This week has had so many "impact events" resulting in some remarkably insightful reporting (and equipping commentary) that I just couldn't stop at five this week. Indeed, here for this week is a Top 10. Note that it includes 4 articles from Suzanne Bowdey, the Senior Writer for Family Research Council's news outlet,
The Washington Stand. Ms. Bowdey explores each angle with insight and skill -- and she outlines several important areas for our prayers, conversations, and correspondence. Don't miss any of them.
And there's yet a fifth article I've linked up for you dealing with that platform failure. It's an interview of Kristan Hawkins, the president of Students for Life of America, by The Stream's John Zmirak.
Of course, other things were going on too this week. And that's where the other 5 items come in. Like the regular Top 5, I include a brief excerpt from each article to help you decide which ones to read...and to give you a key point or two even if you read only that.
Let's get to it.
* "Led by Trump, 2024 GOP Platform Slashes Decades of Pro-Life Priorities" (Suzanne Bowdey, Washington Stand)
From the article -- Fueling the concerns, of course, were the reports that Donald Trump was trying to gut the platform’s pro-family planks to avoid unnecessary “drama.” Those rumors, to the dismay of millions of conservatives, turned out to be true. The 16-page draft was a shell of its 2016 self in all the ways that mattered. Gone were the calls for protecting life from conception, for opposing taxpayer-funded abortion — at home through the Hyde Amendment or abroad through the Mexico City Policy. There was no insistence on safeguarding children from gender-mutilating surgery, no support for adoption, no demand for a federal role in limiting abortion.
* "GOP Delegates Hit Back on ‘Mockery’ of Platform Process with Rare Minority Report" (Suzanne Bowdey, Washington Stand)
From the article -- By the time the Trump campaign blasted out the GOP’s 2024 platform early Monday afternoon, most people in Milwaukee had to ask themselves: what just happened? For the delegates, who were sideswiped by the unconventional, fast-tracked, secret process, the entire morning felt surreal. The outcome was so pre-determined, so tightly controlled that most of the men and women who traveled from the furthest corners of the country wondered what they were even doing there.
While the RNC’s team and the Trump camp cheered the adoption of a platform they vowed would Make America Great Again, the mood on the ground wasn’t all that celebratory. It wasn’t just the outcome that was disturbing, “Washington Watch” guest host and former Congressman Jody Hice pointed out from Wisconsin, but also “how it all went down.”
* "Picking Up the Pieces after a Lifeless Platform: ‘The Battle Is Not Done’" (Suzanne Bowdey, Washington Stand)
From the article -- Back in Milwaukee, the shock is starting to wear off for the 112 men and women who were steamrolled by the RNC’s Monday heist. More are starting to speak up, including Iowan delegate Tamara Scott who called the whole stunt “heartbreaking.”
“I tell people, my role is to uphold or to preserve our Judeo-Christian foundations as a nation, to protect our constitutional liberties and freedoms, and … to protect our principles as a platform. And so it was heartbreaking,” she lamented. “It was heartbreaking.” Like so many others, she agreed the document “was not terrible” but insisted it “could be stronger, could be better.” In the end, Tamara wanted people to know, “We, as a party, are still pro-life. It’s just not the great language, the distinctive, definitive language that had clarity that we have enjoyed and stood with for 40 years. … It was taken off, as you know, without the ability to really even have a vote or have input as to whether or not it was removed. We were just presented with a brand new document.”
* "Josh Hawley: If Republicans Stop Fighting for Life at the Federal Level, then Dobbs Changed ‘Nothing’" (Suzanne Bowdey, Washington Stand)
From the article -- “Life is a principle that unites Republicans,” he insisted on Wednesday’s “Washington Watch.” “It’s one of the most important things that we have to offer the country in terms of our witness, and particularly for us as Christians.” And listen, he said, “We have been a pro-life party [since 1976]. … And I think at this moment in particular, when we see the right to life return to voters … we need all the more to say to [them], ‘You should support life. Here’s why we should be advocating for life.’ We shouldn’t be silent about it. We shouldn’t be reticent about it. We should be advocating for it. My concern is this platform seems to walk away from that and walk away from traditional marriage as well. And I think both are mistakes.”
* "Are Pro-Lifers Helpless Now, with Nowhere to Go? An interview with Kristan Hawkins of Students for Life of America" (John Zmirak, Stream)
From the article -- Here’s where the platform falls short: It does not actively address the reality that abortion is a local, state, and federal issue. The platform celebrates the reality that with Roe gone, states can now engage in policy. But given all the tax money, federal agency policy, and prejudice in favor of abortion littered through domestic and international programs, abortion is federal.
[Also] It sloppily includes a shout-out to contraception and IVF without noting some obvious issues. No one is trying to “ban” contraception. But an abortion lobby that gets money from the distribution of contraception, much of it potentially abortifacient, wants to force funding and mandates for more contraception without regard for whether that makes minors vulnerable to predators or violates our conscience rights. Nuns in the past had to go to court to prevent coerced support for contraception. And the statement on IVF ignores the chaos and controversy of an industry that has sloppily contributed to its public relations nightmare. As a business, it creates disposable people as standard operating procedure, commodifying women as surrogates and children as property. What does such “support” mean? That negligent, predatory business can prey on vulnerable women and families.
[Next] It also strips away some of the beautiful language that people loved, all for a rather nebulous goal, that no one requested, of getting a shorter platform.
* "Why The Court’s Murthy Ruling Is Probably The Worst Free Speech Decision In History" (Philip Hamburger, Federalist)
From the article -- A second problem was doctrinal. The Supreme Court has developed doctrine that encourages government to think it “can censor Americans through private entities as long as it is not too coercive.” Accordingly, with painful predictability, the oral argument in Murthy focused on whether or not there had been government coercion.
The implications were not lost on the government. Although it had slowed down its censorship machine during litigation, it revved it up after the court’s hearing emphasized coercion. As put by Matt Taibbi, “the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security reportedly resumed contact with Internet platforms after oral arguments in this case in March led them to expect a favorable ruling.”
The First Amendment, however, says nothing about coercion. On the contrary, it distinguishes between “abridging” the freedom of speech and “prohibiting” the free exercise of religion. As I have explained in great detail, the amendment thereby makes clear that the Constitution’s standard for a speech violation is abridging, that is, reducing, the freedom of speech, not coercion. A mere reduction of the freedom violates the First Amendment.
* "What Is a D & E Abortion? A Former Abortionist Explains...and Illustrates" (Vital Signs Blog)
From the article -- This is the 5-minute video narrated by former abortionist Kathi Aultman that is changing minds about abortion. It is particularly important to be viewed by those who maintain a "pro-choice" opinion.
* "Israel is losing the north: A zero-tolerance policy for Hezbollah rockets is the first step to saving the country – and its borders – as we know it" (Michael Oren, The Times of Israel)
From the article -- The situation deteriorates daily, yet Israel desperately wants to avoid an all-out war. Its response to Hezbollah’s assaults has been limited to the elimination of senior commanders and active terrorist cells. Unlike their Israeli counterparts, Lebanese border towns remain largely unscathed and the country is rigorously attracting tourism. Still, as the rocket fire from Lebanon increases, so, too, do the chances of a single missile hitting an army base or a school. Israel would have to respond massively. War would erupt not only with Hezbollah but also with Iran and its proxies. Swaths of Lebanon would be laid to waste.
And the world will once again blame Israel. The international media has almost totally ignored Hezbollah’s aggression or, as in the case of The New York Times, cast it as retaliation for Israeli attacks. Israel, meanwhile, has done little to lay the diplomatic groundwork for large scale military action. When I brought the first-ever delegation of uprooted Israelis to Washington last month, most of the Congressional and federal officials we met were utterly uninformed about the north.
That ignorance, more unconsciously, exists in Israel itself. Few seem aware of the dangerous shortage of medical and firefighting equipment in the border settlements, the dearth of bomb-proof shelters for their defenders, and even fuel for their generators. With much of the nation’s attention understandably focused on Gaza and the hostage crisis, and the government seemingly eager to play down its fear of war, northerners feel that the country has abandoned them. Their plight barely makes the news. They have no indication of when, if at all, the fighting will end or how Hezbollah will be forced to retreat from the border. IDF commanders in the region estimate that as many as 40% of its previous population is unlikely ever to return.
Israel is losing the north, but the loss will not be of land alone.
* "Up, Up and Away...Forever" (Denny Hartford, Vital Signs Blog)
From the article -- ...I was rather disgruntled at the sudden awakening but since she was so adamant, I stumbled over to the sliding glass door that led out to the balcony, drew open the shades and …wow upon wow…there they were! About two dozen hot air balloons had come over Loveland Pass and were now moving pretty fast down the valley. They were colorful. They were colossal. And they were close! We were awestruck at the beauty, the grace, and the sheer uniqueness of the sight – these huge, silent beasts that carried passengers who were waving to us and wishing us good morning. In various stages of undress, we waved back, feeling a pang of deep regret that we weren’t in one of those baskets with them, sailing through the crisp mountain air to who knows where - Frisco, Leadville, for all we knew, maybe Shangri-La.
Far from being annoyed at Sherry for waking us, we were all extremely grateful to her for giving us this rare and invaluable gift. It was, in one sense, a fleeting moment. The balloons moved so quickly that within minutes they were all gone from sight. But, in another and very real sense, Sherry also gave us a forever moment because the combination of surprise, novelty, color, movement, the soulful longing everyone feels for travel and adventure…and the fact that we experienced it as a family... made that moment something that we will always treasure. I’m feeling a glow just writing about it now...
* "The land of the freebie, for illegals" (Howie Carr, Boston Globe)
From the article -- Rarely do crimes by illegals make the news anymore. They’re here, they’re criminals, and the illegals know that no matter how heinous their crimes, there will most likely be no consequences because… Democrats. There was a story this week in the Wall Street Journal about increasing lawlessness in the Gaza Strip. It described the “overall breakdown of law and order” because “locking up criminals isn’t an option.”
Sounds like Massachusetts, doesn’t it?
In Middlesex County, an illegal alien welfare-collecting Haitian wasn’t arrested after being accused of raping an underage female at one of the local state-funded flophouses.Instead, a Lyft was called for him, at taxpayer expense, and the accused rapist was chauffeured in style to a different flophouse in a different county where he can continue his lifelong vacation at taxpayer expense.
What could possibly go wrong?
Another illegal-alien Haitian was accused of rape at a Plymouth County foreign flophouse. The Republican district attorney wanted bail set at $25,000. A bleeding-heart judge just cut it to $500, even though the state knows absolutely nothing about this guy, he has no ties to the community and, needless to say, no job.
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