Good Morning!
During a heated debate in the Senate, the late Majority Leader Bob Dole once remarked, “This isn’t about politics – it’s about protecting the innocence of children.”
We begin this morning with that very same theme:
1. Shapiro At Iowa State Fiercely Defends Traditional Family: ‘My System For Raising My Family Is Correct And It Should Be Defended’
From the Daily Wire:
Speaking at Iowa State University on Wednesday night, Daily Wire Editor Emeritus Ben Shapiro passionately defended the traditional two-parent home comprised of a mother and father when asked for parenting advice, saying, “When it comes to defending our own values, it’s not that I deserve the liberty to raise my family as I see fit, it’s that my system for raising my family is correct, and it should be defended, and it deserves defense on its merits.”
A young man at the Q&A following Shapiro’s speech, titled “American Wokeness Must Be Destroyed,” asked, “I got a little question for all the amazing men and women out in the crowd today who are looking to be parents in the future. Because in a world that is becoming exponentially more and more liberal and woke, how might we go about raising the next generation, especially since we can’t shield them from everything?”
“I mean, this is my chief concern, so as I say, I have three kids, 8, 5 and 2, and they are the only thing I care about in life,” Shapiro replied, joking to the SRO crowd of thousands, “I love you guys, but I care about my kids.”
“And the only thing I care about when it comes to my kids is protecting their innocence and protecting the value system that I wish to transmit to them,” he continued. “That means that I live in a community of like-minded people. I think that is deeply, deeply important.”
2.Planned Parenthood Doesn’t Need Government Funding
From National Review:
Late last month, Planned Parenthood received a $275 million donation from Jeff Bezos’s ex-wife Mackenzie Scott, the largest single donation the abortion business has ever received.
“This funding will support our efforts to advance health equity by eliminating racial and structural barriers for our patients in the communities where Planned Parenthood works,” president Alexis McGill Johnson said in a statement announcing the donation.
Meanwhile, Planned Parenthood continues to receive upwards of $600 million each year in federal funding, in the form of both Title X family planning funds and Medicaid reimbursements — not to mention the money its affiliates receive from Medicaid and public-health funding at the state level.
When pro-lifers attempt to remove any amount of public funding from Planned Parenthood, they are met with cries from the abortion lobby that doing so will render millions of women unable to access “essential health-care services.” Set aside for a moment the fact that Planned Parenthood focuses far more heavily on abortion than it does on any “essential health care” — surely given that the group receives so much support from private donors such as Ms. Scott, the government and U.S. taxpayers don’t need to be roped into underwriting abortion at all.
RELATED:
California’s Quest to Become an Abortion ‘Sanctuary’
From National Review:
In anticipation of a Supreme Court ruling this summer in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, various legislatures are shoring up abortion laws to take effect if the justices send the issue back to states.
In red states, pro-life energy has focused on preventing abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy, prohibiting mail-order chemical abortions, and consolidating resources for pregnant mothers and families in need of assistance. In blue states, abortion supporters are expanding access to legal abortion, whether by altering state constitutions, codifying a supposed fundamental right to abortion, or suing to prevent lawmakers from enforcing existing anti-abortion statutes.
And in California, Democratic lawmakers are on a quest to make their state the most abortion-friendly in the nation — or an abortion “sanctuary,” as California governor Gavin Newsom promised last year.
Planned Parenthood’s California affiliates are spearheading the campaign, sponsoring a package of bills that, according to the Sacramento Bee, “are intended to provide legal protections . . . for patients and providers in California, set up a fund to provide financial and logistical support for abortion access, create a state-supported website on how to obtain abortion services and increase the abortion services workforce.”
3. Biden Tells Teachers: Children Are ‘Yours When They’re In The Classroom’
From The Daily Wire:
The president spoke at a Teacher of the Year event held Wednesday where he urged teachers to help students “gain confidence enough to know what they can do.”
“They’re not someone else’s children, they’re our children,” he said. “And they are the kite strings that literally lift our national ambitions aloft. … Think about it. If you got to do one thing to make sure the nation succeeded in the next two generations, what would you do? I would say, literally, have the best-educated public in the world.”
Biden emphasized that “we have an obligation to help them … reach their potential.”
“You have heard me say it many times about our children, but it is true, they’re all our children. And the reason you are the teachers of the year is because you recognize that,” he said. “They’re not somebody else’s children. They’re like yours when they’re in the classroom.”
4.Two Congressmen Call for House Vote on ‘Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act’
From The Daily Citizen:
This year will see the 50th anniversary of Title IX, a law passed by Congress in 1972, whose purpose is to protect women’s opportunities in education programs funded by taxpayers, including women’s sports. Historically, women’s sports received fewer dollars than men’s sports at all levels, and women did not receive the same training, competition, scholarships and other benefits and advantages male athletes enjoyed.
Title IX changed all of that for the better. But now, that progress is threatened by the rise of gender ideology, which advocates that men who believe they are women ought to be able to compete as women, despite the obvious physiological and biological differences between the sexes.
In sports such as track, swimming, basketball, rugby, wrestling and others, males competing as females have taken advantage of their physical size and strength to dominate, exposing women to physical harm in some cases. And in the process, they take trophies, scholarships and other opportunities away from women.
That’s simply unfair, as most Americans agree.
As many states have done, a bill was introduced in Congress to rectify the injustices being committed in women’s sports and restore the original intent of Title IX.
The House measure, known as H.R. 426,the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act of 2021, was originally introduced by Representative Greg Steube, R-Fla.
5. The myth of government neutrality
From World Magazine:
One of the biggest myths many in our nation hold sacred is the idea that the government is neutral toward all viewpoints and worldviews. It isn’t. And the recent conflict pitting Disney against the Florida legislature demonstrates how, on some very important questions of morality, neutrality is not only impossible but also at odds with the ideals of a just political community.
Neutrality is an instrumental good only, never an ultimate good. It can only be taken so far. Government cannot be neutral on many issues. Indeed, I do not want government to be neutral about protecting children. But establishing that there are moral goods that government is designed to recognize conflicts with the so-called neutrality principle. That is expected because government is an imperfect project of balancing trade-offs weighed against competing interests. Neutrality, as pure proceduralists define it, is so utterly constraining that it leads to sanctioning moral absurdity that we know is unsustainable. Lines must be drawn.
Call me old-fashioned, but it is entirely legitimate for the government not to be neutral about insidious contagions like gender ideology. Florida is no longer rewarding Disney for providing an economic benefit because the benefit is far less clear, now that we know more about Disney’s moral agenda. Moreover, if Disney wants to wage a war of corporate power to undermine democracy and inject perversity into our children’s entertainment platforms, don’t be surprised when legislators consider other interests alongside a corporation’s freedom of speech. Disney should make cartoons, provide family fun, and stay out of politics.
Government is not a nameless, faceless enterprise. It comprises people with consciences who are elected by citizens with consciences. Telling the “government” to be neutral where it cannot not be neutral is to effectively rule out the notion that citizens would elect individuals to represent them and legislate according to their values. That is at odds with our whole concept of representative democracy.
Disney is free to express its opinions. It is free to express even deranged opinions. But it is not entitled to special tax privileges.
- Health Care Sharing Ministry Leaves Thousands of Families Stuck With Millions of Dollars in Unpaid Bills
From CBN:
About 10,000 families who shared one another’s medical expenses through a health care sharing ministry are now facing more than $50 million in unpaid bills after the ministry abruptly shut its doors.
Christianity Today (CT) reports Sharity Ministries, formerly known as Trinity HealthShare, filed for bankruptcy and then started the liquidation process last year. There are so many outstanding claims that it’s unlikely that members will receive the reimbursements they’re owed.
Sharity faced lawsuits as well as cease and desist orders in several states. Sharity and its vendor, Aliera Healthcare, both based in Georgia, were targeted by state regulators in 2019 after receiving complaints from residents about unpaid claims, according to NHPR.
- Prison Fellowship’s Second Chances: Sammy Perez Shares Story of Redemption and Hope for Former Prisoners
From The Daily Citizen:
Sammy Perez knows about second chances. In 2005, he was sentenced to prison for ten years in Virginia, serving his time in both youth and adult facilities.
Perez grew up without knowing his father – only seeing him twice before his dad was murdered. His mom struggled with mental illness. Taken away from her at age two, he was shunted around between family members.
At age eleven, his mother knew she could not offer the care he needed and gave him up to social services, where he became a ward of the state. Perez still has a relationship with her, but she still struggles with mental health issues.
All this led to “an introduction to the streets at an early age,’ he told The Daily Citizen.
- Alzheimer’s and Daytime Napping Linked in New Research
From Neuroscience News:
Could there be a link between cognitive decline and excessive daytime napping? New research from the Rush Alzheimer’s Disease Center suggests a potential connection, according to an article published in Alzheimer’s and Dementia.
The connection appears to occur in both directions, researchers say; longer and more frequent napping was correlated with worse cognition after one year, and worse cognition was correlated with longer and more frequent naps after one year.
Aron Buchman, MD, a neurologist at Rush University Medical Center and co-author of the article, said the study lends evidence to the changing views of Alzheimer’s disease as a purely cognitive disorder.
“We now know that the pathology related to cognitive decline can cause other changes in function,” he said. “It’s really a multi-system disorder, also including difficulty sleeping, changes in movement, changes in body composition, depression symptoms, behavioral changes, etc.”
9. Roberts delivers emotional homage during Breyer’s last Supreme Court hearing
From the Washington Examiner:
Chief Justice John Roberts delivered emotional remarks toward retiring Justice Stephen Breyer during the justice’s final Supreme Court oral argument hearing of his 28-year career.
“The oral argument we have just concluded is the last the court will hear with Justice Breyer on the bench,” Roberts said in a trembling voice on Wednesday. “For 28 years, this has been his arena for remarks profound and moving, questions challenging and insightful, and hypotheticals downright silly.”
In the years since Breyer’s nomination to the high court by President Bill Clinton in 1994, he has become known to posit eccentric hypothetical scenarios as he discusses complex legal concepts with attorneys.
Roberts recounted that during April’s arguments, the last of the term, Breyer uttered comments about “John the Tiger Man” and “radioactive muskrats.” Other outlandish phrases Breyer has spoken include but are not limited to “garage-door sensors eaten by raccoons” and “tomato children.”
Justice Clarence Thomas and other courtroom attendees could be heard laughing at Roberts’s reflections of Breyer’s decades on the nine-member bench.
- Devils in the Outfield
Fay Vincent writes in the Wall Street Journal:
Mob behavior is rarely admirable. An ugly eruption by fans at Yankee Stadium on Saturday demonstrated the thin veneer separating boisterous celebrations of a hometown win from serious and potentially criminal misconduct.
In their final at bat, the Yankees rallied to tie the score against the Cleveland Guardians—formerly the Indians—with a hard-hit drive by shortstop Isiah Kiner-Falefa that barely cleared the leaping grasp of Cleveland left fielder Steve Kwan, who slammed into the outfield wall. As the tying run scored, Mr. Kwan fell to the grass, obviously hurt. The fans’ roar turned then into that awful emotion of victorious vengeance. “Take that” was the unspoken message.
To me, that roar had the moral tone of the crowd at a bullfight. And it was awful to watch as it played out. When a Cleveland player tried to scale the outfield wall to confront a particularly abusive fan, debris rained from the stands.
A mob is usually anonymous, but technology now allows stadium officials to identify fans who act up. Anyone who hurts a player by throwing something from the stands risks criminal prosecution, and you can imagine how sorry such a fan would be when standing before a judge. The Yankees took immediate steps to improve security and protect players and umpires. The visible support of the New York stars for the Cleveland players sent a critical message. A Bronx cheer is one thing, but trying to injure the players on an opposing team is unacceptable.
I have long marveled at the emotional intensity some of us feel when we assert fan loyalty. We care so deeply about a game even though most of us have no financial interest in which team wins. Gambling may change all that.
Until then, I believe the essence of sports is competition fairly played according to rules, with winner and loser gracious at the result. The true loser is any fan who believes victory implies some form of lasting superiority. In fact, victory disappears quickly. Tell me again who won the World Series last year?
