# 1643 (7/7) "Make Congress Responsible Again"

"MAKE CONGRESS RESPONSIBLE AGAIN" - Sen. Mike Lee / July 06, 2016 / http://dailysignal.com/2016/07/06/make-congress-responsible-again/

The only good news in all this is that what a weak Congress has broken, a strong Congress can fix. But only a strong Congress. (Photo: iStock Photos)

Washington is broken. And American politics in 2016 seems to be a competition to assign blame for the federal government’s dysfunction, rising costs, and habitual failure to perform even its most basic responsibilities. The usual suspects offer up their favorite villains: Democrats and Republicans, conservatives and progressive, insiders and outsiders all accuse each other.

But in this case the problem is not partisan or ideological; it’s structural. The reason the federal government isn’t working today is that it isn’t working properly. The constitutional order set up by our founders is breaking down. Specifically, the awesome powers of the federal legislative branch are increasingly being exercised by the executive and judicial branches.

Conservatives have been warning about this for years, but it seems to me we don’t take the argument to its logical conclusion. Ultimately, the problem with unchecked executive and judicial hyper-activism isn’t the activism; it’s the “unchecked” part.

The pillars of Congress’ power are its core constitutional functions: legislating, budgeting, and oversight. That’s the work representatives and senators get hired to do, and—more to the point—get fired for doing poorly. But actually using these powers—especially in an era now of real-time electronic transparency—exposes representatives and senators to the ruthless public accountability embedded in Article I.

So the safest course for Congress is not to do that work well; it’s to get out of having to do it at all, by delegating our legislative power and surrendering our authority over federal spending to the executive branch, and by relinquishing our constitutional oversight powers to the judicial branch.

Congressional weakness costs us much more than dollars. The greater loss is to our culture, measured in the distrust, even contempt, Americans now express toward our public institutions.

Despite repeated so-called “change” elections, the casual abuse and dysfunction that defines modern Washington stays the same. Problems go unsolved. Corruption is ignored. Incompetence seems, if anything, to be rewarded. With Congress’ every new abdication, our entire system of government loses a little more of its citizens’ respect, a little more of its moral legitimacy.

The only good news in all this is that what a weak Congress has broken, a strong Congress can fix. But only a strong Congress. There is no substitute. There is only the House and Senate, their 535 members, and Congress’ collective will to do its duty to our Constitution and countrymen.

First, Congress should reassert its constitutional authority over federal regulations by requiring legislative approval of new major rules and regular re-assessments and re-authorizations of existing ones.

Second, Congress should modernize its obsolete budget process to get ourselves—and more importantly, the American people—out from under the false choice of Caesarism or shutdown.

And third, Congress should rein in executive discretion. We should empower federal judges—who now defer to executive agencies’ interpretations of laws and regulations—to conduct traditional judicial review in challenges against the administrative state.

[bold, italics, and colored emphasis mine]

Mike Lee is a Republican senator from Utah.

"Confused Who Has the Majority in Congress? You’re Not Alone." - 
Rachel Bovard / @Rachel_Bovard / July 05, 2016; http://dailysignal.com/2016/07/05/confused-who-has-the-majority-in-congress-youre-not-alone/?utm_source=TDS_Email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=MorningBell&mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiTm1Oa01tTTBPVFV5WWpaaCIsInQiOiJTT1BkRUEzQTdoS2wrRGIyd2JDQUJFK0dnM2FmZG0xSitkXC9yKzlTQUdRNWU3eHN1MFI5Y1NhOVdsa1RWV21XWTU4dlN1K2JIUTBPZ1FSSngwVFwvQXh0dnF5czArTW45VWxJcUtrU1V4TmdFPSJ9

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"Confused Who Has the Majority in Congress? You’re Not Alone." - Rachel Bovard / July 05, 2016 / http://dailysignal.com/2016/07/05/confused-who-has-the-majority-in-congress-youre-not-alone/?utm_source=TDS_Email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=MorningBell&mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiTm1Oa01tTTBPVFV5WWpaaCIsInQiOiJTT1BkRUEzQTdoS2wrRGIyd2JDQUJFK0dnM2FmZG0xSitkXC9yKzlTQUdRNWU3eHN1MFI5Y1NhOVdsa1RWV21XWTU4dlN1K2JIUTBPZ1FSSngwVFwvQXh0dnF5czArTW45VWxJcUtrU1V4TmdFPSJ9
     "...Things really took a turn last week, however, when the Senate Appropriations Committee advanced its 2017 foreign aid bill. In a sign that principles were about to be shelved, all 16 Republicans and 14 Democrats on the committee unanimously supported an amendment by Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., to provide $500 million to the U.N. sponsored Green Climate Fund—the principle funding mechanism for Obama’s international climate change treaty.
     For the record, this is the same treaty that the Obama administration imposed upon taxpayers without the advice and consent of the Senate, and the same funding mechanism that GOP Senators previously swore up and down that they would fight tooth and nail to oppose.
     But the committee action got even worse with the passage of an amendment offered by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., to add $37.5 million to the United Nations Population Fund, which provides services for “international family planning and reproductive health”—that is, taxpayer funded abortion performed overseas.
     In a Republican controlled committee, this amendment supporting abortion passed 17-13, thanks to the votes of Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine; Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska; and Mark Kirk, R-Ill.
     Most disturbing, however, was that the entire bill—containing language to fund abortion, and to fund the president’s climate change treaty—passed the committee 30-0..."

#1642 (7/6) "Planned Parenthood Targets Blacks and Hispanics With Abortion, SCOTUS Just Let That Continue"

"PLANNED PARENTHOOD TARGETS BLACK AND HISPANICS WITH ABORTION, SCOTUS JUST LET THAT CONTINUE" - Ryan Bomberger, June 29, 2016| http://www.lifenews.com/2016/06/29/planned-parenthood-targets-blacks-and-hispanics-with-abortion-scotus-just-let-that-continue/

Maybe it’s the robes that give five people the misimpression that they’re magicians. Who needs the Constitution when a handful of supremely powerful justices can magically create their own laws, conjuring up legislation in the guise of a judgment. In Whole Woman’s Health versus Hellerstedt, Justice Breyer invokes the word “Constitution” 103 times in the majority opinion yet ignores the founding document in this ruling that protects Gosnells around the country.

Legalized abortion started as a lie in Bryan/College Station in Texas. In order to challenge the state’s law protecting unborn human life, Norma McCorvey (Roe in Roe v. Wade) lied about being gang-raped. (She actually ended up making a loving plan of adoption for her daughter.) Lies shape legislation. And our liberal Supreme Court has no problem contributing its own falsehoods in defending a right that exists nowhere in the Law of the Land. I would love to know where, exactly, the words allowing someone to kill another innocent human being reside in the Constitution. They don’t.

So supremely arrogant justices make it up with phrases like “right to privacy” and “reliance” (as in women rely on abortion to be equal) and now, “undue burden” that replace the Constitution with judicial (im)moral relativism. Facts and human lives be damned.

Texas’ HB2 law was passed in direct response to the arrest and conviction of murderer/abortionist Kermit Gosnell. His squalid “House of Horrors” was the result of unenforcement of existing laws and non-existence of regulations requiring abortion mills to operate with the standards of real medical facilities. Texas moved to protect women. The Supreme court moved to protect the predators.

HB2’s requirement of hospital admitting privileges and ambulatory building standards was in line with the Gosnell Grand Jury report’s recommendation which stated: “If oversight agencies expect to prevent future Dr. Gosnells, they must find the fortitude to enact and enforce the necessary regulations. Rules must be more than words on paper. We recommend that the Pennsylvania Department of Health plug the hole it has created for abortion clinics. They should be explicitly regulated as ambulatory surgical facilities, so that they are inspected annually and held to the same standards as all other outpatient procedure centers.”

HB2 was in line with the exact wording of the unconstitutional Roe decision which stated, unambiguously: “…a State may regulate the abortion procedure to the extent that the regulation reasonably relates to the preservation and protection of maternal health. Examples of permissible state regulation in this area are requirements as to the qualifications of the person who is to perform the abortion; as to the licensure of that person; as to the facility in which the procedure is to be performed, that is, whether it must be a hospital or may be a clinic or some other place of less-than-hospital status; as to the licensing of the facility; and the like.”

So, what was pro-abortion Justice Breyer’s response? “Both the admitting-privileges and the surgical-center requirements place a substantial obstacle in the path of women seeking a previability abortion, constitute an undue burden on abortion access, and thus violate the Constitution.”


Not content with ignoring common sense, the left side of the Court explained why laws were not necessary: “Gosnell’s behavior was terribly wrong. But there is no reason to believe that an extra layer of regulation would have affected that behavior. Determined wrongdoers, already ignoring existing statutes and safety measures, are unlikely to be convinced to adopt safe practices by a new overlay of regulations.”

Well, there you have it. Minority women in Texas, the Supreme Court doesn’t care about the quality of your healthcare (not that abortion is even healthcare), just that abortionists can operate without any barriers. In Texas, the abortion rate is nearly 3 times higher among black women (22.7 per 1,000 women ages 15-44) than white women (8.1) and more than twice as high as Hispanics (10.1). There’s no lack of access to abortion in the Lone Star State. There are 34 Planned Parenthood abortion/abortion referral centers (in addition to other abortion mills) providing an extremely limited scope of “reproductive healthcare”. Their primary function is to generate revenue through abortion. That’s their money-maker, and they’ll spend millions of our tax dollars to defend it. 

But there are over 3,000 state-funded comprehensive real medical providers made possible through the Texas Women’s Health Program. This initiative delivers the full spectrum of reproductive medical care to even more low-income women now that the state has defunded billion-dollar Planned Parenthood. (Although, I’m no fan of hormonal birth control that has been shown to result in increased risk of triple-negative breast cancer among other physiological consequences.)

Of the 61,912 abortions in Texas, 38.9% are among Hispanics, 27.4% among whites and 25.3% among blacks. The black community is the only demographic where its percentage of abortions exceeds its proportion of the population (11.5%).

Abortion, nationwide, is the leading killer of black lives (contrary to the factless assertions of the #BlackLivesMatter movement). Abortion snuffs out 317,547 unarmed black lives in the womb annually. This is more than all other causes of death, combined (286,797 according to the CDC).

Minority communities (or any community for that matter) don’t need more deaths. They need life-affirming resources that value every human being—not wealthy abortion hucksters given license, by supremely wrong justices, to operate their own “House of Horrors”.

[bold, italics, and colored emphasis mine]

#1641 (7/5) "Pentagon’s Transgender Policy Defies Common Sense"

"PENTATON'S TRANSGENDER POLICY DEFIES COMMON SENSE"- Roger Severino / June 30, 2016 / http://dailysignal.com/2016/06/30/pentagons-transgender-policy-at-odds-with-constitution/?utm_source=TDS_Email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Top5&mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiTVdRNVpHWXdOR1l3TTJGaCIsInQiOiJpRFBmZU1RQVNrMGZlZGlmdUhVc0ExaGpvQ052S3hVeEFOa3ZQMkc2Q0JUVW9GbXRMVE9vVXZYc0xrWE5NVDRuV0hhK1RWXC9hSFQxNm0wMlNXYThoa3IwYXV4ODFFS2lydlhValE0bDUwYXc9In0%3D

Secretary of Defense Ash Carter dishonors their sacrifices by suggesting that these Americans who actually died for the Constitution failed to live by the Constitution themselves. (Photo: Department of Defense/Sipa USA/Newscom)

On Thursday, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter announced that the U.S. military is dropping its policy of treating male and female troops according to their biology—to be replaced by a policy based on a radical new gender ideology.

This change was not precipitated by military needs but by political correctness. After all, the military is not stretched so thin that it must make special accommodations to help attract the estimated 0.6 percent of Americans who self-identify as transgender in order to effectively fight and win our wars. Moreover, people with gender dysphoria are allowed to serve, and many have served honorably, so long as their condition or treatments do not interfere with combat readiness.

What the military did not allow before today was the disruption to morale, privacy, and readiness that results from a male serviceman demanding the “right” to dress as a female, have others address him as a female, and be granted unfettered access to showers, lockers, bathrooms, and barracks designated for females. That commonsense policy, which has served our country well, was jettisoned today.

In grappling with this issue it helps to ask why the military has separate shower facilities and barracks for women and men in the first place. As with the question of women in combat, if the answer has something to do with biological realities, privacy, and interactions between the sexes, then the implications for morale and readiness are fairly evident.

But the new gender ideology ignores these facts and replaces them with subjective self-identification, so that a person’s sex is merely an arbitrary designation “assigned at birth” and one can actually be “male, female, neither, or a combination of male and female,” at least according to new mandates from the Obama administration.

Some obvious questions arise from the new policy. Will biological males who identify as female be subject to physical fitness requirements for men or women? Will they be required to do 35 pushups or 13 pushups to pass basic training? Will American taxpayers be required to pay for expensive “sex reassignment” surgeries, including breast implants in men and shaving down Adam’s apples when that money can be spent on better weapons or more training? Will service members who have addressed an officer as “sir” for years be booted out of the military if they refuse to address him as “ma’am?” Wouldn’t the loss and impact on recruiting offset any supposed gains of allowing a relatively few transgender troops the ability to dress according to their chosen identity? These are but a few questions Carter neglected to address in his announcement.

Instead, Carter said that: "Embedded within our Constitution is th[e] very principle that all Americans are free and equal. And we as an Army are sworn to protect and defend that very principle. And we are sworn to even die for that principle. So if we in uniform are willing to die for that principle then we in uniform should be willing to live by that principle."

This is too much.

First, it doesn’t violate equality to recognize relevant biological realities and there is nothing in the text, structure, or history of the Constitution that elevates transgender people to a protected class akin to race.

Second, whatever one thinks of the latest Supreme Court redefinition of marriage, it did not redefine what it means to be a man and a woman for all Americans, especially in the military context.

There are painstakingly detailed regulations concerning uniforms, grooming, and even tattoo placement because troops must be trained to put the mission above self-expression, as lives depend upon it. Regulations that recognize relevant biological realities help, not hinder, the mission, and as admitted by Carter in his statement, thousands of people with gender dysphoria were already allowed to serve over the years because they respected the old policies.

Finally, there are hundreds of thousands of veterans and current troops who were traumatized, wounded, or died fighting against Nazis, Communist aggressors, and terrorists, yet, believe that biological men should not be allowed into the same barracks and showers as women. Carter dishonors their sacrifices by suggesting that these Americans who actually died for the Constitution failed to live by the Constitution themselves. 

This decision has nothing to do with the Constitution and everything to do with politics and a gender ideology run amok.

[bold, italics, and colored emphasis mine]

Roger Severino is the director of the DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society at The Heritage Foundation.
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"Common Sense: Here Today, Pentagon Tomorrow" - Tony Perkins, Washington Update, July 01, 2016; http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=WA16G02&f=WU16G01
 "... Despite strong objections from top Pentagon leaders, the president decided to shelve the military's real mission in favor of his radical objectives...In the shadows of two mass casualty terror attacks and 15 years of war, the president should be laser-focused on a strategic battle plan to protect America. Instead, he's doing the terrorists work for them by providing the single greatest distraction from our military mission ever...this is going to have an extremely negative impact on the readiness of a military that continues to struggle with serious problems spanning from record-high military suicides and sexual assaults to low morale and anti-religious hostility. Americans, especially those in these ranks, should brace themselves for even more devastating fallout from this ill-conceived policy. The amount of time that commanders and leaders at all levels will spend trying to sort out the complex issues this creates will unquestionably distract them even further from what should be their primary focus: preparing their subordinates for combat. What's worse, their performance reports will now (as they have with DADT) largely depend on how well they've integrated the gender-confused in their ranks....Talk to any service member today and you will find that a majority of them will express great frustration with the amount of time that they spend in these lectures at the expense of preparing for war. Now you can add another classroom lecture and more wasted training time, which will further degrade their individual and unit readiness... We must restore the warrior culture and ethos because the enemies of this nation will have no mercy and will not care about how well versed we are on tolerance, inclusion, diversity, or sensitivity. All they will be concerned with is whether we are capable of and willing to kill or capture them on the battlefield."
  "Make no mistake. If this administration succeeds in totally neutering the warrior class, the results will be catastrophic for national security. I know that people despise history -- including many on the Left -- but America is on the path of Rome unless congressional leaders step in and take a stand. ... Republicans can either face this issue now or voters in November who are angry that the GOP won't put national security ahead of their fears of the liberal media and P.C. police. 
     Contact Armed Services Chairmen McCain (committee number: 202-224-3871; office number: 202-224-2235) and Thornberry (committee number: 202-225-4151; office number: 202-225-3706) and ask them to put the  brakes on the National Defense Authorization Act conference report until military transgenderism is addressed. America's safety depends on it."

#1640 (7/4) HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY: "The American Creed - 'WE HOLD THESE TRUTHS...' "

Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD. —Psalm 33:12

"The American Creed - 'WE HOLD THESE TRUTHS...' " - By: Chuck Colson| Breakpoint.org: July 4, 2011; http://www.breakpoint.org/bpcommentaries/entry/13/17385

Today is the great American holiday: The Fourth of July. But do we Americans truly understand what we are celebrating, and why it so important?

The great British intellectual G. K. Chesterton wrote that “America is the only nation in the world that is founded on [a] creed.” Think about that for a moment. Other nations were founded on the basis of race, or by the power of kings or emperors who accumulated lands -- and the peasants who inhabited those lands. But America was -- and is to this day -- different. It was founded on a shared belief. Or as Chesterton said, on a creed.

And what is that creed that sets us apart? It is the eloquent, profound, and simple statement penned by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

I’ll never forget when I graduated from Brown University during the Korean War. I couldn’t wait to become a Marine officer, to give my life if necessary, to defend that creed. To defend the idea that our rights come from God Himself and are not subject to whims of governments or tyrants. That humans ought to be free to pursue their most treasured hopes and aspirations.

Perhaps some 230 years later, we take these words for granted. But in 1776, they were earth-shaking, indeed, revolutionary. Yet today, they are in danger of being forgotten altogether.  According to Gallup, 66 percent of American adults have no idea that the words, “We hold these truths . . .” come from the Declaration of Independence. Even worse, only 45 percent of college seniors know that the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are proclaimed in the Declaration.

As America grows more and more diverse culturally, religiously, ethnically, it is critical that we embrace the American creed. Yes, America has always been a “melting pot.” But what is the pot that holds our multicultural stew together? Chesterton said the pot’s “original shape was traced on the lines of Jeffersonian democracy.” A democracy founded on those self-evident truths expressed in the Declaration of Independence. And as Chesterton remarked “The pot must not melt.”

Abraham Lincoln understood this so well. For him, the notion that all men are created equal was “the electric cord in that Declaration that links the hearts of patriotic and liberty-loving men together, that will link those patriotic hearts as long as the love of freedom exists in the minds of men throughout the world.”

So go to the Fourth of July parade. Go to the neighborhood barbecue and enjoy the hot dogs and apple pie.   [bold, italics, and colored emphasis mine]

But here’s an idea for you. Why not take time out at the picnic to read the Declaration of Independence aloud with your friends and neighbors. Listen -- and thrill -- to those words that bind us together as a nation of freedom-loving people: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. 

These are the words that Americans live for -- and if necessary, die for. 

[bold, italics, and colored emphasis mine]

"What Is America?" - G. K. Chesterton | What I Saw in America | 1922; http://www.gkc.org.uk/gkc/books/27250-h.htm#What_is_America

Link to The Declaration of Independence - http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/document/

"Electric Cord" - Abraham Lincoln | Speech in Chicago | July 10, 1858; http://www.vindicatingthefounders.com/library/electric-cord-speech.html

#1639 (7/3) SUNDAY SPECIAL: “Tough Love of Country - How to Be a Patriot”

“Tough Love of Country - How to Be a Patriot” - By: Chuck Colson| Breakpoint.org: July 4, 2012  http://www.breakpoint.org/bpcommentaries/entry/13/19730

Every Fourth of July, Coney Island hosts a hot dog-eating contest. Contestants gather from around the country to prove that they can stuff themselves with more hot dogs in 12 minutes than anyone else.
Well, not everyone pursues their hot dog eating so competitively. But it does seem that downing hot dogs and lemonade is the quintessential American way of expressing patriotism on the Fourth of July: Family picnics and fireworks celebrate the founding of our country. Now, I realize that when you gathered with your friends and relatives, you probably weren't thinking about doing anything particularly patriotic. You were just having a good time, right?

But Augustine would tell you that was exactly the right way to express patriotism. I don't mean to say Augustine wrote about the finer points of American hot dog eating. What he wrote is that the best way to develop patriotism is by loving your own family.

You see, Christians are commanded to love the whole world. But as everyone knows, that's utterly impractical. No finite human being could possibly love every other person in the world. So God has placed us in concrete relationships where we can learn to love. As Augustine puts it, it's as though God had cast lots and assigned each one of us to a particular family, a particular church, and a particular country.

We cannot love the whole world, but we can love the particular people in the relationships where God has placed us-moving outward from family to church, community, and nation, in an ever-widening circle.That's how Christian patriotism is built.

You see, it's easy to love people in the abstract. It's much harder to love the real flesh-and-blood people we interact with in our families, churches, and communities. As C. S. Lewis explained, we are constantly tempted to love only what is lovable — to love our wives only when they're kind and beautiful, to love our husbands only when they're successful, to love our children only when they're pleasant.

But that's not the way God loves. God loves us even when we're unlovable-just because He has chosen us to be His people. And He commands us to do the same.

We're to love our families even when they're unlovable — just because they're ours. We're to love the church-just because we belong to one another as the family of God. And we're to love our country just because it's our own. Not because it's the best and most democratic country in the world-which it may not be at times-but because it's the place God has put us.That's "tough love" of country: being utterly honest about our nation's flaws and shortcomings, and yet still continuing to love it.

So as we pack up the leftover hot dog buns and put away the ketchup, let's keep alive this reminder of what the Fourth of July is all about.When we gather together with our families and relatives — and renew our bonds of love with them — we are practicing, at its most basic level, true patriotism.

[bold, italics, and colored emphasis mine] [This commentary originally aired on July 04, 1995. ]

#1638 (7/2) PRO-LIFE SAT: [Great Answered Prayer!] "Florida Abortionist Pendergraft Indicted By South Carolina Grand Jury on Multiple Drug Charges"

"FLORIDA ABORTIONIST PENDERGRAFT INDICTED BY SOUTH CAROLINA GRAND JURY ON MULTIPLE DRUG  CHARGES" - by By Cheryl Sullenger, Operation Rescue, June 30, 2016;

http://www.operationrescue.org/archives/florida-abortionist-pendergraft-indicted-by-south-carolina-grand-jury-on-multiple-drug-charges/ [AS I SEE IT: I've been praying for this abortionist EVERY DAY for several years now. This news - shockingly unreported (to my knowledge) in the local media, let alone in the national media - is an incredible answer to prayer! This demonstrates that when people get away with doing evil  LEGALLY, they become arrogant and try to make more money doing the same thing ILEGALLY as well as do other evil things. It's that same arrogance that causes them to be caught with  cameras bragging about things such as harvesting the body parts of unborn babies! Their arrogance ends up being their downfull time after time; so it always is with evil. Join me in praying that this man will finally repent of his years of baby-killing and other mischief and come to trust in Christ. Without God's forgiveness, I cannot imagine the wrath of God that awaits him at the final Judgement. - Stan]

Spartanburg County, SC — According to court records, late-term abortionist James Scott Pendergraft IV has been indicted by a grand jury on a total of six drug-related charges, including what appears to be posession of LSD. The “true bill” indictments were recorded on May 6, 2016.

Pendergraft, a notorious late-term abortionist from [Central] Florida, was initially arrested on October 5, 2015, during a traffic stop in South Carolina. There, sheriff’s deputies discovered surgical implements that were covered in blood and human tissue from abortions he had illegally performed throughout South Carolina. He was also in the possession of illegal narcotics.

At the time of his arrest last fall, Spartanburg County Sheriff Chuck Wright told a press conference, “We got a guy and a girl early in the week that was a traveling abortionist. He traveled around the state of South Carolina without a medical license, with drugs and with medical tools, performing in-home abortions. So basically we got an illegal baby killer.” But no charges appear to have been filed related to unlawful abortions even though Pendergraft holds no medical license in South Carolina.

“Pendergraft should go to jail for these serious drug charges. We pray Florida will act swiftly to shut down his four remaining abortion facilities in Florida,” said Operation Rescue President Troy Newman. “We have prayed for him to get out of the abortion business for years, and maybe a stiff jail sentence will be the thing that finally does it.”

Meanwhile, pro-life activists are reporting that Pendergraft moved out of his Ocala, Florida, abortion facility this week after suspending abortions “until further notice” last fall after his South Carolina arrest.


Workers were spotted by pro-life activist Ralph Enger carrying out boxes and loading the dumpster with the contents of the former abortion facility. A phone call from the facility confirmed that its closure is permanent. According to Enger, a receptionist who answered the phone told a caller requesting services in Ocala, “I’m sorry ma’am that place is closed permanently. Ocala will not be operating any more. It is permanently closed. We are no longer in Ocala.”

Enger plans to lead a Thanksgiving prayer service outside the facility on July 2 [TODAY].

Pendergraft is serving the fifth suspension of his Florida medical license. Nevertheless, he continues to operate four abortion facilities in Orlando and the central Florida region. Operation Rescue documented and reported his illegal late-term abortion operation in Maryland in 2011, which was shut down by the state.

(For more on Pendergraft’s long history of abortion abuses, visit his profile at AbortionDocs.org.)

[bold, italics, and colored emphasis mine]

#1637 (7/1) "Heads Up, Pro-Lifers - THE LAST TWITCHINGS OF FLABBY LIBERALISM"

"Heads Up, Pro-Lifers - THE LAST TWITCHINGS OF FLABBY LIBERALISM" - By: John Stonestreet|Breakpoint.org: June 29,2016; http://www.breakpoint.org/bpcommentaries/entry/13/29489

The Supreme Court followed its decision on the Texas abortion law by refusing to hear a case on the religious freedom of pharmacists. Are you discouraged?

Yesterday, we talked about the Supreme Court’s supremely disappointing ruling against a common-sense Texas law that required abortion providers to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital and abortion mills to meet the same safety standards as other medical facilities.
Unfortunately, the Supreme Court ruled the law unduly burdened a woman’s right to an abortion. It’s just another indication that, at the end of the day, our culture is committed to sexual autonomy above anything and everything else—even the health and safety of women.

Then [on Tuesday], we learned the Supremes had left a Washington state couple, and their right not to violate their consciences as pharmacists, out to dry. Now pharmacists in Washington state must offer abortifacients, or go out of business.

For pro-lifers, these rulings can feel like a gut-punch. But let’s be clear, these decisions are by no means the end of the pro-life movement. Enormous strides for life have been made over the past few years. The needle is pointing in our direction—which is why the pro-abortion crowd is so wildly celebrating these decisions.

Look at the lay of the land. Half of all Americans now believe abortion should be legal only under extreme circumstances—and the pro-life movement is getting younger, not older. Pregnancy care centers outnumber abortion clinics three to one. Ultrasound and in-utero photography show us beyond a shadow of a doubt the humanity of the preborn—even on TV shows like the Big Bang Theory!

Don’t forget the legislative advances: 286 abortion restrictions have been passed at the state level just since 2010 –all but two remain untouched by this SCOTUS decision. As Sarah Kliff gloomily reported at Vox, “the Pro-life movement is winning.”

And consider this: The Daily Show’s celebratory tweet yesterday about the decision was met with harsh criticism—even by pro-choicers!

A year ago, the Obergefell decision making so-called same-sex “marriage” the law of the land, felt like a gut punch too.  And on July 4 last year, I woke up to an email from a friend in New Zealand. He wrote this: “Dear John, I’m celebrating American rebellion by saying extra prayers for your country, after I have prayed . . . for my own. I know from our experience here, where the gay marriage debate was lost… how discouraging the whole thing can look."

The last twitchings of flabby liberalism are full of rage, but thank God, after death comes resurrection. I'm convinced we are on the cusp of something beautiful, brave, new, old and great. It'll be deep, and it'll be good. ‘God appeared in human form to bring the newness of eternal life; and what had been prepared by God began to take effect. As a result, all things were thrown into ferment, because the abolition of death was being carried out . . .’ Unfortunately, we only get past the ferment by being brave now, and not running away when Ruth Bader Ginsburg roars. But isn't that what lives, fortunes and sacred honour are for, in the end—to be pledged to Something Big?”

And then, as a committed believer in the British crown, he added: “PS: Nothing in this email should be construed as support for the rebellious, tax dodging colonies. Having been defended against the French, you shouldn't complain about paying the bill.”

I needed that email a year ago, and was reminded of it again yesterday. Christian, we are pledged to something big. Which is why Chuck Colson always urged us to remain at our posts, no matter how dark things get.

The culture of death will not win. Christ has risen. Monday’s terrible Supreme Court decision cannot and will not stop the incredible work of pregnancy care centers, pro-life apologists, and all the everyday champions of life.

So be of good cheer. He has overcome the world.

[bold, italics, and colored emphasis mine]

RESOURCES - There is encouraging news on the pro-life front, even in the face of the latest Supreme Court decision. Click on the resources below to better know how to pray for the "everyday champions of life."

"The pro-life movement is winning. It'll take more than one Supreme Court ruling to change that." - Sarah Kliff | Vox.com | June 28, 2016;http://www.vox.com/2016/6/28/12043116/abortion-scotus-pro-life

"Study: Abortion rate at lowest point since 1973" - Sandhya Somashekhar | Washington Post | February 2, 2014; https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/study-abortion-rate-at-lowest-point-since-1973/2014/02/02/8dea007c-8a9b-11e3-833c-33098f9e5267_story.html
"US Supreme Court Declines to Hear Pharmacists' Case against Extreme Washington Law" - 
Alliance Defending Freedom | June 28, 2016; http://www.adflegal.org/detailspages/blog-details/allianceedge/2016/06/28/us-supreme-court-declines-case-concerning-radical-washington-law-that-discriminates-against-religious-pharmacists
"An Overview of Abortion Laws" - Guttmacher Institute | 2016; https://www.guttmacher.org/state-policy/explore/overview-abortion-laws