Post–No Collusion Self-Delusion
It’s one thing when politically motivated, compromised journalists lie to the public. We’ve had plenty of that in the Age of Trump. But far worse is when the media lie to themselves and may actually start believing their own hogwash. Given the power media exercise over public opinion, that prospect is downright terrifying.
One would think that after Mueller’s report was publicly known and Russiagate was exposed for the sham it was, the media would have the good sense, even if purely self-interested, to keep their mouths shut on the two years of lying they had done to the American public. Their reaction was quite the opposite. Many of them are trying to argue the Mueller report shows the reporting over the past two years has been mostly accurate!
“While there are a few exceptions, Mueller’s investigation repeatedly supports news reporting that was done on the Russia probe over the last two years and details several instances where the president and his team sought to mislead the public,” writes David Bauder of the Associated Press.39 “The media looks a lot stronger today than it did before the release of this report,” added Kyle Pope, editor of the Columbia Journalism Review.40
My favorite has to be the statement made by the commander in chief of fake news, Jake Tapper, on CNN’s State of the Union show shortly after the report was made public. While engaging White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, Tapper had the gall to say, “I’m not sure what you’re saying the media got wrong. The media reported the investigation was going on. Other than the people in the media on the Left, not on this network, I don’t know anybody that got anything wrong.”41
Jake, do you believe we’re all that stupid or are you completely delusional? Your own network was peddling the collusion delusion practically to the day Mueller turned in his report. On January 8 of this year, CNN reporter Marshall Cohen claimed Paul Manafort’s lawyers, “accidentally revealed on Tuesday the clearest public evidence of coordination between the campaign and Russians, adding new details to the murky mosaic of potential collusion in 2016—including sharing polling data with an alleged Russian operative.”42 The Washington Post claimed “The collusion case against Trump just got a lot stronger” the next day.43
A month earlier, CNN ran the story, “Trump Tries to Change the Story, but Russia Cloud Darkens,” in which another CNN fake news specialist claimed routine investigative filings by the special counsel “increased the President’s vulnerability and raised new questions about whether his campaign cooperated with a Russian election meddling effort.”44
I could go on and on, but all of America knows the media overwhelmingly promoted the theory that President Trump or his campaign colluded, coordinated, or otherwise participated with the Russians in interfering in the 2016 election, a theory unambiguously discredited by the Mueller report. To now say the media didn’t get anything wrong is worthy of satire. If the potential consequences weren’t so grave, it would be hilarious.
Believe it or not, there are a few voices on the Left who recognize just how badly the media performed over the past few years. Glenn Greenwald, no fan of the president but intellectually honest and a lawyer himself, had this to say:
The two-pronged conspiracy theory that has dominated U.S. political discourse for almost three years—that (1) Trump, his family and his campaign conspired or coordinated with Russia to interfere in the 2016 election, and (2) Trump is beholden to Russian President Vladimir Putin—was not merely rejected today by the final report of Special Counsel Robert Mueller. It was obliterated: in an undeniable and definitive manner.45
Matt Taibbi at Rolling Stone has a similar observation in his piece titled, “The Press Will Learn Nothing from the Russiagate Fiasco.” He writes,
He didn’t just “fail to establish” evidence of crime. His report is full of incredibly damning passages, like one about Russian officialdom’s efforts to reach the Trump campaign after the election: “They appeared not to have preexisting contacts and struggled to connect with senior officials around the President-Elect.”
Not only was there no “collusion,” the two camps didn’t even have each others’ phone numbers!46
Glenn and Matt, my hat is off to you both. We don’t agree on much politically, but at least you have the integrity to acknowledge there is a problem in your own ranks. I wish I could say the same for the rest of the media, who continue to double down on disparaging the president and his supporters, no matter how badly their lies blow up in their faces.
If we can’t get honesty from the media, is it too much to ask that they at least develop a healthy sense of shame?
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The Radicals’ Attack on Life Itself
If you don’t think they’re trying to remake the America where the Founding Fathers declared everyone is entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (the operative word being life) then consider this: it is life that is at the center of the worst cultural shift our country has ever witnessed.
I’m talking about the legalization of infanticide—or, to put it in simpler terms—the intentional killing of full-term babies on demand, babies born alive who are then murdered or allowed to die on the mother’s say-so. This means that the mother has the power to give a thumbs-up or thumbs-down, like an emperor in the Roman Coliseum, in deciding whether her baby lives or dies.
A Virginia bill, ultimately defeated in a House subcommittee 5-3, with all five Republicans voting to table it and all three Democrats voting against,1 would have repealed most of that state’s legal restrictions on abortions, allowing a woman to abort her baby right up to and including the time she goes into labor.2 Aborting a pregnancy while a woman is in labor means the baby is going to be alive outside the womb before it is killed or allowed to die. The procedure was described by Virginia Governor Ralph Northam, a pediatric neurologist no less, who coldly detailed and defended the killing of babies after they’re born. He said,
If a mother’s in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen. The infant would be delivered, the infant would be kept comfortable, the infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired. And then a discussion would ensue between the physician and the mother.3
Now, he didn’t say “how” but the meaning is clear. If the mother wants the baby dead and gone, the baby dies. By way of motivation, consider this: Governor Northam received nearly $2 million from Planned Parenthood.4 He has since become involved in a blackface scandal for which he later apologized, but then took back his apology when he said it wasn’t really him. He remains in the governor’s mansion today.
I’m sure you remember those undercover films where the sale of baby parts is discussed by this same organization. Planned Parenthood denied it profited from such sales and a Texas federal court ruled in its favor, saying the state could not defund Planned Parenthood in its Medicaid program, based on the organization’s claim the videos were deceptively edited or otherwise misleading. That ruling was trumpeted by the liberal media as a vindication of Planned Parenthood. The Washington Post declared there wasn’t “a scintilla of evidence” of wrongdoing by Planned Parenthood while reporting on a federal judge blocking a Texas defunding effort.5 “Judge Blocks Medicaid Cuts to Planned Parenthood in Texas,” the New York Times gleefully reported.6
Well, this past January, the tables were turned. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned that decision.7 Among the bases for the court’s ruling, it unambiguously stated, “the video was authentic and not deceptively edited.”
Translation: it means what we saw on those videos was an accurate depiction of what was going on inside Planned Parenthood. The ruling also mentions parts of the video where officials at Planned Parenthood admitted to violating federal laws by altering the abortion procedure to allow for the harvesting of babies’ organs to be sold for profit.8
The liberal media has such a resistance to the truth that they reported this with somewhat less fanfare and editorializing than they did the 2017 ruling. The c
ase is being sent back to the district court to proceed based on the circuit court’s ruling that the videos were accurate.
New York Joins the Seven Deadly States
Virginia isn’t alone in seeking abortion up to the moment of birth and after. You can add New York to the list of states seeking to legalize infanticide. Its Reproductive Health Act (RHA), passed by the New York legislature and signed by Governor Andrew Cuomo on January 22, 2019, allows third-term abortions where a baby can be delivered full-term, born alive, and then allowed to die or worse.9 There is a requirement, based on Roe v. Wade, that the woman’s “health” be endangered for the abortion to be legal. And a subsequent SCOTUS decision (Doe v. Bolton) established “that the medical judgment may be exercised in the light of all factors—physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman’s age—relevant to the well-being of the patient. All these factors may relate to health. This allows the attending physician the room he needs to make his best medical judgment.”10
In other words, a physician can decide an abortion meets Roe v. Wade’s standards for virtually any reason whatsoever, including “emotional factors.” Think about how cheaply human life is valued when it can be snuffed out due to how a baby’s life might make the mother feel. And let’s be honest; this has nothing to do with women’s health and everything to do with killing babies on demand. What ever happened to “safe, legal and rare?” The bill also makes it legal for nondoctors to perform abortions.
Governor Andrew Cuomo openly celebrated this government-sanctioned infanticide by lighting up New York’s World Trade Center in pink.11 Now, I’ve run for elected office five times and the one election I lost was against Andrew Cuomo. I’ve avoided criticizing him until now. But I can’t remain silent about this. What he and those of his ilk were really celebrating are barbaric homicides where an entire class of helpless human beings, born alive, are not only denied equal protection under the law, but denied the even more basic, natural rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. They celebrated killing innocent, helpless babies who enjoy less protection by the lawless Left than endangered species of turtles and caterpillars.
Anyone who can celebrate lethal violence against an innocent baby after it is born is a savage.
Governor Cuomo, what would your father, Governor Mario Cuomo, who was a godly man and whose political career was deeply informed by his Catholic faith, say if he were alive? And don’t give me this hogwash or this endless list of possibilities that maybe the baby is deformed. There are so many tests—sonograms, amniocentesis, and much more—long before the thirty-eighth week. But you would celebrate the ideological justification to take the lives of innocent human beings with no requirement other than the “health” of the mother, which is defined so broadly that even emotional factors are relevant. They, too, are amorphously defined.
Sadly, seven other states and the District of Columbia already allowed these barbaric procedures before New York joined them this past January. For the unborn, these are the Seven Deadly States, where babies aren’t safe even after they’ve left their mothers’ bodies. New York is now the eighth and the governor of Rhode Island would like to see her state become the ninth. Rhode Island has a bill called the Reproductive Health Care Act that is substantially the same as New York’s.12
Rhode Island’s law is especially disheartening for two reasons. One, it has the full-throated support of Democrat Governor Gina Raimondo, nominally a Catholic, who not only supported the bill in her 2019 State of the State address, but doubled down on support on Twitter, writing, “I believe that no one should get in the middle of a decision between a woman and her doctor and that no woman should have to choose between health care and making ends meet. #RHCA.”13 This is the same governor who sends out cards to Rhode Island parents of newborn children calling each one “a special gift” that will fill the parents’ home with joy. The card says “how concerned the governor is about the health” of each baby.14
Gina, are you kidding? You’re concerned about the health of newborn babies in your state, but you’re trying to legalize killing them after they’re born? How are they going to live healthy lives if they never make it out of the delivery room? You’re either a hypocrite or deranged. Maybe you’re both.
Rhode Island’s bill also removes language from the state law that says, “human life commences at the instant of conception and that said human life at said instant of conception is a person within the language and meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States.” That may seem moot since abortions are already legal in Rhode Island but remember that is only because their legality is imposed upon the state by Roe v. Wade. Removing this language paves the way for legalizing infanticide, even if Roe v. Wade is overturned.
I’ve prosecuted infanticide cases in my home state of New York where infants are killed intentionally. It’s a homicide, folks, not an abortion. It’s about the child’s death and not the mother’s reproductive health. If the mother is concerned about reproductive health, she should start with contraception and certainly not wait until the baby is born.
I wonder if Governor Cuomo is concerned that the homicide statute remains on the books in New York State. Article 125 of New York State’s Penal Law defines a “person” as a human being who has been born and is alive.15 It does not mention the word person in its definition of abortion or “abortional acts.” The law considers an abortion “committed upon or with respect to a female… with intent to cause a miscarriage of such female.”16
In other words, by adopting Article 125’s definition of person, in the legal sense,17 New York’s RHA maintains it is illegal to kill a living baby outside the womb, even though it repeals the sections of Article 125, which previously criminalized abortion after the twenty-fourth week of pregnancy. So, a New York State physician who acts in the manner Virginia Governor Northam described regarding a baby born alive would be exposed to prosecution for killing a person, even though he had performed what the law now considers a legal abortion.
I don’t think Governor Cuomo and his Left-loving cronies thought that one through. Ironically, we have “no-kill” cities, where animals will not be euthanized even if they’re not adopted, and yet this horrifying trend concerning human babies continues. And don’t bother calling me an animal hater—I’ve prosecuted animal cruelty cases in which animals were intentionally killed. Perpetrators can get a maximum of two years in jail! But it’s not criminal to kill babies carried in the mother’s womb for nine months or even born alive?
The Suddenly Silent Pope
Where is the Catholic Church on this? Certainly, the laity has responded as one would expect. Some are demanding Cuomo be excommunicated for his brazen assault on what they consider the sacred gift of life.18 I remember when that wouldn’t have been a debatable issue within the church, but New York’s bishops are suddenly hesitant to stand up for this long-held church position where a liberal politician is concerned. Albany Bishop Edward Scharfenberger wrote an open letter to Governor Cuomo appealing to him as a Catholic who claimed to “stand with Pope Francis” not to support the RHA.19 After Cuomo signed and celebrated the bill, Scharfenberger called excommunicating the governor a “last resort.”20
With all due respect, Bishop Scharfenberger, a last resort after what? If gleefully ordering the World Trade Center and other public structures to be lit pink in celebration of killing babies is not egregious enough to warrant excommunication, what is? Will the governor have to publicly pledge his allegiance to Satan?
New York City Archbishop, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, was similarly reluctant. While joining Bishop Scharfenberger in condemning the law and its celebration by the governor, he called excommunicating Cuomo “counterproductive.”21 Cardinal Dolan argues Cuomo uses his dissent from Catholic Church teaching on issues like abortion as “applause lines.”
Perhaps New York bishops are hesitant to take a stronger stand against the governor because of what Pope Francis has said about this law: n
othing. We’ve got a Pope who’s more worried about climate change and equal pay for women than attending to his own flock in the Middle East, where genocide against Christians occurs, or providing guidance to his bishops on an important issue like this one, even though he has been a vocal critic of abortion in the past.
As recently as June 2018, the Pope compared abortion to Nazi eugenics efforts, saying, “We do the same as the Nazis to maintain the purity of the race, but with white gloves on.”22 A few months later, he compared abortion to “hiring a hitman to resolve a problem.”23
But when a popular and powerful Democrat politician not only signs, but celebrates a law allowing babies to be killed outside the womb, we hear nothing. This is a Pope who has had plenty to say in the past about political matters, including in this country. He’s never missed an opportunity to promote socialism and attack capitalism, even authoring an apostolic exhortation on the subject. On President Trump’s efforts to secure funding for a border wall, the Pope said earlier this year, “It is the fear that makes us crazy,” the fear being of immigration.24 Like all opponents of border security, the Pope did not distinguish between legal and illegal immigration.
Ironically, the same Pope called on followers just a few weeks later to pray to Saint Josephine Bakhita for an end to human trafficking.25 I share his desire to see this horrible practice eliminated, which is why I support President Trump’s border wall. Human trafficking is currently rampant across our southern border. I encourage prayer, but God helps those who help themselves. I have to think St. Josephine follows suit.
Capitalism, climate change, border security, the women’s pay gap—Pope Francis has had plenty to say about American political issues throughout his tenure. But suddenly, when it comes to what has been arguably the most important political issue for the Church over the past several decades—an issue, unlike economics or climate science, which he is qualified to lead on—he is silent. And why? Could it be that it would require him to criticize a liberal Democrat, instead of a Republican politician?
Radicals, Resistance, and Revenge Page 17
