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During Justice Clarence Thomas’ contentious Supreme Court confirmation hearings back in 1991, the now longest-serving member was assailed by critics and accusers. He remarked:

”I would have preferred an assassin’s bullet to this kind of living hell that they have put me and my family through. I’d rather die than withdraw . . . I never cry uncle.”

Nearly thirty-one years later, Justice Thomas remains steadfast:

 

1. Justice Clarence Thomas: Government institutions can’t be “bullied” 

From Axios:

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas said Friday that government institutions can’t be “bullied” into giving people the outcome they want, multiple news outlets report.

Thomas didn’t directly address the leak of a draft opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade, but he acknowledged that recent events at the Supreme Court might be one symptom of a judiciary which he views as threatened by people who are unwilling to “live with outcomes we don’t agree with,” per the Washington Post.

His comments come amid widespread abortion rights protests across the country.

“We can’t be an institution that can be bullied into giving you just the outcomes you want. The events from earlier this week are a symptom of that,” Thomas said at the 11th Circuit Judicial Conference, per Reuters.

 

RELATED: 

White House tacitly endorses intimidation of Supreme Court justices 

From The Hill:

The Biden White House doesn’t seem to care that angry mobs have gone to the homes of six conservative Supreme Court justices to protest the likely overturning of Roe v. Wade after a draft document stating such, authored by Justice Samuel Alitowas leaked earlier this week. A liberal firestorm followed, as the overturning of the 1973 decision would send abortion law back to the states.

One liberal group, “Ruth Sent Us,” has published online the home addresses of Justices Alito, Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanaugh and Chief Justice John Roberts. Several of these justices have children at home, including Barrett, who has seven.

“Our 6-3 extremist Supreme Court routinely issues rulings that hurt women, racial minorities, LGBTQ+ and immigrant rights. We must rise up to force accountability using a diversity of tactics,” the group said earlier this week.

Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy asked White House press secretary Jen Psaki about the planned protests earlier this week.

“Do you think that progressive activists that are now planning protests outside some of the justices’ houses are extreme?” asked Doocy. 

“Peaceful protest? No, peaceful protest is not extreme,” Psaki retorted.

RELATED: 

Who’s a Threat to Democracy? 

From the Wall Street Journal:

The latest theme on the political left is that the Supreme Court Justices who might overturn Roe v. Wade are at war with democracy. It’s a strange argument, since overturning Roe would merely return abortion policy to the states for political debate in elections and legislatures. That’s the definition of democracy.

But since they brought it up, by all means let’s talk about who is really threatening democracy. An independent judiciary is crucial to democratic self-government, and after the leak of Justice Samuel Alito’s draft opinion, the left is targeting the Justices who might vote to end Roe.

Everyone has the right to protest, but assailing the families of judges at home is a blatant attempt at intimidation. If the leaker wanted to mobilize public hostility to the Court, he is succeeding.

Where would someone get the idea to harass the Court? Well, perhaps from Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who stood on the Supreme Court steps in March 2020 as the Justices considered a previous abortion case.

“I want to tell you, Gorsuch, I want to tell you, Kavanaugh, you have released the whirlwind and you will pay the price. You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions,” he literally screamed.

He was referring to Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. Chief Justice John Roberts publicly rebuked Mr. Schumer, but what did he mean by “the whirlwind”?

 

  1. Give Pro-Life Union Members a Choice 

From the Wall Street Journal:

Recent Gallup polling shows Americans are split, with roughly even percentages considering themselves “pro-choice” and “pro-life.” But there’s a key distinction: Nonunion workers who object to abortion aren’t subsidizing pro-abortion advocacy through a monthly paycheck deduction. Many union-represented workers provide this subsidy by default, unless they opt out through a cumbersome union-controlled process.

Sen. Tim Scott (R., S.C.) has proposed a fix. His Employee Rights Act of 2022, introduced this spring with support from 27 of his Senate colleagues, would require union leaders to seek members’ opt-in permission for any spending not directly related to collective bargaining.

This would include donations to Planned Parenthood. A March 2022 survey of 1,000 Americans, conducted by Engine Insights, found that 76% of all households—and an identical percentage of union households—supported this.

Mr. Scott’s proposal shouldn’t be controversial. Whether you support abortion, oppose it, or come down somewhere in the middle, you can find common ground on this point: Your money shouldn’t be used to fund the other side of the debate.

 

  1. Wisconsin anti-abortion group targeted in Molotov cocktail arson attack: police 

From Fox News:

A Wisconsin anti-abortion group said Sunday someone tossed a Molotov cocktail into its Madison office and spray-painted a message outside reading, “if abortions aren’t safe then you aren’t either.”

Local reporters from outlets including WISC-TV, the Wisconsin State Journal, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel said they visited the office for Wisconsin Family Action on Sunday and shared photos and videos of the apparent arson attack. A shattered window had since been boarded up, and images showed fire damaged furniture and burned books littering the floor of the office.

The exterior of the building was tagged in cursive: “if abortions aren’t safe then you aren’t either.”

Wisconsin Family Action President Julaine Applin told News 3 Now that someone tossed a Molotov cocktail into her office around 6 a.m. and she was unaware of who is behind the attack.

 

  1. Mama Bears Want Three Things 

Focus on the Family’s Nicole Hunt writes for Fox News:

As a millennial “Mama Bear” to four school-aged children, let me tell you what Mama Bears want more than anything else this Mother’s Day.

First, we want special interest groups to stop pushing their toxic wokeness on our kids. As Mama Bears, one of our most important jobs is to protect our children – that includes protecting their innocence from radical special interest groups pushing a progressive agenda.

Second, we want our authority as parents to be respected as we direct our children’s moral upbringing, education, and medical decision-making. We will raise our children according to our religious beliefs and convictions. Woke interest groups may disagree with our beliefs, but their radical opinions do not trump our parental rights. In America, our rights as parents are endowed to us by our Creator, not the state.

Finally, we want society to stop canceling women from culture. We are not “pregnant people” nor “chest-feeders.” Unlike what our daughters are told by woke culture, the word “woman” is not divisive, wrong, nor disrespectful.

Telling women their very existence as women is offensive, and they must be something else is offensive to us.

As women, we’re uniquely gifted to carry out the job of motherhood in a way that a man simply cannot. We want to be recognized as the women we are.

 

5. A Parental Victory on Free Speech 

From the Wall Street Journal:

 Parents continue to fight for a say in their children’s education, often against hostile administrators. Three cheers, then, for Ohio mother Ashley Ryder for successfully challenging a policy that limited what parents could say at school board meetings.

Ms. Ryder sued the Big Walnut Local School District Board of Education in an Ohio federal court in March. She said it had violated the First Amendment with a policy that allows the presiding officer at school board meetings to “interrupt, warn, or terminate” any public statements he deems “abusive,” “personally directed” or “antagonistic.” In late April the board settled with Ms. Ryder and agreed to end its restrictions on speech.

Ms. Ryder’s experience illustrated how the school board had abused the policy to silence critics. The Ohio mother believes schools should provide mental-health services for students, and she criticized newly elected school board members about the veracity of their statements on the issue. “Now that you’ve made a complete 180, my question for the board is this: Were you lying to your base to get elected, or are you lying now to the parents?” Ms. Ryder asked at a February meeting.

As parents across the U.S. are discovering, Big Walnut isn’t the only place with constitutionally questionable restrictions on speech at school board meetings. Ms. Ryder has set an example for how parents can fight back, but it’s a shame it took a lawsuit.

 

  1. States Sue Feds for Colluding with Big Tech to Censor Conservative Viewpoints 

From The Daily Citizen:

Everyone more or less understands that government cannot censor private speech. The First Amendment says so, and we all get that. And it’s also understood that the First Amendment doesn’t usually apply to non-government restrictions on speech imposed by private entities.

But what happens when the government gets into bed with private companies like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to “encourage” them to censor news and viewpoints they mutually – and ideologically – consider “misinformation” and “disinformation,” including biblical viewpoints concerning marriage, sexuality, and  the value of male and female.

That question is at the heart of a new lawsuit filed against several federal officials by the states of Missouri and Louisiana in a federal court in Louisiana.

 

7. Research shows it’s relationships, not genetics that lengthen your life 

From the Deseret News:

Over the past few decades now, growing evidence shows people who are more socially connected live longer and people who are more isolated or lonely are at increased risk for early mortality.

Perhaps the most famous long-term study of the impacts of having or lacking relationships developed over time from the Harvard Study of Adult Development, which started following 268 Harvard sophomores in 1938 and continued to track them. They also studied inner-city teens recruited from poor neighborhoods.

“The surprising thing is that our relationships and how happy we are in our relationships has a powerful influence on our health,” Robert Waldinger, study director, a psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital and a professor at Harvard’s medical school, told The Harvard Gazette in 2017. “Taking care of your body is important, but tending to your relationships is a form of self-care, too. That, I think, is the revelation.”

 

  1. New Report Confirms Most Working Parents Are Burned Out 

From The New York Times:

For two years, working parents in America have been running on fumes, hammered by the stress of remote schooling, day care closures, economic instability and social isolation.

Now, a new report says that 66 percent of working parents meet the criteria for parental burnout — a nonclinical term that means they are so exhausted by the pressure of caring for their children, they feel they have nothing left to give.

The report, published Thursday by researchers with Ohio State University, is based on an online survey of 1,285 working parents that was conducted between January 2021 and April 2021. It gives a snapshot of a different time, when America was deep in pandemic lockdowns.

But its authors believe parental burnout is here to stay, because working parents don’t have enough practical, structural supports to overcome the relentless stress, which isn’t abating. Any parent can experience burnout, but the new report focuses on working parents, who, the researchers believe, are at particular risk for exhaustion.

 

9. Adult Cartoons Aren’t Safe for Teens – Or Adults for That Matter. 

From Plugged In:

If we’re being honest with ourselves, it doesn’t matter how “mature” any of us are. Galatians gives us a whole list of wicked things to avoid: “sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these” (Galatians 5: 19-21). And whether we like it or not, many of these adult cartoons don’t just display these actions, they celebrate them.

So perhaps, instead of letting these types of shows play in the background while we cook dinner, we could change the channel or even turn the TV off. And when your teenager tries to convince you that he needs to watch it to fit in with his friends—well, personally, I would tell that kid to find new friends, because these ones aren’t doing him any favors—encourage him to do the right thing (James 4:17).

Because at best, the worst of these shows are offensive to all peoples and all cultures. At worst, they’re a direct reflection of why Jesus had to sacrifice himself on the cross. And that sacrifice is often ridiculed in these shows as well.

 

10. Antique Marble Bust Found in Texas Thrift Shop Turns out to 2,000-Year-old Roman Relic 

From CBN News:

A thrift store find from 2018 has created quite a stir for one Texas woman after discovering that the marble bust is 2,000 years old.

When Laura Young bought the sculpture at an Austin Goodwill in 2018, her thoughts were that it was “clearly antique – clearly old,” she told Matt Largely with KUT 90.5 radio.

Young, who is an antique dealer, researched the piece and discovered that it was a portrait bust of Drusus Germanicus. An auction house in London used a 100-year-old catalog of a German art museum to confirm her findings.

It is unclear how the ancient relic arrived in the U.S., however, Young was concerned about the possibility that it had been stolen.