ENOUGH: If The Dems Can Defund The Police, Why Can't We Defund Planned Parenthood?
Show some backbone, Republicans.
I swore that I wasn’t going to pound too hard on this, but dammit — could we show just a tiny bit of backbone for once?
To wit, former Democratic governor Terry McAuliffe has stuck to his proverbial guns on whether or not parents should have a say in the education of their children. McAuliffe has stuck to his guns on repealing right to work. The man has even stuck to his guns on the Northam position on post-birth abortions for crying out loud. McAuliffe is even playing footsie with defunding the police, refusing to commit either way as to where he stands for fear of further offending his progressive left wing.
Pro-life Virginians can’t even get a stand up commitment on defunding Planned Parenthood for fear of offending so-called moderates who are voting Democratic anyway.
I’m sorry.
That one still sticks in the ribs.
And it hasn’t passed by unnoticed by the Washington Post. Yes, I realize that the election is close and that Dems are looking for anything to dampen Republican enthusiasm for the ticket.
Quite frankly, this does dampen my enthusiasm.
To be very honest about it, one cannot quite blame Republican challenger Glenn Youngkin for being pro-abortion up to 20 weeks. After all, it’s not as if pro-life leadership in Virginia is pressuring the candidate to be any stronger. In fact, they seem to be falling over themselves to be more pro-regulation rather than pro-life:
“Abortion isn’t a top issue for Virginia voters,” said Victoria Cobb, president of the Family Foundation of Virginia, one of the state’s leading conservative organizations and a longtime advocate for tightening restrictions on abortion. “McAuliffe is desperate to talk about anything other than jobs and the economy, so he’s focusing on a side issue.”
“We need to be realistic,” said Olivia Gans Turner, president of the Virginia Society for Human Life, an antiabortion group. “Terry McAuliffe seems to think abortion is the key issue that motivates women voters. It’s not.”
<headdesk>
When pro-life lobbyists lead with “abortion isn’t a top issue” and “we need to be realistic” — that is one more reminder why Virginia is in sore need of a serious pro-life organization willing to actually be pro-life rather than the pro-regulation arm of the abortion industry.
Morton Blackwell observes that nothing in politics is moved unless it is pushed.
The Democrats argue that one should never apologize and never let them see you sweat — not once have they backtracked on Northam’s position on post-birth abortion, not once have they backtracked on Critical Race Theory (CRT), gender ideology in the classroom, collective bargaining for teachers, tearing down and bulldozing history, wrecking the economy, mandates of all shapes and sizes, or interposing themselves between parents and their children.
Yet we seem to want to make apologies constantly in the face of adversity, as if moderation in the face of tyranny was any sort of virtue.
So here’s what I want to see.
If the Democrats can defund the police, then Republicans can defund Planned Parenthood. If they can defund people who save lives, we can save lives by defunding the nation’s #1 abortion chain.
Of course, it is the duty and responsibility of pro-life Virginians to create the climate where we are as willing to defend life as others are willing to say — tear down statues — which at present we have plenty of others willing to preside, but not lead on questions of life and death other than in the margins and the hallways of the GAB.
Enough.
Kristan Hawkins with Students for Life hammered the truth of the matter home:
Youngkin has made only “a tepid commitment to protect preborn life,” offering “lackluster policy designed to accomplish almost nothing,” Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America, a Fredericksburg-based group, said in a Washington Post op-ed. Abortion, she said, remains “a litmus test for a candidate’s willingness to fight for the weak and defenseless.”
Hawkins isn’t alone in that opinion, folks. If a message has to be sent, then so be it — but pro-life Catholics and evangelicals who were told to pound sand in May 2021 aren’t terribly eager to get up off the couch to trade neoliberalism for neoconservatism.
Politicians are going to do what they are allowed. After all — and this is the more serious grievance I have here — why should politicians be any more pro-life than the movement itself? Of course, 1 in 6 Americans are pro-life without compromise or apology — and they expect leadership to make more gestured to our values.
For those with eyes to see and ears to hear — and enough said.
And Just Like That, Democrats Do Not Like Non-Partisan Redistricting Anymore…
For about a decade, Republicans were treated to excoriations about non-partisan and bi-partisan redistricting by Democrats, telling us how fair and equitable they would be when drawn.
Until they are drawn.
Now the Democrats are mad as hell, as defined by all these red dots where Democrats complain (a lot) about democracy and fairness as un-democratic and unfair values all of the sudden.
VPAP has the partisan breakouts here, and for the life of me I can’t figure out why the Democrats are so opposed to these lines in a state they believe is as blue as a sapphire.
Oh wait — here it is:
Democrats on the commission said that map didn’t make sense given the state’s political makeup; Democrats currently hold seven out of the state’s eleven House seats and have won every statewide election since 2009. Dave Wasserman, an elections expert with the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, called the finished product “a dream GOP map that would give Republicans a chance to win 6/11 seats in a Biden +10 state,” in a Tweet on Friday.
Maybe it’s because their 2017 and 2020 numbers giving them a 10pt advantage are about to evaporate with the McAuliffe/Youngkin contest?
Talk about being hoisted on one’s own petard.
Secretary of State Colin Powell (1937-2021)
I was in middle school when the Persian Gulf War kicked off. The lead up and the briefings — and the homecoming — were a high water mark of sorts. Every kid had Gulf War trading cards, yellow ribbons were everything and soldiers and veterans of the Vietnam War finally felt as if they too could share in the appreciation of a victory where the home front was warned to expect 30,000-40,000 casualties… and instead received fewer than 400.
The Powell Doctrine has governed our warfighting experience ever since. Powell was not a politician — though he did have political leanings — but at core Powell was a good and decent man. How good? The sort who would pull over and help a guy change his tires on the side of the Capital Beltway good.
Powell’s 13 Rules were outlined in his 2012 memoirs It Worked For Me: Lessons in Life and Leadership — and they are about as durable as any other set of advice one might receive (and work especially well in politics):
1. It ain't as bad as you think. It will look better in the morning.
2. Get mad, then get over it.
3. Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego goes with it.
4. It can be done.
5. Be careful what you choose. You may get it.
6. Don't let adverse facts stand in the way of a good decision.
7. You can't make someone else's choices. You shouldn't let someone else make yours.
8. Check small things.
9. Share credit.
10. Remain calm. Be kind.
11. Have a vision. Be demanding.
12. Don't take counsel of your fears or naysayers.
13. Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.
Powell will perhaps be more remembered for his case for war to the UN Security Council in 2003 — which rested more on Powell’s reputation than the evidence presented — than he will be studied for his achievements with General “Stormin’ Norman” Schwartzkopf in 1991.
Yet Powell’s character — which is what made him so durable as a persona — is what most will remember about our first post-Cold War JCS.
Requiescat in pace, General Powell.
One More Item: How’s The Economy Doing?
These are some interesting national toplines from the folks at Navigator Research. Short version? Biden appears to have stopped the bleeding with favorability ratings at 46%.
Reasons why people like or dislike Joe Biden?
Top issue? Jobs and the economy.
Very close second place? COVID and the pandemic response.
Considering these questions to be linked? The economy staying the same or getting worse is a universal concern.
Yet playing to the theme of last week — namely that the Democrats have a problem motivating minority voters — the shift there has moved dramatically over the last month:
On the question as to whether Democrats are speaking for people of color, they went from 60% to 47% in a month?
Ouch.
Don’t get your hopes up too much. Republicans went from 24% to 18% on the same question — indicating a general sense of rejection altogether.
Yet it is no small wonder why McAuliffe is bringing out Stacey Abrams and Barack Obama to Virginia — and why Youngkin is polling at 16% among black voters.
Minorities are fed up with the status quo. Apart from acquiescing in the bulldozing of a few second place trophies on Monument Avenue, what precisely are Democrats doing other than telling minority voters to pound sand?
Might be time for a change.
Shaun Kenney is the editor of The Republican Standard, former chairman of the Board of Supervisors for Fluvanna County, and a former executive director of the Republican Party of Virginia.