Headscratchers and Heartbreakers

As we put another workweek to bed, here are a few things that left me scratching my head – or which broke my heart – over the past seven days…

Recently, the House of Representatives passed the SAVE Act (Safeguard American Voter Eligibility) by a 220-208 mostly party-line vote. What would lead 208 Democrats to vote against a bill that requires individuals to provide proof of U.S. citizenship when registering to vote in federal elections? Simply put, Democrats don’t want to eliminate voter fraud because they depend on it to sway and win close elections.

Four brave Democrats – Reps. Jared Golden (ME), Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (WA), Henry Cuellar (TX) and Ed Case (HI) – joined Republicans in supporting the bill, which also mandates that states remove illegal immigrants from voter rolls, establishes criminal penalties for registering an applicant who fails to present documentary proof of U.S. citizenship, and allows citizens to sue elections officials who don't enforce the requirements.

The bill now goes to the Senate, where 60 votes are needed to break an expected Democratic filibuster (yes, the same filibuster that Chuck Schumer and the Dems tried to get rid of when they were in the majority).

Meanwhile, the Democrats in the House are claiming that the SAVE Act would disenfranchise millions of women who changed their last name when they got married or people who changed their name to match their “gender identity”. That’s grasping for straws if you ask me, because my wife simply provided her birth certificate and our marriage license when applying for a passport… and it was easy peasy, lemon squeezy.

Another headscratcher has to do with Social Security…

Why do Democrats always resort to lying about Republicans wanting to slash Social Security benefits and why do uneducated and ill-informed voters always believe them? For the record, there isn’t a single Republican in the House or the Senate who wants to defund Social Security or reduce benefits to seniors. That would be political suicide and every politician, regardless of party, wants to be re-elected.

Sure, there may be a few Republicans and even a handful of Democrats who think we should raise the full-retirement age because of increasing life expectancies. After all, when Social Security was enacted in 1936, the average life expectancy for an American male was 59 years and there were 16 workers for every recipient. Today, men live to be 77 and women to be 80, and we are down to 2.5 workers per recipient. That’s simply not sustainable.

But to say that Republicans want to slash Social Security is an outright lie ripped straight from the tired old Democrat playbook that is becoming more dog-eared with each passing year. Sadly, they will keep using it as long as gullible voters keep believing it.

If only these same voters would use a little common sense. Elon Musk and D.O.G.E. want to eliminate 20% of the Social Security Administration’s bloated workforce, drastically reducing the agency’s overhead costs. Those untold billions in savings can then be used to keep the system solvent that much longer, right?

And yet, all it takes is for some pandering Progressive politician to scare seniors into believing that their retirement benefits are at risk, and they start lining the streets with posters and placards. To me, it’s a case of elder abuse on steroids.

One last point about Social Security before moving on to a final heartbreaker…

For 45 years and counting, I have been paying into the Social Security system. Now that I am eligible to start receiving benefits but have not yet reached my full retirement age of 66 years and 10 months, somehow the SSA is able to limit how much money I earn before they start reducing the amount of my benefits.

At the risk of sounding like the people in the J.G. Wentworth commercials, “It’s my money and I want it now!” What gives the bureaucrats in Washington the right to tell me I can only earn X amount of dollars at my job, or they will withhold some of the money that I have been paying into the system for the past 45 years? They have been using my money – and earning interest on it – since Jimmy Carter was in the White House, so how dare they tell me now that I can’t earn more than $22,000 per year or they will turn off the spigots?

I sure would like my congressman or someone in D.C. to look into the matter.

Now for the heartbreaker (and it’s a real doozy)…

It’s one thing to lament the 66 million preborn babies who have been aborted since the horrific and erroneous Roe v. Wade ruling in 1973, a number that increases by roughly one million innocent babies each year. Americans are no better than the ancient Aztecs, Incas, Mayans, Philistines, and other cultures that practiced child sacrifice. They did it to appease false gods of stone and wood whereas we have sacrificed our precious children on the altar of personal convenience and promiscuity.

Say what you want, but the truth of the matter is that abortion is used as a means of birth control in America, plain and simple… and we will be judged by God for that.

And so will the rest of the world, because here is where the real heartbreak comes in. In my research I discovered that 73 million abortions are performed worldwide every year. Incredulously, six out of 10 (61%) unintended pregnancies, and 3 out of 10 (29%) of all pregnancies end in induced abortion.

What does that say about us as a civilization? We complain about the floating islands of garbage in our oceans but don’t blink an eye or lose a moment’s sleep over precious preborn babies being treated like plastic water bottles and other disposable waste.

May God open our eyes, change our hearts, and have mercy on our souls.