Tag Archives: Iowa

News

Iowa’s Republican governor signs ban on abortions after unborn baby has heartbeat

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Iowas Republican Governor Kim Reynolds did the right thing
Iowas Republican Governor Kim Reynolds did the right thing

I decided to start the week off with a happy story about a powerful Republican woman taking a bold step to defend unborn children in a blue state. Here is a story from Fox News about Iowa’s governor Kim Reynolds, a Republican, who has signed a bill banning all abortions on babies who have a heartbeat! That’s pretty early on, and will cover most abortions.

Excerpt:

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds on Friday signed off on a law banning most abortions if a fetal heartbeat can be detected, or at about six weeks of pregnancy, The Associated Press reported.

The restriction is the strictest abortion regulation in the nation, the AP said. It also said passage and enactment of the measure has set the state up for a protracted legal fight.

The State House passed the legislation on Tuesday night with a 51-46 vote, Iowa Public Radio reported. It was debated for more than eight hours before House representatives decided on it. The bill passed the Senate early Wednesday with a 27-19 vote.

The legislation bans abortion in all cases after six weeks of pregnancy, which critics of the legislation argue is before most women are aware they are pregnant. Up until now, a woman has been able to get an abortion in Iowa  up to her 20th week.

However, the measure would not ban abortion after six weeks in all cases — some exemptions include instances of rape, incest, fetal abnormalities or to save the mother’s life.

This is the earliest ban on abortion in the nation! I’m so impressed. I’d like women to make better choices about men and the timing of sexual activity so that we don’t have to do terrible things in order to “resolve” unwanted pregnancies.

Life News has more details about how the bill works:

The bill would require abortion practitioners to test for the unborn baby’s heartbeat before performing an abortion. If a heartbeat is detected, the abortion would be prohibited except in cases involving medical emergency, rape, incest or fetal abnormalities deemed to be “incompatible” with life.

Because an unborn baby’s heartbeat is detectable by about six weeks of pregnancy, the bill would prohibit almost all abortions in Iowa.

Unfortunately, Planned Parenthood isn’t going to give up their source of revenue without a legal fight:

Immediately after Reynolds’ announcement Friday, branches of Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union in Iowa responded with plans to sue the state, the AP reports.

[…]Because of the current make-up of the U.S. Supreme Court and lower courts, a law to prohibit abortions in the first trimester most likely would not survive a court challenge. President Donald Trump promised to appoint pro-life justices to the courts, but he would have to appoint at least one more Supreme Court judge before the Iowa legislation would have a chance of being upheld.

North Dakota and Arkansas passed heartbeat bills several years ago, but federal courts struck down both laws.

Although it will be a difficult fight to save this law, at least voters will get another chance to understand that Democrats are opposed to restrictions on abortion. They want abortion through all nine months of pregnancy, and taxpayer-funded in a single-payer system. That way, abortion is as easy to obtain as getting a prescription for antibiotics.

I don’t see why we can’t just tell women not to have sex with men before marriage. If women withheld sex from men who were not their husbands, then men would grow up and start trying to prove themselves to women as husband candidates again. Not giving men premarital sex makes them behave much better towards women. They try harder in school, they work harder at work, they treat women with respect. They learn how to behave like husbands. What is wrong with that? Is the current status quo of using Tinder to be screwed over by hot guys working for women?

News

Cruz continues to win delegates in Colorado and Iowa

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Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, Texas Senator Ted Cruz, and Heidi Cruz
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, Texas Senator Ted Cruz, and Heidi Cruz

Colorado doesn’t have a primary like other states. Delegates are elected at a convention. Colorado has 37 delegates in total, so let’s see what happened with them.

Leftist CNN reports:

Ted Cruz on Saturday clinched the support of every pledged delegate in Colorado, capturing all of the final 13 delegates who will go to the national convention in July and demonstrating his organizational strength in the all-important delegate race.

Even though voters didn’t head to the polls Saturday, Cruz’s strength here could help deny Donald Trump the 1,237 delegates that he needs to clinch the nomination.

Cruz’s victory Saturday, combined with delegates he had already earned, hands him 30 of the 37 delegates across the state who are legally bound to support him on the first ballot at the convention, along with four other delegates who gave him verbal commitments of support.

[…]In this first round for the GOP, Team Cruz once again proved its mettle — far outpacing the efforts of Trump and Kasich in the scramble for delegates at each of the congressional district gatherings this week.

How come Cruz gets all the delegates? Is he cheating?

CNN explains that he is not cheating:

In yet another sign of his airtight ground game, Cruz spoke before a huge screen displaying his slate of delegates for the final 13 spots, and he noted that his slate was also printed on the bright orange T-shirts that his many volunteers were wearing on the state convention floor.

Trump’s campaign, by contrast, initially distributed fliers listing the campaign’s national delegate candidates that were riddled with errors. The flier displaying the Trump slate is supposed to be the tip sheet that party members use to fill out their ballot. But on the first slate that the Trump campaign was giving out, more than a half dozen of their delegate candidates were listed with the wrong delegate number. At least one of the delegate numbers corresponded to a delegate supporting Cruz.

The Trump campaign reprinted the flier, but the second flier also included several errors.

I saw somewhere that the Trump campaign is accusing the Cruz campaign of stealing all the delegates, but the CNN report shows why that’s not true. Trump is losing the delegates because his campaign is not working as hard nor as intelligently as the Trump campaign.

What about Iowa?

Meanwhile, delegates were also being selected in Iowa on the weekend.

The leftist Des Moines Register reports:

Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz captured 11 of the 12 national party convention delegates chosen at four party meetings held across Iowa on Saturday.

The near-sweep in Iowa’s four congressional districts is the latest evidence of a well-organized national effort by Cruz to secure support from the activists who will formally nominate a Republican presidential candidate later this year in Cleveland.

That support could be crucial in the event that no Republican candidate clinches the nomination before convention — an increasingly likely prospect as the race between Cruz, Donald Trump and John Kasich drags on.

Well, this time Cruz cheated for sure, how else can we explain his getting 11 out of 12 delegates?

The Des Moines Register says no, though – no cheating again:

The Cruz campaign’s successes on Saturday come at the expense of Trump, the Republican race’s putative front-runner, whose campaign had vocal groups of supporters at each convention but showed little organizational prowess and will send zero committed delegates to Cleveland.

Delegates’ supported candidate will not matter in the national convention’s first round of balloting, but it could be decisive in subsequent rounds, as delegates are unbound from the results of their states’ primaries and caucuses and allowed to vote their conscience.

[…]The Cruz campaign demonstrated a strong organization from the outset of Saturday’s contests, peppering convention attendees with pro-Cruz text messages throughout the day and handing out half-sheets of paper at all four convention sites identifying slates of Cruz-aligned candidates for national convention delegate, national convention alternate and the nominating committee.

And there are still more delegates to go, and the Cruz campaign is working on them as well:

Iowa will send a total of 30 delegates to the national convention — the 12 selected on Saturday, 15 “at-large” delegates elected as a slate at next month’s state convention and three statewide party leaders.

These delegates are not able to vote for Cruz in the first round, life the Colorado ones can. Still, if we end up with a contested convention, most of them will go for Cruz. I have to say, it’s nice to have such a smart candidate who is so organized. I like having the smartest person – it’s like having William Lane Craig in the debate.

It seems to me that the more “closed” the process is for selecting delegates – Democrats and Independents cannot cross the aisle to vote – the better Cruz does. The exit polls show that Trump does very well with people who are liberal on fiscal, social and foreign policy. If the liberals and moderates are not allowed to pick the candidate, then Cruz does really well. Maybe in 2020, we should have only closed primaries?

News

Donald Trump promises gay publication “forward motion” on gay rights issues

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This is from Bay Windows, which bills itself as “serving New England’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender communities”.

Here’s what they wrote:

The frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination today promised “forward motion” on gay and lesbian equality if he is elected.

In an interview with NECN’s Sue O’Connell just days before the crucial New Hampshire primary, Trump cast himself as a uniter on LGBT issues.

O’Connell, who is also Bay Windows’ Publisher, identified herself as a lesbian in a question that noted the progress the LGBT community has made in the last two decades and asked Trump if voters can expect him to continue that momentum if elected

“When President Trump is in office can we look for more forward motion on equality for gays and lesbians?” O’Connell asked him.

“Well, you can,” Trump answered. ” And look, again, we’re going to bring people together, and that’s your thing and other people have their thing. We have to bring all people together and if we don’t we’re not going to have a country anymore.”

Recall that during the Iowa primary, Trump declared how much he loves evangelicals, and even held up a Bible he supposedly got from his mother as evidence of his genuine, authentic Christian faith.

Trump holds up Bible he "received from his mother" to evangelicals
Trump holds up Bible he “received from his mother” to evangelicals

CBS News reports on how Trump pandered to evangelicals in Iowa:

Just two days ahead of the first nominating contest in Iowa, Donald Trump is making a final attempt to court evangelical Christians.

In a new video posted to Facebook Saturday, the billionaire businessman thanked evangelicals and promised to “never let you down.”

“I really appreciate the support given to me by the evangelicals,” Trump said. “They’ve been incredible. Every poll says how well I’m doing with them.”

Trump then held aloft a worn Bible, which he said his mother had given to him “many years ago.”

“In fact, it’s her writing right here,” he added, flipping to the first page of the book. “She wrote the name and my address and it’s just very special to me.”

This is not the first time the GOP front-runner has used the Bible as a prop on the campaign trail.

In September, Trump waved the same copy of the book while giving a speech at the Values Voters Summit hosted by the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C.

Trump has also repeatedly named the Bible as his favorite book — though he has often faced criticisms for his inability to name his favorite Bible verses.

He’s never going to let us down. That’s what he said in Iowa. But in New Hampshire, he is saying something else. That was then, this is now.  His entire case to evangelical Christians was:

  • I’m ahead in the polls
  • I can hold up a Bible and say my mother gave it to me
  • I can wave a Bible around
  • “Two Corinthians” – that’s your favorite verse, right?

Here is the real Donald Trump, for those who have eyes to see, and ears to hear:

As everyone knows, evangelicals are under attack from gay activists, who want to use the power of government to punish those who decline to celebrate gay marriage and participate in gay weddings. When religious liberty and freedom of conscience come up against a gay activists desire to not be offended by dissent, religious freedom and freedom of conscience are losing. Gay people have a right to live how they want, but they shouldn’t be able to redefine marriage for all of us, and then force us to salute the new definition of marriage through coercion.

What about Marco Rubio?

I already blogged on Marco Rubio’s billionaire donor Paul Singer, who donated to the Human Rights Campaign, the largest gay rights group in the United States. Here is an article by Maggie Gallagher that gave Marco Rubio a D rating on the gay marriage Supreme Court decision:

Marco Rubio: Grade D

Issuing only a pro forma statement, Rubio ran away, not towards, the media on this one: “While I disagree with this decision, we live in a republic and must abide by the law. As we look ahead, it must be a priority of the next president to nominate judges and justices committed to applying the Constitution as written and originally understood.” He promised to “strive to protect the First Amendment rights of religious institutions and millions of Americans whose faiths hold a traditional view of marriage.” But he appears to have laid out no concrete plans for doing so…

Cruz gets an A- rating from Gallagher and The Pulse – this is the highest rating of any candidate still running in the Republican primary.

What about Ted Cruz?

Let’s take a look at Ted Cruz’s position on marriage, now:

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, today released the following statement regarding a report in the New York Times addressing his support for traditional marriage:

“It speaks volumes that the New York Times considers it newsworthy that a Republican who believes marriage is between a man and a woman would meet with people who hold a different view. The purpose of the meeting and the primary topics of conversation were national security, foreign policy, and America’s commitment to standing with Israel. On the subject of marriage, when asked, I stated directly and unambiguously what everyone in the room already knew, that I oppose gay marriage and I support traditional marriage.

“One person further asked how Heidi and I would react if we found out one of our (4 and 7-year-old) daughters were gay. My reply: ‘We would love her with all our hearts. We love our daughters unconditionally.’

“A conservative Republican who is willing to meet with individuals who do not agree on marriage and who loves his daughters unconditionally may not reflect the caricature of conservatives promoted by the left, but it’s hardly newsworthy.

“I know it’s been a long time since we’ve seen it, but this is what it means to truly be a ‘big tent Republican’ instead of a panderer. I’m happy to go anywhere to anyone to champion conservative values. We’re not always going to agree on everything, and I’m not going to change my fundamental values. But at the same time, I’m hoping to offer enough bold leadership on a broad slate of issues that many voters will decide we agree on far more than we disagree.”

Vote for Ted Cruz, if you are tired of politicians who say one thing, then do something else.