The 12 Republicans who voted to advance the bill last week are gaslighting the American public about its real purpose.
It’s not hard to game out what happens if the misnamed Respect for Marriage Act passes, codifying Obergefell and enshrining gay marriage in federal law. Everyone, including the dozen Republican senators who voted to advance the legislation last week, knows exactly what will happen. It’s not some big mystery.
What will happen is this: Christians, Jews, Muslims, and anyone else who dares maintain that marriage is a lifelong conjugal union between one man and one woman — the definition of marriage for thousands of years until the U.S. Supreme Court descended from Mount Sinai with Obergefell v. Hodges inscribed on stone tablets — will be branded a bigot and driven from the public square and marketplace.
Anyone who owns a small business related to the wedding industry — photographers, bakers, website designers, venue owners, caterers, florists — will be sued into oblivion if they refuse services to same-sex couples. Religious colleges and universities will lose their tax-exempt status. Religious institutions of every kind, if they hold to their teachings and traditions about marriage, will face an onslaught from the Department of Justice and the federal bureaucracy.
To paraphrase George Orwell’s famous line, if you want a picture of the future under the Respect for Marriage Act, imagine a boot stamping on Jack Phillips’ face — forever.
The untrammeled exercise of power and the vigorous crushing of dissent is the entire purpose of the proposed law. There can be no other possible justification for it. Michael New, an assistant professor at the Busch School of Business at The Catholic University of America, recently told The Daily Signal that Catholic colleges and universities in particular might face ruinous lawsuits and loss of federal funding if the bill is signed into law.
“Suppose a Catholic college refused to allow a same-sex married couple to live in college owned graduate student housing for families, they might be subject to all kinds of litigation,” he said. “Such a college might lose its nonprofit status. Their students might lose eligibility for federal financial aid and their faculty might lose eligibility from research grants from government agencies.”
Well, yes. Of course all that would happen. Democrats and left-wing activists hear these kinds of concerns from people like New and think, “Good. Let them face ruinous litigation. Let them lose funding. Ghettoize them. Crush them. Grind their institutions into dust. They deserve it, the bigots.”
All the more appalling, then, that 12 Republican senators voted to advance the bill knowing full well what it will do. One wishes the explanation is just that these lawmakers are too stupid to understand what the purpose of the proposed law really is and what its effect will obviously be, but that’s wishful thinking. If they’re going to support this bill, though, do they have to pretend that we’re all too stupid to understand how it will work? Does Dan Sullivan, the second-worst U.S. senator from Alaska, who once supported a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage in the long-ago of 2014, really believe that the Respect for Marriage Act makes “important advances” in religious liberty? Does Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who 10 years ago as speaker of the statehouse supported a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage in his state, really think the anemic amendments he and other GOP senators offered to the bill will “advance religious freedom” and “age well”?
All the Republicans who voted to advance the bill last week issued some version of the nonsense Sullivan and Tillis spouted. None of them believe a word of it. They just hope you buy it.
But you don’t have to. Roger Severino of the Heritage Foundation helpfully walked through these specious claims one by one, explaining why they’re wrong. No, the bill won’t provide religious institutions with meaningful protections. Yes, the bill could certainly be used as a basis for the Internal Revenue Service to deny tax-exempt status to religious organizations that don’t toe the line on gay marriage. Yes, it could also be used to deny grants, licenses, or contracts. No, weak language about preserving the Religious Freedom Restoration Act is not enough to prevent harm to religious liberty. And so on.
The justification for the bill is just as outlandish and offensive as the argument that it presents no danger to religious Americans. In the wake of the Dobbs decision this summer, we were warned that some future Supreme Court opinion, following Justice Clarence Thomas’s logic, could overturn Obergefell and other substantive due process rulings such as Loving v. Virginia, which struck down state laws banning interracial marriage.
The purpose of this claim, in case it isn’t bone-crushingly obvious, is to lump opponents of gay marriage in with opponents of interracial marriage, to smear them as bigots who aren’t just on the wrong side of history, but who are about to be on the receiving end of a federal government empowered to go after them.
And if you think that can’t really be how proponents of the Respect for Marriage Act think about traditional-minded Americans, go ask Jack Phillips how he’s faring after winning his Supreme Court case in 2018.
John Daniel Davidson is a senior editor at The Federalist. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Claremont Review of Books, The New York Post, and elsewhere. Follow him on Twitter, @johnddavidson.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — On Monday morning, I swept through the marbled halls of the Supreme Court of the United States, off First Street NE here in the nation’s capital, to enter the highest room of jurisprudence in the land. The sound of my footsteps muffled atop thick carpeting, the blinds on the massive windows mostly drawn and the room packed with rows upon rows of chairs, slowly filling.
A daughter of India who grew up in Morgantown, West Virginia, little could I know that over the next four-and-a-half-hours I would ride an emotional rollercoaster as three so-called “liberal” justices and four attorneys overlooked, erased, and tried to gaslight the truth of Asian Americans who face discrimination — or as the ideologues call it, “systemic racism” — in admissions to Harvard University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
If not for fierce questioning from the court’s six conservative justices and the arguments of two attorneys for the plaintiffs, Students for Fair Admissions, Asian Americans would have been erased in the courtroom that day — much as they have been nationwide by “equity warriors” for whom we are an inconvenient minority. Instead, this is my prediction for the rulings, expected next year: a 6-2 victory by Asian American families and students over Harvard and a 6-3 win over the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Born in India, I was on an emotional roller coaster today in the Supreme Court, listening to 3 justices + 4 lawyers try to gaslight America on the reality of anti-Asian racism. Fortunately, 4 justices argued fiercely. My bet: 6-2, Harvard loses. 6-3 UNC loses. America wins 💯 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/IsQ1yK8Ny1
In 332 pages of court transcripts, “diversity” was referenced 202 times, most of the time by the universities’ lawyers and the three justices that supported them, with “Asian” mentioned only 81 times. The universities’ lawyers, the sympathetic U.S. solicitor general, and the three like-minded justices spoke many times about supporting “students of color,” “minorities” and “diversity” but most often excluded Asian Americans. Ironically, the three liberal justices waxed eloquently about “diversity” without once noting the obvious: There wasn’t an Asian American justice beside them.
In the most defining moment of the day, Harvard’s attorney, Seth Waxman, tried to downplay “race” as a “determinative factor” in admissions to Harvard, noting that it was just like, “you know,” being “an oboe player in a year in which the Harvard-Ratcliffe orchestra needs an oboe player will be the tip.”
Chief Justice John Roberts shot that comparison down immediately.
“Yeah. We did not fight a civil war about oboe players,” he said firmly.
“I—,” Waxman tried to interrupt.
Roberts continued, undeterred. “We did fight a Civil War to eliminate racial discrimination, and that’s why it’s a matter of — of considerable concern.”
Across the country, parents listening to the proceedings laughed and cheered. The day before, many of those parents, with names like Jack Ouyang, Wai Wah Chin, Eva Guo, Suparna Dutta, Yuyan Zhou, and Harry Jackson, stood on the steps of the Supreme Court at an “Equal Education Rights for All” rally with signs promoting simple ideas. “Stop Anti-Asian Discrimination.” “Diversity ≠ Skin Color.” Together, over the past years, we had become accidental activists in the war on merit and Asian American students.
Since late August, parents had been meeting at 9 p.m. on Thursday nights over Zoom to ready for the rally, trading messages through the week on WeChat, Telegram, and Signal. CNN and Fox News featured their voices in their coverage of the case. Chinese-language newspapers put news of the rally on their front pages. But inside the Supreme Court, to the lawyers for the universities and the three justices who supported them, it felt as if we were invisible.
‘Gas lighters’
I’d first visited the nation’s capital decades ago as an 18-year-old intern in the summer of 1983, but this was my first time in the Supreme Court hearing room. It is about the size of a soccer field. At 57, I had to be a witness for the approximately 22 million Asian Americans living in the United States, about one of every 15 people, most hailing from 19 countries and the fastest-growing racial group in the U.S., according to Pew Research Center.
In response to a K-12 education system that has largely failed black and Hispanic students, officials at Harvard and UNC-Chapel Hill have allegedly rigged their admissions processes with “race-conscious” standards that discriminate against Asian American students to boost the number of black, Hispanic, and other “underrepresented minorities,” known today as “URMs.”
I brought two books into the Supreme Court with me: the big red book, “Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings That Formed the Movement,” and the yearbook for the class of 2021 from my son’s alma mater, Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, in Alexandria, Virginia, a magnet school known as “TJ,” where about 70 percent of the students are Asian American.
The yearbook theme was simple, “We know exactly how you feel.” Unfortunately, activists for the tenets of critical race theory don’t even pretend to want to know how we feel, and I witnessed this tone-deaf callousness from the three activist justices: Associate Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson, Elena Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor. In my notebook, I penned their three names under “Gas Lighters.”
These three justices infused their questions, comments, and analysis with the politics and worldview of critical race theory, the ideology that teaches that society’s injustices must be corrected through the lens of race. Kagan wondered whether “people who have been kicked in the teeth by our society for centuries” can get a “thumb on the scale” instead of “white men.” She spoke about “our color blindness, whatever that means, because our society is not color blind in its effects.” Sotomayor punctuated many a question with “correct?” For example, she said schools are working to examine the “whole” student as “equals” — “correct?”
Quickly, Kagan found a kindred spirit in the country’s solicitor general, Elizabeth Prelogar, who spoke so sing-song it took a careful ear to recognize the disturbing worldview of critical race theory in her words. To the plaintiff’s argument on the “color-blind interpretation of the Constitution,” she said, “There’s nothing in history to support that.”
Under “Fierce Against Racism,” I wrote four names: Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Brett Kavanaugh. Under “Sympathetic” to the plaintiffs, I penned two names: Associate Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett.
Photo/Asra Nomani
Prophets of critical race theory, such as author Ibram X. Kendi, have spread a toxic, unbelievable, and illiberal idea: “The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination.” Asian American students have been their sacrificial lambs in their racial experiment, with K-12 schools like TJ in the crosshairs of their war on merit.
In December 2020, after the killing of George Floyd turned educrats into activists, the 12-0 Democratic school board in Fairfax County, Virginia, eliminated the merit-based admissions tests to the school and replaced them with a “holistic” process that would increase the number of black, Hispanic, and other “URM” students, assigning “bonus points” to racially engineer the student body. A group we started, Coalition for TJ, filed a lawsuit with attorneys from a public-interest nonprofit, Pacific Legal Foundation.
In early 2022, a federal judge ruled that the new admissions process is “blatantly unconstitutional,” but the “UnFairfax” school board, as we like to call it, is appealing the case, and it will likely end up in the U.S. Supreme Court as early as fall 2023.
‘Asian’ Does Not Appear
On Monday, to hear the three “Gas Lighters” and the university’s lawyers, you wouldn’t have even known they were weighing the effect of systemic racism against Asian Americans. In fact, at one point, Alito turned to David Hinojosa, an attorney representing current and former students at UNC-Chapel Hill supporting race in admissions and said: “I was struck by the fact that the word ‘Asian’ does not appear one time in your brief. Yet Asians have been subject to de jure segregation. They have been subjected to many forms of mistreatment and discrimination, including internment.”
Like a magician, Hinojosa said there was no mention of “Asian” in his brief because, voila, a “record” of discrimination against Asian Americans “actually doesn’t exist.” He instructed the court to take it up with Harvard.
When Alito pressed the Harvard attorney, Waxman, on why Asian American students received a lower “personal score” than other students on character traits, including “integrity, courage, kindness, and empathy,” the Harvard lawyer did a tap-dance, saying the “syllogism” of the question was “wrong,” then asserted that the personal score difference is a “slight numerical disparity” that doesn’t reveal any “evidence of discrimination in admissions outcomes against Asian Americans,” because it’s “simply a number” that “fades into the background.”
Simply a number.
“They think we’re that stupid.”
Alito pounced with the obvious question: “If it doesn’t matter, why do you do it?” Waxman dismissed the “personal score” as a “matter of triage” for overwhelmed admissions officers.
What about “affinity groups,” the controversial new tool for separating and segregating students in housing, discussion groups, and elsewhere in schools by race and other identity markers, asked Justice Amy Coney Barrett? Oh, they have “incredible benefits,” gushed Hinojosa.
Photo/Asra Nomani
In the 1920s, Harvard President Lawrence Lowell discriminated in admissions against another group: Jewish students, because he believed there was a “Jew problem” with the overrepresentation of Jewish students at the school. In gaslighting back then, Harvard officials said they weren’t discriminating against Jewish students but just putting in place a “holistic” admissions process.
Now, in his closing remarks, Cameron Norris, an attorney for Students for Fair Admissions, said, “Harvard thankfully does say it is ashamed of its history of Jewish discrimination. I hope someday it says the same about how it’s treating Asians.”
Asra Nomani is a senior contributor at The Federalist. A former Wall Street Journal reporter, Nomani writes a regular newsletter, Asra InvestigatesAsra Investigates, with breaking news and analysis on the frontlines of culture and politics. She is a senior fellow in the practice of journalism at the Independent Women’s Network and a cofounder of the Coalition for TJ, a grassroots parent group, and of the Pearl Project, an investigative reporting initiative. She can be reached at asra@asranomani.com and @AsraNomani.
MSNBC host Tiffany Cross recently went on a rant about Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas in which she referred to him as “Tom” (short for the derogatory term “Uncle Tom”) and invoked a series of other ugly and disrespectful names. But while Cross and her fellow leftwing TV hosts have been spewing hatred, Thomas has been laying out a jurisprudence of faithfulness to the text of the Constitution that now represents a view held by the majority of justices on the Supreme Court. This view does away with the nonexistent constitutional “right” to abortion while reigning in out-of-control federal agencies and giving the Bill of Rights the respect it deserves.
Cross criticized Thomas for not representing black men in his jurisprudence, but where did she get the idea that a supreme court justice is supposed to represent a constituency? In our system of government, a judge’s job is to decide cases according to the Constitution and the law, without regard to any person. Take, for instance, Justice Sonya Sotomayor’s views on affirmative action. It is certainly not her job to represent the median views of Hispanics, 68 percent of whom oppose race being a factor in college admissions, yet she continues to support racially preferential admissions systems that categorize people by their heritage and not their merits.
Contrary to Cross’s claim, working-class black Americans historically have been in agreement with Thomas’ views on virtually every contentious issue. Thomas has long been opposed to affirmative action and racial preference programs, and so are most black Americans. According to a 2022 poll from Pew Research Center, 59 percent of black Americans are against race factoring into college admissions. It is unlikely Cross is a part of this 59 percent.
Justice Thomas has opined for thirty years that there is no constitutional right to abortion. According to a 2020 Gallup article, from 2001-2007, only 24 percent of black Americans believed abortion should be legal in all circumstances. From 2017-2020, only 32 percent did. In a May 2022 YouGov poll, 81 percent percent of black respondents said that abortion should be banned after the 25th week. Cross likely is unwilling to tolerate any limit on abortions up to the moment of birth, which would put her far outside the mainstream of black Americans.
Thomas has ruled that there is no constitutional right to same-sex marriage. While that is wholly different than whether one supports or supports same-sex marriage, it is notable that a large percentage of black Americans have, until very recently, been opposed to the practice. According to Pew Research, only 21 percent of black Americans supported same-sex marriage in 2004, only 30 percent in 2010, and 51 percent in 2019, and now it is 59 percent.
On topics where Thomas has not ruled from the bench, it is noteworthy that 81 percent of black parents support school choice, but the NAACP opposes school choice.Sixty-nine percent of black Americans support Voter ID laws. Only 28 percent of black Americans support leftist calls to defund the nation’s police.
Why do Cross and black leadership groups, like the NAACP, continue to be so out of touch with the black Americans they claim to represent? Why do they prioritize the goals set by rich white socialists? Perhaps it is because the NAACP receives significant funding from a majority of white leftwing organizations and labor unions and, therefore, may feel obligated to parrot the views of their funders. Certainly, that’s what happened in 1991 when the NAACP opposed Justice Thomas’ nomination at the insistence of the white labor unions, despite his support in the black community. Cross works for, in her own words, “a white-run media” company, and she pushes far-left views, whereas Thomas has a lifetime appointment and answers only to the Constitution and his conscience.
Elites have worked to destroy Thomas for years because, among other things, he exposes how out of step they are with the concerns of everyday black Americans. Thomas has argued for affirmative action programs that help students of all races from disadvantaged backgrounds, but the major beneficiaries of racial set-aside programs are wealthy blacks and Hispanics. A recent analysis showed that 71 percent of blacks and Hispanics at Harvard were from wealthy families. These wealthy individuals prevent the truly disadvantaged members of their communities from getting ahead.
During her tirade, Cross also attempted to smear Thomas by mentioning the ridiculous “pubic hair on a Coke can” comment that Anita Hill bizarrely claimed Thomas made to her many years ago. But the majority of the American people – men and women – did not believe Anita Hill’s testimony at Thomas’ confirmation hearings in 1991. A New York Times/CBS News poll showed people believed Thomas by 58-24 percent. Only 26 percent percent of women believed Anita Hill.
In 1998, Anita Hill was interviewed by Tim Russert on “Meet the Press,” where she trashed two women who claimed to have been sexually harassed or assaulted by then-President Bill Clinton, one of whom Clinton later settled with out of court for $850,000. After Hill had zealously defended Clinton, Russert asked if there were a double standard on harassment allegations for liberals and conservatives. Hill said there is a double standard, saying, “We live in a political world, and the reality is that … there are … larger issues other than just individual behavior.” Hill meant thatif you are pro-abortion, women’s groups will give you a pass if you sexually assault or harass women. Despite Hill being a blatant fraud, Cross still used her antics to smear Thomas.
The left and the out-of-touch black leadership have attacked Thomas since he joined the Reagan administration forty years ago. Nevertheless, he does not care what they think or say. Cross’s attacks may play well to her leftist audience, but that’s not a lot of people, given she is the second lowest-rated show on the lowest-rated cable news network.
Nevertheless, it’s important to respond to these attacks to demonstrate how out of touch she and her colleagues are. On the other hand, Thomas will continue building a long-lasting legacy by writing well-reasoned opinions and persuading a majority of his colleagues to join him in ruling in a manner that is faithful to the Constitution.
Mark Paoletta served as a lawyer in the George H.W. Bush White House Counsel’s office and worked on the confirmation of Justice Thomas. He is a senior fellow at Center for Renewing America, and partner at Schaerr Jaffe.
U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts is back in the public spotlight and his latest remarks on judicial integrity are turning heads. Appearing at the 10th Circuit Bench and Bar Conference in Colorado Springs, Colorado on Friday, the chief justice spoke about the perceived credibility of the Supreme Court among the American public and how disagreeing with its opinions “is not a basis for questioning [its] legitimacy.”
“The court has always decided controversial cases and decisions have always been subject to intense criticism, and that is entirely appropriate,” Roberts said. “But I don’t understand the connection between the opinions people disagree with and the legitimacy of the Supreme Court.”
Following the Supreme Court’s rulings on several hot-button issues this past session, such as the striking down of Roe v. Wade and upholding of Second Amendment rights, Democrats and their sycophants in legacy media have been quick to vilify the high court and call into question its ability to operate as an independent body simply because a majority of justices didn’t give them the outcomes they wanted. While it’s fair for Roberts to push back against such logic and distinguish the legitimacy of the high court from its judicial decisions, his next comments were impossible to take seriously.
“If the court doesn’t retain its legitimate function of interpreting the Constitution, I’m not sure who would take up that mantle,” the chief justice said. “You don’t want the political branches telling you what the law is, and you don’t want public opinion to be the guide about what the appropriate decision is.”
For someone who holds the rank of chief justice, the lack of self-awareness from Roberts is stunning. Throughout his tenure on the Supreme Court, Roberts’s judicial decision-making on various high-profile cases has been guided by “public opinion.”
When the court was considering the constitutionality of Obamacare in the 2012 NFIB v. Sebelius case, for instance, Roberts reportedly took extensive actions behind the scenes to alter the Supreme Court’s final decision on the matter, even though Obamacare is obviously unconstitutional. After initially siding with his Republican-appointed colleagues in striking down the individual mandate of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) “on the grounds that it went beyond Congress’s power to regulate interstate commerce,” Roberts got cold feet over fears of potential public blowback over the high court’s impending decision and worked with his Democrat-appointed colleagues to change it.
As reported by SCOTUS biographer Joan Biskupic in her book, “The Chief,” Roberts’s bid to play politics led him to form a deal with leftist Justices Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan that upheld and struck down certain portions of the ACA.
“After trying unsuccessfully to find a middle way with [Justice Anthony] Kennedy, who was ‘unusually firm’ and even ‘put off’ by the courtship, Roberts turned to the Court’s two moderate liberals, Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan,” a review of “The Chief” published in The Atlantic reads. “The threesome negotiated a compromise decision that upheld the ACA’s individual mandate under Congress’s taxing power, while striking down the Medicaid expansion.”
Biskupic’s reporting echoes findings released by CBS News’ Jan Crawford. She in 2012 reported that “Roberts pays attention to media coverage” and that “[a]s chief justice, he is keenly aware of his leadership role on the court” and “is sensitive to how the court is perceived by the public.”
In spite of his efforts to maintain the court’s favorability as measured by often-biased poll results, Roberts’s games in the NFIB v. Sebelius case did the exact opposite. As detailed in their bestselling book, “Justice on Trial: The Kavanaugh Confirmation and the Future of the Supreme Court,” Federalist Editor-in-Chief Mollie Hemingway and President of the Judicial Crisis Network Carrie Severino detail how “Pew [Research] reported that after the decision the Court remained at its all-time-low 52 percent approval.”
“The accepted narrative, even among those who welcomed the chief’s decision, was that he changed his legal position not on principle but in response to public pressure,” Hemingway and Severino write. “The right lost respect for him, and the decision won him no friends on the left, which still portrays him as unforgivably conservative and a craven political operative. It was a regrettable outcome for anyone concerned about the legitimacy of the Court.”
Roberts’s deference to the consistently changing and poll-manipulated opinions of the American public at the expense of upholding the Constitution didn’t stop at the Obamacare ruling, either. Over the years, Roberts has routinely abandoned originalism for political activism, with the court’s 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision striking down Roe‘s made-up “constitutional right” to an abortion serving as a more recent example.
Despite Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett all correctly maintaining that the precedent established in Roe was unconstitutional garbage, Roberts attempted — yet again — to play politician and convince one of his Republican-appointed colleagues to change his or her vote before the opinion was released. Originally reported by The Washington Post and later Biskupic, Roberts directed his lobbying to save Roe toward justices including Brett Kavanaugh, which “continued through the final weeks of the [2021-2022] session.”
“Multiple sources told CNN that Roberts’ overtures this spring, particularly to Kavanaugh, raised fears among conservatives and hope among liberals that the chief could change the outcome in the most closely watched case in decades,” Biskupic writes. “Once the draft was published by Politico, conservatives pressed their colleagues to try to hasten release of the final decision, lest anything suddenly threaten their majority.”
The report went on to detail how the abrupt May leak of the Supreme Court’s majority draft opinion in Dobbs “thwarted” Roberts’ efforts, with Biskupic noting how the chief justice “can usually work in private, seeking and offering concessions, without anyone beyond the court knowing how he or other individual justices have voted or what they may be writing.”
In the final opinion, Roberts ultimately sided with the leftist justices of the court in upholding Roe, while also voting with his Republican-appointed colleagues to uphold the Mississippi 15-week abortion law as constitutional.
Whether he wants to admit it to himself or not, a decline in public confidence in the Supreme Court isn’t due to any originalist rulings, but to Roberts’s political activism. The role of a judge is — and always has been — to apply the Constitution as it was originally written by the Founders; not manipulate the law to satisfy some personal desire for public approval.
In abdicating his responsibility as a justice, Roberts has given the country every reason to be skeptical of the court’s ability to operate freely from the politics that plague America’s societal discourse. If the chief justice had any interest in ensuring the future of the Supreme Court’s legitimacy, he would quit acting like Mitch McConnell in a robe and start behaving like the judge he was appointed to be.
Shawn Fleetwood is a Staff Writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He also serves as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
Anti-abortion campaigners celebrate outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., on June 24, 2022. – The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday ended the legalization of abortion nationwide in one of the most divisive and bitterly fought issues in American political life. The court overturned the 1973 “Roe v Wade” decision and said individual states can permit or restrict the procedure themselves. | OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP via Getty Images
From at least 1962 when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled official prayer in schools unconstitutional (Engel v. Vitale), followed the next year by banning official scripture reading (Abingdon School Districtv Schempp), the United States of America has been more often ruled by at least five lawyers in black robes than by the government “of the people, by the people, for the people,” which our forefathers intended.
As a Baptist, I actually agreed with these decisions, but polling was running 80% against the court and these decisions would never have been made law through legislation.
As our greatest president, Abraham Lincoln so wisely said, we have a government that is dedicated to the proposition that “All men are created equal,” and have the inalienable right to “life, liberty” and the “pursuit of happiness.”
Our first president, George Washington, noted that we did not have a king, but a Constitution.
Starting with the Earl Warren Supreme Court in the 1950s, the nation’s highest court began gathering greater and greater power unto itself as Congress and the Executive Branch acquiesced and surrendered more and more authority to the Supreme Court. That dangerous imbalance allowed the progressives to win most of the victories they have won over the last half-century by judicial fiat and edict, not by the people’s elected representatives (the Congress and the President).
Why? Because most of what they wanted to do they could not get passed by Congress.
The classic example of this was the Obergefell decision legalizing same-sex marriage. In 2015, Chief Justice John Roberts issued a blistering dissent to the Obergefell decision sanctioning same-sex marriage. In doing so, for the very first time in his tenure as a justice, which began in 2005, he read his opinion out loud from the bench, which is a justice’s way of putting an exclamation point on his dissent.
Chief Justice Roberts argued that the issue of same-sex marriage should be decided by the people in a public policy political process, not by imperial edict from unelected justices.
“Just who do we think we are?” Roberts asked his fellow justices. He explained that such a momentous decision changing the definition of marriage to include same-sex couples should be adjudicated by “the people, acting through their elected representatives,” not by “five lawyers who happen to hold commissions authorizing them to resolve legal disputes under the law.” Thus, he excoriated his fellow justices for “stealing this issue from the people.”
Now, the Supreme Court has done an about-face and returned the power of governing to the people. Contrary to what the mass mainstream media are saying, the Supreme Court did not “end democracy” by overturning the Roe v. Wade decision. In fact, they struck down an imperial dictate from a Supreme Court that ignored the Constitution and sought to impose its view of abortions on the nation — and 63 million American babies died.
Finally, after half a century, the issue of abortion has been returned to the people of each of the fifty states, and they will decide, by democratic processes when and under what circumstances a baby’s life can be taken in their state.
In 2022, the Supreme Court reclaimed its proper role through several dramatic decisions in the 2021-2022 Supreme Court session. In Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, the court said a high school coach did not have his First Amendment rights to free exercise as an American citizen when he steps on public school property. In Carson v. Makin the court ruled that a state does not have to furnish tuition aid to public school students, but if they do so, they cannot discriminate by disallowing students attending religious schools from receiving such aid.
In West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency, the justices said that Congress can no longer surrender its powers to unelected bureaucrats in the federal administrative state. In essence, the court told Congress“to get off its lazy backside and resume the people’s work.”
Congress can still regulate emissions from coal plants, but they must pass specific laws rather than pass them off to faceless bureaucrats.
And of course, supremely in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Court said Roe v. Wade was an attempt by the Court to seize the issue of abortion from the American people. Even the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg felt that Roe was a badly decided decision and made the abortion issue more divisive than it would otherwise have been.
The mass media and the Democrat chattering classes are hysterically proclaiming from the rooftops and everywhere else that the Supreme Court has “killed democracy.” What utter nonsense. The Supreme Court restored the government “of the people, by the people, for the people” to its rightful place. Now, the people of the United States will decide in each state when, and under what circumstances, a baby can be legally killed in their state.
It was the Supreme Court’s action in 1973 in Roe that violated previous practice, not the Supreme Court in 2022.
What the Supreme Court surfaced was a fundamental difference in philosophy concerning what the Supreme Court’s role should be in the American government.
The first view, the original intent view, believes that there are three federal constitutional branches with each having its assigned duties with the judicial branch to protect the constitutional system as a neutral arbiter.
The second view is that the constitution is an ancient and obsolete document written by dead white men over 200 years ago. The Supreme Court’s role should be to perform legal acrobatics and verbal double talk to ram through the progressive left’s agenda (Cf. Francis Menton, “there are two fundamentally irreconcilable constitutional visions,” Manhattan Contrarian).
The 2022 court has largely returned to the first vision and the progressive left is hysterical at the apparent failure of the second vision.
The American people have been profoundly misled by the American press as to what Roe v. Wade actually did. The Harvard-Harris poll, conducted after Dobbs was released, reveals the extent of that deception.
The polling shared that 55% of Americans opposed overturning Roe while 45% supported it. The poll further revealed that 72% of those polled said they supported abortion up to 15 weeks gestation (the precise limit in Dobbs) and 49% wanted to limit abortions to be abolished at six weeks gestation.
So, it turns out a significant majority didn’t support everything in the radical Roe regime and didn’t know that under Roe, America was one of the 10 most abortive nations in the world.
Americans, thanks to the Supreme Court, our decisions about our nation’s future have been placed back in our own hands. A passage in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians comes to mind, “so be careful how you live. Don’t live like fools, but like those who are wise. Make the most of every opportunity in these evil days. Don’t act thoughtlessly but understand what the Lord wants you to do” (Eph. 5:14-17), New Living Translation.
Dr. Richard Land, BA (Princeton, magna cum laude); D.Phil. (Oxford); Th.M (New Orleans Seminary). Dr. Land served as President of Southern Evangelical Seminary from July 2013 until July 2021. Upon his retirement, he was honored as President Emeritus and he continues to serve as an Adjunct Professor of Theology & Ethics. Dr. Land previously served as President of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (1988-2013) where he was also honored as President Emeritus upon his retirement. Dr. Land has also served as an Executive Editor and columnist for The Christian Post since 2011.
Dr. Land explores many timely and critical topics in his daily radio feature, “Bringing Every Thought Captive,” and in his weekly column for CP.
US-Hungarian Billionaire George Soros declared war on the US Supreme Court and the Republican Party in an Op-Ed on his propaganda site Project Syndicate, on July 4th, of all days.
“The American public has been alarmed and aroused by the US Supreme Court’s growing extremism“, Soros claimed. “But voters need to recognize the Court’s radical majority for what it is: part of a carefully laid plan to turn the US into a repressive regime.“
Ever since the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989, George Soros has leveraged $32 billion in “donations” for his influence-peddling system called “Open Society Foundations” to manipulate governments and market prices in the ultimate insider trading deal. Working with the EU and USAID, Open Society wages war on conservative governments around the world with so-called Color Revolutions, and bears key responsibility for the current war in Ukraine.
Nevertheless, Soros has the chuzpah to claim that “democracy is now gravely endangered” by anyone who dares oppose him. While Soros correctly warns of the danger of autocratic regimes in Russia and China, his treasonous screed claims “the threat to the US from the domestic enemies of democracy is even greater.”
For the Hungarian-born naturalized citizen, these “domestic enemies” include the current Supreme Court, “which is dominated by far-right extremists, and Donald Trump’s Republican Party, which placed those extremists on the Court.”
Soros sees the danger from this “radicalized” Supreme Court in its strict Originalist approach to the Law: “Justice Samuel Alito, the author of the majority opinion, based his ruling on the assertion that the Fourteenth Amendment protects only those rights that were generally recognized in 1868, when the amendment was ratified. But this argument endangers many other rights that have been recognized since then, among them the right to contraception, same-sex marriage, and LGBTQ rights.”
Soros seems to acknowledge that many of the “Rights” claimed by activist courts, such as the “right to contraception, same-sex marriage, and LGBTQ rights”, are not actually to be found in the Constitution and would need to be passed by the legislature, not by activist judges.
“There is only one way to rein in the Supreme Court: throw the Republican Party out of office in a landslide”, Soros writes, while acknowledging it will not be easy:
“But when it comes to organizing a landslide victory against the radicalized Republicans, opponents face almost insuperable obstacles. Republicans have not only stacked the Supreme Court and many lower courts with extremist judges. In states such as Florida, Georgia, and Texas, they have enacted a raft of laws that make voting very difficult.’
While these laws focus on disenfranchising African-Americans, other minorities, and young voters generally, their ultimate goal is to help Republicans win elections. As a Florida federal judge recently wrote in striking down one of these laws, they were enacted “with the intent to restructure Florida’s election system in ways that favor the Republican Party over the Democratic Party.”
“These laws would be bad enough if they only targeted who can vote. But Republicans are now going even further, by attacking the vote-counting and election-certification process. From changing the law to make subversion of the electoral system easier, to recruiting believers in Trump’s big lie that the 2020 election was stolen from him to oversee the process, we are watching Republicans attack our system of democracy from every angle. And here, too, the radical Supreme Court has done its part, gutting the federal Voting Rights Act and allowing naked partisan redistricting to weaken minority voting power.”
“We must do everything we can to prevent” the Republicans from gaining power in November 2022, Soros writes, seemingly opening the floodgates for another round of no-holds-barred Democrat cheating.
Fortunately, American patriots now know what is at stake, after the historic fraud of 2020, and are organizing in projects like the Precinct Strategy.
Democrats might not believe in the Constitution, but unlike Republicans who slavishly worship the federal courts, Democrats understand that courts wield “neither force nor will” in implementing their rulings on society. This is becoming increasingly evident for those seeking to defend themselves in the seven states that do not automatically issue carry permits.
Last week, as I was headed out the door, my 12-year-old asked me why I wasn’t immediately carrying in light of the ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, stating unambiguously that Maryland’s requirement for a “good and substantial reason” to carry is unconstitutional. I had to explain to him that in Maryland the Constitution doesn’t matter and that ultimately, a court cannot mandate a particular permitting scheme. “Oh, so you mean the state will just take forever to rewrite the permitting process and then throw up obstacles at every step?” Well, now my son knows why we want to flee from this tyrannical state.
We all remember the images from red states the minute the Supreme Court redefined marriage in Obergefell after thousands of years of history and tradition dating back to Adam and Eve. Within less than two weeks after the court invented a right from thin air and declared our entire history and tradition unconstitutional, all of the remaining states that did not recognize gay unions as marriages were issuing licenses. There were no court cases in the lower courts, waiting time for changes to the state’s marriage laws to be rewritten, or dilatory tactics employed by the states to thwart the ruling. Marriage had been redefined for all time the minute the ruling came down from the majority led by Justice Anthony Kennedy.
Contrast that to the ruling in Bruen, which categorically stated that it was unconstitutional based on the plain meaning of the Bill of Rights for seven states to deny the right to carry. Yet here we are, two weeks later, and there is no guarantee that any of us will be able to carry soon, even though these are the very states with exploding crime rates.
To this day, Maryland is still requiring an extensive permitting process to even purchase a gun for your home for the first time, much less carry outside your home. The state is still banning numerous common 9mm pistols and rifles, as well as sale of magazines with more than 10 rounds. Yet despite a remand order from the Supreme Court, Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh was defiant, claiming these guns “pose grave risks to public safety,” and asserted that “Marylanders have a right to be protected from these dangerous weapons.” He noted that “Despite the Bruen ruling, the state’s law remains in effect.” The Massachusetts AG promised to continue enforcing the current law too.
Where was this sentiment when the courts ruled that red states had to treat men like women and non-marriages like marriages? The Maryland attorney general is actually not wrong about the power of the Supreme Court, just about the Constitution. In other words, a court doesn’t rip a statute out of the books. It’s just that if the state takes action against someone pursuant to that law, the courts will overturn the conviction. However, in order to get a permit of any sort, even on par with the liberally issued ones in the “shall issue” states, the state needs to come up with a new licensing scheme. It’s quite evident some of the blue states like Maryland will take their time. Although the Maryland governor, Larry Hogan, did issue an order to the state police to end the “good and substantial reason” limitation, he did mention that the order has “no impact on other permitting requirements and protocols.” The expensive and cumbersome process is still bogging me down, something we would never accept for any other fundamental right spelled out in plain language in the Constitution.
New York went a step further. The state responded to Bruen by toughening its carry laws! Just before the July 4 weekend, the state legislature passed a law banning carry in the following places: government buildings, health care facilities, places of worship, libraries, public playgrounds and parks, day care facilities, summer camps, addiction and mental health centers, shelters, public transit, bars, theaters, stadiums, museums, polling places, and casinos. The law also creates an automatic “no carry” standard as the default on private property unless the owners affirmatively permit it.
Gov. Kathy Hochul just signed the bill, as if Bruen never happened.
We’ve taken swift action to protect New Yorkers.
Our new legislation includes restrictions on where those with concealed carry permits are allowed to bring their guns. pic.twitter.com/BsbUEwqf8z
— Governor Kathy Hochul (@GovKathyHochul) July 2, 2022
In other words, the blue states are responding to the court ruling by saying, “All right, people generally have the right to carry some sort of firearm under some sort of circumstance in some place.” They will engage in a game of legal “catch me if you can,” forcing a new lawsuit on each and every regulation. Remember, it took 14 years to apply the unambiguous language of Heller to the right to carry outside one’s home.
New Jersey plans to increase training requirements, limit places people can carry, similar to New York, impose microstamping technology on guns, and a public nuisance law that will allow the government to harass gun dealers. The microstamping was pioneered by California, when the state banned any guns produced after the date of the microstamping law without that technology being on the guns. It essentially precludes people from owning many popular guns on the market.
For its part, California is looking to restrict concealed carry to those 21 and older; require in-person interviews with the applicant and at least three character references; and allow sheriffs and police chiefs to consider applicants’ public statements as they weigh whether the individual is dangerous.
Delaware also responded to the court’s ruling by further banning more common weapons, even after the Supreme Court remanded a case on “assault weapons” bans back to the lower courts, in clear indication that such laws are precluded by Bruen.
The blue-state strategy was best summed up by UCLA law professor Adam Winkler. “This case is not the final word,”said Winkler. Obviously, what they are doing is illegal because it violates an undeniable right written in plain language in the Constitution. But they are not wrong that the states and other branches of government can use other levers of power to practically limit the court’s application. Perhaps red states need to learn a thing or two for the next time the federal courts issue a categorical right for men to use female bathrooms or for a horse and a donkey to get a marriage license. Courts aren’t the final say; the Constitution is. In the case of self-defense, they two happen to have finally aligned.
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.
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.
Activists hold a banner in front of the US Supreme Court in Washington, DC, on June 18, 2020. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected President Donald Trump’s move to rescind the DACA program that offers protections to 700,000 undocumented migrants brought to the US as children. | NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP via Getty Images
For the majority of my life, I held fairly traditional views on illegal immigration. It was based in my trust that America’s democratic political systems are rooted in liberty, justice, and fairness.
However, meeting Jose changed me.
Like me, Jose is a Baptist minister and fellow believer in Jesus Christ. We both were raised in America, graduated from an American education system, and have a family and community we love. Where we are different is that as a teenager, Jose became aware that he wasn’t an American citizen but instead an undocumented immigrant, limiting his opportunities and delivering uncertainty around his future in the only country he knew as home.
Jose exposed me to the fact that there are millions of people like him who are deemed illegal immigrants and did not choose this status when they first arrived in America at the age of 2 or even 11. In fact, many did not learn until later that they were not born in the U.S. Our society has labeled this population as “Dreamers,” and despite our American value of fairness, there is no path for them to make the right choice someone else made on their behalf.
Imagine celebrating your high school graduation only to be blindsided with new information that you don’t have legal government documents and there is no solution to fix it. You can’t pursue the careers you were taught to aspire to while in high school. You can’t leave the country for a mission trip overseas. You can’t get caught with a broken car light while driving to the grocery store.
In 2012, after years of Congress debating and failing to create an earned path to legal status for Dreamers, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) was introduced as a presidential executive order.
This policy created a special opportunity for Jose and roughly 600,000 other individuals to work legally, pursue college, buy a house and not fear deportation.
DACA also continues to face legal challenges and could be struck down by the courts at any moment this year. Jose would be faced with renewed risks of deportation and removal from his church, his family, and his community.
Americans are faced with a moral gravity to make things right for our neighbors like Jose. But fairness and justice for this unique population can only be permanently secured by Congress.
Voters are calling out for it and don’t want to wait until after the midterm elections. The National Immigration Forum published a poll in February that shows 8 in 10 voters support a pathway for legal status for Dreamers coupled with border security policies and smart visa reform to deliver a reliable workforce for farmers and ranchers.
In my home state, I find hope in U.S. Senator Alex Padilla’s (D-CA) promotion of the “Citizenship for Essential Workers Act” and in Congressman David Valadeo’s (R-CA-21) political courage to vote for the 2021 American Dream and Promise Act. Both sides can come together and show us how to live up to our own ideals as a nation. This is the year to get the right decisions across the finish line for Dreamers and for our country.
Alan Cross is the pastor of Petaluma Valley Baptist Church in Petaluma, California.
Anti-abortion campaigners celebrate outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., on June 24, 2022. – The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday ended legalized abortion nationwide in one of the most divisive and bitterly fought issues in American political life. The court overturned the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision and said individual states can permit or restrict the procedure themselves. | OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP via Getty Images
Updated at 1:54 p.m. ET on June 28.
Abortion has now become illegal in several states following the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization stating that the Constitution doesn’t contain a right to abortion. The Dobbs decision, released Friday, reverses the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide. The legality of abortion will now be decided on a state-by-state basis. As The Christian Post previously reported, 21 states will either completely ban or more severely restrict abortion than they did pre-Roe following the reversal of the decision.
The pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute has identified 13 states that have “trigger laws” that would ban abortion in the event of Roe’s reversal: Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and Wyoming. In the days immediately following the Dobbs decision, abortion bans have already gone into effect in 11 states, although a lower court judge has already struck down two of them as unconstitutional.
Missouri became the first state to ban abortion following the Dobbs decision Friday, with Republican Attorney General Eric Schmitt issuing an opinion declaring that “the United States Supreme Court has overruled, in whole in part, Roe v. Wade,” thereby granting “the state of Missouri the authority to regulate abortion to the extent set forth” in section 188.017 of the “Right to Life of the Unborn Child Act.” This portion of the law proclaims that “notwithstanding any other provision of law to the contrary, no abortion shall be performed or induced upon a woman, except in cases of medical emergency.”
Section B of the Right to Life of the Unborn Child Act stated that “the enactment of this section shall only become effective upon notification to the revisor of statutes by an opinion by the attorney general of Missouri, a proclamation by the governor of Missouri, or the adoption of a concurrent resolution by the Missouri general assembly” that the Supreme Court has overruled Roe.
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, a Republican, announced Friday that “we have a law on the books that makes abortion illegal immediately, except to preserve the life of the mother.”
Oklahoma Attorney General John O’Connor, a Republican, sent a letter to the state’s governor and the leaders of the state legislature Friday informing them that “As a result of Dobbs, the authority of the state of Oklahoma to prohibit abortion has been confirmed, and the state of Oklahoma may enforce Section 861 of Title 21 of the Oklahoma statutes or enact a similar statute prohibiting abortion throughout pregnancy.”
The law O’Connor was referring to makes performing an abortion a felony unless it’s “necessary to preserve” the life of the mother. On Friday, the office of Ohio’s Republican Gov. Mike DeWine published a statement indicating that “U.S. District Judge Michael Barrett lifted the preliminary injunction which had prevented the state of Ohio from enforcing or complying with Senate Bill 23,” which bans abortions after a baby’s heartbeat can be detected. Barrett’s decision enables the state to ban all abortions after six weeks of gestation.
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, a Republican, announced Friday that the Alabama Human Life Protection Act, which bans elective abortions in the state, will now take effect following the Dobbs decision.
“The state of Alabama’s emergency motion to lift the injunction and reinstate Alabama’s 2019 law, which prohibits abortions in most instances, has been granted,” he said. “Both the federal district court and the plaintiffs recognized that there is no basis for a continued stay of the duly-enacted law in light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.”
“Thus, Alabama’s law, making elective abortions a felony is now enforceable,” Marshall added. “Anyone who takes an unborn life in violation of the law will be prosecuted, with penalties ranging from 10 to 99 years for abortion providers.”
The office of Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge, a Republican, published an announcement Friday certifying that Dobbs “overrules the central holding of Roe v. Wade” and “reaffirms the state’s authority to protect unborn life.” Rutledge’s office stressed that “Arkansas has enacted and defended laws that prohibit elective abortion,” which can now go into effect following the Dobbs decision.
Additionally, Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron published an advisory opinion Friday noting that “the prohibitions on performing abortions” in the state’s Human Life Protection Act “became effective on June 24, 2022, the date on which the Supreme Court issued its decision in Dobbs.”
Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry, a Republican, took to Twitter Friday to announce that “Because of #SCOTUS ruling in #Dobbs, Louisiana’s trigger law banning #abortion is now in effect.” However, on Monday, the pro-abortion group Center for Reproductive Rights reported on Twitter that “#Louisiana’s trigger bans have been BLOCKED by a state court in response to our lawsuit filed earlier today” and therefore, “abortion care is resuming in Louisiana.”
— Center for Reproductive Rights (@ReproRights) June 27, 2022
John Fellows, the general counsel of the Utah Legislature, wrote a letter to lawmakers Friday explaining that Abortion Prohibition Amendments enacted in 2020 will take effect now that “a court of binding authority has held that a state may prohibit the abortion of an unborn child at any time during the gestational period, subject to the exceptions enumerated in this bill.”
The pro-abortion group Utah Abortion Fund announced on Twitter Monday that “the Utah Courts have granted a 14 day restraining order on the trigger ban,” allowing elective abortions to continue taking place there for the next two weeks.
As of Monday, June 27, elective abortions remain legal in Utah for 14 days. A Utah court just blocked the state’s abortion ban. Effective immediately, UTAF is reopening our health line to support as many folks as we can! pic.twitter.com/883BD0IlKd
— Utah Abortion Fund (@UTabortionfund) June 28, 2022
On Monday, Attorney General Lynn Fitch of Mississippi, the state whose 15-week abortion ban was at the center of the Dobbs case, reported on Twitter that: “Today I certified Mississippi’s trigger law and I am excited for our State to move forward in this new post-Roe era to empower women and promote life!”
Today, I certified Mississippi’s trigger law and I am excited for our State to move forward in this new post-Roe era to empower women and promote life! pic.twitter.com/Bd1EJTvRD4
On Monday, the office of South Carolina’s Republican Attorney General Alan Wilson published a statement noting that the state’s Heartbeat Bill banning abortions after six weeks gestation had gone into effect because a judge serving on the U.S. District Court of South Carolina stayed the injunction blocking state officials from enforcing it following the Dobbs decision.
A 12th state, Texas, will ban abortions within the next month. An advisory opinion from the state’s Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton reveals that “the Human Life Protection Act of 2021,” which “prohibits abortions in most circumstances and takes effect on the 30th day after ‘issuance of a United States Supreme Court judgment in a decision overruling, wholly or partly, Roe v. Wade.’”
North Dakota will also ban abortions beginning July 28, as the state’s Republican Attorney General Drew Wrigley explained in a letter to the North Dakota Legislative Council Tuesday. Wrigley credited the Dobbs decision for removing the “legal barriers to enforcement” of a state law banning abortions with exceptions in cases of rape or incest and to save the life of the mother. The abortion ban will go into effect 30 days after Wrigley’s letter certifying that the “preconditions for enforcement” of the law have been satisfied.
The additional states projected to ban or severely restrict abortion in the near future are Arizona, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, North Carolina, Tennessee, West Virginia and Wyoming.
Republican Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves said he will ban abortions in his state following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade on Friday, vowing to create a “culture of life.”
The Supreme Court handed down a 6-3 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a case focused on a Mississippi law that banned abortion after 15 weeks, on Friday, finding there is no constitutional right to an abortion. Reeves applauded the decision for returning the power to strict abortion procedures to the states, and pledged to work toward banning abortions.
“I think that the majority of Americans actually believe what we believe on this case. They now have the ability to go to their local elected representatives and each individual state has the ability to pass whatever abortion laws that they think are most appropriate for their elected citizenry,” Reeves told The Daily Caller News Foundation in an interview. “In our state, we’re not going to allow for abortions.”
“If some other states want to then that’s their prerogative, but I think the reason the far-left is so spun up about this case is because they know that so many Americans don’t believe in third-trimester abortion, so many Americans believe that there ought to be reasonable restrictions on abortions even in states like California and New York,” Reeves said.
“Not only are we prepared to work to create a culture of life – we’ve already begun the process,” he said. “We invested millions and millions of dollars this year in our child protection services agency. We have invested in pregnancy resource centers so those individuals that find themselves in unwanted pregnancies have a place to go, a resource such that they can be helped and guided through the process.”
“Our job is to say it is not just about winning a court case, it’s about creating a culture of life, and in Mississippi, that’s exactly what we are doing,” Reeves said.
Demonstrators gather outside the United States Supreme Court as the court rules in the Dobbs v Women’s Health Organization abortion case, overturning the landmark Roe v Wade abortion decision in Washington, U.S., June 24, 2022. REUTERS/Michael Mccoy
“The reality is when I ran for office, I know that the people that elected me, elected me to do what I thought was right,” Reeves said. “And what I believe to be right is to follow God’s will.”
“Honestly, when I run for re-election if this case causes me to lose re-election, then so be it because the reality is … people across America want their elected leaders to stand up for right,” he said. “And in my mind, that’s exactly what we’ve done.”
The White House did not immediately respond to TheDCNF’s comment request.
The Blue Ridge Pregnancy Center in Lynchburg, Virginia, was vandalized hours after the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion nationwide, June 25, 2022. | Facebook/Blue Ridge Pregnancy Center
A pro-life pregnancy center in Virginia has become the first anti-abortion organization to face vandalism since the United States Supreme Court reversed the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide.
Early Saturday morning, hours after the Supreme Court ruled in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that the Constitution does not contain a right to abortion, pro-abortion activists vandalized Blue Ridge Pregnancy Center in Lynchburg, Virginia. While several pro-life pregnancy centers and churches have found themselves subject to varying degrees of vandalism since Politico first published a leaked draft opinion in the Dobbs case eight weeks ago, the attack on Blue Ridge Pregnancy Center is the first to take place since the publication of the Dobbs decision.
One image of the vandalism shared on Facebook by the Lynchburg Police Department shows the words “Jane’s Revenge” spray-painted on the ground in front of the facility, with the “A” in the phrase written like the symbol for the anarchist movement. The symbol for the anarchist movement was also spray-painted onto the side of the building.
A group of pro-abortion activists calling themselves Jane’s Revenge has taken credit for many acts of vandalism against churches and pro-life pregnancy centers in recent weeks. They have also called on pro-life organizations to disband and declared “open season” on such groups in a communique released two weeks ago. Republican federal lawmakers have called on the Department of Justice to take action against the group in response to the aforementioned threat.
The FBI has already announced an investigation into attacks against “pregnancy resource centers and faith-based organizations across the country.” Last year, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security included both pro-life and pro-abortion groups on a list of “domestic violent extremists” that “pose an elevated threat to the homeland in 2021.”
Another image of the property damage at Blue Ridge Pregnancy Center reveals graffiti declaring, “If abortion ain’t safe you ain’t safe.” Additional images of the vandalism illustrated a broken window at the facility, along with the words “Vote blue LOL” spray-painted on the side of the building.
The Blue Ridge Pregnancy Center in Lynchburg, Virginia, was vandalized hours after the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion nationwide, June 25, 2022. | Facebook/Blue Ridge Pregnancy Center
The Blue Ridge Pregnancy Center in Lynchburg, Virginia, was vandalized hours after the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion nationwide, June 25, 2022. | Facebook/Blue Ridge Pregnancy Center
The Lynchburg Police Department also provided a still image of security camera footage documenting “four masked individuals” who committed the acts of vandalism. The timestamp showed the perpetrators gathered outside the facility at around 1:20 a.m.
Susan Campbell, executive director of Blue Ridge Pregnancy Center, reacted to the targeting of her business in a statement posted on Facebook Saturday: “BRPC has been vandalized greatly and we need the support of our community now more than ever. If you are available to give financial support for additional security, and lots of prayers, we would greatly appreciate you. We know God has [His] Hand over our center and the work at BRPC is not finished.”
Campbell also posted additional pictures of the vandalism, including the defacement of a streetside sign advertising the facility with a symbol for the anarchist movement.
Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, condemned the vandalism of Blue Ridge Pregnancy Center in a tweet Saturday. “There is no room for this in Virginia, breaking the law is unacceptable,” he said. “This is not how we find common ground. Virginia State Police stands ready to support local law enforcement as they investigate.”
There is no room for this in Virginia, breaking the law is unacceptable. This is not how we find common ground. Virginia State Police stands ready to support local law enforcement as they investigate.
There is no room for this in Virginia, breaking the law is unacceptable. This is not how we find common ground. Virginia State Police stands ready to support local law enforcement as they investigate.https://t.co/BONC83jKgj
— Governor Glenn Youngkin (@GovernorVA) June 26, 2022
In a statement issued following the Dobbs decision, Youngkin said he plans to “take every action I can to protect life” now that “the Supreme Court of the United States has rightfully returned power to the people and their elected representatives in the states.”
Maintaining that “Virginians want fewer abortions, not more abortions,” he insisted that “we can build a bipartisan consensus on protecting the life of unborn children, especially when they begin to feel pain in the womb, and importantly supporting mothers and families who choose life.”
“I’ve asked Senator Siobhan Dunnavant, Senator Steve Newman, Delegate Kathy Byron and Delegate Margaret Ransone to join us in an effort to bring together legislators and advocates from across the Commonwealth on this issue to find areas where we can agree and chart the most successful path forward,” Youngkin added. “I’ve asked them to do the important work needed and be prepared to introduce legislation when the General Assembly returns in January.”
Youngkin’s comments reflect the fact that with Roe overturned, the legality of abortion will be decided on a state-by-state basis. Virginia is one of 10 states that will continue enforcing existing abortion laws and/or restrictions until new legislation is passed. Currently, Virginia bans abortions after the second trimester of pregnancy.
Twenty-one states will either completely ban or more severely restrict abortion than they do now and 16 states will continue allowing abortions throughout most or all of pregnancy as the right to abortion has been codified into law. Three additional states could soon enact changes to their abortion laws depending on the results of possible ballot referendums on the matter.
Coach Joe Kennedy at the Bremerton High School football field. | Courtesy of First Liberty Institute
The United States Supreme Court has ruled that a Washington school district was wrong to punish a high school football coach for praying on the field after games. In a decision released Monday morning, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that the Bremerton School District discriminated against Coach Joe Kennedy.
Justice Neil Gorsuch delivered the court’s opinion, being joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh.
“Kennedy prayed during a period when school employees were free to speak with a friend, call for a reservation at a restaurant, check email, or attend to other personal matters. He offered his prayers quietly while his students were otherwise occupied. Still, the Bremerton School District disciplined him anyway,” wrote Gorsuch.
“Both the Free Exercise and Free Speech Clauses of the First Amendment protect expressions like Mr. Kennedy’s … The Constitution and the best of our traditions counsel mutual respect and tolerance, not censorship and suppression, for religious and nonreligious views alike.”
In response to today’s opinion, Kennedy said, “This is just so awesome. All I’ve ever wanted was to be back on the field with my guys. I am incredibly grateful to the Supreme Court, my fantastic legal team, and everyone who has supported us. I thank God for answering our prayers and sustaining my family through this long battle.”
Kelly Shackelford, president, CEO and chief counsel for First Liberty, a religious liberty law firm based in Plano, Texas, which represented Kennedy, hailed the court’s decision as a “tremendous victory for Coach Kennedy and religious liberty for all Americans.”
“Our Constitution protects the right of every American to engage in private religious expression, including praying in public, without fear of getting fired,” she added. “We are grateful that the Supreme Court recognized what the Constitution and law have always said — Americans are free to live out their faith in public.”
Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a dissent, joined by Justices Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan, in which she argued that “this Court consistently has recognized that school officials leading prayer is constitutionally impermissible.”
“Official-led prayer strikes at the core of our constitutional protections for the religious liberty of students and their parents, as embodied in both the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment,” she wrote.
“This decision does a disservice to schools and the young citizens they serve, as well as to our Nation’s longstanding commitment to the separation of church and state.”
Paul Cement, former U.S. Solicitor General and First Liberty network attorney who argued Kennedy’s case before the Justices, said, “After seven long years, Coach Kennedy can finally return to the place he belongs — coaching football and quietly praying by himself after the game. This is a great victory for Coach Kennedy and the First Amendment.”
A devout Christian, Kennedy had a practice of going to the 50-yard line after high school football games and praying, often with fans and students joining him. In 2015, the school district suspended Kennedy for praying on the field after games and later decided not to renew his contract because of his refusal to stop praying on the field. Kennedy sued the school district in 2016, accusing them of violating his religious freedom.
Earlier this year, Shackelford said First Liberty was representing Kennedy because “No teacher or coach should lose their job for simply expressing their faith while in public.”
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled against the coach in 2017, while the Supreme Court initially refused to hear his case in 2019. In March of last year, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit again ruled against Kennedy, with Judge Milan D. Smith Jr. authoring the unanimous opinion.
“[T]here is no doubt that an objective observer, familiar with the history of Kennedy’s practice, would view his demonstrations as BSD’s endorsement of a particular faith. For that reason, BSD had adequate justification for its treatment of Kennedy,” wrote Smith.
“BSD had a compelling state interest to avoid violating the Establishment Clause, and it tried repeatedly to work with Kennedy to develop an accommodation for him that would avoid violating the Establishment Clause while nevertheless offering him options that were narrowly tailored to protect his rights …”
In January, the Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal in the case and heard oral arguments in late April, with the justices debating whether Kennedy’s prayer practice was coercive.
It’s the body of government closest to the people, yet it’s the most forgotten, overshadowed, and weakened body in recent years. However, with the Dobbs opinion returning the power to regulate abortions to state legislatures, we now have the opportunity to focus our attention on legislative elections, sessions, and policies and settle our acerbic cultural and legal differences in the most prudent and democratic process.
We are an irrevocably divided nation, and it will only get worse over time. We can’t agree on the definition of a marriage, a woman, a citizen, a criminal, a fundamental right, or the purpose of our existence, much less the purpose of our government. We can either continue forging ahead with a winner-take-all approach to politics and have the federal executive bureaucracy – the least accountable and transparent branch of government and most distant from the people – decide every important political question. Or we settle those debates in state legislatures – the branch closest to the people where most members are elected every two years.
Whether you abhor abortion as murder or think it’s the greatest sacrament of virtue, the reality is that red states are going to ban abortions (many already have) and the blue states are going to obsessively expand access to them. Unlike the seven justices who initially banned all regulation of abortion in 1973, all those legislators in each state will be subject to removal every two or four years. For the most part, the legislators will vote in a way that reflects the values of the majority in their areas. This is the self-sorting process we’ve always needed. This dynamic needs to expand to every other important issue of our time. It’s not a perfect process, but it’s much better than where we are today, and it will allow us to live side by side harmoniously in a de facto amicable separation, albeit with shared custody over certain issues that are national in scope.
In the coming months, conservatives will be trained by their favorite Fox News media figures to obsess about the potential of a RINO takeover of Congress and the coming presidential election, even though the latter won’t even be relevant, policy-wise, until 2025. But the reality is that Republicans control trifecta supermajorities in a number of states today and will only expand that dominance next year. Come January, they have the ability to make those states de facto sanctuaries for our rights and values – if only we focus our pressure on elected state Republicans and educate them concerning the enormity of their power. It’s time to use it.
In his national design for governance, Madison explained the state vs. federal arrangement in Federalist #45 as follows:
“The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the Federal Government, are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State Governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will for the most part be connected. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects, which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties and properties of the people; and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State.”
Think about issues like COVID fascism and transgenderism. Internal order, liberties, and property, etc. – this can all be rectified at a state level. Anything outside war and foreign commerce is fair game. This is where conservatives failed to act during the lockdowns and COVID fascism. They should have activated the legislatures immediately and forced debate for the states to immediately reject the federal policies. It’s still not too late to change course.
In responding to the Biden administration’s immoral and illegal policies and edicts over the next two and a half years, conservatives should have a one-track mind and be singularly focused on how they can pressure their legislatures to interpose against the federal tyranny. Conservatives have long been distracted away from a state legislative focus, but perhaps the Democrats will teach them how it’s done. Believe me, the blue states will immediately take action and juice up funding for abortion while expanding its legal scope – perhaps even to after the birth of the baby.
Likewise, most GOP legislatures and attorneys general seem to have acted swiftly to immediately ban abortion at the first opportunity. But we now need to see this swiftness on other issues as well. For example, Biden’s Department of Education just promulgated a rule putting any school or university on the hook for sexual harassment if they don’t call men who think they are women by female pronouns. This is the sort of illegal federal regulation that states must immediately stop. Legislatures should instantly convene and block its implementation within their states.
The big problem we have in legislatures, though, is that so many of them are only in session for a few months a year. In states like Texas, they are only in session every other year. This means that, for example with COVID, when you have federal and state executive branches suspending the republic, we often have to wait months or years for legislatures to act. It was OK to have a part-time legislature when we had a part-time executive branch and the legislature was the only organ of government that legislated. However, now that the federal and state departments of health and education legislate 365 days a year without any checks or balances, the concept of a part-time legislature actually harms us.
As such, conservatives must begin pushing reforms to make it easier to call legislatures back into session, and it should not be tied to the whims of the governors. We don’t need state legislatures voting on bills all year, but we must reserve the prerogative to get them back into session at a moment’s notice to interpose against tyranny.
For years, Republicans have accumulated a ton of power in many states, have done nothing with it, and have failed to clean up their own cultural Marxist swamps within state-run agencies. Abortion was the only red line conservative voters established and held their elected representatives to. It succeeded beyond our wildest dreams. Now it’s time we harness that energy for issues like medical freedom, Pfizer liability, transgenderism, illegal immigration, crime, First Amendment protections, and interposition against the tyrannical Biden administration. What the Dobbs victory has clearly shown is that we will only enjoy the rights and policies commensurate with our desire to fight for them.
A person holds up a sign reading “Ruth Sent Us” as pro-choice activists gather outside the U.S. Courthouse to defend abortion rights in downtown Los Angeles on May 3, 2022. | Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images
Every freedom-loving American should be appalled at the violence and threats of violence against U.S. government employees. We have witnessed the chilling sight of a potential assassination of a sitting Supreme Court Justice at his personal residence.
We have had to witness through national media film clips hundreds of American citizens protesting in front of the justices’ homes.
Around the country we hear and see spreading reports of acts of violence against crisis pregnancy centers (whose only aim is to save the lives of the unborn and to minister to their mothers).
Circulars and posters have popped up, declaring: “Call to Action night of rage.” These “woke warriors” declare: “TO OUR OPPRESSORS: If ABORTIONS are not SAFE, THEN YOU’RE NOT EITHER.” Some crisis pregnancy centers have been targeted with firebombs.
Now we have the even more dangerous specter of thousands of elected officials, openly declaring that they will not enforce abortion-related laws.
First, most of these protestors, or recalcitrant public officials, have been whipped into a frenzy by political operatives (including mass media) that have misinformed them that this is true. Thus, they proclaim “if Roe is overturned, democracy dies!”
Nothing could be further from the actual truth. If Roe is overturned, democracy is restored in America. The citizens of each state will decide for themselves when and under what circumstances abortions would take place — a decision taken out of their hands by an imperial Supreme Court 48 years ago.
Given the current mood in the country, it is critically important to know the facts.
I cannot think, however, of a greater threat to our nation’s rule of law, the bedrock of our entire legal system, than having public officials exercise a self-proclaimed “right” to disobey and ignore laws with which they are in disagreement — laws which they have taken an oath to enforce.
It is bad enough when private citizens refuse to obey the nation’s laws. When elected officials refuse to fulfill their oath of office, society has descended into a dark and dangerous place. The other day a very disturbing headline appeared in newspapers, “If Roe falls, some DAs won’t enforce abortion ban.”
In both red states and blue states, you have District Attorneys and other public officials who are openly declaring that they will not enforce laws they have taken an oath to uphold.
As I said earlier, I cannot think of anything more destructive to the rule of law (a precious and fragile thing that Americans too often take for granted since it has always been part of the “furniture in the room” ever since the ratification of the Constitution in 1789).
Once the rule of law is imperiled, it is a swift descent into oligarchy and then insurrection and chaos.
Back in 1960, during one of the most intriguing presidential elections in our entire history as a nation, one huge issue was the fact that the Democrat candidate for president, Sen. John F. Kennedy, was a Roman Catholic and a Roman Catholic had never been elected to the presidency.
This was a big deal! You must remember that you are dealing here with a pre-Vatican II Roman Catholicism, which could give formidable pause to your average American Protestant. Would the pope tell the president what to do under the threat of excommunication?
So on September 12, 1960, a memorable weekday night during that hot and very contested campaign, which in the end would be decided by less than 100,000 votes (less than one vote per precinct nationwide), then Sen. John Kennedy came to my hometown of Houston, Texas, to answer the question of whether his Catholic beliefs would compromise his oath of allegiance if he were to be victorious.
I was in my 14th year and new to all things political. Democrat presidential candidate John F. Kennedy was going to address the Greater Houston Ministerial Association (made up of Protestant ministers, including my pastor) on the question of his Catholicism — and he was going to take questions. Trust me, it was a big deal!
JFK was clearly miffed that he was having to address the issue at all. Near the beginning, he says, “because I am a Catholic and no Catholic has ever been elected President, … it is apparently necessary for me to state once again what kind of America I believe in!”
JFK then observes,
“Contrary to common newspaper usage, I am not the Catholic candidate for President. I am the Democratic Pary’s candidate for President who happens also to be Catholic. I do not speak for my church on public matters — and the church does not speak for me.”
Then the president gets down to the heart of the issue. Having declared his allegiance to religious liberty as defined in the First Amendment, JFK states:
“Whatever issue may come before me as President…I will make my decision…in accordance with what my conscience tells me to be in the national interest, and without regard to outside religious pressures or dictates. And no power or threat of punishment could cause me to do otherwise.”
In other words, his Roman Catholic faith informs his conscience, and he would be guided by his, not the Roman Catholic hierarchy’s, conscience. The “no power or threat of punishment” undoubtedly refers to the threat of papal excommunication.
Then JFK, in my opinion, “threads the needle” perfectly by saying:
“If the time should ever come…when my office would require me to either violate my conscience or violate the national interest, then I would resign the office. I hope any conscientious public servant would do the same.”
JFK was laying down a fundamental marker. He would not violate his conscience or his oath of office in which, if elected, he would, “solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of the President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution…so help me God.”
This should be an example for every elected official in the United States. You have sworn an oath to uphold the law as it is, not as you would like for it to be. If you cannot in conscience do so, resign and then protest the law as a private citizen. Just ignoring the laws you have sworn to uphold is not an option — and some might legitimately call it treason.
Dr. Richard Land, BA (Princeton, magna cum laude); D.Phil. (Oxford); Th.M (New Orleans Seminary). Dr. Land served as President of Southern Evangelical Seminary from July 2013 until July 2021. Upon his retirement, he was honored as President Emeritus and he continues to serve as an Adjunct Professor of Theology & Ethics. Dr. Land previously served as President of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (1988-2013) where he was also honored as President Emeritus upon his retirement. Dr. Land has also served as an Executive Editor and columnist for The Christian Post since 2011.
Dr. Land explores many timely and critical topics in his daily radio feature, “Bringing Every Thought Captive,” and in his weekly column for CP.
Antifa expert Andy Ngo on Friday posted screenshots of tweets from Antifa-affiliated groups and other radical leftists around the country calling for a “night of rage” and similar actions in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturn of Roe v. Wade, which has permitted abortion nationwide for nearly 50 years. In a Twitter thread that he promised to update, Ngo first warned that the violent anarchist group Jane’s Revenge — which has claimed responsibility for a number of attacks on pro-life groups since the leak of the Roe v. Wade overturn draft — has updated its flyers and is calling for violence Friday night:
In anticipation of the striking down of Roe v Wade, a far-left #Antifa-linked group named Jane’s Revenge carried out violent attacks on pregnancy resource centers across the US for weeks. Their current flyers in DC call for mass violence tonight: https://t.co/OioJvM0NUupic.twitter.com/ezSL4YDuN6
Ngo also tweeted that the Washington, D.C., chapter of the Youth Liberation Front — another “violent Antifa group” — is “calling for people to wear black, mask up & to meet at Folger Park at 7:30 p.m. The YLF was responsible for months of extreme violence in Portland & Seattle in 2020.”
He added that Antifa in Portland already made plans for violence Thursday and announced a “direct action gathering starting at 5:30 pm PT at Lownsdale Square — the same location they occupied in 2020 & used as a base to carry out mass violence & arson.”
#Antifa in Portland, OR already made plans for violence since yesterday. They've now announced a direct action gathering starting at 5:30 pm PT at Lownsdale Square, the same location they occupied in 2020 & used as a base to carry out mass violence & arson.https://t.co/za3xTcMGtTpic.twitter.com/tJ3BSwDvFp
Ngo also pointed to an “Anifa account representing members in DC, Maryland & Virginia” from which a tweet read, “Is your bag packed? Let’s f***ing go.”
He added that the “Florida chapter of #Antifa group Revolutionary Abolition tells comrades to ‘bloc up.’ This refers to wearing black clothing & black masks to hide identities during crimes.” Ngo also said the group “retweeted a post calling for addresses of the family of their target.”
The Florida chapter of #Antifa group Revolutionary Abolition tells comrades to "bloc up." This refers to wearing black clothing & black masks to hide identities during crimes. They also retweeted a post calling for addresses of the family of their targets.https://t.co/9ccewupIJdpic.twitter.com/3NoJmoyJjz
Ngo also mentioned that “far-left writer” Gretchen Felker-Martin, who he said penned a “novel where two trans people murder their targets,” called for “violence.” One of Felker-Martin’s Friday tweets read, “Enough is enough with peaceful protest.”
Ngo added that the “far-left Abolitionist Law Center”— anticipating that its “comrades will be arrested for crimes” — is “calling for people to donate to abortion & bail funds. Many far-left groups exist in US to provide legal support & bail money to violent far-left extremists.”
In anticipation their comrades will be arrested for crimes, the far-left Abolitionist Law Center is calling for people to donate to abortion & bail funds. Many far-left groups exist in US to provide legal support & bail money to violent far-left extremists.https://t.co/Pbdgq4r48cpic.twitter.com/mzZsOdcy74
A pro-choice activist holds up a sign during a rally in front of the U.S. Supreme Court in response to the leaked Supreme Court draft decision to overturn Roe v. Wade on May 3, 2022, in Washington, D.C. | Alex Wong/Getty Images
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is warning that some pro-abortion extremists have expressed a desire to burn down the U.S. Supreme Court building if the 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion nationwide is overturned.
A Department of Homeland Security memo published May 13, obtained by Axios, warns that violent threats directed at Supreme Court justices and others involved in the abortion debate, such as politicians, members of the clergy and healthcare providers “are likely to persist and may increase leading up to and following the issuing in the Court’s official ruling” in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health.
The memo comes amid protests of an initial draft opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito. the draft indicates that a majority of justices are poised to reverse Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion nationwide. Politico published the leaked draft opinion on May 2, but the draft is not final.
The prospect of Roe’s reversal, which would send the abortion issue back to states to decide, has already led to acts of vandalism and violence at churches and pro-life pregnancy centers. Protesters have also descended upon the homes of the six Supreme Court justices appointed by Republican presidents, five of whom signed onto the draft of the majority opinion in Dobbs.
Axios reports that the U.S. government is gearing up for a potential surge in political violence once the Supreme Court decision is released, and law enforcement agencies are investigating social media threats to burn down or storm the Supreme Court building and murders justices and their clerks. According to CBS News, the National Capital Region Threat Intelligence Consortium has referred over two dozen online posts to its partner agencies to investigate. Some of those posts spoke of “burning down or storming the U.S. Supreme Court and murdering Justices and their clerks, members of Congress, and lawful demonstrators.”
Although the violence in recent weeks has been directed at churches and pro-life pregnancy centers, the DHS memo expresses concern that “some racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists’ embrace of pro-life narratives may be linked to the perception of wanting to ‘save white children’ and ‘fight white genocide.'”
At the same time, the document stresses that “mere advocacy of political or social positions, political activism, use of strong rhetoric, or generalized philosophic embrace of violent tactics does not constitute domestic violent extremism or illegal activity and is constitutionally protected.”
A DHS spokesperson told Axios that the agency is “committed to protecting Americans’ freedom of speech and other civil rights and civil liberties, including the right to peacefully protest.”
“DHS is also committed to working with our partners across every level of government and the private sector to share timely information and intelligence, prevent all forms of violence, and support law enforcement efforts to keep our communities safe,” the DHS spokesperson said.
Last week’s DHS memo follows an earlier warning from the agency that predates the debate about the Dobbs case.
Shortly after the riot at the U.S. Capitol in January 2021, DHS included “abortion-related domestic violent extremists” on a list of groups that “pose an elevated threat to the homeland in 2021.” The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is not the only government agency concerned about the possibility of increased violence following the Dobbs decision.
The Virginia Fusion Center, a partnership between the Virginia State Police and the Virginia Department of Emergency Management to “improve the Commonwealth of Virginia’s preparedness against terrorist attacks,” has compiled a document warning its Shield members to “be prepared for a potential increase in abortion-related events, rallies and protests with the potential for violence and criminal activity.”
“We have seen groups from both sides of the issue begin to organize, plan and execute a variety of gatherings and protests,” the organization stated. “We expect these gatherings to increase in intensity as the date of the official decision approaches. Some may become violent.”
The Virginia Fusion Center also predicted that an “increase in abortion-related protests and marches could attract the attention of other violent extremists or mass attackers with motives unrelated to abortion.” This could include “groups or individuals interested in attacking large crowds and those with grievances against women, such as involuntary celibate (Incel) violent extremists.”
The Virginia Fusion Center also anticipated that activists on both sides of the abortion debate would find themselves subject to “merciless doxing, or the release of personal information to increase targeted attacks,” as has already happened to Supreme Court justices.
Recalling that a Planned Parenthood facility in Los Angeles was subject to a cyberattack that led to the theft of patient information, the Virginia Fusion Center maintained that “similar attacks could occur due to heightened tensions.”
A decision in the Dobbs case is expected by the end of June.
The Women’s March has promised to embark on a “Summer of Rage” on behalf of Roe, insisting that “We won’t rest until abortion rights are protected.”
The group will conclude the summer with a “Women’s Convention” in Houston, Texas. While congressional Democrats have sought to codify the right to abortion into law by passing the Women’s Health Protection Act, their efforts have stalled in the evenly divided U.S. Senate.
Our Summer of Rage is officially beginning.
We’re prepared to rage for Roe all summer, culminating in a Women’s Convention in Houston, Texas.
If Roe is overturned as expected, 21 states will either ban or restrict abortions more than they currently do, 16 states have codified abortion access in state law, 10 states will continue to enforce their current abortion laws and/or restrictions and voters in the remaining three states may have the opportunity to weigh in on their abortion laws at the ballot box in the near future.
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito delivered a virtual speech at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School on Thursday. This was his first public appearance since a SCOTUS insider leaked the upcoming Roe v. Wade decision to the liberal press.
A SCOTUS insider leaked the decision to far-left media outlet Politico which ran it last week. The leak happened to coincide with the release of the documentary “2000 Mules” that proved the 2020 election was stolen by a network of leftist ballot traffickers in the battleground states.
Alito told the audience on Thursday after being asked about the decision, “The court right now, we had our conference this morning, we’re doing our work. We’re taking new cases, we’re headed toward the end of the term, which is also a frenetic time as we get our opinions out.”
The FBI and law enforcement still have not found the leaker after a two week investigation. It’s funny how bad they are when the culprit is helping the leftist cause.
Samuel Alito, the Supreme Court justice who authored the leaked draft majority opinion showing the court is preparing to strike down landmark Roe v. Wade abortion rights, addressed the leak for the first time Thursday.
“This is a subject I told myself I wasn’t going to talk about today regarding, you know — given all the circumstances,” Alito said at an event at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University, in response to a question about how the justices were getting along, according to The Washington Post.
“The court right now, we had our conference this morning, we’re doing our work. We’re taking new cases, we’re headed toward the end of the term, which is always a frenetic time as we get our opinions out,” Alito said.
“So that’s where we are,” he continued.
Chief Justice John Roberts told a meeting of lawyers and judges at a judicial conference in Atlanta on May 5 that he hoped “one bad apple” would not change “people’s perception” of the Supreme Court, according to CNN.
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.
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Townhall.com, and WhatDidYouSay.org.
Source: AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin
I guess Democrats realized that having feminist harpies fan out across the airwaves to shriek about the vital importance of aborting babies wasn’t helping, because we all woke up Monday morning to …
A NEW SURGE OF CORONAVIRUS!
Maybe that will distract the dingbats. They probably all think they have “long-haul COVID.”
In response to the Supreme Court’s leaked draft opinion returning abortion to the states, Hillary Clinton said: “Any American who says, ‘Look, I’m not a woman, this doesn’t affect me. I’m not Black, that doesn’t affect me. I’m not gay, that doesn’t affect me’ — once you allow this kind of extreme power to take hold, you have no idea who they will come for next.”
On the other hand …
1) Women themselves don’t seem to view abortion as a “women’s rights” issue — in fact, a lot of polls show women more opposed to abortion than men. Nobody’s wondering, for example, how Justice Amy Coney Barrett voted.
2) The “extreme power” Hillary’s talking about is: Letting people vote.
3) Idea! Maybe wait for what comes next to talk about what comes next.
Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., tweeted: “The Republicans won’t stop with banning abortion. They want to ban interracial marriage. Do you want to save that? Well, then you should probably vote.”
Yes — doubtless in an opinion written by Clarence Thomas.
Always on top of things, President Joe Biden’s response to the abortion opinion was to talk about … gay kids being thrown out of school. “What happens,” the advanced dementia patient asked, “if you have states change the law saying that children who are LGBTQ can’t be in classrooms with other children?”
Wha …?
Why does every liberal argument about allowing Americans to vote on abortion immediately veer off into apocalyptic warnings about something else entirely? I’m beginning to suspect abortion is not as beloved as liberals claim it is. As Biden wrote in his 2007 book, “Promises to Keep”: “If we tried to make this a referendum on abortion rights … we’d lose.”
And yet, we keep being hectored about the runaway popularity of Roe v. Wade. Apparently, poll respondents just don’t want feminists to yell at them. Yes, absolutely, Roe is great. I don’t hate women, please leave me alone.
According to The New York Times — and I don’t think they’re exaggerating the opposition to abortion — two-thirds of Americans oppose abortion after the first trimester. That’s 12 weeks. The Mississippi abortion law that’s going to turn women into birthing machines bans abortion after 15 weeks.
Also inadvertently admitted in the Times: What percentage of abortions do you think take place after the first trimester? Answer: 8%.
That’s what the termagants are shrieking about? The 8% of abortions opposed by a substantial majority of Americans? No wonder they keep changing the subject to black people.
The winner of the most clinically insane response to the draft opinion is Amanda Taub of The New York Times. She explained that opposition to abortion is a sneaky way of opposing … women in the workforce? Contraception? Secularists?
Nope. Desegregation!
Taub begins with the counterfactual proposition that evangelicals don’t really care about abortion. (Because, c’mon, who would care about that?)
Her evidence: “It is hard to imagine now, but at the time Roe v. Wade was decided, in 1973, abortion was not a major issue for the American right, or even for evangelical Christians. …”
Hmmm, why might that be? Maybe it’s because, until Roe, abortion was a crime in almost every state in the Union. Three-quarters of the states banned abortion at every stage of pregnancy. All this is admitted in the Roe opinion itself.
As Justice Samuel Alito’s draft puts it:
“Until the latter part of the 20th century, there was no support in American law for a constitutional right to obtain an abortion. Zero. None. No state constitutional provision had recognized such a right. Until a few years before Roe was handed down, no federal or state court had recognized such a right.”
Hey, Amanda! It is hard to imagine, but matricide isn’t a major issue for the American right, either. On the other hand, if the Supreme Court suddenly discovers a “constitutional right” to kill your mother, I would expect that to change
But the sleuth Taub presses on:
“The shift [to pro-life] was not spurred by abortion itself, but by desegregation. After the Supreme Court ordered schools in the South to desegregate, many white parents pulled their children from public schools and sent them to all-white private schools … the I.R.S. revoked those schools’ tax-exempt status, provoking widespread anger among white evangelical Christians and catalyzing their new role as a powerful conservative force in American politics.”
I’m sure the creation of private religious academies had nothing to do with the court banning prayer in the public schools, then banning prohibitions on teaching Darwinism and sex ed. Why would Christians care about any of that?
By the way, where did this champion of desegregation go to high school? ANSWER: Amanda Taub went to a university “lab” school that is only 5% black in a town that is 18% black.
The gigantic hypocrite concludes: “Publicly opposing desegregation was not really socially acceptable or palatable to a broader coalition. But opposing abortion was.”
Whereas the Taubs relied on admissions testing and grades to ensure their daughter went to a segregated school.
Democratic Party: Get these lunatics away from the media!
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.
Leftists do not like legislative bodies and believe they should wield the least power precisely for the very reason Madison said: “In republican government, the legislative authority necessarily predominates.” Legislators are elected by the people, constantly stand for re-election (most state legislators are in cycle every two years), all the proceedings are publicized, there are several layers of public votes, and the process in every state (except Nebraska) is bicameral. This is why leftists instead love the courts and bureaucracies, because they can achieve their goals without the disinfecting power of public scrutiny and without the deterrent of public reprisal.
Anyone who supports democratic values should embrace the opportunity to steer contentious issues away from the courts and toward legislative bodies. Obviously, state legislatures are the best suited to deal with contentious issues – not only because they are the closest to the people but also because there are 50 states. We have a divided country and can easily sort out our divisions through a degree of political and even physical self-separating. The reality is that not a single Democrat-controlled state will vote to curtail abortions, because the Supreme Court did nothing but reverse the judicial interference in the issue to ensure that legislatures are free to deal with it.
In light of the fallout from the impending reversal of Roe, there is an uncanny and somewhat perverse political dichotomy unfolding between the two parties. Republicans seem to be defending the “independence” of the court and exalting it to this supreme status above the other branches. Democrats, on the other hand, are trying to delegitimize judicial power because of the perception that they will face a long-term conservative majority on the court. However, if both sides really placed democratic values over politics, they would agree to a grand bargain to devolve power on every contentious issue to the states. This would mean that all cases adjudicating novel rights that only leftists believe in would be dealt with in the respective states. But it would also mean that cases dealing with gun rights would be up to the states.
Don’t get me wrong, I fully believe that there is a difference between bogus rights and foundational rights spelled out in the federal Constitution, such as self-defense, and that should be binding on the states. Ideally, we have the right to petition a federal court for redress if our gun rights are infringed upon. But if that is going to allow courts to perpetuate judicial supremacy and use it as a cudgel over red states, I’m more than glad to devolve all these issues to the states.
Such an arrangement would unfortunately cement the status of blue states as incorrigible Marxist dictatorships, but they are already there anyway. The courts – including the so-called conservative Supreme Court – have barely laid a glove on the COVID fascist regime in blue states. And many courts have prevented red states from blocking these tyrannical laws, such as federal courts requiring red states and counties to have mask mandates.
Conservatives would be naive not to push for a grand bargain ending judicial supremacy. We would benefit so much more than we lose. At present, we rarely benefit from judicial oversight when blue states violate foundational rights, yet we get crushed in red states by the courts vitiating every commonsense policy by creating phantom rights. As of now, we have a “conservative” Supreme Court that has prevented red states from cleaning up homeless encampments, from defining marriage, from keeping the sexes separate in private bathrooms and dressing rooms, from keeping sports sperate, from enforcing immigration law, and from many aspects of fighting crime.
However, let us not forget that for those who still like judicial oversight over broadly political issues, it’s not like the state legislatures won’t have competition. Overshadowed in the politics of the U.S. Supreme Court is the fact that all 50 states have their own constitutions and state judiciaries, including courts of last resort. Let’s not forget, it wasn’t until 1875, in the twilight of the Reconstruction era, that Congress transferred authority over most constitutional questions from state courts to lower federal courts, and it wasn’t until 1914 that Congress granted the Supreme Court appellate jurisdiction over all cases heard by state supreme courts.
Thus, all these decisions we see from the federal courts creating phantom rights can still be done on the state level with regard to the state constitutions – for better or worse. If Democrats so fervently want to enshrine their morals and political aspirations into constitutions, they can do so in the states they control.
Except there is one difference. State judiciaries, for the most part, are elected either initially or through retention ballot. There are only seven states where the voters never get a crack at judicial selection: Delaware, Hawaii, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Virginia. Most of them are solid blue states, and Rhode Island is the only state that mirrors the federal system, in which the judges are never subject to review by the voters and serve a lifetime tenure. In four of those states, the judges are subject to a specific term and must at least stand for re-nomination before the legislature, and New Hampshire and Massachusetts have an age tenure limit of 70.
Inevitably, given the polarization of our society, we disagree not only on policy but on the Constitution itself. This is why any case implicating a constitutional right will invariably be political. Thus, if we are going to place politics in the courts, it’s better to do it in the bodies that are elected and closer to the people.
Collectively, this will make state judicial elections great again and will make state legislatures more consequential and powerful. If we are going to have the courts decide every political and social issue, let’s at least have this debate at the local level. Yes, there will be times when the labyrinth of state laws and constitutionally protected rights might get confusing and even clash, but I’d rather a patchwork of law than uniformity of tyranny.
This is also a wake-up call to conservatives in red states. Many conservatives focus solely on congressional elections, but they need to pay attention to state judicial races. A lot of red states have non-partisan elections, which allows stealth leftists to glide into office. It might be a good idea to make these elections partisan. Let’s face it: There is nothing in politics that is not partisan, especially as it relates to the most consequential legal questions. Let’s be open about it and sort out our disagreements through the diversity of the 50 states. That is the only way to agree to disagree in an agreeable fashion.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.”
Court observers suggested Thursday that Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts has signaled the court will significantly slash abortion rights. In December, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments for Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. The case is centered on a Mississippi abortion law that prohibits abortion beyond 15 weeks of gestation.
At issue is whether“all pre-viability prohibitions on elective abortions are unconstitutional.” The case ultimately challenges the precedent established by Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which both upheld the right to elective abortions under Roe v. Wade and affirmed the unfettered legality of abortion within the first 24 weeks of pregnancy.
On Thursday, the Supreme Court issued a 6-3 decision in Cummings v. Premier Rehab Keller, ruling that“emotional distress damages are not recoverable in a private action to enforce either the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 or the Affordable Care Act.”
The case is completely unrelated to abortion. But what is interesting, however, is who wrote the majority opinion: Roberts. This matters because the court heard oral arguments for nine cases in December; thus each justice was most likely assigned to write the opinion of one case. Therefore, if Roberts wrote the opinion in this case, it suggests he is not writing the opinion for Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
“Roberts’ authorship of this opinion suggests (but does not guarantee) that he is NOT writing the abortion decision. Otherwise, he would have two majority opinions from the December sitting and some other justice would have none,”observed Bloomberg News Supreme Court reporter Greg Stohr.
Michigan Law School assistant professor Leah Litman pointed out the significance of this: Because Roberts supports narrowing abortion access but not overturning Roe v. Wade completely, the fact that he may not have been assigned the Dobbs opinion hints that a consequential ruling is forthcoming, probably a rolling back of abortion rights.
Stohr, however, cautioned against rushing to assumptions, because Justice Neil Gorsuch authored two opinions for cases the court heard in November. Still, the distribution of opinion-writing is normally balanced.
The Wall Street Journal editorial board theorized recently that Roberts may attempt to recruit at least one conservative justice to uphold the Mississippi law without a wholesale nullification of abortion rights. It has happened once, when Gorsuch joined Roberts and the court’s left-leaning justices to protect LGBT rights, but whether it will happen again remains to be seen.
For what it’s worth, the Journal predicted the outcome of Dobbs will be a 5-4 ruling with Roberts joining the court’s left-leaning justices and Justice Samuel Alito writing the majority opinion.
Demonstrators gathered to pray outside the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. in support of football coach Joe Kennedy on April 25, 2022. | The Christian Post/Nicole Alcindor
A high school football coach fired for praying on the field after games had his case argued before the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday, with justices debating whether his religious practices were coercive or constitutionally protected.
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case of Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, with coach Joe Kennedy being represented by former U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement.
Coach Joe Kennedy at the Bremerton High School football field. | Courtesy of First Liberty Institute
In 2015, Kennedy, an assistant coach at Bremerton High School in Washington state, was punished and eventually fired by the Bremerton School District for praying on the 50-yard line after games. In his opening argument, Clement said that the coach’s prayers were “doubly protected by the Free Exercise and Free Speech Clauses” of the First Amendment of the Constitution.
“When the school district fired him for that fleeting religious exercise out of endorsement concerns, it not only violated the First Amendment, but it ignored a veritable wall of this court’s precedents that make it clear that a school does not endorse private religious speech just because it fails to censor it,” said Clement, who served as the U.S. solicitor general and later acting attorney general during the George W. Bush administration.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor pressed Clement about when a school official’s religious practices can be considered private and when they are considered public, such as if a teacher is reading the Bible aloud before class begins.
Clement answered that if a teacher read her Bible “before the bell” or “after the bell” and did so “either silently or barely audibly,” that would be protected as “private speech.”
Sotomayor argued that a teacher is “on duty” while remaining “in the classroom” and their actions could be curtailed by their employer. Sotomayor brought in the example of Kennedy, asking why he should not be considered “on duty” while remaining on the football field after games.
“The school has a fair amount of flexibility to determine what the duties of the coach are,” replied Clement. “Here, they did not say that his duties were an all-encompassing supervisory role.”
“It’s in the record, and I think undisputed, that the coach could do other things, other private things of a comparable amount of time because this is a fleeting religious exercise.”
Justice Elena Kagan expressed concern with Kennedy’s prayers putting “a kind of undue pressure, a kind of coercion on students to participate in religious activities when they may not wish to.” Clement countered that the school district did not cite “coercion concerns” when they punished Kennedy years ago but instead expressed concern over “endorsement” issues.
Justice Neil Gorsuch referenced the 2000 case of Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe. The high court ruled that a Texas town’s practice of having students holding prayers over a loudspeaker before high school football games was unconstitutional. Clement said Kennedy’s practice was “radically different” from the situation in the Santa Fe case, noting that the loudspeaker and the process of determining who gave prayers involved a more blatant example of government speech.
Clement compared Kennedy’s actions to professional athletes who cross themselves before a play or kneel with thanks to God after scoring a touchdown, noting that these were recognized as individual actions.
Richard B. Katskee, legal director at Americans United for Separation of Church and State, presented oral arguments on behalf of the school district.
“No one doubts that public school employees can have quiet prayers by themselves at work, even if students can see,” said Katskee. “If that were the issue, there wouldn’t be a case here because the district allowed that. But that wasn’t good enough for Mr. Kennedy. He insisted on audible prayers at the 50-yard line with students.”
Katskee said that “some of these kids were just 14 years old.”
“Mr. Kennedy’s actions pressured them to pray and also divided the coaching staff, sparked vitriol against school officials, and led to the field being stormed and students getting knocked down.”
Justice Clarence Thomas asked Katskee whether a high school football coach taking a knee during the national anthem to protest racism was also an unacceptable form of government speech. Katskee answered that if, for example, “the coach goes to the center of the field in front of everyone during the national anthem,” then it is “absolutely” constitutes “government speech.”
Thomas asked for a clarification on how it was government speech, with Katskee responding that it was a “public act and public statement” and could not be considered a private action.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh asked Katskee if a coach was allowed to do the sign of the cross before a game, to which Katskee replied that “if the coach is doing it while not making himself the center of attention at the center of the field, it’s perfectly fine.”
“I don’t know how we could write an opinion that would draw a line based on not making yourself the center of attention as the head coach of a game,” Kavanaugh countered.
Demonstrators gathered with signs outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. in support of football coach Joe Kennedy, who lost his job after kneeling on the field pray. Kennedy’s case was heard by the high court on Monday, April 25, 2022. | Nicole Alcindor/ Christian Post
In 2015, Bremerton officials suspended and then fired Kennedy for his practice of praying on the football field after games, with the coach suing the school district in 2016. A three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against Kennedy in 2017, with the Supreme Court initially refusing to intervene in 2019. In 2020, Judge Ronald Leighton ruled in favor of the school district, concluding that it had a right to restrict religious expression to prevent government endorsement of religion. In March 2021, a 9th Circuit panel again ruled against Kennedy, with Judge Milan D. Smith Jr. authoring the unanimous court opinion in favor of Bremerton.
“BSD’s efforts to prevent the conduct did not violate Kennedy’s constitutional rights, nor his rights under Title VII,”wrote Smith.
“In sum, there is no doubt that an objective observer, familiar with the history of Kennedy’s practice, would view his demonstrations as BSD’s endorsement of a particular faith. For that reason, BSD had adequate justification for its treatment of Kennedy.”
Kennedy again appealed to the Supreme Court, which announced in January that it would hear arguments in the case.
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Townhall.com, and WhatDidYouSay.org.
Source: AP Photo/Andrew Harnik
Weird that the media didn’t cite Ketanji Brown Jackson’s height and weight as her most important characteristics. When it came to THE FIRST BLACK WOMAN ON THE SUPREME COURT, it was all about her race. But after a guy shot up a New York City subway car this week, the last thing the media wanted to tell us was his race. For more than three hours after the attack, we got urgent alerts: Suspect at large! Police request public’s help! Be on the alert for a male, about 5’8″, 160 lbs.”
In this particular case, the media’s rule of never telling us the suspect’s race (unless he’s white) was more deranged than usual. This wasn’t a carjacking. It wasn’t a shooting at a block party. It wasn’t an attack on an Asian or Jew. This crime had all the earmarks of a terror attack — smoke bombs, fireworks, a gas mask, and about a dozen people shot while trapped in a subway car. The police desperately needed the public’s help, but most people were looking for a Middle Easterner.
At least we knew it wasn’t a white guy! If it had been, reporters would have worn out the “W” on their computer keyboards. There would have been rampant speculation that it was a Proud Boy, as top administration officials reminded us that “white supremacy is the most lethal threat to the homeland today. Not ISIS, not al-Qaida — white supremacists.” (President Joe Biden June 2, 2021)
We’re always told “wokeness” is just about being polite and that those who ridicule it are trying to “discredit the claims of traditionally marginalized groups for respect.” (Thomas Zimmer, history professor, Georgetown University) Or they are engaging in “white backlash.” (Seth Cotlar, history professor, Willamette University)
[SIDEBAR: Don’t go to college, kids!]
No, wokeness is real. And it can get us killed — when, for example, off the top of my head, a murderous psychopath is on the run and the media refuse to tell us what he looks like.
At the New York Police Department’s first press conference on the subway attack, Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell came up with an all-new circumlocution to convey the relevant information without saying “black male.” She said: “… we will describe him as an individual, he is being reported as a male black.”
“A male black”! That’s so much better than “black male” when identifying a criminal.
By the time of the evening press conference, Sewell had settled on an even dumber description, calling him “a dark-skinned male.” Great, so now we’re back to looking for a Middle Easterner. Or possibly Hispanic. Maybe South Asian or mixed race. Definitely NOT “black male” (or “male black”).
The NYPD must have spent all day crafting that new euphemism, because “dark-skinned male” was the exact phrase used minutes later by the chief of detectives, James Essig. “Black” is OUT. “Dark-skinned” is IN.
Biden Appoints First Dark-Skinned Woman (whatever the hell that is) to Supreme Court!
No, “black” is fine, provided we’re talking about THE FIRST BLACK FEMALE SUPREME COURT JUSTICE, or THE FIRST BLACK FEMALE POLICE COMMISSIONER. Such as … Commissioner Sewell herself!
— “One of Mr. Adams’ first appointments was to name Keechant Sewell, chief of detectives in Nassau County, as the first Black woman to head the NYPD.” (The Christian Science Monitor)
— “New York’s incoming mayor just made history by appointing a Black woman to run the nation’s largest police department …” (New York Daily News)
— “This is truly historic. We heard that word a lot, but it’s 176 years of the NYPD. You’re the first woman, the first black woman to lead the force.” (CNN’s Jim Sciutto to Sewell)
A black person becoming a Supreme Court justice or police commissioner makes black people feel good about themselves! But a black man being identified as the perpetrator of a heinous crime makes black people feel bad about themselves. Therefore, you can’t say it.
As is well known, the sine qua non of a well-run society is factoring in people’s feelings when reporting important events. And if New York City is not running like a top, then I don’t know what your definition of “running like a top” is.
Instead of subway cameras capturing clear photos of the homicidal brute and being broadcast out within minutes of the attack, hours later, the police were climbing up ladders to physically inspect the cameras. They weren’t working.
New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority operates the cameras, but they’ve been VERY busy promoting diversity. Evidently, “Is our equipment working?” has not come up.
“The Department of Diversity and Civil Rights will present 3rd quarter 2021 update on MTA Agency-wide EEO and M/W/DBE and SDVOB contract compliance activities.
“Status Report on MTA Inter-Agency M/W/DBE and SDVOB Task Force. The Department of Diversity and Civil Rights report will address progress made by the Task Force to improve M/W/DBE and SDVOB participation. Master Page # 6 of 108 — Diversity Committee Meeting 9/15/2021
“2022 Diversity Committee Work Plan. The Department of Diversity and Civil Rights will present an updated Diversity Committee Work Plan for 2022.”
Another confidence-inspiring development: The New York Times reports that immediately after the shooting, “Toward the front of the train, three victims were being attended to by bystanders. A uniformed police officer approached, asking passengers to call 911 because his radio was not working.” (Emphasis added.)
The officer’s radio didn’t work. But on the plus side, he’s been through six diversity training sessions.
To top things off, at the evening press conference, the top brass COULDN’T GET ZOOM TO WORK. Mayor Eric Adams was introduced, whereupon every TV in the land broadcast total silence for a solid 60 seconds, while city officials stood around waiting for the mayor to appear. They finally gave up and patched him in later.
At least the mayor is on top of things. Hours after even MSNBC had admitted the perp was a black male, Adams was on TV, vowing to catch the man — “or woman!” — who perpetrated this attack.
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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.
Donations/Tips accepted and appreciated – $1.00 – $5.00 – $25.00 – $50.00 – $100 – it all helps to fund this website and keep the cartoons coming. Also Venmo @AFBranco – THANK YOU!
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into the 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 shared by President Donald Trump.
In a recent legal settlement, Catholic Charities West Michigan successfully challenged Michigan’s decision to bar state funds to adoption agencies that do not serve same-sex couples. The settlement forced Michigan to reimburse the charity for its legal fees and other costs. Using an argument that has now become familiar to most Americans, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, a lesbian mother of two and former gay rights activist, charged Catholic adoption agencies with discriminating against same-sex couples. In response, the Catholic adoption agencies used the same logic, accusing the Michigan state government of discriminating against Catholics and effectively denying them their religious freedom.
While Christians should celebrate this recent victory, it’s nonetheless sad this appeal had to be made. When gay marriage was legalized in Obergfell v. Hodges, Christians were assured that they could practice their faith and live out their values in peace, but this was almost immediately proven wrong. As the ink of Justice Anthony Kennedy’s majority opinion was drying, LGBT groups immediately went after Christian bakers, florists, photographers, popular chicken sandwich chains, and other Christian organizations for their religious beliefs.
Defense Based on Reason not Faith
This war will continue so long as Christians keep using the religious freedom defense. Even though this argument has the best chance of winning in legal courts, it is unconvincing in the court of public opinion. As more Americans drift away from Christianity, they increasingly view this defense for denying service to same-sex couples not as a valid objection, but as a childish copout: “The Christian God doesn’t like gay people.”
Rather, it’s important to establish that most Christian churches are established on natural law (that is, moral laws based on objective truth) as much as the Bible. To be sure, faith and reason both matter enormously, but for an increasingly secular populace, actions and policies must be defended on the basis of reason much more than faith.
This has been the case with abortion, with the pro-life position steadily gaining popular support as it has adopted more reason-based arguments. The pro-life movement has grown because it has argued that unborn babies are people, and therefore abortion is murder. Although the Bible acknowledges this argument, the argument itself isn’t strictly based on the Bible.
Reasons Against Same-Sex Couples Adopting
Similarly, in issues involving marriage and children, Christians need to appeal to reason more than their faith. In the case of same-sex couples adopting, two issues need to be addressed. First, do all couples have a right to adopt a child? Second, do children have a right to a father and mother?
Concerning whether all couples have a right to adopt, the answer is that they do not. As any couple who has gone through the process of adoption understands all too well, many screenings and conditions have to be met. Someone from the adoption agency will inspect their home, rifle through their personal information, interview them and others, and then, after so many legal hurdles, possibly allow a child to live with them. Even then, the biological parent may change his or her mind and take back the child.
As painful and expensive as this process is, it is necessary because children are human beings with rights of their own, not objects a couple acquires out of boredom or simply some charitable impulse. Consequently, adoption agencies must discriminate among couples wanting to adopt, only selecting those who meet the criteria of good caretakers.
A Right to a Mother and Father?
This leads to the second issue of whether a child’s rights include having a mother and father, as opposed to two fathers or two mothers. The science on this is mixed, both because it’s a politically charged issue and because it’s a difficult thing to measure. One may say that a loving committed couple is enough, but one may contend that a loving committed heterosexual couple is necessary.
Katy Faust persuasively argues this latter view in her excellent book “Them Before Us.” She explains that men and women represent two distinct and essential supports to a child growing up; fatherhood and motherhood are not interchangeable or dispensable. Furthermore, she argues that a child does best with his or her biological parents in nearly all cases. For Faust, adoption is an alternative that should only be considered in cases of serious abuse or neglect.
Not only does Faust support her argument with a multitude of studies, but she has both a homosexual parent and an adopted child. Even though her situation would suggest that same-sex adoption should be treated the same as any other parental arrangement, her reasoning leads her to think otherwise.
Faust’s example is a good model for all Christians trying to serve their community in accordance with their values. Whatever charitable work they do — whether it is finding homes for orphans or allowing those orphans to be born in the first place — it is done for the person in need, first and foremost. This is not a political or religious issue, but a human one.
It is not a coincidence that this means they are doing God’s will in the process. Contrary to what opponents claim, Christian values are based on objective truth, not blind faith to various Bronze Age prejudices. As such, the goal is not about winning, but about making the world a better place.
Auguste Meyrat is an English teacher in the Dallas area. He holds an MA in humanities and an MEd in educational leadership. He is the senior editor of The Everyman and has written essays for The Federalist, The American Conservative, and The Imaginative Conservative, as well as the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture. Follow him on Twitter.
During opening statements of the Senate confirmation hearings for Biden Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson, which began on Monday, Democrats (one in particular) went into spin mode by testing out a talking point that went a little something like this: Republicans are saying you were nominated because of yourrace.
It was Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, who said it most plainly:
“My Republican colleagues and public figures have attempted to undermine your qualifications through their pejorative use of the term ‘affirmative action,’ and they have implied you were solely nominated due to your race. … Let me be clear: Your nomination is not about filling a quota.”
"They have implied you were solely nominated due to your race…Your nomination is not about filling a quota… It is about time that we have a highly qualified, highly accomplished Black woman serving on the Supreme Court," Sen. Hirono says of Judge Jackson in opening remarks. pic.twitter.com/5CsFDDheXY
Al Sharpton employed a similar deflection on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”“I salute President Biden in this case. He made a commitment, and I don’t think it was based on some tokenism. I think it was based on him saying that the court ought to reflect the country, and a black woman has never been on the court, and you couldn’t get one more qualified,” Sharpton said, before implying that it was racist for GOP lawmakers to inquire about the nominee’s law school admission test score.
The SCOTUS hearings for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson begin today, I underlined the importance of this nomination and this time in history on #MorningJoe. pic.twitter.com/smhrK23KmP
It’s an odd basket of claims: that it’s Republicans who made Jackson’s nomination all about race, that anything was “implied,” that describing the race-based selection as “affirmative action” is out of bounds, and that this has nothing to do with tokenism. They’re strange claims because most Americans are old enough to remember just two months ago when President Joe Biden himself stated clearly and plainly that his pick would be “the first Black woman ever nominated to the United States Supreme Court,” after making a similar promise on the campaign trail. It was the Democrat president, not Republican cynics, who announced that race and sex were deciding factors in the selection. “Y” chromosomes and fair skin were disqualifying attributes before any merits could be considered.
Other Democrats couldn’t help themselves, playing into the identity politics game and marveling at the “historic” nature of nominating a black woman to the high court — and all the while undermining Hirono’s claim that it’s Republicans who have centralized race in Jackson’s nomination.
“The appointment of a Black woman to the U.S. Supreme Court — let’s be very blunt — should have happened years ago. This day is a giant leap into the present for our country and for the court,” gushed Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn.
“The Senate is poised right now to break another barrier. We are on the precipice of shattering another ceiling,” said New Jersey Democrat Sen. Cory Booker, who is known for breaking Senate rules during the confirmation hearings for now-Justice Brett Kavanaugh with his cringe “Spartacus” moment. “I just feel this sense of overwhelming joy as I see you sitting there.”
Despite Hirono’s attempted deflection to her GOP colleagues and empty media assurances that tokenism is nonexistent here, it was Democrats who fixated on Jackson’s race and sex.
Now when Republicans inquire about her academic achievements and judicial record, it’s branded as veiled racism and sexism. Jackson proponents treat it like unjust scrutiny, as if a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing is supposed to be for grandstanding about “historic” moments and not for judicial vetting.
Try as they might to turn Jackson criticism on Republicans, this one is on Biden. He’s the one who announced in other terms that Jackson is an affirmative action pick, just as he did with his vice president (and we’ve seen how that’s turned out). He’s the one who invited intensified scrutiny of Jackson’s merits and ideology. He reduced Jackson’s qualifications to the color of her skin and the pairing of her chromosomes.
Nobody “implied” that Jackson was nominated because of her race. The president announced it proudly.
Kylee Zempel is an assistant editor at The Federalist. She previously worked as the copy editor for the Washington Examiner magazine and as an editor and producer at National Geographic. She holds a B.S. in Communication Arts/Speech and an A.S. in Criminal Justice and writes on topics including feminism and gender issues, religious liberty, and criminal justice. Follow her on Twitter @kyleezempel.
Donations/Tips accepted and appreciated – $1.00 – $5.00 – $25.00 – $50.00 – $100 – it all helps to fund this website and keep the cartoons coming. Also Venmo @AFBranco – THANK YOU!
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into the 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 shared by President Donald Trump.
With Thursday’s official announcement by Justice Stephen Breyer of his impending retirement, conservatives are strategizing on the best approach to prevent confirmation of a leftist activist justice. Instead, Republicans should be praying that President Biden nominates the looniest, most far-left lawyer possible for a slot on the high court. Why? Because history has proven that a far-left justice will be no worse than a moderately liberal justice in the casting of Supreme Court votes, meaning there is no downside to a far-left pick, while the upside potential is huge, given that it is Biden appointing the new justice and not a Republican president: Thank you very much, Never Trumpers.
While over the last four decades justices appointed by Republican presidents have demonstrated a penchant to “grow” in office or have proven more moderate or pragmatic than proclaimed during confirmation, the same is not true for Democrat-appointed justices, who vote in near-perfect lockstep over their careers.
Then there are the Republican-appointed justices who do not abandon their judicial philosophy, but conclude that a faithful application of originalism requires them to vote with the leftist wing of the court. Justice Neil Gorsuch provides a perfect example of this phenomenon, providing the fifth vote in several cases in the criminal context, and before him the now-late Justice Anton Scalia.
Conversely, in close or contentious cases, Democrat-appointed justices “represent a block geared toward progressive policy outcomes.” It matters whether these justices are perceived as center-left or hard-left: The desired liberal outcome dictates the decision. So, fighting for a less leftist justice serves no purpose. On the other hand, there are many positives to the conservative cause if Biden nominates a far-left candidate to the Supreme Court. With midterm elections later this year, Biden naming an extremist to the high court positions Republicans perfectly to talk about the importance of elections—and specifically control of the Senate. The nomination of a far-left candidate will also provide an opportunity during the confirmation process for Republicans to highlight the recent public revelations of the Democratic Party’s true far-left goals. President Biden has already showcased the party’s obsession with identity politics by promising the country his nominee would be a black woman, so men and whites need not apply.
Further, if Republicans maintain decorum and respect during the process, and focus on the nominee’s judicial philosophy and policy, they can score points with a public disgusted by the left’s disgraceful treatment of Justice Brett Kavanaugh and his family. And the more leftist Biden’s candidate, the more restrained Republicans will appear by comparison. Moreover, the further left the candidate, the more justified a “no” vote will be for swing-state Republicans, allowing them to vote against the nomination based on principle, and thereby avoid the obstructionist label. Likewise, moderate Republicans or Republican senators in purple or blue states could justify a “yes” vote based on their view that a president is entitled to his nomination.
The more extreme Biden’s candidate, the more this position will inure to Republicans’ benefit when a supposedly far-right candidate finds himself or herself nominated to the Supreme Court by a future Republican president. The same moderate Republicans can point to their vote for Biden’s extremist justice as proof of the consistency of their position that a president is entitled to his nominee, or if they are kicked out of office over their vote for Biden’s nominee, a stronger senator could be in that office. And should Democrat senators en mass vote against a future Republican nominee, the hypocrisy charge will strike more squarely the more extreme Biden’s leftist nominee is.
It is also not just the fight that will benefit the conservative cause: Elevation of a far-left justice to the Supreme Court will advance originalism more than if Biden were to replace Breyer with a milquetoast moderate. That premise may seem counterintuitive because we think of “moderates” in the context of politics and not precedent.
For a Supreme Court decision to be “precedential,” five justices must agree with both the outcome and the analysis. Were Biden to appoint a so-called “moderate,” her vote would tally with the far-left wing of the high court and her reasoning would likely be mainstream enough to, at times, shift Justice John Roberts or Justice Brett Kavanaugh to join with the other two leftist justices to create a majority opinion that binds lower courts.
Conversely, a far-left justice will also vote with Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan but may drag her sister justices too far to the left to entice any so-called moderate justices to join in the decision. Then, either the leftist side will lose, or the outcome will favor the leftist position, but the Supreme Court’s decision will be fractured, with several of the justices writing separately, resulting in no binding precedent and only dicta.
Of course, originalism would benefit more from the appointment of an originalist justice, but that is not an option now, as President Biden is our president and Breyer submitted his resignation effective upon confirmation of his successor. So the choice is between Justice Breyer and another liberal justice or a far-left one. Stalling in the hope of obtaining a more palatable liberal will leave us with Justice Breyer and the need to delay an appointment for three years.
Conservatism would be better served by using Biden’s appointment to remind the public that elections have consequences. The loonier left his nominee is, the better that point can be made.
Margot Cleveland is a senior contributor to The Federalist. She is also a contributor to National Review Online, the Washington Examiner, Aleteia, and Townhall.com, and has been published in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. As a stay-at-home homeschooling mom of a young son with cystic fibrosis, Cleveland frequently writes on cultural issues related to parenting and special-needs children. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.
On Friday, a Pennsylvania court declared the state’s statute authorizing no-excuse mail-in voting was unconstitutional. Within hours, Pennsylvania officials filed a notice of appeal with the state Supreme Court, putting on hold the lower court decision and thereby leaving in place the vote-by-mail option until the state’s high court rules.
With Pennsylvania Supreme Court justices elected on a partisan ticket and Democrats currently holding a 5-2 majority on the state’s high court, Democrats are predicting the no-excuse mail-in voting law will be upheld. That forecast seems accurate given the hyper-partisan approach to legal analysis seen since the 2020 election. It’s unfortunate because yesterday’s opinion in McLinko v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania reached the proper conclusion as a matter of constitutional analysis and controlling precedent.
The McLinko case consisted of two lawsuits consolidated by the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court. Both cases challenged the constitutionality of no-excuse mail-in voting. Doug McLinko, a member of the Bradford County Board of Elections, was the plaintiff in one case, and Timothy Bonner and 13 additional members of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives were the plaintiffs in the second case.
At issue in the consolidated case was Act 77, which, as the court explained in Friday’s opinion, “created the opportunity for all Pennsylvania electors to vote by mail without having to demonstrate a valid reason for absence from their polling place on Election Day.” The plaintiffs argued that provision violates Article VII, Section 1 of the Pennsylvania Constitution.
Article VII, Section 1 of the Pennsylvania Constitution provides (emphasis added):
Every citizen 21 years of age, possessing the following qualifications, shall be entitled to vote at all elections subject, however, to such laws requiring and regulating the registration of electors as the General Assembly may enact.
1. He or she shall have been a citizen of the United States at least one month.
2. He or she shall have resided in the State 90 days immediately preceding the election.
3. He or she shall have resided in the election district where he or she shall offer to vote at least 60 days immediately preceding the election, 10 except that if qualified to vote in an election district prior to removal of residence, he or she may, if a resident of Pennsylvania, vote in the election district from which he or she removed his or her residence within 60 days preceding the election.
The key language in Section 1, the plaintiffs argued, and the court held, was “shall offer to vote,” which the Pennsylvania Supreme Court had previously interpreted in Chase v. Miller, a case from 1862. At issue in Chase was whether 420 votes received from Pennsylvania soldiers fighting in the Civil War, who had cast their ballots by mail, were valid. While Pennsylvania’s legislature had authorized absentee ballots for military members, the state Supreme Court held the Military Absentee Act of 1839 violated the state’s constitution because “offer his vote” required in-person voting, explaining:
To ‘offer to vote’ by ballot, is to present oneself, with proper qualifications, at the time and place appointed, and to make manual delivery of the ballot to the officers appointed by law to receive it. The ballot cannot be sent by mail or express, nor can it be cast outside of all Pennsylvania election districts and certified into the county where the voter has his domicile.
We cannot be persuaded that the constitution ever contemplated any such mode of voting, and we have abundant reason for thinking that to permit it would break down all the safeguards of honest suffrage. The constitution meant, rather, that the voter, in propria persona, should offer his vote in an appropriate election district, in order that his neighbours might be at hand to establish his right to vote if it were challenged, or to challenge if it were doubtful.
In other words, “to offer his vote,” required a qualified elector to “present oneself. . . at the time and place appointed” and to make “manual delivery of the ballot.” The fuller discussion in Chase, however, provides a helpful reminder of the long-understood danger of absentee voting: “a break down” of “the safeguards of honest suffrage.”
Pennsylvania’s constitution was later amended to permit electors in military service to vote by absentee ballot. Then in 1923, the state legislature again attempted to expand absentee voting to allow non-military citizens, “who by reason of his duties, business, or occupation [are] unavoidably absent from his lawfully designated election district, and outside of the county of which he is an elector,” to cast an absentee ballot in the presence of an election official.
Another election dispute, however, resulted in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in 1924 In re Contested Election of Fifth Ward of Lancaster City, declaring the 1923 Absentee Voting Act unconstitutional. The Lancaster decision again concluded that the “offer to vote” language of the Pennsylvania state constitution requires in-person voting. Because at that time the constitution only authorized absentee voting for individuals absent by reason of active military service, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court held the 1923 Absentee Voting Act unconstitutional.
“However laudable the purpose of the [1923 Absentee Voting Act], it cannot be sustained,” the Pennsylvania Supreme Court explained, adding: “If it is deemed necessary that such legislation be placed upon our statute books, then an amendment to the Constitution must be adopted permitting this to be done.”
In Friday’s decision in McLinko v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the three-judge majority opinion found Chase and Lancaster City controlling and struck down Act 77’s authorization of no-cause mail-in voting. In holding Act 77 unconstitutional, the McLinko court rejected the acting secretary of state’s argument that Article VII, Section 4 of the Pennsylvania Constitution granted the state legislature authority to allow mail-in voting for any reason. That constitutional provision provides: “All elections by the citizens shall be by ballot or by such other method as may be prescribed by law: Provided, That secrecy in voting be preserved.”
The court rejected Pennsylvania’s argument, noting that when Lancaster City was decided, the Pennsylvania high court had quoted the entire text of Article VII, Section 4, and yet held that the “offer to vote” language required in-person voting unless the constitution expressly authorized absentee voting. Friday’s decision explained that Section 4 merely authorized the state to allow mechanical voting, as opposed to voting by ballot. (Two judges dissented from the McLinko decision, reasoning that mail-in voting is not a subset of absentee voting but a new method of voting the legislature may be approved under Section 4.)
Pennsylvania’s acting secretary of state’s argument that Section 4 of the state constitution authorizes the legislature to permit no-fault mail-in voting defies logic. As the McLinko court explained, if Section 4 gave the legislature that power, then there was no need for the state’s constitution to be amended in 1997, to add as a permissible basis for absentee voting, “observance of a religious holiday or Election Day duties.”
While concluding it was bound by Chase and Lancaster City, the majority in Friday’s decision in McLinko added that “no-excuse mail-in voting makes the exercise of the franchise more convenient” and that, “if presented to the people, a constitutional amendment to end the Article VII, Section 1 requirement of in-person voting is likely to be adopted.” “But a constitutional amendment must be presented to the people and adopted into our fundamental law,” the court in McLinko concluded, “before legislation authorizing no-excuse mail-in voting can ‘be placed upon our statute books.’”
The majority’s detailed analysis in McLinko was correct, both as a matter of constitutional interpretation and precedent. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court, however, will not be bound by its decisions in Chase and Lancaster City, even though the principal of stare decisis should caution the justices against overturning that precedent.
That prudential principle is especially relevant here, where the “offer to vote” language “has been part of the Pennsylvania Constitution since 1838 and has been consistently understood, since at least 1862, to require the elector to appear in person, at a ‘proper polling place’ and on Election Day to cast his vote.”
A decision by the Democratic-controlled Pennsylvania Supreme Court abiding by that precedent and reminding its citizens that the constitution controls notwithstanding the passions of the day would also go a long way toward healing a divided populace.
Further, striking Act 77 now, when no votes have been cast and no citizens would be disenfranchised, would do no harm to Pennsylvanians. That was the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s justification in Kelly v. Commonwealth, for refusing to consider the constitutionality of Act 77 as part of a challenge to the results of the November of 2020 based on the equitable doctrine of “laches.”
“At the time this action was filed on November 21, 2020, millions of Pennsylvania voters had already expressed their will in both the June 2020 Primary Election and the November 2020 General Election,” the state Supreme Court explained in Kelly v. Commonwealth and striking the state statute at that point, “would result in the disenfranchisement of millions of Pennsylvania voter.”
There is no such danger, now, however. So, will the constitution control or will the partisan interests of the Democratic-majority of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court supplant the rule of law? Sadly, that latter danger is everpresent.
Margot Cleveland is a senior contributor to The Federalist. She is also a contributor to National Review Online, the Washington Examiner, Aleteia, and Townhall.com, and has been published in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. As a stay-at-home homeschooling mom of a young son with cystic fibrosis, Cleveland frequently writes on cultural issues related to parenting and special-needs children. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.
The Supreme Court ruled Thursday to strike down President Joe Biden’s Wuhan coronavirus vaccine mandate for private businesses. Justices upheld his executive order requiring vaccination for healthcare workers at facilities receiving federal funding.
The ruling on vaccine requirements for private businesses with more than 100 employees was decided 6-3. Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Stephen Breyer dissented.
“The Secretary of Labor, acting through the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, recently enacted a vaccine mandate for much of the Nation’s work force. The mandate, which employers must enforce, applies to roughly 84 million workers, covering virtually all employers with at least 100 employees. It requires that covered workers receive a COVID–19 vaccine, and it pre-empts contrary state laws. The only exception is for workers who obtain a medical test each week at their own expense and on their own time, and also wear a mask each workday,” the opinion states. “OSHA has never before imposed such a mandate. Nor has Congress. Indeed, although Congress has enacted significant legislation addressing the COVID–19 pandemic, it has declined to enact any measure similar to what OSHA has promulgated here. Many States, businesses, and nonprofit organizations challenged OSHA’s rule in Courts of Appeals across the country.”
“The Fifth Circuit initially entered a stay. But when the cases were consolidated before the Sixth Circuit, that court lifted the stay and allowed OSHA’s rule to take effect. Applicants now seek emergency relief from this Court, arguing that OSHA’s mandate exceeds its statutory authority and is otherwise unlawful. Agreeing that applicants are likely to prevail, we grant their applications and stay the rule,” the opinion continues.
Further, the Justices pointed out the risk from Wuhan coronavirus exists outside of the work place and therefore, limits OSHA’s regulatory power.
“COVID–19 can and does spread at home, in schools, during sporting events, and everywhere else that people gather. That kind of universal risk is no different from the day-to-day dangers that all face from crime, air pollution, or any number of communicable diseases. Permitting OSHA to regulate the hazards of daily life—simply because most Americans have jobs and face those same risks while on the clock—would significantly expand OSHA’s regulatory authority without clear congressional authorization,” the ruling states.
The separate ruling on vaccine requirements for healthcare workers at facilities receiving federal funding through Medicare and Medicaid was decided 5-4. Justices Neil Gorsuch, Clarence Thomas, Amy Coney Barrett and Samuel Alito dissented.
“The Government has not made a strong showing that this agglomeration of statutes authorizes any such rule,” Justice Thomas wrote in his dissent. “The Government proposes to find virtually unlimited vaccination power, over millions of healthcare workers, in definitional provisions, a saving clause, and a provision regarding long-term care facilities’ sanitation procedures. The Government has not explained why Congress would have used these ancillary provisions to house what can only be characterized as a ‘fundamental detail’ of the statutory scheme. Had Congress wanted to grant CMS power to impose a vaccine man- date across all facility types, it would have done what it has done elsewhere—specifically authorize one. “
This post has been updated with additional information.
All the petitioners needed was for the Supreme Court to enter a stay to prevent the Occupational Safety and Health Administration vaccination rule from taking effect, but, truly, was it too much to ask for a defense of limited government, separation of powers, and federalism?
Apparently so, because on Friday, over more than two hours of argument in National Federation of Independent Business v. Department of Labor, lawyers pushing the Supreme Court to delay the regulation circled and sidled rather than state clearly that the rule, OSHA, the Biden administration, and the entire federal government represented a mockery of our constitutional order.
On November 5, 2021, OSHA issued the rule under review, framing it as an “Emergency Temporary Standard” or ETS. The ETS required all employers of 100 or more employees to “develop, implement, and enforce a mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policy,” which required employees to either be fully vaccinated or submit to weekly COVID-19 testing and to wear face coverings at work.
Congress authorized OSHA to issue “an emergency temporary standard to take immediate effect,” and without the traditional notice-and-comment process, if it “determines (A) that employees are exposed to grave danger from exposure to substances or agents determined to be toxic or physically harmful or from new hazards, and (B) that such emergency standard is necessary to protect employees from such danger.”
Massive Overreach Immediately Challenged in Court
The ETS was immediately challenged by individual Americans, religious groups, covered employers, states, and trade organizations, with the cases filed directly in federal courts of appeals throughout the country, bypassing the federal trial courts pursuant to the statute that authorized emergency rules.
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals acted first, issuing a stay on November 6, 2021, preventing enforcement of the rule pending briefing. Less than a week later, a three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit—consisting of Ronald Reagan appointee Judge Edith Jones and two Donald Trump appointees, Judges Kyle Duncan and Kurt Engelhardt—issued an opinion holding that the ETS remain stayed “pending adequate judicial review” of the lawsuit challenging the OSHA rule.
The 21-page opinion, authored by Judge Engelhardt, analyzed the request for a stay and concluded that, for numerous reasons, the petitioners had a strong likelihood to succeed on the merits of their challenge and that without a stay the businesses and other petitioners would suffer irreparable injury.
Shortly after the Fifth Circuit issued its decision, pursuant to the procedures controlling when multiple lawsuits are filed challenging an ETS, all of the cases throughout the various federal circuits were consolidated and assigned by lottery to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. Then, on December 17, 2021, the Sixth Circuit vacated the stay entered by the Fifth Circuit.
Sixth Circuit Deadlocks
Judge Jane Stranch, a Barack Obama appointee, authored the decision for the three-judge panel of the Sixth Circuit, which Judge Julia Gibbons, a G.W. Bush appointee, joined. Trump-appointee Judge Joan Larsen dissented from the decision, concisely capturing her concern with this opening line: “As the Supreme Court has very recently reminded us, ‘our system does not permit agencies to act unlawfully even in pursuit of desirable ends.’”
Two days before the Sixth Circuit removed the stay, thereby setting the ETS to go into effect this month, the federal appellate court denied a request by the challengers of the OSHA rule for the court to hear the case initially en banc, or as a full court. To obtain en banc review, a majority of the active judges on the Sixth Circuit needed to vote for the full court to decide the case together, but the 16-member court deadlocked 8-8, leaving the three-judge panel in charge.
In voting to hear the request for a stay of the ETS en banc in the Sixth Circuit, Judge John Bush, a Trump appointee, opened with the closer: “Whether it uses a clear statement or not, Congress likely has no authority under the Commerce Clause to impose, much less to delegate the imposition of, a de facto national vaccine mandate upon the American public. Such claimed authority runs contrary to the text and structure of the Constitution and historical practice. The regulation of health and safety through compulsory vaccination is a traditional prerogative of the states—not the domain of Congress and certainly not fodder for the diktat of a federal administrative agency.”
Sidelining the Constitution
With all of the ammunition provided by the dissenting judges in the Sixth Circuit, as well as the Fifth Circuit’s original opinion entering the stay, one would think that when the Supreme Court fast-tracked the case for oral argument, the attorneys seeking the stay would stress the grave attack the ETS represents to our constitutional republic. But they didn’t.
Instead, Scott Keller, counsel for the National Federation of Independent Business, argued “OSHA’s economy-wide one-size-fits-all mandate covering 84 million Americans is not a necessary, indispensable use of OSHA’s extraordinary emergency power which this Court has recognized is narrowly circumscribed.”
Likewise, Benjamin Flowers, the solicitor general of Ohio, arguing on behalf of the slew of states that joined in challenging the ETS, stressed “so sweeping a rule [as the vaccine mandate] is not necessary to protect employees from a grave danger as the emergency provision requires.”
Throughout the argument, Keller and Flowers also focused on the so-called “major questions” doctrine, which stems from a series of Supreme Court cases that stressed that if an agency’s regulatory action “brings about an enormous and transformative expansion in regulatory authority,” Congress must speak clearly that “it wishes to assign to an agency decisions [such issues] of vast ‘economic and political significance.”
The petitioners weren’t wrong. The OSHA rule, which is, in essence, a vaccine mandate given the shortage of tests and the federal government’s decision to force employees to pay for the cost of testing, is not “necessary” to protect employees from a “grave danger” for many reasons.
This Is Obviously Unconstitutional
First, COVID is only a grave danger to a small segment of society, while the ETS adopts the de facto vaccine mandate for all employers of 100 or more employees. The ETS also makes no distinction between employers where working conditions create a higher risk of COVID infection from those facilities where employees have limited risk. Nor, after two years of COVID, with OSHA waiting that time period to issue the ETS and the latest mutation less severe than the former ones, does the ETS fit within the concept of an “emergency” standard.
Also, far from providing the OSHA clear authority to mandate vaccinations (or a weekly medical test) in response to a virus such as COVID, the statute authorizing OSHA to issue an ETS speaks of grave dangers “from exposure to substances or agents determined to be toxic or physically harmful or from new hazards.” Thus, the major question doctrine supports the petitioners’ challenge to the ETS and their request for a stay.
Yes, advocates must be pragmatists, and the petitioners’ attorneys didn’t need a home run; they just needed a rain delay. But so much more could have been said, and indeed needed to be said—and forcefully so—about limited powers, federalism, and separation of powers. Yet in their desire to win the stay, there was barely any mention of these important constitutional principles.
Major Opportunity Lost
Consider this notable exchange between Ohio’s top attorney and Justice Sotomayor.
JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: “So, if it’s within the police power to protect the health and welfare of workers, you seem to be saying the states can do it, but you’re saying the federal government can’t even though it’s facing the same crisis in interstate commerce that states are facing within their own borders. I — I’m not sure I understand the distinction why the states would have the power but the federal government wouldn’t.”
MR. FLOWERS: “The federal government has no police power, if we’re asking about that.”
JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: “Oh, it does have power with respect to protecting the health and safety of workers. We have — we have — accept the constitutionality of OSHA.”
MR. FLOWERS: “Yes. I took you to be asking if they had a police power to protect public health. They — they absolutely have the –”
JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: “No, they have a police power to protect workers.”
MR. FLOWERS: “I would not call it a police power. I think the Commerce Clause power allows them to address health.”
“I would not call it a police power” is as much as the Ohio solicitor general could muster for a pushback. But Congress has no “police power” no matter what it is called, and the federal government cannot “pretextually relabel” a federal de facto vaccination mandate “commerce” to gain what is, in effect, a novel police power of the national government.
The breadth of the OSHA rule and its effects on two-thirds of private businesses also threatens the “system of government ordered by the Constitution,” that gave all legislative powers to Congress. The resulting “nondelegation doctrine constrains Congress’s ability to delegate its legislative authority to executive agencies.”
Yet when provided an opportunity to hammer these points, Flowers served up the vanilla point “that although our non-delegation doctrine is not especially robust today, there are limits on the amount of authority that Congress can give away.”
The justices—and Americans—needed to hear these points because COVID has become both the excuse and the case study for authoritarianism. And from OSHA’s most recent rule, we might divine the civil corollary to the “Show me the man, and I’ll show you the crime,” motto, and it seems to be, “Provide me a public interest, and I’ll find the power.”
Or, elsewise said, “Cut me a mouse hole, and I’ll squeeze in an elephant.”
Margot Cleveland is a senior contributor to The Federalist. She is also a contributor to National Review Online, the Washington Examiner, Aleteia, and Townhall.com, and has been published in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. As a stay-at-home homeschooling mom of a young son with cystic fibrosis, Cleveland frequently writes on cultural issues related to parenting and special-needs children. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.
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Dozens attended a live reenactment of Jesus’ nativity scene held outside the U.S. Supreme Court Building in Washington, D.C. on Thursday Dec. 2 2021. | The Christian Post/Nicole Alcindor
WASHINGTON — Dozens attended a live reenactment of Jesus’ nativity scene held outside the U.S. Supreme Court Building on Thursday, the day after the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case that could alter abortion law precedent nationwide.
The annual reenactment, organized by the Christian missionary and spiritual outreach organization Faith & Liberty, was held across the street from the East Façade of the Supreme Court.
The ceremonial event consisted of a little over a dozen impersonators dressed as biblical figures like Mary, Joseph, the baby Jesus, the three wise men, angels and more to shed light on the meaning of Christmas and spread the Gospel message.
Dozens attend a live reenactment of Jesus’ nativity scene held outside the U.S. Supreme Court Building in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, Dec. 2, 2021. | The Christian Post/Nicole Alcindor
The reenactment of the virgin birth that occurred over 2,000 years ago came less than 24 hours after the outside of the Supreme Court Building was crowded by thousands of pro-life and pro-choice demonstrators as the nation’s high court heard arguments for and against Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban.
Many believe that with the current 6-3 conservative makeup of the court, the case, Dobbs v. Jackson’s Women’s Health, has the potential to change legal precedent on abortion set in the 1973 case Roe v. Wade.
At the nativity event, pro-lifers in attendance said it is a “blessing” that Jesus’ “unplanned” birth could be displayed the day after many pro-choice demonstrators openly proclaimed their belief that mothers should have the right to end an unplanned pregnancy.
A woman holds camel during a live nativity scene at the U.S. Supreme Court Building in Washington, D.C. on Thursday, Dec. 2, 2021. | The Christian Christian Post/Nicole Alcindor
“Yesterday, the court talked about the shedding of innocent blood,” said Allan Parker, a pro-life attorney and the president of The Justice Foundation, a Christian public interest nonprofit litigation organization.
“And today, we are witnessing the reenactment of the most innocent blood in American history. Jesus shed His most innocent blood so that even murderers could be forgiven. We just have to humble ourselves and say: ‘Lord, forgive me.’”
Parker believes that the nativity scene “is cleansing the grounds that we stand on after yesterday’s event.”
Parker reasoned that because Mary was shocked to discover that she was chosen to give birth to Jesus, her pregnancy can be viewed as “unplanned” from the worldly perspective.
Actors reenact Jesus’ nativity scene outside the U.S. Supreme Court Building in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, Dec. 2, 2021. | The Christian Post/Nicole Alcindor
“Mary’s unplanned pregnancy led to the salvation of the whole world,” Parker told The Christian Post while standing outside on the stairs of the Supreme Court Building. “If Mary were alive today, Jesus might have been aborted, and then Jesus and the world would be in darkness instead of having a chance to step into the light.”
Many others in attendance believe that Jesus’ birth was “humble” because He came into the world as an infant and a servant when He could have come to earth as a king.
Nancy Claudio, an 81-year-old pro-life demonstrator who lives in Washington, D.C. and attended the nativity scene, said she thought the reenactment was “breathtaking and encouraging.”
Claudio felt led to attend the event because she loves Jesus. She said Jesus has been a part of her life as far back as she can remember. She told CP about how Jesus saved and delivered her before she began many years of work as a traveling missionary.
“I am Spirit-led and I live every day to please Jesus. And we all need to remember that Jesus came to a place that is not fancy, and He came because He loved the world and us,” Claudio said. “Events like this are so important because this happened 2,000 years ago, and we are still celebrating and living in the victory that Jesus brought us through his servant Heart. He was laid in a manger where cattle eat out of, and He came to serve, not be served.”
Judy Mcdonough attended the rally and the nativity scene in association with the Christian organization Intercessors For America. She told CP she believes it is “God’s timing” that both of the days spent at the Supreme Court are related to pregnancy.
“It’s all about the humanity of the baby in the womb, and every child is so innocent,” Mcdonough, a devoted pro-life Christian, told CP.
“I am all about praying, and the nativity scene today is a way that we can act, pray and exercise our constitutional right. Everything about Jesus goes against what we would naturally think about ourselves and who God should be. He’s the only God who came humbly, and He asks us to respond to Him humbly. He is unique because He came humbled, and at the same time, He says [to] bow before Him.”
Others who came to view the scene agreed that it is “necessary” to reenact the birth of Jesus in front of the Supreme Court in hopes elected officials cab develop a relationship with Jesus.
“This showing is desperately needed because the only hope we have is through the life of Jesus, who promises peace, and we have hope for reconciliation, and we were sent to be reconciled to Him and others,” attendee Becky Lyttle said.
“These elected officials need to know that corruption is not the answer because many are corrupt. People in ruling positions need the Word of God. We all desperately need the Lord.”
Attendees came from across the nation to view the nativity scene.
Coming from Chicago, Debra Smith, who identifies as a charismatic nondenominational Christian, said she attended the nativity scene because she felt led to pray in tongues on the premises of the Supreme Court Building. She had also prayed at the Supreme Court during the oral arguments the day before.
“His Holy Spirit lives with me, and He is always with me. Jesus is the best because He came as a helpless baby, and there are so many other helpless babies out there that desperately need saving,” she said.
Joel Enge traveled from Texas and is also a representative from the organization Intercessors of America. He attended both the rally and the nativity scene.
“We have killed millions in America because we have been pro-death, and this event shows us the life that Christ offers can move us from being a nation of death to life. This is amazing,” said Enge, who attends a Baptist church and is the founder and director of a private Christian school.
“Jesus’ entry into the world is very important because the Creator of the world came to His creation. Jesus became a zygote. He developed in Mary’s womb. He went through the same process that children being terminated went through. There’s no comparison. We can’t compare.”
Some in attendance said the scene brought them “relief” because it showed them that outward expressions of faith can still exist in similar settings.
“It was amazing. My whole life is built around the Christian faith,” said Paul Kope from Delaware. “Our country was founded on Christian beliefs and the right to worship. It shows we still have rights that they would do this demonstration.”
Participants in the March for Life 2019 assemble at United States Supreme Court on January 18, 2019. | Photo: The Christian Post
On December 1, Roe v. Wade will face a significant threat: Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health.
Capitol Hill police expect up to 20,000 protestors on the morning of December 1, a historic turnout of pro-life and pro-choice advocacy that will likely result in a larger crowd than any Supreme Court demonstration ever.
How is Dobbs different than other abortion cases?
The Supreme Court has reviewed several cases related to abortion since 1973’s Roe decision. But of these cases, only Planned Parenthood v. Casey in 1992 addressed the Roe precedent. Other cases involving abortion were related to late-term abortions, free speech rights of pro-life advocates, and restrictions on abortion providers based on ambulatory care or proximities to particular medical services, among other issues.
Viability
A major component to Roe was the issue of viability. In Dobbs, the Supreme Court has agreed to address the question:
“Whether all pre-viability prohibitions on elective abortions are unconstitutional.”
Why is this question significant?
This question is significant because Roe forbids states from prohibiting abortion pre-viability. This prohibition is the very reason why lower courts have kept Roe in place. Indeed one of the judges that struck down Mississippi’s law in the lower federal courts said,
“In an unbroken line dating to Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court’s abortion cases have established (and affirmed, and re-affirmed) a woman’s right to choose an abortion before viability. States may regulate abortion procedures prior to viability so long as they do not impose an undue burden on the woman’s right, but they may not ban abortions.”
The fact that the U.S. Supreme Court is revisiting viability is entirely implicative that their decision will, in some fashion, directly impact the Roe precedent.
What are the potential outcomes to Dobbs?
There are essentially three possible outcomes of Dobbs: The Court can strike down the Mississippi abortion law, the Court can uphold the Mississippi abortion law while still maintaining Roe, or the Court can uphold the Mississippi abortion law and overturn Roe altogether. John Bursch, who serves as senior counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom, spoke with the Freedom Center’s managing editor John Wesley Reid to expound on the potential outcomes of Dobbs.
Bursch has argued 12 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and over 30 state Supreme Courts. According to the Federalist Society, Bursch has the “third-highest success rate for persuading justices to adopt his legal position,” compared to other lawyers not working for the federal government.
Option 1: A strike down of Mississippi’s 15-week ban
If the Supreme Court affirms the lower court rulings, Mississippi’s 15-week ban on abortion will have reached its terminal demise. While Mississippi does have the option to request a reconsideration from the Court, such petitions are rare, their approval is rarer and a reversed decision is even rarer.
Ultimately, if the Supreme Court affirms the lower court rulings, the fight against abortion will remain in place as it was before Dobbs. For some pro-life advocates, this would be a debilitating setback. For others, it would inspire them to fight harder.
Option 2: A middle ground option
If the Court rejects the lower courts’ rulings and upholds Mississippi’s law, they could also uphold Roe. This would look like the Court rejecting the viability clause in Casey since viability is not objectively known. In 1973, the gestational age at which a child could generally survive outside of the womb was seen as later in the development stage.
But there have been great medical advancements in neonatology since even 1992 when Casey was heard, and so a child’s viability could be recognized by the Court as being much sooner in the development stage. In fact, with medical technological advancements, we now know that viability is sooner than the 24 weeks gestation that the courts have unofficially held to in the past. In fact, over the past few years, the world has seen multiple examples of babies surviving as young as 21 weeks, debunking the generalized 24 week idea. So, the middle ground option could appear as a new standard for statewide abortion regulation.
From a pro-life perspective, this option is an incremental victory, not a pragmatic victory. The vast majority of abortions happen before 15 weeks gestation. Thus, the middle ground option would bring pro-life efforts closer to their goal but would still only be a chip of their larger agenda.
Option 3: An Overturn of Roe v. Wade
If the Court sees reason to, a complete overturn of Roe v. Wade could result from the Dobbs decision. In the event of a Roe overturn, it is widely agreed that regulatory power will return to the states, enabling them to outlaw abortion if they so choose — and many of them are trying to do so already.
How will each justice likely rule in Dobbs?
It is naive to assume that a justice’s ideology will follow their decisions in every ruling and, by extension, an ideological majority should be seen with the same scrutiny. While it’s easy to assume that the right bloc will rule conservative and the left bloc liberal, that isn’t always the case on the ideological spectrum, even with specific issues. How the justices will decide the Dobbs case can subjectively be analyzed based on their prior rulings and personal positions towards abortion.
To be fair, not all of the cases below relate to the viability aspect of Roe and Casey. This arguably renders them irrelevant to the following analysis, except that some of the justices still refer to Roe and Casey in their opinions despite the case’s irrelevancy towards viability. So, even “irrelevant” cases are worth considering.
Listed by seniority, here are the current justice’s voting records and statements related to abortion:
Chief Justice Roberts
Conservatives have largely coined the Chief Justice as a wild card, given some of his decisions, which, technicalities aside, have not landed on the right, i.e. upholding “Obamacare” in National Federation of Independent Business et al. v. Sebelius, effectively redefining “sex” in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in Bostock v. Clayton County, among others. Some have gone so far as to call him a liberal. But that logic is self-defeating. That is, to ideologically categorize someone based on the minority of their opinions, what does that say to the majority of their opinions? If a reputably conservative justice rules in 10 cases, in which three they take liberal leanings, what is one to say of the liberal justice who votes conservative in three of ten decisions? The conservative court of public opinion would certainly not hail the liberal justice as a conservative.
To be fair, Roberts does push the envelope in general. But on abortion, Roberts has ruled ideologically right in most abortion-related cases before him.
In Carhart v. Gonzales, Roberts ruled in the majority to uphold the Partial-Birth Abortion Act of 2003. He was joined by current Justices Thomas and Alito.
In Whole Women’s Health v. Hellerstedt Roberts ruled in the minority to uphold a Texas law that would require certain restrictions on abortion clinics, such as shorter proximities to admitting hospital care. He was joined by current Justices Thomas and Alito.
In June Medical Services v. Russo, Roberts ruled in the majority against a law that mirrored the law in Hellerstedt. The curious move from the chief justice after he ruled to uphold the similar law in Texas was, in his words, because “the Louisiana law imposes a burden on access to abortion just as severe as that imposed by the Texas law, for the same reasons. Therefore Louisiana’s law cannot stand under our precedents.” Even though Roberts voted to uphold the Texas law in Hellerstedt, since the majority opinion struck it down, Roberts felt that precedent takes priority over reconsideration. This is important to note since the upcoming Dobbs case directly counters the precedent set in Roe and Casey. Roberts may have jurisprudential reason to think that Roe was a bad call, but he also thought that about the Hellerstedt decision, and based his June Medical decision off of the precedent of a decision he dissented with.
In NIFLA vs. Becerra, Roberts ruled to strike down a California law that required non-abortive pregnancy centers to provide abortion referrals. While this case was more about free speech than it was about abortion, the Court ruled on ideological lines. Roberts was joined by current Justices Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch.
In addition to his rulings, Roberts was the signatory of a 1990 Bush Sr. White House brief that stated Roe was “wrongly decided” and “should be overruled.” Whether this brief may have been more in step with the administration as a whole and not just Roberts is debated. At the time, Roberts was the Deputy Solicitor General. During Roberts’ confirmation hearings both to the D.C. Circuit Court and U.S. Supreme Court, he was aggressively pressed for his position on abortion and Roe, to which he provided diplomatic non-answers, as is routine for federal judge appointees.
Verdict: Still a wild card, but evidence hints that he might uphold Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban with the middle-ground option.
Justice Thomas
Thomas has ruled ideologically rightin every abortion-related case before him.
The longest seated jurist on the current Court, Justice Thomas’ record is perhaps the most absolute when considering whether he’d overturn Roe, since he in fact did rule to overturn Roe when given the chance. Thomas is the only justice on the current Court who was also seated during the 1992 Planned Parenthood v. Casey decision, for which he ruled in the minority.
Thomas opposes the Roe and Casey precedents — and enthusiastically so. In June Medical v. Russo, a win for abortion advocates, Thomas dissented and said of abortion precedents:
“But those decisions created the right to abortion out of whole cloth, without a shred of support from the Constitution’s text. Our abortion precedents are grievously wrong and should be overruled. Because we have neither jurisdiction nor constitutional authority to declare Louisiana’s duly enacted law unconstitutional, I respectfully dissent.“
Verdict: No wild card here. Justice Thomas looks like a sure win to uphold Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban and overturn Roe.
Justice Breyer
Considered moderately liberal, Justice Breyer, the eldest of the justices, has ruled ideologically left in every abortion-related case before him.
Verdict: Justice Breyer is very likely to rule against Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban.
Justice Alito
Like Thomas, Justice Alito has ruled ideologically right in every abortion-related case before him.
While a federal judge on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, Alito was one of three judges to rule on Planned Parenthood v. Casey (before the case was heard by the Supreme Court). Alito was the lone dissenter in an overturn of the spousal notification portion of the law being challenged.
Alito also expressed personal opinions about abortion, particularly about Roe, before his career as a federal judge. In a 1985 memo, he said,
“We should make clear that we disagree with Roe v. Wade and would welcome the opportunity to brief the issue of whether, and if so to what extent, that decision should be overruled.”
While this quote does not provide an absolute current position taken by Alito, it does reinforce the rest of his reputation towards abortion and Roe. To be fair, Alito is also on the record as having acknowledged that Roe is precedent. But in the same fairness, these remarks were made during his confirmation hearing to the Appeals and Supreme Court where any appointee will refuse to give their position on a judicial matter.
Verdict: Alito is very likely to uphold Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban and overturn Roe.
Justice Sotomayor
The anchor of the Court’s left bloc, Justice Sotomayor has ruled ideologically left in every abortion-related case before her.
A constant supporter of abortion, Sotomayor has been less than shy in her dissents. In a 5-4 decision last September, the Court refused to interfere with the Texas heartbeat law, effectively upholding it. In her dissent, Sotomayor said,
“For the second time, the Court is presented with an application to enjoin a statute enacted in open disregard of the constitutional rights of women seeking abortion care in Texas. For the second time, the Court declines to act immediately to protect these women from grave and irreparable harm.”
Though the Court later decided to hear the case, Sotomayor gave a strong statement of opposition towards her juristic colleagues in reference to the Court’s original denial of injunctive relief. While addressing law students via virtual appearance, Sotomayor said,
“You know, I can’t change Texas’s law. But you can, and everyone else who may or may not like it can go out there and be lobbying forces in changing laws that you don’t like.”
Verdict: Given her opinions, and the reasons for them, Justice Sotomayor is very likely to rule against Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban.
Justice Kagan
Similar to Justice Breyer, Justice Kagan is a moderate on the Court’s left bloc but has ruledideologically left in every abortion-related case before her.
The only hint she has ever shown towards abortion restrictions came while working in the Clinton White House, when she urged the president to support a partial-birth abortion ban, though it is generally agreed that her motive was for political purposes and not ideological. Regardless, partial-birth abortions are outside the parameters of Roe’s application. One can consistently support Roe while opposing partial-birth abortions, thus even if she is opposed to partial-birth abortion, her record shows unfettering support for Roe.
During the oral arguments for the Texas heartbeat law challenge, Kagan expressed her opposition to the law but also affirmed the Court’s precedent:
“The actual provisions in this law have prevented every woman in Texas from exercising a constitutional right as declared by this court … That’s not a hypothetical. That’s an actual.”
Verdict: Justice Kagan is very likely to rule against Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban.
Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh
Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh have much shorter records to analyze on abortion, though both have ruled ideologically right in every abortion-related case before them.
Gorsuch, while on the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, ruled on a unique string of abortion-related cases, though none that address the Roe precedent.
Off the bench, their personal opinions on abortion are also limited and not directly related to Roe.
For a clarifying point about Kavanaugh, many who opposed his appointment to the Supreme Court alluded to a 2003 email between Kavanaugh and James C. Ho, then-Chief Counsel for the Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Property Rights. An excerpt from the email reads,
“I am not sure that all legal scholars refer to Roe as the settled law of the land at the Supreme Court level since Court can always overrule its precedent, and three current Justices on the Court would do so.”
The email does not provide any substantial reason to suggest that Kavanaugh, who was working in the Bush Administration at the time, would overturn Roe, despite what his critics said of the email during his 2018 confirmation. Still, Kavanaugh was clear that precedent is not as concrete as perhaps Chief Justice Roberts would hold. So, if Kavanaugh did have reservations about overturning Roe, we can likely eliminate precedent as his hesitancy.
The three justices Kavanaugh was likely referring to were Thomas, Scalia and Rehnquist considering they were the only three justices on the Court in 2003 who ruled to overturn Roe in Planned Parenthood v. Casey in 1992.
Verdict: It is likely that both Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh will rule to uphold Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban. Whether they’d take the middle ground option or overturn Roe is not clear.
Justice Barrett
The newest of the justices, and the youngest woman ever appointed to the High Court, Justice Barrett has ruled ideologically right in every abortion-related case before her — but it’s worth noting the secondary nature of abortion in these cases.
While on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, Barrett ruled on cases where abortion was secondary, including the disposal of fetal remains and whether abortion on the basis of race, sex, or gender is lawful. Barrett also favored a ruling that would require doctors to inform parents of a minor seeking an abortion.
While on the Supreme Court, Barrett has only had the opportunity to grant or deny injunctive relief when opposition tried to halt the Texas heartbeat law, which she refused along with Justices Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh.
Despite her minimal ruling history on abortion, there is reason to believe Barrett is pro-life. In 2006, Barrett and her husband Jesse endorsed an advertisement with Right to Life St. Joseph County that condemned Roe v. Wade. In 2008, Barrett co-authored a journal entry for the Notre Dame School of Law which stated that abortion “is always immoral.” When questioned about this publication during her confirmation hearings, Barrett said that she and her co-author were referencing the standard of the Catholic Church’s teachings and said that if she was confirmed, her faith would have no influence “on the discharge of my duties as a judge.” While this could sound as if her pro-life position is dormant in her jurisprudence, it is crucial to remember the normalcy of neutral answers during confirmation hearings.
Verdict: Justice Barrett is likely to uphold Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban and overturn Roe.
The Battle Timeline of Mississippi’s 15-Week Abortion Ban:
March 2018
On March 19, then-governor of Mississippi Phil Bryant signs the 15-week abortion ban into law. Hours later, the Center for Reproductive Rights files suit in the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of Mississippi.
On March 20, 2018, the Center for Reproductive Rights is granted their request of a temporary restraining order, blocking the 15-week ban for 10 days.
November 2018
The Center for Reproductive Rights is granted a permanent injunction by the same federal court, blocking Mississippi’s 15-week ban on abortion indefinitely. When issuing the order, Judge Carlton Reeves delivers a strong rebuke of the Mississippi legislature:
“…the real reason we are here is simple. The State chose to pass a law it knew was unconstitutional to endorse a decades-long campaign, fueled by national interest groups, to ask the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade. This Court follows the commands of the Supreme Court and the dictates of the United States Constitution, rather than the disingenuous calculations of the Mississippi Legislature.
“Mississippi’s law violates Supreme Court precedent, and in doing so it disregards the Fourteenth Amendment guarantee of autonomy for women desiring to control their own reproductive health.”
December 2019
The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals affirms the lower court’s decision, with Judge Patrick Higginbotham opining,
“In an unbroken line dating to Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court’s abortion cases have established (and affirmed, and re-affirmed) a woman’s right to choose an abortion before viability. States may regulate abortion procedures prior to viability so long as they do not impose an undue burden on the woman’s right, but they may not ban abortions.”
Mississippi then requests a hearing en banc, which would summon the entire 5th Circuit and not just a panel of three. This request is denied the following January.
June 2020
Mississippi files a writ of certiorari requesting the U.S. Supreme Court review the 15-week abortion ban.
May 2021
The U.S. Supreme Court grants Mississippi’s request.
December 1, 2021
The U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments for Dobbs.
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A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into the 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 shared by President Donald Trump.
Once again we are republishing this analysis by John L Kachelman, Jr. We first published this piece back in October before the election.
2020 the “Perfect Storm” facing our Republic— All three branches of our Government are in peril
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Historical Discovery…An election in 1917 forecast the election in 2020! Here are the elements from 103 years ago!
Years of preparatory work were spent in misleading and mis-directional propaganda
Contested voting results marred the election’s finality and ultimately its dismissal
Claims that the poor were going to be disenfranchised of their votes
The scheduled voting was extended by two months
Division, violence, slander and libel were widespread
A delusional/cunning/conniving campaign made unrealistic promises to win the population
Anger and mob violence were deliberately stirred against “privilege,” possessions, and status
Deceptive claims persuaded the “majority” they were robbed of their electoral victory
Inevitable civil war was sparked at the election’s end because Lenin’s group failed to win the majority
The dissolution of the old State and a “transformation” of the new system was promised to lead to true socialism but it brought history’s worst and longest ruling tyrant
And here is how it happened…
Here is a basic reminder of your 9th Grade American Civics materials…The Founding Fathers of our Republic designed a system of governing to prevent the evils inherent in the onerous governing systems of Europe. The Republic was to be governed in a way that the majority would have a say BUT safeguarded against a rogue majority controlling the nation. A deliberate system of “checks and balances” was wisely incorporated against evil efforts to seize national control.
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The ultimate safeguard was the separation of the State’s governing into three distinct bodies. While each would have an impact upon the others, that impact was deliberately limited. The Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches of the Republic were designed to be independent but function with unity to guide the nation, preserve freedoms, and guard the human rights that are often disenfranchised by evil systems and philosophies. One of the greatest feats of our Republic is the exercise of individualism when these three branches of governing are properly functioning.
However, at this point in our nation’s historical narrative the “perfect storm” threatens ALL THREE of these safeguards of our Republic. And my disconcerting observation is that many prance and dance around with a Pollyannish attitude denying the reality of our current situation. The prevailing cultural concern is as absurd as the attitude of one busily rearranging the deck chairs on the sinking Titanic!
The assault on the EXECUTIVE BRANCH
The resistance has been hard at work even prior to President Trump’s inauguration. Attempts to nullify the electoral process have been constant. The evil agenda was visible. Our President has suffered evil resistance of historic proportions. The basic cause is his commitment to the U.S. Constitution. It is the unchanging Constitution that provides the legal governing making the USA an exceptional nation of individuals. This fixed and knowable Constitution gives our nation the strength and energy envied by the world and loathed by tyranny. )The Resistance/DEMS/BLM/ANTIFA demand an activist Court that will change our Republic’s basic foundational principles.)
The stated position of the resistance has been loud and long—they have robbed President Trump of his first four years as President. They have dared to present the most ridiculous reasons for his disqualification and removal. They have manipulated, deceived and extorted support for their evil agenda. They have ignited violence that has divided and destroyed the civility of the USA. Their evil purpose was to achieve the political purge of a duly elected President of the United States of America. Our President has been nominated for multiple Nobel Peace Prizes for his exceptional ability to broker true peace between Middle Eastern nations. But the resistance shrugs forgetting they excitedly embraced the Peace Prize awarded to Obama which is admitted now as an award for nothing! The resistance’s political maneuvering and evil mission is well documented.
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Those of the resistance are described by inspiration. Their conniving and cunning evil is a constant action seeking to destroy legitimate order. Psalm 36:4, “He plans wickedness upon his bed; He sets himself on a path that is not good; He does not despise evil.” (See also Ecclesiastes 10:20)
Even the classics describe the reality of this evil. From Stevenson’s pen we remember the confession that describes those seeking to nullify the legality of President Trump’s election. Like the pained soul of Henry Jekyll the resistance can confess, “I lost my identity beyond redemption…had I risked the experiment while under the empire of generous or pious aspirations, all must have been otherwise, and from these agonies of death and birth, I had come forth an angel instead of a fiend…At that time my virtue slumbered; my evil, kept awake by ambition, was alert and swift to seize the occasion.” Perhaps the most troubling reference that Stevenson’s pen gives to the resistance character states, “O my poor old Harry Jekyll, if ever I read Satan’s signature upon a face, it is on that of your new friend.”
Inspiration and the Classics unite in describing today’s controlling evil that occupies every thought of the Progressive/Liberal/BLM/ANTIFA “resistance” as “Satan’s signature upon a face.”
This is the first element of today’s “Perfect Storm.” There are two more elements…
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The assault upon the LEGISLATIVE BRANCH
It is the Legislative Branch of our Republic’s government that involves the citizenry in the governing process. The population’s vote is a significant and treasured freedom. That vote expresses the desires of each State of the Union and is recorded by the Electoral College so that a free election is not controlled by a militant mob. The Founding Fathers wisely saw the potential of a militant group manipulating and coercing control. The establishment of the Electoral College was a masterful move safeguarding the Republic’s freedoms. By this method the most populous States are equal with the least populous—true equality.
The 2020 General Election is recognized as a critical point in our nation’s history. It can be said that every election is critical and previous elections have suffered the militancy of Progressives/Liberals attempting to undermine the Constitutional foundation of our nation. These past challenges failed because the general population was aware of the evil being campaigned and were educated regarding the safeguards of our Constitution. But the context has dramatically changed for the 2020 General Election. In this current election the Constitutional safeguards are condemned and the population is ignorant of just how fragile individual freedom is. It appears that many have been groomed and are eager to believe the Progressive/Liberal/Democratic lies and embrace anarchy. This is not a new situation. History is amazing as it details how the past continues to explain the present.
Consider the Russian Revolution. I offer just a scant discussion on Lenin’s role in this aspect of Russian politics. Hopefully I will have opportunity to offer a more complete discussion. Consider the first “free election” that Russia experienced. It was held in October or November 1917 (the month depends upon which calendar you consult). Lenin promised a “free” election where all votes would be equal and each citizen would be heard. The election was scheduled and a number of political parties provided the voters a choice. Among the many parties were two dominating parties: the Socialist-Revolutionaries and the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party (Lenin’s Bolsheviks).
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The propaganda fueling this election is intriguing. Lenin had confidence that his party would be an overwhelming victor. He was convinced that his pamphleteering during his exile was persuasive. He was convinced that only he knew best what the poor citizens needed for happiness in life. Lenin had devised a governing system by which the State would help the poor citizen to have free health care, free food, personal land ownership, and the erasure of all class “privileges”by redistributing wealth/financial resources/personal property.Under Lenin’s control there would be no more denial of personal rights, no more prejudice of persons, and no more unjust financial levels. All would be totally “equal” IF Lenin’s perfect Revolutionary State was allowed to transform into the Marxist utopia.
Here is where history becomes instructive regarding the Legislative Body of the State.
When the Tsar abdicated, the Russian Provisional Government was formed. Its purpose was to organize the free elections for the Russian Constituent Assembly. The provisional government lasted only eight months and was replaced by the Bolsheviks. A significant footnote to this period is that the Provisional Government was unable to make decisive policy decisions due to political factionalism and a breakdown of state structures. The anarchy fomented by Lenin and the Bolsheviks rendered a civil governing impossible. Whatever legislative bills were presented were instantly killed by opposition. Revolutionary unrest fueled violence. This was a deliberate design of non-cooperation and pure resistance! The deliberate campaign for divisiveness and refusal to perform governing duties is a sobering similarity to the resistance in modern day American politics. Lenin’s free election was conducted but here are some troubling facts from its history:
1) The election was designed to be held on specific dates BUT some argued that the peasants in the outlying territory needed more time to get their votes counted. So, the ballot counting was extended in some places by TWO MONTHS!
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2) Throughout the 1917 campaign Lenin argued that the citizens deserved a government that represented “the proletariat’s interests” because, in his estimation, all other governments represented the “dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.” Lenin argued that the rich would never give up their “privileges” and so the soviets would need to seize power by violence. Lenin’s propaganda fueled the division that would destroy the Russian nation. He urged violence nurtured by envy and jealousy arguing that some had “privileged status” that others did not and this great “inequity” could only be removed with a violent overthrow.
3) Even though the first free election included a number of different political parties, Lenin was confident that his Bolsheviks would win. That did not happen. The final tabulation exposed Lenin as suffering defeat and his Bolsheviks only garnered 23.26% of the vote. The Socialist-Revolutionaries emerged with 37.61% of the vote. Lenin was unhappy and contested the results! Lenin refused to concede protesting the legitimacy of the election.
4) The objective of the resistance was a one-party government and an absolute silencing of opposition. “It is the duty of the revolution to put an end to compromise, and to put an end to compromise means taking the path of socialist revolution” Lenin, Speech On The Agrarian Question November 14 (1917).
Carefully consider how Lenin embraced the freedom of voting while masterfully disguising his evil objective of silencing the opposition and developing a one-party ruling government.
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After the election results were announced, Lenin stood and revealed the coup. The results were called flawed. Those in opposition were eventually murdered. Lenin instituted his famous “dictatorship of the proletariat.” Lenin said this was the best course for the average citizen and this dictatorship would dissolve when all privileged distinctions were erased, all wealth inequities removed, and all land ownership seized. And the Russian population permitted this dictatorship to exist!
When applied to the 2020 General Election in the USA, this historical anecdote should sound national alarms! The very concepts that Lenin used to nullify the free election of Russia in 1917 are being used in today’s election. In fact, some of the very words and phrases that were used by Lenin are parroted by the Democratic Progressives today and characterize the membership of Democratic Party in the USA!
When the election process of our governing Constitution is compromised and dismissed as archaic and inapplicable THEN our nation has lost the compass for safely navigating the treacherous existence in this world.
The assault upon the JUDICIAL BRANCH
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History reminds its students that the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justices were forever changed in 1987 with Joe Biden’s Judiciary’s malevolent confirmation hearing of Judge Robert Bork. Biden was campaigning to be the nomination of the Democratic Presidential candidate (which he would lose to Dukakis because of Biden’s plagiarism). In 1987 the custom was for such hearings to last two days or less. Under Biden’s chairmanship Bork’s hearing was weaponized and lasted TWELVE days. Such a reprehensible action has earned its own idiom in American language—“so and so was ‘Borked’.”
The 1987 Democratic Party’s politicizing and weaponizing the confirmation hearings for the Supreme Court appointments opened the floodgates for the most contentious events in the governing of the United States of America. One only needs to go back to the recent hearings to confirm Justice Brett Kavanaugh in 2018. The personal slander, insidious innuendos, manufactured complaints and a host of other evil actions have become accepted political weapons (Or as Speaker Pelosi remarked, “arrows in our quiver”). In past times it was customary that the sitting President was respected and his nominations were accorded with approval, even if the conservatives knew they were approving a Progressive/Liberal who despised the literalist view of the U.S. Constitution they voted for the confirmation. But now there is a horrid specter of divisiveness and vindictiveness enveloping the process.
The General Election of 2020 spotlights the tragic devolving of the status of the U.S. Supreme Court. It is suggested by some, with validity, that the Supreme Court is no longer focused upon apolitical justice but has assumed an active role in establishing law that the U.S. Constitution reserves only for the Legislative Branch.
The Democrats/Progressives/Liberals have announced their intent to “pack” the Supreme Court with Justices who disrespect the U.S. Constitution. They want a left-leaning Court that will sanctionthe total dismemberment of the constitutional statutes that made America a great nation. The far-left Daily Koscautioned Republicans that a “future government controlled by Democrats is likely to pursue — court-packing — as the best way to rebuff a conservative Court majority viewed as illegitimate.” Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told voters during an October 2018 campaign event that Democrats should“pack the Supreme Court of the United States of America” after taking the House, Senate, and Presidency. Leading Democrats also warned that if the justices issue a pro-Second Amendment ruling, andif Democrats win the White House and the Senate in 2020, then they will fundamentally remake the High Court.
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Former President Franklin Roosevelt issued this same threat in the 1930s after facing legal obstacles with his New Deal and subsequently “threatened to expand the Court by six seats for a new total of 15 justices so that he could get the rulings he wanted.”The American people, however, rejected his threat, leading to massive Republican victories in the 1938 midterm elections.
Former Democrat presidential candidates Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), and now vice-presidential candidate Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) announced that they were open to reshaping the court. “We are on the verge of a crisis of confidence in the Supreme Court,”Harris said, according to Politico. “We have to take this challenge head on, and everything is on the table to do that.”
During the summer of 2020 several major progressive groups, including Take Back The Court, Demand Justice, Progressive Change Institute, and the Sunrise Movement, signed a letter declaring their support for increasing the number of justices by “at least” two seats. The resistance wrote in part: “The fastest, most effective way to make the court representative of all Americans is to enact legislation increasing the size of the Court by at least two seats, and to quickly fill those seats with justices who will safeguard our democracy.” Note: In the context of this reference it is best to remember Lenin’s manipulative ploy that his “free”election would best represent “all Russians”?
In March 2019, President Trump astutely dismissed mounting calls from his Democratic opponents to pack the Supreme Court. “The only reason they’re doing that is they want to try and catch up, so if they can’t catch up through the ballot box by winning an election, they want to try doing it in a different way,” he added.
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The late Justice Ginsburg balked at the proposition of packing the Supreme Court. “It would make the Court look partisan,” the late justice told National Public Radio’s Nina Totenberg last year.
The Judicial Branch of the government is to interpret laws respecting the United States Constitution’s limits. Once this unbiased governing is compromised, there is no lawful regulations for civility in our nation.
Concluding Thoughts…
This is where the United States of America is positioned as the General Election of November 2020 nears. A discord and division prevail that has never existed. This violence has been stoked with bitterness. The Progressives/Democratic Party/BLM/ANTIFA assure us that regardless of the election there will be violence. We are being conditioned to think that electoral results will take weeks or months to be validated and even then, they will be challenged. The vitriol marking the battleground is undeniable. Following Lenin’s example in 1917 the Democrats have been told never to concede. The results are already announced, “Furious Democrats are considering total war — profound changes to two branches of government, and even adding stars to the flag (i.e. adding the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico as States thus insuring Democrats have two solid additions to their column) — if Republicans jam through a Supreme Court nominee then lose control of the Senate.”
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As the National Election of 2020 approaches we read of violence, destruction and carnage in the public sphere…Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s recent death sparked a political firestorm, as Republicans prepare for a contentious, pre-election confirmation showdown and some Democrats threaten to, quite literally, burn the country down.
The ”Perfect Storm” facing the Republic of the United States of America has formed and threatens the three pillars of our civility.
After Lenin’s Bolsheviks permitted a “free election” they moved quickly to strangle freedoms. Lenin’s opinion of the poor proletariat having the right to vote for individual choices morphed into a ruling class identified as the “Politburo.”The first Politburo consisted of: Lenin, Trotsky, Krestinsky, Kamenev, and Stalin. Lenin died. Trotsky was exiled to Mexico and was murdered. Krestinsky and Kamenev were assassinated. That left Stalin. Stalin manipulated the bureaucratic apparatus and seized power. By the 1930s, Stalin had transformed the Politburo into the supreme executive and legislative body of the Communist party and the Soviet government. Stalin was in command of its membership, decisions, and debates. The party congress now not only did not elect the politburo, but its own membership was fully controlled by the politburo. Not only had Lenin’s vision of a one-party political government been achieved but now it became a one-man political government! Individualism had been erased. The individual had ceased to exist and all had become “the State.”
The ”Perfect Storm” in Russia’s history resulted in the totalitarian reign of Stalin’s terror. Such is the conclusion of Russia’s first free election.
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What will YOU do regarding the “Perfect Storm” in which our Republic is now struggling?
Please read the historical documentation available and you will realize this is not a conspiracy theory but a historical constant!
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.
Pastor Ché Ahn speaks at Harvest Rock Church in Pasadena, California, 2019. | Facebook/Harvest Rock Church
The United States Supreme Court granted temporary relief to a church fighting a legal battle against California over its restrictions on in-person worship gatherings. Harvest Rock Church and others filed suit against California over ongoing shutdown orders instituted by Gov. Gavin Newsom that they argued are in violation of their religious freedom.
In the Thursday order, the Supreme Court provided “injunctive relief” for the church, vacating a September ruling against the church by a district court.
“The application for injunctive relief, presented to Justice Kagan and by her referred to the Court, is treated as a petition for a writ of certiorari before judgment, and the petition is granted,” read the brief order.
The Supreme Court cited its recent 5-4 ruling in Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn v. Cuomo to justify granting the relief and sending the case back to the district court. In that case, the high court majority blocked New York from implementing certain lockdown restrictions on a Roman Catholic diocese and an Orthodox Jewish community.
“Members of this Court are not public health experts, and we should respect the judgment of those with special expertise and responsibility in this area. But even in a pandemic, the Constitution cannot be put away and forgotten,” read the opinion in Cuomo.
“The restrictions at issue here, by effectively barring many from attending religious services, strike at the very heart of the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious liberty.”
In July, Harvest Rock Church and Harvest International Ministry which includes multiple member churches, filed suit against California over its ongoing restrictions in its response to COVID-19. The suit argued that Newsom’s order from July banning indoor worship in as many as 30 counties also bans members from gathering at each other’s homes for Bible studies in said counties. In October, a three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled 2-1 against Harvest Rock, arguing that they were not being wrongly treated.
“The Orders apply the same restrictions to worship services as they do to other indoor congregate events, such as lectures and movie theaters. Some congregate activities are completely prohibited in every county, such as attending concerts and spectating sporting events,” stated the majority opinion.
Circuit Judge Diarmuid O’Scannlain authored a dissent in which he disagreed, arguing that in 18 counties, houses of worship are put under stricter standards than most secular entities.
“… in these same counties, the State still allows people to go indoors to: spend a day shopping in the mall, have their hair styled, get a manicure or pedicure, attend college classes, produce a television show or movie, participate in professional sports, wash their clothes at a laundromat, and even work in a meatpacking plant,”wrote O’Scannlain.
“The Constitution allows a State to impose certain calculated, neutral restrictions—even against churches and religious believers—necessary to combat emergent threats to public health. But the Constitution, emphatically, does not allow a State to pursue such measures against religious practices more aggressively than it does against comparable secular activities.”
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A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into the 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 shared by President Donald Trump.
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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
Bible Gateway
The Bible Gateway is a tool for reading and researching scripture online — all in the language or translation of your choice! It provides advanced searching capabilities, which allow readers to find and compare particular passages in scripture based on
Political cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2020.
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