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jailed marine mexico

Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi, the jailed Marine from Weston, Florida, is a two-tour veteran set to spend Memorial Day weekend in a Mexican prison.

U.S. Marine Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi, 25, of Weston, Florida, is a two-tour veteran set to spend Memorial Day weekend in a Mexican prison for accidentally crossing the border with loaded guns. Tahmooressi said he made a wrong turn while exiting a parking lot in San Ysidro, California on March 31. He was unable to avoid entering Mexico, and immediately tried to turn around as he dialed 911.

Tijuana-based defense attorney, Alejandro Osuna, said Tahmooressi disclosed to the customs agents he had registered weapons in his truck and that he did not intend to enter Mexico. “Andrew said that one of the customs officials offered to escort him back across the border,” Osuna said. “We need to find out what happened at that point.”

Mexican officials had disputed the veteran’s claim, but upon visiting the exact border crossing there is clearly an obvious obstruction to reaching the last-minute turnaround for drivers in the that specific lane, which is not typically the case in larger border crossing areas. Also, there is not even clear indication that the particular left turn will land a traveler in Mexico. The first sign that states “Mexico Only” is barely clear in the daylight, with the “Only” being of shoddy construction that isn’t even illuminated. The sign just after making the left reads “Mexico No USA,” except “No USA” is covered in graffiti, which again, is not even legible in daylight.

Further, a recording released by Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) proves the jailed Marine did inadvertently cross the Mexican border. In the recording, viewable below via Greta Van Susteren, Tahmooressi pleads with the dispatcher, who was of no help with no compassion.

“Hi, I’m having a little bit of an emergency here,” Tahmooressi told a dispatcher on the 911 recording. “I am at the border of Mexico right now. My problem is, I crossed the border by accident and have three guns in my truck, and they’re trying to possess, they’re trying to take my guns from me.”

Osuna said he will subpoena the video of the customs station when his client was arrested. But even if a judge hears the evidence tomorrow, the Mexican legal system — if it could even properly be classified as such — does not work in the same way the U.S. justice system works.

“Unlike the U.S. system, where you will have a two or three day trial, in Mexico evidence and hearings are presented piecemeal,” Osuna said. A hearing to listen to the 911 tape is scheduled for June 4. Then, on June 5, a court officer will travel with the lawyers to the same border crossing. But, Tahmooressi’s first court hearing is set for May 28, when he will have to face the two customs agents and two soldiers present at his arrest. He will have the opportunity to make a statement.

“We want him to explain everything that happened the night of his arrest,” Osuna said.

Since his arrest, Tahmooressi has been held in two different Mexican prisons, one of which is notorious for corruption, violence and abuse. According to Osuna, the jailed Marine is facing federal charges for carrying a weapon intended for exclusive use by the military, carrying a weapon not registered in Mexico and possession of ammunition.

But while the judge can dismiss the case at any point, the decision is likely not coming soon enough for the family.

“The judge won’t dismiss the case at this time,” Osuna said. “These are very serious charges in Mexico.”

President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry have done little to expedite justice in this case. Despite the growing public outrage and media exposure, the judge is not feeling enough pressure to dismiss the case at this time.

“The judge who is hearing the case in Tijuana is oblivious to the American media,” Osuna said.

Mexico has approved new procedures to allow the attorney general to opt out of prosecuting a case, but Mexican officials have been unclear in answering our request to respond to that possibility. Some have said they didn’t even know if the new rules were implemented. What is known is that not even Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto has the option to pardon prisoners. A judge and a judge alone will decide Tahmoressi’s fate, according to Mexican law.

This is not the first instance of Mexican officials arresting veterans on trumped up charges. In December 2012, a Mexican federal judge finally ordered the immediate release of Marine Jon Hammar, 27, who also crossed the Mexican border that previous August, though he did so with an antique rifle that was in his vehicle as he was headed to a surfing trip. Like Tahmooressi, Hammar also suffered from severe combat-related PTSD. In fact, Tahmooressi was making his way back from a VA medical center where he was receiving treatment for his condition, a condition he has been struggling to deal with over the past year.

The Mexican court ruled that Hammar had no criminal intent to bring the antique 60-year-old rifle across the border and had his constitutional rights violated. While he was jailed, Hammar’s relatives were hit with a barrage of phone calls attempting to extort them. The calls were from jailed cartel members who rule the prison systems in the corrupt country.

Tahmooressi will unfortunately remain behind bars in a state penitentiary in Tecate, Mexico, which is roughly 40 miles east of Tijuana.

U.S. Marine Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi, 25, of

World

ukraine

Pro-Russian forces using violence to obstruct Ukraine presidential elections.

KIEV, Ukraine – Pro-Russian forces are preventing preparation for the Ukraine presidential election in at least half of the districts in the turbulent eastern part of the country.

Volodymyr Hrinyak, chief of the public security department at the Ukrainian Interior Ministry, said Saturday that 17 out of 34 district election commissions in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions are not prepared for the election because the buildings have been seized or being blocked by armed, Russian-backed insurgents.

Throughout the weeks leading up to the election, the Russian insurgents have controlled parts of the eastern region of Ukraine. After making their declaration of independence earlier this month, the insurgents threatened to stop voting in the “neighboring country.”

Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin publicly said Friday that he will work with winner and new Ukrainian president, but U.S. intel officials told People’s Pundit Daily last week that previously gestures of good-will from Putin were mostly for show.

A whole 21 individual candidates are running in the Ukraine presidential election. Recent polling found billionaire candy-maker Petro Poroshenko with an overwhelming lead. Still, with all of the candidates in the election drawing a small number of supporters, he is polling short of the majority needed to outright win. In a distant second place is Yulia Tymoshenko, the divisive former prime minister who was released in February, right before the former and ousted president was forced to flee.

In polls conducted on the potential run-off that would be held on June 15, Poroshenko is leading.

Associated Press reporters saw two dead Ukrainian soldiers around the village of Karlivka, while another body lay at a rebel checkpoint, both which were in the Donetsk region. A rebel leader said 16 more people died Friday — 10 soldiers, four rebels and two civilians — but we have not verified his statement.

In Kiev, the Defense Ministry said 20 insurgents were killed in an attack conducted by about 500 rebels on a convoy of Ukrainian troops Thursday, which is the largest insurgent assault ever reported. However, the claims also could not be independently confirmed.

Pro-Russian forces are preventing preparation for the

Economy, Markets

The Commerce Department said Friday that new home sales rose more than expected in the month of April, and the inventory of houses on the market hit a 3-1/2 year-high. New sales increased 6.4 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 433,000 units, ending what had been two straight months of declines.

March’s sales pace was revised up to 407,000 units from the previously reported number of 384,000 units. However, the government has made revisions to the model it previously used to adjust the data for seasonal fluctuations, which affected the monthly data.

The new revisions threw experts for a loop, as economists polled by Reuters had forecast new home sales at a 425,000-unit pace last month. When comparing year-over-year for the month of April, sales were down 4.2 percent from last year, regardless of revisions.

A tiny increase in mortgage rates last year coupled with rising home prices, which easily and exceedingly outpaced wage growth (and still is), are weighing on the housing market. Home sales are also being weighed further down by a reported shortage of properties for sale.

Still, some are calling for optimism following the report.

A report from the National Association of Realtors Thursday showed existing-home sales increased in April and inventory was measured at the highest number in nearly two years.

On affordability, according to Freddie Mac, the fixed 30-year mortgage rate fell to an average of 4.14 percent this week, almost seven-month low and down from an average of 4.20 percent the prior week.

As far as regional data, new home sales increased in the Midwest to their highest level since November of 2007, while also rising in the South. However, in the West sales were flat. On the other side of the country, the Northeast, sales saw their largest decline since October 2012.

The inventory of new houses on the market increased 0.5 percent to 192,000 units, which is the highest level since November of 2010. While the stock of new houses on the market has come off a record low hit in July 2012, it remains less than half of its pre-recession level.

At the same pace seen in April, it would take roughly 5.3 months to clear the supply of houses on the market, down from 5.6 months in March. With inventories increasing, the median price of a new home last month fell 1.3 percent to $275,800 from April last year.

The Commerce Department said Friday that its

Politics

democrat senators and bernie sanders

Democrat senators Harry Reid, Al Franken and Richard Blumenthal, with Democrat-socialist Bernie Sanders.

Wednesday night the House of Representatives took a strong step toward restoring accountability and public faith in the VA. The overwhelming passage (390-33) of the VA Management Accountability Act (H.R. 4031) has drawn a stark contrast between the Republican-controlled House and the Democrat-controlled Senate. The legislation would have granted Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki the power to hold corrupt administrators accountable.

Thursday, Democrat senators led by Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) organized to kill the House bill, choosing self-described Democrat-socialist Bernie Sanders of Vermont, the chair of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, to carry out the objecting vote during a motion for unanimous consent. The move allowed 160 House Democrats to vote for the House bill in a symbolic fashion only, providing political cover for members who knew the bill would never make it for a vote in the Senate.

Florida Republican lawmakers are leading the way on efforts to hold those who kept secret waiting lists and falsified records accountable, and are outraged over the new lows Democrats have gone to protect big government. Rep. Jeff Miller of Florida, the chair of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, introduced H.R. 4031 and Florida Senator Marco Rubio introduced companion legislation, the VA Management Accountability Act (S. 2013), which Democrats killed Thursday.

Ironically, Bernie Sanders has expressed interest in running for president in 2016, but Democrats will have to contend with the impact the VA scandal has had on the 2014 midterm elections first. Embattled Democrats are desperately seeking to distance themselves from the president, but “too little too late” says Rep. Miller regarding the party’s response to the VA scandal. In fact, President Obama is taking flack from both the sincere right and pretentious left.

“If these allegations prove to be true,” Obama said, “it is dishonorable, it is disgraceful and I will not tolerate it – period.” But the allegations are, in fact, true. Even Democrats aren’t disputing them, they are simply more concerned about protecting the power of the public labor unions and “sanctity of civil service” than they are about dying veterans, Senator Marco Rubio said.

“They organized to kill the bill,” he added Thursday.

Whether the American people will demand the Senate take the vote, rather than hold hearing and hearing on the proposed bill, as Senator Sanders suggested, remains to be seen. Meanwhile, veterans desperately in need of care — as of now — will have to wait until the holiday weekend is over for Democrats to return to work. In a shameful instance of irony, Democrats will enjoy their time off at the expense of a holiday designated to honor those veterans who served and sacrificed so that our individual freedom and system of government, in which Democrats serve, may survive.

Democrat senators organized to kill legislation that

Politics, Video

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) ripped outgoing Sen. Jay Rockefeller for insinuating Republican opposition to ObamaCare is fueled by racism. This is the second time this month that the far left Senator from West Virginia has accused the president’s opponents of opposing Obama’s big government policies “because he’s the wrong color.”

“It’s very important to take a long view at what’s going on here. And I’ll be able to dig up some emails that make part of the Affordable Care Act that doesn’t look good, especially from people who have made up their mind that they don’t want it to work. Because they don’t like the president, maybe he’s of the wrong color. Something of that sort,” Rockefeller said. “I’ve seen a lot of that and I know a lot of that to be true. It’s not something you’re meant to talk about in public, but it’s something I’m talking about in public because that is very true.”

Johnson, who was the only Republican in the room, turned to Rockefeller to tell him he thought “it was regrettable and I would say it was offensive — that you would play the race card.”

But the liberal senator has been making a habit of such remarks as he prepares to retire. At a transportation funding hearing earlier this month, Rockefeller also claimed Republicans’ efforts to oppose Obama’s policies were fueled by racism. Sen. Johnson, after first expressing his disgust with the comment, articulated the dominant view among those who oppose ObamaCare. And, according to recent polls, the majority of the nation.

“That you would say that opposition to ObamaCare necessarily must stream from some inherent racism? Very offensive. Listen, my opposition to health care has nothing to do with the race of President Obama,” Johnson said. “It is the greatest assault on our freedom in my lifetime.”

Sen. Ron Johnson is leading the charge that includes 45 lawmakers and roughly 80,000 Americans to sue the Obama administration over ObamaCare. Johnson filed a lawsuit in early January against the Office of Personnel Management for awarding Washington lawmakers and Capitol Hill staff with ObamaCare subsidies, despite not falling anywhere near the income level required for the American people.

“The American people expect … that members of Congress, the political class in Washington, should be fully subject to all of the rules and all of the laws … and that is not the case,” Johnson said.

“[Members of Congress] went running to President Obama for special treatment and they got it,” he added. “That’s completely unfair and completely unjust and that’s what I’m trying to overturn.”

The retirement of Sen. Rockefeller has given the Republican Party a prime pick up opportunity in the U.S. Senate. Republican Rep. Shelley Moore Capito is heavily favored to win in November against Natalie Tennant on PPD’s 2014 Senate Map Predictions.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) ripped outgoing Sen.

Economy

home sales and home prices

(Photo: REUTERS)

Total existing-home sales rose 1.3 percent to an annualized rate of 4.65 million units in April, just below Wall Street’s expectation for an increase to 4.68 million units. According to the newly released report from the National Association of Realtors, monthly sales gains in the West and South largely offset the decline in the Midwest, while the Northeast remained unchanged.

The increase in existing-home sales represents the first time it has increased this year. Inventory increased and home price growth supposedly moderated.

Total existing-home sales, which must be completed and include single-family homes, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops, ticked up 1.3 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.65 million in April, up from 4.59 million in March. However, sales are 6.8 percent below the 4.99 million-unit level measured in April of 2013.

Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, says he expected the improvement.

“Some growth was inevitable after sub-par housing activity in the first quarter, but improved inventory is expanding choices and sales should generally trend upward from this point,” he said. “Annual home sales, however, due to a sluggish first quarter, will likely be lower than last year.”

Total housing inventory jumped 16.8 percent to 2.29 million existing homes available for sale by the end of April, which is a 5.9-month supply at the current sales pace, up from 5.1 months in the month of March. Also, unsold inventory is 6.5 percent higher than a year ago, when there was a 5.2-month supply. A six months’ supply measurement is considered a relatively healthy balance between supply and demand.

“We’ll continue to see a balancing act between housing inventory and price growth, which remains stronger than normal simply because there have not been enough sellers in many areas. More inventory and increased new-home construction will help to foster healthy market conditions,” Yun added.

The median existing-home price for all housing types in April was $201,700, which is 5.2 percent higher than was measured in April 2013. In the first quarter of 2014 the median price was 8.6 percent above 2013.

“Current price data suggests a trend of slower growth, which bodes well for preserving favorable affordability conditions in much of the country,” Yun said.

Total existing-home sales rose 1.3 percent to

Economy

Weekly jobless claims jumped up from their 7-year low the week prior, as initial claims for unemployment benefits rose 28,000 to 326,000 for the week ended May 17.

The prior week saw the lowest number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits since May 2007 and brought claims back to a level last seen before the deep 2007-09 recession. While some economists point to the cumulative reduction as evidence of a stronger jobs market, one measurement in Thursday’s Labor Department report may be a bad sign regarding the upcoming monthly employment report for May.

Even though Thursday’s weekly jobless claims data falls within the survey week for the employment report’s gauge of hiring in the economy, and the four-week moving average of new jobless claims rose about 3 percent from the same week in April. The rolling average is widely considered as a less-volatile gauge of the current labor conditions than the weekly numbers.

That data shows less job creation likely occurred this month, though hiring in April was stronger-than-usual in the Obamaeconomy. Nonfarm payrolls increased 288,000 in April. Economists expect job gains to average roughly 200,000 for the rest of the year, far below the needed amount to keep pace with population and return discouraged workers to the labor force. Until given incentive, many will remain on disability and other government programs.

The four-week average increase 10,500 from the week of April 12, and was down just 1,000 from the week of May 10.

Unlike typical recent reports, the Labor Department said there were no special factors affecting Thursday’s data, no qualifying of the bad data. Claims for the week ended May 10 were revised to show 1,000 more new applications received than previously reported.

The data exceeded the number expected from economists polled by Reuters. They forecast first-time applications for jobless aid ticking up to 310,000 last week.

The report also showed the number of people still receiving benefits after an initial week of aid fell 13,000 to 2.65 million in the week ended May 10.

eekly jobless claims jumped up from their

Polls

cyber attack

A plurality of voters continue to say a cyber attack on the U.S. from another country is an act of war.

In the first-ever move of its kind, the U.S. indicted five Chinese military hackers Monday and charged them with stealing intellectual property rights and other trade secrets. According to a new poll, a plurality of Americans say a cyber attack on the United States by another country is an act of war, though slightly fewer American voters says so now than in the past.

Voters also continue to be believe cyber attacks pose a bigger economic threat than traditional military attacks. A new Rasmussen Reports survey found that 85 percent of likely U.S. voters are at least “somewhat concerned” about the threat to the safety and security of America’s computer infrastructure coming from cyberattack. The number includes 43 percent who are “very Concerned,” while just 13 percent are “not very” or “not at all concerned.”

But U.S. officials are certainly attempting to raise awareness among the general public, as was evident by the press conference Monday.

“This is a tactic that the United States government categorically denounces,” Holder said. “This case should serve as a wake-up call to the seriousness of the ongoing cyberthreat.”

John Carlin, who recently rose to head of the Justice’s National Security Division, echoed Holder and said the prosecution of state-sponsored cyberthreats was a top goal for the Obama administration.

“For the first time, we are exposing the faces and names behind the keyboards in Shanghai used to steal from American businesses,” he said Monday, accusing the Chinese officials of “stealing the fruits of our labor.”

Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel made similar comments at the National Security Agency headquarters in suburban Washington, which came as he prepared to visit China.

“Our nation’s reliance on cyberspace outpaces our cybersecurity,” Hagel said at the time. “Our nation confronts the proliferation of destructive malware and a new reality of steady, ongoing and aggressive efforts to probe, access or disrupt public and private networks, and the industrial control systems that manage our water, and our energy and our food supplies.”

The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on May 19-20, 2014 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.

In a first-ever of its kind, the

Politics

va medical center

The controversy has now expanded to the Gainesville VA Medical Center in Florida, ahead of Obama’s meeting with VA Secretary Eric Shinseki.

The controversy surrounding the VA engulfed the Gainesville VA Medical Center late Tuesday, the Department of Veterans Affairs Inspector General’s Office said late Tuesday. In total, so far, 26 facilities are being investigated nationwide amid allegations VA employees doctored records to hide waiting times and other issues.

The news comes ahead of President Obama’s meeting with Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki on Wednesday morning in the Oval Office. The White House, which is in full damage control, is beginning a probe to look into instances that veterans died while waiting for care.

The White House said Obama’s deputy chief of staff, Rob Nabors, who is involved in an internal review, will also be at the meeting. The meeting was listed as an “update on the situation at the Department of Veterans Affairs.”

Calls for Shinseki to retire have been growing over the past week, but the White House has refused to ask for it, claiming the president has full confidence in the secretary. Among those who asked for the resignation was the American Legion, the largest veterans group in the country. On Monday, White House press secretary Jay Carney continuously referred to the American Legion’s supposed praise of the administration over the resignation of a top VA health official, Under Secretary for Health Robert Petzel.

Petzel, which was first reported by PeoplesPunditDaily.com last week, had already announced back in September that he planned to retire in 2014. The American Legion, despite White House claims, said in a statement that the resignation was “business as usual.”

The Department of Veterans Affairs Inspector General’s Office said late Tuesday that 26 facilities were being investigated nationwide over allegations of manipulated waiting times and other issues. The Malcolm-Randall Medical Center in Gainesville, FL, was also named in the report as being among those who made veterans wait for an extended period of time for care, then tried to cover it up by doctoring the record.

One mental health profession who spoke to People’s Pundit Daily on the condition of anonymity faulted several factors for the problems names in the allegation, which they did not even dispute.

“No one is ever fired here,” they said. “Add to that — that the high-level administrative positions are largely filled with civilians who never served, and you get this problem. To them, this is a job, not a service to those who served us.”

The Republican-controlled House of Representatives hopes to chance that, and is set to vote Wednesday on a bill that would give VA Secretary Eric Shinseki greater authority to fire or demote senior administrative executives.

Florida Rep. Jeff Miller, chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, sponsored the bill, stating that VA officials are more likely to receive bonuses or puff performance reviews than be held accountable, even when they clearly don’t deserve it.

The VA’s “widespread and systemic lack of accountability is exacerbating all of its most pressing problems,” including the hiding of secret waiting lists to cover up intentional delays in patient appointments. The death toll of preventable veteran deaths is mounting, Miller said.

Miller accused the VA of a “well-documented reluctance to ensure its leaders are held accountable for mistakes” and said Congress has an obligation to “give the VA secretary the authority he needs to fix things. That’s what my bill would do.”

In a brief comment yesterday, Florida Senator Marco Rubio said that the vast majority of his constituency requests have been requests regarding the VA.

“I have been in the Senate now for 3 1/2 years,” Senator Rubio said. “And the bulk of my office’s constituency requests have been VA-related.” Many of those requests are, in fact, complaints surrounding the Malcolm-Randall Gainesville VA Medical Center.

However, despite the president’s gesture, he refuses to support the granting of authority to the secretary to hold unworthy employees accountable. “The president is more concerned with protecting the sacredness of civil service employees than he is holding these people accountable,” Rubio added.

Presidential spokesman Jay Carney claimed that the White House shares the goals of the House bill — which is to supposedly “ensure accountability at the VA” — but says they have concerns about some of the details in the bill.

The controversy began when a former clinic director said that up to 40 veterans potentially died while waiting prolonged times for treatment at the Phoenix hospital. They said that staff, which acted at the instruction of administrators, kept a secret list of patients waiting for appointments to hide delays in care.

The current director of the Phoenix VA Health Care System, Sharon Helman, has been placed on leave indefinitely while the VA’s inspector general investigates the claims raised by several former VA employees.

Republican Sen. Jerry Moran of Kansas, a member of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, plans to introduce legislation this week that would make the findings of the probe by the VA’s Office of Medical Inspector available to Congress and the public “so the full scope of the VA’s dysfunction cannot be disguised.”

Moran pointed to the case of a VA nurse in Cheyenne, Wyoming, who was put on leave this month for telling employees to falsify appointment records. But the action came only after an email involving wait-list manipulation at the Cheyenne hospital was leaked to the media.

Moran also said the Cheyenne Medical Center was already the focus of a December 2013 report by Office of the Medical Inspector, which has substantiated claims of improper scheduling practices. But Moran said it’s unclear if action taken at the Cheyenne center was even based on the medical inspector’s findings, or leaks to the media due to the secrecy of the process.

“Because OMI reports are not available to the public and have not been previously released to Congress, it is impossible to know whether the VA has taken action to implement the OMI’s recommendations for improvement in each case,” Moran said.

Meanwhile, two Republican senators introduced legislation to stop the payment of bonuses to employees at the Veterans Health Administration through next year, indefinitely. Sens. Richard Burr of North Carolina and Deb Fischer of Nebraska said the VA should instead be concerned with using the money for fixing problems at the agency, “not rewarding employees entrenched in a failing bureaucracy.” Burr is currently the senior Republican on the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, while Fischer is on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

However, in the People’s House, the Republican majority passed a bill in February that would eliminate performance bonuses for the department’s senior executive staff through 2018.

The controversy surrounding the VA engulfed the

Opinion

life

People should take the time to appreciate life.

Ever look at the network of spider veins in a flower petal? Or in your own hand? Whether you believe in God or not, whether you believe in creationism or Darwinism, it doesn’t make a difference to appreciate the marvel of life.

From a beating heart to the wonder of photosynthesis, nature is an enormously complex and miraculous series of events. The end result of a complete series of low probability events conspires constantly to bring life into existence. The random chance that two human beings meeting each other, then finding each other attractive, then the low chance they would even successfully procreate, has to make one stop and think.

Think about it — you are an enormously complex series of cellular tubes put together in such a way that they are capable of feats such as managing a successful voyage to the moon, or finding your own way from one end of the globe to another. Or, the creation of works of art that rival nature itself.

This is a marvel that statistically should not exist, even over billions of years.

In our entire solar system we are the only planet that has life thriving on it. On every planet in this system, every asteroid and every moon, we are the only place where life seems to exist, even in its most primitive form of a bacterium. Obviously, life is rare and can only survive in the narrowest of conditions. If mankind were able to travel to other worlds and discover even a microbe to small to see — or, a fossil of a bacterium that died millions of years ago -— we would herald its arrival with trumpets as “life” and announce its discovery with great fanfare.

Yet, everyday here on this planet, mankind chooses to extinguish much more complex life forms in the declaration that it is “not life.”

These are not moral or religious observations. They are neither sensationalistic nor judgmental of those who do not see this wonder. The “miracle” of life does not necessarily need the existence of a creator nor faith to come into being. It is a verifiable fact to even a casual observer of the universe.

Life exists, it is rare, it is beautiful and we are the beneficiaries of its blessings. Neither devout Christians nor scientific pundits dispute this.

Why would anyone ever think destroying one of these miraculous creatures before it even begins to complete the destiny of its voyage — while it’s still in the womb — is incomprehensible to me. This is not a religious argument or even a moral one.

It’s one of universal decency.

Thomas Purcell is host of the Liberty Never Sleeps podcast show and more of his work can be read at libertyneversleeps.com

Religion doesn't have a monopoly on the

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