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“You can’t lead America with ancient ideas.”
That was the claim—shouted, not spoken—by the president of the United States in what was considered by many to be the most divisive State of the Union address ever given before a joint session of Congress.
President Joe Biden’s March 7 lecture seemed to punctuate what has become a brutally disheartening term in office, with liberals demanding Americans throw aside traditional values and institutions for a “liberating” future of hedonistic affirmation in the pursuit of an ambiguous “equity.”
This bastardized system of values—promoted by the Left to usurp the traditional American institutions of faith, family, and community—are now in the sights of Florida’s senior senator.
“Faith, family, community—teach us who we are and what we’re here for,” Sen. Marco Rubio, R.-Fla., calls out in a new video, juxtaposing some of the most stark contrasts ever seen between the American Left and Right. Older video clips of Americans from every background singing, marching, and praying are contrasted with those of more recent LGBTQ+ parades, pro-abortion rallies, and news coverage of violent pro-Hamas protests.
Unlike many political videos delivered amid the presidential election season that we observe every four years, making bland statements about the economy and the border, Rubio appears to be throwing a spotlight from his office on the stark divide between the two opposing political movements and ideological foundations beckoning to an exhausted and weary country battered by calls to abandon “ancient ideas.”
These classic institutions “are the ones who teach us who we are and what we’re here for,” Rubio intoned, “but ties like these pose a threat to the Left, which insists that relationships exist only to affirm fleeting feelings and identities.”
That charge isn’t without warrant, as public school officials and liberal activists around the country have spent the past several years and millions of dollars attempting to separate children from their parents, encouraging children to confide in those outside their “unsupportive” families.
Rubio asserted that “the Left claims the only idea worth believing is its changing definition of ‘equity.’” That contrasts sharply with an image of Vice President Kamala Harris, who in a January 2023 speech created her own definitions for the words “equality” and “equity,” drawing wide criticism.
Equality is when the teacher gives every student the same test
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) January 20, 2023
Equity is when the teacher gives every student the same mark
Here’s our VP explaining that: pic.twitter.com/GC0xe7pK08
“Faith in woke ideology cannot replace faith in the Almighty God,” Rubio said. “Government programs and bureaucrats cannot stand in for family, and political echo chambers on social media are no match for real community.”
Rubio’s assertion is not only correct, it’s a timely message Americans have shown they are drawn to. Favorability toward the Biden administration has plummeted sharply as a country that was told it was going to experience “unity” and “a return to normal” received instead crisis and devastation in the economy, at the border, and on the world stage.
If other conservatives continue pushing messages like those in Rubio’s video, this could be a turning point for American society. A return to celebrating faith, family, and community as essential to the success of the United States would provide a far better foundation for growth as the Left’s fearmongering and guilt trips over these institutions no longer appear to hold voters in their sway.
The post EXCLUSIVE: Sen. Rubio’s Killer Video Blow to the Left’s Depressive Values appeared first on The Daily Signal.
Pro-life activist Heather Idoni received a sentence of 24 months in prison on Wednesday, convicted of federal conspiracy against rights and Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act charges brought by the Justice Department.
Idoni, 59, will spend two years in prison for trying to stop abortions from taking place at a Washington, D.C., area abortion clinic on Oct. 20, 2020. She is mother to 15 children, according to LifeSite news, five of whom are her biological children and 10 of whom she and her husband reportedly adopted from Ukraine.
She told The Epoch Times that she expects to die in prison.
Her sentencing is part of the DOJ’s focus on enforcing the FACE Act against pro-life activists since the June 2022 overturn of Roe v. Wade. Led by Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, the DOJ has charged dozens of pro-life activists for attempting to stop women from aborting their unborn babies.
Idoni is one of several pro-life activists sentenced to prison time in connection to the 2020 incident: pro-life activist Lauren Handy received 57 months in prison, John Hinshaw 21 months, WIlliam Goodman 27 months, Jonathan Darnel 34 months, Herb Geraghty 27 months, and Joan Bell 27 months .
“Federal law is clear: using force, threatening to use force or physically obstructing access to reproductive health care is unlawful,” Clarke said in a release announcing Idoni’s sentence. “People have a First Amendment right to communicate their views but they do not have the right to use chains, locks and obstruction to prevent access to reproductive health care facilities.”
“The Justice Department will continue to protect both patients seeking reproductive health services and providers of those services,” she added.
The DOJ releases on the topic do not include the word “abortion,” but rather use the phrasing “reproductive health.”
BREAKING? Heather Idoni has been sentenced to 24 months in federal prison despite her lawyer begging for home detention due to Heather’s serious health issues.
— PAAU (@PAAUNOW) May 22, 2024
Justice was NOT served today. Free Heather Idoni!
Earlier this month, Republican New Jersey Rep. Chris Smith called on the U.S. Marshals and the Bureau of Prisons to provide proper care to Idoni and fellow pro-life activist Jean Marshall following reports that Idoni had not received proper medical treatment while in the custody of the U.S. Marshals following a stroke.
?Rep Chris Smith has written a letter to the directors of the US Marshals and the BOP demanding proper medical care for Rescuers Jean Marshall and Heather Idonihttps://t.co/VZhFLjpiBj pic.twitter.com/KOQJlVapTT
— PAAU (@PAAUNOW) May 16, 2024
Critics have accused President Joe Biden and the DOJ of weaponizing the FACE Act against pro-lifers while failing to charge pro-abortion criminals for the hundreds of attacks on pregnancy resource centers since the May 2022 leak of the draft Supreme Court opinion indicating Roe would soon be overturned.
Some, among them Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, and Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, have called for the repeal of the FACE Act, arguing that it serves no purpose but to target pro-life activists.
“The Biden administration is using the FACE Act to give pro-life activists and senior citizens lengthy prison terms for nonviolent offenses and protests—all while turning a blind eye to the violence, arson, and riots conducted on behalf of ‘approved’ leftist causes,” Lee told The Daily Signal earlier this month.
“Unequal enforcement of the law is a violation of the law,” he added, “and men and women who try to expose the horrors of abortion are being unjustly persecuted for their motivations.”
The enforcement of the FACE Act is led by Clarke, who, following a report from The Daily Signal, recently admitted that she hid an arrest for a violent incident, and its subsequent expungement, from investigators when she was confirmed to her Justice Department post.
On Monday, the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit on Monday against seven pro-life activists and two pro-life organizations alleging that the pro-life organizations, Citizens for a Pro Life Society and Red Rose Rescue, as well as activists Laura Gies, Lauren Handy, Clara McDonald, Monica Miller, Christopher Moscinski, Jay Smith, and Audrey Whipple violated the FACE Act when they sought to stop abortions from taking place at Ohio abortion clinics.
The DOJ’s complaint seeks “compensatory damages, monetary penalties and injunctive relief as provided by the FACE Act.”
Martin Cannon, senior counsel with the Thomas More Society, said in a statement this week that “hardly one week has passed since Lauren Handy was sentenced to 57 months in federal prison, and the Biden Department of Justice is already coming after her again using the FACE Act.”
“‘Red Rose Rescues’ are peaceful events where participants counsel outside the abortion business or walk in and sit with pregnant mothers in abortionists’ waiting rooms, giving them red roses and offering them the help and assistance they need to choose life—in the exact moment when they’re in dire need of compassionate support,” he explained. “These are not threatening or intimidating actions that violate the FACE Act, despite the caricature that the DOJ would like the public to believe.”
The post DOJ Puts Pro-Life Grandmother Behind Bars for Trying to Stop Abortions appeared first on The Daily Signal.
Following the announcement of prison sentences for pro-life activists last week, the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit on Monday against seven pro-life activists and two pro-life organizations.
The DOJ’s lawsuit alleges that the pro-life organizations, Citizens for a Pro Life Society and Red Rose Rescue, as well as activists Laura Gies, Lauren Handy, Clara McDonald, Monica Miller, Christopher Moscinski, Jay Smith, and Audrey Whipple, violated the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act when they sought to stop abortions from taking place at Ohio abortion clinics.
Notably, the DOJ does not use the word “abortion,” but rather “reproductive health services”—except in a statement from U.S. Attorney Rebecca C. Lutzko for the Northern District of Ohio.
“Obstructing people from accessing reproductive health care and physically obstructing providers from offering it are unlawful,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke, the head of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, said in a statement.
“Congress passed the FACE Act 30 years ago this month in response to acts of violence, threats of violence and physical obstruction at reproductive health clinics in our country,” she added. “The Civil Rights Division is committed to enforcing federal law to protect the rights of those who seek and those who provide access to reproductive health services.”
The DOJ’s complaint seeks “compensatory damages, monetary penalties and injunctive relief as provided by the FACE Act.”
Handy, one of the activists mentioned in the release, was sentenced to 57 months in prison for trying to stop abortions at a Washington, D.C., abortion clinic. Clarke similarly issued a statement last week celebrating news that Handy and six other pro-life activists would spend time in prison for attempting to stop abortions from taking place.
The FACE Act is a 1994 law that supposedly protects both abortion clinics and pregnancy resource centers, but has been heavily enforced by President Joe Biden’s DOJ against pro-lifers since the June 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade.
The enforcement of the FACE Act is led by Clarke, who, following a report from The Daily Signal, recently admitted that she hid an arrest and its subsequent expungement from investigators when she was confirmed to her Justice Department post.
The president’s critics have accused Biden and the DOJ of weaponizing the FACE Act against pro-lifers while failing to charge pro-abortion criminals for the hundreds of attacks on pregnancy resource centers since the May 2022 leak of the draft Supreme Court opinion indicating that Roe would soon thereafter be overturned.
Some, among them Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, and Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, have called for the repeal of the FACE Act, arguing that it serves no purpose but to target pro-life activists.
“The Biden administration is using the FACE Act to give pro-life activists and senior citizens lengthy prison terms for nonviolent offenses and protests—all while turning a blind eye to the violence, arson, and riots conducted on behalf of ‘approved’ leftist causes,” Lee told The Daily Signal in a Tuesday statement.
“Unequal enforcement of the law is a violation of the law,” he added, “and men and women who try to expose the horrors of abortion are being unjustly persecuted for their motivations.”
The post Biden DOJ Ramps Up War on Pro-Lifers With Lawsuit appeared first on The Daily Signal.
The Defense Department undercounted the number of abortions that it authorized between 2016 and 2020, new data shows.
Following a lawsuit from the Oversight Project, a division of The Heritage Foundation, the Department of Defense said that it had identified a total of 77 abortions performed in military medical treatment facilities (MTFs) during the four-year period between 2016 and 2020. (Heritage founded The Daily Signal in 2014.)
That number includes 17 abortions that had previously not been included in the DOD’s figures.
The babies aborted were either the children of a service member or of the service member’s dependents. Eighteen of the abortions were tied to the Air Force, 28 to the Army, four to the Marines, and 27 to the Navy.
In 2021, the DOD authorized 14 abortions of unborn babies throughout the military—bringing the total number of abortions that the DOD authorized between 2016 and 2021 up to 91.
The Defense Department explained the undercounting by saying in a report shared with the Oversight Project that it began updating its methodology counting the abortions it authorizes in 2021.
“As a result, a yearlong effort, involving data analysts and women’s health subject matter experts, began in early 2021 to review and update the methodology for collection of data related to performance of abortions in military medical treatment facilities (MTFs),” the DOD explained. “The updated methodology identified, and corrected, inadvertent underreporting of authorized abortions.”
Some of the DOD’s methodology updates include developing a new definition of abortion: the “termination” of an unborn baby’s life “that would otherwise result in a live birth.” This new definition does not include the removal of ectopic or molar pregnancies, both of which are nonviable pregnancies. It also does not include miscarriages.
The new methodology also included both active-duty members and their dependents (such as their daughters) who aborted their babies at a military medical treatment facility.
“The methodology utilized for this updated report will be the standard for future reports, in order to ensure consistent methodology and understanding, and will be annually reviewed for new medical or coding updates for processes or procedures,” the report noted. “Additional actions will be identified as necessary to ensure accurate reporting consistent with this methodology.”
The Oversight Project initially sent a Freedom of Information Act request to the DOD a few weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 2022 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in the Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling.
The lawsuit sought information on whether the abortions DOD was authorizing were “Hyde Amendment-compliant ‘covered’ abortions, meaning if they were performed if the life of the mother was at risk or if the unborn child is result of rape or incest,” Oversight senior investigative counsel Roman Jankowski told The Daily Signal.
“We also requested all records regarding the number of ‘covered’ abortions that are the result of an act of rape and incest that resulted in some type of prosecution under the Uniform Code of Military Justice,” he added. “The DOD did not respond to our FOIA request, forcing the Oversight Project to sue in federal court. These records only provide a partial picture of abortions covered by the DOD, and the Oversight Project will continue to update this as additional records are released.”
The DOD did not immediately respond to requests for comment for this article.
In October 2022, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin released a memorandum for senior Pentagon leadership on “ensuring access to reproductive health care.” That memorandum announced that the Defense Department would establish “travel and transportation allowances for service members and their dependents … to facilitate official travel to access non-covered reproductive health care that is unavailable within the local area of a service member’s permanent duty station.”
The move was a direct response to the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the memo said. It claimed that funding abortion travel would be done in accordance with federal law, but Republicans noted at the time that funding travel and transportation to get abortions through the DOD would “in and of itself violate federal law” and contradict the Defense Department’s “past recognition, interpretation, and implementation of this law.”
“Congress has clearly and consistently acted to prevent the U.S. military from funding elective abortion procedures and services necessitated by those procedures, and DOD has acknowledged and complied with the law,” the Republicans said in 2022 in a letter first reported by The Daily Signal. “We are appalled by the flagrant disregard for the law expressed by the Department in this memorandum.”
And DOD spokesman Charlie Dietz confirmed to The Daily Signal in October 2022 that “if the dependent of a service member lives in a state where abortion access is restricted, the DOD will cover their travel and transportation costs to a location where they can legally receive the care.”
Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., blocked hundreds of military promotions for more than 10 months as pushback to the Pentagon policy promoting abortion, saying that until the policy was changed, he would not approve any military promotions, arguing that the policy is illegal and violates the Hyde Amendment. The Hyde Amendment is a measure dating back to the 1970s that prohibits federal taxpayer funding of most abortions.
The Alabama lawmaker, who received heavy criticism from his Democratic colleagues, ended his holds in December. Tuberville had also come under fire from some GOP senators, who called on him to give up his effort and allow the promotions to move forward despite the Pentagon’s unchanged pro-abortion policy.
But other leaders, including Ryan Williams, president and publisher of The Claremont Review of Books and of The American Mind; Terry Schilling, president of the American Principles Project; and Kevin Roberts, president of The Heritage Foundation, praised Tuberville for his commitment to stand against the Pentagon’s pro-abortion policy, saying that his hold “on military promotions over the Pentagon’s unjust decision to fund abortion tourism is a righteous manifestation of the Senate’s responsibility to scrutinize military leadership.”
The post EXCLUSIVE: Defense Department Admits to Undercounting Abortions It Authorized appeared first on The Daily Signal.
A federal Justice Department attorney expressed concerns to a Michigan judge about conservative media coverage suggesting that President Joe Biden’s administration is persecuting Christians and pro-lifers for their beliefs.
The discussion took place during a March pre-trial conference in USA v. Zastrow, in which the federal government brought Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act charges against eight pro-life individuals who tried to stop abortions of unborn babies from taking place at Michigan abortion clinics.
Those pro-life activists are Calvin Zastrow, Eva Zastrow, Chester Gallagher, Heather Idoni, Caroline Davis, Joel Curry, Justin Phillips, and Eva Edl (a communist death camp survivor who recently spoke with The Daily Signal).
The FACE Act is a 1994 law that prohibits individuals from obstructing the entrances of both abortion clinics and pregnancy resource centers, although it has been heavily enforced by Biden’s DOJ against pro-lifers since the June 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade.
During the pre-trial motion hearing, according to a transcript obtained by The Daily Signal, DOJ attorney Laura-Kate Bernstein raised concerns that “there’s a great deal of press about this case and the case in Nashville recently.” Bernstein was referring to a case in Tennessee where six pro-lifers were praying outside of an abortion clinic in 2021 and were charged with FACE Act violations.
Bernstein did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“Where?” questioned Judge Matthew Leitman. “I haven’t seen any.”
Bernstein explained that she was referring to online media “like Mike Huckabee’s show or Laura Ingraham’s show, and those sorts of sources, and some written sources, too, in which at least one of the defense attorneys is making very acerbic statements about the government’s case and the legitimacy of the laws at stake, and that the Biden regime is persecuting Christians.”
WATCH:
“My concern is one of the jury pool,” she continued. “My concern is that as these national media reach more and more people, including people in the district, that they may be tainted with a preconceived notion of the Biden regime’s persecution of Christians and be unable to try the case as neutral jurors.”
The DOJ attorney said that she was not asking the court to do “something in particular,” but then told the judge that it is the court’s “affirmative, constitutional duty to minimize the effects of prejudicial pretrial publicity.”
Leitman, after asking for clarification on her question, noted that he could ask the jurors whether they had read anything about the case. But he said that Bernstein’s question seemed to be rooted in “important political speech.”
“It seems to me that your first statement, the Biden administration is persecuting Christians … that’s pretty core, important political speech, whether you agree with it or not,” the judge said. “I mean, I’d be hard pressed to tell somebody not to say that.”
The DOJ attorney then pushed back, saying she was referring to interviews in which the pro-lifer’s attorney said that “this case is a war on pro-lifers, that the Department of Justices is using the FACE Act as a weapon against pro-lifers,” or that “the clients are victims of political persecution.”
She also pushed back against the idea that “there’s a two-tier justice system, one for friends of the administration who go free and one for people who are on the wrong spiritual side of the administration.”
“There’s also extremely inflammatory language undermining the legitimacy of the laws to be implied in this case, that you’ve already ruled on—the constitutionality of it—whether reproductive health care includes abortion, as the statue defines it,” she continued. “And because the court has this affirmative, constitutional duty, we wanted to bring it to your attention.”
Bernstein then asked the judge to admonish Thomas More Society attorney Steve Crampton “about speaking about this case in inflammatory and acerbic ways that might taint the jury pool.”
“This isn’t about trying to, you know, interfere with any of his First Amendment rights,” she followed up, noting that Crampton is “of course” free to speak about his clients. “It’s about trying to protect the due process rights in this trial and the government’s right and the public’s right to a fair trial.”
Crampton clarified to the court that Bernstein was referring to Tennessee pro-life activist Paul Vaughn’s interview on the “Mike Huckabee Show,” in which Vaughn made such comments “only after the jury verdict” was entered in his case.
In January, a federal jury convicted Vaughn and five other defendants of a felony conspiracy against rights and a FACE Act offense for trying to stop abortions from taking place at a Mount Juliet, Tennessee, abortion clinic in March 2021.
BREAKING: Six pro-life activists were just found guilty in federal court after being prosecuted by Biden's DOJ under the FACE Act for protesting outside a Nashville abortion clinic.
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) January 30, 2024
Here's a snippet of the protest, which occurred on March 5, 2021.
For the crime of praying and… pic.twitter.com/UPzZvtZebM
“Any reference to United States against Zastrow and this case were, at best, minimal to nonexistent,” the Thomas More Society attorney said. “So I think the government, perhaps, is overreacting to the press coverage of the Nashville case. Nobody’s called any press conference regarding this case, and we certainly have no intention of doing so.”
This week, seven pro-life defendants have been sentenced to prison time on DOJ FACE Act charges related to their attempts to stop abortions from taking place at a Washington, D.C., abortion clinic. That abortion clinic is run by Cesare Santangelo, an abortionist who has been accused of allowing babies to die if they survive his botched abortions.
The District of Columbia does not have laws restricting abortion.
The DOJ said in a release Wednesday: “Lauren Handy was sentenced to 57 months in prison, John Hinshaw was sentenced to 21 months in prison, and William Goodman was sentenced to 27 months in prison,” adding that “Jonathan Darnel was sentenced to 34 months in prison, Herb Geraghty was sentenced to 27 months in prison, Jean Marshall was sentenced to 24 months in prison, and Joan Bell was sentenced to 27 months in prison.”
Those efforts are led by Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke, the head of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, who just admitted, following a report from The Daily Signal, that she hid an arrest and its subsequent expungement from investigators when she was confirmed by the Senate to her Justice Department post.
“Violence has no place in our national discourse on reproductive health. Using force, threatening to use force, or physically obstructing access to reproductive health care is unlawful,” said Clarke in a statement accompanying this week’s DOJ release.
“As we mark the 30th anniversary of the FACE Act, it’s important that we not lose sight of the history of violence against reproductive health care providers, including the murder of Dr. David Gunn in Florida—tragic and horrific events that led to passage of the law,” she added. “The Justice Department will continue to protect both patients seeking reproductive health services and providers of those services. We will hold accountable those who seek to interfere with access to reproductive health services in our country.”
The post EXCLUSIVE: DOJ Attorney Expressed Concerns About Conservative Media Coverage of Biden Admin Persecuting Christians, Pro-Lifers appeared first on The Daily Signal.
The Justice Department’s Kristen Clarke issued a statement this week celebrating news that seven pro-life activists would spend time in prison for attempting to stop abortions from taking place.
Clarke, who heads the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division and is responsible for enforcing the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, painted the pro-life activists as violent radicals in her remarks: “Violence has no place in our national discourse on reproductive health.”
The activists’ actions were nonviolent, and the DOJ’s release on the matter even notes that they “passively” resisted “their anticipated arrests.”
“Using force, threatening to use force or physically obstructing access to reproductive health care is unlawful,” she added, before referring to the 1993 murder of a Florida abortionist. “As we mark the 30th anniversary of the FACE Act, it’s important that we not lose sight of the history of violence against reproductive health care providers, including the murder of Dr. David Gunn in Florida—tragic and horrific events that led to passage of the law.”
The FACE Act is a 1994 law that supposedly protects both abortion clinics and pregnancy resource centers, but has been heavily enforced by President Joe Biden’s DOJ against pro-lifers since the June 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade.
“The Justice Department will continue to protect both patients seeking reproductive health services and providers of those services,” the DOJ official concluded. “We will hold accountable those who seek to interfere with access to reproductive health services in our country.”
Lauren Handy is the pro-life activist who received the longest sentence. She will spend 57 months in prison and was the first person sentenced for violating the FACE Act.
The enforcement of the FACE Act is led by Clarke, who, following a report from The Daily Signal, recently admitted that she hid an arrest and its subsequent expungement from investigators when she was confirmed to her Justice Department post.
The president’s critics have accused Biden and the DOJ of weaponizing the FACE Act against pro-lifers while failing to charge pro-abortion criminals for the hundreds of attacks on pregnancy resource centers since the May 2022 leak of the draft Supreme Court opinion indicating Roe would soon be overturned.
Some, among them Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, and Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, have called for the repeal of the FACE Act, arguing that it serves no purpose but to target pro-life activists.
“The Biden administration is using the FACE Act to give pro-life activists and senior citizens lengthy prison terms for nonviolent offenses and protests—all while turning a blind eye to the violence, arson, and riots conducted on behalf of ‘approved’ leftist causes,” Lee told The Daily Signal in a Tuesday statement.
“Unequal enforcement of the law is a violation of the law,” he added, “and men and women who try to expose the horrors of abortion are being unjustly persecuted for their motivations.”
The DOJ’s release on the seven pro-lifers who were sentenced to prison time this week describes how the pro-life activists, motivated by a desire to protect unborn babies from abortion, planned a “blockade” at Washington Surgi-Clinic in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood of Washington, D.C. The pro-life activists describe this type of activity as a “rescue,” hoping to stop mothers from aborting their unborn.
Under the FACE Act, such activity is considered a crime. The FACE Act prohibits use of force, obstruction, or property damage intended to interfere with “reproductive health care services.” Since 2022, the year the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the Justice Department has hit at least 40 pro-life activists with FACE-related charges at five different rescues or blockades.
The DOJ describes the D.C. event as a “clinic incursion,” noting that “the defendants met with other co-conspirators to plan their crime, which included making a fake patient appointment to ensure the group’s entry into the clinic, using chains and locks to barricade the facility and passively resisting their anticipated arrests to prolong the blockade.”
“The clinic invasion was advertised on social media as a ‘historic’ event that was live-streamed on Facebook,” the DOJ said “The defendants’ forced entry into the clinic at the outset of the invasion resulted in injury to a clinic nurse. During the blockade, one patient had to climb through a receptionist window to access the clinic, while another laid in the hallway outside of the clinic in physical distress, unable to gain access to the clinic.”
The case was investigated by the FBI’s Washington Field Office. Assistant Director in Charge David Sundberg pointed to the matter as evidence that “the FBI and our judicial system will not tolerate the obstruction of civil rights.”
“The FBI will continue to investigate FACE Act violations in all jurisdictions, so patients and providers can exercise their right to receive or provide lawful reproductive health care without the threat of violence or intimidation,” he added.
The post DOJ’s Kristen Clarke Celebrates Prison Time for Pro-Life Activists appeared first on The Daily Signal.
FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL: Republican Utah Sen. Mike Lee accused President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice on Tuesday of “unjustly” persecuting pro-life activists exposing the “horrors of abortion.”
“The Biden administration is using the FACE Act to give pro-life activists and senior citizens lengthy prison terms for non-violent offenses and protests—all while turning a blind eye to the violence, arson, and riots conducted on behalf of ‘approved’ leftist causes,” Lee told The Daily Signal in a Tuesday statement.
The senator added: “Unequal enforcement of the law is a violation of the law, and men and women who try to expose the horrors of abortion are being unjustly persecuted for their motivations.”
Lee’s comments come after news that pro-life activist Lauren Handy has been sentenced on DOJ charges to almost five years in prison for attempting to stop abortions of unborn babies from taking place at a Washington, D.C., abortion clinic.
Handy will spend 57 months in prison and is the first person sentenced for violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, a 1994 law that supposedly protects both abortion clinics and pregnancy resource centers, but has been heavily enforced by Biden’s DOJ against pro-lifers since the June 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade.
Those efforts are led by Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke, the head of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, who recently admitted following a report from The Daily Signal that she hid an arrest and its subsequent expungement from investigators when she was confirmed to her Justice Department post.
The president’s critics have accused Biden and the DOJ of weaponizing the FACE Act against pro-lifers while failing to charge pro-abortion criminals for the hundreds of attacks on pregnancy resource centers since the May 2022 leak of the draft Supreme Court opinion indicating Roe would soon be overturned.
Some, among them Lee and Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, have called for the repeal of the FACE Act.
“Today’s outrageous 57-month sentence for a progressive pro-life activist is a stark reminder: Biden’s DOJ is fully weaponized against pro-life American citizens, and they are using the FACE Act to do it,” said Roy in a statement following Handy’s sentence. “House Republicans should defund the DOJ weaponization, repeal the FACE Act, and stand up for the freedoms that we campaign on.”
Handy is being represented by lawyers with the Thomas More Society, which said Tuesday that it is preparing to proceed with an appeal seeking to overturn her conviction and challenge the constitutionality of the FACE Act.
The post Mike Lee: Biden DOJ ‘Unjustly’ Persecuting Pro-Lifers, ‘Turning a Blind Eye’ to Leftist Crime appeared first on The Daily Signal.
The following is an updated version of a column originally published in December 2022.
One of the bestselling books of the 1970s was “The Peter Principle,” a business management book by Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull.
The book’s premise was that employees get promoted based on their performance in their previous jobs until they are ultimately elevated to a position in which they’re incompetent, since skills and success in one position don’t necessarily ensure success in the next. “In a hierarchy,” Peter explained, “every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.”
If “The Peter Principle” were published today, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre would be a case study in the phenomenon, now called “failing upward.” In Jean-Pierre’s case, that’s reflected in her work for the short-lived Democratic presidential campaigns of John Edwards in 2004 and Martin O’Malley in 2016, and now as the chief spokeswoman for the Biden administration. On Monday, she will mark her second anniversary in that role.
In recent weeks, however, with the 2024 election campaign shifting into high gear, there have been well-sourced reports that high-ranking figures in the Biden administration are not-so-subtly seeking to push Jean-Pierre out of the role—for which she was never qualified to begin with. Many of the same administration figures reportedly behind those efforts to oust her are, not surprisingly, denying the accuracy of the reports.
The New York Post quoted a source as saying the high-ranking administration figures “‘were trying to find Karine a graceful exit’ because of the ugly optics of removing her against her will,” especially because she thinks she’s doing a good job. (One face-saving exit strategy was to offer her the presidency of EMILY’s List, an abortion rights group.)
But as a textbook example of an affirmative-action hire, Jean-Pierre appears not to be going anywhere. An administration so thoroughly wedded to so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion is, in this case, now finding it difficult to divorce itself from DEI. (More on that below.)
The most glaring evidence that Jean-Pierre, 49, has been promoted to her level of incompetence as White House press secretary is her near-total dependence on a binder full of administration talking points, which she often reads from directly at her daily news briefings to the White House press corps.
It’s so bad that Fox News commentator Jesse Watters has taken to referring to her derisively as “Binder,” and it’s so, well, cringeworthy that other critics deliberately mispronounce “Karine” as “Cringe.”
Just as an aside, recall how 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney was ridiculed mercilessly in the liberal media for saying during the second presidential debate that he had “binders full of women.” That was his awkward way of referring to files of résumés of women he would consider for staffing his administration were he to win the election. Many of the talking heads’ “binder” jokes snarkily suggested that the squeaky-clean Romney was engaged in some form of BDSM with those women.
It’s standard operating procedure for a press secretary to have notes for ready reference. It’s quite another thing to stare down at them and read those notes all but verbatim.
As far as we know, none of the talking heads who ridiculed Romney has ever mentioned—much less made fun of—Jean-Pierre’s near-complete dependence on her press-briefing binders. Nor have they satirized her oft-repeated deflection—“I don’t have anything”—when she doesn’t have answers to questions for which she’s unprepared.
Nor have the liberal media (or the late-night TV comics) noted, much less lampooned, how Jean-Pierre has mispronounced or mangled words and phrases in the course of her press briefings.
On Dec. 13, 2022, Jean-Pierre touted “bicarmel” support in Congress for the so-called Respect for Marriage Act. “Bicarmel, bipartisan support was had for this piece of legislation,” she said.
But this was no one-off slip of the tongue: She used the term “bicarmel” three times to describe it in the course of the half-hour press briefing. It should have been “bicameral,” of course; meaning, support in both chambers of Congress.
The official White House transcript of the briefing was dishonestly corrected in all three instances to “bicameral” with no indication that it was not an accurate reflection of what was actually said.
On Nov. 28, 2022, in congratulating three Americans who had won Nobel Prizes in chemistry, physics, and economics, she mispronounced “Nobel” five times in 40 seconds as “noble.”
Two months to the day earlier, on Sept. 28, Jean-Pierre said that as part of Vice President Kamala Harris’ then-pending trip to South Korea, the veep would visit the Demilitarized Zone between the two Koreas. Jean-Pierre helpfully noted that it had been “nearly 70 years since the Korean ‘armtis’”—not to be confused with the Korean armistice.
Three weeks before that, on Sept. 6, Jean-Pierre conflated a Russian natural gas pipeline with an upscale American department store chain. She accused Russia of causing an energy crisis in Europe by shutting down its Nord Stream 1 pipeline, which she referred to as the “Nordstrom 1” pipeline.
One can only imagine how former President Donald Trump’s press secretaries, Sarah Huckabee Sanders and later Kayleigh McEnany, would have been pilloried by the liberal White House press corps had they made those sorts of repeated verbal gaffes.
One reason Jean-Pierre still has the high-visibility press secretary’s job, to which she was elevated on May 13, 2022, despite all of the gaffes, is because President Joe Biden is legendary for his own innumerable flubs and miscues.
“White House communications staff has had to correct President Joe Biden’s public remarks at least 148 times since the beginning of 2024, a review of official White House transcripts shows,” the Daily Caller reported April 29. Biden couldn’t very well hold Jean-Pierre to a higher standard, could he?
But the real reason Jean-Pierre remains in her post today is because of the identity politics to which the Biden administration and the Democratic Party have sworn undying allegiance. She is immune from criticism—and from reassignment to a less high-profile post—only because she checks all of the boxes of identity-politics “intersectionality” as the first black, first LGBTQ, and first immigrant White House press secretary.
In the Biden administration, Jean-Pierre demonstrates daily that meritocracy is an afterthought—if it’s thought of at all. The moral of this story: Live by DEI, die by it.
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