Written by Liberty McArtor

Proponents of court-packing argue that adding more judges to our nation’s judiciary is the magical solution to urgent problems, and even paint the picture that doing so is an act of goodwill. But far from being a necessity, court-packing is a brazen power-grab by one political party to fix the number of U.S. Supreme Court justices or federal judges to get the political results they want.

And when we look at the history of court-packing across the world, there’s no way around it: Court-packing is a dangerous scheme with severe implications that would erase freedom and rights for future generations and destroy America’s constitutional order.

To equip you—and all Americans—in exposing the lie and the radical plan to overthrow America’s court system, here are four common (or rather, bogus) court-packing claims debunked with facts and logic.

1. Myth: The Supreme Court has been stolen.

Fact: The U.S. Supreme Court currently has nine highly qualified, legitimately appointed and confirmed justices. The far Left just doesn’t like some of them.

The reason court-packing advocates say the U.S. Supreme Court was “stolen” is because they disagree with the political party and the president who appointed the latest three justices (Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett). For instance, they claimed that Justice Barrett’s confirmation happened too quickly. But as First Liberty President and CEO Kelly Shackelford has noted, justices have been confirmed in the same fashion nearly thirty (30) times. In fact, the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, whom Justice Barrett replaced, was confirmed in a similar time frame.

Ironically, stealing the U.S. Supreme Court is exactly what would happen if the coup attempt to add two, four or even six more justices were to succeed.

2. Myth: Court-packing has popular support.

Fact: Court-packing is widely unpopular—and historically has been within both parties. 

Polls conducted in the last few years show the majority of Americans oppose court-packing.

• In 2020, a New York Times-Siena College poll found that fifty-eight percent (58%) of likely voters opposed packing the U.S. Supreme Court.
  
• In 2019, Rasmussen polls found that only twenty-seven percent (27%) of Americans favor packing the U.S> Supreme Court with additional justices.

What’s more, opposition to court-packing is prevalent across the political spectrum.

Here are some quotes from several politicians and prominent figures on both sides of the political aisle, starting with the current president:

• President Joe Biden (D):

In 1983: “President Roosevelt clearly had the right to send to the United States Senate and the United States Congress a proposal to pack the court. … But it was a bonehead idea. It was a terrible, terrible mistake to make.”

In 2020: “I’m not a fan of court packing.”

• Ted Cruz (R-TX)

In 2020: “Packing the Court means one very specific thing: expanding the number of justices to achieve a political outcome. It is wrong. It is an abuse of power.”

• Joe Manchin (D-WV)

In 2020: “I want to allay those fears, I want to rest those fears for you right now because when they talk about whether it be packing the courts, or ending the filibuster, I will not vote to do that.”

• Lindsey Graham (R-SC)

In 2020: “I can’t think of a more destabilizing event for America than changing the number of [justices] on the Supreme Court every election cycle, because it becomes a winner take all for the Court.”

• Jon Ossoff (D-GA):

In 2020: “We shouldn’t expand the Supreme Court just because a justice may be confirmed with whom we disagree on policy.”

• Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1933 – 2020):

In 2019: “If anything would make the court look partisan…it would be that—one side saying, ‘When we’re in power, we’re going to enlarge the number of judges, so we would have more people who would vote the way we want them to.’”

The truth is both parties have long opposed court-packing, and the sudden flip by a select group of elites on the Democratic side on this issue exposes this scheme for what it really is: a barefaced power grab.

3. Myth: Court-packing is a routine procedure.

Fact: Changes to the size of the U.S. Supreme Court are very rare in America’s history, and the few partisan attempts at court-packing have been failures.

Congress has changed the number of U.S. Supreme Court justices only a total of seven times in American history. The radical Left distorts this fact to make you think court-packing is normal. But in nearly 250 years and 120 Congresses, the seven prior changes (many of them due to workloads and the addition of states to the Republic) do not offer a justification for packing the Court today. On the contrary, the seven changes show how rare court-packing is in America. What’s more, the number of U.S. Supreme Court justices hasn’t changed at all since 1869—that’s over 150 years!

4. Myth: Court-packing will save democracy.

Fact: Court packing will crush civil liberties by making the U.S. Supreme Court a partisan tool of whoever holds power.  

Using a baseball metaphor, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts once said of a judge’s role, “It’s my job to call balls and strikes, and not to pitch or bat.”

What would happen if several partisan justices were added to the U.S. Supreme Court—justices who were instructed to “pitch” and “bat” for the team that appointed them? The U.S. Supreme Court would become an extension of the party currently in power. The fundamental principle of the “separation of powers” would be destroyed.

If more and more partisan judges are added to courts every election cycle, those in the minority—people who don’t agree with the current ruling party—would have their freedom squashed under the weight of a rigged judiciary. Civil liberties like religious freedom would have no stable protection.

Far from saving the principles of our democratic republic, court-packing would lead to the demolition of constitutional rights—just like it happened in other nations, such as Venezuela and Argentina.

This article was originally published at FirstLiberty.org.

A comment from Tish Harrison Warren writing in and for the increasingly disappointing Christianity Today on Jan. 7, 2021 merits revisiting now that the damage Donald Trump voters predicted if Joe Biden were elected is becoming a reality. Warren wrote,

The responsibility of yesterday’s violence must be in part laid at the feet of those evangelical leaders who ushered in and applauded Trump’s presidency. It can also sadly be laid at the feet of the white American church more broadly.

So, should responsibility for the violence in the streets in 2020 and 2021 be laid in part at the feet of evangelical leaders and/or white Christians who support BLM and the teaching of Critical Race Theory in government schools?

Should the violence in Planned Parenthood abattoirs be laid at the feet of evangelical leaders and white Christians who voted for Biden, who supports abortion through all nine months of pregnancy, or who voted for any Democrat in the past 50 years?

Should the use of taxpayer funds for the slaughter of tiny humans be laid at the feet of white Christians who voted for Biden?

Should the catastrophe of overcrowded plastic pods of unaccompanied migrant children be laid at the feet of every evangelical who voted for Biden?

Should the destruction of the black family caused by sixty years of Democrat policies be laid at the feet of evangelical leaders and white Christians who supported those social welfare policies?

Should the sexual integration of women’s and children’s private spaces be laid at the feet of evangelical leaders and white Christians who ushered in and applauded Biden’s presidency?

Should the diminution of speech and religious free exercise protections for theologically orthodox Christians be laid at the feet of evangelical leaders and white Christians who have supported Democrats for the past 20 years?

Should the legal recognition of homoerotic relationships as “marriages,” which robs children of mothers or fathers be laid at the feet of evangelical leaders and white Christians who have supported Democrats?

Should the responsibility for closing Christian adoption agencies that won’t place children in the homes of homosexuals in part be laid at the feet of evangelical leaders and white Christians who voted for Democrats?

Should responsibility for drag Queen story hours and the proselytizing of children into the “trans” cult be laid in part at the feet of evangelical and white Christians who support Democrats?

The answers to my questions are obviously yes. I would add, however, that responsibility for the facilitation of any of these grievous sins that harm our neighbors knows no skin color.

In absolutist terms, Tish Warren criticized Trump for alleged ethical deficiencies:

For more than four years, Trump has shown that he is more than willing to say any lie, ignore any standard of decency, and bring any amount of violence and division to shore up his own power.

Really? Trump would say “any” lie, ignore “any” standard, and bring “any” amount of violence and division to shore up his own power? How would Warren even begin to prove such absolute claims?

What does Warren think about Biden’s willingness to lie, ignore standards of decency, and foment division to shore up his own political power for—not four years—but four decades? Surely, Warren knows about Biden’s repeated plagiarizing, and about the whoppers he told about his college career, law school performance, and fictional arrest in Soweto, South Africa.

What does Warren think about Biden’s infamous divisive and deceitful 2012 claim that a Romney administration would “put y’all back in chains”?

An “insurrection” is “an act of rising in open rebellion against an established government or authority.” Is Warren troubled that Biden condemned the Capitol riot as an “insurrection” but did not condemn attacks by BLM and Antifa on police officers, police precincts, police vehicles, and court houses–which are symbols of established government and authority–as “insurrections”?

What standard of decency did Biden apply when he lied to the American people during the campaign, falsely claiming he knew nothing about his ne’er-do-well son’s sordid influence-peddling business deals with America’s foremost enemy?

What standard of decency did Biden—who professes to be a Christian—apply when he reversed his opposition to federal funding of human slaughter?

What standard of decency did Biden apply when he learned and kept secret that the Russia collusion story was a DNC/Hillary Clinton hoax  concocted to distract the public from revisiting Hillary Clinton’s email server scandal during the 2016 campaign?

What standard of decency did Biden apply when he reneged on his commitment to support President Reagan’s nomination of the extraordinary Robert Bork to the U.S. Supreme Court?

And what standard of decency led Joe Biden to suggest falsely on multiple occasions that the truck driver whose truck hit and killed Biden’s daughter and first wife was drunk when it appears Neilia Biden caused the collision:

[C]overage in the newspapers at the time made clear that fault was not in question. For whatever reason, Neilia Biden, who was holding the baby, ended up in the right of way of Dunn’s truck coming down a long hill.” She had a stop sign and Dunn did not.

There are many Christians for whom Trump was the last choice during the 2015 primary. But when Trump was the last man standing to oppose the morally corrupt  Hillary Clinton whose policies would have wreaked havoc on the unborn, children, women, families, and religious liberty, many Christians chose Trump.

In so doing, not only were better policies passed and better judges appointed but also the depth and breadth of the wickedness of the left in Congress, the press, corporate America, and Big Tech were exposed.

Many Christians voted for Trump in 2016—not because they worshipped him—but because they love God and their neighbors—including the neighbors we will never meet because they will be killed in their mothers’ wombs. Many Christians voted for Trump despite the hatred, scorn, and mockery of the world.

And many voted for Trump in 2020 for the same reasons. Many Christians knew that Biden is not only ethically vacuous but also that he would promote policies that would increase human suffering and diminish fundamental civil liberties.

Many conservatives who dreaded and worked tirelessly to prevent a Biden win are seeing their worst fears realized and then some.

The Biden administration free from commitments to God and truth and led around by nose and leash by an angry horde of racists, anarchists, and sexual revolutionaries free from commitments to God and foundational American principles are destroying America from within.

The Horde has been lurking unmolested for over half a century in Ivory Towers, spreading their brain-eating critical theories into young minds, thereby growing the Horde’s next generation.

Late last spring the younger Horde rampaged through our streets battering, burning, and burgling, while screeching Newspeakian lies about equity and justice.

Horde justice has just been meted out, but a pound of Derek Chauvin’s flesh cannot satisfy the blood and power lust of the fascistic horde.

Justice for the Horde has nothing to do with holding individuals accountable to a fixed legal standard. It’s about mob retribution exacted on anyone who represents the alleged oppressor group for crimes committed by others decades or even centuries ago.

Horde justice is not colorblind, and it’s not just.

BLM activist Kim Brown unabashedly proclaimed her support for Horde justice:

Let me just say for the record, I support … looting the damn Dollar Tree. I support … looting the Advanced Auto Parts. I remember last year they looted Target. I support all that sh*t. Loot all that sh*t. You know why? Because black people, and marginalized and oppressed people could loot every store in this whole f*cking country for 200 f*cking years, and it would not even come close to the debt America owes us.

Which party produces the likes of Kim Brown and the Horde?

Christians like Tish Harrison Warren claim that Christians who voted for Trump undermined their Christian witness. Just curious, does voting for Biden—the titular head of the party that supports the anti-American 1619 Project, Critical Race Theory, the family-destroying BLM, taxpayer-funded abortion, same-sex faux marriage, a de facto version of the Chinese social credit system, and erosion of religious liberty and speech rights—undermine one’s Christian witness?

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Christians-Who-Undermine-Their-Christian-Witness.mp3

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Written by Kay C. James

As a Black woman who grew up in the segregated South, I’m shocked and appalled with the race-baiting from mostly White left-wing politicians who are throwing around the “Jim Crow” label to score political points in the debate over strengthening our voting laws.

To paraphrase Lloyd Bentsen’s line from the 1988 vice presidential debate with Dan Quayle: I knew Jim Crow. Jim Crow was no friend of mine. And these common-sense voting laws that states are adopting are no Jim Crow.

Frankly, it’s insulting that politicians are trying to manipulate Black folks like me into thinking that voting reforms that actually protect our right to vote are somehow racist. It’s insulting to be lied to, and — yes, I’m going to say it — it seems awfully racist to be thought of as so ignorant and gullible.

These state election reforms are about one thing—making it easier for American citizens to vote, while making it harder for cheaters to cheat.

Yet everyone from President Joe Biden to The New York Times to Coca-Cola and those in Hollywood are labeling voting reforms adopted in Georgia and other states as voter suppression and the new Jim Crow. There’s even a U.S. Senate hearing this week being held around this lie called, “Jim Crow 2021: The Latest Assault on the Right to Vote.”

Growing up as a Black teenager during the 1960s, I knew the tremendous sacrifices and the dangers that my friends and relatives endured to secure the right to vote for Black Americans. I myself was part of the Civil Rights Movement when I was thrust into an effort to desegregate my middle school in Richmond, Va.

So let me be perfectly clear: I have zero interest in disenfranchising or suppressing the vote of any portion of the population.

But that’s not what’s happening in Georgia or other states pursuing election reforms. And don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

As we’ve heard from the few truth tellers there are in the media, the new Georgia election reform doesn’t discourage voting or suppress votes. In fact, the availability of absentee ballots and early voting is a lot more robust than what it is in most “blue” states.

And Georgia provides a free voter ID to people without ID and has exceptions that mirror federal law. Turnout in the state as well as studies also show that ID requirements don’t suppress votes; and polling shows that voters, including Black voters, agree that voter ID is a common-sense reform. Claims that Black people are somehow unable or unwilling to obtain identification are insulting and have no basis in fact.

“You know what’s racist? Assuming because I’m black that ‘I just don’t have the capability of getting an I-D,’” Rep. Burgess Owens recently tweeted. I couldn’t agree more.

So why is the left calling these reforms racist? It’s a scare tactic and an attempt to rally support for a voting bill currently in Congress ironically called the For the People Act, or H.R. 1.

H.R. 1 would create a federal takeover of elections and force changes to election laws that would actually allow for greater fraud and election tampering. It would diminish the very voting rights that my relatives in the 1960s, the women suffragists of the early 1900s, and the men and women of the armed forces throughout our history fought so hard to gain and protect.

Under H.R. 1, no one has to prove they are who they say they are in order to vote. It’s likely to automatically add ineligible individuals like non-citizens to the voter rolls. And it outlaws or restricts safeguards that help states maintain accurate voter rolls to prevent people from voting twice. In other words, it would allow illegal votes to cancel out our legal ones.

And that’s just scratching the surface of this terrible law.

H.R. 1 isn’t for the people; it’s about creating more power for certain politicians. The people who support this bill expect that most illegal votes will favor left-wing politicians, and they are willing to dilute our legal votes by encouraging more illegal ones.

They are lying and calling common-sense voter protections racist to make people think that there is a groundswell of voter suppression coming from the states so that they can pretend to save us all with H.R. 1. But they aren’t really interested in protecting us; all they are interested in is helping themselves.

The right to vote is one of the most sacred rights that we as free citizens can exercise. That’s why we must protect it and not allow politicians to get away with pushing sinister bills like H.R. 1 that would diminish that right.

Free and fair elections are the cornerstone of our republic, and every citizen — no matter their color, ethnicity, background or political persuasion — must be able to trust the voting process and its results.

The very future of a free nation depends on it.

Kay C. James is president of The Heritage Foundation (heritage.org).
This article was originally published by the Washington Times.

Have you seen the Project Veritas, undercover video footage exposing CNN’s extreme anti-Trump animus (see here and here)? Have you seen the candid comments about their intentional misrepresentations of both Trump (negatively) and Biden (positively)? Have you heard the unashamed admission that “fear sells”?

On the one hand, this is not surprising at all, given the obvious bias of CNN’s coverage, in particular, over the last 5 years.

On the other hand, to hear Charlie Chester, a technical director with CNN, state things so plainly is almost unnerving.

He said, “Our focus was to get Trump out of office, right? Without saying it, that’s what it was.”

And this: “[Trump’s] hand was shaking or whatever, I think. We brought in so many medical people to all tell a story that was all speculation – that he was neurologically damaged, and he was losing it. He’s unfit to – you know – whatever. We were creating a story there that we didn’t know anything about. I think that’s propaganda.”

Chester also boasted that the network targeted anti-Trump voters with stories on climate change, noting that “fear sells.”

Yet, before we condemn CNN for using this fear-based tactic, we conservatives (and Trump voters) should ask ourselves an honest question. Do we not also use the “fear sells” technique?

This, of course, does not justify CNN’s propagandistic reporting. Not for a moment.

This does not minimize the depth of their deception or the degree to which they knowingly and willingly misled their audience.

Not at all.

But, to be candid, we must realize that the “fear sells” sword cuts both ways, and it is not just the left that has a monopoly on exaggerated and even misleading reporting.

Wasn’t “fear sells” a major weapon in Trump’s arsenal? Wasn’t it one of his most powerful rhetorical tools, as he warned Americans about the dangerous direction in which this country was heading? And weren’t we encouraged to vote for Trump as if he were the last bastion standing against the destruction of America? Fear sells indeed.

The real question is whether the fear is based on truth rather than on lies. That’s what really matters.

Personally, I have been sounding the alarm for years, warning my readers and listeners and viewers about the spiritual and moral decline of the nation. I have written articles with titles like “Revival or We Die,” making clear that a national awakening is our only hope.

I have often warned that we stand on the edge of a very real precipice, and we are close to crossing over the point of no return.

That being said, there’s a big difference between spreading fear-inducing propaganda in order to increase your ratings vs. speaking the truth with a broken heart in order to avert coming judgment. There’s a big difference between willfully misreporting the facts in order to obtain a political outcome vs. issuing a prophetic warning based on love for your nation.

The former activities will, in fact, increase your ratings. The latter will increase the resistance that you face. The former will gain favor with the people you want to influence. The latter will gain favor with God.

That means that the use of fear to mobilize your audience is not wrong in itself, as long as the fear is based on truth. Hundreds of warnings in the Bible follow this very pattern, and the motivation for the warning is love.

In contrast, if it is a manufactured fear or an exaggerated fear, and if that fear is created to advance a selfish or partisan agenda, then that is a highly unethical, terribly dangerous practice.

Was Trump acting like a true prophet, warning of the demise of America, speaking accurately and carefully? Or did he, too, play fast and hard with the truth for the purpose of political gain? History will judge his actions and his words, and only God knows his heart.

What we can say for sure is this. To the extent that Charlie Chester’s words reflect CNN policy, their use of “fear sells” was of the basest, most vile sort. History will not judge them kindly.

This article was originally posted at AskDrBrown.org.

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 Terence P. Jeffrey

Back in 1994, a worried Delaware taxpayer sent a message to his senator. “Please don’t force me to pay for abortions against my conscience,” he said.

Joe Biden sent an unambiguous response.

“I will continue to abide by the same principle that has guided me throughout my 21 years in the Senate: those of us who are opposed to abortion should not be compelled to pay for them,” he wrote.

“As you may know,” Biden continued, “I have consistently — on no fewer than 50 occasions — voted against federal funding of abortions.”

“(T)he government,” Biden said, “should not tell those with strong convictions against abortion, such as you and I, that we must pay for them.”

Today, Biden is the most powerful man in the United States government — and he is demanding that Americans “with strong convictions against abortion” must pay for them with their tax dollars.

This is the moral price Biden was willing to pay to become vice president and then president as the nominee of a party that will not tolerate leaders who insist on defending the innocent unborn.

When Biden ran for president in 2020, he made clear on his campaign website that he favored not only nationwide abortion on demand but also federal funding of it.

“Vice President Biden favors repealing the Hyde Amendment,” his website said. This is the amendment Congress has habitually added to annual appropriations bills over more than four decades to prohibit funding of abortions except in cases of rape, incest or when the life of the mother is endangered.

“Biden will work to codify Roe v. Wade,” said his website, “and his Justice Department will do everything in its power to stop the rash of state laws that so blatantly violate Roe v. Wade.”

Roe, of course, is the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision that declared abortion a “right.”

Biden — in 2020 — also said he would: “Restore federal funding for Planned Parenthood.” In 2019, according to its annual report, Planned Parenthood performed 354,871 abortions.

When Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 bill — the so-called American Rescue Plan — was being considered in the U.S. House, Reps. Jackie Walorski (R-IN), Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), and Virginia Foxx (R-NC), offered a Hyde-type amendment to prevent it from funding abortions. This amendment was co-sponsored by 203 of their colleagues.

“Without Hyde protections in the reconciliation package, over $414 billion in taxpayer dollars could potentially be used to pay for elective abortions or plans that cover elective abortions,” said a statement from Walorski’s office.

But Democrats on the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee rejected the amendment and the House Rules Committee refused to allow it to be considered on the U.S. House floor.

U.S. Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ), co-chair of the Bipartisan Congressional Pro-Life Caucus, then noted in the U.S. House debate on the bill how Biden had flip-flopped on federal funding of abortion. Smith demonstrated this point by quoting from and linking to the letter Biden had written to his constituent in 1994 and a similar letter Biden had authored in 1977.

“Mr. Biden once wrote to constituents explaining his support for laws against funding for abortion by saying it would ‘protect both the woman and her unborn child,'” Smith said.

“I agree,” said Smith.

But Biden no longer agrees with himself.

At the White House press briefing on Feb. 16, Owen Jensen of EWTN asked Biden press secretary Jen Psaki: “We know where President Biden stands on the Hyde Amendment, but that being said, can this administration right now guarantee, if the American Rescue Plan is passed, that no taxpayer dollars will go to the abortion industry?”

“Well, the president’s view of the Hyde Amendment is well known, as you have stated in your question,” Psaki responded in part of her answer.

“He’s shared his view on the Hyde Amendment,” she went on to say. “I don’t think I have anything new for you.”

Jensen pressed her for a direct answer. “Can the administration guarantee those tax dollars won’t be used for abortions?” he asked.

“Well, I think, Owen, as I’ve just noted,” she responded, “three-quarters of the public supports the components of the package, wants to see the pandemic get under control, wants to see people put back to work, vaccines in arms. So, I think that answers your question.”

Psaki would not directly state the plain truth: Yes, Biden’s COVID-19 bill will use tax dollars to pay for abortions.

But she could not deny it — because it does.

When the bill came up in the U.S. Senate on Friday, U.S. Senator James Lankford (R-OK), (for whom this writer’s daughter works) offered a Hyde-type amendment to prevent it from funding abortion. As a procedural matter, the amendment needed 60 votes. It won only 52.

Thus, the U.S. Senate version of the bill funds abortion, too.

As the U.S. Senate was considering it, Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles, the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, joined eight other leading bishops in issuing a statement.

“For 45 years, the United States Congress — whether controlled by Democrats or Republicans — has maintained that taxpayers should not be forced against their conscience to pay for abortions,” these bishops said.

“We ask all Members of Congress to include the same protections against abortion funding that have been present in every COVID relief bill to date, and every annual spending bill for almost half a century,” they said.

Biden, this nation’s second Catholic president, is now poised to sign a bill that defies this request and forces all American taxpayers to pay for abortions.

Terence P. Jeffrey is the editor in chief of CNSnews.com.
To find out more about him, visit the Creators Syndicate web page.

Yesterday, U.S. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) put to shame every Congressman and Congresswoman who refuses to state publicly and definitively that no medical professional should support cross-sex hormone-doping for minors or the elective removal of healthy parts of their sexual anatomy as “treatments” for disordered feelings about their maleness or femaleness.

The inspiring and courageous statements by Senator Paul occurred in a must-see exchange between Senator Paul and the pitiable Dr. “Rachel” Levine, a cross-dressing male physician whom the pandering Joe Biden has nominated to be his assistant health secretary. Of all the physicians in all of America, Biden chose a psychologically unwell man, and the reason for choosing Levine? Obviously, he was chosen because he masquerades as a woman and calls his masquerade “authentic identity.”

Senator Paul began by reminding Levine that female genital mutilation has been widely condemned:

Genital mutilation has been condemned by the WHO, the United Nations Children’s Fund, and the United Nations Population Fund. According to the WHO, genital mutilation is recognized internationally as a violation of human rights. Genital mutilation is considered particularly egregious because as the WHO notes, it is nearly always carried out on minors and is a violation of the rights of children.

Senator Paul further noted that as with genital mutilation, social forces today play a critical role in forming “trans”-cultic beliefs and practices that harm the bodies of minors:

Genital mutilation is not typically performed by force, but, as WHO notes, by social convention, social norm, the social pressure to conform, to do what others do and have been doing, as well as the need to be accepted socially, and the fear of being rejected by the community.

Evidence increasingly shows that social influences, including both the influence of social media and peers, have profound effects on adolescents, particularly on girls who tend to be more vulnerable to what are called “social contagions” (e.g., repressed memory syndrome, bulimia, and cutting) than are boys.

A study released in the United Kingdom showed that between 2009-2018, there was a 4,515 percent increase in the number of minor girls seeking to “transition,”—a shocking increase that many experts believe is the result of social media providing a distorted lens through which girls are misinterpreting their often normal feelings.

Rather than recommending waiting and counseling to get at the root causes for the confused and disordered feelings of minors, “trans”-cultists and their profiteering allies are recommending experimental medications and surgeries while banning counseling.

Senator Paul asked Levine,

Dr. Levine, you have supported both allowing minors to be given hormone blockers to prevent them from going through puberty, as well as surgical destruction of a minor’s genitalia. Like surgical mutilation, hormonal interruption of puberty can permanently alter and prevent secondary sexual characteristics. The American College of Pediatricians reports that 80 to 95% of pre-pubertal children with gender dysphoria will experience resolution by late adolescence, if not exposed to medical intervention and social affirmation. Dr. Levine, do you believe that minors are capable of making such a life changing decision as changing one’s sex?

Note U.S. Senator Paul’s inclusion of “social affirmation,” as a factor that contributes to minors persisting in their rejection of their biological sex. Affirming their delusional thinking through incorrect pronouns and restroom/locker room usage policies harm children.

Instead of answering Senator Paul’s direct and clear question, Levine dodged with a pre-memorized evasion, so Senator Paul tried again:

Let’s be a little more specific since you evaded the question. Do you support the government intervening to override the parent’s consent to give a child puberty-blockers, cross-sex hormones, and/or amputation surgery of breasts and genitalia? You have said that you’re willing to accelerate the protocols for street kids. I’m alarmed that poor kids with no parents who are homeless and distraught, that you would just go through with this and allow that to happen to a minor.

Again, Levine robotically recited the same memorized, evasive non-answer, which revealed that Levine does, indeed, support the chemical sterilization and surgical mutilation of minors who experience sexual confusion, often because of abuse and/or the toxic influence of social media.

Barely containing his justifiable and righteous anger over the destructive ignorance and dissembling of Levine, Senator Paul said what every decent American should be saying publicly and often:

Let it go into the record that the witness refused to answer the question. The question is a very specific one: Should minors be making these momentous decisions? For most of the history of medicine, we wouldn’t let you have a cut sewn up in the ER, but you’re willing to let a minor take things that prevent their puberty, and you think they get that back? You give a woman testosterone enough that she grows a beard, and you think she’s going to go back looking like a woman when you stop the testosterone? You have permanently changed them. Infertility is another problem. None of these drugs have been approved for this. They’re all being used off-label. I find it ironic that the left that went nuts over hydroxychloroquine being used possibly for COVID are not alarmed that these hormones are being used off-label.

There’s no long-term studies. We don’t know what happens to them. We do know that there are dozens and dozens of people who’ve been through this, who regret that this happened. And a permanent change happened to them and if you’ve ever been around children, 14-year-olds can’t make this decision. In the gender dysphoria clinic in England, 10% of the kids are between the ages of three and 10. We should be outraged that someone is talking to a three-year-old about changing their sex. I can’t vote for you if you can’t make a decision.

U.S. Senator Paul’s concluding statement exposed the hypocrisy and dishonesty of leftists. To leftists, the off-label use of hydroxychloroquine for the emergency treatment of a viral pandemic that was killing thousands of people worldwide was unconscionable. Why? Because successfully treating COVID-19 would have helped President Trump.

But the off-label use of puberty-blockers like Lupron, and the prescription of estrogen for physically healthy boys and progesterone for physically healthy girls are not only medically sound but also altruistic acts of love. At least the “trans” cult and its legion of allies think so.

And who are these allies? Who are the groups that gain from exploiting confused children?

Well, there are the cosmetic surgeons, endocrinologists, pharmaceutical companies, mental health “professionals,” academics, and YouTube “influencers” whose greedy hands are grasping for the filthy lucre the “trans” cult generates for them.

And then there are the pandering politicians like Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and every member of Congress who are content to say nothing as the bodies of children are destroyed. Children are expendable commodities because, unlike “trans”-cultists,” children have no power.

Listen to this article read by Laurie: 

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Rand-Paul-Confronts-Bidens-Cross-Dressing-Pick-for-Assistant-Health-Secretary_audio.mp3

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Written by Greg Burt

Joe Biden has announced his intent to nominate California Attorney General Xavier Becerra to lead the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). But Becerra raises deep concerns among religious conservatives fighting to protect their First Amendment free speech and religious liberty rights. They are leary of Becerra because he defended the anti-free speech California law (AB 775), struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court, that forced pro-life care centers to promote state-sponsored abortions. They are also alarmed over comments he made before the state Assembly three years ago when he said religious liberty is only for “individuals,” not “institutions.”

California Family Council President Jonathan Keller had this to say about the nomination. “On November 7, Joe Biden claimed victory in the presidential race, saying ‘we must stop treating our opponents as our enemy.’ But his nomination of California Attorney General Xavier Becerra to lead the Department of Health and Human Services raises grave concerns,” Keller said. “The Secretary of HHS is one of the most important positions in the federal government. But Mr. Becerra is a radical ideologue who rejects First Amendment protections for religious organizations, even earning a rebuke from the U.S. Supreme Court. It’s hard to see how nominating such an activist is consistent with Mr. Biden’s pledge to be a president for all Americans.”

Becerra made his views on religious liberty known in response to questions from California Assemblyman James Gallagher during his confirmation hearing for California Attorney General on January 10, 2017. Gallagher asked Becerra what he thought about AB 775 and another proposed bill, SB 1146, which would have forced religious universities to change their housing policies and moral behavior codes to avoid punishment.

“On religious protections, the protection for religion is for the individual,” Becerra explained.  “I think it is important to distinguish between protections that you are affording to the individual to exercise his or her religion freely, versus protections you are giving to some institution or entity who is essentially bootstrapping the first amendment protections on behalf of somebody else.”

Gallagher took great exception to Becerra’s statement saying it reflected a “fundamental misunderstanding of the freedom of religion and freedom of association.” Gallagher expressed his objections on the floor of the State Assembly when he explained why he opposed Becerra’s nomination as California’s next Attorney General.

“The freedom of religion and the First Amendment applies just as much to the mosque as it does to the Muslim; it applies just as much to the gurdwara as it does to the Sikh; it applies just as much to the church as it does to the Christian,” Gallagher said.  “It applies just as much to religious non-profits, universities, and places of education. Their religious rights need to be protected just as much.”

Watch the full Gallagher/Becerra exchange here.

This article was originally published at CaliforniaFamily.org.

Written by Julie Tisdale

This January marked the 48^th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion across America. And recently, President Joe Biden rescinded the Mexico City Policy, which bans U.S. foreign aid to organizations that provide or promote abortion. Both serve as grim reminders of the millions of unborn children whose lives have been aborted – currently an estimated 44 million worldwide each year, with an annual average of more than 1.3 million in the U.S. since 1973.

The Mexico City Policy was first introduced by Ronald Reagan and prohibits federal funding to NGOs (non-governmental organizations) that provide abortions or abortion counseling, refer women for abortions, or advocate for expansion of abortion rights. Unfortunately, like many policies related to abortion, the Mexico City Policy has become highly partisan. Since its introduction in 1985, every Republican administration has upheld it, while every Democratic administration has rescinded it. It’s become one of the more predictable presidential actions anytime control of the White House shifts from one party to the other. President Biden’s action, then, is highly disappointing, but not surprising.

The Mexico City Policy matters because America, with our Judeo-Christian tradition, should be one of the world’s staunchest defenders of the vulnerable, and few people are more vulnerable than unmarried women and unborn children in many developing nations. By withholding federal dollars from NGOs that perform or promote abortion, we ensure that U.S. taxpayers aren’t paying for practices that take advantage of and abuse women, and that many of us find abhorrent. But we also send a message about our values, that we believe all life is important, no matter how marginalized. We affirm that all children are valuable because they are made in the image of God.

As people of faith who care about these issues, we should be vocal in our objection to the lifting of the Mexico City Policy and the use of our tax dollars to fund abortions around the globe. We should continue to advocate to our elected officials for the protection of vulnerable women and children. We should keep a close eye on the actions of the Biden administration and the 117^th Congress, who are expected to make other moves to lift restrictions on abortion domestically.

We should also back up our advocacy with other types of support. Vulnerable women consider abortion for a variety of reasons. They often lack the resources – money, jobs, housing, family and community support – that they need to parent well. Many face social stigmas associated with pregnancy outside of marriage. Sometimes there are serious health concerns that women feel unable to face. Too many women have been victims of sexual violence. All of those situations call for compassion, not condemnation.

Internationally, there are ministries working in many parts of the world to address these issues. If we’re going to tell women that they should choose life for their babies, then we also need to help them in the right way to make that choice. We can do that by supporting organizations like Food for the Hungry that provides education and job training, community development, and basic health care. We can do that through sponsorship programs like Compassion International that provides schooling for kids and food assistance to families. We can do that through working with groups like Potter’s House Association that addresses poverty’s root causes and helps to empower poor families in the developing world. There are many groups doing good work, and supporting them is a way we can show love in very practical ways to our neighbors around the world.

Domestically, we should also support pregnancy centers and homes for unwed mothers that help moms facing unplanned pregnancies… We should offer practical help with things like diapers and childcare to struggling moms in our community, either through our churches or through organizations like Safe Families for Children. We should consider adoption ourselves or support families in our churches who are adopting, providing homes for children whose parents chose life but are unable to parent. ­­­­And, addressing the heart of this situation for many, we need to support abstinence education that teaches that the wisest and healthiest choice is to abstain from sexual activity outside of marriage.

And of course we should pray—for elected officials here and abroad, for organizations working with vulnerable and marginalized communities, for families in poverty, and for women facing unplanned pregnancies. We know that God cares about all women, and men, and children. As Christians, then, we should advocate for policy change, but we must also work to provide the support that women need to help them make a choice for life.

This article was originally published by NC Family Policy Council.

Warning: Reader Discretion is Advised

Leftists do not seek only to destroy, divide, cancel, and erase. They seek also to re-fashion a brave new world. A look at two recent cultural events reveals the kind of world with which leftists hope to replace cancelled America.

The most recent was Sunday’s Super Bowl during which a vulgar man/boy who calls himself the Weekend performed his song “Earn It” which is a paean to sadomasochism written for the softcore porn movie Fifty Shades of Grey which was based on the twisted softcore porn bodice ripper Fifty Shades of Grey. In the name of “equity,” leftists want to get women as addicted to porn as men are.

An official video of “Earn It” available on YouTube for every man, woman, and child to view consists of the man/boy Weekend, leering creepily at half a dozen women wearing only pasties and thongs with big black Xs on their buttocks who gyrate sexually while carrying the accouterments of sadomasochism. Google, which cancels conservative ideas and which owns YouTube, finds nothing troubling at all about providing a platform for a softcore porn video that objectifies and exploits women—i.e., adult female humans.

Sanctimonious leftists continually preach sermons about which ideas must be cancelled because they’re destructive and immoral. Apparently, those leftists think the Weekend is wholly undeserving of cancellation, because he never says anything destructive or immoral.

Unlike the destructive act of saying men can’t become women or saying the union of two people of the same sex can never be a marriage, porn and sadomasochism never hurt women, children, or families—or so leftists claim. Here’s a brief excerpt from one of the Weekend’s “songs” that, presumably, leftists think is healthy and good for America:

I think I’ve finally fell in love now

Her name is Tammy, she got hella bitches

She let me f*ck ’em while my ni**as film it …

…

Girl go ’head and show me how you go down

And I feel my whole body peakin’

And I’m f*ckin’ anybody with they legs wide

Got me higher than a ni**ga from the West Side

If anyone affirms sexual deviance, and the abuse, exploitation, and objectification of women, the left will definitely not cancel them. Instead, sexual libertines will be given the most colossal platforms leftists can find. And leftist ideological tyrants make sure those platforms are ones that children can access.

The second cultural event took place just two days before the Super Bowl when LA Times and Wired Magazine writer Virginia Heffernan wrote a condescending column in which she argues that even acts of unselfish generosity on the parts of Trump voters require nothing more than a begrudging smidge of appreciation. She defends her bitter intolerance as a legitimate response for the indefensible sin of voting for Trump:

The Trumpites next door to our pandemic getaway, who seem as devoted to the ex-president as you can get without being Q fans, just plowed our driveway without being asked and did a great job.

How am I going to resist demands for unity in the face of this act of aggressive niceness?

Of course, on some level, I realize I owe them thanks—and, man, it really looks like the guy back-dragged the driveway like a pro—but how much thanks?

Heffernan’s answer is suggested in her question. She plans to respond minimally:

[w]ith a wave and a thanks, a minimal start on building back trust. I’m not ready to knock on the door with a covered dish yet.

I also can’t give my neighbors absolution; it’s not mine to give. Free driveway work, as nice as it is, is just not the same currency as justice and truth. To pretend it is would be to lie, and they probably aren’t looking for absolution anyway.

But I can offer a standing invitation to make amends. Not with a snowplow but by recognizing the truth about the Trump administration and, more important, by working for justice for all those whom the administration harmed. Only when we work shoulder to shoulder to repair the damage of the last four years will we even begin to dig out of this storm.

Absolution? What arrogant audacity to imply 74 million Americans need absolution for voting their consciences; for voting to try to protect their children’s economic futures; for voting to protect the jobs of those in the energy sector; for voting to preserve energy independence; for voting to secure our borders in the same way other countries secure their borders; for voting to protect our children from indoctrination with leftist sexuality beliefs and Critical Race Theory;  for voting to protect our children from having to undress in the presence of peers of the opposite sex; for voting to protect the First and Second Amendments; and for voting to protect the lives of humans in the womb.

In the grimy hands and bendy minds of oily leftists, justice and truth are slippery concepts. Many Trump voters think, for example, that men can’t be women, and that falsifying birth certificates or referring to “Caitlyn” Jenner by female pronouns are acts of lying. And many Trump voters believe allowing biological men—also known as men—to compete in women’s sports is manifestly—or womanifestly—unjust.

Heffernan is right on one point, though. Absolution isn’t hers to give, and Trump voters owe her nothing. If attempts to “make amends” and to work for “justice”—as defined by leftists—are “unity” prerequisites, then there will be no unity in America. But we already knew that.

After comparing Trump voters to Hezbollah, Louis Farrakhan, and Nazi collaborator Philippe Pétain, Heffernan said this:

What do we do about the Trumpites around us? … Americans are expected to forgive and forget before we’ve even stitched up our wounds. Or gotten our vaccines against the pandemic that former President Trump utterly failed to mitigate.

My neighbors supported a man who showed near-murderous contempt for the majority of Americans.

Are the 74 million Trump voters expected to forgive and forget the leftists who showed near murderous contempt for all the Americans who lived in terror as their cities and businesses were burned and looted, and police officers spit at and beaten?

Are Trump voters expected to forgive and forget before they’ve even stitched their lives back together?

Are Trump voters expected to forgive and forget the shabby way President Trump and Melania Trump were treated by the bigoted, partisan press since the moment President Trump was elected?

Are Trump voters expected to forgive and forget the millions of tax dollars spent on the Russian collusion hoax and two impeachment trials—including the one that Chief Justice John Roberts refuses to preside over?

Are Trump voters expected to forgive and forget the way Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh was treated by Democrats?

Are Trump voters expected to forgive and forget the way the press covered for the corrupt Joe Biden during his invisible campaign?

Are Trump voters expected to forgive and forget that leftists have given Trump little to no credit for Operation Warp Speed?

Apparently, leftists have little understanding that Trump voters view the beliefs of leftists—particularly on matters pertaining to sexuality and marriage—as evil and destructive as leftists view conservative beliefs.

Leftists that control Big Tech, big business, our professional medical and mental health organizations, public schools, secondary schools, the mainstream press, and the “arts,” do not support diversity of ideas. They do not value tolerance for beliefs they hate. They do not love liberty for deplorables, ugly folks, and theologically orthodox Christians.

And despite all their prior opposition to “imposing morality,” leftists are now firmly committed to imposing their morality—including on other people’s children using taxpayer money.

The beauty of America used to be that, recognizing the diversity of ideas and beliefs, Americans were committed to allowing the free flow of ideas and robust debate. The notion that a ruling class could declare that their presuppositions would enjoy unencumbered public expression and that all dissenting views would be banned was unthinkable.

It was this freedom that made America a refuge for oppressed people around the world, and as leftists deracinate this freedom, America becomes an oppressive place to live for millions of Americans. Increasingly, the only freedom valued by those who rule America is the freedom for unrestrained sexual deviance to destroy hearts, minds, bodies, souls, families, churches, and the First Amendment.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

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Following the January 6th lawlessness at the Capitol in Washington D.C., Twitter permanently suspended President Donald Trump’s account and thousands of other conservative users began reporting their accounts were suspended or they had lost large numbers of followers. The migration that had already begun to an upstart competitor, Parler, gained tremendous speed until Amazon dropped the new platform from its server. The big tech censorship of conservative voices supporting Trump was underway.

Mainstream media went from calling the events on January 6th a riot, to an insurrection. Any person or platform who disagreed with their version of what took place or were too “far right” were removed from the public square. In all, Twitter is reported to have banned more than 70,000 accounts since then.

As the days went on, one of President Trump’s most vocal supporters, My Pillow CEO, Mike Lindell, became the latest target. Wayfair, Kohl’s, and Bed Bath & Beyond announced they would no longer sell his company’s products. Twitter has also banned Lindell’s account for “sharing the misinformation” that President Trump won the 2020 election and other “repeated violations.”

In interviews, Lindell often shares his testimony of being a former cocaine addict before becoming a Christian. Lindell has said the idea for My Pillow came to him in a dream that was given to him by God. He is very vocal about his Christian faith, living it daily. He encourages Bible studies at work and has hired former convicts and drug addicts, giving them a second change like Jesus gave him.

Kohl’s and Bed Bath & Beyond have claimed to numerous media outlets their decisions to drop the brand are based on low sales. But one can’t help but wonder if the timing is more than a coincidence. Wayfair has not commented publicly on its decision.

Day Gardner, president of the National Black Pro-Life Union, is calling for the 74 million people who voted for Trump to stop supporting big tech and the businesses that are attempting to silence the voices of their fellow Americans with whom they disagree.

“It started with big tech’s Twitter, Facebook, Amazon and even Pinterest shutting down the voice of the President of the United States,” she wrote in a recent op-ed. “So of course, namby-pamby, lily-livered, scaredy-cat companies decided to align themselves with big tech.”

Gardner pointed out something that many cancel culture advocates are ignoring, “America has always been the greatest protector of free of speech. We all have a right to our own thoughts and opinions.”

She called the censorship “an attack on the one thing that certainly makes America the greatest and strongest nation in the world.”

A few days before she had purchased a rug from Wayfair that had just arrived. That was when Gardner found out about Wayfair, Kohls, and Bed Bath & Beyond decisions to quit selling Mike Lindell’s products.

Gardner shared the conversation she had with Wayfair:

I called Wayfair and told them COME GET YOUR RUG!!

They asked if I want to exchange.

ME: Nope.

THEM: We could give you a discount.

ME: No thanks!

THEM: Would you like a credit for future purchase, or refund.

ME: Full refund! Come get your rug!

She also added:

“Oh and delete my account, permanently.” I am sick of these companies trying to silence us.

Now she’s boycotting all three companies. “We have to draw a line in the sand somewhere,” she said.

The silencing of conservatives and Christians hasn’t ended with the inauguration of President Joe Biden and it shows no signs of slowing down. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey himself has said so. According to Gardner, Dorsey stated in a video meeting published by Project Veritas last Thursday:

“We are focused on one account right now, but this is going to be much bigger than just one account, and it’s going to go on for much longer than just this day, this week, and the next few weeks, and go on beyond the inauguration.”

Gardner isn’t letting the big tech’s censorship get in her way. They can’t ban her. She’s banning them. “Twitter has suspended me here and there over the years, but I want everyone to know as of today I have BANNED TWITTER from my life,” Gardner defiantly declared. “Buh-bye Twitter! Poof, you’re gone!

“Who’s next, c’mon, step across the line…dare me!”

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After preaching at my home congregation Sunday morning, I got into my car in the church parking lot to check my voicemails and messages. One of my colleagues had sent me the link to his new article, which I decided to share with my Twitter followers. To my surprise, I discovered I was locked out of my account for 12 hours for violating Twitter Rules.

But what I had done? What was the violation? There was no further information, no link to file an appeal, and no reference to an offending tweet.

Several years ago, something similar happened to me, but Twitter subsequently apologized, explaining that they had misunderstood my tweet.

This time, I was left in the dark, forcing me to search online for a way to appeal the suspension.

Obviously, this was not a serious crisis, and like many other conservatives, I knew my time on Twitter might be limited. Still, I was wondering what offense I had committed.

Minutes later, I had my answer.

I was informed that I had been locked out my account for 12 hours because of this tweet, which had been posted on January 20: “Will I get punished by Twitter for saying that, in God’s sight, ‘Rachel’ Levine (nominated by Biden to be his assistant secretary for HHS) is a man?”

Yes, that was the offending tweet. It looks like Twitter answered my question!

When biological truth conflicts with transgender activism, biological truth is banned.

When biblical truth conflicts with transgender activism, biblical truth is banned.

There was nothing hateful in the tweet.

There was nothing that would incite violence.

I didn’t even “deadname” Levine, referring to him as “Richard.”

I simply stated the truth. In the sight of God, President Biden’s nominee for assistant secretary for Health and Human Services is a man.

Someone might challenge the statement, asking what gives me the right to speak for God.

Someone else might claim to have a different perspective on God’s point of view.

And, of course, an atheist would dispute the whole notion of God.

Fair enough. We can have those debates.

But to block me for this tweet? Really?

I read the Twitter Rules carefully.

Under the category of Safety are listed these sub-categories: Violence; Terrorism/violent extremism; Child sexual exploitation; Abuse/harassment; Hateful conduct; Suicide or self-harm; Sensitive media, including graphic violence and adult content; and Illegal or certain regulated goods or services.

Then I read the categories of Privacy and then Authenticity.

What rule had I violated? Where had I sinned? What was my transgression? (For John Zmirak’s brilliant, satirical self-confession, see here.)

Then I re-read the verbiage under “Hateful conduct,” which stated, “You may not promote violence against, threaten, or harass other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, caste, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or serious disease.”

So was that it? Was that my crime?

I dug down deeper into the rules, clicking the link for more information, which included this note (which, for some reason, used British English spelling):

“We recognise that if people experience abuse on Twitter, it can jeopardize their ability to express themselves. Research has shown that some groups of people are disproportionately targeted with abuse online. This includes; women, people of color, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual individuals, marginalized and historically underrepresented communities.”

So that must be it. By simply stating biological and biblical truth, I had “harassed” a transgender person. What else could it possibly be?

This led then to the next question. Why did it take Twitter four days to decide I was guilty?

My only guess is that on Saturday, former governor Mike Huckabee retweeted my article about Biden’s radical, trans-activist executive order, including my twitter handle in his tweet. And given the size of his Twitter following, the tweet got lots of attention. Did this, in turn, draw attention to my account, and then my tweet?

Either way, the end result was yet another example of Twitter’s leftist censorship.

Ironically, the Twitter Rules page states that,

“Twitter’s purpose is to serve the public conversation. Violence, harassment and other similar types of behavior discourage people from expressing themselves, and ultimately diminish the value of global public conversation. Our rules are to ensure all people can participate in the public conversation freely and safely.”

In reality, Twitter is stifling public conversation and harassing people who believe things as basic as this: in God’s sight, a biological male remains a male, even when identifying as a female.

Not only so, but once again, we see how affirmation of radical transgender ideology trumps science, Scripture, and even common sense.

Perhaps I’ll get blocked the next time for saying that someone who identifies as a cat (or dog or dragon or the like) is actually a human? After all, wouldn’t therians (who believe in some way that they have an animal identity) fit in the class of “marginalized and historically underrepresented communities”?

And what about Twitter’s extraordinary double standards, as Bible-believing conservatives like me get bashed and mocked and cursed by the minute on these platforms, specifically for being who we are and believing what we believe, and that is somehow fine and dandy.

Over 15 years ago, when I began to warn that those who came out of the closet wanted to put us in the closet, I was roundly mocked. “That’s ridiculous,” I was told.

Who would have believed me if I said back then, “Social media platforms will block us for saying that a male who identifies as a female is actually a man in God’s sight”? Who would have believed that?

Levine may be a decent human being and a serious professional. But he is not a woman in God’s sight whether Twitter likes it or not.

In the end, Twitter may suspend me or block me (and countless others). But they cannot change the truth.

This article was originally published at AskDrBrown.org.

Some IFI readers may remember attorney and evangelical Christian, David French, former writer for National Review whom many conservatives formerly admired. Not so much anymore. He spent much of the last four years trying to ensure that Donald Trump did not win a second term. Apparently French plans to spend 2021 defending his own honor and urging Christians to repent of their sin of voting for a corrupt man—no, you silly people, not the corrupt Biden. In French’s view, voting for the morally corrupt, cognitively impaired, Chinese Communist colluder Joe Biden is a justifiable act for Christians.

French tweeted this on January 22, 2021:

Regarding Biden’s [Executive Orders], two things are true: 1. You can oppose the worst [EOs] (including through litigation, when appropriate), yet… 2. A handful of bad EOs do not mean it was better to support a deranged liar who’d incite the sacking of the Capitol to hold onto power.

“A handful of bad EOs”? The sexual integration of children’s private spaces is merely a “bad EO”? Allowing boatloads of American money to go to slaughter humans in other countries is merely a “bad EO”? What kind of Christ-follower says that?

And remember, Biden has just gotten started. Let’s see what the morally deranged Biden has done to speech rights, religious liberty, parental rights, abortion-funding, and the further corruption of public schools by the end of the cultural nightmare we’ve just entered.

Question for French: When Hillary Clinton repeatedly said the 2016 election was stolen, was she attempting to “incite the sacking of the Capitol”?

At dawn’s early light on Sunday, French posted an article in which he 1. calls for evangelicals who supported Trump to apologize and support impeachment, and 2. vigorously defends himself as a man of courage.

He spends nearly 400 words defending his honor and describing the despicable abuse he and his family have endured, presumably the work of evangelical Christians. I’m not sure what evangelical crowd French hangs with, but no evangelical Protestants or Catholics I know would execute “angry attacks on” the employers of those with whom they disagree, or call for their employment “termination,” or “mock” their spouses,  or damage their front doors while “trying to enter” their houses, or suspiciously case their homes, or contact “drug rehab and porn addiction centers around the country” posing as their ideological foes and “saying” they “need help,” or dox them, or text them “racial slurs,” or leave “voicemail messages” that sound like “recordings of people screaming.”

I believe those things happened to French and his family because those types of things have been happening to conservatives for years. Sadly, despicable abuse knows no political or ideological boundaries, but in my experience, theologically orthodox, Bible-believing committed Christ-followers do not do such things.

And herein lies the problem. French appears to lump all evangelicals together into an unseemly ball of corruption. He makes no distinctions between those who have defended or dismissed Trump’s corrupt behavior and done indefensible things to French’s family and those who have never defended Trump’s corrupt behavior or done anything to French’s family.

In French’s view, voting for a corrupt man is equivalent to endorsing corruption and undermining one’s Christian witness. It’s so much easier to anathematize one’s ideological foes by associating them with awful behavior of fringe nasties as French has done than to engage with their substantive claims.

But if voting for a man who has proven himself morally compromised is an unmitigated evil requiring public penance, what does it mean to vote for or facilitate the election of an inveterate liar and venal politician who has been accused of digitally raping a subordinate and of having an affair during his first marriage with the woman he married after his first wife’s death?

What does it mean for a Christ-follower to vote for a man who supports the legal right to exterminate babies in their mothers’ wombs, who supports taxpayer-funding of human slaughter, who supports and celebrates types of unions God detests, and who praised the sexual integration of children’s private spaces?

What does it mean to support a corrupt politician who seeks to undermine religious free exercise protections via the Equality Act, and who seeks to use the power of the government and taxpayers’ hard-earned money to promote the divisive and destructive Critical Race Theory?

French writes,

Christian Trumpism turned morality and reality upside-down.

What exactly is “Christian Trumpism,” and how does voting for the ethically imperfect Trump turn morality upside-down but voting for the ethically imperfect Biden does not?

How does voting for Trump turn “reality upside-down” but voting for a man who believes men can be women does not turn reality upside-down?

Are those who opposed Trump’s re-election guilty of Christian Bidenism? Does David French owe anyone an apology for his support of a man who lied to the American people when he said he knew nothing about his son’s corrupt business dealings? Does such a whopper say nothing about Biden’s character? Setting aside the fact that Biden has been credibly accused of sexual improprieties, on what biblical basis did French ground his belief that Trump’s sexual past is more sinful than Biden’s current lies, eager endorsement of homoeroticism and sexual impersonation, and belief that women have a moral right to order the slaughter of their children?

A sound argument can be made that no Christian should vote for any candidate or facilitate the strengthening of any party that seeks to cancel the expression of ideas it hates; that supports  firing employees who oppose same-sex faux-marriage; or who support the chemical sterilization and surgical mutilation of minors; that doesn’t recognized the right of Christian business owners to refuse to provide abortifacients to employees or photograph same-sex anti-weddings; or that wants to deprogram, deradicalize, re-educate and “uncover religious extremists, authoritarians, fascists, bigots, racists, nativists” and “even libertarians.”

French has a solution to the grievous sin of voting for Trump over Hillary and Trump over Biden. First, those Christians who voted the wrong way must apologize, and then Never Trumpers must forgive. Phew.

In addition to public apologies, he wants impeachment:

But there’s more. Christian Trump supporters can no longer say, “We won’t tolerate serious wrongs.” That ship has sailed. They can, however, say “Enough. No more.” And it’s vital that they do. Only they can impose true accountability on Trump. Without them there simply isn’t sufficient support to bar Trump from public office and limit his malign influence on American life.

Biden and Harris, evidently, are going to have solely a beneficent, salubrious influence on American life.

If, or rather when, the left establishes policies so malign and oppressive—policies that rob parents of their parental rights; rob conservatives of the right to speak, assemble, and exercise their religion freely; rob scholars of the freedom to teach and publish; rob Americans of the ability to earn a living; rob citizens of the right to bear arms; and rob those deemed unfit for life of their lives—who or what will be culpable for the revolution that eventually comes? Will it be the rhetoric of those leading the revolution, or will it be the words and deeds of the oppressors?

As to French’s defense of his own honor: Facing adversity in the service of electing a corrupt man who will promote the malign policies Biden has openly committed to promoting is no honor.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/David-Frenchs-Marching-Orders-for-Christians-in-America_audio.mp3

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Some IFI readers may remember attorney and evangelical Christian, David French, former writer for National Review whom many conservatives formerly admired. Not so much anymore. He spent much of the last four years trying to ensure that Donald Trump did not win a second term. Apparently, French plans to spend 2021 defending his own honor and urging Christians to repent of their sin of voting for a corrupt man—no, you silly people, not the corrupt Biden. In French’s view, voting for the morally corrupt, cognitively impaired, Chinese Communist colluder Joe Biden is a justifiable act for Christians.

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Chinese Translation – 中文翻译

With a thrill running up his leg, Chris exclaimed that Biden’s inaugural address was the best inaugural speech he’s ever heard! No, not THAT Chris—not Chris Matthews. Chris Wallace said it was the best. He was wrong. It wasn’t the best inaugural speech ever. It was the BEST SPEECH period. I’m tearing up just thinking about how best it was.

But wait, was it? Wouldn’t the best speech necessarily be a true and honest speech?

Biden said, “[A]t this hour, my friends, democracy has prevailed. … [T]he American story depends not on any one of us, not on some of us, but on all of us. … [T]o restore the soul and to secure the future of America—requires more than words. It requires that most elusive of things in a democracy: Unity. Unity.”

I love unity, unity, as much as the next gal or nonbinary human, but I’m wondering how the efforts of Big Tech, corporate behemoths, AOC, John Brennan, and other Democrats to cancel and crush anyone who expresses ideas they hate fulfill Biden’s quest for double the amount of unity we have right now.

Just a few nights ago on MSNBC, John Brennan cheerfully told lefty Nicole Wallace that the Biden administration is “moving in laser-like fashion to try to uncover as much as they can about” the “insurgency” composed of “religious extremists, authoritarians, fascists, bigots, racists, nativists, even libertarians.” Hmmm …

So, how does the Biden administration define these groups? Will the criteria used for identifying “religious extremists, authoritarians, fascists, bigots, racists, nativists” and “libertarians” be made public? After the laser-focused secret police uncover the plot of Brennan’s enemies to compete freely in the market place of ideas, what will be done with the dissident freethinkers? Will they be forced into PBS’s “enlightenment camps” or will AOC’s “de-radicalizing” pogroms to cleanse America of conservative Christians take care of their disunifying presence?

In the service of doubling our unity, will Biden plead with Big Tech, Big Business, AOC, CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times, and Washington Post to call off their dogs, Overlords, and spy agencies?

Will Biden plead with the press to interrogate him fairly—you know, exactly as they interrogated President Trump? Will he plead with them to take off their soiled kid gloves?

Will Biden’s executive order mandating the sexual integration of children’s locker rooms, restrooms, and sports in government schools fulfill his quest for doubling our unity?

In the spirit of unity, will Biden acknowledge that the desire of girls and women to be free of the presence of opposite-sex persons in their private spaces is natural, normal, and good?

In his laser-like focus on unity, will Biden send “guidelines” to public schools recommending they no longer promote the controversial and divisive beliefs of the 1619 Project and Critical Race Theory?

How does the leftist ideological monopoly in our colleges and universities double our unity or foster democracy? We know that in addition to unity, Biden is bigly into diversity. We also know that without diversity of thought, critical thinking is impossible. So, in the service of both unity and diversity, will Biden urge college and university administrators and faculty to seek equity among faculty? Will he implore them to work diligently toward ideological parity, perhaps threatening to withhold government funds until such parity is achieved?

Will Biden condemn the cancellation of conservative speakers on campuses and the refusal to invite conservative speakers to campuses?

Will he condemn Hollywood and book publishers for their anti-conservative bigotry and de facto censorship of movies, plays, and novels with themes that criticize “progressive” ideas or embody conservative themes?

Will he denounce ugly epithets like “homophobe,” “transphobe,” “hater” and “bigot” that are hurled continuously at any Catholic or Protestant who upholds the historic teaching of the church on sexual matters? Will he agree that Christians should be free to use pronouns that correspond to scientific reality and God’s created order? Will he agree that Christian business owners should be free to make employment and service decisions in accordance with their faith?

To double our unity, will Biden urge Americans to remove lawn signs that say, “Hate has no home here,” since all Americans know those signs are a passive macro-aggressive way of leftists calling their theologically orthodox Bible-believing neighbors—both Catholics and Protestants— “haters”?

In his effort to unify the country twice over, will Biden publicly acknowledge that the claim that homoerotic acts are moral is neither a scientific claim nor objectively true?

Democrats have demonstrated that they are gung-ho about calling in the National Guard and every weapon in our formidable military apparatus to prevent further violence in the Capitol. So, in an effort to multiple our unity, will Biden beseech the New York Times to offer former editorial page editor James Bennet his job back? Bennet was the editor who was forced to resign for publishing an op-ed by Senator Tom Cotton in which Cotton argued that it was legitimate to call in the National Guard to quell the unremitting violence that roiled American cities last summer.

In his inaugural address, Biden said, “This is a great nation and we are a good people.” I’m confused. Critical Race theorists have been telling us for years—and emphasizing it through arson and looting—that America is a systemically evil nation conceived in racism and dedicated to the proposition that all people of color are inferior. So, which is it?

Biden said, “I ask every American to join me in this cause. Uniting to fight the common foes we face: Anger, resentment, hatred. Extremism, lawlessness, violence.” Later, on Inauguration Day, Antifa attacked a federal building in Portland. Has Biden condemned that lawless, violent attack by angry extremists? Did he label it an attack on democracy? Did he call it an insurrection?

While his inaugural address rightly condemned the “riotous mob” that used “violence” to attack the Capitol building, Biden said not one word about the riotous mobs that attacked federal buildings; monuments; private property; and police precincts, vehicles, and officers all summer. Why did his unifying address remain mute on that violence?

If and how Biden answers those questions will give Americans a better idea about whether he wants unity in diversity or unity by crushing diversity. We’ll know if this is the beginning of the Unity Games or—as Lady Gaga’s inaugural costume suggested—the Hunger Games.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Was-Bidens-Inaugural-Address-the-Best-Ever_audio.mp3

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