Tag Archives: Abortion

Something Rarely Mentioned In The Abortion Debate

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On Tuesday, The Wall Street Journal posted an editorial about an aspect of abortion in America that is rarely mentioned.

The editorial notes:

Scholarly studies show that black women are far likelier to terminate their pregnancies than whites.

…Bill Clinton’s famous formulation in 1992 was that abortion ought to be “safe, legal and rare.” His goal was to coalesce liberal and moderate Democrats on the issue, but the wording also suggested that even among supporters of Roe v. Wade, abortion was properly viewed as undesirable: the fewer, the better.

In the three decades since, the U.S. abortion rate has in fact declined—in recent years it’s fallen to about half of what it was in the early 1980s—yet significant racial disparities persist. In other contexts, group differences in outcome set off alarms on the political left. The racial gap in test scores has brought calls to eliminate the SAT and other admissions tests. The racial gap in arrest and incarceration rates has brought calls to legalize drugs and reduce resources for law enforcement. Racial differences in wealth and income fuel progressive demands for slavery reparations and a larger welfare state. And so on.

When it comes to abortion, however, left-wing concern seems to stop at making the procedure safe and legal, even while black-white disparities have not only persisted but widened. A 2020 paper by public-health scholar James Studnicki and two co-authors cites data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to note that the black abortion rate is nearly four times higher than the white rate: “Between 2007-2016, the Black rate declined 29% and the White rate declined 33%—meaning that the racial disparity actually increased rather than decreased.” Justice Clarence Thomas’s concurrence in a 2019 abortion case observed that “there are areas of New York City in which black children are more likely to be aborted than they are to be born alive—and are up to eight times more likely to be aborted than white children in the same area.”

The editorial concludes:

You’d think that the activists and media elites who are otherwise obsessed with equity—and who have spent the better part of a decade lecturing the country about the value of black lives—might take more interest in the Roe decision’s contribution to racial inequality. The black poverty rate has been roughly a third higher than the white rate for close to 30 years. Among married blacks, however, poverty has been in the single digits over the same period. In some years, the poverty rate for black married couples has been below the rate of not only blacks as a whole but also whites as a whole. If activists believe that higher black incomes will result in fewer black abortions, why not focus on how to increase black marriage rates?

One problem is that such a conversation requires frank talk about counterproductive attitudes toward marriage and solo parenting in low-income black communities. It requires discussing antisocial behavior and personal responsibility. The Democratic left has fashioned a politics around avoiding those subjects and accusing anyone who broaches them of racism. No issue has a bigger impact on America’s black population than legal abortion, but we’re not supposed to talk about that.

There is a reason Planned Parenthood puts their abortion clinics in poor minority neighborhoods. At some point Americans need to realize that you are not really helping people by making it easy to kill their children.

The Leak

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On Monday, Politico reported that they have obtained an initial draft majority opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito that strikes down Roe v. Wade. This is an unprecedented leak.

Here is what we actually know:

1. The draft is from February–it is a draft–not a final decision. Votes could change.

2. Whoever leaked this will be disbarred. If it is a Republican, the person will have a lifelong problem finding a job in the legal profession. If it is a Democrat, the person will be promised a lucrative career somewhere in Democrat politics.

3. This is a first. Up until now, everyone who worked in the Supreme Court bureaucracy respected the institution enough not to leak.

Here is my speculation:

1. This was leaked to energize the Democrat base for the mid-term elections–it is a desperate move.

2. Within days, Congress will move to pack the Court in an effort to intimidate the Justices and change the decision indicated in the draft.

Yesterday, Breitbart reported the following:

Turley (Jonathan Turley, criminal defense attorney and Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University) noted that if Politico indeed obtained a true copy of the drafted opinion, “it is hard not to view this as a malicious act.”

“What is the motivation of releasing such a decision? The only intent of such a leak is to trigger a response from outside of the Court,” he continued. “…This draft is from February and the majority can shift on such opinions. However, the act of leaking such a draft opinion ranks as an original sin for judicial ethics.”

He surmised the leak could be an effort to “pressure the Court and push the legislation in Congress on a federal abortion law before the midterm elections. It will also likely renew the call for court packing.”

This will get heated, but the lives of Americas future generations are on the line.

Who Is Ketanji Brown Jackson?

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President Biden has nominated Ketanji Brown Jackson to replace Stephen Breyer on the Supreme Court. Recently The Daily Wire posted an article about some of the items Judge Jackson has supported in the past.

The article reports Judge Jackson’s stand on various issues:

Abortion: Ketanji Brown Jackson represented NARAL Pro-Choice America, the League of Women Voters, and the Abortion Access Project of Massachusetts during her time in Boston’s Goodwin Procter law firm. In 2001, she helped write an amicus brief supporting a Massachusetts law that barred pro-life advocates from setting foot within six feet of any individual or vehicle that is within 18 feet of an abortion facility. Jackson’s record has earned her the fierce opposition of female leaders in the pro-life movement.

…Crime: Ketanji Brown Jackson served as vice chairman of the U.S. Sentencing Commission during the Obama administration. In April 2014, the commission propounded the “Drugs Minus Two” rule, which lowered the punishment for all drug-related crimes by two offense levels. The rule, which applied to an estimated 46,000 convicts, allowed judges to reduce convicts’ drug sentences by an average of two years and one month. “The result of the Sentencing Commission’s proposal will be to reward drug traffickers and distributors who possessed a firearm, committed a crime of violence, or had prior convictions,” wrote Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and then-Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) at the time.

Immigration: In September 2019, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote a 120-page ruling (Make the Road New York v. McAleenan) that the Trump administration could not expand its use of “expedited removal”: that it could not fast-track the deportation of illegal aliens who had been in the country less than two years.

…Funding teen sex programs: When the Trump administration cut off $200 million in federal funding to the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program, which teaches children as young as 10 to use condoms and other contraceptives without emphasizing abstinence, Judge Jackson ruled that the funding must continue.

…Government bureaucracy and labor unions: In 2018, President Donald Trump issued three executive orders that would reduce the power of public sector unions and make it easier to fire employees for poor performance. They also ordered employees to spend at least 75% of their time on “agency business.” Trump limited the use of “official time,” which allows government bureaucrats to use government resources to conduct union business during working hours, at taxpayers’ expense.

He also said the government would not negotiate with labor unions on issues where it was not legally required to do so. In August 2018, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson issued a 119-page decision eviscerating those orders, denying most of Trump’s actions (American Federation of Government Employees v. Trump). She admitted that, while Trump’s action did not “specifically and directly conflict with individual statutory prescriptions” (i.e., he did not violate the law), it so “diminishes the scope of bargaining” that, it seemed to Jackson, Trump’s orders are no longer “a good-faith effort.” The D.C. Court of Appeals once again overturned Jackson’s decision, ruling that Jackson lacked jurisdiction to rule on the case.

Please follow the link to the article to read all of the notes on Judge Jackson’s previous decisions. She is not someone who is going to put the U.S. Constitution above her own political agenda. I suspect she will be confirmed, but that is not good news for America.

Controlling The Vocabulary To Control The Narrative

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Yesterday The Daily Wire posted an article that illustrates how words can be misused to create a false narrative.

The article reports:

NBC’s Chuck Todd pressed Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves (R) to accept vaccine mandates as “pro-life” actions, while simultaneously suggesting that access to abortion should be protected as an individual liberty.

Reeves made an appearance Sunday on “Meet the Press,” joining Todd for a discussion on the emergence of a new coronavirus variant and Mississippi’s vaccination rate as well as the 15-week abortion ban that will face the scrutiny of the Supreme Court in the coming weeks.

Governor Reeves pointed out that there is nothing in the U.S. Constitution that prevents states from limited abortion.

The article also includes some of the Governor’s comments on vaccine mandates:

Todd then attempted to use Reeves’ own comments about his opposition to vaccine mandates to argue that a vaccine mandate was actually a “pro-life” position.

“This is a power grab by the federal government. We’ve seen this time and time again by the Biden administration, and now we’re seeing their strong desire to trying to make decisions on behalf of individual Americans. We believe in freedom and individual liberty,” Reeves said of the vaccine mandates.

“‘Freedom and individual liberty,’” Todd repeated. “Why should the state of Mississippi tell a woman what they should do with their body? Why shouldn’t they have that individual freedom on their body, particularly in the first 20 weeks?”

“Well, this is a prime example, and the far left loves to scream, ‘My body, my choice.’ What I would submit to you, choice, is they absolutely ignore the fact that in getting an abortion there is an actual killing of an innocent unborn child that is in that womb,” Reeves replied. “Here is what we know about babies that are 15 weeks. We know that they have a heartbeat. We know that those babies at 15 weeks actually can open and close their hands. We know that they have developing lungs, and we know that those babies at 15 weeks can feel pain, and so when you talk – the difference between vaccine mandates and abortions is vaccines allow you to protect yourself. Abortions actually go in and kill other American babies. Let’s just put this in perspective –”

‘My body, my choice’ totally falls apart when you realize that an abortion involves another body with an entirely different DNA. We can expect more of this sort of twisting words in the near future when the Mississippi case comes before the Supreme Court.

This Is Not Civilized

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Yesterday Breitbart reported the following:

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) granted $3.2 million in federal funds to the University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) to achieve its goal of becoming a fetal tissue collection site that could quickly harvest the organs of full-term aborted babies, according to documents obtained as part of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit.

That is gross.

The article continues:

National Institutes of Health (NIH) granted $3.2 million in federal funds to the University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) to achieve its goal of becoming a fetal tissue collection site that could quickly harvest the organs of full-term aborted babies, according to documents obtained as part of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit.

Daleiden (CMP project lead David Daleiden), who conducted undercover investigations of Planned Parenthood’s alleged fetal tissue trafficking with biomedical procurement companies, elaborated:

Infants in the womb, some old enough to be viable, are being aborted alive and killed for organ harvesting, in order to bring in millions of dollars in taxpayer funding for Pitt and the Planned Parenthood abortion business it supports. People are outraged by such disregard for the lives of the vulnerable. Law enforcement and public officials should act immediately to bring the next Kermit Gosnell to justice under the law.

In May, CMP (Center for Medical Progress) released a video that alleged NIH uses taxpayer funds to sponsor experimentation at Pitt on aborted babies obtained from a local Planned Parenthood facility.

The article concludes:

“Pitt’s statement suggests the time between the abortion and collection is minimal,” Judicial Watch explained, adding the university also included a “racial target for harvesting of human fetal parts.”

“Of its planned aborted ‘subjects’ Pitt desired 50% to be minority fetuses,” the legal watchdog group said. “The proposal suggests that the ‘subjects’ be diverse because Pittsburgh is diverse, the U.S. Census Bureau shows the city of Pittsburgh is close to 70% white.”

In its grant application proposal, Pitt also gave a target goal of having “available a minimum of 5 cases (tissues and if possible other biologicals) per week of gestational age for ages 6-42 weeks.”

According to Judicial Watch, the documents show NIH had already granted Pitt at least $2.7 million for its human fetal tissue harvesting activities.

“These documents show taxpayer money is being used to turn the University of Pittsburgh [into] a one-stop human fetal tissue shop – from procuring the tissue from elective abortions, ‘subdividing’ the human remains, to distributing and shipping the harvested tissue,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.

These are not the actions of a civilized society.

Who Is That Child?

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Recently I was able to listen to parts of the North Carolina House of Representatives debate on H-453, the Human Life Non-Discrimination Act/No Eugenics. The debate was interesting and disturbing.

Before I comment on the debate, I would like to mention a few statistics:

In September 2011, Lifesite News reported the following:

A survey of all U.S. ZIP codes where Planned Parenthood clinics are located in the United States has found that most are located in areas with a minority population significantly higher than the state average.

In November 2016, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported the following:

Among the 29 areas that reported cross-classified race/ethnicity data for 2013, non-Hispanic white women and non-Hispanic black women accounted for the largest percentages of abortions (37.3% and 35.6%, respectively) and Hispanic women and non-Hispanic women in the other race category accounted for smaller percentages (19.0% and 8.1%, respectively) (Table 12). Non-Hispanic white women had the lowest abortion rate (7.2 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15–44 years) and ratio (121 abortions per 1,000 live births) and non-Hispanic black women had the highest abortion rate (27.0 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15–44 years) and ratio (420 abortions per 1,000 live births). Data for 2013 are also reported separately by race and by ethnicity (Tables 13 and 14).

Some of the legislators speaking against the bill objected to the use of the term eugenics. When you look at where the abortion clinics are located and whose babies are being aborted, what else would  you call it?

Some of the supporters of the bill asked, “Who is that child that is being aborted?” Have we killed the child who would find the cure for cancer? But what about the ordinary child? Does a child who will be ordinary have a right to live? What about the loving, gentle spirit of a Down Syndrome child? Is that worth anything?

Some of the legislators objected to the bill because it limited ‘healthcare’ options for women. When did killing your child become healthcare? Another objection was ‘my body, my choice.” But it’s not your body any more than a robin’s egg in a nest is part of the robin’s body–it has its own unique DNA.

The bottom line here is that this bill is a small step in restoring our humanity. Killing a child because it is the wrong sex, the wrong race, or imperfect is not the mark of a civilized society.

Goodreads.com posted the following story about civilized society:

“A student once asked anthropologist Margaret Mead, “What is the earliest sign of civilization?” The student expected her to say a clay pot, a grinding stone, or maybe a weapon.

Margaret Mead thought for a moment, then she said, “A healed femur.”

A femur is the longest bone in the body, linking hip to knee. In societies without the benefits of modern medicine, it takes about six weeks of rest for a fractured femur to heal. A healed femur shows that someone cared for the injured person, did their hunting and gathering, stayed with them, and offered physical protection and human companionship until the injury could mend.

Mead explained that where the law of the jungle—the survival of the fittest—rules, no healed femurs are found. The first sign of civilization is compassion, seen in a healed femur.”

Compassion is letting a child live. The bill has passed the House of Representatives and has been referred to the Committee On Rules and Operations of the Senate.

This Is Becoming More Obvious

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Yesterday Breitbart posted an article about a group of black pro-life people who have filed a lawsuit against Planned Parenthood charging the organization with racial discrimination.

The article reports:

According to an announcement released last week at Christian Newswire, the National Black Pro-Life Coalition filed the racial discrimination claim with the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) at the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS).

Catherine Davis, president of the Georgia-based Restoration Project, said in a statement:

Systemic racism and abortion intersect at the door of Planned Parenthood, an organization that has targeted Black women and their babies for almost five decades. These intentional actions violate the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which made it illegal for recipients of federal assistance to discriminate on the basis of race.

The article notes:

Walter Hoye, founder of the Issues4Life Foundation, observed abortion has become “the leading cause of death for Blacks,” an outcome that has led to a 1.8 fertility rate, less than the 2.1 rate needed to replace the population.

“At this rate, by 2050 the total Black fertility rate will be 1.3 or lower, a rate that is irreversible,” he said.

In recent months, some Planned Parenthood employees have accused the organization of a racist environment in some workplaces.

Alexis McGill Johnson, the CEO of Planned Parenthood, said in response to the accusations of “misconduct, abuse, racism and more, do not align with Planned Parenthood’s standards or our values.”

“We are taking steps internally to address” the allegations, she added. “[O]ur country is in the middle of a racial justice reckoning – one that includes Planned Parenthood.”

As you consider this lawsuit, there is something you need to keep in mind.

According to the Britannica website:

Planned Parenthood traces its beginnings to the birth control movement led by Margaret Sanger and her colleagues, who opened the nation’s first birth control clinic in 1916 in a poverty-stricken neighbourhood of Brooklyn, New York. Created to free women from the “chronic condition” of pregnancy and the dangers of self-induced abortion, the clinic was shut down by police after only 10 days. Sanger and the others were imprisoned for violating the anti-obscenity Comstock Act of 1873. Sanger’s continuing efforts led to the foundation of both the American Birth Control League in 1921 and the Birth Control Federation of America in 1939, which became Planned Parenthood in 1942.

Please investigate the writings of Margaret Sanger. The foundation of Planned Parenthood is based on her work and writings. Even a slight glance at her writings reveals a woman who believed that White, Anglo-Saxon Protestants in America were racially superior to other races and that other races should be limited in their right to reproduce.

This lawsuit has been a long time coming, but at last someone has decided to take action against racism in its most obvious form.

The Sad Decline Of An Organization

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The Girl Scouts became political a long time ago. Live Action posted an article in March of last year that lists some of the political events held by the Girl Scouts in recent years.

The article reports:

In June of 2018, the Girl Scouts tweeted a thank you to Teen Vogue regarding a Teen Vogue Summit in which they participated. This summit has featured “reproductive justice” as one of its topics. “We had a blast,” they said. “Talk about feeling empowred.” Along with the tweet was a video which included the pro-abortion mantra, “my body, my choice, my rights.” It’s a clear message from the Girl Scouts. They falsely believe that abortion is a right, rather than a gross attack on human life and human rights.

…In November of 2018, the Girl Scouts again tweeted support for Teen Vogue, thanking them for “extending the sponsorship opportunity” for a Teen Vogue Summit. Teen Vogue Summit events include topics such as “an honest and intimate conversation on healthy, safe, and pleasurable sex, in a new age of inclusivity.” The events have featured former Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards, and manager of Youth Organizing for Planned Parenthood Sharim Hossain as speakers. In addition, Teen Vogue has recently been outspoken about their support for late-term abortion.

…On December 26, 2018, the Girl Scouts got straight to the point on Instagram. In a #WednesdayWisdom post, they celebrated Girl Scout alum Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman to sit on the Supreme Court, highlighting O’Connor’s “duty to ‘help people at all times.’” They celebrated O’Connor because, as they say, “she was a key swing vote in many important cases, including the upholding of Roe v. Wade.” It doesn’t get more clear than that. The Girl Scouts support Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion in the United States through all nine months of pregnancy, overruling multiple state laws enacted by the elected representatives in those states.

Fast forward to an article in The Daily Wire yesterday.

The article reports:

The Girl Scouts of America has deleted a Wednesday social media post that congratulated Justice Amy Coney Barrett for becoming one of only five women in U.S. history to be appointed to the Supreme Court.

In a statement on social media, the Girl Scouts explained that the post was deleted because it was viewed as a political statement, instead of as simply congratulatory.

…“Earlier today, we shared a post highlighting the five women who have been appointed to the Supreme Court. It was quickly viewed as a political and partisan statement which was not our intent and we have removed the post,” explained the organization.

“Girl Scouts of the USA is a non-political, nonpartisan organization. We are neither red nor blue, but Girl Scout GREEN. We are here to lift up girls and women,” said Girl Scouts.

The original Girl Scouts post featured a photo of Barrett, along with a photo of the since-retired Sandra Day O’Connor and the three sitting female justices on the Supreme Court, and read simply: “Congratulations Amy Coney Barrett on becoming the fifth woman appointed to the Supreme Court since its inception in 1789.”

The post was taken down due to pushback from people who opposed the appointment. The article includes a number of Twitter posts from those people. It is sad to see people so blinded by politics that they cannot celebrate the accomplishments of someone who holds different political views.

Lies Debunked During The Trump Administration

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Until Donald Trump became President, the following quote summed up Washington:

“The argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideals and policies… is a foolish idea. Instead, the two parties should be almost identical, so that the American people can throw the rascals out at any election without leading to any profound or extensive shifts in policy. Then it should be possible to replace it, every four years if necessary, by the other party which will be none of these things but will still pursue, with new vigor, approximately the same basic policies.”
― Carroll Quigley

Americans kept on voting in different political parties. but nothing changed. Then Donald Trump (who is something of a bull in a china shop) was elected. On Friday, The Federalist posted an article listing “10 Major ‘Consensus’ Lies President Trump Has Shattered Forever.” Please follow the link to read the details in the article. I will simply give you the list.

The 10 items are:

1. The Press Does Not Choose Sides

2. There Is No Deep State

3. Democrats Own Black and Hispanic Votes

4. MeToo Is About Protecting Women and Children

5. Climate Change Alarmism Isn’t About Raw Power

6. Free Trade Requires Wrecking U.S. Manufacturing and Enriching China

7. Defending Unborn Babies Is a Losing Political Issue

8. Judges Are Nonpartisan

9. Democrats Aren’t Purging History or the Constitution

10. The Obama Administration Was Scandal-Free

This is what the article says about the ‘scandal-free’ Obama administration:

Obama’s deliberate sabotaging of the peaceful transfer of power by orchestrating a “Russia collusion” hoax that nearly took down his successor is one of the most egregious political scandals in American history. His administration’s efforts to use a cabal of high-ranking intelligence and law enforcement officers to conduct a disinformation campaign designed to implicate a sitting president as an agent of a hostile country can be described as nothing less than an attempted coup.

Along with “Fast and Furious,” the IRS targeting of conservatives, the cover-up of the administration’s culpability in Benghazi, the use of consent settlements to coerce companies to underwrite Democrat slush funds, and the Department of Justice’s cover-up of Hillary Clinton’s unsecured email server and pay-to-play schemes through the Clinton Foundation, the Russia hoax secures Obama’s legacy as a singularly corrupt American president.

Sometimes you need a bull in a china shop to get rid of all of the old, out-of-date inventory!

Like Two-Year Olds Throwing Temper Tantrums

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Yesterday The Gateway Pundit posted an article about the Democrat’s reaction to the President’s plan to appoint a Supreme Court Justice in the coming six weeks.

The article includes a screenshot of a tweet by Gavin Newsom’s Chief of Staff Ann O’Leary:

Maybe I am missing something, but it seems to me that laying your body on the floor of the Senate might be considered radical.

The article details some of the threats the Democrats have made:

Democrats are determined to prevent the Republican President and Republican Senate to nominate and confirm the next Supreme Court Justice to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The 87-year-old Ginsburg passed away at home on Friday.

Democrats are threatening impeachment of President Trump and Attorney General Bill Barr.

And Democrats are even threatening to block access to the Republican senators from entering the US Senate Chamber in the US Capitol Building.

So what is this actually about? It’s about two things. The first is the fact that in recent years the Supreme Court has become an oligarchy making laws and impacting American lives in ways our Founding Fathers never intended. The Supreme Court in recent years has made things legal on a federal level that Americans never had a chance to vote for or hold their elected officials accountable for. The reason Congress is tasked with the responsibility for making laws is that the voters can hold them accountable for their actions. The Supreme Court Justices serve for life and are not accountable to the voters. The second is the fear of the political left that a conservative court will overturn Roe v. Wade. There are a few misconceptions in this. Overturning Roe v. Wade will not end abortion in America. Ending Roe v. Wade will simply allow every state to set its own rules regarding abortion. There have been a number of judicial scholars who have stated that the Roe v. Wade decision was flawed. The political left is well aware of this and wants to protect the decision.

Planned Parenthood (through its political action spin-offs) has invested a lot of money into Congressional campaigns to protect the abortion industry (which is a million dollar industry). This investment has allowed abortions and the practice of selling aborted baby parts to continue without interference from Congress. I have often wondered how history will view this practice.

 

I Suspect This Is Not An Isolated Incident

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On September 9, Live Action reported that Representative John DeBerry Jr., a Democrat who represents Memphis in the Tennessee State House, will be running as an Independent in his next election. The Democrats have removed him from the Democrat party because he is pro-life.

The article reports:

In April, the Tennessee Democratic Party’s executive committee voted 41-18 to remove DeBerry from the ballot for the August primary, a potential blow to DeBerry’s chance to run as an Independent or as a Republican, since the vote took place after the filing deadline had passed.

…Bryan Carson, an executive committee member from Memphis, told the Tennesseean that he believes DeBerry does not exemplify “basic Democratic principles,” and that DeBerry’s constituents do not realize what he stands for. “The people who’ve challenged him, they haven’t been able to raise the money to have a decent campaign to let them know what he’s actually doing in Nashville,” Carson said.

The article concludes:

DeBerry, an ordained minister with the Church of Christ, told the Catholic News Agency, “My work in Nashville as a legislator is nothing more than an extension of my work as a child of God, as a Christian,” he said, adding that he has not hidden his pro-life principles. “So for them to say that folks don’t know where I stand, they actually said that the people in my district don’t have sense enough to elect their representative.”

According to CNA, DeBerry “was one of more than 100 Democrats at the federal, state, and local levels who recently asked the platform committee of the Democratic National Convention to moderate the abortion language in the party’s platform.”

I wonder how many people who consistently vote Democrat understand that abortion is one of the main pillars of the Democrat party. If you are pro-life, you are not welcome.

Follow The Money

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The Daily Caller posted an article today about some serious money being used to buy advertising for the Biden campaign for President.

The article reports:

Planned Parenthood Votes is backing presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden with a five-figure digital ad campaign in key battleground states as the former vice-president prepares to face off with President Donald Trump.

The nation’s largest abortion provider’s political arm is launching ads in Pennsylvania, Michigan, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Colorado, Arizona, Florida, Wisconsin and Minnesota. The ads contrast Biden and Trump’s leadership and highlight how each candidate approaches abortion rights, Axios reports.

Planned Parenthood wants to continue their ability to sell aborted baby body parts. This is what you are supporting if you vote for Joe Biden.

The article continues:

The campaign comes as part of Planned Parenthood’s larger $45 million effort to back Biden for president, according to Axios.

“This is literally a life and death election,” said Acting President of Planned Parenthood Alexis McGill Johnson to NPR in June when Planned Parenthood announced their endorsement of the former vice president. “We felt like we can’t endure another four years of Trump; we have to do everything we can to get him out of office.”

Biden has taken a hard pro-choice stance on abortion access during the 2020 presidential campaign, but his present stances on abortion are a major shift from his past positions on the issue.

The former vice president often spoke of his distaste for abortion throughout his political career before he announced last summer, amidst pressure from fellow Democratic candidates, that he no longer supports the Hyde Amendment.

It’s amazing what a little donation can do to one’s principles.

In January 2020, The Washington Times reported:

And financial records show the nonprofit received more taxpayer dollars in the fiscal year ending last June than ever before ($617 million) through Medicaid and other health service program reimbursements and grants, constituting 37% of its overall revenue.

Planned Parenthood is a non-profit; it is their sister organizations that donate to political campaigns. The money is not interchangeable, but often office facilities and other overhead expenses are shared. I don’t think any sister organization of an organization that takes government money should be allowed to lobby or provide campaign advertising. The possibility of buying Congressional votes is just too high.

This Decision Does Not Protect Women

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Yesterday The National Review posted an article about the recent Supreme Court decision regarding Louisiana’s law regarding doctors at abortion clinics. The law in question required doctors at abortion clinics to have hospital admitting privileges. Because women can die from legal abortions, hospital admitting privileges are important. The Supreme Court struck down this requirement, putting the lives of women at risk. Chief Justice Roberts was the deciding vote on the issue, disappointing many Americans who expected him to be a conservative voice on the Court.

The article reports:

The conservative legal establishment has long been particularly enamored of this ideal: the umpire calmly calling balls and strikes. It is a very important virtue. But it is not the first virtue. An umpire who can be cowed by the crowd will not call the same strike zone for both teams. Without courage, good ideas about the law are just empty words on a page. Without courage, even the clearest-written rights are empty promises, the plainest limitations on power are easily overwhelmed, and the entire project of rule by written law becomes just another hollow formality.

Two of today’s Supreme Court decisions, on abortion and separation of powers, are further evidence of this. Chief Justice John Roberts has yet again shown the absence of courage that has so often undermined his Court. Roberts’s repeated demonstrations of lack of courage are rapidly becoming a threat to the Court itself, and to the conservative legal project.

First up, we have June Medical Services L.L.C. v. Russo, which by a 5–4 vote struck down a Louisiana abortion-clinic regulation challenged by the clinics. Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh, and Neil Gorsuch would have upheld the Louisiana law, but Chief Justice Roberts sided with the Court’s four liberals, claiming that his hands were tied by precedent.

In the 2016 case Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, the Court ruled 5–3 against a Texas abortion law that required abortion providers to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles. States routinely impose such requirements on the practice of medicine, especially invasive or surgical procedures. As Justice Gorsuch observed, the Louisiana law “tracks longstanding state laws governing physicians who perform relatively low-risk procedures like colonoscopies, Lasik eye surgeries, and steroid injections at ambulatory surgical centers.” The Court in both Whole Woman’s Health and June Medical ruled that “unnecessary health regulations that have the purpose or effect of presenting a substantial obstacle to a woman seeking an abortion impose an undue burden on the right” to an abortion. Yet what the Court defines as an “unnecessary” requirement would be uncontroversially legal for any other medical procedure under the sun, and the “constitutional right” itself is, of course, nowhere even vaguely mentioned in the actual Constitution.

Chief Justice Roberts has been a disappointment almost from the beginning. His ruling on Obamacare was questionable at best. Please follow the link to the article to read further details regarding the contradictions between the decision on the Louisiana law and the previous opinion written by Chief Justice Roberts

Some Thoughts On Our Religious Liberty

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Yesterday Andrew McCarthy posted an article at The National Review about a recent Supreme Court decision. The title of the article is, “It wasn’t just religious liberty that Chief Justice Roberts strangled.” The article is detailed and complex, so I suggest that you follow the link to read the entire article. However, there are a few things I want to point out that I think are very significant.

The article notes:

Most startling was that Chief Justice John Roberts not only joined the court’s four left-leaning justices (Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan) in declining to uphold religious liberty. Roberts also wrote a brief opinion explaining his decision. 

That opinion is an eye-opener. Roberts accords the right to worship no deference by virtue of its being a fundamental liberty expressly protected by the First Amendment. We are to see it as an activity like any other activity, commercial or social, the pros and cons of which technocrats must weigh in fashioning regulations. The opinion, moreover, champions the power of government officials to dictate to the people who elect them without “second-guessing by an unelected federal judiciary” — exactly the power that the Bill of Rights, and the incorporation jurisprudence by which the court has applied much of it to the states, are meant to deny.

The article also points out:

In rejecting the religious liberty claim, Roberts counters that it is not a matter of unlawful discrimination if different things are regulated in different ways. Religious gatherings, he rationalized, are being restricted like gatherings that are physically similar, such as lectures, concerts, theater productions and spectator sports. He conceded that less intense restrictions have been imposed on other activities, such as shopping, banking and laundering. But that, he insists, is because of salient differences in the way they are conducted: small groups, no extended proximity, and so on.

But wait a second. What about the constitutional pedigree of religious exercise? That was the point pressed by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, in a brief dissent joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch. (Justice Samuel Alito also opposed the denial of First Amendment relief but did not join Kavanaugh’s dissenting opinion.)

The article concludes:

There is no recognition, in Roberts’ rendering, that there is another side to this equation — a side where 400 times the number of people who’ve died have lost their jobs, millions of them facing ruin. The stubborn message: Don’t expect the court to help you, you’re the ones who elected these people; if you don’t like what they do, un-elect them. If you’ve elected social engineers who say the Bill of Rights is above their pay grade, that’s your problem.

The justices are happy to order that abortion must be available, to decide which couples (or perhaps throuples) must be permitted to marry, and to dictate what’s ever next in the ceaseless march of progressive, organic “liberty.” But as for the liberties that are actually in the Constitution, we are on our own.

Unfortunately Justice Roberts has been something of a disappointment to those of us who expected him to be a responsible judge who would uphold the Constitution. He has wandered away from the constitutional role of the judiciary more than once.

I Wondered When I Heard This

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Last night Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was interviewed by Bret Baier on Special Report. During the interview, Representative Ocasio-Cortez accused Republicans of loading up the relief package for the coronavirus with anti-abortion restrictions. Bret Baier did not challenger her statement, and I wondered what was actually going on. The statement on its face makes no sense–the Republicans want to get an economic package through Congress as soon as possible. Why would the Republicans add things to a bill that would make it difficult to pass? Well, I now have the answer–they didn’t. Representative Ocasio-Cortez was lying and Bret Baier chose not to challenger her statement.

Yesterday The Daily Caller posted an article that explains what Representative Ocasio-Cortez was talking about.

The article reports:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sought to include a potential way to guarantee federal funding for abortion into the coronavirus economic stimulus plan, according to multiple senior White House officials.

Speaking to the Daily Caller, those officials alleged that while negotiating the stimulus with U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, Pelosi tried to lobby for “several” provisions that stalled bipartisan commitment to the effort. One was a mandate for up to $1 billion to reimburse laboratory claims, which White House officials say would set a precedent of health spending without protections outlined in the Hyde Amendment.

The Hyde Amendment blocks clinics that perform abortions from receiving federal funding, and Democrats have pushed the Trump administration to end it since he was elected in 2016.

“A new mandatory funding stream that does not have Hyde protections would be unprecedented,” one White House official explained. “Under the guise of protecting people, Speaker Pelosi is working to make sure taxpayer dollars are spent covering abortion — which is not only backwards, but goes against historical norms.”

A second White House official referred to the provision as a “slush fund” and yet another questioned “what the Hyde Amendment and abortion have to do with protecting Americans from coronavirus?”

I wonder how many Americans were mislead when Bret Baier did not challenge the statement by Representative Ocasio-Cortez. This is an example of the reason Americans have to question everything they hear–even if it comes from a generally accurate source.

The Impact Of President Trump’s Judicial Appointments

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Yesterday The Daily Caller reported that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Monday that the Trump administration can continue stripping federal funding from clinics that offer abortions. Note that he did not shut down the clinics–he just said that they would not receive federal funding. That ruling is an example of the impact President Trump’s judicial appointments have had on the Ninth Circuit.

Yesterday Fox News reported:

President Trump has reshaped the “notoriously liberal” U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, according to Carrie Severino, the conservative Judicial Crisis Network’s chief counsel and policy director, who noted it was often referred to as the “Ninth Circus.”

The former law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas made the comments Monday on “Fox & Friends” in response to a Los Angeles Times article titled “Trump has flipped the 9th Circuit — and some new judges are causing a ‘shock wave.’”

The article said that when President Trump talks about his accomplishments in office, “he frequently mentions his aggressive makeover of a key sector of the federal judiciary — the circuit courts of appeal, where he has appointed 51 judges to lifetime jobs in three years.”

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which encompasses California, Arizona, Alaska, Hawaii, Montana, Nevada, Idaho, Guam, Oregon and Washington, was a liberal bastion that has been aggressively reshaped into a more moderate court by the Trump administration.

The Daily Caller notes:

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) followed the decision in June by alerting clinics that it would enforce the administration’s ban. Planned Parenthood withdrew from the Title X federal family planning program, thereby forgoing about $60 million a year, in August 2019 rather than comply with this decision.

The Daily Caller article includes a screenshot of a comment by Leana Wen, M.D., a former president of Planned Parenthood. She comments that she will continue to fight so that millions of women across the country can receive care. Note the vocabulary used here–abortion is being framed as care. In a stretch of logic I suppose you could consider abortion care for the mother, but it is definitely not care for the baby. By controlling the vocabulary, Dr. Wen seeks to control the argument. The government should not be funding clinics that lead women to abortions–they should be funding clinics that lead women to prenatal care and support for their pregnancy.

This Shouldn’t Happen In A Civilized Society

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On Friday, The Federalist posted an article about The Born-Alive Survivors Protection Act.

The article reports:

The Born-Alive Survivors Protection Act is not about restricting abortions but about giving newborns a chance to survive no matter where they are born, said Sen. Ben Sasse, the bill’s lead co-sponsor, at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday.

During the hearing, called “The Infant Patient: Ensuring Appropriate Medical Care for Children Born Alive,” Republican senators questioned why a baby born in a hospital should be treated differently than a baby born in an abortion facility. Democrats, lacking an answer, changed the subject.

Thirteen committee senators heard from five female witnesses, three who shared powerful testimony and two who expressed concerns about the bill.

The article includes the testimony of some of witnesses. Three of the witnesses who were involved in the medical profession related some of the incidents where babies were tossed aside after being born alive during an abortion.

The article also includes the testimony of those who opposed the bill.

The article reports:

Fatima Goss Graves, president and CEO of National Women’s Law Center, argued instead that, “Access to reproductive health care, including abortion, is a key part to an individual’s liberty, equality, and economic security.” Since 2010, state lawmakers have passed more than 450 abortion restrictions designed to block access to abortion, she said.

Sasse tried to clarify numerous times that this legislation was not about abortion but about what happens after an abortion. Neither Graves nor the Democratic senators in the room agreed. Graves said she believes the bill is on a continuum of restrictive abortion measures. Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, agreed, saying that women’s health is under attack every day, especially under Trump, and that this bill is the latest in a decades-long threat against abortion.

Instead of arguing for or against protecting infants born alive, Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., argued U.S. health care is biased against African-American women. Instead of fighting for legislation that protects infants born alive, Harris argued we should make taxpayers provide better housing and food for pregnant women.

While Harris might be right that pregnant women need more support, this is not the question at hand. Right now, if a doctor neglected to provide a pregnant woman needed care, he would be prosecuted. This is not true for the child in her womb. Instead of addressing this disparity, Harris simply changed the subject.

Abortion is a million-dollar business. It is also an industry that makes large donations through Political Action Committees (PAC’s) to Democrat campaigns. We are not likely to see Democrats vote against abortion and risk those campaign donations.

Laws Have Consequences

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Somehow the dead Equal Rights Amendment has been resurrected. It was a bad bill when it was first passed in 1972, and it is still a bad bill. Since 1972, women have gained the rights that the bill originally enumerated. Despite claims to the contrary, women have achieved equal pay. Career paths for women have very few limitations. So, is the bill necessary and what would be the impact of the bill?

In January, The Daily Signal posted an article about four consequences of the bill if it were to pass and be approved by the states.

The article lists four potential consequences:

1. Women Must Sign Up for the Draft

2. Disallow Same-Sex Bathrooms

3. End the Use of Women-Only Shelters

4. Government Funding of Abortion

Please follow the link to the article for a detailed explanation of each item.

There is no way any of these items make women more equal. In fact, I would argue that all of them make women less safe and more vulnerable to sexual assault and long term medical problems. This Equal Rights Amendment needs to remain dead–it does nothing to help women–it simply uses women as a cloak to advance a progressive agenda that will ultimately harm women.

 

How Does This Make Sense?

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On Saturday, BizPacReview posted an article about some recent comments made by Fox News Analyst Juan Williams.

The article reports:

Fox News co-host Juan Williams vehemently disagreed with the praise for President Trump’s appearance at the March For Life rally, saying his attendance further “divides the country.”

The liberal co-host of “The Five” delivered his tone-deaf argument on Friday’s show, criticizing Trump for what many have lauded as a powerful message with his appearance at Friday’s event, making him the first sitting U.S. president to address the March for Life rally in person.

In January 2017, Real Clear Politics reported the following:

If politicians really want to show that they trust American women, then they should follow the advice of the overwhelming majority of us and restrict abortion in meaningful ways.

This means supporting the president’s action to ban funding of abortion internationally, which is supported by 83 percent of women, and same percentage of all Americans.

This means limiting abortion substantially through legislation. Nationwide, 77 percent of women support limiting abortion to – at most – the first trimester. That is slightly higher than the percentage of all Americans – 74 percent. Laws restricting abortion should be embraced, not resisted.

And 61 percent of women think it is important, or an immediate priority, for our government to restrict abortion in this way, a slightly higher percentage than the 59 percent of all Americans who hold this position.

Not surprisingly, the majority of American women (59 percent) say abortion is morally wrong, the same percentage of all Americans who agree.

And a majority of women (51 percent) believe that abortion causes more harm than good in the long run; 50 percent of all Americans agree.

According to Juan Williams, is the President prohibited from speaking out or supporting controversial issues? Doesn’t the President have the same First Amendment rights that all Americans have?

I don’t think abortion is what divides the country–I think that biased news that only reports things that support their agenda is actually what divides the country. Right Wing Granny is a politically-biased site–it says so in the title. I share facts, but I share them with opinion. It is very difficult right now to watch the mainstream media and find unbiased information–while the mainstream media is totally unwilling to admit that it is biased.

No, President Trump has not divided the country–those who despise the fact that he was elected and are willing to do anything to undermine his presidency are dividing the country.

A Partial Victory For Freedom Of The Press

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Yesterday The Daily Wire reported the following:

On Friday, a San Francisco Superior Court judge dropped five of the standing 14 felony charges against undercover journalist David Daleiden in the so-called “Baby Body Parts” case that exposed unsavory and potentially illegal practices by abortion giant Planned Parenthood.

“Today, Thomas More Society attorneys secured the dismissal of five more felony counts, six in total, at the conclusion of the Preliminary Hearing in the California criminal case against undercover journalist David Daleiden,” the Thomas More Society, a nonprofit law firm representing Daleiden, said in a press release sent to The Daily Wire.

“Superior Court Judge Christopher Hite issued his final probable cause order today, leaving nine out of an original fifteen felony counts, to proceed to trial,” the press release explained.

Friday’s ruling concluded the preliminary hearing held in September 2019, the nonprofit said.

Peter Breen, Daleiden lawyer and Thomas More Society VP, said the legal team was “pleased” over the tossing of another five felonies, but underscored the absurdity of any of the charges holding up.

“We are very pleased by the decision today to throw out another five felony charges against David Daleiden,” Breen said in a statement to The Daily Wire.

The article continued to say that Peter Breen, Daleiden lawyer and Thomas More Society VP, intends to mount a strong defense to get all of the charges thrown out. Mr. Breen noted that David Daleiden provided information to the public that the public has a right to know. The article also notes that the original case was initiated by then-California Attorney General Kamala Harris.

Keep in mind that Planned Parenthood pours millions of dollars into political campaigns all over the country. If politicians want to keep that money flowing, they are required to support the actions of Planned Parenthood. Regardless of how you feel about abortion, it should not be a million-dollar industry and should not be engaged in the sale of aborted baby body parts. It’s time to stop giving Planned Parenthood government money and time to provide young women an option other than abortion.

Does Anyone Believe This?

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Townhall posted an article today about recent statements by actress Jameela Jamil and feminist icon Gloria Steinem.

The article reports:

Last month, the magazine published an interview between actress Jameela Jamil and feminist icon Gloria Steinem. Their conversation went largely unnoticed by media outlets, but it shouldn’t have – mainly because of the absurd claims the two made. Among them, they insisted that abortion is necessary for democracy. And, they warned, some people control reproduction as a tool for sexism or racism, like white evangelical Trump supporters.

The article continues:

“It took me a while to understand that the first step in every authoritarian regime is controlling reproduction, and that means controlling us,” Steinem said. “Unless we—men and women—have power over our own bodies and voices, there is no such thing as democracy.”

The irony – that abortion violates the bodies and voices of millions of baby boys and girls – was lost on her. The irony that abortion itself can be used to control reproduction was also left untouched.

Steinem went so far as to make a Hitler comparison. 

“[E]very authoritarian regime that I have ever read about, including Hitler’s rise to power, every regime starts with controlling reproduction and that means controlling women’s bodies,” she stressed.

Obviously I am missing something, but it seems to be that if women controlled their bodies there would be much fewer abortions. We have birth control. Unwanted pregnancies can easily be avoided or dealt with through adoption. A mother does not need to freedom to kill her child to be free.

A Bad Decision May Eventually Have Good Results

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The Federalist posted an article today about the recent California jury decision that found undercover journalists David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt and several of their associates guilty of trespass, breach of contract and of non-disclosure agreements, and fraud, as well as state and federal laws prohibiting the unconsented recordings of third parties. The California-based jury also found that Daleiden and the other defendants had violated the federal Racketeering Influenced Corrupt Organizations (RICO) law—a federal statute that triples any damage award. The defendants were also hit with punitive damages exceeding $800,000.

The article reports:

On Friday, a jury awarded Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and multiple Planned Parenthood affiliates, damages set to exceed $2.3 million in their civil case against undercover journalists David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt and several of their associates. The country’s largest cohort of abortion providers sued Daleiden and his colleagues after the 2015 release of a series of investigative videos that exposed Planned Parenthood’s trafficking in fetal parts.

The article explains why the case will probably eventually make its way to the Supreme Court:

Daleiden’s lead attorney, Peter Breen, of the public policy legal firm Thomas More Society, promised an appeal. “We intend to seek vindication for David on appeal,” Breen said in a press release. “This lawsuit is payback for David Daleiden exposing Planned Parenthood’s dirty business of buying and selling fetal parts and organs,” Breen added, noting, “We intend to seek vindication for David on appeal. His investigation into criminal activity by America’s largest abortion provider utilized standard investigative journalism techniques, those applied regularly by news outlets across the country.”

Breen has several solid grounds for appeal, and initially will likely challenge presiding judge William Orrick III’s refusal to recuse from the case. While appellate courts are hesitant to second-guess a trial court’s decision on whether recusal is required, in this case the facts strongly suggest recusal was required.

Specifically, Judge Orrick was a founder and a longtime officer and director of the Good Samaritan Family Resource Center, an organization which, according to Daleiden, houses and participates in a joint venture with one of the named Planned Parenthood affiliates. Further, during the pendency of this case, as Breen pointed out in briefing, Orrick was “held out to the public as serving as an Emeritus Board Member of [the Good Samaritan Family Resource Center].”

Judge Orrick’s refusal to allow Daleiden and the other defendants to testify concerning their reasonable beliefs about abuses in the fetal tissue business, from harvesting of organs from born-alive babies to selling tissue and body parts for profit, as well as the judge’s decision barring the admission of the video evidence, will also be areas ripe for reversal.

What David Daleiden did used to be called investigative journalism. What he uncovered needed to be uncovered. The only redeeming thing about this case having to go to the Supreme Court is that it will further expose the selling of aborted baby body parts and the callousness of the people in Planned Parenthood who are engaged in these activities. Callousness is not illegal, but selling aborted baby body parts should be.

Going Back To The Origins Of The Problem

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I’ve done a couple of articles recently on the charges against Brett Kavanaugh (here and here), but there is one fact that is continuously overlooked by people reporting the story. On September 4th, Townhall posted an article with the following headline, “Christine Blasey Ford’s Lawyer: Okay Fine, Protecting Abortion Was Part of Why She Accused Kavanaugh.” What? So it’s okay to attempt to ruin a man’s marriage, career, and life in order to protect abortion?! That’s sick.

Then we have another article from Townhall about The New York Times again bringing up those charges in a new attempt to smear Justice Kavanaugh. But there is a problem. The supposed victim has no memory of the incident described by Max Stier who coincidentally represented Bill Clinton when Clinton was accused of exposing himself to a woman in a hotel room.

This is disgusting, and it needs to end. It is time for Justice Kavanaugh to sue the people making the allegations and demand to see the proof of those allegations. The allegations are at least thirty-five years old, and there seems to be no evidence of a pattern. I suspect that certain Democrat operatives would pay serious money for any woman willing to come forward and charge Justice Kavanaugh with improper conduct some time in the past ten years. However, at this point no one who is paying attention would believe the charges. The Democrat slander campaign has backfired.

It’s Time For People Making Unsubstantiated Allegations To Pay A Price

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Donald Trump is President and Brett Kavanaugh is a Supreme Court Judge. Those are facts. Unfortunately the political left’s personal destruction machine has been doing its best to undo these facts. The latest charges against Justice Kavanaugh are not even remembered by the person supposedly involved.

The National Review posted an article today about the ‘new’ charges.

The article reports:

If you opened Twitter on Sunday morning, you were likely greeted with the bombshell headline of the top trending news story: “NYT reporters’ book details new sexual assault allegation against Brett Kavanaugh.”

The allegation, Robin Pogrebin and Kate Kelly write in a New York Times story adapted from their forthcoming anti-Kavanaugh book, is this: “We also uncovered a previously unreported story about Mr. Kavanaugh in his freshman year that echoes Ms. Ramirez’s allegation.

I am not repeating the charge because this blog is rated G.

The article continues:

None of these details corroborates her accusation against Kavanaugh. But the story is framed to make it seem like Kavanaugh was the type of privileged jerk who might expose himself in front of an under-privileged college classmate.

As I wrote last October, here’s why Ramirez’s allegation was dubious:

Deborah Ramirez is the Yale classmate of Kavanaugh’s who now claims that Kavanaugh exposed himself as a college freshman at a party. Ramirez’s claim was already dubious because (1) named eyewitnesses deny the allegation and (2) Ramirez herself wasn’t sure in recent weeks if Kavanaugh had done what she now alleges. “Ms. Ramirez herself contacted former Yale classmates asking if they recalled the incident and told some of them that she could not be certain Mr. Kavanaugh was the one who exposed himself,” the New York Times reported. Ramirez was only willing to make the allegation, the New Yorker reported, after “six days of carefully assessing her memories and consulting with her attorney.”

This is a ridiculous attempt to smear a Justice the left does not like. One article I read noticed that the timing of this might be an indication that the left is worried about the health of Justice Ginsburg.

The article concludes:

Pogrebin and Kelly write that a couple of students say they had heard about the alleged incident in the days after it allegedly occurred, but the authors provide no indication there is any first-hand witness to corroborate the allegation. 

We already knew before Kavanaugh was confirmed last October that the “corroborating” source for Ramirez’s claim, classmate Kenneth Appold, was not present when the alleged incident occurred, but Appold told the New Yorker he was “one-hundred-percent-sure” he heard about it from an eyewitness. Shortly before Kavanaugh was confirmed, the New Yorker reported that Appold’s supposed eyewitness “said that he had no memory of the incident.”

Maybe Pogrebin and Kelly’s book is stronger than their essay. But I’m skeptical. “In the end they turn up no smoking gun,” Hanna Rosin writes in her New York Times review of the book.

Until there is a penalty paid for unsubstantiated charges, the accusations will continue. For further information about the validity of the charges against Justice Kavanaugh and the motives behind those charges see this September 4th article at Townhall. The people behind the false charges need to pay a price.

Misusing The Power Of Social Media

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PJ Media posted an article yesterday about a recent statement by Mark Zuckerberg.

The article reports:

During this year’s Aspen Ideas Festival, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg explained that Facebook is increasingly trying to work with governments to determine what political speech it does and does not allow. Oh sorry, I mean: what kind of political ads it is willing to approve.

In the particular example Zuckerberg cited, in 2018, American pro-life groups wanted to run advertisements for Facebook users in Ireland. This is because the Irish were about to vote in a referendum on whether abortion should be legalized.

When Facebook saw the ad requests, the company contacted the Irish government asking whether this should or should not be allowed. “Their response at the time was, ‘we don’t currently have a law, so you need to make whatever decision you want to make.'”

In other words, Facebook could do as it pleased. There was no legal reason to disallow the ads. But what did Facebook do? You guessed it:

“We ended up not allowing the ads.”

When Mark Zuckerberg made this decision, Facebook became a publication–not a platform. The decision was an editorial decision–not a legal decision. The decision was consistent with the political ideology that Facebook has supported in the past. This is the point at which Facebook becomes dangerous. Much of the younger generation gets their news through social media. If Facebook is making editorial decisions based on political ideology, they are not acting as an honest broker of news. Our younger generations are not hearing the complete story–they are hearing a politically biased version–no different from the mainstream media.

There are no laws against Facebook making editorial decisions, but its users need to be aware that they are not getting both sides of any story.