The 2020 session of the Illinois General Assembly is now underway in Springfield. Our state lawmakers are introducing new proposals, adding to the 6,000+ bills that were introduced in the first half of the session (2019). IFI’s top concern is stopping the effort to repeal the Parental Notice of Abortion Act. In a recent email, the anti-life Personal PAC told their supporters that their

key goals in 2020 will be repealing dangerous anti-choice legislation and safeguarding reproductive rights for future generations. With that in mind, in the next few months, Personal PAC will be focused on:

• Repealing the Parental Notice Act of Abortion (PNA) and
• Expanding the Illinois General Assembly’s pro-choice majority

Opposing this horrific agenda must be a prayer priority for all pro-life Christians in the state. It must also become a tier one call-to-action for us all. Our local state representatives, state senators and Governor J.B. Pritzker must hear from us loud and clear. They must come to understand that we will not remain silent as they work to usurp our God-given parental rights so they can pursue an agenda of death.

In addition to that, ethics reform is once again making headlines in the wake of multiple FBI corruption investigations and numerous indictments. Chicago’s ABC7 I-Team recently aired a report identifying Illinois “as the most corrupt state in America.” Political pundits speculate that there will be more indictments coming in the weeks and months ahead. As if that weren’t enough, Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan is at the center of a rape cover-up scandal that may have far reaching consequences.

We also have critically important primary campaigns going on now through election day, March 17th.

To say we have much to pray about is an understatement. Our state government is immersed in chaos and corruption. This is a reflection of the character of the men and women serving in Springfield over the past several decades. We are to pray for  all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness, (1 Timothy 2:1-2).

Please Pray:

• That God will open the eyes of policy-makers and candidates for office to the sanctity of life. Pray that they will become defenders of innocent human life and not enablers of sexual immorality and death.

• That state lawmakers will uphold parental rights and reject attempts to repeal the basic protection young women have in the Parental Notice of Abortion Act.

• That federal and state investigators will root out all corruption at the Capitol and among our legislators and that self-serving lawmakers will be replaced by honest and wise public servants.

• That in the 2020 election season, pro-life candidates will have the time, energy and funding needed to saturate their districts with their campaign messages and materials.

• That God will give wisdom and discernment to the honest public servants in Springfield who must work in the swamp of corruption and that they have courage to serve the Lord with fear and trembling and not shrink back from calling out every form of wickedness. (Psalms 2:10-11)

• That many godly counselors and advisers will surround our elected officials and that local pastors and Christian leaders will intentionally seek opportunities to visit and minister to these men and women. (Proverbs 11:14)

• That God will work in the hearts and minds of our state lawmakers and governor and that He will draw them to Him and His truth. (Proverbs 21:1-8)

• That God will work in the hearts of key federal officials, including President Donald Trump, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, U.S. Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and U.S. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy.

• That efforts to indoctrinate children in government schools–especially the new law that mandates teaching about homosexuality and the “trans” ideology positively in government schools–will fail and that local school boards will reject this agenda for their students in kindergarten through 12th grade.

• That God will use the upcoming IFI Worldview Conference and April 25th Education Forum to help equip and challenge parents, grandparents and pastors.

Personal Prayer Request:

Last week, my wife and I were blessed with the birth of our son, Owen. He was born with Down Syndrome and has significant medical challenges. We learned that Owen had an imperforate anus and an AV canal defect in his heart. Owen had surgery on his second day of life and spent the next six days in the PICU. He is facing three additional surgeries in the next several months.

Owen has also been diagnosed with transient abnormal myelopoiesis (TAM). We were told that twenty percent of Downs Syndrome kids develop Leukemia but 80 percent outgrow it. Further blood tests will indicate more.

We would greatly appreciate if you would keep baby Owen in your prayers over the next several months. We praise God for the technology and science and the amazing medical team that has worked to save Owen’s life and help him overcome these health hurdles.

God is stretching the Smith family in new and exciting ways. We are walking in faith, trusting in God’s plan for Owen while trying not to rely not on our own (finite) understanding. I can honestly say that we cannot wait to see how God is going to use this boy in our family and beyond.

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As we begin 2019–with new federal lawmakers being sworn in to office last week in Washington D.C. and new state lawmakers being sworn into office this week–it is vital that we are intentional about praying for those in authority. Although we may disagree with the political philosophy of many of our elected officials, we must not neglect God’s instruction to pray for them (1 Timothy 2:1-3) or ignore the power of prayer to change hearts and minds (Proverbs 21:1; James 5:16).

It is important to regularly appeal to God for the well-being of our state and nation. It is essential to ask Him to work in the hearts and minds of each one of our local, state and national our leaders. Let’s ask the Lord to help our officials understand what is good and true. Ask Him to give them wisdom and to open their eyes to those who are trying to mislead or deceive them. Let’s pray that God would bring into their lives a Daniel or a Paul to be trusted godly influences who will not shrink back from telling them about God’s standards of right and wrong.

Additionally, here are some other ways to pray this week and throughout the year:

• Thank God for this new year in which we can serve Him. Thank God for what He has done in our lives during the last year, and what He will be doing this year in not only our lives but also in the lives of our family members and in His church worldwide. Throughout history we can see how His hand has been upon the nations.

• Thank God that He is making all things new (Isaiah 43:18–19; Revelation 21:5; Isaiah 65:17).

• Pray that He would prompt us to stay in His Word, reading it daily so that we are fully equipped for what He is calling us to do.

• Pray that He would train us in righteousness and give us wisdom to know how to respond to the growing immorality and unfaithfulness in our culture.

• Pray for a successful and peaceful March for Life Chicago next Sunday. Pray that our culture would come to understand the preeminence of the sanctity of life.

• Pray for key federal officials–including President Donald Trump, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, U.S. Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and U.S. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy.

• Pray that federal officials would be serious about military readiness, national security, border protection and the importance of defunding Planned Parenthood.

• Pray for key state officials–including Governor-elect JB Pritzker, Illinois Senate President John Cullerton, Illinois Senate Minority Leader Bill Brady, Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, and Illinois House Minority Leader Jim Durkin.

• Pray that the effort to legalize recreational marijuana fails. Pray that state lawmakers would understand the alarming consequences and high costs of approving this legislation and not be swayed by the potential of a new tax revenue source.

• Pray against efforts to indoctrinate children in government schools–especially the legislation to mandate the teaching about homosexuality and the “trans” ideology positively in government schools (SB 3249) from kindergarten through 12th grade.

• Pray that God would increase our reverence and love for Him and His Word and that we would be effective servants.

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Leftists, controlled by “LGBTQ” activists and in thrall to their dogma, have redefined yet another term: bullying. They seek to impose their redefinition on all of society in their relentless quest to socially condition everyone into affirmation of their sexuality ideology. There’s no better evidence that they have redefined “bullying” than their claim that Melania Trump’s campaign against cyberbullying is hypocritical because her husband allegedly cyberbullies.

The often-foolish Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank recently made that claim in a column in which he argued that President Donald Trump cyberbullied former CIA director John Brennan by calling him a “political hack.” Milbank also accused Trump of cyberbullying special counsel Robert Mueller, former White House aide Omarosa Manigault Newman, John Dean, U.S. Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Charles Schumer (D-NY), Governors Andrew Cuomo, (D-NY) and John Kasich (R-OH). Milbank’s evidence that Trump cyberbullied these people? He called them names on Twitter.

Milbank’s argument raises the question “What is a bully?”

My Random House Dictionary defines a bully as “a blustering, quarrelsome, overbearing person who habitually badgers and intimidates smaller or weaker people.”

My American Heritage Dictionary defines it as “a person who is habitually cruel, esp. to smaller or weaker people.”

My Oxford English Dictionary defines it as “a tyrannical coward who makes himself a terror to the weak.”

My Oxford American Dictionary defines it as “a person who uses strength or power to coerce others by fear.”

Is calling famous adults in positions of cultural power names “cruel”? Are John Brennan, Robert Mueller, Chuck Schumer weak? Are they terrified by Trump’s tweets? Does tweeting mean things about famous adults in positions of cultural power constitute the use of coercive strength and power?

Apparently, the spanking new Leftist definition of “bully” omits all references to smaller or weaker people, which means that untold numbers of people—including countless “progressive” pundits, politicians, professors, teachers, and actors—are guilty of bullying.

If all epithets constitute bullying, then was former Obama press secretary, Jay Carney a bully when he called Milbank a “hack.”

When Milbank called U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) a coward and said the president is “surrounded by hooligans,” was Milbank bullying?

When perpetual power-seeker Hillary Clinton called Trump supporters “deplorables,” was she bullying?

When Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn called opponents of the legal recognition of homosexual unions as marriages sophomoric Bible-thumpers, hankie-twisters, and poisonous debaters, was he bullying?

When the editor and publisher of the “progressive” magazine The Nation, Katrina Vanden Heuvel, said former president George Bush was incompetent, untrustworthy, and dishonest, was she bullying?

When former President Barack Obama called Kanye West a “jackass,” was he bullying? When Obama called a segment of the population bitter Bible-clingers was he bullying?

Are “progressives” bullies when they call theologically orthodox Christians ignorant, hate-filled bigots for their belief that homosexual acts are immoral?

Was Jesus a bully when he called the Pharisees a “brood of vipers?”

If someone is a hack, a jackass, or a viper, is it bullying to say so?

If we use the true definition of bullying, it becomes clear who the bullies are. Bullies are those who possess cultural power—and by cultural power, I mean our dominant cultural institutions—and wield it against those with little or no cultural power.

It is “progressives” who control government schools, academia, the arts, professional medical and mental health organizations, mainstream media, social media, and corporate America. When Trump tweeted that John Brennan is a “political hack,” he was not guilty of bullying. When Carney called Milbank a hack, he was not bullying. When cultural power-brokers call an elderly florist a bigot, they’re bullying.

For tactical reasons, “progressives” have decided that when it comes to adults talking about adults, bullying no longer refers to coercive, threatening, cruel treatment of weaker people. They do that all the time. Now it refers to any speech by conservatives that’s not pleasant, sufficiently obsequious, or ideologically aligned with their views. But remember, no one has an obligation to acquiesce to Leftist language rules.

This is not an endorsement of speech that is uncivil or intemperate, but not all unpleasant speech is uncivil or intemperate. There is even a cultural place for expressions of hatred. Decent people with properly formed consciences will hate wicked acts and will say so even in the face of coercive bullying by the culturally powerful.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Leftists-Redefine-Bullying.mp3

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Written by Pastor Myles Holmes

Tonight’s expected announcement of Trump’s pick for the U.S. Supreme Court and the upcoming confirmation process to fill Justice Kennedy’s seat marks a historic moment for the nation. Let us cover it in prayer.

Heavenly Father, Creator of all there is, Lord and Master of time and history, we praise You today for the blessings You have bestowed upon this great nation.

Our freedoms and liberties, our prosperity and bounty, are not the work of the hands of man, but they are Your mercies and grace upon us.

We acknowledge that we have failed you over and over again, we have mocked Your Word and spat upon Your law.

We have called good evil, we have celebrated evil, and truth lies fallen in the streets.

But You have always had a people in these United States who have cried out to You and Your mercies.

We your people cry out to You again.

You are a Miracle Worker of signs and wonders. You open doors that no one can shut. You make rivers in the desert, and You make a way through the sea and a path through the waters. You restore the years that the locusts have eaten.

We praise and thank You today that there are so many signs in this nation of our prayers being answered.

We pray for a continued spirit of repentance and conviction.

We pray this spirit of repentance and conviction will emanate from the church and affect every sphere of society … from our streets and businesses and  schools and local city halls, to the halls of the U.S. Congress and the White House.

We thank You for those you have placed in servant leadership over this nation.

We pray your protection and blessing and grace upon our President Donald Trump, Vice president Mike Pence, the cabinet members, and their families.

May they humbly seek you daily for direction, instruction, and Godliness. Grant to them insight to lead and foresight to anticipate what must be done to turn this nation back to You.

Now Father, You have granted us another opportunity to appoint a new U.S. Supreme Court justice to interpret the laws of the U.S. Constitution of this great land.

Heavenly Father, we cry out for mercy and Your leadership.

We pray that President Trump, Mike Pence and their advisors will be led by your wisdom, discernment, discretion and courage to appoint a man or woman who will serve on the U.S. Supreme Court with character and competence.

We pray in the Mighty and Matchless Name of Jesus Christ against all obstruction and hindering forces; we bind every evil, demonic power that would resist a man or woman of righteousness being appointed to this Court.

We know that righteousness exalts a nation.

We know that our laws and legislation must reflect an honoring of the God Who has blessed this nation.

We pray that this U.S. Supreme Court Justice appointment will be one who honors this great Constitution that you have blessed this nation with, respects the original intent of its authors, and believes in the individual freedoms that are enshrined in the Bill of Rights.

We pray that unjust and immoral laws will be overturned.

We pray that justice will run down like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream. Amos 5:24

We pray that all distortion and deception of laws will cease.

We pray that all perversions of justice will come to an end.

We pray that morality and decency will return to the chambers of the U.S. Supreme Court.

We pray that our justices will be blessed with moral courage, supernatural strength, and the backbone to speak against evil and to support the good, the right and the true.

We pray that our U.S. Supreme Court justices will continue to uphold freedom of religion, freedom of conscience, freedom of speech and thought, to enable Your church to boldly rebuke evil, courageously defend the Truth and preach the gospel of Jesus Christ.

We, your people, pray for Your blessing on the United States of America, we ask you for another great revival, another great move of your Spirit sweeping millions into the Kingdom, and pushing back the darkness. May Your Kingdom come and may Your Will be done.

May Your people remain faithful and humble, but bold as a lion to speak for righteousness and truth.

Protect our President and Vice President and their families from every evil spoken against them and every plan and plot of destruction, and draw each of them closer to You as they lead this great nation.

Send your Spirit,

Send revival,

Build your church that the gates of hell cannot prevail against,

let no flesh glory in Your Presence,

May the Name of Christ be high and lifted up above every other name,

the Name of Jesus,

It’s in His Name we pray,

Amen and Amen.

Pastor Myles Holmes (holy terror to mediocrity) is Lead Pastor REVIVE Church in Collinsville, Illinois and an IFI board member.  You can find him on Facebook and on Twitter @PastorMHolmes      

The deadly Islamic terrorist truck attack in New York City on Halloween exposed a cauldron of issues, from national security to immigration policy.

But it’s about much more than that. The attack and its aftermath have shone a light on the Left’s campaign to radically transform America through cultural Marxism. That’s the revolutionary philosophy that aims to cure inequality by destroying traditional Western culture. This includes massive, unrestricted immigration.

Sayfullo Saipov, a 29-year-old Uzbekistan native living in New Jersey, yelled “Allahu Akbar” while mowing down 20 people, killing at least eight on a bike path in lower Manhattan. He came to the U.S. in 2010 via the “diversity lottery” system created as part of the Immigration Act of 1990. Officials say he was “radicalized” by ISIS after moving to the U.S.

As President Trump rightly noted, U.S. Senator Charles Schumer (D-New York), was a prime backer of the diversity program, in which 50,000 foreigners are admitted annually in a lottery. It doesn’t matter whether they love America or hate it.

Before the bill’s passage, Schumer explained that America owes all of the countries of the world a certain amount of guaranteed entry into the United States, an extremely odd quota system that only a fool could advance with a straight face. There is no “right” in the Constitution to immigrate to the United States, and no other nation has embraced this wacky idea.

“There are certain countries that have been left out,” Schumer said.

Schumer’s defenders note that, as part of the Gang of Eight in the U.S. Senate in 2013, he proposed ending the diversity lottery. But it was only because he was trying to ram through a liberalized immigration reform bill.

Why do progressives promote diversity over unity, multiculturalism over American heritage, sexual anarchy over marriage, and applaud when people speak languages other than English?

The answer is that it ripens the field for identity politics and is part of the cultural Marxists’ goal to radically transform America. Like Obama’s former pastor the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, some appear gleeful each time our country suffers a terrorist attack because “America’s chickens are coming home to roost.” We have it coming, right? They actually believe that America is free and prosperous not because of our foundational values but because other countries are a mess and it’s our fault.

Liberals and conservatives used to disagree about means but not so much about ends – a freer, more prosperous society in which character and hard work count more than skin color. But no longer. The hard Left’s cultural Marxism has replaced yesterday’s liberalism. They laugh at equal opportunity and demand racially determined outcomes. Disagree, and you’re a Nazi. Or worse, a Christian.

In Mr. Schumer’s New York City, officials have floated the idea of allowing noncitizens to vote in city elections, just as they do now in at least ten Maryland jurisdictions.

In California, as a recent Washington Times editorial noted, 44.6 percent of residents aged five or older speak no English at home. In Texas, 35.6 percent speak another language at home, and another 14 percent are “English-impaired.” Several states have populations where more than 30 percent do not speak English. In fact, more than one-fifth of the entire U.S. population doesn’t speak English.

Most immigrants are hardworking, here legally, and love America. But unlike earlier immigrants, they are being told by the Left not to assimilate. Can the wholesale rejection of a common language be a good thing? Only if you are sowing the seeds of identity politics and cultural upheaval.

Earlier this month, the Latino Victory Fund unleashed the most vicious political propaganda since the anti-Goldwater spot in 1964 in which a little girl picks daisies as a nuclear bomb goes off.

The ad depicts a driver in a pickup truck with a Confederate flag, a Tea Party license plate and a Gillespie bumper sticker bearing down on minority children. Ed Gillespie was the GOP candidate for Virginia governor. As the truck is about to kill the frightened youngsters, one of them in Muslim garb, a child awakes from the nightmare. Voiceover: “Is this what Ed Gillespie and Donald Trump mean by the American Dream?” The screen says: “Reject Hate.”

This despicable ad that backs Democrat gubernatorial candidate Ralph Northam, who is not mentioned but whose campaign listed it as a contribution, does more than slander Mr. Gillespie and President Trump. It’s aimed at any Americans who resist the cultural Marxists’ campaign to turn America into a socialist Babylon.

The anti-Gillespie “murderous trucker” ad was quickly withdrawn after the terrorist truck attack in New York.

I guess they wouldn’t want people to start thinking too hard about how we came to this.

This article was originally posted at Townhall.com

They claim creating an election integrity commission is a way to advance voter suppression.

Progressives are in an uproar over the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, and we have to ask why?

Why not look into ways to protect our elections from fraud?

Because to do so would advance “white supremacy,” according to Democratic U.S. Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer of New York, who tweeted on Aug. 24, that “If the president wants to truly show that he rejects the discrimination agenda of the white supremacist movement, he will rescind the Executive Order that created this commission.”

Then, he warned, “And if the president does not act, the Congress should prohibit its operation through one of the must-pass legislative vehicles in September.”

Wow. So, the Democrats would shut down Congress in order to keep a blue-ribbon panel from studying the vulnerabilities of our election process? Mr. Schumer must truly fear this commission. He wants it to disband even before its second official meeting on Sept. 12 in New Hampshire.

“The Ku Klux Klan and its sympathizers at all levels of government denied black Americans the right to vote for decades,” Mr. Schumer continued in his tweet without a hint of irony. The Klan was the militant wing of the Democratic Party, which enforced Jim Crow laws against black people for 88 years. More on that later.

“Today, voting rights are once again under assault,” the senator bleated, er, tweeted. “The misguided Shelby County v. Holder Supreme Court decision gutted the Voting Rights Act, opening the door to the same voter suppression tactics that existed before the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965.” He means back when Democrats ran the show in the South.

Instead of Jim Crow, the Democrats rely today on the bureaucratic behemoth created under Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society, which shattered the black family and still keeps blacks and other minorities beholden to the Democrats’ federal welfare plantation. They just have to keep promising more and more stuff to the Free Stuff Army. Who needs the Klan when you’ve got Uncle Sugar? But, what does chronic dependence do to people’s souls? Hey, don’t be getting all religious on me.

Mr. Schumer was not the first Democrat to cry that the sky would fall. Former Attorney General Eric Holder called the new commission “another frightening attempt to suppress the votes of certain Americans.” This kind of balderdash is not harmless. Commission members that I have talked to have reported harassment and even death threats.

Mr. Schumer equates any and all election integrity measures such as voter ID laws as brutal instruments designed to “suppress” the votes of minorities, the elderly and the young. In fact, minority voting has increased following passage of voter ID laws. Perhaps folks have more of an incentive to vote when they know their ballots will actually count.

Mr. Schumer contends that vote fraud is a myth cooked up to advance voter suppression.

This is a serious charge, and nobody knows better how to go about suppressing voters than the Democratic Party, which benefited from it for nearly nine decades with its Jim Crow system before congressional Republicans rammed through the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

But back to the original question. Why not have a bipartisan panel of experts make sure that election officials are doing their jobs to ensure fairness and integrity? Indeed, if you think vote fraud poses no threat, why oppose a study that might prove your point? If the panel comes up empty, you get to crow. But if it exposes sloppy practices that enable fraudulent voting, shouldn’t you want to know that and clean up the mess?

Progressives crowed that some liberal state officials initially refused to provide voter data to the commission. But as of now, virtually all states are complying with the request, having been told by their attorneys that it is entirely lawful, especially since the data are already in the public realm and commercially available. What? You hadn’t heard from the media that the states are now cooperating?

Here’s one more thing to consider: All of the allegedly vulnerable identity groups: minorities, elderly, the young — strongly favor voter ID laws, since, like everyone else, they don’t want their votes stolen by someone casting a fraudulent ballot. Survey after survey shows it.

So, I think I know what’s behind the Democrats’ fear of the election integrity commission: They have already lost the argument over voter IDs. In its eventual report, the commission will be making the case for how to ensure accurate voter registration rolls. And, accurate voter rolls prevent vote fraud.

If that isn’t frightening to a liberal, nothing is.

This article was originally posted by The Washington Times.

Today’s fiscal and social conservatives are feeling what the late baseball legend Yogi Berra described as “deja vu all over again.”

The Daily Signal is reporting that “Congressional negotiators agreed late Sunday on a broad spending plan to fund the government through September,” and a vote is expected within days.

The “makeshift spending agreement” is business as usual. We’ve been here before. But there’s a big problem: the GOP-led Congress did not remove funding for Planned Parenthood. That’s $500 million dollars!

The Washington Times reports:

The spending deal congressional negotiators hammered out early Monday morning runs 1,665 pages, and spends $700 million per page — the cost of keeping the basic operations of the government running for a year.

Deja vu, anyone?

After watching the Republicans in Washington, D.C. for the past 100 days, most conservatives of all stripes are coming to grips with the fact that the GOP isn’t quite ready to be a governing party.

President Donald Trump and U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan continue to promise that they will fulfill their promises regarding repealing and replacing Obamacare, enacting tax reform, and starting to build a wall on the southern border.

Governing the United States is a massive job, and healthcare and taxes and a border wall are difficult issues to deal with. Defunding Planned Parenthood is not.

The omnibus spending bill continues to use your tax money to take the lives of the unborn. That, despite the fact that Republicans now hold the White House and majorities in both houses in Congress. Scientific evidence proves those babies feel the pain of abortion. What do our elected Republicans feel?

How is this possible? A clue might be the excuse used for failing to spend money on a border wall. The Daily Signal reported this:

Republican lawmakers in the House and Senate have said they prefer to put off a fight with Democrats over beginning to pay for the wall until the fall, rather than as part of funding the government for the rest of the current fiscal year.

Is that their excuse for failing to defund Planned Parenthood? Preferring to put off a fight with Democrats? Republicans cannot find the intestinal fortitude to stop spending taxpayers money on abortions — not a good sign for the other battles to come.

No doubt many Americans who voted for Republicans have put Congress and the White House on probation, and will for a time, give them the benefit of the doubt. Funding Planned Parenthood through September is another matter.

The abortion industry is rejoicing. U.S. Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-New York) is “boasting” about what Democrats were able to accomplish in this GOP-led Congress.

Your U.S. Representative need to hear from you. Tell them to vote against any spending bill that funds Planned Parenthood.

Here is something they should vote for, however:

[U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz,] said he was preparing an amendment to defund Planned Parenthood for inclusion in the omnibus spending bill. He said it mirrors Vice President Mike Pence’s amendment to defund Planned Parenthood that the House passed in 2011, when Pence was a Republican congressman from Indiana.

Take ACTION:  Click HERE to urge your U.S. Representative to vote for the Biggs amendment — if it doesn’t pass — then vote no on the spending bill.

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Baseball season gets underway this week, a welcome distraction from the political battles in Washington.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Senate is warring over the confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch.  The Republicans say he’s a stellar nominee, a judicial umpire who calls balls and strikes as he sees them.  Democrats, led by New York’s Charles Schumer, however, say the judge is a creature of “special interests” who would slide into a base with spikes up and who deserves to be filibustered.

Who are those “special interests” you might ask? Well, they would be anyone who disagrees with progressives, which the November election indicated is at least half the country if not more.

The Republicans say Judge Gorsuch will help the Court return to constitutional principles.  Democrats claim that he will “undo the gains” made by decades of liberal jurisprudence.  We can only pray that they’re both right.

Over the years, federal courts – especially the U.S. Supreme Court – acquired an out-sized role in the nation’s affairs, especially during Franklin Roosevelt’s administration.  Think of the federal government as a three-bodied creature, with one of the bodies in a black robe towering over the others with a giant Nancy Pelosi gavel.

Restraining the U.S. Supreme Court’s power, even slightly, has been a non-starter.  Congress is packed with lawyers who dream of serving on or before the highest bench someday.  It’s also an open secret that many politicians are relieved when hot button issues slide off their plates and directly onto the Court’s docket.

Nonetheless, given the Court’s near-omnipotence, the central question of what constitutes lawful authority will dominate public discussion in years to come, especially if there is a conservative majority.  Right now, “lawful authority” is in the eye of the beholder on many levels.

For example, progressives applauded a federal judge in Washington State in February for overruling President Trump’s order temporarily barring immigrants from seven terror-prone Muslim-majority nations.  The judge snapped his fingers, extending constitutional rights to foreigners not even in this country and accused Mr. Trump of racist motives for good measure.  Another judge in Hawaii piled on last week by ruling against Mr. Trump’s re-written order affecting six countries. Progressives again cheered.

On the other hand, when a federal judge in Texas ruled in 2015 that President Obama had usurped congressional authority with executive actions shielding five million illegal immigrants from deportation, progressives pledged resistance and urged people to take to the streets.

Progressives look with favor on the 500 or so “sanctuary” cities that refuse to cooperate with federal immigration laws and procedures.  Conscience, they say, overrides mere lawfulness.  Except, of course, when it comes to Christian bakers, florists, wedding planners and photographers. They must be forced by law to violate theirs.

Only a few months ago, progressives cheered an edict from the Obama Administration ordering all school systems in America to accommodate female-identified males in girls’ restrooms and locker rooms or risk losing federal funds.  Can’t these schools follow the rule of law?

And what about those scoundrels, the Little Sisters of the Poor, or Hobby Lobby and other Christian-owned businesses that don’t want to obey Obamacare’s abortifacient mandate?  What are they trying to do, provoke anarchy?

When the U.S. Supreme Court in Citizens United restored collective political free speech, President Obama pilloried the justices in person during the 2010 State of the Union address, badly misrepresenting the facts of the ruling.  Fellow progressives vowed to see the opinion overturned.

But when the U.S. Supreme Court in Obergefell v. Hodges invented a “right” to same-sex marriage in the penumbras of the Constitution in 2015, overriding state marriage laws – 31 of them constitutional amendments approved by voters – progressives instantly pronounced it “settled law.”

They said the same about the Roe v. Wade ruling in 1973 that struck down abortion laws in every state – “settled law.”

If these examples leave you confused about what is actually lawful authority, don’t worry.  We have an omniscient media to explain it to us.  If they feature lots of people “hailing” a ruling or order, you can bet it’s about another judicial or executive demolition job on America’s heritage, the Constitution, founding values and genuine civil rights.  If they quote lots of people condemning the ruling or order as an abuse of authority, it’s a clear victory for constitutional governance.

To progressives and the lockstep media, legitimate authority means only advancing progressive causes.  If so, it’s no big deal for liberal presidents or judges to run outside the baselines when they need to score some runs.

This article was originally posted at Townhall.com