Trump

Carrie Underwood, Donald Trump and a Grace Note on a Historic Day

It’s an old idiom that speech is silver and silence is golden, but not usually for a singer charged with performing before a global audience of countless millions.

Standing in the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol yesterday for the 60th inaugural festivities, singer and songwriter Carrie Underwood stepped up to perform “America the Beautiful” following President Donald Trump’s address.

One major problem: the accompaniment never started. 

A technical issue prevented the music from beginning on cue, though a distant strain of it kicked in for a very brief moment before cutting out and never starting again.

Ever the professional, Carrie Underwood waited patiently, smiling and nodding, ready to begin singing just as soon as the music began.

But it never did.

“I can just sing it,” she gracefully told a technician who had come forward to confer with the Country superstar.

By “sing it” she meant a capella.

“You know the words, help me out here,” she then told those gathered before beginning in perfect pitch.

Everyone sang along.

Prior to Monday’s ceremony, Underwood had been criticized for accepting the invitation. “The View’s” Joy Behar accused the singer of normalizing President Trump by showing up to be part of the even. But Underwood was unapologetic, pointing to the unique nature of the moment.

“I love our country and am honored to have been asked to sing at the inauguration and to be a small part of this historic event,” she wrote in a statement. “I am humbled to answer the call at a time when we must all come together in the spirit of unity and looking to the future.”

Indeed, during President Trump’s inaugural address, the 47th commander-in-chief said, “My proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker and unifier. That’s what I want to be. A peacemaker and a unifier.”

In an especially poignant section of his message, President Trump declared:

Above all, my message to Americans today is that it is time for us to once again act with courage, vigor and the vitality of history’s greatest civilization. So as we liberate our nation, we will lead it to new heights of victory and success. We will not be deterred. Together, we will end the chronic disease epidemic and keep our children safe, healthy and disease free.
The United States will once again consider itself a growing nation, one that increases our wealth, expands our territory, builds our cities, raises our expectations and carries our flag into new and beautiful horizons. And we will pursue our manifest destiny into the stars, launching American astronauts to plant the Stars and Stripes on the planet Mars.
And it’s the lifeblood of a great nation. And, right now, our nation is more ambitious than any other. There’s no nation like our nation. Americans are explorers, builders, innovators, entrepreneurs and pioneers. The spirit of the frontier is written into our hearts. The call of the next great adventure resounds from within our souls. Our American ancestors turned a small group of colonies on the edge of a vast continent into a mighty republic of the most extraordinary citizens on Earth. No one comes close.
Americans pushed thousands of miles through a rugged land of untamed wilderness. They crossed deserts, scaled mountains, braved untold dangers, won the Wild West, ended slavery, rescued millions from tyranny, lifted millions from poverty, harnessed electricity, split the atom, launched mankind into the heavens and put the universe of human knowledge into the palm of the human hand. If we work together, there is nothing we cannot do and no dream we cannot achieve.

As a child in Checotah, Oklahoma, Carrie Underwood had her share of big-sized dreams.

“Growing up on a farm with loving parents and our church family defined my values,” Underwood said. “A small town with good people helped form me. I was rooted in something solid before I got to spread my wings.”

A professing Christian, the singer and her husband, former NHL player Mike Fisher, have suggested their faith in Jesus Christ to be the cornerstone of their lives, marriage, and the raising of their children.

Many commentators are suggesting Monday’s technical flub produced one of the more memorable and teachable moments of the Inaugural ceremony.

There will be plenty of times when the metaphorical music doesn’t play in our lives.

We can gripe, groan and grouse.

Or we can just sing – and invite others to join us.

Well done, Carrie Underwood.

Image from Getty.

President Trump: ‘There are Only Two Genders: Male and Female’

During his inaugural address, President Trump stated, “As of today, it will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders: male and female.”

The simple declaration of truth brought resounding applause from the audience in the Capitol Rotunda.

Focus on the Family President Jim Daly issued a statement agreeing with Trump’s pronouncement, saying:

In the very first chapter of Genesis, we read that “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” Any revolution of common sense must include an acknowledgement of this fundamental truth.
While we’re disappointed that it’s even necessary, we’re grateful that on his first day in office, President Donald J. Trump has prioritized this reality by issuing an executive order restating the obvious.

Daly referenced the order signed by Trump later on Inauguration Day: Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism And Restoring Biological Truth To The Federal Government, adding, “We are long overdue in this effort to reestablish the exclusivity of two genders, thereby protecting our children and serving America’s families.”

The order first explains:

Across the country, ideologues who deny the biological reality of sex have increasingly used legal and other socially coercive means to permit men to self-identify as women and gain access to intimate single-sex spaces and activities designed for women, from women’s domestic abuse shelters to women’s workplace showers. This is wrong.  
Efforts to eradicate the biological reality of sex fundamentally attack women by depriving them of their dignity, safety, and well-being. The erasure of sex in language and policy has a corrosive impact not just on women but on the validity of the entire American system.  

The directive goes on to state, “Basing Federal policy on truth is critical to scientific inquiry, public safety, morale, and trust in government itself,” adding:

Invalidating the true and biological category of “woman” improperly transforms laws and policies designed to protect sex-based opportunities into laws and policies that undermine them, replacing longstanding, cherished legal rights and values with an identity-based, inchoate social concept.

Indeed. As men who “identify as women” take opportunities from women in education, sports and other arenas, women’s legal rights are trampled. In addition, their privacy and safety are at risk when men who claim to be women enter women’s private spaces, such as restrooms, locker rooms, showers and dressing rooms.

Gender ideology has caused untold damage to individuals and families, as transgender medical interventions cause great harm to the healthy bodies of those suffering from sexual identity confusion.

Young children are regularly sexualized and confused in schools that promote this ideology. And free speech and religious freedom have been assaulted by laws promoted by gender activists and their allies.

Trump stated that his administration “will defend women’s rights and protect freedom of conscience by using clear and accurate language and policies that recognize women are biologically female, and men are biologically male.”

The executive order clearly states what the president articulated in his speech:

It is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female. These sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality. …
“Sex” shall refer to an individual’s immutable biological classification as either male or female. “Sex” is not a synonym for and does not include the concept of “gender identity.”

Federal agencies are directed by the order to “enforce laws governing sex-based rights, protections, opportunities, and accommodations,” adding:

Each agency should therefore give the terms “sex”, “male”, “female”, “men”, “women”, “boys” and “girls” the meanings set forth in … this order when interpreting or applying statutes, regulations, or guidance and in all other official agency business, documents, and communications.

The directive forbids federal funds from being “used to promote gender ideology” and it directs agencies to “ensure that males are not detained in women’s prisons or housed in women’s detention centers.”

It directs the attorney general “to ensure that no Federal funds are expended for any medical procedure, treatment, or drug for the purpose of conforming an inmate’s appearance to that of the opposite sex.”

Activists fighting gender ideology and its harmful effects were quick to applaud the president’s statements and actions. In a post on X, women’s rights activist Riley Gaines noted that Trump was keeping promises made during his campaign.

Dr. Colin M. Wright, an evolutionary biologist who has written widely on the scientific and logical problems with current gender ideology, posted that the new administration’s actions will likely bring opposition. Then he stated, “But when they put reality on trial, it won’t end well for them.”

Gender ideology doesn’t change the truth that there are only two sexes – male and female. We’re grateful for this administration’s return to sanity and common sense.

Related articles and resources:

ADF: Victory for women, girls: Federal court rejects Biden admin redefinition of ‘sex’ in Title IX across country

Biden Becomes Nation’s Most Powerful Trans Activist With Executive Order

Court Rules Against DOE’s Title IX Rewrite, Saving Women’s Sports & Spaces – For Now

Even Hard-Boiled Evolutionists are Standing Strong Against Gender Madness

How to Respond to “Trans” and Gender Ideology? Simple: Live Not by Lies

How the “Trans” and Gender Redefinition Issue Attacks the Family

How Science and Faith Can Defeat Gender Ideology – Parts One and Part Two

Transgender Resources

Why Christians Can’t Avoid the “Trans” and Gender Redefinition Issue

What Does it Mean to Be Trans Anyway?

Image from Getty.

A Mother’s Sensibility at the Supreme Court Regarding Pornography

When President Donald Trump nominated now-Justice Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court back in 2020, much was made of her being a mother to seven children.

Jesse and Amy Barrett, who were married in 1999, are the proud parents to Emma, Vivian, Tess, John Peter, Liam, Juliet, and Benjamin.

Of the six women who have served on the High Court, four have had children: Sandra Day O’Connor (3 sons), Ruth Bader Ginsburg (a son and a daughter), Ketanji Brown Jackson (2 daughters) and Amy Coney Barrett.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who was appointed by President Obama in 2009, once told NBC’s Savannah Guthrie that she has “an occasional tug of regret” over not having children.

“I knew that I wanted to be an independent woman with my own career and (be) successful in whatever I chose to do,’’ she said. “Could I have that and have had children? Many women do. Can you have it all every minute of the day? No.”

But not until Justice Barrett arrived inside the famed Vermont marble court on First Street has there been a mother with young children on the bench – a fact reflected in yesterday’s oral arguments over Texas’ age-verification law for access to pornography sites.

At issue is H.B. 1181, a Texas law requiring websites with “over one-third sexual material harmful to minors” to require users to verify they’re over 18. Users are required to produce official documentation such as government-sponsored I.D.

Pornographers, eager to bait and addict as many people as possible, consider such requirements to be obtrusive. The Free Speech Coalition, which represents those wanting to trade in such filth said the law was vague and “imposes significant burdens on adults’ access to constitutionally protected expression.”

It’s not clear how, but that’s the kind of response you’d expect from pornographers.

As it is now, 18 other states have similar laws aimed to protect children from access to pornography and other harmful material. Critics of the law claim it violates the First Amendment, a position several of the justices, including Barrett, didn’t appear to be buying.

“Do you dispute the societal problems that are created both short-term and long-term from the rampant access to pornography for children?” Justice Kavanaugh asked. Justice Brett and Ashley Kavanaugh have two daughters, Margaret, who is in college, and Liza, who is in high school.

But it was Justice Barrett who personalized the issue and brought it down to the practical and the level where today’s mothers and fathers are living.

On Wednesday, the Justice said, “Kids can get online porn through gaming systems, tablets, phones, computers. Content filtering for all those different devices, I can say from personal experience, is difficult to keep up with.”

Justice Barrett is exactly right. There are mothers and fathers who are forced to lock up remotes, phones, and game consoles as they would firearms in the home.

Texas lawyers shot down claims the age verification “chills” the First Amendment rights of adults.

“Texas seeks to protect kids from some of the most prurient sexual content imaginable. And the means Texas has chosen is appropriate,” the state wrote. “Texas has addressed only websites dedicated to pornography, has allowed them to comply by using common age-verification technology, and has not imposed criminal penalties. Such a modest but important law satisfies any level of scrutiny.”

It should be both encouraging and refreshing to moms and dads to have other moms and dads on the High Court who can appreciate the challenges parents face today. It’s not theoretical – it’s real and it’s practical.

It’s in the best interest of our government to enforce laws that protect our youth from the destructive forces of the pornography industry.

Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart famously described “hard-core” pornography or obscenity by saying, “I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced… [b]ut I know it when I see it.”

When it comes to the dangers of online pornography, we know the risks, we see the awful impact it’s having on children, especially, and we pray the Supreme Court will have the courage and wisdom to uphold Texas’ constitutional age-verification law.

Image credit: Barrett Family

President-Elect Trump Picks Pro-Lifers to Run FDA and CDC

Pro-lifers concerned with President-elect Trump’s appointment of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to serve as Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) can take comfort in two recent high-profile medical-related nominations.

Late last month, Trump announced the appointment of pro-life physician Dr. Marty Makary to lead the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Around the same time, President-elect Trump nominated another physician, Dr. David Weldon, to run the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). The former Florida congressman has long been an advocate for the pre-born, strong supported a ban on partial-birth abortion and came alongside Terry Schiavo’s parents back in 2003 in their quest to keep their daughter alive via a feeding tube.

Hailed as the most pro-life president in generations, if not ever, and specifically when it comes to policies, Trump’s appointment of Drs. Makary and Weldon serve to balance an increasingly diverse administration that promises to disrupt the status quo.

Dr. Makary, who is currently a surgical oncologist at Johns Hopkins University, has previously spoken about the horrors of abortion – specifically a preborn baby’s visible fight for life in the womb.

“Somewhere between 15 and 20 weeks, babies will actually resist the instruments of abortion,” he said.

In an interview with Tucker Carlson back in 2022, Dr. Mackary expressed indignation towards those who either ignore or readily accept the brutality of the killing of preborn babies.

“It doesn’t matter which side you protest on around this issue, if you see the actual images of what’s happening and a baby resisting an abortion, it’ll weigh on your conscience,” he said to Carlson.

He continued:

“Ironically, we sometimes do fetal surgery on a baby inside the womb of the mother to save the baby’s life, and yet at the same age in other settings, surgical instruments are used to abort a baby,” he said.

“Today, you can barely talk about it,” he said. “Nurses can get fired if they don’t participate, medical students are ridiculed, most of the professional medical associations have taken a political stand now supporting abortion right up until the third trimester.”

Tapping Dr. David Weldon to run the CDC promises to restore sanity and ethics to an agency that’s grown increasingly woke these last four years. Despite having a mission to save lives and protect the public from health threats, the bloated bureaucracy has published nonsense like “Health Equity Guiding Principles for Inclusive Communication.”

As a member of Congress, Dr. Weldon sponsored a ban of human cloning and regularly touted the benefits of sexual abstinence. He also sponsored and helped pass what has become known as the “Weldon Amendment” – legislation that safeguards the rights of conscience.

Simply stated, it says taxpayer dollars cannot go to any local, state, or federal program that “subjects any institutional or individual health care entity to discrimination on the basis that the healthcare entity does not provide, pay for, provide coverage of, or refer for abortions.” 

That radicals refer to it as a “poison pill rider for abortion access” confirms just how solidly pro-life the legislation has turned out to be.

The incoming Trump administration may not look exactly like the last one when it comes to across-the-board pro-life stalwarts, but it it’s nevertheless encouraging and promising for those committed to saving the innocent that stalwarts like Drs. Makary and Weldon will soon be hanging up their shingles in Washington, D.C.

Image from Getty.

Pam Bondi is Not Dangerous — She’s Effective

Pam Bondi, age 59, is President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to serve as Attorney General.

Bondi replaces former Florida Representative Matt Gaetz, who withdrew his nomination yesterday in the face of strong Senate opposition and numerous allegations of sexual misconduct.

As Florida’s attorney general and top cop between 2011 and 2019, Bondi aggressively and successfully went after human traffickers, drug traffickers, domestic abusers, violent thugs, shysters and scofflaws, and even unscrupulous doctors.

If confirmed by the Senate, Pam Bondi would only be the third woman to oversee the Justice Department.

“There’s no glass ceiling,” Pam’s said. “There’s so many great women in our country who have done so much.”

Bondi has been recognized as a “Lawyer of Distinction” and received the “Women of Excellence in Government” award.

Once asked about her heroes, Bondi pointed to former Attorney General Ed Meese, who served during the Reagan administration. Any conservative who might wonder where Bondi comes down on an issue would be encouraged by considering some of General Meese’s clear and unwavering opinions of late:

Those who oppose photo voter-ID laws and other election-integrity reforms are intent on making it easier to commit vote fraud.
A Supreme Court decision does not establish a “supreme law of the land” that is binding on all persons and parts of government, henceforth and forevermore.

Predictably, critics of Bondi’s law and order approach began speaking up yesterday. Dr. Jason Johnson, who is a political analyst with MSNBC, said something revealing when asked about the nomination.

“Pam Bondi is what I said we should fear because she is competent,” he opined. “We may not agree with her ideologically, but she knows how to do this job.”

He continued:

“Pam Bondi knows what she is doing about immigration. Florida is a state very aggressive about migrants and deportation and moving people to different states and things like that. Florida enacted rules and laws to curtail students and what they can do on campuses and finding legal justifications for manipulating education money. She is a dangerous and effective pick, and that’s frankly worse than what we would have got with Matt Gaetz even with the deplorable moral background that he has.”

Did you pick up on that? Because she’s competent, because she knows the law – she’s dangerous.

As a longtime prosecutor and serving as Florida’s attorney general, Bondi has opposed the legalization of marijuana.

When she ran for attorney general in 2010, Pam said her goal was to make Florida the safest place to live. The Sunshine State now enjoys a crime rate lower than the national average. In announcing her nomination, President-elect Trump stated, “For too long, the partisan Department of Justice has been weaponized against me and other Republicans — Not anymore.”

Back in her dorm room, her state offices, and even on her fridge at home, Bondi hangs a quote from Mahatma Gandhi: “Be the change you want to see in the world.”

If confirmed by the United States Senate, Pam Bondi will have an opportunity to do just that.

Please pray for Pam Bondi.

Image from Getty.