By Ben Johnson

As the legacy media attempt to create the narrative that President Donald Trump’s hardball negotiating tactics have ushered in “chaos” on the global stage, they have ignored Trump administration officials restoring respect for our nation’s religious heritage, as well as state-level measures giving voters the right to protect life and restore common sense on taxpayer-funded transgender procedures.

Here are the stories you missed.

1. Jesus Returns! (At the Merchant Marines Academy)

For 76 years, a painting of Jesus Christ coming to sailors’ rescue brought hope to members of the U.S. Merchant Marines. But in 2023, the Biden-Harris administration covered the painting before banishing it to a dank basement. Last week, the Trump administration announced it would put the painting back on display again.

Merchant Marine Lt. Hunter Alexander Wood created the painting, known alternately as “Jesus and the Lifeboat” or “Christ on the Water,” in 1944 and donated it to the chapel in the United States Merchant Marine Academy (USMMA) Basic School in San Mateo, California. When that facility closed, his artwork graced the walls of the Elliot M. See Room of Wiley Hall at the USMMA from 1947 (one year before Wood’s death) until 2023, when Mikey Weinstein of the “Military Religious Freedom Foundation” lodged a legal complaint alleging violation of the separation of church and state. The Biden-Harris administration, citing these alleged constitutional concerns, first ordered the painting covered — a move Weinstein hailed as “superb” and “a teachable moment” — before having it “taken out of a place of prominence and put down in the basement,” according to Trump Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy.

In 2023, then-Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg stonewalled a request from Senator Jim Banks (R-Ind.) to return the painting to the wall. Banks cited a 2019 Supreme Court case noting such painting violated no constitutional prohibition.

As in much else, restoring First Amendment rights did not take a new case; it took a new president. “We are moving Jesus out of the basement,” announced Duffy, a practicing Roman Catholic, in an online video last week.

The Second Coming of Jesus to the USMMA, as well as the religious freedom it heralds, “will be a moment to celebrate,” he said.

2. Missouri Voters Will Have the Chance to Protect Women and Babies

Voters in Missouri will have the opportunity to safeguard women’s health and babies lives from the abortion and transgender industry in a forthcoming statewide election. On May 14, Republicans in the state Senate overcame a Democratic filibuster to pass HJR 73, which would amend the state constitution — including a vague and expansive “right” establishing any “person’s fundamental right to reproductive freedom.”

If approved, the new amendment would allow abortions only for rape, or incest up through 12 weeks of pregnancy, or thereafter in the case of medical emergency or fetal anomaly. It restricts state funds from most abortions, except for rape or incest, and does not affect miscarriages, ectopic pregnancies, or medical emergencies.

Importantly, it allows the state to make laws “to ensure the health and safety of the pregnant mother,” including assuring abortion facilities maintain “clean and safe conditions” and that abortionists have admitting privileges to a local hospital. Last December, Jackson County Circuit Court Judge Jerri Zhang sided with Planned Parenthood, striking down numerous state pro-life protections including an informed consent requirement — a ruling Planned Parenthood called “a triumph.” A judge overturned additional licensing requirements on Valentine’s Day.

“Planned Parenthood in Missouri has a recorded history” that includes “dirty abortion facilities, dried bloody equipment, rusty equipment, expired drugs, and unqualified personnel,” stated Missouri Right to Life PAC. “[B]ecause of Amendment 3, our Missouri Constitution would prevent a woman from suing anyone associated with their abortion for any reason.”

Voters would have the opportunity to change their minds about Amendment 3, the so-called “Right to Reproductive Freedom Initiative,” which passed last November with a razor-thin 51.6% of the vote, winning by three points. It allows the state to permit abortion until viability, or later with a broad exception for the “health” of the mother.

The measure’s vague language includes “the right to make and carry out decisions about all matters related to reproductive health care, including but not limited to … abortion.” 

An organization that facilitates abortions for minors filed suit to overturn all state parental consent laws, citing Amendment 3 in its 59-page legal brief in the circuit court of Jackson County, Missouri. The same county — as well as its largest city, Kansas City — have ordinances barring minors from seeking voluntary counseling sessions from professional counselors to reduce feelings of same-sex attraction or transgender identity (although they can pursue so-called “gender-affirming” counseling that encourages them to deny their birth sex).

The forthcoming amendment also enshrines that no transgender surgeries, cross-sex hormones, or puberty-blocking drugs “shall be knowingly prescribed or administered for the purpose of gender transition to children under eighteen years of age.”

In a similar case, three weeks after Ohioans adopted a controversial state amendment giving “[e]very individual” the constitutional “right” to make and carry out “reproductive decisions including but not limited to” abortion, Democrats in the Ohio House introduced a measure stating that “reproductive health care … means gender affirming care.”

Three dozen House Democrats insisted the bill should be “ideally, crumpled up, thrown into a trash can, and set ablaze” for allegedly violating freedom of speech in a letter to House Chief Clerk Joe Engler on May 15.

The bill contains a severability clause, so if a judicial activist deems one or more of the provisions “unconstitutional,” the rest of the resolution stands. All legal challenges would have to be heard in overwhelmingly Republican Cole County — which contains the state capital, Jefferson City.

“Pro-life Missourians want to work to ‘Restore respect for women and babies in our Missouri Constitution,’” said Missouri Right to Life PAC. “Thank you for giving Missouri Right to Life and all Missourians the opportunity to vote again on LIFE!”

3. Georgia Governor Signs Bill Defunding Transgender Procedures for Inmates

On May 8, Governor Brian Kemp (R) signed a bill cutting off all state funding for prison inmates to receive “[s]ex reassignment surgeries or any other surgical procedures that are performed for the purpose of altering primary or secondary sexual characteristics,” as well as “[h]ormone replacement therapies” and “[c]osmetic procedures or prosthetics.” Hormone injections may only continue “for state inmates who were being treated … solely for the purpose of transitioning off such” injections.

S.B. 185 passed the state House of Representatives by 100-2 and the state Senate 37-15. State Reps. Regina Lewis-Ward and David Sampson, both Democrats, voted no.

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.