Columnist.
In a race as tight as this one, everything comes down to turnout. And that's exactly what Democrats must be afraid of after seeing Gallup's latest numbers. The GOP holds a distinct advantage in the likely voters for the November 8 elections — an 11-point advantage to be exact. For the president's party, the percentage of Americans planning to head to the ballot booth is at a 16-year low, a drop that analysts blame on their "uninspiring choice" for president. Enthusiasm is significantly lagging for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, especially with young adults — who helped deliver the last two elections for Barack Obama. (Maybe Republicans aren't the only ones rethinking another four years of this failed liberal experiment.)
Imagine an America without the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. The late civil rights leader almost single-handedly turned the tide against racial segregation in this country — and he did it from the pulpits of churches. Where would we be now, as a nation, if pastors like the Reverend King hadn't made their voices heard on the cultural issues of the day? Right now, the clergy of America are in that very dilemma, thanks to a vague, 62-year-old piece of the U.S. tax code. Called the Johnson Amendment, it was slipped into an IRS bill a half-century ago without a floor vote or committee debate.
[Monday] night was supposed to belong to Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. But the biggest story of the first debate wasn't the candidates answering the questions — it was the person asking them. In one of the most talked-about plots of the first head-to-head, moderator Lester Holt seemed intent on making the debate a three-person affair — injecting himself with almost as many challenges to Trump as the person officially opposing him. For most of the night, the Republican nominee was fending off not one — but two — attackers, repeatedly put on the defensive with topics that had nothing to do with the major issues facing America.
When the Hyde Amendment celebrates its birthday next Friday, pro-lifers can rejoice in the number of children who can enjoy theirs because of it. Forty years ago this month, in one of the most significant victories for the unborn, Congressman Henry Hyde managed to lead the effort to ban taxpayer funding of abortion. Under the most pro-abortion president in American history, the policy has certainly been tested. And today, conservatives are as fiercely protective of it as ever. In [Friday] morning's House Subcommittee on the Constitution, the late Illinois leader's amendment was again the subject of debate, as Republicans held a hearing on how to best hold the line on the provision in the face of so much Democratic opposition. For the first time in the history of the president's party, the DNC actually included a call to repeal the Hyde Amendment in its 2016 platform, sounding the alarm across the country about the threats to taxpayer dollars.
Getting things done in Congress is hard enough. But trying to work when one party won't? That's next to impossible. Just ask Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.). The chair of the House Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives already had her hands full overseeing a congressional investigation into the possible criminal acts of Planned Parenthood in its baby-parts-for-profit scheme. But her job has been made even more difficult — not just by the uncooperative targets of her probe, but by uncooperative Democrats on the panel as well.
Planned Parenthood specializes in preventing maternity — not promoting it. So it was more than a little surprising when the group's president, Cecile Richards, weighed in on Donald Trump's pro-family child care plan. In an ironic twist, the abortion mogul specifically attacked the GOP nominee's push to give parents six weeks of paid maternity leave — an issue that most people never assumed was particularly partisan to begin with. Of course, for Planned Parenthood, an organization that objects to any government spending that doesn't include abortion, the statements just go to show where the group's real priorities lie.
It's been a long time since Americans read a headline about the U.S. military that actually had to do with national defense. And thanks to the Navy, that's not about to change any time soon. While Congress has yet to weigh in on the administration's push for open transgenderism in the ranks, Navy brass are making it clear that it's full steam ahead on President Obama's radical social policy that threatens to unravel whatever unit cohesion the military has left. Starting November 1 (a week before an election that could help end this nonsense), all sailors will be required to undergo "transgender behavioral education." According to Navy Chief of Personnel Vice Admiral Robert Burke, the training will include everything from multi-hour briefings to discussion groups about how to best coddle gender confusion in the ranks. Supervisors will be taught to be "on alert" for signs of mistreatment of people who identify as transgender and deal with offenders appropriately.
President Obama had plenty to say at a New York City fundraiser for Hillary Clinton on Sunday — but nothing when it came to the terror attacks that rocked the city hours earlier. Barely a day removed from bombings in Manhattan and New Jersey — and a Minneapolis stabbing in the name of ISIS — the president couldn't be bothered to address national security because he was busy propping up a candidate who would continue his failed policies. For the White House, which has watched attacks like these peak under Obama's watch, the optics were less than flattering. As the Chelsea neighborhood grapples with the wreckage from a homemade pressure cooker bomb, the administration continues to downplay the pain of 29 wounded Americans, suggesting that this conflict is "just a war of narratives." (I guarantee the 30 people lying in hospital beds across New York City would beg to disagree.)
I have no problem with politicians quoting Scripture. In fact, I think if more politicians replaced their own empty promises with the words of the Bible, our politics would be more substantive by leaps and bounds. But when politicians — or anyone else, for that matter — misuse Scripture to support a position that Scripture is clearly against, they should be respectfully but unequivocally challenged. Last weekend, as Democratic vice-presidential nominee Senator Tim Kaine spoke to a far left LGBT-activist group, Kaine invoked the Bible as evidence that his church was wrong on the issue of marriage.
Al Gore may not have invented the internet, but his government is responsible for managing it! For more than 20 years, a little-known nonprofit called ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) has been at the controls of the web's domain and IP addresses. Overseen by the Commerce Department, this private west coast office has been an international hub for maintaining one of the most important aspects of the internet.
The two presidential candidates may not be separated by much in the polls, but they're miles apart when it comes to most policy issues. [Tuesday], the Trump campaign unveiled a pro-family revamp to the tax code that goes beyond any policy initiative that we've seen in years. At a meeting outside Philadelphia [Tuesday] night, Donald Trump proved that he understands the challenges of moms with young children by unveiling a proposal that will give families the flexibility they need to care for their own kids. Spurred on by daughter Ivanka, a successful businesswoman in her own right, Trump set out to show that he has a lot more to offer than the competition in relieving at least some of the burdens parents shoulder in providing for their children. Believe it or not, Ivanka points out in a thoughtful op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, almost two-thirds of moms with kids under the age of six are working outside the home. "And the majority of these women," she explains, "work in low-paying jobs without flexibility or benefits."
Funding America's Zika response is turning out to be peskier than the mosquitos Congress is fighting! With Hill leaders chomping at the bit to get back to their districts and campaign, the House and Senate are trying to race through crises like the virus and end-of-year spending. But, if there's anything we know about a divided Congress, nothing is easy. And the latest clash over the federal budget is no exception. Once again, members are so busy trying to keep their jobs that they're neglecting to do them.
The Values Voter Summit has become known as a one-of-a-kind gathering for social conservative voters who are concerned about the moral condition of our country and the well-being of future generations. Because of this, every VVS possesses a certain sense of urgency about turning America back to its founding Christian principles. This past weekend in Washington, D.C., that sense of urgency was at an all-time high, as speaker after speaker strongly emphasized that the time to act is now — staying home on Election Day is no longer an option.
The glass ceiling isn't the only thing Hillary Clinton shattered this week. She may have also fractured her own party. After adopting the most radical platform in DNC history, some Democrats worry that the party is about to learn a hard lesson about its extreme social stance. The incredible shrinking tent is having a major effect on the base, which warns that the country is nowhere near Clinton's fanatical approach to abortion.
Who could possibly be more liberal than President Obama? Try the woman applying for his job. After eight years of over-the-top extremism, the DNC is making it quite clear: you ain't seen nothing yet. If you thought the last two Democratic Platforms alienated moderates, the 2016 edition was essentially an eviction notice for anyone in the party not pledging allegiance to Planned Parenthood and its candidate, Hillary Clinton.
While our Secretary of State is running around Europe insisting that refrigerators are as dangerous as ISIS, the real terrorists are having a field day. [Tuesday's] attack on a church in France by radical Muslims shows a new, more aggressive tactic of the jihadists: targeted violence against Western Christians. Police are already beefing up security around houses of worship like the small Rouen church, where an 85-year-old priest was brutally beheaded during mass. As the Washington Times points out, his killing "marked the first time that the Iraq/Syria-based group targeted a church in the West, sending a shudder through religious communities that have highlighted the militants' persecution of Christians in the Middle East."
Bernie Sanders supporters aren't the only ones frustrated with the DNC. So is the press. After a single day on the ground, the Left's cheerleaders are already fed up with the horrible conditions at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. And they aren't just talking about the gender-free bathroom (although that's gotten its own share of complaints). The event is so disorganized that people like Yahoo News's editor-in-chief took to Twitter to complain. "To be totally objective and nonpartisan: the logistics at DNC are appalling. Squalid hotels, sweltering workspace, no directions. Chaos."
It looks like Hillary Clinton plans to run on the only economy this president has improved: Planned Parenthood's. Over the weekend, the campaign announced that abortion will be taking center stage at the Democratic National Convention this week in Philadelphia with confirmed speakers Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood (whose group enjoys at least a million dollars a day from taxpayers) and Ilsye Hogue, president of NARAL. Of course, highlighting these organizations is somewhat redundant, since the biggest cheerleader for abortion is the one running for election.
Donald Trump has spent his career in real estate, and [Thursday] he became the sole owner of the GOP's most valuable property: the Republican nomination for president. Late [Thursday] night, delivering a speech few thought possible, the question of Hillary Clinton's opponent was formally settled, after what will almost certainly go down as one of the most unpredictable seasons of presidential politics in history.
Those words were added to our Pledge of Allegiance in 1954 by an act of Congress, which was signed into law on June 14 by President Eisenhower. The context in which those words were added are important. America was arguably at the height of the Cold War. As a nation we faced an existential threat. Children practiced the art of duck and cover in classrooms across the country fearing a nuclear attack from the U.S.S.R. Eisenhower reportedly prompted Congress to adopt the declaration "under God" after hearing a sermon on February 7, 1954 from the Reverend George M. Docherty, pastor of the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C. In Docherty's message, he noted that our pledge had no distinction from any other republic — in fact, it could be claimed and recited by the Soviets. What made our nation distinct was it was a nation not under man, but under God.
