose of discriminating against them, then that can be considered anti-Semitic.”

Ultimately, “[I]n no way is anybody objecting to or trying to target Christians with this bill. This is about putting in place protections on college campuses for Jewish students.” And, as he went on to highlight, the legislation specifically states individuals have a right to “criticize the State of Israel as you would any other government.” He insisted, “We want robust public debate. People should be free to voice their opinions, their objections to decisions made by the government. Nobody is disputing that.” What the legislation has in mind is the violent protests that have emerged. “[T]he moment those protests turned violent,” Lawler asserted, is the moment “you lose that right” to protest.

Perkins agreed that clear definitions are necessary. Currently, “it’s like silly putty. It’s stretched to accomplish whatever someone wants [it] to do.” Perkins also emphasized that the legislation addressed constitutional protections, stating, “Nothing in this act shall be construed to diminish or infringe upon any right protected under the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.” As such, Perkins said, “[R]eligious freedom is not affected by this.”

Lawler also noted that this bill, which passed in the House Wednesday, has “broad bipartisan support.” As he said, “You saw 320 members of Congress vote for this bill. None of us would put forth something that would curtail free speech and First Amendment rights or violate someone’s constitutional freedoms. … [W]e’re trying to provide … a clear path forward on how to deal with these instances of anti-Semitism.”

In comment to The Washington Stand, Quena Gonzalez, senior director of FRC’s Government Affairs, took the time to detail why the misinterpretation of AAA is vital to rectify. While there still may be parts of the legislation some disagree with, Gonzalez carefully addressed the main controversy at hand:

“The example in question only applies to ‘using … claims of Jews killing Jesus … to characterize Israel or Israelis.’ No biblical Christian preaches that Israelis or the Israeli state is responsible for Christ’s death. All of Jesus’s first followers were, in fact, Jews. To be subject to the Education Department ‘reviewing, investigating, or deciding whether there has been a violation of … the Civil Rights Act,’ a covered entity would have to blame Israel or Israelis for Christ’s death, which no orthodox Christian entity does (or really can).

“The language of this bill has applied to all federal agencies since 2019. It was issued as an executive order by President Trump and retained by President Biden. No one objected then, and for the past four and a half years no one has been harassed for preaching the gospel as a result. But as we can see on the news, the Biden Department of Education is not enforcing this long-standing policy, so Congress is acting to enforce it by making it statute.”

AUTHOR

Sarah Holliday

Sarah Holliday is a reporter 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.

The Bible Does Not Justify Anti-Semitism

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A bill (H.R. 6090) to make the Department of Education adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism “is unnecessarily raising concerns” about its effect on the gospel message, said Quena Gonzalez, senior director of government affairs at Family Research Council. The IHRA definition includes “contemporary examples,” he told The Washington Stand, among which is “using … claims of Jews killing Jesus … to characterize Israel or Israelis.”

But “no biblical Christian characterizes Israelis or modern Israel, just because they’re Jewish, as having killed Jesus,” Gonzalez responded. “Christians have long denounced this trope, going back to the church fathers of the first few centuries, and Christians today need not be concerned that this bill implicates proclaiming the gospel.”

The New Testament is clear that ethnic Jews and ethnic Gentiles both stand condemned before God as sinners and can only be saved through faith in Jesus Christ. The same God “gives to all mankind life and breath and everything,” and “he made from one man every nation of mankind” (Acts 17:25-26). Yet both Jews and Gentiles have broken God’s law, so “both Jews and Greeks are under sin,” Paul declared (Romans 3:9). “But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law … the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift …” (Romans 3:21-24). Now “there is neither Jew nor Greek … for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28).

As to who killed Jesus, the Bible’s most comprehensive answer holds Jews and Gentiles equally responsible — although God was ultimately responsible. As the apostles prayed, “in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place” (Acts 4:27-28). In fulfillment of prophecy (Acts 4:25-26, Psalm 2:1-2), God so orchestrated the circumstances that representatives of all mankind — both Jews and Gentiles, the people and their leaders — participated in Jesus’s death, giving no one group reason to boast against another.

God’s sovereign involvement does not nullify human responsibility, but it does add to the significance of Jesus’s death. Jesus died in this way so that he might be the Savior of the whole world. “The gospel is, that I killed Jesus by my sin,” said Gonzalez. “The gospel (literally, the ‘good news’) is that God the Father sent His Son to die for my sins; God killed Jesus.” In fact, three times Jesus said that he laid down his own life as a sacrifice for his people (John 10:11, 15, 17).

Regrettably, some people — even some Christians throughout history—have lifted biblical texts out of context in an attempt to justify anti-Semitism. In the earliest recorded Christian sermons, preached several months after Jesus’s death in Jerusalem, Jews who believed in Jesus as the Messiah rightly declared to a Jerusalem audience that they had played a role in causing Jesus’s death:

  • “This Jesus … you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men … this Jesus whom you crucified” (Acts 2:23, 36).
  • “Jesus, whom you delivered over and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he had decided to release him. But you denied the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, and you killed the Author of life …. To this we are witnesses” (Acts 3:13-15).
  • “Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified” (Acts 4:10).
  • “Your fathers … killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the Righteous One, whom you have now betrayed and murdered” (Acts 7:52).

This accusation only applied to those present in Jerusalem at Jesus’s crucifixion. When the Jewish apostle Paul preached to Jews living in modern-day Turkey, he did not accuse them of Jesus’s death but “those who live in Jerusalem and their rulers” who “asked Pilate to have him executed” (Acts 13:27-29). He warned these Jews not to imitate those who did not believe in their Messiah.

None of these passages condones anti-Semitism. In each instance, the Jewish preacher aims to convict his hearers of sin so that they might turn to the Messiah and repent. Thus:

  • “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself” (Acts 2:38-39).
  • “Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus,” whom God sent “to you first, to bless you by turning every one of you from your wickedness” (Acts 3:19-20, 26).
  • After “being examined today concerning a good deed done to a crippled man,” who was enabled to walk and leap by Jesus’s power, Peter declared, “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:9-12).
  • As some men (including Paul, prior to his conversion) stoned Stephen to death for proclaiming the gospel of Jesus, he prayed, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them” (Acts 7:60).

If God intended to judge the Jewish people for having Jesus killed, then why did he offer them salvation, healing, forgiveness, and blessing? Those who twist these texts into a warrant for anti-Semitism presume to inflict a greater judgment than God, the Judge of all.

In fact, these same passages even show God’s sovereign agency behind Jesus’s death:

  • “This Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God … know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ” (Acts 2:23, 36).
  • “The God of our fathers glorified his servant Jesus … whom God raised from the dead. … What God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ would suffer, he thus fulfilled” (Acts 3:13,15, 18).
  • “Jesus Christ of Nazareth … whom God raised from the dead … this Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone” (Acts 4:10-11, paraphrasing Psalm 118:22).
  • “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God” (Acts 7:56).

Thus it was prophesied, “it was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand” (Isaiah 53:10).

Furthermore, those who would abuse biblical texts to justify anti-Semitism must overlook the New Testament’s multiple positive references to Jews. Paul expressed “great sorrow and unceasing anguish” over their unbelief (Romans 9:2). Jews not only received “the oracles of God” (Romans 3:2), but “to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises. To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen” (Romans 9:4-5).

Paul further testified that God has always preserved a believing remnant among the Jewish people (Romans 11:1-5). “A partial hardening has come upon Israel,” he admitted, but only “until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And in this way all Israel will be saved. … For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable” (Romans 11:25-26, 29). Paul’s concern — and God’s concern — is that the Jewish people might believe in the Lord Jesus Christ to magnify God’s mercy (Romans 11:32). Anyone concerned with inflicting punishments on or discrimination against the Jewish people is not aligned with God.

To summarize: Jesus willingly laid down his life according to the eternal plan of God, and both Jews and Gentiles, the leaders and the people, were equally complicit in his death. The Bible does not hold Jews especially responsible for Jesus’s death, nor does it hold them especially accursed for their complicity. It certainly does not implicate the modern state of Israel and modern Israelis, who were not there, any more than it implicates modern Gentiles, who were not there. But it does hold out future hope that Jews will come to believe in Jesus.

The IHRA definition of anti-Semitism “does not criminalize the gospel,” insisted Family Research Council Vice President of Policy and Government Affairs Travis Weber on “Washington Watch.” Even in the one example causing confusion, the anti-Semitism “has to be attached to the state of Israel,” he added, and that’s not what Bible-believing Christians do. So, “for Bible-preaching churches that are preaching the gospel, this is not an issue,” Family Research Council President Tony Perkins said.

AUTHOR

Joshua Arnold

Joshua Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand.

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

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

Israeli PM Netanyahu to address Congress for record 4th time amid Hamas war and attacks on American Jews

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Israel is fighting a war for it’s survival against Iran and it’s proxies. All while enduring a vicious propaganda assault from the radical Left. There is no one who is more qualified to speak on behalf of Israel and the Jewish people than Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. And there is no better platform than a joint session of the United States Congress.

The question is how many Democrats will boycott Netanyahu’s speech?

Schumer plans to join Johnson in inviting Netanyahu to address Congress

By Washington Examiner, May 2nd, 2024

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) gave his clearest indication yet that he will invite Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to deliver a joint address before Congress.

He intends to sign on to an invitation Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) drafted around a month ago, Schumer’s office confirmed to the Washington Examiner.

“The timing is being worked out,” the spokesperson said.

The statement, which follows Johnson’s acknowledgment of the draft invitation to the Hill, is only an incremental step toward the gesture and not altogether surprising. Schumer previously indicated his openness. But the development comes amid a period of intense bitterness between Washington Democrats and Netanyahu, who has defied the White House with his casualty-heavy war in Gaza.

In March, Schumer, the highest-ranking Jewish elected official in the United States, said Netanyahu had become an obstacle to peace and called for new elections in Israel…..

Continue reading.

AUTHOR

Geller Report Staff

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

‘Blank Checks and Slush Funds’: House Passes $95 Billion Foreign Aid Package for Ukraine, Israel

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Members of Congress chanted “Ukraine!” and waved a sea of rippling, blue-and-gold flags across the House floor, as the House of Representatives approved a massive $95 billion foreign aid package that benefits Ukraine, Taiwan, and both sides of the Israel-Hamas war.

The aid package contained approximately $61 billion in additional funding for Ukraine’s war against Russia, which supporters say will pay for the military’s next year of efforts. The bill also contains $26 billion for Israel, $9 billion of which is constituted as “humanitarian aid” for the Gaza Strip. The Awdah Palestinian TV, owned by the Fatah Party, accused Gaza’s Hamas-controlled government of stealing and absconding with food and other vital supplies intended for its citizens “to their own homes.” The package also contains $8 billion for the “Indo-Pacific” region, primarily Taiwan.

The bill passed the House on Saturday by a 311-112 vote. While Democrats voted unanimously in favor of the bill, a majority of Republicans opposed additional aid (112-101). One congressman, Rep. Daniel Meuser (R-Pa.), voted present. The Democrat-controlled Senate is expected to pass the bill on Tuesday.

Raucous congressmen began chanting, “Ukraine! Ukraine!” and waving foreign flags in the lower chamber of the U.S. people’s House immediately upon the bill’s passage, putting off critics of continued aid. “Too much Ukraine. Not enough USA,” remarked Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah).

The only member of the House born in Ukraine, Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-Ind.), voted against sending more aid to her homeland, saying she would only vote to forward additional aid if it came with tighter oversight and provisions to secure the U.S. border. This aid package continues the Biden administration’s policy of “blank checks and slush funds,” Spartz declared on the House floor. “Unfortunately, this strategy has failed the American people. Biden has failed the American people.”

“If we don’t have proper oversight, we are not going to achieve our goals,” said Spartz earlier this month. “We cannot have these never-ending wars.”

House Republicans hoped to at least secure additional border enforcement from the aid package, but the measure failed to get the necessary two-thirds supermajority to be included in this bill.

House Democrats deemed the measure unnecessary. “Some say, ‘Well, we have to deal with our border first.’ The Ukrainian-Russian border is our border,” declared Rep. Gerald Connolly (D-Va.).

Ultimately, insiders familiar with the process say, the Ukrainian aid package “would not have passed without Donald Trump.” Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told “Fox News Sunday” that “President Trump has created a loan component to this package that gives us leverage down the road.”

The legislation allows the U.S. to ask Ukraine to repay $10 billion in aid. But Ukraine is not expected to pay back U.S. taxpayers.

Controversially, the bill gives the president the ability to absolve Ukraine of half of that remaining $10 billion debt after the next presidential election but before the next president takes office.

“The ‘loan’ for Ukraine is all smoke and mirrors,” Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) posted on the social media platform X. “It allows the president to cancel up to 50% of funds owed after November 15, 2024, and all remaining funds owed after January 1, 2026. No bank would allow this.” Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) dismissed the loan as “a joke.”

The deepening fissure within Republican ranks had been signaled during a procedural, rules vote on Friday. “What was significant about it is that the Democrats actually joined Republicans in voting in favor of the bill,” reporter Victoria Marshall told “Washington Watch” guest host Joseph Backholm shortly after that tally.

That bipartisan support may have cost Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-La.) vital support among his own House caucus, as Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), and Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) doubled down on their threat to vacate the chair, terminating Speaker Johnson’s short and embattled tenure in office. Observers say that could result in a unified Democratic caucus overpowering a fractured Republican bloc to hand far-Left Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) the speaker’s gavel — and its attendant powers to move, or block, legislation.

“One of the things that’ll be interesting to track is how this plays in the Republican caucus that Speaker Johnson continues to try to hold together,” said Backholm on Friday. This weekend’s vote holds “lots of political ramifications for him personally and certainly for the caucus, as they head into November.”

Alongside the aid package, Congress passed the REPO Act, which allows the Biden administration to freeze, seize, and redistribute an estimated $6 billion in Russian assets, sending the proceeds to Ukraine. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has already promised “retaliatory actions and legal proceedings” if Washington follows through with its threat.

An ebullient Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told “Meet the Press” the fresh injection of U.S. taxpayer funds gives his nation “a chance for victory” over Russia. Likewise, CIA Director William Burns insisted the additional resources were aimed at “puncturing Putin’s arrogant view that time is on his side” during a speech at the Bush Center Forum on Leadership in Dallas on Thursday.

But military experts say Ukraine’s defeat is inevitable.

“This aid does not enable Ukraine to win the battle,” Fred Fleitz, a former CIA analyst now with the America First Policy Institute, told Newsmax TV on Monday morning. “It simply keeps Ukraine in the fight.”

“The best option, which Zelensky and Biden won’t talk about, is to end the war — to start a ceasefire and a process to end the killing,” said Fleitz. “Because Ukraine will eventually lose this war of attrition.”

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

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

RELATED ARTICLE: Rep. Anna Paulina Luna Scolds Dems Waving Ukrainian Flags After Vote – ‘Put Those Damn Flags Away!’ 

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.

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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