Rice Reacts to Removing Historic Monuments

“This week, it is Robert E. Lee and this week, Stonewall Jackson.  Is it George Washington [who owned slaves] next?  You have to ask yourself, where does it stop?” Trump said during a Trump Tower press conference, according to the New York Times.

That question was posed to former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who was the first African-American woman to hold that office.  She appeared on “Fox & Friends” last week to talk about her newly released book “Democracy: Stories from the Long Road to Freedom.”  Co-host Brian Kilmeade asked Rice, “As an African-American woman, do you see yourself in this [U.S.] Constitution?  Do you think that when we look at nine of our first twelve presidents as slave owners, should we start taking their statues down and say, ‘We’re embarrassed by you?’”

Rice replied, “I am a firm believer in ‘keep your history before you.’  So, I don’t actually want to rename things that were named for slave owners.  I want us to have to look at those names and recognize what they did and be able to tell our kids what they did and for them to have a sense of their own history.”  She added, “When you start wiping out your history — sanitizing your history to make you feel better — it’s a bad thing.”

“Let me just say one thing about our Constitution,” Rice continued.  “That Constitution originally counted my ancestors as three-fifths of a man.  And then in 1952, my father had trouble registering to vote in Birmingham, Alabama.  And then in 2005, I stood in the Ben Franklin room — one of our founders — I took an oath of office to that same Constitution, and it was administered by a Jewish woman Supreme Court justice.  That’s the story of America.”

“The long road to freedom has indeed been long.  It’s been sometimes violent.  It’s had many martyrs.  But ultimately it has been Americans claiming those institutions for themselves and expanding the definition of ‘We the people,’” said Rice. 

“Should we think less of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson because they were slave owners,” Kilmeade asked her.  “Well, they were people of their times,” Rice replied.  “I wish they had been like John Adams, who did not believe in slavery.  I wish they had been like Alexander Hamilton, who was an immigrant, by the way, a child of questionable parentage from the Caribbean.  I wish all of them had been like that.  And Jefferson, in particular, a lot of contradictions in Jefferson.  But they were people of their times.”  Rice concluded, “What we should celebrate is that from the Jeffersons and Washingtons, the slave owners, look at where we are now.”

Rev. Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.

Chaplain (Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army

Pastor, Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel

A Celebration of a Kindergarten Student’s Transgender ‘Transition’ Makes Parents Livid and Kids Traumatized

A number of angry parents are considering legal action after a Sacramento-area charter school kindergarten teacher staged what one critic calls a transgender “transition ceremony” in class for a 5-year-old boy without informing parents beforehand. 

But Rocklin Academy Schools has countered that it didn’t have to tell parents about the transgenderism lesson that has left a number of 5-year-olds shaken and disturbed … because gender identity isn’t sex education, the administration said, it’s not subject to California’s parental consent and opt-out laws, reported Fox40 News.

Parents only found out what happened from their kids, says Jonathan Keller of the California Family Council – a Focus on the Family-founded group that’s advising parents.  Rocklin Academy Gateway’s kindergarten teacher gave the lesson on transgenderism because a boy in the class is transitioning to a girl, Keller told LifeSiteNews.

During the lesson on the second-to-last day before summer break, the teacher read two books, “I am Jazz” and “The Red Crayon,” that purport to explain “transgenderism” to children aged four to eight, Fox40News reported.  “I am Jazz” is particularly explicit, beginning “From the time she was two years old, Jazz knew that she had a girl’s brain in a boy’s body.”

But the “huge bombshell” was that the teacher didn’t just read the books but “essentially put on this more-or-less transition ceremony” for the child, says Keller.

After the teacher introduced the 5-year-old student to the class as a boy, he then went into the bathroom and emerged dressed as a girl. The teacher then reintroduced “her” to the children, explaining “she” was now a “girl” who now had a girl’s name and was to be called that from now on.  That left a number of kids “really deeply emotionally bothered and traumatized,” Keller said.  “There were several of the little girls that went to their parents and were crying and saying, ‘mommy or daddy, am I going to turn into a boy?’”  And a boy who hadn’t given “gender” a single thought before is now asking his mother if he can dress as a girl for school, added Keller.

Responding to backlash from parents, Principal Jillayne Antoon sent out a letter a week later that did not mention transgenderism, reported Fox40 News.  Nor did it mention the transition ceremony or the teacher presenting the boy as a girl to his 5-year-old classmates.  Antoon maintained the books were “age appropriate” and that the school’s non-discrimination policy “protects all students, including on the basis of gender, gender identity and gender expression.”

The teacher, however, never sought approval from the administration before using the books, according to Fox40 News.

The school board has now adopted the policy that books outside the curriculum have to be approved.

District Superintendent Robin Stout told Fox40 News that parents were not notified because kids can’t opt out of gender identity and expression lessons.

Home-schooling and school vouchers are looking better all the time!

Rev. Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.

Chaplain (Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army

Pastor, Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel

Video of 9-Year Old Tries to Save Babies

Experienced pro-life counselors in Indiana learned from a future pro-life leader how to go about saving women and their babies from abortion.

A pro-life counseling event was staged in mid-July at Women’s Med Center abortion clinic in Indianapolis, Indiana, and pro-life supporters were present to counsel women in favor of life.  During the event, 9-year-old Briana, without being encouraged to do so, retrieved a voice-amplifying headset and began trying to save the babies of the women entering the clinic.  Another supporter grabbed her phone and started recording.  The video was posted to the “Hoosier for Life” Facebook page [https://www.facebook.com/pg/hoosierbabies/videos/] and has since gone viral [July 29, 2017 with 2M views].

“There’s so many things you can do as ‘first things,’” Briana addressed the women while she stood outside the clinic.  “The first things are awesome, too.  You can have first birthdays, first Christmases, first everything, first day to hug your baby, first day to see her.”

Briana was bold enough to put it on a more personal level for abortion-seeking women.  “I’m a nine-year-old and the voice of your baby right now.  Don’t kill me.  Save me.  Let me live.  Let me see the world.  Let me grow up so I can worship Jesus and God,” she pleaded with the mothers.  “That’s what your baby is saying.”

But she also had a message of redemption: “If you get an abortion, you can come out and repent.  Jesus will forgive you.  Just repent and don’t do it again.”

Briana is living proof that more and more young people have grown to understand that abortion kills children and they are opposing it.  In an exclusive interview with CBN News, Briana said: “It’s little children who are being murdered … They have a heartbeat, so they’re humans just like us … The only difference is they can’t say so right now.”

“And a child shall lead them.” (Isaiah 11:6)

Rev. Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.

Chaplain (Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army

Pastor, Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel

Spencer & Sanger – Two Peas of the Same Pod

How ironic.  The progressives who denounced Richard Spencer – the white organizer of the protest in Charlottesville – are proponents of the very thing Spencer is most enthusiastic about, i.e. reducing the number of black people in the United States.  Of course, I’m referring to Margaret Sanger – the founder of the abortion-loving Planned Parenthood (PP).

The racist, eugenicist roots of PP are well-documented, as is the paranoid racial and eugenic visions of its founder, Margaret Sanger, who spoke of her desire to create “a new race with a racial soul” in the United States.  She once cheerfully spoke before a women’s Klan meeting, desiring to “keep the doors of immigration closed” to those “whose condition is known to be detrimental to the stamina of the race.”  Sanger yearned to accentuate “the better racial elements in our society” so as to erase from the population “defective stocks — those human weeds which threaten the blooming of the finest flowers of American civilization.”

Of course, the progressive Left tends to downplay the unpleasant historical realities, dismissing them as products of the time rather than a guiding principle of PP as it stands today.  You will not likely find anyone at PP who will speak as plainly as did Sanger about discouraging the reproduction of “mentally and physically defective” individuals.  But the institution nevertheless fights like hell for the right to exterminate babies solely because of their mental and physical defects.  Yet, around 941 black babies are aborted in this country every day, of which PP is responsible for 329 of those daily deaths.  That averages out to a little more than 120,000 black abortions at PP per year from a demographic that makes up about 13% of the United States population.

According to the Guttmacher Institute, black women get abortions at five times the rate of white women.

If you were a white supremacist who wanted to sharply reduce the black population to make way for more whites, what would you be doing differently than PP?  Nothing!

In the end, the goals of Spencer strikingly line up with Sanger.  Both are overtly and self-admittedly concerned with organizing human society along carefully curated and aggressively restrictive lines – abortive “family planning” for the one, and paranoid racial segregation for the other.  Both see the value of the human person strictly as a matter of superficial considerations.  Sanger pro-choicers judge your moral worth by your biological and physiological development; while Spencer white supremacists judge your moral worth by the color of your skin.  I do not suppose the average pro-choicer is comfortable being associated with the policy views of a white nationalist; but if your political movement is predicated on the idea that it should be legal to kill babies, I guess you really don’t get to be all that choosy.

In the words of Daniel Payne, senior contributor at the Federalist, “If we are going to tear down white supremacy, start with Planned Parenthood.”

Rev. Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.

Chaplain (Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army

Pastor, Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel

The ill Effects of Declining NFL Ratings & Revenue

In my last blog posting (August 18), I urged the reader to ‘change the channel’ to ‘off’ with televised games of the National Football League (NFL) … due to players refusing to stand for the playing of the National Anthem … as a means of protesting the NFL.  Within that blog, I quoted a retired veteran’s poignant letter to the NFL Commissioner.

 

New data released by Foursquare indicates sports bars lost business in 2016 from some of their most important customers – NFL fans.

 

According to Steven Rosenblatt, president of the location tracking company:

Across cities with and without NFL teams, Sunday sports bar foot traffic dropped by double digits between the 2015 and 2016 season with a 12% year-over-year drop for cities with teams and a 13% year-over-year drop for those without.

 

The drop in foot traffic corresponds with an 8% drop in television viewership for the NFL’s 2016 regular season.  Many fans cited national anthem protests by San Francisco quarterback Colin Kaepernick and other players as a major reason for not watching games on television.  The NFL also took a controversial position against a bill to protect religious liberty in Georgia earlier in the year.

 

Foursquare also reports sports bars in NFL teams’ regions typically see a 32% increase in business on Sundays during the season compared to Sundays without football the rest of the year.

 

In addition to the well-documented problems at ESPN, it appears the politicization of football is having a very real effect on the sports entertainment industry extending beyond just television ratings.

 

Rev. Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.

Chaplain (Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army

Pastor, Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel

Passed Time to Change the Channel

Ret. Marine Col. Jeffery A. Powers wrote to the NFL Commissioner the following letter:

Commissioner,

I’ve been a season pass holder at Yankee Stadium, Yale Bowl and the Giants Stadium.

I missed the ‘90-‘91 season because I was with a battalion of Marines in Desert Storm.  14 of my wonderful Marines returned home with the American Flag draped across their lifeless bodies.  My last conversation with one of them, Sgt. Garrett Mongrella, was about how our Giants were going to the Super Bowl.  He never got to see it.

Many friends, Marines, and Special Forces Soldiers who worked with or for me through the years returned home with the American Flag draped over their coffins.

Now I watch multi-millionaire athletes who never did anything in their lives but play a game, disrespect what brave Americans fought and died for.  They are essentially spitting in the faces and on the graves of real men, men who have actually done something for this country beside playing with a ball and believing they’re something special!  They’re not!  My Marines and Soldiers were!

You are complicit in this!  You’ll fine players for large and small infractions but you lack the moral courage and respect for our nation and the fallen to put an immediate stop to this.  Yes, I know, it’s their 1st Amendment right to behave in such a despicable manner.  What would happen if they came out and disrespected you or the refs publicly?

I observed a player getting a personal foul for twerking in the end zone after scoring.  I guess that’s much worse than disrespecting the flag and our National Anthem.  Hmmmmm, isn’t it his 1st Amendment right to express himself like an idiot in the end zone?

Why is taunting not allowed yet taunting America is OK?  You fine players for wearing 9-11 commemorative shoes yet you allow scum on the sidelines to sit, kneel or pump their pathetic fist in the air.  They are so deprived with their multi-million dollar contracts for playing a freaking game!

You condone it all by your refusal to act.  You’re just as bad and disgusting as they are.  I hope Americans boycott any sponsor who supports that rabble you call the NFL.  I hope they turn off the TV when any team that allowed this disrespect to occur, without consequence, on the sidelines.  I applaud those who have not.

Legends and heroes do NOT wear shoulder pads.  They wear body armor and carry rifles.  They make minimum wage and spend months and years away from their families.  They don’t do it for an hour on Sunday.  They do it 24/7 often with lead, not footballs, coming in their direction.  They watch their brothers carted off in pieces not on a gurney to get their knee iced.  They don’t even have ice!  Many don’t have legs or arms.

Some wear blue and risk their lives daily on the streets of America.  They wear fire helmets and go upstairs into the fire rather than down to safety.  On 9-11, hundreds vanished.  They are the heroes.

I hope that your high paid protesting pretty boys and you look in that mirror when you shave tomorrow and see what you really are, legends in your own minds.  You need to hit the road and take those worms with you!

Time to change the channel.

Col Jeffrey A Powers USMC (Ret)

Vista, California

This letter first appeared on discussion forums and veteran email groups.  Then, Colonel Jeffrey Powers’ letter started to go viral in September 2016 after Allen B. West, a former Florida congressman, posted it on his website.

At least 18 NFL players had protested the anthem by either kneeling during the anthem or raising their fists, according to USA Today Sports.

Rev. Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.

Chaplain (Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army

Pastor, Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel

SCOTUS Needs to Consider Free Speech Case … Beyond Abortion vs Pro-Life

The U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) is being asked to consider a case that could affect all journalists in America.  The case involves David Daleiden, a citizen reporter who exposed the abortion industry for harvesting tissue and body parts from aborted babies and selling them for profit.  The abortion industry has since made him the target of a number of lawsuits.

A San Francisco federal judge who has held Daleiden in contempt forbade the reporter from releasing more of his undercover videos, and attorney Alexandra Snyder, who heads Life Legal Defense Foundation (LLDF), tells OneNewsNow the nation’s high court is now being asked to take the case.  “Even though the federal judge has issued the order and the Ninth Circuit, in a very bizarre ruling, upheld that order, we really believe the Supreme Court is going to hold to precedent and say that a prior restraint on speech as this is not enforceable and is unconstitutional,” Snyder comments.

Snyder says the case goes beyond Planned Parenthood, the National Abortion Federation, or any of the players, including Daleiden.  “This really is about free speech for all journalists, and especially for those journalists who do undercover work,” the LLDF attorney contends.  “We cannot allow our fundamental First Amendment freedoms to be squelched in order to protect an organization from embarrassment, public scrutiny, and possibly prosecution for illegal activity.”

Snyder considers the undercover videos to be of significant public interest and concern, and she hopes the SCOTUS will reverse the decisions of the two lower courts.

Rev. Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.

Chaplain (Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army

Pastor, Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel

A Court Rules in Favor of Christian Not Having to Photograph Same-Sex Marriage

A Wisconsin court has ruled that a Christian photographer should not be forced to provide her services to same-sex weddings.

According to The Christian Post, 25-year-old Amy Lawson, who is an independent photographer, posted a statement on her website last year explaining her stance on same-sex marriage and clarifying that she would not be providing services to same-sex weddings.  Like many other Christian business owners, Lawson received backlash against her convictions on this issue.

However, the Dane County Circuit Court, which is hearing Lawson’s case, has said it will soon issue a verdict declaring Lawson to be exempt from state laws that prohibit a place of public accommodation to refrain from serving someone based on their sexual orientation.  The court has said it will issue this ruling based on the fact that Lawson does not own a brick-and-mortar business, and also because the anti-discrimination laws would restrict her artistic freedom.

“The court’s announcement has important implications for everyone in Wisconsin who values artistic freedom,” said Senior Counsel Jonathan Scruggs of the Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian nonprofit which is defending Lawson.  “It means that government officials must allow creative professionals without storefronts anywhere in the city and state the freedom to make their own decisions about which ideas they will use their artistic expression to promote.”

Rev. Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.

Chaplain (Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army

Pastor, Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel

Trump’s Transgender Ban in Military is Unfair, But Correct

Since President Trump declared a ban on transgender persons serving in the U.S. military, an all-out identity war has been waged between factions in support of the ban and those in opposition.

Opposition to Trump’s decision centers around fairness.  In a culture conditioned by political correctness, it seems unfair to single out transgender service members just because of who they are.  And frankly, the argument is correct; it is unfair.  As the late President Kennedy said in a 1962 news conference, “There is always inequity in life … It’s very hard in military or personal life to assure complete equality.”  It is the nature of the beast.  The military is about success and preparedness; it is about national security and uniformity.  The idea that the military can be part of a grand egalitarian utopia is not only pie-in-the-sky; it is a dangerous proposition that does little to keep America safe.

Trump foes … especially of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) left … are unwilling to even consider Trump’s reasoning.  On the website for the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), a leading LGBT rights group, it read: “Trump launches all-out assault on service members.”  HRC President Chad Griffin said the president has “put a target on the backs” of transgender active duty personnel.  [Such a violent metaphor is inaccurate, and dangerous in light of what happened weeks ago at a congressional baseball practice, when James Hodgkinson put actual targets on the backs of GOP lawmakers.]  Griffin also said Trump was trying to “drag LGBTQ people back into the closet.”  [Q stands for queer and/or questioning]  

Listen: Supporting LGBT rights does not mean that you have to be an LGBT Santa Claus who continually stuffs the stockings and leaves presents under the tree.  The President of the United State (POTUS) has to make decisions for the nation, not one group, and sometimes that means you don’t always get what you want.  When it comes to LGBT politics it is sexuality first, country second.  It better be just the opposite when you are POTUS.  Trump’s decision may be unfair, but it was not incorrect.

Walt Heyer, an author who seeks to “raise public awareness about those who regret gender change” and runs a website SexChangeRegret.com.  His commentary in the Daily Signal is certainly provocative.  “I think he made the right decision — and as someone who lived as trans-female for several years, I should know.”  Heyer goes on to comment:

Our military was forged to be the world’s strongest fighting force, not a government-funded, politically correct, medical sex change clinic for people with gender dysphoria.  Gender dysphoria, the common diagnosis for one who feels at odds with his or her birth gender, develops from prolonged anxiety and depression.  People are not born that way.  The “proof” for a diagnosis of gender dysphoria is having strongly held feelings — but feelings can and often do change over time.

Paying for transition-related surgeries for military service members and their families is beyond comprehensible.  Transitioning can be expensive — up to $130,000 per person for numerous body-mutilating and cosmetic procedures over many months (or years) to fashion the body to appear as the opposite sex.  Yet, no matter how skilled the surgeon, or how much money is spent, it is biologically impossible to change a man into a woman or a woman into a man.  The change is only cosmetic.

Beyond the financial cost, there’s the question of the service member’s military readiness during their transition or de-transition, as the process often comes with a great deal of anxiety and emotional instability.  I know of many who have struggled to adapt to the new gender role for years after reassignment surgery.

The military is expected to prepare its members in warfare: to kill, destroy, and break our enemies.  The most important factors in preparing a strong military are not hormone therapy, surgical sex changes, or politically correct education.  We need psychologically fit, emotionally sound, highly trained troops to protect our nation from its enemies.

Whether or not one agrees with Heyer’s argument, these are valid points that must be grappled with in order to dispute the rationale of Trump’s ban.  The appeal to identity politics is not enough: There are too many American lives on the line.

Listen: With North Korea, Syria and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria posing serious threats, the U.S. military needs to be focused on defeating these enemies and not locker rooms, restrooms and reassignment surgeries.

Rev. Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.

Chaplain (Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army

Pastor, Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel

Let the Liberal Democrats be the ‘Transgender Party’ … Not the Conservative Republicans

The other day, Bill Kristol decried the theism of Donald Trump saying, “In America the president doesn’t tell us who or what or whether to worship,” he posted on Twitter after Trump merely said that Americans worship God above government.

So called “conservatives” are ceaseless in informing us that Trump isn’t a “real conservative.”  The question is: Are they?  Many of them support the gay agenda, open borders, and the propaganda about Islam being a religion of peace.  And now they are even championing the bogus rights of cross-dressers in the military.  These hawks are shocked that the Commander-in-Chief would command his generals to choose military strength over political correctness!  Unlike these phonies, Trump doesn’t self-conscious references to the “conservative movement.”

And though I’m conservative, I don’t care whether Trump’s words and/or actions appear “conservative” as long as he is restoring common sense to the government.  For without common sense, without respect for the natural order of things, “conservatism” is useless. It is just destructive liberalism at a slightly slower speed.

The classicists whom the George Wills and the Bill Kristols so pompously quote would have recognized the returning conservatism in Trump’s common sense.  They wouldn’t have recognized it in the me-too liberalism of the ‘Never Trumpers.’  Trump’s uncomplicated defense of common sense is conservative.  He doesn’t need “commissions” to tell him whether or not enlisting men who pretend to be women and women who pretend to be men hurts military readiness.  Anyone with the God-given 5-senses and a functioning intellect can see that it does.  It is only under the vast experiment against common sense (that is liberalism) could such obvious truths fall into obscurity.

Of course, the Democrats have announced to the press that they “welcome this culture war.”  But the Dems are the party of compulsory transgender bathrooms and taxpayer-financed mutilations.

In a time of terrorism, the American people are not going to punish at the polls a Commander-in-Chief for insufficiently prizing political correctness.  If anything, the hidden Trump vote will increase.  To these Americans, the Dems declare them “intolerant.”  This gives Trump an enormous political advantage.

Trump’s recovery of common sense shows that conservatism is too important to be left to self-appointed conservatives.  Had the rank and-file listened to these so called “conservatives,” Hillary Clinton would be president, and the military would be name the newest ship the USS “Chelsea” Manning.

Rev. Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.

Chaplain (Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army

Pastor, Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel

No More Money for Programs Promoting ‘Safe’ Teen Sex

Once again, President Trump is taking heat for a morally conservative stance – this time for tighten the budget on promiscuous, ineffective teen pregnancy prevention programs.

Under the Obama Administration, Congress decided in 2010 to allocate $100-million a year in grants to contraception-based Teen Pregnancy Prevention programs (TPP).  In 2017, all funding for abstinence education was eliminated from the budget. 

But the Trump Administration’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) noted that three grantees’ programs reported an increased likelihood that teens would become pregnant and, using the evidence, they recommended discontinuing the program in mid-2018.  “Given the very weak evidence of positive impact of these programs, the Trump Administration … did not recommend continued funding for the TPP program,” stated an HHS press release.

Instead of funding programs that advocate abstinence, under the Obama Administration TPP grantees promoted “safe sex” to adolescents between 10-19 years old.  The tax-funded programs taught condom use and pushed kids to have LARCs (Long Acting Reversible Contraception) implants, abortifacient IUDs, and controversial chemical release implants.

Skeptics were repeatedly assured that programs would be closely evaluated for effectiveness in preventing teen pregnancy.  Federal funding was only to go to programs that proved they were reducing teen pregnancies.

The evidence is in and the program is failing, according to the TPP report by the U.S. Office of Adolescent Health: Some organizations didn’t report findings; some admitted there was no difference in teen pregnancy rates; some reported improvements that quickly faded; and some showed increasing pregnancy rates.

Despite the government’s promise of “evidence-based” reporting, only 40% of grantees revealed the results of effectiveness analysis.  Of those grantees continuing past programs, only 4 of more than 75 reported effective results, and those results were short-lived.  Of the grantees trying “new” ideas, only 8 of 27 showed the slightest effectiveness.

As pro-marriage and family advocates predicted, some reports showed their contraception programs resulting in increasing rates of sexual risk-taking among teens.

Planned Parenthood of the Northwest, which received $4-million, admitted their minor subjects were just as likely as any other teen to have sex without birth control.  In fact, teen girls reported even higher rates of pregnancy than those without the program.

As soon as the HHS announced the Trump Administration cuts, the mainstream media bellowed its disapproval.  National Organization for Women president Terry O’Neill told Healthline, “This is yet another anti-women policy that kills women.”

Democratic senators wrote a letter to HHS Secretary Tom Price demanding an explanation and calling the budget cut “short-sighted.”

The Federalist noted that in the liberal media’s zeal to castigate Trump and defend promiscuity education, “No media outlet mentioned the ineffectiveness of teen pregnancy prevention programs, whether it was NPR, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Politico, Business Insider, The Independent, Forbes, Teen Vogue, or Bustle.”

The Washington Post quoted American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists president Haywood Brown criticizing Trump.  “It’s as though the evidence and the facts don’t matter,” Brown said without stating any of the reported “evidence and the facts” of programs’ ineffectiveness.

The Los Angeles Times and National Public Radio (NPR) falsely claimed the programs were working:

“We can also attribute these declines to the evidence-based teen pregnancy prevention programs,” Texas A&M’s Kelly Wilson told NPR, despite published proof to the contrary.

“Trump’s hires at HHS were notably hostile to teen pregnancy programs that worked.  Now they’ve killed them,” the LA Times wrote.

Ironically, when President Obama eliminated abstinence education last year, he attributed the decline in teen pregnancy to condom-based education and claimed that abstinence education was ineffective.

Rev. Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.

Chaplain (Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army

Pastor, Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel

Time to Snoop on Snopes

Snopes.com – the ‘famous’ fact checking service (previously known for debunking myths and urban legends) commissioned by Facebook (FB) to crack down on “fake news” following last year’s presidential election – is in major financial trouble … according to a new report.  David Mikkelson, the owner of Snopes, recently created a GoFundMe internet campaign to try to raise money to keep his business afloat.  This is despite the lucrative partnership with FB and his ability to give himself a base salary of $720,000 with extravagant benefits.  Mikkelson has been accused of embezzling company funds to pay for his divorce and his lavish vacations with his second wife – a former Las Vegas escort and porn actress.

But finances isn’t Snopes only problem.  Snopes also has a poor accuracy record, as 2nd Vote reported in March.  Several times, Snopes reported a debunked Left-wing talking point as fact … including rating Live Action’s undercover investigation into Planned Parenthood’s practices as “mostly false” despite the fact that Live Action proved just what they were looking to prove.  Snopes has demonstrated a consistent bias to essentially police conservative speech on the social network.

The problem with the FB/Snopes partnership is that Snopes has a history of distorting facts when it comes to fact-checking stories.  Here are some of the most flagrant examples of Snopes distorting facts:

• Snopes lied about visible American flags at the 2016 Democratic Convention and used images from different days as “proof.”
• Snopes determined that Omar Mateen, the Orlando nightclub shooter, had an “unknown” political affiliation despite being registered to vote as a Democrat in the State of Florida.
• Snopes tried to explain Target’s devastating drop in stock price earlier this year claiming it wasn’t due to its nearly year-old transgender bathroom policy, and that #AnywhereButTARGET had absolutely no effect on “lower than expected” earnings … using Target’s own talking points as “proof.”

While FB hopefully will now begin to see the problems with favoring one viewpoint over another, it already has an extensive history of support for liberal causes.  Among the liberal organizations FB funds is the Center for American Progress … which has earns a ‘1’ on every liberal issue that 2nd Vote tracks (i.e., banning lawful ownership of weapons, supports climate tax, backs same-sex marriage, pro-abortion, supports common core education, advocates for sanctuary cities, opposes religious liberty for businesses exercising their 1st amendment protection).

It does cause me to wonder if FB is partnering with Snopes, just like it has with Soros-backed organizations, because of FB’s own positions.  Just say’in … ya know!?

Rev. Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.

Chaplain (Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army

Pastor, Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel

Progressive Agenda Contrary to Biblical Worldview

Recently it was reported that Attorney General Jeff Sessions was blasted by the Left-wing media for speaking to an alleged “hate group.”  Sessions spoke to the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) – a Christian legal defense group.  Sessions commended how sad it is that the Left’s hate in America today has come to the point in which Christians must have a legal defense organization to protect their 1st Amendment rights of religious liberty … a founding principle of this country.

It’s also stunning to see how much controversy was generated by the White House meeting in which Christians prayed over President Trump in the Oval Office.  The Rev. William Barber II, who also serves as the President of the North Carolina NAACP, had this to say about the prayer for the president:

“This very, very, very, extreme agenda by Ryan and McConnell is a form of theological malpractice that borders on heresy.  When you can p-r-a-y for a president and others while they are p-r-e-y, preying on the most vulnerable, you’re violating the most sacred principles of religion.”

Apparently, Rev. Barber has forgotten or is unaware of the biblical injunction to pray for our leaders.  There are several passages, but most Christians are familiar with these verses:

“I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people – for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness.  This is good, and pleases God our Savior …” (1 Timothy 2:1-3, NIV)

Given this clear Biblical mandate, I and millions of believers will continue to pray for President Trump, Vice President Pence and all those in positions of authority … no matter how many Leftists try to intimidate us.

While Rev. Barber can quote chapter and verse about the need to care for the poor, there is not one verse in which Jesus says to lobby the Pharisees or the Roman government to give more money to the poor.  All the verses about helping widows and orphans, the lame and the sick were injunctions to individual Christians or to churches collectively.  They were not a call for big government.  And given the ‘kangaroo court’ Christ was subjected to before He was murdered, I think it is safe to say that Jesus was not a fan of big government!

I suspect that few of those criticizing the president today objected when Obama tried to force Christians and the Little Sisters of the Poor to pay for abortions.  The Bible says, “Now choose life, so that you and your children may live.” (Deuteronomy 30:19b, NIV)

I don’t recall many ‘progressive’ religious leaders raising their voices when Left-wing judges stripped away thousands of years of Judeo-Christian history and distorted God’s definition of marriage.

Where were these ‘progressive’ religious leaders when Christian business owners faced persecution from the Left and from big government for following their faith?

Where were the ‘progressive’ religious leaders when the Obama Administration was ignoring the genocide of Christians in the Middle East?  Where do they stand when it comes to bringing in more Muslim migrants who we know have statistically high rates of anti-Semitism and, in many cases, harbor hatred of Christians?

And when was the last time one of these ‘progressive’ religious leaders spoke out against the growing anti-Semitism on the Left and defended Israel … the only nation in the Middle East where the number of Christians is growing?  [Sadly, a growing number of ‘progressive’ Christian denominations are, in the name of Christ (a Jew), irrationally and immorally condemning the Jewish state.]

Unhesitatingly, I’ve been ‘polar opposite’ to the ‘progressive’ clergy of America.  And I make no apology!  My stances on each of these issues (and more) are grounded in a Biblical worldview.

Rev. Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.

Chaplain (Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army

Pastor, Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel