Planned Parenthood Leaders Admit Under Oath to Harvesting Body Parts From Babies Born Alive

By MICAIAH BILGER  

LifeSiteNews

The Center for Medical Progress released horrific new video footage Tuesday showing a Planned Parenthood partner admitting that body parts were harvested from aborted babies who still had beating hearts.

The video exposes the testimonies of several top Planned Parenthood officials and a human tissue procurement company leader during a 2019 sworn legal deposition.

Perhaps the most horrific testimony came from Perrin Larton, the procurement manager of Advanced Bioscience Resources (ABR), which harvests aborted baby body parts at Planned Parenthood facilities in southern California.

In her sworn testimony, Larton admitted that she has seen aborted babies’ hearts “beating independently” after they are born. She also confirmed that some aborted babies’ bodies are fully intact.

Larton explained that most aborted babies come out of the womb in pieces, but sometimes ABR sees fully intact bodies. Asked about those situations, Larton replied, “They just, sometimes they fall out” of the mother when she delivers the baby in the abortion operating room. When questioned about how often that occurs, she replied, “Once every couple months.”

Asked what happens next, Larton said an ABR staffer will “do a dissection” on the intact aborted baby “to get the tissues that the researchers have requested.” When asked if the babies that just “fall out” have a heartbeat, Larton said, “It would depend,” because “I can see hearts that are not in an intact P.O.C. [product of conception, meaning aborted baby] that are beating independently.”

Also important to note, ABR sells aborted baby body parts to researchers whose projects are funded by U.S. taxpayers.

Other testimony in the video came from Dr. Deborah Nucatola, the former senior director of medical services for Planned Parenthood nationally. Nucatola was caught in the first Center for Medical Progress video eating salad and sipping wine while talking about how she “crushes” unborn babies’ heads to better harvest their body parts.

In the new video, Nucatola was asked if she had “ever had a patient deliver in the operating room a non-viable fetus.”

“I’m sure I have,” she replied.

Nucatola then was pressed repeatedly to define “non-viable.” At first, she defined it as “a fetus that’s not capable of survival.” But when asked how to determine if a baby is viable, she responded, “It depends on where you work.” Questioned again, Nucatola said viability partially depends on the baby’s gestational age, weight and health. However, she also included “the availability of interventions” in her criteria.

This raises serious questions about if Planned Parenthood is allowing babies who would be considered viable in a hospital to die because the abortion facility does not have “available interventions” such as medical equipment or staff to care for the baby and arrange for his/her transportation to a hospital.

According to the Center for Medical Progress, Nucatola used to be in charge of setting the national Medical Standards & Guidelines for all Planned Parenthoods. She also aborted unborn babies at the Los Angeles Planned Parenthood, which harvests aborted baby body parts for Novogenix Laboratories.

A third testimony came from Jon Dunn, CEO of Planned Parenthood of Orange & San Bernardino Counties in California. His affiliate used to work with the fetal tissue companies DaVinci Biosciences and DV Biologics, which were shut down in 2017 after the Orange County District Attorney accused them of illegally selling aborted baby body parts. The companies agreed to close permanently and pay $8 million in a settlement.

Dunn said he knows of one baby was born alive at one of his affiliate’s abortion facilities.

“I know they kept it warm and comfortable for the very brief period that it was alive. I don’t think there was even time to call 911,” Dunn said. Later, he added: “This is something that every obstetrician/gynecologist deals with on rare occasion. … It is their medical judgment what to do in that circumstance.”

Center for Medical Progress project lead David Daleiden urged authorities to take action immediately based on the horrific new evidence.

“How long will public authorities permit Planned Parenthood and their associates to sell living children inside and outside the womb and then kill them through organ harvesting?” Daleiden asked. “The [Department of Justice] has vigorously prosecuted the sale of eagle body parts. Surely selling human body parts after cutting them out of an infant with a beating heart is at least as grave of a crime.”

For years now, Daleiden and the Center for Medical Progress have been uncovering shocking details about Planned Parenthood’s abortion practices, including the harvesting of aborted baby body parts for research.

Not only have the Center for Medical Progress investigations raised concerns about potentially illegal sales of human body parts, but they also have uncovered evidence of abortionists allegedly putting women’s lives at greater risk by altering abortion procedures to better harvest aborted baby parts. The investigators also found evidence of possible patient privacy violations.

Planned Parenthood repeatedly has denied all allegations of wrong-doing, and many news outlets now parrot its talking points that the initial Center for Medical Progress videos were deceptively edited or debunked. An independent forensics investigation verified that the videos were authentic.

Some undercover videos show how Planned Parenthood employees callously and flippantly negotiated the price of tiny baby hearts, lungs, livers and brains. Other evidence indicates the abortion giant may have broken HIPAA patient privacy laws.

Meanwhile, Daleiden and other CMP investigators are being prosecuted for their work.

The expose videos catching Planned Parenthood officials selling the body parts of aborted babies have shocked the nation. Here is a list of all 14:

• In the first video: Dr. Deborah Nucatola of Planned Parenthood commented on baby-crushing: “We’ve been very good at getting heart, lung, liver, because we know that, so I’m not gonna crush that part, I’m gonna basically crush below, I’m gonna crush above, and I’m gonna see if I can get it all intact.”
• In the second video: Planned Parenthood’s Dr. Mary Gatter joked, “I want a Lamborghini” as she negotiated the best price for baby parts.
• In the third video: Holly O’Donnell, a former Stem Express employee who worked inside a Planned Parenthood clinic, detailed first-hand the unspeakable atrocities and how she fainted in horror over handling baby legs.
• In the fourth video: Planned Parenthood’s Dr. Savita Ginde stated, “We don’t want to do just a flat-fee (per baby) of like, $200. A per-item thing works a little better, just because we can see how much we can get out of it.” She also laughed while looking at a plate of fetal kidneys that were “good to go.”
• In the fifth video: Melissa Farrell of Planned Parenthood-Gulf Coast in Houston boasted of Planned Parenthood’s skill in obtaining “intact fetal cadavers” and how her “research” department “contributes so much to the bottom line of our organization here, you know we’re one of the largest affiliates, our Research Department is the largest in the United States.”
• In the sixth video: Holly O’Donnell described technicians taking fetal parts without patient consent: “There were times when they would just take what they wanted. And these mothers don’t know. And there’s no way they would know.”
• In the seventh and perhaps most disturbing video: Holly O’Donnell described the harvesting, or “procurement,” of organs from a nearly intact late-term fetus aborted at Planned Parenthood Mar Monte’s Alameda clinic in San Jose, CA. “‘You want to see something kind of cool,’” O’Donnell says her supervisor asked her. “And she just taps the heart, and it starts beating. And I’m sitting here and I’m looking at this fetus, and its heart is beating, and I don’t know what to think.”
• In the eighth video: StemExpress CEO Cate Dyer admits Planned Parenthood sells “a lot of” fully intact aborted babies.
• The ninth video: catches a Planned Parenthood medical director discussing how the abortion company sells fully intact aborted babies — including one who “just fell out” of the womb.
• The 10th video: catches the nation’s biggest abortion business selling specific body parts — including the heart, eyes and “gonads” of unborn babies. The video also shows the shocking ways in which Planned Parenthood officials admit that they are breaking federal law by selling aborted baby body parts for profit.
• Unreleased Videos: Unreleased videos from CMP show Deb Vanderhei of Planned Parenthood caught on tape talking about how Planned Parenthood abortion business affiliates may “want to increase revenue [from selling baby parts] but we can’t stop them…” Another video has a woman talking about the “financial incentives” of selling aborted baby body parts.
• The 11th video: catches a Texas Planned Parenthood abortionist planning to sell the intact heads of aborted babies for research. Amna Dermish is caught on tape describing an illegal partial-birth abortion procedure to terminate living, late-term unborn babies which she hopes will yield intact fetal heads for brain harvesting.
• The 12th video in the series shows new footage of Jennefer Russo, medical director at Planned Parenthood in Orange County, California, describing to undercover investigators how her abortion business tries to harvest intact aborted babies’ bodies for a local for-profit biotech company and changes the abortion procedure to do so.
• The 13th video: exposes a Planned Parenthood medical director admitting that babies born alive after abortion are sometimes killed.
• The 14th video: catches Planned Parenthood executives discussing gruesome abortion procedures and the sale of body parts from aborted babies for profit.
• Planned Parenthood Directors Admit Under Oath That They Sold Aborted Baby Parts

Thursday, July 2 edition of Faith On Trial

This week on Faith On Trial:

Captain Craig Muehler, USN, Ret. – President of Chaplain Alliance for Religious Freedom on chaplains in the U.S. armed forces; and Tyson Langofer, Alliance Defending Freedom, on a Catholic student removed from his position as student senate president at Florida State University for expressing Catholic views in a Catholic chatroom.

10 a.m. Thursday (CDT) 1150 AM; 88.5 or 94.5 FM, or streaming on IowaCatholicRadio.com

Supreme Court Affirms School Choice

By Catholic League president Bill Donohue 

The U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision written by Chief Justice John Roberts, ruled that a Montana school choice initiative that allows a tax-credit scholarship program to benefit religious schools is constitutional. The state program is voluntary and is funded through private donations. It allows a dollar-for-dollar tax credit to those who participate.

Chief Justice Roberts concluded that although no state is required to subsidize private schools, once it does "it cannot disqualify some private schools solely because they are religious."

The Montana law was challenged because it violated its Blaine Amendment; it denies state funding of religious schools. The original Blaine Amendment, named after Rep. James Blaine of Maine, was proposed in 1876, but was never passed at the federal level. It did, however, prevail in the states. Montana is one of 37 states that has this amendment in its constitution.

The Blaine Amendment was rooted in anti-Catholic bigotry. It was designed to force Catholic students to attend public schools, which at the time required students to embrace Protestant teachings and practices.

This decision does not resolve all school choice issues, but it finally breaks the lock that the public school monopoly has had on education. It will be denounced by the public school establishment and its unions: they reject all competition, including charter public schools.

The Democratic Party, and its new allies, Black Lives Matter, are strongly opposed to giving minority children from poor families the same options for school choice afforded rich white folks. So is the Ku Klux Klan.

In 1922, the Klan succeeded in pushing for an Oregon law that forced every child to attend a public school. Three years later, in Pierce v. Society of Sisters, it lost, in a unanimous decision, in the Supreme Court.

This may be a bad day for the Democrats, Black Lives Matter, and the Ku Klux Klan, but it is a good day for Catholics, and indeed people of every faith. It is a particularly good day for the Catholic League. Fr. Virgil Blum made school choice his number one issue when he founded the organization in 1973.

Reaction to SCOTUS striking Louisiana abortion law

From the Thomas More Society:

The United States Supreme Court has struck down a Louisiana law regulating abortion, in what attorneys at the Thomas More Society are labeling “a disappointing blow to states’ rights to protect the health and wellbeing of their citizens.” Upholding a challenge by two abortionists, the high court’s decision in June Medical v. Gee, denies Louisiana the right to protect women by requiring those who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital in case there are serious medical complications that put the woman at risk.

Tom Brejcha, Thomas More Society President and Chief Counsel, responded to the court’s verdict. “This judgement also effectively allowed those who sell abortion services to sue on behalf of their potential customers, to overturn state regulations put in place to protect those very same customers.”

The not-for-profit public interest law firm has had a vested interest in the outcome of this case, having filed two briefs in support of Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals Secretary Rebekah Gee. The first, authored by former United States Solicitor General Kenneth Starr acting as Special Counsel to the Thomas More Society, attacked the standing of the abortionists to sue on behalf of their clients, ones that they claimed were facing an “undue burden” by Louisiana’s limits on abortion access.

The Thomas More Society also submitted a brief to the high court on behalf of Illinois Right to Life, challenging June Medical’s lawsuit with the obsolescence of Roe v. Wade, in light of 47 years of scientific progress in the areas of viability, fertility, and basic biology.

Brejcha explained what comes next for the Thomas More Society in the abortion battle: “We had hoped for a decision affirming the rights of a state to protect the health and safety of those within its borders. The onus of doing so will now rest upon the citizens themselves. We will redouble efforts to secure and defend the rights of individuals and groups to speak out against abortion – the free exercise of religion, freedom of speech, assembly and expressive association, and due process. Americans who believe in the sanctity of human life have the right to rally against abortion, to offer abortion-bound women information about life-affirming alternatives, and to pray for the end of abortion, on public right of ways surrounding and leading to abortion vendors. The playing field may have shifted but our commitment has not wavered.”

From The Catholic Association:

"Today the Supreme Court ruled in favor of special treatment for unscrupulous abortion doctors who exploit women at a vulnerable time.   The Louisiana law nullified by the Court today was passed by Rep. Katrina Jackson, a Democrat and an African-American woman who found evidence that low-income women in her state were being harmed by incompetent abortionists operating in unsanitary clinics.  Rep. Jackson’s law required abortion doctors to have the same admitting privileges as doctors at other out-patient surgical clinics.   There is abundant evidence of abortion industry malpractice and a long line of notorious abortionists like Dr.Kermit Gosnell, Dr. Ulrich Klopfer, Dr. Steven Chase Bringham, Dr. Timothy Liveright,  Dr. James Pendergraft, and many more.  It is utterly incomprehensible that Chief Justice Roberts, who just four years ago supported a similar Texas law in the Hellerstedt case, would perform a contorted back-flip to shield abortionists from a law requiring basic health and safety standards." Maureen Ferguson is a Senior Fellow for The Catholic Association.

"Women’s safety once again loses at court in this morning’s decision regarding a Louisiana law requiring admitting privileges for abortion providers. It is a sad reflection of our society’s disregard for the well-being of women that a common-sense regulation meant to protect them from incompetent, dangerous practitioners should give way to political and ideological interests. If the liberal justices led by Chief Justice Roberts were doctors, and not simply jurists-playing-doctor and legislating from the bench, they would know surgical abortion clinics ought to be held to the same safety standards as any other surgical facility." Grazie Pozo Christie, MD is Policy Advisor for The Catholic Association.

Who Would Have Thought It?. . . Is U.S. Starting Down Road To Become Another Venezuela?

By Dexter Duggan

(The Wanderer) Amid other recent shocks to the U.S. social system, the weird possibility that the nation actually could fall to a political coup began to be pondered more seriously. A Venezuelan told Phoenix radio talk host James T. Harris (KFYI, 550 AM) on June 23 that her countrymen didn’t think they’d be taken over, either, but they were, by Marxists.

The parallels don’t have to be exact among different countries in order to see warning signs of the virus of tough dictatorship or even totalitarianism.

Germany’s supposedly civilizing education and culture, a Russian background of serfdom, Chinese Confucianism, among various examples, all ended up in oceans of blood captained by ruthless masters.

Italy may have been where it was hard even to make the trains run on time, whereas Germany was known for Prussian efficiency, but these two dissimilar nations were the European basis of the Axis alliance for World War II.

Hardly had handcuffed George Floyd died in police custody on Memorial Day in Minneapolis than retaliatory rioters, looters, and weapons-toters began to burst out not only around the U.S. but also many other places.

And often, as in Minneapolis itself, the areas to suffer were those governed by the very political liberals that one might imagine would long ago have ameliorated grievances — like Seattle, Portland, Ore., and New York City.

Meanwhile, even more powerful shocking news of an attempted political coup continued to emerge as official inquiries showed that in early 2017, outgoing Democrat President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, and top-echelon officials including FBI Director James Comey, plotted to remove newly elected GOP President Donald Trump.

This might qualify as the biggest political scandal in U.S. history, but dominant left-wing media that lie their heads off to advance their and Dems’ agenda had scant interest in peering in here.

Covertly deciding that any stratagem must be used to abort Trump before he faced the voters again in 2020, the plotters failed.

But now that his electoral defeat in November would be sufficient to remove Trump from office, a person might think that every deception and deceit possible will be employed to hand a fake victory to wan bad Catholic and presumptive Dem nominee Biden.
However, before the U.S. even gets to Election Day, what more looms with the establishment-blessed rioters and anarchists? Pro-Trump vandals long ago would have been rounded up, but as long as the militants are leftists, they get the benefit of every excuse and justification.

Like eighteenth-century French revolutionary leader Maximilien Robespierre, who ended up on the guillotine himself, were U.S. leftist political and social leaders destined to fall to the furies they tolerated or even helped create?

First the U.S. rioters toppled statues representing the Confederate side of the Civil War, but quickly also tore into statuary of the Union’s leading opponents of slavery like President Abraham Lincoln, Gen. Ulysses Grant, and abolitionists. (Note to rioters who seem to know little or no history: An “abolitionist” is someone who strongly opposed human slavery.)

Merely being an old statue seemed to convict the aged piece of stone or metal of celebrating oppression.

On June 23 the Federalist site posted: “President Trump was roundly mocked and derided for worrying in August 2017 that statue destroyers would move on from statues of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee to statues of former presidents and Founding Fathers George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Major media accused Trump of making inappropriate and even ridiculous comments.”

However, this article concluded, “all their experts, fact checks, and smug assurances were completely wrong and Trump was right.”

Just after statues of one of the founders of modern California, Catholic saint and Hispanic Junipero Serra, were vandalized, a prominent Black Lives Matter activist incredibly said that images of no less than Jesus and His Mother should be destroyed if their skin tone was considered too light. This was no less than the spirit of the Devil himself loosed.

Kindred lawbreakers began establishing “autonomous zones” that they claimed were their own territories in cities, no matter the buildings and possessions of others within the zones that they thus conscripted.

Although the commandeered areas supposedly were no longer part of the United States, “foreign aid” such as donated food and money was welcomed. However, “foreign troops,” that is, police and firefighters, were excluded.

The Federalist site posted on June 24: “Wisconsin’s two largest cities were awash in violence Tuesday (June 23) and into early Wednesday morning as ‘peaceful’ Black Lives Matter protesters in Madison toppled iconic, progressive statues and beat up an openly gay state senator, while a Milwaukee mob set fire to a home and injured several police and a firefighter.

“Wisconsin is out of control, and it is reaping the lawless fruit that pandering liberals have sown,” the article added.

The Washington Examiner said the state senator, Milwaukee Democrat Tim Carpenter, tweeted that while he was filming protesters, he was “Punched/kicked in the head, neck, ribs. Maybe concussion, socked in left eye is little blurry, sore neck & ribs. 8-10 people attacked me.”

Meanwhile, the leftist Democratic mayor of Olympia, Wash., had a neatly printed sign in her front window at home showing support for Black Lives Matter, and an LGBTQ rainbow flag hanging by the door, but that didn’t prevent a vandal from spraying “BLM” graffiti on her house. What a cruel cut.

Mayor Cheryl Selby reportedly said the damage was “like domestic terrorism” — even though she was spared far worse.

The Wanderer asked national conservative commentator Quin Hillyer on June 23 why he thought there was such an explosion of violent activity, and in unison. Hillyer replied, “I think that at least two generations of Americans have been taught from kindergarten through college that the American system is illegitimate and racist, and that working through the system is useless.

“They were kindling just waiting to be lit, and Officer Chauvin provided not just a match but a blowtorch,” Hillyer said.

Derek Chauvin is the former Minneapolis police officer who knelt with his knee on Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes as the black arrestee lay in the street, saying he couldn’t breathe.

Hillyer also pointed to his own column posted June 23 at the Washington Examiner that said there’s no legal right, for instance, to destroy others’ statues, set up encompassing autonomous zones, or attack police doing their jobs. The column was headlined, “Punish the criminal protesters with appropriate power.”

Traditionally there’s some leeway in how laws are applied, taking into account such factors as circumstances and comprehension, but arbitrary seductiveness, or simply inventing or discarding what is considered law, leads to dangerous if not disastrous results.

A prominent example is the U.S. Supreme Court, which has accreted such power in imposing immoral revolution that the court would shock the nation’s Founders, who envisioned coequal branches of government.

Perhaps the significant beginning of the issue at hand was the High Court simply asserting in 1965 in Griswold v. Connecticut that there was a national right to use contraception. Why bother with state legislatures in this instance when the court could impose its own will on everyone everywhere in the U.S.?

Modest as the Supreme Court might have thought this conclusion, only eight years later, in Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton in 1973, the justices miraculously uncovered a previously hidden national right to permissive abortion throughout pregnancy that overturned the abortion law of every state, from the most restrictive to the most permissive.

Not so much of a jump, perhaps then, for the court to impose “same-sex marriage” in Obergefell in 2015, even though the popular vote in dozens of states had rejected this. And, quite recently, on June 15, for the court to pretend in Bostock that the definition of sex discrimination in federal law extends to sexual orientation and subjective gender identity.

You have a constitutional right not only to believe you’re whatever sex you fancy, but also to impose such notion legally as you please.

A different issue, but also wide-reaching, was the court’s insupportable approval of unconstitutional Obamacare in 2012, National Federation of Independent Business.
The court has made itself an inviting target for revolutionaries who perceive its ability to deliver the goods for them. Wining, dining, arm-twisting, and other inducements are the ordinary tools of lobbyists on politicians. Why should we expect Supreme Court justices with even more power to escape backroom snares we may not imagine?

Pray The Rosary

Rob Haney, a retired chairman of the Phoenix-based Maricopa County Republican Party, told The Wanderer on June 24 that Democratic Party power in government has grown to a real threat to traditional Judeo-Christian believers and others.

“Democrat officials have suffered no consequences for the illegal methods they have used to undermine our constitutional government,” Haney said. “This is because their activists control our means of policing. They are now instituting policies that will allow unlimited voter fraud during the November election.

“Adding to this are billionaire business leaders, ignoring natural and civil laws, donating millions to Black Lives Matter because they believe it will safeguard their business success,” he said. ”The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, by praising the BLM anarchists, have chosen social-cultural whims over fundamental Catholic teaching. Once again, the culture influences the Church rather than the Church influencing the culture.

“President Trump is the (Winston) Churchill of our time, but he does not have the strength of Churchill’s allies in reserve. Hopefully, Trump and conservative officials, backed by strong military support, will use their constitutional powers to reestablish law and order and turn back the nihilists and Communists. I cannot envision our representative republic surviving otherwise,” he said.

Historically, Haney said, Catholics have sought divine intervention through the power of the rosary “when faced with overwhelming demonic forces,” such as at the battles of Lepanto and Vienna. “All the more reason for us to pray the rosary, in hopes that it will lead to the divine intervention we need today.”

+++++

Dexter Duggan is a pro-life journalist who writes for The Wanderer. He lives in Arizona. 

STATEMENT ON THE DESTRUCTION OF THE STATUE OF ST. JUNIPERO SERRA IN SAN FRANCISCO

By Most Rev. Thomas Daly, Bishop of Spokane,

Episcopal Adviser to Serra's USA Council

In the process of working for justice, to right historical wrongs, the stories we tell ourselves about the past often have to be examined. At this moment, many are calling for the removal of statues of certain historical figures, which can certainly be debated. At the same time, some individuals have taken it upon themselves, acting in violent mobs, to tear down statues based on a dangerously narrow interpretation of history. As a native of California, the destruction of a statue of St. Junipero Serra deeply troubles me.

The Church, by no means, desires injustice to go unanswered, but two wrongs do not make a right. If we cannot acknowledge the good of a saint such as Junipero Serra, we risk preferring ideology to the truth. We should acknowledge St. Junipero’s efforts to protect the natives at the missions from harm, his efforts to offer them what he treasured most in the world, a saving relationship with Jesus Christ. The work of evangelization—carried out by flawed human beings—is to see all united in Christ where there is no Greek or Jew, there is no division, and all are seen and treated as the unique and beloved children of God the Father. St. Junipero Serra is a great example of that legacy, flawed like all of us, but striving with heroic virtue toward a vision of reconciliation and faith.

Tearing down statues of St. Junipero represents a perilous trend of demonizing the good works of others in the name of ideology. Such destruction reveals a dangerous capacity in the human heart for hatred of the other. It risks unleashing the worst of humanity. Christians and all people of goodwill ought to look for ways to build, not destroy. St. Junipero, pray for us that we may continue to build a civilization of peace and justice.

Vote by Mail: Turning the Clock Backwards

By Patrick J. Walsh

Concerns about corruption in voting are not a new phenomenon. During the Constitutional Convention of 1787, James Madison worried about the abuses that might occur under the new Constitution.

Our federal system of government is predicated on the faith that a citizen, adequately informed and unmolested is capable of judging who is best fit to govern our country.

The U.S. Constitution stipulates - "the times, places and manner of holding elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by law make or alter such regulations.”

Over time, what has developed in the United States is a system of voting protecting both the legitimacy of an election and the privacy rights of the voter from outside interference. Without these two components we would have no fair stable system of elections. All would descend to chaos of corruption.

Today, using the coronavirus as an excuse, the Democrats seek to abolish how we conduct elections in the United States.

Our current system of voting came into being as a result of a great progressive reform movement in the latter part of the 19th century and early 20th century.

Ardent progressive reformers, like the socialist Henry George in 1886, strove to prevent corruption in the electoral process. The progressive reformers championed a system of voting by an official ballot printed at public expense by a neutral authority. Previously political parties had printed their own ballots and ward bosses paid people to vote for their candidates, stuff ballots and vote repeatedly.

The system was intimidating and enormously corrupt. A supervisory public authority was necessary to monitor balloting, ensure fairness, and provide the necessary element of voter secrecy.

The new structure of reform called the 'Australian ballot', (named from its place of origin) specifies that a citizen coming to the poll be registered to vote and identified. At the poll, he gives his name and address. He receives an official ballot; marks it in the secrecy of a booth and hands it in to be counted.

Additional laws were passed protecting the voter from solicitation at the polls. These laws still survive today. Wardens at voting places acting on laws regulated by the local secretary of state keep those soliciting votes 100 ft. away from voters when they enter a polling place.

Massachusetts was the first state to adopt the secret ballot in 1888. By 1896, almost 90 percent of states had adopted it. The secret ballot is largely credited with rooting out the worst forms of voter fraud and intimidation. Later, voting machines came into being, which eliminated the paper ballot but ensured the same secrecy protections were kept with a curtain on the voting machine.

The corruption of the old political machine politics boss has ended, but the Democratic Party today seeks to bring back Tammany Hall by a procedure called "Vote by Mail" which takes away voter privacy and mails millions of ballots often to those no longer living at the address the ballot is mailed to.

One should not confuse "Vote by Mail" with voting by an 'absentee ballot'. Absentee balloting is an older established regulated process. It is used in extraordinary circumstances for illness or absence when the voter cannot appear at the poll. Ballots are requested by the voter, are registered, and require a signature certification by the voter.

There has been corruption in absentee balloting. The most secure method of voting is to vote in person at the poll.

"Vote by Mail' which the Democrats are advocating nationally is an irresponsible, unregulated system that seeks to mail ballots to every address in the country from inaccurate unpurged voter rolls regardless of whether the persons at the address is living, currently registered to vote, or are even citizens. Critics point out that ballots delivered to a wrong address or to someone who moved would be piled up in hallways for anyone to pick up and tamper with.

'Vote by Mail" then allows the ballots mailed to be collected by unregulated political activists who are entrusted to bring them to election places to be counted. What happens along the way to these ballots is left to the horror of one's imagination. There are no voter identity checks anywhere in the 'Vote by Mail" scheme. Its unsecure procedures encourages tampering and ballot fraud on a massive scale.

In the recent midterm 2018 elections, Republicans in the state of California were winning on election night in seven Congressional districts, but the vote harvested ballots allowed by "Vote by Mail" overturned the election results, giving all seven seats to the Democrats.

Some sections of California were found to have a voter registration of 112% --  more registered voters than there were actual citizens! This is corruption pure and simple.

Fair elections are an essential part of the integrity of republican government. Any process that does not guarantee voter protections is an attack on the U.S. Constitution and on every voter's civil rights.

'Vote by Mail" denigrates U.S. citizenship and the integrity of the electoral process as it takes away the dignity and responsibility of a citizen appearing at a polling place, while invading the voter's privacy as the ballot passes through so many different hands. The voting booth is the last citadel of privacy in America.

The progressive reforms of the early 20th century are a proud part of American history. Various states in our federal republic became laboratories of democratic electoral reform. It would be a disaster to the integrity of the electoral process to turn the clock backwards to the days of ballot stuffing, bribery, and Boss Tweed.

Patrick J Walsh is a writer in Quincy Mass.

This article was first published June 19, 2020 in the American Thinker https://www.americanthinker.com/ a daily internet publication devoted to the thoughtful exploration of issues of importance to Americans. 

On the program this week ...

This week on Faith On Trial: No-fault divorce and SCOTUS ruling on the definition of "sex."

Thursday at 10 a.m. CDT on Iowa Catholic Radio, 1150 AM; 88.5 or 94.5 FM; out of the area: go to IowaCatholicRadio.com or download our free app.

Religious Liberty Is In A Precarious State

Religious Liberty Is In A Precarious State

By Catholic League president Bill Donohue

The U.S. Supreme Court decision on workplace discrimination against homosexuals and transgender persons leaves religious liberty matters in a precarious state. We stand with the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Archbishop José Gomez of Los Angeles, who said that the Supreme Court "effectively redefined the legal meaning of 'sex' in our nation's civil rights laws." He also noted that this ruling "will have implications in many areas of life."

Among those areas is the fate of religious liberty. Writing for the majority opinion, Justice Neil Gorsuch said he was "deeply concerned with preserving the promise of the free exercise of religion." He then blithely indicated that such "worries" about how this ruling might negatively impact on religious liberty are "nothing new."

Gorsuch's response was not reassuring. This explains why Justice Samuel Alito, in his dissenting opinion (joined by Justice Clarence Thomas), raised a series of problems with it. 

Alito noted that a "wide range of religious groups—Christian, Jewish, and Muslim—express deep concern that the position now adopted by the Court 'will trigger open conflict with faith-based employment practices of numerous churches, synagogues, mosques, and other religious institutions.'" 

Alito anticipates a realistic problem. What would happen if a religious school, one that teaches that "sex outside of marriage and sex reassignment procedures are immoral," were to employ a teacher who is in a homosexual relationship, or no longer identifies with the sex he or she was assigned at birth? 

To keep such teachers on staff would be to undercut the credibility of the religious school's tenets, effectively neutering its doctrinal prerogatives. This is not a hypothetical. 

Many Catholic schools have been targeted by homosexual activists to challenge the right of the school to discharge, or not renew the contract of, such teachers. How will matters play out in this new world where there is no legal difference between sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity? 

What about religious hospitals? Will Catholic hospitals, for instance, be permitted to decline requests for sex reassignment surgery? Again, this is not a "maybe" issue—such lawsuits have already been filed.

Gorsuch opines that the high court will get to these issues when they are before it. This is unsatisfactory. His language is broad and his reach is wide. Surely he knows that the majority opinion is going to open the legal floodgates. Not to provide more assurance to religious institutions, as well as to other organizations touched by this decision (e.g., women's sports), is to entice agenda-ridden activists and lawyers to mobilize. 

When it comes to controversial moral issues being settled by judges, prudence dictates that the rulings be narrowly focused. This is one of many areas where the majority opinion failed us.

Upcoming this Thursday on Faith On Trial

Thursday on Faith On Trial;

Professor Jaffer Jamil from George Mason University and former counsel to the president on several upcoming Supreme Court Cases involving the right to hire and fire teachers in religious schools and Cathy Ruse of the Family Research Center on the sexualization of our children.

10 a.m. (CDT) on Iowa Catholic Radio, 1150 AM; 88.5 & 94.5 FM; IowaCatholicRadio.com on-line or download our free app.

The '1619 Project' Learns from Mussolini

By Carol Lannone              

Contrary to what many think, fascism is not based on the belief in absolute truth. Fascism is based on the belief that there is no truth; that is, on relativism, or nihilism. This position is actually built on a fatal contradiction: a relativist says there is no truth, but in so doing, he is asserting a truth which then becomes the basis for what he intends to impose on everybody else.

Everybody else has been so polite as to let the relativists go on instead of pointing out that they are proceeding from a premise that contradicts their own premise and therefore they don’t deserve to be listened to. But that’s where we are and where we’ve been for some time in the relativistic postmodern worldview. 

Take the “1619 Project” – a group of essays pushing the thesis that American ideals were false when they were written and that the American Revolution was fought to protect and perpetuate slavery. 

Prominent historians, liberals and conservatives alike, including Gordon Wood, James McPherson, James Oakes, Victoria Bynum, Clayborne Carson, Allen Guelzo, and Sean Wilentz have enumerated the many factual errors in the essays (including at the 1620 Project of the National Association of Scholars). Yet the lead essayist, Nikole Hannah-Jones, has responded mainly by mocking the idea of objective history altogether, as when she tweeted, with irony, “LOL. Right, because white historians have produced truly objective history.” She and her defenders fall back on the idea that they are offering a different “interpretation” or “re-framing” of the facts, or that they are simply generating debate.

“I think my point was that history is not objective,” she has said. “And that people who write history are not simply objective arbiters of facts, and that white scholars are no more objective than any other scholars, and that they can object to the framing and we can object to their framing as well.”

This can fairly be described as a fascist attitude. As Benito Mussolini helpfully explained, “If relativism signifies contempt for fixed categories and men who claim to be the bearers of an objective, immortal truth . . . then there is nothing more relativistic than Fascist attitudes and activity . . . From the fact that all ideologies are of equal value, that all ideologies are mere fictions, the modern relativist infers that everybody has the right to create for himself his own ideology and to attempt to enforce it with all the energy of which he is capable.”
The historians who protest “1619,” however, resist the “framing” idea and take issue with the project’s clear misrepresentation of well-established facts.

“These errors, which concern major events, cannot be described as interpretation or ‘framing,’’’ some of them declared in an open letter. “They are matters of verifiable fact, which are the foundation of both honest scholarship and honest journalism. They suggest a displacement of historical understanding by ideology.”

Sweeping aside such objections, Hannah-Jones is energetically enforcing her “interpretation,” as Mussolini directed, in her case with the help of institutions that also have been corrupted by ideological thinking—the New York Times, the Pulitzer Committee, and the public school systems that teach the “1619” curricula designed for K-12.

While the historians were waiting for some accountability, Hannah-Jones won journalism’s highest honor, the Pulitzer Prize. Her prize was in commentary, not history. Was that a backhanded way for the Pulitzer Committee to admit that the “1619 Project” cannot be dignified as history?

But if that is so, why have professional educators accepted curricula based on the “1619 Project” for teaching in public schools, despite its being faulted by experts and scholars and exposed as mainly ideological?

Which is the worst wound inflicted on the body politic by the “1619 Project?”

• The original compiling of a malicious pack of falsehoods about our country’s founding?

• Snubbing the demand for historical accuracy and by extension rebuffing any concept of reasoned deliberation as the basis of our common life?

• Piping this poison into the schools, goading children through misinformation to hate their country? Encouraging minority children to hate their white classmates and white children to hate themselves? 

• Seeing Hannah-Jones awarded the Pulitzer without any effort on her part to correct her work?   

• Using white guilt to extort reparations? Hannah-Jones has said, “When my editor asks me, like, what’s your ultimate goal for the project, my ultimate goal is that there’ll be a reparations bill passed.” “I write to try to get liberal white people to do what they say they believe in. I’m making a moral argument. My method is guilt.”

The “1619 Project” is a genuine and instructive exercise in the “fascist attitudes and activity” Mussolini described – how a false ideology created by modern relativists can be advanced by force of will and contempt for truth on a populace deprived of reason.

Thanks, Duce, for making that clear.
--
This article is republished with permission from American Greatness.
[Image Credit: Mussolini-Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone, Public Domain; Hannah-Jones-Flickr-Associacao Brasileira de Jornalismo Investigativo, CC BY 2.0]

Media Spin Catholic Response To Protests

By Catholic League President Bill Donohue

Public trust in the media is abysmal, but not without reason. To cite the latest example of unprofessional journalism, consider how some media outlets, led by the Associated Press (AP) characterized the Catholic response to the recent protests. The story was picked up by many newspapers and broadcast news outlets.

Nicole Winfield and Elana Schor of AP wrote a piece titled, "Pope Sends Strong Message to US Catholics After Floyd Death." And what is that "strong message"? Not to vote for President Trump. This is a classic case of spinning a story to achieve a political end. 

Referring to the protests, AP says that "the intensity and consistency of the Vatican's reaction suggests that, from the pope on down, it is seeking to encourage anti-racism protesters while making a clear statement about where American Catholics should stand ahead of President Donald Trump's bid for a second term in November."

This is a remarkable statement. The clear message is that Pope Francis has entered the presidential race for the White House, giving American Catholics his tacit endorsement of Joe Biden. So where is the evidence?

The reporters quote Anthea Butler saying that the pope "wants to send a very clear message to these conservative Catholics here who are pro-Trumpers that, 'Listen, this is just as much of an issue as abortion is.'" 

Butler is a curious choice to ask for a comment. The Ivy League professor is on record saying that "God is a white racist." If that is her opinion, why would anyone care what she has to say about the pope? Wouldn't he, the Vicar of Christ on earth, qualify, by extension, as a "white racist" too? 

More important, why didn't the AP reporters simply quote something the pope said that would verify their unsupported thesis?

Winfield and Schor continue by saying "Francis and the Vatican have seized on [George] Floyd's killing" and that this "suggests a coordinated strategy." To this end they quote a church historian, Alberto Melloni, who contends, "It's not like seven people had the same type of reaction" by chance. This, of course, is pure conjecture. He offered no evidence of a "coordinated strategy."

The reporters cite the pope and others who have condemned racism, saying it is a "life" issue, one that conservative Catholics, "for whom the abortion issue is paramount," need to acknowledge. But they do. So there is nothing to this. 

All Catholics, regardless of their political leanings, recognize that abortion and racism are "intrinsically evil." Indeed, that was the way the U.S. bishops framed these two issues in their document, "Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship." No conservative Catholic has criticized them for doing so. 

Proof that there is nothing inherently liberal or conservative about condemning racism can be found by reading the dozens of statements by U.S. bishops on the subject. Minneapolis Archbishop Bernard Hebda was first to respond on May 27. Two days later, seven bishops chairmen of committees of the bishops' conference issued a statement. This was followed on May 31 in an eloquent address by Archbishop José Gomez of Los Angeles and president of the bishops' conference. All condemned racism and violence.

Washington D.C. Archbishop Wilton Gregory is mentioned for his criticism of officials at the St. John Paul II National Shrine who allowed President Trump and his wife to visit there. The event was planned in advance and the site was chosen as an appropriate venue to promote international religious liberty. Yes, it seems clear that Gregory does not like the president, but to suggest that this is part of a "coordinated strategy" is without foundation. Who else followed suit? No one. 

The AP journalists also mention that the pope phoned Texas Bishop Mark Seitz of El Paso to congratulate him for his role in protesting racism. This happened on June 3rd, the same day Pope Francis made an address where he condemned both racism and violent protests. Seitz said the pope never mentioned the demonstration. More important, what the AP story did not say is critical. Seitz did not join with radicals: he participated in a prayer vigil, kneeling in a park, with priests from his diocese.

Cardinal Kevin Farrell is cited in the AP story for his comments decrying racism. Too bad the reporters didn't quote his remark denouncing attempts to politicize the reaction to the killing of Floyd. The Catholic Church, he said, "does not want to take one side against another." If we do, he maintained, "We end up identifying our Christian faith with the ideological vision of the side we have embraced." Well said.

It is one thing for someone like Joe Scarborough to put words into the mouth of the Holy Father by saying, "The pope is telling him [Trump] to cut it out.'' That is what this man does for a living—he spins the truth. It is quite another for AP reporters to mislead the public.

We Stand on the Precipice of a Very Dangerous Cultural Shift

By MICHAEL BROWN Published on June 9, 2020 in The Stream

In recent days, a number of commentators have compared the year 2020 with 1968 (for my article, see here). But we have not discussed the larger cultural shift that took place as a result of the counterculture revolution of the 60s. In short, what was extreme and fringe in that generation became mainstream in the next generation. Put another way, radicals like Bill Ayers of the Weathermen (who bombed buildings in their anti-war protests) became university professors and even mentors of a president (meaning, Barack Obama). Who saw this coming?

Do you think that radical, anti-family feminists in groups like W.I.T.C.H. imagined a world where legalized abortion would snuff out 60 million lives in the womb? (W.I.T.C.H. stood for the Women’s International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell — I kid you not — and was founded in 1969.)

Do you think that the 1969 Stonewall Inn rioters, hurling bricks at police and their cars and chanting “Gay Power” and “We Want Freedom Now”  envisioned the day when the Supreme Court would change the very meaning of marriage? (Remember that these gay rioters tended to despise marriage as an antiquated, patriarchal institution.) Do you think that the transvestite prostitute protesters envisioned the day when university campuses and big businesses would marginalize you if you didn’t affirm transgender activism?

Standing on the Brink 

In 2000, I wrote a mini-book called The Jesus Manifesto. Looking back at some of the opening lines, it sounds almost quaint today. “The last generation’s counterculture of rebellion has become this generation’s establishment of revulsion, and what was unthinkable thirty years ago – daytime talk shows celebrating adultery and incest; homosexual love scenes on major network TV; eleven year-old multiple murderers; massacres in our schools and houses of worship – is a matter of course today. We need a revolution!”

Of course, the “revolution” of which I spoke was a gospel-based, moral and cultural revolution, changing hearts and lives and thereby changing the society. But if that was true in the year 2000, it is much truer in the year 2020, when we stand on the precipice of an even more dangerous cultural shift.

I’m talking about the rise of mobocracy where the most radical elements of society forcefully impose their will on everyone else.

I’m talking about the “safe space” culture of the college campuses (with enforced speech codes — even thought codes — and severe penalties for every violation) becoming the national norm.

I’m talking about an even more extreme shift to the left, but this time, under mob patrol.

I’m talking about the current culture of the New York Times, where the publishing of a contrary opinion piece leads to outrage and overhaul in the editorial department, becoming the national norm. (So much for differing opinions!)

As expressed by Alexandra Desanctis on the National Review, “The result is ideological servitude, a society in which a culturally powerful, tyrannical minority owns the voice of every person willing to go along.” And woe be to you if do you not agree to go along.

The Truth About Black Lives Matter, Inc. 

Of course, many of us have been warning about this for years. 

But now, with the tragic death of George Floyd, the radical activists have seized their moment. You must kneel, or else! You must embrace our agenda, or you will be trampled underfoot! You must bow down, or we will force you to bow!

If you don’t shout “Black Lives Matter” loudly enough or demonstrate sufficient guilt (in particular, for having white skin), you will lose your job. Or your credibility. Or your peace.

We do stand in solidarity with victims of injustice. We do oppose racism. But we do it our way, not the mob’s way. And we do it based on our values, not those of the radical left.

One pastor sent me screen shots of the death threats he has received for taking issue with “queer” aspects of the BLM platform. Not today! The mob is coming your way. (This pastor’s home address was revealed as well.)

Synagogues vandalized during the riots in Los Angeles have discovered that some of the rioters are also antisemites (why no public outcry?). As a Times of Israel headline announced on June 2, “LA Jews reeling after local institutions looted and burned in Floyd protests. Synagogues, schools and Jewish memorials vandalized with anti-Semitic, anti-Israel slogans, Jewish-owned businesses battered, particularly in Fairfax district.” But this is no surprise given that BLM also supports BDS.

And what of BLM goals like this? “We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and “villages” that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable.

“We foster a queer‐affirming network. When we gather, we do so with the intention of freeing ourselves from the tight grip of heteronormative thinking, or rather, the belief that all in the world are heterosexual (unless s/he or they disclose otherwise).”

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As for BLM’s antisemitic roots, Caroline Glick noted on Israel Hayom that, “BLM was formed in 2014 as a merger of activists from the anti-Semitic Nation of Islam, the anti-Semitic Black Panthers and Dream Catchers. In 2016, BLM published a platform that has since been removed from its website. The platform accused Israel of committing ‘genocide’ and referred to the Jewish state as an ‘apartheid’ state. The platform accused Israel and its supporters of pushing the US into wars in the Middle East.

The platform also officially joined BLM with the anti-Semitic BDS campaign to boycott, divest and sanction Israel. BDS campaign leader Omar Barghouti acknowledged this week that the goal of the BDS campaign is to destroy Israel. BDS campaigns on US campuses are characterized by bigotry and discrimination directed against Jewish students.”

Only Bow Before God

As for America as a whole, just a few days ago, the thought of defunding the police would have been viewed as a silly joke. One week later, and presidential candidate Joe Biden is being tested for his allegiance to this bizarre proposal. (Police reform, where needed, is one thing. Defunding the police is not even a bad joke.)

But shouting “Make America Great Again” and rallying around the flag is not the solution.

Instead, everyone of us must stand up to the mob and refuse to move an inch from our core convictions and values. I mean in our homes. Our schools. Our neighborhoods. Our places of business. On social media. Wherever we have a voice, we must stand and speak.

Of course, we do abhor police brutality when it occurs. We do stand in solidarity with victims of injustice. We do oppose racism. But we do it our way, not the mob’s way. And we do it based on our values, not those of the radical left.

I tweeted this last night (June 8): “Rather than bowing the knee to the mobocracy of the far left or the hyper-nationalism of the far right, I say we bow the knee to Jesus, then get His marching orders and obey Him at any cost.”

I appeal to you strongly, no I warn you: this is a critical hour in our history. If we do not push back righteously today, we will have deep regrets tomorrow. And what will we say to our children and grandchildren?

In the famous dictum of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world that it leaves to its children.”

What will it be?

Dr. Michael Brown (www.askdrbrown.org) is the host of the nationally syndicated Line of Fire radio program. His latest book is When the World Stops: Words of Faith, Hope, and Wisdom in the Midst of Crisis. Connect with him on Facebook, Twitter or YouTube.