I (and likely millions of other Americans) were surprised to learn from the racism sleuths among us that Georgia recently enacted a Jim Crow voter suppression law the likes of which America has never seen. In light of that disturbing revelation, I wondered if there were any other states with such laws and was even more surprised to discover that from sea to shining sea, America is riddled with Jim Crow laws. There are so many Jim Crow voter suppression laws in so many states that I don’t have time to list them all, so I’ll just highlight a few.

According to the New York Post, Chuck Schumer may have some ‘splainin’ to do:

the Empire State still makes it harder to vote than does the state [Georgia] that’s drawing the boycotts. New York offers eight fewer days of early voting and requires a valid excuse to vote absentee.

Yes, Georgia will now ask for a valid ID to vote absentee, but lets you out of the requirement if you attest that you don’t have one.

New York even has a ban similar to Georgia’s new prohibition on the distribution of food and drink in voting lines that President Joe Biden labeled “Jim Crow in the 21st century.” …

Those “mobile ballot drop-off” vans that Georgia just restricted? New York doesn’t allow them at all.

It’s not only New York that attempts to suppress the black vote by requiring an excuse to vote absentee. Delaware, Connecticut, and New Hampshire also require such excuses.

Georgia’s new law expands existing early voting requirements. The “new law …  adds a mandatory weekend day for early voting, requiring two Saturdays of early voting. The old law required one.” To be truly fair, early voting should be expanded another few months. But Delaware hasn’t begun offering any early voting days. Those won’t start until next year. Maybe Delaware voters had to wait for vote-suppressor Joe Biden to leave the state before getting rid of that Jim Crow relic.

It’s weird that Biden and Schumer were elected year after year while remaining silent on their states’ voter suppression laws. I thought silence was violence.

Oh, but there’s still more voter suppression hiding in plain sight, like the fact that photo IDs are also required at polling places in Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Wisconsin.

Georgia’s law makes some changes to the number and location of ballot drop boxes—drop boxes that were added in 2020 because of the pandemic. If you’re alarmed by that, you won’t believe what else I learned. Arkansas, Indiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and West Virginia provide no ballot drop boxes. Who knew New Hampshire has been suppressing the black vote?

We all know what needs to happen now. Every professional sports event scheduled in these states must be canceled.

After ruminating about and researching the prevalence of racist voter suppression laws, I began wondering what other forms of racist suppression I may not have noticed while traipsing about America draped in my white privilege. Well, those who oppose Jim Crow photo ID laws better be sitting down for this next bit of shocking news I discovered about America.

America has flying suppression laws, driving suppression laws, car rental/purchase suppression laws, welfare access suppression laws, alcohol purchase suppression laws, medical care access suppression laws, bank account access suppression laws, food stamps access suppression laws, house purchase and house rental suppression laws, apartment rental suppression laws, marriage suppression laws, pet adoption suppression laws, hotel/motel access suppression laws, cell phone purchase suppression laws, blood donation suppression laws, gun purchase suppression laws, and hunting/fishing license suppression laws.

Who wants to live in a country like that? Not me. So, I went on a search for countries without racist suppression laws and much to my dismay, I learned there are very few places in the world devoid of racism.

Here are just a few of the racist countries that prohibit mail-in voting: Albania, Armenia, Belgium, Belarus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Malta, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, and Sweden.

Here are a few of the racist countries that ban early voting: Albania, Armenia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Netherlands, Poland, Spain, and United Kingdom.

Here are a few of the racist countries that ban ballot collecting (i.e., proxy voting, “ballot harvesting”): Albania, Armenia, Austria, Belarus, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungry, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malta, Moldova, Montenegro, Norway, Portugal, and Spain.

All the coolest countries are racist!

In my research, however, I came across some confusing information.

First, I read something by Hans von Spakovsky which threw an ideological monkey wrench into the “Georgia Is a Hotbed of Racism” narrative:

Georgia provides a free photo ID to anyone who doesn’t already have one. …

Section 25 of the bill doesn’t even require voters to provide a photocopy of their ID. Instead, the voter can simply write “the number of his or her Georgia driver’s license or identification card” on the application for the absentee ballot.

Moreover, if the voter doesn’t have such a Georgia ID card, she can “provide a copy of a form of identification listed” in another code section of Georgia law (§ 21-2-417(c)). And what does that code section say? That you can satisfy the ID requirement with a “copy of a current utility bill, bank statement, government check, paycheck, or other government document that shows the name and address of such elector.”

Now where do you think the Georgia legislature got that language? They got it from federal law, the Help America Vote Act of 2002. Section 303(b) of this law (codified at 52 U.S.C. § 21083) requires an individual who registered to vote by mail and who is voting for the first time in a federal election (whether in person or by mail)  to instead provide “a copy of a current utility bill, bank statement, government check, paycheck, or other government document that show the name and address of the voter” if he doesn’t have a “current and valid photo identification.”

The language on voter IDs for absentee ballots in the new Georgia law is thus identical to the language in federal law, promulgated through the Help America Vote Act. And guess who voted to approve this federal law in 2002? Why, then-Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware. In fact, the vote was 92 to 2, and included in the “yes” votes were Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.; Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill.; Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev.; and Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.

Were they all imposing “Jim Crow” on American voters? I don’t seem to recall the Major League Baseball Players Association boycotting any of the states of these senators—or any of the other senators who voted in favor of the Help America Vote Act. Or boycotting their own stadiums, which require IDs to pick up will call tickets.

Then I read something even weirder than the U.S. Senate re-elections after re-elections after re-elections of racist vote-suppressors Biden and Schumer. I read that Missouri, Mississippi, Georgia, and Texas rank in the top ten states for black voter turnout despite their voter suppression laws. Black voter turnout in North Carolina is virtually tied with that of New York and beats black turnout in California by a smidge.

A study conducted by the National Bureau of Economic Research and published in 2019 found that voter ID requirements have virtually no effect on voter turnout:

For all the heated debates around strict voter ID laws, our analysis of their effects obtains mostly null results. First, the fears that strict ID requirements would disenfranchise disadvantaged populations have not materialized. Using the largest individual-level dataset ever assembled to study voter participation, we do not find any negative effect on overall turnout and registration rates or on any group defined by race, age, gender, or party affiliation.

Confusing? A bit, but oh, well, I’m with President Biden who once said, “We choose truth over facts.”

I did learn that one news report about the Georgia law was wrong, and this will be a huge relief to many. For those people of color and colorless people who regularly lose consciousness from thirst or starvation while waiting in line to vote, just pack up all your care and woe. Georgia will feed you.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/States-with-Racist-Jim-Crow-Voter-Suppression-Laws.mp3

Please support the work and ministry of IFI.  

Your tax-deductible donation is greatly appreciated!

Well, they dusted off those colorful “Handmaid’s Tale” outfits that were so visible at Brett Kavanaugh’s U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearings in 2018.

Even before Amy Coney Barrett’s hearing on Monday before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, the Democrats were being cheered on by permanently angry women (and maybe some men) dressed in red cloaks with white duckbills extending from their hoods.

This is the uniform of the oppressed women in Hulu’s serialization of Margaret Atwood’s dystopic, anti-Christian novel. If you thought atheist crusader Philip Pullman’s thinly disguised depiction of church authorities as evil in “The Golden Compass” book and movie were bad, Ms. Atwood runs circles around him.  In her 1985 book and TV series, the polygamous men cite Bible verses and treat the women as sex slaves.

Braving the rain on Monday, the demonstrators held signs festooned with messages such as a giant NO! in rainbow colors over “Trump/Pence Must Go!”

This time around in the U.S. Senate star chamber, the Democrats who pretend to honor religious liberty while assailing nominees’ faith think they have a smoking gun. The word “handmaid.”

Mrs. Barrett and her husband have long been members of an ecumenical charismatic Christian group begun in 1971 called People of Praise, based in South Bend, Indiana, home to Notre Dame University and its law school, from which she graduated summa cum laude and taught constitutional law.

Women leaders in the group, including Mrs. Barrett, previously held the title of “handmaid,” which is derived from Jesus’s mother Mary’s own description of herself in Luke 1:38 as “the handmaid of the Lord.”

The group dropped that title in favor of “women’s leader” because “the meaning of this title has shifted dramatically in our culture in recent years,” a spokesman said.

Mrs. Barrett, 48, now serves on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, to which she was nominated by President Donald J. Trump in 2017.  At that time, U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein of California said at a hearing that Mrs. Barrett’s religious beliefs worried her because “the dogma lives loudly within you.”

Wow. Talk about open religious bigotry. But it’s OK because the senator is a Democrat, and they get to do this sort of thing. It’s not as if the media would have a problem with it.

Here’s a front-page headline from last Wednesday’s Washington Post:

Barrett long active with insular Christian group: Community preached subservience for women, former members say.

Ah, those “former members.” You can always dig up a dissident or two to make the point you want, unless you’re reporting on Black Lives Matter or the Democratic National Committee, which are pretty much the same thing.

As for People of Praise, here’s more from their own media statement provided to Heavy.com:

A majority of People of Praise members are Catholic, and yet the People of Praise is not a Catholic group. We aim to be a witness to the unity Jesus desires for all his followers. Our membership includes not only Catholics but Lutherans, Anglicans, Methodists, Pentecostals and nondenominational Christians. What we share is a common baptism, a commitment to love one another and our teachings, which we hold in common.

Freedom of conscience is a key to our diversity. People of Praise members are always free to follow their consciences, as formed by the light of reason, experience and the teachings of their churches.

As the Apostle Paul instructs, and many biblically sound churches teach, men are to be the spiritual leaders in the church and in their own households and they are to love their wives as they love themselves. This is considered scandalous by our cultural commissars.

In Ephesians 5:25, Paul writes: “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church, and gave Himself for her.” That means laying down your life if necessary.  It’s why when things go bump in the night, the guy should be the one who goes downstairs with the baseball bat or the Sig Sauer.

Democrats are terrified of the attractive and articulate Mrs. Barrett, a mother of seven, just as they were threatened by Clarence Thomas, who destroyed their narrative that blacks belong on the leftist plantation.

Mrs. Barrett has impeccable credentials that the U.S. Senate already examined when she was nominated for the appeals seat.  At that time, the “handmaid” reference didn’t get traction, since the TV version of “The Handmaid’s Tale” only debuted in April of that year.

In the meantime, we’ve seen U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) take a page from Bernie Sanders and grill Secretary of State nominee Mike Pompeo in 2018 about sex and marriage, strongly implying that his traditional Christian views are a form of bigotry. Booker likes to make much of his own Christian faith, which apparently is free of the burden of having to abide by crystal clear biblical principles regarding sex.

Also hewing to “smarter than God” theology is Kamala Harris, who has embraced all things LGBTQ, plus taxpayer-funded abortion and Marxist economics. On December 5, 2019, Harris asked Brian Buescher, President Trump’s nominee for district court in Nebraska, “Were you aware that the Knights of Columbus opposed a woman’s right to choose when you joined the organization?” And, “Were you aware that the Knights of Columbus opposed marriage equality when you joined the organization?”

During Monday’s hearing, Mrs. Barrett had to face the likes of Booker, Feinstein and Harris, plus the troupe of “Handmaid” harridans.

After the process is over and Associate Justice Barrett is sworn in, the “ladies” can make further use of their costumes.

After all, Halloween is right around the corner.

This article was originally published at Townhall.com. Follow Robert Knight on is a His website is robertHknight.com.

From the president on down, we’re seeing a welcome pushback against Marxist indoctrination in our colleges, government agencies, and even the military.

It had better happen soon, too, because in K-12 schools, hapless children are being subjected to the awful, anti-American 1619 Project and Black Lives Matter curricula. But at least there is movement at the top of the academic and government food chains.

In Maine, Republican state State Senator Lisa Keim has written a forceful letter to the University of Maine System board, objecting to University of Southern Maine President Glenn Cummings’ order for everyone on campus to “align” with Black Lives Matter.

After explaining that “racism, in any form, has no place in our state,” she lays out BLM’s radical agenda, which is “antithetical to many Americans’ political and religious views.” She quotes anti-police statements from BLM’s website such as: “law enforcement doesn’t protect or save our lives. They often threaten and take them.”

She adds, “These slurs are fueling hate and violence all over our country.”

BLM, which is openly Marxist and demonizes white people and America, calls for defunding the police and “disrupting the Western prescribed nuclear family structure.”

In Washington, U.S. Department of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos recently shocked the academic community by outing Princeton University’s embrace of BLM’s agenda.  She cited Princeton President Christopher Eisgruber’s open letter declaring Princeton full of “systemic racism.”

On Sept. 22, President Donald J. Trump let the other shoe drop by signing an executive order barring federal funds from contractors who employ Critical Race Theory in diversity training, including in the military, where unity and trust are paramount.

“It is difficult to imagine a more demoralizing course of instruction for officers who will soon lead soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines into combat,” writes Center for Military Readiness President Elaine Donnelley in The Federalist. “Unresolved accusations and suspicions of racism eviscerate mutual trust and team cohesion, two things essential for survival and mission accomplishment.”

Since 1971, the Defense Race Relations Institute has conducted racial sensitivity training. Among the materials were Robert Terry’s 1970 book “For Whites Only,” which “taught militant black separatist ideas to white audiences,” according to Capital Research Center filmmaker Joseph (Jake) Klein.

Other federal entities such as the FBI used the Southern Poverty Law Center as a source for materials and identification of “hate groups” until their far-Left agenda was exposed.  It took an SPLC-inspired gunman attempting mass murder at the Family Research Council in 2012 to alert people to the SPLC’s smear campaign against Christian groups that continues to this day.

Contempt for religion and family is a major part of BLM and the Left’s culture war on America, as explained by Maine State Senator Keim in her letter opposing BLM’s inroads.

“A family unit of one man married to one woman is not only a Western prescription for family; it’s a Biblical one,” she writes. “Therefore, mandating the University’s faculty, students and staff to subscribe to BLM’s political message arguably violates those individuals’ freedom of religion.” Spot on.

If America is going to rise beyond the current climate of Marxist race-baiting, it’s going to take more leaders like State Senator Keim and Russell Vought at all levels.  Plus, a president who gets it and keeps doing something about it.

This article was originally published at Townhall.com.
His website is roberthknight.com.

Written by Rhonda Graff

There is another important U.S. Senate Bill that needs your attention. This proposal ( S. 3398) is sponsored by U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and is supported by the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE). Introduced on March 5th, it is now pending before the Judiciary Committee, and expected to be “marked up” by the Committee on Thursday, July 2.

The Earn It Act  (Eliminating Abusive & Rampant Neglect of Interactive Technologies Act) makes the Internet’s immunity from liability to be considered “CONDITIONAL” on complying with best business practices to:

a) Prevent online sexual exploitation including enticement, recruiting, grooming, and sex trafficking; and

b) Prevent and reduce the proliferation of child sexual abuse material (CSAM).

This bill revises the framework governing the prevention of online sexual exploitation of children.

The Earn It Act creates a new National Commission on Online Child Sexual Exploitation Prevention, charged with enforcing accountability on interactive digital platforms. This will be flexible in the face of fast-changing technology and online risks that often emerge overnight… a reality no legislative body is nimble enough to track or oversee.

The Earn It Act directs the commission to develop best practices for interactive online service providers (i.e. Facebook and Twitter) to prevent the online sexual exploitation of children. It requires online service providers to certify compliance with the best practices or else they lose liability protections from claims alleging violations of child sexual exploitation laws. Lastly, the Earn It Act replaces statutory references to child pornography with child sexual abuse material.

This legislation has bipartisan support, and is co-sponsored by U.S. Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Josh Hawley (R-MO), Kevin Cramer (R-ND), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Joni Ernst (R-IA), John Kennedy (R-LA), Doug Jones (D-AL), Bob Casey (D-PA), and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI).

Over 75 credible organizations have endorsed it including NCOSE, the National Center for Missing and Exploited, Shared Hope International. But Big Tech lobbyists are working overtime to defeat it. 

Take ACTION:  Click HERE to send a message to U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth to ask her to co-sponsor the Earn It Act. U.S. Senator Dick Durbin is already a co-sponsor.

Additional talking points in support of the Earn It Act can be found at this link.

A bold voice for pro-family values in Illinois! 

Click HERE to learn about supporting IFI on a monthly basis.

In Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s U.S. Senate confirmation hearing earlier today, U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) made a mind-blowing—make that head-exploding—statement. Citing the liberal Guttmacher Institute, Feinstein said, “In the 1950s and ’60s, the two decades before Roe, death from illegal abortions in this country ran between 200,000 to 1.2 million [emphasis added].”

That is not what the Guttmacher Institute says. The Guttmacher Institute says, “Estimates of the number of illegal abortions in the 1950s and 1960s ranged from 200,000 to 1.2 million per year.” Please note, this statement does not mention death. Feinstein’s numbers would have been correct if she had been referring to humans in the womb, but she wasn’t.

Here’s what Feinstein omitted, also from the Guttmacher Institute:

In 1930, abortion was listed as the official cause of death for almost 2,700 women—nearly one-fifth (18%) of maternal deaths recorded in that year. The death toll had declined to just under 1,700 by 1940, and to just over 300 by 1950 (most likely because of the introduction of antibiotics in the 1940s, which permitted more effective treatment of the infections that frequently developed after illegal abortion). By 1965, the number of deaths due to illegal abortion had fallen to just under 200.”

The number of (accidental) deaths of women caused by illegal abortions in the 1950s and 1960s doesn’t come close to 200,000, let alone 1.2 million. Compare the number of actual deaths of women from illegal abortions in the 1950s and 1960’s to the almost 61 MILLION intentional killings of humans in the womb since 1973, or the almost 630,000 humans intentionally killed in the womb just this year.

The “Conservative Millennial” Allie Stuckey recently wrote this:

The most impressive feat the Left has accomplished is convincing millions of people that decapitating a child inside the womb is worthy of celebration. That alone should teach us to never underestimate the power of a lie and the willingness of ignorant people to believe it.

The success of the Left can be attributed in no small measure to their repugnant willingness to lie in the service of evil.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Diane-Feinsteins-Big-Fat-Abortion-Lie.mp3

A bold voice for pro-family values in Illinois! 

Click HERE to learn about supporting IFI on a monthly basis.

Federal judges sit on the bench for life and can either uphold the law or rule like tyrants. This puts judicial appointments right near the top of the most important things a president can do.

The newest U.S. Supreme Court justice, Neil Gorsuch, has already shown what a difference a constitutionalist can make. But we need many more to counter the hundreds of Clinton, Obama and Jimmy Carter-appointed judges who issue zany rulings that override common sense and thwart democratically enacted popular will.

A case in point is U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves, a 2010 Obama appointee. In March, he issued a temporary restraining order to keep Mississippi’s new, 15-week abortion ban from taking effect.

Judge Reeves buys into the “viability” definition of human life beginning at 23 weeks. By contrast, science has confirmed that from the moment of conception, an entirely unique human being with DNA from mother and father is alive and growing exponentially. By the eighth week, the baby has a beating heart, arms, legs, organs and human shape. The judge’s ruling implies that babies before the 23^rd week are something other than human, and so, practically speaking, ending their lives is no more consequential than getting rid of a mole or skin tag.

“If there is no viability the state has no real interest in telling a woman what to do with her body,” the judge said, deploying the abortion industry’s arbitrary rationale. 

In 2014, Judge Reeves struck down Mississippi’s marriage law, which voters had approved by 86 percent to 14 percent. Seeing nothing uniquely valuable in the male-female complementarity central to marriage, he likened resistance to racism. This would be news to black and Hispanic Mississippians who voted overwhelmingly to define marriage as between one man and one woman and reject any comparison to morally neutral racial characteristics.

Throughout his two terms, Barack Obama made good on his goal to stack the federal judiciary with leftwing ideologues like Judge Reeves. His 333 appointees (George W. Bush had 330, Bill Clinton 379 and Ronald Reagan 384), which included two U.S. Supreme Court justices, have been hard at work to “fundamentally transform” America.

One of the most dramatic turns was on the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, which hears cases from nine federal district courts in Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina and federal administrative agencies. In 2007, Republican appointees held a 7-5 majority. After six Obama appointments plus retirements, Democratic appointees now dominate 9-7 and have made their presence felt.

For example, in April 2016, a three-judge Fourth Circuit panel with two Obama appointees ruled 2 to 1 against school officials in Gloucester County, Va. that a girl identifying as a boy could use boys’ restrooms and the locker room.

Three months after the transgender ruling, a three-judge Fourth Circuit panel comprising two Obama appointees and a Clinton judge struck down North Carolina’s voter ID law on a 3-0 vote, accusing lawmakers of discriminatory intent. The Left has long argued absurdly that requiring voters to show some ID when voting is “racist.”

Another key Obama judicial takeover was at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, perhaps the second most influential court in the country because it hears cases involving federal power.

In 2008, conservatives had a 6-3 edge. Mr. Obama quickly made four appointments, flipping it to a 7-4 Democrat majority. In June 2016, an Obama appointee and a Clinton appointee on a three-judge D.C. appeals panel upheld the Federal Communications Commission’s power grab of the Internet in the name of “net neutrality.” The ruling was a reversal of the same court’s opinion in 2010, when it ruled unanimously that Congress never gave the FCC jurisdiction over the Internet.

The good news is that President Donald Trump understands the gravity of his opportunity. In 2017, he seated 12 appeals court judges, the most ever in the first year of a presidency. So far, he has seated 30 judges, including Justice Gorsuch, with 61 nominees in the pipeline, another 90 vacancies on top of that, and a likely U.S. Supreme Court appointment looming.

By all accounts, the newly robed Trump judges are restoring balance to the federal courts, which alarms Democrats like California U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who explained the stakes last December:

“The Supreme Court hears between 100 and 150 cases each year out of the more than 7,000 it’s asked to review. But in 2015 alone, more than 55,000 cases were filed in federal appeals courts. … In a way, circuit courts serve as the de facto Supreme Court to the vast majority of individuals who bring cases. They are the last word.”

When all is said and done, the last word on the Trump presidency may well be his counterrevolution to restore judicial integrity and the rule of law.

This article was originally published at Townhall.com

The Democratic Party and liberal pundits are trying to make the case that because Mitt Romney is extraordinarily wealthy, he can’t relate to the struggles of average or economically disadvantaged folk; and if he can’t relate to their struggles, he doesn’t care; and if he doesn’t care, he is unworthy of the office of president.

History demonstrates that that argument fails miserably.

In 2010, the Wall Street Journal published a list of the inflation-adjusted net worth of past American presidents. Some of our finest presidents and some presidents that the Left love were also men of considerable means. Some inherited their wealth, some made it themselves.

• John F. Kennedy (according to WSJ, “Although he never inherited his father’s fortune, the Kennedy family estate was worth nearly $1 billion”)
• George Washington ($525 million)
• Thomas Jefferson ($212 million)
• Theodore Roosevelt ($125 million)
• Andrew Jackson ($119 million)
• James Madison ($101 million)
• Franklin Delano Roosevelt ($60 million)
• Bill Clinton ($38 million)
• James Monroe ($27 million)
• John Quincy Adams ($21 million)
• John Adams ($19 million)
• Dwight Eisenhower ($8 million)

And let’s not forget the extraordinarily wealthy Democrats who have served or are serving in Congress (some of whom sought to be president). Information comes from Roll Call and The Center for Responsive Politics :

Democratic U.S. Senators:

• John Kerry ($193.07 million)
• Jay Rockefeller ($81.63 million)
• Ted Kennedy ($43-163 million)
• Mark Warner ($70.30 million)
• Frank Lautenberg ($55.07 million)
• Richard Blumenthal ($52.93 million)
• Dianne Feinstein ($45.39 million)
• Claire McCaskill ($17 million)
• Tom Harkin ($10.28 million)
• Herb Kohl ($9.23 million)
• Jeff Bingaman ($7.41 million)
• Kay Hagan ($70.6 million)
• Ben Nelson ($6.56)

Democratic U.S. Representatives:

• Nancy Pelosi ($35.20 million)
• Jared Polis ($65.91 million)
• Nita Lowey ($15.46 million)
• Carolyn Maloney ($10.14 million)
• Shelley Berkeley ($9.29 million)
• Lloyd Doggett ($8.53 million)

If being raised by wealthy parents or possessing wealth renders people unable to relate to the poor and unable to be compassionate, are George Clooney, Bill Gates, and Warren Buffet callous men unable to feel the pain of the disadvantaged? Are they unable to provide solutions to the problems that plague those with fewer material blessings?

What about Obama’s daughters? They have never known poverty. They are being raised in privilege and affluence, attending the most expensive private schools in the country. Are their characters being deformed by such affluence and privilege? Will they become callous young women unable to relate to the disadvantaged, lacking in compassion, and unable to contribute to solutions for those who have far fewer privileges?

Chelsea Clinton was raised in affluence, attended the best schools in the country, and married a wealthy Wall Street hedge fund employee who previously worked as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs. Is she a heartless, selfish elitist unfit for serving the less privileged?

According to CNBC , Hillary Clinton’s current net worth is $85 million. What will Democrats say about that if she decides to run for president in four or eight years?

If wealth renders people compassionless and unsuitable for elected office, Democrats need to tell Americans how much wealth disqualifies a person for the office of president. And does wealth equally disqualify someone for fitness for Congressional office?

The truth is that one doesn’t have to “relate” to those who are poor to have deep sympathy and empathy for their suffering.  Wealthy people often have the luxury to travel and read deeply about the world. Through these experiences, their eyes, minds, and hearts are opened to the suffering around the world and here at home. It’s true that among the wealthy there can be found greed, self-absorption, and cruelty, but there can also be found thankfulness, selflessness, generosity, and kindness. Sometimes people who have been given much or earned much are acutely aware of their blessings and believe that to whom much is given, much is required.

There is ample evidence that those who have been raised in privileged circumstances and those who have worked doggedly to be successful are fully capable of feeling compassion, demonstrating service, and finding solutions to even the most challenging social problems.  The argument that wealthy people cannot serve the poor is foolish, dishonest, and—as is so often the case with liberal arguments—inconsistently applied only to conservatives.