A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Donald Trump.
President Joe Biden remained silent over the weekend as pro-abortion rioters threatened churches and terrorized Supreme Court justices in effort to intimidate members of the high bench over a potential reversal of Roe v. Wade. Law enforcement officials in New York and Pittsburg beefed up weekend security for churches after a shady radical pro-abortion group, Ruth Sent Us, called on supporters to picket religious institutions, especially Catholic ones. In Boulder, Colo., a Catholic church was vandalized with pro-abortion graffiti Tuesday night, although it’s unclear who’s responsible for the damage.
“Whether you’re a ‘Catholic for Choice,’ ex-Catholic, of other or no faith, recognize that six extremist Catholics set out to overturn Roe,” the group tweeted Tuesday ahead of the holiday weekend. “Stand at or in a local Catholic Church Sun May 8. #WarOnWomen #MothersDayStrike.”
The same group rallied its supporters to protest at the six right-leaning Supreme Court justices’ homes. Those are the justices most likely to concur with a majority opinion overturning the landmark decision in Roe that forced states to allow abortion access until the moment of birth.
“Our 6-3 extremist Supreme Court routinely issues rulings that hurt women, racial minorities, LGBTQ+ and immigrant rights. We must rise up to force accountability using a diversity of tactics,” reads the group’s website, including a link to the justices’ suspected addresses. Stipends were offered to artists who joined their crusade of judicial intimidation, which is explicitly prohibited under federal law as obstruction of justice.
Proponents of abortion picketed at the justices’ homes anyway. Five justices were named on a majority draft opinion from February leaked on Monday last week overturning the 1973 case as ruling precedent. Chief Justice John Roberts, who was appointed by President George W. Bush, remained undecided at the time the opinion was written. Members may have changed their minds since the ruling was authored by Justice Samuel Alito and may still change until the final draft is published by the court this summer. That’s one goal of the violent pressure tactics: to overturn the rule of American law and allow a tiny minority to control the nation.
On Thursday, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki endorsed the activists’ intimidation tactics. The radical protestors’ website giving the alleged addresses of Supreme Court justices has since been taken down by Google.
“The president’s view is that there’s a lot of passion, a lot of fear, a lot of sadness from many, many people across this country about what they saw in that leaked document,” Psaki said when challenged on the administration’s silence Thursday, refusing to condemn the already transpiring political violence. “We obviously want people’s privacy to be respected. We want people to protest peacefully if they want to protest. That is certainly what the president’s view would be.”
Biden’s sideways endorsement marks a stark contrast from President Donald Trump’s reaction when he demanded supporters go home when they flooded the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Within moments of Congress dispersing to a protected bunker, Trump demanded those on the Capitol who breached the complex before he finished his White House speech to leave the grounds in a video address suppressed by censors on Twitter.
President Biden’s complicity with protestors going after Supreme Court justices and their families at private residences is not out of character for the 79-year-old. He branded himself as Mr. Civility while writing off half the country as white supremacist on his Inauguration Day and prophesied death for the unvaccinated before Christmas.
On Wednesday, Biden vilified pro-life activists as deplorable beyond extremist, violent groups such as Antifa and the Ku Klux Klan.
“This MAGA crowd is really the most extreme political organization that’s existed in American history, in recent American history,” Biden said.
Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com.
Pro-abortion activists marched to the residences of Supreme Court Justices John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh on Saturday night. The protests right outside of the homes of the Supreme Court justices were backlash to a leaked draft decision that indicates that the U.S. Supreme Court could potentially overturn the controversial Roe v. Wade decision. Roughly 100 pro-abortion activists gathered outside the homes of the Supreme Court justices in Chevy Chase, Maryland. The flyer for the demonstration called for “reproductive freedom.”
In videos posted to social media, protesters are heard chanting, “Keep abortion safe and legal,” “You don’t care if people die,” “The whole world is watching,” “We will not go back,” and “My body, my choice.”
The protesters drew hangers outside the homes of the Supreme Court justices. The pro-abortion activists held up signs that read, “F*** your God” and “Abortion is healthcare.”
Douglas Blair – a news producer at the Daily Signal who covered the protests – noted, “The energy is markedly more negative outside Kavanaugh’s house. The anger has become much more palpable than outside any other justices’ house.”
The energy is markedly more negative outside Kavanaugh’s house. The anger has become much more palpable than outside any other justices’ house.
“The time for civility is over, man,” a protester told Bloomberg. “Being polite doesn’t get you anywhere.”
Another protester called the possible overturning of Roe V. Wade “bulls**t,” and said, “You don’t get to take away our bodily autonomy and enjoy your Saturday night at home – you get to do one or the other.”
“This is personal, so we’re going to take it to the personal space,” the activist said. “They did this, not us.”
The @DailySignal spoke with one of the protesters before the march to the justices’ houses. Here’s what she had to say.
Police showed up to disperse the protesters. One police officer appears to be informing the protesters that the demonstration is a violation of 18 U.S. Code § 1507 – Picketing or parading.
18 U.S.C. § 1507 states:
Whoever, with the intent of interfering with, obstructing, or impeding the administration of justice, or with the intent of influencing any judge, juror, witness, or court officer, in the discharge of his duty, pickets or parades in or near a building housing a court of the United States, or in or near a building or residence occupied or used by such judge, juror, witness, or court officer, or with such intent uses any sound-truck or similar device or resorts to any other demonstration in or near any such building or residence, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.
Protestors arguing with cops. They say arrests might start happening soon.
It was not clear if either justice and their family were at the residences during the protests. Kavanaugh has two daughters – both of whom are minors. Roberts has two adopted children.
Last week, White House press secretary Jen Psaki was asked about the planned protests outside the homes of U.S. Supreme Court justices, and she said, “We certainly encourage people to keep it peaceful and not resort to any level of violence.”
The far-left activist organization ShutDown DC has already planned a march at the home of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito.
The evening of Monday, May 9, we will hold a vigil for all these rights that Alito is threatening to take away. Because it’s been impossible to reach him at the Supreme Court (especially now with the enormous fences), we will do it at his home. At 7:30 pm we will gather at a nearby location and walk together to his house. At the foot of his driveway, on the public street, we will light candles and speakers will share their testimony. We will hold a moment of silence for the rights we know are ours, then walk back together to the meeting location.
Ruth Sent Us — another far-left activist group named after late liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg — announced a “Walk-By Wednesday” protest on May 11 “at the homes of the six extremist justices, three in Virginia and three in Maryland.”
Last week, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) floated the idea that the leaked opinion was done so to “intimidate” the justices.
“The next time you hear the far left preaching about how they are fighting to preserve our Republic’s institutions & norms remember how they leaked a Supreme Court opinion in an attempt to intimidate the justices on abortion,” Rubio wrote on Twitter.
On Friday, CNN warned that the leak of the Supreme Court potentially overturning Roe v. Wade could ignite protests by the “far-right.”
“CNN has learned that the U.S. Capitol police are bracing for large demonstrations that are being organized by far-right groups to protest abortion rights,”said CNN guest host Alex Marquardt.
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Donald Trump.
Liberals continued their outrage about Roe v. Wade on Thursday when they railed against Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine for refusing to vote with Democrats to codify abortion rights. Collins was asked by CNN’s Manu Raju if she would join Democrats on the vote, and she said she would not because it would infringe on conscience rights of Catholic churches.
“That right has been enshrined in law for a long time,” said Collins.
Many on the left disagreed and took to social media to assail Collins for her decision.
“Susan Collins wants you to know she supports abortion as long as she doesn’t need to do anything to actually support abortion,”responded Democratic strategist Max Burns.
“Susan Collins can go f*** herself,” read one angry tweet with more than 10k likes.
“I heard the Capitol Police had to assist Susan Collins today because her uterus was desperately trying to get the f*** away from her,”read another angry tweet.
“When Madeline Albright said ‘there is a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women’ – she was talking about Susan Collins,” said another critic.
“Susan Collins is a despicable spineless shell of a former human hollowed out with a fascist slingblade and stuffed with the putrid malignant cells of dead racist nazi misogynistic concerned moralistic f***burgers drinking the runoff of nuclear waste cocktails,” read another tweet with 800 likes.
Officials of the Biden administration are panicking about their inability to stop the Supreme Court from reversing the Roe v. Wade decision according to a report from the Washington Post Thursday. In response to the passions arising because of the leaked decisions, officials have elected to set up a security fence around the Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C.
Here’s more about the Roe v. Wade debate:
Security fencing erected at U.S. Supreme Court ahead of final Roe v. Wade abortion decision www.youtube.com
With all the hatred the Left is displaying, the screaming and name calling, the spewing of hate, riots, threats and more, I thought it would be appropriate to remind everyone what some of God’s Words says about hate.- Jerry Broussard
1 John 4:19-20 We love because God first loved us. Whoever says, “I love God,” but hates his brother is a liar. The one who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love the God whom he has not seen.
1 John 2:8-11 Again, a new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in him and in you: because the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth. He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now. He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him. But he that hateth his brother is in darkness, and walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth, because that darkness hath blinded his eyes.
1 John 1:6 If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth.
1 John 3:14-15 If we love our Christian brothers and sisters, it proves that we have passed from death to life. But a person who has no love is still dead. Anyone who hates another brother or sister is really a murderer at heart. And you know that murderers don’t have eternal life within them.
Leviticus 19:17-18 You must not hate your brother in your heart. You must surely reprove your fellow citizen so that you do not incur sin on account of him. You must not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the children of your people, but you must love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD.
Proverbs 10:12 Hatred stirs up conflict, but love covers over all wrongs.
1 Peter 4:8 And above all things have fervent charity among yourselves: for charity shall cover the multitude of sins.
1 John 4:7 Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.
Proverbs 6:16-19 There are six things the Lord hates— no, seven things he detests: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that kill the innocent, a heart that plots evil, feet that race to do wrong, a false witness who pours out lies, a person who sows discord in a family.
Matthew 5:23-24 So if you are presenting a sacrifice at the altar in the Temple and you suddenly remember that someone has something against you, leave your sacrifice there at the altar. Go and be reconciled to that person. Then come and offer your sacrifice to God.
Hebrews 12:15 Look after each other so that none of you fails to receive the grace of God. Watch out that no poisonous root of bitterness grows up to trouble you, corrupting many.
Ephesians 4:31 Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.
Matthew 10:22 And all nations will hate you because you are my followers. But everyone who endures to the end will be saved.
Matthew 24:9 “Then you will be arrested, persecuted, and killed. You will be hated all over the world because you are my followers.
Galatians 5:20-21 Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
Trump administration officials were preparing to send a quarter of a million troops to the U.S.-Mexico border before former Defense Secretary Mark Esper shot the plan down, Esper said in an interview airing Sunday. Former Trump advisor Stephen Miller was behind the effort to deploy 250,000 troops to the border to mitigate the flow of migrant caravans, Esper said during an interview with CBS’ “60 Minutes” about his upcoming book. Esper said he was ultimately able to kill the plan after getting Gen. Mark Milley involved.
“It’s just so absurd. I can’t even consider it. I mean, again, we don’t even have 250,000 troops to send to the border. And to do what? It’s just ridiculous,” Esper said.
Esper was in the Oval Office waiting for President Trump with Miller when he first heard of the idea, which he said shocked him.
“We’re in a meeting waiting for the president to come out. We’re standing around the resolute desk, and he’s behind me and this voice just starts talking about caravans are coming and we need a quarter million troops,” Esper said.
“And I think he’s joking. And then I turn around and look at him and these dead pan eyes. It’s clear that he is not joking,” he added.
"We had developed a plan, initial concept of how [sending 250,000 troops to the U.S.-Mexico border] might happen. And I was just flabbergasted," former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper tells @NorahODonnell.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was equipped to handle such an occurrence at the border, Esper said, telling Miller at the time that he didn’t even have the requested troops for the effort.
“And so I say something like, ‘well, look, DHS can handle whatever caravans are coming up. They’ve done so in the past. And he says, he repeats, ‘no, we need a quarter million troops.’ And I just turned squarely around to him, face him and say, ‘I don’t have a quarter million troops to send on some ridiculous mission to the border,” he said.
The plan was already in the works at the Pentagon when Esper talked with Milley, Esper said.
“I was just flabbergasted that not only was the idea proposed, but that people, people in my department were working on it,” Esper said.
However, the plan “died” after Esper directed Milley to tell the Pentagon’s Northern Command “to cease and desist.”
“It was dead. And it died, as it should,” Esper said.
Neither the Pentagon nor Miller responded to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
Wet clothes sit along the river where migrants have crossed from Mexico into Del Rio, Texas (Jennie Taer//Daily caller News Foundation)
A nongovernmental organization in a small Texas town is working to keep up with large numbers of migrants in need of their support ahead of Title 42’s end and is hoping they can sustain their efforts. The Val Verde Border Humanitarian Coalition has had to exponentially increase its aid supplies and hopes it can continue to sustain what is already a large number of migrants seeking support after the pandemic health policy ends, the group’s director, Tiffany Burrow, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. Title 42, the Trump-era policy used for expedited expulsions of certain migrants during COVID-19, is set to end May 23, and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is preparing to accommodate 18,000 migrants each day when the order is lifted.
The organization, based out of Del Rio, Texas, is already seeing numbers similar to when it was helping handle the thousands of Haitian migrants who arrived last September, Burrow told the DCNF.
“So, for March, 5,028 [migrants] with 33 countries represented. Before I left, we were at 3,500, which is a pretty significant number for us. When we had the 16,000 underneath the bridge, that month was at 3,549. So, March was huge, and April was a significant month as well,” Burrow said.
Rather than having to obtain “cases “of water and supplies for the migrants, the group is now having to ensure they have “pallets” of supplies to handle the large number of migrants, Burrow said.
The faith-based organization helps facilitate travel for migrants released from Customs and Border Protection (CBP) custody, but doesn’t pay for their transport.
Biden Admin Unveils Plan To Deal With Expected Massive Migrant Surge
The plan includes 6 pillars to address the migrant flows, including CBP having the capability to hold around 18,000 migrants at a time in custody by May 23, when T42 is set to end.https://t.co/XPtGl3pJge
The number is not as high as the average numbers of migrants encountered in March and April, but it’s still enough to “knock … most field operations for several stations” out of commission, Anfinsen said.
“We are just handling it one day at a time, so some days we are able to be in the field, and other days we aren’t,” he added.
Burrow emphasized the element of danger migrants face during their journeys as a result of the cartels in Mexico and the trauma they carry once they get to her.
“There are more really unfortunate cases that are coming through. As long as cartels are involved, I think we are going to continue to see more situations like what we’re seeing right now,” she said.
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Donald Trump.
Pro-life and pro-choice demonstrators gather in front of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., on May 3, 2022. | BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images
At 15 weeks, unborn babies have a heartbeat, can sense pain, respond to physical stimulation, taste, hiccup, move around, and open and close their hands. This is the basis of the Dobbs v. Jackson case that seeks to overturn Roe v. Wade and restrict abortions after 15 weeks.
While many celebrate this provision for life, others are working diligently to implement policies to keep access to abortions readily available. Examples of Uber and Lyft covering legal fees or companies paying travel expenses for employees to get abortions have been discussed. But one rapidly expanding loophole still lurking in the shadows is the newfound access to abortifacient drugs via direct mail that was made possible in 2021 due to telehealth extensions during the Covid-19 lockdowns.
Abortifacient drugs, mifepristone, misoprostol, and levonorgestrel, are currently authorized before a baby reaches ten weeks’ gestation. But the question that has not been answered is how a doctor can verify gestational age without seeing their patient in person or how they can provide care for health complications that may arise from the drugs. The adage, “where there is a will, there is a way,” rings true as this loophole protects the profits for drug companies and doctors from the SCOTUS ruling, enabling them to collect their dues without seeing or treating their patients.
Sadly, we are seeing a significant shift in this direction. According to the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute, 2020 was the first year that more than half (54%) of all abortions performed in the U.S. were done with drugs instead of instruments. This reality is alarming, but perhaps even more disturbing is that almost every pro-life investor is profiting from these abortifacient drugs through companies they hold in their portfolios. Meaning that those who are advocating for life are unknowingly profiting from death. Let that sink in… Grieve over this, but do not despair. There is grace and mercy for our unknowing involvement.
However, healthy conviction and accountability come with learning the truth, and action is needed for every Christian to remove their investments and profits from companies that are manufacturing, distributing, and financially supporting the products that are responsible for ending the lives of tens of millions of unborn children.
So, who are these companies? Meet the Abortion Drug “Dirty Dozen” companies leading the charge in manufacturing and distributing the abortifacient drugs mifepristone, misoprostol, and levonorgestrel.
We cannot allow our influential dollars to remain invested in these companies and profit from their products that end life.
So what can we do?
1. Invest biblically. Screen your investments with Inspire Insight to find out if your 401k and other investments include any company engaging in the abortion industry. If you need help, Inspire Advisors can help give you a free impact report that will compare your current portfolio with a pro-life, biblically aligned equivalent.
2.Make connections. The abortion industry is not only found in your portfolios. It’s also in non-profit endowments, church retirement plans, and seminary scholarship funds. Are you an alum, donor, or have a professional relationship with a Christian university or ministry endowment? Please help us connect with the right people to start the conversation in transitioning them out.
3. Magnify the message. Spread the word to your friends, social media connections, church, and local communities. Too few know and understand the need for our investments to glorify God and align with our values.
4. Pray! Without the Lord, we labor in vain. We need to invoke the King of Kings to go before us, grant us success, and keep us faithful to His cause for His glory!
It is a tragedy and horror that pro-life Christians are invested in the abortion industry. But we do not have to be. If pro-lifers want to see an end to abortion in our time, we need to put our money where our mouth is. We need to hold ourselves and our institutions accountable to keep the dollars we invest and donate out of the abortion industry and close the doors to this loophole.
Robert Netzly is the CEO of Inspire Investing and frequent contributor on The Christian Post, FOX, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, The New York Times and other major media. Read more from Robert in his #1 bestselling book Biblically Responsible Investing, available at Amazon.com and other major retailers.
School librarians from across Texas gathered last week in Fort Worth for an annual convention that featured a pair of men in drag and symposiums about teaching kids to become “anti-racists” and embrace other social justice ideologies. The program for the Texas Library Association (TLA) 2022 four-day conference titled “Recover, Rebalance, Reconnect” featured a lineup that included adult entertainers Justin Johnson — dressed in full drag as “Alyssa Edwards” — and “Jenny Skyy,” aka Joseph Hoselton.
The conference was held last Monday through Thursday.
Johnson, who rose to fame after appearing on the television series “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” was the “After Hours Keynote” speaker last Monday, while Hoselton led “Drag Queen Storytime” to promote “literacy and community collaboration through dynamic storytelling and music.”
Other featured speakers at the conference included author Ibram X. Kendi, best known for his book How To Be Anti-Racist. The event offered workshops on “Building Community Relationships for LGBTQIA+ Patrons” and “diversifying” library collections with themes of “identity, culture, diversity, bias, and social justice.”
Another workshop involving Mesquite Independent School District librarian Rochelle Menendez, titled “Socially Conscious Conversations in the Elementary Library,” sought to “explore the opportunities we can offer in our library to help students become anti-racists, allies, and fluent in the language and ideas of social justice.”
With more than 6,000 members from school and government libraries across Texas, TLA is a charitable nonprofit group promoting libraries in Texas. It was founded in 1902 and made up of librarians and library workers from taxpayer-funded libraries.
The controversial “Drag Queen Storytime” events have made their way around American libraries in recent years, with one event in Philadelphia featuring a performer calling himself “Annie Christ,” a play on the term anti-Christ.
The trend has spread to the United Kingdom, where books about “feminist fairytales and gender fluid novels” are read to “young children.”
Drag Queen Story Hour started in San Francisco, California, in 2015, where it was launched to provide “positive and unabashedly queer role models” for children. It has chapters in 40 states and other countries. Drag Queen Story Hour is even promoted by the United Nations.
Mary Elizabeth Castle with Texas Values, a nonprofit social conservative family watchdog group, says seeing the trend pop up at a librarian’s conference — even in a conservative stronghold like Texas — isn’t that shocking.
“It’s very disappointing to see drag queens perform at the Texas Librarians Association conference, however, it’s not surprising,” Castle told The Christian Post. “We have seen drag queens try to perform at local libraries, school libraries in Austin and in Houston.”
“This has been going on a very long time.”
Like other parents, Castle questioned why the TLA would even book such guests.
“I’m just very disappointed that, at the annual conference for librarians who are in charge of the books that your kids can check out, they would have this type of adult entertainment at their conference,” she said.
The TLA conference also featured several events focused on what they described as “book bans” in response to parent protests in December over plans to offer the 1999 novel The Perks of Being a Wallflower. The novel by American author Stephen Chbosky contains graphic depictions of minors engaged in sexual activity, including an underage sexual assault. Despite protests from parents, the McKinney Independent School District opted to keep the book on library shelves.
In March, the TLA launched Texans for the Right to Read, a grassroots coalition against efforts to ban certain books across the state. In that vein, TLA’s conference offered events such as “Fighting Challenges and Protecting the Right to Read” and “Let’s Play Banned Books Jeopardy & Charades.”
Reports from the conference claim that in 2021, there were over 700 challenges to library and school materials and nearly 1,600 books were challenged or removed.
Castle says new policy guidance put forth by Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath and the Texas Education Agency allows school boards to adopt books to be put into libraries and gives power to parents to bring book titles to the board for a vote on removal.
“I definitely encourage parents to look at that model policy on the Texas Education Agency website and plead their school board to adopt this policy that puts the power back in the parents and the school board to have control over what type of books are in the school libraries,” said Castle.
As reports emerged Tuesday of a leaked Supreme Court draft opinion indicating a potential overturn of the controversial 1973 decision Roe v. Wade, Castle warned of a coming “reckoning in our nation of a lot of harms and ills that a lot of these anti-family and anti-life policies are causing.”
“I have a lot of hope that Roe v. Wade will be overturned this summer, and with that, our society will begin to rethink the body, rethink sexuality, and actually turn to more helpful and wholesome ways of looking at human beings,” she said.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) tore into Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Wednesday, grilling him over the creation of the agency’s “disinformation governance board.”
During a tense exchange at a Senate hearing, Paul asked Mayorkas whether the infamous anti-Trump dossier included “Russian disinformation.” Mayorkas, however, declined to directly answer the question, triggering a heated back-and-forth about the scope of the highly controversial government office.
“Here’s my question: The FBI concludes that the Steele dossier was full of Russian disinformation. CNN propagated this disinformation gladly for years and years,” Paul said. “The difference, I guess, between your opinion and our opinion is that as despicable as it is that CNN propagated this disinformation, I wouldn’t shut them down, I wouldn’t lecture them, I wouldn’t put it on a government website that CNN is wrong for propagating disinformation.”
“The problem you have is you’re not even willing to admit — I mean, we can’t even have an agreement on what the FBI said was disinformation,” Paul added, noting that failing to agree on what is and what is not “disinformation” is a serious issue.
In response, Mayorkas said the board would not be responsible for policing disinformation writ large, but only “when there is a connectivity between disinformation and threats to security of the homeland.”
“Well, the Russians might be considered that. You mentioned the Russians the other day when you tried to pivot away from this being about censorship,” Paul fired back. “Let’s just say … you’ve discovered tomorrow Russian disinformation that is going to hurt our national security, and CNN is broadcasting it, what are you going to do?”
Mayorkas then presented an example of combatting immigration-related disinformation on social media. But what about Russian disinformation? After all, DHS said a key goal of the board is combatting Russian disinformation.
“Here’s the problem: We can’t even agree what disinformation is. You can’t even agree that it was disinformation that the Russians fed information to the Steele dossier,” Paul noted. “If you can’t agree to that, how are we ever going to come to an agreement on what is disinformation so you can police it on social media?”
Mayorkas responded that the board is tasked with ensuring there are “guardrails, definitions, standards” that protect civil rights, privacy, and free speech.
“I think you’ve got no idea what disinformation is,” Paul shot back.
“Do you know who the greatest propagator of disinformation in the history of the world is? The U.S. government.”
“Think of all the debates and disputes we’ve had over the last 50 years in our country. We work them out by debating them. We don’t work them out by having the government being the arbiter. I don’t want guardrails. I want you to have nothing to do with speech,” Paul added.
“You think the American people are so stupid they need you to tell them what the truth is?”
“You can’t even admit what the truth is with the Steele dossier. I don’t trust government to figure out what the truth is,” Paul said.
During the hearing, Mayorkas also admitted that he was unaware that Nina Jankowicz, the executive director of the disinformation board, called the Hunter Biden laptop story Russian disinformation.
WATCH LIVE: DHS Secretary Mayorkas testifies in Senate as end of Title 42 immigration rule nears youtu.be
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Townhall.com, WhatDidYouSay.org.
Source: AP Photo/Andrew Harnik
When the draft Supreme Court opinion overruling “Roe v. Wade” leaked on Monday, my first thought was: WHY COULDN’T THEY WAIT UNTIL NEXT YEAR? (“Roe” is in quotes because Planned Parenthood v. Casey already overruled Roe, but “Roe” is still used to describe the nonexistent right to abortion.)
Yes, it’s human life we’re talking about. Millions of babies are killed in their mothers’ wombs each year — it’s a massacre. On the other hand, I thought, ending late-terms might end the midterms.
But then I read Justice Samuel Alito’s opinion and was intellectually offended all over again by the idea that one of our precious constitutional rights, enshrined in a founding document, is the right to kill an unborn baby. Anyone complaining about the decision should be required to cite the exact parts Alito got wrong. Be specific. And keep in mind, no important discussion of constitutional law has ever begun with the words, “My vagina …”
The Nation magazine’s Elie Mystal took a stab at it by completely misstating Alito’s argument, then saying, “the Founding Fathers were racist, misogynist jerkfaces.” (I was planning on writing a scholarly and nuanced treatise on the framers, but Mystal just stole my title!)
I also noticed that, outside of the media, no one seems especially bothered by the decision. Or to have noticed it. In groups of liberal women, apolitical women, black and Puerto Rican women, no one is talking about the case.
They’re probably right. The end of a court-managed “constitutional” right to abortion isn’t going to produce the Roemageddon Democrats are predicting.
More than half of the country already lives in states where abortion will always be legal, subsidized and sacralized. For those who don’t, Harvard should set up an abortion scholarship program. Instead of spending $100 million “investigating” slavery, the university could buy bus tickets for girls who need to go to another state for an abortion.
The Mississippi law being upheld in this case — contrary to everything I’ve heard on MSNBC — is shockingly reasonable.
It states:
“Except in a medical emergency or in the case of a severe fetal abnormality, a person shall not intentionally or knowingly perform or induce an abortion of an unborn human being if the probable gestational age of the unborn human being has been determined to be greater than fifteen (15) weeks.”
The Mississippi legislature provided a series of factual findings:
at eight weeks gestational age the “unborn human being begins to move in the womb”;
at nine weeks “all basic physiological functions are present”;
at 10 weeks “vital organs begin to function,” and “hair, fingernails, and toenails begin to form”;
at 11 weeks “an unborn human being’s diaphragm is developing,” and he or she “may move about freely in the womb;” and
at 12 weeks the “unborn human being” has “taken on the human form in all relevant respects.”
After 15 weeks, the legislature found, most abortions involve crushing and tearing the fetus apart.
Laws should always err on the side against the decision-maker, and the decision-maker on the length of gestation is going to be the abortionist. (Which is also why “rape” and “incest” exceptions swallow the whole law. By the way, whatever happened to the morning-after pill?)
So we’re really talking about four to five months.
That’s not enough time? Give me a break, you freaks. I don’t think voters are going to say, Ukraine, inflation, the border, crime, transgenders in kindergarten — OH MY GOD, I CAN ONLY GET AN ABORTION FOR FOUR MONTHS???
Some states will surely roll back the right to abortion more than 15 weeks. Oh well. The abortion ladies will have to travel to other states the same way gunners do now to practice their marksmanship, shoppers do to get plastic bags, or breathers do to take off their masks.
With a patchwork of laws, we’ll be able to see which regulations do best at reducing abortion, illegitimacy (which soared in lockstep with the legalization of abortion), venereal diseases, suicides and false claims of rape when women are pressured into having sex, undeterred by the risk of pregnancy. We’ll call it “federalism.”
Watching MSNBC’s reaction also reminded me that everybody hates the feminists. The ladies couldn’t even keep the “#MeToo” movement going. How long did that last? Fifteen minutes? And a lot of the cases were egregious. But a month later, transgenders were canceling J.K. Rowling and women’s sports.
Now they’re hysterically babbling about the court banning contraception, interracial marriages and requiring forced sterilizations. I guess they don’t think their arguments about the abortion ruling are particularly strong, so they have to warn about scary rulings to come.
Finally, President Joe Biden has put Vice President Kamala Harris in charge of the response to this decision. Previously, she was put in charge of the border, and then Ukraine. Any day now, we’ll find out she was in charge of the Challenger space shuttle.
Maybe I’m just in a cheery mood, what with the imminent conclusion to this hideous chapter in U.S history. Who knows? Let’s wait nine months and see.
I have only two absolutely definite predictions flowing from the leak of the abortion opinion:
1) Liberals are about to start claiming that black people not only are incapable of getting IDs to vote, but are also incapable of knowing that they’ve been pregnant for four months. (And then: NIGHTMARE! THEY’LL HAVE TO GET A BUS TO NEW YORK OR CALIFORNIA!)
2) As for the leaker, if the perp turns out to be a conservative who was trying to pressure Chief Justice John Roberts or Justice Neil Gorsuch, he will be ruined for life. If he turns out to be a clerk for one of the liberals, he will get a book contract and a regular spot on MSNBC.
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Donald Trump.
Joe Biden on Tuesday admitted abortion is murder in off-script remarks to reporters. Biden spoke to reporters on the tarmac at Joint Base Andrews Tuesday morning as he was preparing to depart to Alabama to visit a Lockheed Martin facility. Reporters peppered Biden with questions about the Supreme Court’s leaked draft opinion revealing the highest court of the land is set to strike down Roe v Wade.
Biden was a bumbling mess and was unable to make a cogent point. However, in a major flub, Biden accidentally admitted abortion is murder.
“The idea that we’re gonna make a judgment that is going to say that no one can make the judgment to choose to abort a child based on a decision by the Supreme Court I think goes way overboard,” said Biden as his handlers whisked him away.
“Come on guys! Let’s go!” Biden’s handler shouted to reporters as Biden walked away.
A male inmate housed in a women’s facility at New York’s Rikers Island jail has been sentenced to seven years for raping a female prisoner. In an apparent plea deal, Ramel Blount, 33, who goes by Diamond Blount, pleaded guilty to attempted rape. Blount was housed in the female section of Rikers Island in February 2021, when a 33-year-old female inmate said she was raped in a bathroom after taking a shower.
On top of the seven-year sentence announced Monday, Blount must register as a sex offender.
It’s true that Rikers Island is notorious for being unusually violent, and that violence escalated in 2021. But this particular sexual assault may not have happened if facilities that house criminals did so based on biological sex, not the gender with which they criminals presumably identify. A female inmate in Illinois says this exact scenario happened to her in 2020.
For the past few years, jail and prison facilities such as Rikers Island have been under tremendous pressure to bend to a vocal minority and house male prisoners who identify as female with women. In New York in 2020, Steuben County officials agreed to “sweeping changes to its jail and prison policies” after settling a discrimination lawsuit filed by a transgender inmate.
At the time, the ACLU in New York hailed the settlement as one that “establishes one of the strongest jail or prison policies in the country protecting the rights of transgender, gender-nonconforming, nonbinary, and intersex people in custody.”
“The policy addresses housing placement, safety, access to medical care, name and pronouns use, search procedures, and grooming standards,” the ACLU said.
This is happening in California, too. In 2020, Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, signed legislation known as SB 132, which allows male prisoners who identify as female to be transferred, by a simple request, to a facility for women. Now, women are pushing back to preserve their right to safety and privacy.
The Women’s Liberation Front, which seeks to protect the privacy and equality of women, filed a lawsuit in federal court arguing that California’s SB 132 is unconstitutional and creates an unsafe environment for women, for whom these single-sex facilities exist. One plaintiff in the suit says she was sexually assaulted by an inmate who transferred from a men’s facility. Another plaintiff says she was inappropriately “grabbed.”
One of the biggest reasons that so many conservatives oppose the Equality Act before Congress is that it would open the door to this, and similar situations, nationwide. And few laws would be left to protect the most vulnerable. Under the Equality Act, any place that receives federal funds, from schools to prisons, would be forced to banish single-sex spaces or be liable to discrimination charges.
It’s important to make clear: Most trans-identifying individuals aren’t perverts or assailants-in-waiting. But under these policies, bad actors need only to identify as the opposite sex to gain access to private spaces.
In Alaska, a man claiming to be a woman tried to enter a shelter for battered women. When he was refused, he sued the organization for discrimination under a local law governing sexual orientation and gender identity.
Women serving time in prison or jail still deserve to be treated humanely and with respect. They still have a right to privacy and safety. But, intimidated by a vocal minority, local politicians and officials have buckled under new definitions of sex and gender, showing they are more worried about being sued for discrimination by criminals trying to take advantage of women, than being sued for an assault such as rape.
Discrimination policies should not trump safety and privacy, whether in school or prison.
Nicole Russell is a contributor to The Daily Signal. Her work has appeared in The Atlantic, The New York Times, National Review, Politico, The Washington Times, The American Spectator, and Parents Magazine.
Brandon Straka, the founder and director of popular, WalkAway Campaign, was arrested by federal agents following the January 6, 2021 protests and riot. Brandon did NOT go inside the US Capitol, did not participate in ANY violence, did not encourage violence, did not plan any violence, yet the corrupt and politicized federal government charged him with TWO felonies and a misdemeanor. After a year of threats, harassment and abuse, Brandon Straka pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor. Brandon Straka was charged with crimes because Brandon Straka is EXTREMELY EFFECTIVE as a grassroots organizer!
Brandon’s story is amazing. After being a dedicated liberal for years and years he started to do a bit of investigating and decided he could no longer support the viciousness and lies of the left. Today over 600,000 Americans have joined Brandon and the #WalkAway movement and have not looked back! And THAT’S WHY Brandon Straka was targeted by the corrupt federal prosecutors for attending the rally on January 6. Brandon is effective. He leads leftists to the light. And once they Walk Away they DON’T walk back!
On Wednesday, October 6, 2021, Walk Away founder Brandon Straka pled guilty to a Class B misdemeanor for the crime of disorderly conduct inside the US Capitol Grounds on January 6th. After Brandon’s hearing, the demonic media portrayed this as a victory for their cause by proclaiming – Brandon Straka pled guilty for his ROLE “in the Insurrection.”
Brandon was later sentenced to another three months of home arrest and three years of probation. The government also demanded he give them access to his social media accounts during his probation. This is wicked abuse. The US government today is completely corrupt and broken.
On Tuesday night Brandon Straka sat down with Tucker Carlson for an exclusive one-on-one interview. Brandon described the horrible abuse he received at the hands of his government.
Jim Hoft is the founder and editor of The Gateway Pundit, one of the top conservative news outlets in America. Jim was awarded the Reed Irvine Accuracy in Media Award in 2013 and is the proud recipient of the Breitbart Award for Excellence in Online Journalism from the Americans for Prosperity Foundation in May 2016.
Reminiscent of young environmental activist Greta Thunberg’s bratty “How dare you!” denunciation of world leaders, Vice President Kamala Harris railed against Republican leaders who she claimed are trying to “weaponize” the law against women on Tuesday evening. Speaking at an event for EMILY’s List, a political action committee that works to elect pro-abortion female candidates, Harris declared war on the Supreme Court over a draft opinion showing that a majority of justices are prepared to strike down the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion.
The document apparently was leaked to Politico, which reported on it Monday night. Harris’ speech had been scheduled prior to the report.
In her address, she expanded upon a brief statement she had released earlier in the day framing the overturning of Roe v. Wade as a threat to “the rights of all Americans.”
“Women’s rights in America are under attack,” the vice president began.
“Roe v. Wade, in its power, has protected a woman’s right — her right — to make decisions about her own body for nearly half a century,” she said.
“If the court overturns Roe v. Wade, it will be a direct assault on freedom — on the fundamental right of self-determination to which all Americans are entitled.”
“Women in almost half the country could see their access to abortion severely limited,” Harris said. “In 13 of those states, women would lose access to abortion immediately and outright.”
“Those Republican leaders who are trying to weaponize the use of the law against women,” she said, her anger rising, “Well we say, how dare they! How dare they tell a woman what she can do and cannot do with her own body. How dare they! How dare they try to stop her from determining her own future! How dare they try to deny women their rights and their freedoms.”
A Florida mother suing her 13-year-old daughter’s school for encouraging her gender transition without parental consent recently issued a stark warning to fellow parents across the country: The same thing could happen to them under similar protocols in place at schools nationwide.
“This is happening all over the nation,” warned January Littlejohn during an interview on Fox News Monday morning. “This same protocol is in place in many, many schools across districts everywhere, and even the guides being used to dictate these transgender support plans that cut parents out even have the same language.”
The Tallahassee-based mom and mental health professional, joined by her attorney Vernadette Broyles, explained to the network that her case is not an isolated one.
“This is a very systematic way that parents are being excluded from important decisions occurring with their children, and further, social transition is a medical intervention that schools are grossly unqualified to be taking these steps without parental involvement,” she said.
Littlejohn recalled that after her daughter expressed confusion over her gender during the COVID-19 pandemic, school administrators responded by enrolling her in a “transgender support plan” — without seeking parental approval. When questioned regarding the plan, the school allegedly declined to disclose any information, claiming Littlejohn’s daughter was “protected by a non-discrimination law.”
“Eventually we did see the transgender support plan, which was a six-page document that they completed with my daughter, that was 13 at the time, behind closed doors, where they asked her questions that would have absolutely impacted her safety, such as which restroom she preferred to use and which sex she preferred to room with on overnight field trips,” Littlejohn said.
Broyles added that she filed a lawsuit, arguing that Littlejohn’s parental rights were violated, and soon discovered that her client’s situation was similar to many others playing out around the country.
“We filed a lawsuit in Massachusetts, [and] there are lawsuits in Wisconsin, Maryland, Oregon, California,” the attorney said. “This is a national agenda, and parents need to recognize they have the right to direct the upbringing, education, care, medical decisions, mental health decisions of their child and they need to assert that right with their school.”
In their lawsuit against Leon County Schools officials last October, January and her husband, Jeffrey, claimed the defendants “violated their fundamental rights” as parents by “implementing a protocol which explicitly circumvents parental notification and involvement in critical decisions affecting their children’s mental, emotional and physical health.”
In filing the suit, the Littlejohns are seeking injunctive relief, a declaratory judgment, and damages for the violations. The school filed a motion to dismiss, and the Littlejohns filed an opposition in response, Broyles said. They are now awaiting a judge’s decision.
“What the school district did is tantamount to saying children need to be protected from their parents, rather than by their parents,” Broyles told the Washington Examiner late last year. “This guidance that they had in place and their actions convey the message that parents are presumed to be dangerous to their children.”
The Littlejohns’ lawsuit is considered to have been the catalyst for Florida’s Parental Rights in Education bill, which was recently signed into law over and above frenzied backlash from progressive LGBT advocates and mainstream media outlets. The legislation bars discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through third-grade classrooms and assigns scaleable guidelines for appropriate discussions on the controversial subject matter in grades thereafter.
In one of the most unprecedented bombshells in political history, an apparent draft of Justice Sam Alito’s unreleased majority opinion overturning Roe v. Wade was leaked to Politico Monday night. While this opinion will dredge up endless commentary stemming from legacy moral divisions on the issue, most of the political prognosticating will miss the mark. Moreover, as welcoming as this news is for any pro-life conservative, it does come with some potential pitfalls long-term unless we build on the momentum for other issues as well. To that end, here are some thoughts to consider about the fallout from Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization:
1) The decision is a shield, not a judicial sword: Contrary to all the of the hand-wringing from the pro-abortion left, this decision doesn’t directly prevent a single woman from killing her baby, if she so chooses, and it won’t practically result in anyone losing out on this “right” in the scheme of things. Far from taking this issue away from the people and the states, as the left typically does in landmark court rulings, the Dobbs draft opinion actually reinstates the issue with the states. As Alito purportedly wrote in this rough draft, “In the years prior to [Roe v. Wade], about a third of the States had liberalized their laws, but Roe abruptly ended that political process. It imposed the same highly restrictive regime on the entire Nation, and it effectively struck down the abortion laws of every single State. … [I]t represented the ‘exercise of raw judicial power’ … and it sparked a national controversy that has embittered our political culture for a half-century.”
Henceforth, deep red states will likely ban abortion completely, states more in the middle will place restrictions on later-term abortions and other gruesome practices, and the blue states will likely double down on promoting more abortions. Maryland and California already have bills to allow killing babies after they are born, and undoubtedly, following this decision, they will fund abortion programs for out-of-state baby-killer “refugees.” Amazon is already offering to pay people to travel for abortions, and I’m sure this will become a cottage industry.
Thus, even if 20 states completely ban abortions, nobody will be too far from a place where they can sacrifice their child to Moloch. Contrast that to decisions from the court that prevent red states from enforcing immigration law, criminal statutes, defining marriage, or taking masks off kids, and we don’t have anywhere to move beyond the reach of the court.
2) Red states should move forward on many other issues: For decades, red-state governors and legislatures – and sometimes even GOP-controlled Congresses – refrained from doing the right thing because of the fear of federal courts interfering based on past erroneous case law. Abortion is the one issue that unites the wretched and failed Republican Party, so the GOP actually fought for it and decided to band together and pass legislation directly against Roe in multiple states. That, in conjunction with a united front at the political level, actually swayed Republican-appointed judges. The GOP judges are merely a reflection of the GOP politicians. Like everyone else, they rule mainly based on perception of public opinion, or at least the centrist Republicans. If Republicans fight as emphatically on other issues as they do on abortion – and pass legislation accordingly in multiple states – they might see similar results.
For example, Obergefell is even more unconstitutional than Roe in that it somehow asserted that states cannot define a marriage. In recent years, courts have hampered states from giving the death penalty in many cases, prevented them from enforcing immigration law, blocked them from defining gender, and banned them from cleaning up homeless camps. There is no reason why states should take this sitting down. They should pass laws, even in opposition to those past rulings. Alito’s opinion could be used for any of those cases. One of the central points of his opinion is the affirmation of Glucksberg’s test for a fundamental right – that it must be “deeply rooted in the Nation’s history and traditions.” So many of the liberal landmark opinions that have become sacred over time are antithetical to our history and tradition. They must all be challenged.
In fact, there is no time like the present. State legislatures should convene and pass numerous commonsense bills that were previously stymied by erroneous court precedent based on phantom substantive due process, a legal fiction that is implicitly overturned in Alito’s draft opinion.
3) Kavanaugh and Barrett will likely make us pay for this: This is somewhat counter to the previous point, but clearly Kavanaugh and Barrett are very reluctant to buck the system and likely screwed us on many other issues because they were saving their capital for this. Let’s not forget that they have ruled in favor of forcing health care workers and military members to get a potentially deadly shot and have screwed us on a number of religious liberty cases, among many other issues. In fact, in many ways the COVID cases were worse, because they are the equivalent of forcing someone to get an abortion, not just making it available. We need to remember that they will likely side against us on many pending issues that, frankly, probably affect our lives a lot more directly in the coming months and years in order to “maintain the integrity of the court.” I’m not saying this opinion is not cause for celebration, but this further underscores point #2 – that states need to blitz the courts by legislation against precedent on numerous other issues all at once, while building political momentum and an aura of inevitability.
4) Anti-abortion RINOs will be hard to beat: Red states are full of pro-life statist RINOs in legislatures and governor’s mansions. These are people who undermine us on every other issue and do the bidding of the Chamber of Commerce and Big Pharma, but get elected based on the abortion issue alone. They will now milk this one issue to death by promising a complete ban on abortions and will disarm conservative angst against them on other issues, making them very hard to beat.
5) Pro-life is about so much more than abortion: While potential reversal of Roe is cause for celebration, we must remember that the Left has moved on to bigger and greater things. They are now essentially aborting live-born adults in America’s hospitals with barbaric treatment, blocking lifesaving treatment, and forcing bio-medical tyranny on our bodies. The folks at the World Economic Forum want to control our bodies and minds in the most literal way in a new form of transhumanism. And unlike abortion, where we can avoid it for ourselves and our families, this is being forced upon us. Thus, we must be careful not to allow the Republican Party to use the celebration over a hard-fought victory on yesterday’s battle to obscure their treachery in being a party to today’s assault on life.
Overall, when factoring in the likely decision, as well as the politics behind the reprehensible leak of the draft, it has become clear that we cannot live together harmoniously as one people. Ironically, Alito’s draft opinion actually sets the stage for an amicable divorce. The left will stop at nothing to force their will upon us in all 50 states. We simply want at least a third of the country where we can live in peace with the values and legal system established by our Founders. They want to use the courts as a sword, while we are only using them as a shield.
Their reaction to this decision and their attempt to intimidate the judges with a criminal leak – all the while attempting to control our bodies with the gene therapy products of pharmaceutical companies – demonstrates that we need to devolve a lot more than just abortion to the individual states so that we can self-sort. They already have their states; now let us have ours.
Chief Supreme Court Justice John Roberts will likely launch an investigation involving the FBI into the SCOTUS leak from the Dobbs abortion case, according to CBS News’ Elizabeth Campbell. The apparent Feb. 10 draft opinion obtained by Politico published Monday shows that the initial majority opinion of the court is poised to strike down the landmark Roe V. Wade decision granting women the right to an abortion.
“This is an unprecedented leak from SCOTUS. It raises questions about how the institution will ever recover, and how Chief Justice Roberts will respond,” Campbell tweeted.
“Sources tonight tell [CBS News’ Jan Crawford] he is likely to order a full-blown investigation, involving the FBI, to determine the source,” Campbell added.
This is an unprecedented leak from #SCOTUS. It raises questions about how the institution will ever recover, and how Chief Justice Roberts will respond. Sources tonight tell @JanCBS he is likely to order a full-blown investigation, involving the FBI, to determine the source.
This is an unprecedented leak from #SCOTUS. It raises questions about how the institution will ever recover, and how Chief Justice Roberts will respond. Sources tonight tell @JanCBS he is likely to order a full-blown investigation, involving the FBI, to determine the source.
The draft opinion showed that five justices — Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett — voted to overturn, while three — Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan — dissented, according to Politico. Roberts has reportedly not yet made his decision.
“Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” Alito wrote in the draft opinion, according to the outlet.
“We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled,” the opinion reportedly continued. “It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.”
No draft opinion in modern history has ever been leaked while the case was still pending, according to Politico.
Political commentator Mark Levin said that Monday’s leak of a draft majority opinion is a “grave assault” on the Supreme Court. During Tuesday’s “Fox & Friends,” Levin addressed Monday’s leak of a Supreme Court draft opinion that could potentially overturn 1973’s Roe v. Wade.
The news on Monday evening sparked heavy conversation across social media.
“When you conduct yourself in an utterly lawless way, attacking the institutions of this country, attacking the founding documents of this country, attacking the history of this country, this is what you get: lawlessness,” he insisted during “Fox & Friends.”
He added, “”It’s just a matter of time. All these institutions are going to collapse. This is a grave assault on the Supreme Court.”
Levin recalled a time when he was an intern to late Chief Justice Warren Burger while attending law school and said that he can’t fathom how the leak occurred after having seen the lengths to which the institution went to preserve the integrity of confidentiality.
“I saw how it operated, and I can tell you this institution takes its confidentiality seriously. Why? That’s the coin of the realm,” he said. “They’ve got to be able to talk about ideas freely. They’ve got to be able to discuss this without political pressure. Why do people think these are lifetime appointments?”
The political commentator later added that the Democratic Party is complicit in “destroying this country” and said that they are fighting Republicans every step of the way.
“Of course, the Democrat Party is destroying this country,” he reasoned. “Look at the confirmation process. It started with Bork. The Democrats targeted him under [Sen. Ted] Kennedy and Biden, and it moves on to others, including Clarence Thomas, including Kavanaugh. Republicans don’t treat Democrat nominees this way. They may object to them. When you say the Supreme Court doesn’t look like America, you’re undermining the credibility of the court.”
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Donald Trump.
Merit Academy’s vision: students prepared for success in a free society, promoting civic responsibility, and contributing their talents in a flourishing republic.
It seems a lifetime ago when The Federalist introduced you last fall to Merit Academy in Woodland Park, Colorado. It’s a no-politics public school designed and overseen by local parents, opened in just one year of intense planning and work. These past seven months have seen this public contract school grow and flourish, despite many challenges.
“When you think back to where we were a year ago, it is surreal,” says Gwynne Pekron, Merit’s director of development and chief action officer, beaming. “This was a dream for many, but a vision to us.”
Merit Academy is a classical, Core Knowledge school that opened on August 23, 2021, to 184 full-time students and more than 80 part-time homeschool students. The parents and community members who built Merit sought an education that would challenge children and build lasting friendships, without the controversial politics often found in public schools.
“Merit Academy is a shining example of our virtues of valor, goodness, and perseverance,” reflected local parent Heather Scholz. “It meets the demand of parents who have given up on the direction of modern schools.”
When we last checked in with Merit Academy, they were working hard in the classroom basement of Faith Lutheran Church, which generously opened its doors to Merit when the school’s board struggled to find a space big enough to accommodate parent demand. Where are they now? After calling both Faith Lutheran and Mountain View Methodist churches home, Merit Academy is now in its “start-up Bear Den” at a re-purposed hardware store in a local strip mall. Outside recess space was kindly offered by neighboring Our Lady of the Woods Catholic Church. Classroom walls are portable, lined with sound blankets to alleviate noise. From these walls hang children’s artwork and school projects, ranging from idioms to drawings of George Washington to designs of engineered future cities.
“For the first time, my son doesn’t ask for a ‘sick day,’” says Tarin McNeese, a sixth-grade parent. “This is not to say it’s easy—he works at it—but when challenged, his teachers guide him. I personally appreciate the school’s transparency with what is taught.”
The Merit Bears study science, English, history, reading, mathematics, Latin, language lab, and writing. In the halls, one hears lively songs of the upcoming spring performance, recitations of numbers study, and discussions of what it means to be valorous, one of the five Merit virtues. The classes are driven by Merit’s vision: students prepared for success in a free society, promoting civic responsibility, and contributing their talents in a flourishing republic by pursuing beauty, truth, and good.
The desire for choice is stronger than ever, not only in this beautiful mountain community but across the nation as charter school enrollments climb. In November 2021, this school district had its first contested school board election in more than a decade, and Merit’s existence, school choice, and critical race theory were all on the ballot. All four school-choice candidates swept the election, but their change agenda faces fierce resistance from the defeated minority. The new board majority is addressing the taxpayers’ concerns about district facilities operating at approximately 50 percent capacity. They are committed to stopping the 20-year trend of severely declining enrollment and family exodus.
The local school district was losing families who decided to live elsewhere or place their children in public and private schools outside Teller County, a picturesque rural location encompassing Pike’s Peak and adjacent to Colorado Springs. To bring families back, the new school board members support a parent’s right to know what is being taught. They support Merit Academy and school choice for parents. They plan to increase staff salaries and right a ship that has been listing for 20 years.
While holding her two-year-old, Nicole Waggoner, one of Merit’s founders, said, “Merit adds educational choice many people want. These families appreciate our virtues, our curriculum, and our school, so our enrollment numbers are through the roof. We’re drawing families up the pass [from Colorado Springs], which contributes to a thriving community.”
Image courtesy Merit Academy.
Seeing smiling faces in the “Bear Den,” one may wonder what challenges Merit Academy has overcome. “Starting a school is not easy,” reflected Pekron, “but it is worth it, especially when you hear your kids talking about the War of 1812, how a cat’s eyes adjust at night, or how they acted responsibly that day. It’s worth every breath.”
So, what are the biggest challenges now? Pekron paused, then said: “No matter how deep the vision and how detailed the plan, the biggest challenge is being at the mercy of others.” Glancing out the window, she continued, “As a contract school, grant foundations did not understand we were cut from the same cloth as a charter school, but different. Most said, ‘Come back when you are chartered.’”
Despite those financial disappointments, the most touching and inspiring funding came from grassroots contributions and encouraging words from supporters all over the country following the September 2021 Federalist article. To you, Merit Academy is deeply grateful.
One of Merit’s house mottos is “Fortune favors the brave.” This spring, Merit Academy has had greater financial support, with grants and donations totaling more than $400,000. Merit board member Mary Sekowski said, “It’s wonderful to receive these blessings of needed financial support that support start-up expenses.”
Seed funding isn’t the only thing start-up schools struggle with. “The facilities piece has been more difficult,” said Waggoner. “There are few available spaces for demanded growth.”
Woodland Park lies west of Colorado Springs at a stunning 8,500 feet elevation. As in most mountain communities, few existing buildings could house a school. Merit’s facility challenges landed it in an old hardware store, one of the only large-enough spaces open.
Pikes Peak as seen from Woodland Park, courtesy of Gwynne Pekron.
While many would view Merit’s experience as a struggle, the newly elected school board recognized a community need to charter Merit and sought a win-win solution for Merit’s space needs. The district’s declining enrollment leaves district taxpayers with a hefty burden to maintain partially empty buildings, costing more than $2.6 million annually.
“The more you spend on buildings, the less you spend on students,” noted Sekowski. “Taxpayers prefer their tax dollars support an increase in staff salary or a boost in student programming rather than pay for half-empty buildings.”
Due to declining enrollment, the district’s building space is at approximately 51 percent of functional capacity, according to a Denver consulting firm the district hired last fall. The capacity is forecasted to decrease to 32 percent at the middle school building and 35 percent at the high school in four years. The taxpayer cost of operation and maintenance for these two buildings alone exceeds $1.5 million per year.
Recognizing Merit’s need for space to grow as a new district charter school, the district explored the possibility of offering Merit space at the half-capacity district middle school, which would decrease district facility expenditures and honor high community support for Merit Academy.
“With Merit paying the building expenses, district funds will be redistributed to students and staff, not spent on underutilized building space,” Waggoner stated. “Besides saving taxpayers money, it honors previous community commitments to learning by using these spaces for their original intent — the education of children. This is especially timely with district consultants discussing school closures.”
This idea generated resistance from a minority in the community that closely resembles nationwide opposition to newly elected conservative school boards. This group has posted vitriol on social media, saying things like “F— Merit” on Facebook, protesting at local school board meetings, yelling at and heckling the newly elected directors, using public comment periods to call directors “racist” and accuse them of trying to establish religion, and identifying with national efforts to stifle charter schools and school choice. One of the new school board directors even had his truck keyed during a board meeting.
Image courtesy Merit Academy.
In March, students celebrated Dr. Seuss, wearing mustaches and reading Dr. Seuss books. As if written for Merit Academy and all parent-initiated schools out there, Dr. Seuss advised, “If you get a chance, take it. If it changes your life, let it. Nobody said it would be easy. They just promised it would be worth it.”
Yes, it is worth it. Despite its many challenges, Merit Academy thrives, with steadfast community support. The school opened in fall 2021 with nearly 200 students and a large waitlist. Its 2022-23 enrollment is forecasted to grow to more than 370 full- and part-time students, with additional students on its still-large waitlist.
“We are no longer just a hope or a dream,” Waggoner reflected. “Merit Academy is the school many families have hoped for.”
To learn more about Merit Academy or support it, please visit https://merit.academy.
John Dill is director of the Merit Academy school board and a retired lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force.
U.S. Supreme Court building | Nicole Alcindor/Christian Post
The United States Supreme Court has ruled that city officials in Boston, Massachusetts, were wrong to prohibit a group from flying a Christian flag at city hall. In an opinion released Monday morning in the case of Harold Shurtleff, et al. v. Boston, MA, et al., the high court unanimously ruled to reverse a lower court decision and remand the case back to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.
Justice Stephen Breyer delivered the court’s opinion, in which he concluded that “the First Amendment prevents [the government] from discriminating against speakers based on their viewpoint.”
At issue, according to the court’s opinion, was whether Boston’s flag policy represented government speech; if it did, then it had the right to reject the Christian flag.
“We conclude that, on balance, Boston did not make the raising and flying of private groups’ flags a form of government speech,” wrote Breyer.
“That means, in turn, that Boston’s refusal to let Shurtleff and Camp Constitution raise their flag based on its religious viewpoint ‘abridg[ed]’ their ‘freedom of speech.’”
Justice Brett Kavanaugh authored a concurring opinion, in which he wrote that “a government does not violate the Establishment Clause merely because it treats religious persons, organizations, and speech equally with secular persons, organizations, and speech in public programs, benefits, facilities, and the like.”
“Under the Constitution, a government may not treat religious persons, religious organizations, or religious speech as second-class,” he added in his brief concurrence.
In 2017, Harold Shurtleff of Camp Constitution asked to fly the Christian flag (which features a cross) outside of city hall on Constitution Day 2017, but his request was rejected by the city. Shurtleff filed suit against the city in response, with him being represented by the Liberty Counsel, a prominent conservative law firm that has handled many religious liberty cases. In February 2020, U.S. District Judge Denise Casper, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, ruled in favor of Boston, and a three-judge panel of the First Circuit unanimously upheld the lower court ruling in January 2021.
Judge Bruce Selya, an appointee of former President Ronald Reagan, wrote the panel opinion, arguing that the “three flags flying in close proximity communicates the symbolic unity of the three flags,” and therefore, it “strains credulity to believe that an observer would partition such a coordinated three-flag display.”
Shurtleff appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, gaining the support of groups including the ACLU, which filed an amicus brief in his support.
“We have long expressed concern about government endorsement of religion, and have sued often to enforce the Establishment Clause,” stated ACLU National Legal Director David Cole last November. “But when the government opens a forum to private speakers generally, as Boston did here, it can’t turn away a speaker simply because it is religious.”
Stoking fears that China is preparing for an invasion of Taiwan, Chinese officials are looking for ways to defend their country from economic isolation should Western nations opt to sanction China in a similar fashion to how they sanctioned Russia after it invaded Ukraine.
The Daily Mail reported that China’s economic regulators held emergency meetings in late April with officials from the Chinese central bank, the finance ministry, domestic banks operating in China, and international leaders in the financial sectors like HSBC.
In the wake of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, Western nations locked arms and issued thorough sanctions on the Russian economy. These sanctions caused the Russian economy to plummet and prompted drastic retaliatory threats from the Russian government.
These Western sanctions greatly restricted Russia’s ability to conduct business with other nations by limiting its use of the SWIFT telecommunications network and making it virtually impossible for it to conduct business with the global reserve currency – the U.S. dollar.
The crippling effect these sanctions have had on the Russian economy prompted the emergency meeting between Chinese officials and financial executives. Chinese President Xi Jinping has been startled by the dollar freeze and is concerned about a similar policy being leveraged against China.
Reportedly, the U.S. is considering implementing similar packages of sanctions against China in the event that it moves forward with an invasion of Taiwan. Recent and repeated rhetoric from Chinese leadership indicates that it is not a matter of “if” but a matter of “when” China launches an invasion of Taiwan.
A source close to the Chinese officials who met said, “No one site could think of a good solution to the problem. China’s banking system isn’t prepared for a freeze of its dollar assets or exclusion from the Swift messaging system as the US has done to Russia.”
Reportedly, one idea proposed in the meeting was to force Chinese businesses that export to other nations to part ways with their holdings in U.S. dollars in exchange for Chinese renminbi.
Other proposed solutions such as swamping U.S. dollar holdings to favor the Euro were not thought to be practical.
Some of the Chinese leaders present doubted whether the U.S. even has the capacity to issue such sanctions on China’s economy.
Andrew Collier, managing director of Orient Capital Research in Hong Kong, said, “It is difficult for the U.S. to impose massive sanctions against China. It is like mutually assured destruction in a nuclear war.”
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Donald Trump.
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American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
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American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
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American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
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American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
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