The nation’s third largest political party notched by far its most successful election cycle in races to the nation’s upper legislative chamber.
While Alaska’s Joe Miller came up short for a third time in his bid for a seat in the U.S. Senate in 2016, he nonetheless turned in a history-making performance.
As a Republican, Miller had previously lost by four points in the general election to Senator Lisa Murkowski during her 2010 write-in campaign and then fell 7.9 points short seeking the GOP nomination won by Daniel Sullivan in 2014.
The Tea Party favorite was an 11th hour recruit by the Libertarian Party in September 2016 and his brief, two-month campaign won him an impressive 29.4 percent of the vote in the general election. . .
Smart Politics examined the more than 330 Libertarian U.S. Senate candidates to appear on the general election ballot since 1976 and found that Joe Miller’s 29.4 percent showing in Alaska this cycle crushed the party’s previous best performance by nearly 11 points. . .
[F]our of the previous five best U.S. Senate electoral showings in Libertarian history were held in races in which only one major party nominee was on the ballot:. . Miller, however, faced a full slate of candidates. In addition to Murkowski, Miller was opposed by a Democratic nominee (Ray Metcalf, 11.1 percent) as well as an independent candidate who had the support of some prominent Alaska Democrats (Margaret Stock, 13.7 percent). Two other independents were also on the ballot (Breck Craig and Ted Gianoutsos). (Read more from “Joe Miller Shatters Libertarian Records While 8 Others Set New State Party Marks” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/1280px-Gadsden_flag.svg_.png8531280Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-11-20 21:49:082016-11-27 13:07:28Joe Miller Shatters Libertarian Records While 8 Others Set New State Party Marks
The father of an Army soldier killed in Afghanistan says he and his family were booed as they flew to meet his son’s body coming home.
Sgt. John Perry, 30, was killed in a suicide attack at Bagram Airfield on Saturday, along with Pfc. Tyler Iubelt and two American contractors. Stewart Perry told KOVR-TV his son stopped the suicide bomber short of his target and may have saved hundreds of lives.
Perry told the Army Times the booing took place on an American Airlines flight that landed in Phoenix Monday. Perry and his family were flying from Sacramento to Dover Air Force Base.
The captain told everyone to remain seated to let the Perry family leave first to make their connection.
“When he made that announcement, there was some hissing and some booing behind us,” Perry told the Army Times. (Read more from “Father of Fallen Soldier Says Plane Passengers Booed Family” HERE)
Hillary Clinton’s night on the 9th of November went from a celebration to an absolute meltdown once the election unexpectedly turned on her, leaving Trump as the victor. Some of the remnants of Hillary Clinton’s rampage in the private VIP area were discovered by the hotel custodial staff the day following the election.
Hillary Clinton’s post-election celebration plans included hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of fireworks, live performances by various celebrities, such as Cher, who came believing that Hillary was going to win the election, a five-hundred-thousand-dollar special effect glass ceiling that she would break through in a dramatic display once she walked out on stage at her H.Q., among millions of dollars worth of other celebratory preparations, all paid for by the Clinton Foundation in full.
The most notable damage was located deep in the VIP room of the Clinton camp. A custom 150 inch ultra HD TV, a gift from the Saudi Arabian government, was found with a broken screen. The damage was caused by a $950,000 bottle of champagne that was believed to have been thrown at the screen by the former presidential candidate some time during the election.
Early in the morning, the custodial staff were greeted by flipped-over tables as the floors were covered with expensive food, drinks, and appetizers. Broken champagne flutes and gilded silverware were also seen scattered around the would-be party room.
The most telling sign of a massive meltdown was the cake. The pastry that had once proudly displayed the presidential seal, was violently flung against the walls in chunks. A broken topper from the cake in the shape of the white house was discovered lodged firmly into the drywall near the dessert table. (Read more from “”DUMPED ON PROM NIGHT”: Reports Coming in of Hillary’s Stunning Election Night Meltdown” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/24634041385_5beeec91f5_b.jpg6831024Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-11-20 21:28:162016-11-27 13:02:32“DUMPED ON PROM NIGHT”: Reports Coming in of Hillary’s Stunning Election Night Meltdown
On Thursday, I testified in Austin, Texas about the latest skirmish over how evolution is taught in Texas public high schools. I want it taught, warts and all. Darwinists want it taught as airbrushed and unquestionable dogma.
The state school board meeting was called to consider initial steps to streamline the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS). Streamlining is fine, in principle. The problem is that some of the proposed changes to the evolution section water down four passages that call on students to learn about, analyze and evaluate some of the growing evidential challenges to modern evolutionary theory.
So, for instance, what are we to make of the sudden appearance of new species and fundamentally new body plans in the fossil record? Neo-Darwinism says these animal forms evolved very gradually as part of the evolutionary tree of life, but the pattern in the geological column paints a different picture. Shouldn’t biology students be able to exercise their critical thinking skills by wrestling with this conundrum? The majority on the biology committee weren’t keen on that idea. They struck the sudden appearance language from the TEKS and argued that high school students aren’t mature enough to hear about it and ask intelligent questions. Not “developmentally appropriate,” the committee report said.
And, besides, said Karyn Ard, the chair of the biology curriculum review committee, there’s not enough time to cover it during the school year. There’s too much other material they have to cover. Ditto the growing mystery surrounding the origin of the first life.
Since I substitute taught in the Austin Independent School District for a year before I started graduate school, I could sympathize with Ard when she emphasized the wide disparity in student ability and the challenge teachers face to cover all the assigned material adequately. At the same time, the very real effect of the committee’s streamlining is to get rid of just those areas that best expose kids to the growing evidential challenges facing evolution, while leaving behind all kinds of pro-Darwinian propaganda woven into the fabric of the leading high school biology textbooks.
Covering for Darwin
Significantly, the pro-Darwin Texas Freedom Network (TFN) has had it in for these four hot-button passages ever since the passages made their way into the TEKS a few years ago. So it’s no surprise that TFN is celebrating the proposed deletions.
Ard told the board that the biology committee’s motives were focused squarely on streamlining, that she wasn’t even aware of the TFN until recently, and that their proposed deletions were not in any way politically motivated. My first reaction was: Really? The committee just happened to water down precisely the four passages the pro-Darwin TFN named as public enemy number 1, and the committee includes a vocal Darwin defender, Ron Wetherington, but somehow it was never the committee’s intent to put a giant thumb on the scale for Darwin?
Wetherington himself testified a bit later and made it abundantly obvious that he’s had it in for these four passages since they first made it into the TEKS. Some able cross-examination from conservative state school board member Marty Rowley (Amarillo) further underscored this fact.
In all fairness, Ard may indeed have been largely unaware of what was at stake, or at least had little interest in or knowledge about the origins controversy and was merely happy not to have to cover it during a biology course jam packed with other material. She insisted that when Wetherington debated evolution with molecular biologist Ray Bohlin and Baylor University chemistry professor Charles Garner during their curriculum revision meetings, she and several of the other committee members were at sea, unable to follow the discussion.
OK, but that brings me to the second thought I had on hearing Ard’s plea of non-political motives: Intent is secondary. The primary issue is effect. And the effect of watering down these four sections of the TEKS would be to give biology teachers who want to teach the scientific controversy over modern evolutionary theory less cover than they have now.
And here’s why that’s a problem. The national Darwin lobby is in the habit of targeting and persecuting teachers and professors who dare call into question Darwinian dogma. The Discovery Institute, where I now work, has come to the aid of many teachers and professors who have been targeted by militant Darwinists intent on suppressing the evidence against modern evolutionary theory. That pattern of attack and suppression is why Texas biology teachers with the courage to teach the controversy can use all the cover that the state board of education and the TEKS can give them.
More hearings are set for early next year, and a final meeting and decision in April. It’s in Texas’ best interest that at least eight members of the board (a majority) find the clarity and courage to do the right thing by voting to preserve these key passages in the current standards, standards that free biology teachers to safely teach students to critically scrutinize evolutionary theory, warts and all. (For more from the author of “Texas Committee: High Schoolers Can’t Handle Evidence Against Darwinism” please click HERE)
Last week, President-elect Donald Trump condemned violence allegedly done by racists and others against minorities after he won the White House. Though frequently unsubstantiated and/or proven false, the narrative of a virulently racist and bigoted America post-election has been furthered by the anti-Christian, anti-conservative Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which published a largely unverified report claiming 700 incidents of hate, hate-based harassment etc. were reported to it since Trump was elected.
Meanwhile, proven cases of violence by liberal Trump opponents have been witnessed in protests around the nation. Traffic has been blocked, police and civilians have been attacked and arrests have been made. Additionally, Trump backers have been specifically targeted in a handful of beatings and other proven situations nationwide.
Again, Trump has made efforts to tamp down the flames, though CNN’s Brian Stelter and others say he should do more. Contrast this to Democratic leaders, who have been urged by Trump’s campaign manager to speak out against the violence.
Retiring Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV)
Rather than condemn violence around the nation, Reid said late this week that he “was concerned” after the election whether “the world is going to be destroyed.” Last week, Reid called Trump “a sexual predator” who “fueled his campaign with bigotry and hate.” Reid also said:
I have heard more stories in the past 48 hours of Americans living in fear of their own government and their fellow Americans than I can remember hearing in five decades in politics. Hispanic Americans who fear their families will be torn apart, African Americans being heckled on the street, Muslim Americans afraid to wear a headscarf, gay and lesbian couples having slurs hurled at them and feeling afraid to walk down the street holding hands. American children waking up in the middle of the night crying, terrified that Trump will take their parents away. Young girls unable to understand why a man who brags about sexually assaulting women has been elected president.
Not a word against Trump opponents who are tearing up the streets …
Senator Elizabeth Warren
Warren, long considered a liberal favorite for the White House if she were to run, told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow last week that while liberals must “listen” to people who voted for Trump, those people protesting Trump “have a right to have their voices heard.”
Warren is right. But where is her condemnation of the violence by the left? This is the same woman who called Tea Party activists “anarchists” after 17 percent of the U.S. federal government shut down in 2013, and who said Republicans were holding the government “hostage.”
President Barack Obama
President Barack Obama was asked about the domestic protests on his last international trip as the White House occupant. He declined to condemn the violence and, perhaps just as offensively, compared the often-violent protests to peaceful ones by conservative groups during his presidency.
“I would not advise people who feel strongly or are concerned about some of the issues that have been raised over the course of the campaign, I would not advise them to be silent,” Obama said during a joint news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Obama said protests are just something Trump would have to get used to as the leader of the free world.
“I’ve been the subject of protests during the course of my eight years,” he said. “And I suspect that there’s not a president in our history that hasn’t been subject to these protests.”
As a former Tea Party Patriots employee, I remember the days of protests against Obama. They were usually forward-looking affairs, urging policy changes and demanding things like less government spending and fair treatment of all citizens by the IRS. Participants would also clean up after themselves, rather than leave the site covered in trash and the streets littered with broken glass. Even the most raucous Tea Party events were town hall meetings with senators and representatives, where yelling was the worst thing that happened.
Non-Tea Party protests were likewise peaceful. The March for Life is D.C.’s largest annual protest, and like prayer vigils frequently held for America’s future, it is peaceful.
Democratic White House Nominee Hillary Clinton
Hillary Clinton’s first speech since conceding the White House race to Trump was largely benign in terms of addressing the violence in the nation by liberals who preferred her over Trump. Unlike Reid, she didn’t fan the flames of irrational fear. Unlike Obama and Warren, she didn’t encourage the protests while ignoring the strong core of lawbreaking in them.
But nor did she call for peace. Nor did she reiterate a call for her supporters to accept the results of the election.
Legitimate Concerns Undermined by Poor Leadership
After a normal election, it might be reasonable for CNN’s Stelter and others to demand Trump ask for peace. After all, he is the next President, and his leadership ought to be important. But this was not a normal election. Furthermore, while rational concerns have been expressed by some protesters, overreactions by liberal leaders has made it almost impossible for Trump to stem the protests and the violence.
Trump’s concession speech was amazing and magnanimous, and both Obama and Clinton made solid speeches as well immediately after Trump’s victory. But it is Obama, Warren and Clinton to whom protesters will listen, not the President-elect the liberals trashing our streets and ambushing their fellow Americans believe is the next Hitler.
Then again, wasn’t Bush supposed to be the next Hitler? (For more from the author of “Trump Has Condemned Post-Election Violence. Why Are Dem Leaders Encouraging It?” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/24120120029_38478f1764_b-1.jpg6831024Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-11-20 21:07:582016-11-20 21:07:58Trump Has Condemned Post-Election Violence. Why Are Dem Leaders Encouraging It?
A few months back, I wondered aloud here why campus leftists would invite fellow students to bite the heads off fetus cookies. Or what purpose was served by hanging a Jesus dartboard in a dorm. The answer I found was simple. And alarming.
The left in America is engaged in what Catholic philosopher Thomas Molnar called “cultural terrorism.” As someone who survived both a Nazi concentration camp and post-war Stalinist Hungary, Molnar knew whereof he spoke. And the post-election actions of America’s left, from the streets of major cities to the halls of Congress itself, come straight from the radical playbook of Saul Alinsky and his disciples (which included both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton).
Cultural terrorism is designed to work much like the bombs-and-bullets variety, using words and symbols instead. Its objectives, laid out in Molnar’s classic, The Counter-Revolution, are
To shatter the sense of normalcy, peace, and civic order that make it possible to live a middle-class existence in a free society.
To profane the sacred spaces and shatter the pious conventions that hold citizens together by wholesome inertia.
To introduce division, fear, distrust, and ethnic groupthink — whatever it takes to detach people from their natural deference to legitimate, elected authority.
To produce a sense of crisis, in which radical ideologies and rash actions seem no longer off the table, but somehow proportionate and maybe even necessary.
The Worse Things Get, the Better it is!
The Italian Communists used to cooperate with neo-Fascist terrorists planting bombs in the 1970s, under the slogan, “The worse things get, the better it is!” Their theory was that social chaos and widespread killing would lead to a crackdown by the government, which would speed up the coming of a Communist revolution. On a lesser scale (so far) that is where we are today.
I doubt that the average outraged campus snowflake or needlessly frightened black or Latino protestor has any idea of how he is being used, but the leaders behind the unrest across America are self-aware, and politically ruthless — as were the organizers of the Occupy movement. That fact was documented in Occupy Unmasked, which Trump strategist Stephen Bannon helped to make.
When radical activists encourage thousands of ghetto residents to block public roads, and cossetted students to mock and defy police, they are attacking the sense of predictable public order. When protestors gather outside the Trump International Hotel in our nation’s capital holding a sign that says “Rape Melania,” they are asking for a street fight with Trump supporters — or really, any passerby possessed of a sense of decency. The leaders who organize these outrages are hoping that something gets violent and ugly — that an outraged (white) motorist runs somebody down, or a stressed-out cop (of any color) starts shooting civilians. All that would feed into and verify their manufactured emergency, give millions more citizens the false impression that we are approaching martial law.
Never Let a Crisis Go to Waste
If that sounds outrageous and implausible to you, keep in mind the Clintonite mantra “Never let a crisis go to waste.” Remember that Wikileaks revealed the fact that a senior Clinton campaign staffer hoped that mass shooters would turn out to be white Christians. Recall that the riots in 1968 that handed vast cultural power to the radical left in West Germany were started when a policeman shot a student. Decades later, it turned out that the policeman was in fact an East German spy, who probably acted on orders to light the spark for revolution.
What does it mean when the losers in an election announce that the winner is “Not My President”? When reporters give millions of dollars in free publicity to a contemptible fringe figure like white nationalist Richard Spencer, who played no role whatsoever in the election of Donald Trump? (The Communist Party, USA endorsed Hillary Clinton. Had she won, would the media have featured its leader in alarmist photo spreads?) What does it signify when Trump’s newly-elected Vice President cannot even attend a Broadway show without being challenged and humiliated? When the next president’s appointees (such as Steve Bannon and Sen. Jeff Sessions) are subject to a non-stop campaign of lies and vilification as racists and extremists, outside the bounds of decent society and therefore ineligible for office?
Recall that before the election, Hillary Clinton herself discounted half of Trump’s supporters as “deplorables” motivated by hatred. Outraged, out-of-touch elitists cannot accept the fact that their fellow citizens rejected their grab at power — which remember, was supposed to pack the Supreme Court with far-left mandarins who would have taken critical issues, from abortion and gun rights to free campaign speech and religious liberty, out of the hands of the grubby, untrustworthy masses. These privileged “progressives” came so close to attaining that final liquidation of democracy that they could taste it. And now they’re not willing to let it go.
They will go on and on and on, promoting civil disorder and stoking the flames of division, in the hope that something goes horribly, bloodily wrong in some American city. Then they can send out their experts in “healing” and “reconciliation” across the media, and demand that the Trump administration back off on its central policies — which will clearly have proved to be too “radical” and “provocative.” To ease the crisis which they provoked, they will work up bipartisan measures with bland, defeatist establishment Republicans, so both parties can work together to annul the effects of Trump’s historic victory.
For our part, we must stay calm. We must insist in firm but measured tones on the legitimacy of our country’s last democratic election. We must frustrate attempts at character assassination on decent men whom President-elect Trump appoints to office, and wait out this national paroxysm of elitist rage and envy. We must pray that Trump’s supporters, and policemen across America, have the patience and long-suffering to let these arsonists’ fires simply burn themselves out. Then normalcy will return. We must stand firm by principles, insist on justice and order, and turn the other cheek. Do anything else, and the cultural terrorists win. (For more from the author of “The Left’s Post-Trump Win Campaign of Terror” please click HERE)
With the 2016 election finally over, you probably feel like you crawled the last 100 meters of a marathon that you looked forward to and then totally regret doing. But the race didn’t really end on Nov. 8. The most perverse, wasteful, and costly session of Congress started right after the election: the lame duck.
This year, you’ll feel like you crawled across the finish line and met with a punch in the face; Congress will have to vote on a massive spending bill to avoid a government shutdown by Dec. 9. Again.
While the lame-duck session will most certainly be bad this year, it won’t be unprecedented. Let’s take a look back at the most egregious things Congress has done in lame-duck sessions past.
1. Harding and vote buying
In 1922, President Warren Harding was accused of buying votes to pass the Ship Subsidy Bill. As the Heritage Foundation’s James Wallner and Paul Winfree noted in their recent study on lame-duck sessions, “Republicans who were defeated in their bid for re-election were more likely to vote for the [ship subsidy] legislation than those who were not.” The controversy over the bill prompted progressive, Republican Senator George Norris of Nebraska to propose a constitutional amendment to shorten the lame duck. A decade later, in 1933, the 20th Amendment was ratified, shortening the lame duck by three months.
2. The notorious DHS
In 2002, Congress created a massive new government agency — a Cabinet agency, no less — when it created the Department of Homeland Security, with the 9/11 attacks as the backdrop and justification. Paul Light, then-director of Governmental Studies at the Brookings Institution, noted that the creation of DHS was “the largest government reorganization since 1947[.]” The department had 240,000 employees as of 2015 and its 2016 budget was over $40 billion.
3. Auto bailouts
In 2008, the House of Representatives attempted to put taxpayers on the line for $14 billion to bail out the auto industry. The measure couldn’t pass the Republican Senate, so days before Christmas President George W. Bush unilaterally bailed out the auto industry by transferring over $17 billion from the TARP program (the Wall Street bailout) to the auto industry.
4. The story of Boehner and the reindeer farmer
Then there was that time a lame-duck former reindeer farmer changed his vote to help pass a massive $1 trillion spending bill: In 2014, House conservatives almost defeated a $1 trillion continuing resolution. When then-Speaker John Boehner realized the spending bill was going down, he convinced Michigan’s lame-duck Rep. Kerry Bentivolio (a former reindeer farmer by trade) to change his vote, along with then-Indiana Rep. Marlin Stutzman. The spending bill passed, and Bentivolio retreated back to Michigan. He has tried to reenter politics since then, albeit unsuccessfully.
5. 20 trillion (with a “T”)
Finally, we’ve had 20 lame-duck sessions since 1940. Congress has passed reckless appropriations bills and continuing resolutions in 12 of them. They are a big reason we have a nearly $20 trillion national debt. (For more from the author of “Here Are the 5 Most Egregious Things Congress Has Done in Lame-Duck Sessions” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/duck-1196760_960_720.jpg640960Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-11-20 20:51:202016-11-20 20:51:20Here Are the 5 Most Egregious Things Congress Has Done in Lame-Duck Sessions
When is a treaty not a treaty? According to the Obama administration, whenever the president says so. This claim is especially dubious with respect to the Paris agreement on global warming, which as Marlo Lewis of the Competitive Enterprise Institute has shown, is more ambitious than predecessor agreements that were universally accepted to be treaties.
Surely if President Obama possesses an asserted authority to declare an agreement identical in form and more ambitious in substance than previous treaties to be a non-treaty then President Trump will have the authority to reach the opposite, more plausible conclusion.
There is little doubt that the Trump administration will reject the Paris agreement, but the option of properly recognizing it as a treaty and allowing the Senate to formally reject it has several advantages.
First, it prevents the dangerous precedent of a president binding the country and his successor to international commitments without the broad support that the Constitution requires through the advice and consent process. Secondly, it sidesteps the question of whether the withdrawal provision of the Paris treaty itself forces us to wait four years before withdrawal is effective. Finally, it exposes as false the talking point that skepticism of the Paris agreement is outside the political mainstream.
John Kerry, who infamously declared global warming a greater threat to the United States than terrorism, gave his final speech on the subject this week to the UN functionaries in Marrakech, Morocco. He offered a soothing fantasy.
“No one should doubt the overwhelming majority of the citizens of the United States who know climate change is happening and who are determined to keep our commitments that were made in Paris,” Kerry said to applause.
Last week’s election emphatically showed the opposite. The Midwest delivered the White House to Trump, who dominated among the working class voters who care far more about how much they are paying to fill up the gas tank and keep their lights on than they do about what United Nations computer models predict about the climate in decades or centuries — the results of which show minimal change anyway. Appalachian voters in particular preferred Trump in a stunning 469 of 490 counties.
The Paris treaty is a magnificent example of the bad deals made for America that ultimately paved Donald Trump’s path to the White House.
Specifically, the Paris treaty effectively bans coal-fired power plants in the United States while China has 368 coal plants under construction and over 800 in the planning stage. India’s coal production under the deal is projected to double by 2020. Even Europe is allowed to build coal plants. It forces Americans to endure painful cuts while the rest of the world continues with business as usual.
Even worse, American taxpayers will be forced to cough up $100 billion in climate-related foreign aid by 2020, with the promise of much more to follow.
Which brings us to the Senate.
Trump can submit the Paris treaty in full confidence that it will not pass with the required 67 votes in a body that has just 48 Democrats. The interesting question: how low can the vote total for this rotten deal go?
With ten Senate Democrats sitting in states Trump carried, many senators will be forced to choose between their green billionaire donors out in San Francisco and the voters they need to survive in 2018. And when the Senate votes the Paris treaty down, it will send an emphatic message to the world that — despite what John Kerry told his friends in Marrakech — the American people are with Trump on this, not Obama. (For more from the author of “Trump Should Let the Senate Kill Obama’s Climate Treaty” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/7184974644_36639370da_b.jpg600840Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-11-20 20:46:322016-11-20 20:46:32Trump Should Let the Senate Kill Obama’s Climate Treaty
A blessing and a curse of the Internet is that it allows us to peek into the living rooms — even bedrooms — of other people’s lives. Often now, many people invite us into their lives purposely, and reveal intimate details intentionally, for altruism, pity — a redress of grievances — and so on. Last week, an Irish woman was so frustrated and outraged she couldn’t have an abortion in her country (abortions are banned in Ireland) that she trekked to Liverpool, England. She documented the entire journey live, Twitter-ranting, complaining, and justifying her decision as she went.
The circumstances
The Daily Mail reported that, using the name “Heartbroken&Punished,” an anonymous couple living in Ireland began tweeting the story of her unfolding abortion. The couple, who already has one living child with a several disability, left that child in care of family members in order to travel to Liverpool, about 150 miles away, to abort their unborn baby. Prenatal testing had revealed the unborn child had “Edwards syndrome, which is a fatal foetal abnormality.” The father said, “We were told that even if carried to full term, the period of life would be counted in the minutes and hours after birth.” According to the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act 2013, abortion is only legal in Ireland if the life of the mother is at risk.
In their pinned tweet, the couple writes that they tried several times to conceive, despite knowing that baby too would risk the same genetic abnormality as their first child. They were told if the wife gave birth to a child with Edwards, “if carried to full term the period of life would be counted in the minutes and hours after birth.” The father called it a “crushing sentence” and the “most humane thing possible to do to a baby that will never survive.”
The couple wrote about how they chose to document their journey because they “hope this may enlighten those who do not want to listen or even allow the people of this country to decide for themselves” since their government has “kicked the can down the road and we must decide if we can allow this to happen.”
The blame game
The majority of the tweets were aimed at the Irish government. In fact, almost every tweet along the journey includes the hashtag “it’s time to repeal,” referring to Ireland’s law. In 2014, less than 4,000 women travelled to the U.K. to receive an abortion due to Ireland’s strict law. The woman concluded because she decided to abort her children, due to the results of the genetic testing, her “country doesn’t care.”
Because of the unborn child’s diagnosis with Edward’s, the couple assumed they have no other choice but abortion and then assumed the government should allow it, simply so they don’t have to be inconvenienced. Both these conclusions, while understandable (and indeed heartbreaking) are misinformed.
Tell me: Is there anything more ironic than complaining about the hardship it’s been to travel to abort your child? More narcissistic than demanding you’re so entitled, your government should adjust its laws so you can terminate your baby? Indeed, nothing says your “country doesn’t care” more than forcing a woman to travel a few miles to abort her child. How selfish; how egocentric; how greedy.
Wrong on both counts
The idea of getting an abortion to end a pregnancy — especially in cases of rape, incest, or when a child will likely not survive long past birth — can be understandably attractive to a woman or her husband, it is still wrong. Adoption is always a viable, positive option that is truly a “win-win-win” for mom, baby, and a couple waiting to adopt — particularly in the case of rape or incest. And according to this news story, there are 14 times more couples in Ireland waiting to adopt than there are children to adopt. In the case of fetal abnormalities, like the unborn child of this couple, it would likely be more humane to allow the baby to be born and die a natural death. Babies feel pain during abortion as early as 8 weeks. (It appears this mother was about 12 weeks along.) This outcome, while still tragic, may have been less painful for baby, and less emotionally devastating for the parents — and it certainly would have avoided a trip to Liverpool. Abortion, contrary to popular belief, is rarely a humane option for baby or mom.
Not only that, but it’s deeply saddening to see the couple attempted to use this experience as a way to redress their grievances to their government — to appeal to change their abortion law. They essentially argued, “I want to terminate my baby. How dare the government not acquiesce to my every whim!” While the story did pick up traction, think of how upside down that sounds when the people of Ireland think abortion is a right and the government should provide it. I can assure you, the unborn babies growing in the wombs of Irish mothers are thankful for Ireland’s law, even if a few frustrated mothers are not. (For more from the author of “Entitled Couple Live-Tweets Their Abortion Journey, but What About Their Baby’s Right to Live?” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/newborn-220142_960_720.jpg640960Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-11-20 20:40:512016-11-20 20:40:51Entitled Couple Live-Tweets Their Abortion Journey, but What About Their Baby’s Right to Live?
With a new Republican administration in tow, conservative lawmakers are renewing their call for welfare reform that incentivizes families rather than punishing them.
“When we look at what we want for our society, when we look at the key ingredients that have to be contained within any thriving civilization, there are a couple of common themes,” Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, said at an anti-poverty welfare event in the District of Columbia. “One is a strong family structure, and another involves opportunities for work.”
The problem, Lee said, is the current safety net, “in many respects, discourages these things, or undermines these interests.”
“In some instances, it discourages marriage, the formation of a family to begin with,” he said.
Lee, along with several other conservative lawmakers in favor of welfare reform, was speaking at The Heritage Foundation’s 2016 Antipoverty Forum, where policy experts and community leaders came together to discuss how to help low-income Americans from both the state and federal levels.
Lee, joined on stage by Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and Rep. Dave Brat, R-Va., addressed the Welfare Reform and Upward Mobility Act, which would make significant changes to the nation’s welfare system. With President-elect Donald Trump set to take control of the Oval Office next year, they hope to make this legislation a reality.
“Think about what we now have–don’t get married, don’t get a job, have more kids, and we’ll give you more money,” Jordan said, speaking at Thursday’s forum. “That’s pretty ridiculous, right? It’s anti-family–the key institution in our culture.”
The lawmakers cited the example of an unmarried couple with two children who receive assistance under the Earned Income Tax Credit, which is one of the government’s largest federal welfare cash assistance programs. If each individual were earning $20,000 out of wedlock, for example, they would lose about 10 percent of their benefits once they got married.
“I always tell folks: The first institution the good Lord put together wasn’t the church, wasn’t the state, it was moms and dads and kids,” Jordan said. “It was family. We have an anti-family welfare system, and we have an anti-work welfare [system]. The two values that helped make America the greatest country ever. Strong families, strong commitment to the work ethic. That’s what we have to incentivize.”
Attendees also addressed the importance of religious institutions in the fight against poverty, vowing to oppose efforts that they argue are discriminatory toward people of faith.
“We have got to resolve where we are as a nation, where we are on religious liberty,” said Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., the keynote speaker of the event.
The Obama administration, he said “has tried to isolate people of faith,” and “we have got to turn that back.”
Referencing faith-based adoption agencies that were forced to shut down for refusing to place children with same-sex couples, Lankford, added, “Why should the federal government care about their faith?”
The result, he added, is that “our country is becoming afraid of faith.”
While there are some legislative measures that he believes will fix the problem, the real difference, he said, comes from homes, churches, and communities.
“Our nonprofit entities are so much more efficient at taking care of poverty than our government,” he said. “Mentor a family. It will make a world of a difference.” (For more from the author of “Conservative Lawmakers Say Current Welfare System Is ‘Anti-Family'” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/family-730320_960_720.jpg678960Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-11-20 20:35:372016-11-20 20:35:37Conservative Lawmakers Say Current Welfare System Is ‘Anti-Family’