They can’t say they weren’t warned. Everyone in America knew where Joe Biden stood on abortion — because he told them. In 13 debates, multiple campaign ads, and a Planned Parenthood townhall, no one had any doubt that if this man won the White House, his folksy faith talk would take a backseat to his political deal with the far-Left. If Evangelicals for Biden want to say they never saw this COVID bill and its abortion funding coming, then they were the only ones.

Joe Biden was emphatic about his stance on the Hyde amendment, going all the way back to 2019 when he changed his longtime position. “For many years, as a U.S. senator,” he told a DNC crowd in Atlanta, “I’ve supported the Hyde amendment — like many, many others have… But if I believe health care is a right, and I do, I can no longer support an amendment that makes that right dependent on someone’s zip code.” The time to be shocked was two years ago, when even the Left couldn’t understand how Biden would square that decision with his faith. The Washington Post said the move “reeked of insincerity.” Over at CNN, the editor-at-large was baffled. How could Biden’s top advisors insist that he’s been guided by his faith all this time, and then turn around and abandon it? Either his faith is insincere, he argued, or Biden is just a weak, political opportunist. (Both turned out to be true.)

Regardless, the former vice president wasn’t exactly shy about the issue. He reiterated the position at red state stops, and even cut an ad for Planned Parenthood’s political arm, pledging to open the floodgates for taxpayer-funded abortion the second he was elected. So for Pro-Life Evangelicals for Biden to object now, after misleading hundreds of thousands of voters about the real agenda of Joe Biden, is insulting. And yet, in an open letter after the virus bill passed the Senate, they have the audacity to plead shock and betrayal at what the president has promised to do: break 47 years of bipartisan, pro-life precedent.

“We are very disappointed about the COVID-19 relief package’s exclusion of the Hyde amendment, a longstanding bipartisan policy that prevents taxpayer funding for abortion. We’re even more upset that the Biden administration is supporting this bill. As pro-life leaders in the evangelical community, we publicly supported President Biden’s candidacy with the understanding that there would be engagement [with] us on the issue of abortion and particularly the Hyde Amendment… We feel used and betrayed.” Then in an embarrassing admission of how they’d been played, the letter goes on to say, “The Biden team wanted to talk to us during the campaign to gain our support, and we gave it on the condition there would be active dialogue and common ground solutions on the issue of abortion. There has been no dialogue since the campaign.”

Of course not. Once they ate of the fruit the Biden campaign was offering the damage was done. The Biden team got what they wanted in 2020: cover for their unbiblical, anti-faith position on abortion. Over at their sister website, Evangelicals for Biden, they’re still under the delusion that Biden will work to “decrease abortion.” No one is quite sure how — now that he’s on the verge of sending almost a half-trillion dollars overseas without a single stipulation on life. Senators James Lankford (R-Okla.) and Steve Daines (R-Mont.) desperately tried to change that during the floor debate. “Hidden in the fine print of the Democrats’ hyper-partisan COVID-19 relief package, is an attempt to prop up Planned Parenthood and force… taxpayers to fund abortion,” Daines argued. “We’ve had five bipartisan COVID relief packages and not one of them included any provisions that would undermine pro-life protections. This package should not be any different.”

Despite all of their hard work, the GOP’s amendment to bring the legislation back under the protection of the Hyde and Helms amendments got majority support (52-47) — but not enough to hit the 60-vote threshold it needed to pass.

Joe Biden wanted everyone to believe that his faith would make him a different kind of Democrat. That his Catholic faith actually did drill into him a “core truth,” that “every person on earth is equal in rights and dignity,” as he said. These evangelicals fell for that and insisted on telling everyone in the church that they “didn’t have to change who they are to vote for him.” “They just need to reaffirm who they are by voting for someone who truly reflects Christian values.”

Three months into his presidency, nothing about Joe Biden’s abortion support — or the rest of his wildly radical anti-God, anti-gender, anti-freedom agenda — reflects biblical values. And the people who argued that evangelicals needed to either back away from Donald Trump, sit out the election, or vote for Joe Biden own this — and all of the other ungodly, evil policies flowing from Capitol Hill. They tried to play the church — and got played instead. Now, millions of innocent lives will pay for it.

Originally published here.

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Both Parties Ask for a Restraining Border

Liberals can mock the Trump border wall they want, but three months into Joe Biden’s amnesty policy, even Democrats are sounding the alarm. Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) has been watching what’s happened along the Mexican border with absolute shock and says that if the White House doesn’t do anything, there will be an immigration “crisis” in a matter of “weeks — maybe even days.”

Caravans are streaming across the border, as Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) warned, attaching a video that he captured near Yuma, Arizona. This is “Joe Biden’s open border, catch and release policy,” Johnson tweeted with lines of migrants stretched out as far as the eye can see. “How many have COVID?” he wondered.

Americans will never know, just as they’ll never get a straight answer on how bad the situation actually is. A senior-level source in the Department of Homeland Security says President Biden has a gag order in place where immigration numbers are concerned. “The situation with media relations now is night and day compared to the last administration,” the person explained. “We have been advised not to speak on immigration issues at the border and to rely on DHS’s Office of Public Affairs and the White House Press Office to handle messaging.”

That messaging, at least two dozen Republican lawmakers argue, should be to redeclare a national emergency at the border. “Until January 20th of this year, there was a standing national emergency concerning our southern border. President Trump declared that emergency on February 15, 2019. Reversing that proclamation was one of President Joe Biden’s first actions in office. It is clear now that was a grave mistake,” Rep. Lance Gooden (R-Texas) insisted. In a letter, he and a number of conservatives urged Biden to stop playing politics and protect our nation.

“Your silence on this issue in the last five weeks unfortunately suggests that you do not plan to hold the Biden administration to the same standard to which you held the Trump administration,” they wrote. The U.S. Customs and Border Control are arresting as many as 3,000 people a day — and estimate that as many as 117,000 unaccompanied children will be brought over by traffickers and drug cartels. “It is critical that our leaders recognize the severity of the circumstances and respond accordingly,” the lawmakers said. “Your administration’s refusal to enforce immigration laws has encouraged countless migrants to make the treacherous journey across our border. We urge you to recognize that an immigration crisis is underway and reinstate a national emergency concerning our southern border.”

Some Democrats have joined the plea, worrying about the humanitarian situation that’s been brewing in places like Texas. Cuellar has been especially blunt, accusing the administration of “withholding… information” about how the White House has agreed to process people and then release them into local communities. That’s a dangerous situation, he warns, that’s only getting worse.

In some places, law enforcement officials believe the border is less secure than ever before. The Washington Times’s Stephen Dinan, assistant managing editor, said he’s heard the same — pointing out that it wasn’t just the wall that was effective, but the whole infrastructure the Trump administration was building. “The previous administration was always very careful to call it a wall system because it was more than just the actual border barrier. It was [also] the high speed road that stands just back from the actual border wall… There are Border Patrol agents, who actually believe that in some cases the road is the more valuable part of that system, because it allows them easy and quick access. The point of the barrier, the wall is to deny people [and] slow them down. And then the high-speed road gives the border agents a chance to get there and apprehend them. That’s the most important part of this equation.”

Now, with Biden calling a halt to construction, migrants are taking advantage of the miles of roads in places like Arizona and California, where the wall hadn’t caught up to the rest of the project. “There were no walls built along the border… [but] you have the road, and it’s easy access.” The sheriff in one southeast Arizona county said they’re dealing with all kinds of people using those roads to “get quick access deeper into the country.” “It’s an access point and a vulnerability that’s been left there.” The reality is, Dinan warns, “we’re now seeing more people coming into the country with apparently greater ease than before the whole project began.”

Why? Because the cartels have improved and expanded their capabilities. And now that the Biden administration is taking us back to where we were in 2016, the cartels are only going to be more effective in breaking the law. It’s no surprise that Homeland Security expects that America is approaching a record — within the next couple of months — topping “anything we saw in 2014 and 2019, which were the last two surges.”

If the White House won’t listen to Republicans, then it should at least listen to its own party: “Inaction is simply not an option.”

Originally published here.

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Planned Parenthood Puts Liberal Arts to Work on Campus

If you sent your teenagers off to Christian colleges thinking they’d be safe from Planned Parenthood’s tentacles, Students for Life says: think again! In a stunning new report, Kristan Hawkins’s group is digging into 700 faith-based schools, and what they’ve found so far will surprise you. At least 25 religious colleges and universities have relationships with the abortion giant. And that, she believes, is just the beginning.

“There is an unholy partnership between a number of Christian schools and the abortion industry,” Kristan warned in the first of three planned reports. Catholic, Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian — you name it — they aren’t immune to Big Abortion on campus. More than two dozen were found to either advertise for Planned Parenthood jobs or internships, refer students to Planned Parenthood as a resource, incorporate Planned Parenthood into their medical school rotations, or host events for students with the organization. (A map of those schools is available here.)

Students for Life’s Mary Briganti was responsible for the first wave of research and says, “The bad news is that Planned Parenthood has invaded a lot of Christian campuses. The good news is that when Christian school administrations find out how much this bothers believers, some are willing to kick Planned Parenthood to the curb.” Two schools, Messiah College and St. Francis University of Pennsylvania, cut their ties with the group after they were contacted by pro-lifers.

The other 23 are the target of an online petition, meant to expose and pressure these college presidents to “disentangle themselves” from Big Abortion.

• American University (D.C.), Methodist
• Augsburg University (MN), Lutheran
• Augustana College (IL), Lutheran
• California Lutheran University (CA), Lutheran
• Drury University (MO), United Church of Christ
• Eckerd College (FL), Presbyterian
• Emory University (GA), Methodist Episcopal
• Fordham University (NY), Catholic
• Luther College (IA), Lutheran
• Macalester College (MN), Presbyterian
• McKendree University (IL), United Methodist
• New Brunswick Theological Seminary (NJ)
• Ohio Wesleyan (OH), United Methodist
• Oklahoma City University (OK), United Methodist
• Paine College (GA), Methodist
• Roanoke College (VA), Lutheran
• Saint Joseph’s University (PA), Catholic
• Saint Norbert College (WI), Catholic
• Southwestern University (TX), United Methodist
• Trinity Washington University (D.C.), Catholic
• University of Indianapolis (IN), United Methodist
• University of Lynchburg (VA), Disciples of Christ
• West Virginia Wesleyan (WV), United Methodist

If families are making financial sacrifices to send their children to Bible-professing colleges, then at the very least, these schools owe them the courtesy of not violating those beliefs. And let’s not forget: this isn’t just about abortion anymore. Planned Parenthood is also second largest provider of “gender affirming hormone care.” One whistleblower in a small town of 30,000 says her office saw one to two new biologically female teen patients looking for hormone treatments every day.

Just like abortion and radical sex ed and everything else Planned Parenthood offers, “you can walk into a clinic…without so much as a therapist’s note,” Abigail Shrier warns, “and get a course of testosterone that day.” (The same testosterone, incidentally, that can cause “deepened voice, enlarged clitoris, increase in red blood cell count, and greater risk of heart attack, infertility, vaginal and uterine atrophy, endometrial cancer — as well as all the unknown risks” that come with a dangerous and radical puberty intervention.)

Join the movement to kick the radical transgender-abortion giant off Christian campuses. Sign the petition to college presidents here.

Originally published here.

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This is a publication of the Family Research Council. Mr. Perkins is president of FRC.