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Yesterday — March 28th 2024Your RSS feeds

Biden DOJ ‘Fears’ Those Who Pray, Sing Outside Abortion Clinics, Tucker Carlson Says

Tucker Carlson Network founder Tucker Carlson has accused President Joe Biden’s administration of targeting a pro-life father for praying and singing outside of an abortion clinic, warning that the administration “fears” that type of activity.

Carlson interviewed Paul Vaughn, the Tennessee father of 11 children who was arrested by the FBI in October 2022 and charged with violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act. During an interview with The Daily Signal at the time of his arrest, Vaughn said that the FBI came to his home, “guns pointed at the door, banging on the house, yelling and screaming, ‘Open up! FBI.’”

“I had kids in the yard walking out to get in the car to go to school. I was about to take them to school, and other kids in the house,” he told The Daily Signal at the time. “So, seeing that the easiest path to de-escalation was me in handcuffs, I stepped outside and put an end to the ranting and the banging and the yelling.”

Video of the FBI's arrest of Paul Vaughn of Centerville, Tennessee. DOJ charged him with “conspiracy against rights secured by the FACE Act, and committing FACE Act violations" for blocking the entrance to an abortion clinic. Paul tells me the footage was taken by his wife. pic.twitter.com/KSDvLRSrlF

— Mary Margaret Olohan (@MaryMargOlohan) October 7, 2022

Carlson asked why exactly the Biden Justice Department would arrest Vaughn in such a dramatic manner.

“The question is,” the former Fox News Channel host asked, “what exactly did he do? Was he a terrorist, a serial killer? Was he trying to invade the country? No. Paul Vaughn, the father of 11 children, had dared to pray and sing hymns in the hallway of an abortion clinic.

“In other words, he did what the Biden administration really fears,” Carlson continued. “He prayed. And for doing that, he faces 11 years in prison.”

Video provided to The Daily Signal by Vaughn, taken by his wife, shows FBI agents outside the family’s home. Vaughn’s wife follows them, videotaping their conversation.

“I want to know why you were banging on my door with a gun,” she says. “Are you not going to tell me anything?”

“No, we are not,” one agent replies, while another says, “I tried.”

“No, you didn’t!” she shouts back. “You did not try.”

Carlson asked Vaughn whether he had ever thought that praying would be a federal crime with a penalty of 11 years in prison.

“I always thought praying for our nation is what we were instructed to do,” the pro-life father responded. “I thought that was what was required for freedom. And liberty is to beseech the favors of God on our land and to reach out to him. And, of course, we’re praying because our nation has allowed the sinful, atrocious action of abortion and killing unborn children. So, that’s ultimately what the Biden DOJ doesn’t like.”

Vaughn said that he believes the Biden DOJ’s intent with its “heavy-handed raid” was to “strike fear into Christians in the nation.”

WATCH:

When you start putting people in jail for praying, it’s pretty clear who you’re actually working for. Paul Vaughn is facing 11 years in Biden’s prisons. pic.twitter.com/X54sysL5w0

— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) March 26, 2024

“It’s an act of war against religious people,” he said. “And so that was their intent. Fortunately, God is gracious and kind, and his grace has been poured out upon our family, in ways we never could have experienced. And my children are growing up seeing a level of persecution that strengthens them, that provides a meaning in a foundation for their faith.”

He says he sees two ways of responding to these events.

“We can be bitter and upset and angry,” Vaughn said, “or we can be gracious, and we can be forgiving to the enemies. And trusting God is a God of justice, and he will work this out. And that’s the message that I’m telling my children. And I see them growing in this and understanding this.”

Vaughn praised the Christians all over the United States who have reached out to him to let him know they were praying for him. Asked by Carlson whether high-profile Christian leaders had drawn attention to his case, he said that he had not experienced much support from Christian leaders.

“It really is a moment for the church,” Carlson reflected. “If you’re an American Christian leader and you’re standing by without saying anything as a man faces 11 years in prison for saying prayers, I think it’s time to assess yourself.”

“Yep,” Vaughn replied, “I would absolutely agree. I would call on them to actually do that … we tend to divide the spiritual and material, and we either make it all one or the other, and we don’t do a good job as the American church of understanding that it’s both.”

Vaughn’s arrest came amid the Biden DOJ’s targeting of pro-life activists with the FACE Act. The FACE Act protects not only abortion clinics, but also pregnancy resource centers and houses of worship, but the Biden DOJ has largely used it to prosecute pro-life individuals.

Since 2022, the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division has charged dozens of pro-life individuals with FACE Act violations. In 2023, the DOJ charged four individuals with FACE Act violations related to attacks on pregnancy resource centers in Florida, though pro-abortion vandals have attacked at least 88 such centers and 218 churches since the May 2022 leak of the Supreme Court draft opinion indicating that Roe v. Wade would be overturned, according to CatholicVote.

In February, Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, urged the DOJ to comply with Republican demands to release FACE Act data. Though he had called on the DOJ in October 2022 to disclose FACE Act prosecution data, the DOJ didn’t release that data (even though the DOJ’s Kristen Clarke told Roy that she would ensure that he received the requested data in December).

Roy, who chairs the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government, warned that “DOJ’s failure to produce FACE Act prosecution data is particularly troubling in light of the apparent disparity between prosecutions targeting pro-life protesters and pro-abortion attacks on places of worship and pregnancy resource centers.”

“DOJ’s refusal to comply with this request hampers the committee’s constitutional duty to conduct oversight over the Department and the Civil Rights Division,” he said in the February letter, first obtained by The Daily Signal. “DOJ must return to its core mission of protecting all Americans, not simply those that it favors.”

“The Civil Rights Division continues to use the FACE Act to unfairly target pro-life advocates,” Roy wrote. “On January 30, 2024, six pro-life advocates were found guilty of violating the FACE Act, and they now face up to [10-1/2] years in prison, three years of supervised release, and fines of up to $260,000.”

Roy specifically mentioned pro-life activist Mark Houck, another father with a large family.

“These prosecutions come after DOJ conducted an aggressive raid on the home of pro-life advocate Mark Houck to arrest him on an overzealous FACE Act charge stemming from Mr. Houck’s earlier encounter with a belligerent abortion activist who attacked his young son,” Roy said. “A Pennsylvania jury rightly acquitted [him] in January 2023.”

Houck and his wife, Ryan-Marie Houck, previously told The Daily Signal that they were targeted by the Biden DOJ in an effort to intimidate, silence, and scare the family for their pro-life work—praying outside abortion clinics for the women headed inside to abort their unborn babies. 

In November, the Houcks sued the Biden administration for “malicious and retaliatory prosecution.”

The post Biden DOJ ‘Fears’ Those Who Pray, Sing Outside Abortion Clinics, Tucker Carlson Says appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Before yesterdayYour RSS feeds

The latest front in the abortion wars: South Dakota makes a big change

South Dakota enacts the first "Med Ed" bill in the country in an effort to end the confusion about the ability of doctors to provide emergency care to pregnant women.

Klobuchar: This Election Is About 'Codifying Roe v. Wade into Law'

By: Pam Key · Pam Key

Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) said Tuesday on MSNBC's "Andrea Mitchell Reports" that the election in November was about electing lawmakers "to codify Roe v. Wade into law."

The post Klobuchar: This Election Is About ‘Codifying Roe v. Wade into Law’ appeared first on Breitbart.

Victims of Chemical Abortions Speak Out as Supreme Court Hears Oral Arguments

The United States Supreme Court heard oral arguments Tuesday in a case dealing with the Food and Drug Administration’s removal of safeguards on chemical abortion drugs.

Represented by Alliance Defending Freedom, four national medical associations and four individual doctors sued the FDA for removing almost all safety standards for pregnant women taking the abortion drugs mifepristone and misoprostol.

Safeguards formerly included initial in-person visits to make sure the mother did not have an ectopic pregnancy or other serious medical condition, as well as follow-up check-up visits for internal bleeding and infection.

Activists rally in front of the Supreme Court building while the case's oral arguments occur inside. (Photo by Noah Slayter/The Daily Signal)
Activists rally in front of the Supreme Court building while the case’s oral arguments occur inside. (Photo by Noah Slayter/The Daily Signal)

Pro-abortion advocates gathered at the Supreme Court on Tuesday to rally in support of unrestricted chemical abortion drugs. Multiple pro-abortion protesters who spoke with The Daily Signal said they wanted women to have unfettered access to the drugs and pushed back against the idea that safeguards were necessary.

Pro-life advocates who spoke with The Daily Signal emphasized the need to protect women’s health, sharing stories of women who have suffered severe medical complications from taking the drugs without proper medical supervision.

Back at the Supreme Court as the court hears oral arguments in U.S. Food and Drug Administration v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine. Case deals with FDA removing safety standards for pregnant women who use abortion drugs pic.twitter.com/HmloE1QxiB

— Mary Margaret Olohan (@MaryMargOlohan) March 26, 2024

“Today, I argued before the Supreme Court on behalf of doctors and medical associations who are witnessing firsthand the harm to women caused by the FDA’s recklessness,” Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel Erin Hawley said in a press statement on Tuesday.

Hawley accused the FDA of violating federal law and its duty to keep women safe by removing crucial safeguards.

“Regardless of one’s views about abortion, we should all agree that women’s health matters,” she emphasized. “Women deserve for the FDA to do its job. Women deserve for the federal government to look out for their health and safety.”

At the Supreme Court on Tuesday, The Daily Signal spoke with Catherine Herring, a woman whose husband allegedly sought to drug her seven times after he found out she was pregnant. Herring said she became violently ill after the first attempt to abort her baby, and then kept watch until she ultimately caught him on video putting abortion drugs in her drinks.

WATCH:

Outside the Supreme Court this morning, abortion pill victim Catherine Herring tells @DailySignal that her husband "poisoned" her "seven times with abortion pills in attempts to kill" her daughter Josephine.

"He said the pregnancy would ruin his plans."
pic.twitter.com/NGxztO2UOs

— Mary Margaret Olohan (@MaryMargOlohan) March 26, 2024

“I was the victim of abortion pill poisoning in Texas,” Herring said. “My husband poisoned me seven times with abortion pills, in attempt to kill my daughter, Josephine.”

“He said the pregnancy would … make him look like a jerk,” she said.

“He was using an enormous amount of powder each poisoning,” Herring told the The Daily Signal. “I got violently ill. I ended up in an emergency room, with a urine sample that was black in color.”

Regarding the child Herring was pregnant with when poisoned, she said “Josephine is the sweetest little 18-month-old. She has a lot of health issues, a lot of developmental delays. She has spent many months in the hospital, in ICU. She has a feeding tube in her abdomen… I’m so grateful she’s alive.”

Activists rally in front of the Supreme Court building while oral arguments occur inside. (Photo: Noah Slayter/The Daily Signal)

Kelly Lester, a rape victim, post-abortive mother, and former abortion clinic worker, also shared her experience with the rally attendees.

Lester, who aborted her unborn baby through a chemical abortion, explained that she felt her traumatic experience must have been unique since she never heard anyone else discussing how isolated and terrifying it was.

“If this was the norm, we would hear about it, there would be people out there talking about how dangerous it was, how painful it was, how traumatic it was,” she said. “But I wasn’t hearing that, so I thought that my experience must have been isolated.”

“While working in the abortion industry as the receptionist, I dispensed the abortion drug regimen,” Lester shared, “I handed these women a bag and I told them the same lies that had been told to me. I told them it’s going to be like a heavy period, you’re going to have light cramping. It’s going to be simple and easy. It’s the best thing for you.”

“I believed the lies that I was fed,” Lester said.

The post Victims of Chemical Abortions Speak Out as Supreme Court Hears Oral Arguments appeared first on The Daily Signal.

EXCLUSIVE: Rubio Calls for DOJ to Investigate Planned Parenthood’s Handling of Aborted Baby Tissue

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL: Republican Florida Sen. Marco Rubio is calling for a federal investigation into reports that Planned Parenthood is providing aborted baby body parts to the University of California San Diego in exchange for “valuable consideration”—while also maintaining intellectual property rights over the fetal tissue.

“If confirmed, this relationship represents a flagrant violation of federal law, which explicitly prohibits the transfer of fetal tissue for any compensation,” Rubio wrote in a letter Tuesday to Attorney General Merrick Garland and Department of Health and Human Services Inspector General Christi Grimm, first obtained by The Daily Signal.

“I request that both of you open an investigation into the matter, publish your findings for the American people to see, and hold any guilty parties accountable to the fullest extent of the law,” he wrote.

The senator’s letter explains that the University of California San Diego and Planned Parenthood of the Pacific Southwest entered into a contract in 2009, recently obtained by pro-life activist David Daleiden through a public records request, wherein Planned Parenthood would provide “fetal and placental tissue” to the university “for the purpose of deriving cell lines from and determining gene expression, genomic, and epigenetic profiles of the materials.”

Under that contract, Rubio said, Planned Parenthood retained “all right, title, and interest in and to the [fetal tissue], including … patents and patent applications and other intellectual property rights relating to the [fetal tissue].” And the university had agreed to provide Planned Parenthood with credit as the source of the baby tissue if any publications or studies resulted from its use.

Though federal law forbids acquiring, receiving, or transferring human fetal tissue for “valuable consideration,” the Planned Parenthood and University of California contract was made for “valuable consideration,” Rubio noted. He called the inclusion of the phrase “valuable consideration” in the contract “significant,” given that the language is specifically in federal law.

In the past, Planned Parenthood has publicly acknowledged payments for aborted fetal tissue but said that it was only reimbursed for actual costs. Soon after that acknowledgment in 2015, Planned Parenthood said it would no longer accept even reimbursements.

Pro-life activist David Daleiden (center) stands with attorneys Jared Woodfill (left) and Terry Yates (right), at the Harris County Courthouse after Daleiden surrendered to authorities on Feb. 4, 2016, in Houston, Texas. (Photo: Eric Kayne/Getty Images)

“Furthermore, the relationship between Planned Parenthood and UCSD [University of California San Diego] appears to be much more than a mere contract,” Rubio added. “Not only was Planned Parenthood providing the aborted fetal tissue in exchange for ‘valuable consideration,’ but emails between the groups show that Planned Parenthood and UCSD were actively collaborating and meeting at regular intervals to discuss the progress of the research.”

One of the newly obtained documents shows a $10,000 donation from the university to Planned Parenthood as recently as 2021, the senator said.

The Florida Republican pointed out that the University of Pittsburgh is already under investigation for its “experimentation on aborted babies and its cozy relationship with Planned Parenthood.”

His letter specifically calls on the Department of Justice to uncover how many babies Planned Parenthood gave to the university, what the fetal tissue was used for, how much money the university had given to Planned Parenthood, how much Planned Parenthood has gained monetarily from its control over the intellectual property rights of the fetal tissue, and whether the National Institutes of Health or other agencies have provided funding for that fetal tissue research.

The New York Times reported in 2015 that the NIH had spent “$76 million on research using fetal tissue in 2014 with grants to more than 50 universities.” Those universities included the University of California San Diego, according to the publication.

And the Times acknowledged at the time that companies that were obtaining fetal tissue from abortionists and selling it to laboratories were existing in a “gray zone, legally,” since “federal law says they cannot profit from the tissue itself, but the law does not specify how much they can charge for processing and shipping.”

“I ask that you launch an investigation into University of California San Diego and its use of Planned Parenthood’s aborted fetal tissue in an apparent violation of federal law,” Rubio concluded. “Both of these organizations receive hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars every year, and the American people deserve answers.”

Rubio’s letter comes amid multiple disturbing reports about fetal tissue and the handling of aborted baby bodies. In February, lawmakers raised an outcry over the possibility that the Washington, D.C., medical examiner might dispose of the bodies of five preemie-sized aborted baby bodies from the Washington Surgi-Clinic located in downtown Washington. Those babies are related to the DOJ’s case against pro-life activist Lauren Handy, her attorney argued.

On March 25, 2022, five murdered babies were found outside of the Washington Surgi-Center

2 years later, the DOJ is trying to brush their death under the rug

Congress must investigate this case and reassert its constitutional power over Washington D.C. to protect human life pic.twitter.com/84so8vewov

— Rep. Chip Roy Press Office (@RepChipRoy) March 25, 2024

And last week, as The Daily Signal’s Elizabeth Troutman reported, pro-life activist Daleiden released videos purportedly showing Planned Parenthood officials discussing mutilating the bodies of living babies to bypass federal law against partial-birth abortions.

Daleiden told The Daily Signal that the footage, revealed during a House of Representatives hearing led by Republican Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, adds to Planned Parenthood’s record of barbarism toward premature babies. 

Daleiden posed as a fetal tissue procurer to secretly record and publish videos of Planned Parenthood employees in 2013 and 2014 allegedly discussing the sale of fetal body parts. Planned Parenthood has accused Daleiden of deceptively editing the videos. The abortion giant sued Daleiden and his organization, the Center for Medical Progress.

“The new videos show Planned Parenthood’s financial interest in selling the body parts from aborted babies is even bigger than previously discussed, and their criminal intent is irrefutably documented,” Daleiden told The Daily Signal last week. “The new footage also shows the barbaric lengths Planned Parenthood will go to in order to cover up their illegal abortion harvesting.”

The post EXCLUSIVE: Rubio Calls for DOJ to Investigate Planned Parenthood’s Handling of Aborted Baby Tissue appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Mifepristone access is coming before the US Supreme Court. How safe is this abortion pill?

A case will be taken up by the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday that could affect how women access mifepristone, a pill used in 'the most common type of abortion' in the country.

Washington Post, TikTok Target Young Women Speaking Up About Birth Control

The Washington Post and TikTok are under fire over apparent attempts to discredit stories women have been sharing about the negative effects of hormonal birth control on their physical and mental health.

The Post reported Thursday that “women are getting off birth control amid [a] misinformation explosion,” referring to the onslaught of viral videos of young women in their teens and 20s discussing how dramatically their lives have improved since getting off hormonal birth control and using natural fertility awareness methods.

“For more and more Gen Z women, there’s an intuitive sense that hormonal birth control might be messing with us, and our brains,” one young woman wrote for the New York Post. “And research is backing it up, showing correlations between the pill and a decreased sex drive, as well as higher rates of depression and suicide, and even stress reactions similar to [post-traumatic stress disorder] survivors.”

“Many of my friends are independently doing the same, whether it’s driven by concern for their mental health, desire for something more natural—or curiosity about what the world looks like when you’re not in a hormonal fog,” she added.

Written by Lauren Weber and Sabrina Malhi, The Washington Post article boasts that “TikTok recently removed at least five videos linking birth control to mental health issues and other health problems after The Post asked how the company prevents the spread of misinformation.”

One of those videos was from The Daily Wire’s Brett Cooper, who argued that birth control can have an effect on who women are attracted to, as well as affect their weight gain and their fertility. That video “racked up over 219,000 ‘likes’ before TikTok removed it following The Post’s inquiry,” the newspaper noted.

TikTok did not immediately explain to The Daily Signal whether it vetted Weber and Malhi’s claims of misinformation before it removed the videos. Weber and Malhi did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Alex Clark, host of “The Spillover” podcast, who has drawn fire for her outspokenness on the harms of birth control, called The Washington Post piece “dishonest reporting” that suggests only conservatives are against hormonal birth control.

“Women of all political backgrounds have been screaming from the rooftops that [hormonal birth control] has led to a litany of health issues all the way back to the ’70s,” Clark explained to The Daily Signal. “Teenage girls are prescribed birth control like candy. No in-depth conversation is had about side effects, and now those teenage girls have grown up, have differing political views, and are dealing with the physical consequences of HBC.”

Clark maintains that birth control is pushed upon women by the pharmaceutical industry as a huge moneymaker.

“Big Pharma is doing everything they can to squash this conversation, because women are their biggest cash cow,” she said. “Get us on birth control as teens. Recommend antidepressants for the side effects. Birth control works as a band-aid covering up warning signs of deeper hormonal or fertility issues.”

“When we’re ready to have a family, we find out,” she added. “Now, we need to pay [$20,000] for fertility treatments. Birth control is the gateway prescription drug to a lifetime of being Big Pharma-reliant. If they lose the next generation of young women on birth control, they worry they won’t have us hooked for life. It was never about women. It was always about our money.”

The anti-birth control movement is not conservative, historically or currently. It started in the 1970s by a group of feminist, liberal women who spoke up and risked their reputations questioning Big Pharma at the Nelson Pill hearings.

— Alex Clark (@yoalexrapz) March 24, 2024

Emma Waters, a senior research associate in the Richard and Helen DeVos Center for Life, Religion, and Family at The Heritage Foundation, also pointed out to The Daily Signal that current resistance to birth control has little to do with religion or politics. (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of The Heritage Foundation.)

“For years now, women have been sounding the alarm about the harms of hormonal birth control,” Waters said. “In many cases, it has little to do with religious or ideological belief. Women are tired of a ‘one sized fits all’ approach to health care that actively harms them. Gen Z women have had enough.”

The viral accounts and videos about birth control and its effects show Gen Z “rebelling against the hyper-medicalized approach to dealing with any issue, from acne to painful or inconsistent hormonal cycles,” Waters said.

And the researcher suggested that those defending birth control may be more out of touch than they realize.

“Frankly, The Washington Post piece really showed its age as older millennials lectured and dismissed the very real women whose own stories about the harms of hormonal birth control are driving this movement to make women, not Big Pharma, the driver in women’s reproductive health,” she added.

Lila Rose, the founder of the pro-life organization Live Action, called TikTok’s censorship of Cooper’s video “insane and ridiculous,” adding that the “harms of birth control are well-documented, and the fact that TikTok is deleting content criticizing birth control should concern everyone.”

“To be anti-fertility is to be anti-woman,” Rose told The Washington Post, “and the proliferation of hormonal birth control is just another way of trying to force women to be more like men, with significant consequences for our emotional and physical health.”

The Washington Post wrote about me and my company in an article titled “Women are getting off birth control amid misinformation explosion.”

It was a horrible (yet predictable) hatchet job full of fear-mongering and, ironically, misinformation. @LaurenWeberHP, you should be… pic.twitter.com/glfEJwiydu

— Brittany Martinez (@BritMartinez) March 23, 2024

And Brittany Martinez, the founder of Evie magazine, told The Washington Post’s Weber that she should be ashamed of “contributing to the mass gaslighting and dismissing of women’s horrible experiences on birth control.”

“I’d say you are out of touch and uninformed at best, but you’re also directly complicit in TikTok censoring and removing viral videos of women speaking out,” she added.

Research psychologist Sarah Hill, who went off the pill herself and experienced positive health effects, told the New York Post earlier this year that after going off the pill, “I had a lot more energy, and I was exercising and cooking again. Suddenly, I was interested in sex.”

She credits the pandemic with helping young women take a serious look at their health.

“The pandemic allowed us to focus attention on our health,” Hill told the New York Post. “For women who were not in relationships and weren’t sexually active, it was an opportunity to break up with their birth control … . They wanted to find out how they would think and feel and experience the world without it.”

“This generation of women is demanding they get information about what’s going into their body,” Hill added. “A younger generation of women are saying, ‘Hey, wait a minute. You can’t just tell me what to put in my body and expect me to blindly obey.’”

Dr. Taraneh Shirazian, a gynecologist at NYU Langone Health, similarly told the publication that she sees a “generational shift” in attitudes toward birth control.

“I have noticed that many patients prefer non-hormonal birth control,” she explained. “Many are keen on limiting their body’s exposure to outside hormones so that they can feel more natural and like themselves.”

The post Washington Post, TikTok Target Young Women Speaking Up About Birth Control appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Supreme Court to Hear High-Stakes Abortion Pill Case Next Week

The Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments on Tuesday, March 26, in a case that could have a significant impact on how mifepristone — the first drug used in a two-drug medication abortion regimen — is used and prescribed in the United States.

World’s Dumbest NCAA Bracket

(John Hinderaker)

It was Scott who first referred to the sacramental view of abortion, some years ago now. Abortion (much like slavery over the course of the 19th century) went from being a regrettable but sometimes unavoidable evil to being a positive good–indeed, these days, the noblest good to which political life can aspire.

To see this perverse attitude in full flower, you almost have to live in Minnesota. Minnesota’s lieutenant governor, Peggy Flanagan, is a far-left Indian activist despite being, to all appearances, Irish-American. (To be fair, she has much more Indian heritage than, say, Elizabeth Warren.) Flanagan actually tweeted this:

I filled out my brackets based on whether those schools are located in a state that protects access to abortion care.

By this measurement, it’s only fair that Minnesota didn’t make the tournament because they’d have been a favorite for the title. pic.twitter.com/nFQ5FKwFHG

— Lt. Governor Peggy Flanagan (@LtGovFlanagan) March 21, 2024


So she had UConn facing Gonzaga in the final. Who wants to be the first to tell her?

One more thing–Minnesota’s governor, Tim Walz, liked Flanagan’s bracket tweet.

Blue State Blues: Abortion vs. the Republic

The voters for whom abortion is an important issue seem willing to sacrifice almost every other major public policy priority.

Report: 2023 Saw Highest Number of Abortions in ‘More Than a Decade’

Last year saw "the highest number and rate of abortions measured in the United States in more than a decade," according to a report from the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute.

Rubio to GOP: Don’t ‘Shy Away’ From Exposing Democratic Abortion Extremism

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—Republican Florida Sen. Marco Rubio responded to GOP consultant Kellyanne Conway’s abortion advice by urging lawmakers to expose Democratic extremism.

Last week, Conway urged Republicans to stop highlighting that their Democratic opponents support unfettered abortions of unborn babies, though Democratic Party leaders and most Democratic politicians have repeatedly refused to specify any protections for the unborn that they would support.

Her advice is a marked shift from what the pro-life movement has focused on as of late—prominent pro-life groups, such as Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, encourage Republicans to highlight Democratic extremism on abortion.

Rubio had similarly urged Republicans, in a January memo first reported by The Daily Signal, to engage a three-pronged approach: to fight for a pro-family agenda, to highlight Democratic extremism on the issue, and to tell the truth about the horrors of abortion.

He also emphasized to his colleagues that Republicans have the moral high ground on the issue, one that deals with the killing of an unborn child.

“Pro-lifers should recall that protecting unborn human beings is the moral center and purpose of our movement—and we cannot be shy about saying so,” he noted. “No pro-life strategy deserves the name without advocating just limits on abortion.”

On Tuesday, Rubio reiterated this stance.

“Protecting life is the moral center and purpose for the pro-life movement,” the Florida Republican told The Daily Signal.

“We should not shy away from exposing the extremism of Democratic lawmakers and abortion advocates, who believe it should be legal to kill babies until the moment of birth,” the senator added.

Conway had laid out an abortion-related political strategy during Politico’s Health Care Summit last week, where she also touched on her support for both TikTok and in vitro fertilization.

Conway emphasized that she is “100% pro-life” and encouraged Democratic lawmakers and commentators to “stop being science-deniers” and “stop pretending you don’t know what you see on a sonogram.” She pointed out that Americans, when polled more granularly on abortion, are both supportive of abortion exceptions and supportive of protecting unborn babies that can feel pain.

But Conway, who formerly served as Donald Trump’s senior adviser, also said that she does not encourage Republicans to point out that their opponents support abortion up until birth.

“Notice how I did not say, and counsel clients against saying, ‘Democrats are for abortion up until the moment of birth.’ You know why that’s not the best way to say it?” she asked. “Nobody knows anybody … who is about to give birth and says, ‘You know what? I don’t really like stretch marks. I’m not really ready to have another person in my life. I changed my mind.’ Nobody knows anybody like that.”

Conway then went on to imply that Trump was speaking metaphorically when he said to failed 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton: “If you go with what Hillary is saying, in the ninth month, you can take the baby and rip the baby out of the womb of the mother just prior to the birth of the baby.”

“That’s sort of a metaphor for who is really extreme here, and people reflexively said, ‘Oooh, could that be true?’ And I think it changed a lot of the conversation,” Conway explained.

In a statement to The Daily Signal following publication of this story, Conway accused The Daily Signal of “barking up the wrong tree,” praised Rubio’s efforts exposing abortion extremism, and back-tracked on her suggestion that Trump was speaking metaphorically about born-alive abortions.

“Senator Rubio and I agree on the importance of defending Life and exposing the extremism of pro-abortion Democrats, and have been doing so for decades,” Conway said. “His leadership on the issue, including on the debate stage against a female Democrat in 2022, is part of why I recommended him in a recent NYT oped (LINK) to be on President Trump’s short list for Vice President.”

“President Trump spoke unequivocally, not metaphorically, leading  the way for the professional politicians who had shied away from saying it,” Conway added. “We changed the conversation and gave courage to others to speak out against the no-limits, no-shame Democrats. Our Administration lodged significant, historic gains for Life.”

She also explained:

“Our pre-Dobbs polling in February 2022 showed that a Republican who opposes abortion with the three exceptions beats a Democrat who support allowing abortion ‘for any reason, up until the moment of birth’ (56% – 34%). I’ve used the phrase ‘up until the moment of birth’ dozens of times publicly and privately. Yet, we have found that alone has not and will not move hearts and minds and expand a culture of Life. All the lesser-included offenses, e.g., sex-selection abortion, taxpayer-funded abortion, fetal pain abortion, late-term abortion, are widely unknown and deeply unacceptable to a majority of Americans. We are actively encouraging leaders to add these facts to their “all f the above are onerous” appeal, finish their sentences and not limit themselves to  ‘up to the moment of birth.'”

Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email letters@DailySignal.com and we’ll consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature. Remember to include the URL or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state.

The post Rubio to GOP: Don’t ‘Shy Away’ From Exposing Democratic Abortion Extremism appeared first on The Daily Signal.

EXCLUSIVE: Conservative Organizations Issue Recommendations on Regulating IVF

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—Two leading conservative organizations are calling for the regulation of the in vitro fertilization industry amid media hysteria over a recent Alabama state Supreme Court ruling and Republican consternation over how to handle the issue.

Following the Alabama court ruling in favor of protecting embryonic human life, Republicans on Capitol Hill have suddenly found themselves required to position on a nuanced subject matter tied closely to the dignity of the human person and the fight for life.

Despite media hysteria suggesting the contrary, the Alabama Supreme Court did not ban IVF, but merely ruled in favor of protecting embryonic human life. Justice Jay Mitchell wrote in his opinion that “unborn children are ‘children’” under the state’s Wrongful Death of a Minor Act.

Experts, such as The Heritage Foundation’s Emma Waters, have argued that the ruling brings “much-needed regulation” to the fertility industry in the United States. (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of The Heritage Foundation.)

Waters noted that only a handful of state laws actually address the “moral and ethical questions raised by the artificial creation of human life.”

“This decision ensures that the well-being of children, not financial gain, is the top priority when it comes to IVF and embryonic cryopreservation,” Waters argues.

In a fact sheet released Tuesday, The Heritage Foundation cautioned that the IVF industry must be regulated and recommended imposing a standard of care on IVF clinics that would prevent “the wanton or careless destruction of embryonic human beings.”

“The willful or reckless loss of an embryonic child should not be treated as a loss of merchandise, where the parents simply get their money back,” the Heritage fact sheet said. “The law should recognize the
gravity of the harm and allow parents proper compensation under the wrongful-death provision.”

Parents should have a legal recourse if a fertility clinic destroys their embryonic children due to “willfulness, neglect, or carelessness,” the fact sheet noted, as the Alabama decision made clear.

Heritage also recommends codifying the recommended guidelines of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine to make sure only one embryo is implanted into the mother at a time. That would help avoid health complications for the mother and poor outcomes for the baby, the fact sheet said.

Heritage also calls for limiting the number of embryos created per round of IVF, following the practices of countries such as Germany; for mandating that fertility clinics secure true informed consent from parents; for prohibiting anonymous egg and sperm donations for IVF treatments; and for promoting access to non-assisted reproductive technology fertility treatments.

Former Vice President Mike Pence’s organization, Advancing American Freedom, similarly issued a memo on Tuesday, first obtained by The Daily Signal, that calls for Republicans to promote only IVF practices that promote life.

The top line of AAF’s messaging reminds lawmakers that “life begins at conception.”

“The law must recognize that millions of Americans are alive today due to IVF, and that embryos created via IVF should be afforded legal protection,” the AAF memo said.

At the same time, the conservative organization stressed that IVF presents a moral conundrum, since it often results in “the creation of frozen human beings, and those that are not implants remain frozen for an indefinite period.” The memo says there are about 1 million embryos in existence domestically, and points out that IVF can be used to “pursue a specific genetic result” that will lead to the destruction of embryos or “indefinite freezing of the unwanted child.”

IVF must be pursued responsibly, AAF cautioned, noting that the U.S. is largely out of line with the rest of the world when it comes to regulating the industry.

“Life begins at conception, and our laws should reflect this,” the memo stressed, emphasizing as a bottom line that “Republicans should never shy away from defending life” and unborn children and families deserve better safeguards.

IVF promises to be a complicated thorn in the side of Republicans, many of whom are already unsure how to successfully message on abortion ahead the 2024 election cycle. And it’s an issue that staffers may have to educate themselves on in order to message effectively.

Ethics and Public Policy President Ryan Anderson warned that IVF presents a pitfall that Republicans would do well to study and avoid.

“Republicans should not fall for the Left’s trap here,” he wrote. “They should not hesitate to say that America’s best social and political reforms were suffused with religious conviction. Or that the deepest reasons for our laws lie in God’s eternal law.”

“Nor should Republicans follow pollsters selling them on new government entitlements to IVF and other assisted reproductive technologies,” Anderson added. “There is no political appetite for bans on these procedures, and the GOP should call out the media’s lies suggesting there is. But our current state of unregulated embryo fabricating, freezing, and destroying does need fixing. The medically superior alternatives to IVF warrant promotion. And at the very least, embryos created through IVF deserve legal protection.”

Democrats are eager to harness both abortion and IVF this election cycle.

President Joe Biden was quick to call the Alabama ruling “outrageous and unacceptable,” saying in a statement: “Make no mistake: This is a direct result of the overturning of Roe v. Wade.”

Former President Donald Trump reacted to the Alabama ruling by promising that the Republican Party “will always support the creation of strong, thriving, healthy American families,” emphasizing that “we want to make it easier for mothers and fathers to have babies, not harder!”

“The Republican Party should always be on the side of the Miracle of Life,” he added, “and the side of Mothers, Fathers, and their Beautiful Babies. IVF is an important part of that, and our Great Republican Party will always be with you, in your quest, for the ULTIMATE JOY IN LIFE!”

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WSJ: Abortion Is President Biden’s ‘Top Issue’ for Reelection Campaign

U.S. President Joe Biden has made unrestricted abortion his number one issue as the November election approaches, observes William McGurn in the Wall Street Journal Tuesday.

Trump: GOP Must Endorse Three Exceptions for Abortion to Get Elected

By: Pam Key · Pam Key
Former President Donald Trump said Sunday on Fox News Channel's "MediaBuzz" that Republicans had to include the three exceptions to their abortion position if they want to get elected.

Kellyanne Conway Tells GOP: Stop Saying Democrats Support Abortion Up Until Birth

GOP campaign consultant Kellyanne Conway urged Republicans to stop highlighting that their Democratic opponents support unfettered abortions of unborn babies, suggesting instead that Republicans focus on consensus.

Conway laid out an abortion-related political strategy Wednesday during Politico’s Health Care Summit, at which she also touched on her support for both TikTok and in vitro fertilization.

Conway emphasized that she is “100% pro-life” and encouraged Democratic lawmakers and commentators to “stop being science-deniers” and “stop pretending you don’t know what you see on a sonogram.” She pointed out that Americans, when polled more granularly on abortion, are both supportive of abortion exceptions and supportive of protecting unborn babies that can feel pain.

But Conway, who formerly served as Donald Trump’s senior adviser, also said that she does not encourage Republicans to point out that their opponents support abortion up until birth—though the Democratic Party and most Democratic politicians have repeatedly refused to specify any protections for the unborn that they would support.

“Notice how I did not say, and counsel clients against saying, ‘Democrats are for abortion up until the moment of birth.’ You know why that’s not the best way to say it?” she asked. “Nobody knows anybody … who is about to give birth and says ‘You know what? I don’t really like stretch marks. I’m not really ready to have another person in my life. I changed my mind.’ Nobody knows anybody like that.”

Conway then went on to imply that Trump was speaking metaphorically when he said to failed 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton: “If you go with what Hillary is saying, in the ninth month, you can take the baby and rip the baby out of the womb of the mother just prior to the birth of the baby.”

“That’s sort of a metaphor for who is really extreme here, and people reflexively said, ‘Oooh, could that be true?’ And I think it changed a lot of the conversation,” Conway explained.

She did not immediately respond to a request for further comment for this article.

.@KellyannePolls claims Trump was speaking metaphorically when he said in 2016 that Hillary supports very late term abortions.

Trump at the time: “If you go with what Hillary is saying, in the 9th month, you can take the baby and rip the baby out of the womb…" pic.twitter.com/06XyYs604l

— Mary Margaret Olohan (@MaryMargOlohan) March 15, 2024

Conway’s remarks conflict with the strategies of prominent pro-life groups, such as the Susan B. Anthony List, which encourage Republicans to highlight Democratic extremism on abortion.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., similarly urged Republicans, in a January memo first reported by The Daily Signal, to engage a three-pronged approach: to fight for a pro-family agenda, to highlight Democratic extremism on the issue, and to tell the truth about the horrors of abortion.

He also emphasized to his colleagues that Republicans have the moral high ground on the issue, one that deals with the killing of an unborn child.

“Pro-lifers should recall that protecting unborn human beings is the moral center and purpose of our movement—and we cannot be shy about saying so,” he noted. “No pro-life strategy deserves the name without advocating just limits on abortion.”

“This moment is an opportunity for Republicans to refocus and remember who we are,” he wrote. “Our party believes in the dignity of the human person, the importance of family, and the unalienable right to life. There is no cause that unites those beliefs more perfectly, and that motivates tens of millions of our party’s supporters more fully, than the pro-life cause. We have a responsibility to advocate effectively for that cause.”

At a different point in the Wednesday conversation, Politico’s Ryan Lizza asked Conway: “How do you advise a Republican candidate who genuinely says … ‘I believe an embryo is a human life’?”

“I know a few people like that,” Conway responded. “I don’t know many. I know you always want them to be the rule, not the exception … .”

“You don’t know anyone who believes that life starts at conception?” interrupted Lizza.

“I know many people who believe that, you’re talking about embryos,” she continued, before he pressed: “You don’t know anyone who believes embryos are a human life? That’s a very common position in the pro-life movement.”

.@RyanLizza: "How do you advise a Republican candidate who genuinely says…I believe an embryo is a human life?"@KellyannePolls: "I know a few people like that. I don't know many. I know you always want them to be the rule, not the exception…"

Lizza: "You don't know anyone… pic.twitter.com/UQsv276asr

— Mary Margaret Olohan (@MaryMargOlohan) March 15, 2024

She later said that she would advise a candidate who believes life begins at conception to say, “I am pro-life, and here is what that means,” before emphasizing the importance of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as “our first rights.”

Conway also encouraged GOP candidates to talk about close family members and friends who are pro-abortion, and to highlight the abortion exceptions that they personally support.

“You show me your exceptions,” she encouraged Republicans to say to Democrats, “And I’ll show you mine.”

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CDC Exaggerated Maternal Death Rates, Study Finds

A new study has found that maternal death rates in the United States have likely been strongly exaggerated due to misclassifications of maternal deaths.

The study, published Wednesday in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology, found that the United States’ maternal death rates have been inflated for the past two decades due to data-classification errors.

These errors were apparently due to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s changes in the way that pregnancy was referenced on death certificates, leading to an “overestimation of maternal mortality.”

The maternal death rate has actually remained flat, according to the study. “A definition-based approach, which requires the mention of pregnancy among the multiple causes of death on the death certificate, shows lower, stable maternal mortality rates in the United States and a temporal decline in deaths due to direct obstetrical causes,” the report said.

“There has been a lot of alarm and apprehension surrounding the fact that some of these reports show a threefold increase in maternal mortality, and that is not what we found. We found low and stable rates,” K.S. Joseph, the lead author of the study, told The Washington Post.

In a statement to The Daily Signal, the CDC disputed the study’s findings, claiming that the methods used in the AJOG report “are known to produce a substantial undercount of maternal mortality” because “there are maternal deaths occurring that would not otherwise be identified if the death certificate didn’t include a pregnancy checkbox.”

“Capturing these otherwise unrecorded maternal deaths is critical to understanding the scope of maternal mortality in the United States and taking effective public health action to prevent these deaths,” the CDC added. “The recent report’s analysis does not address this, nor does it provide evidence of how large any potential overcount may be. That said, the AJOG report confirms a prior CDC analysis, which found that the pregnancy box is sometimes mistakenly checked on death certificates, which contributes to some overcounting.”

The news comes as Vice President Kamala Harris visits a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic in Minnesota, making her the first vice president to visit such a facility. The move is intended to demonstrate President Joe Biden’s administration’s dedication to promoting abortion in the post-Roe v. Wade era.

“I’m here at this health care clinic to uplift the work that is happening in Minnesota as an example of what true leadership looks like,” Harris said, adding: “It is only right and fair that people have access to the health care they need, and that they have access to health care in an environment where they are treated with dignity and respect … [I]t is absolutely about health care and reproductive health care.”

Vice President Kamala Harris is the first VP or POTUS to visit an abortion clinic.

Says she is there because of how many people are "silently suffering" after Roe was overturned. pic.twitter.com/oMrmRMBQHo

— Eugene Daniels (@EugeneDaniels2) March 14, 2024

She also sharply criticized efforts to protect the unborn across the nation, saying: “In this environment, these attacks against an individual’s right to make decisions about their own body are outrageous and in many instances just plain old immoral. How dare these elected leaders believe they are in a better position to tell women what they need, to tell women what is in their best interest.”

The visit also comes after Biden’s heated rhetoric on “reproductive rights,” birth control, and in vitro fertilization at last week’s State of the Union address, in which he accused Republicans of trying to restrict a woman’s “freedom to choose.”

Harris’ visit demonstrates an effort to “generate enthusiasm for the Democratic ticket among black, Hispanic, and young voters,” Axios reports. According to a poll released Thursday from the health policy research firm KFF, more than one-quarter of black female voters said that abortion is their top issue in the 2024 presidential election.

“It’s a complete shift,” KFF pollster Ashley Kirzinger claimed to The Associated Press, pointing to the fervor of white evangelical voters who turned out for then-presidential candidate Donald Trump in the 2016 election. “Abortion voters are young, black women—and not white evangelicals.”

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Poll: Voters More Concerned About the Economy and Immigration than Abortion

The economy and immigration are more important to voters than abortion going into the 2024 presidential election, a survey released on Tuesday found.

15 States Threaten to Sue Maine for Transgender Groomer Sanctuary Bill

Fifteen states are threatening to sue Maine over the state's radical transgender protection bill allowing children to be trafficked there.

Olivia Rodrigo Hands Out Plan B Pills to Fans, Donating Portion of Ticket Sales to Pro-Abortion Groups

Pop star and former Disney actress Olivia Rodrigo is donating a portion of her concert tour ticket sales to pro-abortion groups while also handing out so-called "Plan B" pills to fans, including at a recent concert in St. Louis, Missouri -- which was the first state to effectively end abortion after the Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade in 2022.

'Broad City' Star Ilana Glazer Says Texas 'Genuinely Dangerous' for Women

Actress Ilana Glazer, star of Comedy Central's Broad City, lamented that Texas is a "genuinely dangerous" state for women.

The issue that could cost Trump the 2024 campaign

As the 2024 presidential campaign heats up, count on Democrats to continue to push the abortion rights issue. That poses a major problem for Donald Trump.

‘Totalitarian’ Bill Would Establish Maine as Sanctuary State for Abortions, Trans Surgeries

A Democrat-led bill seeks to establish a legal right to abortions, transgender surgeries, and hormonal treatments in Maine, and protect those traveling from outside of the state to get such procedures there.

LD 227 would establish a legal right to “gender-affirming health care services” and “reproductive health care services” within Maine, according to a draft copy of the bill published by The Maine Wire. The publication reported that the bill would also ban “interference with legally protected health care activity,” including abortions and attempted sex-change surgeries.

“Gender-affirming” care is a euphemism used by leftist activists and the media to describe transgender surgeries, hormones, and puberty blockers. Radical gender ideologues insist that “gender-affirming care” is necessary for those who are experiencing gender dysphoria.

The bill relies on an understanding of “gender-affirming health care services” established by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, an organization newly under fire for dangerous experimentation upon minors.

BREAKING: Democrats in Maine introduced LD 227 which would legally protect ''gender affirming care'' for minors and the medical providers. They are holding a hearing tomorrow on it. The sponsors are Anne Perry (D) and Donna Bailey (D).

You can contact them here:… pic.twitter.com/IVNQZWMlmQ

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) March 5, 2024

The legislation has been warmly welcomed by left-wing groups, such as Planned Parenthood Maine Action Fund, which claimed that the bill would “ensure Maine’s health care providers aren’t penalized under the laws of other states.”

“LD 227 is a straightforward bill to ensure that Maine law can continue to govern Maine health care,” said Polly Crozier, the director of family advocacy for GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders, in a joint press release with Planned Parenthood. “Maine is committed to protecting access to essential health care for transgender people and to reproductive health care, including abortion.”

But critics, such as Republican Maine state Rep. Josh Morris, assert that the bill “is extreme in its assault on family values,” adding that it “sanctions kidnapping and shields doctors from any consequences.”

"It's the craziest thing that I've ever seen."@BigSteve207 explains LD 227, the revamped Transgender Trafficking Bill.

This bill would legalize a rapist taking their victim to Maine to get an abortion, to cover up the evidence of the crime they had committed. pic.twitter.com/5xhSnGmede

— The Maine Wire (@TheMaineWire) March 5, 2024

In a letter sent Monday, 16 Republican state attorneys general sent a letter to Maine Gov. Janet Mills and Maine state Attorney General Aaron Frey, both Democrats. That letter slams the bill as a “novel effort at state-sanctioned culture war litigation tourism,” claiming the bill violates the Constitution and “flouts” the U.S.’ federalist structure.

“If Maine pursues LD 227’s constitutionally defective approach, we will vigorously avail ourselves of every recourse our Constitution provides,” the attorneys general wrote.

The attorneys general contend that LD 227 creates a private right of action for damages against prosecutors, law enforcement, and other officials in states outside of Maine who are enforcing “our own valid state laws, even laws whose constitutionality has been confirmed by federal appellate courts.”

“On top of that,” they add, “LD 227 purports to block valid orders and judgments from our state courts enforcing laws upheld by federal appellate courts.”

“In America, we have the right to disagree,” the attorneys general emphasize. “Maine has every right to decide what Maine’s laws are and how those laws should be enforced. But that same right applies to every State. One State cannot control another. The totalitarian impulse to stifle dissent and oppress dissenters has no place in our shared America. We will not allow laws like LD 227 to deter us from protecting the integrity of our States’ democratic processes.”

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Dem Rep. Bush: Men Shouldn't Say What 'Women and Pregnant Folks' Do

During a portion of an interview aired on Friday’s broadcast of CNN’s “The Source,” Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) declared, “there should not be white men in red states telling people across this country, telling women and pregnant folks across this

Dem Rep. Wild to Those Who Think Abortion Takes a Life: You Don't Have to Have One

During a portion of an interview aired on Friday’s broadcast of CNN’s “The Source,” Rep. Susan Wild (D-PA) acknowledged that there are people in the country who believe that abortion is “taking the life of a child, and the answer

'What the F*ck?': Leftists Livid with Biden for Saying 'Illegal' Migrant, Omitting 'Abortion' in SOTU

Biden called Laken Riley's alleged killer an "illegal" and failed to use the word "abortion," two alleged mistakes that caused the far left to lash out.

SOTU: Biden Goes Off Script to Scold Supreme Court Justices Over Dobbs

President Joe Biden strayed from his prepared remarks at the State of the Union address on Thursday night to criticize Supreme Court justices to their faces about their decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Fact-Checking Biden’s State of the Union Address

President Joe Biden delivered his 2024 State of the Union address in the House Chamber of the U.S. Capitol on Thursday night.

During the 67-minute speech, frequently interrupted by applause from fellow Democrat senators and members of Congress, Biden spoke on a wide range of issues, from border security and the economy to abortion and foreign policies relating to Israel and Ukraine.

The president made numerous claims, many of them contentious and sharply partisan. The Daily Signal fact-checked many of those claims to assess whether they were truthful and accurate.

  1. ‘Dagger at the Throat of American Democracy’

Biden compared the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot to the U.S. Civil War of the 1860s. 

“Insurrectionists stormed this very Capitol and placed a dagger at the throat of American democracy,” he said. 

“Jan. 6 and the lies about the 2020 election, and the plots to steal the election, posed the gravest threat to our democracy since the Civil War,” Biden said. “But they failed. America stood strong and democracy prevailed.” 

If Biden was saying no attack happened on the Capitol between 1865 and 2021, that would be inaccurate. 

In 1954, four Puerto Rican terrorists attacked the Capitol. Unlike those who got inside the Capitol building two years ago, the 1954 terrorists were armed with guns. The four opened fire from the House Gallery, wounding five lawmakers: Reps. Alvin Bentley, Ben Jensen, Clifford Davis, George Hyde Fallon, and Kenneth Roberts. 

In 1971, a domestic terrorist group, the Weather Underground, bombed the Capitol, causing $300,000 worth of damage. Luckily, no one was killed or injured. 

The so-called Weathermen returned in 1983 and set off another bomb that “tore through the second floor of the Capitol’s North Wing,” according to the Senate’s history website. There were no fatalities.

As for Biden’s reference to “insurrectionists,” hundreds have been convicted in connection with the Jan. 6 riot, but not one was convicted of insurrection. But some were charged with sedition. 

The term “insurrection” has a specific legal definition under the U.S. Code (U.S.C. 2383), which says:

Whoever incites, sets on foot, assists, or engages in any rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States or the laws thereof, or gives aid or comfort thereto, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 10 years, or both; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.

According to Biden’s own Justice Department, none of the 950 arrested in connection with the riot was charged with insurrection.

Prosecutors did charge 50 defendants with conspiracy, and four have been convicted of seditious conspiracy. The other conspiracy-related charges were conspiracy to obstruct a congressional proceeding, conspiracy to obstruct law enforcement during a civil disorder, or conspiracy to injure an officer.  

Seditious conspiracy (under U.S.C. 2384) is defined this way: 

If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than [20] years, or both.

—Fred Lucas

2. ‘Cutting the Federal Deficit’

Biden twice took credit for cutting the federal deficit, and later said he wanted to cut it further by hiking taxes on corporations and the wealthy.  

He first noted that under his administration, Medicare now has the authority to negotiate lower prices for prescription drugs similar to that of the Department of Veterans Affairs. 

“That’s not just saving seniors money,” Biden said. “It’s saving taxpayers money, cutting the federal deficit by $160 billion because Medicare will no longer have to pay exorbitant prices to Big Pharma.” 

Later, Biden said, “I’ve already cut the federal deficit by over $1 trillion.”

“I signed a bipartisan budget deal that will cut another trillion dollars over the next decade,” he said. “And now it’s my goal to cut the federal deficit $3 trillion more by making big corporations and the very wealthy finally pay their fair share.” He used variations on the terms “fair” and “fair share” at least nine times. 

However, the federal budget deficit is set to increase every year for the next decade, wrote David Ditch, a senior policy analyst in the Grover M. Hermann Center for the Federal Budget at The Heritage Foundation.

“When deficits get too high, as happened during the COVID-19 pandemic, it adds to inflationary pressures on the economy. If current trends continue, driven by the growth of spending as a share of the economy, deficits will balloon even in years without a recession or a major war,” Ditch wrote. 

“The first-ever $1 trillion deficit happened in fiscal year 2009 and helped fuel the tea party movement in response. Incredibly, not only are $1 trillion deficits now standard operating procedure, but the federal government is set to crack $2 trillion deficits every year as soon as 2031—even sooner if any new legislation expands the [Washington] swamp,” Ditch added. 

The Congressional Budget Office projects the government will spend more on interest payments in 2024 on the accumulated debt than on national defense.

—Fred Lucas

The president also claimed that “the last administration enacted a $2 trillion tax cut that overwhelmingly benefits the very wealthy and the biggest corporations and exploded the federal deficit.”

That’s untrue. Those in income brackets earning $200,000 or more paid more taxes in 2018 compared with 2017. Those making less than $200,000 annually paid less in taxes.

—Tony Kinnett

3. COVID-19 Was ‘Worst Economic Crisis in a Century’

Biden called the COVID-19 pandemic the “worst economic crisis in a century.” That’s objectively incorrect. The Great Depression, which lasted from 1929 to 1941, resulted in 24.9% of Americans being forced into unemployment. At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, in the second quarter of 2020, unemployment hit 13%, and the pandemic only lasted two years.

—Tony Kinnett

4. ‘Most Americans’ Said to Support Roe v. Wade

“Like most Americans, I believe Roe v. Wade got it right,” Biden said of the 1973 Supreme Court ruling making abortion legal nationwide. 

The Supreme Court overturned Roe in June 2022, ruling that there was no constitutional right to abortion. In 2023, 44% of Americans identified as pro-life, according to a Gallup poll, while 52% identified as pro-abortion, and 4% had no opinion. 

Biden used the story of Texas resident Kate Cox, who was a guest of the president and in the audience Thursday night, to advocate for abortion. 

Cox, according to Biden, became pregnant with “a fetus with a fatal condition,” and because of Texas law protecting the unborn, Cox went to another state to have an abortion. 

Cox’s baby had a genetic condition known as trisomy 18, according to reporting by The Daily Signal’s Mary Margaret Olohan. 

“Trisomy 18 is a condition in which a baby had an extra copy of chromosome 18, making it highly likely that the baby would die in the womb or shortly after birth—though some babies with trisomy 18 do survive, such as the daughter of former Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa.,” Olohan reported.

—Virginia Allen

5. ‘Toughest Set of Border Security Reforms We’ve Ever Seen’

Biden touted his support of a “bipartisan” bill that, according to the president, included the “toughest set of border-security reforms we’ve ever seen.” 

He claimed that the bill would “bring order to the border.” 

The border bill Biden was referring to failed in the Senate in February because it “codified Joe Biden’s open border,” Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said on his podcast “Verdict with Ted Cruz.”  

The Senate’s 370-page bill included about $20 billion in border-related spending and directed the Department of Homeland Security to close the southern border “during a period of 7 consecutive calendar days, [if] there is an average of 5,000 or more aliens who are encountered each day.” 

According to Jeh Johnson, homeland security secretary in the administration of President Barack Obama, 1,000 illegal crossings a day amounted to a very bad day at the border. 

If the bill were passed, more than 1.8 million illegal aliens a year would be permitted to enter the United States. The bill also would give the president the authority to “direct the [homeland security secretary] to suspend use of the border emergency authority on an emergency basis.”  

The legislation also would have allowed the policy of “catch and release” to not only continue, but be incorporated into law. 

Last May, the House passed a border security bill, HR 2, which would end “catch and release,” restart construction on the border wall, and reinstate former President Donald Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy. 

The Democrat-controlled Senate has yet to take up HR 2. 

Biden went on to say he’s ready to “fix” the border. In February, there were rumors that he was considering taking executive action on the border, but has yet to do so. Instead, the president has continued to call on Congress to take action on the border. 

On his first day in office on Jan. 20, 2021, Biden stopped construction of the Trump administration’s wall at the southern border, signed an executive order “revoking a Trump Executive Order that directed harsh and extreme immigration enforcement,” and strategically undid many of the Trump administration’s other border security policies.

—Virginia Allen

6. Slaying Victim Laken Riley Incorrectly Identified as ‘Lincoln’

The first name of the young woman who was the victim of a recent brutal killing, allegedly by an illegal immigrant in Georgia, was “Laken,” not “Lincoln.” Accused of previous offenses, the man accused of killing Laken Riley was caught and released into the United States due to a reversal of Trump’s administration’s policies on illegal immigration by Biden.

—Tony Kinnett

7. Transgenderism as ‘Fundamental Right’ 

Biden suggested that the proposed Equality Act represents a protection of “fundamental rights.” He said, “I want to protect other fundamental rights. Pass the Equality Act, and my message to transgender Americans: I have your back!” 

The Equality Act would amend the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex, to prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender identity.

Contrary to Biden’s framing, that would undermine some existing fundamental rights, like women’s rights to safety and privacy in women’s spaces (including women’s prisons) and their right to fair competition in sports. 

The bill could also undermine children’s right to grow up without having their growth stunted by experimental transgender medical interventions. Earlier this week, journalist Michael Shellenberger released internal files from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, files revealing that doctors and psychologists who support medical interventions euphemistically referred to as “gender-affirming care” acknowledge that the side effects of such drugs are not fully known. They also admitted that teenagers have contracted cancer due to cross-sex hormones and that those drugs could permanently stunt a child’s growth.

—Tyler O’Neil

8. ‘Book Banning

Biden urged Americans to “stop denying another core value of America—our diversity.” He suggested that “banning books” is an example of such a denial.

The president was referring to the movement to restrict the availability of sexually explicit materials in school libraries, which some on the Left have falsely branded “book banning.”

While parents note that “Gender Queer: A Memoir” by Maia Kobabe contains depictions of sexual acts between a boy and a man and “Lawn Boy” by Jonathan Evison contains long passages in which a boy reminisces about sexual experiences at age 10, pro-transgender advocates defend those and similar books as necessary for LGBTQ+ children to “see themselves” in literature.

Removing such books from school libraries does not represent “banning” them, as it does not prevent publishers from printing them, parents from buying them, or children from reading them. It merely restricts their spread to minors in a school setting.

Heritage Foundation scholars checked school libraries across the country and found that the books are still available on the bookshelves. (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of The Heritage Foundation.)

—Tyler O’Neil

9. ‘Voter Suppression, Election Subversion’

Biden noted that the Voting Rights Act was signed 59 years ago, but said Congress has to pass more laws on voting. 

“But 59 years later, there are forces taking us back in time,” the president said. “Voter suppression. Election subversion. Unlimited dark money. Extreme gerrymandering.”

He referenced the late Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., a famed civil rights activist who died in 2020. 

“If you truly want to honor him and all the heroes who marched with him, then it’s time for more than just talk,” Biden said. “Pass and send me the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act.”

Biden didn’t specify what he meant by election subversion or voter suppression. But he previously has characterized voter-ID laws as voter suppression. The laws also restricted ballot harvesting and cleaned up voter-registration rolls of the names of dead people. 

Almost two dozen states enacted election reform laws in 2021. Biden specifically criticized a Georgia election reform law as “Jim Crow 2.0,” a reference to the segregated South of the past. 

An independent survey conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Election Data and Science Lab, in conjunction with the School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Georgia, found that 99% of voters felt safe at polling stations, 98.9% reported no issues or difficulty in casting a ballot, 97% rated interactions with poll workers as “good” or “excellent,” and 95.3% reported wait times of less than 30 minutes. 

The left-leaning New York Times described 2022 voter turnout—56%—as strong, but “shy of the 2018 high-water-mark midterms.”

Several studies have shown that voter-ID laws do not suppress voting. A 2019 study by the National Bureau of Economic Research—based on turnout data from 2008 to 2018—said voter-ID laws “have no negative effect on registration or turnout, overall or for any group defined by race, gender, age, or party affiliation.” 

A 2023 study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, voter-ID laws actually “produced a Democratic advantage, which weakened to near zero after 2012” and added voter-ID laws have “negligible average effects.”

—Fred Lucas

10. Preschoolers ‘50% More Likely’ to Earn Degrees

Biden claimed that children who attend preschool “are 50% more likely to earn a two- or four-year degree no matter their background.” That’s misleading. The study from Blueprint Labs that the White House based the statement on explicitly states that preschool “has no detectable impact on state achievement test scores” or college enrollment tests. 

The study did not show that preschool attendance increased the likelihood students would apply to two- or four-year programs compared with those who didn’t attend preschool.

—Tony Kinnett

11. Alabama Court ‘Shut Down IVF Treatments

The president claimed that “the Alabama Supreme Court shut down [in vitro fertilization] treatments across the state, unleashed by the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade.” That isn’t true. The Alabama Supreme Court did not “shut down” IVF treatments, but ruled embryos were to be classified as human beings

That decision was not directly caused by the Supreme Court of the United States’ ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, either. Nothing in the Supreme Court’s ruling mentioned IVF or triggered a preexisting Alabama law to make IVF illegal.

Additionally, the Alabama Legislature passed a bill protecting IVF treatments and procedures earlier Thursday, which Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, a Republican, promptly signed into law.

—Tony Kinnett

12. ‘Shrinkflation’

As expected, the president also sharply criticized what he called “shrinkflation.”

“Too many corporations raise their prices to pad their profits, charging you more and more for less and less,” Biden said. “That’s why we’re cracking down on corporations that engage in price-gouging or deceptive pricing, from food to health care to housing.” 

He blamed companies for the rising cost of snacks. 

“In fact, snack companies think you won’t notice when they charge you just as much for the same size bag, but with fewer chips in it,” Biden said. 

He called for Congress to pass legislation drafted by Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., “to put a stop to shrinkflation.”

However, the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed prices for both business and consumers have increased 18% on average since Biden took office in January 2021.

“Grocery stores cannot simply reduce the prices they charge while the prices they themselves pay continue to rise,” E.J. Antoni, a public finance economist and research fellow in The Heritage Foundation, recently wrote

He added, “If a dairy farmer charges a grocer 20% more for milk, then the grocer will also charge a family 20% more for milk. That’s not gouging anyone. It’s merely staying in business.”

—Fred Lucas

Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email letters@DailySignal.com and we’ll consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature. Remember to include the URL or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state.

The post Fact-Checking Biden’s State of the Union Address appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Joe Biden Opens SOTU with Partisan Topics: Ukraine, January 6, Abortion

A shouting President Joe Biden opened Thursday's State of the Union address with partisan topics: Ukraine, January 6, abortion.

Democrat Women Wear White to SOTU in Support of Abortion

Many Democrat female lawmakers wore white to the State of the Union on Thursday night to show support for killing unborn babies via abortion.

Forget gas stoves. The big polluter is in Biden’s backyard

The Biden administration and its allies are trying to implement an environmental mandate on steroids. Yet one industry can knowingly pollute – the chemical abortion pill conglomerate.

Congressman to Bring Abortion Survivor to State of Union Address in Response to Pro-Abortion Biden Guest

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—Rep. Bob Good is bringing an abortion survivor and pro-life activist to the president’s State of the Union address as his guest on Thursday night.

The Virginia Republican’s choice of guest is a response to President Joe Biden’s guest, Kate Cox, the woman at the center of pro-abortion uproar in recent months.

“President Biden’s State of the Union guest Kate Cox is the first woman to sue for the right to kill her child since Roe v. Wade was overturned,” Good told The Daily Signal. “By inviting her, the president is reaffirming his commitment to advancing federal legislation to legalize the abortion of babies up to the moment of birth.”

Good’s guest, Ryan Bomberger, is a pro-life activist whose mother was tragically raped, but chose to carry him to term and put him up for adoption. Good described Bomberger’s mother as “courageous” in her decision not to abort her son.

“Ryan, his biological mother, and adopted parents are a testament to the simple proposition that life has value at every stage,” Good explained. “Ryan’s presence at the State of the Union sends the message that pro-life members of Congress will continue to fight for the opportunity for every human being to live out their God-given purpose.”

Bomberger is the co-founder and chief creative officer of his pro-life organization, the Radiance Foundation, “a faith-based, educational, life-affirming 501(c)3 nonprofit organization” that “affirms that every human life has God-given purpose.”

“I’m the 1% used to justify 100% of abortions,” he told The Daily Signal. “I was conceived in rape, but adopted in love.”

“Planned Parenthood and their political allies don’t like my storyline, because it shatters their narratives of fear,” he added. “I am proof that triumph can rise from tragedy.”

Today's my birthday. ???Though I was conceived in rape, I was adopted in love. My birthmom's courageous decision will cause reverberations for generations. So grateful that I'm able to love and be loved! From adoptee to adoptive dad, lovin' being alive! https://t.co/fQ3WlbU1IB

— Ryan Bomberger (@ryanbomberger) May 5, 2021

Cox became a media sensation when she asked the Texas Supreme Court to give her permission to abort her unborn baby, a baby that had a genetic condition known as trisomy 18. Pro-abortion advocates hail Cox as the first pregnant woman to sue for the right to abort her baby since the 1973 Supreme Court abortion decision in Roe v. Wade, according to The Texas Tribune.

Trisomy 18 is a condition in which a baby had an extra copy of chromosome 18, making it highly likely that the baby would die in the womb or shortly after birth—though some babies with trisomy 18 do survive, such as the daughter of former Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Penn.

Meet my incompatible w life daughter Bella. Her docs put her on hospice at 10 days old. Other countries have much higher survival rates than US because they treat the baby not the diagnosis. Every kid deserves a shot at life, not be brutally dismembered for not being perfect. pic.twitter.com/QKVAREEyVY

— Rick Santorum (@RickSantorum) December 12, 2023

Cox’s lawyers argued that by not aborting her baby, Cox was jeopardizing her health and future fertility.

After an Austin, Texas, judge sided with Cox, ruling that she could abort her baby, the Supreme Court of Texas temporarily put that ruling on hold. Cox then traveled out of state and aborted her baby, and shortly afterward, the Texas Supreme Court ruled that Cox would not have qualified to abort the baby under Texas’ medical exceptions to the state’s abortion laws.

“Her story is incredibly powerful, devastating,” White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre said of Cox in a press briefing earlier this year. “And it speaks to the moment that we are in now, when we talk about women having the right to make these deeply personal decisions about their health care that was taken away by the Supreme Court.”

Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email letters@DailySignal.com, and we’ll consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature. Remember to include the URL or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state.

The post Congressman to Bring Abortion Survivor to State of Union Address in Response to Pro-Abortion Biden Guest appeared first on The Daily Signal.

MSNBC's Scarborough: Far Right 'Invented a Religion,' Abortion Is Not a Christian Issue 

By: Pam Key · Pam Key
MSNBC host Joe Scarborough said Tuesday on his show "Morning Joe" that the far right invented a religion and made "abortion not just as a political issue" but a "religious issue."

French Bishops Reject Attempt to Make Abortion a Constitutional ‘Right’

The French Bishops’ Conference (CEF) called for prayer and fasting Monday in opposition to efforts by the government of President Emmanuel Macron to enshrine abortion rights in the French Constitution.

French Parliament to Vote on Making Abortion Constitutional Right Today

The measure was promised by President Emmanuel Macron following a rollback of abortion rights in court rulings in the United States.

Maher: Trump's Abortion, Immigration Stances Are What Democrats Used to Support

On Friday’s broadcast of HBO’s “Real Time,” host Bill Maher and Newsweek Opinion Editor Batya Ungar-Sargon stated that 2024 Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s reported support for a ban on abortions after 16 weeks is what Democrats used to believe and

Katie Porter: GOP Coming for 'Every Last Bit of Women's Freedom' -- 'We Need to Fight Like Hell'

By: Pam Key · Pam Key
Representative Katie Porter (D-CA) said Friday on MSNBC's "All In" that Republicans were coming "for every last bit of women's freedom to make their own decisions about their health."

CVS, Walgreens to Begin Selling Abortion Drugs Ahead of High-Stakes Supreme Court Case

CVS and Walgreens are set to begin selling abortion drugs "within a week," ahead of a Supreme Court battle challenging the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) rollback of safety restrictions for mifepristone, the first drug used in a two-drug medication abortion regimen.

Blue State Blues: Trump's Pragmatic Approach on IVF, Abortion Shows the Way

Somehow, despite the many provocative things Trump says, he is often the only voice of common sense on social issues.

Lawsuit: Woman Claims Vikings Star Justin Jefferson Fathered Her Child, Encouraged Abortion

A woman has filed a lawsuit against Minnesota Vikings wide receiver Justin Jefferson, claiming he fathered her child.

What Is the ‘Christian Nationalism’ Fearmongering Really About?

Is America on the verge of establishing a theocracy? The Left’s recent warnings about the rise of “Christian nationalism” suggest that a powerful, conservative Christian cabal is pulling the strings behind the scenes to forcibly convert the entire nation, or something.

In the past week, Politico’s Heidi Przybyla has been hammering the drum on this issue, first claiming—apparently without concrete evidence—that former Trump administration official Russell Vought has prioritized “Christian nationalism” by name in documents for a potential Trump second term, and then defining Christian nationalism as the doctrine that rights come from God, not government.

“The thing that unites them as Christian nationalists—not Christians, by the way, because Christian nationalism’s very different—is that they believe that our rights as Americans, as all human beings, don’t come from any earthly authority, they don’t come from Congress, they don’t come from the Supreme Court, they come from God,” Przybyla said in an appearance on MSNBC. She also complained that “it’s men” determining “what God is telling them.”

Although Przybyla admitted that “so-called natural law” has done some good in the civil rights movement, she went on to warn against “an extremist element of conservative Christians who say that this applies specifically to issues including abortion, gay marriage,” and in vitro fertilization. She later noted that conservatives are applying natural law to surrogacy and “sex education in schools” as well.

?"Christian Nationalism" isn't the real threat to the free exercise of religion in America today. The real threat is the sexual revolution ideology imposed on the people by government force, and Heidi Przybyla can't stand the idea of that establishment being challenged. pic.twitter.com/3UBwHgO0Gc

— Tyler O'Neil (@Tyler2ONeil) February 27, 2024

Shortly after Przybyla’s article about Vought, radical leftists have widely echoed her rhetoric and suggested that America’s future may resemble a dystopian “Handmaid’s Tale.”

What’s really going on here?

First, Przybyla’s fearmongering has nothing to do with reality. According to her definition of “Christian nationalism,” the Declaration of Independence is a Christian nationalist document.

Not only does the declaration ground Americans’ ability to declare independence from Britain in “the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God,” but it explicitly roots the “unalienable Rights” of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” in an endowment from the “Creator.” It addresses its appeal “to the Supreme Judge of the world,” with “a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence.”

That’s not exactly subtle.

Przybyla’s real problem with “Christian nationalists” isn’t the whole rights-derive-from-God thing. It’s the content of those rights and the mere whiff of a possibility that the government won’t impose her preferences for what those rights should mean.

America isn’t on the verge of a Christian nationalist theocracy, you see. No one is seriously arguing that we should throw out the Constitution and replace it with the Bible, or that we should make citizens, candidates for office, or government officials recite the Nicene Creed before they may enjoy legal rights.

What conservatives are seriously arguing, however, is that some rights of the sexual revolution should be curtailed in the interests of more fundamental rights.

Przybyla unwittingly revealed her cards when she addressed the issues she thinks should be off-limits for these “extremist Christian nationalists.” The heart of her complaint isn’t some quibble with the Fourth Lateran Council but with the very idea that natural law should apply to abortion, same-sex marriage, surrogacy, in vitro fertilization, and sex education in schools.

You see, Christian nationalism isn’t the real threat to the free exercise of religion in America today. The real threat is the ideology of the sexual revolution imposed on the people by government force, and Przybyla can’t stand the idea of that establishment being challenged.

That’s why the Left has a conniption when the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade and allows the states to make their own laws on abortion. According to Catholic Vote, vandals attacked at least 88 pregnancy centers and pro-life groups after the leak of the Supreme Court’s draft opinion in that ruling, and they also attacked 236 Catholic churches since the leak.

The Biden administration moved to aggressively support abortion, even though President Joe Biden himself had been a staunch defender of the Hyde Amendment, which previously barred federal funds from supporting the killing of the unborn. A Department of Justice official even said the overturning of Roe increased the “urgency” of DOJ efforts to enforce a law disproportionately applied against pro-life protesters at abortion facilities.

The Left demonized all the conservative justices on the Supreme Court after the ruling, with ProPublica launching an inquisition into Justice Clarence Thomas.

The Left isn’t objecting to the Right’s imposing its worldview on Americans by force—it’s objecting to the Right’s finally getting a say on issues springing from the sexual revolution. We’re not witnessing the rise of Christian nationalism, but the weakening of an anti-Christian establishment.

Other news items should make it clear what’s actually happening in America today.

Last week, the Supreme Court refused to take up a case in which a person who holds traditional views on sexual morality is considered “presumptively unfit to serve on a jury in a case involving a party who is lesbian.” As Justice Samuel Alito noted, this case exemplifies a danger he warned about when the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), “that Americans who do not hide their adherence to traditional religious beliefs about homosexual conduct will be ‘labeled as bigots and treated as such’ by the government.”

Oregon’s Department of Human Services treated a widowed mother of five children in this way when it denied her the right to adopt a pair of siblings from foster care. Why? Because she disagrees with Oregon’s state religion, the religion of LGBTQ identity.

The Biden administration is also considering a rule to bar “non-affirming” parents from foster care. People who dare to dissent from the idea that a male can become female just by saying so have no business raising children in Biden’s America, it seems.

As for sex education in schools, parental rights groups such as Moms for Liberty are reacting to the Left’s extreme overreach in education. They’re not “banning books,” they’re calling for sexually explicit materials to be removed from school libraries.

Many of these groups exist because parents got a sense of what their kids were “learning” in school when the kids “attended class” via Zoom during the pandemic—and leftist indoctrination in racial lessons and transgender identity rightly shocked moms and dads.

This isn’t some exclusively Christian movement, either. Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, atheists, and others have joined Christians of every denomination in supporting parental rights to opt their kids out of having to read sexually explicit books.

I’ve reported exhaustively on the Southern Poverty Law Center because I see that organization as the tip of the spear in the Left’s efforts to demonize any dissent from its agenda, and its ties to the Biden administration horrify me. The SPLC brands mainstream conservative Christian organizations as “hate groups” in an effort to raise money and to demonize its opponents into silence. It represents the institutionalization of the effort against “Christian nationalism.”

Many Americans think the Civil War was about slavery, and they’re not entirely wrong. Abraham Lincoln didn’t actually oppose slavery when he ran for president in 1860, though. He ran against the expansion of slavery into the federal territories.

You see, the Southern Democrats had such a stranglehold on the federal government that they couldn’t imagine needing to compromise. They had also begun to think of slavery as a positive good, not the “necessary evil” the Founders called it.

Southern Democrats couldn’t live with losing the ability to force their ideology on the rest of the country, and that ambition became their undoing.

“Christian nationalism” is the modern equivalent of Southern Democrats’ demonizing Lincoln, kicking and screaming as they lose the ability to foist their beliefs on the rest of the country. If history is any guide, this trend does not bode well for the Left—or America’s civil tranquility.

Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email letters@DailySignal.com, and we’ll consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature. Remember to include the URL or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state. 

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EXCLUSIVE: Catholic Churches Attacked 400 Times Since 2020, Tracker Finds

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL: Catholic churches in the United States have been attacked at least 400 times over the past four years, according to data compiled by the Catholic advocacy organization CatholicVote.

The hundreds of attacks across the nation began in connection with widespread civil unrest in May 2020, CatholicVote said. Examples include church burnings, beheadings of statues of Jesus Christ or the Virgin Mary, swastikas painted on grave stones, satanic and blasphemous statements graffitied on walls, windows smashed, Masses disrupted, and even the murder of a Catholic priest.

The leak of the draft Supreme Court opinion overturning Roe v. Wade led to another spike in attacks—since then, there have been 236 attacks on Catholic churches.

CatholicVote has only found evidence of an arrest in about 25% of the cases it tracked and estimates that the attacks have caused around $25 million in physical damages to churches.

Many of these attacks are abortion-related and include graffiti such as “Jane’s Revenge” (a reference to Jane Roe of Roe v. Wade) or “If abortions aren’t safe, then neither are you,” indicating that the attackers could potentially be charged with violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, a law protecting churches, pro-life pregnancy centers, and abortion clinics that the Department of Justice has used to charge dozens of pro-lifers praying outside of abortion clinics over the past few years.

President Joe Biden’s DOJ has not charged any vandals with FACE Act violations in connection to attacks on churches, however.

“Catholics across America are effectively under siege while the Biden administration’s reckless refusal to enforce the law continues to allow anti-Catholic extremists to endanger law-abiding citizens of faith and destroy their places of worship,” said Tommy Valentine, director of the CatholicVote’s Catholic Accountability Project.

“These unacceptable acts of bigotry against Catholics, and really all Americans of faith, cannot be tolerated,” he added. “It’s time for every elected official to take seriously their solemn duty to protect all citizens, including religious Americans.”

The 400th attack that CatholicVote recorded involved transgender activists who used deception to hold a “sacrilegious funeral” at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City for an atheist, transgender-identifying prostitute, Cecilia Gentili, revered by LGBTQ activists as a “transgender icon” and advocate.

Funeral attendees dressed in fur, fishnet stockings, miniskirts, and even thongs, as photographs posted by Time magazine showed. And during the funeral service, transgender activists appeared to mock Catholic saints and repeatedly celebrated “whores.”

Transgender activists attend the funeral of Cecilia Gentili at St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Feb. 15 in New York City. (Photo: Stephanie Keith/Getty Images)

One of the organizers of the funeral said that St. Patrick’s Cathedral was not told that Gentili was a man who identified as a transgender woman. “I kind of kept it under wraps,” organizer Ceyenne Doroshow, a man who identifies as a woman, told The New York Times, explaining that St. Patrick’s is “an icon, just like her [Gentili].”

A livestream of the event depicts one of the funeral organizers describing Gentili as: “This whore. This great whore. St. Cecilia, mother of all whores!”

The funeral attendees also placed a picture near the altar, where priests celebrate the Catholic Mass, that depicted Gentili with a halo and the Spanish words for “transvestite,” “whore,” “blessed,” and “mother,” as well as the text of Psalm 25.

CatholicVote sent a letter to New York Attorney General Letitia James last week calling on her to investigate “the facts and circumstances surrounding the recent use of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City by transgender activists to deceptively gain access and advance ideas and beliefs hostile to doctrines of the Catholic Church, while openly mocking these beliefs.”

The letter reminded James that under New York’s hate crimes laws, “selecting the victim of a criminal trespass based on a religion or religious practice is a hate crime” and “New York’s court’s have recognized that those who gain access to property by deception are liable for criminal trespass.”

Neither James nor New York Gov. Kathy Hochul immediately responded to requests for comment from The Daily Signal as to whether such an investigation would be done. New York is second only to California when it comes to attacks on Catholic churches over the past four years, according to CatholicVote: New York has seen 45 acts of violence and vandalism, while California has seen 54.

Biden, though described by his staff and legacy media as a “devout Catholic,” has not commented on the hundreds of attacks. In 2020, former President Donald Trump’s campaign condemned the onslaught of anti-Catholic crimes occurring throughout the United States to the Daily Caller News Foundation, accusing “radical leftists” of attempting to destroy the “moral fabric of our nation.”

“The rise in violence against houses of worship, religious symbols, and sacred spaces is quickly becoming an epidemic across the country, led by radical leftists hellbent on destroying the very moral fabric of our nation,” Trump campaign deputy press secretary Ken Farnaso told the Daily Caller at the time.

The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to requests for comment from The Daily Signal.

Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email letters@DailySignal.com, and we’ll consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature. Remember to include the URL or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state.

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