Omnibusiness as Usual
A chamber of groggy senators finally called it a night a little after 12 a.m. Friday, as overwhelmed by exhaustion as they probably are with the 2,232-page bill they just sent down Pennsylvania Avenue.
A chamber of groggy senators finally called it a night a little after 12 a.m. Friday, as overwhelmed by exhaustion as they probably are with the 2,232-page bill they just sent down Pennsylvania Avenue. With 994 more pages than the Gutenberg Bible, the omnibus wasn’t exactly light reading — and unfortunately for the taxpayers, hardly light spending either.
In a city that’s numb to price tags, even $1.3 trillion ones, this spending package is par for the modern course. And according to the House Freedom Caucus, that’s exactly the problem. Although most Americans are thrilled that our military won’t have to scrounge around museums for plane parts anymore, the $654 billion for the Pentagon was never the difficult part of the omnibus to swallow. Our troops deserve a pay raise, new equipment, and better health care. As Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) and President Trump reminded everyone, Congress is “delivering the biggest increase in defense funding in 15 years. Reports of training accidents and incidents point to a readiness crisis, and this bill fulfills our pledge to rebuild the nation’s military.”
But voters deserve something too, Caucus Chair Mark Meadows (R-NC) points out. And that “something” is the fulfillment of eight years of GOP promises. In a letter to the White House, urging President Trump to veto the bill, the House’s conservatives stand united in their frustration with the process.
As you know, the American people sent a loud and clear message in the 2016 election — they are tired of business as usual in Washington, D.C… They voted to stop sending taxpayer funds to abortion providers like Planned Parenthood. They voted to reduce the unsustainable, record levels of wasteful spending that occurred during the Obama administration. They voted to fix our health care system…The funding proposal drafted by the House and Senate not only forgets the promises we made to voters — it outright rejects them.
For pro-lifers, the part about defunding Planned Parenthood still stings. After all, the Senate was one vote away from ending the forced partnership between taxpayers and America’s biggest abortion business last year on the Obamacare repeal. The House, meanwhile, has held up its end of the bargain under Trump — voting not once, but twice to cancel the hefty checks to Cecile Richards’s group. That fact isn’t lost on House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA), who is just as disappointed as we are that the language wasn’t included. “Look,” he said, “they’ve been getting funded for a long time. We are trying to roll that back. Our health care bill, which passed the House and failed in the Senate by one vote, would have fully defunded Planned Parenthood. We’ve got to continue that fight … I have worked very closely with all the pro-life groups. We are going to be rolling back some of the money that they are getting. We’ve got to continue to battle to get that done.”
For that to happen, the House has to continue holding the line on the Planned Parenthood defund effort until the Senate gets its act together. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen on this omnibus, so we have to keep fighting until the next funding vehicle comes along. Until it does, the GOP has to understand Americans’ frustration. They’re seeing headlines like California’s, where even middle schools are becoming platforms for Planned Parenthood’s propaganda. In Monrovia, parents didn’t even know their sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-grade kids would be exposed to the abortion group’s message until they saw pictures of a display on social media. Not surprisingly, they were outraged. After a flood of complaints, district Superintendent Dr. Katherine Thorossian issued an immediate apology.
“Parents have a right to know what information is being distributed to their children,” she said contritely. “This incident has shed light on the gap in our procedures and we will, from now on, establish and apply more stringent protocols to ensure that we properly inform our school community.” According to students, the abortion giant was handing out its sex education materials (which is so controversial that parents have banned it from other districts), birth control, puberty, and STD information.
Of course, Monrovia is just one of the places that Planned Parenthood has pushed itself into public schools — helped, in large part, by the half-billion dollars it rakes in every year from taxpayers. Yes, there are good things in the omnibus: a $10 million bump for sexual risk avoidance (abstinence) programs, confirmation of the ban on overseas abortion funding (the Mexico City Policy), and a rider that blocks the download or exchange of pornography at some federal agencies.
Obviously, there are some legitimate obstacles to defunding Planned Parenthood. (Republicans’ slim majority in the Senate, for one.) But the sooner the GOP digs in on this issue, the better. Who knows how many unborn lives are hanging in the balance, just waiting for leaders to act?
Originally published here.
Bolton the Door on U.S. Security
As President Trump tries to find the right balance in his leadership team, plenty of faces are changing around the administration’s table. Thursday night, he kept his HR team hopping, ousting H.R. McMaster and announcing the appointment of new National Security Advisor John Bolton. And if the Left’s panic is any indication, he’s the perfect man for the job.
A former UN ambassador, Bolton has years of foreign policy experience and a tough, no-nonsense approach to American threats. As Breitbart points out, that’s exactly what some liberals are afraid of. From Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) to Chris Coons (D-DE), Democrats tweeted out their despair at the pick. “Though Ambassador John Bolton has extensive experience, I’m deeply concerned by the prospect of him advising President Trump and directing key debates on national security policy.” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) was even less diplomatic. “I can’t imagine a more reckless, more dangerous pick.” Others fanned the hysterical flames with warnings that America was headed for nuclear war and an Iranian disaster.
Israelis, on the other hand, were thrilled. At least three leaders congratulated the man they consider a “stalwart friend of Israel.” Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked posted in Hebrew that “President Trump continues to appoint true friends of Israel to senior positions. John Bolton is one of the most outstanding.” Deputy Minister for Diplomacy Michael Oren also cheered the move, insisting, “The days of the nuclear agreement, which is terrible in its current form, are nearing an end.”
After his stint as United Nations ambassador, he routinely criticized the UN for its liberal stances on life, sexuality, and religious liberty. As recently as 2015, he told a crowd of Alliance Defending Freedom supporters, “You’re debating a resolution on the circumstances of the dispute between Israel and the Palestinians [at the UN], and suddenly there’ll be language about ‘reproductive rights,’ or ‘women in the Israeli-occupied territories.’ And you say, ‘Wait a minute. This is hard enough as it is. Where did we get into 'reproductive rights?’”
“… In the abstract,” he said, “how bad does [reproductive rights] sound?” But, he went on, “we know that that’s a code word for abortion. That’s what that’s about. So when it comes up it may sound like you’re quibbling over semantics, but obviously you’re not. And where the danger, I think, multiplies in the U.N. system, in this huge, sprawling organization that does so much” is in a strange phenomenon Bolton said he had seen “over and over again.” “It comes up in a conference on the environment, where suddenly the consequences of global warming include impairing the reproductive rights of women.” To the audience’s laughter, he said, “I’ve seen it come up in arms control negotiations; I mean it’s unbelievable.”
FRC’s Travis Weber is optimistic because Bolton has a history of sticking to the law on issues of international law — “instead of using it as an activist launching pad as so many do.” This ought to encourage conservatives, he said, “because it means Bolton will be inclined to view international law properly — and not in a way that permits sexual orientation/gender identity (SOGI) measures, abortion, and religious hostility. He’s critical of the abuses of legal activism at the U.N. and in the international context. He properly recognizes nation-state sovereignty, instead of improperly subjugating it to a morass of activist-defined international "law” which is really not legally binding at all.“
All in all, Bolton is an excellent pick. This selection, combined with the recent announcement of Mike Pompeo for Secretary of State, would put an A-team in place for Trump — and the American people.
Originally published here.
Catholic Democrats: The Beginning of the End?
The Catholic Church has had a long and storied relationship with the Democratic Party. Not anymore, warns Cardinal Timothy Dolan. In a powerful piece for The Wall Street Journal, the beloved and outspoken Dolan, who remembers growing up with a grandmother that whispered to him, "We Catholics don’t trust those Republicans,” has come to the jarring realization that the Democratic Party really isn’t his grandmother’s party.
… [T]he needs of poor and middle-class children in Catholic schools and the right to life of the baby in the womb — largely have been rejected by the party of our youth. An esteemed pro-life Democrat in Illinois, Rep. Dan Lipinski, effectively was blacklisted by his own party. Last year, Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez insisted that pro-life candidates have no place in the modern Democratic Party.
The “big tent” of the Democratic Party now seems a pup tent… I’m a pastor, not a politician, and I’ve certainly had spats and disappointments with politicians from both of America’s leading parties. But it saddens me, and weakens the democracy millions of Americans cherish, when the party that once embraced Catholics now slams the door on us.
To… Grandma Dolan, I’m sorry to have to write this. But not as sad as you are to know it is true.
It’s been a difficult split for Catholic voters, who’ve watched the DNC turn their political home into a virtual satellite office of Planned Parenthood. No doubt that’s what’s driving Pew’s latest research, which shows that the Obama-era attacks on conscience, taxpayer-funded abortion, and faith-based groups like Catholic Charities is having a major impact on the voting trends of this once heavily-Democratic population. The defection of white Catholics from the Democratic Party to the GOP has been swift and astounding. Today, the Republicans’ share of the white Catholic vote is 54 percent, compared to 45 percent two and a half decades ago. If more voters feel as unwelcome as Dolan, the GOP has an opportunity to build a bigger and stronger alliance with Catholic voters. But, like any solid relationship, it can’t be built with words; it has to be built with action.
For the Left, the way back to Catholics’ good graces is easy. Democrat Conor Lamb tried it, highlighting supposedly pro-life views in a special Pennsylvania district that Trump won by double digits. Unlike most in his party, he used the life issue to his advantage — a strategy that helped propel the young Lamb to victory. “If somebody in his district was a pro-life voter and that was their No. 1 issue, then they are not voting for Conor Lamb,” political science professor Christopher Borick told the Times. “However, if that is an important issue, but not the No. 1 issue for you, and you are weighing a number of the candidate’s attributes, his personal stance might in some ways give you a little bit of extra wiggle room to offer your support.” While deceptive, that strategy, the Times argues, “bolstered by news reports labeling Mr. Lamb as pro-life — could have helped him in a race where the margin of victory was just north of 800 votes.”
As we’ve said several times before, the abortion issue was never settled by the Supreme Court. It continues to impact the political debate — so much so that abortion is literally deciding the outcome of elections. And if Democrats have any hope of recapturing the majority in Congress, they’ll need to put the brakes on this runaway train of abortion extremism. My home state governor, Jon Bel Edwards (D), certainly gets it. Louisiana is a socially conservative state that’s never had a pro-abortion governor. Edwards knows that if he crosses voters on life, he’ll lose. That might explain why he’s been so quick to endorse a 15-week abortion ban like Mississippi’s. He understands what the DNC does not: the party’s quickest death is alienating the voters who support life.
Originally published here.
America Says Goodbye to a Champion of Both Parties
The ranks of socially conservative Democrats are shrinking — and no one was probably more grieved by that than former Georgia senator and governor Zell Miller. A passionate, God-fearing and God-loving pro-lifer, Zell was often the lone voice of reason in a party that was starting to lose its way. Friday morning, the man who earned the love and respect from people on both sides of the aisle passed away of Parkinson’s disease at the age of 86. A southerner to the end, he was deeply admired for his strong pro-life, pro-marriage stances in the Democratic Party.
FRC’s relationship with Zell goes back to the early 2000s, when marriage started coming under regular attack. As a senator, he even joined us for our Justice Sunday II simulcast in Nashville. He gave us five minutes of exhortation, focused on the fact that our founders gave us a nation under God and that we stand at a crossroads in history. He noted that liberal judges seem “ready to discard like an old hula hoop the institution of marriage.” He asked the audience to prepare for the challenge of being involved in restoring the power of the elected branches to represent the will of the people, and he added, “When they make it harder to pray, we will just pray harder.”
We offer our deepest condolences — and our deepest gratitude — to the Miller family. America could use more leaders like Zell, who are willing to stand for what’s right, no matter what party they belong to.
Originally published here.
This is a publication of the Family Research Council. Mr. Perkins is president of FRC.
