This is the article that appeared in the October 2024 edition of Catalyst, our monthly journal. The date that prints out reflects the day that it was uploaded to our website. For a more accurate date of when the article was first published, check out the news release, here.

Those who scream the loudest about helping minorities are almost always the same ones who are doing everything they can to keep them in their place.

Proof: It is mostly Democrats who champion minority rights, and it is mostly Democrats who want to force minorities to attend schools they wouldn’t send their own children to (the Democratic Platform explicitly rejects school choice). That’s because Democrats are owned by the National Education Association (NEA), the largest labor union in the nation. Almost all their funding goes to the Democrats.

In short, no advocate of the poor should be taken seriously if he is opposed to school choice. They are the enemy of the poor.

The good news is that the march for school choice cannot be stopped. In fact, there are some 80 education choice programs available in at least 30 states, and the push for more is relentless. Here are some examples.

• In 2011, Arizona was the first state to offer an ESA, education savings account. It provides a fund for students to pay for various forms of education.
• No state has pioneered school choice more than Florida. We are talking about tens of thousands more children enrolling in private or charter schools or homeschooling.
• In March, Alabama joined 10 other states in enacting universal or near universal education freedom legislation.
• In November, Colorado voters will decide whether to encode school choice in its state constitution.
• Georgia offers a variety of school choice programs, including two private school choice ones, charter schools, magnet schools, homeschooling and inter and intra-district public school choice.
• Iowa has essentially what Georgia has.
• Indiana has four private school choice programs: ESA, school voucher, tax-credit scholarship and individual tax deduction.
• Voters in Kentucky will decide in November whether they want school choice. One school district, Pulaski County, has been accused of violating the law by using social media to tell voters to vote “no” on the ballot initiative.
• School choice advocates are lobbying lawmakers in North Carolina to clear the waitlist for families seeking scholarships under the state’s school voucher program. Roughly 55,000 are on the list.
• Texans are strongly in favor of school choice, and so is Gov. Greg Abbott, but lawmakers are mostly opposed. In the spring, Abbott succeeded in persuading voters to dump six incumbent Republican opponents of school choice.
• In March, Utah expanded its ESA program, essentially doubling the number of students who qualify.
• Also in March, Wyoming adopted its first school choice program, though Gov. Mark Gordon used his line-item veto to narrow the eligibility of the ESA initiative.

Those opposed to school choice allege that funds for these alternative schools effectively siphons money away from traditional public schools. This is inaccurate.

First, it is a fundamental right of parents to decide which school their children should attend, not school unions. Second, it is a myth that public schools suffer a financial hit when school choice programs are instituted.

A few decades ago, economist Milton Friedman surveyed this argument by discussing the situation in the District of Columbia. At that time D.C. was spending more than $11,000 per year per student in public schools (today the figure is more than double that). The D.C. voucher plan at that time called for a maximum of $7,500.

Therefore, Friedman argued, “For every voucher student who leaves the public school for a private school, the system would gain more than $3,500. Far from taking money away from public schools, vouchers increase the funds available per remaining student.”

On this issue, the Democrats are on the wrong side of history. Beholden to their benefactors at the NEA, they are willing to put their heel in the face of black Americans who simply want the same right to select the school of their choice as afforded most Americans. They should not be denied.

This is the article that appeared in the October 2024 edition of Catalyst, our monthly journal. The date that prints out reflects the day that it was uploaded to our website. For a more accurate date of when the article was first published, check out the news release, here.

Bill Donohue has long admired the erudition and courage of Mark Levin, the influential author and Fox News host. But his recent show featuring a so-called victims’ advocate was a disaster. Quite frankly, he was ripped off.

On his August 24 show, Mark had as his guest Joey Piscitelli. He was identified as a leader for 20 years with Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP). He alleges that when Kamala Harris was the San Francisco district attorney she did not prosecute priests who were accused of sexually abusing minors (he claims to have been a victim).

He further contends that the district attorney whom she beat “in early 2004,” Terence Hallinan (he is wrong—she beat him in 2003 and took over in 2004), was hot on the trail of the Archdiocese of San Francisco but Harris never followed up. He attributes her inaction to Archbishop William Levada, “the most powerful bishop in the United States.”

Having closely followed this issue for decades, and having assisted in effectively busting SNAP (it is a shell of its former self, and even then it was not an organization), and having authored a book on this subject, The Truth about Clergy Sexual Abuse: Clarifying the Facts and the Causes, Bill Donohue is in a position to checkmate Piscitelli’s account.

If Harris showed favoritism to the Catholic Church, we would need to know if she prosecuted other professionals who interact with minors. For example, did she prosecute public school teachers, or members of the clergy from other religions? This is important because most of the offenses committed by priests occurred in the last century (mostly between 1965 and 1985). In education, the problem is ongoing. If Harris did not pursue teachers, why should she have pursued priests?

From Donohue’s own research on this issue, subsequent to the publication of his book, he learned that Hallinan was able to secure Church documents on 40 former or current priests. It is important to note that in June 2003, approximately six months before Harris took over as D.A., the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a California law from 1994 that retroactively eliminated the statute of limitations for crimes involving the sexual abuse of minors.

Instead of asking why Harris did not pursue criminal cases against molesting priests—when the high court said such offenses were time barred—perhaps we should ask why Hallinan was so aggressive in singling out priests for prosecution, even using a grand jury to bring indictments. He was on a tear, seeking 75 years of Church documents.

Why would a D.A. want to spend his resources seeking to obtain the files on priests extending back to the 1920s? The San Francisco Chronicle, not exactly a Catholic-friendly source, labeled Hallinan’s pursuit “a fishing expedition.”

Where did Hallinan get the documents on the 40 priests? The archdiocese voluntarily turned them over in May 2002. By the way, lay employees were among the 40, and most of the priests were no doubt dead or out of ministry.

There is no question that San Francisco Archbishop Levada was seeking to protect the anonymity of accused priests. In doing so, he was doing what the leaders of every religious and secular institution do in these situations. Do the media open their books to the authorities on sexual abuse allegations? Do school administrators? Does Hollywood? In short, Levada was not an outlier, as Piscitelli suggests.

While serving as San Francisco District Attorney, Harris was asked why she would not make public those documents she possessed on priests. Linda Klee, her chief of administration and spokeswoman, told a reporter, “If we did it for you, we would have to do it for everybody. Where do you stop, and where do you start?”

Elliot Beckelman is a former prosecutor in the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office who dealt with clergy sexual abuse cases.

He defends Harris’ decision not to release Church documents. “I don’t think a district attorney should float that out there if a person can’t defend themselves. It’s a very serious charge, a sex crime. The Catholics, like other minorities, feel picked upon, and I thought for the integrity of the investigation that we don’t have running press conferences to make out that the Catholics are worse than the Jews—which I am—or worse than the Hindus. There’s always a balance that comes to sexual assault investigations.”

Beckelman does not exaggerate. SNAP has smeared the Catholic Church for decades. Its longtime leader, David Clohessy, was deposed in 2012 and shown to be a fraud. Five years later, after he was sued by an employee for accepting financial kickbacks and funneling money to SNAP via dummy organizations, he resigned. He was also shown to have more interest in sticking it to the Catholic Church than in doing anything constructive to help victims.

Clohessy admitted that there never was a SNAP office—he “worked” from home. It still has no office: its “staff” consists of persons with emails and a cell number.

Those who victimize minors are despicable. Ditto for those who exploit this issue for ideological and financial profit.

This is the article that appeared in the October 2024 edition of Catalyst, our monthly journal. The date that prints out reflects the day that it was uploaded to our website. For a more accurate date of when the article was first published, check out the news release, here.

The crazies descended on Chicago, whipping up hatred against Jews and Christianity. Their goals are unambiguous: destroy Israel and destroy Christian sexual ethics. The former is easier to comprehend, but the latter deserves more attention, especially as it relates to the former. First a little background.

According to a New York Times story last November, “On Oct. 7, scores of Hamas gunmen swept into Israel towns and military bases near the border with Gaza, opening fire on people in their homes, on the streets, and at a music festival. The attackers fatally shot the elderly, women and young children, according to survivors; others were burned after attackers set their homes ablaze.” Most—70 percent—were civilians.

The protesters in Chicago are not upset with Hamas for killing 1,200 innocent Jewish civilians on October 7, 2023. Their only regret is that they didn’t finish the job.

“March On The DNC 2024, Chicago, IL,” is the name of the coalition. Its central aim is “Stand with Palestine! End U.S. Aid to Israel” and to “stop our government from arming and supporting this genocide!” But it also lists as one of its goals, “Defend LGBTQIA+ & Reproductive Rights!”

A look at some of the groups that are part of the coalition underscores the nexus between the political (anti-Israel) and the sexual (anti-Christianity) aspects of the protest.

Bodies Outside of Unjust Laws says, “We demand national legislation to expand access to abortion, support families, and defend the rights of trans and queer people.” It explains its founding, stating, “We are a national coalition formed to demand a federal response to the wave of attacks on our bodily autonomy.” Naturally, they add, “We demand an end to US funds going to the genocide in Palestine.”

CODEPINK not only hates Jews and hates Christian sexual ethics, it wants to kill unborn children in Israel. Earlier this year, it issued an urgent call for “Reproductive Justice in Gaza/Palestine & Everywhere!” Of course, it demands an end to U.S. aid to Israel. It showed what a fraud it is when it said it was “an enthusiastic supporter of the rights of gay and lesbians to join and serve openly in the military,” but after that goal was achieved it issued the following statement: “To the LGBT community: Now that you can join the military, please don’t!” For good measure, it also wants to “Defund the Police, Defund the Military.”

Democratic Socialists of America not only has nothing to say about the Hamas attack on innocent Israelis on October 7, it blames Jews for defending themselves. “Since October 7, Israel has continuously engaged in provocative military aggression, aimed at expanding its brutal war into Lebanon.” It is also an “advocate for LGBTQIA+ liberation.”

Jewish Voice for Peace is a pro-Hamas organization that has played a prominent role in demonstrations against Israel. Its Chicago affiliate is part of the coalition; it has previously supported the Chicago Dyke March Collective. Its members “were present at Dyke March wearing Jewish symbols, including Stars of David, t-shirts with Hebrew, kippot, and sashes with Yiddish script.”

Thank God for Abortion—yes, such a group exists—has been around for several years. Although it is primarily interested in killing kids, its members have launched protests in Grand Central Station in New York City on behalf of Hamas. It also pays for a float at Gay Pride Parades. Its leader, a young woman, brags openly about her two abortions, saying to her followers, “I celebrate your life to have 20 abortions—I’ll throw you a party.”

In the 1960s, Wilhelm Reich, a cultural Marxist from the radical Frankfurt School, helped create the intellectual seedbeds that led to the pro-Hamas and pro-LGBT coalition. He blended Freud’s ideas with those of Marx, envisioning a world where individuals would enjoy sexual liberation and society would experience a revolution. It was only fitting that he was a sex maniac and a member of the Communist Party.

That is what is driving the Chicago protesters. They see oppression everywhere. Hence, they are convinced that the only true liberation is to shed their sexual and political shackles. According to their logic, Israel must be destroyed because it is an outpost of Western oppression and Christianity must be destroyed because it promotes sexual repression.

These people are not only mad, they are a threat to a free society. A sensible society would deal with them with dispatch.

This is the article that appeared in the October 2024 edition of Catalyst, our monthly journal. The date that prints out reflects the day that it was uploaded to our website. For a more accurate date of when the article was first published, check out the news release, here.

In 2016, Donald Trump squared off against Hillary Clinton, and he won the Catholic vote by a margin of 52 to 45. In 2020, Trump narrowly took the Catholic vote, beating Joe Biden 50-49.

Two recent polls of Catholics came to different conclusions. An EWTN News/RealClear Opinion Research survey showed Harris winning 50-43 over Trump. But a Pew Research poll showed Trump winning 52-47.

Why the difference? One reason may be because the EWTN survey was based on self-identified Catholics; the Pew survey was based on Catholics who are registered voters.

In virtually every instance, Protestants tend to vote Republican and Jews tend to vote Democrat. Catholics are the swing vote—they can go for either Party.

It is important to note that there are more Independents than there are Republicans or Democrats. They constitute a plurality of voters.

In short, Catholics and Independents may decide the election.

This is the article that appeared in the October 2024 edition of Catalyst, our monthly journal. The date that prints out reflects the day that it was uploaded to our website. For a more accurate date of when the article was first published, check out the news release, here.

The 2024 Democratic platform notes, “For generations, LGBTQI+ Americans have summoned the courage to live authentically and proudly, even when it meant putting their lives and livelihoods at risk.”

However, it seems the speakers at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) could not summon “the courage” to speak “authentically and proudly” about their full-throated endorsement of the most radical LGBT policies ever implemented. They appear to be unwilling to put their political “lives and livelihoods at risk.” Even taking a fleeting second to explain who the “+” people are appears to have been too much for them.

No, rather than defending the record of the Biden-Harris administration, the DNC featured a stealth campaign to obfuscate the barbarism and depravity at the heart of the policies promoted over the last four years. Instead, the DNC has chosen to put a “joyful” and moderate spin on their agenda in hopes of appealing to normal voters in the swing-states.

While the Democrats might lack the fortitude to highlight their “accomplishments” on these issues, here is just a brief summary of what the Biden-Harris administration has done:

• On the first day of the Biden-Harris administration, it implemented an executive order allowing boys into the girls restrooms and locker rooms and to compete in girls sports.
• The Biden-Harris administration has rolled back religious liberty protections for medical providers compelling them to provide “gender affirming care.”
• The Biden-Harris administration has routinely championed the Equality Act. This act would effectively gut religious liberty protections and eviscerate women’s sports and other legal protections. It would compel Catholic Hospitals to provide “gender affirming care.”
• The Biden-Harris administration adopted a rule that if foster parents refused to support “gender affirming care” they would have their children taken from them.
• The Biden-Harris administration regularly condemned states like Florida, Texas, and Tennessee for defending parental rights and protecting children from mutilation in the name of “gender affirming care.”
• The Biden-Harris administration sought an appeal to mandate that Catholic doctors and hospitals would have to provide “gender-transition” surgeries.

You would not have heard any mention of these policies from the DNC speakers. There were platitudes about children “being who they are and loving who they love” as Michelle Obama put it, or Barack Obama’s insistence “that true freedom gives each of us the right to make decisions about our own life,…what our family looks like,…[and] who we marry….”

The DNC speakers were happy to go on about “book banning.” Vice presidential nominee Tim Walz, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, and Secretary Pete Buttigieg were happy to mention this. Of course, they left out that the books are not being banned, but instead, parents are calling on education officials to keep books out of schools that are not age-appropriate (they feature graphic sexual content).

But what makes this political expedience even more outrageous is for the past four years we have been told by the Biden-Harris administration that “trans” kids are facing a crisis in this country. To drive this point home, they have turned to Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services Rachel Levine, a man who pretends to be a woman. Levine has assured us that “Gender-affirming care is medical care. It is mental health care. It is suicide prevention care. It improves quality of life, and it saves lives.” If what he says is true, why would the DNC not give him a prominent platform to highlight this?

We at the Catholic League have the courage these speakers lack. This is why we had a billboard calling for the end of gender transitioning just outside of the United Center. Additionally, we ran 30 radio ads on WLS 890 AM, one of the most prominent radio stations in Chicago. The radical LGBT agenda seeks to upend our nation, and the promotion of gender affirming care for minors is child abuse. This is a critical issue that we will never walk away from. The American people need to be leveled with, but the DNC speakers won’t do that.

This is the article that appeared in the September 2024 edition of Catalyst, our monthly journal. The date that prints out reflects the day that it was uploaded to our website. For a more accurate date of when the article was first published, check out the news release, here.

This letter was sent to the president of the International Olympic Committee.

July 29, 2024

Mr. Thomas Bach
President
International Olympic Committee
Maison Olympique
1007 Lausanne
Switzerland

Dear Mr. Bach:

As president of the largest Catholic civil rights organization in the United States, I am imploring you to conduct an investigation into the obscene antics that marked the opening ceremony at the Paris Olympics. There is reason to believe senior members of the French government knew what Thomas Jolly was planning to do and did nothing to stop it. They may even have given their blessings to this stunt.

French president Emmanuel Macron was not kept in the dark. He learned that Jolly was planning a “great story of emancipation and freedom.” More important, it was reported by the New York Times that Macron had “a keen interest in the show” and met with Jolly “regularly.” It is hard to believe they didn’t discuss the show’s content.

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo also had strong interest in the show; she, too, met with Jolly regularly. According to the Times, she said his production would be “playful, with a message of the city’s ‘openness to the world and the pleasure of diversity.'” It is hardly a big leap to conclude that Jolly disclosed to her his “playful” skit, one that would celebrate the “pleasure of diversity.”

Tony Estanguet, the President of Paris 2024, appointed Jolly to be Artistic Director of the Olympic ceremonies. In his statement in 2022 heralding his choice, he bragged how Jolly’s “extraordinary shows are proof that he knows how to break norms and take them to the next level.”

How revealing. Are we to believe that what Estanguet had in mind was a mockery of Islam?

The Associated Press reported the week before the opening ceremony that Jolly remained “extremely tight-lipped about what would eventually transpire at the ceremony.” He admitted, “I’d be fired if I tell you anything.” Perhaps. Had he disclosed what his show was about, he may have gotten fired because of the worldwide pushback from Christians. He certainly would not have lost favor with the French elite. Not one of the three that I mentioned has condemned Jolly’s bigotry.

You are in a position to get to the bottom of this. Jolly did not pull this off by himself. Those in positions of power need to be questioned about what they knew, when they knew it, and why they didn’t act to stop this vulgar assault on Christian sensibilities.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

William A. Donohue, Ph.D.
President

This is the article that appeared in the September 2024 edition of Catalyst, our monthly journal. The date that prints out reflects the day that it was uploaded to our website. For a more accurate date of when the article was first published, check out the news release, here.

It’s settled. Those who denied that the vulgar show performed at the opening ceremonies of the Olympics was not about the Last Supper have been proven wrong. Referring to the bigoted artist, Thomas Jolly, a spokesperson for the Olympics said the following in a statement to the New York Post: “Thomas Jolly took inspiration from Leonardo da Vinci’s famous painting to create the setting.”

So much for the nonsense that this anti-Catholic stunt—which featured a mostly naked man and drag queens—was a celebration of the Greek god, Dionysus.

Every honest person knows that this obscene portrayal was done to assault Christian sensibilities. Yet many denied the obvious. Here are some who did.

• Boston French Consulate: “The ceremony was designed to celebrate the unity of the Olympic spirit.” They accepted Jolly’s lying response, saying that “the performance in question was inspired by the image of a pagan feast,” one that paid homage to Dionysus, “the Greek god of festivities and wine.”
• The official account for the Olympics on X posted “The interpretation of the Greek God Dionysus makes us aware of the absurdity of violence between human beings.”
• In an interview with BFM, Thomas Jolly said, “The idea was to do a big pagan party linked to the gods of Olympus.” He added, “You’ll never find in my work any desire to mock or denigrate anyone. I wanted a ceremony that brings people together, that reconciles, but also a ceremony that affirms our Republican values of liberty, equality and fraternity.”
• Phillippe Katerine, the performer who dressed as the semi-naked blue man in the Olympic scene, said that the performance “was mostly a misunderstanding. Because when it comes down to it, it wasn’t about representing ‘the Last Supper’ at all.”
• Barbara Butch, the DJ at the center of the skit, wrote in a now inaccessible Instagram post that she “was the Greek God of the Sun, Apollo, and referenced Jan van Bijlert’s painting ‘The Feast of the Gods,’ which is displayed in a French art museum.”
• Snopes “fact checker” Jack Izzo writes, “So at the end of the segment, when the top of a large serving platter rose to reveal a blue man (French singer Phillippe Katerine) wrapped in grapevines, Jolly was not referencing Jesus and ‘The Last Supper,’ but rather Dionysus, the Greek God of wine and festivity.”
• Writing for MSNBC, Anthea Butler commented, “The moral panic over a scene of drag queens feasting at the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics set off a firestorm of outrage from religious conservatives and politicians who believed the scene was a mockery of the Last Supper. Except it wasn’t about the Last Supper at all.”
• Sally Jenkins writes in the Washington Post, “That drag queen sequence was meant to refer, like Delville, to Greek pagan celebrations — not, as some Christian leaders insist, to mock Leonardo da Vinci’s ‘The Last Supper.'”
• Louise Marshall, an honorary senior lecturer at the University of Sydney and an expert in Renaissance Art, is quoted in the New York Times as saying, “Frankly, when I looked at the clips, ‘The Last Supper’ isn’t necessarily what springs to mind. It seems very lighthearted and funny and witty and very inclusive.”
• “The View” co-host Whoopi Goldberg said on the July 29 show that “The guy that put it all together said it was from ‘The Feast of the Gods,’ which is a 17th Century Dutch painting of the Greek Olympian gods, you know, the Olympian gods because it’s the Olympics.” She further stated “There are too many people in the picture for it to be the 12 disciples and then the seven or eight other people in the picture.”
• Dutch art historian Walther Schoonenberg posted on X that “The tableau vivant or ‘living painting’ in the opening ceremony of Paris 2024 was of The Feast of the Gods, by Jan van Bijlert from 1635.”
• In an Instagram post, “Full House” actress Jodie Sweetin said, “The drag queens of the Olympics were re-creating the feast of Dionysus, not the last supper.” The post continued “And even if you thought it was a Christian reference — what’s the harm? Why is it a ‘parody’ and not a tribute? Can drag queens not be Christian too?”
• Donna Kelce, the mother of NFL stars Travis and Jason Kelce, shared a Facebook post by user Jeff Rose that said, “The Opening Ceremony of the Olympics wasn’t a mock of the Last Supper. If you have any knowledge of the Greek origin of the Olympics and the French’s rich history of theater you would have gotten this. However, because of your veiled homophobia, some of you can’t discern factual information.”

Everyone of these persons are guilty of denying the truth. Worse, they seek to blame those who are offended for misrepresenting Jolly’s obscene and bigoted portrayal. What he did is hate speech, and attempts to justify it are as obscene as his stunt.

This is the article that appeared in the September 2024 edition of Catalyst, our monthly journal. The date that prints out reflects the day that it was uploaded to our website. For a more accurate date of when the article was first published, check out the news release, here.

The Catholic League ran radio ads during the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee; they started July 14 and ran through July 19 (we did likewise in August when the Democrats met in Chicago).

The ads ran on WLS 890 AM. It is based in Chicago and has one of the largest radio signals in the world; it is also one of the top news talk stations in Milwaukee (which is only 90 miles from Chicago).

In addition, we periodically sponsored WLS’s coverage of the events. For example, at the top of the hour, the radio station announced that it is covering the convention, acknowledging the Catholic League as a sponsor. We hope to draw new members as a result.

Here is the text of the ad that ran on WLS 890 AM.

The Catholic League extends a warm welcome to Republicans convening in Milwaukee.

While there are many critical issues facing our country, the Catholic League believes the number-one civil rights issue of our day is the exploitation of children done in the name of gender ideology.

Pope Francis has labeled gender ideology as the “ugliest danger” of our time.

The Catholic League believes it is outrageous that children are being coaxed into thinking that they can change their sex. Attempts to do so have serious mental and physical consequences. Moreover, allowing men to compete in women’s sports is subversive of women’s rights.

Please address this issue.

This is the article that appeared in the September 2024 edition of Catalyst, our monthly journal. The date that prints out reflects the day that it was uploaded to our website. For a more accurate date of when the article was first published, check out the news release, here.

The Catholic League displayed a billboard and ran radio ads during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

The digital billboard is located just outside the United Center, the venue of the DNC. It ran from August 19 to August 25. Here is what it looked like.

Welcome Democrats

DO WHAT IS MORALLY RIGHT

END GENDER TRANSITIONING NOW

[Our logo, name, location and website address appeared below on the left side. Across the bottom it said, Paid for by the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights.]

The radio ads ran on WLS 890 AM. It is based in Chicago and has one of the largest radio signals in the world. It is also one of the top news talk stations in Chicago.

• 5 ads were run August 18 between 6 AM and Noon
• 5 ads ran through August 23, starting on August 19, between 6 AM and noon
• 20 ads ran through August 23, starting on August 19, between 6 AM and 7 PM

In addition, we periodically sponsored WLS’s coverage of the events. For example, at the top of the hour, the radio station announced that it was covering the convention, acknowledging the Catholic League as a sponsor. We hope to draw new members as a result.

The text of the ad is the same as the text that ran during the RNC convention on WLS 890 AM.

This is the article that appeared in the September 2024 edition of Catalyst, our monthly journal. The date that prints out reflects the day that it was uploaded to our website. For a more accurate date of when the article was first published, check out the news release, here.

In the 1930s, if a Republican politician chose to go to Hitler’s Germany for his honeymoon, he would have been hounded from office. But in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s three Democrats and one independent (with close ties to the Democrats) chose to go to communist countries for their honeymoon. One of them is Tim Walz, the newly minted Democratic vice presidential candidate. We need to know why.

In 1989, Walz moved to Communist China to teach at a high school for a year. He later said it was “one of the best things I’ve ever done.” Five years later he got married and chose to honeymoon there. He has been to China at least 30 times.

When Walz was chosen to join Vice President Kamala Harris on the presidential ticket, the Chinese state media noted his frequent trips there and praised him for “fostering cultural exchanges.”

Under Mao Zedong, who ruled China from 1949 to 1976, 77 million people were killed, far outdoing the body count under Hitler and Stalin. While Walz has criticized human rights abuses in China in recent years, he has never explained why he would honeymoon in a nation with a history of mass murder. Nor has he explained why he is reticient about condemning Communist China for threatening the security of Taiwan.

Walz has much in common with Joe Biden. In 1977, then-Senator Biden spent his honeymoon with his second wife, Jill, in a Communist-run country, Hungary. But he did more than celebrate his marriage. According to Daily News Hungary, he met with Communist officials and “had some secret meetings during his stay.”

It was a weird place to go to at the time. In 1956, Hungarian young people staged a revolt protesting Soviet domination. Tens of thousands took to the streets for six days before they were crushed by the communists. Mass arrests and executions followed and some 200,000 Hungarians fled to Austria and Yugoslavia before the borders were closed.

Why would Biden choose to honeymoon behind the Iron Curtain? That’s a long way from Rehoboth Beach.

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent who frequently caucuses with the Democrats, spent his honeymoon in the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). The communists killed 66 million, mostly under Stalin.

Like Walz, Sanders has never explained why he would honeymoon in such a blood-stained country. He did so in 1988. While he was there he condemned U.S. foreign policy, but said nothing about egregious human rights abuses in the USSR.

In 1972, Sanders said that U.S. policy in Vietnam was “almost as bad as what Hitler did.” In 1985, he had a friendly sit-down with Daniel Ortega, the communist dictator of Nicaragua. In 1989, he visited Castro’s Cuba, praising the communists for their healthcare system, schools and housing, but saying nothing about the political prisoners being held. Today he refuses to condemn the oppressive Marxist regime of Maduro in Venezuela.

In 1994, former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio went on his honeymoon to Cuba. What he did was illegal, but that didn’t matter. He never told his children about this—they found out after he admitted it on TV; they were told their parents honeymooned in Canada.

In 1988, de Blasio went to Nicaragua to support the communist Sandinista regime. In 1990, he said he supported “democratic socialism” (which is an oxymoron), but when he was asked about this by the New York Times in 2013, he denied it. When the reporter said he has the evidence, de Blasio said, “It doesn’t matter.”

It does matter to the American people that left-wing political leaders cozy up to communist totalitarian dictators. Biden has already been erased by Harris, De Blasio is out of office and Sanders is going nowhere, but for Walz, that is a different story. He needs to come clean. It is one thing to teach in Communist China, quite another to celebrate a wedding there. And why all the back and forth trips?