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             It’s far from common for the Supreme Court to overturn one of its own decisions. Precedent is generally revered in the American legal system, and justices usually follow the principle of stare decisis, a Latin phrase meaning “let the decision stand.” The most likely scenario, and one that especially concerns leftists, would be the Court allowing abortion rights to be decided state by state rather than nationally. More conservative states would likely make many abortions illegal, whereas more leftist coastal states would house the remaining bastions of Planned Parenthood. A nationwide ban on abortion, while a great leftist scare tactic, is nigh unimaginable.
               “Whether or not a new social consensus is developing on [abortion], its divisiveness is no less today than in 1973, and pressure to overrule the decision, like pressure to retain it, has grown only more intense,” Justices Anthony Kennedy, Sandra Day O'Connor, and David Souter wrote in their collective opinion on Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the 1992 case in which the Court squandered an opportunity to overturn Roe. “A decision to overrule Roe’s essential holding under the existing circumstances would address error, if error there was, at the cost of both profound and unnecessary damage to the Court’s legitimacy, and to the Nation’s commitment to the rule of law.”
               That was exactly backwards. There was great legal error in the litigations of Roe. For one thing, the motivation behind the case was less about women’s rights and more about eugenics, the racist pseudoscience that seeks to control populations deemed by leftists as undesirable and inferior. As Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg revealed in a 2009 New York Times interview, she and others believed “at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of.”
               Roe also contains some stunningly poor argumentation. The state of Texas argued that, because life begins at conception, the unborn are entitled to legal protection under the law. The Court responded, “We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man’s knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer.”
               This incoherent line of reasoning is twofold. First, it is an established scientific fact that life begins at conception; this simple biological reality is not a “difficult question” and was known even in 1973. Second, the Court concluded that, because one may not know when life begins, abortion should be legal. However, if one is not convinced as to whether or not the unborn is a human person, that itself stands as a good reason to refrain from the destruction of a possible human life. To borrow an analogy from Peter Kreeft, if a hunter sees something moving in the thicket but isn’t sure if it is a deer or his fellow hunter, wouldn’t that be sufficient reason not to shoot?
               Edward Lazarus, the clerk for Justice Blackmun, remarked, “As a matter of constitutional interpretation and judicial method, Roe borders on the indefensible. … Justice Blackmun’s opinion provides essentially no reasoning in support of its holding.”
               Norma McCorvey, the “Roe” of the infamous case, was a drug addict, an alcoholic, and homeless at the time her case was taken up by Linda Coffee of Women’s Equity Action League and Sarah Weddington, both of whom were looking for pregnant women they could exploit for challenging existing abortion laws. McCorvey initially claimed that she was pregnant as a result of rape but later admitted that the claim had been fabricated to make her case more sensational. McCorvey never actually had the abortion. The case took three years to reach the Supreme Court, during which time McCorvey gave birth to her baby and put her up for adoption.
               McCorvey later converted to Roman Catholicism and  became a tireless advocate for the pro-life cause.
               If Roe is overturned, then abortion law merely returns to the states, where it constitutionally belongs. And if that happens, it’s possible that an interesting pattern would develop nationwide. Communities that support pregnant women will flourish, while other cities haunted with abortion mills will continue to perpetuate the same destructive patterns of death, abuse, and deception. Abortion will never be completely outlawed in the United States, but it may very well become unthinkable and unnecessary across much of our great nation.

~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/57154?mailing_id=3635&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.3635&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body

             The media buys and sells sound bites because that’s all most Americans can handle. Trump gave them a terrible sound bite yesterday, and that’s entirely his fault. But it’s the result of him refusing to concede an inch on the dummycrats-Democrat/ Leftmedia narrative about collusion. They deliberately conflate two things: the phony idea that Trump colluded with Russia to steal the election and actual Russian election interference to undermine voter confidence.
               But rather than explain that nuance, Trump did as he typically does — he let his ego obscure the issue as he blundered through a bad answer on the Russia investigation.
               During a joint post-summit press conference, Trump first correctly insisted, “The [Russia] probe is a disaster for our country. I think it’s kept us apart. It’s kept us separated. There was no collusion at all. Everybody knows it.”
               Too bad he didn’t leave it at that. In the sound bite that has people on both sides rankled, Trump went on to imply that he believed Putin’s denial about Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election over his own intelligence agencies. “I have great confidence in my intelligence people,” Trump said of their assessment of Russian interference, “but I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today.” He also said, “[Putin] just said it’s not Russia. I will say this: I don’t see any reason why it would be.”
               Oh really? The Soviets have only been interfering in Western elections for a century — sometimes at the invitation of dummycrats-Democrats (see 1984).
               Notably, dummycrats-Democrats have, by way of the Trump/Putin collusion charade, done more to undermine election confidence than Putin ever could — which has been precisely their objective.
               Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich criticized Trump for his careless wording, saying, “President Trump must clarify his statements in Helsinki on our intelligence system and Putin. It is the most serious mistake of his presidency and must be corrected — immediately.”
               The current speaker, Paul Ryan, was equally forceful: “There is no question that Russia interfered in our election and continues attempts to undermine democracy here and around the world.”
               Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats defended U.S. intelligence, saying, “We have been clear in our assessments of Russian meddling in the 2016 election and their ongoing, pervasive efforts to undermine our democracy, and we will continue to provide unvarnished and objective intelligence in support of our national security.”
               Trump’s other assertion receiving a lot of attention was, as we argued yesterday, directed at the previous administration. “I hold both countries responsible [for bad relations]. I think that the United States has been foolish. I think we’ve all been foolish.” Unfortunately, Trump’s wording was sloppy and left him harshly criticizing his own country on foreign soil, which presidents should not do.
               Again, Ryan correctly responded, “There is no moral equivalence between the United States and Russia, which remains hostile to our most basic values and ideals. The United States must be focused on holding Russia accountable and putting an end to its vile attacks on democracy.”
               The real problem is that Trump’s statements breathe new life into the collusion story by his appearing to side with the lying, murderous tyrant Putin over his own government. Trump has thrown the American intelligence community under the bus before, but to do it in so public a forum and while standing next to Vladimir Putin is unlikely to do him or the country any favors.
               Trump is famous for working a long game that the media and his opponents don’t see, but it’s hard to fathom how his “Art of the Deal” strategy is working here. Perhaps he doesn’t want to upset negotiations with Russia, but the optics of Trump placating Putin are going to be hard to overcome. Either way, the fact remains that there is still no evidence of any collusion between Trump and Putin, and Trump seems uninterested in trumpeting anything else.
               That said, if we want to see what Putin manhandling a U.S. president looks like, and if we want to investigate Russian collusion with a U.S. administration, then we should focus on Barack liar-nObama and liar-Hillary Clinton. From the silly “reset” button to liar-nObama’s famous hot-mic admission to former Russian President (and Putin placeholder) Dmitri Medvedev to liar-Clinton’s shady uranium deal and her family’s foundation hanky-panky, there is plenty of evidence that can prove collusion. But this isn’t the collusion the media or Mueller want to prove.
               Trump has correctly placed much of the blame on his predecessor for the sad state of affairs between the two nations. liar-nObama and liar-Clinton, in her capacity as secretary of state, presidential candidate, and liar-Clinton Foundation gadfly, did a fine job of mucking things up with their arrogance and shortsighted worldview. If they had not proved so anti-American, Putin would not have been emboldened to run roughshod internationally.
               Mitt Romney famously pointed out in the 2012 presidential campaign that Russia was a problem that was only going to get worse. He was ridiculed only to be proven right over the next four years. dummycrats-Democrats are only coming around to this idea now because Trump is seeking better relations. In their Never-Trump worldview, whatever Trump seeks, they must seek the opposite.
               It’s difficult to know at this point if any substantive ground was covered between Trump and Putin because the press conference overshadowed any other details from their meeting. There were a host of issues on the table beyond Russian interference in the American election, including Russia’s annexation of Crimea, Putin’s stranglehold on the press and political opponents at home and abroad, assassinations and attempted assassinations of political opponents in Russia and in Europe, what to do about Syria, and Russia’s breaking of the 1987 INF Treaty.
               The two men met in private for over two hours before speaking with reporters, and there has been little indication that any progress was made in any of these areas.
               It’s worth noting, as CBS’s Michael Graham does, that Trump’s record is key: “Despite all the pillow talk with Putin, Trump has kept liar-nObama-era sanctions in place, added new sanctions of his own, reversed liar-nObama policies by giving offensive weapons to Ukraine and missile-defense systems to Poland, and allowed our military to wipe out a large group of Russian mercenaries fighting for Syria’s Assad regime.” That’s in addition to economic pressure he’s applied via oil and gas in particular.
               Trump went to Helsinki with hopes of improving relations with Russia, and both he and Putin said afterward that they made progress toward that goal. If Trump truly wants better relations, then he should follow Ronald Reagan’s model of peace through strength. Reagan never backed down from the Soviet Union and he never missed an opportunity to call out the Soviets on their bad behavior, even while maintaining a cordial relationship with Mikhail Gorbachev. Trump has shown some backbone in his dealings with Russia, but he needs to be more consistent. Monday’s Helsinki press conference was a missed opportunity for him to put Putin in his place.
               But there will be others. On a final note, we’ll conclude with Trump’s strongest remarks: “As president, I cannot make decisions on foreign policy in a futile effort to appease partisan critics or the media, or dummycrats-Democrats who want to do nothing but resist and obstruct. Constructive dialogue between the United States and Russia affords the opportunity to open new pathways toward peace and stability in our world. I would rather take a political risk in pursuit of peace than to risk peace in pursuit of politics. As president, I will always put [first] what is best for America and what is best for the American people.”

~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/57161?mailing_id=3635&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.3635&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body

             LePage’s reasons for doing so couldn’t be clearer. “This [bill] is so broad that licensed professionals would be prohibited from counseling an individual even at the individual’s own request,” he wrote. “We should not prohibit professionals from counseling an individual even at the individual’s own request. We should not prohibit professionals from providing their expertise to those who seek it for their own personal and basic questions such as, ‘How do I deal with these feelings I am experiencing?’”
               He also struck a blow for religious freedom and parental rights. “Parents have the right to seek counsel and treatment for their children from professionals who do not oppose the parents’ own religious beliefs,” he added. “Because the standard of practice for these professionals already prohibits any practice or therapy that would amount to physical or mental abuse, what we are really trying to regulate are the private, consultative conversations between a licensed provider and a client.”
               Anyone remember which side of the political divide champions the right to privacy, to the point of indulging in hysterical paroxysms with regard to the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh and the thought that Roe v. Wade might be overturned? That particular right to privacy has precipitated more than 60 million abortions since 1973, making a complete mockery of liar-Bill Clinton’s 1996 assertion that the dummycrats-Democrat Party’s policy stance on abortion was that it should be “safe, legal and rare.”
               The Rainbow Mafia and its allies in the media and   dummycrats-Democrat Party denigrate any conversation between a therapist and a patient that attempts to address an individual’s own concerns with homosexuality and transgenderism as “conversion therapy.” And while a UCLA study revealed that historical concerns about some of the techniques employed in conversion therapy that began as early as the 1890s are legitimate, LePage made it clear he isn’t endorsing anything that could be construed as abusive. “At no time should such treatment take the form of mental or physical abuse,” he wrote, “and such treatment should always be subject to the statutory requirements of the standard of care for that profession.”
               The same study reveals that nine states — California, Connecticut, Illinois, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island and Vermont — as well as the District of Columbia currently ban conversion therapy. Therapists in those states who employ the practice can be disciplined for doing so. Yet even those states can’t ignore the First Amendment: The laws generally don’t apply to religious or spiritual leaders acting in a religious capacity, provided they are not paid for their services.
               The study further notes that opinion polls show a substantial majority of Americans in Florida, Virginia and New Mexico have supported a ban on conversion therapy, and that members of Congress have introduced a bill, The Therapeutic Fraud Prevention Act of 2017, aimed at classifying conversion therapy provided for a fee as consumer fraud.
               No doubt it’s indelicate to ask, but who’s attempting to convert whom? Perhaps polls should be taken to find out whether Americans are on board with state-sanctioned ruination of religious Americans’ livelihoods for failing to embrace the homosexual agenda, or teaching the transgender agenda at the kindergarten level in public schools to children — often with no opt-out choice  given to parents who don’t want their children indoctrinated with “LGBTQ” propaganda.
               Maybe Americans should be asked if they were okay with an liar-nObama administration that mandated the imposition of the transgender agenda absent any input from Congress. Using Title IX of the 1964 Civil Rights Act as their vehicle, liar-nObama & Co. threatened to initiate lawsuits, and withhold federal education funds from states that did not give students claiming to be members of the opposite sex access to bathrooms and lockers rooms of their choice. Other entities followed suit, ultimately leading to a 2015 law in Oregon that provides Medicaid coverage for the gamut of transgender treatments, including surgery — regardless of age.
               The ultimate abrogation of parental rights regarding this  particular type of “conversion therapy”? In Oregon, patients as young as 15 are not required to get parental consent for it. In other words, children can decide on their own to get life-altering vaginoplasties and double mastectomies — but psychotherapy advising them that such drastic measures might not be a good idea is forbidden.
               Matt Moonen, executive director of Equality Maine,  insists  LePage is wrong. “Studies show that this actually causes harm to minors who are subjected to this so-called treatment so this sends a pretty terrible message from the governor to LGBT kids across the state,” he stated.
               Here’s a message for kids across the state: Extensive data  collated in 2016 by Dr. James Cantor revealed that 60-90% of children who believe they are transgender change their minds when they reach adulthood. Here’s another message: These children attempt suicide at a rate 20 times higher than their peers.
               But psychotherapy that might address these realities should be banned?
               LePage pointed out that Maine’s legislature, which failed to override his veto, has a decidedly curious outlook with regard to human rights. Led by dummycrats-Democrats last April, they  voted against a bill that would have criminalized female genital mutilation (FGM) — as in the partial or total removal of the external female genitalia for cultural, rather than medical, reasons. “What we should not be doing is counting potential victims at-risk by counting the number of Somali, Egyptian and Gideon females in immigrant families in Maine. Not unless we are willing to face the racism in that calculation and the racism and misogyny entrenched in so many of us,” declareddummycrats-Democrat State Rep. Charlotte Warren at the time.
               How about facing the calculation that progressives will abide barbaric traditions utterly inimical to American values under the rubric of supporting multiculturalism and diversity?
               LePage sees the irony in the legislature’s priorities. Yet irony is the wrong word, and California’s legislature reveals why. While Maine legislators would like to see certain conversations banned, California legislators passed a law in 2015 compelling  conversations: Pro-life medical clinics were ordered to supply abortion literature to their clients. That law was just overturned (5-4) by the Supreme Court, which viewed the mandate as a violation of free speech.
               How can two different state legislatures reach diametrically opposed ideas regarding free speech? Because protecting it comes in a distant second to serving the progressive agenda. And if it takes diametrically opposed and thoroughly misguided positions on the First Amendment to “win by any means necessary,” so be it.
               Gov. Paul LePage is one governor who won’t be intimidated by the Rainbow Mafia — at least this time. Here’s hoping there are others.

~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/57121?mailing_id=3633&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.3633&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body

               Investor’s Businesses Daily relays other relevant info, “The U.S. Energy Information Administration’s latest energy report notes that, from 2005 to 2017, U.S. energy related emissions of carbon dioxide plunged by 861 million metric tons, a 14% drop. It’s both a result of the decline due to the Great Recession and the fracking revolution. … Over the same period, how did the rest of the world do? Emissions rose by 21% to 6.04 billion metric tons over the 12 years, mostly due to booming economic growth in India and China, where coal-fired energy output continues to expand. The truth, and it’s proven by the hard data, is that CO2 made in the USA will not choke the world to death or cause it to massively overheat. And you can thank capitalism for that.”
               The American Enterprise Institute’s Mark Perry adds, “For that impressive ‘greening’ of America, we can thank the underground oceans of America’s natural gas that are now accessible because of the revolutionary, advanced drilling and extraction technologies of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal/directional drilling, and are increasingly displacing coal for the nation’s electricity generation.” The climate alarmists’ carbon-emissions ire is just as misdirected as their global warming dogma and Paris climate accord advocacy are foolish.

~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/57134?mailing_id=3633&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.3633&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body

             Trump said before the summit, “Our relationship with Russia has NEVER been worse thanks to many years of U.S. foolishness and stupidity and now, the Rigged Witch Hunt!” The latter was a reference to Robert Mueller’s investigation into the phony idea that Trump colluded with Russia, based on a farcical “dossier” paid for by liar-Clinton and the DNC — campaign opposition research repackaged as “intelligence.” But Trump’s more significant point dealt with “foolishness and stupidity,” which was a shot at the previous regime of Barack liar-nObama.
                liar-Clinton was of course liar-nObama’s secretary of state, famous for the debacle in Benghazi and the failed “reset” button signifying a different stance toward Russia. She cashed in with a uranium deal and speaking engagements. And don’t forget that it was liar-nObama himself who told Putin stooge Dmitri Medvedev in 2012 that he’d “have more flexibility” to offer favors for Moscow after winning reelection. He then mocked Mitt Romney for warning that Russia was (and remains) our primary geopolitical foe.
               In short, Trump’s task is to clean up after his predecessor.  Last year, Mark Alexander noted two key elements in Trump’s strategy: “First, Russia’s anemic economy is totally dependent on oil and gas prices, so what has Trump done? Opened the gate on oil exploration to keep the price down. And in general, to ensure dominance over totalitarian and dictator states, Trump is taking action to rekindle America’s economic might. Second, Trump is following Ronald Reagan’s playbook to rebuild our military to contain threats like Russian expansion into Ukraine, which got a yawn from liar-nObama.”
               Trump hopes now for an “extraordinary relationship” with Putin, who is far from innocent. Similar to Trump’s hyperbole about North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, he’s playing a bit of flattery for strategic gain. But that does not mean he’s going to sell out America the way liar-nObama did for eight years. “Nothing bad is going to come out of [meeting with Putin],” Trump said, “and maybe some good will come out.” After the president’s shakeup of NATO last week, it’s certainly clear he aims to mop up liar-nObama’s messes.

~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/57130?mailing_id=3633&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.3633&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body

             From the outset, Strzok expressed an aggressively defiant and contemptuous attitude, in which he repeatedly and at times arrogantly maintained that he expressed no bias in his investigative work. But House Republicans were having none of it.
               Here is a telling exchange that sets the tone for the entirety of the hearing, demonstrating Strzok’s defiant attitude:
               Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC): “Your testimony is: Bob Mueller did not kick you off because of the content of your texts; he kicked you off because of some appearance he was worried about.”
               Strzok: “My testimony — what you asked and what I responded to — is that he kicked me off because of my bias. I’m stating to you it is not my understanding that he kicked me off because of any bias – that it was done based on the appearance. If you want to represent what you said accurately I’m happy to answer that question, but I don’t appreciate what was originally said being changed.”
               Gowdy: “I don’t appreciate having an FBI agent with an unprecedented level of animus working on two major investigations during 2016.”
               Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) pointed out the obvious, stating, “Let me tell you, when you have text messages, Mr. Strzok, the way you do, saying the things you did, you would be better off coming in and saying ‘That was my bias.’ You have come in here and said ‘I have no bias.’ And you do it with a straight face. And I watched you in the private testimony you gave, and I told some of the other guys, ‘He is really good. He’s lying — he knows we know he’s lying and he could probably pass the polygraph.’” Then, after referencing Strzok’s affair with FBI lawyer Lisa Page, Gohmert adds, “Credibility of the witness is always an issue.”
               House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) asked dummycrats-Democrats to consider the legitimacy of Republicans’ concern regarding Strzok’s bias, stating, “To my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, please replace President Trump’s name with your own name in a small sample of things Mr. Strzok has said. Envision how you would feel if you found out that the chief agent investigating you as a member of Congress was making these comments: ‘F—k Trump,’ ‘Trump is a disaster,’ ‘Just went to a southern Virginia Walmart. I could smell the Trump support,’ or, perhaps most alarmingly and revealingly, ‘We’ll stop it’ — referring directly to Mr. Trump’s candidacy for president.”
               Goodlatte made another important point early in the hearing, stating, “Mr. Strzok and others inside the FBI and [Justice Department] turned our system of justice on its head. And that’s why we are here and why it matters. We don’t want to read text message after text message dripping with bias against one of the two presidential candidates.”
               No real new information was gleaned from this at times circus-like hearing (thanks in large part to the childish interruptions by dummycrats-Democrat committee members who were clearly intent on obstructing the proceeding). However, it was useful in exposing the degree of arrogant animus that Strzok has toward Congress and Republicans in particular. He is clearly a politically motivated individual who is either a liar or deluded or both. And unlike Strzok’s claims, the reason the American public’s confidence in the integrity of the FBI has eroded is because of the blatant displays of bald-faced hypocrisy from senior members within the agency.

~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/articles/57107?mailing_id=3626&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.3626&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body