Constitutionally speaking, the United States Seat of Government cannot be an individual State.

On Thursday, April 22, however, 216 members of a powerful special interest faction within the U.S. House of Representatives, the Democratic Party, passed H.R. 51, attempting to usurp the power of the People of the United States under the Constitution, converting the District of Columbia from the federal seat of government to a state.

H.R. 51 is clearly unconstitutional.

The Democrats’ purpose for doing so, is yet another naked power grab. Only the U.S. Constitution stands in the way of a two-seat Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate. The citizens of the District of Columbia, who do vote in Presidential elections, vote overwhelmingly (almost 90 percent) for Democrats.

Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution expressly gives Congress the authority:

“To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of Government of the United States”

The District of Columbia has been so ceded and accepted for the past 220 years.

Founding Father James Madison explained the ongoing necessity of a federally controlled seat of government in Federalist 43:

“The indispensable necessity of complete authority at the seat of government, carries its own evidence with it…Without it, not only the public authority might be insulted and its proceedings interrupted with impunity; but a dependence of the members of the general government on the State comprehending the seat of the government, for protection in the exercise of their duty, might bring on the national councils an imputation of awe or influence, equally dishonorable to the government and dissatisfactory to the other members of the Confederacy…The public money expended on such places, and the public property deposited in them, requires that they should be exempt from the authority of the particular State. Nor would it be proper for the places on which the security of the entire Union may depend, to be in any degree dependent on a particular member of it.”

The general need and requirement for a U.S. “Seat of Government,” and specifically not making that Seat a state, is therefore subject to change only via U.S. Constitutional amendment.

A combination of D.C. citizens seeking more representation and Democratic politicians seeking more power for themselves, have for decades promoted D.C. statehood, and other schemes, to give political control of the seat of U.S. Government into the hands of a single State.

Such a change has nonetheless been widely recognized by both Democrats and Republicans as requiring a U.S. Constitutional amendment.

In 1964, even U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, a Democrat, deemed efforts to bypass this requirement unconstitutional.  Numerous others in the legal community have agreed to this obvious textual requirement.

There has indeed been unusual consensus on this issue, for the entire history of U.S. Government under the Constitution.

If they so choose, current residents of the District of Columbia are free and easily able to live under the authority of one of several nearby states and still work in the Seat of Government.

In order to benefit their own special interests, many on the left will tell you that you need someone else (them) to tell you what the Constitution means.  Such is not the case.

The ability to understand the U.S. Constitution was not intended to be relegated to an ivory-towered, elite educational class.

On the contrary, it is foundational to the U.S. system of government that the common citizen, can and should, understand the U.S. Constitution, in order to self-govern and hold their representatives accountable.

Article V of the U.S. Constitution requires proposal of an amendment by 2/3 of both houses of Congress or state legislatures, and approval by 3/4 of state legislatures.

Congress, under the control of both dominant political parties, has previously remained unwilling to usurp the U.S. Constitution’s authority, and unable to gain the large consensus necessary to accomplish a Constitutional amendment.

The Representatives who passed this resolution know this or are derelict in their responsibility to have done the trivial amount of research needed to know it.

Today’s Democratic Party though, has shown no restraint of honesty or integrity in its quest to rule over the People. Moreover, “progressive” activists will stop at nothing, including subverting the U.S. Constitution, to expand their own political power and advance socialism.

Promoting and passing laws that attempt to intentionally bypass the Constitutional amendment process is no small matter. To do so is a violation of an elected official’s oath to support and defend the U.S. Constitution, “so help me God.”

This is why belief in the Creator, and oaths before Him, are required of public officials in the United States.

“If you make a vow to the Lord your God, you shall not delay fulfilling it,
for the Lord your God will surely require it of you, and you will be guilty of sin.”
~Deuteronomy 23:21-23

All 216 of these men and women (and they are men and women) have violated their oath of office, and should therefore be disqualified from holding public office.

Fortunately, the filibuster, requiring 60 members to end debate on any bill in the U.S. Senate, stands firmly in the way, making passage of  H.R. 51 nearly impossible.

Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people.
It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.  ~John Adams

So let us be thankful to the Creator, who is the official foundation upon which our government has been established, for protecting us from this tyranny for a time.

In addition to prayers, we the people (especially those who are moral and religious) must read, understand, and speak truth regarding the Constitution, and replace fools who do not, those who seek only power, luxury, and the elite prestige of affiliation with a political party for themselves.

Let us boldly proclaim that statehood for the District of Columbia is clearly unconstitutional and call for the removal of dishonest elected officials who would break their oath of office to support H.R. 51 or any similar government act.

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A bold voice for pro-family values in Illinois!

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In a blistering must-see address on the U.S. Senate floor, Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO), the youngest member of the U.S. Senate, condemned Justice Neil Gorsuch’s opinion in Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia. Writing for the Majority, Gorsuch essentially legislated from the bench, changing duly passed federal law with far-reaching and destructive consequences for all Americans, especially religious Americans.

Hawley argued that religious conservatives have been sold a bill of goods. They have been commanded for years to shut up and the recompense for their dutiful silence would be judges like Antonin Scalia who adhere to the judicial philosophies of textualism and originalism that ensure judges don’t legislate. Hawley sarcastically points out that in Gorsuch, religious conservatives were duped. Hawley said, “it’s time for religious conservatives to stand up and to speak out.”

Please watch the entirety of Hawley’s compelling address and share it widely. (It is only 13 minutes long.)

U.S. Senator Hawley—a Christian and Harvard University and Yale School graduate who worked for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty—is  exactly the kind of leader religious conservatives have been praying for: wise, brilliant, and bold.

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Introduction by Laurie Higgins

One of the joys and blessings of working for IFI these past ten years has been meeting remarkable people from across the country. One very special friend is Dr. Daniel Boland who has master’s degrees (one in theology and one in education), a PhD in psychology, and three years of post-doctoral training and research in human behavior and applied behavioral science. He taught, supervised and counseled at the University of Notre Dame and, later, at Arizona State University. After teaching, he opened a private practice as consulting psychologist in Scottsdale, Arizona and eventually moved to Southern California, where he enjoys the atmospheric climate much more than the political one. Dr. Boland now studies and writes about the radically secular trends and de-moralizing ideas which are eroding the influence of traditional Judeo-Christian principles, beliefs and practices. His wise, compassionate, and edifying essays are available on his blog to which you can and should subscribe. Here’s his essay on the meaning of the Kavanaugh imbroglio:

Beyond the Kavanaugh Event: America’s Fading Traditions
Written by Dr. Daniel Boland

A vast divide now exists among Americans. It is far more than a political rift between Democrats and Republicans. It is not merely a struggle between conservatives and liberals. The true nature of this conflict centers on how we shall live as individuals and what values we shall uphold as a nation. The facts at hand are not encouraging.

The Kavanaugh Event highlights the rabid polarization in the struggle for survival of our fundamental values, our American identity and even our national security.

“Progressivism’s” Errant Values

“Progressive” Leftists seek to create a nation without national boundaries, moral traditions or constitutional restraints. “… Let people do what they want. Let them have their way, no matter what price we pay for unhindered progress or what age-old laws and time-honored customs of dead-white-men we banish along the way…” say “progressive” Leftists.

America’s national character and moral coherence are based on 230+ years of constitutional stability inspired by Judeo-Christian mores. These legal and spiritual codes emphasize individual accountability and define the natural and lawful limits of human behavior.

Until recently, individual rights have always been balanced by personal responsibilities—and by accountability to God and to other human beings—for the common good, starting with the first natural right of all persons, the right to life, which includes the unborn.

Until recently, these codes have restrained government abuse and tempered the fads and foolishness to which humans are attracted. Today, the “progressive” Left jettisons these norms as outmoded, offensive, restrictive—the stale product of male/sexist/white/Christian/conservative dominance.

To advance their vision of unhindered “progress,” Leftists seek to eradicate our American system. Thus, many of our sacred traditions and boundaries are being overthrown by practitioners of Marxist political correctness and moral relativism, mental and moral distortions to which many Americans are in militant, yet ignorant, thrall.

And now comes the Kavanaugh Event where accusation and condemnation—rather than civility and restraint—are common. The dignity and achievements of a good man’s lifetime are expunged in favor of flimsy rumor and deliberate exaggeration (if not outright lies) in service to manipulative power.

Memory’s Weak Links

The Kavanaugh hearings quickly devolved into character defamation, focusing not on the nominee’s professional qualifications but on whether he was a teenaged drunkard, so afflicted by alcoholic blackouts that he was forgetfully capable of anything, including violent rape.

Politically correct character assassination is the goal of the Kavanaugh Event, with the threat of impeachment ever hovering. To the Left, solid reputations of moral probity earned over an adult lifetime are relative.

Judge Kavanaugh is accused of a felony. But the preponderance of evidence assuredly does not support this charge. However, many Leftists hope the ensuing FBI probe will unearth additional dirt about Kavanaugh’s college drinking and belligerency, and a subsequent charge of perjury they hope to pin on him—dirt with which they expect to bury Judge Kavanaugh.

It is crucial to note that dissociative amnesia and the validity of recovered memories—the bases of his accuser’s charges—carry scant weight in research psychology and forensic testimony. The validity and credibility of recovered memories is highly unreliable.

Research tells us that recovered memories are by no means credible and carry no probative value. Yet Democrats grant eager assent to the accusations, which originated in trauma forty years old. Despite this, the “progressive” Left celebrates the accusation as “proof” of Judge Kavanaugh’s guilt. (If you wish to review these accusations and, more to the point, read the report of Rachel Mitchell, the prosecutor who interviewed Dr. Christine Ford during the proceedings, click here.

The Progressive’s Approach 

To the “progressive” Left, accusation alone cancels reasonable doubt. It “proves” Judge Kavanaugh is unworthy. Henceforth, he shall be known and dishonored as a liar, drunk and rapist.

For the “progressive” Left, even a reckless, fact-less accusation that anyone is a racist or a homophobe, a chauvinist-pig or a sexist, a bigot or a promoter of hate speech or, worse, a faithful Christian baker or florist (with all the attached spiteful, religious baggage), even a mere accusation is sufficient to cast shadows over good people to justify punitive wrath and budget-busting fines.

Such is the “progressive” politically correct ethic in our morally-wounded, rationally-bereft culture.

The Behavior of Some Senators

The insults and “gotcha” posturing by Democrat Senators were, to many observers, way over the edge. It was deeply disquieting to watch our elected representatives leverage Judge Kavanaugh’s plight for their own unsavory political agendas, their unseemly grandstanding and their appeals to financial donors.

For example, U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) declared his resistance to Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination less than half an hour after the announcement. Mr. Schumer’s rush to pre-judgment was startling in its alacrity and vehemence.

U.S. Senator Kristen Gillibrand’s opportunistic “anti-males-in-power” feminist screeds were wearisome in their denial of historical and biological reality—which is nowhere better explained than in this brief, must-watch Prager U video.

U.S. Senator Mazie Hirono’s advice to men to “shut up and step up” was simply incoherent and outlandish.

U.S. Senator Kamala Harris’ fumbling, all-too-obvious attempts to trap Judge Kavanaugh into contradictory testimony were feckless and amateurish.

U.S. Senator Cory Booker indulged in several episodes of self-promoting rodomontade a’brim with cringe-worthy virtue-signaling and martyr-ish rhetoric. His performance was out of sync with his own teen-age sexual excesses, about which he wrote in a college column proclaiming his conversion to feminism.

One could also mention U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal’s needless slur that Judge Kavanaugh’s appointment will “stain” the Supreme Court. This is the same Blumenthal who claimed to have served in Vietnam when, in fact, he did not.

There are other embarrassing and unstatesman-like (or, if I must, unstateswoman-like) examples from our national leaders in this unfortunate inquisition, but the point is evident and disturbing.

The Stunning Absence of Honesty

The intemperate name-calling and adversarial behavior of Democrats did indeed shock. Such behavior compels us to recognize with heavy heart that politics and far too many politicians no longer exemplify responsible civility, moral and intellectual clarity, human courtesy or simple fairness.

Some will counter with a challenge: “Yes, but how ‘bout Trump and his ranting, blathering incivilities?”

Yes, many Americans vehemently condemn President Trump’s tweety indiscretions. In fact, many loathe our president for his tactless style and his tasteless crudities.

Many people also criticize Republicans for their hesitant, tradition-bound approach to their exercise of their congressional majorities and for their failure to reach effectively across the aisle and seek unity with Democrats. “… After all, Republicans have the power…”

Fair enough.

But “progressivism’s” defamatory strategies and divisive energies—now on grim public display—clearly reveal how they are deliberately eroding our American ideals and how responsible these “progressive” Leftists are for the toxic state of affairs we now face.

To this day, the story of America is a record of human nature’s best attempts at limited governance and the evolution of justice. Sadly, today’s destructive Leftist politics reveals that power-grasping can overshadow the good will and highest hopes of human nature which defined American exceptionalism.

Political Life and Reality’s Bite

Our Declaration of Independence declares that our laws are codifications of rights and responsibilities granted by our Creator—except to the “progressive” Left.

Our nation’s historic struggle for a balance between human laws and their divine origin are summed up in the admonitions of John Adams, who cautioned that our form of governance relies not only on law but also on the virtue of citizens and their representatives—except to the “progressive” Left.

We can see that American politics today is no longer a unified struggle for a common goal. Party politics is now a bitter, morally divisive enterprise. Americans are separated according to our vision of human life, its origins, its rights and its inherent value.

These differences are nowhere more definitively clarified than with the issue of abortion. The divisions in our country relate to our beliefs about life itself—about the “right” of individuals to live and the “right” of both the state and private persons to take life away from its own citizens, especially from the unborn and the elderly.

It is the taking and giving of life which threaten our Republic’s very survival. It is abortion, its moral consequences and its political leverage which are at the dark core of the Kavanaugh Event. 

Threats to American Stability

The corrupting intrusions of Marxist political-correctness, the ascendance of moral relativism in the American consciousness and the denigration of Judeo-Christian principles now inspire character assassination as a mainstream political tool. But there is also much more to worry about.

Our national malaise is exacerbated by Leftist propagandists in the media and entertainment industries to the grave detriment to our entire culture. One has only to listen to some late-night hosts to realize how foul “humor” has become, as Jimmy Kimmel’s disgusting comment affirms.

To the Left, factual reportage and decency in speech are relative to the desired outcome.

The impact of the “progressive” Left’s relativism on American politics, education, family life, law enforcement on our entire culture is difficult to face but impossible to deny:

• erosion of speech and religious exercise protections and the concomitant ongoing denigration of Judeo-Christian traditions

• triumph of non-judgmental, “anything goes” moral madness

• acceptance by medical professionals and parents of gravely misguided “transgender” “identity” change therapies over natural sexuality

• destruction of moral codes that respect the unborn and the elderly

• increased taxation and subsequent re-distribution of income and opportunity, regardless of talent, work ethic or experience

• perpetuation of welfare without qualification

• the support for open borders and further influx of unregistered non-citizen “sanctuary” seekers demanding care and comfort for all entrants—this added to an illegal population which is twice what experts previously estimated

• increased control of industry, commerce and systems of distribution, psychological and medical services and educational institutions

There is also the mortal danger of Islamic militancy which promises violence and death to America. In fact, violence is now occurring throughout Europe, a continent made victim by its own twisted sense of giving aid to its destroyers and welcoming its enemy in the names of suicidal empathy and false altruism.

Do We Get It Yet?

The un-making of America in accordance with the desires and will of the “progressive” Left proceeds apace as self-restraint is diminished and counterfeit, artificial “freedoms” are let loose among us. The public destruction of Brett Kavanaugh is but one of countless tragic events ahead for America and for many Americans.

History tells us that disturbing outcomes are increasingly probable unless we take seriously the facts at hand. The facts at hand attest to the demise of our moral traditions, truth and civility in the “progressive” Left’s politically correct, socialist America and to the continuing destruction of American exceptionalism and identity.

It can’t happen here? Really?

It is unfolding before us every day.

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In the first few days of his confirmation hearings,Judge Brett Kavanaugh has already been doggedly questioned on his views on abortion, specifically whether he will overturn Roe v. Wade. The attention on his views is warranted. If Judge Kavanaugh is confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court, the 5-4 conservative majority will have the ability to overturn the court-protected “right” to abortion.

But contrary to conventional wisdom, Roe v. Wade is no longer the main constitutional guardian for abortion access. While Roe established that the constitutional right to privacy extends to the choice of whether to abort a baby, most of Roe’s jurisprudence has been replaced by another U.S. Supreme Court case, Planned Parenthood v. Casey. It is Casey, not Roe that governs most of abortion jurisprudence today.

When Roe was first heard by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1973, few on either side of the abortion debate thought the case would produce a far-reaching decision on the issue. The case was initially taken up by the Court to decide a technical civil procedure issue. As a result, the Court did not have a factual record of the medical, social, and legal effects of abortion restrictions (Roe’s questionable background is excellently documented in Clarke Forsythe’s book Abuse of Discretion). This left Justice Harry Blackman without much guidance and the freedom to be creative.

The result was ugly and not just due to Roe’s tragic consequences for millions of unborn children. Justice Blackman’s unwieldy legal reasoning made legal scholars of all viewpoints blush for its broad scope and legislative-like assertions. The Court found that the U.S. Constitution’s implied right to privacy (based on the famous birth control case of Griswold v. Connecticut) extends to a woman’s decision to choose abortion, though the state had legitimate state interests in protecting the mother’s health and “potential life” of the child.

To balance these interests, Justice Blackman created a statute-like three-trimester system outlining what aspects of the abortion procedure the state can regulate at each of the three stages. In the first trimester, the decision whether to abort the child was left completely to the mother. In the second trimester, the only regulation on the procedure had to be necessary to protect the mother’s health. It was only after the point of fetal viability—which Justice Blackman also chose without any substantive legal basis—that the state could prohibit abortion altogether. The decision was disjointed, ill-informed, and without a grounded basis in constitutional law, making it vulnerable to being overruled.

In 1992, Roe was put on trial in the case Planned Parenthood v. Casey. But instead of overruling Roe, the Court decided to keep the outcome yet overhaul its legal structure. Gone was Roe’s clunky trimester system. In its place, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor implemented a more judicially scrupulous standard, known as the “undue burden test.” Now when reviewing a law restricting access to abortion, a court must ask whether the law has the purpose or effect of placing an undue burden on the woman deciding whether to seek an abortion. For example, in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a 2015 Texas law that placed new health and safety standards on abortion clinics that would have caused 21 of the 40 clinics in the state to close due to their inability to comply with it. The Court found that the health and safety concerns of mothers were not valid enough concerns compared to the decreased access to abortion. Therefore, the law was unconstitutional under Casey because it placed an undue burden on access to abortion.

With Casey, the path to overrule Roe becomes more difficult for several reasons. First, Casey’s undue burden standard is widely considered to be a more judicially acceptable constitutional standard than Roe’s unusual trimester system. Before Casey, if the U.S. Supreme Court wanted to overrule to right to abortion access, they could have said that Roe was simply a poorly conceived decision and should be overruled in its entirety. However, under the undue burden test, the Court loses that justification.

Second, courts have a general rule of respecting prior decisions in a doctrine known as stare decisis. The more case law that backs a certain position, the less likely the Court is to be willing to overturn that precedent. Having two major U.S. Supreme Court decisions supporting a precedent will make a future court wary to change it.

This is not to say all hope for protecting the lives of the unborn is lost. It is unlikely, however, that the Court will overrule the right to abortion in one bold stroke in a single case. More realistically, the Court’s conservative majority will slowly chip away at past precedent by upholding pro-life laws. Ironically, the conservative majority could do this by using the flexibility of Casey’s undue burden standard. What comprises an undue burden on abortion access can mean essentially anything the Court wants it to mean. The Court could say that few or even no government restrictions on abortion would constitute an undue burden on abortion access. For example, a health and safety law that closes abortion clinics like that in Hellerstedt does not place an undue burden on abortion access, because it merely insures the safety of the mother, and any clinic closures are simply an incidental effect. Roe would not be explicitly overturned but effectively undermined.

Some argue that the undue burden standard is already weaker than what it was in Casey. In the 2007 case Carhartt v. Gonzalez, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a congressional ban on partial-birth abortion, a procedure that kills the child once he or she is partially outside the body of the mother. The Court ruled that simply banning a certain form of abortion does not place an undue burden on abortion access.

With Judge Kavanaugh on the U.S. Supreme Court bench, the pro-life movement has reason for hope that legal protections for the unborn will not be struck down. With, however, all the attention focusing on whether Judge Kavanaugh will strike down Roe, a more poignant question is how stringently he will apply the undue burden standard of Casey.

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IFI’s Annual
Faith, Family & Freedom Fall Banquet

Friday, October 5, 2018
The Stonegate in Hoffman Estates

Featuring special guest, George Barna

The early bird special expires on Sept. 14th 

Secure your tickets or table now – click here or call (708) 781-9328.