Tag Archives: abortion

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Daily Broadside | Donald Trump Isn’t A Hardline Pro-Life Candidate, But I’ll Still Vote for Him

On Monday president-in-exile Donald J. Trump posted a video in which he affirmed IVF (in vitro fertilization) but declined to endorse a federal abortion ban. Instead, he said that the issue should be left to the states.

Many pro-life conservatives were severely disappointed by his announcement, especially since he had said he would sign a federal ban on abortion during his previous administration.

As a 2016 presidential candidate, Trump embraced a federal abortion ban as he sought to consolidate Republican support for his unexpected ascension to GOP nominee. He sent a letter to anti-abortion leaders committing to signing legislation that would have criminalized abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, with exceptions for instances in which the life of the mother is at risk or cases involving rape or incest.

President of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, Marjorie Dannenfelser, issued a statement typical of the pro-life response.

“We are deeply disappointed in President Trump’s position. Unborn children and their mothers deserve national protections and national advocacy from the brutality of the abortion industry. The Dobbs decision clearly allows both states and Congress to act.

“Saying the issue is ‘back to the states’ cedes the national debate to the Democrats who are working relentlessly to enact legislation mandating abortion throughout all nine months of pregnancy. If successful, they will wipe out states’ rights.

A bit stronger was the statement from LiveAction, the pro-life advocacy organization founded and led by Lila Rose.

Killing babies is always wrong. President Trump is not a pro-life candidate. He’s far less pro-abortion than Biden, but he supports killing some preborn children and will even make that his position in an attempt to get pro-abortion votes. 

President Trump also says that abortion should come down to the “will of the people.” It is not right for democratic societies to vote on the fundamental rights of unpopular minorities. There is no more unpopular minority today than preborn Americans. Abortion is not about the “will of the people,” it’s about respecting the human right that we are endowed with by our creator. Our rights come from God, not the government. Those rights do not change because of the circumstances of our conception. Children conceived in rape do not deserve to be killed. Children conceived in IVF do not deserve to be killed, frozen indefinitely or subjected to lethal science experiments.

President Trump’s position also stands in opposition to the GOP platform, which has for decades advanced the idea that the federal government has a vigorous role in protecting children from abortion.

[…]

That position represents the views of the vast majority of Republican voters and supporters of former President Trump. It is tragic that President Trump is abandoning this long-held Republican position. President Trump’s new position is not leadership; it’s a stab in the back against his supporters. With a leader like this, the GOP has little hope of making meaningful progress to protect preborn children. President Trump’s mistake will also make it more challenging for the pro-life movement to win statewide referendums. 

Human life begins at fertilization, and this is the true pro-life position. Human life deserves protection from the moment life begins. 

Personally, I am in full agreement with the position on abortion in both statements. Human beings should not be executed in the womb because they’re inconvenient or for any other reason.

But I’m also sympathetic to the political realities facing Trump. In order to get a federal ban or even some federal restriction on abortion, we have to win the presidency, along with the House and Senate. To win office, Trump has to attract as many voters as he possibly can (without totally selling out). If the margin is too small, the Democrats will cheat again and win. (They’ll cheat no matter what.)

I particularly liked the tone set by Tony Perkins, president of the pro-life Family Research Council, in his response (read the whole thing).

Trump is not a perfect candidate. Ironically, he’s the closest “choice” we have to a pro-life president. Let’s not forget his nominations of Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett, who sent Roe to the ash heap of history. He deserves our thanks for that.

Would I like a hardline pro-life candidate to vote for? Yes. Do I have one on the ballot come November? It’s not looking like it.

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Daily Broadside | Will Silent Prayer Become a Thought Crime Here?

Because our politics is so out of control, I spend a lot of time beating on politicians, particularly progressives. There’s never enough time to examine all of the lies, hypocrisy and general foolishness of the Left. Every time I turn around there’s another story that illustrates their complete disconnect with reality.

But there’s also stories from the world of faith, and I don’t spend enough time examining what they reveal about us. Here is this story from back in December, when a British woman was arrested for praying outside of an abortion clinic.

Mind you, she wasn’t praying out loud, or pacing, or leading others in a prayer. She wasn’t chanting, holding signs, or making the sign of the cross.

She was standing, by herself, in silence.

A pro-life woman was arrested earlier this month for silently praying outside an abortion clinic in Birmingham, U.K. on the grounds that she had breached a speech buffer zone established by the local city council.

Police told Isabel Vaughan-Spruce that she would be taken into custody for violating a Public Space Protection Order. Video footage of the arrest was captured by AllThingsProLife and circulated by Alliance Defending Freedom, which is hosting a fundraiser for Vaughan-Spruce’s legal defense.

When officers asked whether she was part of a protest, she replied “no.” They then asked if she was praying, to which she said she could be doing so “in my head.” Police then searched her, and patted down her hair, before handcuffing her and escorting her to the station.

This is totalitarian-level harassment. You can watch her arrest here:

Vaughan-Spruce issued a statement through Alliance Defending Freedom UK.

“It’s abhorrently wrong that I was searched, arrested, interrogated by police and charged simply for praying in the privacy of my own mind. Censorship zones purport to ban harassment, which is already illegal. Nobody should ever be subject to harassment. But what I did was the furthest thing from harmful – I was exercising my freedom of thought, my freedom of religion, inside the privacy of my own mind. Nobody should be criminalised for thinking and for praying, in a public space in the UK,” said Isabel Vaughan-Spruce, following her arrest for silent prayer.   

This is literally arresting someone for a thought-crime. Note that the only indication the police had that she was praying was that “she could be doing so ‘in my head.'” Nothing was heard. Yet she was arrested for praying silently.

I know that we don’t see this in the United States. Not yet. But who would’ve thought that such oppression would be tolerated in the UK?

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Daily Broadside | It’s My First Post of 2023 …

… and yesterday was New Year’s Day (Observed) at my office, so I had another day off. I hope your Christmas and New Year’s celebrations were wonderful and meaningful and full of warmth and pleasant memories …

… because it might be a new year but it’s the same-old same-old in the world of politics and culture and faith. Just because everything is “merry and bright” doesn’t mean we begin with a completely clean slate once the calendar turns a new page. Well, unless you’re in Christ, then “his compassions never fail. They are new every morning” (Lamentations 3:22-23) and, by extension, every year.

We’ll have to learn how to live in a country that is not just fraying at the edges, but is tearing down the middle. The FBI is still the Gestapo we learned about over the last six years; the Democrats are still the political mafia they exposed themselves to be; the GOP is not the opposition party but part of the swamp (with a few notable exceptions); our economy is being destroyed by the Church of Perpetual Climate Fear as war is waged on our abundance of natural gas and oil resources for some fantasy of “carbon-neutral” energy (go back to nuclear energy!); the border is still porous and getting worse because we live under a lawless regime whose sole purpose is to destroy the United States as founded; the judiciary has become a court of rubber stamps that enable progressive lawlessness; our elections are no longer free or fair, but hopelessly suspect; the DOJ and Brandon himself have demonized patriotic Americans and keeps hundreds of them locked up in violation of their due process rights; and normal Americans should be gathering by the millions to protest and agitate against all of it but such behavior is only allowed on the Left and prosecuted against the Right.

My political awakening came a couple of decades ago and I’ve invested more time in speaking out against the lawlessness than I ever have over the last three years. I sometimes see myself as a guy running up and down the brow of a rocky island jutting up out of the sea, waving a red flag, setting off flares, and yelling at an approaching luxury cruise ship, trying to get the attention of anyone on board, warning them that they’re about to run aground and sink the boat. Unfortunately, even though I’ve gotten the attention of a few people on the promenade deck, the captain and crew don’t seem to notice or care.

It’s dawning on me that there is no solution that will immediately fix the dire circumstances we find ourselves in. What I didn’t want to grant, but what has become most apparent, is that our freedoms and homogenous cultural assumptions can no longer be taken for granted. Speech is being curtailed by political and technological ideologues; deeply evil people lie and conspire to get the political outcomes they want. The spirit of our Founders once held us together as a nation, along with deeply religious communities of faith. Those have now been relegated to specialized institutions like the Heritage Foundation or Hillsdale College or to the church or the synagogue or the mosque. You’re certainly not going to find them in the halls of congress or our schools, which regularly and naturally reinforced our national values.

The Lord foils the plans of the nations;
    he thwarts the purposes of the peoples.
But the plans of the Lord stand firm forever,
    the purposes of his heart through all generations.

Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord,
    the people he chose for his inheritance.
From heaven the Lord looks down
    and sees all mankind;
from his dwelling place he watches
    all who live on earth—
he who forms the hearts of all,
    who considers everything they do.

Psalm 33:10-15

Nothing escapes the Lord’s notice. He’s aware of all that is taking place in our country’s capitol, in each of the legislatures in each state, of every person in a position of authority. He’s aware of the lies, the cheating, the oppression, the hatred, the incitement conflict among the people, of the favoritism and the graft and the greed.

His purpose among the nations will prevail because his plans “stand firm forever.” How I wish that we would be known as a “nation whose God is the Lord.” But those in power disingenuously say they fear a “theocracy,” even though a return to the Judeo-Christian principles that this nation was founded on would be the right thing.

They reject them at the cost of their own destruction. They are blind fools and, one day, they will shrink in horror and shame as the full weight of their foolishness bores down on them.

In the meantime, Christians should be doing three things: actively opposing the evil being done in this nation, preparing for persecution, and winning as many to Christ as they can, while they can.

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Daily Broadside | Two Imperfect Self-Proclaimed Christians Battle for Georgia Senate Seat

Daily Verse | Matthew 5:37
“Simply let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.”

Wednesday’s Reading: Matthew 8-11

We’re already to the first hump day of October.

Somehow I got Herschel Walker’s autograph when he was a member of University of Georgia football team and eventually won the Heisman trophy as a junior in 1982. I was hoping to find it and post a picture of it, but the photo below will have to do. He went on to play for 12 seasons in the NFL after playing for three in the now-defunct USFL.

Now he’s the Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in Georgia, opposing incumbent Democrat “Reverend” Raphael Warnock. I place Warnock’s titular title in scare quotes because he’s a “pro-choice pastor.”

I can’t tell you whether Warnock is “saved” or not. His relationship with God is between him and God, but I can’t see how he can logically hold that position with what scripture teaches about the value that God places on human life. Hence the scare quotes.

Herschel Walker, on the other hand, claims he is a pro-life candidate who opposes abortion with no exceptions. He’s a first time political candidate and a friend of Donald J. Trump, who encouraged him to run. He also claims to be a Christian, but I can’t vouch for his faith any more than I can Warnock’s.

Walker is virtually in a dead heat with Warnock, which is important because a “Walker victory in Georgia is crucial to Republicans’ chances of retaking the Senate majority.” Earlier the Washington Examiner reported that “the race between Walker and Warnock remains too close to predict, with polls alternating back and forth between which candidate is leading the other. The recent polling that shows Walker (47%) leading Warnock (44%) is a reversal from the 3-point lead Warnock held over his Republican challenger in July.”

But, because it’s October, SURPRISE!

The uber-leftist The Daily Beast reported that an anonymous woman alleges that Walker paid for her to have an abortion when they were dating back in 2009.

‘Pro-Life’ Herschel Walker Paid for Girlfriend’s Abortion

… A woman who asked not to be identified out of privacy concerns told The Daily Beast that after she and Walker conceived a child while they were dating in 2009 he urged her to get an abortion. The woman said she had the procedure and that Walker reimbursed her for it.

She supported these claims with a $575 receipt from the abortion clinic, a “get well” card from Walker, and a bank deposit receipt that included an image of a signed $700 personal check from Walker.

The woman said there was a $125 difference because she “ball-parked” the cost of an abortion after Googling the procedure and added on expenses such as travel and recovery costs.

Amazing that this story is just breaking now. Why didn’t the woman come forward earlier?

Asked if Walker ever expressed regret for the decision, the woman said Walker never had. Asked why she came forward, the woman pointed to Walker’s hardline anti-abortion position.

“I just can’t with the hypocrisy anymore,” she said. “We all deserve better.”

The ‘hypocrisy’ is so overwhelming that I’m willing to anonymously accuse a pro-life candidate who happens to be threatening the Democrats’ control of the US Senate.

Walker immediately denied the claim as an “outright lie” and threatened to sue The Daily Beast for defamation.

Look, I don’t know if what the woman alleges is true or not. I also don’t know just how a “Sen. Herschel Walker (R-GA)” would behave in the US Senate. But one thing I know is that we are in an existential fight for the survival of this country, which is being overrun by true fascists and moral deadbeats.

With that in mind, I honestly don’t give a flying political rip whether or not Walker did what he’s accused of doing 13 years ago. Yeah, if he did it, it was immoral and that sucks, but it’s irrelevant. I’m concerned about now.

The Democrats are the political equivalent of the mob or a drug cartel. I don’t trust them as far as I can throw them. Any complaints or accusations against Walker and anyone who supports him falls on my deaf ears. They have no standing with me to complain about corruption or hypocrisy or any other matter of moral judgment.

If I had to choose between a divorced ‘pastor’ who supports broad access to abortion with no limitations and was accused of deliberately hurting his ex during a domestic dispute, or a divorced former athlete who opposes abortion with no exceptions and also claims to be a Christian but hasn’t lived up to that billing either—I’ll go with the guy who opposes abortion every time.

Unfortunately, I won’t be voting in Georgia’s midterms. But spare me the faux indignation coming from the Left.

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Daily Broadside | Biblically Illiterate Politician Loves His Neighbor by Killing Her Baby

Daily Verse | Obadiah 15
“The day of the Lord is near
    for all nations.
As you have done, it will be done to you;
    your deeds will return upon your own head.”

Wednesday’s Reading: Jonah 1-4

Well, it’s Wednesday and hump day. Hang in there if it’s a tough week—Friday’s coming.

It continues to surprise me how often national political leaders employ scripture in support of their agenda. On the one hand, I believe scripture ought to factor into policy decisions that affect the welfare of our citizens. On the other hand, scripture in the hands of the Left seems to be pressed into service for unholy purposes.

Newsom Quotes Jesus to Advertise Abortion in Pro-Life States

California Governor Gavin Newsom on Thursday cited the words of Jesus from Mark 12:31 in support of abortion, “Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no greater commandment than these.” The billboard campaign advertises California abortion in seven pro-life states — Indiana, Mississippi, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Texas.

The advertisements are paid for by Newsom’s reelection campaign, and Newsom tweeted the ads at the respective governors of those states from his personal account, presumably because he understands that the campaign is nothing but a political gimmick unworthy to be funded by California’s overburdened taxpayers.

If Newsom was aiming to cause a reaction, he succeeded. While the billboard campaign itself is unremarkable political grandstanding, invoking the words of Jesus to defend abortion provokes a refutation. Newsom understands that most of abortion’s fiercest critics are Christians. So he chooses to promote abortion in the words of the very same Son of God who “Morning Joe” Scarborough insisted on September 9 “never once mentioned” abortion.

My reaction to the Joe Scarborough misuse of scripture is here. In that commentary, I lay out the value that the Bible—and Jesus himself—place on children.

Children are a heritage from the Lord,
    offspring a reward from him.
Like arrows in the hands of a warrior
    are children born in one’s youth.
— Psalm 127:3-4

As the author of the linked article says, Newsom’s use of scripture isn’t any better than Scarborough’s. He’s taking Jesus’ words to mean that giving a pregnant woman an abortion is “loving your neighbor.”

But is it?

It all hinges on whether the life in the womb is a child or not. Women’s rights advocates, Planned Parenthood administrators, abortion doctors and progressive Democrats will swear it isn’t a child. It is a “mass” or a “clump of cells” or, maybe, among the most extreme of those who support abortion, they will admit it’s a baby but insist the mother has the right to terminate its life.

On the other hand, pro-life advocates will insist that the life growing in the mother’s womb is, indeed, a human being. From a Christian’s point of view, there’s no question that the fetus is a person from the point of conception, made in the image of God and worthy of protection. Even an obscure verse from the book of Job (3:3) confirms it:

“May the day of my birth perish,
    and the night that said, ‘A boy is conceived!’”

If the fetus is a human being, then it is absolutely wrong to kill it. The sixth of ten commandments says, “Thou shalt not commit murder,” which is the intentional taking of an innocent life.

You can’t get more innocent than a baby in utero.

Circling back to the use of Mark 12:31, then, Newsom is infusing the verse with an incorrect application. Yes, we are to love our neighbor, but not while violating another commandment.

What his use of the scripture amounts to is a cynical swipe at Christians, twisting one scripture verse taken out of context to mock their concerns for the unborn.

Without being alarmist, Newsom might want to reconsider how he’s using the Bible. Elsewhere it says,

Woe to those who call evil good
    and good evil,
who put darkness for light
    and light for darkness,
who put bitter for sweet
    and sweet for bitter.
— Isaiah 5:20

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Daily Broadside | Talking Head Blasts Pro-Life Christians with Poor Reasoning From the Bible

Daily Verse | Daniel 12:2
“Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt.”

Wednesday’s Reading: Hosea 1-7

Wednesday and I think of this blog as daily commentary on politics, culture and the Christian faith. I see those three fields as directly interrelated. Politics is downstream from culture, and culture is downstream from faith. The politics we’re experiencing are a result of the culture we live in, and the culture we live in is shaped by the amount of biblically-accurate faith that exists in the culture.

According to research conducted a year ago by Dr. George Barna, 176 million Americans claim to be Christian (69% of the population), but only 9% of them possess a biblical worldview. In other words, nearly three-quarters of us identify as “Christian” but only about one in ten of us actually live life according to that biblical identity.

What that means is that we end up with proclamations like the one that Joe Scarborough recently offered up during MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”

Scarborough lauded [Republican South Carolina state Sen. Katrina] Shealy’s speech and then accused pro-life Christians of “heresy” and suggested that Jesus doesn’t necessarily oppose abortion because the Bible doesn’t record him having said the word.

“As a Southern Baptist, I grew up reading the Bible — maybe a backslidden Baptist, but I still know the Bible. Jesus never once talked about abortion, never once! And it was happening back in ancient times, it was happening during, in his time!” Scarborough said angrily. “Never once mentioned it, and for people perverting the gospel of Jesus Christ down to one issue, it’s heresy.”

Backslidden Joe Scarborough is correct in his assertions about two things: abortion was a common practice in biblical times, and Jesus did not, in fact, address abortion in scripture. But knowing those two facts does not lead necessarily to his conclusion, which is that “there are people who are using Jesus as a shield to make 10-year-old raped girls go through a living and breathing hell here on Earth.”

I would put Scarborough among the 176 million Americans who claim to be “Christian” but don’t have a biblical worldview. His rant is not meant to be a strong biblical argument, but an emotional appeal to win support for his ideological position. The 9 percent of Christians with a biblical worldview are constantly hammered with arguments like these and need to be able to answer them with biblical reasoning and logic.

The most obvious flaw in his argument is the logical fallacy of arguing from silence. He’s saying that because Jesus never addressed abortion, it’s un-Christian to make such a singular issue out of it—”heresy,” as he labels it.

The problem with his argument is that we don’t know that Jesus never addressed abortion. Not everything Jesus said and did is recorded in scripture (John 21:25). Jesus is not recorded as addressing slavery, sex trafficking, drug use, systemic racism or transgenderism. What can we conclude about his views on those issues?

Nothing. We don’t know because scripture is silent on what Jesus thought.

Scarborough, though, is declaring what Jesus believed about abortion by what he didn’t say. But silence does not mean approval nor, to be fair, does it mean disapproval.

Essentially, the argument from silence is attempting to prove something in the absence of evidence. What would help, then, is evidence. And when it comes to children and their value to Jesus, we have plenty.

First, Jesus himself experienced the process of conception to birth, arriving incarnate as a child rather than a fully formed adult.

Second, Luke 1:41-44 records an in utero interaction with his cousin, John the Baptist, who “leaped for joy” over his proximity to Jesus while he was still in the womb. That indicates awareness, emotion and agency, which are all aspects of personhood.

Third, Jesus honored the Jewish scriptures as authoritative during his life. We can safely assume that he would affirm the declaration of David in Psalm 139:13-16.

For you created my inmost being;
    you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
    your works are wonderful,
    I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
    when I was made in the secret place,
    when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed body;
    all the days ordained for me were written in your book
    before one of them came to be.

And, finally, Jesus scolded his disciples who tried to prevent children from being brought to him (Mark 10:13-16).

People were bringing little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them, but the disciples rebuked them. When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” And he took the children in his arms, placed his hands on them and blessed them.

Jesus was indignant with his disciples’ treatment of the little kids. I can imagine him saying, “Whoa, whoa! What are you guys doing?” He was offended by their presumption.

Even though Joe Scarborough is correct that Jesus never mentioned abortion in scripture, he’s wrong in concluding that therefore it’s wrong for Christians to make such a big deal about it. It’s clear from the rest of the Bible that children are created by God and that Jesus found them worthy of blessing.

That’s why we fight the scourge of abortion.

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Daily Broadside | Fox-Tailed Witch Doctor Is a Key Democrat Witness on Abortion

Daily Verse | Isaiah 17:12
Oh, the raging of many nations—
    they rage like the raging sea!
Oh, the uproar of the peoples—
    they roar like the roaring of great waters!

Thursday’s Reading: Isaiah 21-23

Thursday and the so-called “Biden administration” is no longer a clown show but a freak show.

Democrats brought a woman who appears to be a member of a witch coven that engages in furry play as a key witness in a Dobbs hearing on Tuesday. The Oversight & Investigations subcommittee held a hearing on the impacts of the reversal of Roe v. Wade and “taking away the Constitutional right to an abortion.” The subcommittee heard testimony from various individuals on why abortion is “absolutely necessary.”

Democrats were allowed four witnesses and one of their totally sane choices was Paulina Guerrero.

When Paulina isn’t working as a National Program Manager at an abortion clinic, she spends her free time making YouTube videos conducting witch spells and engaging in furry play.

See for yourself.

Not only do they have this woman-child testifying about abortion, but Guerrero never said the word “woman” in her testimony. Instead, she used woke terms like “pregnant people.” Again, you can see for yourself in the video below (queued at 49:20).

I know you’re wondering what Ms. Guerrero is a “doctor” of, are you not?

In 2018 she graduated with a PhD in Folklore where she studied personal narrative, maritime communities, and gendered and racialized work traditions.

This is typical Democrat fare: devoid of substance but great optics. Like AOC pretending to be handcuffed when arrested for blocking traffic outside the SCOTUS. Here, it’s “Oooh! There’s a DOCTOR testifying before Congress. She must know what she’s talking about when she speaks out about abortion and how harmful it is to babies pregnant people who may or may not have a uterus!”

I don’t know about you, but this embarrasses me. The outside world must look at the United States and wonder, “What the hell has happened to you?”

Hey, I’m right there with them. We’ve descended into some kind of bizarre hell world where anything like “normal” is being run over by the fetishes of the Democrats and their progressive followers.

That may be why nearly one-third of voters believe they may have to take up arms against the United States government.

On July 24, the Hill reported the pollsters found that “twenty-eight percent of all voters, including 37 percent of gun owners, agreed ‘it may be necessary at some point soon for citizens to take up arms against the government.’”

When responses were broken down by party affiliation, the poll showed 33 percent of Republican voters and 35 percent of Independent voters believe it may be necessary to take up arms.

One in every five Democrat voters believe they may have to take up arms as well.

I hate to say, “told you so,” but I’ve been warning about this happening for years and I know some of you still don’t believe me. It’s inevitable because pretty soon you run out of ways to restrict the government’s power and influence over the people.

Too many people still think this is just a cultural spasm we’re experiencing, and it will soon pass.

Like a kidney stone.

The poll shows that nearly half of American voters–49 percent–agree with the statement that they “more and more feel like a stranger in my own country.”

I am willing to bet that half includes both progressives and conservatives. I can tell you that both halves of the country look at the other half and think, “you’re screwing up my country!”

There’s no negotiating with the other half, either. Conservatives have given about all they can on social issues, and the agitation against them persists—even from their own “side,” as I wrote recently.

How we get back to something close to what used to be “normal,” I don’t know. It will likely involve a lot of conflict, unrest, pain, loss and, unfortunately, probably bloodshed.

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Daily Broadside | Oh Noes! AOC And Illy Omar Are Arrested And (Not) Taken Away in Handcuffs!

Daily Verse | Ecclesiastes 4:4
And I saw that all labor and all achievement spring from man’s envy of his neighbor.

Wednesday’s Reading: Ecclesiastes 7-12

It’s Wednesday and if you’ve been reading my posts long enough you’ll know that I believe that the Democrats lie as naturally as breathing. Of them it could be said, like Jesus said of the devil, “When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44).

I know that sounds uncharitable, but I’ve long documented the lies that Democrats and progressives tell, so don’t shush me by complaining that not all Democrats lie or that some conservatives and Republicans lie. Yes, they do. But that doesn’t change the fact that the Democrats and their progressive shock troops lie like a rug.

Trump is a Russian agent! If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor! Those border agents whipped those migrants! We only have <insert preferred number> years to save the planet!

And on and on it goes.

The latest example is of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar being arrested for blocking traffic outside the Supreme Court while protesting the recent Roe v. Wade decision. It’s not a lie that they were arrested, but it is a lie that either one of them were handcuffed.

But they posed as if they were handcuffed while being arrested.

Nobody walks like she was walking with their hands behind their back if they aren’t handcuffed. It’s unnatural. Yet notice that at the end of the clip she raises her fist to acknowledge the crowd and then puts it right back where it was behind her.

Then there’s Ilhan Omar who apparently arrested herself.

Omar gets up from where she was sitting and, without a police escort, she walks herself away with her hands behind her back in imaginary cuffs.

Note that, just like AOC, she also raises her fist (just as the clip ends).

AOC and Omar lied about being handcuffed.

Why? For the photo op, of course. And the legacy media gives them exactly what they want. Notice the text of the tweet above: “under arrest and in handcuffs.”

No, they weren’t.

But that doesn’t stop the MSM from complying. Note the images below.

It sure LOOKS like they’re in handcuffs. How stunning! How brave!

The media—that independent, free press that is supposed to keep the government in check—supports them in their deceit. They don’t call them out for their acting. They’re in cahoots with the Dems.

These two women are lying, giving the false impression that they are in handcuffs, when in fact neither of them are. But this is stock-in-trade for Democrats. It’s all smoke and mirrors, deception and misdirection, a stunt, a little drama. They are agitators and for them, the ends justifies the means.

Just like the rest of their miserable tribe.

This is a perfect example of why nobody trusts the media, and why nobody should trust the Democrats.

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Daily Broadside | The Weaponization of the Federal Government Continues Apace

Daily Verse | Proverbs 14:34
Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people.

Thursday’s Reading: Proverbs 18-21

Thursday and, if you’ve been paying attention (and even if you weren’t), the Supreme Court sent Roe v. Wade to the dustbin of history last month with a 6-3 majority (although Roberts only concurred with the case in question, Dobbs, not with overturning Roe). Of course, there was the much anticipated reaction from the Left, which had been hyperventilating with murderous threats since the draft opinion was leaked in May, with one near-assassination attempt on Justice Kavanaugh. As the Left likes to spout about every issue it supports, “people are gonna die!” And they almost delivered.

Roe was overturned on solid constitutional grounds because it was originally established on faulty reasoning and unconstitutional grounds. In other words, Roe was judicial malpractice, with the court overstepping its authority and usurping the role of the State legislatures. Even the notorious RGB agreed that Roe was bad law. Remember, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” In other words, the federal government has only the powers delegated to it in the U.S. Constitution. If a power isn’t listed, that “power” belongs to the states or to the people.

The legality of abortion — killing an unwanted child all the way up to the moment of birth in some cases — was rightly returned to the States for adjudication.

A number of States have banned (or will shortly ban) abortion, while many others have codified abortion. Some, like New York and Vermont, want to make abortion access a constitutional right so that it can’t be rescinded with new legislatures. While I am adamantly opposed to abortion, this is how it should be: each State working out through their legislatures how they will handle baby-killing.

So, with all being right in the world, why does this press release give me the chills?

The Justice Department announced today the establishment of the Reproductive Rights Task Force. The Task Force formalizes an existing working group and efforts by the Department over the last several months to identify ways to protect access to reproductive health care in anticipation of the possibility of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. 

Oh.

Let me get this straight. SCOTUS corrects an egregious (not to say illegal) wrong and the United States Department of Justice — justice which is supposed to act only according to the law without respect to education, rank, wealth, sex, skin color or opinion — is not only choosing sides, but aligning itself against SCOTUS?

“As Attorney General Garland has said, the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision is a devastating blow to reproductive freedom in the United States,” said Associate Attorney General Gupta. “The Court abandoned 50 years of precedent and took away the constitutional right to abortion, preventing women all over the country from being able to make critical decisions about our bodies, our health, and our futures. The Justice Department is committed to protecting access to reproductive services.”

As is usual with Leftists, they constantly lie, and especially so in our ruling class. SCOTUS did not “take away a constitutional right to abortion” because there never was a constitutional right to abortion to begin with. That so-called “right” was made up by unelected men in black who “concocted an elaborate set of rules, with different restrictions for each trimester of pregnancy, but [they] did not explain how this veritable code could be teased out of anything in the Constitution, the history of abortion laws, prior precedent, or any other cited source.”

Also note the euphemism, “reproductive services.” If you’re fighting for abortion, you’re not fighting for “reproduction.” You’re fighting to keep from reproducing which, let’s face it, is pretty simple: keep your zippers zipped.

But that won’t stop the DOJ and former SCOTUS nominee Merrick Garland from bringing the weight of the federal government to bear on the States and, in effect, on We the People.

Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta will chair the Task Force, which will consist of representatives from the Department’s Civil Division, Civil Rights Division, U.S. Attorney community, Office of the Solicitor General, Office for Access to Justice, Office of Legal Counsel, Office of Legal Policy, Office of Legislative Affairs, Office of the Associate Attorney General, Office of the Deputy Attorney General and Office of the Attorney General and will be supported by dedicated staff.

Hey, Fat, what’s with all the “offices”?

Those many “offices” who are banding together to intimidate those who oppose abortion are being paid for by your taxes. This is a perfect example of the federal leviathan that, once created, keeps growing and consuming more resources, more office space, more overhead and, most of all, more tax dollars. Like Audrey II in Little Shop of Horrors.

Guess who else the DOJ is “partnering” with.

The Justice Department is working with external stakeholders such as reproductive services providers, advocates and state attorneys general. The Task Force will continue this important effort. It will also work with the Office of Counsel to the President to convene a meeting of private pro bono attorneys, bar associations and public interest organizations in order to encourage lawyers to represent and assist patients, providers and third parties lawfully seeking reproductive health services throughout the country.

Can you imagine the DOJ, or any agency of the United States government for that matter, advocating on behalf of crisis pregnancy centers if the situation had somehow been reversed and it was pro-life advocates who had lost a “right”?

Yeh, me neither.

The DOJ is pulling together a juggernaut of baby-killer advocates to fight for an imaginary “right” to murder your offspring instead of upholding the law of the land which is now being determined by the States. In Garland’s own statement, he says that, “The Justice Department will use every tool at our disposal to protect reproductive freedom.”

It sounds like he’s serious.

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Daily Broadside | Back in the Saddle Edition

Daily Verse | Proverbs 8:13
To fear the Lord is to hate evil.

Tuesday’s Reading: Proverbs 10-13

Happy Tuesday and welcome back, me!

My family and I had a good two-week vacation to the east coast where we spent time in the sun and surf off of South Carolina. The more time we spend there the more we think we’d like to live there someday.

Someday. But not today.

My thanks to Bruce Gust for his engaging and upbeat writing on A Biblical Approach to Politics. I’m blessed to have him as a long-time friend and brother in Christ who comes at life in much the same way I do. I’m hoping you found his thinking and insight as helpful to you as I did.

So, did anything happen while I was out?

LOL JK.

Bruce mentioned one of the main developments in the opening to his blog post yesterday that happened right after I left: the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade and sending the matter of abortion back to the states.

I won’t rehash the news here except to note that it’s particularly mesmerizing to watch the progressive leviathan writhe in agony when political or cultural decisions don’t go their way, thrashing in the extremes and then, once the cameras are off, standing up and going back to what they do best: criticizing and destroying anything good and noble out of their hatred for anything we’d consider normal.

Are women really going to “die” if a State prohibits abortion? Nope. Pregnancy is not a disease and abortion is never necessary to save the life of a mother. Are States that prohibit abortion “forcing” women to carry their pregnancy to term? Nope. The body does that. Pregnancy is a naturally-occurring process that, based on the current world population, has happened at least 8 billion times. Killing a baby in utero is unnatural and used to be considered an appalling crime against humanity.

Let’s just call abortion what it is: after-the-fact contraception.

Let’s also call Roe v. Wade what it was: a wrongly decided, unconstitutional court case wielding nothing but “raw judicial power” that invented a right — and the law to support it — out of whole cloth. Or, as Samuel Alito put it, writing for the majority:

Not only was there no support for such a constitutional right until shortly before Roe, but abortion had long been a crime in every single State. At common law, abortion was criminal in at least some stages of pregnancy and was regarded as unlawful and could have very serious consequences at all stages. American law followed the common law until a wave of statutory restrictions in the 1800s expanded criminal liability for abortions. By the time of the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, three-quarters of the States had made abortion a crime at any stage of pregnancy, and the remaining States would soon follow …

Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences. And far from bringing about a national settlement of the abortion issue, Roe and Casey have enflamed debate and deepened division. It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives …

Roe found that the Constitution implicitly conferred a right to obtain an abortion, but it failed to ground its decision in text, history, or precedent. It relied on an erroneous historical narrative; it devoted great attention to and presumably relied on matters that have no bearing on the meaning of the Constitution; it disregarded the fundamental difference between the precedents on which it relied and the question before the Court; it concocted an elaborate set of rules, with different restrictions for each trimester of pregnancy, but it did not explain how this veritable code could be teased out of anything in the Constitution, the history of abortion laws, prior precedent, or any other cited source; and its most important rule (that States cannot protect fetal life prior to ‘viability’) was never raised by any Opinion of the Court party and has never been plausibly explained.

A lot of people kept up the fight against abortion for these last 50 years. I remember my youth pastor going to protest at abortion clinics back in the 80s. Those who fought the monstrosity called “abortion” for decades deserve the greatest share of the credit for Roe’s demise.

But there’s another person who deserves great credit, and that is president-in-exile Trump. No matter what you think of him — and opinions vary widely on both sides of the aisle — he said he’d put originalists on the court, and he did. Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett were all appointed by Trump, and all three were key to overturning Roe v. Wade.

Who would have thought it? A big-city billionaire who turned out to be the most pro-life president in history. And his legacy, should he come to the end of his life having served only one term, will live on in the lives of millions who are born as a result of this historic decision made possible by his appointments.