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Thurs, April 11, 2019
All Gave Some~Some Gave All
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Attorney General William Barr Says He Thinks FBI Spied on Trump Campaign
AP Photo/Andrew Harnik KRISTINA WONG
Attorney General William Barr told senators during a hearing Wednesday that he thinks that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) did spy on the Trump campaign.
“Yes, I think spying did occur,” Barr said. “But the question is whether it was predicated — adequately predicated, and I’m not suggesting that it wasn’t adequately predicated, but I need to explore that. I think it’s my obligation. Congress is usually concerned about intelligence agencies and law enforcement agencies staying in their proper lane, and I want to make sure that happened. We have a lot of rules about that.”
The attorney general said that he has not yet set up a team to review the FBI’s actions, despite a Bloomberg report on Tuesday that alleged he has formed a team.
“I haven’t set up a team yet but I have in mind having some colleagues pull all this information together and let me know whether there’s some areas that should be looked at,” he said.
Barr first announced during a House hearing on Tuesday that he would investigate the FBI’s “conduct” in investigating the Trump campaign.
“I am reviewing the conduct of the investigation and trying to get my arms around all the aspects of the counterintelligence investigation that was conducted during the summer of 2016,” Barr said.
On Wednesday, he told senators while testifying on the Justice Department’s fiscal year 2020 budget that he would be reviewing “both the genesis and the conduct” of intelligence activities directed at the Trump campaign.
“I am going to be reviewing both the genesis and the conduct of intelligence activities directed at the Trump campaign during 2016,” he said.
Barr said he would pull together the information from various investigations from the Justice Department inspector general, within the DOJ, and from Congress to see whether there are “remaining questions” to be addressed.
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) asked Barr to share “why you feel the need to do that.”
Barr responded, “Well, for the same reason we’re worried about foreign influence in elections. We want to make sure that — I think spying on a political campaign is a big deal. It’s a big deal.”
Barr said during the Vietnam War period, people were concerned about government spying on anti-war protesters and a lot of rules were put in place to make sure there was an adequate basis before law enforcement agencies got involved in “political surveillance.”
“I’m not suggesting that those rules were violated, but I think it’s important to look at that. And I’m not just — I’m not talking about the FBI necessarily, but intelligence agencies more broadly,” he said
Barr added that he wanted to make clear that he was not launching an investigation into the FBI — just those who may have engaged in improper activities.
“To the extent there were any issues at the FBI, I do not view it as a problem that’s endemic to the FBI, I think there was probably a failure among a group of leaders there at the upper echelon.”
He said if it became necessary to look over some former officials’ activities, he would be relying heavily on FBI Director Christopher Wray and “work closely with him in looking at that information.”
“I feel I have an obligation to make sure that government power is not abused, I mean I think that’s one of the principal roles of Attorney General,” he said.
President famously tweeted on March 4, 2017, that the Obama administration had wiretapped his campaign headquarters before the election.
Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my "wires tapped" in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!
100 Days into 2nd Speakership, Nancy Pelosi Loses Control of House Floor, Withdraws Budget Bill Before Vote
MATTHEW BOYLE
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi lost control of the House floor on Tuesday, withdrawing from consideration before a vote what was presumed to be a mundane, run-of-the-mill, typical political messaging bill on the budget due to widespread division in her own House Democrat conference.
Bloomberg News’ Erik Wasson and Jack Fitzpatrick reported on Tuesday afternoon:
House Democratic leaders shelved a plan to pass a bill increasing budget caps for the next two fiscal years amid infighting between their caucus’s liberal and moderate wings. Liberals demanded $33 billion more for domestic social programs in 2020 as the price of their support, while some moderates opposed the bill over its lack of spending cuts in mandatory entitlement programs to offset the impact on the deficit. Republicans slammed the House majority for failing to produce a budget so far this year.
The bill was not even meant to become law, but to be a messaging bill–an opening salvo for spending negotiations between House Democrats, Senate Republicans, and President Donald Trump’s White House.
“The bill was intended to be an opening offer from House Democrats in budget talks with the White House and Republican-led Senate about the level of discretionary spending. It calls for increasing defense and nondefense caps by $88 billion each in 2020. Disagreement among House Democrats now raises questions about how those talks will proceed,” Wasson and Fitzpatrick reported.
They quoted House Budget Committee chairman Rep. John Yarmuth (D-KY) as saying the divisions between the two sides of the Democrat conference were irreconcilable ahead of Pelosi’s plans for a floor vote on the bill on Tuesday.
“There are further conversations we must have to reach consensus between the wings of our caucus, left and right,” Yarmuth said.
According to a Fox News report, while Pelosi’s plan would have raised spending significantly, the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) was pushing an alternative that blew through the caps on spending even more. The CPC is dominated by far-left voices like freshman Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY)–among others–representing the divide in the Democrat conference, and broader Democrat Party, between standard progressive leftists and the new class of socialists rising since the 2018 midterm elections.
Fox News’ Samuel Chamberlain wrote:
The measure [from Pelosi and Democrat leadership] would have raised limits on discretionary spending for both the Pentagon and domestic agencies, but leaders of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) pushed to allow billions more in spending on domestic programs. An amendment offered by CPC co-chairwoman Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., would have added $67 billion to spending limits for nondefense programs over the next two fiscal years. Jayapal’s amendment would have also capped defense and nondefense spending at $664 billion each in fiscal year 2020 (which begins Oct. 1 of this year) and $680 billion each in fiscal year 2021.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), the co-chair of the CPC, tweeted that progressives “aren’t backing down” on this battle.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal ✔@RepJayapal
We need to prioritize our communities, not our military spending. Progressives aren’t backing down from this fight.
New Dem rift emerges over spending
Similarly, the Bloomberg story quotes Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA)–a progressive caucus leader who also serves as co-chairman of the 2020 Bernie Sanders Democratic presidential campaign–as saying the left needs to fight harder:
Progressives urged party leadership to use Congress’s authority over taxpayer money to stake out a bold position on what the government’s priorities should be. Ro Khanna, a progressive Democrat from California, said his pitch to the Appropriations Committee will be to spend less money on the military to free up funds for social programs.
“We can’t surrender before the first shot is fired,” Khanna said, setting the tone for budget negotiations with Republicans and the Trump administration
Politico’s report, meanwhile, quotes Prayapal’s CPC co-chair Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI) as saying that Pelosi and Democrat leadership did not listen to rank-and-file members enough on this.
“I think if leadership had maybe talked to a broader spectrum of members to begin with and not just worry about the folks who vote wrong on [motions to recommit], they would have had a better outcome,” Pocan said.
But Politico also found that not just the hard left-wing of the Democrat conference was opposed to the bill; so-called moderate Democrats like Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D-FL), a co-chair of the Democrats’ Blue Dog Coalition, was quoted as being upset with the proposal because it spent too much.
“The system is broken and somebody has to be the adult in the room and try to get us back on track,” Murphy said.
Politico then explains the tricky vote-maneuvering situation that Pelosi found herself in as she embarked on this process before surrendering on Tuesday with no bill at all:
The focus has been largely on the progressives, with Jayapal and Pocan pushing their own amendment, which would have dramatically increased domestic spending to match the Pentagon’s budget. But that move, which cost an extra $66 billion over two years, would have lost dozens of Democratic fiscal hawks.
Democratic leaders had agreed to put that amendment up for a vote. But it would have been a big political gamble, because the party’s centrists had warned that they would oppose the additional money at a time when government deficits are set to exceed $1 trillion this year.
The Blue Dogs and other fiscal hawks in the party argued that progressives should be the ones to help pass the bill because those votes won’t hurt them back home. Many moderate, vulnerable incumbents, on the other hand, were already loathe to vote for a bill that increases spending.
Democratic leaders made a last-ditch attempt to sell the budget in a closed-door meeting Tuesday morning, with House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Nita Lowey delivering some tough love to her colleagues.
If Democrats can’t pass a bill to set spending limits, the New York Democrat said, they shouldn’t be in the majority, according to multiple people in the room. Such a setback would come after the caucus is likely to skip passing a formal budget this year.
But the setback for Democrats could be even bigger than a budget loss in a battle with Trump or than an embarrassing lack of basic political wherewithal to pass something as non-controversial as a budget. Pelosi fended off an intra-party rebellion after the midterm election before the beginning of this Congress to win a second chance at the Speakership–the first time she’s held the gavel since she lost in the 2010 midterm elections at the beginning of former President Barack Obama’s administration. In doing so, Pelosi secured major rules changes that largely protect her from an internal rebellion mid-Congress–like what drove out former House Speaker John Boehner and what constantly threatened fellow former House Speaker Paul Ryan–but that does not mean she is fully secure.
If she keeps losing battles like this to the left of her conference and sizable numbers of members on both sides feel emboldened enough to take on the Speaker of their own party in battle–and they start winning those battles, as the left won this one–then they could start challenging her on many more things that they would normally let go.
With the rise of problematic members like Reps. Omar and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI)–both of whose repeated anti-Semitic remarks Pelosi failed to actually hold them accountable for–and others like Ocasio-Cortez, whose pie-in-the-sky socialism has rank-and-file so-called moderate Democrats freaking out, then Pelosi could be in for a wild ride from here. It’s notable that this first major blow up in her ability to pass legislation happened within 100 days of the new Congress starting–just 96 days in–so it remains to be seen what fight next leads to issues for Pelosi.
Poor Little Rich Bernie Sanders
by Deanna Fisher in politics Post Comment
It’s a feature, not a bug – socialists at the top of the heap always live much better than the masses. And that includes one Bernie Sanders.
Some animals are more equal than others, right? That’s why Bernie Sanders, who has been in politics for well over 40 years, has managed to become a millionaire.
Senator Bernie Sanders, whose $18 million fund-raising haul has solidified his status as a front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, said Tuesday that he would release 10 years of tax returns by Tax Day on Monday and acknowledged that he has joined the ranks of the millionaires he has denounced for years.”
“April 15 is coming,” Mr. Sanders, whose refusal to release his full past returns has become an issue in the campaign, said in an interview in his office. “We wanted to release 10 years of tax returns. April 15, 2019, will be the 10th year, so I think you will see them.”
Told that he was being compared to President Trump, who has refused to release his tax returns, Mr. Sanders got more specific: “On the day in the very immediate future, certainly before April 15, we release ours, I hope that Donald Trump will do exactly the same. We are going to release 10 years of our tax returns, and we hope that on that day Donald Trump will do the same.”
And how did Bernie become a millionaire? Why, he wrote a book! Don’t you know that all best-selling authors are simply rolling in wealth?
(((JonathanWeisman))) ✔ @jonathanweisman
Bernie Sanders says he'll release 10 years of tax returns by Monday, tells @SherylNYT, yeah, he's a millionaire. “If you write a best-selling book, you can be a millionaire, too.
Bernie Sanders, Now a Millionaire, Pledges to Release Tax Returns by Monday
“I wrote a best-selling book,” Mr. Sanders said in an interview. “If you write a best-selling book, you can be a millionaire, too.”
So, capitalism is good when the socialist becomes wealthy?
Stephen Miller ✔ @redsteeze
"Nobody who works hard should struggle to get ahead... or you could just write a book."
Stephen Miller ✔ @redsteeze
Very odd how capitalism made that socialist very rich.
And that’s not even touching the financial ruin that Bernie’s wife Jane brought upon Burlington College – can we get Jane’s tax returns, too, or is that a no?
Meanwhile, Bernie looks to separate everyone else from their money by pushing “Medicare For All,” while Bernie himself has zero experience as a member of Congress with using Medicare at all, despite his age. Medicare is for the masses, not for the elite.
The 2019 legislation would go further than Sanders’ previous plans by covering more long-term care services, bringing it closer in line with a broader House version sponsored by Washington Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal. Nursing home and other institutional coverage would still fall to Medicaid under the new bill, as it had before, while long-term care at home and in the community would be expanded.”
Apart from its new measures to cover long-term care, much of Sanders’ proposal remains the same as what he introduced in 2017. He wants to create a federal universal health insurance program that would cover medically necessary services, prescription drugs, dental and vision services. Premiums, deductibles and co-pays would disappear, except for a potential $200 co-pay for brand-name drugs.”
Though many of his rivals have said they would maintain a role for private insurance, Sanders’ bill would effectively eliminate the industry. Insurers would only be allowed to provide services not covered by the universal plan, such as cosmetic surgery.”
As for how to foot the bill, Sanders describes a litany of ways Americans are already spending billions on health care, particularly because of high administrative costs, executive pay packages and prescription drug prices. He maintains that Medicare for All, despite its cost, would save many people money.”
The new legislation also lists several ways to raise additional funds, including levying premiums on workers and employers; boosting income and estate tax rates; and establishing a wealth tax.”
CBS Evening News✔ @CBSEveningNews
.@edokeefe: “What happens to insurance companies after your plan is implemented...?"
Sen. Bernie Sanders: “If you want cosmetic surgeries. Under Medicare For All, we cover all basic healthcare needs.”
O'Keefe: “So basically Blue Cross Blue Shield would be reduced to nose jobs?”
So, the rest of us would be paying through the nose for “Medicare For All” for those services that the government deems essential (as a special-needs mother, you’ll forgive me if I laugh at what the government considers “medically necessary services”), and Bernie will still be wealthy enough and covered by whatever Congressional plan is still around (you think Congress will live under the laws they write? HA HA HA) to get whatever medical care he needs.
The pigs are eating the apples and drinking the milk FOR US, you know.
Between his admission that he is rich, and this insanity of a social program that would bankrupt the federal government, Bernie Sanders has proved two things.
One, he completely understands how hard-left and socialist the Democrat base has become.
Two, he is indisputably the Democrat front-runner in the race, because only the front-runner could propose something this audacious and not be instantly skewered by the media. Bernie’s treatment in this election cycle is markedly different than how he was treated in 2016, when Hillary Clinton was the media’s chosen candidate. Now, the socialist can be a true socialist without even having to sugar-coat it. Now, the socialist can be the millionaire.
Featured image: original Victory Girls art by Darleen Click
Trump's Approval Rating Rockets to 53 Percent
President Trump's approval rating has reached 53% as of Tuesday. 53% is a new high for Trump in 2018 and 2019.
According to Town Hall:
According to a new Rasmussen Survey of likely voters, President Trump's approval ratings just soared to a new high for 2019 and 2018.
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Tuesday shows that 53% of Likely U.S. Voters approve of President Trump’s job performance. Forty-five percent (45%) disapprove.
The latest figures include 37% who Strongly Approve of the job Trump is doing and 36% who Strongly Disapprove. This gives him a Presidential Approval Index rating of +1.
This is the highest number President Trump has seen since March of 2017 according to Rasmussen trends.
THANK YOU, WORKING HARD! pic.twitter.com/3OUESGRw43
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)
The report also indicated that Trump is polling well on the economy which poses a big challenge for Democrats heading into 2020.
BARR SETS DEMOCRAT STRAIGHT ON 'HATE CRIMES'
Attempting to reinforce a Democratic Party narrative that President Trump has fostered a culture of bigotry, a Democratic congresswoman on Tuesday asked Attorney General William Barr to confirm that hate crimes have increased under the current administration.
Referring to “the data,” Rep. Brenda Lawrence, D-Mich., further wanted to know if Barr was making the problem “a priority.”
As a matter of fact, Barr said in the hearing of a House appropriations subcommittee, he already affirmed his concern about the issue in his confirmation hearing.
But reports of hate crimes haven’t increased since 2017, he told the congresswoman. And the upward trend began during President Obama’s administration.
Lawrence asked Barr: “Are you familiar with the data with the percentage? Have [hate crimes] increased under the Trump administration? There are indications they have.”
Barr replied, “I haven’t seen any data that it’s growing since 2017.
Lawrence asked: “So is it a priority? You haven’t looked at the data? You’re not aware of it?”
Barr replied: “As I said in my confirmation hearing. I’m very concerned about hate crimes and intend to vigorously pursue them. The data that I have seen have shown an increase going back to 2013. So I agree with you, they have been increasing. But I have seen no data to say it’s different under the Trump administration.
Ilhan Omar Calls Stephen Miller ‘White Nationalist.’ Only Problem Is That He’s Jewish.
BY C. DOUGLAS GOLDEN
This, most people should agree, is one of the most pernicious forms of racial collectivism, not terribly far from the philosophy of the Nazis or Southern segregationists. That’s probably why liberals have decided to use the term more, well, liberally. It now applies to anyone who can be plausibly considered either white and/or kind of nationalist.
This much less exact label of white nationalist has been applied promiscuously of late, to the point where Tucker Carlson’s show on Fox News is being called “the most openly white nationalist show on cable TV.” (Granted, that’s from Media Matters via Vox, but you get the idea.)
Another favorite target of the white nationalist labeler brigade: Stephen Miller, a policy adviser to President Trump. The latest labeler? Rep. Ilhan Omar, the controversial Minnesota Democrat, who made the accusation on Monday.
Omar was responding to the rumor that Miller was the impetus behind the president withdrawing his pick to lead Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Ron Vitello, in favor of someone who would take a harder line on immigration.
TRENDING: AOC Makes Mistake of Defending ‘Racist’ Accent, Instantly Slammed by Minorities Who See Through Her
Linking to an article on left-wing website Splinter News, Omar tweeted, “Stephen Miller is a white nationalist. The fact that he still has influence on policy and political appointments is an outrage.”
Now, granted, Splinter was also in on the label-slapping, calling Miller “the president’s white nationalist policy advisor” and referring to “the 33-year-old’s fascistic anti-immigrant crusade.” (Splinter also used the occasion to repeat a single-sourced accusation about Miller allegedly saying “I would be happy if not a single refugee foot ever again touched America’s soil.” It also pointed out that members of Miller’s family didn’t like his politics, so, hey, there’s also that.)
Here’s the issue: Stephen Miller is Jewish, as Fox News points out, and “white nationalists” tend to frown upon members of the Jewish faith.
Remember that just a few months ago, white nationalism was the culprit in the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre. In that case, the gunman was indeed a white nationalist, as well as a crackpot of many stripes.
At the time, we got a lot of pieces like Talia Levin’s in The Washington Post, “How Trump’s immigrant bashing feeds white supremacists’ obsession with Jews.”
“For American white supremacists, hysteria about immigrants is inextricable from anti-Semitism: Many of the far-right nativists who cheer Trump’s immigration rhetoric are also obsessed with Jews,” she wrote.
“When prominent Republicans warn that a powerful Jew is secretly funding an invasion by foreigners, it doesn’t matter how many Jewish grandchildren the president has — he and his party are fueling anti-Semitic conspiracy theories of the sort that the suspect in the Pittsburgh shooting posted on social media just before he walked into Tree of Life synagogue on Saturday.”
RELATED: Trump’s Special ‘Thanks’ to Ilhan Omar During Jewish Coalition Speech Has Crowd Roaring
Without getting into how flimsy the argument that Republicans are somehow tacitly responsible for the actions of crazed bigots, there is a point that real white supremacists and white nationalists (read: “not just defined as someone in the Trump administration or on Fox News”) don’t hold Jewish individuals in high regard.
The Minnesota Democrat’s labeling of Stephen Miller as a white nationalist, then, poses two major issues for her.
First, Splinter magazine can engage in hyperbole all it wants; the writer isn’t an elected official. Rep. Omar is.
Second, she’s also an elected individual who has a very problematic history with Jewish people.
They’re the same group of people, need we remind you, whom she was recently seen implying may have dual loyalties to the state of Israel. (Which was like, oh, the fifth or sixth time since she was elected that she was seen engaging in anti-Semitic innuendo.)
As Republican Rep. Lee Zeldin of New York responded on Twitter, he’s never seen any member of Congress “target Jewish people like this.”
This is, unfortunately, more or less accurate, given that Omar’s first few months have established her as the milder 21st century analog to Mississippi Rep. John E. Rankin, a New Deal Democrat and racist and anti-Semite of the first order.
That anyone could even get away with this is indicative of a wider problem here: That “white nationalist” in the new liberal lexicon means anything conservative and nothing substantive anymore.
No one is cheering more than actual white nationalists, who can now hide behind the fact that the term is so shopworn it could apply to anyone.
The great irony, of course, is that both they and Rep. Omar probably feel the same way about Stephen Miller’s ethnic background.
For The Left To Get Religion, They’ll Have To Give Up Abortion And The Misuse Of Sex
Kirsten Powers recently made the case for an 'awakening of the Christian left.' But to get religion, the left will have to change.
By Nathanael Blake
Should the left get religion? Yes—a revival of the religious left would be good for America. Among white voters, church attendance has become a strong partisan indicator. Leftists are increasingly irreligious, and political divisions are taking on a spiritual aspect. This is bad for the church and for the state.
But could the left get religion? Kirsten Powers recently made the case for an “awakening of the Christian left.” I am a conservative, but I would agree that Christians can hold good-faith progressive views on political issues from environmental policy to gun control to tax rates. Despite our disagreements, I would be delighted if progressives were coming back to church rather than fleeing.
But to get religion, the left will have to change. Powers’ column, which was based on an interview with Pete Buttigieg, the Democratic presidential hopeful who is currently the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, illustrates how many on the Christian left leave Christianity behind to conform to the culture. Two issues that she picks out—abortion and sexual morality—illuminate this.
Jesus Didn’t Explicitly Talk About a Lot of Things
On abortion, Powers reports that “Buttigieg criticized right-wing Christians for ‘saying so much about what Christ said so little about, and so little about what he said so much about.’” She elaborates, complaining about “the religious right’s treatment of abortion as a litmus test for Christian faith, when in fact Jesus never mentioned the issue”—as if the lack of a record of Jesus prohibiting a specific category of unjust killing means it might be permissible. This is legalistic loophole-hunting. There are many horrible deeds that Jesus did not specifically prohibit.
Despite the diversity of our other political opinions, Christians should speak with a united voice in declaring that the government should not permit, let alone subsidize, the killing of developing humans in utero. Opposition to abortion should be a baseline for Christian involvement in politics, and progressive Christians who support bigger government in order to combat injustice should be loud supporters of the right to life.
Sadly, their voices and votes tend to disappear when it matters. According to Powers, Buttigieg’s favorite Bible verse is from Matthew: “Whatever you did for one of the least of these … you did for me.” However, “Mayor Pete” wants the government to allow the killing of the “least of these” until they are born, and the official position of the Democratic Party is taxpayer-funded abortion on demand until birth (and maybe even a little after). There is space for good faith disagreement on many political points, but no Christian philosophy of government can endorse America’s state-sanctioned massacre of the innocents.
As for the charge that “right-wing” Christians ignore what Jesus “said so much about,” it conflates what the church has to say to believers with what the church should say to the government. Contrary to what Powers and Buttigieg insinuate, declining to lobby for big government anti-poverty programs is not the same as indifference to the poor, or approval of greed. Jesus commanded us to care for the poor, he did not tell us the extent to which government should be used for that task, let alone provide detailed positions on topics like work requirements for welfare recipients.
Protecting innocent human life is among the first duties of government, whereas the size and scope of anti-poverty programs are open to honest disagreement. Caring for the poor is a moral imperative, while doing so effectively and justly is a realm of legitimate disputation.
Indeed, a Christian revival on the left would increase the amount of political disagreement between American Christians on many issues. Despite this friction, conservative Christians should welcome fellow believers who disagree with us on all sorts of political issues. However, we cannot compromise on abortion; even if we are all hypocrites, that does not excuse those on the left accepting the evil of abortion.
Can We Detach Sexual Morality from the Rest of Christian Teachings?
Nor can we abandon orthodox Christian teachings on sexual morality. It may be fashionable to endorse, as Powers seems to, Buttigeig’s same-sex marriage, but Christians must not do so. The extent to which many Christian moral teachings should be supported by the government is disputable; that the church should uphold them is not.
Marriage is an image of Christ and his church. It is the relationship God instituted and blessed as the means of united the two halves of the human race and creating new persons. Thus, rejecting the orthodox Christian view of sexuality and marriage necessitates denying much more than a discrete doctrine or two. Sexual morals are not severable from the rest of Christian teaching.
Rejecting Christian sexual teaching is a challenge to the entire Christian view of human persons and our destiny in Christ, as well as to biblical authority and Christian tradition. This is why those who deny part of orthodox Christian sexual ethics often end up denying it all, and even abandon essential doctrines such as the divinity and the resurrection of Christ.
Of course, conservative Christians have our own problems with sexuality. The sexual sins the majority of us are tempted by and are guilty of have often been overlooked and excused. Too frequently, there has been little grace extended to those whose temptations are not like ours, even as we easily claimed forgiveness ourselves. Not enough care has been given to those upon whom Christian sexual morality may lay a heavier burden.
But the right response to this hypocrisy is not abandoning Christian sexual ethics in favor of a new iteration of the pagan sexual morality that Christianity vanquished. Rather, it is to repent and cultivate humility and compassion while still proclaiming Christian truths and human nature and sexuality.
Among these truths is that sexual liberation leads to exploitation as an ethos of indulgence favors the powerful and privileged at the expense of the weak and the marginalized. Most prominently, sexual liberation is premised on abortion, which is often required as a failsafe. It is no coincidence that to the extent progressive Christianity has accepted abortion and embraced the sexual revolution, it has withered and become enfolded into secular leftism, with Jesus admired as a sage or social worker, rather than worshiped as the savior.
Conservative Christians should recognize that there are many political issues on which we may have good faith-disagreements with our left-wing brothers and sisters. We should engage with them in a spirit of love, charity, and even compromise. But we cannot abandon innocent lives to the violence of abortion. Nor can we renounce teachings on marriage and sexuality that are rooted in creation and represent the union of Christ and his church.
Nathanael Blake is a Senior Contributor at The Federalist. He has a PhD in political theory. He lives in Missouri
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