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News

What are the positions of Joe Biden and Donald Trump on abortion?

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Major pro-abortion group endorses Joe Biden for President
Major pro-abortion group endorses Joe Biden for President

Time for another comparison of Biden and Trump policies, this time on abortion. I guess everyone knows that Joe Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris are both for abortion through all 9 months of pregnancy. That’s been their settled position for some time. Trump on the other hand has a different position. And you can tell what his position is by looking at his pro-life record.

First, here’s Biden on abortion, reported by Life News:

The evidence is strong that Democrat presidential team Joe Biden and Kamala Harris support killing unborn babies in abortions up to birth.

[…]They want to force taxpayers to fund abortions, codify Roe v. Wade into federal law and reinstate rules that force nuns and other religious employers to fund birth control that may cause abortions in their employee health plans.

[…]Biden and Harris also have sponsored legislation to expand late-term abortions, including the “Women’s Health Protection Act.” Nicknamed the “Abortion Without Limits Until Birth Act” by pro-life groups, the bill would have invalidated nearly all state and federal abortion regulations, including waiting periods, informed consent requirements, bans on late-term abortions and sex-selection abortions and more.

Harris also voted against a bill to prohibit abortions after 20 weeks and another to protect newborns who survive abortions from infanticide.

Their party supports abortions without limits and taxpayer-funded abortions, too. The party platform calls for “reproductive health, rights, and justice … including safe and legal abortion” and opposes “federal and state laws that create barriers to reproductive health and rights.”

Second, let’s look at Trump’s record, from an article posted by the Susan B. Anthony List – the pro-life group that is most concerned with law, policy and judicial appointments:

Appointed Pro-Life Judges

In April, 2017, Judge Neil Gorsuch was successfully confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court. And in October, 2018, Judge Brett Kavanaugh was successfully confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court. To date, 157 of President Trump’s judicial nominees have been confirmed, including two Supreme Court justices, forty-three U.S. Courts of Appeals judges, and one hundred thirteen District Court judges.

Permitted States to Defund Planned Parenthood of Title X Funds

In April 2017, Congress sent a bill to President Trump’s desk that permits states to defund Planned Parenthood of Title X family planning funds passed in Congress. President Trump signed the bill which reverses an Obama-era rule that disbarred states from doing so. Because this was passed using the Congressional Review Act, future Administrations cannot enact a similar rule to Obama’s.

Stopped Tax Dollars Funding Abortion Overseas

President Trump not only reinstated the Mexico City Policy, but expanded it to the new Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance program. This new policy ensures that our tax dollars are protected from funding the abortion industry overseas across ALL global health spending, not just family planning dollars. The Bush-era Mexico City Policy protected roughly $500 million in spending – the new Trump policy protects over $8.8 billion overseas aid from funding abortion.

Defunded the Pro-Abortion UNFPA

The UNFPA has long been complicit in China’s oppressive population control activities, including birth limitation policies and forced abortions. President Trump’s State Department cut U.S. Taxpayer funding to the UNFPA.

Required Health Insurance Companies to Disclose if Plans Cover Abortion

The Trump Administration Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) issued a rule requiring that insurers specify in each plan Summary of Benefits whether the plan covers abortion.

Settlements & New Rule Regarding HHS Mandate

The Departments of HHS, Treasury, and Labor issued two interim final rules, which means they took effect immediately, while allowing a comment period, that provide permanent, enforceable relief from the previous HHS mandate for both religious objectors, such as Little Sisters of the Poor, and moral objectors, such as Susan B. Anthony List. The new rule also exempts private employers and educational institutions that have sincerely held religious beliefs or moral objections against providing contraceptives or abortifacient drugs.

New Office for Conscience Protection at HHS

In May 2019, the Trump administration finalized new regulations to strengthen enforcement of federal laws protecting the conscience rights of health care workers who do not want to participate in abortion. The regulations clarify what recourse is available to victims of discrimination under the law and what penalties the HHS Office of Civil Rights may enforce for violations. Additionally, in January 2018, the Department of Health & Human Services announced the creation of the Conscience and Religious Freedom Division within the Office for Civil Rights. This new office works to protect health care professionals who do not want to participate in abortion. In May, 2019, HHS issued a proposed rule amending Obama-era regulations, clarifying that Section 1557 shall not force a recipient of federal funding to provide or pay for an abortion. It shall also be consistent with the First Amendment and with pro-life provisions, conscience provisions and religious liberty protections in current law.

Allowed States to Defund Planned Parenthood of Medicaid Funds

The Obama administration attempted to prevent states from defunding Planned Parenthood of Medicaid dollars, issuing guidance claiming this may be a violation of federal law. In January 2018, the Trump administration rescinded this guidance, allowing states to defund Planned Parenthood of Medicaid dollars as they see fit.

Cut Planned Parenthood’s Tax Funding by up to $60 Million

In February, 2019, the Trump administration finalized the Protect Life Rule to redirect Title X family planning program funds away from the abortion industry. The rule advances President Trump’s promise to stop taxpayer funding of abortion businesses like Planned Parenthood, who will no longer receive Title X funding if they choose not to comply.

Canceled Huge Contract for Taxpayer-Funded Experimentation with Body Parts of Aborted Babies

In June, 2019, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced they would not renew a major contract with the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) to fund research using the body parts of aborted babies. (learn more)

My favorite was the conscience protections! I really hate the idea of being forced by secular leftists to violate my conscience.

I think it’s very important for pro-life voters of all parties to understand that Trump has taken action on pro-life concerns. He listened to pro-life leaders, and did far more than other Republican presidents who were pro-life in name only. Americans often have this annoying habit of forming their opinions based on what they feel and what they hear in the culture. But we need to be informed voters. Let’s look at the facts and decide based on actions.

News

Who has the better record on foreign policy? Donald Trump or Joe Biden?

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President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo

Christians often like to try to make elections about a single issue, typically abortion. I’m pro-life, and opposing abortion is important to me. However, my goal is to get the election result I want in the real world, not just to be right in my own mind. So, I think conservatives should be able to discuss many different issues, like economics, energy, job creation, health care, education, etc. persuasively.

One issue you can use to convince people to vote Republican is foreign policy. Has Trump got a good record on foreign policy? Is it better or worse than Joe Biden’s record? Let’s take a look.

It’s always a good thing when a leader is able to make peace between warring countries. Trump is actually really good at this.

The Federalist explains:

Sudan will be removed from the State Sponsors of Terrorism list and will begin a partnership with the United States and Israel, President Donald Trump announced on Friday.

[…]The agreement comes just weeks after Trump secured two other historic peace deals in the Middle East through the signing of The Abraham Accords with Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, which established full diplomatic relations of the countries with Israel. These deals facilitated by the Trump Administration are meant to bring “stability, security, and prosperity” in the region.

[…]Trump granted Sudan’s removal from the terrorism list after the nation paid “$335 million to compensate American victims of past terror attacks and their families.”

In addition to those deals, Trump’s diplomatic team just brokered a deal to get Armenia and Azerbaijan to stop shooting at each other.

The Wall Street Journal explains:

Armenia and Azerbaijan, which have spent nearly a month engaged in a violent conflict in the Nagorno-Karabakh region, have agreed to a humanitarian cease-fire, the U.S. and the two Caucasus neighbors said Sunday afternoon.

The cease-fire, based on commitments made in Moscow earlier this month, will take effect at 8 a.m. local time on Monday, according to the joint announcement.

[…]Sunday’s announcement follows a series of meetings in Washington aimed at preventing the long-simmering conflict between the two former Soviet republics from expanding to the wider region.

Trump didn’t start any new wars in his first 4-year term, and kept his promises about bringing troops home. That’s a lot better than Joe Biden, who was VP during THREE failed US interventions in Egypt, Libya and Syria. And the Obama-Biden administration pulled us out of Iraq, which caused the rise of the Islamic State caliphate. Trump actually had to clean up the ISIS mess, and he did: reducing them from a massive area of influence to a tiny area of influence.

Trump also likes to deter Iran, the number one sponsor of terrorism in the world. He pulled out of the Iran deal, which Biden championed. That deal gave Iran pallets of cash, and allowed them to work on developing nuclear weapons. In contrast, Trump has been very tough with Iran.

The Washington Examiner explains:

Qassem Soleimani, the Iranian military general who was killed in a U.S. airstrike in Iraq on Thursday, was responsible for the deaths of over 600 U.S. soldiers in Iraq.

“General Soleimani and his Quds Force were responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American and coalition service members and the wounding of thousands more,” the Pentagon said. “He had orchestrated attacks on coalition bases in Iraq over the last several months — including the attack on December 27th — culminating in the death and wounding of additional American and Iraqi personnel. General Soleimani also approved the attacks on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad that took place this week.”

The Department of Defense added that the strike against Maj. Gen. Qassim Soleimani, the leader of the Quds Force, the extraterritorial wing of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, “was aimed at deterring future Iranian attack plans.”

And just this past week, Trump continued to sanction Al Qaeda leaders.

Sky News reports:

The man believed to be al Qaeda’s second-in-command has been killed, Afghan security forces have said.

Abu Muhsin al-Masri was on the FBI’s most wanted list and was charged with conspiracy to kill US nationals.

[…][Al-Masri] had also been charged in America with providing material support and resources to a foreign terrorist organisation.

Very good, and much better than Joe Biden, who seems to be always wrong on foreign policy.

The Washington Examiner again:

In his 2014 memoir, Duty, former Defense Secretary Robert Gates famously shared his view that Biden, then the vice president and previously chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, had been wrong about “nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.”

[…]Early on Jan. 7, Biden was savaging Trump as “dangerously incompetent” for the strike that had killed Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps terrorist leader Gen. Qassem Soleimani a few days earlier. Biden claimed that Trump was close to starting an “endless war in the Middle East” and that “this outcome of strategic setbacks, heightened threats, chants of ‘Death to America’ once more echoing across the Middle East, [and] Iran and its allies vowing revenge — this was avoidable.”

None of Biden’s predictions ever materialized, because he knows less about foreign policy than my keyboard.

Biden is terrible on Osama Bin Laden and the Cold War:

This is the man who once tried to dissuade Obama from his operation against terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden; who supported the Iraq War and said in 2003, “I voted to go into Iraq, and I’d vote to do it again”; and who vocally opposed President Ronald Reagan’s military buildup and the Strategic Defense Initiative, which helped bring down the Soviet Union.

The Obama/Biden administration created ISIS by retreating from Iraq:

Biden claimed he had atoned for his Iraq War vote by spearheading Obama’s 2011-2012 withdrawal from Iraq. But that withdrawal was a disaster, and it led to the rise of the Islamic State (ISIS).

Joe Biden was also part of the administration that traded FIVE top Taliban commanders for Private Bowe Bergdahl. Bergdahl put his fellow soldiers in danger when they had to go searching for him, after he deserted his post. And then there was the Benghazi scandal, when the Obama-Biden administration abandoned their people when they came under attack by terrorists. Then they blamed the attack on a YouTube video.

We shouldn’t put someone with a bad record on foreign policy – Biden – into the White House, when we can have someone with a good record on foreign policy instead: Trump.

News

Does Joe Biden oppose fracking? Will he shut down the oil and gas industries?

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Far-left CNN fact-checks Joe Biden on fracking
Far-left CNN fact-checks Joe Biden on fracking

A very interesting thing happened after the debate on Thursday. Far-left CNN decided to fact-check Trump’s claim that Biden said on video that he wanted to ban fracking. Far-left CNN ruled Trump’s statement “correct”. During the debate, Biden also admitted that he wanted to eliminate all fossil fuel usage, including cars that use gas. Let’s take a look at Biden’s exact words.

Here’s the CNN fact check:

The Federalist reports:

Despite Biden and his vice-presidential nominee Kamala Harris’s insistence that Biden never said he opposed fracking, Biden has repeatedly condemned fracking and the fossil fuels industry.

“We would work it out. We would make sure it’s eliminated,” Biden said about coal and fracking from the Democratic presidential debate stage just a few months ago.

“We are going to get rid of fossil fuels,” he also promised from the podium at a New Hampshire rally.

Harris, a proud co-sponsor of the Green New Deal, which would ban fracking, has also been vocal about her position.

Regarding shutting down the oil and gas industries, The Federalist reports:

Democratic Presidential Nominee Joe Biden admitted during Thursday night’s final presidential debate that he going to end the oil industry if elected president.

“Would you close down the oil industry?” President Donald Trump pressed just before their closing statements.

“I would transition from the oil industry, yes,” Biden replied.

When asked by debate moderator Kristen Welker to clarify his statement, Biden claimed that he wants to shut down the oil industry because it “pollutes significantly” and needs to be “replaced by renewable energy over time.”

There are many problems with renewable energies, and you can find out all about them by looking at places that have tried to switch over to those energy sources.

Switching to Renewable Energy

Let’s start with California. California has long been at the forefront of converting their energy production to “green” sources.

Here’s an article from Forbes that talks about their results:

At the Democratic National Convention this week, presidential and vice-presidential candidates Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will make the case for spending $2 trillion, or $500 billion per year, to transition the U.S. away from fossil fuels toward renewables like solar and wind.

[…]California’s big bet on renewables, and shunning of natural gas and nuclear, is directly responsible for the state’s blackouts and high electricity prices.

“We will be forced today to ask utilities to cut off power to millions today, and tomorrow, and beyond,” said Stephen Berberich, the President and CEO of California’s Independent System Operator, CAISO, on a Monday morning conference call. “Demand will greatly exceed supply.”

The immediate cause of California’s blackouts is a mismatch between electricity supply and demand.

[…]The underlying reason blackouts are occurring is because California lacks reliable, in-state supply. And the reason for that is California has been closing both natural gas and nuclear power plants.

[…]Despite these capacity shortfalls, the state is moving ahead with plans to remove 2,200-MW of reliable electricity from the grid.  That’s the amount of power produced by Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant, which will be closed in stages in 2024 and 2025.

So, Green New Deal works great… if your goal is to feel good about yourself, and make emotion-driven people like you. But it isn’t very good at generating an abundance of low-cost electricity to power businesses. And it isn’t very good for poor people, who prefer to pay less for their electricity.

Well, how about Germany? They closed down their nuclear power plants in favor of wind and solar. It didn’t work.

Daily Caller explains:

Germany’s power grid almost collapsed in January due to poor performance from wind turbines and solar panels, according to data from a major trade union.

Wind and solar power plants under-performed in January, 2017, because of cloudy weather with little or no wind, setting the stage for massive blackouts.

[…]Green energy approaches failed to meet Germany’s stated energy goals, even after spending over $1.1 trillion. The country’s “Energiewende” plan to boost wind and solar production to fight global warming hasn’t significantly reduced carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and may have actually caused them to go up.

[…]Due to the inherent unreliable performance of wind power and political opposition to nuclear power plants, Germany has been forced to return to coal to generate electricity. Coal now provides 44 percent of  Germany’s power,  This shift caused Germany’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions to actually rise by 28 million tons each year following the policy shift.

All of Germany’s subsidies and support for green energy have sharply increased power prices, with the average German paying 39 cents per kilowatt-hour for electricity. The average American only spends 10.4 cents per kilowatt-hour by comparison.

So, you get less electricity produced, more emissions, and elctricity prices go up. Just like in California.

Well, third try is the charm. How about Canada? They’ve gone Green New Deal for more than a decade. How is that working for them?

The National Post reported this in 2016:

Back in 2010, deep green environmentalist Rick Smith, then head of Environmental Defence Canada, hailed Ontario’s Green Energy and Green Economy Act regime as a cost-free operation that would catapult the province into the big leagues of renewable energy. Through fat subsidies and high prices offered to wind, solar and other renewable industry players, jobs and growth would boom and Ontario would be free of its dirty coal plants. It was the End of Coal, the government said. The birth of a renewable miracle.

Now, Canadians are paying more:

The doubling of electricity prices since 2005 is big politically, but it is just the top-line item on a long list of problems, misconceptions and outright fabrications that lurk within the Liberal government’s decade-long pursuit of radical greenism.

Because they didn’t listened to engineers… they listened to their hearts:

Ontario’s Society of Professional Engineers has issued more than half a dozen critical reports on the Liberals’ tendency to let green talk and politics override sound policy. Instead of following the expert advice of engineers and people who understand the intricacies of electricity production and distribution, the government took to issuing directives right out the Premier’s office.

Now, I know some people on the secular left are going to disagree with these facts. But they don’t have facts to counter these facts. There isn’t a single country that has gone Green New Deal that has lower electricity prices and a net increase in jobs.

We have to do what works. What works is more natural gas (fracking) and more nuclear power.