Christina Bohannan interned at Florida’s Department of Environmental Protection

Democrats lie effortlessly. I assume sociopathy is requisite for the role [US Patriot]

Democratic congressional candidate Christina Bohannan often boasts that she once worked as an environmental engineer. She always fails to mention it was an internship.

On Thursday, the Iowa state legislator, who is running to represent the state’s first district in Congress, told a Pella, Iowa, audience that she worked as an “environmental engineer with the Department of Environmental Protection in Florida doing water quality work.” Her résumé shows this was an internship Bohannan held for four years while studying at the University of Florida. No further experience in the field is listed, and she still holds just an engineering intern license in the state.

Bohannan did not return a request for comment.

As a swing-district Democrat facing off against incumbent Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R.), Bohannan has tried to cultivate the image of a pragmatic moderate, burnishing her apparent engineering credentials to speak to local concerns. In a 2020 letter to the Iowa City Press-Citizen, a Democratic official said Bohannan’s experience was of “critical importance for improving Iowa’s water quality issues.”

Bohannan’s campaign website also says she is a “former engineer.” One progressive group touted Bohannan’s “pro-science policies” and experience as an environmental engineer in its endorsement.

In October, a Wikipedia user who identified as Bohannan’s “State House campaign manager” edited the candidate’s page to add she was an “environmental” engineer, the site’s revision history shows.

Bohannan’s effort to appear moderate has also led her to disavow past policy positions. In August, she scrubbed her old campaign site of endorsements for taxpayer-funded sex-reassignment surgeries and opposition to voter ID laws. Around 70 percent of Iowans support voter ID, a 2017 Des Moines Register poll found.

In 2019, Bohannan contributed to a bail fund for illegal immigrants maintained by a group that wants to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement and work toward a “world without police.” She has also opposed school choice as a lawmaker while sending her daughter to a private school.

Before her run for Congress, Bohannan served as a legislator in Iowa’s heavily Democratic 85th district. She has been a professor at the University of Iowa’s law school since 2000. Her résumé lists publications on antitrust and copyright law but nothing about environmental issues.

In July, an internal poll by Bohannan’s campaign revealed the Democrat trailing Miller-Meeks by 1 point, the Iowa-based Gazette reported. About 22 percent of the voters surveyed remain undecided.

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

New York governor Kathy Hochul has directed state to investigate pro-life pregnancy centers

Gov. Kathy Hochul (D., N.Y.) has for weeks remained silent about pro-abortion activists firebombing a pro-life pregnancy center in her state. But when pro-life activists allegedly disrupted services at a Brooklyn Planned Parenthood, the Democrat condemned the “intimidation” from “anti-abortion extremists.”

“This is a shameful attempt to prevent New Yorkers from exercising their fundamental right to access reproductive care,” Hochul tweeted Thursday after New York attorney general Letitia James (D.) announced that pro-life activists harassed employees at a city Planned Parenthood clinic. “They won’t win.”

That reaction was a stark contrast with her muted response to a June incident in which pro-abortion activists firebombed a Buffalo, N.Y., pregnancy center that does not offer abortion services. The pregnancy center was also vandalized with graffiti that read “Jane was here,” a tagline for the extremist pro-abortion group Jane’s Revenge, which has vowed to attack similar pregnancy centers across the country. The Democrat has yet to comment on the attack. The governor’s office, meanwhile, told a local news outlet that Hochul “condemns violence of any kind.”

Hochul’s statement comes as Democrats look to crack down on the pregnancy centers following the overturn of Roe v. Wade. Just weeks after the Buffalo attack, Hochul signed a bill into law that directs state authorities to investigate pregnancy centers that do not perform abortions. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) has accused the facilities of “torturing” women and said the government should “shut them down all around the country.”

Hochul’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

New York Democrats have increased efforts to target pro-life activists in recent years. As attorney general, James filed a lawsuit against a Brooklyn pastor, as well as his followers, who protested outside of an abortion clinic in the city. Her office deployed private investigators and hidden cameras to spy on these pro-life activists but later dropped the lawsuit in November. James has a pending lawsuit against pro-life activists who protested at another Planned Parenthood in the state.

The pregnancy center bill Hochul signed directs the state’s commissioner of health to investigate pro-life pregnancy centers because they do not provide abortions, including a probe into whether these pregnancy centers provide a “comprehensive range of reproductive and sexual health care services.”

Hochul has received $9,750 from Planned Parenthood and its associated PACs between her 2014 campaign for lieutenant governor and her current gubernatorial reelection campaign.

The attack on CompassCare, the pregnancy center in Buffalo, is part of a larger trend of violence against pro-life institutions following the overturn of Roe v. Wade. There have been 93 attacks on pro-life groups since May, according to the Catholic News Agency. A majority of these attacks were against pregnancy centers.

Jim Harden, CEO of CompassCare, said he has received no assistance from his state’s government after the attack on his clinic.

“It appears Governor Hochul and the N.Y. Legislature are only interested in protecting those who agree with them and bullying those who don’t,” Harden said.

Gov. Kathy Hochul (D., N.Y.) has for weeks remained silent about pro-abortion activists firebombing a pro-life pregnancy center in her state. But when pro-life activists allegedly disrupted services at a Brooklyn Planned Parenthood, the Democrat condemned the “intimidation” from “anti-abortion extremists.”

“This is a shameful attempt to prevent New Yorkers from exercising their fundamental right to access reproductive care,” Hochul tweeted Thursday after New York attorney general Letitia James (D.) announced that pro-life activists harassed employees at a city Planned Parenthood clinic. “They won’t win.”

That reaction was a stark contrast with her muted response to a June incident in which pro-abortion activists firebombed a Buffalo, N.Y., pregnancy center that does not offer abortion services. The pregnancy center was also vandalized with graffiti that read “Jane was here,” a tagline for the extremist pro-abortion group Jane’s Revenge, which has vowed to attack similar pregnancy centers across the country. The Democrat has yet to comment on the attack. The governor’s office, meanwhile, told a local news outlet that Hochul “condemns violence of any kind.”

Hochul’s statement comes as Democrats look to crack down on the pregnancy centers following the overturn of Roe v. Wade. Just weeks after the Buffalo attack, Hochul signed a bill into law that directs state authorities to investigate pregnancy centers that do not perform abortions. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) has accused the facilities of “torturing” women and said the government should “shut them down all around the country.”

Hochul’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

New York Democrats have increased efforts to target pro-life activists in recent years. As attorney general, James filed a lawsuit against a Brooklyn pastor, as well as his followers, who protested outside of an abortion clinic in the city. Her office deployed private investigators and hidden cameras to spy on these pro-life activists but later dropped the lawsuit in November. James has a pending lawsuit against pro-life activists who protested at another Planned Parenthood in the state.

The pregnancy center bill Hochul signed directs the state’s commissioner of health to investigate pro-life pregnancy centers because they do not provide abortions, including a probe into whether these pregnancy centers provide a “comprehensive range of reproductive and sexual health care services.”

Hochul has received $9,750 from Planned Parenthood and its associated PACs between her 2014 campaign for lieutenant governor and her current gubernatorial reelection campaign.

The attack on CompassCare, the pregnancy center in Buffalo, is part of a larger trend of violence against pro-life institutions following the overturn of Roe v. Wade. There have been 93 attacks on pro-life groups since May, according to the Catholic News Agency. A majority of these attacks were against pregnancy centers.

Jim Harden, CEO of CompassCare, said he has received no assistance from his state’s government after the attack on his clinic.

“It appears Governor Hochul and the N.Y. Legislature are only interested in protecting those who agree with them and bullying those who don’t,” Harden said.

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

In a master-level stroke of inversion, former President Donald Trump has found a new use for his ability to all but ensure the success of Republican candidates.

On Wednesday via Truth Social, Trump unleashed his “endorsements” against three Democrats: Daniel Goldman, a former federal prosecutor who is campaigning for New York’s 10th Congressional District, Carolyn Maloney of New York and Rep. Jerrold Nadler. Both Maloney and Nadler are competing for a redrawn 12th Congressional District.

Based upon context, these “endorsements” from Trump can be considered to be either darkly disingenuous or delivered sarcastically with a proverbial wink to his supporters. Judge for yourself.

On Truth Social, Trump wrote first about Goldman, “Lawyer Dan Goldman is running for Congress, NY-10, and it is my great honor to Strongly Endorse him. I do this not because of the fact that he headed up the Impeachment Committee and lost, but because he was honorable, fair, and highly intelligent. While it was my honor to beat him, and beat him badly, Dan Goldman has a wonderful future ahead….”

“….He will be very compassionate and compromising to those within the Republican Party, and will do everything possible to make sure they have a fair chance at winning against the Radical Left Democrats, who he knows are destroying our Country. I would like to thank Dan for fighting so hard for America, and for working so tirelessly to stop “Trump.” He was not easy to beat, but winning against him made me realize just how very talented I am!” he continued.

Trump suggested that Goldman will be a moderate “very compassionate and compromising to those within the Republican Party” a damning descriptor in the uber-radicalized far-left of the 2022 Democrat party.

Minutes later, a similar “endorsement” for Maloney, with some kind words for her opponent Nadler appeared on Trump’s account.

“A vote for Carolyn Maloney in NY-12 is a vote for the future! She is a kind and wonderful person, who has always said terrific things about me, and will support me no matter what I do, just as I supported her very early on. She begged for a check with no quid pro quo, and I gave it to her. In fact, I gave her many….”

According to the Federal Elections Commission, Trump did in fact donate to Maloney’s campaign in 1993, 1994, 1998, 2006 and again in 2009 for a total of $4,000.

He continued and even took aim at Jerry Nadler. “….On the other hand, Jerry Nadler is likewise a hard driving man of the people, whose energy and attention to detail is unlike anyone else in Congress. He is high energy, sharp, quick-witted, and bright. You can’t go wrong with either, but Carolyn Maloney is the better man. She will lead our Country into a very GREEN and prosperous future. Carolyn has my Complete and Total Endorsement, she will never let our Conservative Movement down!”

The highlight of the snarky message is definitely the combined swipe at both Maloney and Nadler, “You can’t go wrong with either, but Carolyn Maloney is the better man.”

Naturally, Goldman and Maloney both vehemently rejected the “endorsement” from the 45th President. Goldman’s campaign attempted to turn the joke around on Trump in a statement reported by The Blaze.

Employees at Google’s parent company are urging the search engine to suppress results for pro-life crisis pregnancy centers, according to a petition sent Monday by the company union to Alphabet Inc. CEO Sundar Pichai.

In the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, more than 650 employees at Alphabet Inc. signed the petition, which demands that Google remove “results for fake abortion providers” and what the union considers “misleading information” about reproductive health care services. The petition also demands that Google stop collecting users’ data on abortion-related searches, saying that users’ data would be “used against them” in states that have banned or restricted abortion.

Abortion providers often vilify pro-life crisis pregnancy centers, which provide counseling, resources, and often medical services to pregnant women. Planned Parenthood calls such centers “fake clinics” that have the “shady, harmful agenda” of talking women out of getting abortions.

The petition, circulated by the Alphabet Workers Union, urges Google to institute data privacy controls for “health-related activity,” such as searches for “reproductive justice, gender-affirming care, and abortion access information.” These data, according to the petition, “must never be saved, handed over to law enforcement, or treated as a crime.”

Big Tech companies such as Facebook and Google have faced political challenges on data disclosure since a draft opinion of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health was leaked in May. Twenty-one congressional Democrats in June urged Google in a letter to “limit the appearance” or add “user-friendly disclaimers” to search results for pro-life pregnancy centers.

Google states in its Privacy Policy that it must respond to a government subpoena, court order, or search warrant but pushes back on requests for information it deems too broad.

A Nebraska police department this month used legally acquired information from Facebook to prosecute 17-year-old Celeste Burgess for violating Nebraska’s ban on abortions after 20 weeks, the Nebraska Examiner reported.

Google stated in July it will automatically erase visits to abortion facilities from a user’s location history, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Alphabet executives have not yet responded to the petition.

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

Voters are more worried about Bidenflation than about abortion rights, polls show

Abortion advocacy group Planned Parenthood will pour a record-breaking $50 million into November’s midterm election in an attempt to galvanize voters after the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the Associated Press reported Wednesday.

The group’s massive spending will go to Senate, House, and gubernatorial races in nine swing states, with the AP reporting that Planned Parenthood wants to “drive turnout by Democratic and independent voters” who support abortion rights.

Democratic strategists have said, however, that abortion is unlikely to drive people to the polls, the Washington Free Beacon has reported, with pollster Josh Ulibarri asking, “Is that more powerful than when a voter looks at their receipt when they check out at Target?”

A majority of mostly pro-choice suburban Phoenix women told Reuters in June that they are more worried about sky-high inflation under Joe Biden than about abortion rights. And multiple polls have shown that Americans still rank inflation as the most important issue facing the country.

Planned Parenthood officials nevertheless say that abortion will energize voters this cycle, with super PAC executive director Jenny Lawson insisting that “abortion access is absolutely one of the defining issues this November.”

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

Former New England Patriots tight end Benjamin Watson gave Democratic Georgia governor candidate Stacey Abrams a lesson on faith and abortion.

Watson played for New England at both the start and end of his NFL career, playing for the Cleveland Browns, New Orleans Saints and Baltimore Ravens as well.

Watson is also zealous about his faith and pushed back after an August tweet from Abrams that said support for abortion was a manifestation of her faith.

“In college, a friend who shared my faith challenged me to think and changed my perspective on abortion. Abortion care is health care. As a person of faith and as the next governor, it’s my responsibility to protect a woman’s right to choose,” Abrams tweeted.

“Respectfully if you identify as a Christian your authority is the Word of God not the opinion of a friend who shares your faith,” Watson tweeted in response.

Respectfully if you identify as a Christian your authority is the Word of God not the opinion of a friend who shares your faith. This ad conveys empathy but it also conveys baseless compromise. If your holy scripture sanctions abortion as it does love/justice/charity explain how https://t.co/B6kw1BjFh5

— Benjamin Watson (@BenjaminSWatson) August 9, 2022

“This ad conveys empathy but it also conveys baseless compromise. If your holy scripture sanctions abortion as it does love/justice/charity explain how.”

Abrams has been at pains in her campaign to say that support for abortion is not a contradiction to her faith.

“While your faith tradition may tell you that you personally do not want to make that choice, it is not my right as a Christian to impose that value system on someone else,” she said, according to Yahoo.

“Because the value that should overhang everything is the right to make our own decisions, the free will that the God I believe in gave us,” she said.

Watson sees life differently.

Watson spoke about life in a 2021 interview with Baptist Press printed by Kentucky Today.

“We know that human life is different … and that it should be honored and respected. There is something very special about life, and it is a lie from Satan that we can discard our children without consequence,” he said.

Kansas Recounting Abortion Vote Amid Fear of Irregularities in Voting Data

“And not just the outward consequence. I’m talking about the inward, just dealing with that life,” he said.

Watson said abortion is not a political issue as much as one about faith.

“I look at this issue as one of justice, and the Bible speaks very clearly about justice and our righteousness over and over and over again throughout Scripture,” he said. “You see God’s heart for justice for the oppressed, for the fatherless, for the widow. And so justice is simply about protecting the vulnerable, giving people their just due.

“There are plenty of verses in Scripture that talk about speaking up for the vulnerable and acting justly. When I think about the preborn child in the womb, there is no other human being that is as vulnerable as a person is in the state. I’m advocating for the preborn child, but I’m also advocating for mothers that are bearing these children,” he said.

Pennsylvania lieutenant governor John Fetterman’s (D.) campaign for Senate is tapping a far-left activist who has called allowing children to undergo surgical gender transitions a matter of “human rights.”

The Fetterman campaign launched Real Doctors Against Oz Wednesday, an initiative meant to discredit Mehmet Oz, the Republican nominee for Senate. Val Arkoosh is among the activists taking shots at Oz. Arkoosh, a failed Senate candidate, has a history of pushing gender theory. When she was still a candidate for Senate, Arkoosh sent out an email calling a parent’s right to refuse “gender affirming care” for their children a “gross violation of both human rights and the relationship between a patient and their doctor.” She also falsely claims that it’s legal to discriminate against transgender individuals in employment.

Sixty percent of Americans believe that a person cannot change their gender and a plurality of Americans oppose giving hormone blockers to children. Democratic opposition to parental rights has not worked out well for the party in past elections. Many pundits attribute Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin’s (R.) upset victory in November 2021 to his focus on expanding parental rights.

Real Doctors Against Oz are criticizing Oz for having ties to the pharmaceutical industry, being pro-life, and promoting supplements during his time as a television host. Oz, meanwhile, is attacking Fetterman for avoiding Pennsylvania voters by running a “John Fetterman Basement Tracker” cataloging the amount of time since his last public event.

Despite the implication of the name of Fetterman’s group, Oz is a real doctor. He graduated from an Ivy League medical school and was later a professor of surgery at Columbia University, where he won a research award.

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

WARNING: Disturbing content. Viewer discretion is advised.

The Oxford English dictionary defines meme as “a humorous image, video, piece of text, etc., that is copied (often with slight variations) and spread rapidly by internet users.” Depending on how rotten your brain is from prolonged exposure to social media, you may or may not be aware that we are in the midst of a “meme war” that will ultimately determine the fate of American democracy.

One of the most significant new developments in this raging conflict is the emergence of the “Dark Brandon” meme, which portrays Joe Biden as a laser-eyed Machiavellian overlord skilled in the art of four-dimensional political chess. It also seeks to expropriate the “Brandon” moniker from Biden’s critics, who embraced the phrase “Let’s Go, Brandon!” in 2021 after a filthy NASCAR journalist falsely claimed that fans at Talladega were chanting in support of winning driver Brandon Brown. (Fact Check: They were chanting, “F— Joe Biden!”)

In any event, the Washington Free Beacon has exclusively obtained a number of avant-garde “Dark Brandon” memes created with the help of cutting edge artificial intelligence technology. Bear in mind: The mainstream media does not want you, the American people, to see these humorous images. Enjoy!

Source: The Washington Free Beacon

Hiring practices driven by diversity are ‘a recipe for disaster’

Southwest Airlines Co. (AKA SouthWoke Air [US Patriot]) is basking in accolades for its “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) efforts, award-winning customer service, and record-breaking quarterly revenues.

Behind the scenes of that rosy picture, heartaches are afflicting Southwest, called “the airline with Heart” because of its heart-shaped logo and a corporate culture steeped in “The Golden Rule,” treating others the same way they’d like to be treated.

But eight current Southwest employees, including three minorities, told The Epoch Times that “woke, leftist” DEI policies, as implemented, have tarnished the cherished Golden Rule principle, fractured a once-cohesive workforce, and, ultimately, may put safety at risk.

Faced with pandemic-related staffing shortages and pressure to add minorities, the company has changed the way it hires, trains, and disciplines workers—mostly to benefit less-qualified new hires representing the diversity rainbow, the employees say.

One Southwest flight attendant, a Hispanic female, said: “They are compromising safety for the sake of race, gender identity, and sexual preference … They’re risking people’s lives because of agendas.”

Southwest, one of America’s largest air carriers, didn’t respond to messages seeking comment.

Similar issues have spread industry-wide, according to 10 airline employees who agreed to be interviewed. Four are pilots and six are flight attendants; most have 20 or more years of experience. All of them, including two American Airlines pilots, spoke on condition of anonymity to protect their jobs.

While no one thinks the policies are causing an imminent threat of a plane falling out of the sky tomorrow, all of the interviewees agreed that each time a standard is lowered, or a less-qualified employee is hired, the risk that something can go horribly wrong inches forward a notch or two. In an industry that depends on a near-miracle integration of people, machinery, and computers, even a few deviations can culminate in catastrophe.

Still, some employees worry about what could happen if current trends continue to stress out and distract safety professionals. Said one flight attendant: “It’s a recipe for disaster. I just hope I’m not at work when it happens.”

Us-Versus-Them Mentality

While promoting diversity sounds like a great idea, the inclusionary policies have actually become exclusionary at Southwest, employees say. Disparate treatment has divided their ranks into two distinct camps: those with “desirable” or “approved” personal, social, or political characteristics—and those without.

Minorities or people with leftist political views, varying gender identities, and alternative sexual orientations appear to be given wide latitude. This “protected class” is allowed to bend or break rules, and new hires in these classifications may be given extra chances to pass required skills tests, the employees said.

At the same time, veteran workers—especially those who are white, heterosexual, and conservative—find themselves in the crosshairs for almost anything, including making a personal statement of religious or political beliefs, the Southwest workers said. Even minorities can be shifted into this targeted group if they espouse personal beliefs running counter to causes that the company supports.

“There are two sets of standards: One for us and one for them,” said an experienced flight attendant.

One of her colleagues said: “The company is trying to eliminate anybody who does not agree with their agenda. The last few years, anybody who speaks up against them, they want gone.” That flight attendant said she had no problems at work until she posted her Christian religious beliefs on her personal Facebook page, along with her support of President Donald Trump. A coworker reported the posts to Southwest, and the flight attendant said she has faced repercussions ever since.

She and others say the targeting of conservatives is common—and they point to the recently publicized case of fired Southwest flight attendant Charlene Carter as a prime example.

‘Targeted Assassinations’ of Conservatives

Last month, a federal jury in Texas awarded Carter more than $5 million after finding that Southwest wrongfully terminated her and that her union didn’t live up to its duty to represent her. The company fired Carter after she expressed her pro-life views to a union leader via social media and opposed the union’s pro-abortion activism.

The company supported the union’s political activism, Carter’s suit says, by accommodating work-shift changes for union members so they could participate in the Women’s March on Washington, D.C., in January 2017. Marchers were protesting Trump’s inauguration; one of the primary sponsors of the event was Planned Parenthood. Southwest also showed “solidarity” with the protesters by bathing its airplane cabins in pink lights on some D.C.-bound flights, Carter’s lawsuit says.

Documents in the case revealed that some union officials and political activists were singling out dissenting Southwest employees for “targeted assassinations,” meaning that they would try to get the company to fire them, using the company’s social media policy as a bludgeon.

In an interview with The Epoch Times on Aug. 8, Carter, who lives near Denver, Colorado, said she can’t believe that some leaders of Transport Workers Union of America Local 556, who helped set her up to be fired, are still working for Southwest.

Carter also validated her coworkers’ concerns about the disparate treatment of employees who dare to oppose leftist agendas. “I think there are a ton of cases out there just like mine,” she said. Terminated employees from Southwest and other airlines have been continuously contacting Carter for help after learning about the July 14 verdict in her case.

Carter spent five years fighting in court; she thinks she was one of the first casualties of the erosion of Southwest’s unique corporate culture, which she witnessed during the latter part of her 20-plus years at the airline.

“We all loved our jobs; we all loved each other—our CoHearts, that’s what we called each other,” Carter said, pointing out that the airline’s stock ticker is LUV, a nod to its birthplace at Love Field, Texas.

Corporate Culture Shift

But corporate leadership and philosophy shifted. Carter said, her former coworkers tell her the culture is now one where people are fired on a whim, and they’re encouraged to file complaints against each other over perceived insults, such as failure to use the “preferred pronoun” of a person asserting an alternative gender identity.

Employees who face such accusations are presumed guilty, a current flight attendant said, and they risk suspension or termination. “That is how we are treated now,” she said.

“It’s gotten ridiculous,” Carter said. She was astounded to learn that lapel pins, designating preferred pronouns, are being offered to staff.

A fellow flight attendant says the company’s priorities are misplaced.

“We used to be focused on hiring ‘the best of the best,’” she said. “So why is it now that we feel at Southwest Airlines that we have to use the right pronouns and we have to acquiesce to someone’s gender-fluid mentality?”

The DEI Effect

The interviewed employees blame DEI policies for sowing the seeds of division. Ironically, before DEI was implemented, “people were never labeled,” a flight attendant said. “I find it very divisive,” she said, “because now everyone is labeled, divided by race, gender sexual orientation … whatever.”

“This is wrong—all the way wrong,” she said.

The company’s annual report, in its DEI section, says, “Southwest Airlines recognizes, respects, and values differences. … At Southwest, DEI is and always has been a part of our DNA.”

All four major airlines—and many other American companies—publicly disclose DEI-related information, such as data on minority recruitment and the racial makeup of their workforce.

“Every airline is trying to push forward with minority hiring because they want to ‘show that they care,’” aviation analyst Jay Ratliff said. “They’re being asked, ‘How many women are within your pilot ranks? … How many pilots of color?’”

If an airline’s diversity metrics seem low in comparison to their competitors’ numbers, the company’s reputation and bottom line can suffer, Ratliff said.

That’s not necessarily fair, he said, because few people have the ability, interest, and financial means to qualify as a commercial airline pilot. Amassing the FAA-required 1,500 hours of flight time with an instructor can cost $75,000 or more, pilots said.

Last year, United Airlines announced its goals: to train 5,000 new pilots by 2030 at its new flight school, with “at least half of those students to be women or people of color.” The first class of new recruits “exceeded that goal,” with 80 percent of the 30 students fitting that category, the airline said in a report.

Considering that white males make up about one-third of the American population, a Southwest pilot said that composing a class with 80 percent minorities and women looks like “DEI special-status hiring on steroids.”

Scoring Systems Push Diversity

DEI data play a significant role in corporate ESG scores—ratings of a company’s “environmental, social, and governance” performance. It’s a complex—and controversial—way to assess which companies are considered “good corporate citizens.”

Most of the interviewed airline employees believe that the pursuit of ESG scores is driving corporate personnel practices, including ignoring well-qualified male applicants while eagerly hiring less-experienced female and minority candidates.

Increasingly, ESG scores can help determine whether a company sinks or swims. A good ESG score can attract investors, government contracts, and favorable loan-interest rates—benefits that are especially important for the airline industry, in which lucrative U.S. Department of Defense contracts are at stake and profit margins are razor-thin because of astronomical costs for equipment and personnel.

ESG ratings have existed in some form for decades, yet they barely registered a blip on internet searches until a few months ago, amid the Biden administration’s continued push for businesses to address environmental concerns and to institute “green” policies, which weigh heavily in ESG scores and DEI metrics.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis recently announced his intent to push back against ESG, calling it “leveraging corporate power to impose an ideological agenda on society.”

Refinitiv, a company that produces ESG scores, says its process for calculating the ratings starts with collecting more than 630 ESG measures from each company’s public disclosures. Other ESG assessors have their own rating systems, which means results can vary depending on which assessment method is being used. ESG advocates are now working on standardizing how these scores are calculated.

Several airline employees said it would benefit their company, their industry, and society in general if ESG scores and DEI programs were abolished.

One Southwest pilot with decades of experience said such measures create unnecessary complications with no positive effect on the airline’s core mission.

“Why do we need DEI programs? Why do we need ESG? A lot of the public isn’t even aware these things exist,” he said. “The passengers just want people like me to get them, and their bags, to the same place at the same time, safely … DEI and ESG do nothing to support that—zero.”

“I need these DEI programs and ESG scores to go out the back of the airplane like the jet fuel that we burn.”

Non-Pilots Hiring Pilots

Southwest’s annual report says it has been “evolving hiring and development practices to support diversity goals.”

Those changes are troubling to the interviewed employees and to the pilots’ union. In a letter to members last month, the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association pointed out that, for the first time in the company’s 51-year history, a non-pilot is in charge of hiring pilots. The “system chief pilot” used to have that responsibility. “We are just a single step away” from hiring pilots based upon mere reviews of their resumes, association president Casey Murray wrote to union members. Southwest has about 9,600 pilots, the letter said.

Putting a non-pilot in charge of hiring pilots most likely will affect the quality of the pilots who are being hired, Southwest interviewees said. People who lack specific knowledge of this specialized job would have a hard time telling the difference between a good hire and a bad one, pilots said. One of the interviewed pilots said that the chief pilot told him: “The diversity department has a very strong voice in who gets hired.”

Southwest wants to hire more than 2,000 pilots in the next year, the union’s letter said, questioning whether those new hires will be required to meet Southwest’s traditionally high standards. “Across the entire commercial aviation industry, employers are fighting for an ever-shrinking pool of qualified pilots,” yet Southwest may be at a disadvantage to compete for those pilots. Contract negotiations with Southwest’s pilots are lagging, compared to progress with other airlines’ pilot unions, Murray said.

“Pilots are the fuel that powers Southwest Airlines, and right now Southwest’s supply of fuel is running low. Time is growing critical, and options are becoming limited,” Murray wrote.

Seeking the Best (Non-White) Pilots?

Current pilots also say they have learned that hiring decisions are being driven by a job candidate scoring system; they’re unsure how long it has been in place, how it works, or whether it unfairly elevates minorities. The company controls all of that information.

Still, the employees feel confident in anecdotal evidence suggesting that the scoring system, coupled with other hiring practices, could be producing a pattern of discrimination against men, especially white men who come from military backgrounds—previously highly sought-after job candidates. “We could be wrong, but I don’t think we are,” said one pilot who has military experience.

That pilot said he thinks the vast majority of his colleagues have heard accounts of possible discrimination similar to the following:

When a well-qualified former military pilot applied for a job, Southwest never contacted him for an interview. But the applicant learned that a woman was hired as a pilot, despite having half as much experience in the airline industry.

Further, the man had experience as a captain while the woman had only been a first officer, who sits next to the captain in the cockpit. “It’s a completely different world” when a person shifts into the captain’s chair, said the pilot.

“We’re leaving a lot of people behind who are better-qualified, just because they’re the wrong color, or they’re identified the wrong way. That’s concerning. We’re not putting the best up-front,” he said. “We have people’s lives in our hands. It’s just like with doctors. If you go to a doctor, you want to go to the best doctor you can.”

An American Airlines pilot with decades of experience said he was less troubled than some of the Southwest interviewees who worried about the effects of reduced standards as a result of the increased emphasis on diversity hiring. However, that pilot said he would become very concerned if standards are lowered “to the point where people aren’t flying as confidently.”

A second American Airlines pilot said he has observed that “training is not nearly as comprehensive as it used to be,” he said. “But these people who are starting out are flying with people who are supremely qualified to be flying airplanes—so mistakes can be covered.”

He thinks the reduced standards could eventually cause problems if the hyperfocus on diversity continues: “If you’re looking for a diverse workforce and not a qualified workforce, you’ve got issues. … You haven’t seen any accidents because of ‘diversity,’ but the potential is there.”

All 11 people who were interviewed for this story, including Carter, the ex-flight attendant, said personal traits such as gender and race shouldn’t be part of the equation at all.

“From the cockpit door forward, guys and gals of all ethnicities are after the same thing—and that’s a safe flight,” said one of the American Airlines pilots. “They don’t care who sits next to them as long as they can do the job.”

More Than Snack Servers

Most air passengers think of flight attendants as hospitality ambassadors who make them comfortable with beverages, snacks, blankets, and pillows. But their main purpose is to assist in the rare event of an in-flight emergency.

Six Southwest flight attendants, along with Carter, say they feel less able to perform crucial duties because of the climate in which they’re now operating—and new hires appear to be less equipped to shoulder those responsibilities.

“They have just made it such a hostile work environment. Southwest has made it that way, and flight attendants are afraid to do their jobs,” a flight attendant said. “But you’re supposed to put a smile on your face and pretend that everything is grand.”

The flight attendants describe feeling as though a backstabber is always ready to pounce, to report any action or statement that doesn’t fit the corporate ideology. They’re being held to strict conduct and uniform standards while “accommodations” are extended to people in protected classes, such as a minority woman who was allowed to wear a nose ring—which got a white female in trouble—and a male flight attendant who described himself as “nonbinary”—neither totally male nor totally female—being allowed to wear a skirt that appeared to be shorter than regulations allowed.

The nonbinary employee seemed to be using his position at the airline as a platform for LGBTQ activism and self-promotion, rather than focusing on benefiting the company or its customers, fellow flight attendants said. They shared screenshots of the nonbinary employee’s social media posts. One is a selfie of the mustached man posing in his Southwest uniform, with the comment, “My dress looks better on me than most chicks.”

That employee no longer works for Southwest, flight attendants said. Yet they said they were aware that a couple of employees faced disciplinary action for referring to the nonbinary employee as “he” in a members-only Facebook group for flight attendants.

Antics Embarrass Fellow Flight Attendants

One flight attendant perceives that the company is making skewed, unfair hiring decisions, and creating a level of absurdity that’s hard to stomach. She knows of people who are related to Southwest employees and have college degrees—which go beyond the high-school education requirement for flight attendants—“and they don’t get hired, and yet we have this guy, with a mustache, in a skirt, distracting us all because the company wants to fight over his pronouns.”

Being a flight attendant used to be considered prestigious and classy; Southwest was viewed as “Mount Rushmore,” a pinnacle for flight attendants, who felt proud just to be hired.

“Now the pride is not about the brand of Southwest Airlines,” a flight attendant said. “It’s about how different I can be as an employee of Southwest Airlines—like, ‘Y’all need me more than I need you.’”

Public perception of the role has diminished, not just at Southwest, but across the industry. Airlines grant diversity-based exceptions to people who don’t want to look or act professional, the flight attendants said.

It used to be unusual to see flight attendants behave in ways that brought embarrassment to their coworkers. Now, quite a few of the new hires who were prized for their diversity “are rather risqué,” a flight attendant said. “They become very emboldened; they feel they can get away with this because they are in a protected class.”

Still, Southwest has had to fire employees who pushed the envelope too far, including one minority flight attendant who solicited sex in a social media video and another who videoed herself twerking. In both instances, the videos, provided to the Epoch Times, show the employees in Southwest uniforms.

Such conduct disgusts the flight attendants, and their concern is more than superficial. “If we relax the appearance standards and we’re letting people lower their professional standards, then they obviously are not equipped to handle any type of safety issue that can happen on that plane,” a flight attendant said.

“Where do you draw the line and say enough is enough?”

Commitment, Skills Insufficient

One of the flight attendants who has been targeted for religious and political views said her commitment to her job boils down to this: “I will give my life for my passengers and my crew, if that’s what I need to do. My last words will be, ‘Let’s roll,’” she said, referencing the famous words spoken by a passenger on one of the U.S. airplanes that were hijacked on Sept. 11, 2001.

She doesn’t see that same level of grit from the new hires. “They don’t have the same tough mentality,” she said. Nor do they have the same work ethic, which might be attributable to differences between the younger and older generations.

The older flight attendant described being busy from the beginning to the end of each flight while many of the new hires tend to just serve one round of drink orders, “then they go back to the back (of the airplane) and sit down for the rest of the flight.”

The new employees aren’t demonstrating mastery of the skills they were supposed to have been taught, or willingness to perform them. A passenger was having a medical emergency but the flight attendant in charge of that section “wouldn’t even come out of the galley to assist,” said one flight attendant. Instead, she and a second colleague had to take care of the ailing passenger.

Such an incident stokes her worst fear: “Somebody’s gonna die. With the lack of training that we’re seeing in the new hires that are coming out … there’s going to be somebody who’s not trained, facing an emergency.”

The irony is that, because of conduct problems and lack of devotion to the job, many of the “check-the-box” new hires either quit or are discharged, the employees said. That’s why it would make more sense for Southwest to be more selective in its hiring decisions—and to make those decisions based on the applicant’s qualifications and commitment to doing a good job, both of which now seem to be lacking.

Too Many Hires, Too Fast?

A flight attendant who is familiar with hiring practices said she is concerned about the speed with which large numbers of new employees were hired in recent months. She is hearing that up to 10,000 employees have been added to the roster, so the airline is now up to pre-pandemic staffing levels.

Her concern: It’s doubtful that the company had the capacity to properly vet and train such a large number of employees, including flight attendants, in such a short timeframe. In fact, she says it’s “mathematically impossible,” (That’s OK, because mathematics is racist anyway [US Patriot]) based on past observations of failure rates among new trainees.

For each class of about 50 flight attendants, about 15 trainees would “wash out,” or not make it through the rigorous testing process, which includes mastering emergency evacuation drills. Considering that, it’s most likely that “the standards would have to be relaxed” to allow large numbers of new hires to complete the process rapidly.

“There’s a mindset that’s changed…it seems like they’re accepting almost any applicant—here’s a body and here’s a checkmark” on the diversity list, she said.

She’s puzzled as to why Southwest pushed so hard to hire so many new flight attendants. “We don’t have all the airplanes that we were expecting to get,” she said. “Then why are we hiring all of these flight attendants?”

Less-Rigorous Training

Today’s training is “a lot shorter and a lot simpler” than it used to be, she said.

Carter said it’s her understanding that flight attendants now must pass only a few tests. In years past, “there were about three tests a week for six weeks,” she said. “You were breathing through a fire hose all of this information.”

She also said that if a trainee flunked a test, that person was given one chance to retake it, “and if you failed, you were done.” Now, Carter has been told that people are being given multiple opportunities for do-overs.

As a result, “I’m hearing from flight attendants that these people don’t understand what our safety is about here.”

Employees say they feel as though core values and common sense are falling by the wayside when they are asked to give wide berth to people asserting that they are gender fluid, or identify with a gender that doesn’t match their biological sex.

“I don’t tell a pilot that I identify as a pilot, and I’m going to fly the aircraft—because there are no facts in that,” a flight attendant said.

While seeing a decline in the flight attendants who seem to be truly vested in their work, the flight attendants say the company is directing them to merely “inform” passengers about violations of safety rules, not to enforce the rules. This is in direct contrast to a few months ago, when flight attendants were required to function as the facemask police to enforce a federal pandemic restriction while it remained in effect.

Presumably in response to customer backlash over the much-despised mask mandates, Southwest has instructed flight attendants to cut passengers more slack. “We’re allowing customers to do as they please, and it’s causing safety issues,” a flight attendant said. People are refusing to remain seated during takeoffs and landings, for example. If something goes amiss, “You become a projectile; you can hurt other people,” the flight attendant added.

Airline Love Affair Ends

A longtime pilot described his passion for his job, and laments how the company killed it.

From the outset, “I was in a love affair with Southwest Airlines. They were smaller and scrappier. They were all bone and muscle. No fat. And I liked that,” he said. “We grew under the nose of American, Delta, and United, despite their tactics … We continued to grow and thrive around a very simple business model that revolved around the Golden Rule.”

That enabled the company to empower all employee groups so they could make decisions benefiting both internal and external customers. They didn’t get sucked into bureaucracies.

But the company crossed a rubicon last year when it took a stand on the COVID-19 vaccine and “woke” policies, he said. Employees were told: “You must get vaccinated and you must accept these diversity and inclusion principles even though it goes against the principles that you grew up with at this company.”

For the veteran pilot, that was a death knell, he said. “It was a complete and total divorce of the culture.”

“The company has destroyed the trust relationship. This is not the Southwest Airlines that I joined. … The love affair is over,” he said. “When you prioritize profits and special interests over people, this is what you get.”

Although the public perception is that many pilots lost their jobs because of vaccine mandates, pilots doubt that’s accurate. In the case of Southwest, many employees sought—and obtained—religious or medical exemptions.

The company still touts the Golden Rule, but that’s mostly lip service, the pilot said. “It’s the thing that allowed Southwest to rise to greatness. It’s less important now. What’s more important? I have to understand that a person’s gender can be on a sliding scale, or maybe they’re just a man who wants to dress as a woman.”

He resents the implication that “hopelessly bigoted pilots like me” need to take a new sexual harassment training module that encompasses LGBTQ considerations. He learned that if a person in that category believes they were looked at in a way that they felt was uncomfortable, “I could be written up, and I don’t even have to say anything,” the pilot said.

Southwest flight attendants were recently required to complete a DEI training or face being put on unpaid leave. That didn’t sit well. The flight attendants say they were already treating people as equally as possible—values embodied in the Golden Rule and basic human decency. “I say this as a minority: I don’t need to be told how to treat people with dignity and respect. I’ve been doing that all my life.”

Distractions Imperil Safety

These programs and the “woke” cultural shift are creating huge distractions, which by themselves pose a threat to safety in ways that most people never think about, the pilot said.

“People take it for granted that takeoffs equal landings. But I can tell you that there are close calls—regularly—where human intervention prevented things from getting really bad. … And the traveling public never knew about it,” the pilot said.

For everyone’s safety, all airline workers must be at the top of their game.

“We need the most qualified people in these safety-sensitive jobs. But it doesn’t stop at the cockpit door,” he said. If any part of the system breaks down because a person was distracted or wasn’t the most qualified person for the job, “the end result is the same if you had an unqualified pilot: the airplane is a smoking hole at the end of the runway and you have 170 people dead—and a lot of angry families.”

“If you crash one airplane, that one crash has the ability to put an airline out of business. When I go to work that weighs on me. All 170 of those lives are in my mind from the time we take off until we land,” he said. “In my mind, disaster is just around the corner.”

Ready for The Worst

Before each takeoff, pilots mentally rehearse how they would react to rare dreaded scenarios, which have actually happened: A maintenance guy doesn’t do his job and the engine falls off the airplane. Or the motor blows up. Or a fire erupts. There is an infinite number of things that can go wrong. But such incidents are exceedingly rare—and when they do happen, a miraculous interplay between humans and technology averts death and catastrophe.

“These are the things we think about,” the pilot said. “And instead, we’ve got people thinking about their special status and how they can get one of their coworkers in trouble?… When you’re cheating the laws of physics every day, DEI has no place.” (Great remark! [US Patriot])

Under these circumstances, it’s infinitesimally trivial to even give a moment’s consideration to a person’s race, gender, ethnicity, sexuality, or any other trait.

“I will treat that man, dressed as a woman, the same way I would treat a woman dressed as a woman, or a woman dressed as a man. I don’t care,” the pilot said. “Just do your job. Take care of those passengers. And then drag my sorry butt out of the airplane if it comes down to that, because I’m the last one to go.”

In one way, the “new” rules don’t really bother the pilot: He said he was already treating people well. That won’t change, he said.  He just hates knowing that at any moment, he could be “written up because I looked at you wrong.”

As a white male, the pilot recognizes he’s “the new minority.”

He says he has to go to work every day and prove “I’m not the hopelessly bigoted, homophobic, misogynist, sexist fossil that they think I am.”

And that’s OK with him.

“I’m fine with that. I don’t care,” he said. “Because I live by the Golden Rule.”

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

Sen. Maggie Hassan plays up her appeal to independents. NH voters say she’s a reliable vote for the Biden admin.

MANCHESTER, N.H. — Sen. Maggie Hassan’s reelection campaign ads tout that the Granite State Democrat is the “most bipartisan” lawmaker in the Senate. But state residents across the political spectrum say they consider Hassan a reliable vote for the Biden administration.

Sean Chambers, a 43-year-old construction worker and registered independent, said Hassan’s time in the Senate has been “nothing but broken promises.” He said he has yet to decide on whether he will vote Republican in November but refuses to back Hassan.

“She says she’s for the worker but hasn’t done anything,” Chambers told the Washington Free Beacon. “I don’t buy the bipartisan talk. There’s a big divide and nothing is getting done.”

Hassan won her seat in 2016 by just about 1,000 votes in a $120 million campaign battle largely focused on her appeal to independents, who make up roughly 40 percent of the state’s registered voters. Her reelection campaign is set to be equally competitive as residents grow frustrated with the Biden administration’s handling of the economy—only one-fifth of state residents want Joe Biden to seek reelection in 2024, according to a University of New Hampshire poll released last month.

Hassan has attempted to distance herself from the Democratic Party establishment, but New Hampshire voters who spoke to the Free Beacon, including Republicans, Democrats, and independents, share the view that the Democratic senator is a reliable supporter of the White House’s agenda.

Al Macaloan, a retired project manager and an independent who voted for Biden in 2020, said he will vote for the New Hampshire Democrat, who has voted with the president 96 percent of the time, for just this reason.

“In the present environment I don’t think you can be bipartisan,” Macaloan told the Free Beacon. “I would like to see it, but it’s not possible.”

Democrats and their allies are prepared to make the race a top spending target: Hassan has raised $26 million, including $3.2 million in individual contributions between April and June alone—88 percent of which came from out of state. These funds helped her launch a series of campaign ads in recent weeks that tout her “bipartisan” record on issues such as small businesses and federal budgets. Hassan declared in one campaign ad that “fiscal responsibility is the New Hampshire way.”

The ad comes after the senator voted to pass Biden’s American Rescue Plan and infrastructure bill, which total more than $3 trillion in spending. She also backed the $739 billion climate spending bill that gained traction with Democrats in recent weeks. Many economists point to these price tags as sources of the four-decade-high inflation rate—an issue that led two-thirds of voters in the state to disapprove of Biden’s economic policies.

Hassan said in another ad that she is “taking on members of my own party to push a gas tax holiday” and “pushing Joe Biden to release more of our oil reserves.”

But as governor, Hassan signed a gas tax increase in 2014 and proposed a budget in 2015 to increase taxes and fees by $100 million, the New Hampshire Journal reported. As a senator, she voted against former president Donald Trump’s tax cuts in 2017, which saved an average of $1,400 for New Hampshire residents.

The Hassan campaign did not respond to requests for comment.

T.J. Duffy, a 26-year-old U.S. Postal Service driver, plans to vote for Republicans up and down the ballot in November. Hassan’s campaign message, he said, is a desperate reversal to appeal to blue-collar workers in the state.

“If you’re going to vote one way for the majority, it’s pretty unfair to say you’re bipartisan,” Duffy told the Free Beacon. “The people who don’t see gas prices as an issue don’t drive to work every single day.”

Hassan’s campaign message relies in part on her award from the Lugar Center, which in May crowned her the “most bipartisan” senator in 2021. The organization noted that Hassan rallied a Republican cosponsor on all 48 bills she introduced last year. Only two of these bills passed, though, both of them directing the Department of Health and Human Services to bolster public health programs.

Danielle Ovellette, a 32-year-old waitress, wore a “fuck Trump” bracelet as she served several Trump supporters last week at Ryan’s Place, a veteran-themed diner in Epping, N.H. Ovellette supported Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) in the 2020 presidential primary and refused to vote for Biden in the general election. She said she plans to vote for Hassan because of her support for a progressive agenda.

“You vote for what’s best for you,” Ovellette told the Free Beacon.

Polling data show Hassan has a narrow lead against her potential Republican challengers. Hassan ran a series of campaign ads that criticize the Republican candidates’ pro-life records after the overturn of Roe v. Wade in June. The New Hampshire primary is not until Sept. 13—a little more than a month before the election.

Paul Lessard, a 58-year-old former New Hampshire Department of Transportation employee born and raised in Manchester, N.H., said Hassan’s bipartisan message will fall flat come Election Day.

“She’s full of shit,” Lessard, a registered Republican, told the Free Beacon. “She only sides with Democrats.”

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

Florida’s governor on Aug. 4 suspended a state prosecutor who has vowed not to enforce laws related to abortion.

Gov. Ron DeSantis suspended State Attorney Andrew Warren of the 13th Judicial Circuit due to “neglect of duty.”

In the order (pdf) outlining the move, DeSantis cites Warren recently declaring he wouldn’t enforce laws that largely prohibit late-term abortions.

Warren and other prosecutors signed a document in June that said “enforcing abortion bans runs counter to the obligations and interests we are sworn to uphold.”

“We decline to use our offices’ resources to criminalize reproductive health decisions and commit to exercise our well-settled discretion and refrain from prosecuting those who … provide, or support abortions,” the prosecutors stated.

No other state attorneys in Florida signed the document.

One Florida law bars doctors from performing abortions during the third trimester, or after a fetus achieves viability. Another law bans abortions, with exceptions, after a fetus reaches 15 weeks of age.

Warren “has put himself publicly above the law,” DeSantis, a Republican, told reporters during a press conference.

Warren’s office didn’t immediately respond to a request by The Epoch Times for comment.

Policies and Other Statements

The governor’s order also cites how Warren’s office has avoided prosecuting people who commit misdemeanors such as resisting arrest without violence, stating that the policies aren’t “a proper exercise of prosecutorial discretion” and also usurp the authority of the Florida Legislature by not enforcing the law.

The order also notes that Warren in 2021 signed a separate statement with other prosecutors regarding biological males using female bathrooms and vice versa.

The prosecutors pledged to “not promote the criminalization of gender-affirming healthcare or transgender people.” Gender-affirming is a term used to describe sex change operations and other procedures meant to facilitate a person’s change from male to female or female to male.

The joint statement said that bills that criminalize such treatments “do not promote public safety, community trust, or fiscal responsibility,” and suggested that they wouldn’t be enforced.

DeSantis appointed Susan Lopez to replace Warren while the suspension is in place. Lopez was appointed by DeSantis in 2021 to be a judge on the Hillsborough County Court, and she previously served as an assistant prosecutor in the 13th Judicial Circuit.

“I have the utmost respect for our state laws and I understand the important role that the state attorney plays in ensuring the safety of our community and the enforcement of our laws,” Lopez said in a statement. “I want to thank the Governor for placing his trust in me, and I promise that I will faithfully execute the duties of this office.”

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

Georgia governor Brian Kemp (R.) and the state’s Department of Revenue unveiled policies this week aimed at supporting pregnant women and children in the foster care system. The move comes amid accusations from Democrats in the wake of the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade that Republicans d0 not prioritize the well-being of mothers or children after they are born.

Georgia’s Department of Revenue updated its guidance Monday to allow women to claim their unborn children as dependents on their tax returns. Per Georgia state law, this entitles pregnant women to a $3,000 tax exemption for each additional dependent. Georgia defines an unborn child as a fetus that is at least six weeks old and has a heartbeat.

The next day, Kemp announced that the state would pay for a marketing campaign “to help recruit and retain more foster parents” in Georgia.

“Our state believes in protecting life at all stages,” Kemp said in a statement. “And we’re committed to achieving this goal. We hope this new campaign reaches more who are ready to answer this call.”

Georgia’s new slate of pro-family policies comes following criticism from progressives alleging that Republicans who support regulation of abortion do not care to support pregnant mothers or children in the foster care system.

“Not only do [Republicans] want to force women to have children if they are pregnant,” Sen. Mazie Hirono (D., Hawaii) said, “but when they do have them, they don’t want to provide any support for them.”

Rep. Eric Swalwell (D., Calif.) similarly argued that “Republicans don’t care about helping children after they’re born with child tax credits, affordable education, or removing guns that kill kids in schools. They’re more focused on controlling women’s health care choices through government mandated pregnancies.”

Nationally, the GOP has advocated measures that would extend benefits to pregnant mothers. Congressional Republicans introduced a bill in July, for instance, that would require men to pay child support starting at conception. 

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

Democrats continue to say that “democracy is in danger” if voters don’t give liberals the majority in November, but violence by the left has defined the summer politically so far, conservative observers have told The Epoch Times.

As Democrats continue to use the Jan. 6 Committee hearings over the summer to make a special case that somehow conservatives pose a danger to the country, the violence from the left has been ongoing, one victim told The Epoch Times.

The issues affronting progressives are numerous, including the reversal of Roe v. Wade, non-action on a climate change scheme, and the lack of momentum of progressive policies under Joe Biden, which stand out as sources of anger and mounting frustration for leftist activists.

In June, a pro-life pregnancy center in Buffalo, New York, was burned out, allegedly by the radical leftwing, pro-abortion, militant group Jane’s Revenge, said the health pregnancy center called CompassCare, which helps women keep their babies rather than abort them.

“We actually saw the type of [violent] Jane’s Revenge activity happening around our Buffalo location that they were fomenting with their followers” prior to the firebombing of the clinic Rev. James Harden, CEO of CompassCare, told The Epoch Times.

“So we reported it to local law enforcement as well as the FBI two weeks in advance of the firebombing,” added Harden, who said Molotov cocktails were used to set the blaze to the CompassCare clinic.

Harden blames local and national progressive politicians for the violence, calling measures that the state of New York have taken under Democratic Gov. Kathleen Hochul and Attorney General Letitia James to investigate crisis pregnancy centers like CompassCare as “essentially joining Jane’s Revenge in attacking pro-life pregnancy centers.”

Jane’s Revenge

The Jane’s group said that they were also responsible for attacks on pro-family clinics in Dearborn, Michigan, Asheville, North Carolina, and more than a dozen other sites around the country in response to the Supreme Court’s repeal of Roe v. Wade.

“You have seen us in Madison WI, Ft. Collins CO, Reisertown MA, Olympia WA, Des Moines IA, Lynwood WA, Washington DC, Ashville NC, Buffalo NY, Hollywood FL, Vancouver WA, Frederick MA, Denton TX, Gresham OR, Eugene OR, Portland OR, among others, and we work in countless locations invisibly,” said the group in a manifesto published on Abolition Media, an anarchist website.

So far, no arrests have been made in connection with any of the acts claimed by Jane’s Revenge manifesto, although the Catholic News Agency has reported that some youths have been arrested in acts of vandalism not associated with Jane’s Revenge.

Jason Rantz, a conservative talk show host in Seattle, told The Epoch Times that several churches and pro-life crisis pregnancy centers have been attacked in Washington state as well, with no arrests other than one that doesn’t seem to be connected to the abortion issue.

Like CompassCare’s Harden, Rantz makes no bones about pointing the finger for the violence at some progressive politicians, but not all.

“We had a story that I broke several weeks ago where a Democrat state Senator up for reelection … she produced a video that was celebrating the vandalism” against a pro-life billboard in Gorst, Washington.

The video was subsequently posted on Instagram.

“They don’t really hide their intent to promote this kind of violent response when they don’t get their way politically,” said Rantz.

2020 Redux?

Seattle was the scene of some of the worst violence during the Black Lives Matter protest and riots of the summer of 2020, with sections of the downtown area made unhabitable and unpoliceable for over a month.

While stopping short of calling the 2020 riots a dress rehearsal for today’s more targeted and politically-motivated violence, Rantz does think the violence in 2020 and today are connected in that Democrats think they are best served by allowing the violence to continue.

“I also think that as with the case in 2020, that a lot of the Democrats thought that they would benefit politically from the violence so they don’t want to get too involved” in calling for more rational means of political opposition.

Targeted Assassination Attempt

The Buffalo center of CompassCare was burned out just days after a California man was arrested near the house of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in an alleged aborted effort to kill the conservative jurist.

Nicholas John Roske was arrested with a black tactical chest rig, and a tactical knife, along with a Glock 17, clips, ammunitions, and zip ties, according to the probable cause statement filed with the court.

The FBI said that Roske traveled cross-country in what they are now saying was an attempt to kill as many as three Supreme Court Justices.

Roske, 26, said that he was upset over the Supreme Court decision that reversed Roe v. Wade which returned the question of abortion back to individual states.

Roske also expressed concern that upcoming decisions by the nation’s highest court would tend to favor conservative views on the Constitution, said an FBI warrant obtained by Fox News.

‘Democracy in Danger’

According to talk show host Rantz, Democrats have become obsessed with the idea that merely having differing views on political issues of the day from those of Democrats somehow threatens the fabric of democracy.

That message was conveyed by Rep. Jennifer Wexton (D-Va.), whose re-election campaign sent a handwritten postcard to at least one constituent warning that “Democracy is at stake this election day. Republicans are the problem.”

The postcard, obtained by The Epoch Times, appeared to have no identification, such as a signature, but just referred to the need to re-elect Wexton or democracy will be in danger. The flip side of the postcard was marked as having been sent by “Jennifer Wexton for Congress.”

Wexton is being opposed by GOP nominee and Vietnamese refugee, Hung Cao.

Cao, a retired special forces operator who left the Navy as a captain—one rank below the flag rank of admiral—took umbrage at the apparent suggestion by Wexton’s campaign that he would endanger democracy.

“Jennifer Wexton should immediately apologize for her campaign’s claims,” said a Cao campaign spokesman in a statement to The Epoch Times.

“Hung Cao has fought for our country honorably for 25 years. He’s put his life on the line for his fellow Americans to protect our constitution. Wexton ought to be ashamed of her campaign slandering an immigrant to this country who wore our uniform in combat,” added the campaign.

Congress Targeted

The Capitol Police stepped up security for this year’s Congressional Charity baseball game, citing threats by leftist climate activists who have threatened to disrupt the game if climate bills aren’t passed by Congress, or at least are on the verge of passing.

“The real violence being committed at this baseball game is by Congress, by Manchin, by his Republican allies and by everybody in Congress who’s failing to take action on climate change, therefore consigning millions of people to die and millions more livelihoods to be destroyed,” said Dan Sherrell, an organizer for the protest at the baseball game.

The threats came years after the game was targeted by a left-wing gunman in 2017, who opened fire on a practice field for the Congressional baseball game, critically wounding then-House Majority Whip Steve Scalise and three others before being killed by Capitol Police.

The 66-year-old former construction worker and Bernie Sanders supporter, James T. Hodgkinson, attempted to kill Scalise and others because he “hated Republicans,” according to a report by the Los Angeles Times.

Accepting Political Violence?

A pre-print of a study published in July, which has yet to be peer-reviewed, found that “[s]ubstantial minorities of the [US] population endorse violence, including lethal violence, to obtain political objectives,” with nearly 8 million people in the United States at least “somewhat willing” to kill others to advance their political goals.

Published at MedRxiv, the paper concentrated on concepts like QAnon, Donald Trump, stolen elections, and Western European traditions as justifications by conservatives who find political violence acceptable.

Yet the paper also found that the largest minority of people who feel political violence is justified are those who find race-based violence justifiable.

“More than a third of respondents (36.2%) reported that violence was at least sometimes justified ‘to prevent discrimination based on race or ethnicity,’” with nearly 10 million Americans saying that violence was always justified to prevent racial discrimination.

With the contemporary expansion of the meaning of words like “discrimination,” to encompass concepts such as “microaggressions,” it’s much easier to see how violence is becoming more commonplace in a future that appears bleak, observers say, even as progressive seek to further expand definitions to widen their dispute on conservatives.

“When you have Joe Biden, two weeks ago, asking Merrick Garland to investigate crisis pregnancy centers for fraud, it’s an all-out war on these pregnancy centers,” said Harden, who points out that they provide their services for free so fraud would be impossible—unless you redefine the meaning of the word fraud.

Harden was referring to a provision in a July 8 executive order “to protect people seeking reproductive health services from fraudulent schemes or deceptive practices.” Biden has appointed Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta to head up the Department of Justice’s task force on abortion. Gupta has been accused in the past of calling crisis pregnancy centers like the one Harden runs “fake clinics,” raising worries that the DOJ will try to shut down pro-life clinics under an expanded definition of fraud.

“It’s like a dystopian novel,” said Harden.

The Epoch Times has reached out to the White House and Hochul, James, and Wextons’ offices for comment.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

She was only 16, pregnant, and scared.

It was 1972. That teen was Christie Ballor.

Now 67, Ballor still lives in Alliance, Ohio, where she was born. She recalled her road to recovery from having an abortion at a young age—and now witnessing Roe’s historic overturning a full 50 years later.

Her parents didn’t know better. Lacking guidance, Ballor conceived out of wedlock with her then boyfriend and, fear-driven, she visited a Canton Planned Parenthood where she was told her unborn baby was just a “lump of cells,” like a “tumor.”

She now agonizes over how foolish she was.

“I look back and I think, ‘How could I believe something like that?’” she told the newspaper. “This was not something that was sometimes said; it’s been said over and over and over. They stopped saying it publicly so much because there’s so much science that they have to refute, but one-on-one? Oh yeah.”

Tossing in the words “and no one will ever know” feigned the escape she (like other scared young women) was looking for.

Crossing State Lines at 16 for an Abortion at Dobbs Ferry Planned Parenthood

Ballor fielded the idea to her boyfriend. He said it was entirely her choice. She felt no fatherly commitment from him should she carry the pregnancy through, but he paid for her flight to get the abortion out of state, at the Dobbs Ferry Planned Parenthood facility in New York. Abortion wasn’t illegal in Ohio then, but facilities were lacking.

Looking back, the idea of a minor crossing state lines for an abortion sounds crazy—possibly even criminal. But Planned Parenthood didn’t care.

“They didn’t care that someone of age took me across state lines to have an abortion,” she recalled. “I was 16 years old; I was a minor. They could care less.”

He joined her on the flight, but was relieved when he had to wait at the airport upon the clinic station wagon’s arrival to pick up Ballor—with 5 or 10 other women who made the trip for the same reason. She envisioned her boyfriend chasing her, pleading for her not to go through with it. But as they pulled out, there was no turning back.

“I suddenly felt like I was moving along a conveyor belt with other silent, sad, and hopeless women,” she told Live Action. “From that point, I simply moved like a robot through the process, suppressing any thoughts and feelings. Looking back, I really didn’t need the sedative they gave me; my mind was already sedated with hopelessness.”

The Dobbs clinic, she described, was a “huge facility,” “like a hospital” for abortions. Neither she nor the others got counseling like they were supposed to before the procedure.

“Somebody asked, ‘Do you have any questions?’ Well, who’s going to ask a question?” she said. “And who’s going to say, ‘I’m not sure I want to do this?’ I just flew in from Ohio.”

Ballor tried to tune out the sounds and smells inside that cold, sterile room. The doctor told her, “Relax, this won’t take long.” And it didn’t. Afterward, she heard the weeping of other women in the waiting room. Her own tears started rolling down her cheeks.

“I never felt such emptiness and despair in my life,” she said. “I had been deceived into thinking my baby was just a blob of tissue. But I immediately wiped my eyes, gritted my teeth, and told myself not to cry because I had chosen to do this. Nothing could bring my baby back. I vowed to pretend this never happened. So, I walked out of that place of death and despair the same way I walked in, like a robot going through the motions. I lived in denial for a long time.”

In her own words, Ballor had killed her child. She knew it immediately. “I’ve heard this from other women too,” she said. “You don’t feel empty after you’ve just had a tumor removed.” She shut down emotionally and spent decades in denial, suppressing the demons plaguing her for what she’d done.

Falling Into Despair Before Finding Faith, Healing, And Becoming Pro-Life

Through college and her career as an elementary teacher, she sought intimate relationships out of wedlock, as sexual promiscuity was accepted, “the normal thing,” she said. “Today, it’s even harder to consider the consequences of having sex;” our bodies are precious vessels not to be thrown away “because some guy tells you he loves you.”

Subconsciously, she sought callous and abusive partners, to the extent that her former fiancé broke into her apartment and raped her at gunpoint. Out of guilt, she felt “unworthy,” like she deserved this awful treatment.

“That’s the kind of path that I was on, and I was abusing alcohol and drugs,” she shared. “I was still keeping [appearances] outward, I was able to start teaching … but nothing was satisfying. I wore a good face; I was a good actress: ‘everything fine.’”

Snowballing into the breech of utter desperation, holding a bottle of tequila in one hand, a handful of Seconal in the other, she prayed, “God, if you exist and if you think my life is worth anything anymore, please, please help me!”

What came next was a miracle.

“The answer pierced my soul not in words but in the form of an instant knowledge that I was loved by an indescribable, unfathomable love that seemed almost impossible,” she told Live Action. “I felt wrapped in a warmth and peace I cannot describe. Yes, God loved me, and my life had meaning. My parents had not provided a religious upbringing, so I would spend three decades searching to know this God who told me He loved me.”

For Ballor, it was a turning point. She described divine forces leading her toward pro-life activism, first in Washington D.C. (where nobody knew her) where she joined a protest impromptu, asking to carry a sign saying “I regret my abortion.”

Ballor’s converting to Catholicism, joining the abortion healing program “Heart,” and becoming a pro-life “defender of life” were all bricks she laid on her path of healing in the years that followed.

An activist role took shape: as educator, imparting to women the truth she so needed as a teen; as walker in the March for Life; and as speaker with the Silent No More Awareness campaign, offering her testimony on the steps of the Supreme Court.

Then, on June 24, 2022, came another miracle.

A Decision 50 Years In The Making Opens a New Pro-Life Chapter

The Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade—a full 50 years after Ballor’s abortion. She was “jubilant.”

“I was praying outside of Planned Parenthood that day, I just happened to be there—that was my regular day to go and pray at Planned Parenthood,” she said. “My prayer partner and I—our phones started going off, and I just fell to my knees.

“I was crying, I fell to my knees, and started praying, thanking God for this.”

The landmark decision is just the beginning, she admits. “But it was a gift.”

The end of Roe dethrones the protected status of abortion under the federal government; the matter of legality now falls into the hands of individual states and the people.

Now, “the fight is going to be in the states,” she said, changing hearts and minds while warding off federal pro-abortion challenges.

Far from the acts of vandalism and disturbing demonstrations initiated by abortion advocates like Jane’s Revenge, Ballor’s activities involve education, telling her story, and revealing the truth of what abortion really is.

It’s time for the groundwork for replacing abortion facilities with pro-life health centers to expand, said Ballor. And whom does she credit for this?

“Our pregnancy centers outnumber all the Planned Parenthoods and the abortion facilities,” she added. “I truly believe God’s timing was to give the pro-life movement and especially pregnancy health centers a chance to really build up … and take care of those people after abortion becomes illegal.”

Share your stories with us at emg.inspired@epochtimes.com, and continue to get your daily dose of inspiration by signing up for the Inspired newsletter at TheEpochTimes.com/newsletter

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

Dan Kildee’s latest ad undermined by fact that he votes with Biden 100 percent of time

Rep. Dan Kildee (D., Mich.) is distancing himself from other Democrats in a new campaign ad. That’s a heavy lift considering his voting record and position in Democratic leadership.

In a new ad, which does not mention that Kildee is a Democrat, the congressman pitches himself as an independent who stands up to his own party. Kildee adds that his self-described habit of breaking with his party makes him unpopular in Congress.

How Kildee can call himself unpopular when he’s one of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s (D., Calif.) whips—whose job is to pressure other Democrats to vote on legislation—is unclear. Moreover, Kildee votes with resident Joe Biden 100 percent of the time, according to FiveThirtyEight.

Kildee’s rebrand attempt is a familiar one. Vulnerable Democrats who have been rubber stamps for Biden’s agenda, such as Rep. Tim Ryan (D., Ohio), are running as far away from their party as possible, highlighting just how toxic the party brand has become in swing districts.

First elected in 2012, Kildee is a ripe target for Republicans in November. Kildee’s district changed in December of last year and now encompasses broad swaths of solid-red regions in Michigan.

Democrats are aware of this fact. In June, Pelosi sent out a fundraising plea for Kildee, calling on Democrats to support “his toughest reelection fight yet.”

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

A global push to provide students with much more than just education under the banner of “community schools” has left many parents wondering what the program is all about, who’s behind it, and why its agenda is centered around the leftist concept of “equity.”

A full-service community school strives to “meet the social, emotional, physical and mental health, and academic needs of students,” according to the U.S. Department of Education.

It’s “the next generation of coordinated school health,” says the National Education Association (NEA), the largest teachers union in the country, in response to a model for these schools developed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and an organization once called the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development that now goes by ASCD.

The CDC calls them “healthy schools” and has developed a 10-part framework for addressing all aspects of a child’s health on campus called the Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child (WSCC) model.

But community schools don’t only address students’ health. The NEA describes a community school as “a network of partnerships offering services that remove barriers to learning, like trauma, hunger, homelessness and the myriad of other problems faced by families living in poverty.”

On the NEA’s website, Cindy Long recounts an example in Las Cruces, New Mexico that offered mental health services to a 13-year-old boy who witnessed the murder of his uncle, then days later lost his father to suicide.

“[T]he full-time community school coordinator spent hours researching and applying for a grant to pay for his father’s and uncle’s funerals, a time-consuming effort that would be impossible for staff at a regular public school to handle on top of regular workloads,” wrote Long.

She also discusses schools that offer food banks, family computer rooms, donated clothing, on-site laundry facilities, medical and dental care, and more.

Long said the hope is that these services can be expanded to address “the needs of a student’s siblings, parents, grandparents, and neighbors. The idea is that lifting up a student isn’t possible unless her community is lifted up, too.”

However, some parents and community members disagree with schools taking on these far-reaching responsibilities.

Taking on ‘the Role of the Parent’

Kelly Schenkoske, a California parent who has extensively researched community schools and hosts a podcast called “A Time to Stand,” told The Epoch Times the CDC and ASCD are working together “to turn every school into a community school,” and that while the schools may sound wonderful, there are legitimate concerns.

“The schools are trying to take on the role of the parent and remove the parent from their relationship with the child. This is a complete obstruction and an assault on the family,” said Schenkoske, who homeschools her two children. “For me, the biggest concern with all of this is having the school be the nucleus of every community and handing over more control to the government and all of these ‘experts’ who are going to invade the home and tell families how to parent.”

Schenkoske became especially concerned when she learned the California Teachers Association (CTA), one of the largest teachers unions in the state, and the NEA have fully backed the WSCC model and that state educators recently held a conference in Los Angeles where they discussed community schools and multiple plans centered around equity, she said.

The United Nations (UN), the World Health Organization, most U.S. states, teachers and many non-government organizations also support the push for community schools.

California has already invested $4.1 billion in the Community Schools Partnership Program, including about $649 million in grants to 268 school districts across the state. The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) received more than $44 million.

The state program offers various grants to partners ranging from $100,000 to $2 million, and the U.S. Department of Education is also offering grants through its Full-Service Community Schools (FSCS) program.

CTA Vice President David Goldberg did not respond to inquiries, but he said at a virtual press conference on June 6 the teachers union is “all in” for community schools.

He applauded the state’s “deeper investment” in the community schools model, stating that “academic learning does not exist separately from social emotional learning.”

Echoing California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s recent assertion that democracy itself is under attack in the United States, Goldberg touted the community schools model as a way of “developing democratic processes” to include the voices of parents, students, educators, and administrators at the table.

California Models

Former teacher Ingrid Villeda said she left her position at the 93rd Street Academy in south Los Angeles to become the community school coordinator at the elementary school. She told The Epoch Times that most of the new funding will go to pay salaries for the next five years for community school coordinators, parent representatives, and employees with the Healthy Start program, another initiative that was designed to increase the health of women and children.

Community schools differ from other schools because they get input from “community stakeholders,” Villeda said.

“Traditionally, a principal arrives at a school, and it’s their vision that is rolled out, and when those principals change or go to other schools, the school goes through this trajectory of change until another leader comes in, and then it stabilizes again,” she said. “With community schools, and all stakeholders having a voice, you create a vision that includes everyone, so it’s not dependent on me or the principal, but on our needs … and the vision is there for the long term.”

Villeda has worked with the community to provide free vision and dental screenings for children. Out of 925 students at the school, 350 were able to get free eyeglasses, she said.

In LAUSD, some high schools have health centers on campus. Her school has a partnership with nearby Fremont High School which is equipped with a full-service health center.

“So usually, if parents tell me they need to take their kid to the doctor … we call directly and we actually make an appointment for them, and show them how to get there,” Villeda said.

Currently, there are about 30 community schools operating in Los Angeles and six in San Diego with plans to convert 10 additional schools this year and more in the future, according to Villeda.

The NEA and the CTA say there are about 5,000 community schools nationwide.

Equity: Who Decides What a Child Needs?

Villeda, a self-described Democrat and “lefty” union activist, said that although equity means different things to different people, to her it means having access to services and opportunities.

“Equity to me is not that we all have the same, but that everyone has what they need,” she said. “And there are some of us that need more than others.”

If children don’t have everything they need, then it becomes the problem of the schools, Villeda said. The schools are then forced to find solutions, and that’s what they’re doing through community schools, she said.

“Me giving a child a sweater at school doesn’t mean that child is going to get an ‘A.’ It just means that that child is going to be able to sit in a classroom without being cold,” she said.

However, James Lindsay, author of “Race Marxism” and co-author of other books such as “Social (In)justice,” and “Cynical Theories,” told The Epoch Times that to understand the new education lingo, parents should first be aware that “equity means socialism.”

Equity is the “rebranding of socialism,” he said. “It’s the adjustment of shares so that individuals and groups are made equal.”

This means the proponents of equity, including the World Economic Forum (WEF), want to dismantle and rebuild “the whole system” of food distribution, transportation, and housing so the outcomes are made more equitable, Lindsay said.

He claims the WEF is also trying to create a bottom-up demand for health equity among the youth and ultimately change those systems in ways that may not appeal to everyone.

“They’re redesigning the whole system to create better so-called health outcomes, and they use it to justify bringing in things like ‘affirmative’ trans health care, as they call it,” he said.

“People need to understand that there is a purpose behind this, and it’s largely controlled by a few people who want to reshape what’s going on in the world according to what they think is necessary or that they want,” Lindsay said.

The WSCC model “mirrors the Soviet model where a council of appointed individuals make all the decisions with the schools,” he said.

‘Gender-Affirming Care’

A University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) document lists Planned Parenthood, which has actively supported “gender-affirming care,” as a potential partner of community schools. But schools and the medical community have recently come under fire for using this policy to encourage the use of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgery on minors who identify as transgender.

Lindsay contends that these transgender medical interventions are “not care,” but are instead “amputating children’s genitals and sterilizing them.”

Planned Parenthood is the single largest provider of sex education in the U.S., reaching 1.2 million people with education and outreach each year and promoting Comprehensive Sex Education as well as programs for LGBT youth.

In Dec. 19, 2019, Planned Parenthood of Los Angeles (PPLA) issued a press release announcing its instrumental role in the opening of 50 “Wellbeing Centers” in L.A. high schools, billed as the “first-of-its-kind collaboration between local partners to address the social, emotional, and sexual health needs of young people throughout Los Angeles County.”

According to the CDC’s virtual healthy school tour, under the WSCC model, school-based health centers can refer students and families to the public health department “for family planning, prenatal care, and concerns about sexually transmitted diseases,” and health educators will “frequently collaborate on activities and training for children and adolescents in the community.”

Planned Parenthood did not respond to an inquiry about whether its role in sex ed would be expanded under the community schools model nor whether it has applied for or received grant money as a community partner.

Meanwhile, Kimberly Ells, author of “The Invincible Family: Why The Global Campaign To Crush Motherhood and Fatherhood Can’t Win” and a policy advisor for Family Watch International, said she’s opposed to the WSCC model.

More and more parents are opting for homeschooling and realizing they may be better at educating their own children than the public school system they’ve trusted in the past, she said.

Ells wrote an article earlier this year for The Daily Signal, condemning “Communist-Style Community Schools” which she views as a globalist attack on the traditional role of parents and families.

“It’s like the worst example of cutting off the branch that you’re sitting on that I’ve ever seen. To try and undercut the family is to undercut civilization, because societies can’t thrive without strong families,” she told The Epoch Times.

A chapter in her book exposes the UN’s push to make Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) a “human right” of all children, while the program focuses heavily on gender theory and advocates for abortion, Ells said.

Another chapter focuses on the UN’s Convention on the Rights of the Child, and how it exploits health to include many of these controversial medical practices, she said.

“We need to wake up to the fact that there is a global agenda,” Ells said. “Even in the Sustainable Development Goals, one of the goals is health, but then it depends on what you believe ‘health’ to be.”

The California Department of Education, CTA, and NEA did not respond to inquiries.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

‘Religious liberty is fragile, and religious intolerance and persecution have been recurring features of human history’

The Supreme Court justice who drafted the decision that overturned Roe v. Wade decried a “growing hostility” toward religion in the West in his first public appearance after the ruling.

“The problem that looms is not just indifference to religion, it’s not just ignorance about religion,” Alito said, starting his keynote address at the 2022 Notre Dame Religious Liberty Summit in Rome on July 21. His 37-minute speech was released on July 28.

“There’s also growing hostility to religion or at least the traditional religious beliefs that are contrary to the new moral code that is ascendant in some sectors,” the justice said.

The keynote address marks the top judge’s first appearance after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that legalized abortion in the United States, with a ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. It came as a defiant comeback as lawmakers in the United States and across the world voiced opposition to the ruling, with some even calling the June ruling an “assault” on democracy.

‘The Proud Civilization’

Alito, a Roman Catholic, reflected on the parallels between the United States and Rome, as once a “proud” spiritual civilization, nonetheless proved “no human achievement is ever permanent.”

“I find myself thinking about the proud civilization that was centered here two millennia ago,” he said. “As I think back, I also think ahead, and I wonder what historians may say centuries from now about the contribution of the United States to world civilization.”

“One thing I hope they will say is that our country, after a lot of fits and starts, and ups and downs, eventually showed the world that it is possible to have a stable and successful society in which people of diverse faiths live and work together harmoniously and productively while still retaining their own beliefs,” Alito added, noting that the fact that Americans can exercise religious liberty has been “truly a historic accomplishment” for the country.

In this United States, the Justice said, where religious liberty goes hand-in-hand with many other rights, a “growing hostility” towards religion is threatening the protection of this sacred right across the country.

“And the problem that looms is not just indifference to religion, it’s not just ignorance about religion. There’s also growing hostility to religion, or at least the traditional religious beliefs that are contrary to the new moral code that is ascendant in some sectors,” the justice added.

Yet, according to Alito, this hostility to religion and religious freedom threatens a range of other fundamental rights.

“The exercise of religion very often involves speech, a spoken or written prayer, the recitation of Scripture, a homily, a religious book or article these are all forms of speech they are also forms of religious exercise. If this sort of speech can be suppressed or punished, what is to stop the state from crushing other forms of expression?

“We consider the relationship between freedom of speech and freedom of assembly. A religious service in a church, synagogue, mosque, or temple is a form of assembly. If a government can ban those assemblies, will it hesitate to outlaw others?

“On the other hand, if religious liberty is allowed, it will be harder for the state to restrict other speech and other assemblies,” Alito said.

While most legal academics nowadays believes that “religion doesn’t merit special protection,” Alito added, “the Constitution of the United States provides a clear answer” to the question of whether religious liberty warrants protection.

“Constitution protects the free exercise of religion … And for judges like me, who think to the belief that it matters what the Constitution says and what it does not say, that is enough,” the justice said. “It’s the law, and don’t ask me why.”

‘What Really Wounded Me’

In what he described as an “unusual” sense of “diplomatic impulse” in him, Alito responded to foreign lawmakers and celebrities who “felt perfectly fine commenting on American law.

“One of these was former Prime Minister Boris Johnson—but he paid the price—post hoc ergo propter hoc right?” Alito said, applying the “after this, therefore resulting from it” fallacy to the fact that the UK PM resigned after voicing opposition to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling.

But the justice did not stop there.

“What really wounded me—what really wounded me—was when the Duke of Sussex addressed the United Nations and seemed to compare the decision—whose name may not be spoken—with the Russian attack on Ukraine,” Alito said, referring to Prince Harry, who claimed the overturn of Roe v. Wade was a part of “a global assault on democracy and freedom” in a speech in July.

Religious Liberty

The justice went further to reflect on religious persecution across the world—such as in Nigeria, Egypt, and India—and, most prominently China, but all were not successful.

“During my lifetime, the People’s Republic of China did its best to eradicate religion completely. And yet it failed. Just as the Roman emperors who spent centuries trying to destroy Christianity failed,” the justice said.

As an example of this, Alito added, was that “the Cultural Revolution did its best to destroy religion, but it was not successful. It could not extinguish the religious impulse.”

The cultural revolution was a tumultuous period between 1967 to 1977, during which the Chinese Communist Party sought to eradicate traditional beliefs and values.

Alito’s speech came after the highest court made multiple rulings on cases pertaining to religious liberty in the United States, including a June ruling that ruled in favor of a football coach who petitioned for his right to pray and another ruling in the same month that struck down Maine’s ban on religious school funding.

China’s Long-Arm Persecution

Currently, plaintiffs in another high-profile religious freedom case before the Supreme Court is seeking in what they describe as China’s long-arm religious persecution in the United States.

Twenty-three attorneys general (AGs) across the nation, in a joint amicus brief, described the point of law in the case as “an issue of national importance,” supporting the plaintiffs.

The plaintiffs’ complaint (pdf) describes around 40 incidents of threats or physical assault against them for participating in parades representing Falun Gong, handing out flyers about Falun Gong, or managing a booth with Falun Gong-related literature in the United States.

Falun Gong is a spiritual practice consisting of meditative exercises and moral teachings centered on the tenets of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. It became widely popular in China in the 1990s. In 1999, the communist regime, perceiving that popularity to be a threat, began nationwide persecution targeting the practice and its adherents.

Millions of practitioners have since been held in detention centers, jails, and labor camps across China, where they are subject to physical torture, forced labor, and forced organ harvesting.

With respect to one incident in July 2011, two plaintiffs describe in graphic detail an attack by Li Huahong, head of the Chinese Anti-Cult World Alliance, a CCP-affiliated organization that targets religious dissidents overseas with violence and harassment.

According to two witnesses, a mob of 20 to 30 people then surrounded two Falun Gong practitioners. One of them was held for about 30 minutes until the police arrived, while a mob yelled “kill her” and “beat her to death.”

“In this case, a religious group known as the Falun Gong, which originated in China, experienced persecution and harassment on American soil,” according to a statement from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office on June 29.

“The group started in China under a Communist regime hostile to religious pluralism,” the AGs wrote. “Many Falun Gong practitioners have thus fled to America. Yet even after coming here, Petitioners allegedly continue to face persecution and abuse from Communist sympathizers.”

The AGs, in their amicus brief, said the 2021 ruling of a lower court dismissing the case is “wrong on an issue of national importance that stands at the center of our constitutional tradition”—namely, religious liberty.

In doing so, the court “unduly narrowed a statute meant to bar the worst acts of violence in many of America’s sacred places,” the AGs said.

“America’s commitment to religious freedom is ‘essential.’ … It constitutes ‘one of our most treasured and jealously guarded constitutional rights,’” the AGs wrote, quoting previous court opinions.

“Our hearts are restless until we rest in God,” Alito said in his speech.

“And, therefore, the champions of religious liberty who go out as wise as serpents and as harmless as doves can expect to find hearts that are open to their message,” the justice said.

Eva Fu contributed to this report.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

The man accused of conspiring to murder Supreme Court justice Brett Kavanaugh asked the internet for assassination tips weeks before he flew to the nation’s capital loaded with weapons.

Nicholas Roske searched on Google for the “quietest semi auto rifle” and the “most effective place to stab someone” before he arrived outside Kavanaugh’s home in June, according to an FBI warrant obtained by Fox News. The 26-year-old also said in an online chat forum he was going to “remove some people from the supreme court” to “stop roe v wade from being overturned.”

“I could get at least one, which would change the votes for decades to come,” Roske said, “and I am shooting for 3.”

Kavanaugh’s brush with death came amid efforts from congressional Democrats to stall legislation meant to beef up security for Supreme Court justices. Additional protections for the judges were provided promptly after the threat to Kavanaugh’s life.

The High Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade in June—and the leaked draft preceding it—prompted a wave of left-wing violence and intimidation. At least 60 crisis centers, which counsel women on alternatives to abortion, have been firebombed or vandalized since May.

Threats have also been made to other branches of government. Progressive activists are agitating to shut down Thursday evening’s congressional baseball game due to the government’s alleged lack of action on climate change. In 2017, a former campaign volunteer for socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) shot five people, including Rep. Steve Scalise (R., La.), at a Republican practice event for the baseball game.

Roske, who called the police on himself, was apprehended by law enforcement outside Kavanaugh’s home in possession of a handgun, knife, pepper spray, and burglary tools. He has pleaded not guilty to attempted assassination.

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

Disney confirmed in a statement to Axios it will change Hulu’s advertising policies to allow political advertising. The decision comes only two days after the company denied ads created by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the Democratic Governors Association. The denial had sparked online outrage among Democrats.

The ads that prompted internet outcry depict congressional Republicans and former president Donald Trump as unfeeling about gun violence toward children and accuses them of a “coordinated Republican attack” on abortion.

This is the latest political controversy in which Disney has caved to Democratic pressure. Last March, Disney opposed Governor Ron DeSantis’s (R., Fla.) Florida Parental Rights in Education bill after the Democrats characterized it as the “Don’t Say Gay Bill.”

“Hulu’s censorship of the truth is outrageous, offensive, and another step down a dangerous path for our country,” the directors of three Democratic committees responsible for the ads said in a statement to the Washington Post. “Voters have the right to know the facts about MAGA Republicans’ agenda on issues like abortion—and Hulu is doing a huge disservice to the American people by blocking voters from learning the truth about the GOP record or denying these issues from even being discussed.”

Hulu’s policy used to allow candidate ads but not issue ads. Political ads were permitted on a case-by-case basis. Now, Hulu will allow a large variety of political ads and reserves the right to request edits.

Disney said the change is motivated by the desire for their streaming platforms to be consistent in advertising rules, with the exception of Disney+, which will offer a plan with “family-friendly” ads later this year. ESPN+, another of Disney’s subscription-streaming services, already allows political ads.

Disney has come under fire recently for promoting a “not-at-all-secret gay agenda” in its children’s programming and parks and expressing opposition for Florida’s Parental Rights in Education bill.

Netflix, Hulu’s chief competitor in streaming, has suffered major subscriber and market blows following the release of Cuties, a film sexualizing young girls, and other political messaging that has failed to strike a chord among consumers.

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

The Department of Justice’s third-ranking official has a history of calling crisis pregnancy centers “fake clinics,” a false, inflammatory description employed by terrorist groups that have recently attacked the pro-life organizations.

Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta deployed the rhetoric in a 2020 letter urging senators to vote against a Trump judicial nominee. Nearly 60 crisis centers, which counsel women on alternatives to abortion, have been firebombed or vandalized over the past two months. An anarchist group that has claimed responsibility for many of the attacks, Jane’s Revenge, has used the same “fake clinic” rhetoric as Gupta.

The Biden administration has repeatedly accused Republicans of causing acts of violence through their rhetoric. The White House baselessly claimed a GOP-backed bill in Florida to restrict teaching about sexual orientation to young children “encourages bullying and threatens students’ mental health, physical safety, and well-being.” Democrats tried to link Rep. Elise Stefanik (R., N.Y.) to a mass shooting in Buffalo, N.Y., in May that left 10 people dead. They claimed that Stefanik’s opposition to mass illegal immigration echoed the Buffalo shooter’s writings about “great replacement theory.”

Gupta’s remarks carry new significance after she was appointed this month to lead the Justice Department’s reproductive rights task force, formed to protect access to abortions in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. Gupta also supervises the Justice Department’s civil rights division, which prosecutes attacks against reproductive health facilities, a classification that includes crisis pregnancy centers.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R., Mo.), who introduced a bill this month to expand criminal penalties for attacks on the centers, said Gupta’s remarks are “no surprise” given the Justice Department’s “disregard” for the assaults on pro-life organizations.

“It’s shameful that Joe Biden’s Department of Justice—responsible for enforcing our laws—is ignoring the epidemic of violent attacks against organizations that are just trying to provide health care to women in need,” Hawley told the Washington Free Beacon.

While it has moved to protect abortion clinics, the Justice Department has largely ignored the violence against pro-life centers. Gupta and other DOJ leaders met with civil rights and pro-abortion groups this week to update them on the task force’s work. The Justice Department does not appear to have met with pro-life groups that have sought meetings with the agency over the firebombing.

Gupta slammed crisis pregnancy centers while opposing the nomination of Judge David Dugan because of his affiliation with a center in Illinois. At the time, Gupta led the civil rights group Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.

The head of one pro-life group that has sought a DOJ meeting says Gupta’s remarks make her “unfit” to lead the task force.

“Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta’s attacks on pregnancy resource centers which help pregnant women in need are shameful and utterly irresponsible,” said CatholicVote president Brian Burch.

“Ms. Gupta should be investigating and prosecuting the radical criminals who are vandalizing and firebombing pregnancy resource centers nationwide,” Burch told the Free Beacon, adding that Attorney General Merrick Garland should “immediately rescind” Gupta’s appointment.

Gupta is not the only high-ranking DOJ official to attack crisis pregnancy centers. Kristen Clarke, the head of the agency’s civil rights division and a task force member, called the centers “harmful” and “predatory” after a 2018 Supreme Court ruling in favor of the facilities in 2018, the Free Beacon reported.

As part of its work, the task force is centralizing information about the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, a federal statute that makes it a crime to threaten or attack reproductive health centers. The Justice Department has brought multiple cases against activists who blocked the entrances of abortion clinics, but none so far against people who firebombed pro-life organizations.

The Justice Department did not address questions about Gupta’s comments. The agency provided comment from the FBI, which said it is investigating “a series of attacks and threats targeting pregnancy resource centers, faith-based organizations, and reproductive health clinics across the country, as well as to judicial buildings, including the U.S. Supreme Court.”

“The incidents are being investigated as potential acts of domestic violent extremism, FACE Act violations, or violent crime matters, depending on the facts of each case,” an FBI representative told the Free Beacon.

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

A group of Republican lawmakers are demanding an audit of the Biden administration’s $10 billion “COVID-19 Community Corps” program after reports it may be directing cash to partisan liberal political groups and giving left-wing activists access to Americans’ private information. 

(RELATED: Justice Department Diverting Victims’ Settlement Payments to Radical Liberal Activists)

– Sponsored –

Don’t Let the Left Take Over the Nation, Become a Trump Life Member Today!

In a letter to U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Inspector General Christin Grimm, the senators and representatives “raise concerns over the involvement of highly partisan organizations in the public education campaign, potentially inappropriate direct or indirect funding to these politically-affiliated groups, and possible access these organizations may have to personally identifiable information of Americans.”

The letter was signed by Senator Richard Burr (R-N.C.), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Tim Scott (R-S.C.), Mitt Romney (R-Utah), Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), and Representatives Cathy McMorris Rogers (Wash.), Ranking Member of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, Morgan Griffith (Va.), Ranking Member of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce’s Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, and Brett Guthrie (Ky.), Ranking Member of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce’s Subcommittee on Health.

“It is incredible that HHS and the Biden administration would partner with partisan political organizations and Democrat-affiliated campaign consultants on a $10 billion taxpayer funded vaccine confidence public education campaign, ostensibly intended to appeal to all Americans. It is not clear from publicly available information exactly what these groups do and what benefits they may derive from being a ‘founding member’ of the COVID-19 Community Corps,” the members write.

“First, we are concerned that some of these ‘founding members’ may inappropriately receive direct or indirect funding and support from HHS for partisan activities,” the members continue. “Second, HHS’s agencies contain or have access to vast amounts of personally identifiable information on hundreds of millions of Americans.”

Among those listed as members of the COVID-19 Community Corps are:

• “Nurses for Biden Harris,” a reelect Biden organization
• Planned Parenthood
• “Protect Our Care,” which lobbies and campaigns for socialized medicine
• “Never Trump” TV figure Ana Navarro
• “Latinx” political campaign organizations like “Voto Latino”
• Americans United for the Separation of Church of State
• “Blue Future,” which trains Democrat candidates
• Democracy Partners, a Democrat political campaign firm

The groups would be showered in billions of dollars in barely-tracked cash during a do-or-die election year for Biden.

The members demand Grimm investigate the program and provide a full accounting of its spending.

“Since the beginning of the pandemic, Congress has passed five bipartisan COVID-19 relief bills totaling $3.496 trillion,” write the members. “Recently, it has been reported that the Biden administration and Congressional Democrats are pursuing yet another partisan spending bill, despite record levels of inflation and billions of unspent dollars in COVID-19 relief funds. To date, the Biden administration’s accounting of how it spent trillions of dollars in past COVID-19 relief funding has been inadequate.”

The members continue, “As part of Congress’s effort to understand exactly how the Biden administration spent COVID-19 relief money, we request an audit of a $10 billion COVID-19 vaccine public education campaign launched by the Biden administration and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).”

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.

READ NEXT: CDC Spied on 20 Million Cell Phones in National COVID Surveillance Program >>

As more voters across the country turn toward the Republican Party, retired Army Brig. Gen. Don Bolduc is closing the margin of an expected Democratic victory in the New Hampshire Senate race.

In the 2020 Republican Senate primary, Bolduc carried almost 60,000 votes as the runner-up. According to a poll taken in April, only one point separated incumbent Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) and Bolduc, one of 11 candidates for the Republican primary scheduled for Sept. 13.

Bolduc says he’s very concerned about the future of the United States.

“Currently, there is a plan for top-down governance and the abandonment of America’s values and principles,” he told The Epoch Times, describing it as a plan to “undermine” the United States.

Bolduc said “America is weak” at the moment, and there are a variety of issues it must continue to confront if the nation ever wants to recover its strength. These include, but aren’t limited to, abortion, gun control, the southern border, and the economy.

Abortion Violence 

On the issue of abortion in the United States, Bolduc said, “The Supreme Court made the right decision by sending it back to the states.”

Regardless of which side of the issue women find themselves on, he said that “[they] have more control at the state level than they would ever have at the federal level.”

As a pro-life candidate, he considers the narrative that many on the left are pushing to be “very dangerous.”

While resident Joe Biden calls upon “pro-choice senators and a pro-choice House to codify Roe as federal law,” Hassan and colleagues are urging the president to “defend Americans’ rights to abortion” by executive order. In a recent 30-second television ad, she also said she would “fight and never back down” to protect the “personal freedoms” of women seeking an abortion.

Bolduc said the position of Biden and Hassan not only devalues life but has also created a climate for violence by claiming the decision to overturn Roe v. Wade is unconstitutional. To that end, Heidi Matzke, executive director of the Alternatives Pregnancy Center in Sacramento, shared at a Senate hearing on July 12 that “pregnancy care centers from coast to coast are being targeted for violent assaults of vandalism and hateful attacks online and in the media.”

For example, “fund abortion; abort God” was recently spray-painted on the Pathways Pregnancy Care Center in Littleton, New Hampshire. Police are investigating the incident as a hate crime.

According to Bolduc, violent assaults and vandalism are “just indicative of the divisiveness and the disunity promoted by the left.” These issues are “at the heart of why we have the problems that we have here in this country.”

Gun Control Confusion

Bolduc said the number of shootings across the country is also an indicator of an increasingly disgruntled and violent society.

“That’s not a problem with guns,” he said.

For example, Illinois has some of the toughest gun laws in the country, yet Chicago is one of the deadliest U.S. cities.

“It’s less about gun laws, and more about securing vulnerable areas, allowing police to do their jobs and have a good response, and being able to go after people who are the threat,” Bolduc said.

According to Bolduc, the culture of violence can be attributed to the U.S. justice system, which increasingly releases violent criminals back onto the streets while hamstringing and defunding the police. Support for police and community involvement are important to ensuring crime stays low, according to Bolduc. Rather than allowing divisiveness to creep in, people need to be brought together to solve the problem, he said.

The Southern Border

The ability to provide safer communities across the nation extends beyond the local community, Bolduc said. The southern border of the United States is out of control, as the country is currently failing to control the flow of drugs—particularly opioids such as fentanyl—and illegal weapons across the border.

“The southern border is now the most dangerous border in the world, and it’s essentially wide open under the Biden administration—it’s hurting America,” he said.

Bolduc said it has to be ensured that border patrol has what it needs to protect the country, such as adequate personnel, air and technology assets, a border wall, the enforcement of immigration laws, and more. Without these things, “America has vulnerabilities.”

“No country in the world would mimic what the United States is doing right now on its southern border,” he said, calling the Biden administration’s border policies “a disaster.”

“The sheer insecurity of America is frightening.”

The Economy Crunch

In addition to the security issues of the country, Bolduc said, “We are witnessing the worst economy in our nation’s history in terms of inflation, in terms of energy dependence, in terms of how it’s hurting Americans.”

Inflation has caused Americans to spend an extra $5,000 per year, as the cost of fuel, food, and other basic essentials climb to historic levels, he said.

“And while government spending is out of control,” many Americans “are cutting into their medical costs, cutting into their groceries, and just simply trying to make ends meet,” Bolduc said.

“It’s a dangerous place to be, and it has to change.”

Hassan has referred to her Republican challengers as “a group of really extreme opponents.” She didn’t respond to multiple inquiries from The Epoch Times to share her views on the issues facing the country. White House officials also didn’t respond to a request for comment.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

A coalition of 17 attorneys general is threatening Google with an anti-trust investigation if it censors pregnancy crisis centers from search results related to abortion.

Pregnancy crisis centers are different from abortion centers in that they provide resources for women who choose to carry their babies to full term.

The attorneys general of Virginia and Kentucky, Jason Miyares and Daniel Cameron, respectively, are leading the group, which sent a letter to Google on July 21.

In the letter, the group asks whether the tech giant has taken any steps to treat crisis pregnancy centers differently in search results since Roe v Wade was overturned.

Google, Miyares, and Cameron did not respond to requests for comment. Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt said he joined the effort because he did not want to see Google succumb to political pressure.

The AGs’ joint correspondence was in response to Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Congresswoman Elissa Slotnick’s (D-Mich.) June 17th letter asking what steps Google CEO Sundar Pichai will take to limit the appearance of anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers in Google search results when users search for “abortion clinics” or “abortion pills.”

“Google should not be displaying anti-abortion fake clinics or crisis pregnancy centers in search results for users that are searching for an abortion clinic or abortion pill,” Warner and Slotnik wrote. “If Google must continue showing these misleading search results and in Google Maps, the results should at the very least be appropriately labeled.”

An additional 12 Senators and nine members of Congress, including Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), signed the letter.

“Senator Warner believes that users who search for “abortion services” should receive results that are relevant to their searches,” said Valeria Rivadeneira, a Warner spokesperson. “Crisis pregnancy centers—which routinely misinform and mislead clients about their reproductive health—make every effort to appear in these search results in order to deceive individuals into thinking they offer a full range of reproductive health services.”

Rivadeneira added that Warner has not yet received a response to his June 17th communication to Google and that Google should apply appropriate labels to all organic search and map results.

Curtis Hill, former Attorney General of Indiana, said the cadre of Democratic politicians want Google to act as an arm of the government in suppressing information.

“It’s a typical sidestep that some government officials try to create, and we’ve seen it in other areas,” he said. “So, it’s highly appropriate for the state’s attorneys general to call it for what it is…possible antitrust violations for which they would face sanctions.”

Because Google operates in all their states, the company falls under the jurisdiction of each AG’s consumer advocacy responsibilities.

“They have the right to investigate companies that are operating within their state on information that consumers are being duped or otherwise are having difficulty being treated fairly,” Hill told The Epoch Times.

He commended his former colleagues for demanding to know whether Google intends to comply with the request made by members of the Senate and Congress.

“I’d want to know if the algorithms had been changed by a particular date and if any differences or distinctions seem to be in compliance with the request that was made,” Hill added. “It’s been suggested that some of the searches be limited. So, I would want to see the searches.”

Pregnancy crisis centers like the Crisis Pregnancy Support Center (CPSC) in Texas City, Texas, don’t just rely on Google for clients.

Instead, it’s word of mouth that brings pregnant women to their doorstep, according to Christy Anne Collins, CPSC executive director.

“Most of our referrals come from people in the community who are involved in social service type of work and know the services we offer,” she said. “We’re not competing with the abortion listings, and we don’t want to.”

Collins thinks it’s appropriate that Texas AG Ken Paxton is among the Generals who signed the letter.

“Google or anybody else shouldn’t be stifling free speech, not on this issue or any other issue,” she said.

Serving up to 170 individuals per month ranging in age from 9 to 52 years old, CPSC has been in existence since 1992.

“If somebody is interested in alternative information or they are interested in crisis pregnancy centers, we shouldn’t be blocked out,” Collins told The Epoch Times. “I’m very concerned that that kind of thing could happen very easily.”

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

Dr. Kristin Collier delivers remarks at white coat ceremony in face of vocal resistance

Left-wing students at the University of Michigan Medical School on Sunday failed to block a pro-life physician from delivering a commencement address.

More than 300 students, alumni, and physicians, had petitioned to bar University of Michigan Medical School professor Dr. Kristin Collier from giving the keynote address at the school’s annual white coat ceremony. Some students walked out when she took the stage, and others hung a banner from the auditorium’s balcony that read: “Bans Off Our Bodies. Abortion Rights Now.” No one interrupted. But other students defended Collier, and Dean Marschall Runge made it clear that the school “would not revoke a speaker because they have different personal ideas than others.”

“The White Coat Ceremony is not a platform for discussion of controversial issues, and Dr. Collier never planned to address a divisive topic as part of her remarks,” Dr. Runge wrote in the email, a copy of which was shared by Princeton professor Robert George on his blog. “Our values speak about honoring the critical importance of diversity of personal thought and ideas, which is foundational to academic freedom and excellence.”

University administrators’ defense of free speech has become increasingly rare, as professors have lost their jobs or been removed from courses for voicing controversial opinions. Princeton University fired tenured classics professor Joshua Katz in May because he had failed to exercise his free speech “responsibly” on campus, the Washington Free Beacon reported. In November, faculty and students at the University of Michigan ousted a music professor from a course after he screened a film deemed racially insensitive. The university’s policy affirms a “deep commitment to freedom of speech and artistic expression.”

The effort to cancel Collier surprised colleagues and former students. A well-respected professor who has published peer-reviewed articles in some of the nation’s most prestigious medical journals, Collier had been chosen by a student honors society to deliver the speech. A faculty member since 2005, she had until four years ago been “a pro-choice atheist,” and credits her change in views to open debate. Dr. William Chavey, a professor of family medicine who has taught for 25 years at the medical school, told the Free Beacon the petition to stop Collier from giving the speech “did not reflect who she is.”

“I suspect that the people who signed it don’t know Dr. Collier,” Chavey said. “She’s obviously been valued for her clinical skills, her educational skills, and her scholarship. To criticize or demean her for her opinion is narrow minded and inappropriate.”

The petition, which was sent to the entire student body by Medical Students For Choice (MSFC), said Collier had made remarks on social media and in interviews that were “antithetical to the tenets of reproductive justice.” Having “an anti-choice speaker,” they said, would violate the university’s stance on abortion.

The signatories argued that allowing Collier to speak would also perpetuate “a pattern of disregarding an[d] actively silencing the voice of students and members of our community.” They went on to link her with a list of perceived institutional injustices, including “the expansion of [the university’s] police force in the 1990s” and “delayed reporting of a child pornography scandal at UM Hospital under the past and interim President Mary Sue Coleman.”

In an email responding to the student-led petition, Chavey noted the university’s stated commitment to “diversity” should have precluded “canceling Dr. Collier’s talk for her beliefs about abortion.”

“Dr. Collier’s views, described by MSFC as fringe, are shared by roughly half of the population,” Chavey wrote in a letter to the dean. “Current and entering medical students will encounter many patients and have numerous colleagues with whom they may disagree over this topic. They cannot all be canceled.”

A separate group of medical students argued for keeping Collier as speaker, a move they said would “reinforce the Medical School’s commitment to DEI, rather than compromise its commitment to reproductive health.”

“We see no indication that Dr. Collier’s personal views on abortion have compromised her care of patients or her teaching of trainees,” the students wrote in a letter to Runge and the student council, a copy of which was shared with the Free Beacon. The students further cited studies showing that, while not a majority-held opinion, a significant minority of OBGYNs have denied patients abortifacients because of “personal, religious, or moral beliefs against abortion.”

Around 50 percent of students who signed the petition promised to not attend if Collier was permitted to speak. It is unlikely they kept their word, given the size of the crowd. The signees hid their names from the public.

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

Ruling against EPA sets precedent for a series of lawsuits against agency overreach

As the Biden administration reels from a string of recent legal defeats, political analysts hail the U.S. Supreme Court’s latest ruling, West Virginia v. EPA, as but one component of a new, broad-based approach that the courts are taking to halt a century-long effort by progressives to empower the administrative state and rule Americans by bureaucratic decree.

Dating back to President Woodrow Wilson 100 years ago, progressive presidents, including Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden, have worked to transfer law-making authority from Congress to their executive agencies. Wilson, the father of modern-day progressives, believed the Constitution, with its separation of powers, was an outdated document and that professional bureaucrats were superior at decision-making, compared to the time-consuming and compromise-ridden process of passing laws through elected representatives.

Wilson wrote in the 1887 article “The Study of Administration” that “the many, the people, who are sovereign [under the Constitution] have no single ear which one can approach, and are selfish, ignorant, timid, stubborn or foolish.”

“The greatest revolution since the Constitution in many ways has been this movement away from legislatures into agencies,” Matthew Spalding, Dean of Hillsdale College’s Graduate School of Government, told The Epoch Times. “The crisis here is the movement away from consent,” as Americans increasingly lose their right to have a voice in setting the laws and regulations that control their lives.

In 1984, for example, the Supreme Court handed down a decision that came to be known as the Chevron Doctrine, ruling that federal agencies had the authority to decide the scope of their power in situations where congressional authorization was ambiguous. Since this ruling, Chevron v. National Resources Defense Council, the courts have sided with federal agencies in cases where the authority of agencies was challenged.

Now, for the first time in a century, a series of rulings from federal courts have put up a roadblock to halt administrative encroachment. Two factors have brought about this change. First, the appointment by the Trump administration of 234 federal judges, including three Supreme Court justices. And second, the Biden administration’s unusually brazen attempts to push federal agencies well beyond their legal authority in order to impose a left-wing agenda on the United States without popular consent.

West Virginia Ruling

In the case of West Virginia v. EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) attempted to force America’s electric utilities to switch from fossil fuels to wind and solar. On June 30, the Supreme Court ruled that the Biden administration had no authority to do so.

“For years, unelected bureaucrats in the administrative state have been trying to destroy our fossil fuel industries by transforming the EPA into a communist-style central planning authority because they know they can’t get their radical environmental policies passed through Congress,” said West Virginia State Treasurer Riley Moore in an official statement, lauding the decision as “a victory for the rule of law.”

“Part of the problem is Congress writing these broad laws that leave a lot of room for interpretation by the agencies that are supposed to execute the laws,” William Shughart, senior fellow at the Independent Institute, told the Epoch Times. “That has led to this explosive growth in the administrative state. The West Virginia ruling applies the brakes to that growth.”

‘Major Questions Doctrine’

One of the key components of this Supreme Court ruling is the “major questions doctrine.” This is the concept that agencies, which are unelected by and unaccountable to the public, cannot make up rules on issues of major importance to Americans without clear authorization from elected representatives.

“The Supreme Court decision speaks to the legal flaws with trying to mark an entire industry for termination,” Jonathan Berry, a partner at Boyden Gray & Associates, told The Epoch Times. “What the Supreme Court is saying is that when you take on initiatives of major economic or political significance, those measures have to be authorized by a clear statement from Congress.”

“One of the most profound aspects of this ruling is its portability across regulatory regimes,” Berry said. In rendering its West Virginia decision, the Supreme Court looked at prior rulings, including those against the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). “The common thread across those cases is the executive branch using an administrative agency to wade into policy areas beyond what Congress authorized,” Berry added.

In August 2021, the Supreme Court ruled that the CDC did not have legal authority to ban landlords from evicting non-paying tenants. In January of this year, the Court ruled that OSHA did not have authority to force employees of large companies to take the Covid-19 vaccine.

“What we’re seeing here is extremely significant,” Spalding said. “The way the Court works is they do these things in different cases here and there, but they’re putting a doctrine together that ultimately builds up to a larger case. The heart of the matter is the unconstitutionality of essentially shifting legislative authority outside of the legislative branch into these agencies.”

“There are already tons of lawsuits out there that have been winding their way through the legal system for years,” Bonner Cohen, senior fellow at the National Center for Public Policy Research, told The Epoch Times. “Some of those lawsuits will eventually make it to the Supreme Court, but a lot of them may be dealt with at lower court level simply because people can now point to the precedent that was set in West Virginia v. EPA.”

Administrative Overreach

Last week, a Trump-appointed federal judge temporarily blocked orders by the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) that attempted to force states to, among other things, allow transgender children to compete in sports in schools according to their gender identity rather than their gender at birth. Twenty state attorneys general brought a suit against the DOE directive, arguing that the authority to decide such policies “properly belongs to Congress, the States, and the people.”

Two other areas where administrative overreach by the Biden administration will likely be challenged next are a directive from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regarding “green accounting” (that is, accounting that factors environmental costs in the financial results of operations) and gun control initiatives from the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF).

In a case that closely parallels West Virginia v. EPA, the SEC issued a directive that all listed companies must provide audited reports on the greenhouse gas emissions of their operations, as well as those of their suppliers and customers. In addition, companies must detail their strategies to reduce such emissions. Critics believe this will open companies up to a rash of environmental lawsuits and actions by activist asset managers like BlackRock, State Street, and Vanguard. West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey was among the first state officials to threaten legal action in response.

The ATF has been attempting to expand the legal definition of which gun parts constitute a firearm in an effort to implement a Biden administration initiative, which failed to pass Congress, against unregistered homemade guns, thus turning a formerly legal practice into a felony. A lawsuit against this has already been filed by the Gun Owners of America. In addition, the ATF was found to be keeping records of “several hundred million” gun purchases, despite the fact that Congress explicitly outlawed a federal gun registry.

Loss of Public Trust

Such attempts to circumvent public consent by legislating through unelected federal agencies inevitably lead to a loss of public trust in government.

“If there’s no consent, no responsibility, no check-back system, then you really are undermining public confidence in that process,” Spalding said. Regarding the ATF and gun control measures, a June poll by NPR/Ipsos found that, while most gun owners said they would accept universal background checks, they “harbored a deep distrust of government.”

“The more that this administration steps over the line and claims for itself powers that the peoples’ representatives in Congress have not given it, the more we should expect a decline in trust and in legitimacy,” Berry said.

As the courts begin to push back against administrative overreach, however, the backlash from the political left has been escalating, including demands for “packing” the Supreme Court with more left-leaning judges, or even abolishing the Court altogether.

Following the overturning of Roe v. Wade, President Biden stated, “We cannot allow an out-of-control Supreme Court, working in conjunction with extremist elements of the Republican Party, to take away our freedoms and our personal autonomy.” A recent survey by Rasmussen and the Heartland Institute found that, in the wake of the EPA decision, the overturning of Roe v. Wade, and the pro-Second Amendment Bruen decision (regarding concealed weapons), most Democrats and younger voters see the Court as a racist and sexist institution and want to pack it with progressive judges, remove it, or replace it.

“These findings clearly show that most Democrats and young Americans do not respect the sanctity of the Supreme Court when it issues decisions that run counter to their agenda,” Heartland Institute Research Fellow Chris Talgo told The Epoch Times. “As a former U.S. history and American government teacher, I can say without a doubt that our education system is not teaching the basics when it comes to civics. Most American students cannot name the three branches of government, let alone understand the role of separation of powers. This does not bode well for the future of freedom, seeing as how young voters are hostile to the very institutions that preserve our freedom.”

The Justice Department, for example, permitted weeks of intimidating protests outside the homes of conservative Supreme Court justices after the opinion to overturn Roe v. Wade was prematurely leaked prior to the formal ruling. Following the arrest in June of an armed man who was charged with attempted murder at the home of Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) demanded that U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland “detail the steps the Department of Justice is taking to protect our Supreme Court Justices in the wake of an unprecedented harassment and intimidation campaign.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was criticized for taking weeks to bring a bill protecting Supreme Court justices and their families to a vote, even after the alleged assassination attempt against Justice Kavanaugh. When the bill was put to a vote, 27 Democrats voted against it.

Granting Power to Experts

Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan, who disagreed with the majority in the West Virginia case, argued that the courts must defer to the EPA, which she deemed the “expert agency,” and allow the agency to interpret the scope of its own power. Critics of this approach, however, remain skeptical of granting too much power to experts and question whether administrators are in fact experts when it comes to issues like national energy policy or making personal medical decisions.

“These are career government employees,” Cohen said. “They are not experts.”

“Look at the experience the country had during the pandemic, where we had such experts as Dr. [Anthony] Fauci and Dr. [Deborah] Birx and others throughout the federal government who completely mishandled the public health response to COVID-19,” Cohen said. “If these are the experts, we need to free ourselves from experts, because they got it spectacularly wrong.”

One of the methods used to expand administrative power has been the declaration of government health emergencies, including the pandemic health emergency, the climate health emergency, the racism health emergency, and the “gun violence” health crisis.

“Anytime you encounter the word ‘emergency,’ anytime you encounter the word ‘crisis,’ be careful,” Cohen said. “It may in fact be a crisis because those things happen, but it may be nothing more than a pretext for a power grab.”

“The invocation of an emergency is not a justification for combining the powers of government into a single person,” Berry said. “That’s the definition of tyranny.”

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

Vice President Kamala Harris compared restrictions on abortion to America’s history of chattel slavery during a speech on Monday at the NAACP’s national convention.

“We know, NAACP, that our country has a history of claiming ownership over human bodies,” Harris said after criticizing the Supreme Court’s June ruling overturning Roe v. Wade. “And today, extremist so-called leaders are criminalizing doctors and punishing women for making health care decisions for themselves.”

Harris’s remarks were met with faint applause. 

The vice president’s speech aligns with the rhetoric of both left-wing activists and media outlets. MSNBC has alleged a connection between pro-life policies and slavery, and the ACLU wants to legalize abortion up to birth in order to “end forced pregnancy.” Harris’s tenure as vice president has been marred by awkward gaffes and poorly worded statements.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre stood by Harris’s comments during a press conference on Monday.

“She is correct,” Jean-Pierre said. “Today’s decisions are criminalizing doctors and essentially taking the rights away from women, taking the freedom away from women. Really taking away people’s privacy.”

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

Federal authorities are investigating claims that former attorney general Eric Holder’s wife, an obstetrician, violated health privacy laws by misusing her former patients’ records to help promote her new menopause relief business.

The Department of Health and Human Services’s Office for Civil Rights opened the investigation in June into the alleged breach, which may have impacted up to 27,000 patients at Dr. Sharon Malone’s former medical practice, Foxhall Associates, according to HHS records reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon.

Foxhall, which is conducting its own investigation and alerted HHS to the breach last month, claims Malone retained a list of its patients’ names, contacts, and insurance information after leaving the practice in December 2020.

Malone’s legal troubles come as her husband, who led the Department of Justice for six years and is now one of the Democratic Party’s most prominent activist attorneys, has denounced the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade as “an attack on women and on every citizen’s right to privacy” and called for Democrats to pack the court with left-leaning judges.

Malone allegedly turned over the records to her new employer, Alloy, a telehealth start-up that she helped launch in 2021, which used the information to send out marketing emails.

Now the case is pitting Foxhall, a high-end women’s health practice with an elite clientele in Washington, D.C., against Malone and Alloy, a buzzy, menopause prescription start-up founded by a former editor in chief of Marie Claire with $3.3 million in seed funding last year.

Alloy’s CEO has insisted that Malone retained the records legitimately from Foxhall—a claim that the medical practice’s lawyer vehemently denied to the Free Beacon.

Health privacy experts told the Free Beacon that the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, also known as HIPAA, prohibits marketing to patients without their consent—and Malone could face steep financial penalties if the HHS investigation leads to charges.

“It’s hard to see how they can wriggle out of being charged with a HIPAA violation,” said Abner Weintraub, a longtime HIPAA compliance consultant. “Consent is required from a patient.”

“Unless the doctor who took the records had a good excuse, and it would have to be a damn good one in this situation … [they could face] significant fines and penalties,” added Weintraub, noting that the fines could reach six figures and open the door to additional civil litigation by patients.

HHS did not respond to a request for comment.

The Free Beacon previously reported on Foxhall’s reputation for exclusivity. The office, which told the Free Beacon in 2014 that it didn’t accept Medicaid because it didn’t have the “demographics for it,” has been accused of reserving morning appointments for “important people,” such as former Free Beacon reporter-turned-Trump-spokeswoman Elizabeth Harrington.

In December 2020, Malone left Foxhall Medicine, where she had been a physician and co-owner. But she kept a list of patients, including names, phone numbers, email addresses, and medical insurance providers without the firm’s knowledge, according to a newspaper legal notice that Foxhall published as part of a federal requirement on June 27.

Malone went on to join Alloy as its chief medical officer ahead of its 2021 launch. She “turned the list over to [Alloy], who then sent out emails to a portion of the Foxhall patients on the list,” according to the legal notice. Foxhall said it discovered the breach after receiving complaints from patients.

But Alloy denied that Malone obtained the Foxhall records improperly.

Alloy co-CEO Monica Molenaar told the husband of one angry patient, who had emailed the company to complain, that “Dr. Malone did not steal any patient information. She was given a list of emails by the practice coordinator of what she was told were her patients so that we could give them an update,” according to a copy of the July 14 email obtained by the Free Beacon.

“A small portion of that list received an email from us and that is it. No other information was given, taken or used,” added Molenaar.

But a lawyer for Foxhall told the Free Beacon that it “never provided any patient information to Alloy” and “never provided any patient information to Dr. Malone after Dr. Malone left the practice.”

“Dr. Malone, to our understanding, based on the investigation that we have conducted, retained patient information after she left the practice,” said attorney Christopher Ezold.

Alloy’s founder, Anne Fulenwider, the former editor in chief of Marie Claire, told the Free Beacon that she was “totally happy to talk about this with you” when reached by phone last week. But she said she was running into a meeting and unable to discuss at the moment. She did not respond to follow-up requests for comment.

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

“Handmaid’s Tale references turn a blind eye to the centuries of oppression people of color … have faced”

A pro-abortion activist group is urging protesters to quit making references to The Handmaid’s Tale, arguing allusions to the book are insensitive to the oppression of minorities. 

“You can’t wear people’s real oppression as a costume. Throw the red cloaks away,” REPRO Rising Virginia said Thursday. “Handmaid’s Tale references turn a blind eye to the centuries of oppression people of color, specifically Black, brown, and indigenous women, have faced regarding their reproductive rights.”

5. You can’t wear people’s real oppression as a costume. Throw the red cloaks away.

Handmaid’s Tale references turn a blind eye to the centuries of oppression people of color, specifically Black, brown, and indigenous women, have faced regarding their reproductive rights. pic.twitter.com/ZHvK1lK8rV

— REPRO Rising Virginia (@REPRORising_VA) July 14, 2022

Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, a dystopian novel written in 1985, depicts a future in which women have been enslaved by a theocratic government in the United States. Abortion activists have long used the book as a symbol of their movement supporting unrestricted elective abortions, often dressing up in the red costumes donned by the novel’s protagonists. 

REPRO Rising Virginia also urges activists to swap references to “women” for “people” on protest signs to avoid excluding transgender people. 

“It is exclusionary to only center cisgender women in pro-abortion messaging,” the group said. “Not all people who can get pregnant identify as women.”

Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last month, abortion activists have mobilized across the country to protest the ruling. Despite their efforts, very few Americans list abortion as their top issue. In a June Gallup poll, only 1 percent of respondents cited abortion as the most important issue facing the country.

REPRO Rising Virginia rebranded earlier this year after the national lobbying organization NARAL Pro-Choice America disbanded its state chapters to better pursue federal advocacy. The group told Virginia Mercury that they are pivoting to focus on providing transportation to abortion appointments and opening new clinics. 

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

Christian employee resigned from union after learning her union fees were being spent to promote pro-abortion cause

A federal jury in Texas ordered Southwest Airlines and its union on July 14 to pay a former flight attendant who opposes abortion more than $5.3 million after she was fired for sending pro-life messages to her union’s president.

The jury determined that the airline and Transport Workers Union of America (TWU) Local 556 violated Charlene Carter’s rights as an employee to speak out against the union. The airline was ordered to pay Carter $4.15 million for back pay and pain and suffering. The union was ordered to pay Carter a separate $1.15 million, according to the Dallas Morning News.

Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Foundation, which represented Carter in court, was elated at the verdict.

“It’s a good day for courage and it’s a good day for individual freedom and liberty. It’s exciting. It’s been a five-year odyssey for Charlene, and for our legal team,” Mix told The Epoch Times in an interview.

Carter’s story goes back to 1996 when, as a Southwest employee, she joined TWU Local 556. A pro-life Christian, she resigned from the union in 2013 upon learning her union dues were being spent to promote social causes that violated her conscience and religious beliefs.

Despite exiting the union, Carter was still forced to pay fees in lieu of union dues as a condition of her employment. State-level right-to-work laws don’t exempt her from forced fees because airline and railway employees fall under the federal Railway Labor Act (RLA), which allows union officials to have a worker fired for refusing to pay union dues or fees. Despite this, the RLA protects the rights of employees to remain nonmembers of the union, to criticize the union and its leadership, and to advocate for changing its leadership.

Pro-Abortion Event

When Carter discovered in 2017 that TWU Local 556 President Audrey Stone and other union officials used union dues to attend a pro-abortion event in the nation’s capital and that the company had accommodated local members wishing to attend by rearranging their work schedules, she took to social media to challenge Stone’s leadership. The airline demanded a meeting with Carter, informing her that Stone felt harassed by Carter’s issue advocacy.

A week later, the airline fired Carter. Not long after, Carter sued.

Mix said Carter objected to her forced union fees “being used for political purposes” such as attending a Planned Parenthood rally and the Women’s March. She also didn’t like that the union sent out notices to all union members “saying they should oppose the national right to work law,” which he said she supported.

Sponsored by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) S. 406, the proposed National Right-to-Work Act, is currently pending in Congress. It would repeal provisions of the National Labor Relations Act and the Railway Labor Act that allow employers to make an agreement with a labor union to require employees to join that union as a condition of employment.

In this case, the union complained to the airline about Carter’s political views and got her fired, Mix said. Under current law the employee is represented in grievance proceedings by the union when a firing takes place, he said.

Both the union and the employer are required “to make accommodations for sincere religious beliefs,” Mix said. The union was in breach of the duty of fair representation “and this is the problem with union monopoly bargaining: when you have a dispute against the union, who do you go to to represent yourself in front of your employer?”

“This is one of those cases where Southwest for some reason decided to really go hard against Charlene,” Mix said, adding she had “no blemishes” on her employment record.

“The idea that the money she’s compelled to pay in order to keep her job was used for political and ideological causes that have nothing to do with her workplace is really an injustice.”

“This is a pretty good indication that both companies and unions need to watch out if they’re going to violate employee rights,” Mix said. If the cases go to jury trials, “there is a punishment for that, and today we saw that.”

The Epoch Times reached out to Southwest Airlines repeatedly for comment but had not received a reply as of press time.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

Texas on July 14 sued the federal government over a recent document that says abortions must be performed even if the procedures are not allowed by state laws.

The guidance amounts to an abortion mandate and is illegal because it violates multiple laws, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, said.

The guidance (pdf) was promulgated on July 11 by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

It tells state survey agency directors that under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), a doctor at an emergency department who is presented with a pregnant woman who has an emergency medical condition “must” perform an abortion if the abortion is a necessary “stabilizing treatment.”

The abortion must be done even in states where the law “prohibits abortion and does not include an exception for the life and health of the pregnant person,” the guidance says. “That state law is preempted.”

HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra, on the same day, told health care providers across the nation that “stabilizing treatment” could include abortion, “irrespective of any state laws or mandates that apply to specific procedures.” He said in the letter (pdf) that per the emergency labor act, the physician “must provide” an abortion in certain cases.

Texas officials see the situation differently.

Abortions Not Required by Law

“The Abortion Mandate requires that a provider perform an abortion if ‘abortion is the stabilizing treatment necessary to resolve [an emergency medical condition].’ This condition has never been a part of EMTALA,” they said in a 20-page suit, filed in federal court in Lubbock.

EMTALA “does not mandate, direct, approve, or even suggest the provision of any specific treatment” and, “says nothing about abortion,” they added.

The guidance violates Texas’s sovereignty, according to the suit.

Plaintiffs say defendants lack the authority to amend EMTALA and that the order violates multiple federal laws. Officials also illegally issued the rule without alerting the public and soliciting comment, which violates the Administrative Procedure Act, according to the suit.

Texas officials are asking the court to hold the guidance unlawful and issue injunctions preventing the U.S. government from enforcing it.

HHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The guidance came shortly after resident Joe Biden, a Democrat, signed an executive order directing Becerra, the HHS secretary, to within 30 days identify how to make sure that patients “receive the full protections for emergency medical care afforded under the law, including by considering updates to current guidance on obligations specific to emergency conditions and stabilizing care under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act.”

Biden’s order, in turn, was signed weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade, ruling the 1973 decision was not constitutionally sound. The ruling returned the ability to fully regulate abortions back to states.

The majority opinion said that “the Constitution does not confer a right to abortion” and “does not prohibit the citizens of each State from regulating or prohibiting abortion.”

“This administration has a hard time following the law, and now they are trying to have their appointed bureaucrats mandate that hospitals and emergency medicine physicians perform abortions,” Paxton said in a statement.

“I will ensure that resident Biden will be forced to comply with the Supreme Court’s important decision concerning abortion and I will not allow him to undermine and distort existing laws to fit his administration’s unlawful agenda,” he added.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

Resident Joe Biden is losing support from some of his biggest backers.

Bill Kristol, who founded and edited the neoconservative magazine The Weekly Standard, became a fierce critic of Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign and led the NeverTrump movement.

In 2018, Kristol co-founded The Bulwark, whose coverage is largely centered around criticism of Trump.

Two years later, he endorsed Biden in the Democratic primary, calling it a “simple choice,” and in the general election.

On Wednesday, however, Kristol argued that Biden should announce he won’t run for re-election.

He said on Twitter that a retirement announcement by Biden would bolster the Democrats’ chances in the 2022 midterm elections and lead to a Democratic victory in the 2024 presidential race.

Straightforward from here:

1. Biden announces not running again.

2. 2022 focus turns to R extremism, Ds do well in Nov.

3. Inflation subsides, Ukraine defeats Russia, Biden is successful 1-term president.

4. Younger moderate D defeats Trump or Trumpist in ’24.

Pourquoi pas?

— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) July 13, 2022

As the president’s popularity drops further and further amid historic inflation and other crises, even liberals are increasingly giving him the cold shoulder.

A recent New York Times/Siena College poll indicated that 64 percent of Democratic voters want someone else than the incumbent as their nominee for president in 2024.

Biden snapped at a reporter who asked him about the poll at a White House event Tuesday.

“Read the polls, jack! You guys are all the same,” he said.

“What’s your message to Democrats who don’t want you to run again?”

BIDEN: “Read the polls! Read the polls, Jack! You guys are all the same.” pic.twitter.com/e0G3Sfufwm

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) July 12, 2022

Related:

Conservative Anti-Trump Magazine The Weekly Standard Announces Closure

If Biden were to run for re-election in 2024, he’d start his second term at the age of 82, smashing presidential age records.

Democrats have quietly circulated concerns about his age and unpopularity.

Kristol repeated his desire for Biden to eschew a 2024 re-election campaign in a subsequent tweet.

A lively (I thought!) podcast with @SykesCharlie.

We discuss just how (predictably) dangerous Trump proved to be, and the failure of Republicans and conservatives to come to grips with this.

Bonus: I make the case for Biden announcing he’s one and done.https://t.co/Ux5LubuqpN

— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) July 13, 2022

At the now-defunct Weekly Standard, the neoconservative ideologue became a crucial proponent of President George W. Bush’s 2003 invasion of Iraq.

The invasion has since become regarded as one of the worst foreign policy disasters in U.S. history.

Kristol reinvented himself by aligning with progressive Democrats as a Trump critic after the 2016 GOP primary, establishing himself as a mainstay on liberal cable channels such as CNN and MSNBC.

Isn’t it funny how quickly the Democrats revert to their racist roots when a Black conservative upsets them?

For voicing his legal acumen, Justice Clarence Thomas has been on the receiving end of threats, been called “Uncle Clarence,” was accused of being an angry black man by Hillary Clinton, and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot lead a crowd to the chant of “F#ck Clarence.”

All of this disgusting hate has been directed at this man for failing to sit down, shut up, and do as he’s been told. It’s what the Democrats have come to expect from Black America.

Just like the abusive father who shows his true colors when angry, the Democrats have just lost their minds and are showing their true racist colors now that Roe is overturned.

There’s been no better time to educate Black America than now and expose the racism of the Democrat Party. But we need your $25, $50, or $100 donation today to get this message out to the Black community.

My name is Pastor Marc Little, and I am the Executive Director of CURE America Action. We’re the only, Black-run Conservative organization exposing the racism inherent in the Democrat’s agenda and in America’s communities.

My friend, Alveda King (MLK’s niece), laid out the racist hypocrisy when she said this on Fox News.

“You can’t say Black Lives Matter and not care what happens to Black preborn babies.”  – Alveda King

Preach it, Sister King! The Democrats will march and riot when one man is killed by a rogue police officer, but where are these marchers for the 23 million Black babies aborted since Roe?

Listen, Black Americans are getting tired of the racism inherent with their Democrat masters. We have the opportunity to share the truth with Black Americans and educate them as to the true meaning of the latest Supreme Court decisions, but we need your $50, $100, or $250 donation today to make that happen.

The recent Supreme Court rulings over the following issues have helped to expose the inherent racism embedded in the Democrat Party as they oppose:

• Our rights to self-defense,
• Our ability to worship freely,
• Allowing parents to use vouchers so children may attend good, faith-based schools, and
• the ability to protect unborn children in the womb.

Don’t you find it strange that the Democrats are trying so hard to prevent Black people from exercising their Constitutional rights?

In fact, most Black Americans are unaware that Planned Parenthood’s founder established the organization to sterilize Black Americans. These are the conversations we need to be having in Black Communities and NOT just during election years!

This isn’t a right/left issue. This is a right/wrong issue. And the Democrats are WRONG to do this to Black Americans.

That’s why we can’t waste the opportunity we’ve been given to use these Supreme Court cases to show just the true racism within the Democrat Party. These are the reasons we need you to chip in TODAY with a contribution of $100, $500, or $1,000.

Help us strike while the iron is hot, and the motives of the left are being called into question. Only then will we make inroads into the Black community, bringing conservative change to our nation as a whole, and demonstrating that we are all God’s children and deserving of his grace. Please help us today!

God Bless America,

CURE America Action

Few companies have embraced wokeness with as much zeal as Disney. The company has leaped headlong into America’s culture war to become one of the most activist corporations in the United States.

Disney management’s public battle with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis over the state’s Parental Rights in Education law — which critics disingenuously called the “Don’t Say Gay” bill — drew national attention to the company this spring.

Videos from company meetings leaked in March showed company leaders bragging about Disney’s “not-at-all-secret gay agenda” and its moves to create “canonical trans characters” in children’s programming.

In April, we learned that the Walt Disney Co. had kicked its LGBT activism up a notch by offering a new benefit that will assist employees and their minor children with “gender affirmation procedures.”

And following the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade, the company immediately assured employees that regardless of where they live, they will be reimbursed for the cost of travel to the nearest state that allows abortion.

What a great work environment for a liberal employee. This company really has their backs.

But what if you’re a conservative?

This is precisely where Disney content producer Jeremiah Daws found himself. The pro-life, conservative Christian recently shared his story with The Daily Wire.

Shortly after his arrival in Hollywood, Daws learned to keep his conservative views to himself. In the late 2000s, he and his brother signed up for a screenwriting workshop.

anytime. You also agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.

“The man who ran the workshop noticed some conservative posts on my social media and invited us to breakfast to let us know we would be blacklisted in Hollywood if people knew we held those beliefs,” he told the Daily Wire.

In 2015, Daws went to work for Disney. He managed to avoid political discussions and got along just fine until the summer of 2020.

In reaction to the riots that had spread throughout the country following George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis police custody, Disney began sending employees to mandatory diversity and inclusion training sessions.

“That was the last straw” for Daws, he said.

He recalled being told that “as a white, straight, male, I should be quiet and listen” and that “promotions would be on hold for the white men on the team.” He said he’d been instructed to “start casting non-binary children for our photo and video shoots.”

Related:

Leaked Disney Footage: Hidden Sex Message Found in New Kids Cartoon – Can You Spot It?

That fall, Daws read a book that had an impact on him. “Live Not By Lies,” by The American Conservative’s Rod Dreher, tells the “stories of Christians who resisted totalitarianism in the Soviet Union.”

Daws told the Daily Wire he felt like he was “living every day promoting a company, a belief system, and even COVID hysteria, that I didn’t agree with. … I was living by lies, putting on this false exterior.”

He quoted Russian author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: “Let the lie come into the world, let it even triumph. But not through me.”

Daws left the company several months later.

“I just couldn’t lie anymore,” he told the Daily Wire. “I would remove myself from the equation. Living in that kind of environment is soul-crushing. I wanted to be free to express myself without fear of losing my job. I wanted to be in an environment where I could make friends who would accept me as I am, not as they demand me to be.”

Since leaving, Daws has enrolled in trade school and plans to open a machine shop.

“I had hope in the back of my mind that if Disney ever got back to just making magic, maybe I could go back,” he said. “But the lie was still out there. There were 10 years worth of friends and coworkers that still believed I was one of them.”

“It was time to end the lies once and for all. I wanted my next phase of life to be open and truthful. Wherever I worked next, everything would be out on the table.”

Daws said he was pleased by the Supreme Court’s decision last month to reverse the Roe v. Wade ruling. “People have prayed for this day for 50 years,” he said. “We are now on the path to righting this horrible wrong.”

“This was a day to celebrate. I had a small platform among my liberal friends to be a different voice,” he said.

Daws chose that day to “come out” on social media as a conservative. Predictably, his liberal friends responded with “a lot of negativity.”

He was wise to get out.

Although Disney likely tops the list of major U.S. corporations that have adopted a woke agenda, this toxic ideology has spread like a plague throughout corporate America.

As Disney’s executives chase their woke dreams, they’ve forgotten their two primary responsibilities: to provide entertainment to families and to maximize shareholder value. No doubt a portion of the company’s clientele thinks it’s wonderful to include transgenders in films and to add gay characters to Disney classics, but my guess is that the majority of American parents disagree.

That they’ve failed at both is apparent in the price of the company’s common stock, which has been cut in half over the past year.

The pendulum has swung too far in one direction, and ordinary Americans are fed up with identity politics and speech regulation.

Hopefully, voters will deliver a huge “thumbs down” to the woke agenda in November.

What’s Happening:

With Joe Biden unlikely to make it to 2024, Democrats are fearing a Kamala candidacy. Chances are, the woman will run—common sense be damned.

But she isn’t doing herself any favors. While speaking about the historic overturning of Roe v. Wade, she stumbled over her own comments.

Yikes, what did I just watch?

Kamala Harris was asked about her views on the recent overturning of Roe. It appears the woman, who seems to care more about appearances than substance, tried to look concerned and grave.

Oh, yes. The end of federalized abortion is so terrible. Any reasonable Democrat has to look very solemn when talking about it.

(Because their Planned Parenthood business is probably going to take a big hit.)

But when she opens her mouth, nothing remotely grave or solemn comes out. She claims that abortion was “settled.”

Not sure what she meant by that, considering millions upon millions of Americans have protested every year over it since 1974.

But then she goes on and says it’s “unsettled.” Uh… what?

What is this woman talking about? Can’t anyone within the Biden administration talk like rational humans?

It’s bad enough that Biden is reading “repeat quote” off a teleprompter. Does his “vice president” have to sound just as confusing as he does?

Harris has long been mocked over her “word salads.” But that is being too charitable. From all appearances, she looks and sounds like a child pretending to be a politician.

Nothing about her appears authentic. She is trying to imitate real leaders, hoping people are dumb enough to believe her.

Hey, Kamala! Guess what we aren’t.

Key Takeaways:

• Kamala Harris made another confusing statement during an interview.
• She contradicted herself while discussing the overturning of Roe.
• Harris has as bad of a reputation speaking as Joe Biden.

Source YouTube

The Patriot Journal

The Army suspended a decorated general for criticizing a tweet by first lady Jill Biden, USA Today reported.

The branch released retired three-star lieutenant general Gary Volesky, a veteran of the wars in the Persian Gulf, Iraq, and Afghanistan, from advising senior officers because of his June 25 response to a Jill Biden tweet about the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down Roe v. Wade.

“For nearly 50 years, women have had the right to make our own decisions about our bodies,” the first lady tweeted. “Today, that right was stolen from us.”

“Glad to see you finally know what a woman is,” Volesky replied.

Volesky’s tweet has since been taken down.

Volesky was likely talking about Biden’s support for transgender rights, a cause the military has also embraced. As Russia this year began its bloodthirsty invasion of Ukraine, the U.S. Army was training officers on “gender pronouns” and “when to offer soldiers gender transition surgery,” the Washington Free Beacon reported. Top-ranking General Mark Milley, who secretly promised to warn the Chinese People’s Liberation Army about U.S. military actions, has in recent years embraced left-wing causes, saying he wants to “understand white rage” and apologizing for appearing with former president Donald Trump.

This is the second time this month that the Army has punished service members for disagreeing with someone in the Biden White House. The Army announced July 1 that it will deprive soldiers of pay and benefits if they do not comply with the administration’s vaccine mandate.

Volesky, who retired in 2020, received the Silver Star, the military’s third-highest decoration for valor, the New York Post reported. He served as the Army’s chief of public affairs from 2012 to 2014 and commanded the 101st Airborne Division.

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

A Massachusetts pregnancy clinic was vandalized on July 7 by two people affiliated with Jane’s Revenge, a violent pro-abortion extremist group.

The Worcester clinic shared a surveillance video of the attack with The Epoch Times, with the footage showing two people dressed in black and their faces covered approaching the clinic. One of the people spray-painted the clinic’s front steps with the words “Jane’s Revenge.” The other person then pulled out a hammer and used it to damage the clinic’s door and windows.

Jane’s Revenge has taken credit for vandalizing and firebombing pro-life organizations, churches, and other pregnancy clinics. The group surfaced shortly after the leak of the draft Supreme Court opinion, which suggested that the nation’s top court may be prepared to overturn Roe v. Wade, the seminal opinion that largely legalized abortion nationwide.

The Supreme Court subsequently overturned Roe v. Wade.

Republicans have called for the Department of Justice to classify Jane’s Revenge as a terrorist group. The Department of Homeland Security described the group in a June memo as “a network of loosely affiliated suspected violent extremists.” The federal agency warned that there was a risk of violence from the group following the Supreme Court decision.

The attack took place the morning after state Attorney General Maura Healey’s office said in a lengthy statement that pregnancy clinics don’t provide abortions.

The July 6 statement also warned that pregnancy clinics engage in deceptive practices, don’t have to adhere to any code of ethics, and often provide inaccurate and misleading information about abortion and the medical and mental health effects of abortion.

Kelly Wilcox, executive director of the Clearwater Clinic, told The Epoch Times that the FBI was on site on July 8 investigating the attack along with local law enforcement.

She told The Epoch Times that she doesn’t understand the motive behind the attacks nor the comments made by Healey. She said her clinic, which opened in 2000, has always been transparent about not providing abortions.

For more than a decade, Clearway, which also owns a second clinic in Massachusetts, has been doing exit surveys for all clients, according to Wilcox.

“We have never had anyone claim we have deceived them,” she said. “So I have no idea where these allegations are coming from.”

The clinic provides post-abortion counseling and a host of other medical services, including pregnancy tests, ultrasounds, and STD testing. The clinics also offer other forms of help, including baby clothes and supplies to expecting mothers.

Wilcox said they don’t refer to themselves as crisis pregnancy centers (CPC), despite the use of the term by those opposed to them.

Thomas Glessner, president of the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates (NIFLA), which represents 1,600 pregnancy centers in the United States, told The Epoch Times that Planned Parenthood has long been “leveling a smear campaign against pregnancy centers.”

Planned Parenthood didn’t respond to calls from The Epoch Times.

In her statement, Healey, at times using all capital letters, said that “CPCs do NOT provide comprehensive reproductive healthcare.”

“CPCs are organizations that seek to prevent people from accessing abortion care,” she said.

Healey, a Democrat who’s running for governor, is also a well-known supporter of Planned Parenthood.

Last year, Planned Parenthood contributed $1,700 to her bid for reelection and ran a picture and a quote from Healey saying: “Planned Parenthood’s endorsement was a game-changer for my campaign.”

She was also a guest speaker at Planned Parenthood’s “Sexual Health Lobby Day” held at the statehouse in June.

Healey’s office condemned the attack in a statement to The Epoch Times.

“Our office will continue to focus on ensuring that patients seeking abortion care are safe and well-informed about their options,” a spokesman for Healey’s office said in the written statement.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) also criticized pregnancy centers prior to the Clearwater attack. In a July 3 Twitter post, Warren said that in Massachusetts, “so-called crisis pregnancy centers outnumber legitimate abortion care providers 3 to 1.”

“We need to crack down on the deceptive practices these centers use to prevent people from getting abortion care, and I’ve got a bill to do just that,” she said.

Warren entitled the legislation the Stop Anti-Abortion Disinformation Act, which she’s co-sponsoring with Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.)

They defined the legislation as a measure “to combat false advertising by crisis pregnancy centers.”

The measure, which was just recently introduced, has already won the backing of Planned Parenthood and other abortion groups.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

Americans’ confidence in major U.S. institutions—including government and the media—is in a state of collapse, falling to an average of just 27 percent across all categories, according to the latest national poll released by the Gallup Organization.

Only the military and small businesses still enjoy the confidence of a majority of Americans.

Although public belief in institutions has been weak for most of the past 15 years, the 27 percent average for all categories is the lowest recorded by Gallup.

The company began measuring confidence in institutions in 1973 and has done so each year since 1993.

The survey figures came after Gallup delivered sobering news on June 22. At that time the company said confidence in the overall direction of the country fell to 13 percent that month, down 3 percentage points from May and 11 points since March when the figure was 24 percent.

It also reported at that time that despite ongoing economic malaise, resident Joe Biden’s job approval rating held steady at 41 percent between May and June.

Gallup’s finding on the issue was called into question by the Civiqs Poll’s daily tracking survey of registered voters which found Biden’s approval rating has sunk to a new record low of just 30 percent, the New York Post reported July 9.

Only in two states, the Democratic strongholds of Vermont and Hawaii, are the president’s supporters more numerous than his detractors.

Gallup also reported on June 29 that although 96 percent of U.S. adults expressed pride in varying degrees about being American, that figure includes a record low of 38 percent who consider themselves “extremely proud” to be Americans, the lowest figure for that description since the company began tracking the issue in 2001.

Another 27 percent of Americans said they were “very proud,” while 22 percent said they were “moderately proud,” and 9 percent described themselves as “only a little proud.”

Four percent said they were “not at all” proud to be Americans.

In the new Gallup survey, Americans expressed less confidence in institutions than they did a year ago, with significant declines in 11 of the 16 examined—and no improvements for any of the institutions.

The biggest drops were regarding the presidency as an institution—as opposed to the job performance of the current president—and the Supreme Court.

Confidence in the presidency is now at 23 percent, which is 15 percentage points lower than 2021.

The Supreme Court came in at 25 percent, down 11 points since 2021. The survey was completed before the court rendered landmark rulings on gun rights and abortion, decisions that have proven controversial.

Confidence in Congress came in at just 7 percent, down from 12 percent a year ago.

The figures for the presidency, Congress, and the Supreme Court were record Gallup lows.

Five other institutions’ ratings plunged to record lows.

The church and organized religion weighed in at 31 percent, down from 37 percent. Newspapers scored 16 percent, falling from 21 percent. The criminal justice system got 14 percent, after rating 20 percent. Big business came in at 14 percent, falling from 18 percent. The police garnered 45 percent after the 51 percent figure a year ago.

Large technology companies weighed in at 26 percent, down from 29 percent. Gallup has only been measuring confidence in the category for three years.

Small business and the military still enjoy the confidence of a majority of Americans, despite slipping support. Small business came in at 68 percent, down from 70 percent in 2021. The military had a confidence level of 64 percent, which is lower than the previous 69 percent figure.

Confidence in the medical system is at 38 percent, down from 44 percent. The figure for public schools is 28 percent, down from 32 percent. Banks scored 27 percent, a drop from 33 percent. Confidence in organized labor remained steady at 28 percent.

Confidence in television news is down to 11 percent from 16 percent in the 2021 survey.

The new annual survey was carried out by telephone in the first three weeks of June. The respondents were 1,015 adults in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/confidence-in-us-media-government-and-justice-system-collapsing_4589439.html?utm_source=News&utm_campaign=breaking-2022-07-11-2&utm_medium=email&est=WQ7IxDJu41RqYANJ%2Fie16XB%2BXk6DnxEZqS9ppCdU1MliBuh5UAG6oFEh8n69f%2FYwhg%3D%3D

The Biden Justice Department has yet to take action against abortion extremists menacing pro-life clinics and members of the Supreme Court. Republican lawmakers are resolved to hold leadership accountable after the midterm elections—even if that means impeaching Attorney General Merrick Garland.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R., Ohio), who is in line to take over the House Judiciary Committee if Republicans prevail in November, didn’t take a Garland impeachment inquiry off the table in an interview with the Washington Free Beacon. Jordan cited a range of alleged misconduct, from failure to enforce black-letter law to protect clinics and justices, to secret collusion with leftwing groups opposed to parents protesting woke curricula changes.

“That’ll be a decision that will be made by the entire conference,” Jordan said of an impeachment push.

The oversight planning is a response to conflict roiling the country following the High Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. Pro-abortion protesters tried running Justice Brett Kavanaugh out of a downtown Washington, D.C., steakhouse on Wednesday night, weeks after a gunman came to his home planning to assassinate him. And the militant pro-abortion network Jane’s Revenge has claimed responsibility for more than a dozen acts against pro-life clinics and churches, ranging from vandalism to fire-bombing.

It is a federal crime to demonstrate outside of a judge’s home with intent to influence deliberations. Regular pro-abortion demonstrations outside the homes of the conservative justices seem to fit that bill exactly. The Justice Department has taken no action against protesters as of this writing. Local police told inquiring neighbors that federal agencies are declining to enforce the judicial anti-picketing law, according to a Fox News report.

Jordan wonders whether the Justice Department and the White House are following a template.

“The key question we would like to find out, if in fact the American people put us in control, is was this similar to what happened with parents at school board meetings? In other words, was the Biden White House working with some outside left wing influence groups, and also then communicating that information to the DOJ?” Jordan said.

The Ohio Republican added that a dozen whistleblowers have quietly come forward to speak about the Biden Justice Department and FBI matters, though he declined to get into specifics.

The Free Beacon was first to report that White House aides colluded with the National School Boards Association to push the Justice Department into investigating parents protesting critical race theory and gender ideology as domestic terrorists.

It’s also a federal crime to attack or destroy houses of worship and clinics for pregnant women. Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke, who enforces those laws, has derided pro-life clinics in the past. While Biden administration officials have shared intelligence assessments with clerics and local law enforcement, the administration has yet to make even a single arrest or indictment related to dozens of attacks on churches and pro-life crisis pregnancy centers.

There have been almost 50 documented instances of violence, vandalism, or intimidation at houses of worship and pro-life clinics since the Dobbs draft leaked, according to a June report from Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America.

House Republicans will be better positioned than their Senate counterparts to force Biden officials to cooperate if they stonewall investigators. Senate committee rules incentivize, but do not require, bipartisan cooperation when issuing subpoenas. The House has no such constraints. And House committees have historically taken the lead on compelled testimony and sharing of evidence.

Republican senators are putting public pressure on federal law enforcement to take immediate action. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa), the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, sent a letter to FBI director Christopher Wray in June requesting a briefing on the bureau’s efforts to combat pro-abortion extremism.

“Our law enforcement officers are obliged to duly enforce the laws of our country—not just those that are politically suitable to the current administration,” Grassley’s letter reads.

“We’re usually the tip of the spear in terms of shining a light on issues and embarrassing an agency into compliance,” a Republican Senate aide told the Free Beacon. “The more attention they get for ignoring congressional oversight, the worse it looks for them. And that’s a pretty effective tactic for us.”

Outside groups are also pressing GOP lawmakers for accountability. Mike Davis, president of the Article III Project, said there is ample reason to remove Garland from office. Davis was nominations chief for Grassley during the Kavanaugh confirmation and led the outside support team for Justice Neil Gorsuch’s confirmation.

“When Republicans reclaim the House in January, they must impeach Attorney General Merrick Garland,” Davis told the Free Beacon. “There must be consequences for his dangerous dereliction of duty that has led to highly dangerous attacks on the Supreme Court of the United States.”

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

‘Whoever controls the teleprompter is the real President!’ the billionaire wrote

Elon Musk has weighed in on a video of resident Joe Biden reading what appears to be a teleprompter instruction line during a live announcement on Friday.

Biden was addressing the nation over an executive order related to the reversal of Roe v. Wade when he seemingly went too far by reading out directions—”End of quote. Repeat the line.”—from the teleprompter.

“Whoever controls the teleprompter is the real President!,” Musk wrote on Twitter in response, adding a picture that shows a dialogue from Will Ferrell’s 2004 movie “Anchorman,” in which Ferrell is cast as television anchor Ron Burgundy. 

“Who typed a question mark on the Teleprompter? For the last time, anything you put on that prompter, Burgundy will read,” reads the picture quote Musk posted on the social media platform.

Whoever controls the teleprompter is the real President! pic.twitter.com/1rcqmwLe9S

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 8, 2022

Musk was reacting to a post by digital strategist Greg Price, which referenced the CBS news footage showing Biden apparently misreading the teleprompter.

“Joe Biden accidentally reads the part on the teleprompter that says ‘repeat the line’ when they wanted him to say the line again [expletive],” said Price.

Emilie Simons, White House Assistant Press Secretary, later responded to Price’s comments.

“No. He said, ‘let me repeat that line,’” said Simons, denying that Biden was reading teleprompter instructions.

De Facto President?

This isn’t the first time that the richest person in the world has suggested a person other than Biden is the de facto president.

“The real president is whoever controls the teleprompter,” Musk, in a video call, told audiences at an event hosted by The All-In Podcast in May. “The path to power is the path to the teleprompter.”

Musk’s comment on Friday likewise piles onto a series of criticisms against the president and the Democratic Party.

While the billionaire did not reveal who he believes is the “real” commander-in-chief, he commented on the prevailing influence of labor unions over the party currently in charge.

“The general public is not aware of the degree to which unions control the Democratic Party. One does not need to speculate on this point,” Musk told interviewers from the Tesla Owners Silicon Valley in June in a sit-down discussion, justifying his belief by citing how the United Auto Workers allegedly was able to “exclude” Tesla from an electric-vehicle summit at the White House.

“Insane,” Musk said.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

State senator Tiara Mack says she’s shaking her butt for ‘black girl magic’

Democratic Rhode Island state senator Tiara Mack on Thursday posted a series of flyers saying she will “twerk for trans rights,” among other reasons.

Mack was responding to a video posted on Monday by influential Twitter account “Libs of TikTok” that shows the state senator “twerking”—dancing in a provocative manner that involves shaking her butt and thrusting her hips. Mack in response blasted “the media” for “trying not to cover the real issues.”

“Not on MY watch,” she wrote. “I #TwerkFor joy, abortion justice, body autonomy, trans rights, and intersex rights.” She then posted the flyers.

While Mack will likely win reelection in her heavily Democratic state Senate district, Democrats face a surprisingly tough race in one of the deep-blue state’s congressional districts. Republican Allan Fung is polling ahead of all potential Democratic nominees in Rhode Island’s Second Congressional District, a seat the GOP has not held for 30 years. The Rhode Island Republican Party is using the Mack controversy to fundraise.

Other causes for which Mack shakes her butt include “the human right to safe housing” and “black girl magic.”

Links to donate to Mack’s reelection campaign accompany the flyers.

Mack faced extensive backlash for the twerking video, with user @nikki_1968, who describes herself as “an admirer of Michelle and Barack,” writing, “I’m not a conservative and I’m disappointed. Where do we draw the line on the behavior of public figures?”

“Girl,” Mack responded. “I have an Ivy League degree and am a state senator.”

This is not the first time the senator has tried to combine politics and sex. Mack, who calls herself a “Queer Educator,” this year pushed a state bill to teach 11-year-olds about “pleasure-based sexual relations.” Rhode Island parents spoke in “overwhelming opposition” to the bill, which one mother told the Providence Journal was “disgusting and inappropriate.”

SOURCE: The Washington Free Beacon

An undercover investigator has obtained hidden camera footage from an abortion clinic in Washington, D.C., that raises grave ethical concerns.

The candid video, taken by a 28-week-pregnant woman, reveals a nurse saying that the babies they abort do not receive digoxin — a lethal injection given to infants in utero during an abortion to ensure the baby is not born alive during the procedure. This increases the chances of a baby being born alive and possibly being illegally killed after birth.

The nurse also told the patient she may deliver the deceased child in her hotel room after the procedure; and furthermore that the doctor would not speak to her until she took Xanax, a mind-altering drug, prescribed by the clinic. This raises ethical concerns about how the clinic obtains proper consent. The patient has since filed a formal medical complaint.

Watch the undercover footage from the D.C. abortion clinic:

“The undercover footage released today shows that the Washington Surgi-Clinic abortion facility is forcing mothers to take mind-altering medications before meeting with the abortionist and giving final consent. This is a likely violation of basic medical ethics, and so the patient has filed a complaint with the D.C. medical board,” said Lila Rose, president and founder of Live Action, in a June 23 press release. Live Action is a leading prolife organization in the United States.

Rose continued, “The footage also provides first-hand testimony that the Washington Surgi-Clinic may kill later-term babies without using a feticidal drug, increasing the chance that the babies would be born alive and then brutally and illegally killed. Whether or not this drug is used, this facility is ending innocent lives through violence. Tragically, this footage also shows the nurse relaying the reality that the patient may be left to deliver her dead child alone in her hotel room.”

The investigator is heard asking the nurse what to expect during the procedure.

Nurse: No. We don’t do the — a lot of people do the injection through the heart and all that. We don’t do that here.

Patient: Okay. I didn’t even know.

Nurse: Yeah. She’ll be alive when you go to sleep, but she will definitely have passed before he does anything.

Abortionist Cesare Santangelo, who runs the Surgi-Clinic, has been under scrutiny in recent months after prolife activists found five late-term aborted babies being disposed of as medical waste from the clinic. Some were deemed by medical experts to have likely been viable births.

Live Action shared the experts’ conclusions: An incision behind the neck of one baby girl, between 28–30 weeks’ gestation, indicated she was possibly killed via the federally banned D&X abortion procedure, more commonly known as partial-birth abortion. Her neck was cut and brain removed. An intact baby boy, who may have been nearly full-term, may have been the victim of infanticide. Another baby, found in her gestational sac, may have been born alive and left to die; while two other children, a boy and a girl, about 22 weeks and 28 weeks respectively, were found brutally dismembered, indicating D&E (dilation and evacuation) abortions.

The video continued:

Patient: This is the possibility of labor, basically?

Nurse: Yeah. Spontaneous abortion.

Patient: I’m sorry, that means …

Nurse: You may go into premature labor and deliver the fetus in your hotel.

Patient: Right. What do you tell me to do when that happens?

Nurse: That depends on what happens.

Patient: Do you guys come and like —

Nurse: He could come and help you take care of it. We could just tell you what to do with the remains. It just depends on what happens.

“This footage also shows the unethical and coerced administration of Xanax prior to seeing the abortionists,” Rose added. “Xanax is a substance that medical experts attest impairs a patient’s ability to give truly informed consent, particularly when a patient is not used to taking the drug.”

Patient: Does the Xanax effect, like —

Nurse: — The fetus?

Patient: No, not the fetus, just my clarity of thinking.

Nurse: It shouldn’t. I mean, you might be a little sleepy, but other than that …

Patient: I would really —  I don’t mind if I have to stay longer, I would really rather talk to him first.

Nurse: Um …

Patient: Is that not usually how you guys do it?

Nurse: Yeah, that’s unfortunately — cause like I said, we have to make sure that’s in your system before you talk to the doctor. He’s not going to be able to speak with you until he is ready to do it.

The patient has now filed a medical complaint, calling on the D.C. medical board to investigate the apparent unethical activity, Live Action reported.

Experts reviewed the footage and shared their opinions, including Dr. Christina Francis OBGYN CEO-elect of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, who said: “Xanax is a substance that, in a patient who is not used to taking it, would most definitely impair her judgment and therefore her ability to give truly informed consent. There is no reason a medication like this should be routinely given to a patient prior to her meeting with a physician and going through the consent process. Often times patients are not allowed to drive or operate heavy machinery for up to 24 hours after even minor procedures due to sedating medications they have received that impair their competence to make complex decisions. Xanax is a clear sedative, especially in a patient naïve to that medication.”

Dr. C. Ben Mitchell, ethicist and former Graves Chair of Moral Philosophy at Union University, also studied the video.

“The footage I viewed indicates a likely ethical violation and could warrant further inquiry due to it demonstrating that patients were required to ingest Xanax before a full medical consultation could occur,” he said. “Being a physician entails profound ethical responsibilities and professional duties to the patient to inform, treat, and care. The physician himself or herself is ultimately responsible to ensure informed consent, in which the patient understands the diagnosis, treatment options, potential outcomes, and possible complications of a procedure or medication. That means being available to the patient to answer any questions the patient has about his or her care. Failure to do so is a dereliction of duty.”

Rose is now calling for the D.C. government, including the mayor, medical examiner, and chief of police, to investigate Santangelo and his facility.

“They are not only killing children through abortion, but they may be committing illegal infanticide, as well as other federal crimes such as partial-birth abortion,” she added. “We demand justice for these babies, and the closure of D.C.’s House of Horrors, the Washington Surgi-Clinic.”

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

Joins a number of other governors doing the same

Roy Cooper, the governor of North Carolina, signed an executive order on July 6 to continue enabling access to abortion in the state and shield people criminally charged with performing the procedure from being extradited to other states.

The Democrat noted that the executive order is “not intended to change and does not change North Carolina law, but rather ensures that North Carolinians are afforded the protections and rights provided under North Carolina law.”

His action comes after the U.S. Supreme Court on June 24 struck down Roe v. Wade in a case involving an abortion law in Mississippi. Roe v. Wade had largely enabled abortions up to 24 weeks of pregnancy across the United States for nearly 50 years. The overturning of Roe returns regulation of the procedure back to the states.

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, also signed an executive order similar to Cooper’s on July 6. Other Democratic governors, including for Maine and Rhode Island, on July 5 made similar moves to shield patients and providers of abortions from penalties. Over in Massachusetts, Gov. Charlie Baker signed a similar executive order on the day Roe v. Wade was overturned.

In North Carolina, abortions are legal until fetal viability, which typically falls between 24 and 28 weeks of pregnancy. An abortion can be still performed after that in the case of a medical emergency, to protect the life or health of the mother. Abortions done for the purpose of sex selection are prohibited.

People who opt to have an abortion must receive information designed to dissuade them from moving forward with the procedure and wait 72 hours before the abortion is provided. They also must undergo an ultrasound before the abortion.

Cooper’s executive order (pdf) states that people who provide or receive “reproductive health care services that are legal” in North Carolina will not be imposed civil or criminal penalties by the Cabinet agencies or people under the governor’s office.

“Reproductive health care services” is defined in the document as including abortions.

Protect Against Extraditions

Cooper’s order states that Cabinet agencies shall coordinate to “protect people or entities who are providing, assisting, seeking, or obtaining lawful reproductive health care services in North Carolina.” The order also directs the Department of Public Safety (DPS) to work with law enforcement to prohibit anyone from blocking access to a health care facility, per state law.

Cabinet agencies are also barred from requiring a pregnant state employee to travel to a state “that has imposed restrictions on access to reproductive health care services if those restrictions do not include an exception for the health of the pregnant Cabinet Agency employee satisfactory to that employee.”

It also says that the Cabinet agencies will not help with “any investigation or proceeding that seeks to impose civil or criminal liability or professional sanction upon a person or entity for” providing or receiving reproductive health care services that are legal in North Carolina.

While North Carolina law states that it is the governor’s “duty” to arrest and deliver any person charged in another state “with treason, felony or other crime, who has fled from justice and is found in this state,” Cooper’s executive order says the governor can “exercise his discretion to decline requests” to extradite anyone charged with a criminal violation in another state over carrying out or receiving “reproductive health care services that are lawful in North Carolina.”

Reaction to Overturning of Roe

In a statement issued on July 6, Cooper painted the action of the Supreme Court as having “ripped away the constitutional right to reproductive freedom that women have relied on for five decades.”

“For now, it’s up to the states to determine whether women get reproductive health care, and in North Carolina they still can, thanks to my veto and enough legislative votes to sustain it,” he said.

In April 2019, Cooper vetoed a bill that would have required doctors and nurses to care for babies born alive after a failed late-term abortion. In June 2021, Cooper vetoed a bill that would have prohibited abortions done because of the unborn child’s race, sex, or a prenatal diagnosis of possible Down Syndrome.

Cooper warned the midterm elections will be crucial in preserving abortion access, as his veto power could be nullified by a Republican supermajority. Republicans are currently three seats shy of a supermajority in the House and two seats shy in the Senate.

On a call with resident Joe Biden and eight other Democratic governors on July 1, Cooper said North Carolina abortion clinics have already seen an influx of out-of-state patients since the Supreme Court ruling.

Alexis McGill Johnson, president of Planned Parenthood Action Fund, was alongside Cooper at the signing of the executive order. She said in a statement that North Carolina has become “an increasingly critical access point” for people traveling to obtain abortions, including from South Carolina and Tennessee.

Following the overturning of Roe on June 24, South Carolina has banned abortions past six weeks with exceptions for rape and incest. Tennessee has also banned abortions past six weeks, with no such exceptions.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

National Nurses United, the largest nurses’ union in the United States, released a letter Tuesday endorsing legislation that would force all states to allow abortion at any point before birth. 

The letter calls on senators to pass the Women’s Health Protection Act (WHPA), which would almost entirely prohibit states from regulating abortion. Critics of the bill have dubbed it the “Abortion on Demand Until Birth Act,” as it would make late-term abortions legal in every state.

Per recent polling, the vast majority of Americans would disagree with the WHPA’s policy implications. Seventy-two percent of Americans support banning abortion after 15 weeks, which would be illegal under the WHPA, and roughly half believe in banning abortion after six weeks. Only 10 percent of Americans support legalizing abortion up to birth.

Under the WHPA, in order for any regulation on abortion access to be legal, legislators would have to prove that the limitation both “significantly advances the safety of abortion services or the health of patients” and that “the safety of abortion services or the health of patients cannot be advanced by a less restrictive alternative measure.”

“As members of a health care profession that is 90 percent female,” the union’s letter reads, “nurses understand that abortion is an essential part of health care, and that a patient’s right to control their own body is at the very basis of a free and just society.”

National Nurses United goes on to call for a suspension of the filibuster, which they call “archaic and anti-democratic,” to pass the pro-abortion legislation. According to the union, the bill would effectively codify Roe v. Wade into law, but critics of the bill say the WHPA goes much farther than Roe did in restricting the rights of states to regulate abortion. Per the Heritage Institute, if passed, the WHPA would strike down pro-life policies that were legal under Roe. Additionally, the Family Research Council warns that the bill could abolish the Hyde Amendment, opening the door t0 federally funded abortions.

In justifying their support for the WHPA, the nurses’ union cites the “basic tenets of ethical health care,” arguing that the ability to get an abortion is covered by a patient’s right to “autonomy, self-determination, and dignity over their bodies, their lives, and the health care they receive.”

Source: The Washington Free Beacon

A Texas man was arrested and charged in connection with a terrorist threat he allegedly made against the Supreme Court on social media hours after the court overturned the 1973 abortion precedent Roe v. Wade.

Mikeal Deshawn Archambault, 20, of The Colony, a suburb of Dallas in Denton County, Texas, allegedly posted on Twitter: “I’m finna kill everyone in the SUPREME COURT with my ak47[.]”

“Finna” is a contraction of “fixing to,” as in, “intending to.”

The post at the account @moseswrld was time-stamped late June 24, hours after the Supreme Court voted to overturn Roe v. Wade in the Mississippi abortion law case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. The post quickly went viral but the account has since been deleted.

Archambault was booked into the Denton County Jail on June 25. Records show he was released the next day on a $25,000 surety bond.

The Colony Police Department said in a July 1 press release that it was contacted June 24 “by the FBI regarding on-line threats of violence towards The Supreme Court.” Police searched the suspect’s residence but did not initially locate him.

“In conjunction with the FBI, Detectives from The Colony Police Department’s Criminal Investigative Division conducted an investigation and obtained probable cause for an arrest warrant. Officers went back to the subject’s residence, located the subject and placed him under arrest for Terroristic Threat,” according to the statement.

The charge against Archambault came as threats related to controversial Supreme Court decisions have ramped up in recent weeks.

The justices themselves have been personally threatened.

Supreme Court Marshal Gail Curley has accused Maryland authorities of not doing enough to protect the justices and of not enforcing anti-residential picketing laws to halt the boisterous protests at their homes.

Although Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) has pushed back against Curley, Hogan and Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) have both called on the U.S. Department of Justice to do more to protect the court’s members.

Nicholas John Roske, 26, of Simi Valley, California, was arrested for planning to assassinate Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who, after the arrest, voted to overturn Roe v. Wade.

According to the FBI, Roske said he wanted to kill Kavanaugh to prevent him from voting to overturn abortion rights and gun control laws. A federal grand jury in Maryland indicted him on June 15. He entered a plea of not guilty.

A group calling itself Jane’s Revenge has declared “open season” on pregnancy counseling centers across the nation. It has claimed credit for a series of violent recent attacks on the pro-life centers.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

Video footage surfaced online that appeared to show a crowd of people at a Somali cultural event in Minneapolis booing “Squad” member Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) over the weekend.

Omar, who came to the United States as a Somali refugee, made an appearance at a concert featuring Somali singer Suldaan Seeraar at the city’s Target Center. As soon as she arrived on stage, the boos began, according to footage posted online.

Some yelled at her, “Get out!” and “get the [expletive] out of here.”

“It was an honor to welcome you to our incredible city,” the Democratic congresswoman said in a Twitter post alongside a 14-second clip. The clip ended moments after the audience started to boo loudly.

Longer videos suggested that the crowd booed her for about a minute after she and her husband came onto the stage. “OK, OK, OK, OK, OK, we don’t have all night,” Omar said at one point as the crowd kept booing.

Unclear Why

Some people suggested that it’s because of Omar’s support for Roe v. Wade, a Supreme Court decision that decriminalized abortion nationwide, support for LGBT causes, and other left-wing causes. Omar is currently the whip of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

It’s not clear what prompted the response, and neither Omar nor her office has issued a public comment about the matter. The Epoch Times has contacted Omar’s office several times for comment about the boos.

Following last month’s Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, Omar said she would fight to codify it into law. She’s also publicly backed proposals to expand the Supreme Court and end the Senate filibuster to pass abortion laws.

“In almost half of this country, states are ready to ban abortion,” Omar said during a protest following the decision. “Outright ban abortion.”

And several weeks ago, amid dismal polls, Omar told reporters that she will “of course” back resident Joe Biden if he decides to run for president in 2024.

“This’s what she gets for trading her Godly, Conservative values for the sinful LGBTQIA’s & the promiscuous abortionists,” wrote Shukri Abdirahman, a Republican Somali refugee and military veteran who is running to unseat Omar from her 5th Congressional District

Another Republican candidate, former NBA player Royce White, suggested that Somalis in Minnesota were upset with Omar because “they’re being misrepresented by bourgeois puppets, chosen by the establishment to exploit identity politics. In other words, Ilhan Omar is a sellout and I called it months ago.”

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

A former governor of New York said Sunday that Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York has far less influence on voters than the media leads people to believe.

Former Democratic Gov. David Paterson dismissed any influence Ocasio-Cortez might have during a Sunday interview on WABC radio’s “The Cats Roundtable,’ according to the New York Post.

Paterson served as New York’s governor from 2008 through 2010 after the resignation of scandal-plagued Gov. Eliot Spitzer.

During the show, Paterson was asked by host John Catsimatidis about the results of Tuesday’s Democratic primaries in New York state. As noted by the New York Post, far-left Democrats endorsed by AOC fared poorly in the contests.

After Catsimatidis  asked if the losses marked “the rise and fall of AOC,” Paterson replied, “I don’t know if there ever was a rise, John.”

“I think AOC defeated a congressman who was notably absent from his district a lot, so she outworked him and she beat him, and then she became this overnight, national success,” Paterson said.

Paterson was referring to former Rep. Joe Crowley, who was defeated by Ocasio-Cortez in a June 2018 primary.

“But really, there’s no evidence that it had any coattails, not in this 2022 primary, but not even in the 2020 elections,” Paterson said. “I think she is really a phantom of the media. The media projects her.”

Paterson noted the easy win by Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul in the primary last week as evidence that moderation is more important to New Yorkers than extremism.

“If you look at the gubernatorial primary, Hochul got 66%, [New York City Public Advocate] Jumaane Williams gets 16%, and so she beat the progressive by 50 points, and the other 18% or so went to [moderate US Rep.] Tom Suozzi,” Paterson told Catsimatidis.

Paterson also said Ocasio-Cortez deserves neither sole credit nor blame for Amazon not coming to Queens in 2019.

“She was given credit for stopping Amazon from coming into New York. It had nothing to do with her,” Paterson said. “It had to do with the legislators being angry that Governor [Andrew] Cuomo had never told them that he was negotiating with them and took all the credit for himself.”

As the show ended, Paterson gave a summary.

“My overall thought to your original question about AOC,” Paterson said, “is [that] AOC are just three letters in the alphabet.”

Related:

Warren Demands Biden Exploit Loophole That Would Allow Abortions in Banned States

A second referendum on any possible influence could come in August, when New York voters face primaries for congressional seats, according to The New York Times.

Ocasio-Cortez is backing Democratic challenger Alessandra Biaggi over the more moderate incumbent Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney in New York’s 17th District.

As the show ended, Paterson gave a summary.

“My overall thought to your original question about AOC,” Paterson said, “is [that] AOC are just three letters in the alphabet.”

Related:

Warren Demands Biden Exploit Loophole That Would Allow Abortions in Banned States

A second referendum on any possible influence could come in August, when New York voters face primaries for congressional seats, according to The New York Times.

Ocasio-Cortez is backing Democratic challenger Alessandra Biaggi over the more moderate incumbent Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney in New York’s 17th District.

The governors of Virginia and Maryland responded to a letter from the Supreme Court’s top security official calling on them to provide more police resources to prevent protests outside the homes of justices following the landmark ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Left-wing protesters have continued to appear outside their homes since the ruling. Over the July 4 weekend, more protesters were seen picketing outside the justices’ homes, located in suburban areas in Virginia and Maryland.

“The governor agrees with the Marshal that the threatening activity outside the Justices’ homes has increased,” Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin spokesperson Christian Martinez said in a statement after Supreme Court Marshal Gail Curley called on the governor to “enforce state law” that prohibits demonstrations outside the homes of justices.

“He welcomes the Marshal of the Supreme Court’s request for Fairfax County to enforce state law as they are the primary enforcement authority for the state statute,” the statement added, adding that Attorney General Merrick Garland needs to “do his job” by enforcing federal laws.

“Every resource of federal law enforcement, including the U.S. Marshals, should be involved while the Justices continue to be denied the right to live peacefully in their homes,” according to the statement. However, from the statement, it’s not clear if Youngkin’s administration is going to take concrete steps to provide more law enforcement at their homes.

Another Response

After receiving Curley’s letter on Friday night, a spokesman for Republican Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan responded by saying that Garland needs to act.

“Two months ago, Governor Hogan and Governor Youngkin sent a letter calling on Attorney General Garland to enforce the clear and unambiguous federal statutes on the books that prohibit picketing at judges’ residences,” Hogan spokesman Michael Ricci wrote on Twitter. “A month later, hours after an assassination attempt on Justice Kavanaugh, the Department of Justice finally responded, declining to enforce the laws.”

The spokesman was referring to an incident involving 26-year-old Nicholas Roske, a California man who was arrested at Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s home last month and allegedly told officials that he was plotting to kill the justice because he would support overturning Roe v. Wade and support expanding Second Amendment protections.

“Now a different federal official is writing to us with conflicting information,” his statement continued. “Had the marshal taken time to explore the matter, she would have learned that the constitutionality of the statute cited in her letter has been questioned by the Maryland Attorney General’s office.”

Hogan has instructed Maryland State Police to further review law enforcement options after the letter was sent, Ricci said.

Federal law stipulates that it’s illegal to attempt to influence a judge’s ruling or interfere with their duties. But the Department of Justice has, so far, failed to take action against the constant protests outside the homes of Republican-appointed justices including Clarence Thomas, Amy Coney Barrett, and Kavanaugh.

The demonstrations, meanwhile, come amid rampant vandalism and arson attacks against churches, pregnancy centers, and pro-life groups. Some left-wing extremist groups have said they will carry out more attacks if their demands aren’t met. Last weekend, dozens of people were arrested across the U.S. following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe.

SOURCE: The Epoch Times

Blue states believe their abortion policies can bring companies back

Amidst predictions of a political “red wave” in the upcoming mid-term elections, an economic wave has been building for years with no end in sight as companies flood out of blue states and into red states.

And as a result of its political divisions, America appears to now be dividing itself into prosperous, high-growth states and states that are suffering a chronic decline. But Democrat-run states believe their abortion policies could be a key factor in attracting companies back.

Caterpillar and Citadel, which in June announced their exit out of Illinois, are only the latest firms to leave high-tax, high-regulation states. Tesla, Hewlett Packard, Oracle, and Remington are also among the hundreds of companies flocking out of California, Illinois, New York, and New Jersey to business-friendly places like Texas, Florida, Arizona, and Tennessee. Relocating companies have spanned industries including tech, finance, media, heavy manufacturing, autos, and firearms.

“There is a great migration going on, and I expect it to accelerate,” Glen Hamer, president of the Texas Association of Business, told The Epoch Times. “When the Caterpillars and the Elon Musks relocate, it’s an advertisement to the entire country and the entire world that something positive is going on in that state. And there is a multiplier effect.”

According to a 2022 survey of 700 CEOs, the top states for business were Texas, Florida, Tennessee, Arizona, and North Carolina. The worst were California, New York, Illinois, New Jersey, and Washington.

Even companies like Apple, which did not move its headquarters to Texas, chose to establish its second-largest campus for employees there. Amazon selected Houston as one of its prime hubs. Ford, Volkswagen, and Nissan chose Tennessee as the location for major new manufacturing facilities. And in some cases, entire industries like firearms, which are being targeted by legislation and lawsuits in blue states, are moving south.

“It’s a broader trend that we’ve been tracking for the last 15 years,” Lee Schalk, Vice President of Policy at the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), told The Epoch Times. ALEC tracks state economic trends in their annual report, “Rich States Poor States.”

“You won’t see companies moving to states like New York, California, and New Jersey,” Schalk said. “They’ll be moving out of those states into neighboring states, where the policies are a little bit better, or they’ll be making the big move to places like Texas, Florida, North Carolina.”

“Texas was one of the first states to recover all the jobs it lost during the pandemic,” Hamer said. “Now we have a workforce that is at an all-time high, and the economy has diversity and strength. Whether it’s energy, manufacturing, health care, technology, finance, you name it, the Texas economy is firing on all cylinders.” Texas has attracted 250 new corporate headquarters since 2015, Hamer said.

When jobs leave, people leave with them. According to the U.S. Census, Democrat-run states California, New York, New Jersey, Michigan, and Illinois together lost 4 million people between 2010 and 2019, the so-called “leftugees.” During the same period, the states with the greatest influx of people were Florida, Texas, Tennessee, Ohio, and Arizona.

States have been able to attract companies by cutting taxes, reducing red tape, and establishing right-to-work policies. In 2013, North Carolina passed a landmark tax reform package to cut corporate and personal income taxes. The business income tax there is now 2.5 percent and will be phased out entirely over the next several years.

Contrary to expectations that states would bankrupt themselves by cutting taxes, an influx of companies and new residents often boosts state revenues from property taxes, sales taxes, and personal income taxes, even when the percentages are reduced. Florida attracted 624,000 new residents in 2020, along with more than $40 billion in income, equating to an estimated $23.7 billion in new tax income. Florida has enjoyed two decades of net in-migration, amounting to a total income gain of $197 billion.

North Carolina’s latest budget included a deal to phase out corporate income taxes while also giving teachers a raise and even padding its “rainy day fund,” Schalk said. “North Carolina has been able to do that because not only have they been bold on lowering taxes, but they’ve also gotten the spending side under control.” And when companies move in, they bring intangible benefits with them as well.

“Any sort of civic organization loves it when they hear that a blue chip company like Caterpillar is relocating to our state,” Hamer said. “It means these executives are going to be serving on all sorts of different boards of directors, the local art museum, opera, or the chamber of commerce. When companies relocate their individuals, they become deeply ingrained in the community. They contribute time and treasure to activities that make the community more vibrant.”

The reverse is also true for states that are losing businesses and population, creating a vicious circle where continuously hiking taxes fails to bring in more revenue because the tax base gets depleted and quality of life suffers. According to a report based on IRS data by Wirepoints, an Illinois-based economic research organization, the cost of losing companies and people is stark for states like Illinois, which has lost population for 21 straight years.

Since 2020, that state has lost a total of $535 billion in income that moved away, which equates to about $25 billion in lost tax revenue during that period, and $4 billion in 2020 alone. Illinois’ problems include a loss of 114,000 residents in 2021, a string of 21 consecutive years of state budget deficits, a $313 billion deficit in public pensions, and the second-highest property tax rates in the country.

“Illinois is stuck in a vicious downward spiral it can’t hope to escape from without fundamentally changing how it governs,” the Wirepoints report states. “Structural property tax reform, reductions in pension debt, slashing units of local government—the state needs to do all these things if it wants to convince Illinoisans to stay and persuade other Americans to move in.”

Reducing violent crime would also help. Escalating crime was reportedly a factor, one among many, in Citadel’s decision to leave Chicago for Miami. Ken Griffin, the hedge fund’s CEO, had been one of Illinois’ richest residents and had given more than $600 million in charitable donations to educational, cultural, medical, and civic causes in the state.

“It’s the beauty of the 50 laboratories of our democracy,” Schalk said. “We’re able to quickly see what’s working and what’s not working across all issue areas. Unfortunately, I don’t see the high tax and high spend states changing their ways.”

“We can see an acceleration of hostile business policies in states like California, Illinois, and New York,” Hamer said. “It’s a race to increase taxes, increase regulation, and make it more difficult for people to live their lives. When you contrast that with states like Texas and Arizona, the gap is just widening and we’re seeing the great migration as a result.”

Republican Representatives in Washington are attempting to grant even more economic power to states in energy production. The GOP introduced the Federal Land Freedom Act last year, which would take authority to approve oil leases and permits away from the federal government and “give each state the right to develop all of the energy resources on the federal lands located within that state’s borders.”

Recently, however, blue states appear to be waking up and looking for ways to boost their competitiveness. California Gov. Gavin Newsom recently stated, “some businesses may have left the state, come on back! It’s a point of pride that we welcome you back.”

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy sent personal letters to more than 50 companies in red states, appealing for them to come to New Jersey. Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont made a similar attempt. These governors are highlighting one regulatory advantage that they believe will give them an edge over conservative states: their permissive policies toward abortion.

Murphy’s letter to companies in Georgia stated that “The overturning of a woman’s right to bodily autonomy—and the chilling effect this decision will have on your ability to attract and retain top female talent by being located in a state which has refused to recognize women’s reproductive freedom—cannot be ignored.”

Alyana Alfaro Post, Murphy’s press secretary, said, “Governor Murphy encourages businesses looking to stand with their employees to look at New Jersey, a state where they can be confident that the rights of women, the LGBTQIA+ community, and voters will always be protected.”

“We’re a family-friendly state that respects women,” Lamont stated in a video pitch. “I know some of you are in states like Texas, which are outlawing a woman’s right to choose. We have codified, we are protecting a woman’s right to choose … any of you business owners thinking about making a move, give me a call. I’d love to hear from you.”

Source: The Epoch Times

States will not prevent life-saving treatment for pregnant women post-Roe v. Wade, contrary to claims from liberal media outlets and politicians.

Democratic politicians including Resident Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, along with left-leaning media outlets like the New York Times, have said the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe may endanger or kill pregnant mothers. “I don’t mean to sound alarmist, I mean this: Women will die,” Harris said in a recent interview. Daily Beast columnist Wajahat Ali said women will have to ask themselves, “Do I abort this ectopic pregnancy to literally save my life or do I go to jail?”

While the overturn of Roe has either outlawed or severely restricted abortion in at least 11 states, each include exceptions to save the life of the mother in medical emergencies. Nevertheless, Democrats are hyping these concerns over pregnant mothers’ safety, and abortion advocates are spending millions of dollars to rally supporters before the 2022 midterms. Biden reminded his party last week before the Dobbs decision that “Roe is on the ballot“

The Texas “heart beat” bill, which prohibits abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, states that removal of an ectopic pregnancy does not constitute an abortion. Louisiana’s law prohibiting abortion after 15 weeks includes exceptions for ectopic pregnancies and other medical emergencies, along with the Ohio, Kentucky, Missouri, Arkansas, and Wisconsin abortion bills.

Treatment for ectopic pregnancies, where the unborn baby develops outside the uterus, is not abortion, said Dr. Christina Francis, a board-certified OB-GYN and associate scholar at the Charlotte Lozier Institute. She said women will receive the same treatment for life-threatening conditions as when Roe was in effect.

“The intent of an abortion is to end the life of the developing fetal human being, while our intent when we treat an ectopic pregnancy is to save the life of the mother,” Francis told the Washington Free Beacon. “We do a very different procedure than what’s done for an induced abortion.”

In Oklahoma, the state with the strictest abortion laws in the country, abortion is allowed when the doctor’s “reasonable medical judgment” determines it is necessary to save the mother’s life. Alabama allows abortions if the mother has a medical condition that requires “the termination of her pregnancy to avert her death or to avert serious risk of substantial physical impairment of a major bodily function.” West Virginia, which criminalizes abortion, also allows exceptions with the “intention of saving the life of such woman or child.” South Dakota’s 2022 abortion bill says a “procedure for the management of a miscarriage” is not an abortion.

Claims that the overturn of Roe will harm mothers who have miscarriages are also unfounded, according to Francis. If the unborn baby has died, “abortion laws, statutes, and even discussions don’t apply,” she said.

“There is intentional fear mongering being done,” Francis said. “I think people who know better are trying to scare women and physicians in the general public into supporting abortion laws.”

https://freebeacon.com/politics/liberals-are-wrong-emergency-pregnancy-treatments-remain-legal-after-roe/

Dozens of progressive prosecutors, many of them funded by left-wing billionaire George Soros, have signed onto an open letter signaling their intention to defy state laws that would impose limits on abortion. 

Since Friday, 87 prosecutors have signed a letter published by Fair and Just Prosecution, a Soros-funded progressive legal nonprofit, stating that they will “decline to use our offices’ resources to criminalize reproductive health decisions and commit to exercise our wellsettled discretion and refrain from prosecuting those who seek, provide, or support abortions.” Twenty-eight of the document’s 87 signatories, roughly a third, have ties to Soros, per the Washington Free Beacon‘s analysis, having either received direct contributions from the billionaire or been championed by his network of political organizations. 

Soros has spent tens of millions of dollars over the past decade to get candidates aligned with him elected as top prosecutors. The Free Beacon reported that Soros has helped elect prosecutors in half of the United States’ largest legal jurisdictions. Many of the areas where Soros-backed candidates have won now face issues with rising crime.

The prosecutors who signed the letter hail from 30 states and the District of Columbia, with millions of Americans under their jurisdiction.  

“Enforcing abortion bans runs counter to the obligations and interests we are sworn to uphold,” the letter reads. “It will erode trust in the legal system, hinder our ability to hold perpetrators accountable, take resources away from the enforcement of serious crime, and inevitably lead to the retraumatization and criminalization of victims of sexual violence.”

Prosecuting violations of abortion laws represents a “mockery of justice” that “prosecutors should not be part of,” the letter concludes.

Many of the prosecutors who signed the letter have taken fire for being soft on crime and letting free offenders who went on to commit grievous crimes. Los Angeles County district attorney George Gascón lessened penalties for repeat offenders within his jurisdiction and was later sued by the union representing the county’s deputy district attorneys over the policy changes. San Francisco district attorney Chesa Boudin is also a signatory of the letter. Boudin was defeated in a recall election earlier this month after critics accused him of being too soft on crime.

Soros darling prosecutors in Northern Virginia also featured among the letter’s signatories. Constituents have launched recall campaigns against county prosecutors Steve Descano, Buta Biberaj, and Parisa Dehghani-Tafti for mishandling cases and letting serial offenders back on the streets.

https://freebeacon.com/latest-news/soros-funded-prosecutors-pledge-to-defy-pro-life-laws/

Experts warn unregulated abortion pills put women at risk

CNN on Tuesday promoted an illegal abortion scheme that experts say could boost a dangerous black market for abortion pills.

CNN host Poppy Harlow interviewed the head of Plan C, a group that connects women with unregulated overseas pharmacies that mail chemical abortion pills to the United States—an illegal practice that skirts federal regulations. Elisa Wells, the cofounder of the group, encouraged women to obtain the pills without medical supervision or follow-up visit, even though chemical abortion pills have roughly four times the complication rate of surgical abortions.

“What I’m saying is in common practice, that most people are not doing the follow-up visit,” Wells told Harlow. “They don’t need them.”

The group’s website, however, admits it “cannot guarantee” the illegal pharmacies it refers “will be reliable.”

Plan C’s black-market network operates alongside the thriving FDA-regulated chemical abortion pill industry. Chemical abortions outpaced surgical abortions for the first time in 2020, two decades after the pill was first approved. Still, women turn to unregulated pharmacies like those promoted by Plan C to avoid doctor visits or obtain the pills in advance of a pregnancy. Many states require women to take FDA-approved pills in the presence of a doctor and return for a visit after a designated time period.

Resident Joe Biden directed his agencies to increase access to chemical abortion pills in response to the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade. The Department of Health and Human Services on Tuesday outlined a plan to explore how federal law can maximize access to these pills and ensure federal programs will cover them.

Wells said there is no reason for women to inform doctors that they took abortion pills when they seek medical care for side effects such as intense bleeding or lingering fetal remains.

“There’s no information that the clinician needs to have,” Wells said on CNN. “They do not need to know that you’ve taken abortion pills in order to provide safe follow-up treatment.”

But a recent Charlotte Lozier Institute study showed that women who failed to disclose they took abortion pills during an emergency room visit averaged more than three in-patient hospital admissions to treat subsequent complications—a 78 percent higher rate than women who did disclose. Tessa Longbons, a senior research associate at the institute, said groups such as Plan C overlook this data because they value advocacy over science.

“Women deserve to know the facts about the abortion pill, and unfortunately, they won’t find them in this CNN interview,” Longbons told the Washington Free Beacon. “Mailing women abortion pills with no medical oversight is literally playing games with a woman’s health.”

CNN is not the only media outlet to promote the chemical abortion pill industry in recent weeks. New York magazine published a piece in June that encouraged women to take abortion pills and lie to doctors. Several mainstream outlets have featured Aid Access, another abortion pill network, as the model group on how to provide unregulated abortion pills in areas with limited abortion access.

The FDA in December made permanent its pandemic-era decision to allow mail-in orders of abortion pills. The agency justified the decision by citing its adverse event database, which does not require reports from emergency rooms, where women often go to seek care after complications from the drugs.

Federal agencies under former president Donald Trump attempted to crack down on the abortion pill black market. The FDA in 2019 sent Aid Access a cease-and-desist letter in an attempt to counter the illegal scheme. These efforts stalled after the group filed a lawsuit.

https://freebeacon.com/media/watch-cnn-promotes-illegal-abortion-scheme/

Defeated and despondent, the Left calls to impeach conservative justices at every turn

During their confirmation hearings, Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh repeated the same platitudes as their conservative predecessors about Roe v. Wade to the effect that it is “the settled law of the land” (John Roberts) and an “important precedent of the Supreme Court” (Samuel Alito). We share the view of the liberal constitutional law professor Akhil Amar, who told our friend Bari Weiss that their statements in no way meant that Roe was immune to overruling: “If you thought that, that’s on you, not on [them].” 

Most lawmakers are clear on that. After all, Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan professed respect for Second Amendment precedents at their confirmation hearings, too, and as justices, they’re reliable anti-gun votes. No Republican lawmakers have ever suggested they lied.

Looking at you, Sens. Susan Collins (R., Maine) and Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.), who now say Gorsuch and Kavanaugh misled them in their confirmation hearings when they mouthed truisms about the nature of Roe as “settled law.” 

Now, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) is seizing on their accusations, arguing that they require a congressional investigation and, of course, impeachment. 

Sounds familiar. 

Today it’s Gorsuch and Kavanaugh. In April, it was Justice Clarence Thomas, whose wife’s irrelevant text messages supposedly required his recusal from cases. The remedy for his refusal to do so was, of course, impeachment. Their response to a Sept. 2019 New York Times report alleging that a college-aged Kavanaugh pulled down his pants in front of a female student at a dorm-room party—impeach! 

Whatever so-called crisis the court may be suffering, it is one created, stoked, and nurtured lovingly by the Left, which seems to have adopted the Theodor Herzl mantra popularized by the Big Lebowski: If you will it, it is no dream. 

https://freebeacon.com/courts/the-scotus-legitimacy-crisis-that-wasnt/

Democrats are melting down all over the place, because of the historic overturning of Roe v. Wade.

Some have made wild threats against the court. Others, like AOC, seem totally beside themselves with rage.

And she proved her own lack of understanding by making this claim.

From Daily Wire:

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) claimed without evidence on Sunday that some U.S. Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade “lied” under oath during their confirmation hearings, which she said is “an impeachable offense.”

[…]

“There must be consequences for such a deeply destabilizing action and a hostile takeover of our democratic institutions.”

As usual, Democrats are throwing a collective temper tantrum because they didn’t get what they wanted.

The Supreme Court gave back to the states the right to decide abortion policy. That doesn’t mean liberal states can’t pass laws allowing abortions.

But it seems Democrats aren’t happy until everyone is forced to accept this largely-hated practice.

AOC had the weirdest hot take, claiming that Supreme Court justices “lied” under oath during their confirmation hearings.

Although she offered zero evidence of this, she claimed this was an “impeachable offense.”

Really, Alex? What do you think is going to happen? Your side will get to impeach all the justices you don’t like, so you can replace them with leftists?

That sounds pretty pathetic. But it’s consistent with how the left has been operating these days.

“Do what we say, or else.” There doesn’t seem to be an ounce of democracy left among “Democrats.”

It seems what AOC and other Democrats are afraid of is that, even in blue states, abortion will be restricted.

Since it’s now an issue that can be decided by state lawmakers, Republicans will be able to campaign on promises to ban abortion—even in NY and CA.

Does that mean Democrats could lose their supermajorities at the state level?

Let’s just see how pro-choice these states are!

Key Takeaways:

• AOC accused Supreme Court justices of lying under oath.
• She claims this is grounds for impeaching them, over the Roe decision.
• The so-called socialist offered no evidence of the justices lying.

Source: Daily Wire

https://thepatriotjournal.com/aoc-supreme-court-lied/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=actengage&seyid=8730

A transgender activist who creates widely distributed educational resources for nonbinary students called for a “Supreme Court assassination challenge” on the same day Roe v. Wade was overturned.

Eli Erlick, a founder of Trans Student Educational Resources (TSER) and creator of a popular “Gender Unicorn” graphic for “gender fluidity,” tweeted and later deleted the remark on Friday, when the High Court delivered its ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. Since 2011, Erlick and the “youth-led” organization have helped implement transgender policies in dozens of school districts, including Wisconsin, New York, and Texas. The group backs sweeping “structural change” as opposed to “equality,” which according to its website, “reinforces systems of white supremacy, transphobia, and injustice.”

Following the leaked Dobbs decision in May, pro-abortion activists have targeted pro-life offices and crisis pregnancy centers across the country. Vandals firebombed pro-life buildings in Wisconsin and New York and defaced four pro-life churches in Washington State. Fears heightened in June when an armed California man was arrested outside the home of Brett Kavanaugh and later confessed to plans to assassinate the justice.

Assassination threats, sometimes from accounts with thousands of followers, erupted on social media on the day the Court ended constitutional protection for abortion.

“Can someone kill Clarence Thomas??” an account with more than 14,000 followers tweeted. The post hadn’t been taken down as of this article’s publication.

Another user said, “i’m going to assassinate supreme court justice Clarence Thomas,” in a tweet that has since been taken down. The account is no longer visible.

After deleting the assassination post, Erlick, who has more than 10,000 followers on Twitter, called out conservative pundit Ann Coulter for having joked six years ago that someone should “rat poison” former associate justice John Paul Stevens.

“The right only wants to defend the Supreme Court when it leans conservative,” Erlick tweeted.

Erlick was named one of Glamour magazine’s 2017 Women of the Year and has received breathless media coverage since transitioning and becoming a political activist as a teen.

Violence has only worsened since the Dobbs ruling. Protesters in Los Angeles assaulted police with fireworks and a makeshift blow torch, injuring four officers. In Phoenix, others attempted to storm the state capitol building while its Senate was in session, smashing windows and tearing down a fence in the process.

Some Democratic politicians, meanwhile, have fueled institutional distrust. In Washington, D.C., Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.) on Friday stood outside the Court, shouting “illegitimate” and urging supporters “into the streets.” In Chicago, Democratic mayor Lori Lightfoot said, “Fuck Clarence Thomas!” in front of a crowd at the Windy City’s annual Pride parade.

Erlick, who is currently a Ph.D. candidate in “political philosophy, social movements, and trans history” at the University of California, Santa Cruz, did not respond to a Free Beacon request for comment. Neither did TSER. The Trans Youth Equality Foundation also did not respond to a request for comment.

“Critical thinking requires carefully considering the source,” Max Eden, a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, told the Free Beacon. “The ‘Gender Unicorn’ graphic makes profound claims about the fundamental metaphysical nature of mankind. The source doesn’t particularly appear to be a balanced and disinterested sage, to say the least.”

Update 4:13 p.m.: This piece has been updated with an additional comment.

https://freebeacon.com/campus/transgender-activist-who-created-gender-unicorn-calls-for-supreme-court-assassination-challenge/

A court blocked Louisiana from barring nearly all abortions despite a law that was triggered by the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling last week that overturned Roe v. Wade.

Orleans Parish Civil District Court Judge Robin Giarrusso issued a temporary injunction on June 27 after some abortion clinics filed a lawsuit against the state, according to her order (pdf). Giarrusso scheduled a hearing for the suit on July 8 before the court makes a final ruling on whether the injunction should be upheld, meaning that abortions will remain legal in Louisiana within that time frame.

Louisiana and a dozen other states have “trigger laws” that were designed to ban or significantly restrict abortions once the Supreme Court overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling, which determined that women have a constitutional right to obtain the procedure. An analysis says that up to 26 states have laws or will pass laws to restrict the procedure, which many religious groups say is murder and immoral.

The Hope Medical Group for Women, one of Louisiana’s three abortion clinics, is one of the plaintiffs in the case. The Shreveport-based clinic is arguing that Louisiana’s three trigger law bans violate its due process rights under the state’s constitution and “lack constitutionally required safeguards to prevent arbitrary enforcement.”

The Center for Reproductive Rights, a left-wing group that filed the lawsuit on the clinic’s behalf, said abortions are now resuming in the state after Giarrusso’s order.

“A public health emergency is about to engulf the nation. As expected, Louisiana and many other states wasted no time enacting bans and eliminating abortion entirely,” Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, said in a June 27 statement.

States’ Rights

In striking down Roe, the Supreme Court gave states the authority to ban or allow abortions at any point in a pregnancy. Justice Samuel Alito, writing the 5–4 majority opinion, argued that the Constitution makes no reference to abortions and said the 1973 landmark decision, as well as the 1992 decision Planned Parenthood v. Casey—which reaffirmed Roe—were flawed from the start.

“We end this opinion where we began. Abortion presents a profound moral question,” Alito wrote. “The Constitution does not prohibit the citizens of each State from regulating or prohibiting abortion. Roe and Casey arrogated that authority. We now overrule those decisions and return that authority to the people and their elected representatives.

“No such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision, including the one on which the defenders of Roe and Casey now chiefly rely—the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. That provision has been held to guarantee some rights that are not mentioned in the Constitution.”

Lousiana Attorney General Jeff Landry’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment by press time. Although he didn’t comment on the lawsuit and injunction, Landry, a Republican, praised the Supreme Court’s decision last week.

Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett joined Alito. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that he would have stopped short in overturning Roe, while Justices Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor dissented.

Over the past weekend, police across the country arrested dozens of protesters and rioters, including individuals who engaged in violent activity following the court’s ruling.

Reuters contributed to this report.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/louisiana-blocked-from-banning-nearly-all-abortions-despite-supreme-courts-roe-ruling_4561621.html?utm_source=Morningbrief&utm_campaign=mb-2022-06-28&utm_medium=email&est=Duau1mQgc166mNY73wAleQZjxNaFRA%2BdHCfMiE7vkyy4so3iyoU8Cdez%2BFI%2FR8zPkQ%3D%3D

Rep. Michael Guest (R-Miss.), a lawmaker who voted in favor of forming the Jan. 6 Committee, has entered the final stretch before a June 28 runoff election against U.S. Navy veteran Michael Cassidy.

The congressman from Mississippi’s 3rd District actually lost the initial June 7 primary election to Cassidy, receiving just 46.9 percent of the vote to Cassidy’s 47.5 percent.

Runoffs are triggered in Mississippi primary elections if no candidate receives more than 50 percent of the vote.

In addition to warring over Guest’s support for the Jan. 6 Committee, the two candidates have sparred over Cassidy’s alleged economic views.

An attack ad against Cassidy accused him of backing an “extreme socialist agenda” that would have added $48 trillion in social spending, as reported by Mississippi Today. That ad was funded by the Congressional Leadership Fund (CLF), a national super PAC supported by current House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.),

Mississippi Today based the $48 trillion figure on proposals from the candidate’s website, including one that appeared to mirror some Democrats’ vision of “Medicare for All.” Those policy ideas were subsequently taken down.

In a June 24 interview with The Epoch Times, Cassidy acknowledged the proposals were on his website, but claims the assertion that he supports broad new health care spending for Americans is “a complete lie and misrepresentation.”

“The truth is, before I began campaigning, I did a stupid thing,” he said. “And that was to brainstorm policy ideas on my website.”

Cassidy claimed that while he initially hoped that more Americans could access the caliber of health plan that he has through the U.S. Navy, he quickly realized that such a vision was too expensive.

He took issue with the CLF’s efforts to defeat him. OpenSecrets shows that it has spent $448,783 to oppose Cassidy’s candidacy.

According to that same website, top donors to the CLF in the 2022 cycle include Koch Industries and Dan Crenshaw for Congress.

“[CLF] spent half a million dollars in money that should be spent to get Democrats out of office and Republicans in,” he said, stressing his opposition to red flag laws and funding for Planned Parenthood.

The Epoch Times has reached out to CLF for comment, using an email address found in a Federal Election Commission filing.

Cassidy praised the Supreme Court’s June 24 Dobbs v. Jackson decision, which overturned Roe v. Wade and returned abortion law-making to the states.

Pro-abortion protests in Washington and elsewhere in the country followed the decision’s release, continuing a pattern that started when a draft of the decision was leaked through Politico in May.

The leaker of that draft hasn’t yet been identified.

When asked what he would do to address what he sees as overreach by the Department of Justice and other agencies, Cassidy cited Congress’s power of the purse.

Republicans will have more leverage over spending if they take the House, Senate, or both in November’s midterm election.

“In the military and so much government, if you don’t fund something, it can’t be done,” he said.

Cassidy said fighting federal abuses of power would take effective organization—a perennial challenge for many Republicans.

“Republicans have got to be energetic about it. They have to do the hard work,” he said.

Guest declined an interview opportunity with The Epoch Times.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/mississippi-republican-who-supported-jan-6-commission-faces-june-28-runoff_4560656.html?utm_source=News&utm_campaign=breaking-2022-06-27-3&utm_medium=email&est=EMRtkVW8%2FpXrRXl2peSGjIFPjGok%2B6IT05qUJHNGcHXX%2By2zi7VbKKaWAG5BFYa7hA%3D%3D

Following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade on Friday, many on the left swiftly reacted with anger and even threats. Now, one doctor’s immediate reaction to the decision may have put her job in jeopardy.

Early Sunday morning, the Twitter account Libs of TikTok shared a tweet from a doctor who reportedly worked at Sarah Bush Lincoln Health Center in Mattoon, Illinois.

In an apparent response to the Supreme Court’s decision, she said she planned to withhold treatment from certain patients.

WARNING: The following media contains language some viewers may find disturbing.

“I prescribe meds.. I can also choose not to prescribe them,” the doctor wrote on Twitter. “So…from now on.. if you are a white male who votes conservative, your penis needs to ask God for the power to rise. No more Viagra.”

Doctor at @sarahbushnews says she prescribes medication based on her patients’ political affiliation and race pic.twitter.com/bri0O2i3zE

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) June 26, 2022

Multiple social media users in the comments called on the doctor to immediately have her medical license revoked.

Is this “lose your license” material?

— Lydia Leitermann 💐 (@sourpatchlyds) June 26, 2022

What other, perhaps lifesaving, meds are they denying patients? I wonder what the Illinois Department of Public Health or the Joint Commission thinks of this behavior.

— Jack Cochran (@TheJackCochran) June 26, 2022

A few hours after Libs of TikTok shared the post, the official Twitter account of Sarah Bush Lincoln commented on the post and made its position clear.

“This is not the practice of Sarah Bush Lincoln,” the account wrote. “We provide care to everyone regardless of gender, sexual orientation, race religious, etc. This is being addressed. Thank you for bringing it to our attention.”

Related:

God’s Blessing? The Markets Broke a 3-Week Losing Streak the Day Roe v. Wade Died

This is not the practice of Sarah Bush Lincoln. We provide care to everyone regardless of gender, sexual orientation, race religious, etc. This is being addressed. Thank you for bringing it to our attention.

— Sarah Bush Lincoln (@sarahbushnews) June 26, 2022

In a separate post, the health center confirmed it was investigating the matter.

Providing care to all is the mission of SBL. We provide care to all regardless, of race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, income, and cultural or personal beliefs and views. A recent social media post was contrary to this and are investigating it. Thank you for your concern. pic.twitter.com/XNHrgl7EPv

— Sarah Bush Lincoln (@sarahbushnews) June 26, 2022

Like this doctor, many on the left issued threats both before and after the Supreme Court ruling. Some of them followed through on vows to commit violence.

According to KTLA-TV, 30-year-old Michael Ortiz was arrested Friday after allegedly attacking a police officer with a torch. The officer was taken to a hospital with burn injuries.

LAPD Chief Michael Moore said he supports the First Amendment, but it does not protect against violence and other crimes.

“I condemn the violence against officers that occurred last night and into today,” Moore said according to KTLA.

“Individuals participating in such criminal activity are not exercising their 1st Amendment rights in protest of the Supreme Court decision, rather, they are acting as criminals.”

Radical pro-abortion activists are reportedly using an interactive map developed by two University of Georgia professors to plan their violent attacks on pregnancy resource centers.

These centers, which typically offer pregnancy tests and counseling services from a pro-life perspective, have been vandalized, smashed, and set on fire in growing numbers across the country in the weeks leading up to the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade.

While these centers’ locations are public knowledge, perpetrators have been using online tools that collect and organize this information in a way that makes it easier for them to find the next target.

One of such tools is the Crisis Pregnancy Center Map, a project led by Andrea Swartzendruber and Danielle Lambert, both professors at the Epidemiology and Biostatistics Department at the University of Georgia. The interactive map identifies the exact street addresses of over 2,500 pro-life clinics.

The stated purpose of the map is “to provide location information about all of the crisis pregnancy centers operating in the U.S.” The website also refers to these centers as “fake women’s health centers” primarily aimed to “prevent people from having abortions.”

“There’s reason to think that people seeking health services may not know exactly what these centers are and the services they offer,” Swartzendruber said in 2018 when the CPC map first went online.

According to Fox News, far-left extremists are using the map to mark their next targets while trying to refrain from explicitly calling for violence.

Puget Sound Anarchists, an Antifa-affiliated group operating out of Washington state, included the CPC map in a post celebrating the vandalism of a pro-life clinic in the state by another radical group. The group itself in May publicly claimed responsibility for vandalizing four different churches in Olympia, Washington, because of their supposed ties to pregnancy resource centers.

“You can find your nearest fake abortion clinic on the Crisis Pregnancy Center Map,” the post read.

In Minnesota, left-wing anti-police group Twin Cities Encampment Responders posted a link to the map shortly after the release of the Supreme Court’s ruling.

“A map of anti-abortion fake clinics, including dozens around the Twin Cities area … you know, just because information is power,” the group wrote in the post, which has since been shared hundreds of times.

Colorado Springs Antifa, a group known for doxxing people affiliated with right-wing groups, shared a Twitter post containing a link to the CPC map alongside the message, “For the night owls.”

A graphic accompanying the original post reads, “Your local crisis pregnancy center tonight. Mask up. Stay dangerous.”

One of the latest attacks on pregnancy resource centers took place on Saturday morning in Longmont, a northern suburb of Denver. According to the police, the building was set ablaze and covered with graffiti messages such as “Bans off our bodies” and “If abortions aren’t safe, neither are you.”

The facility is run by Life Choices, a Christian non-profit organization that offers free services related to pregnancy and sexual health. In a statement, Life Choices Executive Director Kathy Roberts said the center is “devastated and stunned by this frightening act of vandalism.”

“What we hope the perpetrators of this act understand is that an attack on Life Choices is ultimately not an attack on a political party or act of,” Roberts said. “It is an attack on those who walk through our doors every day in need of diapers, pregnancy tests, limited ultrasounds, clothing, financial and parenting classes, support, and so much more. It is an attack on a place that is supposed to be safe for women, men, and their families.”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/far-left-groups-use-map-created-by-university-professors-to-target-pregnancy-centers-report-says_4559401.html?utm_source=Morningbrief&utm_campaign=mb-2022-06-27&utm_medium=email&est=zGa2x60dkBmse8Mb0Bdrfs9ip6SFhWDcZlestNnQk76CDEDUpQaw1I7MANQANSOtdg%3D%3D

This way, there is no crime when a mother sells her fetus/infant for “parts.” [US Patriot]

SACRAMENTO—A proposed bill to bar criminal prosecution into the suspicious death of an unborn or newborn baby was passed by a state assembly committee on April 5.

Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland) introduced Assembly Bill (AB) 2223 to prevent pregnant women from being prosecuted for either terminating a pregnancy or losing their baby, she said during an April 5 Judiciary Committee meeting.

“AB 2223 is intended to protect against the criminalization of pregnancy outcomes, and people should not be subject to prosecution for any tragic situation that may happen during the pregnancy,” Wicks said.

The bill would prohibit holding a person—the mother or a health care provider—responsible for “miscarriage, stillbirth, or abortion, or perinatal death” of a baby based on “their actions or omissions” related to the pregnancy, according to the state legislative information website.

Although the bill doesn’t give a precise definition of “perinatal,” it commonly entails the time frame between 22 weeks of pregnancy and seven days after birth, according to the committee’s bill analysis.

Existing law requires a county coroner to investigate the death of an unborn or newborn baby—after 20 weeks into pregnancy—resulting from “suspected self-induced or criminal abortion,” according to the bill. Except for legal abortions, the coroner must record the conditions and causes of such death on a death certificate, which can be used to establish or support a criminal prosecution.

Under this proposed bill, the coroner would no longer be required to investigate such deaths, and it would be prohibited to use the coroner’s statement on a death certificate for prosecution in such cases.

Samantha Lee, an attorney at National Advocates for Pregnant Women, spoke in favor of Wick’s bill while telling a story about one of her clients who was held in jail for over a year from November 2019 to March 2021 after experiencing a pregnancy loss.

Lee’s client Chelsea Becker faced first-degree murder charges following the stillbirth death of her baby while she was addicted to methamphetamine.

Upon being arrested, Becker lost custody of her son, who was later adopted following the drop of her criminal charges in May 2021, Lee explained while reading Becker’s written statement urging lawmakers to vote in favor of the proposed bill.

“If the hospital had never involved law enforcement due to this stillbirth happening, I would still have custody of my son,” Lee read from Becker’s statement.

Meanwhile, hundreds of opponents appeared in person or called into the committee to express their concerns.

Susan Arnall, California attorney and vice president of Legal Affairs at Right to Life League—the first pro-life organization in the United States—warned lawmakers of the details of the bill that would allow intentional “murders” of infants to evade criminal investigation.

She said the bill would be “blocking the use of coroner’s investigation and findings into a baby’s death in any criminal or civil action and against any person, not just the mother, but anyone who was involved in any way,” she warns.

She went on to explain how the bill prohibits coroners from releasing information regarding “perinatal” deaths—the death of an infant before or after birth.

Americans United for Life warned about the lack of definition for “perinatal” that can “legalize child abandonment” immediately following the birth or shortly after.

“If a child is found in a dumpster can law enforcement investigate the child’s death? Probably not under AB 2223,” the organization wrote in a statement to the legislature.

While many begged lawmakers to not approve the bill, the vote to advance the proposed legislation prevailed.

AB 2223 was referred to the Health Committee for another hearing at a later date.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/california-assembly-committee-passes-bill-that-could-legalize-infanticide_4385682.html?utm_source=News&utm_campaign=breaking-2022-06-26-2&utm_medium=email&est=267y6tuG2IjNrPl254RkaobWKUkuncyZKrFCwoHe4uHNAL127BBtVnByKblEjtxkTQ%3D%3D

I thank God that Roe v Wade and Planned Parenthood v Casey were overturned this morning.

Those decisions were disastrous for America and led to the slaughter of over 60 million American babies.

America is one of only four countries in the world that have allowed for barbaric late-term abortion laws, and the company we’ve kept over these last few decades is embarrassing. The other three countries are Canada, North Korea and China.

That says enough.

While six bold justices overturned Roe, our fight is just beginning, and we have to fill the ranks of Congress and our state legislatures with men and women who value life and are strong enough to stand up to the unhinged Left as they go on the attack.

I am one of those fighters who stands for LIFE, and I will NEVER back down from that position.

Help me get to Congress today.

As a woman, my “reproductive rights” are not infringed by this decision as the Left wants us to believe. It’s pretty damn simple . . . if a woman doesn’t want a child, don’t engage in activities that will get you pregnant!

The feminists on the Left are filled with hate and rage, but there’s a reason for that. There’s a saying that when a person does not have the courage to face their shame, that shame turns to anger.

Advocating for the murder of children is shameful. And the Left will never face their shame.

The Left dehumanizes children by promoting abortion on demand, while at the same time having the audacity to advocate for unconstitutional gun control laws, by invoking the names and faces of children killed in school shootings.

Make no mistake . . . the LEFT loves dead kids and loves killing children, because without dead kids, the Democrat Party knows that law-abiding Americans would never buy into their radical, unconstitutional, and pro-death legislation which includes stripping Americans of their Second Amendment rights, and legalizing late-term abortion.

The Democrat Party pretends that late-term abortions don’t occur, and they lie and say that children in the womb cannot feel pain as their bodies are ripped apart, limb-by-limb.

It’s disgraceful and shameful.

But, if you get me to Congress, I will make the Leftists face their shame! Help me do that today by donating before MIDNIGHT TONIGHT to have your donation TRIPLE MATCHED.

Our fight is JUST beginning, and the Democrat Party will use this decision to try and sway the upcoming Midterm Elections in their favor.

It won’t work as long as we stand our ground and send fighters to Washington.

With just six days left until the end of the fundraising quarter, please donate as much as you can today to help me FIGHT for you, your family, America, and the unborn.

Thanks again for all that you do.

Respectfully,

Laura Loomer

https://secure.lauraloomerforcongress.com/60days22?utm_source=60days22&utm_medium=housefile&utm_campaign=mb&amount=25

Shadowy pro-abortion group Jane’s Revenge has orchestrated a nationwide campaign of destruction and vandalism against pro-life groups for which police have yet to make an arrest.

The group’s attacks began on May 8 in Madison, Wisconsin, where Jane’s Revenge members torched the headquarters of pro-life group Wisconsin Family Action.

“They had Molotov cocktails. They threw one against the window, and the window didn’t break. So then they broke a window and threw a Molotov cocktail into my office,” said Julaine Appling, Wisconsin Family Action’s president.

When the Molotov didn’t destroy the office enough, the attackers started a fire in Appling’s office using her books.

“The thing that I am missing the most is all the books they burned,” Appling said. “Some of those might at this point be irreplaceable.”

The same day,  Jane’s Revenge announced its existence, claimed responsibility for the attack, and promised more nationwide.

“We are forced to adopt the minimum military requirement for a political struggle,” its anonymous writer said in an online manifesto.

Since then, attacks on pro-life organizations have only escalated. As of today, at least 28 pro-life groups from Anchorage, Alaska to Hollywood, Florida have been attacked.

The attacks were prompted by the leak of a draft Supreme Court opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, a decades-old decision that prohibited states from imposing restrictions on abortion.

Who Is Jane’s Revenge?

The attack on Wisconsin Family Action’s office was the first one claimed by Jane’s Revenge.

The only public channel of communication from Jane’s Revenge is a page on NoBlogs, an anarchist blogging site.

In its first post on Sunday, May 8, the group announced a “declaration of war” against pro-life groups. It demanded the disbandment of all American pro-life groups in the next 30 days.

“As you continue to bomb clinics and assassinate doctors with impunity, so too shall we adopt increasingly extreme tactics to maintain freedom over our own bodies,” the group wrote.

This “First Communiqué” also announced that Jane’s Revenge had “not one group, but many” in “every city.”

A second manifesto on May 30 called for a “Night of Rage” on the night the Supreme Court releases the Dobbs v. Jackson verdict.

It asked for “courageous hearts to come out after dark.”

It also claimed that Jane’s Revenge had a “few hundred people” but needed more members.

It’s unclear whether Jane’s Revenge has a centralized leadership, cells across the country, or is simply a slogan that unconnected pro-abortion radicals use when attacking pro-life clinics.

The group’s true size is also unclear.

Many attacks against pro-life groups nationwide have used graffiti tags connected to Jane’s Revenge.

Jane’s Revenge attacks tend to have cursive graffiti reading, “Jane Was Here,” “Jane’s Revenge,” anarchist symbols, the number “1312,” or some version of the phrase “If abortions aren’t safe then neither are you.”

Federal and local police have yet to arrest anyone for attacking a pro-life clinic since the first attack on May 8.

Attackers on the Loose

The Epoch Times has interviewed seven of the 28 pro-life organizations attacked since the Dobbs v. Jackson leak. Several attacked organizations refused to be interviewed because they feared a higher profile would bring more attacks.

But all organizations that spoke with the Epoch Times said they wouldn’t quit because of the attacks.

“We’re not going to go away. We’re not going to be quiet. We are going to continue to be bold and strong. Because we are on the right side of this issue,” Appling with Wisconsin Family Action said.

The vast majority of groups contacted by the Epoch Times said they had video of their attackers and were working with the police. Several clinics that received threats from Jane’s Revenge have also passed on information to the FBI.

In Long Beach, California, a woman entered His Nesting Place, a church and maternity care home, according to senior pastor Al Howard. The woman screamed obscenities, tore up a Bible, and threw a vase belonging to the church.

While congregants moved her out of the church, the woman attempted to open her backpack, Howard said.

“It dawned on us later that she possibly might have had a weapon,” he said.

Both security and phone cameras caught the attack, Howard said. While she was in the church, the attacker said she was local. Later, she shouted and threatened outside the church again.

But police still haven’t caught her, he said.

“She said, ‘I’m not finished with you. I’ll be back and I’m going to burn this place to the ground and all of you in it,’” Howard said.

Police didn’t set up a guard on the church while the attacker remained at large, he said.

Compass Care Pregnancy Services in Buffalo, New York suffered the worst attack so far from Jane’s Revenge, according to its director Jim Harden.

The attacker threw Molotovs at the clinic, resulting in “catastrophic” fire damage, Harden said.

The damage will require a full rebuild, he said. But due to the high number of donations the clinic has received, he plans to make a new and expanded building.

“Let’s not only rebuild, let’s build it bigger,” Harden said.

Police and the FBI have told Harden that they have leads on multiple perpetrators, but have yet to arrest a suspect, he said.

“Government failure to act is conspicuous,” Harden said. “Their job is to protect all citizens equally, not just the ones that agree with them.”

Doubting Law Enforcement

Thomas Glessner, the president of the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates (NIFLA), said he believes that stopping violence by pro-abortion extremists isn’t a priority for law enforcement.

NIFLA connects over 1,600 pro-life groups nationwide. Jane’s Revenge has twice firebombed one of NIFLA’s clinics in Portland, Oregon. Glessner said he doubts that police want to catch those responsible.

“Portland, Oregon? The police there let Antifa blow up to the inner city. How seriously are they gonna take this?” he said. “I know the FBI has been called in to some [clinic attacks], but again, how seriously are they gonna take this?”

He’s not the only leader disappointed in police efforts to combat Jane’s Revenge.

In Wisconsin, Appling started offering a reward for information leading to the arrest of the people who attacked her clinic. It has been over a month since the attackers struck.

“We thought it was appropriate to see if there was any way we might find someone who saw or heard information about this attack,” she said.

At Trotter House, a pro-life clinic in Austin, Texas, vandals took video of themselves vandalizing the clinic’s property, then posted it online, said clinic director Lori DeVillez. But as of yet, police have made no arrests. She blamed the lack of response on low police department funding.

“Now in Austin, when you call 911, nobody comes,” she said.

Over 120 congressmen have signed a letter demanding a Department of Justice investigation into Jane’s Revenge.

Pro-Abortion, Pro-Violence?

Despite the wave of violence against their political opponents, most nationwide pro-abortion groups haven’t made public statements condemning the violence.

The Epoch Times contacted Planned Parenthood, the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL), and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to ask for a reaction statement to the nationwide attacks on pro-life groups. None replied by press time.

One of the few groups to make a statement about the attacks was pro-abortion group ReproAction.

Its statement condemned pro-life groups for five paragraphs, then briefly stated that “Vandalizing anti-abortion fake clinics does not help people seeking abortions.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) refused to condemn the attacks on pro-life groups when reporters asked her at a press conference.

“Well, let me just say this: a woman has a right to choose, to live up to her responsibility, it’s up to her doctor, her family, her husband, her significant other, and her God. This talk of politicizing all of this, I think, is something uniquely American and not right,” Pelosi said.

According to Glessner, pro-abortion groups support the attacks. Glessner added that NIFLA has condemned violent attacks against abortion doctors in the past.

“They support the attacks. They will not come out and say that, because they don’t want to pull into a criminal action. But they actually support the attacks,” he said.

Last week, pro-abortion Shut Down DC activists Patrick Young and Nadine Bloch told members of their group they don’t condemn those who use violence to support abortion.

“If you want to do property destruction, do it in secret. If you’re doing it publicly, you’re probably an infiltrator,” Bloch said. “There’s no condemnation of bringing the system down.”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/destruction-and-vandalism-by-pro-abortion-extremists-sweeps-america_4545276.html?utm_source=Morningbrief&utm_campaign=mb-2022-06-25&utm_medium=email&est=n0DgkCbLgQCT0%2FPHfAJxvR%2FVpQdJEiF3%2BuSZW8XGcScNBIfiPsIwcfTVWQ%2FpalDhXA%3D%3D

I’m writing this letter to you today because, quite frankly, David Daleiden cannot.

You may remember David as the undercover journalist who spent 30 months investigating and capturing video evidence of Planned Parenthood ‘s top leadership — medical directors, national program directors, even its Senior Director of Medical Services –¬ callously negotiating the harvesting and sale of aborted baby body parts.

And now, he’s been charged with nine bogus felonies.

Which is why I’m asking you to make an emergency donation to the DALEIDEN DEFENSE FUND right away.

You see, after David released the shocking videos of the illegal and disgusting actions of abortion executives, Kamala Harris, then California’s Attorney General, colluded with Planned Parenthood to file felony charges against David…

… Kamala Harris even ordered the California Department of Justice to raid David’s home and confiscate his unpublished videos.

I won’t sugarcoat it. If not cleared of these charges, David faces steep fines and years in state penitentiary and the consequences of being a convicted felon. While Kamala Harris — a bought-and-paid-for ally of the abortion industry — is sitting one heartbeat away from the presidency.

That’s the bad news.

But here’s the good news… David is fighting back.

In fact, he’s taking another opportunity to drag more of Planned Parenthood’s dark criminality into the spotlight with two new federal lawsuits.

That’s right. The Thomas More Society has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit in California on behalf of David against former California Attorney General and now Vice¬President Kamala Harris for prosecuting David in bad faith, twisting and perverting California’s anti-eavesdropping law to persecute a citizen journalist because of his political views.

Then the Thomas More Society filed a defamation (libel) lawsuit in federal court in New York against Planned Parenthood, which said David created a “fake” and “false” “smear campaign” against Planned Parenthood.

In other words, the best defense is a good offense. The truth is we could no longer let David suffer such a trampling of his free speech and due process rights without a counterattack.

The timing couldn’t be more important.

This is a critical opportunity to put Kamala Harris, Planned Parenthood, and the rest of the abortion industry on trial for conspiring to silence David in order to cover-up their illegal activities.

That’s where your emergency donation to the DAVID DALEIDEN DEFENSE FUND comes in — by giving today you can stand with David in his hour of need.

The reality is. . .

You couldn’t be there when David entered the dark underbelly of the abortion industry — sitting across the table from abortionists haggling over the price of baby body parts with cold-blooded clarity… “I want a Lamborghini.”

You couldn’t be there as David saw with his own eyes the preborn children who had been killed with great precision and delicacy to preserve their organs for maximum profit.

You couldn’t be there when the videos were released and Kamala Harris and Planned Parenthood conspired to crush David with trumped up legal charges and an armed raid on his home in which they seized laptops, hard-drives, and recording equipment.

And you couldn’t be there with David (our criminal defense team was there) when he voluntarily appeared in both Texas and California for booking and processing — fingerprinted and photographed for a mugshot like a common criminal.

But, now, this is the reality… there is something you can do.

You can make an emergency donation to the DAVID DALEIDEN DEFENSE FUND to help vindicate this pro-life hero.

My name is Tom Brejcha.

I’m the president and chief counsel of the Thomas More Society — a not-for-profit law firm underwriting and helping to spearhead David’s criminal defense.

The Thomas More Society is proud to have defended many renowned pro-life and religious leaders in America’s pro-life movement such as Joe, Ann, and Eric Scheidler, the Pro-Life Action League, Shawn Carney and 40 Days for Life, Abby Johnson, the Susan B. Anthony List, David Bereit, Lila Rose and Live Action, Students for Life, Sidewalk Advocates for Life, Created Equal, former Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline, the March for Life, and many more.

Because when dark forces like Planned Parenthood unleash their full might to legally, financially, and personally destroy our clients — we fight back.

I have to tell you, despite all that David is facing, his spirits remain high. Of course, I’ve never known anyone in this kind of position who didn’t feel an empty pit in his stomach.

But David’s not giving up. His willingness to fight back is a true profile in Pro-Life courage.

Now I’ll get right down to it…

We anticipate David’s legal defense will cost us more than $6 million. That’s right, SIX MILLION DOLLARS.

In addition to the criminal case and the new federal civil rights and defamation lawsuits, we’re currently representing David in THREE other cases.
• The civil lawsuit filed by Planned Parenthood where we are appealing the jury’s verdict, along with the judge’s order permanently banning David from doing any more undercover journalism against Planned Parenthood. Recently, we posted a $700,000 appeal bond to keep Planned Parenthood’s nasty collection agents from harassing him with collection agents and even seizing his belongings. We’re fighting back, but we’ll need your help.

• The civil lawsuit brought by the National Abortion Federation and the “gag order” injunction that still prohibits David from releasing any more of his video evidence exposing Planned Parenthood’s illegal fetal tissue business. And now, in light of the Planned Parenthood civil lawsuit, NAF has moved for summary judgment – they want a ruling against David without a trial at all!

• And finally, the civil lawsuit filed by Planned Parenthood personnel in federal court in Seattle, where we just achieved a victory for a second time on appeal, but it appears we may need at least a third victory on appeal before this case ends.

That’s why David needs your financial support today.

And that’s why I’m praying you will donate $35 or more to the DAVID DALEIDEN DEFENSE FUND right away.

I won’t guess how much you’re able to send today. Whether it’s $35, $50, $75, $125, $250, $500, $1,000 or more…

… I will only say that time is of the essence.

So I do ask that you make your donation as soon as you can.

This truly is a “David versus Goliath” type of battle — with Kamala Harris, Planned Parenthood, and the radical left arrayed against our “David.”

It’s a grave injustice that David is the one being hit with felony charges and massive civil penalties while Planned Parenthood (so far, at least) has gone unpunished.

By clearing David of these charges… you and I can allow him to continue with his incredibly important lifesaving work. Remember, over 12 million people on YouTube alone watched the shocking footage he captured. Since that time, 26 states — over half the country –¬ have moved to strip Planned Parenthood of taxpayer funding.

It’s no wonder Planned Parenthood and their allies want to destroy David.

They’d love to see him rotting away in penitentiary rather than exposing their criminal and inhumane activities. You and I cannot let that happen.

So please don’t delay. Donate $35, $50, $100, or more to stand with David Daleiden today.

I’ve asked my staff to let me know as soon as we get it so I can let David know that you’re standing with him.

I know he’ll be deeply touched by your generous support.

May God Bless You,

Tom Brejcha
President & Chief Counsel

P.S. Kamala Harris, Planned Parenthood, and their allies want to destroy David. They’d love to see him rotting away in penitentiary rather than exposing their criminal, ghoulish activities. You and I cannot let that happen. Can I count on you to support the official criminal defense of David Daleiden?

David is a pro-life hero. Will you make a generous donation to the DAVID DALEIDEN DEFENSE FUND of $35, $50, $100 or more to stop this attempt to crush him?

In a stirring and spot-on campaign email, Florida’s Republican Governor Ron DeSantis declares war on the Far Left calling it a “Radical Vigilante Woke Mob.”

While I’ve seen my share of them over the years and sent out a few myself, campaign fundraising emails are notorious for appealing to the hard-core base of both parties.  

So, most of them are taken with a grain of salt by political observers.

However, the email I just received from the DeSantis re-election campaign really hit home. It accurately defined and summarized the aggressive domestic threat posed by the extreme Left to our nation’s very core:

Our country is currently facing a great threat. A new enemy has emerged from the shadows that seeks to destroy and intimidate their way to a transformed state, and country, that you and I would hardly recognize.

This enemy is the radical vigilante woke mob that will steamroll anything and anyone in their way. Their blatant attacks on the American way of life are clear and intensifying: stifling dissent, public shaming, rampant violence, and a perverted version of history.

A group that will, literally, tear down monuments and buildings but — perhaps in an even more sinister way — tear down the American spirit itself. They go after the family unit, parental rights, traditional moral values, the church, and fact-based education.

Over the past few years, we’ve watched horrified as this group has attempted to brainwash our children into thinking we live in an evil, racist, irredeemable country.

We listened to them deny science and data to exert political theater all the while trampling over personal liberties enshrined in the Constitution.

We saw them take to the streets for an entire summer like outlaws burning, looting, and destroying everything in sight while being told they were “mostly peaceful” and “passionate.”

DeSantis omitted the LGBTQ brainwashing of our young children and the collusion of major woke companies like Disney in doing so, but he has been at the forefront of battling both these evils in Florida.

The DeSantis campaign continues, noting something that impacted me directly on the huge social media platform LinkedIn: “We watched Big Tech moguls in Silicon Valley be the arbiters of truth – deciding who gets to speak and who gets silenced through the digital public square.”

And of course, the last piece of the massive leftist effort: “We listened to the legacy media muffle legitimately verifiable news stories that didn’t align with their preferred narrative, only to watch the truth trickle out months later at a more politically expedient time.”

Referring to himself as the “Governor of the Free State of Florida,” DeSantis then goes on to make his pitch for how he will fight this grave threat to America, at least in Florida, with “faith, with reason, and with freedom.”

And of course, he asks for our financial support.

In my view, this email accurately and effectively summarizes the threat we face from the extreme Left in America today. DeSantis is on the front lines of this battle in Florida, but he also seems to be preparing to take the fight nationally as well.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.

https://www.americanliberty.news/politics/florida-governor-goes-to-war-against-radical-vigilante-woke-mob/pcrespo/2022/06/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ae01&seyid=7766

Spot fails to mention star witness’s work for radical group that wants to defund police, teach CRT

A new Chuck Schumer ad uses a “former Republican” to attack Nevada’s Republican U.S. Senate nominee Adam Laxalt. Unmentioned is the star witness’s work for a far-left group that supports Laxalt’s opponent and wants to defund police.

In the ad, Schumer’s Senate Majority PAC features testimony from “Patty,” a “business owner” and “former Republican” who slams Laxalt as “wrong for Nevada.” The ad does not reveal that “Patty” is former Nevada state senator Patricia Farley, who began caucusing with Democrats more than five years ago in 2016. Two years later, Farley joined Battle Born Progress, a liberal nonprofit that works closely with Laxalt’s opponent, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D.). The group under Farley has taken a number of radical liberal positions on hot-button issues—a far cry from Schumer’s portrayal of Farley as a disillusioned conservative entrepreneur.

In July 2020, for example, Battle Born Progress called to end the “school-to-prison pipeline” and “save money” by “defunding school police.” One year later, group executive director Annette Magnus said Nevada “should be teaching” critical race theory in its public schools because “young people need to know this information.” Battle Born Progress also opposes voter ID requirements and supports late-term abortion. Cortez Masto said in November that she was “so glad” to speak at the group’s annual fundraising event.

Schumer’s willingness to omit Farley’s status as a liberal activist—and his decision to criticize Laxalt using a “Republican” figure—suggests the Democratic leader is concerned by Cortez Masto’s reelection chances. Resident Joe Biden won Nevada by 3 points in 2020, but his political standing has since deteriorated in the Silver State as Democrats navigate record-high inflation, gas prices, and illegal immigrant encounters. Fifty-six percent of Nevada voters disapprove of Biden, compared with 32 percent who approve, according to Civiqs.

Senate Majority PAC spokeswoman Veronica Yoo told the Washington Free Beacon the ad identifies Farley “as a local business owner and former Republican because those are the facts.” Yoo did not answer questions about Farley’s work with Battle Born Progress.

Farley in 2014 ran for state Senate as a Republican, receiving 57 percent of the vote. Two years later, she announced she would change her party affiliation to nonpartisan and caucus with Democrats, a decision she said stemmed from her disappointment with “party politics.” Farley’s subsequent political contributions and employment history, however, tell a different story.

In May 2018, just months after declining to run for reelection, Farley made her first federal political contribution—to failed Democratic congressional candidate Pat Spearman. Three months later, Farley donated to Nevada Democratic senator Jacky Rosen.

In October 2018—one month before leaving the state Senate—Farley joined Battle Born Progress as the president of its state PAC, Nevada Values. The group quickly launched a six-figure ad attacking Republican state Senate leader Michael Roberson. Roughly one year later, in December 2019, Farley endorsed Pete Buttigieg for president, saying the former South Bend, Ind., mayor “is offering bold solutions to our nation’s biggest problems.” She went on to contribute $1,500 to Buttigieg’s PAC, and has not contributed to a Republican at the federal level.

Still, Farley told the Free Beacon she is a “current independent” who is “not interested in pushing partisan political agendas” and “only care[s] about giving Nevadans the facts they need to make an informed decision.” While Farley also claims in the ad that she “used to work with Adam Laxalt in the state government,” she later told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that she had “few personal interactions” with the Republican.

Farley still serves as president of Nevada Values as of February 2022, the PAC’s latest campaign finance disclosure states. Nevada Values is registered as a Battle Born Progress affiliate and uses the same mailing address, email address, and phone number as the liberal nonprofit.

Both Laxalt and Cortez Masto cruised to victory in Nevada’s June 14 primary elections, and the pair will now face off in November. Cortez Masto holds a strong financial advantage—she has $9 million on hand to Laxalt’s roughly $2.1 million.

https://freebeacon.com/elections/new-schumer-attack-ad-trots-out-liberal-activist-as-former-republican/

Corporate executives tell workers stick to business, leave politics at home

In an indication that corporate progressivism may be reaching its high-water mark, CEOs for the first time are pushing back against activist employees, in some cases going so far as to fire them rather than steer their companies into the mire of “woke” politics.

Last week, Kraken CEO Jesse Powell became the latest executive to say he has had enough. He invited employees who felt “triggered” by controversial ideas to accept a severance package and leave the company.

The cryptocurrency technology company’s new mission statement says that it “will never ask that our employees adopt any specific political ideology as a requirement for our workplace … We recognize that hurt feelings are inevitable in a global organization that is optimizing for team outcomes above individual sentiment. The ideal Krakenite is thick-skinned and well-intentioned.”

Powell told “Fox & Friends” that of the company’s 3,000 employees, about 30 have chosen to accept the four-month severance pay and leave, citing their need to express political or social beliefs in the workplace. Comments from the remaining 99 percent of Kraken employees regarding the policy to keep politics out of the workplace were “overwhelmingly positive,” he said.

“I think everyone is ready to get back to work and stop being distracted.”

“Suddenly, nobody has any interest in this anymore, and companies are responding accordingly and starting to drop ‘woke,’” said Scott Shepard, director at the National Center for Public Policy Research. “I don’t think this is the end of woke, I don’t even think it’s the beginning of the end, but to borrow from Mr. Churchill, I do think it might be the end of the beginning.”

SpaceX, Elon Musk’s space exploration company, joined the chorus on June 16. After several employees publicized a letter denouncing Musk’s campaign to acquire Twitter and steer the social media platform away from censorship, SpaceX responded by firing them.

The employees publicly criticized Musk’s efforts as “a frequent source of distraction and embarrassment” for SpaceX. After firing those responsible, SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell emailed employees that the efforts against Musk’s Twitter acquisition “made employees feel uncomfortable, intimidated and bullied, and/or angry because the letter pressured them to sign onto something that did not reflect their views. We have too much critical work to accomplish and no need for this kind of overreaching activism.”

The Athletic, a sports news website owned by The New York Times, told its staff this week to stick to sports and drop the political activism.

“We don’t want to stop people from having a voice and expressing themselves,” Paul Fichtenbaum, the publication’s chief content officer, said in a directive. “We just need to keep it from tipping over into the political space.”

Some employees disagreed. A staffer quickly responded in protest. “What about Black Lives Matter? Is that a social cause? Who will write about athlete protests? What about trans athletes in sports?”

Political activism can take a toll on companies, both internally and externally. Walt Disney Co. has proven to be a cautionary tale for corporate leaders. In March, CEO Bob Chapek bowed to activist employees and announced that the family entertainment company would fight to support sex education for children in elementary school, while company executives revealed the intention to add LGBT content to kids’ movies and shows.

That action sparked a backlash from conservative employees and led to parents canceling subscriptions and theme park visits.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis responded to Disney’s harsh criticism of a state law banning sex-ed in kindergarten through third grade by revoking the tax-advantaged status of the company’s theme park in Orlando. Meanwhile, shareholders watched with alarm as Disney stock fell from $130 per share in March to about $94 currently, a 28 percent drop that’s well in excess of the 18 percent decline in the S&P 500 over the same period.

Citibank’s pro-abortion and anti-gun advocacy also drew the attention of state lawmakers. Texas passed legislation in June 2021 that barred banks that discriminate against fossil fuel companies or gun makers from underwriting state bonds. And Texas state Rep. Briscoe Cain threatened Citibank with similar treatment in March over its policy of paying travel expenses for employees who go out of state to circumvent Texas’s anti-abortion laws. Texas is the second-largest issuer of municipal bonds in the United States. Other states such as West Virginia have passed similar laws.

In response to employee protests over controversial programs, such as comedian Dave Chappelle’s stand-up comedy show “The Closer,” Netflix told employees in May that it would no longer tolerate efforts to censor content that staff find objectionable.

“We support the artistic expression of the creators we choose to work with; we program for a diversity of audiences and tastes; and we let viewers decide what’s appropriate for them, versus having Netflix censor specific artists or voices,” the company stated. “If you’d find it hard to support our content breadth, Netflix may not be the best place for you.”

Netflix took that action after it lost 200,000 subscribers in the first quarter of this year and projected that it would lose 2 million more in the second quarter.

“It turns out that alienating the majority of your customer base is terrible for business,” Shepard said. “You can sort of get away with that when the market is reaching new highs and interest rates are nothing, so you can borrow and make up for the lack of profits.”

But in today’s environment, with markets tumbling, interest rates rising, and a potential recession looming, “suddenly the luxury of alienating your customer base doesn’t exist anymore.”

In addition to efforts at SpaceX to refocus employees toward company business, Musk is also working to revamp his target acquisition, Twitter, into a more inclusive platform. Last week, he communicated to employees that the platform must be open to all political points of view and that conversations that represent legal free speech, however offensive, should be permitted on Twitter. He’s expected, if the sale of the company goes through, to fire many of the progressive pro-censorship executives.

Many organizations, even the most progressive ones, are finding that taking up divisive racial and gender agendas is causing employees to turn on each other. Politico reported in November 2020 that “following a botched diversity meeting, a highly critical employee survey, and the resignations of two top diversity and inclusion officials, the 600,000-member National Audubon Society is confronting allegations that it maintains a culture of retaliation, fear, and antagonism toward women and people of color, according to interviews with 13 current and former staff members.”

Left-wing internet publication The Intercept lamented that the election of resident Joe Biden was supposed to mark the start of a golden era for the progressive moment. Instead, “Planned Parenthood, NARAL Pro-Choice America, and other reproductive health organizations had been locked in knock-down, drag-out fights between competing factions of their organizations … It’s also true of the progressive advocacy space across the board, which has, more or less, effectively ceased to function.”

The Washington Post fired reporter Felicia Sonmez in early June for incessant public attacks on a fellow staff writer and on the paper itself, accusing them of racism and sexism. In response to Sonmez’s critical tweets, Executive Editor Sally Buzbee initially issued an advisory to all staff that “we do not tolerate colleagues attacking colleagues either face to face or online.”

When that failed to rein in Sonmez, the Post fired her for “insubordination, maligning your coworkers online and violating the Post’s standards on workplace collegiality and inclusivity.”

Companies are learning that they are often hurting their own brands and losing customers by taking up highly controversial political positions. And like Chapek, many CEOs are finding themselves unprepared for the harsh world of social-justice politics.

The executives of Coca-Cola, Delta Air Lines, Microsoft, Levi’s, and Major League Baseball chose to protest voter ID laws in Georgia, with MLB even removing its All-Star game from Atlanta. Delta CEO Ed Bastian first supported the law, then turned against it in response to left-wing threats to boycott the airline.

But few companies followed Disney into the fight over child sex education, and so far, few companies have waded into the abortion debate, despite indications that the Supreme Court could decide to overturn Roe v. Wade, sending decisions on abortion law back to state legislatures.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/ceos-start-to-push-back-against-woke-employee-bullying_4545883.html?utm_source=News&utm_campaign=breaking-2022-06-21-1&utm_medium=email&est=xguET43BDajtt3XB1NkEJYLlu6Z3uZ57CowCtKs%2BAsdhMxv62pDcrEJTfYIRIfPnyg%3D%3D

Congressional Democrats wrote to Google’s parent company on Friday to pressure the search engine to suppress results that offer alternatives to abortion.

Sen. Mark Warner (D., Va.), Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D., Mich.), and 19 other lawmakers wrote urging Google to “limit the appearance” or add “user friendly disclaimers” of pro-life clinics in search results. The Democrats said they want to “ensure women seeking health care services are directed to the basic information they request.”

Animosity toward pro-life pregnancy centers and offices has increased since a draft opinion of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health decision was leaked in May, showing a plan to overturn the original 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling. Dozens of crisis pregnancy centers have been vandalized since the leak. Many of these attacks have not been federally investigated, as the Justice Department official responsible has refused to intervene.

The Democrats’ letter cites a report from the Center for Countering Digital Hate, a nonprofit that has advocated for big tech censorship in the United Kingdom. Lobbyists who have worked for CCDH have also lobbied for Microsoft and green energy companies. The study logged Google search results for “abortion clinic near me” and “abortion pill” in states with abortion trigger laws. 

Researchers recorded search results that qualify as “anti-abortion fake clinics.” Planned Parenthood defines “fake clinics” as “clinics or mobile vans that look like real health centers, but they have a shady, harmful agenda: to scare, shame, or pressure you out of getting an abortion … their goal is to spread misinformation and propaganda.”

The research found that 11 percent of search results and 37 percent of Google Maps results led to so-called fake clinics which, according to Planned Parenthood, may offer “free pregnancy tests, abortion counseling, pre-abortion screenings, abortion education, post-abortion care, or after-abortion help.”

The lawmakers said CCDH’s findings “undermines the integrity of Google’s search results,” adding, “if Google must continue showing these misleading results in search results and Google Maps, the results should, at the very least, be appropriately labeled.”

https://freebeacon.com/democrats/democrats-seek-to-suppress-pro-life-google-search-results/

Ohio Democrat takes page from GOP firebrand Lauren Boebert in attempt to distance himself from party

What do you do when running for office as a Democrat in resident Joe Biden’s America? Talk like a Republican—at least if you’re one Ohio Senate candidate.

From praising former president Donald Trump on trade to sounding the alarm about the southern border, Rep. Tim Ryan (D., Ohio) is trying his hardest to avoid being lumped in with the rest of the Democratic Party. Earlier this month, Ryan proposed a House resolution that would designate fentanyl a “weapon of mass destruction.” That resolution appears to be lifted from a bill proposed the day before by one of the most right-wing members of the House, Republican congresswoman Lauren Boebert (Colo.), who also called fentanyl “a weapon of mass destruction that is destroying our nation.”

Ryan, who will face against Republican nominee J.D. Vance in November, is considered a long shot by political analysts. Trump won Ohio by more than 8 points in 2020 and the seat Ryan is running for is occupied by a Republican, the retiring Sen. Rob Portman.

His strategy highlights the difficulty for Democratic candidates trying to pitch themselves as moderates in the current political environment. Biden is the most unpopular president at this point in his term in almost a century, according to the polling aggregator FiveThirtyEight, a fact largely driven by skyrocketing inflation. For Ryan, executing this strategy could prove difficult: FiveThirtyEight also found that Ryan votes in line with Biden’s position 100 percent of the time. 

“Any Democrat running this November is gonna have a tough time running with Biden as president,” said Democratic political consultant Dick Harpootlian, a longtime friend of Biden, when asked about Ryan’s conservative messaging. “Biden is beset by huge issues and problems that are not playing well in America right now. I mean, we saw it in 1994 after [former president Bill] Clinton did well in 1992.”  

At campaign stops around Ohio, Ryan seeks to distance himself from the Democratic Party by offering a moderate and pragmatic message. In May, Ryan was conspicuously absent from a Cincinnati event where Biden spoke about the necessity of passing a domestic manufacturing bill. The White House later said Biden and Ryan were “in close touch.”

“We’ve got to get away from the Democrat-Republican thing, all these stupid fights,” Ryan said at a campaign event last month. “And we can only do that by being Americans first. China and Russia, they want us to keep fighting with each other. And to me, it’s playing right into their hands.” 

Ryan’s rebrand attempt began in April when he released an ad claiming he has spent his entire political life “sounding the alarm on China” and voting “against bad trade deals.” That ad backfired after left-wing Democrats accused him of xenophobia against Chinese Americans. 

Following the Biden administration’s announcement that it would end Title 42 restrictions on the southern border—a federal power first used by Trump that gives law enforcement the ability to rapidly deport migrants—Ryan called the decision “wrong and reckless,” breaking with top Democrats such as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.).

“Prematurely ending this policy without a path forward does nothing to keep Americans safe, support our Border Patrol agents, protect asylum-seekers, or bring about the comprehensive fix our immigration system needs,” Ryan said at the time. He has also called a “strong border” a “basic American value,” a stark contrast to his rhetoric in 2018 when he said Trump’s “zero-tolerance immigration policy” showed he didn’t have an “ounce of humanity.”

His change of heart could be a product of problems on the minds of Ohio voters. As one of the states hardest hit by the opioid crisis, many voters in Ohio blame the Biden administration’s lax border policies for the influx of fentanyl there. Ryan’s rhetoric on the issues, however, hasn’t been followed by action in the House. Although Ryan introduced a fentanyl resolution nearly identical to Boebert’s Republican proposal, for example, he has yet to cosponsor her bill—a move that would increase its likelihood of passing.

Ryan’s office did not respond to a request for comment asking whether he plans on cosponsoring the Republican bill.

Shortly after Vance clinched the Ohio Republican Senate nomination in May, Ryan offered praise for Trump—who endorsed Vance in the Republican primary.

“I agreed with Trump on trade,” Ryan says in an ad that debuted earlier this month. “I voted against outsourcing every single time. We’ve gotta get tough on China. Let’s make things in Ohio again.”

Ryan sent a letter on June 10 to Biden demanding the White House not lift any tariffs against China, alleging that such a move would “strip the U.S. of leverage in negotiations” and “inundate American companies with a slew of imports they may not be able to withstand.” He implored Biden to “prioritize American workers and American manufacturing companies.” The letter came after reports that Biden was considering lifting many of the tariffs in an effort to lower inflation.

As the midterms approach, Ryan seems to have pivoted on trade issues as well. During the Trump administration, Ryan called the China tariffs just a way for Trump to “look tough.” In an interview with the Washington Post, he called Trump’s actions “abominable and must be revised immediately.”

“[Trump’s tariffs are] designed to inflict maximum damage on the U.S. economy, for minimal gain,” Ryan tweeted in July 2018.

Vance has labeled Ryan an opportunist and dishonest. Ryan has responded by saying he is happy to talk about his past comments on a variety of issues, including trade.

“My record is very, very clear,” Ryan said last week. “We can squabble about some of the details of it, how things are implemented and all the Washington stuff in the details we have to deal with. But my record is very, very clear on this.”

Update, June 21, 11:15 a.m.: This piece was updated with additional information on Ryan’s voting record.

https://freebeacon.com/democrats/tim-ryans-master-plan-for-midterms-run-like-a-republican/

An armed would-be assassin’s alleged attempt on the life of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh last week is part of a wave of violence, arson, vandalism, and intimidation targeting pro-life groups and government officials since the leak last month of a draft Supreme Court opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade.

There have been more than three dozen such incidents directed at crisis pregnancy centers and churches in at least 20 states and Washington, D.C., according to a tally maintained by LifeNews.com, an anti-abortion site.

These include:

• The firebombing of a pro-life pregnancy center in suburban Buffalo on June 7
• An arson attack including Molotov cocktails against the headquarters of the pro-life Wisconsin Family Action center in Madison on May 8
• Graffiti with the threat, “If abortion isn’t safe then you aren’t either,” spray-painted on the walls of centers in Washington state.
• Extensive graffiti spray-painted on small rural evangelical churches in the Deep South, where some of the deacons protested their congregations were apolitical

A loosely organized group known as Jane’s Revenge claimed responsibility for several of the attacks, including the apparent arson in Wisconsin and Buffalo. The group, which sometimes attaches the Antifa “A” symbol to its pronouncements, has called for a “night of rage” over the pending Supreme Court decision, on a website called The Anarchist Library.

Another group, Ruth Sent Us–its name evoking the late liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg–has published the home addresses of conservative Supreme Court justices on Twitter. While not claiming responsibility for the disturbed gunman arrested near Kavanaugh’s house, it informed followers where his children and the children of Justice Amy Coney Barrett attend school.

Federal law expressly prohibits “pickets or parades … in or near a building or residence occupied or used by” any judge, and the House passed a bill this week to expand Supreme Court Police protection to justices’ families.

The rash of incidents and intimidating behavior is domestic terrorism, said Jim Harden, executive director of CompassCare, a nonprofit that operates the Buffalo pregnancy clinic and two others in upstate New York. Harden and his family relocated Sunday after social media accounts began seeking his home address.

“This is new,” he said. “It was the leak that really sparked this kind of activity.”

CompassCare also described the campaign against it as “abortion terrorism”–expressing heightened fears in a place where a white supremacist terrorist had murdered 10 people just weeks before. FBI agents visited the Buffalo clinic in response to the firebombing, but the organization has heard nothing since from federal authorities. Harden expressed skepticism that they–in contrast with local police–have taken the incident seriously.

“It’s been eerily silent,” Harden said.

In response to the May 2 leak of the draft opinion overturning Roe, which in 1973 legalized abortion nationally, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul earmarked $35 million in protection funds–but it was to safeguard abortion clinics, which have not been targets of attacks lately.

The Justice Department did not respond to questions from RealClearInvestigations about whether it has classified the multiple incidents as domestic terrorism or assigned a team to an investigation. Jane’s Revenge has claimed responsibility for the arson and vandalism attack on the Madison office of the Wisconsin Family Action center. Madison police also did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

There have been no arrests made in connection with any of the incidents, which began after Politico published the leaked draft opinion by conservative Justice Samuel Alito declaring that “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start.”

Harden compared the law enforcement response to the CompassCare attacks to the silence surrounding the person who may have leaked the draft opinion.

“There doesn’t appear to be anything going on in either case,” Harden said.

Chief Justice John Roberts said he had ordered an internal investigation that might identify the leaker, who presumably comes from a very small circle of people who would have had access to draft opinions.

Agreeing with Harden was Rebecca Anderson of 40 Days for Life, an anti-abortion group headquartered in Texas that has worked with an organization also targeted by Jane’s Revenge vandals: a Lynnwood, Washington, crisis pregnancy center called NextStep.

“I don’t think these acts of violence are being taken seriously as elected officials aren’t publicly condemning them,” she said. “The lack of response from the Justice Department leads one to believe that they pick and choose what qualifies as domestic terrorism based on politics. Our concern is that this will embolden abortion supporters to commit more violence against those who support life.”

In contrast, several anti-abortion figures told RealClearInvestigations, local police have been exemplary in their response and attitude.

“The police came immediately, and the DC Metro Police have been outstanding,” said Janet Durig, executive director of the Capital Pregnancy Center, which saw its front door splashed with red paint and the threatening graffiti tag left by Jane’s Revenge vandals, “If abortion isn’t safe then you aren’t either.”

“The local authorities are taking this very seriously and are investigating,” Harden said. “We had cameras trained at all the points of entry so there is videotape evidence.” Still, there has been no indication that local authorities have made any progress in their investigations.

The available evidence may be thin. Cameras did capture the vandals at NextStep in Lynnwood, Washington, but the assailant was bundled up like an Antifa extremist and nearly impossible to identify, according to NextStep Executive Director Heather Vasquez. “You could tell it was a woman,” she said.

The attacks on pro-life centers don’t square with an emphasis in major news outlets on the potential for attacks on abortion providers, which do not appear to have proliferated in the past several weeks.

“Abortion clinics are secured like fortresses,” a USA Today headline blared a week after the Politico story. “Advocates fear Roe ruling could spur new attacks.”

Reports about the spate of incidents involving anti-abortion centers by both CNN and the Washington Post have stressed that violence occurs on “both sides” of the abortion debate.

Planned Parenthood said late Tuesday that “we condemn violence and hatred in all forms” in a statement to RCI that emphasized “acts of violence, vandalism, and intimidation from anti-abortion activists and politicians” aimed at the organization’s “health center staff and patients.”

The pro-choice National Abortion Federation claimed in a 2020 report that abortion providers receive hundreds of death threats and thousands of “hate emails” and harassing phone calls each year. There has been one deadly incident at an abortion clinic since 2010–the 2015 attack on a Planned Parenthood facility in Colorado Springs that left three dead.

The anti-abortion movement does not have an equivalent database regarding threats received by pregnancy centers and religious organizations. In 2012, a left-wing activist entered the Family Research Council’s Washington, D.C. headquarters and shot and wounded a security guard.

While violence and intimidation have long characterized the abortion debate, Jane’s Revenge has promised to escalate the conflict. In its self-titled “First Communique” published after the Wisconsin attack, it declared:

“We have run thin on patience and mercy for those who seek to strip us of what little autonomy we have left. As you continue to bomb clinics and assassinate doctors with impunity, so too shall we adopt increasingly extreme tactics to maintain freedom over our own bodies. We are forced to adopt the minimum military requirement for a political struggle. Again, this was only a warning. Next time the infrastructure of the enslavers will not survive. Medical imperialism will not face a passive enemy. Wisconsin is the first flashpoint, but we are all over the US, and we will issue no further warnings.”

This article was written by  James Varney for RealClearInvestigations.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/beyond-the-kavanaugh-scare-dozens-of-incidents-targeting-pro-lifers-nationwide_4542422.html?utm_source=Morningbrief&utm_campaign=mb-2022-06-19&utm_medium=email&est=k%2Ba0jxuTYeeDfS9qRpoUDTlvXeIcMlGaBqGOtaosNg9Q5Y0Xfl3khupqquh2FwOqSw%3D%3D

The Supreme Court of Iowa on June 17 overturned a four-year-old decision it made holding that the Iowa Constitution guarantees the right to abortion, and determined the state constitution does not in fact provide any such guarantee.

The move allows the Republican-controlled Iowa General Assembly to move forward with plans to restrict, or possibly prohibit, abortions in the state.

The state court ruling came as Americans await the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which a leaked drafted majority opinion suggests will overturn Roe v. Wade, the seminal 1973 precedent that federalized abortion policy, overriding the states and making the procedure lawful throughout the entire United States. The landmark 7-2 decision held that a woman’s right to an abortion was safeguarded by her right to privacy under the Fourteenth Amendment.

The ruling also came a month after both chambers of the Iowa General Assembly passed a proposed amendment to the Iowa Constitution stating that “this Constitution does not recognize, grant, or secure a right to abortion or require the public funding of abortion,” as The Epoch Times reported. To take effect, the amendment must be agreed to by two successive General Assemblies and ratified by a majority of Iowa voters.

If Roe v. Wade is overturned, Iowa lawmakers would presumably not have to continue pursuing an anti-abortion amendment to the Iowa Constitution in order to roll back protections for the procedure.

In Planned Parenthood of the Heartland v. Reynolds, court file 21-0856, the abortion rights group and abortion provider challenged the constitutionality of a law mandating a 24-hour waiting period in the state for an abortion. In a 182-page opinion (pdf), the Supreme Court of Iowa held the state’s constitution “is not the source of a fundamental right to an abortion.”

The court reversed a district court’s grant of summary judgment to Planned Parenthood and remanded the waiting period case to that court “for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.”

In a 2018 ruling, the Supreme Court of Iowa found that abortion was protected by the state constitution. The court ruled at the time that “autonomy and dominion over one’s body go to the very heart of what it means to be free.”

But in its new decision, the Iowa court held that its 2018 ruling “insufficiently recognizes that future human lives are at stake.”

“Although we overrule PPH2 [i.e. the 2018 decision], and thus reject the proposition that there is a fundamental right to an abortion in Iowa’s Constitution subjecting abortion regulation to strict scrutiny, we do not at this time decide what constitutional standard should replace it,” added Justice Edward Mansfield, author of the new majority opinion.

The composition of the state’s high court has changed in the four years since GOP Gov. Kim Reynolds, an outspoken pro-life advocate, took office. Reynolds has appointed four justices, which means that six of the seven members of the court have been named to it by Republican governors.

Reynolds issued a statement praising the new ruling.

“Today’s ruling is a significant victory in our fight to protect the unborn,” she said.

“The Iowa Supreme Court reversed its earlier 2018 decision, which made Iowa the most abortion-friendly state in the country. Every life is sacred and should be protected, and as long as I’m governor that is exactly what I will do.”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/reversing-2018-ruling-iowa-supreme-court-finds-state-constitution-does-not-protect-abortion-rights_4540675.html?utm_source=Morningbrief&utm_campaign=mb-2022-06-18&utm_medium=email&est=t69L2oDhnP1leNdS%2BJcMCj5h81%2BaS0rmPhgH2dtazze4Lv%2B2ma4VFC5cjKR6DaBijg%3D%3D

The Justice Department official who investigates attacks on reproductive health care facilities has been a staunch critic of pro-life crisis pregnancy centers, dozens of which have been vandalized by abortion supporters over the past month. 

Civil rights division chief Kristen Clarke criticized the centers following a Supreme Court decision issued in their favor in 2018. Clarke said the centers, which counsel pregnant women on alternatives to abortion, were “harmful” and “predatory” against women of color. She also referred to them with the hashtag, “ExposeFakeClinics.” 

Clarke’s stance on the centers offers a potential explanation for the Justice Department’s refusal to investigate a string of attacks on pro-life centers since the May 2 leak of a draft Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) asked Attorney General Merrick Garland last week to investigate the incidents as acts of domestic terrorism. Garland has yet to open an investigation, even though he said on Sept. 6 he would investigate crimes against “reproductive health center[s]” under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE Act). 

Clarke oversees investigations of potential FACE Act violations. She charged nine people under the statute in March for blocking the entrance to a Washington, D.C., abortion provider. 

The attacks on crisis pregnancy centers, churches, and other pro-life organizations have run rampant since the leak of the Roe v. Wade draft opinion last month. Twenty-four crisis centers have been vandalized or set on fire since the leak, according to a group that tracks the incidents. In the latest assaults, a facility in Buffalo was firebombed on June 7. A center in Gresham, Ore., was hit with an “incendiary device” over the weekend. 

The attacks are part of a broad intimidation campaign by left-wing activists upset that Roe may be overturned. Activists have protested outside the homes of conservative justices. A radical left-wing group hatched plans to shut down the Supreme Court using tactics that “stretch the bounds of constitutionally protected speech.” One abortion supporter attempted to assassinate Justice Brett Kavanaugh last week. 

Clarke showed her opposition to crisis pregnancy centers following a Supreme Court ruling in June 2018 that struck down a California requirement that the centers inform patients about state abortion services. 

“The anti-choice movement will stop at nothing,” wrote Clarke, using left-wing activist jargon to refer to pro-life groups. She added the hashtags, “#EndTheLies” and “#ExposeFakeClinics.”

Clarke also said the centers prey on women of color. She said the Supreme Court decision would have “harmful consequences for women, especially women of color who are often targeted by predatory [crisis pregnancy centers].” 

The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, a civil rights group Clarke led at the time, alleged that crisis pregnancy centers “target some of the most vulnerable women in communities today.” 

Asked about Clarke’s tweets, Rubio said she should be disqualified from overseeing any eventual investigation into the crisis pregnancy center attacks. 

“Kristen Clarke never should have been confirmed,” Rubio told the Washington Free Beacon. “Her disdain toward the very people now under threat was predictable and it should be disqualifying. Attorney General Garland should make clear that Clarke will have no involvement in any of these cases as those move forward.” 

The Justice Department did not respond to requests for comment about Clarke or whether the agency is considering investigations into the attacks. 

Clarke has a long history of making controversial statements about issues she now oversees as civil rights chief. She wrote in support of the movement to defund the police in 2020 but denied to Republicans during her confirmation hearing that she wanted to defund police departments. In 2019, Clarke criticized the Chicago police department for requesting access to the cell phone of Jussie Smollett, the actor found to have staged a hoax in which he falsely claimed Trump supporters attacked him because he is black and gay. Clarke has criticized conservative Supreme Court judges, many of whom are now the target of left-wing radical protesters. She claimed that Kavanaugh’s presence on the bench would be “dangerous.” She called him a “man who harbors such bias, rage, fury and is so easily unhinged.”

https://freebeacon.com/biden-administration/pro-life-facilities-are-under-attack-a-top-doj-official-called-them-fake-clinics/

Even as a man was arrested in an apparent murder attempt of Justice Brett Kavanaugh earlier this month, the extreme left-wing group named after the late liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg – Ruth Sent Us – is inciting its far-left followers to launch angry, and illegal, protests at the church and home of Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett.

The pro-abortion group also appears to be pushing its followers to target her children at school.

As I wrote earlier, far-left Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) bragged about blocking a bill to provide the Justices and their families 24-hour protection the day after the murder attempt against Kavanaugh.

The radical group posted the addresses of conservative-leaning Supreme Court justices on the internet in May (doxxed them) likely helping the California man who allegedly wanted to assassinate Justice Kavanaugh find his home in Maryland.

On the same day as the attempted murder, Ruth Sent Us posted a picture of a billboard outside of the school where Kavanaugh’s daughters attend.

“A special message for Ashley Kavanaugh and your daughters — this billboard was on your school grounds. We feel for you,” the far-left group said.

Meanwhile, Ruth Sent Us, who organized illegal protests in May against what they describe as the “six extremist justices,” called for more protests against Justice Barrett. The radical group highlighted Barrett’s daily schedule and her children’s school.

“If you’re in the DC metro area, join us,” the group Tweeted last Tuesday. “Our protests at Barrett’s home moved the needle to this coverage.”

“Falls Church is a People of Praise stronghold,” Ruth Sent Us stated. “She sends her seven kids to a People of Praise school that she sat on the Board of Directors for. She attends church DAILY.”

The tweet included photos of Barrett with the name of the church she regularly attends, and incited protesters to “voice your anger” by demonstrating at the place of worship.

https://www.americanliberty.news/government/far-left-group-threatens-another-scotus-justice/pcrespo/2022/06/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ae01&seyid=6415

Resident Joe Biden is considering issuing executive orders to blunt the effect of an upcoming Supreme Court ruling that may overturn Roe v. Wade.

Biden’s comments came during a taping of ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” on June 8. Kimmel, a comedian and left-wing activist who is an outspoken supporter of Obamacare, gave the president a softball interview that was punctuated with applause by the studio audience.

The face-to-face conversation was reportedly Biden’s first major media appearance since 118 days before, when he sat down with NBC’s Lester Holt on Feb. 10 before the Super Bowl.

The TV spot came five weeks after a leaked draft majority opinion indicated the Supreme Court was poised to reverse Roe v. Wade, the seminal 1973 precedent that federalized abortion policy, overriding the states and making the procedure lawful throughout the entire United States. The draft opinion was from a pending case from Mississippi: Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.

Biden told Kimmel that if the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, “I think we have to legislate it. We have to make sure we pass legislation making it a law that is the federal government says, ‘This is how it works.’”

The abortion ruling is “just going to be the beginning,” Biden said, adding that the Supreme Court would then outlaw the use of contraception “because in the Constitution there was no right to privacy.”

“It’s just ridiculous in my view, and I don’t think the country will stand for it, but I think what we’re going to have to do, there’s some executive orders I could employ, we believe, we’re looking at that right now,” Biden said, without elaborating.

If Roe v. Wade is reversed “and these states impose the limitations they’re talking about, it’s going to cause a mini-revolution and they’re going to vote a lot of these folks out of office,” he said.

“We’ve got to keep it focused on–if they overrule Roe v. Wade and the state of California won’t do it, but other states say that you cannot do the following, and so as a law you can’t cross the border, you can’t–all the things that some states have, then you’ve got to make sure that you vote, you got to vote and let people know exactly what the devil you think and change it.”

Biden’s interview also came the same day a suspect was arrested for plotting to kill Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who, according to the leaked draft opinion, supports overturning Roe v. Wade, and a day after 25 Democratic U.S. senators wrote a letter (pdf) urging the president to “immediately issue an executive order directing the federal government to develop a national plan to defend Americans’ fundamental reproductive rights, including their right to an abortion.”

“The dramatic escalation of attacks on abortion access—spearheaded by right-wing justices, lawmakers, and activists—demands comprehensive and creative strategies from every corner of the federal government,” the letter states.

The senators encouraged Biden to increase access to medication-based abortions, use federal resources to increase access to abortions, provide resources for individuals seeking abortions in other states, and clarify protections for sensitive health data.

Among those signing the letter were Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Dianne Feinstein of California, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Ron Wyden of Oregon, and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats.

The Supreme Court is scheduled to release opinions in pending cases on June 13 and 15. It’s unclear which opinions will be made public. Activists are planning to blockade the Supreme Court building on June 13 in hopes of preventing the court from functioning, as The Epoch Times has reported.

THE ATTACKS ON THE SUPREME COURT BY THE EXTREME LEFT PICKS UP PACE.

Joe Biden’s White House intentionally fanned the flames of the violent, irate political left after the recent Democrat leak of a Supreme Court opinion, as well as the latest Uvalde school shooting. The result has been an attempt on the life of a Supreme Court Justice.

In amongst the political fracas, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is said to be holding up a Senate bill which would grant more security for Supreme Court justices. The U.S. Senate fast tracked the new security plans after Democrat extremists leaked an expected Roe v. Wade opinion from the court in May, but Pelosi has thus far refused to bring the legislation up for a vote in the House, stalling more security for Supreme Court justices.

Would-be assassin Nicholas John Roske is believed to have been radicalized by far-left reactions to the abortion issue, as well as the shooting in Uvalde. The aspiring gunman is said to have had a Glock 17 handgun, a knife, pepper spray, zip ties, a nail punch, a crow bar and a hammer, and said he found Kavanaugh’s address on the internet.

And while resident Biden himself has failed to condemn the attempted attack, a White House spokesman tepidly said that “any violence, threats of violence, or attempts to intimidate justices have no place in our society.”

But the left’s rhetoric on the run up to the latest incident is indicative of the political climate they seek to create around their “core” issues of abortion and gun control in the run up to the mid term elections.

GOP operatives point out a timeline of events that show no remorse or attempt to cool the heated rhetoric around the time Roske was being radicalized by their behavior:

• May 5: Press Secretary Jen Psaki refused to condemn activists posting the justices’ home addresses online.
• May 6: Psaki refused to say if Biden “has a view” on activists harassing justices at their homes.
• May 6: Nancy Pelosi called on protesters to actively pressure justices to influence their decisions.
• May 8: Pelosi said “the focus” is to influence and change the Supreme Court’s forthcoming decision on Roe v. Wade.
  May 9: Psaki refused to condemn protests at justices’ homes even though it is against the law.
• Psaki also refused to condemn the doxing of justices’ personal information even as threats of violence grew.

MUST READ: COMPROMISED: MSNBC Guest and Ex-Obama Advisor Calling for an End to Trump’s China Tariffs Actually Headlined a Chinese Communist Party Event.

• May 10: Psaki downplayed the harassment, claiming protests “have been peaceful to date and we certainly continue to encourage that outside of judges’ homes.”
• May 11: Chuck Schumer answered “yes” when asked if he was “comfortable with protests…outside the homes of Supreme Court justices.”

“It’s past time for Biden and Democrats to condemn this violence,” said a GOP spokesman in an e-mail Wednesday.

The incident follows a number of high-profile Democrat extremists attacking political figures, including the Washington, D.C. attack on reporter Jack Posobiec, as well as the Bernie Sanders-supporting gunman who attempted to assassinate Republican legislators en masse at a baseball practice in 2017.

The Senate’s top Democrat is under pressure to retract his remarks promising Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh would “pay the price” after a man was arrested near Kavanaugh’s home with a gun.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in March 2020 that Kavanaugh and Justice Neil Gorsuch, both Trump appointees, “have released the whirlwind and you will pay the price.”

“You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions,” Schumer added, speaking to a crowd outside the Supreme Court building in Washington.

After Nicholas John Roske of California was arrested near Kavanaugh’s home on June 8, with authorities saying Roske outlined plans to break into the home and murder the justice, some of Schumer’s colleagues called for him to speak up.

“That is the majority leader of the supposed foremost deliberative body,” Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) told the Washington Examiner. “I think that Chuck Schumer has an obligation to denounce this.”

Others pinned some of the responsibility on Schumer.

“That man was there, as he stated, apparently, to murder Justice Kavanaugh,” Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) said on Fox News. “And I believe Chuck Schumer bears some responsibility because he has contributed to this atmosphere of directly attacking members by name of the Supreme Court.”

In a social media statement, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) brought up Schumer’s past remarks and linked them to Roske’s arrest.

“Leaders must weigh their words more carefully esp[ecially] when they might incite violence,” Grassley said.

Schumer did not address the arrest of Roske on the Senate floor on Wednesday or Thursday, nor has he issued a statement about the threat.

A spokesperson for the New Yorker did not respond to a request for comment.

Schumer’s office pointed the Examiner to a statement Schumer made in 2020 in which he said, “I shouldn’t have used the words I did, but in no way was I making a threat.” He also accused Republicans of “manufacturing outrage.”

The comments at the time drew a rare response from Chief Justice John Roberts, a George W. Bush appointee.

“Justices know that criticism comes with the territory, but threatening statements of this sort from the highest levels of government are not only inappropriate, they are dangerous,” Roberts said in a statement. “All Members of the Court will continue to do their job, without fear or favor, from whatever quarter.”

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and the majority whip, noted Roske’s arrest while speaking on the floor Wednesday.

“We have to stand united—Democrats, Republicans, independents, left and right—and condemn violence wherever its source, right or left,” Durbin said.

The White House also condemned Roske’s actions.

According to court documents, Roske told officers after he was arrested that he was moved to act because of a Supreme Court draft decision that was published online that indicated the court is poised to strike down Roe v. Wade, which concluded there is a constitutional right to abortion. Kavanaugh reportedly signed onto the decision, a finalized version of which has not yet been released. Roske also suggested he feared Kavanaugh would rule against gun control efforts.

In a federal court in Maryland, Roske said that he was on medication. “I wouldn’t say I’m thinking clearly,” he said.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/schumer-under-pressure-to-address-past-comments-after-man-tried-killing-kavanaugh_4522394.html?utm_source=News&utm_campaign=breaking-2022-06-09-2&utm_medium=email&est=yn80AaTEGciZhxcbHfKL3g%2B0dZq%2BoG6Dd4mGSZ9obU3VErglcwQZn7NbL4qD7oGQvQ%3D%3D

An armed man was arrested near Supreme Court justice Brett Kavanaugh’s home early Wednesday morning, and confessed to plans to assassinate the justice.

The gunman is 26-year-old Nicholas Roske, according to court filings unsealed on Wednesday. The defendant told authorities he planned to kill the justice and then himself, citing the leak of a draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade and a pending Second Amendment decision as his motivation. The arrest follows a warning issued by the Department of Homeland Security last month that noted the potential increased threat of violence to justices, clerks, and clergy, which could heighten after the official ruling. The would-be assassin was taken into custody with a knife, pepper spray, and a gun, according to an NBC News report.

The breach near Kavanaugh’s home is the latest threat to the Court. The Washington Free Beacon reported in May that a radical leftwing group, ShutdownDC, is crafting plans to obstruct three critical points on Capitol Hill to block access to the Court building altogether on June 13. At a briefing the Free Beacon attended, one organizer said the group’s goal is to “expand the current political crisis.” A New York Times opinion writer in May had also urged pro-abortion activists to escalate protests targeting Kavanaugh.

Roske was spotted by marshals protecting the Kavanaugh home when he climbed out of a cab carrying a backpack and a suitcase, according to Wednesday’s filing. He spotted the marshals, then backed away from the property. Shortly thereafter, Roske called 911 and confessed to suicidal ideation and his assassination plot. Authorities immediately took him into custody.

The gunman was well outfitted for his deadly purpose. Roske was carrying a Glock 17 handgun with two magazines, a pistol flashlight, pepper spray, zip ties, duct tape, and burglary tools like a crowbar and a nail punch. He wore padded hiking boots.

The Senate passed a bipartisan measure beefing up Court security in May, after leftwing groups began picketing the justices’ homes. The bill is languishing in the House, where Democrats have shown no urgency about the issue. A senior GOP congressional aide told the Free Beacon that Democrats hope the protests will energize their base ahead of the midterms and “have every intention of riding it out as long as they can.”

Some House Democrats are pushing a poison pill provision that would extend security to law clerks or other Court staff. A Senate aide told the Free Beacon that measure is dead on arrival in the Senate.

The foiled attack comes as leftwing violence to pro-life advocates is on the rise. Abortion activists on Tuesday firebombed a pro-life pregnancy center in Buffalo, N.Y., the second attack of its kind since the leaked Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health opinion. From Washington, D.C., to Washington State, other pro-abortion activists have vandalized houses of worship and other pro-life pregnancy centers.

The Post said Kavanaugh’s would-be killer, who was found with burglary tools in his possession, was equally mad about a string of mass shootings over the past few weeks.

Roske has been charged with one count of attempting to kidnap or murder a Supreme Court justice. He is being tried at a federal court in Greenbelt, Md.

Kevin Daley contributed to this report.

Update 4:36 p.m.: This piece has been updated with information on the would-be assassin from unsealed court records.

https://freebeacon.com/courts/would-be-assassin-arrested-outside-kavanaughs-home/

Washington police say they’re aware of proposed protests near the Supreme Court and will plan accordingly.

Protest organizing group Shut Down D.C. has said that it will blockade the court on June 13 in response to a leaked Supreme Court draft opinion that suggests the justices might overturn Roe v. Wade.

In Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court ruled that abortion was a constitutional right and that legislators could only regulate it to a limited extent. But the Supreme Court’s leaked Dobbs v. Jackson draft decision would put decisions on abortion into the hands of state and national legislators.

In response to this decision, several activist groups plan to block all three vehicle entrances to the Supreme Court on June 13. During an online meeting by the activists, it was suggested that protesters will likely sit in front of the court’s entrances, but it remains to be seen whether protesters will settle on this method.

June 13 is the first Monday after one of the court’s three remaining conference days. It’s likely that the court will release decisions then, but no one knows for certain when the Dobbs v. Jackson decision will go public.

The Supreme Court traditionally ends its term on July 1, but it might go longer.

Washington’s Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) told The Epoch Times that it knew of the planned protest.

“We are aware of upcoming demonstrations in this area,” MPD Public Affairs Specialist Alaina Gertz said in an email.

“As with any demonstration, MPD will be monitoring and assessing the activities and planning accordingly with our federal law enforcement partners to ensure the safety of all residents and visitors to the District of Columbia,” Gertz wrote.

The Epoch Times also reached out to the U.S. Supreme Court Police, the House Committee on the Judiciary, and the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, but these institutions didn’t respond by press time.

In an online planning meeting on May 24, activists with Shut Down D.C. said the protest might result in arrests because it would “stretch the bounds of constitutionally protected speech.”

Protesters also said one of the protest’s goals was to “continue to escalate the crisis in democracy” by forcing police to intervene.

Shut Down D.C. has also planned a legal protest in front of the Supreme Court scheduled for the same day.

The Supreme Court’s decision will likely have an immediate nationwide impact on abortion laws.

About 25 states would ban abortion if given the opportunity, according to an analysis by the Center for Reproductive Rights, a pro-abortion group.

“If the Supreme Court gives states more leeway to restrict abortion or prohibit it all together, almost half the states would likely enact new laws as restrictive as possible or seek to enforce current, unconstitutional laws prohibiting abortion,” the group’s website reads.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/police-will-monitor-abortion-protests-near-the-supreme-court_4518820.html?utm_source=Morningbrief&utm_campaign=mb-2022-06-09&utm_medium=email&est=TISiIBCmsknymNH09cXWYiNl8snTxSG%2Bm4CrdMmXsAJ%2FLkxAYyNQmjtgJLTMhotwIQ%3D%3D

The White House has responded after a man was arrested for allegedly attempting to kill Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh on June 8.

“The president condemns the actions of this individual in the strongest terms and is grateful to law enforcement for quickly taking him into custody,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Air Force One en route to California.

“As the President has consistently made clear, public officials, including judges, must be able to do their jobs without concern for their personal safety or that of their families. And any threats of violence or attempts to intimidate justices have no place in our society,” she added.

Nicholas Roske, 26, of Simi Valley, California, was arrested in the early hours of Wednesday near Kavanaugh’s home in Chevy Chase. Authorities said he had a gun, a knife, and various other items, such as duct tape, and planned to break into Kavanaugh’s house and kill the justice.

Roske said in federal court in Greenbelt during his initial appearance that he “wouldn’t say I’m thinking clearly.” He said he had taken medication prescribed to him by a doctor.

According to charging documents, Roske hatched the plan because he was upset about the recent Supreme Court draft decision that was leaked. The decision indicated the court is poised to overturn Roe v. Wade, giving authority to regulate abortion back to states. Roske also expressed concern that Kavanaugh “would side with Second Amendment decisions that would loosen gun control laws.”

It wasn’t clear whether Kavanaugh, who has a wife and two daughters and was appointed by former President Donald Trump, was home when Roske was arrested.

Before boarding Air Force One in Maryland, Biden didn’t address the arrest. Some lawmakers had called on the president to personally condemn violent threats and actions against justices.

Around the same time, Attorney General Merrick Garland, a Biden appointee, told reporters at the Department of Justice that “this kind of behavior is obviously behavior that we will not tolerate” and that prosecutors would work to hold the man who was arrested accountable.

Federal authorities have neglected thus far to charge the protesters who have gathered outside the homes of Kavanaugh and others since the draft opinion was leaked with crimes, despite legal experts saying they are in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1507, which prohibits picketing or parading near a judge’s residence “with the intent of influencing” the judge.

Protesters are seeking to convince the four justices who reportedly signed onto Justice Samuel Alito’s opinion against Roe v. Wade to shift positions.

Garland did order around-the-clock security for all nine justices’ homes, and two deputy U.S. Marshals were said to have locked eyes with Roske when he arrived outside Kavanaugh’s abode before he walked down the street and called 911 on himself.

Roske was charged with violating a different law, 18 U.S.C. § 115, which bars attempting to kidnap or murder, or threatening to assault, kidnap, or murder federal judges.

Former White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters in May that the White House encouraged peaceful protests outside of judges’ homes, while avoiding questions of the apparent violations of federal law.

On Wednesday, Jean-Pierre said that the Department of Homeland Security is working with partners in the government and private sector “to share timely information and intelligence to prevent all forms of violence and to support law enforcement efforts to keep our communities safe.” She also said that the president supports legislation that would fund increased security for the Supreme Court and the justices. The bill was passed by the Senate in May but remains stalled in the House of Representatives over efforts to extend protection to clerks.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/white-house-responds-after-man-allegedly-tried-killing-supreme-courts-kavanaugh_4521213.html?utm_source=Morningbrief&utm_campaign=mb-2022-06-09&utm_medium=email&est=c%2F6OHpGT3CveKO8uq08K3fkWeuETSHMwAm1l0IvoLDsztFFMAvIgdxU1MBxIioJBnw%3D%3D

Abortion activists firebombed a pro-life pregnancy center outside Buffalo, N.Y., the latest in a series of attacks on pro-life offices and churches since the leak of a draft Supreme Court opinion overturning Roe v. Wade.

The pro-life organization CompassCare reported that early Tuesday morning, activists smashed windows and set fires in the group’s Amherst, N.Y., medical office. The assailants graffitied the phrase “Jane Was Here” on the building, a tagline associated with a group called Jane’s Revenge that has claimed responsibility for attacks on pro-life institutions across the country.

The attack comes as Supreme Court justices and pro-life advocates face heightened threats this month of leftwing violence over the Court’s looming Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health decision. Jane’s Revenge took credit for the firebombing of a pro-life office in Wisconsin last month. And anarchists who vandalized four churches in Washington State claimed association with Jane’s Revenge. The Department of Homeland Security has warned law enforcement about potential violence against justices, clerks, and even clergy members in the wake of the Dobbs ruling. Pro-abortion violence is not the only kind tacitly supported by the left. The Washington Free Beacon reported on Tuesday how two Ivy League lawyers who lobbed a Molotov cocktail into a police car during the summer 2020 riots worked out a sweetheart plea deal last month with Attorney General Merrick Garland’s Justice Department.

CompassCare CEO Jim Harden condemned the attack and called for Democratic New York officials to protect pro-life organizations.

“Because of this act of violence, the needs of women facing unplanned pregnancy will go unmet and babies will die,” Harden said.

The Supreme Court is expected to overturn Roe‘s recognition of a right to abortion in the Dobbs case, returning the issue of abortion access to the states.

https://freebeacon.com/latest-news/abortion-activists-firebomb-another-pro-life-office/

Actor and outspoken Christian Kirk Cameron recently blasted America’s public school system in an interview with Fox News.

Cameron — whose new documentary “The Homeschool Awakening” premieres Monday, June 13 — told Fox News, “The problem is that public school systems have become so bad. It’s sad to say they’re doing more for grooming, for sexual chaos and the progressive Left than any real educating about the things that most of us want to teach our kids.”

Thus, as Cameron explained in the interview and in his movie, the solution to the poor quality of public education is to homeschool your kids. He also took issue with those who say only experts, or the government, should be responsible for American school children’s education.

“And that’s just a fundamental difference in the way that we look at who has been entrusted with the sacred responsibility of raising our children. … Is it the parents or is it the government?” he said to Fox.

Cameron also blasted public education for “destroying” certain institutions and patriotism in America.

“And you can take your pick. Just go down the list. The things that are destroying the family, destroying the church, destroying a love for our great country: Critical Race Theory, teaching kids to pick their pronouns and decide whether or not they want to be a boy or a girl, the 1619 Project,” he said.

“If we send our children to Rome to be educated … we shouldn’t be surprised if they come back Romans,” he added. “If we want them to love God and love their neighbor and feel gratitude and thankful that they live in the United States of America, the freest country on earth, then you’ve got to teach them those things. … I realized that there was no better way for our family to do that … than to bring them home and join in with this rich, robust community, with tons of curriculum to be able to have the flexibility and freedom to raise our kids the way we wanted them to be raised.”

The father of six admitted some days are more difficult than others, but said that it was worth it.

“Yes, there are hard days,” he explained. “Yes, there are times when you just feel like pulling your hair out. But it’s nothing compared to wanting to go back and do it all over again. If you see that your children went down a road and you can’t pull them back, [asking] … how did they lose their faith? How did they get pulled into an ideology that undermines everything that is going to lead to their success?”

“They learn to reject God … they learn to reject our country. And how did that happen? Well, that’s the kind of regret that we don’t want as parents,” Cameron added. “And so, if we’re willing to put in some extra effort and time now, we will be so glad that we did and we’ll lift our hands in gratitude and say, ‘Thank you that I woke up and I saw the light.’ And millions of parents are.”

Leftist critics of Cameron have suggested that he is allegedly taking part in a racist plot to segregate society — even if unwitting.

Sort by Best

• kmann332151 day ago: And with all the children going to private schools or being homeschooled, we probably have education budget surplus, right? So the government can offer vouchers, offer a tax cut, or even put in school security systems. Reply17
  • ShadowBaby🍩☕🎺🎵1 day ago: That’s what I’ve been saying – we’re freeing up resources, right? By removing the kinds of kids the establishment hates anyway, right?Reply4Show 1 more reply
• steve34911 day ago: What a great evening with several actors speaking out in support of America and dedication to The Lord. Thank you Kirk.Reply21
• leftistsmakemequeasy1 day ago“And that’s just a fundamental difference in the way that we look at who has been entrusted with the sacred responsibility of raising our children. … Is it the parents or is it the government?” Bingo.Reply211 reply
• CinziaV1 day ago: Kirk has been championing homeschooling for a long time and he is absolutely 💯% correct. God bless him. Keep it up Kirk!Reply22
• kgraham4606341 day ago: I home school my boys in the in the 1980’s and 1990’s because I saw what the public schools were teaching back then. My eldest went to Cal-Poly and got his Computer Engineering Degree and my middle son got his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering and then received his Master also at Cal-Poly. They have g…See moreReply40
  • TheWayisNarrow1 day ago: I homeschooled my four in the 90’s and they are all successful. One is a systems manager for programming code for Comcast, one is a chiropractor, another is a paralegal soon to be court reporter and the other a CFO of family business and homeschools her children. They are all literate and patriotic…See moreReply2
  • blsinsc53721 day ago: Congratulations on your Family’s success! I would bet that with such a grounded foundation, your boys would have been equally successful had they remained in Public Schools but with YOU there to guide them. One of my college Professors said at the beginning of a semester “I can only give you the …See moreReply1

https://www.dailywire.com/news/kirk-cameron-public-school-is-destroying-the-family-destroying-the-church-destroying-love-for-our-great-country?utm_medium=email&utm_source=cnemail&seyid=4329

Friend,

Our country is currently facing a great threat. A new enemy has emerged from the shadows that seeks to destroy and intimidate their way to a transformed state, and country, that you and I would hardly recognize.

This enemy is the radical vigilante woke mob that will steamroll anything and anyone in their way. Their blatant attacks on the American way of life are clear and intensifying: stifling dissent, public shaming, rampant violence, and a perverted version of history.

A group that will, literally, tear down monuments and buildings but — perhaps in an even more sinister way — tear down the American spirit itself. They go after the family unit, parental rights, traditional moral values, the church, and fact-based education.

Over the past few years, we’ve watched horrified as this group has attempted to brainwash our children into thinking we live in an evil, racist, irredeemable country.

We listened to them deny science and data to exert political theater all the while trampling over personal liberties enshrined in the Constitution.

We saw them take to the streets for an entire summer like outlaws burning, looting, and destroying everything in sight while being told they were “mostly peaceful” and “passionate.”

We watched Big Tech moguls in Silicon Valley be the arbiters of truth – deciding who gets to speak and who gets silenced through the digital public square.

We listened to the legacy media muffle legitimately verifiable news stories that didn’t align with their preferred narrative, only to watch the truth trickle out months later at a more politically expedient time.

Well, friend, the time for listening and watching from the sidelines is over.

This enemy has taken over media, educational institutions, corporate boards, professional sports, foundations, and professional institutions. They have left no corner of our lives untouched. But all hope is not lost.

We The People still have a say. We know the truth, you and I, about America and the country she is and can be. We must fight to defeat these false pretenses and predetermined narratives.

I am choosing to counter this enemy with faith, with reason, and with freedom. As Governor of the Free State of Florida, I have chosen to lead with a vision that builds America up rather than tears it down.

Together we can ensure that our children are raised to know they live in the greatest state in the nation, the greatest country in the world and that they have an opportunity to continue making them even greater.

If you’ve been waiting for the right time to get off the sidelines and fight for the rights you know were given to man by God Himself – the time is NOW.

If you’re with me, friend, chip in any amount to help me defeat this enemy. I can’t do it without you. I promise you; I will never stop fighting.

Sincerely,

Ron DeSantis

Paid by Ron DeSantis, Republican, for Governor.

What’s Happening:

Ever since a Supreme Court draft leaked to the public, radical abortion activists have been flipping out. They have violated federal law to harass the court, all so it would vote the way the mob wants.

(Not that Joe Biden is investigating these crimes.)

But news has come out that the protests have not changed the court’s opinion. So, one extremist group is hatching another scheme to “paralyze” the court.

From The Washington Free Beacon:

A radical leftwing group is laying plans to shut down the Supreme Court in response to a leaked opinion that overturns Roe v. Wade, the Washington Free Beacon has learned.

#ShutdownDC is planning to block streets adjoining the Court to prevent the justices and their staff from reaching their chambers. Organizers acknowledged their operations go beyond constitutionally protected activity, and they referenced the likelihood of arrests and clashes with law enforcement during a Tuesday night briefing the Free Beacon monitored.

Uh, really? A group calling itself “#ShutdownDC” claims they are going to “shut down” the Supreme Court.

Sounds scary, right? How will this group of radicals do that? By blocking the roads into the building…

Oh…

They do know that the justices don’t have to be in the literal building to do their job, right? That, in the age of Zoom, they can virtually meet and give their rulings?

Blocking roads won’t stop the court from handing out a ruling the left doesn’t like. But I do find it ridiculous that these leftists feel empowered to do this.

Just a year ago, supposed conservatives bombarded the Capitol and are being treated worse than Gitmo prisoners.

The reason these idiotic leftists are even planning this, with seemingly no intervention from Capitol Police or the Feds, is because Democrats are allowing it.

This news is being circulated openly online. Where is the response from our law enforcement? This seems to go far beyond constitutionally-protected speech.

Why haven’t the local authorities warned them not to do this? Why isn’t the FBI investigation actions aimed at “shutting down the Supreme Court”?

Those are the real questions Americans must be asking.

Key Takeaways:

• A leftist group plans on “shutting down the Supreme Court” over Roe v. Wade.
• “ShutdownDC” will blockade roads to the court, cutting off access.
• This kind of protest is not protected by the First Amendment.

https://freebeacon.com/courts/shut-it-down-radical-leftwing-group-plans-to-blockade-supreme-court/

The archbishop who recently made waves by announcing that he was barring House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) from Communion due to her outspoken support of abortion was passed over in Pope Francis’s latest cardinal assignments.

The pope chose as a cardinal Bishop Robert McElroy of San Diego, who has previously said that bishops shouldn’t forbid politicians who support abortion from taking Communion despite Catholic teachings being clear that abortion is a moral evil.

McElroy was one of 21 cardinals named, but the only one from the United States. He received the promotion despite Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone—who denied Pelosi Communion—being of higher rank.

McElroy said in a statement that he was “stunned and deeply surprised” by the appointment as a cardinal, which means he will be part of a body that selects and advises popes.

McElroy is scheduled to be installed on Aug. 27 during a ceremony in Rome.

Cordileone congratulated McElroy, noting that he served in San Francisco before leading the diocese of San Diego.

McElroy and Cordileone became the faces of opposing views in the Catholic Church on abortion in 2021. Cordileone at the time said that human life begins at conception and abortion “deeply wounds the woman and destroys the foundation of a just society,” adding that those of the Catholic faith “must be a voice for the voiceless and the powerless” and that “there is no one more defenseless than a child in the womb.”

Because Communion is only meant for true believers, or people who follow the teachings, people who support abortion shouldn’t be allowed to take it, Cordileone said.

McElroy challenged that view, saying that bishops and others who were moving to exclude pro-abortion politicians such as President Joe Biden from Communion were wrong. He said the Communion was “being weaponized for political ends” and wondered why bishops were focusing on support for abortion and euthanasia as opposed to racism.

Pope Francis seems to share McElroy’s position, telling reporters in 2021 that he never refused Communion for anybody and that bishops should manage problems “as pastors” lest they take “a political stance on a political problem.”

“What must the pastor do?” he said at the time. “Be a pastor, don’t go condemning. Be a pastor, because he is a pastor also for the excommunicated.”

Afterward, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which had been weighing communicating clearly that bishops should deny Communion to abortion supporters, issued a document whose only apparent reference to such a matter said that “lay people who exercise some form of public authority have a special responsibility to embody Church teaching in their service of the common good.”

But Cordileone on May 20 announced that he was barring Pelosi from receiving Communion, citing how she’s become even more pro-abortion over the years while using her Catholic faith as justification for her stance.

“After numerous attempts to speak with her to help her understand the grave evil she is perpetrating, the scandal she is causing, and the danger to her own soul she is risking, I have determined that the point has come in which I must make a public declaration that she is not to be admitted to Holy Communion unless and until she publicly repudiate her support for abortion ‘rights’ and confess and receive absolution for her cooperation in this evil in the sacrament of Penance,” he said.

The move drew support from other bishops, but not all.

Pelosi decried the action, calling it “very dangerous,” and questioned why people who support the death penalty weren’t likewise punished.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/archbishop-who-barred-pelosi-from-communion-passed-over-in-promotion_4500377.html?utm_source=News&utm_campaign=breaking-2022-05-30-4&utm_medium=email&est=7Y0oVuSCut2yWlrcTobGpTMvKQr0YSuJLcHr%2Ft33douy%2BqPVw0TFPzCJ2xMxbTwmeQ%3D%3D

Leaders encourage protesters to ‘stretch the bounds of constitutionally protected speech’

A radical leftwing group is laying plans to shut down the Supreme Court in response to a leaked opinion that overturns Roe v. Wade, the Washington Free Beacon has learned.

#ShutdownDC is planning to block streets adjoining the Court to prevent the justices and their staff from reaching their chambers. Organizers acknowledged their operations go beyond constitutionally protected activity, and they referenced the likelihood of arrests and clashes with law enforcement during a Tuesday night briefing the Free Beacon monitored.

“One of our goals would be to expand the current political crisis by shutting down the Supreme Court,” one of the organizers said. The group planned the blockade for Monday, June 13, a day when the Court will likely hand down opinions.

#ShutdownDC is concocting its ploy amid continued concerns over the Supreme Court’s security and that of the justices following the unprecedented leak. The Department of Homeland Security’s intelligence arm circulated a memo in May warning of a sharp rise in threats to the High Court. Law enforcement is investigating violent threats from pro-abortion extremists against members of the Court as well as the Court building itself, the memo said.

The Tuesday night briefing included more than 60 activists and was led by four or five organizers, some of whom concealed their identities. The presentation included a detailed “tactical” plan for blocking access to the Court’s underground parking garage, which is the primary entry and exit point for employees and justices.

The plan calls for demonstrators to obstruct two points near the Court on 2nd Street, and a third spot on A St., which bisects 2nd Street directly behind the Court building. A Street is a residential area, while 2nd Street is a busy commuter thoroughfare.

To coincide with the blockade, #ShutDownDC is planning a rally in front of the Court on First St., which lies between the U.S. Capitol and the Court’s marble plaza. Organizers described the rally as a “low-risk” location, in contrast to the blockade posts where they anticipate arrests and skirmishes with police.

“It’s possible we will see many different law enforcement agencies, as we’ve become used to,” an organizer said. Several agencies have jurisdiction over the area, including the Capitol Police and Washington’s Metropolitan Police Department. None of the organizers made threats against particular justices, but they opened the briefing by warning that their tactics are illegal and readily acknowledging their goal is to massively disrupt the third branch of the government.

“In this space we may talk about some action ideas that stretch the bounds of constitutionally protected speech,” a slide shown to attendees read.

“Avoid saying anything you wouldn’t want to see on Fox News,” it added.

The briefing highlighted the group’s connections to other liberal judicial groups which mobilized following the leak of the draft opinion.

One organizer said that #ShutdownDC is behind demonstrations at the homes of justices thought to have joined the leaked opinion overturning Roe. A separate entity called Ruth Sent Us—named for the late justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg—has claimed responsibility for those events, a sign that the two groups are closely aligned.

“We were the first to hold an action at Brett Kavanaugh’s house, and then recently we held an action at Samuel Alito’s house,” the organizer bragged. She added that she was heartened to see new individuals joining their efforts at Tuesday’s presentation.

“This is a crisis moment for democracy and for our rights, so we need as many new folks leveling up in their mobilization as possible,” an organizer said.

Another organizer highlighted an upcoming June summit on the Supreme Court hosted by a leftwing dark money group called Demand Justice. The group, which is run by Free Beacon Man of the Year Brian Fallon, declined to say whether it is connected with #ShutdownDC or approves of its plans.

The Supreme Court’s public information office declined to comment for this story.

#ShutdownDC is sharpening focus on House Democrats, who have yet to approve enhanced security measures for the Court. Sens. John Cornyn (R., Texas) and Chris Coons (D., Del.) spearheaded a security bill in the Senate that passed without opposition earlier this month. The House has yet to do anything.

“This should not be about politics but about ensuring the safety of the nine individuals on the Supreme Court,” a senior House staffer who works on domestic security told the Free Beacon. “It’s not a matter of safety for Speaker Pelosi; it’s political theater with real ramifications.”

Joseph Simonson contributed to this report.

https://freebeacon.com/courts/shut-it-down-radical-leftwing-group-plans-to-blockade-supreme-court/

Self-described anarchists took credit for vandalizing four pro-life churches in Olympia, Wash., last weekend, referring to the houses of worship as “patriarchal sex abuse cults” that perpetuate the “violence of forced birth.”

Puget Sound Anarchists, a website that publishes writings from “anarchists and anti-authoritarians in the Pacific Northwest,” shared an anonymous post declaring a Mormon church, two evangelical churches, and a Catholic church had been given “facelifts” Sunday morning before services for their “ties to anti-abortion ‘crisis pregnancy centers.'” The churches, according to the anarchists, “are terrified of people exercising bodily autonomy—whether aborting unwanted pregnancies or taking gender-affirming hormones/surgery or fucking whomever we want—because they need the rigid hierarchy of the family as the basic unit of control.”

“We dumped red paint over the entryways and left messages of ‘If abortions aren’t safe, then neither are you,’ ‘Abort the church,’ and ‘God loves abortion,'” the anarchists said. “We are not appealing to state power for an end to patriarchal violence, but threatening: ‘If abortions aren’t safe, then neither are you.'”

The attack comes as churches, pro-life advocates, and some Supreme Court justices face heightened threats after a leaked decision revealed the Court is expected to overturn Roe v. Wade next month. Arsonists firebombed a pro-life advocacy group’s office in Wisconsin days after, spray-painting, “If abortions aren’t safe, then you aren’t either” on its façade. A Department of Homeland Security memo that surfaced last week showed the agency is readying for potential violence in the wake of the decision.

Cean Williard, an executive pastor at Harbor Church, one of the four churches vandalized, told the Washington Free Beacon parish leaders were “saddened that any group would choose to communicate through intimidation, vandalism, or threats of violence” but that the “attack has not altered [their] resolve.”

“All human beings are created in the image of God from the moment of conception with unique personhood, dignity, value, and worth. God has declared in his Word that he hates the shedding of innocent blood,” Williard said in a statement. “Therefore, we are deeply opposed to the practice of abortion, which is the murder of image bearers of God. We will continue to stand in opposition to this horrible practice.”

The Olympia anarchists said even though abortion will remain legal in Washington if Roe is overturned, “there are still local enemies who are doing everything in their power to make it as difficult and inaccessible as possible.” They said such “enemies are vulnerable and easy to find,” before sharing the address of a crisis pregnancy center and listing Olympia businesses that have donated to it. Abortion has been legal in Washington State since 1970.

The anarchists described crisis pregnancy centers, which typically provide free pre- and post-natal care to young mothers, as “religious fake clinics that manipulate mostly poor people into having & keeping children they don’t want or aren’t ready for and marrying whomever impregnated them whether or not that relationship is healthy or safe.”

“Crisis pregnancy centers are exploitative and serve the aims of upholding the patriarchal family, a primary site of violence against women, queers, and children,” they wrote.

The anarchists signed their missive “Jane’s Revenge”—the same name used by the vandals who threw a Molotov cocktail into the pro-life office in Wisconsin, according to the Washington Times.

Puget Sound Anarchists has posted other anonymous submissions admitting to crimes of property destruction. In July 2021, Portland vandals shared pictures of an attack they launched on police squad cars, smashing a dozen cruisers’ windows, windshields, lights, and side-view mirrors.

“We call on all abolitionists to take the defunding and disarming of the pigs into their own hands,” the submitters wrote. “Be bold! Sabotage is fun!”

A legal notice on Puget Sound Anarchists states, “We do not condone or promote illegal, violent, and unlawful behavior or actions, or acts of intimidation against individuals or groups.” On its contact page, the editors say they do not respond to media requests.

https://freebeacon.com/latest-news/anarchists-take-credit-for-vandalizing-four-pro-life-churches-in-washington-state/

Opinion writer Lindsey Crouse says protesting outside Kavanaugh’s home isn’t enough

A New York Times opinion writer urged the pro-abortion activists protesting outside the house of Supreme Court justice Brett Kavanaugh to escalate their illegal protests.

Lindsay Crouse, who earned notoriety after disclosing that her ex-boyfriend is dating Lady Gaga in a 2020 op-ed, said in a May 8 tweet that protesters should target the Chevy Chase Club because that way, she said, their cries “will reach not just Kavanaugh but also Justice Roberts—both are members.” She deleted the tweet, but only after it elicited praise from activists who Shared The Address of the club across the platform. 

There is a near consensus among legal experts that targeted protests against federal judges are criminal. A 1950 law expressly prohibits any picketing “with the intent of interfering with, obstructing, or impeding the administration of justice, or with the intent of influencing any judge.”

Times Guidelines bar staff from “posting anything on social media that damages our reputation for neutrality and fairness.”  Crouse’s posts come just over a month after the paper’s executive editor, Dean Baquet, issued a memo to staff pressing them to spend less time on Twitter and said its extensive use would “damage our journalistic reputations.” That memo was prompted by internal concerns that the conduct of some staff may interfere with the ability for others, such as court reporters, to cultivate sources or gain access.

Baquet also pressed staff in 2017 to exercise transparency after removing a social media post and “quickly acknowledge the deletion in a subsequent tweet.” Crouse did no such thing. 

Neither the Times nor Crouse responded to a request for comment. 

Crouse’s tweets are the latest example of bubbling tensions between staff who want to openly advocate for their political views and management who wish for the paper to appear impartial. The Times, which has been the epicenter of the debate in legacy media over objectivity, fired editor Lauren Wolfe last year after she tweeted that she felt “chills” after seeing President Joe Biden’s plane land.

Aside from columns asking questions such as, “How do you compare yourself with Lady Gaga?” after she dates your ex, Crouse has written about how former Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg served as her “fitness idol.” Her focus for the Times opinion section is “gender, ambition, and power,” according to her Author Bio.

Since the leak of the draft Dobbs decision, conservative justices have been the target of heated protests outside their homes. On Wednesday, the Washington Free Beacon Reported on an internal DHS memo outlining threats from pro-abortion extremists against members of the court and clergy.

“Domestic violence extremists (DVEs) and criminal actors have adopted narratives surrounding abortion rights to encourage violence, likely increasing the threat to government, religious, and reproductive health care personnel and facilities and ideological opponents,” the memo reads. The memo later states that most of the threats against justices and their staff are circulating on social media.

Earlier this month the Senate passed a bipartisan bill bolstering security for members of the Supreme Court and their families. That legislation has since Stalled in the House, with Democratic leadership refusing to provide a date for an expected vote.

https://freebeacon.com/media/nyt-writer-urged-activists-to-escalate-protests-targeting-kavanaugh/

The Department of Homeland Security is warning law enforcement about potential violence against members of the Supreme Court and clergy following the leak of a Supreme Court decision that would overturn Roe v. Wade.

A memo from the agency’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis, first reported by Axios but obtained by the Washington Free Beacon, outlines the “potential for threats to public safety in response to abortion debate.”

“Domestic violence extremists (DVEs) and criminal actors have adopted narratives surrounding abortion rights to encourage violence, likely increasing the threat to government, religious, and reproductive health care personnel and facilities and ideological opponents,” the memo reads.

DHS states that the agency identified “at least 25 violent threats on social media” that included “burning down or storming the US Supreme Court and murdering Justices and their clerks, members of Congress, and lawful demonstrators.”

Other threats mentioned include members of the anarchist “Boogaloo Boys” encouraging violence against pro-abortion protesters in hopes that it will spark a civil war.

The Free Beacon previously reported on efforts by House Democrats to stall bipartisan legislation to boost security for the families of Supreme Court justices. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called on Congress to pass the bill, citing the DHS memo outlining the security threats against the Supreme Court.

https://freebeacon.com/biden-administration/read-the-dhs-memo-on-left-wing-threats-against-judges-and-priests/

Elizabeth Warren 2.0: Liberal elites love her because she’s one of them

Rep. Katie Porter (D., Calif.) has become a minor celebrity among mainstream journalists and other politics-obsessed white professionals who voted for Elizabeth Warren in the 2020 Democratic primary.

The deputy chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus is a recurring guest on MSNBC after making a name for herself by hectoring business executives and Trump administration officials. She is the star of numerous YouTube clips with titles such as, “Katie Porter goes megaviral with MUST-SEE takedown during hearing,” “Katie Porter ROASTS greedy health insurance providers,” and “Lawmaker reveals trunk full of rice during questioning of oil executives.”

Porter’s niche group of admirers would probably describe her as a powerful advocate for working families, a thorn in the side of evil corporations, and so relatable OMG have you seen her Twitter bio? It says: “Minivan-driving single mom, law professor, consumer advocate [car emoji] [nerd emoji] Usually carrying a whiteboard, always bringing the receipts.” How fun!

Her supporters (the well-to-do, impeccably credentialed white professionals) might be more reluctant to admit that perhaps the main reason they like Porter so much is that she reminds them of themselves (obnoxious know-it-alls) and how much better off the country would be if they were in charge of everything. It’s the same reason why they like Beto O’Rourke, Pete Buttigieg, and Liz Warren (Porter’s former law professor and mentor), whose failed presidential campaigns made clear that while Ivy League grads may run the Democratic Party, they don’t get to choose the nominee in national elections.

Porter grew up in Iowa, the daughter of a “farmer-turned-banker,” which sounds more down-to-earth than “banker.” Her mother founded a media empire for the quilting community. Porter’s résumé is as follows:

Prep school: Phillips Academy (Tuition: $57,800 per year)

College: Yale University (Tuition: $62,250 per year)

Post-graduate: Harvard Law School (Tuition: $70,430)

That works out to $691,500 worth of elite education. No wonder our nation’s journalists are so fond of her. Porter, 48, has an estimated net worth of $1.6 million. She listed no student loan debt on her 2018 financial disclosure, which detailed assets ranging in value from $1.1 million to as much as $3 million. Her liabilities include two mortgages worth between $300,000 and $600,000. The lawmaker’s mother, quilting titan Elizabeth Porter, is listed as the lender for one of the mortgages.

Nevertheless, she persists in playing the part of a working class champion and “minivan-driving single mom.” Never mind that Porter’s congressional salary of $174,000 is nearly four times higher than the median income for single mothers in the United States. The law professor, who was awarded tenure at the University of California-Irvine in 2011, rarely mentions her considerable wealth when railing against the number of millionaires in Congress and how “expensive” it is to run for political office.

Porter recently made headlines by complaining about the rising cost of groceries and chiding her Democratic colleagues for neglecting voter concerns about inflation. Perhaps the economy is so bad under President Joe Biden that even millionaires with multiple Ivy League degrees are struggling to make ends meet. Maybe it’s all part of the act. Porter has a history of bending the truth to pad her “everywoman” credentials. For example, she once falsely claimed to be the “only single, working mother of young kids” in Congress.

Whether or not she is actually struggling as much as ordinary, less-credentialed non-millionaires to put food on the table, Porter’s attempts to empathize with voters frustrated by the soaring cost of food and other necessities suggests she is not as out of touch with reality as her admirers in the media and other left-wing circles. At the very least, she knows how to read the polling data. (Elite education has its benefits.)

Porter’s popularity as the angry lady with the whiteboard in those viral videos has helped her amass an impressive $18 million campaign war chest heading into the 2022 midterms. She is rumored to be eyeing a Senate run in 2024 to replace Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.), who will turn 89 in June but has yet to announce her retirement despite the party’s increasingly public anxiety about her dementia-addled brain.

First the Democratic “rising star” will have to win reelection in a brand new “lean Democratic” district. Porter is running in an open primary against four Republican candidates. Win or lose, she will continue to be a fixture on MSNBC and the other liberal networks. Her cult following among politics-obsessed elite professionals will continue to grow until she is inevitably persuaded to run for president someday.

(Fact check: Katie Porter will never be president.)

https://freebeacon.com/democrats/katie-porter-truth/

In May, a group called Accountable Tech, which calls itself a “small nonprofit taking on Big Tech companies,” organized a corporate boycott to protest Elon Musk’s bid to buy Twitter. In the midwest, a group called Opportunity Wisconsin, which bills itself as a “coalition of Wisconsin residents,” ran a deluge of TV ads slamming Republican senator Ron Johnson for his tax policies. And in Arizona, an organization of “grassroots racial justice” activists called Just Democracy released a video blasting Democratic senator Kyrsten Sinema for failing to support the Biden administration’s legislative agenda.

None of these groups actually exist. They are all registered trade names for the North Fund, a shape-shifting nonprofit group that uses aliases to push an array of left-wing causes from a shell office in Washington, D.C., according to corporate records.

Political watchdogs say the fund, which isn’t required to disclose the donors behind its $66 million budget, is gearing up to be one of the most consequential dark-money players of the midterm elections. And while “astroturf” groups are nothing new in politics, critics say the North Fund is part of a new breed—moving away from specific policy advocacy and delving into electoral politics.

“North Fund has said screw it,” said Hayden Ludwig, a senior investigator with the Capital Research Center. “They’ve just decided to be as partisan as they can.”

“Their money has been pretty much exclusively focused on Senate races, on ballot initiatives, and a few things kind of related to that,” Ludwig added. “The general theme there is cementing permanent Democratic majorities in Congress.”

The North Fund, which was founded in 2018, is helmed by a handful of Democratic operatives, including former Clinton aide Jim Gerstein. It operates under at least eight trade names, according to D.C. corporate records, including “51 for 51,” a group pushing for statehood for the heavily Democratic District of Columbia, and the “Voting Rights Lab Action,” which advocates for voting policy reforms favorable to Democrats.

Under the guise of “Opportunity Wisconsin,” the group has poured $4 million into negative TV advertising against Johnson, making it one of the top-spending outside groups in the state. Through another alias, the “Democracy Docket Action Fund,” the nonprofit has helped finance state-level redistricting lawsuits that favor Democrats across the country. And the “Accountable Tech” boycott campaign, which seeks to pressure Twitter to restrict speech from conservative outlets and Republican politicians, has received international news coverage.

“From trying to make D.C. a state to funding [Democratic operative] Marc Elias’s politicized lawsuits, North Fund’s presence is often felt but their very existence is virtually unknown,” Caitlin Sutherland, the executive director of the Americans for Public Trust watchdog group, told the Washington Free Beacon. “If untraceable money is flooding the latest policy or legislative fight under the guise of grassroots activism, chances are, North Fund is behind it.”

Critics say organizations like the North Fund can also have an outsized impact on the private sector, because corporations have a hard time discerning its work from bona fide grassroots groups.

“Corporations rarely understand that a vast majority of these boycott campaigns are organized and run by hyper-partisan political hacks instead of thoughtful and experienced policy experts,” one tech industry insider familiar with these boycott campaigns told the Free Beacon. “They disguise themselves in idealistic sounding group names while structuring their organizations in such a way that hides the true motivations and identity of their large donors.”

The North Fund received $66 million in 2020, according to its public tax disclosures, nearly all of it from large contributors. Over 93 percent came from donors giving over $1 million.

While the North Fund doesn’t disclose the names of its contributors, it is required to report the donation amounts. Americans for Public Trust was able to trace some of the funding using grant data from other nonprofits.

Sutherland found that the North Fund received $19.3 million from the Sixteen Thirty Fund and over $11 million from the New Venture Fund, two organizations that share an address in D.C. Similar to the North Fund, the groups operate under at least 50 trade names—including “Fix Our Senate,” “Floridians for a Fair Shake,” and the “Voter Engagement Fund.”

However, the Sixteen Thirty Fund and the New Venture Fund don’t disclose their donors either, leading to a dead end in the money trail.

The North Fund declined to comment on its funding relationships or its use of trade names. The group told the Free Beacon that it “follows all disclosure requirements related to the disclosure of individual donors and grantees.”

“The North Fund is a nonpartisan social impact organization that partners with community leaders and organizers to help make our society a more just, fair, and equitable place to live, work, and raise families,” said the North Fund in an emailed statement. “As a fiscal sponsor, the North Fund provides operational and administrative support to projects, including legal and compliance, HR, accounting and payroll, and grantmaking support.”

Despite its large budget and impact, the North Fund has almost no physical footprint. When the Free Beacon visited its office in downtown D.C.—a co-working rental space managed by the company Carr Workplaces—the front desk manager said the North Fund uses the address but doesn’t maintain a presence there. “I’m not sure where they’re actually located,” he said.

The North Fund is managed by a Democratic consulting firm called Arabella Advisors, which also keeps the copies of the fund’s public financial documents, according to the fund’s tax disclosure records. Nonprofit groups are required to provide physical copies of these records to members of the public who request them in person, a spokesperson for the IRS told the Free Beacon.

But at Arabella’s office building in D.C., the lobby receptionists told the Free Beacon they were under strict orders from the firm to turn away all outside visitors.

When the Free Beacon stopped by the listed D.C. address for the Sixteen Thirty Fund and the New Venture Fund—the North Fund’s primary donors—their cavernous, full-floor office suite was deserted.

The groups had recently moved out, leaving just a couple of office chairs, the logo for Arabella Advisors emblazoned on the floors, and a piece of paper taped to a radiator that read, “Loose Lips Sink Ships.”

Update 10:55 a.m.: This piece has been updated to include comment from the North Fund.

https://freebeacon.com/latest-news/the-shape-shifting-dc-dark-money-group-disguising-liberal-campaigns-across-country/

Former First Lady Melania Trump gave her first interview since leaving the White House, providing a hint that her husband may be seeking another term in office and saying “it’s sad to see” the state of the country under the current administration.

“I think we achieved a lot in four years of the Trump administration,” Melania told Fox News in a Sunday interview, adding that “never say never” when asked about whether she could be again living inside the White House.

“I like Washington, D.C. I know it operates completely different than any other city, but I really like it there. And I enjoyed living in the White House. To be first lady of the United States was my greatest honor. I think we achieved a lot in the four years of Trump administration. I enjoyed taking care of the White House. It was my home for a while. I understood it is people’s house. And it was, it was a privilege to live there,” she continued to say.

When asked by Fox host Pete Hegseth about former first ladies Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton appearing on the cover of Vogue, Melania, a former model, criticized the magazine. Melania appeared on the cover of Vogue in 2005 when she was photographed alongside former President Donald Trump in her wedding dress.

“They’re biased and they have likes and dislikes, and it’s so obvious. And I think American people and everyone sees it. It was their decision, and I have much more important things to do—and I did in the White House—than being on the cover of Vogue,” Melania told the broadcaster.

The former first lady, a native of Slovenia, weighed in on the state of the United States under the Biden administration.

“I think it’s sad to see what’s going on, if you really look deeply into it,” Melania said, adding: “I think a lot of people are struggling and suffering and what is going on around the world as well. So it’s very sad to see and I hope it changes fast,” Melania added.

Donald Trump has not definitively said whether he will run for reelection, although he has suggested in interviews that he might.

Last month, Trump, 75, told the Washington Post that his health could play a role in whether he decides to run or not. In 2024, Trump will turn 78, and should he run—and win—the presidency, he’ll be 82 when he departs. President Joe Biden is slated to turn 80 this November.

“You always have to talk about health. You look like you’re in good health, but tomorrow, you get a letter from a doctor saying come see me again,” he told the outlet in April. ‘That’s not good when they use the word ‘again,’” Trump added, saying he is currently in good health.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/sad-to-see-whats-going-on-melania-trump-gives-first-interview-since-leaving-white-house_4468110.html?utm_source=News&utm_campaign=breaking-2022-05-15-4&utm_medium=email&est=GTLeLRU4gRxAcdUeKZ%2BdqIq2O0hQAhD266NgIAko1W9GdZpDQmSFzKDDolIUmPA7JQ%3D%3D

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland to ask why an attack on a Madison, Wisconsin, pro-life center wasn’t being investigated as an act of domestic terrorism.

Late on May 8, the Wisconsin Family Action clinic in Madison was attacked with a Molotov cocktail following the leaked release of a draft Supreme Court majority opinion suggesting the high court would overturn the Roe v. Wade case that made abortion constitutionally protected.

“Attacking a pro-life organization in a manner that could have injured or killed the office’s occupants due to differing political ideologies fits these definitions,” Johnson wrote. “I am unfortunately compelled to write to you about this matter because DOJ [Department of Justice] has a track record of not prosecuting left-wing violence as we have seen with the summer of 2020 riots that occurred nationwide.”

The FBI says domestic terrorism, he added, is an “ideologically driven criminal act, including threats or acts of violence made to specific victims, made in furtherance of a domestic ideological goal that has occurred and can be confirmed.”

The senator also made note of protests, including some that were held over the recent weekend, outside the homes of Republican-appointed Supreme Court justices, describing such incidents as intimidation and a violation of federal law.

“The intimidation of sitting Supreme Court justices is a clear violation of federal law, and, once again, DOJ, FBI, and [the Department of Homeland Security] have yet to condemn these activities,” Johnson wrote. “Compare your silence on these events to your robust actions against parents attending public school board meetings to voice their concerns about far-left ideologies being integrated” in public schools.

Officials in Wisconsin told The Epoch Times last week that they were aware of a left-wing group that carried out the attack on the Madison pro-life group’s office. The group claiming responsibility, Jane’s Revenge, sent a statement to Bellingcat that the arson was a “warning.”

“Next time the infrastructure of the enslavers will not survive,” the group said, adding that if pro-life groups and clinics weren’t disbanded within the next month, it would carry out further attacks.

“Wisconsin is the first flashpoint, but we are all over the U.S., and we will issue no further warnings,” the statement said, adding that they would “adopt increasingly extreme tactics to maintain freedom over our own bodies.”

In the letter, Johnson made reference to the group’s apparent threat.

The Department of Justice didn’t respond by press time to a request for comment.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/sen-ron-johnson-to-ag-garland-why-is-wisconsin-pro-life-center-attack-not-domestic-terrorism_4468035.html?utm_source=News&utm_campaign=breaking-2022-05-15-4&utm_medium=email&est=Zi8cPCNZm0LkmVTD%2Fc6P3BKrG303hnI83NAXc9BBajSoNIsW5JvG4lDreGHvr3MxHw%3D%3D

CHEVY CHASE, Maryland—Around 20 pro-abortion protesters directed their screams at Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s children while walking by the justice’s Maryland residence multiple times on Saturday.

“Kavanaugh girls, tell your dad to stop,” one protester shouted.

“I hope your daughters don’t have to make this choice,” another shouted.

“[Expletive] you, Kavanaugh, you rapist piece of [expletive]” another of the protesters shouted.

The protesters walked past the house in Chevy Chase, then circled back multiple times to scream obscenities again.

About a dozen police officers stood outside the house, but none took action to arrest the protesters, who continued to scream obscenities with every pass.

“No privacy for us, no peace for you,” the protesters chanted.

The protests were a response to a leaked Supreme Court opinion that suggested the court planned to overturn Roe v. Wade.

For the protest’s two organizers, who called themselves “He” and “They,” respectively, everything appeared to be going to plan.

“We’re not stopping in front of his home. We’re walking by and we’re turning back. So there’s no threat got to do with it. We don’t threaten people. The other people threaten us,” said “He” before the protesters started marching.

Before the protesters started toward Kavanaugh’s house, one of them distributed masks to the group.

“If you have a mask to cover your face, it would be even better,” said “He.”

“He” said he wasn’t affiliated with an organized group, but he read from a script on his phone at times when offering comment.

“To intimidate: it means to frighten someone, especially in order to make them do what one wants. So, intimidation isn’t coming together as Americans in a community to voice one’s opinion. Intimidation is when the Capitol was stormed on Jan. 6,” he read.

“He” then recited a litany of violent incidents toward minorities and abortionists that he described as “intimidation.”

The protest targeted the homes of both Kavanaugh and Justice John Roberts, although Kavanaugh received a greater measure of the protest’s anger.

According to one protester, a graduate student named Connor, the purpose wasn’t to make Kavanaugh change his mind.

“At the very least I hope he’s annoyed. I hope he’s very inconvenienced,” said Connor. “If he’s that upset, if he’s that sad about it, quit! You don’t have to be the Supreme Court justice. I’m sure there’d be a lot of people who would be thrilled that he left, including his neighbors, because I’m sure they don’t love this.”

Connor carried a sign saying “Martha Kavanaugh Should Have Gotten an Abortion.”

“The idea that this is infringing upon the justices’ privacy is comical to me,” said high school senior Anna Bellows, another protest member. Bellows said she had flown down from Boston, Massachusetts to attend the pro-abortion protests.

“[Expletive] the Court and the legislature, we are not your incubators,” the protesters shouted as they walked through the residential neighborhood.

On the way, the protest passed near a couple taking wedding pictures. The 20 people gave the couple a cheer.

“Sorry,” one protester said.

One of the justices’ neighbors tried to tell the protesters to stop because their actions were likely to embitter the justices.

“Counterproductive!” he shouted at them. “You’re alienating them.”

But the protesters kept marching. Many of the neighbors of the justices honked car horns in approval of the protesters. One neighbor asked where she could join the next scheduled protest.

“It’s a liberal neighborhood,” one protester said.

As the protesters walked, “He” slowly drove a car that blasted pro-abortion music.

“My choice if I kill my pregnancy,” the song blared.

Before the large pro-abortion march to the Supreme Court in Washington earlier Saturday, activist Rachel Carmona announced a “summer of rage” in support of abortion.

“Let’s stand up for ourselves. Let’s feel our rage,” another speaker said.

Several of the protesters at the march to the Supreme Court announced their willingness to protest outside the homes of Supreme Court justices.

Protester Naomi Coronado Bel Valle said she didn’t plan on showing up outside the homes of the justices but thought there was nothing wrong with it.

“Everyone here has a right to protest, and if they want to stay outside their house, I think that is justified. I mean, I don’t really see a problem with that,” she said.

According to “They,” the protests will continue permanently.

“We’ll be back every Wednesday. Same [expletive,] same time,” she shouted as she walked away from Kavanaugh’s house.

Both Republican and Democratic politicians have criticized the protests outside the homes of justices.

“I think it’s reprehensible. Stay away from homes and families of elected officials and members of the court,” said Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.).

“Intimidating Supreme Court justices is a federal crime, yet our justices are being terrorized in their own homes and they and their families subjected to threats of violence,” said Sen. Jim Risch (R-Idaho).

https://www.theepochtimes.com/protesters-scream-obscenities-outside-justices-houses-following-washington-march_4467486.html?utm_source=News&utm_campaign=breaking-2022-05-15-2&utm_medium=email&est=FKo%2FR2MYyR4pByXBEPkbi7VR8pJ9X6CCsA%2Fp5HQITxMhJcx%2BkEwZcljfMSohpqwqtg%3D%3D

It’s been a rough couple of weeks for students at Yale Law School, who are responding to news that the Supreme Court may overturn Roe v. Wade with calls to accost their conservative classmates through “unrelenting daily confrontation” and toss the Constitution by the wayside.

Members of the law school’s conservative Federalist Society, first year law student Shyamala Ramakrishna said in an Instagram post, are “conspirators in the Christo-fascist political takeover we all seem to be posting frantically about.” Why, she asked, are they still “coming to our parties” and “laughing in the library” without “unrelenting daily confrontation?”

Instagram post by law student Shyamala Ramakrishna.

Some of her classmates were less moderate.

“It’s not time for ‘reform,’” first-year law student Leah Fessler, a onetime New York Times freelancer, wrote on Instagram. “Democratic Institutions won’t save us.” It is unclear how Fessler will apply that view as a legal intern this summer for federal judge Lewis Liman. Judge Liman did not respond to a request for comment.

Instagram post by law student Leah Fessler, which she said the Free Beacon is “in no way authorized” to use.

Fessler isn’t alone. “Neither the constitution nor the courts—nor the fucking illusion of ‘democracy’—are going to save us,” first-year student Melisa Olgun posted. “How can we possibly expect a document, drafted by wealthy, white, landowning men, to protect those who face marginalization that is the direct result of the very actions of the founders?”

Instagram post by law student Melisa Olgun. Olgun told the Free Beacon, “You are in no way authorized to use it or my name in your story.”

Contacted for comment, the students decried “leaks” of their social media posts and said the Washington Free Beacon was not “authorized” to publish them.

“This was posted PRIVATELY, on a private story, and was clearly leaked to you,” Fessler said in an email, adding that the Free Beacon was “in no way authorized” to use the message.

“The post was on a private account on a private story that was sent to you without my knowledge,” Olgun said. “You are in no way authorized to use it or my name in your story.”

The replies may have been a tacit invocation of copyright laws that ban the dissemination of photos without their owner’s consent. Publishing private Instagram posts, a lawyer might argue, violates intellectual property rights, though Adam Candeub, an intellectual property expert at Michigan State University College of Law, called that argument “bullshit.”

“It’s not clear copyright would even apply,” Candeub said. “I wonder what they’re teaching at Yale Law School.”

Eugene Volokh, a professor of First Amendment law at UCLA School of Law, said the copyright argument was a stretch. Jack Balkin, a First Amendment professor at Yale Law School, did not respond to a request for comment.

The reactions at Yale Law School, long ranked the top school in the country, reflect the radicalism of a younger generation of law students—and, some have speculated, of the leaker himself—who believe that long-standing legal norms perpetuate oppression.

Olgun, for one, lamented that the “‘liberal’ legal discipline will continue to bend over backwards to uphold the decorum, norms, and the sanctity of an institution that serves only those who benefit from originalism.”

Instagram post by Melisa Olgun, which she said the Free Beacon is “in no way authorized to use.”

Such sentiments are widespread at Yale Law School. In March, nearly two-thirds of the student body signed an open letter condemning the Federalist Society for hosting a bipartisan panel on free speech.

The letter—which Fessler, Olgun, and Ramakrishna signed—also condemned the law school for calling “armed police” on “peaceful student protesters,” who caused so much chaos at the panel that the speakers had to be escorted to a squad car outside.

Similar scenes have unfolded outside the homes of Supreme Court justices in the wake of the leak. Though it is illegal to picket a judge’s home “with the intent of influencing” a case, hundreds of protesters did just that to Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh, raising concerns about their safety. The Biden Administration does not appear to share those concerns: then-White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Tuesday that “we certainly continue to encourage [peaceful protests] outside of judges’ homes.”

Congress has likewise taken a page from the Yale Law playbook. Days after a pro-life advocacy office was firebombed in Madison, Wis., House Democrats tried to kill a bipartisan bill that would beef up security for Supreme Court justices.

Nearly half those justices are graduates of Yale Law School, which churns out hundreds of law clerks each year. The school has an outsized effect on the legal system, producing a shocking volume of judges, academics, and government officials.

Since 1789, more than 4 percent of all federal judges have graduated from Yale Law. Alumni of the top-ranked school account for 17 percent of new law professors and three of the Federal Trade Commission’s five commissioners, including agency chair Lina Khan.

As the law school’s student body has radicalized, some judges are hoping to hem in its prestige. In March, D.C. Circuit judge Laurence Silberman warned his colleagues against hiring Yale students.

“The latest events at Yale Law School,” Silberman wrote, “prompt me to suggest that students who are identified as those willing to disrupt any such panel discussion should be noted. All federal judges—and all federal judges are presumably committed to free speech—should carefully consider whether any student so identified should be disqualified from potential clerkships.”

https://freebeacon.com/campus/unrelenting-daily-confrontation-after-roe-leak-yale-law-students-call-for-ostracizing-conservative-classmates-and-tossing-out-constitution/

“People need to be in charge of how many mouths they’re going to have to feed.”

Rep. Katie Porter (D., Calif.) on Wednesday said the record inflation under the Biden administration proves that women need abortion rights, because people “need to be in charge of how many mouths they’re going to have to feed.”

When asked by MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell to compare how inflation and abortion shape the midterm elections, Porter said, “I don’t think they compare, I think they actually reinforce each other.”

“The fact that things like inflation can happen, and it becomes more expensive to feed your kids and to fuel your car is exactly why people need to be in charge of how many mouths they’re going to have to feed,” Porter said. “The fact that we’re seeing this jump in expenses, that we’re seeing people having to pay more in the grocery store, pay more at the pump, pay more for housing, is a reason that people are saying, ‘I need to be able to make my own decisions about when and if to start a family.'”

A Wednesday Politico report revealed many Democratic lawmakers have sought to emphasize the abortion issue ahead of the midterm elections while they have struggled to address inflation, a vulnerability for the Biden administration and Democrats.

https://freebeacon.com/democrats/women-need-abortions-to-fight-inflation-dem-rep-says/

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) have defended the outrage that some pro-abortion advocates have directed against sitting Supreme Court (SCOTUS) justices as “righteous” and “deserved” as violence against some pro-life groups has begun to escalate.

According to a draft opinion leaked by Politico on May 2, which Chief Justice John Roberts has since indicated is real, SCOTUS may be poised to overturn Roe v. Wade.

“We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the majority opinion of the court. “It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.”

The possible repeal of the seminal 1973 abortion case, which has defined federal law toward abortion for the past half-century, sent pro-abortion advocates into a flurry of activity online and on Capitol Hill.

Just minutes after the decision leaked, Pelosi and Schumer issued a statement roundly condemning the document.

“The Republican-appointed Justices’ reported votes to overturn Roe v. Wade would go down as an abomination, one of the worst and most damaging decisions in modern history,” the two wrote in a joint statement on May 2. They said the decision would be the “greatest restriction of rights in the past fifty years.”

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), leader of the 96-strong Congressional Progressive Caucus, said in a May 2 tweet, “As one of the 1 in 4 women in this country who have chosen to have an abortion, I am outraged & disgusted by the reported draft SCOTUS opinion.”

Since then, abortion advocates have leaked the home addresses of SCOTUS justices to the public and have staged protests outside their personal homes, prompting concern for the safety of the justices.

The protests, some have argued, are directly in contravention of U.S. law.

Under 18 U.S. Code § 1507, protesting outside the homes of those involved in the judicial process “with the intent of interfering with, obstructing, or impeding the administration of justice, or with the intent of influencing any judge, juror, witness, or court officer, in the discharge of his duty,” is liable to incur fines or prison time.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has not responded to a request by the Epoch Times for comment on the legal issue.

When asked about it during a May 9 press conference, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki replied indirectly, saying, “We’re certainly not suggesting that anyone break any laws.”

Despite the protests being in apparent contravention of U.S. law, House and Senate Democrat leaders have praised the protests.

“While we have seen and heard extraordinary anguish in our communities, we have been moved by how so many have channeled their righteous anger into meaningful action: planning to march and mobilize to make their voices heard,” said Pelosi on the protests. “Thank you for your powerful commitment to carrying on the fight for the rights of all Americans.”

Pelosi’s comment came under fire after the office of pro-life activist group Wisconsin Family Action was firebombed by pro-abortion activists. Julaine Appling, president of the group, attributed the attack to Pelosi’s rhetoric.

“It seems to me that Nancy Pelosi is partly responsible for inciting the kind of violence that we were the recipients of early on Mother’s Day morning,” Appling said. “That kind of rhetoric heats things up. It doesn’t cool it down. And our leaders need to be held responsible and held accountable for the kind of message they send.”

On the other side of Capitol Hill, Schumer also praised the protests.

“The outrage among women is palpable and real,” Schumer said, “and the outrage directed against this court is deserved.”

Some Republicans, concerned about the risk to the personal safety of the justices, have called on Chief Justice Roberts to release the decision as soon as possible to forestall the risk of further escalation.

On Monday, senators on both sides of the aisle banded together to pass legislation that would increase the security detail for justices and their families as protests continue unabated, with no indication from the White House or the DOJ that they will step in to enforce the law around judicial protests.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/amid-escalating-protests-dem-leaders-call-outrage-directed-against-scotus-deserved-righteous_4458220.html?utm_source=News&utm_campaign=breaking-2022-05-11-2&utm_medium=email&est=C4zc33qUsGbFEkRfzdz%2FplzNVxrhb6LTEYipugsQlc04891dPpD9ApsBtz8xHiAvYA%3D%3D

Most conservatives seem to think someone leaked the Supreme Court decision to incite outrage among leftists. And many Democrats, eager to defend Roe v. Wade, have promised to “punish” those who want to protect unborn life.

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, along with other members of the court, blasted the left.

From Axios:

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas said Friday that government institutions can’t be “bullied” into giving people the outcome they want, multiple news outlets report.

Thomas scolded the left, saying they need to live with the outcomes they don’t agree with. But the radical left, fueled by Democrat cash and socialism, proved his point anyway.

From YouTube:

Proving the justice’s point, protesters assaulted the private homes of conservative Supreme Court justices. Their goal is to terrorize these justices, hoping they will break down to mob rule.

Even Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House, called on more people to pressure the court.

This proves that Pelosi, and her party, are no longer on the side of law and order. The fact they are trying to exert outside pressure on the group that is supposed to rule on the law and law alone shows the Left wants power at all costs.

Don’t believe their lies that this is about “women’s rights.” Democrats get millions of dollars from abortion providers.

Democrats in Congress give hundreds of millions of tax dollars to Planned Parenthood and other groups. Then these groups donate millions to Democrat campaigns.

Meanwhile, millions suffer because of the left’s unchecked greed.

What’s so hilarious about their “protests” is that they ignore the fact that this doesn’t outlaw abortion. It only gives states (i.e. the democratic voting public) the right to decide their own abortion laws.

So, the left is ranting and rioting because some states won’t listen to their demands.

Uh… who are the crazy ones?

Key Takeaways:

• Clarence Thomas told the left the court won’t be bullied.
• Leftist activists protested outside the homes of Supreme Court justices.
• Pelosi urged activists to “pressure” the highest court in the land.

Source: Axios, YouTube

Pro-abortion extremists apparently firebombed a pro-life advocacy group’s office in Madison, Wis., days after a leaked decision revealed that the Supreme Court plans to overturn Roe v. Wade next month.

The arsonists appear to have thrown a Molotov cocktail early Sunday morning through the window of Wisconsin Family Action, where a fire was reported shortly before 6 a.m., according to the Associated Press. Investigators later found the remnants of the cocktail. No one was injured. Local law enforcement said the nonprofit was likely targeted for its opposition to abortion. “If abortions aren’t safe, then you aren’t either” was found spray-painted on the building’s façade.

Credit: Wisconsin State Journal reporter Alexander Shur on Twitter

Mainstream media sources just days earlier said that pro-abortion protests were “mostly peaceful.” CBS on May 6 used the phrase to describe protesters, one day after pro-abortion activists published the home addresses of six conservative Supreme Court justices, five of whom reportedly voted to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Julaine Appling, the president of Wisconsin Family Action, called the attack a “direct threat” considering it occurred the same week as the High Court opinion leak. Had the arsonists struck during the day, she added, they could have harmed staff.

“This is the local manifestation of the anger and the lack of tolerance from the pro-abortion people toward those of us who are pro-life,” Appling said. “We will repair our offices, remain on the job, and build an even stronger grassroots effort. We will not back down. We will not stop doing what we are doing. Too much is at stake.”

Wisconsin politicians, including Gov. Tony Evers (D.) and Sen. Ron Johnson (R.), condemned the firebombing. Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes (D.) said on his campaign Twitter account—but not on his official government account—that he opposed the violence. Democratic Senate candidate Alex Lasry by press time had not tweeted about the attack.

Around 100 pro-abortion activists protested this weekend outside the homes of Supreme Court justices John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh. “The time for civility is over, man,” one protester told Bloomberg. Others chanted “My body, my choice” and “The whole world is watching!” as they marched. Police eventually dispersed the crowd.

The pro-abortion advocacy group that doxxed the six justices, Ruth Sent Us, is planning protests on Wednesday at each of the justices’ homes.

https://freebeacon.com/latest-news/mostly-peaceful-pro-abortion-extremists-firebomb-pro-life-office/

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas on Friday defended judicial independence, arguing that government institutions mustn’t allow themselves to be strong-armed into delivering outcomes that people demand, according to news outlets.

Thomas made the remarks at a May 6 judicial conference in Atlanta, where he was asked by a moderator to discuss the biggest threats to judicial independence, according to Law360.

In his response, Thomas decried what he described as an erosion of respect for the high court and made an apparent reference to protests that erupted after the leak of a draft Supreme Court opinion suggesting the court is poised to overturn Roe v. Wade, with major implications for access to abortion.

He said that as a society, “we are becoming addicted to wanting particular outcomes, not living with the outcomes we don’t like,” according to Reuters.

“We can’t be an institution that can be bullied into giving you just the outcomes you want. The events from earlier this week are a symptom of that,” he added.

A flurry of protests and counter-protests broke out outside the Supreme Court after Politico obtained and published the draft opinion that would uphold a Mississippi law banning abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy and overturn the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide.

The protests have been loud but mostly peaceful, though there have been reports that pro-abortion activists attacked pro-life pastors.

In a bid to prevent violence, police have now surrounded the Supreme Court with a set of 9-foot high metal barricades, with an officer telling an Epoch Times reporter that the move was “just in case.”

Speaking at the 11th Circuit Judicial Conference, a gathering of lawyers and judges, Thomas referred several times to the “unfortunate events” of the past week, bemoaning declining respect for institutions and the rule of law.

“It bodes ill for a free society,” he said, according to The Washington Post. It can’t be that institutions “give you only the outcome you want, or can be bullied” into submission.

Thomas also expressed concern about a “different attitude of the young” towards respect for institutions and the law, suggesting this is on the decline relative to past generations, as cited by the outlet.

The Supreme Court has confirmed the authenticity of the draft opinion but called it preliminary.

A ruling in the case is expected in June.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/courts-cant-be-bullied-into-delivering-outcomes-people-demand-clarence-thomas_4451822.html?utm_source=News&utm_campaign=breaking-2022-05-07-2&utm_medium=email&est=A%2BwPcJvHFWEvH6vb7Uu8NxfoXkUx99HjfFMtxzIlBKV5HdfnrVJeL%2FQduebTxdjHIw%3D%3D

Anthony DeWitt attended a rally outside Arizona’s capitol building in downtown Phoenix on May 3 to support his pro-life beliefs, only to find himself surrounded by an angry mob of leftist protesters and fearing for his life.

DeWitt, 20, said he felt sure the protesters would have hurt him if he hadn’t been open-carrying a handgun for personal protection.

“I was surrounded [and] didn’t have much room. [The protesters] were screaming at me—telling me to kill myself, that I was worthless, that my mom should have aborted me.”

“I had water thrown at me [and] people poking me. People came up to me trying to take my megaphone.”

The former Arizona law enforcement cadet said he believes coming to the rally armed helped keep the protesters at bay.

“I want to be very clear about this—I wasn’t carrying to intimidate. I was carrying for personal safety and the right to preserve my life [if] I am attacked or in fear of my life,” DeWitt told The Epoch Times.

“I had people screaming at me to pull out my gun. People were taunting me. I had people yelling at me to pull it out and shoot them. People were yelling at me to pull it out and shoot myself.”

Yet, despite that, DeWitt said “people were very cautious because of my gun.”

Other conservative students and pro-life supporters at the rally also found themselves being pushed, shoved, insulted, and even spat on by crowds of protesters whose numbers were estimated at more than 1,000.

Jack Fink, 20, a digital marketing student at Arizona State University and a member of Students for Kari [Lake] for governor, said a protester grabbed his hat and another spat on him.

Lake has vowed to sign pro-life legislation if elected governor.

“They were just mad that I was wearing a ‘Kari Lake for Governor’ hat and shirt. They pushed me, took my hat, and spat on me. Later in the evening, another group that was mobbing me had all their signs in my face. I couldn’t see at all,” Fink told The Epoch Times.

Fink said the protesters weren’t interested in having a “civil discussion.”

“I knew [the protesters] tend to get a little rowdy, but I wasn’t expecting to get assaulted. I was pretty scared. These people were ready to fight [but] I felt I needed to be down there to record it and to let [the public] know what these people were about.”

Fink said several Phoenix police officers were at the scene but did not intervene.

“I think they felt intimidated, [so] they weren’t reacting to anything. People were getting in their faces, calling them pigs and [saying] all cops were bastards.”

Police reportedly arrested two people but did not immediately respond to a request for comment by The Epoch Times.

Fink said he plans to press criminal charges against the woman who spat on him once she’s identified.

In a video that has gone viral, one protester is shouting, “Conservative [expletive]! I wish you were an abortion, buddy.”

Leftist organizations have called upon their members to stage protests at federal buildings as the Supreme Court decides whether to strike down the 1973 Roe vs. Wade legislation that legalized abortion.

The May 3 protest at the Capitol in Phoenix saw an estimated 1,500 people.

“The mental strain of being yelled and screamed at takes a lot out of you,” DeWitt said. “Other people might have been concealed-carrying, but I didn’t see any other protesters carrying [weapons].”

While DeWitt does not encourage people to bring firearms to political rallies unless trained, coming armed “did serve a purpose.”

“I believe I would have gotten killed without it,” he said.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/angry-pro-abortion-mob-surrounds-assaults-conservative-students-at-phoenix-rally_4449057.html?utm_source=News&utm_campaign=breaking-2022-05-06-1&utm_medium=email&est=%2BjkAqvKRcHAj04rjzEK3cngQjx8M5lVvXuRpF2d8TM%2BTyF%2FhhQemfpZzGaTmZCIC0w%3D%3D

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich equated current Speaker Nancy Pelosi to a “dictator” over her current stint presiding over the lower chamber during an interview this week with Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk.

With House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy widely expected to take the gavel after the Democrats take their beating in 2022, Kirk asked the former speaker and presidential candidate if he had any words of advice for the California Republican.

Gingrich went for the jugular when speaking about Pelosi on “The Charlie Kirk Show.”

“I’ve thought about it,” said Gingrich. “I’ve thought about how do you handle certain kind of problems? First of all, I think Kevin’s done a good job overall.”

Tainted Jury? Juror Makes Telling Statement as She Walks Into Courthouse for Deliberations

“It’s very hard job. And he has done a balancing act. He’s faced with a dictator,” he added of Pelosi.

“And I mean this literally: Nancy Pelosi runs a dictatorship,” he said. “She kneecaps people. She coerces them, she does things to Republicans that are a violation of 240 years of American history and she is extraordinarily destructive freedom.”

“She’s a thug,” he added. “She brutalizes people, she runs over them. She establishes rules that are crazy.”

Do you agree that Pelosi is a “thug?”

He also accused House Democrats under Pelosi’s leadership of subverting rules when meeting with “whistleblowers.” He told Kirk that Democrats often conduct their dirty business away from the Capitol so as to avoid having to be transparent by not having their guests check in with the Capitol Police.

“She has established on the House side of the hill a dictatorship, and literally … the Senate today is much freer and much more open than the U.S. House,” Gingrich also said. “It’s truly humiliating. And you can see that everything we think of as freedom is being crushed by the Pelosi dictatorship.”

“I think it’s truly more frightening than the Justice Department, because in the end, if you end up with a Congress which is totally dictatorial, it will then lead to an even more dictatorial government,” he concluded of Pelosi.

Pelosi has of course unilaterally forced her mask mandate on House members. Just this week, Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia announced she had accrued $60,500 in Pelosi’s mask fines.

2. The only time I wear a mask is when I have to fly.

I have $60,500 in mask fines from Nancy Pelosi, who is a hypocrite because she does not wear a mask at times.

Here she is during the vote on Infrastructure bill, with her mask down.

I’m also suing her. pic.twitter.com/0J4rLFISnB

— Marjorie Taylor Greene 🇺🇸 (@mtgreenee) November 15, 2021

Pelosi Breaks Mask Mandate Again — This Time at Bar Event with Fellow Dem

Of course, who can forget that Pelosi also initiated a military occupation of the U.S. Capitol grounds earlier this year that lasted months. That occupation was handled by partisan Gen. Russel Honoré:

I salute the urgent, diligent & strategic work that he and his team continue to do in this mission. https://t.co/tHYs94ZDaF

— Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) January 28, 2021

Then there was this week’s Pelosi-backed censure of GOP Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona regarding a meme he posted online.

Is there anything more dictatorial than a tyrant eating ice cream on late-night television while people across the country worry about their next meal? Is there anything more thuggish than a woman whose district was locked down last fall while she enjoyed being catered to by a hairstylist?

BREAKING: Nancy Pelosi’s office has confirmed the speaker got her hair cut indoors in a San Francisco salon, but released a statement claiming she didn’t know she’d done anything wrong. https://t.co/cEEr1p074r

— KTVU (@KTVU) September 1, 2020

Nancy Antoinette, as some began to call her last year, has taken the speakership in a dangerous direction. Like other Democrats in the COVID era, she revealed herself as little more than a power-hungry bully with no interest in holding historic mores or basic ethics.

As Gingrich so eloquently put it, the woman is a dictator.

Sex ed curriculum has received $26 million in federal funding

Thousands of Massachusetts parents opted their children out of a federally funded sex education curriculum that teaches kindergartners about genitalia.

Worcester Public Schools this week announced that 13 percent of its students opted out of sex education, including 20 percent of K-4 students. The “Rights, Respect, Responsibility,” or “3Rs,” curriculum teaches elementary students about gender identity and instructs high school students to act out scenes in which gay and transgender couples decide to have sex. The curriculum’s  authors include one current and one former Planned Parenthood employee. It is published by Advocates for Youth, a progressive group that since 1995 has received $26 million from the Centers for Disease Control.

Progressive advocacy groups are escalating efforts to expand sex education curricula to elementary schools and cover controversial issues such as gender identity and abortion. Commonly known as “comprehensive sex education,” this approach has angered parents, many of whom have flocked to school boards to oppose curricula.

The Worcester School Committee in May adopted the 3Rs curriculum following hours of heated debate between parents and activists. Worcester parents are able to remove their children from sex education lessons through an online opt-out form. Worcester Public Schools did not respond to a request for comment.

One of the parents leading this effort was Shanel Soucy, a single mother of three who had her first child when she was 15 and homeless. She says she opted her children out of the curriculum because it would not have helped her make better decisions as a child.

“We’re encouraging sex as being a way to cope in life,” Soucy told the Free Beacon. “It’s so dangerous. So many of these kids are developing habits that are carried out longterm.”

More than 3,000 of the district’s 23,000 students have opted out of sex education. Megara Bell, director of Partners in Sex Education, on Monday told the Worcester Board of Health that in her two decades of work on sex education, only eight parents in the area had opted their children out of sex education.

Area religious groups have lined up against the effort. Worcester bishop Robert McManus in September urged Catholic parents to opt out their children. Dozens of Worcester churches provided opt-out forms to their congregations, according to the Massachusetts Family Institute. Elise Almeyda, a Worcester pastor, says the curriculum will confuse children and enrich groups like Planned Parenthood.

“They want to sexualize kids at a very young age,” Almeyda told the Washington Free Beacon. “There’s definitely an agenda in the decisions being made. This is robbing the future of our kids.”

Advocates for Youth boasts that 3Rs is the first K-12 sex education curriculum. It has been adopted in 100 school districts and has reached more than 2.3 million students since it was released in 2016.

The curriculum includes lesson plans which instruct teachers to describe genitalia in gender-neutral terms such as “person with a vulva.” Lesson plans include role-play activities in which students enact scenes about how gay, bisexual, and transgender couples should become sexually active.

The Worcester Public Schools summary of the curriculum includes a plan to have high school students take a quiz on Planned Parenthood’s website about what contraceptives are best for them. The summary also includes plans to show seventh-graders a video from Amaze.org about asexuality and pansexuality. Another video for high schoolers promotes abortion and says that pregnancy centers deceive women.

The curriculum details ways in which teachers can make sex education more engaging for students. Fifth-graders are given a diagram of male genitalia to color with crayons as the teacher describes each part. One specific passage directs teachers to jokingly hold up a fake penis and announce that “today is the day” before they teach a lesson on condoms.

Advocates for Youth each year rakes in millions of dollars from progressive groups. The group has taken $20 million from the progressive Buffett Foundation since 2008 and has taken donations from the Packard and Hewlett Foundations. The group has a youth activism program called “Abortion Out Loud” that aims to “end abortion stigma and strengthen support for young people’s access to abortion.”

https://freebeacon.com/campus/thousands-of-massachusetts-parents-pull-kids-from-woke-sex-ed-classes/