The media report that the Pope is blessing same-sex unions, Israel is accused of killing Christian civilians, and Haley rises in the polls.
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Did the Pope give his blessing to same-sex relationships yesterday as the media breathlessly reported?
No, not quite.
But I understand why you might think so.
In a new document for the Dicastery for the Doctrine of Faith, formerly known as the Holy Office, formerly known as the Inquisition, the Church has declared that priests can give same-sex couples a, quote, spontaneous blessing, but not a blessing that is, quote, liturgical or resembles marriage.
No, quote, clothes, gestures, or words that are proper to a wedding can be included so as to, quote, avoid any form of confusion or scandal.
The blessings cannot be connected in any way to civil unions and, quote, rites and prayers that could create confusion between what constitutes a marriage, which is the exclusive, stable, and indissoluble union between a man and a woman naturally open to the generation of children.
So, no, the church did not approve the blessing of same-sex unions, Exactly.
And yet, some liberal priests, including one media-savvy Jesuit in particular who's inordinately obsessed with weird sex stuff, has celebrated the document as, quote, a major step forward and mocked the notion advocated by conservatives that nothing had changed.
So what does this mean?
It means, I'm sorry to say, just about whatever you want it to mean.
It means that the Vatican has not officially approved blessings for same-sex unions, as many are reporting, but it also means something else.
Something that affects not just Catholics, not just professing Christians broadly, but everyone.
It means, this is why I even bring up the story, it means that weaponized ambiguity will cause scandal.
Because clarity is charity and confusion is not.
I'm Michael Knowles.
This is The Michael Knowles Show.
Welcome back to the show.
A new poll shows Nikki Haley gaining on Donald Trump in New Hampshire.
Is this race totally locked up, or is there a chance that Nikki is going to sneak through?
We'll get to that in just a moment.
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A lot of people listening aren't Catholic, and so they don't really care what the Pope or the Vatican say about marriage, and I totally get that.
A lot of people listening are not Christian.
A lot of people listening are not religious in any conscious way.
So who cares what the Vatican has to say about Marriage.
Everybody really should care because the Catholic Church, whether you like it or not, or you believe in it or not, or you're a member of it or not, the Catholic Church is the oldest continuously extant institution in the West.
The Catholic Church, whether you like it or not or don't like it, you know, It built our civilization.
It is the single institution that built our civilization.
It affects many, many people around the world, and marriage is the fundamental political building block.
So, the way that those two things interact, the Catholic Church and marriage, is going to have effects everywhere on Earth.
And it makes perfect sense for people to be concerned here because of the confusion.
You know, this is something in modern politics that we see a lot.
It's kind of like the Bill Clinton political strategy.
And I'm not accusing anyone in the Vatican of intentionally undertaking this strategy, but this is how it's being perceived by a lot of people.
The Bill Clinton strategy of you go into a room with 100 people, all of whom disagree, and everyone leaves the room thinking that Bill Clinton agrees with them.
Barack Obama had a similar strategy.
Go into a room, everyone disagrees, and yet everyone thinks, oh, that guy's on my side.
That guy agrees with me.
People with wildly different views on marriage, the fundamental political unit, are going to read this document, and they're going to think, oh, the church agrees with me.
Fairly or unfairly.
But that kind of ambiguity is going to be weaponized, it is going to cause scandal, and it's going to cause scandal regarding the fundamental political institution.
That's very worrisome.
Now, speaking of holy questions, turning to a completely different matter, there is a very disturbing claim coming out of the war in Israel.
And the claim is that the IDF, the Israeli army, Shot an elderly Christian woman and her daughter on the grounds of a parish, the Holy Family Parish, on Saturday.
There's also a claim that a rocket, at least one, fired from an Israeli tank struck a nun's convent, a convent actually for the order that was founded by Mother Teresa.
So this is obviously a very disturbing allegation, but it's the fog of war, so who knows if it's true?
We hear these sorts of claims, sometimes it's propaganda coming from Hamas.
We hear these sorts of claims, sometimes they're credible.
In this case, the claim is coming from a credible person.
That would be the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem.
This is the highest ranking official, Catholic official, in the Holy Land.
It's an office that was established in the 11th century.
So, what happened?
Well, the IDF now is denying it.
The IDF is saying, That they are refuting the claim that it had targeted a Catholic parish in the Gaza Strip.
They are stressing that the IDF, quote, does not target civilians, no matter their religion.
They say that they spoke with church representatives about an incident in the Holy Family Parish, but, quote, no reports of a hit on the church nor civilians being injured or killed were raised during this phone call that they had with church officials.
Then the IDF says, a review of the IDF's operational findings support this.
The IDF takes claims regarding harm to sensitive sites with the utmost seriousness, especially churches considering that Christian communities are a minority group in the Middle East.
Okay, I don't like this denial because notice they're not exactly denying it.
Notice the language.
The language here is very, very precise.
The IDF is saying they didn't target a Catholic parish.
Well, okay, they might not have targeted the parish, but they might have accidentally shot these people.
I mean, the IDF just admitted to accidentally killing Israeli hostages that were being held by Hamas.
So it happened.
I'm not saying these things are not understandable in any way.
It's the fog of war and accidents happen.
That's why we have clinical terms that are so ghastly, but terms like collateral damage or, you know, Bad and accidental things happen in war.
The IDF is not denying, it seems to me, that a bad and accidental thing happened.
They're just saying, we don't target it.
Then they go on, we don't target civilians, no matter their religion.
They say, no reports of a hit on the church, but they were contacted by church representatives about an incident in the parish.
What does that mean?
I don't understand why the church representatives would have called the IDF about an incident in the parish if that did not pertain to some kind of hit on the church.
Unless the IDF is drawing a very fine distinction here between the church and the parish.
Maybe it were some other building.
Maybe it were a convent.
Maybe it were a dormitory.
Maybe it were some other... But this distinction seems to me to be a little too precise to really constitute a denial.
And then, you have to deal with the IDF's first statement.
When the IDF first came out here, they said, an initial review suggests that IDF troops who were operating against Hamas terrorists in the area operated against a threat that they identified in the area of the church.
The IDF is conducting a thorough review of the incident.
So initially, the IDF seems to admit that they were conducting some kind of operation around here.
And the operation could even have been justified to say, well, we were going after Hamas terrorists and we just got it wrong.
We just we thought we were killing Hamas terrorists.
We killed two innocent Christians, civilians who were just taking shelter.
But whatever this denial is, it is not sufficient.
Not sufficient at all.
Seems very weak.
And especially that you've got the claims not coming from some, you know, Hamas media outlet, not coming from some Islamist news organization, but it's coming from the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem that has a fair bit of credibility, let's say.
The IDF needs to answer for this.
Not just in the name of justice, though that would be good.
The IDF, the state of Israel, should take this incident very, very seriously.
And they should answer for this, if for no other reason than out of self-interest.
If you are a supporter of the State of Israel, you should be very, very interested in an answer for this incident.
Because there is nothing, there is nothing in the world that will more quickly lose support for the State of Israel than this kind of an incident.
than an unanswered claim that the IDF is sniping Christian civilians, women, blowing up a convent.
There is nothing, there is nothing at a time when international support for Israel is shaky at best, and even in the United States for the first time in decades, is beginning to weaken.
There is nothing that will more quickly crater Western support for the State of Israel than this kind of a claim if it goes unanswered.
And perhaps it is the case that the IDF just says, shoot, we didn't mean to do this.
This looks really, really bad.
We're just going to try to vaguely talk around it and hope that people move on.
I don't think people are going to move on.
This has risen to the level of the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem and the Pope.
The Pope repeated this.
And some people have mixed opinions on the Pope.
But when it comes to Christian civilians being killed, that's going to interest everybody in the West.
It would be good to get an answer for the cause of justice.
In times of war, bad accidents happen in every war on every side.
But even for the purpose of self-interest, even for the most, and especially for the most ardent defenders of the State of Israel, there needs to be an answer for this.
People are not going to move on from this kind of thing.
No one on the right, and perhaps I'm overstating it, no mainstream person on the right, Is an ardent Palestine liberation activist, okay?
No serious person on the right would ever support Hamas or the radical Islamists or anything like this, okay?
Which is why support for the state of Israel tends to be much more concentrated on the right.
The left is now marching in defense of Hamas.
And Ivy League universities are talking about how Hamas committing a genocide on the Jews is contextual, and we need to just consider it.
And certain pogroms are actually totally fine, right?
The right is still strongly supportive of the State of Israel.
This is the one issue that could start to break that.
And so there needs to be an answer.
The Catholic Church?
There are a lot of Catholic news stories in the news today.
Well, there's a great podcast that you've got to check out, too, and that would be Breakfast.
There's a lot of podcasts out there.
Most of these podcasts are people talking about their intimate lives, complaining about how America's racist, how religion is evil.
Outside of The Daily Wire, it's very tough to find podcasts that are creative and enjoyable and intellectual and handsome, you know, and of course.
There's a great new Catholic podcast I just heard about.
The podcast is called Breakfast.
It is the perfect mix of entertaining and spiritual Catholic content.
Breakfast explains the Catholic faith through the prism of food, drink, landmarks, and architecture.
The Catholic faith is so interwoven into our culture that we often don't realize it.
Even if you're not Catholic, I know many, I guess most, listeners to this podcast are not.
Catholic?
Many aren't Christian.
Many don't even consider themselves religious.
But the Catholic faith is woven into our civilization.
The word breakfast, for example, comes from Catholics breaking the fast after morning mass.
Did you know sushi tempura has its roots in the Catholic faith?
Or how champagne was actually created by a Catholic monk named Dom Perignon?
Perhaps you've heard of him?
The show's creators saw the need for a podcast that is engaging and accessible to everyone of any faith or none at all.
Breakfast is not just a random assortment of Catholic-related facts.
It covers hard-hitting topics and will make you ponder the important questions.
A great place to start is the episode about the Statue of Liberty, what it teaches us about the true meaning of freedom.
It's a challenging episode.
You won't hear it from the mainstream media.
Each episode is around 20 minutes long.
You can download the Breakfast podcast on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere you listen to podcasts.
Speaking of foreign policy, Nikki Haley is attacking Donald Trump.
She smells blood in the water.
And so she's going after Trump, not on the economy, not even on domestic matters, on foreign policy.
Here she is.
There are things I agree with the president on.
I had a good working relationship with him.
There are things I don't agree.
I don't agree with the fact that Yes, we had a good economy while he was there, but he put us $8 trillion in debt that our kids are never going to forgive us for.
I don't agree with how he handles national security.
He focused on trade with China, but he did nothing about the fentanyl flow.
He did nothing about the fact that fentanyl has killed so many of our Americans.
I don't think you should praise Hezbollah.
I don't think you should criticize Netanyahu when Israel's down on our knees.
I don't think you should congratulate the Chinese Communist Party on their 70th anniversary.
I think that when it comes to national security, we don't praise thugs.
We let them know where we stand and we let them know they'll be held to pay if they do anything against us.
That's who I am.
Okay, this is Nikki Haley fully embracing the establishment lane in the GOP race.
And it's probably a smart political move for her.
This is Nikki Haley saying the ways in which Donald Trump changed the Republican Party's position on foreign policy, I am going to change it back.
Which is smart.
Upended some aspects of domestic policy, but not too much.
He changed the Republican line on domestic policy a little bit in that he said, hey, Paul Ryan, the young guns, the fiscal hawks, we're done with those guys.
We're not going to reform entitlements.
We're not going to cut Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security.
We're going to keep them exactly as is.
That was a little bit of a shift.
On domestic policy, he said, hey, we're going to limit illegal immigration.
Remember, he said that we want more legal immigration than ever.
So he didn't even really change the GOP line too much on that.
But on foreign policy, that was a big shift.
He said, Bush was totally wrong.
The wars in the Middle East were stupid.
Vladimir Putin's a very smart guy.
We're going to stop cozying up to China.
We're going to radically change our trade relationship with China.
We're going to, I'm going to go meet with Kim Jong-un even though he's a short fat guy and I got a bigger butt and I'm going to blow him up if he threatens me again and he totally upended foreign policy.
Now, the problem for Nikki Haley's attack here is Donald Trump is the most successful foreign policy president probably of my lifetime.
I guess you would give a little bit of credit to George H.W.
Bush, who managed the collapse of the Soviet Union and who managed the first Iraq war.
Even if you didn't support going into that war in the first place, it was a relatively successful war.
Maybe he's the most successful foreign policy president since Ronald Reagan, who won the Cold War.
But if you're Nikki Haley and you're attacking Trump on foreign policy, what exactly are you going to attack?
You're going to attack his language.
You're going to attack his tweets.
But in terms of results, the guy convinced Putin not to further invade any more countries than...
That's the first time since George W. Bush.
Under George W. Bush, Putin invades Georgia.
Under Barack Obama, Putin invades Crimea, part of eastern Ukraine.
Under Trump, Putin just stops.
And then under Biden, Putin goes whole hog into Ukraine.
He puts China on its heels in the trade war.
He renegotiates NAFTA.
He takes out the top Iranian general.
He destroys ISIS.
He basically fixes the problem in Syria and stabilizes Syria after long calls for Assad to go and regime change in Syria.
That issue all kind of went away.
He even gets Kim Jong-un to play nice.
What are you going to attack him for?
Nothing other than the tweets.
But the tweets will be enough to rally establishment support.
And the tweets will be enough to justify the foreign policy vision of people who have a much more expansionist, interventionist, liberal imperialist kind of foreign policy, who will now be backing Nikki Haley.
And it's smart for her, because whatever her personal views are on foreign policy, that's the only lane left.
And for a candidate like Ron DeSantis, who's great, who's best governor in America, who I really like a lot, for a candidate like Ron DeSantis, who is in many ways trying to split the difference between those two foreign policy positions and lean a little bit more on the Trump side of the foreign policy position, He's going to wind up in the middle of the road and get hit by a truck because he's not going to pull the Trump people over.
He's not going to pull enough of them over to win.
But he's also not going to pull the establishment over, which is why the Koch Network and other more establishment GOP operatives are now backing Nikki Haley.
So he's going to be left... Some would say he's the best candidate, but some would say he's the worst candidate because he isn't able to pull enough support to actually have his own lane.
Now, speaking of military readiness, Very disturbing report out from the U.S.
military.
The Army, the Navy, and the Air Force all missed their 2023 recruitment goals.
They missed their recruitment goals by a combined 41,000 personnel.
That's not good.
The annual defense authorization bill passed by Congress this year stated that active duty troops will drop to a little under 1.3 million in fiscal year 2024.
That's down by 64,000 troops over the past three years.
That gives the U.S.
military its smallest force since 1940.
While we are on the brink of World War III in two different places.
In Eastern Europe, well three places actually.
Eastern Europe, the Holy Land, and potentially in Taiwan.
What does this mean for the U.S.
military?
It's even worse than just not recruiting new people.
The people who have already been recruited are now taking to TikTok, a Chinese platform, to complain about how much they hate the army.
Okay, this guy says, cons of being in the army, part one.
No privacy.
The pay sucks.
Bad food.
Disrespectful leadership.
No sleep.
These are my top five reasons why you shouldn't join the military.
Reason number one is pay.
We do not get paid enough for what we do.
I'm not here to say that we get paid pennies.
I'm just saying that we don't get paid enough to perform the mission that is tasked to us.
Reason number two, family.
You will not see your family often.
You might see them on holidays and that's about it.
I can elaborate.
Reason number three, schooling.
Now I know you're like, whoa, that was a benefit.
But it's requirements you have to meet first to be able to get to that schooling.
So if you're thinking about joining because of schooling, just go to school.
Reason number four, if you're a parent.
Now if you join single and get married and then have kids, that's one thing.
But if you're already having a child and you're thinking about joining, don't.
You gotta think about it.
Boot camp is between 6 to 8 weeks.
After boot camp, you go to school.
That's between 10 days to a year.
After that, you go to deployment.
That's between 8 months to 9 months.
Think about how much time you miss with your child.
Reason number 5, you do not have 100% say on what you want to do.
How do you spell depression?
This is a lady in the army.
It's M-I-L-I-T-A-R-Y.
Whining about that.
The thing about these complaints That all of these people are making is they're all totally correct.
I know there are going to be conservatives out there who are attacking these guys who say, how dare you?
Where's your patriotism?
What did you sign up for?
That's crazy.
That's not what the military is like.
No, that is what the mil- I've never served in the military.
I'm very grateful to everyone who has.
I have a lot of family members who've served in the military.
And what these guys are saying, it's absolutely correct.
And the problem, the reason that this is coming out now, the reason people are complaining about this, the reason that the military is having a hard time recruiting people is because the top brass, the military leadership, have taken away all of the incentives to actually sign up for the military.
So now what new recruits are looking at is just all the list of negatives that have always existed.
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Serving in the military is very, very difficult.
The pay is bad.
You don't get to sleep.
People yell at you all the time.
You have to do a very dangerous job.
You don't get to see your family.
There are not a ton of benefits that go along with it.
So the reason you do it, the reason that one enlists in the military is out of a sense of patriotism.
Because you love your country.
It's out of a sense of honor.
The notion that it is an honorable thing to defend your country.
And it is dishonorable in a time of crisis, in a time of war, to, say, dodge the draft.
Why else do you join the military?
Well, there's some fringe benefits.
In part, the respect that you will receive for the rest of your life.
People, every time they see you and they find out you served, they'll say, thank you for your service.
In part, because of the fringe benefits like schooling.
GI Bill sends you to school, that's great, great way to pay for school.
In part, well I don't know, I guess that's about it.
And the problem right now is our top brass at the Pentagon and our entire society, our whole culture, have knocked all of those reasons down.
Now mock those reasons.
Hold them in contempt.
They say patriotism is a joke, this is an evil country founded by slavers for no other reason than to exploit poor oppressed minorities.
It's an evil, evil place.
We continue to perpetuate evil all around the world.
If you serve your country, not only are you not honorable, but you're actually dishonorable because this place is terrible.
That's the first one.
The second one, what about that, what about the notion of honor?
That it's actually good to go serve your, forget about the country for a second, it's just good for you to go serve.
We don't have a culture of service anymore, and that's a problem largely driven by the left.
By the right, too, because the right has adopted a greed is good mentality in recent decades and has said that all that really matters is going out and getting yours.
I'm going to go out there, make my money, do what's good for me, hook up with the girls I want to hook up with, live my life, forget about other people.
Virtue of selfishness.
Let's go, baby.
Let's read our Ayn Rand and then go out there and get ours.
That's been, I think that is ebbing on the right.
I think that view is certainly on its way out.
But that was a big view on the right.
Certainly in the 1980s, 90s, 2000s.
Okay, what about the respect you'll get from other people?
Look, you're a veteran.
You know, look, thank you for your service, sir.
What are you talking about?
Since Vietnam, we treat our veterans terribly.
Some people still support the troops.
A lot of people don't.
They don't get decent care from the VA when they get here.
There have been efforts to reform the VA.
It hasn't gone very well.
Since Vietnam, troops have been spit on.
They've been called baby rapers, child killers, all sorts of terrible things.
Where's the honor that you get?
Presumably, one does not serve strictly for the social honor that that will confer, but that's a nice little perk, isn't it?
Well, that's gone too.
So much for that.
Okay, final one.
What about the GI Bill?
You get to go to school.
Well, the schools are worthless now.
They still matter to some degree as a credentialing institution.
For some jobs, you still need to check that box, but we all know that the schools have been totally hollowed out from within.
The schools focus much less on good scholarship than they do on the latest DEI initiative with the 10,000-person army of Deputy Assistant Deputy Deans of Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity, whose entire job it is to make straight white guys feel terrible about themselves.
And to talk about how evil the army is and how terrible America is and how we all need to feel awful for the sins of our country.
So what's the point?
Oh, and by the way, the Democrats are going to pay for your school anyway, eventually.
Eventually, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders are going to get their way, and they're going to pay for your school.
Bernie's actually a little better on that issue than Elizabeth Warren is.
Elizabeth Warren, she's going to get her way.
They're going to slowly start paying for more and more college.
So the GI Bill's not even an inducement anymore.
So why would you join?
At that point, when all of the good reasons to sign up for the military are gone, all you're left with is crappy pay.
You don't see your family.
You don't sleep.
You get screamed at, and you have a very dangerous job.
Okay, don't be surprised.
When the top brass is turning red in the face, screaming before Congress, talking about how important it is for the troops to learn about the sources of white rage and critical race theory and DEI ideology— How important that is for military readiness.
Don't be surprised when no one wants to join.
I wouldn't want to join either.
Now, speaking of progressivism and speaking of the U.S.
Senate, John Fetterman, this is a nice little turn.
This is actually a nice little surprise, Christmas surprise.
John Fetterman has just come out and said, I am not progressive.
He says, I am not a progressive.
I just think I'm a Democrat that is very committed to choice and other things.
That's no good.
He's still super pro-abortion.
But he says, but with Israel, I'm going to be on the right side of that.
So the Dems are moving very anti-Israel.
Fetterman says, I'm going to be pro-Israel.
He says, immigration is something near and dear to me.
And I think we do have to effectively address that as well.
A lot of Democrats are totally for open borders, shipping immigrants up everywhere except for their own neighborhoods.
And John Fetterman says, no, we have to restrict immigration, actually.
The Democrats are the party of Bob Menendez, this totally corrupt senator who is taking a ton of bribes, peddling American influence, much like Joe Biden.
John Fetterman, one of the few Democrats openly, aggressively calling on Menendez to resign.
What's this about?
The Babylon Bee observed that as John Fetterman recovers from his brain injury, he's becoming more right-wing.
That's quite a coincidence.
Interesting how that works.
But there's something else going on here, too.
Which is, John Fetterman knows, or at least his political advisors know, Democrats cannot win Pennsylvania without normal people and the working class.
Immigration is a working class issue.
The more migrants that are allowed to come in, the worse it is for the working class because their wages go down, the job competition goes up.
It's bad.
Pennsylvania is not Los Angeles.
Pennsylvania is not Beverly Hills.
Pennsylvania is not the Upper East Side.
Pennsylvania is a Rust Belt state.
John Fetterman knows he's going to lose his seat if he alienates normal people in the working class.
Normal people in the working class recognize that we can't just have a totally open border.
Normal people in the working class are not marching in the street talking about from the river to the sea, the jihadis will be free, and we need to have more pogroms on the State of Israel because contextually, you know, you have to consider the purpose of a genocide.
Normal people just don't like that.
Okay?
Democrats can win in California by alienating normal people in the working class.
They already have.
Democrats can win, even in New York, though it's a little dicier there, by alienating normal people in the working class.
They can't do it in Pennsylvania.
They can't really do it in Michigan.
They can't do it in Wisconsin.
They can't do it in Arizona.
They can't do it in Nevada.
They can't do it in the swing states.
Which is why Federman is leading here.
Because no matter what his personal issues are, he's lived in Pennsylvania a long time.
And he knows that state a little bit better.
And if you're looking at the polls right now for Joe Biden, and you're a Democrat, you've got to be real, real worried.
Because as the left careens extremely to the left, that leaves a wide opening for Republicans.
And by the way, if the Democrats push their luck too far, and if Biden's approval falls so far, now we're at historic lows, Then even with all the little Democrat shenanigans, changing the voting rules, widespread mail-ins, ballot harvesting, fraud will only take you so far.
An election has to be a little bit close to steal it, or you have to just be in a totally anomalous time like COVID where you've locked down the global economy.
Barring those things, it would be very, very tricky for Democrats on this current path, especially if they don't listen to John Fetterman.
Biden's numbers are awful, so Republicans are seeing a chance here.
This is why Nikki Haley is full steam ahead.
And the way that Nikki Haley is seizing what she perceives to be her opportunity is not by doubling down on the right-wing ideas, It's by moderating on every issue and expressing her already moderate stances on a lot of issues, including abortion.
So here, Nikki Haley, in an interview on ABC News, expressed her moderation on abortion.
She says, well, look, I'm pro-life, but some of these pro-life laws in the various states, they're a little harsh.
They need a little tweaking.
It is the right thing that unelected justices no longer decide this, and it's in the hands of the people.
I appreciate that Texas went more on the pro-life side, but as we go through this, listen, my heart broke for her because I had trouble having my children.
The states are now going to have to look at these, because what we don't want to see is a woman with a rare condition having to carry a baby until term.
So that's when a state corrects itself and says, how do we make sure that doesn't happen again?
We tweak things all the time as governors.
So it was the right decision by the court?
Well, the court had to follow the law.
The law said that she couldn't have the abortion.
Now it's up to the legislature in Texas to say, how do we make sure there are no more Kates that go through that?
That's what you look at.
As a governor, you don't just say, this is golden.
As a governor, when something happens that churns your stomach, that says that's not what this was intended to be, you go back and say, okay, what do we do to make sure that we are saving as many babies as possible, but also supporting as many moms as possible?
It's not as cut and dry as everybody wants, but states will self-correct to this.
That's what they do.
Okay, so what Nikki is saying here is, there's this case where a woman was pregnant, and the doctor said, your baby might have some problems, so we recommend you abort the baby.
And if you don't abort the baby, you might have a harder time getting pregnant next time.
Again, seems a little dubious to me as far as medical advice goes.
A lot of the time, a huge, huge amount of the time, the majority of the time, I believe, that doctors say, oh, your child has terrible conditions.
Oh, your child probably won't live.
It doesn't turn out to be true.
So often, they will convince women to abort their children.
Had they just allowed the children to grow, they would have been totally fine.
I'm not saying that's true all the time, but it's true a lot of the time.
And then this claim, well, you know, if you don't abort your kid, if you don't kill your kid, then you might not be able, there's a chance you might not be able to have kids in the future.
And so what Nikki is saying here is, in this case, the woman should have been allowed to kill her child.
And we need to tweak this pro-life law.
And I, you know, I like Nikki Haley very much personally.
I strongly disagree with her view here.
And yet, I agree with the political calculus.
I think politically this is really smart of her.
For the reasons that I've said since basically the beginning of this primary.
You already have Trump.
Trump is the pro-life candidate.
He got Roe v. Wade overruled.
If you're a DeSantis supporter, you might say, well, DeSantis is even more pro-life than Donald Trump.
Maybe you could say, well, DeSantis signed a six-week abortion ban in Florida, and Trump criticized the abortion ban.
Now, a Trump supporter might say, well, Trump was only criticizing it because he reflexively criticizes everything his opponents do, and Trump got Roe v. Wade overruled, and so he's got a great record on pro-life, too, and, you know, whatever.
You guys can duke it out.
I'm just saying, Trump already claims the mantle of the hardcore pro-life candidate by virtue of his first term.
So, if you want to find an opening in the GOP race, there are plenty of Republicans who are not extremely pro-life.
There are a lot of them.
The non-pro-life, non-hardcore pro-life Republicans are not going to be supporting Ron DeSantis, and they're not going to be supporting Donald Trump.
They're going to want a different candidate.
Nikki Haley is positioning herself to be that candidate, which is why she's gaining in the polls.
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My favorite comment yesterday is from Karina Botei, who says, he was just analyzing the legislative matters before the Senate.
Okay, all right.
I think we're referring to a certain video that was filmed in the Senate Judiciary Rearing Room, Hearing Room, and we're talking about What some people have called the insurrectum and the, I don't want to, look, I like the jokes, okay, but I don't, I don't need any more screenshots.
I don't, there's no reason to post the screen.
If you're a conservative, I don't need to see the screenshots.
Keep it to the puns.
Those are bad enough.
CBS polls showing Haley gaining on Trump, not, not nationally exactly, but at least in New Hampshire.
So in Iowa, Trump is far and away the leader.
DeSantis comes next.
In New Hampshire, Trump is far and away the leader.
Haley comes next.
DeSantis, I think, is third.
But Haley is gaining pretty significantly.
And it's not even just in the head-to-head polls.
It's on all sorts of issues.
So 2024, who would you likely vote for today?
In New Hampshire, 44% Trump, 29% Haley, 11% DeSantis, 10% Christie, 5% Vivek.
Asa Hutchinson's still in the race.
Do you remember that?
So, it's not really close with anyone other than Trump and Haley.
44 to 29, it's still a huge margin, but it's within sight, at least.
Iowa, DeSantis still far ahead of Haley, but still far behind Trump.
Now, when you get into the crosstabs here, New Hampshire, who would you describe as prepared?
54% say Trump.
53% say Haley.
44% say DeSantis.
Trump and Haley virtually tied.
Described as likable.
Who's the most likable candidate in the race?
Or who are you more likely to describe as likable?
55% say Haley.
The majority, clear majority.
37% DeSantis.
36% Ramaswamy.
36% Trump.
So, DeSantis, Ramaswamy, Trump, all tied.
Christie, very unlikable.
Haley, far and away the most likable, according to New Hampshire voters.
Described as reasonable.
51% say Haley.
37% DeSantis, 36% Trump.
Trump and DeSantis tied.
Haley far and away the winner.
Unmost likely to be described as reasonable.
Described as a strong leader, 66% say Trump, 45% DeSantis, 41% Haley.
Everyone else way down.
So DeSantis still has an edge on Haley, but close to being tied.
Trump far and away the winner there.
Most likely to beat Biden, 51% say Trump, 32% say Haley, 27% DeSantis.
So Haley and DeSantis within striking distance, but Haley still has the edge.
Trump has a huge lead.
On and on, more cross tabs.
That's good news for Haley.
That's big news for the Haley campaign.
And you know how much I hate to say I told you so, but I did call it.
I did call it from the beginning of this race that there were two lanes.
There's the Trump lane and there's the not-Trump lane.
That's it.
And probably, it doesn't even matter who's in the not-Trump lane because of the unique circumstances of this race.
We haven't seen a race like this in over 100 years.
A candidate who was president, who's now running for a non-consecutive second term.
It's weird, but Trump is going in effectively as the incumbent.
So the non-Trump candidate's really got to be non-Trump, which means it's going to be tougher for DeSantis.
It's going to be easier for a candidate like Nikki Haley, and she's capitalizing on that.
Meanwhile, other Republicans are consolidating around Trump.
Josh Hawley, senator from Missouri, Republican, just endorsed Trump, said, Trump, President Trump doesn't need to worry.
I'm with him.
He's asked me several times to support him.
I said yes, and I've been saying for a year that I think he's going to be the nominee.
I support him.
I'm going to vote for him.
Don't worry.
You can put me down to support, endorse, stand with.
So this is a little bit of a tepid endorsement here.
He's not saying Trump is my man.
He can do no wrong.
I totally.
He's saying, yeah, I'm with him.
He's asked me for a long time.
I previously did not say yes.
I am saying yes now because I think he's going to be the nominee.
He's saying all of this.
This is a consolidation now of people who, whether they really like Trump, or they're lukewarm on Trump, or they don't even like him.
These are people who think they see the writing on the wall.
This endorsement came two days after Trump threatened Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz.
Trump posted on his social media network, he said, So interesting that the Dems are looking hard at the Senate races in both Missouri and Texas.
Josh and Ted must be very careful.
Stranger things have happened!
Three exclamation points.
So we'll see.
I don't think Senator Cruz has endorsed Trump yet.
Hawley has.
You're going to see more and more come along as a consolidation happens.
Now, speaking of writing on the wall and writing in all sorts of places, a Seattle high schooler Was just marked incorrect on a quiz for saying that only women can get pregnant.
There was a quiz on understanding gender versus sex.
This was administered by a 10th grade Ethnic Studies World History teacher.
What?
What are they teaching in school?
Ethnic Studies World History at Chief Sealth International High School.
And the student was marked wrong for answering the question that all men have penises.
As a true statement, and also marked wrong for saying that only women can get pregnant, is a true statement.
So for the first question, I guess there are freak accidents, right?
I guess there are kind of, you know, surgeries gone wrong or, you know, technically speaking, I guess not all men do.
No women do, but some, I guess some, you know, God forbid, like awful, you know, but could be a freak accident.
But then the second one, only women can get pregnant.
That leaves no doubt.
Obviously only women can get pregnant.
Then zoom back out.
What class is this in?
Ethnic Studies.
Why are you sending your kid to study Ethnic Studies?
That's a pseudo-academic discipline that is strictly, from the very beginning, it has only ever been a political operation to indoctrinate students in a far-leftist ideology deriving from critical theory and the various critical studies departments that proliferated in the universities, now apparently in high schools, in the 60s and 70s.
Then furthermore, what's the quiz?
The quiz is called Understanding Gender vs. Sex.
So if you believe that there is a hard and fast distinction between gender and sex and the two have nothing to do with one another, as the left believes, if that's the premise of the quiz, then I gotta ask you, why are you sending your kid to this school?
You know what you're getting going in.
The school is not being dishonest here.
Look, I think there's a distinction between gender and sex.
I know it's not popular for a lot of conservatives to say that, but I think there is.
And I think it's really a modern lib way of talking about the distinction between the body and the soul.
I disagree with the way the libs talk about the distinction between gender and sex because I think that the body and soul are inextricably linked and the soul is the substantial form of the body.
So I think that, you know, if you feel a disagreement between your gender identity and your sex, the reality stems from your biological sex.
Because I think that sex and gender derive primarily from the matter of the body, not from the form of the soul.
And it applies to the person as an inseparable accident of the individual for as long as you exist as an individual.
Okay, I bet that's nowhere on that quiz, but that's the way that our civilization has thought about gender and sex for all of history.
So, if you want to teach your kids that, you can't send them to this school.
If you are a parent, why would you subject your child to this?
And furthermore, forget about the parents.
I don't know the circumstances.
Maybe it's the only school in the neighborhood.
What kind of country subjects students to this?
What kind of country intentionally mal-educates students?
Intentionally alienates them from reality?
Makes them dumber?
Makes them confused about who they are and potentially entices them to fall into ideologies that will harm them and may well reduce their life expectancy.
But furthermore, just what kind of country puts their kids in classrooms to make them stupider and more ignorant?
Our country does that.
That's very sad.
It's very unfortunate.
There's no surprise here that parents are pulling their kids out of school now and homeschooling.
It's very difficult to do that in our modern economy where both parents are working and a lot of people just, maybe they can make it work, but it's going to take a little while even to pivot.
What kind of country does that?
Not a great one.
Not a country that is as great as it once was.
It's a country that needs to be made great again.
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