Remembering
James Robison

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The Brew: Why Is Trump’s DOJ Defending Risky Chemical Abortions in Pro-Life States?

By John Zmirak Published on May 7, 2025

Amidst many wise and brave decisions on issues ranging from out-of-control immigration to keeping the global peace, President Donald Trump’s team has also made its share of mistakes. Most of those have to do with hiring establishment GOP apparatchiks of the kind who backstabbed Trump and his team in his first term. I’ve been quick to call out such self-defeating decisions.

But the latest wrong move is more serious, a literal matter of life and death. The heroic pro-life activist Kristan Hawkins of Students for Life of America (who endorsed Trump herself) called out the Justice Department yesterday for siding with the abortion industry and Big Pharma:

What is the logic of the DOJ’s position? According to CNN:

Justice Department attorneys on Monday stayed the legal course charted by the Biden administration, though they didn’t directly weigh in on the underlying issue of access to the drug, which is part of the nation’s most common method of abortion.

Rather, the government argued the states don’t have the legal right, or standing, to sue. …

[Missouri, Kansas, and Idaho] want the FDA to prohibit telehealth prescriptions for mifepristone, require three in-office visits and restrict the point in a pregnancy when it can be used.

The case is being considered in Texas by U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Trump nominee who once ruled in favor of halting approval for the drug.

Kacsmaryk’s original ruling came in a lawsuit filed by anti-abortion groups. It was narrowed by an appeals court before being tossed out by the Supreme Court, which found the plaintiffs lacked the legal right to sue. … Trump told Time magazine in December he would not restrict access to abortion medication. On the campaign trail, the Republican said abortion is an issue for the states.

Read that again: “an issue for the states.” Except that states with pro-life laws find them unenforceable and moot when the federal government approves a dangerous abortion pill you can get over the internet, effectively making abortion as impossible to restrict as online porn. So which is it, Attorney General Bondi? Is the Trump administration pro-life, with room for states rights accommodating abortion hubs like California and New York? Or is that all red meat for the rubes, since the federal government will help force abortion into the most pro-life states?

We pro-life voters need to know. There’s massive pressure from political “realists” on Trump’s team to carve out exceptions to a coherent pro-life position for chemical abortions and embryo-wasting IVF. We must exert pressure, too, on behalf of those who cannot defend themselves, the “least among our brothers.”

As a general rule of thumb, every time you stay “the legal course charted by the Biden administration,” just know you’re on the wrong side of the issue. Every time.

Will Sen. Thom Tillis Hand the DOJ to Tren de Aragua Defender Boasberg?

The following story is so bizarre and infuriating that you might not find it credible. But welcome to our world:

The obstructionist on the Senate Judiciary Committee is North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis. Can you imagine a Democrat senator denying Barack Obama his choice of U.S. attorney, allowing a far-right Reagan appointee to choose that person instead? They’d die first.

If Tillis doesn’t back down, Trump will lose control over his own Department of Justice, exactly as he did in 2017 when Jeff Sessions cluelessly recused himself from the process. Tillis faces a primary race next year for his Senate seat. Does he really want a righteously indignant Donald Trump and all his supporters storming into that contest?

When They Kidnap Jesus and Use Him as a Human Shield for Politics

Check out this clip of David French claiming that it isn’t Christlike to democratically oppose political evils and try to pry the wicked out of power … because Jesus’s mission was something different, and He didn’t overthrow the Romans. In a TV rant that accuses “the Christian Right” of “cruelty” and “dominance,” French pretends to support complete political pacifism. Would he say the same about opposing the Nazis in 1939 or the Ku Klux Klan in 1950? Or do we only have to patiently suffer evil when resisting would upset our cultural elites (like French’s leftist donors)? Seth Gruber isn’t buying it.

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Leftist, Jew-Baiting Cardinal Storms Out of Papal Conclave

You might not follow Catholic inside baseball the way some of us do here at The Stream, but the ongoing papal election will have huge implications for all Christians and for the West, as I argued yesterday. The election of a pope is kind of black box, and is meant to be that way — given incidents in past centuries when courtiers, kings, and Roman mobs tried to sway the results of the vote in their political favor. But one little incident that emerged yesterday offers a glimmer of hope:

In case you never heard of Cardinal Rodríguez Maradiaga, he’s nicknamed the “Red Cardinal” because of his quasi-Marxist politics. But oh, it gets worse. A decade ago, Harvard legal scholar Alan Dershowitz revealed that in 2002, Maradiaga:

blamed the Jews for the scandal surrounding the sexual misconduct of priests toward young parishioners! He has argued that the Jews got even with the Catholic Church for its anti-Israel positions by arranging for the media — which they, of course, control, he said — to give disproportionate attention to the Vatican sex scandal. He then compared the Jewish controlled media with Hitler, because they are ‘protagonists of what I do not hesitate to define as a persecution against the church.’

With the ongoing Gaza conflict, it’s probably for the best that someone like Maradiaga isn’t happy with how the Conclave is going.

IRS Stops Lawfare Against Church for Informing Parents on School Board Elections

The good news just keeps trickling in. Christians are getting a respite from the federal persecution first launched by the Obama administration and continued through Biden’s, abusing the IRS to punish Tea Party and pro-life organizations while letting leftist churches abuse their tax-exempt status wildly. First Liberty Institute reports on what happened to Grace Church in St. Louis, Missouri:

In 2022 during local school board elections, Grace Church posted information on [its] website about positions local candidates held. Two candidates were members of the church, and the church encouraged its members to support them for being willing to run for office. The IRS opened an investigation during the Biden administration and attorneys with First Liberty and Jones Day responded … asserting that the basis for its investigation was unconstitutional and an exercise in futility. Last week, now under the Trump administration, the IRS closed its investigation. …

“Pastors educate their members on a great many things. Educating members about the political position of candidates with information the candidates themselves provided should never result in an investigation by the IRS,” said Jeremy Dys, senior counsel for First Liberty Institute. “We are pleased that the IRS not only closed its investigation, but affirmed that this church’s activities do not threaten its tax-exempt status. Other churches should feel free to do likewise, if they so choose.”

Take time to offer a prayer of gratitude for this one.

Trump Pushes to Free Election Worker Tina Peters, Imprisoned for Doing Her Job

As The Stream has reported, former Colorado election worker Tina Peters, 69, is serving a multi-year sentence in state prison for doing her job: trying to prevent election fraud in 2020, and preserving evidence of suspected fraud. As David Clements said in his letter to the court that tried Peters:

Tina Peters is a hero who remembered her oath to the Constitution and her solemn promise to protect the voters of Mesa County. Analysis of the Dominion election management system she forensically imaged revealed that over 29,000 election records were altered or deleted during Dominion’s “trusted build.”

After years of legal wrangling by Peters’s team, President Trump has publicly weighed in, as reported by the X account that posts on her behalf:

It remains to be seen what legal maneuvers Trump will use to set Peters free, but her case is very important to his most devoted supporters — so expect something soon.

Along The Stream…

Later this morning, read about how Christians in Gaza get caught in the crossfire between Israel and Hamas.

In case you missed it, check out this powerful talk by Christian convert Ayaan Hirsi Ali on how nations, borders, and the rule of law are part of God’s plan for us.

 

John Zmirak is a senior editor at The Stream and author or coauthor of 14 books, including The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Catholicism. His newest book is No Second Amendment, No First.