February 13th, 2024
Advancing American Freedom issued the following statement after the King of Jordan’s remarks at the White House.
“Yesterday, the King of Jordan spewed incendiary Hamas talking points from the White House podium as President Biden idly watched,” said AAF Executive Director Paul Teller. “From a call to continue funding the terrorist-supporting UNRWA, to a baffling plea for an Israeli ceasefire before eradicating all Hamas terrorists, to the familiar antisemitic tropes about Israeli occupation, the King’s speech was riddled with nonsense from start to finish. This speech is just another example of the Biden Administration actively undermining Israel’s effort to restore peace to the Middle East. The policy of the United States must be that we stand with Israel.”
February 8th, 2024
Escalating Iranian aggression cost the lives of three U.S. soldiers in Jordan. These intolerable acts of violence by the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism can no longer go unpunished. The U.S. must respond with an immediate and unequivocal show of force that will begin to restore the deterrence that has decayed not only in the Middle East but around the world.
Over the past three years, President Biden’s diplomats have repeatedly made overtures and concessions to Iran, which has only emboldened the regime’s aggressive behavior. The Biden administration rolled back the Trump administration’s maximum-pressure strategy, agreed to a $6 billion ransom payment for five American hostages, allowed Iran to export more oil to China than ever, and removed the Houthis’ terrorist designation. Worse, the Biden administration has continued trying to revive the Iran nuclear deal, which would put Tehran back on the fast track to obtaining nuclear weapons.
The result of this appeasement is war, beginning Oct. 7 with Hamas’s atrocities against Israel. In the four months since, the Biden administration has continued to resort to appeasement by declining to respond forcefully to Iran’s escalation and attacks.
The mullahs have unceremoniously snapped every olive branch Mr. Biden and his diplomats extended. It is past time to accept that this approach has utterly failed and cost American lives. To keep our soldiers and our nation safe, the Biden administration must adopt a more robust stance toward Iran.
The mullahs understand only strength. In addition to canceling the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the Trump administration launched a campaign of maximum pressure that included the enforcement of crippling sanctions on Iran. We didn’t hesitate to take decisive action to stop Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani when he threatened American lives. By 2020, the Iranian regime was more isolated than ever. Both its capacity and its will to plunge the region into chaos were at an all-time low.
Only by returning to maximum pressure can the U.S. restore stability to the region and adequately protect the lives of American service members and our allies. We encourage the Biden administration to revoke the $10 billion sanctions waiver it reissued in November. The regime in Tehran uses these funds to finance terror, death and suffering across the Mideast. As the leader of the free world, the president must also call on international banks to seize the funds of all Iranian proxies operating in the region.
No one wants war; every decent person despises it. This is why we in the Trump administration built a model of deterrence that successfully kept America’s adversaries from engaging in aggression. That model of deterrence has been allowed to decay in favor of appeasement and, as a result, the costs necessary to resurrect it have risen, not only in the Middle East, but around the world.
Our first step should be to respond to Iran’s deadly attacks with devastating strikes: not only to end Tehran’s escalation and keep American soldiers safe, but to begin re-establishing the model of deterrence that keeps war at bay. The U.S. military must destroy high-value Iranian targets, including Tehran’s nuclear program, navy and oil infrastructure. Telegraphed strikes on empty warehouses achieve nothing. Appeasement has never worked a single time in history, and it won’t work now.
The safety and security of the nation and its citizens must always remain paramount. Those who volunteer to defend our freedoms shouldn’t be left to fend for themselves. Those who make the ultimate sacrifice in service to our country deserve justice. And those who dare to threaten America’s interests deserve a reminder that they’ll regret it.
Read more here at TheWallStreetJournal.com.
February 8th, 2024
Advancing American Freedom filed an amicus brief in Murthy v. Missouri, a case in which medical professionals, activists, and two states sued the Biden Administration for its inducement of social media companies to censor speakers on their platforms, violating the First Amendment of the Constitution.
“The Constitution protects the freedom of speech from government abridgment, but the Biden administration sought to circumvent the First Amendment by engaging private parties, namely social media companies, to act as its speech police,” said J. Marc Wheat, General Counsel for AAF. “In totalitarian nations, dissenting voices are not allowed. But America has been and must continue to be a country of robust debates, of peaceful protests, and of government responsive to the people. The Supreme Court must uphold the Constitution and defend the right of free speech.”
Read the brief here.
February 7th, 2024
Advancing American Freedom issued the following statement after the House Foreign Affairs Committee favorably reported several of AAF’s key legislative priorities, bringing them one step closer to passage on the House floor.
“Advancing American Freedom expresses its sincere thanks to the leadership of Rep. Michael McCaul, Rep. Chris Smith, and the entire House Foreign Affairs Committee for marking-up and reporting three of AAF’s legislative priorities out of committee: Designating Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern, Defunding UNRWA, and redesignating the Houthi’s as a Foreign Terrorist Organization,” said AAF Executive Director Paul Teller. “We will continue to support these important bills and urge Speaker Mike Johnson to expeditiously schedule them for floor consideration.”
February 7th
Conservative leaders are calling on House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson to pass the FACE Act Repeal Act of 2023 “as soon as possible.”
“In the aftermath of additional pro-life activists being convicted by the Biden administration under the FACE Act for peacefully protesting outside an abortion business, we respectfully urge you to take immediate legislative action to protect peaceful pro-life activists from the Biden administration’s weaponized Department of Justice and an unconstitutional law,” the leaders said in a Wednesday letter first obtained by The Daily Signal.
That letter, led by Advancing American Freedom (AAF), is signed by Kristan Hawkins of Students for Life of America, Tom McClusky of CatholicVote, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, Tom Brejcha of the Thomas More Society, Ryan Anderson of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, Lila Rose of Live Action and Penny Nance of Concerned Women for America.
“The Biden administration has weaponized the FACE Act against peaceful pro-life sidewalk counselors and activists who want to save lives and change hearts and minds,” AAF Executive Director Paul Teller told The Daily Signal. “Justice should be blind. But pro-abortion activists who have scaled bridges shutting down main roads, posted the home addresses of Supreme Court justices, and vandalized and firebombed pro-life pregnancy centers have not faced the FBI showing up on their doorstep.”
“The First Amendment protects the right to peacefully assemble, and the FACE Act criminalizes that right,” he added. “There can be no two-tiered system of justice in our nation.”
The letter says that there is “no question as to whether the FACE Act is being disproportionately applied to pro-lifers.”
“Despite official requests from members of Congress, sparse data is available regarding FACE Act prosecutions,” the letter continues. “However, our best estimates indicate that the FACE Act has been used ~130 times with just 5 FACE Act charges being leveled against pro-abortion activists.”
The FACE Act, which is supposed to protect not only abortion clinics, but also pregnancy resource centers and places of worship, was never used to protect pro-life pregnancy centers or churches until Republicans took back the House and “promised to end President [Joe] Biden’s reign of woke and weaponized government,” the leaders noted.
“This is despite hundreds of pro-life pregnancy centers and churches being attacked since the Dobbs decision was leaked in May of 2022,” the letter continued. “To date, the federal government has never used the FACE Act to protect a church.”
“We believe that the FACE Act is unconstitutional,” the leaders told Jordan and Johnson. “It wrongly usurps police powers reserved to the states by the Constitution and allows the Department of Justice to swoop in to punish its political enemies, rather than equally applying the law. Additionally, the FACE Act protects abortion, when taking the life of the unborn is no longer and never rightly was a constitutional right.”
The leaders urge Johnson and Jordan to mark up and pass Rep. Chip Roy’s HR 5577, the FACE Act Repeal Act of 2023, “as soon as possible.” Roy, R-Texas, introduced this legislation in September, The Daily Signal first reported, and Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, introduced a Senate version of the bill.
“Free Americans should never live in fear of their government targeting them because of their beliefs,” Roy said in September. “Yet, Biden’s Department of Justice has brazenly weaponized the FACE Act against normal, everyday Americans across the political spectrum, simply because they are pro-life.”
“Our Constitution separates power between the federal government and the states for a reason, and we ignore that safeguard at our own peril,” he added. “The FACE Act is an unconstitutional federal takeover of state police powers. It must be repealed.”
Roy also led an effort to defund enforcement of the FACE Act in April 2023, but the proposal died when it was not included in the House Appropriations subcommittee draft.
The letter comes on the heels of a Nashville, Tennessee, jury finding six pro-life activists guilty of violating the FACE Act resulting from their peaceful protest in the hallway outside a Mount Juliet abortion clinic in March 2021. Pro-life activists Chet Gallagher, Coleman Boyd, Heather Idoni, Cal Zastrow, Dennis Green, and Paul Vaughn face up to 11 years in prison, The Daily Wire’s Leif Le Mahieu reported.
Leaders of three pro-life groups similarly called on Johnson and Jordan on Wednesday to schedule HR 5577 for consideration in the House Judiciary Committee—and for the House to consider and pass the bill once reported out of the committee.
“We are grateful for your efforts to protect pro-life individuals and entities from the rising occurrences of vandalism and violence,” wrote Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser, March for Life Action President Jeanne Mancini, and Americans United for Life General Counsel Steven Aden.
“You have repeatedly called for justice, especially as the instances rose dramatically since the leaked opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization,” they noted. “Not only is the Biden administration turning a blind eye to injustices committed against pro-life entities, but it is brazenly using the FACE Act to target and sentence peaceful pro-life advocates as if they were violent criminals.”
The pro-life leaders emphasized that “now is the time for action,” accusing Biden’s administration of “targeting and devastating the lives of prayerful, peaceful pro-life advocates.”
“Because of [the administration’s] repeated abuses of the law,” they wrote, “the law itself has been perverted and is no longer helpful or just.”
“This legislation builds on House passage of then-Congressman Johnson’s resolution condemning violence against pro-life entities,” the pro-life leaders continued. “Additionally, the need is well established in Chairman Jordan’s report highlighting the ways the Biden administration has unfairly weaponized the FBI—and particularly, the FACE Act— to criminalize and incarcerate pro-life Americans.”
Read more here at TheDailySignal.com.
