We all saw it coming. But expecting Monday’s vote didn’t make watching it any less horrifying. If we’re being honest, most of us still held out hope that we lived in a country where some truths were non-negotiable. Monday night on the Senate floor, we saw with gut-wrenching clarity what we really are: a nation where 44 of our most powerful men and women would order America to back away from a table where struggling newborns cry out for help. It was the birth of a new extreme: Democrats for infanticide.

With 30 of their House colleagues looking on, Senate Republicans begged their colleagues to consider what this debate was really about. “I know a lot of opponents of this bill sincerely believe the talking points that they read from their staffs,” Senator Ben Sasse (R-Nebr.) said. “We’ve heard speech after speech after speech that have nothing to do with what’s actually in this bill. I urge my colleagues to picture a baby that’s already been born, that’s outside the womb gasping for air. That’s the only thing that today’s vote is actually about. We’re talking about babies that have already been born… We’re not talking about Roe v. Wade.”

But there’s a reason that Democrats are lying about the legislation. “Although the bill doesn’t restrict abortion rights, it brings into crystal-clear focus the irrationality of the pro-abortion position,” NRO’s Alexandra Desanctis explains. “If those who support abortion concede that perhaps there is something wrong with permitting an infant to die the moment after birth if it was meant to have been aborted one minute earlier suddenly the question becomes, ‘Why is it acceptable to perform that abortion one minute earlier?’”

So Democrats marched to the floor, one after another, parroting the helpful headlines from their media friends to obscure what the debate was truly about. “Republicans need to stop wasting time on political games and legislation aimed at rolling back women’s constitutionally protected rights,” Senator Patty Murray (D-Wash.) fumed. But negligent homicide isn’t abortion. Taking the life of a newborn baby that could grow up in a loving family isn’t abortion. The only reason Senator Sasse even introduced this bill, Desanctis reminds everyone, is because Virginia Governor Ralph Northam (D) endorsed infanticide as a legitimate form of health care! “When they opposed the bill today, Democrats took the exact same line that Northam did.”

Like a lot of liberals, Senator Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) insisted that saving a baby’s life is an “attack on women’s rights.” What she won’t say is the truth — that the only rights being violated are the baby girls’ who will never have a chance to grow into women under her kind of radicalism. Even President Trump had a hard time believing the ground liberals were defending. “Senate Democrats just voted against legislation to prevent the killing of newborn infant children. The Democrat position on abortion is now so extreme that they don’t mind executing babies AFTER birth. This will be remembered as one of the most shocking votes in the history of Congress. If there is one thing we should all agree on, it’s protecting the lives of innocent babies.”

These are not “choices” writhing on a metal table. They’re not “medical options” being thrown away in a heap of dirty towels. These are innocent human beings, as real as any son or daughter smiling from the picture frames in Senate offices. But in a party beholden to a powerful abortion lobby, only three Democrats — Senators Joe Manchin (W.Va.), Doug Jones (Ala.), and Bob Casey (Pa.) — had the moral courage to say that infanticide is wrong. The others, including all five Democratic 2020 hopefuls, are so committed to killing that they’ll allow it after birth.

So much for the moral high ground of Senator Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) — the woman who just last year insisted, “We cannot tolerate a society and live in a country with any level of pride when our babies are being slaughtered.” Or Senator Cory Booker (D-N.J.), who promised to “build a country where no one is forgotten and no one is left behind.” “A great nation is judged…” Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) warned, “by how it treats the most vulnerable.” A great party will be judged too. Maybe not this week or this year, but there will be a day when 44 U.S. senators will have to answer for the choice they’ve made.

In the meantime, Democrats have lost where it matters — in the hearts and minds of Americans. The winds of change are blowing across this country, where 80 percent have made it clear: this party doesn’t speak for us. In the four weeks since Democrats cheered the deaths of innocent babies in New York, Americans finally understood the horrors of what they stand for. And the masses have started walking away. There are 14 percent more pro-life Democrats today than last month. Fourteen percent more who will fight to end this generation’s nightmare. No, we didn’t win on Monday’s vote. But this is far from over. This is truly a moment of choosing for the nation. Similar to the choice Moses put before the children of Israel, “I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live.” (Deut. 30:19)

For more on the debate, including the determination of our House friends to demand a vote, check out yesterday’s press conference on Capitol Hill, featuring FRC’s own Patrina Mosley.

Originally published here.

Worlds Apart from Obama’s Legacy

The pictures have told a thousand horror stories in Venezuela. Trucks, carrying food and medical supplies, on fire while starving people watch. Protests exploding with tear gas and bursts of gunfire. Hundreds of people wounded, while other bodies lie lifeless — the casualties of a fierce struggle for the country’s survival.

Like the rest of the world, Vice President Mike Pence was sickened by the destruction he saw when he touched down in Colombia Monday. “Just days ago, as the world watched, the tyrant in Caracas danced as his henchmen burned truckloads of food and medicine and murdered civilians,” Pence told the coalition of world leaders on the ground to deal with the Venezuelan turmoil. In their first face-to-face meeting since President Trump threw his support behind Juan Guaidó, Pence assured him that America is with him until their “libertad is restored.”

The U.S., he said, has sent another 400 tons of food and medicine to Colombia and nearby Brazil — and it will keep sending military transports until the crisis is over. With more than $139 million in aid to the people of Venezuela and another $56 million on the way, America is doing what it can to stabilize and, hopefully, rebuild what was once one of the richest countries in Latin America.

To President Maduro and those faithful to him, Pence had this warning: “[you] will find no safe harbor, no easy exit and no way out. You will lose everything.” The vice president vowed “even stronger sanctions” against people loyal to the regime if Maduro doesn’t step down. “You saw in one day,” Guaidó told the coalition, “how sadistic they were when they torched the medicines and food in front of people who are hungry, people in dire need of medicine. The entire world saw what Venezuela has been enduring for years.”

On the other side of the world, President Trump is trying to defuse decades of a different tension — this one with North Korea. Both he and Kim Jong Un have arrived in Vietnam, the site of their second summit in less than a year. The goal this time around is to hopefully put some terms on the loose nuclear deal they started last June in Singapore. Over the past several weeks, Trump has praised Kim for ending his missile tests and said that “should North Korea follow through on its commitment to complete denuclearization, we will work to ensure there are economic development options. The United States and partners are prepared to explore how to mobilize investment, improve infrastructure, enhance food security, and more…”

According to the Wall Street Journal, Trump officials say the president and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have three priorities. “They include obtaining ‘a freeze on all weapons of mass destruction and missile programs;’ agreeing on a common definition of denuclearization; and making progress on a road map for future negotiations.” The mere fact that the two leaders are meeting for a second time shows just how potent this administration’s foreign policy strategy has been. In less than a year, he’s accomplished more with North Korea by just sitting down face-to-face than any president in 40 years.

From Bogotá to Hanoi, the Trump administration has proven that America is an international problem-solver that won’t bend on core values. With a strong and fair hand, the Trump administration is changing people’s perceptions of America and bringing them back in line with the respectability that the last administration almost destroyed. And Americans are noticing. Fifty-eight percent think the U.S. rates “very” or “somewhat favorably” in the world’s eyes. That number is up three points over the last year — making it the highest figure Gallup’s recorded in more than 15 years.

Originally published here.

This is a publication of the Family Research Council. Tony Perkins’ Washington Update is written with the aid of FRC Action senior writers.