Planned Parenthood’s Cecile Richards Says Telling Abortion Stories Allows Women to ‘Live out Loud’

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In 1973, the court’s decision in Roe v. Wade legalized abortion and America officially rubber-stamped the murder of her innocent children. Even so, aborting one’s child was not something to flaunt, to be proud of. It was a shame, like premarital sex, and women hid it to protect their reputations.

We have since stepped into total insanity and madness. Women now feel empowered to share their abortion stories, and brag about slaughtering their unborn babies as if it were something of which to be proud. We’ve begun prostituting ourselves to Molek in the name of pleasure.

Abortion “Excites” Planned Parenthood’s President

Planned Parenthood’s president Cecile Richards said she gets “excited” when she hears women tell their abortion stories, and the circumstances surrounding that decision, The Blaze is reporting. In an interview with The Daily Iowan, Richards compared the conservative public opinion of abortion to the stigma surrounding homosexuality when she was young. “For too many years, certainly for my generation, all issues about sex and sexuality were stigmatized,” she said. “Abortion was, homosexuality was. And the exciting thing to me now is that young people are telling their stories and they are living out loud. More women are telling their abortion stories, and I told mine. I think once we get out of the shadows, and I think the LGBT movement has led the way in this, it normalizes what should be an open and honest conversation.”

This is not a discussion about getting through a difficult situation. It’s not about struggling with a mental illness, losing a job or taking care of an elderly parent. This is about the raw, unadulterated, messy, factual and heartbreaking slaughter of babies — ripping arms, legs and heads from tiny bodies because mom doesn’t want a baby right now. It is the quintessential act of hedonism, of selfishness — of sacrificing one’s child on the altar of pleasure. It could be school, work, sex, or any other self-centered reason. America has begun to celebrate her hedonistic, self-fulfilling, pleasure-seeking ways at the cost of innocent lives whose blood cries out to their Creator.

Do we want to “normalize” abortion, as Richards hopes we will? Should not the murder of innocent human lives still make us tremble and weep? Shouldn’t the reality of abortion make us sick to our stomachs? When did it become okay for sin to become “normalized”? Dr. David Gibbs, Jr., attorney and founder of Christian Law Association used an illustration years ago of how sin becomes “normalized” in society. He described how to cook frog legs. If you put frogs in a pot of boiling water, they will just jump right out. But if you put them in a pot of cool water and heat it slowly, the frogs will get comfortable as the water gets warmer and warmer, sapping their strength. By the time they want to jump out it’s too late — and you have frog legs for dinner.

That’s how sin is — creeping up on us until it’s too late. And that’s where we are in America now. The water is getting warmer — but few are moving. The abortionists are now getting bolder and more outspoken — literally boasting about what they do, and their patients boasting about what they’ve done in their pursuit of self-pleasure.

#100forLife Amid a Culture of Death

The Lord specifically warned the Israelites that if they sacrificed their children to Molek, they would be stoned. To do so profaned His name. But think about this: He also warned the community — if they failed at justice, the Lord would turn away from them and their families and cut them off from their people — God’s people.

What we do about the butchering of our nation’s babies affects God’s grace on us and our nation. Are we standing aside, allowing it to happen? Are we condoning it? Are we bragging about murder, “living out loud?” God’s grace will not stay long on a nation who, in the pursuit of pleasure, sacrifices her babies — the most innocent among us. May God have mercy on America.

Please pray with me that Christians will wake up to the murderous rampage that takes place every day and take a stand to end this most grievous sin before God turns His face from us.

And next week, please join us at The Stream for #100forLife, 100-hours of programming and prayer starting Wednesday, October 12, commemorating the 100th anniversary of Planned Parenthood, and remembering the millions of children who abortion stole of their first breath. (For more from the author of “Planned Parenthood’s Cecile Richards Says Telling Abortion Stories Allows Women to ‘Live out Loud'” please click HERE)

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Church Historian: ‘Trump Is a Political Exorcist’

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The Vatican recently reported a worldwide shortage of exorcists, the priests especially trained to emulate Jesus and the apostles in banishing spirits of evil. Recently, I had the chance to interview an historian who thinks that American political culture needs an exorcist — and might have found one. H. W. Crocker III is a popular historian best known for his book Triumph: The Power and the Glory of the Catholic Church, A 2,000-Year History. He is also the vice president and executive editor of Regnery Publishing.

Unlike most historians, Crocker has real world experience in politics. He was a foreign policy advisor on the George H. W. Bush campaign for president in 1988 and a speechwriter for California Governor Pete Wilson during his first term (1991-94) and on his come-from-behind reelection victory over Kathleen Brown (Jerry Brown’s sister) that also saw Republicans winning a majority in the California Assembly and several statewide offices. His latest book is The Yanks Are Coming! A Military History of the United States in World War I. Here are some snippets from our conversation.

Has there ever been another presidential election like this?

Well, the obvious comparison is with 1912, except that in this case the Bull Moose candidate, Trump, got the Republican nomination. The establishment Republicans (or the Bush/Kasich wing) are on the outside looking in.

How important is this year’s presidential election?

If Trump loses, I might move to Iceland.

You’re supporting Trump?

Yes.

With no qualms?

None. Trump did what any smart Republican needed to do, which was build a new coalition with blue collar conservatives. Republicans can’t win nationally unless they redraw the electoral map — he does that. He’s the only one who could do that. After Romney’s defeat in 2012, I commissioned Rick Santorum to write a book called Blue Collar Conservatives, which showed what needed to be done. Trump apparently read that book and put it into play.

What about people who say Trump is too flawed to be president?

I say they are fundamentally unserious about politics — more concerned with manners than political reality. You’re not just electing a man, you’re electing an administration. And the reality is that every day of a Hillary administration will further the grinding under heel of the Constitution, with leftist bureaucrats fundamentally transforming America. Every day, by every conservative — or Christian — measure, things will get worse.

Can a Christian be a liberal in today’s sense of the word?

No. Liberalism is the Devil’s politics, and you can quote me on that. It makes the bad good and the good bad. The first Whig was the Devil, as Dr. Johnson said, and he was right.

And where does Trump fit in that picture?

Trump is a political exorcist, casting out demons from our body politic — and by demons I mean things like political correctness.

Isn’t that putting things a little strongly — to call political correctness demonic?

Political correctness is all about lies — lies like there’s no difference between men and women, or that killing an unborn child is morally neutral. The Devil is the “father of lies,” according to the Bible, and today there’s no shortage of lies that we’re supposed to believe.

And what does Trump do about that?

Let me put it this way: Republicans usually let Democrats, the enforcers of political correctness, set the agenda; they even grant them the moral high ground — and then they play defense or try to moderate Democrat proposals. Trump sets his own agenda — and does it the reverse of the normal Republican way. He plants his flag on the right and then walks it back as necessary, moving the center to the right. That’s an enormous advantage to have — and we haven’t had a president who could do that since Ronald Reagan.

Okay, if Americans do elect Trump. What comes after that?

Something less flamboyant: Eisenhower; Mike Pence — if he holds the Trump coalition together and restores the Nervous Nellie Republicans.

What about Christians — Catholics in particular, who have been leaning to Hillary, as some polls suggest?

Catholic voters need to prove they’re as pro-life as Trump. If they vote for Hillary, they’re not.

I’ve asked whether a Trump defeat could lead to increased persecution of Christians in this country. What do you think?

If Trump loses, that’s inevitable. The rule of law is already in jeopardy. The First Amendment is already in tatters. Hillary Clinton’s judges and bureaucrats would put the Constitution through a paper shredder. Hillary, in my opinion, will be a disaster on foreign policy. She already has been. She will be a disaster on the economy. But the people she really wants to crush are social conservatives; they’re the “deplorables.”

Then I take it that, given what’s at stake in November, you think it’s a time for prayer and fasting.

You better believe it — at least the prayer part. On the fasting, we’ll have plenty of that in our future if the people elect Hillary. (For more from the author of “Church Historian: ‘Trump Is a Political Exorcist'” please click HERE)

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The Unstoppable PR Machine Fed by Your Taxes

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A new report commissioned by Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo. (F, 58%), who chairs the Senate Budget Committee, found that government agencies spend about $1.5 billion every year on advertising and public relations. It may take a minute for the absurdity of that to sink in. Still not there? Maybe an analogy will help.

Suppose the mafia were to stop by your place of business and shake you down for a few hundred bucks. Then the next day, you see an ad on the side of a bus featuring a smiling mobster urging you to support your local protection agency. That’s essentially what is happening here.

It’s important to remember that the government has no money of its own. Everything it spends, it must first take from the people who earned it. We euphemistically call this legal pillaging “taxation,” but don’t let the terminology fool you. A shakedown is a shakedown, whether done by a tax collector or a guy with a baseball bat in a back alley.

Being robbed of the hard-fought fruits of our labors is bad enough, but the PR spending adds insult to injury. The government is taking our money for the express purpose of trying to convince us that it’s okay to take our money. George Orwell’s Big Brother would be so proud. The least it could do would be to take a page from the Soviet Union’s book and name this PR machine “the Ministry of Propaganda.” But I suppose that would be a bit too honest.

Of the money spent, we are told, about a $1 billion goes directly to advertising campaigns, trying to sell us on the benefits of programs we hate, like Obamacare and the Environmental Protection Agency. The other half a billion goes to pay the salaries of public relations professionals, who each make on average about $90,000 a year. Presumably these people are charged with smoothing over the government’s numerous errors, many of which cost American lives, like when a gun-running operation in Mexico backfires or when an American ambassador is killed overseas because of the secretary of State’s unwillingness to send the requested help. I suppose someone got paid a lot of money to come up with the “It was because of an Internet video” story. Pretty sweet gig if you can get it.

Indeed, the State Department was listed as among the biggest spenders on PR, pretty convenient for the former secretary who now happens to be running for president. If only all candidates for public office could have the use of taxpayer dollars to cover up their mistakes.

Among the other biggest spenders are the EPA, the Federal Election Commission, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. These agencies are supposed to be non-partisan and represent all Americans, but of course, they are biased in their own favor as well as the policies of the incumbent administration. Part of representative democracy means that our tax dollars will be spent on things we disagree with, but spending them on ads telling us that we should agree is manipulative and undemocratic.

All this should only reinforce what we already know: Government is a self-perpetuating entity. It exists to continue its existence. It feeds on taxpayers so that it can continue to feed on them. And when it grows fat like a swollen tick, its appetite only increases. Your tax dollars at work, America! (For more from the author of “The Unstoppable PR Machine Fed by Your Taxes” please click HERE)

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Black Lives Matter Just Became the Latest Crusade for Socialist Ice Cream Giant Ben & Jerry’s

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Ben & Jerry’s released a detailed statement Thursday explaining why the company supports the Black Lives Matter movement, and why their customers shouldn’t be “complicit” by refusing to acknowledge the “violence and threats to the lives and well-being of Black people” in America.

The statement insists that they “value and respect” law enforcement, and clarifies they do not place the blame on individual officers. But, “it’s clear, the effects of the criminal justice system are not color blind.”

According to the Vermont ice cream company, systemic and institutionalized racism within the criminal justice system are the “defining civil rights and social justice issues of our time,” and proclaiming that “All Lives Matter” isn’t enough.

“All lives do matter,” the statement reads. “But all lives will not matter until Black lives matter.”

Then there’s the portion that police officers across the country will surely appreciate:

“It’s been hard to watch the list of unarmed Black Americans killed by law enforcement officers grow longer and longer. We understand that numerous Black Americans and white Americans have profoundly different experiences and outcomes with law enforcement and the criminal justice system. That’s why it’s become clear to us at Ben & Jerry’s that we have a moral obligation to take a stand now for justice and for Black lives.”

OK, maybe they won’t appreciate that part. But Ben & Jerry’s is careful to explain why they’re not anti-police:

“We want to be clear: we believe that saying Black lives matter is not to say that the lives of those who serve in the law enforcement community don’t. We respect and value the commitment to our communities that those in law enforcement make, and we respect the value of every one of their lives.”

(But their lives don’t matter until capital-B Black lives matter, correct?)

Because we all know that the Black Lives Matter movement is all about hating “institutions,” and not police.

Speaking out for liberal causes certainly isn’t new for everybody’s favorite social justice warrior ice cream entrepreneurs, Mediaite noted, citing recent examples like the Bernie Sanders flavor released earlier this year and the climate change-themed flavor in 2015.

Founders Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield were also arrested during a political protest back in April, as the multi-millionaire 1 percenters could not in good conscience not fight against big-money’s influence on politics.

In accordance with the $5-for-a-thimble-of-ice-cream company’s “social mission” to educate customers on the social justice wars of our day, Ben & Jerry’s also published this lengthy listicle titled, “7 Ways We Know Systemic Racism is Real.” Number 4 on that list? “Criminal justice.” (For more from the author of “Black Lives Matter Just Became the Latest Crusade for Socialist Ice Cream Giant Ben & Jerry’s” please click HERE)

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15 Years of Utter Failure in Afghanistan and the Political Class Still Doesn’t Get It

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It’s hard to conjure up a worse outcome for our investment in Afghanistan than the reality that confronts us today on the fifteenth anniversary of the war. With almost 2,400 dead Americans, 20,000 wounded, and $686 billion (as of 2014) expended towards building a Sharia government in Kabul (cost is exponentially higher when non-combat expenditures factored in), the Taliban now control more territory than they did prior to the 2001 invasion. Over 70% of the casualties have been on Obama’s watch, yet because a Democrat is in the White House, it’s as if the war and its quagmire never happened. Nor do Republicans care to talk about it and hold Obama accountable.

Further disquieting is that fact that this 800-pound gorilla in the room has almost never come up during the course of the presidential election — either in the Republicans primary or general election. Those who decline to observe the failures of Afghanistan are already showing signs of repeating the mistakes elsewhere.

In 2008, Obama won the presidency largely off the coattails of incessant media coverage of the war disasters, promising to pull out of Iraq and refocus attention on Afghanistan. Eight years later, we have nothing to show for it but daily Taliban gains, continued U.S. casualties, and increased levels of troops who are encumbered by restrictive rules of engagement with no defined mission to execute. We have long passed the point in which we must fish-or-cut-bait — ‘define victory or leave.’ Yet, instead of ordering the generals to prioritize a strategic end to this 15-year dumpster fire, Obama is making our generals draw up logistical plans for transgenderism in the service and burdening the already-haggard infantry and special operations units with the most insane ‘women in combat agenda’ imaginable.

To be clear, while Obama lost Afghanistan in the worst possible manner at the worst possible cost, and is still placing our special ops in an impossible morass to this day, the war was doomed to fail already during the Bush years. The original sin of Afghanistan was the same sin that we commit in every theater in the Middle East. Rather than defining the threat doctrine as Sharia-based Islam and the strategic interest as defending only our interests, we got sucked into untenable Islamic civil wars and nation-building for unstable enemy factions.

The enduring lesson of Afghanistan and Iraq, one which must now be heeded in Syria and Libya, is that even if the case for intervention in Islamic civil wars can be reasonably articulated — a tenuous assumption to begin with — there must be specific ground that we can hold for a specific entity that will serve our interests and hold the country together in a way that doesn’t completely erase our investment within a few years. In Afghanistan, we were never going to hold the southern Pashtun areas that were aligned with the Taliban. Sure, we could keep 200,000 troops there forever and let sleeping dogs lie, but at some point the civil war would break open again. The same principle applied to Iraq, with the perennial rubber-band action-reaction crisis between the Iranian-backed Shiites and the Salafist Sunnis. If there is no realistic play for our military to make, we need not, indeed must not, place them into a meat-grinder in a theater where all of the factions hate us.

Which brings us to Syria.

The international media is engaging in yellow journalism showing sensational pictures from the civil war in Aleppo, essentially goading America into further involving our military in the insufferable conflict. Even Republican leaders direct their criticism at Obama for not involving us enough in the civil war. They want more troops on the ground. But for what? To fight for whom? For which outcome? The same people who used disturbing images depicting the rule of terror from the Islamic State to declare a vacuous policy of “we must destroy ISIS” are now using the scene from Aleppo to demand that we destroy Assad and his Russian backers. Which one is it? How about we let Allah sort it out?

Undoubtedly, there are a lot of innocent people who get killed in any civil war, certainly Islamic civil wars. There is so much misery in this world and we pray for God’s salvation. But what is our military supposed to do? The political class in both parties would have you believe we could identify a group of Thomas Jefferson Democrats in the country, vanquish ISIS, vanquish all of the Al Qaeda affiliates and splinter groups, defeat Assad and the Russians … and then have those mythical characters hold the entire ungovernable array of Islamic tribes together. Obama has already abused our special operators and resources by having them fund and train Al Qaeda splinter groups that are calling for the beheading of those troops already there!

Calling on Obama to “do more” will solve nothing but bring the misery of Islamic civil wars to our brave soldiers. It is our people and their safety who must reflect our first priority. We should not work against Russia nor should we work with them. In fact, there is nothing worse I’d wish upon the Russians than the commitment to the dumpster fire they have just forged. They will never be able to place that genie back in the bottle. Let them have another Afghanistan on their hands, not on ours.

This is not to say we shouldn’t stay engaged and don’t have strong plays we can make in the region. We should be supporting Egyptian President el-Sisi in his fight not only against ISIS, but the Muslim Brotherhood and Sharia supremacism. We should support the duly-elected Libyan House of Representatives, which appointed Khalifa Haftar commander of the Libyan army. Haftar successfully took back much of eastern Libya from the radical Islamists and fought the various terrorist factions, including those associated with the Muslim Brotherhood. Haftar was so feared by the Islamists that Ansar al Sharia, the group behind the Benghazi attack, accused Haftar of launching “a war against the religion and Islam backed by the West and their Arab allies.”

Unfortunately, Obama has already repeated the same mistakes in Libya, choosing to back the Faiez Serraj-led Government of National Accord (GNA) in Tripoli. The GNA has relied on Islamist militias affiliated with Ansar al Sharia to control territory and is now collapsing under its own weight. Thus, once again, Obama has expended ground troops and air power on behalf of a failed Islamist “rebel” government.

While Obama chooses to side with all of our enemies in any given theater, the Republican foreign policy establishment thinks we should invest our time and treasure on behalf of some of our enemies to defeat other enemies. It’s time for a new strategy of telegraphing the message to players in the Middle East that if you fight Islamic supremacism — the threat doctrine of our enemy — we will be with you. If not, let Allah sort it out.

Fifteen years into the Afghanistan failure, it is irresponsible to continue sacrificing our troops there for no reason. Conservatives must chart a new course on foreign policy, grounded in the reality of the threat we face and divorced from the willful blindness of the past two administrations. At the very least, we must prevent the political leadership from creating a new Afghanistan. Our country can’t afford another fifteen years. (For more from the author of “15 Years of Utter Failure in Afghanistan and the Political Class Still Doesn’t Get It” please click HERE)

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March for Life to Celebrate the ‘Power of One’ in Annual Demonstration

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With the nation’s largest pro-life rally less than four months away, March for Life organizers announced the theme for the 43rd annual event will be “the power of one.”

The March for Life, an annual rally in the District of Columbia, protests the legalization of abortion in the United States with the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision in 1973. It occurs each January and attracts large numbers of pro-life marchers from across the nation.

LifeNews.com estimated that hundreds of thousands participated in the 2014 March for Life. The 2017 event is planned for Jan. 27.

“This year we sense that what our culture most needs is hope,” Jeanne Mancini, president of the March for Life Education and Defense Fund, said. “Hope, and especially the impact that one person can have in building a culture of life. And so our theme this year is the power of one. The power of one person to build a culture of life in their local community, in their family, and in their world.”

In keeping with the “power of one” theme, Mancini said rally organizers will highlight the legacy of the late Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill., who she said embodied a message of hope and the difference a single individual can make in society.

Mancini said the March for Life provides a unique platform to educate society about what she calls the greatest issue of the day, namely building a culture of life.

With that goal in mind, Mancini said, she and her team “discern very carefully about what our theme should be, knowing that we’ll have the opportunity to reach grassroots pro-lifers, but also to reach Capitol Hill, to reach the White House, to reach the media on what we believe to be the most pressing issues of our time in terms of building a culture of life.”

As in years past, Mancini said her organization wanted to highlight a person who exemplifies how one individual can make a remarkable difference for the pro-life cause.

“One such person who exemplifies our theme, the power of one, is Congressman Henry Hyde,” Mancini said. “He was both a Democrat and a Republican in his life.”

Hyde, who represented the northwestern Chicago suburbs of Illinois from 1975 to 2007, “worked to pass what is arguably the most important and impactful pro-life legislation ever passed in the country,” Mancini said.

She said the 40th anniversary of a measure that bears Hyde’s name is a good time to educate others on the bipartisan nature of his pro-life witness.

“The Hyde Amendment is an appropriations rider that prohibits the use of federal funds for elective abortion or for health benefits coverage that includes elective abortion,” said Genevieve Plaster, senior policy analyst with the Charlotte Lozier Institute.

“As a rider,” Plaster said, “[the Hyde Amendment] is not a permanent law, but it has been included with bipartisan support in every annual federal funding bill, which had been signed into law by every president since 1976.”

Until this year, the Hyde Amendment enjoyed bipartisan support, Plaster said, but for the first time the Democratic Party’s new platform calls for its repeal.

“As far as we know,” explained Plaster, “every member of Congress has at some point in their career voted for the Hyde Amendment—whether it be through voice vote, unanimous consent, or otherwise.”

Because the Hyde Amendment is a rider, an attachment to a bill that modifies it in some way, it is less well-known to the American public. According to Michael New, a visiting associate professor at Ave Maria University, many do not realize that it has saved millions of lives from abortion.

“In my own research at the Guttmacher Institute, they did a literature review where they came up with about 20 studies or so. I found a few extra and I found that there’ve been probably 20-25 studies which show that public funding limits save lives,” New said. “And these are published in a range of peer-reviewed journals on economics, public health, and political science.”

The Guttmacher Institute is a policy organization that researches (reproductive health issues) in the United States and around the world.

New said that the best research that studies public funding of abortions shows that the Hyde Amendment has saved over 2 million lives in the past 40 years and about 60,000 lives per year. For those states that do not fund abortion through Medicaid, New said that one in nine people born to a mother on Medicaid owe their lives to the Hyde Amendment.

Plaster said that even though the majority of Americans may not understand the history behind the Hyde Amendment, most Americans support its policy.

“A national poll conducted by Marist in January found that taxpayer funding of abortion is opposed by nearly seven in 10 Americans,” Plaster said.

Plaster said she feels this to be the case because she believes many Americans have come to think that abortion is not health care.

“While we can’t know for certain each of the reasons that seven in 10 Americans oppose tax-funded abortion, perhaps we can safely say that Americans simply understand that it goes beyond simply access to health care,” Plaster said.

While Hyde didn’t accomplish all of his pro-life goals. Mancini said, he exemplifies what everyone should aspire to become, since building a legacy in “the power of one” will look different for each person:

My understanding is that [Hyde] had a dream of passing a constitutional amendment that would make abortion illegal and recognize the dignity of the the human person from conception. This was his dream and he felt like he was a failure because that did not successfully pass in the ’70s. And so what he did instead was he introduced a rider [that] has been the most impactful pro-life legislation, literally saving millions of lives.

Mancini said her goal is to begin celebrating Hyde’s legacy now so that by the time the 43rd annual March for Life arrives in January, attendees will be able to appreciate and aspire to replicate his witness.

“So what I would encourage as we’re celebrating ‘the power of one’ and beginning to think about that a little bit more as our theme this year, that we would take our cues from … Henry Hyde, who embodied this theme so beautifully,” Mancini said. “And so what we’re going to do is listen to him and his words.” (For more from the author of “March for Life to Celebrate the ‘Power of One’ in Annual Demonstration” please click HERE)

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7 Big Judicial Setbacks to Obama’s Executive Overreach

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Much of President Barack Obama’s executive action legacy will be decided by the courts after he leaves office, but he had a rough judicial record while serving.

Though Obama has frequently touted his pen and phone policymaking, these actions on immigration, environmental policy, and presidential appointees have often been swatted away by the Supreme Court.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, issued a July 2014 report that found 20 instances in which a unanimous high court ruled against the administration. Not all of these cases were executive actions, but legal interpretations by an agency.

The Obama administration has fared worse before the Supreme Court than any other modern president’s administration, with a 45 percent win rate, according to an analysis by Ilya Shapiro, a fellow in constitutional studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, and editor of the Cato Supreme Court Review. Obama’s last five predecessors had a win rate of between 60-75 percent before the high court, according to Shapiro.

“Every president ratchets up executive power, it’s what Congress and the courts have allowed to happen over the years,” Shapiro told The Daily Signal in a phone interview. “President Obama has pushed beyond that in pushing administratively what he failed to do legislatively.”

The overreach has less to do with Obama—or for that matter any other individual president—but the expansion of government, said Ilya Somin, a law professor at George Mason University.

“I would not be hugely surprised if he had the most actions overturned because as government gets larger, there are more targets for the courts to shoot at,” Somin told The Daily Signal in a phone interview. “In a sense, each president builds on the precedent of the last president. Presidents are incentivized to take actions like this.”

District and appellate level courts halted many of Obama’s executive actions. Some of Obama’s actions still await a ruling in court, such as his gun control initiative.

“The U.S. Supreme Court and lower federal courts have overturned Obama administration actions that went beyond constitutional and statutory limits at an unprecedented rate, as documented by statistical studies,” Alden Abbott, deputy director of legal and judicial studies at The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Signal in an email.

Abbott noted the unanimous rebukes by the high court came at a much higher rate than for previous presidents.

“This reflects an Obama administration pattern of ignoring the rule of law and usurping the role of Congress—as illustrated, for example, in its unauthorized efforts to rewrite the immigration laws and the Obamacare statute without congressional authorization,” Abbott said.

Here are some of Obama’s executive actions knocked down by the judiciary.

1. Executive Amnesty

In June, the Supreme Court had a tie vote on Obama’s executive actions on immigration. The 4-4 ruling resulted in upholding an appellate court ruling to strike down Obama’s executive amnesty.

Obama’s actions would have shielded 5 million illegal immigrants from deportation. The president took the action in December 2014, shortly after Republicans won control of the Senate.

The move expanded on a previous executive action in 2012 to shield childhood arrivals from deportation. The new edict would extend to the parents of those children.

Texas and 25 other states filed the lawsuit to halt it.

2. School Gender Identity Restrooms Mandate

In August, U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor of the Northern District of Texas ruled that schools may keep restrooms, locker rooms, and showers separated based on biological gender.

The judge blocked the mandate one day before the first day of school in Texas. The preliminary injunction is in place while the lawsuit proceeds.

The judge determined the Obama administration overreached on its authority by mandating in May that public schools allow people to use restrooms based on their gender identity instead of biological gender. If the schools did not adhere to the rules, they would risk losing their federal education funding.

Texas filed the suit and was joined by 12 other states. This is only the first court hearing and the case will ultimately be decided after Obama leaves office.

3. Appointing Without Confirmation

In a stinging legal defeat for Obama, the Supreme Court ruled that the president cannot make recess appointments when the Senate is still in session. The liberal wing, including Obama nominees Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, joined the majority for a 9-0 rebuke in June 2014.

Obama made recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board at a time when the Senate was in pro forma session every three days for the express purpose of preventing recess appointments. The appointments were challenged in a labor dispute, in the case of NLRB v. Noel Canning.

4. Delayed Carbon Regulations

The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in February to halt the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan from taking effect until the legal challenge is complete. But it’s a setback rather than a death blow to the regulation.

The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia heard oral arguments in the case, and will likely have the final say when it does rule, at least until the ninth slot on the court is filled.

Numerous industry groups, 25 states, and four state agencies sued the EPA over the rules.

The EPA finalized the plan in October 2015, requiring states to meet individual carbon dioxide emissions reduction goals for power plants by 2022, and again in 2030.

Under the rules, the EPA would offer incentives to states. The incentives include extra credits to meet carbon reduction if a state used more renewable energy sources. It would also offer states the option of imposing a carbon tax or a regional cap-and-trade.

5. Searching Cellphones

The Supreme Court ruled in another unanimous decision that the Obama administration could not search cellphone data without cause in violation of the Fourth Amendment.

In the case of Riley v. California in June 2014, the high court held that government must get a warrant before searching the contents. The Obama Justice Department contended that an arrest gives authorities the right to search the phone.

The majority opinion said:

Modern cellphones are not just another technological convenience. With all they contain and all they may reveal, they hold for many Americans ‘the privacies of life.’ The fact that technology now allows an individual to carry such information in his hand does not make the information any less worthy of the protection for which the Founders fought.

6. Obamacare Judicial Setback

The Supreme Court has twice upheld Obamacare, either in whole or in part.

However, in a lawsuit brought by the House of Representatives, the law hit a snag in May when U.S. District Judge Rosemary M. Collyer in the District of Columbia ruled the administration has been improperly funding the Obamacare subsidy program.

Though Congress authorized the program, it didn’t appropriate funding for it, Collyer said in her opinion. Former House Speaker John Boehner launched the lawsuit. The House v. Burwell case was filed at a time of growing concerns about the Obama administration’s executive overreach on various matters.

The funding program was set up to reimburse insurance companies and provide cost-sharing for low-income patients.

In October 2015, an appeals court similarly ruled on a stay for the EPA’s water rules. The case is on appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, which again, could have the final say if the Supreme Court remains divided 4-4.

7. Regulating Water

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, based in Cincinnati, ruled that the Obama administration’s Waters of the United States rule wasn’t legal, asserting that it clashed with Supreme Court precedent. The EPA unsuccessfully argued that bodies of water could be under federal control because of their connection to larger bodies of water.

The court determined:

A stay allows for a more deliberate determination whether this exercise of executive power, enabled by Congress and explicated by the Supreme Court, is proper under the dictates of federal law …

A stay temporarily silences the whirlwind of confusion that springs from uncertainty about the requirements of the new rule and whether they will survive legal testing. A stay honors the policy of cooperative federalism that informs the Clean Water Act and must attend the shared responsibility for safeguarding the nation’s waters.

Again, this could also be the final say in the matter in lieu of a ninth justice. (For more from the author of “7 Big Judicial Setbacks to Obama’s Executive Overreach” please click HERE)

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Utah Republican Urges Paul Ryan to File Lawsuit Over Obama Administration’s Use of Obscure Fund to Settle With Insurers

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Republican Rep. Chris Stewart of Utah has mounted a campaign urging House Speaker Paul Ryan to initiate a lawsuit against the Obama administration over the potential use of a fund the Treasury Department oversees to pay federal legal claims to settle with insurance companies suing the government.

Stewart is circulating a letter to his Republican colleagues that would push Ryan to intervene to prevent the Obama administration from using the Judgment Fund, an indefinite appropriation created by Congress, to pay billions to insurers who are suing over Obamacare’s risk corridor program.

So far, at least 10 members have signed on to his letter to Ryan.

“Such an egregious misuse of taxpayer funds is not only a violation of the law but also represents an institutional challenge to the legislative branch, and should be met with the fullest opposition from the House of Representatives,” the letter states. “If such a payment is not met with a challenge from Congress, there is no limit to any administration’s ability to decide which of its priorities it funds.”

AshLee Strong, spokeswoman for Ryan, said they are looking at options.

“By passing the [Sen. Marco] Rubio amendment, Congress has been clear that no taxpayer dollars are to go to failing insurance companies under Obamacare,” she said in an email to The Daily Signal.

Insurance companies filed lawsuits against the Department of Health and Human Services earlier this year over the risk corridor program, which was written into the Affordable Care Act and designed to provide insurers with stability during the first few years of the law’s implementation.

Under the risk corridor program, insurers that had excess profits paid into a fund operated by the federal government. Those that incurred excess losses received money from the fund.

Because many insurers experienced significant losses during the 2014 benefit year, insurance companies received just 12.6 percent of the payments they expected to receive from the risk corridor program and are now arguing they’re entitled to the remaining money.

The Obama administration has signaled it is open to discussing settlements with those companies, and if it decided to do so, it would tap into the Judgment Fund to pay out billions of dollars to insurers.

“They hoped this thing would slide under the radar and no one would notice,” Stewart told The Daily Signal. “The Judgment Fund has been abused in the past, but never anything like this, for heaven’s sake. It was a few $10 million a year that the Judgment Fund was paying out, not something more than $1 billion, which is what this administration is inviting the insurers to do: Sue us, and we’ll settle. We’ll settle before we leave office.”

“It’s crony capitalism at its worst,” he continued.

In his letter, Stewart urges Ryan to “initiate a civil action” on behalf of the lower chamber in federal court. Authority to do so, the letter states, would be granted under a House resolution passed in 2014.

That resolution authorized the cost-sharing reductions lawsuit filed against the Obama administration.

Because the House resolution approved the initiation of or intervention in any civil action “with respect to implementation of any provision” of Obamacare, legal experts told The Daily Signal in March that it gives Congress the authority to intervene in the risk corridor case.

Stewart said he prefers lawmakers find a “legislative fix” to prevent the Obama administration from using the Judgment Fund to settle with insurers in the risk corridor lawsuits when they return from an extended recess in November.

However, he views legal action as a “backstop” and said the White House has already found ways to ignore legislation passed by Congress regarding the risk corridor program.

“We thought we dealt with this legislatively already, and the language is very, very clear on this,” he said. “The administration continues to find creative ways to circumvent obvious legislative language.”

Late last month, the Justice Department filed motions to dismiss lawsuits filed by two insurers—Moda Health Plan and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina—on the grounds that there is no deadline by which risk corridor payments must be paid.

This contradicts statements from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and its top officials, which have said the government would explore the option to settle.

In addition to Stewart’s letter, which was first sent to GOP lawmakers Thursday, Republicans in both chambers have expressed concern about use of the Judgment Fund in additional letters to Sylvia Mathews Burwell, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services; Andy Slavitt, acting administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services; and Loretta Lynch, U.S. attorney general.

More than 40 House members, Stewart included, sent Burwell a letter late last month warning that any attempt to settle with insurance companies through the Judgment Fund “will be met with the strictest scrutiny” from Congress.

Republican Sens. John Barrasso of Wyoming, Mike Lee of Utah, Marco Rubio of Florida, and Ben Sasse of Nebraska sent a separate letter to Burwell, Slavitt and Lynch asking for additional information on whether the Obama administration plans to settle with insurers.

Before working at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Slavitt worked for OptumInsight/QSSI, the sister company of UnitedHealthcare and a subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group.

UnitedHealthcare is the nation’s largest insurance company, and Slavitt received an ethics waiver from the White House in 2014 that allowed him to begin working on matters involving his former employer immediately.

Slavitt’s history with UnitedHealth Group is raising questions for Stewart.

“He shouldn’t be sitting in a position to make this decision,” Stewart said of Slavitt. “That’s an example of why my Republican colleagues and I hope others are going to be interested in this.”

“Once [Republicans are] aware of what CMS is recommending, that the administration is trying to sue and settle and do it very quickly with an enormous amount of money, when the obvious conflict between the person who’s advocating this and his own personal interest in the industry that he worked with, we’re going to have a lot of interest,” he continued.

Slavitt’s predecessor at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Marilyn Tavenner, left the Obama administration to lead America’s Health Insurance Plans, a trade group that represents insurance companies.

Stewart called the revolving door of administration officials to and from the insurance industry an example of crony capitalism.

“We’re seeing it here,” he said of the risk corridor lawsuit, “but it’s not the first time that we’ve seen it. The Affordable Care Act is rife with examples of this, and they do it at the expense of the American taxpayer.”

Insurance companies filed lawsuits earlier this year after learning they would receive a fraction of the money requested from the risk corridor program.

The shortfall in risk corridor payments was the result of an amendment added to 2015 and 2016 government spending bills prohibiting the administration from using taxpayer dollars to fund the payments requested by insurers through the program.

Because of those restrictions, insurance companies participating in Obamacare’s exchanges received a collective $2.5 billion less than originally anticipated. Many smaller insurers, including several of 23 consumer operated and oriented plans, or co-ops, closed their doors because of the lower-than-expected risk corridor payments.

After three separate insurers filed lawsuits, congressional Republicans began to issue warnings about the Obama administration using the Judgment Fund to settle with insurance companies.

Settling with insurers would provide the White House with a way to give insurers their full risk corridor payments, effectively circumventing Congress. (For more from the author of “Utah Republican Urges Paul Ryan to File Lawsuit Over Obama Administration’s Use of Obscure Fund to Settle With Insurers” please click HERE)

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Strangers in Our Own Land: The Non-Citizen Voter Fraud Disaster

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Several weeks after a court ordered Ohio to stop cleaning its voter rolls from dead voters, likely raising the specter of voter fraud in the key battleground state, a new report reveals how Virginia and Pennsylvania — two other critical states — have seen hundreds of cases of non-citizens voting. That raises the question: Is the foundation of our democratic republic and national sovereignty no longer secure?

Earlier this week, the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF), headed by former Justice Department Attorney J. Christian Adams, released a pair of damning reports showing how the voting rolls in parts of Virginia and Pennsylvania are compromised with ineligible voters and that some of those voters have actually cast ballots in recent elections. What is more disquieting about this analysis is that it covered only a handful of counties via public record requests made through the National Voter Registration Act. Thanks to stonewalling from local election officials, a story Conservative Review first broke, PILF could not obtain comprehensive data on these two battleground states, which makes it all the more likely the number of registered voters who are non-citizens or otherwise ineligible to vote is much higher.

Virginia

The Virginia report, which was the first to be released this week, found 1,046 non-citizens registered to vote in eight counties, who “cast a total of 186 votes between 2005 and 2015.” But here’s the kicker: This was a mere sample from 133 election jurisdictions in the state. And as PILF’s Adams noted in an article at PJ Media, this report does not cover “the behemoths of Arlington and Fairfax Counties.”

Moreover, Adams made it clear that this sample only covered self-reported aliens. “These are just the aliens who were accidentally caught because when they renewed their driver’s license, they told the truth that they were a non-citizen,” wrote Adams in the PJ Media article [emphasis in original quote]. Thanks to the Motor-Voter laws there is no way to require that states and localities use the federal SAVE (Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements) database to check for non-citizens voting. Thus, most of the illegal votes actually reported are by those who legitimately didn’t realize they were ineligible to vote and checked off the box indicating they were not citizens when renewing their driver’s licenses. That is how easy it is for non-citizens to vote and debase the entire value of citizenship and the sovereignty of our people.

Now imagine the total number of non-citizens registered in theses eight counties. Then, add another 125 localities, including the largest population centers in Northern Virginia with huge numbers of non-citizens. Consider the following reality: Virginia is home to a large and fast-growing immigrant population. According to Pew, there were over 1 million immigrants in Virginia as of 2014. In 2013, according to the Census, the number of non-citizens in the state was 427,535, but given the fast pace of new immigration to the region, that number has likely grown. If a random sampling from just eight counties showed over 1,000 non-citizens registered to vote, one can easily speculate that thousands more are registered statewide.

This random sampling on non-citizens voting dovetails well with a 2014 study from three prominent political scientists who found that up to 6.4% of all non-citizens participated in the 2008 elections and up to 14.7% voted. Given the population of non-citizens in the state, that is potentially a very impactful number for any close election.

Worse, unlike fraudulent voters, non-citizen voters cannot be stopped with voter ID requirements. As Adams notes, once states fail to screen out citizenship verification on the application, “the aliens are getting registered to vote when they are getting their photo ID cards!” Making matters worse, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals prevented a number of states from verifying citizenship on the federal voter registration forms used through the Motor-Voter process. This is on top of court rulings barring states from requesting a photo ID to vote.

Pennsylvania

Another must-win state for Republicans this fall is Pennsylvania. In a separate report released Tuesday, PILF discovered 86 registrants in Philadelphia who had their voter registration terminated between 2013 and 2015 due to non-citizen status. Among those illegally registered to vote, 40 ballots were cast. Again, these were only registrants who voluntarily asked to be stricken from the voter rolls. “That means the aliens who don’t want to admit they committed a federal felony when they registered to vote remain on the rolls because Philadelphia election officials do nothing to detect them,” said Adams in an email correspondence. I can only speculate that this is an infinitesimal percentage of the total number of non-citizens registered to vote.

What is so sad here is that preserving the franchise for citizens and eligible voters should not be a partisan issue. In a sane world, a discovery of this magnitude from such a tiny sample of registration lists should spark an immediate bipartisan push to verify every name in every country to ensure non-citizens are not voting. The absence of such an urgent response can lead to no other conclusion than a willingness on the part of Democrats to steal the sovereignty of the citizenry.

As Adams observed, most of the counties in Virginia took active steps to prevent PILF from examining the voter rolls. In a world without ubiquitous malfeasance in government, public officials would welcome every opportunity to ensure that not a single non-citizen is registered to vote, especially after so many discoveries were made.

To be clear, if Donald Trump continues down the current path, the margin of victory for the Democrats will be large enough to overshadow voter fraud. But so many down-the-ballot races in recent years have been decided by tiny margins. Moreover, any path to 270 electoral votes for Republicans this year, or in future elections, will likely encounter slim margins of victory in states like Florida, Ohio, Virginia, and Pennsylvania.

As Professors Richman, Chattha, and Earnest concluded in the 2014 study, “non-citizen votes have also led to Democratic victories in congressional races including a critical 2008 Senate race that delivered for Democrats a 60-vote filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.”

The consequences of inaction are unconscionable. Here is an observation I made in “Stolen Sovereignty”:

Consider the following agonizing thought for conservatives. Obamacare is the seminal issue and the most consequential legislative victory of the Left this past decade. The bill passed the House 220-210 and garnered sixty votes in the Senate, the bare minimum needed to overcome a filibuster. During the 2008 elections, Democrats won two Senate seats by less than 2 percent. In 2006, they won three Senate seats by 2 percent or less. Some of these elections were decided by a few thousand votes. It is hard to imagine that there were not more than enough noncitizens to account for the entirety of the margin of victory in at least one of these races, thereby rendering Obamacare null and void.

Now, couple non-citizens voting with general voter fraud and the number of House seats Democrats gain thanks to illegal aliens being counted in the Census (states like California gain an extra five seats), and we are strangers in our own land! The average American citizen who wants to continue following our own system of governance, history, and traditions is left helpless while federal and state executives refuse to follow the statutes passed by legislatures to preserve the franchise. Meanwhile, the courts are preventing the people from reclaiming their sovereignty. We are suffering from a collective social transformation without representation.

Those like Judge Roy Moore in Alabama who adhere to existing state law are punished for upholding state powers regarding marriage, the most foundational tradition of all civilization. At the same time, public officials who do nothing about voter fraud and disenfranchise the citizens are free to do what they want while the courts stop the few patriots actually engaging in public service and protecting the integrity of our elections.

Fundamental transformation, indeed! (For more from the author of “Strangers in Our Own Land: The Non-Citizen Voter Fraud Disaster” please click HERE)

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A Great Awakening or a Rude Awakening: What Will It Be?

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Isn’t it a shame that, at a time when America desperately needs to hear the prophetic voice of the church, what America hears instead is partisan politics in the name of Jesus?

Isn’t it a shame that, instead of the church leading the way and politicians following, it is politicians leading the way and Christian leaders following?

Of course, there are exceptions to what I’m saying — fine, godly, exceptions — but they are the distinct minority, since, the truth be told, we are guilty of putting our trust in political leaders more than in the power of the gospel.

For Too Long, We’ve Depended on Political ‘Saviors’

We still flock around presidential candidates as if they were savior figures, with some pastors proclaiming Hillary as “anointed” to lead and others proclaiming Trump as God’s man for the hour, as if these candidates had the power to bless or curse the nation, as if the church was beholden to them rather than them being beholden to the church.

Four years ago, in June, 2012, I wrote that the indifference of many conservative Christians towards Mitt Romney could be a positive if: “1) we don’t get caught up in the typical election year fever; 2) if we do vote for Romney, we do so remembering that he is not the answer; 3) we realize instead that the answer to America’s greatest problems is looking at us in the mirror if we align ourselves properly with God and with our neighbor.”

And I added, “Yes, Barack Hussein Obama has done great harm to our country, but he is not the primary cause of America’s current malaise, we are. And if we have messed things up, then by God’s grace, we can turn them around.”

Now, four years later, with even more stark choices than we had in 2012, will the church wake up and learn? Will we finally realize that we do not have a political savior? Will we finally realize that, as important as the office of the president is, the fate of the nation is dependent on the state of the church more than on the occupant of the White House?

Making the Church Our Priority

On the morning of Election Day, four years ago, I wrote (in the event that Romney was elected), “No more looking to the White House to transform America!”

How much more does this apply today?

“And,” I added on November 6, 2012, “what if Barack Obama is reelected? Then we would do well to avoid the trap of putting most of our energies into rebuking the president’s latest transgressions. Instead, we will have to focus our efforts like never before on fomenting a moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution. Come to think of it, that would be a sound course of action if Mitt Romney is our next president too …”

Unfortunately, many of us fell into the trap of spending much of the last four years bashing President Obama (who gave us many reasons to oppose his policies and words) and advocating for a conservative candidate to take his place, investing our energies and our passions and our finances in the heated political battle more than in the work of the gospel.

And while there is absolutely a place for our political involvement — I would even say that God has given us a stewardship to be involved politically here in America — our energies would have been much better spent in praying for revival, turning away from our own sin, reaching out to the lost, standing up for justice, and caring for the poor and needy.

Can we do all these things and get involved politically as well? Absolutely. But the question is one of priorities, of emphasis, of devotion, and it is all too easy for us to sell our souls to a political party or candidate, giving ourselves to their cause as if they were the hope of America.

Not so! There is only one hope for America, and He is not running for office.

All this being said, I actually see a silver lining in the 2016 presidential election.

What if Hillary? What if Trump?

If Hillary Clinton is elected, it could well be that our worst fears are realized and that she not only appoints disastrous judges to the courts but that she openly opposes our religious liberties, telling us that our pro-life, pro-marriage beliefs will have to change — or else.

If that’s the case, then I say bring the battle on. As distasteful as this prospect is and as painful as it could be for our kids and grandkids, it might just be the very thing that wakes up the still-sleeping church our nation.

Perhaps a Hillary victory will finally awaken us from our complacency and lethargy.

And if Donald Trump is elected, even if he appoints fine justices to the courts and stands up for our religious liberties, his flaws and shortcomings are so evident and he has been such a volatile and divisive candidate that it would be very hard to look to him as the savior of the nation.

A Trump presidency, therefore, would also be a call to prayer, a call for the church to rise up and make a difference, a call to make America great by making America dependent on the Lord.

The Church Has a Choice

The good news, then, is that having such unpopular candidates could be a blessing in disguise, forcing us to put our trust in God, not people.

The bad news is that if this election season doesn’t help us get our priorities right, almost nothing will — meaning, that we could be in for a very rude awakening.

So, what will it be, a great awakening or a rude awakening? The choice is ours to make. (For more from the author of “A Great Awakening or a Rude Awakening: What Will It Be?” please click HERE)

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