The United Nations "Disabilities Treaty" (CRPD), is back in the Senate and a committee hearing will be held on July 22 at 10am Eastern Time. This dangerous treaty would surrender parental rights and national sovereignty to the United Nations, while not actually benefiting Americans with disabilities. Treaty proponents are pushing hard for ratification, knowing that conservatives are likely to pick up several additional U.S. Senate seats in November, making it even harder to ratify the treaty. See the list of Senators that sit on the Foreign Relations Committee here, and call your senators through the Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121. Learn more about the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities here.
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Two weeks ago, the Supreme Court upheld the right of the owners of Hobby Lobby to practice their religion. Hobby Lobby was threatened with millions of dollars of fines if they did not pay for abortions, but the Supreme Court struck down the HHS mandate. This was a victory for religious freedom and we are all thankful that the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the rights of the owners of Hobby Lobby.
However, this battle is not over. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said last Tuesday, "The one thing we’re going to do during this work period, sooner rather than later, is to ensure that women’s lives are not determined by virtue of five white men, this Hobby Lobby decision is outrageous, and we’re going to do something about it. People are going to have to walk down here and vote, and if they vote with the five men on the Supreme Court, I think they’re going to be treated unfavorably come November with the elections." Then, Senator Pat Murray (D) of Washington introduced S.B. 2578 to "repeal" Burwell vs. Hobby Lobby Inc. Please note that the Supreme Court would UPHOLD this law. The Hobby Lobby decision was decided under a 1993 law known as the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. This law was enacted after the Supreme Court decision in Employment Div vs. Smith. In this decision, the court stopped using the compelling interest test for religious freedom cases involving a neutral law of general applicability. Because the Hobby Lobby decision was made based on a federal law and not the first amendment, the US Congress is ALLOWED to change the law to ensure that there is no exemption for Hobby Lobby. We must fight S.B. 2578 to the very end. While it may be unlikely that five republican senators will vote to allow this bill to go up for a vote in the Senate, we must remember that republicans have voted to allow other bills to go up for a vote. And while we would not expect the House to pass this bill we must watch them carefully. Remember, this is an election year and politicians are often more likely to cave to demands in an attempt to gain more votes. Watching the Mississippi U.S. Senate race unfold over the past few months, it has become very clear who our friends are and who our enemies are. It's also become painfully clear that more and more often, our enemies are within our own party. Thad Cochran's campaign and supporters spent millions demonizing conservative Chris McDaniel, a fellow Republican. His allies spent tens of thousands of dollars calling Chris McDaniel racist and turning out Democratic voters to steal the Republican primary from McDaniel, who won the clear majority of Republican votes. They are willing to sacrifice principle for power, conviction for compromise. They are willing to ignore the voice of Mississippi's Republican voters by recruiting ten of thousands of Democratic voters to cross over and vote for Thad Cochran, who campaigned on a platform of big government spending and food stamps. We will not forget how they sought to crush our voice. Conservatives are not the ones being divisive. We are not the ones alienating the base of the Republican party. The liberal Republican establishment is. We want to fight together for one nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all. They want power. And we will remember how they betrayed us to stay in power. Conservative Republicans must stand together. We must stand on principle. We must stand with courage and conviction. Remember Mississippi. And don't stop fighting. - Peter B. "I want to be very, very clear: there is nothing dangerous or extreme about wanting to balance a budget! There is nothing dangerous or extreme about defending the Constitution and the civil liberties therein. And there is nothing strange at all about standing, as people of faith, for a country that we built, that we believe in." We ask you to join us and tens of thousands of your fellow Americans in petitioning the White House to take action in the case of Meriam Ibrahim, who has been sentenced to death in Sudan for converting to Christianity. Please read the full petition below. The petition needs 100,000 signatures by June 27th to receive an official response from President Obama's administration. At the time of this post, there are just over 41,000 signatures, which means 59,000 signatures must be added in 17 days. Please SIGN and SHARE the petition on the WhiteHouse.gov petition site. We strongly urge the administration to take action in the case of Dr. Meriam Ibrahim, the Sudanese mother who with her toddler and newborn baby (who pending the proper documentation are American citizens) is languishing inside a prison in Khartoum. While Meriam awaits execution for the “crime” of converting to Christianity, her children are forced to be at her side in a prison that a 2008 U.N. document reported as having an infant mortality rate of one per day in the summer. No innocent child should be in this situation. We urge you to pressure the Sudanese government to release Meriam and her children so she can escape execution and possible death of her children and be rejoined with her husband in the U.S. Please grant her expedited safe haven in the U.S., where she could seek asylum. Ten years ago today the Fortieth President of The United States of America passed way. President Ronald W. Reagan was a great man, a great president and a great American. He once said that "Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected and handed on for them to do the same."
Mississippi is the one of the most conservative states in the nation. So why are they stuck with one of the most liberal Republican U.S. Senators? The good news is, it doesn't look like that will be the case much longer. Recent polls show conservative Chris McDaniel, who is challenging Cochran in the Republican Senate primary, with a lead in the race -- and the momentum is all on his side. A poll conducted by shows McDaniel leading by 4%, and a second poll now has him leading 43%-36%. Thad Cochran has the lowest Obama-era ratings of any Republican Senator, according to the American Conservative Union, and as McDaniel points out, has not led a single fight against the Obama administration. It's time for a real conservative Senator from Mississippi -- vote Chris McDaniel on June 3rd! Ben Sasse is a fifth-generation Nebraskan, a constitutional conservative, a homeschool dad, and an outspoken opponent of Obamacare. He's running for Nebraska's open United States Senate seat, and has the support of Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, Sarah Palin, the Family Research Council Action PAC, and many more. We are proud to support Ben Sasse for U.S. Senate. As President of Midland University in Nebraska, Sasse was one of the youngest university presidents in the history of American higher education and turned around a university on the verge of closing down. Because of his leadership, for the past four years Midland University has been the fastest-growing school in the state. Ben Sasse recognizes that it is not enough to stop bad ideas -- we must put forward free-market solutions and conservatives must shape the Republican party into the party of ideas. His leadership, conservative values, and real-world experience are much-needed in Washington. Learn more about Ben Sasse:
We are proud to endorse JD Miniear for Congress in Indiana's Seventh Congressional District. JD is a strong conservative who will fight for religious liberty and against Obamacare, advocate for a Balanced Budget Amendment, work to stop Common Core, and bring common-sense Indiana leadership to Washington, DC. After the primary, Miniear will go on to face incumbent Democratic Congressman Andre Carson in the general election.
Here are two easy ways you can help JD Miniear: The Senate Conservatives Fund has released a new ad highlighting Chris McDaniel, running for Senate against 40+ year incumbent Senator Thad Cochran in the Republican primary on June 3rd.
Get involved and support constitutional conservative Chris McDaniel at www.mcdaniel2014.com! The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The name sounds simple and straightforward enough, right? Who wouldn't support a treaty about the rights of disabled Americans? But despite its name, the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (or CRPD for short) actually threatens our national sovereignty and does little to nothing for Americans with disabilities. “Ultimately, I’m unable to vote for a treaty that could undermine our Constitution and the legitimacy of our democratic process as the appropriate means for making decisions about the treatment of our citizens." Under the Constitution, international treaties ratified by the United States become the law of the land -- overruling the US Constitution, federal laws, state constitutions, and state laws. The CRPD also gives the United Nations power to ensure that the United States is complying with the treaty, surrendering sovereignty directly to unelected bureaucrats at the UN. In addition to undermining our national sovereignty, the CRPD, if ratified by the U.S. Senate, would turn the parent-child relationship on its head by establishing a dangerous new legal standard for dealing with children with disabilities: the best interests of the child standard. "Children are treated much, much better in the special needs setting whenever their parents have real and certain rights. Those rights are gone if the Senate ratifies this treaty." In Article 7(2), the CRPD states: “In all actions concerning children with disabilities, the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration.” What this essentially means is that the government and the UN determine what is best for a child, not their parents. Putting a government bureaucrat into all parent-child relationships will never prove to be beneficial for society. Proponents of the CRPD will often point to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and say that the CRPD contains the same standards as the ADA. But in a recent Townhall.com column, former Senator Rick Santorum, a national leader in the fight against the CRPD, bluntly deals with this falsehood: The treaty’s supporters tell us that CRPD simply mirrors the Americans with Disabilities Act. Don’t buy that. Senator Santorum goes on the explain the differences between CRPD and the ADA in his column, which we highly recommend that you take a few minutes to read. Florida Senator Marco Rubio makes an important point about the path America should follow in the international arena when it comes to the rights of the disabled: "I believe America's example should lead the way on achieving stronger universal disability rights instead of the United Nations." US ratification of this treaty has no impact on other nations. Even nations that have already ratified the CRPD are not complying with its terms, and they will not suddenly decide to do so if the United States ratifies the treaty. In closing, Rick Santorum sums it up well: "The United States is already the international leader on the protection of disability rights. We don’t need to ratify a flawed U.N. treaty to prove it." For more information on the CRPD, as well as common misconceptions about the treaty, please visit www.freedomsdefenders.com/crpd. There, you can also email your Senators and donate to help raise awareness about the dangers of this UN treaty. Don't forget to like RejectCRPD on Facebook and follow @RejectCRPD on Twitter as well! Originally a guest post by our Grassroots Director, Peter B, on the VDP Student Leadership Society Blog. See it here.
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