The legacy media has spent the last several days obsessing over the purported threat to democracy posed by the 2024 elections, President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet picks, and Pete Hegseth’s Christian tattoo. Meanwhile, a European government body handed a pro-life broadcaster a stiff fine and declared that, even on a Christian program, “abortion cannot be presented as a cause of death.” Senate Democrats have abandoned the worst of President Joe Biden’s judicial nominations — but at a price. Police in a northwestern city reveal that a widely publicized event undermines Washington state’s “hate crime” law. A deep-blue city in a pro-life state has decided not to use taxpayer funding to pay for women’s travel to have an abortion out of state. And yes, Jaguar created a DEI-themed commercial, but another high-end car manufacturer has debuted a heartrendingly beautiful pro-family ad.

Here are the stories you’ve missed recently.

1. French Government Agency Says Abortion Does Not Cause Death

Modern France traces its ideology back to the violent, anti-Christian French Revolution, when the Jacobins chose as their slogan “liberté, égalité, fraternité” (liberty, equality, and fraternity) — but not vérité (truth). The French government revealed its hostility to verity recently, when it fined a Christian program for saying that abortion causes death.

On February 25, broadcaster Aymeric Pourbaix of the CNews channel’s Roman Catholic program “En quête d’esprit” (“In search of the Spirit”) posted a slide with a stark and unwelcome truth: Abortion is “the leading cause of death in the world.” The infographic came as the nation of France stood poised to make abortion a constitutional right. The government promptly punished the conservative news outlet for speaking truth to power.

CNews announced on November 14 that the government agency in charge of regulating broadcasting, ARCOM (Autorité de régulation de la communication audiovisuelle et numérique) meted out a fine of €100,000, or $104,000 U.S. for airing that segment. ARCOM also tried to shackle CNews or any other TV show from presenting the human toll of abortion, stating that, on TV airwaves, “abortion cannot be presented as a cause of death.” ARCOM further complained that this “manifest inaccuracy” was “not contradicted by the other people present on the set.”

It’s not clear why anyone would deny the truth that abortion is the world’s leading cause of death. Some pro-life organizations have pointed out that Worldometer, a real-time global statistics website, shows abortion dwarfing other causes of death. The website currently states that 40.6 million abortions have been committed this year. That exceeds the number of deaths caused by cancer (7.4 million), AIDS (1.5 million), communicable diseases (11.7 million), smoking (4.5 million), and road collisions (1.2 million) combined. If anything, those figures understate the extent of the issue.

“Around 73 million induced abortions take place worldwide each year,” according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Yet in an article posted in August titled “The top 10 causes of death,” WHO claims the “world’s biggest killer is ischemic heart disease … rising by 2.7 million to 9.1 million deaths in 2021.” The number two cause of death, the WHO claimed, was COVID-19.

The fine is really about the faltering government of President Emmanuel Macron punishing the nation’s most significant conservative news outlet. By March, CNews and its sister channel, C8, had received €7.5 million in fines. Lawmakers called their owner, billionaire Vincent Bolloré, before the National Assembly for a ritual browbeating earlier this year, when he described his ongoing anguish over participating in an abortion. “I was weak ... I let myself go along with it. There isn’t a day that goes by when I don’t think about that life that I helped to wipe out,” he told lawmakers.

The French government has kept rolling out fines for speaking truths not approved by the government. The modern-day Jacobins have no greater aversion to using force to crush truth than their murderous, secular ancestors. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

2. Chuck Schumer Abandons Joe Biden’s Most Radical Judicial Nominees — at a Price

Senate Democrats have officially agreed that three of President Joe Biden’s most radical judicial nominees will not serve on the bench — but they demanded, and got, a high price.

The three nominees — Adeel Mangi, Julia Lipez, and Karla Campbell — would have each taken a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals, the feeding system for the U.S. Supreme Court.

Experts regarded Adeel Mangi, whom the Biden-Harris administration touted as potentially the first Muslim to serve on the federal appeals court, as the most extreme of the three. As I reported in this column for The Washington Stand in May:

“During the time Mangi served on the board of Rutgers University Center for Security, Race and Rights (CSRR), it hosted Sami al-Arian, a former professor who admitted he provided material support to the terrorist organization Palestinian Islamic Jihad. (Al-Arian was subsequently deported to Turkey.)

“Mangi also served as a board member of the Alliance of Families for Justice (AFJ), which was co-founded by Kathy Boudin, a member of the radical 1960s domestic terrorist organization the Weather Underground. Boudin also entered a guilty plea in her case to murdering two police officers during a 1981 Brinks robbery. True to form, AFJ asked authorities to release six cop-killers, who were members of the Black Panthers or the Black Liberation Army, describing the murderers as ‘freedom fighters.’ 

“These associations proved so toxic that numerous Democratic senators — including Catherine Cortez Masto, Jacky Rosen (both of Nevada), and Joe Manchin (W.Va.) — publicly opposed his appointment. … Democrats could theoretically force a vote on Mangi during the lame duck session of Congress.”

In June, this column reported about Julia Lipez, a justice on the Maine Superior Court who cut a child molester’s jail sentence in half, because she saw “a lot of good” in him. Two victims suffered years of molestation from Michael Smith, a former corrections officer, beginning when one victim was nine years old and the other was only four. The aforementioned Alliance for Justice praised the nomination of Lipez, the daughter of Senior U.S. Circuit Judge Kermit Lipez, for increasing the “gender diversity of the federal courts.”

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) announced last Thursday that he had cut a deal with Senate Republicans not to forward the three appellate court nominations — who did not have enough votes to get confirmed, thanks to opposition from Democrats — in exchange for Republicans agreeing to confirm 12 federal judges to lower, district courts.

“The trade was four circuit nominees — all lacking the votes to get confirmed — for more than triple the number of additional judges moving forward,” Schumer’s office told Bloomberg News on November 21.

Pessimists will see this as an overall numbers loss. Optimists will see it as a win. Realists will say Democrats bargained for this outcome before agreeing to publicly oppose Biden’s judicial nominees. Whatever happened, President-elect Trump’s vow to eliminate Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) seems to have gotten off to an early start.

3. Man Who Did Burnouts on Pride Flag May Not Face Hate Crime Charges

Over the summer, a local news story in Washington spread throughout the country: A man driving a black sedan did burnouts on a Pride mural. The city of Bellevue, Washington, had a bisexual-themed mural titled “The Love Between” painted on an intersection. A man did burnouts on the mural three separate times: July 14, September 7, and September 14. Police asked the media to identify the driver. Posters around the world pointed to incidents such as this as proof of increased anti-LGBTQ hate crimes.

Earlier this month, authorities arrested 21-year-old Ivan Barzul but said he was not a “homophobe” (or whatever the equivalent is for bisexuality): He’s an adrenaline addict. “He does have a criminal history of reckless driving,” Major Ellen Inman announced last Thursday.

“Investigators say there is no evidence to indicate it was a hate crime,” reported local media.

The idea of waving hate crimes charges flies in the face of a new state law, which essentially declares vandals guilty of hate crimes until proven innocent. SB 5917, which became law on June 6 (Pride Month), states:

“In any prosecution for a hate crime offense, unless evidence exists which explains to the trier of fact’s satisfaction that the person did not intend to threaten the victim or victims, the trier of fact may infer that the person intended to threaten a specific victim or group of victims because of the person’s perception of the victim’s or victims’ race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender expression or identity, or mental, physical, or sensory disability if the person commits one of the following acts …” (Emphasis added.)

Apparently, the police say this policy is wrong and needs to go.

4. San Antonio Backs Down, Does Not Fund Travel for Abortion

When Texas adopted a law protecting innocent life from the moment a fetal heartbeat could be detected, Democrat-controlled urban areas erupted in protest. One of them, San Antonio, planned to force taxpayers to pay for women to travel out of state to have an abortion. The San Antonio City Council created the “Reproductive Justice Fund” shortly after the 2022 Dobbs decision — but pro-life groups filed a lawsuit objecting to the city funding abortion travel. Although the lawsuit did not prevail, the city backed down.

Last Thursday, November 21, the city removed abortion travel from the services funded by the “Reproductive Justice Fund.”

“There is a service that is not being funded through these dollars, and that is travel services for abortion for out-of-state,” Mayor Ron Nirenberg told local media. “That being said, that’s been the source of all the controversy. I would support a conversation or a discussion after this to allocate dollars specifically toward those services. I do believe we are missing parts of the intent” of creating the fund.

Their decision leaves little to celebrate. The fund will pay for “reproductive health workshops, sex education in high schools, access to contraceptives, [and] sexually transmitted infection (STI) testing” through next November 30. But even a deep-blue city did not fund abortion travel.

5. Volvo Makes a Pro-Family Commercial

You have likely seen Jaguar’s new rebranding commercial. The spot features androgynous models in pastel colors sporting woke dress. Yet at the same time, another high-end car manufacturer released a beautiful pro-family commercial that deserves your viewership.

The commercial for the Volvo EX90 follows the life of a young girl, from her parents (and grandmother) celebrating her conception through all the milestones that mark family life. It concludes with the words “For Life,” in all capital letters.

It will bring tears to your eyes.

We appreciate their family-friendly advertisements. We wish corporate policies promoted and preserved the natural family with equal force and velocity.

Regardless of what the Fortune 500 does, I pray you have many blessed memories with your family to cherish this Thanksgiving holiday.