All posts by Wintery Knight

https://winteryknight.com/
News

Democrat bill to eliminate all state and federal restrictions on abortion blocked by Senate

5 Comments

Previously, I blogged about a piece of legislation called the Women’s Health Protection Act, which passed in the House of Representatives shortly after Joe Biden took office. We’ll see what’s in the bill in a minute. The bill is in the news again because it failed to pass the Senate.

Life News reports:

Senate Republicans, with the help of Democrat Senator Joe Manchin, voted to defeat a Democrat bill that would overturn every pro-life law in America and legalize abortions up to birth.

Lawmakers voted 48-46 against cloture — against ending debate and allowing a vote on the the misnamed Women’s Health Protection Act. As a result the filibuster against the radical pro-abortion legislation was sustained and the bill is defeated, as 60 votes were necessary to move ahead to a vote on the bill.

All Republicans voted pro-life against cloture on the radical pro-abortion bill and all Democrats voted pro-abortion for cloture, except for Manchin.

[…]The bill would:

  • Eliminate all state and federal parental consent laws in relation to abortion
  • Eliminate all state informed consent laws, including those that allow women to view an ultrasound prior to abortion
  • Prevent states from passing laws to protect babies at 20 weeks, thereby joining countries like North Korea, China, Vietnam, Singapore, Canada, and the Netherlands in not protecting unborn children later in development
  • Force doctors and nurses opposed to abortion to lose their jobs, and Catholic hospitals could lose public funds unless they perform abortions
  • Eliminate decades-long limitations on direct taxpayer funding of abortion – including the popular Hyde Amendment, which has saved more than 2 million lives since enacted

In short, the legislation would overturn all federal and state pro-life laws and make it illegal for elected officials to even introduce pro-life legislation.

The bill passed the House in September 2021, by a vote of 218-11. Not one single Republican voted in favor of the bill. Not one. Because this bill is abortion extremism. This bill forces healthcare workers to participate in the killing of unborn babies. And taxpayers would have to pay for the abortions.

Although you might think that most Christian leaders like Beth Moore, Russell Moore, David French, Tim Keller, etc. would oppose an extremist bill like this, I think they wouldn’t. Judging from their support for Joe Biden during the election, who promised to sign the bill if it made it to his desk, I think that their goal would be to make this bill become law.

Even though Evangelicals for Biden failed to get the abortion law they wanted, they’ve still gotten a lot of wins under Joe Biden.

Life News is pretty upset about Biden’s policies so far.

They write:

Joe Biden is rapidly becoming the most pro-abortion president in U.S. history as he takes multiple actions to expand abortions and force taxpayers to subsidize them.

On Wednesday, the Biden administration released a rule that will force taxpayers to fund the abortion industry through the Title X family planning program.

The rule, issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, will end a pro-life regulation that President Donald Trump put in place to ensure Title X grants are not used to subsidize the killing of unborn babies in abortions.

Pro-life groups like Susan B. Anthony List and National Right to Life considered Trump to be the most pro-life president ever. I even wrote about all the specific actions, policies and nominations he did to help the pro-life cause. That’s the kind of article that our pious pastors and conservative leaders should have written, if they were serious about getting results instead of virtue-signaling. When it comes to politics, you have to look at the actions taken by the candidates – what did they achieve? – not their words.

News

Facebook / Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s election meddling violated bribery laws

1 Comment

We have an election this year, and now seems like a good time to remind everyone about Facebook’s bias in favor of the Democrat party. Take a look at this article from The Federalist.

It says:

Nearly $9 million in Zuckerberg grant funds directed solely to five Democratic strongholds in Wisconsin violated the state’s election code’s prohibition on bribery. That conclusion represents but one of the many troubling findings detailed in the report submitted today by a state-appointed special counsel to the Wisconsin Assembly.

[…]The first unlawful action, according to the report, concerned the payment of grant funds to five Wisconsin counties that were used to facilitate voting. That arrangement, Gableman wrote, violated Wis. Stat. § 12.11, which prohibits election bribery by providing it is illegal to offer anything of value to or for any person in order to induce any elector to go to the polls or vote.

According to the report, Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg providing financing that allowed the Center for Tech and Civic Life to offer nearly $9 million in “Zuck Bucks” to Milwaukee, Madison, Racine, Kenosha and Green Bay counties. In exchange, the “Zuckerberg 5,” as the report called the counties, in effect, operated Democratic get-out-the-vote efforts. Those grant funds then paid for illegal drop boxes to be placed in Democratic voting strongholds.

A week ago, Facebook was in trouble again for meddling in elections.

The Washington Examiner reported:

Facebook blocked Texas GOP gubernatorial candidate Chad Prather from accessing his page on the site only eight days before the primary election.

Prather told the Washington Examiner the ban resulted from a months-old comment discussing the events of Jan 6. A commentator, who Prather confirmed tends to “spam” his page and “comments nonstop,” called the events of the day an “insurrection.”

Prather responded by pointing out that even the FBI didn’t classify the event as an insurrection, further accusing the commentator of using “victimhood” in her favor.

As a result, Facebook banned him for “bullying.”

Facebook notified Prather he was banned from his page for seven days starting Feb 21. The primary election is March 1.

“They silenced my campaign on Facebook,” Prather said. “This is illegal. This is interference. This is absolutely a travesty to the political process of free and fair elections.”

Facebook / Meta uses partisan “fact-checkers” (censors) like Lead Stories, Politifact, etc. to suppress ideas that support the Republican party.

Here’s the about Politifact, reported by The Blaze:

Fact-checking website PolitiFact recently engaged in some head-scratching analysis in an attempt to discredit a claim made by Fox Business Network host Maria Bartiromo — but ended up doing the exact opposite.

[…]Bartiromo said this: “The United States is also reliant on Russian oil — we have doubled our imports from Russia in the last year. So, [there’s] no question why President Biden is begging OPEC and others to pump more oil.”

[…]In a Monday column, PolitiFact parachuted in to assess Bartiromo’s claim that the U.S. doubled oil imports from Russia as “mostly false.”

Normally, oil imports and energy imports — which include refined products — are categorized separately. The U.S. Energy Information Administration, which PolitiFact cites multiple times, shows as much by breaking down crude oil imports in a separate chart.

A spokesperson for Bartiromo evidently explained this to PolitiFact, resulting in the fact-checker admitting, “The U.S. more than doubled its crude oil imports from Russia, to about 208,000 barrels a day in the first 11 months of 2021, from 76,000 barrels a day in 2020.”

Amazingly, that wasn’t enough for the fact-checker to change its assessment, even while it openly admitted that Bartiromo’s specific claim was accurate.

The author of that “fact check” has a degree in English. ENGLISH. That’s the kind of imbecile that Facebook / Meta uses to censor conservatives, especially before elections.

Although Donald Trump was President for four years, he didn’t do much to rein in the power of Big Tech. But there are other Republicans running for President in 2024 who are taking action.

News Max reports:

Gov. Ron DeSantis, R-Florida, has directed state officials to investigate Facebook for alleged election interference, it was announced Monday.

The governor’s action came after a report that Facebook possibly influenced numerous state and local races by exempting elite users from the social platform’s own rules.

“It’s no secret that Big Tech censors have long enforced their own rules inconsistently,” DeSantis said in a statement released by his office. “If this new report is true, Facebook has violated Florida law to put its thumb on the scale of numerous state and local races.”

[…]”Floridians deserve to know how much this corporate titan has influenced our elections,” he said. “That is why I am directing Secretary Lee to use all legal means to uncover violations of Florida’s election laws.

“The thought of Facebook clandestinely manipulating elections is an affront to the basic principles of our republic. We the people have the right to choose our representatives, whether or not Silicon Valley approves.”

On this blog, I’ve documented a long line of disturbing anti-American behavior by Facebook / Meta. We have an election coming up, and I don’t want to lose because of Big Tech interference. Make sure everyone knows what Facebook / Meta does.

Related posts

Mentoring

Christian woman finds a way to discuss her faith with non-Christians

7 Comments

I found an interesting article where a Christian woman explains how she used to share her testimony with non-Christians. But that wasn’t working. So she decided to try something different.

She writes:

I’ll never forget the first time I shared my personal testimony with a non-Christian.

When the opportunity arose and I shared my story with an unbelieving friend, she replied, “That’s so cool. I’m so happy you found something that works for you.”

For me?

“It’s not about what works for me,” I said, trying to hide my discouragement. “It’s about what’s true for everyone.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” she responded. “That’s your experience, not mine. I had a similar revelation when I realized I could leave the church, and I’ve become a better person for my decision. Just as you were freed from your heaviest burdens by finding God, I was freed from mine by leaving God behind.”

I was devastated but I chalked it up to my friend’s hardheartedness. I decided to shake the dust off my feet and look forward to the next opportunity.

But time after time of sharing my testimony resulted in similar responses. People expressed enthusiasm that I was happy, that Christianity worked for me, and that I had “found my niche.” Yet no one considered my experience as anything more than just that—my own personal experience.

[…]I had been taught that sharing what God had done in my life was the ideal way to witness to non-Christians. A personal testimony was interesting yet non-confrontational, compelling but inoffensive. And yet, despite having shared my testimony with dozens of unbelievers, not a single person felt challenged to consider the truth claims of Christianity.

She noticed that her approach wasn’t actually in the Bible. There was a different approach being demonstrated by Jesus, and later by his disciples.

She writes:

When Jesus called his first disciples, he taught truth and provided evidence (miracles) to support his claims, then he asked people to follow him (Luke 5:1–11). In fact, this was his method whenever he went into new regions (see Luke 4:14–44; John 4:7–26). People decided to follow Jesus not on blind faith or a subjective feeling, but based on the evidence they had seen and heard.[i]

Jesus also used evidence to assuage the doubts of even those who had been with him a long time. John the Baptist was Jesus’ cousin, who leapt in the womb during Mary’s visit (Luke 1:39–45), baptized Jesus in the Jordan River, heard God’s voice from heaven, and saw the Holy Spirit descend on Jesus in bodily form like a dove (Luke 3:21–22). Yet when John experienced unexpected suffering, he began to doubt.

Jesus didn’t respond as many do today, by insisting that John “just believe” or “have faith” or “prayer harder.” Rather, he responded with more evidence, saying, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.” (Matt. 11:2–6).

[…]At Pentecost, the apostle Peter offered signs and wonders, fulfilled prophecy, and relayed eyewitness testimony to persuade people from all over the Roman Empire that the most reasonable explanation for what they were seeing was not morning drunkenness, but a risen Messiah (Acts 2:1–41).

On his missionary journeys, the apostle Paul reasoned with the Jews from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that Jesus was the Messiah who needed to suffer and rise from the dead (Acts 17:1–3, 17). And he reasoned with the Gentiles from outside the Scriptures, making a case with their own accepted beliefs to convince them (Acts 17:17–34).

In fact, in describing his mission, Paul told the Philippians, “I am put here for the defense of the gospel” (1:7, 16). This word translated defense is the same word from which we get our English word “apologetics,” meaning to make reasoned arguments or to provide evidence as justification. Using this same word, Peter commanded believers to “always [be] prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you”(1 Pet. 3:15).

So, she decided to dump the testimony approach, and try the Biblical approach. But she had to change it a little bit, since she couldn’t perform miracles herself:

We are not eyewitnesses to Jesus’s life and resurrection, but we have the accounts of those who were. We don’t typically see miracles, but we have millennia of biblical scholarship and archaeology that provide reasons to believe the accounts are trustworthy. We don’t often hear God speaking audibly or see him parting seas, but we have significant scientific evidence that shows the universe had a beginning, and millennia of observation to confirm the scientific principle that everything that begins to exist has a cause.

I think a lot of Christians never move on from approach she described that wasn’t getting results. And there’s a reason for that – studying evidence is hard work. But I can tell you from my experience as a software engineer, there is no better way to convince other people to adopt your view than to show them working code that produces results. If they have a prototype, they will adopt your design. Similarly with Christianity. If you have evidence, then you will be persuasive.

When talking about spiritual things with non-Christians, always remember the joke about the two men walking in the woods who meet a bear. One man starts to put on his running shoes. The other man says “what are you doing? you can’t outrun a bear!” And the first man says “I don’t have to. I only have to outrun you”. It’s the same with apologetics. You don’t have to be William Lane Craig to talk about your faith to non-Christians. You just have to know more than your non-Christian opponent knows about evidence.

The way things are going these days with the public schools and the mainstream news media, this is actually pretty easy to do. One or two introductory books on the origin of the universe, the fine-tuning for intelligent life, the origin of biological information, the origin of body plans, the historical reliability of the New Testament, the minimal facts case for the resurrection, etc. will do the job. You might need another one on philosophical challenges like evil, suffering, divine hiddenness, etc. But we’re talking no more than 5 books, and you’ll be effective in the vast majority of your conversations. If you can only get one book, I like Sean McDowell and Jonathan Morrow’s “Is God Just a Human Invention?” best.