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

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Written by Stoyan Zaimov

The Rev. Franklin Graham has warned that the “blood of children” will be on President Barack Obama‘s hands if he does indeed decide to veto the defund Planned Parenthood bill that was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives on Friday.

“President Obama has said he will veto the bill — if he does, it will be at his own peril and the blood of those children who are butchered at Planned Parenthood will be on his hands,” Graham warned in a Facebook post on Sunday.

The evangelical preacher said that the passing of HR 3134, which would strip Planned Parenthood of $500 million in taxpayer dollars for a period of at least one year, is a “great step.”

“I’m thankful that those supporting this bill stood firm. It still has to pass the Senate, so we need to continue to pray,” Graham added.

Public anger toward Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion business, has been growing over the summer after the release of several undercover videos by the pro-life group the Center for Medical Progress. The videos purport to show that Planned Parenthood employees have been involved in illegal and unethical practices surrounding the sale of aborted baby parts.

Protests were held at hundreds of Planned Parenthood clinics in August, with pro-life supporters demanding the organization be stripped of public funding.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest affirmed last week, however, that Obama would seek to veto any effort to defund the group, which is among his largest supporters.

“We’ve been quite forthright about the president’s opposition to any effort to wholesale defund Planned Parenthood,” Earnest told reporters Wednesday.

Earnest further argued that it would be “cynical” to use the videos as a reason to defund Planned Parenthood.

“What has injected this issue into the political dialogue of late, the graphic videos that emerged on the Internet the last couple of months, Planned Parenthood has apologized for the content of those videos and they should. They were shocking,” the White House spokesman added.

Graham, an outspoken critic of abortion, has been highly critical of the abortion-providing organization.

Back in August he slammed Democratic U.S. Senator Harry Reid of Nevada for suggesting that Republicans attempting to bring the bill to defund Planned Parenthood up for a vote have lost “their moral compass.”

“You’ve got it backwards Senator Reid. You lost your moral compass years ago! You openly support abortion — the murder of babies in their mothers’ wombs — and now by backing Planned Parenthood you obviously support the dismemberment and sale of baby body parts,” the evangelical said.

This article was originally posted at the ChristianPost.com.

U.S. Representatives Trent Franks (R-AZ) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) have reintroduced the “Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act,” an earlier version of which passed the U.S. House of Representatives in the summer of 2013 but was stalled in the Harry Reid-controlled U.S. Senate. If passed, this bill would prohibit abortions performed past 20 weeks, the point at which some research suggests babies can feel pain.

According to Huffington Post, Cecile Richards, president of the feticide-profiteering organization Planned Parenthood, is already proclaiming victory:

This is an unconstitutional ban, and this is something we expect to defeat….The people of this country believe Congress should be focused on making people’s lives better, and they shouldn’t be involved in making personal medical decisions for women and their doctors.

First, let’s not forget that the U.S. Supreme Court has on occasion erred in its decisions regarding the constitutionality of laws.

Second, increasing numbers of “people in this country” believe that “making people’s lives better” necessarily involves preventing innocent people from being murdered, including those who are guilty of nothing other than being unwanted by their mothers. In fact, according to a Huffington Post poll, 59 percent of Americans  support laws banning abortion after 20 weeks.

Third, the decision to kill a preborn baby is rarely a “medical” decision. When the life of the mother is not in jeopardy, the decision is first and foremost a moral decision.

What is most troubling is the pathological commitment of “progressives” to preserving the legal right of women to exterminate their own babies. The regressiveness of their commitment to barbarism becomes increasingly evident when they defend it.

Huffington Post links to a New York Times article in which experts conclude that the science regarding when preborn babies are capable of feeling pain is inconclusive. How can Cecile Richards and other pro-abortion dogmatists oppose this bill if there’s even a possibility of a baby feeling pain—perhaps excruciating pain—during an abortion? Civilized people would err on the side of compassionate caution. Remember, “progressives” are the same people who believe that waterboarding terrorists or testing cancer drugs on mice is a moral bridge too far.

When “progressives” wax indignant about the ethical outrage of waterboarding, let’s remember that all Special Operations Units volunteer and journalist Christopher Hitchens volunteered to be waterboarded. When was the last time you heard of anyone volunteering to have their skin chemically burned off or be dismembered as can happen in late-term abortions? This is not a defense of waterboarding. It’s an attempt to point out the Left’s inconsistent moral reasoning. If waterboarding is torture, abortion most assuredly is.

In a concession to the possibility that preborn babies feel pain as their skin is burned off or their bodies dismembered, some doctors, including Dr. Kanwaljeet Anand whose research is often cited by supporters of this bill, recommend administering a heart-stopping poison medication as the solution to the problem of a preborn baby feeling pain:

“In the very few abortions where fetal pain could possibly occur…consider what can be done to avoid inflicting a lot of pain on the fetus.” [Dr. Anand] said a common method used after 20 weeks—injecting amniotic fluid or fetuses with heart-stopping medication before removing the fetus— “would be fine, really, from a point of view of fetal pain,” a “compassionate way to do it.”

At this point, regressive absurdists really get themselves trapped in an ethical sticky wicket. They’re recommending pain management in the service of killing an innocent human being. Barbarism is redefined as “compassion.”

Not to worry—absurdists assure the morally sane among us—even if preborn babies feel pain after 20 weeks, only a relatively few are being exterminated that far along. According to the liberal, pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute , in 2011 there were 1.06 million abortions, 1.2  percent of which were performed after 20 weeks. For the math-challenged among us, that means last year 12,720 preborn babies were killed in utero after 20 weeks. It’s important to note, that many in the pro-life movement believe post-20-week abortions are underreported, so 12, 720 may be an inaccurately low figure.

Let’s see, how many terrorists were waterboarded? Oh, yes, three. Let’s even count each number of times each terrorist was waterboarded. With Khalid Sheikh Mohammed being waterboarded 183 times, let’s round it out to 200 times radical Islamists have been waterboarded as compared to 12,720 preborn late-term babies wiped out.

Those who oppose this law make the silly suggestion that conservatives have a secret ulterior motive for this law. The Left suggests the real motive is to limit abortion. That must be the worst kept secret in America.

What may be news to “progressives” is that those who oppose the intentional killing of preborn babies have more than one reason for supporting legislation that limits or better still prohibits abortion. The central reason is that no ethical, compassionate, civilized society permits the intentional killing of innocent humans—especially children.

The second reason is that no ethical, compassionate, civilized society permits torture in the service of killing innocent humans—especially children.

And the third reason is that no ethical, compassionate, civilized society would permit any means of killing innocent girls and boys that may even potentially torture them before it kills them—even if it’s a mere 12,720 children annually.  

Last time I heard, the product of conception between two humans is a new human with its own unique genetic code. A compassionate and just society doesn’t condone the killing of  humans based on their location (e.g., in utero), their dependency-status, their physical or cognitive abilities, or the feelings other humans have about their existence.

Take ACTION:  Click HERE to send a message to your U.S. Representative asking them to support H.R. 36, the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act.

You can also call the Capitol Switchboard to ask to be connected to your U.S. Representative’s office at (202) 224-3121.

If you live outside of Illinois, Click HERE to send an email through the National Right To Life Committee’s web site.

The Truth Project

First Annual IFI Worldview Conference
featuring Dr. Del Tackett
April 10-11, 2015

CLICK HERE for Details

Now that the heady rush of jubilation has faded from the election, it’s time to take stock of what we actually achieved. The numbers couldn’t be more forthright. It’s as if the American people interrupted the President to interject, “Now, let me be clear…” The 2014 election was an epic political repudiation of President Barack Obama, U.S. Senator Harry Reid, and the Progressive agenda in Washington.

It was a demonstration that all but the most white-eyed leftist loons in America are tired of Obama’s ineptitude, deliberate or otherwise. How amusing now to think about those talking heads on cable who tried to suggest that the Democrats might not lose the Senate, the day before America catapulted the Senate back to the Republicans in a resounding fashion.

But what has been achieved? What has our political support purchased? In a strange way, American voters are like folks on that Storage Wars show. Turn on any episode and you’ll see people bidding crazy amounts of money on a garage-worth of stuff they’ve only glimpsed from a distance. Could be treasure, could be rubbish. And just like those storage-capitalists, we don’t yet know what we just purchased.

In the majority of races, it would be very difficult to elucidate just what the Republican candidate ran on, since the only discernable plank in the 2014 GOP campaign strategy was “We’re not Obama”. It could be that we’ve only traded progressive Democrats for progressive Republicans. The reality is that the GOP has controlled arguably the most powerful organ in the Federal government for the past four years.

The power of the House of Representatives lies in the purse. It is through the House that all the rest of the government is funded, since all bills for raising revenue originate in the House (ala Article I, Section VII). Of course this is by design, providing one more check and balance to offset the potential overreach of a Federal leviathan. Whoever controls the House, controls the funding of the entire US Government.

And yet, this power was deliberately set aside by GOP leadership during one of the most egregious, tyrannical growths of Presidential power in American history. One could argue that there has never been a greater need for the House to check a runaway Executive branch and yet the Speaker of the House sat on his hands for four years. No, even worse, the Speaker told his enemies about his plans to sit on his hands before he did so. When U.S. House Speaker John Boehner communicated time and again that the power of the purse was off the table, he surrendered before the enemy even took the field.

Since Boehner took the Speaker’s gavel in 2010, Obama has:

• Implemented (and funded) Obamacare
• Directed his DOJ to blatantly flout federal law in cases involving DOMA
• Prevented the Congressional inquiry into the deliberate harassment of conservative organizations by the Internal Revenue Service
• Violated religious liberty of Americans via the contraception mandate
• Stonewalled Congressional investigators attempting to get to the bottom of the murder of American diplomats in Libya

And this is just the low-hanging fruit!

Obama’s abuse of presidential power has been beyond the wildest dreams of progressive radicals, yet Boehner’s House has achieved only one minor victory: Sequestration via a half-hearted government shutdown. Yet even Boehner himself admits that he had to be talked into it and was against the idea from the beginning.

New Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is at least as spineless as Boehner and coupled with the fact that these two men now control the entire Federal legislative machinery yet haven’t advanced the slightest hint of a conservative agenda over the past 4 years, can Americans have any hope in the success of a newly-elected conservative majority?

It is a question which is impossible to accurately answer at this juncture. Conservative politicians are not immune to legislating much differently than they campaigned. Given the number of Establishment-endorsed GOP candidates who won, I think there will be more than a fair number of newly-minted RINOs in D.C. come next year.

It remains to be seen how much of a seat at the table Boehner and McConnell will give any true conservative who shows up. Based solely on their actions over the past 4 years, chances are that McBoehnell will work behind the scenes to erode support for any kind of conservative resistance which forms in either house.

The encouraging thing is that there are several strong conservative voices headed to Washington next year. Folks like Ben Sasse in Nebraska, Joni Ernst in Iowa, and Tom Cotton in Arkansas should revitalize the efforts of U.S. Senators Mike Lee and Ted Cruz, men who have been holding the conservative line in the U.S. Senate. Similarly Dave Brat, Barry Loudermilk, Mia Love, John Ratcliffe, and Andy Mooney are headed to the an U.S. House in desperate need of articulate, impassioned, principled conservatives.

These Congressional rookies probably think they’ve finally emerged from the political fight of their lives, but they haven’t seen anything yet. If there’s one thing the heartless Republican establishment will attack, it’s an unapologetic conservative. They’ll keep their powder dry until they spot the opportunity to turn on a Tea Partier and then it’ll be open season. If these freshmen are smart, they’ll realize that power lies in numbers and the tighter formation they can maintain, the better.

There’s a reason why the Greek phalanx and the Roman testudo were such effective fighting formations. With any luck, organizations like the Tea Party Caucuses in both houses can form rank around these fledgling representatives until they get their sea legs and prepare to carry the fight to the enemies of Liberty, foreign or domestic.

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The heavy hand of misused government power is getting heavier by the day.

Given the Obama Administration’s vast abuses of executive power, it’s not surprising that lesser lights are following the Chief Executive’s example and waging “lawfare” on their opponents.

In Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, a pastoral couple who own a wedding chapel are facing a 180-day jail term and a $1,000-per-day fine if they continue to refuse to “marry” homosexual couples. The city says the couple are violating the local anti-discrimination law, which includes “sexual orientation.” Religious freedom? Not so much.

In Houston, it probably seemed like a good idea to Mayor Annise D. Parker, an activist lesbian, for city attorneys to serve five pastors with subpoenas ordering them to turn over all sermons, e-mails, and other communications involving a petition drive against a transgender statute that she had championed.

After all, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro, Cuba’s Raul Castro, and Argentina’s Cristina Kirchner routinely misuse the law to crack down on opponents.

Wait. This is America. This is Texas, land of the Alamo, where the U.S. Constitution is supposed to restrain would-be tyrants.

Faced with a hurricane of a backlash, the mayor backed off, sort of, reducing the demand to the content of sermons. Let me translate: “Here’s a gun to your head, pastor. Turn your remarks over – or else. By the way, God bless America.”

What should happen swiftly is her removal from office and civil damage lawsuits filed by the targeted pastors. Jesus said to turn the other cheek when faced with insult, but that does not mean stepping aside and allowing bullies to go on to their next victims. By standing up to anti-religious bigotry and unlawful lawfare, the pastors fight for all of us.

As Texas U.S. Senator Ted Cruz said recently, “Caesar has no jurisdiction over the pulpit, and when you subpoena one pastor, you subpoena every pastor.”

The mayor, who misused her power to block a referendum a few years ago that would have curbed the city’s lucrative use of red-light revenue cameras, is not exactly an outlier. Liberals across the land reflexively reach for the big gun or gavel when someone disagrees with their agendas. They live to use government power to force their morals, or lack thereof, on everyone else.

The targets include anyone standing in the way of their imagined utopia of pansexuaity, windmills, bureaucratic supremacy, political correctness and a cowed populace dependent on government handouts.

When judges overturn voter-approved state constitutional amendments protecting natural marriage in the law, they know full well that they’re unleashing the legal equivalent of the hounds of hell on millions of Americans who are punch-drunk from repeated outrages committed by judicial tyrants. Increasingly, people are asking what has happened to our self-governing republic and how do we get it back?

In Wisconsin, a vindictive, partisan state district attorney, John Chisholm, has engaged in lawfare to harass conservative groups working with Republican Gov. Scott Walker. Agents have raided people’s homes and offices, looking for evidence that groups violated campaign finance laws by advocating for policies favored by the governor. A court has since ruled against Mr. Chisholm and halted the witch hunt, but not before it had the intended effect: frightening away contributors to Mr. Walker and conservative groups while Mr. Walker faces a tough re-election against a public-union-backed Democrat.

The tactic is similar to the Internal Revenue Service’s well-documented harassment of Tea Party groups, such as multiple. punitive audits of True the Vote, its founder, Catherine Engelbrecht, and her family’s business, and piling on by other Obama-run federal agencies like OSHA.

Back in Texas, the Travis County prosecutor’s office got a grand jury to indict Republican Gov. Rick Perry on two felony counts in September because he vetoed funding for a statewide public integrity unit run by Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg. She had refused to step down after being convicted of drunk driving. The governor thought, not unreasonably, that this disqualified her as an “ethics” officer. The ludicrous charges against the governor will at some point be dismissed, but that doesn’t matter. The idea is to get the media to portray Mr. Perry, a possible Republican presidential candidate, as damaged goods.

The Travis County office is good at this. It’s the same unit that took out Republican House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (TX) when hyper-partisan Democrat Ronnie Earle filed bogus money-laundering charges in 2005. Although Mr. DeLay finally was exonerated in September 2013, Earle’s use of lawfare removed one of the most effective Republican leaders and fundraisers for several years.

In Alaska, two partisan federal prosecutors withheld exonerating evidence and managed to get Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens convicted of making false statements about a home renovation just days before the 2008 election. This cost Mr. Stevens, who died in a plane crash in 2010, his long-held seat and elevated Mark Begich, who gave Democrats a filibuster-proof Senate through which Majority Leader Harry Reid rammed Obamacare.

This year, Mr. Begich’s re-election campaign, unaided by lawfare, is counting on the power of his main message: “Obama Who?”

Elections have consequences, and so should misuse of the legal system by unscrupulous politicians who wage lawfare.

This article was originally posted at the TownHall.com website.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently issued a report revealing that 1,036 plans in Obamacare (also known as the Affordable Care Act) health insurance exchanges are paying for elective abortions.  In other words, U.S. taxpayers are paying for surgical and chemical abortions under Obamacare.

The audit found that in five states all health insurance exchange plans included elective abortion coverage.  In another eight states, 95 to 100 percent of the plans paid for elective abortions.

President Barack Obama had  promised that no federal dollars would be used to underwrite abortion coverage.  He even issued an executive order to that effect to mollify opposition from within his own political party.

Yet the GAO report verifies what knowledgeable observers knew at the time.  The President’s executive order had no legal effect, because it conflicted with the law’s own provisions, which clearly authorized federal subsidies (called “affordability credits”) for abortion coverage.

The GAO audit also revealed that insurers are uniformly failing to collect an abortion surcharge that was required in every health insurance plan that included abortion coverage.  Under that provision, individuals were to be assessed a separate fee of $1 per month for abortion “services,” regardless of the age, gender, or ability to conceive of the insured.

U.S. Representative Randy Hultgren, a pro-life Republican from Illinois, reacted to this report by urging full transparency from the President and for the U.S. Senate to pass the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act (H.R. 7) which ensures the Hyde Amendment, which prevents federal tax dollars from paying for abortions, is implemented across the federal government.

The U.S. House of Representatives passed this legislation, which was introduced by U.S. Representative Christopher Smith (R-NJ).

H.R. 7 is co-sponsored by Illinois U.S. Representatives Rodney Davis (R-Champaign), Randy Hultgren (R-Geneva), Daniel Lipinski (D-Chicago), John Shimkus (R-Danville), Aaron Schock (R-Peoria), Peter Roskam (R-Wheaton), and Adam Kinzinger (R-Rockford).

This bill is currently before the U.S. Senate, where U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) is unlikely to take it up for debate.

U.S. Representative Steve Scalise (R-LA) says that Americans should be outraged.  “Many of us argued at the time Obamacare passed that it would funnel taxpayer dollars to elective abortions.  This independent report validates our claims and proves that yet another Obamacare promise has been broken.”

Casey Mattox, Senior Counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), charges that the architects of Obamacare built a “purposely deceptive accounting scheme” into the Affordable Care Act.

“We were told we had to pass the bill to find out what was in it.  Now we know what exactly is in it:  corporate welfare for the Administration’s abortion industry cronies.”

Read more:  GAO Report Confirms Obamacare Subsidizes Abortion

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The Left is wasting no time responding to the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 30th ruling upholding religious liberty. U.S. Senators Patty Murray (D-WA) and Mark Udall (D-CO) have introduced legislation to undo the protections of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA)–the very law that the Court used to rule in favor of Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Specialties.

Unfortunately, U.S. Senator Dick Durbin has co-sponsored this ominous legislation.

The Protect Women’s Health from Corporate Interference Act (S. 2578) could be used to further undermine all existing federal protections of conscience and religious freedom regarding health coverage mandates. According to our friends at the American Family Association (AFA), “it specifically strikes at the heart of religious liberty by nullifying the Religious Freedom Restoration Act,” which would affect even those organizations “run by Christians with deeply held convictions about abortion.“

U.S. Senate Majority leader Harry Reid (D-NV) Reid has promised to bypass all committees to put this on the “fast track.” This means a vote could take place as early as this week. (Read about Sen. Reid’s racist comment about the Supreme Court.)  

This bill dictates that employers cannot interfere in their employee’s decisions about contraception and other health services through discrimination by (from Sen. Murray’s website):

• Banning employers from refusing to cover any health coverage–including contraceptive coverage–guaranteed to their employees and dependents under federal law.
• Stating that all federal laws do not permit employers to refuse to comply with the ACA requirement, including the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
• Including the exemption from the contraceptive coverage requirement for houses of worship and the accommodation for religious non-profits.

This is a very pointed attack against conservative people of faith everywhere. Please take a few moments now to ask U.S. Senator Mark Kirk to oppose the misleadingly titled “Protect Women’s Health From Corporate Interference Act of 2014.” This liberty-quashing bill runs contrary to the religious liberty that Americans hold dear and the ruling the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a few weeks ago.

Take ACTION: Click HERE to send and email or a fax to U.S. Senator Kirk urging him to reject S. 2578. 

Eric Metaxas at the IFI Annual Banquet
Sept. 19th in Rolling Meadows!  
Click HERE for details.

The mask is off. All pretense has been dropped, and the anti-Christian left’s boundless depth of hatred for individual liberty, our First Amendment and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) is now on full display.

I wrote last week about the Supreme Court’s recent Hobby Lobby opinion, a rather tepid acknowledgement of every American’s non-negotiable right to religious free exercise (yes, that includes Christian business owners). I observed, among other things, that “the secularist left’s utter meltdown over having but a small measure of control over others wrested away is highly instructive.”

The meltdown continues. This week brings two new developments: 1) Democrats in Congress have readied a legislative “Hobby Lobby fix” that stands exactly zero chance of passing and would be struck down as unconstitutional even if it did, and 2) The ACLU, AFL-CIO, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Lambda Legal and a hodgepodge of other left-wing extremist groups have withdrawn support for the ironically tagged “Employment Non-Discrimination Act,” the crown jewel of homofascism, because the bill’s paper-thin “religious exemption” does not adequately outlaw the practice of Christianity.

The Hobby Lobby ‘fix’

Addressing the high court’s Hobby Lobby decision last Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., fumed, “We have so much to do this month, but the one thing we’re going to do during this work period – sooner rather than later – is to ensure that women’s lives are not determined by virtue of five white men.”

To which Justice Clarence Thomas replied, “Say what, honky?”

“This Hobby Lobby decision is outrageous,” continued Reid, “and we’re going to do something about it.”

Well, “do something about it” they shall try. TalkingPointsMemo.com reported on legislation Democrats introduced Thursday that would do away with religious liberty protections altogether:

“The legislation will be sponsored by Sens. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Mark Udall, D-Colo. According to a summary reviewed by TPM, it prohibits employers from refusing to provide health services, including contraception [and abortion pills], to their employees if required by federal law. It clarifies that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the basis for the Supreme Court’s ruling against the mandate, and all other federal laws don’t permit businesses to opt out of the Obamacare requirement.

“The legislation also puts the kibosh on legal challenges by religious nonprofits, like Wheaton College, instead declaring that the accommodation they’re provided under the law [there is none] is sufficient to respect their religious liberties.”

This reactionary response to the Hobby Lobby ruling is, of course, little more than an election year fundraising scheme for the Democratic National Committee.

Withdrawn support for ENDA

The Washington Post reports, “Several major gay rights groups withdrew support Tuesday for the Employment Non-Discrimination Act that would bolster gay and transgender rights in the workplace, saying they fear that broad religious exemptions included in the current bill might compel private companies to begin citing objections similar to those that prevailed in a U.S. Supreme Court case last week. …

“But the groups said they can no longer back ENDA as currently written in light of the Supreme Court’s decision last week to strike down a key part of President Obama’s health-care law. The court ruled that family-owned businesses do not have to offer their employees contraceptive coverage that conflicts with the owners’ religious beliefs,” concluded the Post.

Gary Glenn is a candidate for the Michigan State House. He’s also president of AFA Michigan. Glenn has been a national leader in defense of religious liberty for well upon two decades. In an email, Glenn wrote, “The extremely limited religious exemptions typically included in discriminatory homosexual and cross-dressing ‘rights’ laws have always been mere window-dressing with no real protection or effect, as witnessed by the ongoing persecution and discrimination under such laws against Christian business owners and community organizations such as the Boy Scouts, Catholic Charities, Salvation Army, and even the United Way.

“But now that the U.S. Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby decision threatens to give real teeth to such exemptions, the AFL-CIO’s in-house homosexual activist group has announced it will no longer support discriminatory ‘sexual orientation’ legislation that includes even limited exemptions for religious institutions.

“If this zero tolerance stance spreads to larger groups such as the Human Rights Campaign and National Gay and Lesbian Task Force [it now has], this could become the sticking point which hamstrings future attempts to pass federal, state, and local homosexual ‘rights’ legislation. These supposed religious exemptions, which the AFL-CIO’s homosexual lobby at least now says it will no longer support, have been a key propaganda point in blunting the opposition of churches and citizens concerned about the obvious threat such laws pose to religious freedom.”

According to its leftist proponents, ENDA would merely insulate people who choose to engage in homosexual conduct (sexual orientation) or those who suffer from gender confusion (gender identity) against employment intolerance. In truth, however, this legislation effectively would codify the very thing it purports to combat: workplace discrimination.

Though in its current form ENDA contains an extremely weak religious exemption that might – and I mean might – partially protect some churches and religious organizations (until they’re sued by “gay” activists), this so-called exemption would leave most others, such as Bible bookstores and many Christian schools and para-church organizations, entirely unprotected. It would additionally crush individual business owners’ guaranteed First Amendment rights.

Any “religious exemption” is meaningless. Last year Harry Reid promised homosexual pressure groups that Democrats would remove all protections for Christians and other people of faith on the flipside – after ENDA passed. The homosexual news site Washington Blade reported that homosexual activist Derek Washington of “GetEqual” confirmed Reid’s promise. In a conference call with homosexual activists, Washington admitted that Reid vowed, as goes any religious exemption, “the main thing to do was get the vote taken care of, and then deal with it later. As oftentimes happens, you don’t get something perfect the first time around, you go back and fix it later, so that was basically his take on it.”

According to the Blade, “That account was corroborated by Faiz Shakir, a Reid spokesperson, who said the Democratic leader understands the concerns, but wants to get the bill passed first, then go back and address the exemptions.”

They’ve stopped pretending, folks. This is about criminalizing Christianity. The Hobby Lobby decision has merely made secular liberals forget themselves momentarily. It’s blown back the propagandist curtain to expose their truly sinister aims. Hobby Lobby hasn’t put the “culture war” to rest. It’s taken a gavel to the “progressive” hornets’ nest.

Break out the popcorn and Jujubes. It’s about to get interesting.

“Tumultuary”: Marked by confusion and disorder

Maybe there’s a silver lining to the cloud created by U.S. Senator Harry Reid’s tumult of confused and disordered thinking. Maybe he has just inadvertently made a case for his own political demise.

Reid, the U.S. Senate Majority Leader from Nevada, was thrown into a paroxysm of anger over the U.S. Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision in the “Hobby Lobby” case, which held that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) protects the right of Christian business owners to refuse to be complicit in the deliberate killing of innocent human life. His anger resulted in Tumultuary Harry’s odd claim that “five white men” must not be permitted to  “determine” “women’s lives.”

How many ways can one sentence be wrong? Well, let’s add ‘em up:

• First, and most obvious, one of the five men is not like the others—including hue. Reid may need his vision checked. Or perhaps Reid is using “white” figuratively. Perhaps “white” is a metaphor for all things Reid hates. 

• Second, someone needs to tell Reid that he is…um, gulp…white. 

• Third, Reid has revealed not only his distaste for whiteness (aka self-loathing) but also his diminished view of women. In Reid’s confused worldview, women’s paths in life are set in stone (i.e., “determined”) if their bosses don’t subsidize their birth control. In Reid’s wacky world, poor widdoe girls can’t chart their own course if their mean bosses don’t pay for their IUDs. Reid views women as so impotent that the refusal of their knights in shining armor (aka employers) to pay for their contraception for their volitional sexual activity signifies an absolute loss of agency in their own lives. Maybe women aren’t so inherently powerful after all. 
  
  Instead of railing against the five “white” men who are attempting an existential coup of women the scope of which hasn’t been seen since the slave era, perhaps Harry could remind trembling women of the lives of Harriet Beecher Stowe, Eleanor Roosevelt, Maya Angelou, Betty Friedan, Coretta Scott King, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg whose fertile years were not ones during which contraception was subsidized by employers or the government. 

• Fourth, what does Reid think of other decisions by white men that have “determined” the lives of Americans some of whom were women, you know, men like Joseph Story, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Louis D. Brandeis, William O. Douglas, Earl Warren, William Brennan, and Hugo Black.

Keep your chins up, women! Ignore the bespectacled, tumultuary, only-white-in-a-literal-sense man behind the lectern who thinks you’re feeble and dependent. You can do it! I know you can! You can eke out a life of meaning with even the little reserve of female power you have left after your Scrooge-y bosses withhold that 20 bucks a month. Your bossy patriarchal oppressors trampling on your uteruses (or in Deb Wasserman’s creepy description, “reaching into” your bodies) cannot keep a good woman down.

And, ladies, while you’re exercising your little remaining vestige of power, maybe you can figure out a way to give that confused white man the heave-ho.

Stand with Illinois Family Institute!