UPDATE: Critical VICTORY Secured

Today on Sekulow, a big update as a critical victory is secured. Keeping you informed and engaged. Now, more than ever, this is Sekulow. We want to hear from you. Share and post your comments or call 1-800-684-3110. And now your host, Jordan Sekulow.

Hey, welcome to Sekulow. We are taking your calls too and share this with your friends and family. If you're watching on Rumble, Facebook, and YouTube, because yesterday, remember, we talked about how it kind of went old school ACLJ and had an attorney who was in Texas deployed to Pueblo, Colorado. Got a phone call from our friends at a large pro-life pregnancy center support network group about a hearing that was going to be taking place in Pueblo at a city council meeting on an abortionist, a famous abortionist, a late-term abortionist, Carhartt, who wants to open up a clinic in the area. Now, Colorado has no restrictions on abortions when it comes to the timing of abortions, but there's an issue involving importing abortion drugs, and there's a federal law prohibiting that. So they were going to have this hearing at the city council, and they invited some of the pro-life advocates to speak, and of course the pro-abortion advocates to speak, so that they would have both viewpoints represented at their hearing. They cancel the pro-life speakers, all of them. They keep the pro-abortion speakers. So we get an attorney there. What was interesting was, the first thing that a councilwoman who we're working with said about the councilwoman who canceled the pro-life speakers was, quote, the pro-life speakers would have brought, quote, biased opinions that would cause a circus in her chambers, so she didn't want them there.

And we insisted that our clients, first of all, they were invited to participate. So at that point, the government opened up the area, or the forum, if you will, the meeting, to have both the pro-life position and the pro-abortion position presented. Then the day before, and there's pictures of it, this is in the proceeding yesterday, and then the day before, the night before actually, like 4.30 in the afternoon, our clients received notice, hey, the pro-life people cannot participate, because like she said, she doesn't want their bias, quote, and they're going to create a circus. Now, that's when we went to work, and we dispatched a lawyer, happened to be one of our ACLJ lawyers from our Virginia office was in Texas, so we dispatched Olivia Summers from Texas to Pueblo, Colorado, where she appeared before the chamber last night and secured the victory. And it's important for people to understand, we're not talking about even the substance of the ordinance here. We're talking about just, so you see, the hearing itself getting the victory.

Absolutely. She was not only able to hand deliver our demand letter that we drafted, what was amazing was this meeting went from not allowing any pro-life speaker to speak, and then it changed to Olivia, our attorney, was given actually the first 10 minutes to speak. So the atmosphere and the opinions changed drastically once we got involved. It went from completely cutting out the pro-life message to letting us speak actually first and for 10 minutes. You know, what's fascinating to me, Jordan, is this was the perfect and classic example, I think, of viewpoint discrimination, and especially since we had attached to our demand letter an email from the city council inviting the pro-life advocates to participate in the hearing.

Right. They were not just going to be like during the public comment period at these city council hearings, which people understand that's regular and normal, but they were intentionally invited and then disinvited the night before the hearing. So we get our attorney Olivia there, and now they are going to be able to participate so that both sides will be represented, that there will not be viewpoint discrimination. And again, there was pushback at that hearing. Lots of different ways they were trying to say, well, maybe we shouldn't hear from anybody, and oh, people are threatening lawsuits.

We were threatening lawsuits. It's like the city council has never dealt with abortion before or something, and they got surprised. Well, they passed the first reading, they passed the ordinance, that was fine. I mean, they passed the ordinance, which was a pro-life ordinance, and then there's still a whole technical issue there.

We're not even into the ordinance. We're into just getting the hearing. By the way, our lawyers will be back there Monday for the actual hearing.

So a lot going on. This is why you need to support the work of the ACLJ. We have a matching challenge going on at ACLJ.org. Any amount you donate enables us to dispatch a lawyer from Texas, who's actually in Virginia, to Texas, to Colorado, and then back up for another hearing on Monday. So, ACLJ.org matching challenge campaign. We appreciate your help. ACLJ.org.

So, we'll come back in a second. If you were watching the broadcast, you saw from some cell phone imagery, because classic move last night, what happens when our attorney shows up? Is there any city council meetings that were usually broadcast, not great quality, but they're usually broadcast online so people can see them, but a lot of cities and states have laws requiring that, like sunshine laws, so that you can see what your local government is up to and what they're doing. As soon as she was about to speak, their feed went down.

They said it was for technical difficulties, and again, now we had someone, they were at a cell phone, so we were able to capture the imagery. Ultimately, we got done what we wanted to get done, and we got that victory secured, which is that those speakers who were disinvited won't just have to show up and be part of the regular commentary period, but will actually get to be witnesses who will get a certain amount of time to speak. The other side will get a certain amount of time to speak, because someone on that committee wanted not to hear from the pro-life community. They didn't like it.

They didn't like getting the phone calls. They said the pro-life community was biased and that it would create a circus. The circus atmosphere, by the way, could have been created by them inviting the pro-life advocates to be witnesses and then disinviting them the night before.

That might have created a circus environment, but you know what? We held them accountable. One of the people that supported us and ruled in our favor for witnesses, we're not even sure where that particular councilman was on the actual substance of the ordinance. Regardless of that, he saw the denial of due process, the denial of equal access, and the engagement by the city council of what we would call classic viewpoint discrimination.

Let me explain what that means. When you have viewpoint discrimination, the topic is allowed, the issue of abortion regulation, but we're only going to hear from one side of the debate, the pro-abortion side. We're going to silence the pro-life side.

That's called viewpoint discrimination. I've argued three of those cases at the Supreme Court. I've not had a justice in those three cases. Not one justice has ever ruled against us. We're 27-0 in that sense.

We've won all three of those 9-0. No one has ever ruled against us on that issue, but that's what the city was about to engage in. It's classic, like we say all the time, abortion distortion. You have a city council member here who is saying, if I allow the pro-life speakers to speak, it's going to be a circus, and I don't want their biased opinions. Just the fact that she says that proves that shows her bias, that she only wants to hear one side of the argument. It is very interesting that there were city council members there that, again, we don't know exactly how they're going to vote on this ordinance, but they recognize that if we are going to vote on an ordinance, we need to hear all the evidence and all the testimony on both sides and not just one side.

So it really was a victory. Like Jordan said, both sides are going to get equal time and not just be limited to the public comment period, which will happen if they take a vote on Monday. That has not been decided yet either, but there is going to be testimony, equal-time testimony allowed on Monday, and we'll see if they'll vote on Monday. Ben Sisney just sent me a text, one of the senior lawyers working on this, who said, we cited in the demand letter the Lamb's Chapel case. That was one of the cases on viewpoint discrimination that we argue that we won 9-0. That was involving a church that was denied access to school facilities when every other conceivable group that you can imagine was invited to use these facilities, but they didn't want it because you appear to be, quote, church-related, and that was a violation of New York law, until we went to the Supreme Court of the United States and won. Again, we deployed lawyers.

We got on this thing in 24 hours. We had at one point yesterday six lawyers, including three of us, working on this case with another three lawyers, and then we were able to dispatch lawyers out. By the way, we had an argument today at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.

I approved a reply brief in a Supreme Court case last night at about 12 o'clock at night. So we're busy, but that's good, and that's because of your support of the ACLJ, and I encourage you in this matching month of December, our biggest match month of the year, we encourage you to support the work of the ACLJ at ACLJ.org. We got calls coming in 800-684-3110. Yeah, let's go right to the phones. If you want to talk to us again, that number is 1-800-684-3110.

It's also a reminder, if you have these kind of situations in your community, contact us at ACLJ, ACLJ.org forward slash help. We are ready to help. At a moment's notice, as this situation has shown, Kelly's calling from Colorado on Line 1. Hey, Kelly. Hey, good morning. Good morning, Kelly. Hey, you're on the air. Hi.

Oh, okay. I just, I am a lifelong, my grandchildren are sixth generation Pueblo Coloradans, and I just want to say thank you. All I called in to say was thank you. God bless you. God bless your ministry.

I've been following you for years. Well, we appreciate that. And I really, really, as a Puebloan who loves to study, but who is very saddened by the darkness that's been here lately. Well, at least you're going to have a real hearing, Kelly. And thank you for supporting our work, because let me tell you something.

We wouldn't have been out there last night if it wasn't for people like you standing with the ACLJ. The good news is there's actually going to be a real hearing with real witnesses on both sides. And again, I reiterate, the city of Colorado, Pueblo, Colorado, invited the pro-life position to be advocated as well as the pro-abort. They wanted to learn as much information as they could before they passed this particular ordinance.

And it was the night before. And one of the individuals that voted to cancel the hearing, as it related to the pro-life speakers, said she did not want, quote, a circus in her classroom, in her chamber, which is, her chamber was the city council hearing room. And it would also be biased if the pro-life people came. Now, of course, not if the pro-abortion people come, because only the pro-life people are biased, according to this councilwoman.

Absolutely. And again, I will continue to say it, abortion distortion is alive and well. You know, just because Roe v. Wade is not the law of the land and the Supreme Court got it right that abortion is not protected under our Constitution, the fight for life does not end there. It goes to the states.

It goes to the city councils. And that's where we're fighting. We're not just fighting in all 50 states. We're fighting even within those 50 states at the city council level. So, like you said, you know, our plate is full and the fight for life did not end with the Dobbs case. It continues, and we will continue to be right in the middle of that battle.

CeCe said something very important just now. You know, we keep saying it's going to return to the states, but actually could return to the counties, as you mentioned. So this was a fight, and we just had a caller, Kelly from Pueblo, Colorado, which, by the way, I want you to think about this. Lawyers in Washington, a bunch of our offices were involved in this, D.C., Virginia, Nashville, a lot of our offices were involved in this.

Dispatch a lawyer from Texas to Colorado for the hearing. That was just a hearing to allow the witnesses to actually testify. And we're able to broadcast that information to you on this broadcast the very next day. We talked to you about it yesterday when we had the hearing. We're giving the results today. And then we get a caller who's listening to the broadcast from Pueblo, Colorado, which happens to be the city that we're dealing with.

You think about all of those parts. ACLJ action was getting a turnout for people to be at the hearings. I think that's going to be on Monday, especially when the actual hearing takes place. All of this is intertwined, and it's because of your support of the ACLJ, because without it, it doesn't happen. So, again, I want to say thank you if you supported the work of the ACLJ. Kelly, the one who just called in, the woman who just called in, has been in support of the ACLJ. We don't do it without your support. So, again, if you haven't yet supported the work of the ACLJ, go to ACLJ.org, and we're part of that matching challenge. But, Jordan, we had all systems operating yesterday to get this victory.

Yeah, it's a great way to see the ACLJ in action, especially our legal side of the ACLJ in action, and where we take whatever resources we can, mobilize them, utilize them, and our folks are ready to go. Olivia was ready to go. It wasn't like she needed two weeks to prepare for this. She had hours. Most of that time was getting on a flight, and I think she was making sure she had the right clothes.

And it was that kind of situation, because she was in Texas on a personal trip. And, again, it's just that commitment to our attorneys. They jump on this opportunity. They say, send me.

I want to go. So, for so many of these situations, I just Googled one of the council members there. So, when you Google, like, the Pueblo City Council and this council member, and this is the one who said, I don't want the circus. On Google, like, the fifth thing that comes up is our ACLJ blog. They don't make a lot of news, national news, in Pueblo, Colorado. So, this brings that attention that that city council member didn't want. They got it, because now, if you Googled her name, an ACLJ blog comes up as the fourth thing. So, a couple city information, and then a local news article, and our blog. So, again, that shows the work, too, of how many people are learning. Like Kelly, who called in, who said, oh, this is happening in my community. Here's the ACLJ I followed my whole life, and they're in Pueblo, Colorado, helping us out here. It's just a cool way to show what we can do.

You said it was old school ACLJ, but it's classic ACLJ. I mean, this is how you move the needle on these issues. And you got to remember, all we were fighting for in this case was the right to be heard. Just the right to be heard. That was all that was at stake. Absolutely. It was viewpoint discrimination.

They were totally canceling the pro-life message and the pro-life voice. And we got in there, and we changed it in a minute. Well, yeah, more than a minute.

It took, well, in about eight minutes once we got there. The getting it there was about a lot of lawyer work to get it in there. Let me say this. We're not even talking about the substance of the ordinance. We're just talking about the hearing, folks.

That's how you got to fight. Again, if you've not supported the work of the ACLJ, great day to do it. Matching challenge campaign, ACLJ.org. That's ACLJ.org.

Your support will make a huge difference. We're also taking your calls. 800-684-3110. Got an update coming on another case. We were in court this morning. We'll talk to you in a minute. Another call coming in, and we're going to go to another pro-life case.

Frank Mayne is on the line. I want to go to Roberta in Pueblo, Colorado, as well, on Line 1. Hey, Roberta. Hi. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

We do not want an abortion clinic in Pueblo, Colorado. I am a long-time supporter of the ACLJ and many a year supporter of life for all. Thank you so much. God bless you all. Roberta, I want to say a thank you to you, because here's the truth.

None of that happened yesterday, last night, without your support, and your support allowed us to do this. And we're not taking anything for granted, though, in Pueblo, because you're not going to just have an abortion clinic, which would be bad enough. Let me tell you what you're going to have. You're going to have an abortion clinic run by an abortionist who specializes in late-term abortions. It's the namesake of the Supreme Court case involving partial birth abortion. As if that was an honor, it's not. So we're fighting—but again, we weren't even talking about the ordinance itself. We were just trying to get the fair hearing, which we got. Now, that takes place on Monday, and our lawyers will be back in the saddle, as they say.

I guess for Colorado, that would be appropriate. They will be back in the chamber for this. Talking about in the chamber and hearings, Frank Mannion, senior counselor for the ACLJ, is on the phone. And Frank, you were in court just a little bit ago. But a little background on the case and how'd it go?

Sure. This is another buffer zone case, Jay. This is our Sixth Circuit buffer zone case out of Louisville, Kentucky, where the city of Louisville two years ago enacted a buffer zone ordinance, in which in the ordinance itself, they say we're basing this on the case of Hill v. Colorado. They never mentioned the McCullen case, which came 14 years after Hill, in which the Supreme Court never mentioned Hill. And so they enacted a buffer zone ordinance— I'll take it, Frank. They didn't mention the footnote in Dobbs saying it's distorted our abortion jurisprudence, Hill v. Colorado.

No. As you and I have talked about, Jay, Hill is basically a dead letter just waiting to be kind of—have the stake driven through its heart, but the Supreme Court wants to get the case directly on point. And this case may be that one, although I think—I feel very optimistic after today's hearing. We had an excellent panel of three judges.

Very refreshing from my standpoint, and you'll appreciate this. They had actually read the briefs, and they had actually read the McCullen case, because I've argued a number of these buffer zone cases where you're left scratching your head thinking, have they read the McCullen case? Well, these judges did, and they certainly understood it. Obviously, I'm not going to go out on a limb and predict an outcome here, but I feel pretty optimistic after this morning's hearing. You know, it's interesting because, Cece, our petitioners here, the appellants, were engaged in what's called sidewalk counseling.

I think it's worth describing what that process is. And very much so, these petitioners and our clients in particular, they had done this for decades. And this is just literally talking to people that are coming into the clinic, giving them information, praying with them if they want to, giving them advice. And once again, it's an opportunity for the people that are going in, making the biggest decision of their lives if they're going to kill a baby. They actually get to hear both sides of the story, just like what we were fighting for in Pueblo, that both sides get to be heard. And so, if a woman is walking into a clinic, these sidewalk counselors, and most of them, they are sacrificing their time. It's because they love these people, and they want to give them the truth.

And so, it's sincere just counseling, giving them education, praying for them if they want to, letting them hear the other side of the story. Frank, the district court ruled against us, right? So, that court basically ruled against us. What was your biggest takeaway, besides the fact that they actually read the briefs and were prepared, legally, where did the court seem to focus? The court focused on something that completely escaped the district court, and apparently the city as well, which is, you can't say that because McClellan was a 35-foot buffer zone, and here we have a 10-foot buffer zone, that, oh, well, this is smaller, that's okay.

What McClellan said, and what this panel clearly picked up on was, McClellan said, if you burden speech at all, and you made this argument in Hill, if you burden speech at all, then the burden shifts to the government to justify the restriction. Here, the city of Louisville didn't do that. They didn't know they even had to. I mean, McClellan essentially says, you can have a buffer zone, but only as a last resort, and you have to prove, not just shrug your shoulders and say, ah, that won't work. You have to prove that you tried other means of controlling whatever your problem is, in this case, alleged blocking of the door, prosecutions, injunctions, a face law. Louisville didn't even try to do that.

The district court didn't require them to show that they tried to do it. But I'm pretty sure that this panel of the Sixth Circuit understood that and will apply the law accordingly. You know, it seems like we're getting close to a time where, when it comes to speech, this abortion distortion that used to survive, whether it's buffer zones or let's cancel all the pro-life speakers at the city council meeting and no one will care because it's those crazy pro-life speakers, is coming, is about to be done. That is a lot because of Dobbs. Even though that was a case on abortion itself, it also has an impact on speech about abortion.

Yes, because it took away this mantle of constitutional protection, Frank, that was overriding every abortion case, and as Justice Scalia said decades ago, it created this abortion distortion. Justice Alito and his opinion in Dobbs reiterated that, and then what we're doing now is basically, Frank, it's fair to say, fixing the law. Right. That's exactly what we're doing.

And, you know, McCullen was the first step. The court's almost inviting somebody to bring a direct challenge to Hill. We're happy to take them up on that with the right case, but we've got a couple of them percolating now, including this one. And, yeah, I think abortion distortion is at least officially out at the Supreme Court. It may not happen in lower courts and at city council meetings for a while, but we're doing our best to make sure it is. But Cece said something earlier that was interesting, and that is, you know, we said it's going to return to the states, but then we just had this whole incident in Colorado where it returned to the county. Absolutely.

I mean, at that level, where the abortion distortion factor was playing in. It's going down past the 50 states. Within the 50 states, we might have multiple fights within one state.

And so we have to be ready and prepared to fight this at any level that it comes. I think the good news is, and Frank, thanks for being with us and thanks for that update. Sounds like a good decision on the way from the U.S. Court of Appeals from the Sixth Circuit, which, by the way, folks, is the second Sixth Circuit argument that our team had in the last four days. Now, last night and this morning, we were reviewing a reply brief to a Supreme Court case involving religious freedom.

That brief can be filed either Friday or the latest Monday. So we were all working on that last night. I have to say a thank you to Olivia Summers for doing a great job in Colorado, a thank you to Frank Mannion for doing a great job at the Sixth Circuit, and a thank you to Walter Weber. These are all our senior lawyers of the ACLJ for the work that he's done on this reply brief. And I will say Abby Sutherland brought the case initially. So, again, thanking her for the work on this. Far from done, but I tell you, I read that reply brief and I was very, very impressed with the work product coming out of the American Center for Law and Justice. And certainly, as I said, yesterday we had Christy Campagno and we had Ben Sisney.

Who else was on that case? Of course, Olivia and then the three of us. So, folks, and our production teams and everybody else getting all this together.

I say all of this because without you, none of this happens. Yeah, support the work of the ACLJ. We have our matching challenge right now where you can double the impact of your donation. It's very simple. It's not like those crazy texts you get there.

By the way, it's a little break from those political texts. It's kind of nice. But it's not like those texts where you get the 800 times match. You're like, what is this?

How am I doing this math? We're very clear about it. So what we do is we have a group of donors that will match the donations that come through in the month of December. That means they'll match your donation right now. So if you donate $25 at ACLJ.org, they will match that $25. Their donor will match that. So it's effectively, that opens up $50 to the ACLJ. They don't take that action to match unless you take that first step in making the donation.

That's at ACLJ.org. Donate today. If you want to talk to us on air, 1-800-684-3110. Back with our second half hour of Sekulow. Keeping you informed and engaged. Now more than ever, this is Sekulow. And now your host, Jordan Sekulow. Let me read this comment that came in from Rumble. We're mounted for that as well. Just like we take your phone calls at 1-800-684-3110. The comment came in.

It says, I'll put my glasses on. I live in Pueblo. I was hopeful when I heard your lawyer was coming to help. Thank you so much for turning the situation around and enabling Pueblo citizens to at least have our voices heard.

That's what it's all about, the ACLJ. This is the freedom of speech, but it's that abortion distortion that you're fighting through here to even have your speech heard because it happens to do with abortion itself. So you're initially just fighting for your voice so that those witnesses, not us, so that the witnesses who were invited get to have an opportunity to have their set time to testify. All we were fighting over, and I want to be clear on this, and it's very significant, the silencing of the pro-life advocates because the city councilman woman in this particular case and others thought, you know what? We don't want their bias.

We don't want their circus. That's what they said. I'm using their words. And that's when the ACLJ got involved. And then she goes, well, I've been threatened with a lawsuit. You're darn right you were threatened with a lawsuit. Okay, yeah, you were threatened with a lawsuit because if you would engage in viewpoint discrimination, it's called unconstitutional. And that's what we were fighting.

Yeah, and it's always amazing to me how bold they are. I mean, the fact that this city councilwoman boldly stated that she did not want the pro-life message there. She did not want their biased opinions. She did not want the committee to turn into a circus.

She didn't want that meeting to turn into a circus. They're not even hiding their viewpoint discrimination. They're boldly proclaiming it that, yes, in fact, we are absolutely denying the pro-life voice to be heard at our committee hearing. And so we were able to jump in and let them know that violates the constitution, and we're not going to stand for that, and we were able to show up and change the situation.

Let's be clear. They wanted, okay, to silence the pro-life advocates and let the pro-abortion advocates speak. We didn't let them get away with it, by the way, all right? So because of the work of the ACLJ, that didn't happen. But the goal of the group that was opposed to this was to silence the pro-life advocates.

Here's the irony. The first reading of the ordinance, the ordinance passed that the pro-life advocates are in favor of. So like I said, we're not even at the merits of the ordinance. We're just talking about trying to get a hearing where there's actually due process. And these people also, we pointed this out in our letter, and it's all available up at ACLJ.org, by the way.

We posted the letter, the attachments, everything's up there. What's interesting, of course, the cable carriage of the hearing went down as soon as our people were ready to start, our lawyers were ready to go. And then, to make it more interesting, all we were fighting over was the ability for our witnesses who were invited to testify after they were canceled. And that will now take place on Monday, but rest assured, ACLJ lawyers will be back out there. We're going to take your calls as we get to the next segment, but I do want to read this comment on Facebook.

Terry wrote it. It said the Minneapolis City Council did not allow pro-life representatives to be present and present their case regarding a buffer zone. They voted in law in Minneapolis. Was this viewpoint discrimination? I don't know the particulars of that case. Did they actually invite witnesses? If there was a hearing and they had witnesses and they invited a group of witnesses, then disinvite them, which makes our case even better.

Well, they only invited one viewpoint. Yeah, which still would be viewpoint discrimination, possibly, depending on the nature of the hearing. All of these cities, one thing we learned, every county, every city, municipality, they all have different rules. That's right. And there are some times if it's an executive meeting where they're not doing any kind of vote, they're not making any kind of decision, they are allowed to pick who they want to present.

So you have to know what the city rules, but that definitely, I mean, just given those facts, not knowing more, possibly. Was there a comment period? That's the other thing, folks. When you have these open comment periods, which they usually have before these council meetings, we participate in those.

We've been doing that for 40 years. You get amazing what you can create in seven minutes. Someone else wrote it too. What is a buffer zone? A buffer zone is a stay away zone. In other words, you can't go near the abortion clinic as if there's a moat around it and filled with alligators and you can't get in there. I mean, that's basically what it is.

You can't pierce this. And I'm talking about public sidewalks, which are, excuse me, public forums. Yeah. So again, hopefully you don't have to ask that question too much longer because they won't be in existence. We'll be right back on SECU. Take your phone calls. Welcome back to SECU where continue to take your phone calls to 1-800-684-3110.

That's 1-800-684-3110. If you listen to this broadcast and you feel like something like this has happened in my community, just go to ACLJ.org forward slash help. ACLJ.org forward slash help. And again, put in your information there and an ACLJ attorney will contact you. So if you feel like there's this kind of work and don't think that the ACLJ is too big to do this kind of work. I always reiterate that to people. That's why we have so many attorneys.

It's not too small to go out and get out to Play Below and to make sure that the people there have their voices heard. Let me get a stand in California on Line 1. Stan, welcome to SECU.

You're on the air. So my question is, why are Planned Parenthood counselors conflicted with their abortion counseling because of the financial benefit to them if an abortion is performed? Well, because they're in the business.

Look, they don't hide it. They're in the business of abortion. And that's their business. So they'll say the counseling is actually informed consent. And legally, they're probably right legally.

But you raised an interesting point. But the fact is, Planned Parenthood and the states that are allowing abortion, what you're having now is these states, New York, California in particular. I think Colorado wants to become a quote, abortion destination. Is that correct?

That is correct. They don't have any limitations on abortion. And that's why when Pueblo, when they have Carhartt, like you said, the most gruesome abortion doctor, the doctor that fought to kill babies by partial birth abortion, which is allowing the baby to be partially born, partially delivered, and then literally stabbing something up in the base of their skull and killing that baby.

This is the doctor that is moving into Pueblo. So just like the caller said, why aren't they counseling? Planned Parenthood only gives one side of the story. They don't ever want to provide the other side.

They don't want you to see an ultrasound, which is the other side of the story. That's a living baby there that is about to be murdered. And so very, very much biased. If you want to talk about biased, Planned Parenthood is probably the most biased organization that exists.

So I think where we are right now is, and it was interesting, I'm looking at a rumble code. One of the people on rumble said, I can't believe that abortion is actually a business. But it is. It's a huge business. It's a hundreds of millions of dollars a year business. The thing is, with the Dobbs decision, things are changing.

And as you said, Jordan, I think we're not going to be able to be talking about what should be good buffer zones. I think that the viewpoint discrimination targeting pro-life speakers is going to be put to the ash heap of history. So I think all of those are wins. We're taking your calls at 800-684-3110, 1-800-684-3110 next hearing Monday in Pueblo, Colorado. That's right. So again, we want to continue to take your calls. And again, if you want to learn more information about this, it's up at ACLJ.org.

That's ACLJ.org. I think again, the bigger picture here is that if you contact us, we can fight back for you and assist you. And nothing is too small to contact us about. And I think this is just that other example. Don't worry about us getting there.

Don't worry about the cost of the ACLJ. Just reach out. I think so many of the often times people contact us after the fact. And it's much harder to resolve matters positively once it's already done. Well, here the great thing was the clients contacted us when their witnesses that were authorized to speak were disinvited. And the reason they were disinvited was they didn't want the pro-life message heard.

And the invitation to participate was actually issued by the city of Pueblo, Colorado. And then the city council members, or at least some of them, said, no, we're not going to go in that direction. And then we were able to get our lawyers present. And once we got our lawyers present, issued a demand letter, had our lawyers at the hearing, Olivia spoke, presented the argument at the hearing, and the city council wisely said, you know what we're going to do? We're going to let both sides present their witnesses.

And we're not going to engage in viewpoint discrimination up on the screen right now. That's the ACLJ, the first page of the demand letter on these things. It started with the demand letter, but it also required lawyers to participate.

And that's what we do at the ACLJ. But again, we were contacted. All this happened within a 24-hour period.

It did. It was about five o'clock two nights ago, and we were able to get an attorney there to speak at five o'clock the next night. And like we say a lot of times, you know, we win these cases a lot of times just by ministry of presence. The fact that we are there, the fact that Pueblo and the city council member doesn't just get to make these comments, and those comments are never heard. The fact that the ACLJ, you know, an international law firm, that we show up and we're there, it totally changes the whole dynamic of the meeting. I call it, and I started this years ago, I call it the ministry of presence. Sometimes you just have to be there. And it's amazing what happens when you show up. I mean, this one city council member said, I've been threatened with lawsuits.

Right? You're violating constitutional rights. Guess what happens? You're certainly going to city council, and you're engaging in viewpoint discrimination. Let me explain to you what happens. You violated the constitution, so you're subject to a lawsuit.

That's exactly right. Fortunately, so far, we haven't had to do it. Lawyers will be back Monday when the actual hearing takes place. Victoria on YouTube wrote, we live 60 miles east of Pueblo. Our youth group last night was praying for your lawyers during the meeting, and our students are against abortion, don't want this clinic in our state, in our city. So again, people, I think the response to your city at the local level, it's good for us to know. It's great for our ACLJ attorneys to know as well. To see that the back and forth exchange, that everything is not in Washington, D.C. Everything is not in always the U.S. Supreme Court. That it is your city council meeting.

That it is, you know, we talked a lot about school boards, but that is bread and butter. Most of the cases that our legal teams work on, they don't make it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. They don't have to go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. And sometimes, again, they're not in courts at all.

That's right. And we're able to do those cases. And like you said, there's no case too small.

You know, right now in this season that we're in, the Christmas season, we get lots of contacts with people saying, you know, we've just been told by the city council once again that we can't have a nativity scene on the courthouse lawn. Or, you know, those are the kind of cases that we will take and we can usually resolve pretty quickly. Yes, because we've done these cases and who we are as the ACLJ, when we take on a city council, they take notice. So we can get a lot of these cases.

Again, like you said, Jordan, none of them are too small. We can get a lot of these resolved pretty quickly. The interesting thing here was, I want to go back to the time frame, because I think it's important for you to understand how the timing of this works. So we don't get the call until the evening, the night before last. That's when this all started. Because the witnesses were planning on testifying, they had a local lawyer, they were ready to do the case.

And then all of a sudden, boom, they're canceled. They contact us. And literally, by the next morning, we have drafted a demand letter, researched the law, dispatched a lawyer to Colorado, argued the proceeding in Colorado, received a good decision from the city council, and are back for the hearing on Monday. This took place.

All of this now we're talking about, and then broadcast it to you so you could hear it and see it at the ACLJ. All of this happens within literally, I'm talking about 48 hours now. Less than 48 hours. Yeah, less than 48 hours.

Yeah, less than 48 hours. And by the way, at the same time, we were arguing a case at the U.S. Court of Appeals on the Sixth Circuit on Tuesday, one this morning, and a brief going into the Supreme Court of the United States could be as early as tomorrow. And by the way, I'm not even touching on most of what's in our reports. That's where your support is so critical to our work. And I want to take this time to first of all say a thank you to our many, many donors around the country. Because without your support, we can't do this. And if you've already donated, I want to say on behalf of all of us, thank you for your support of the American Center for Law and Justice.

We literally, when we say we can't do it without you, we can't do this broadcast without you, we can't do any of this without you. For those of you that are contemplating a donation or are able to make a donation, December is our most important month. I've already been on calls this morning discussing budgets for next year.

We've got big growth plans, two big projects that we're going to announce next year, giant, that will impact international work and impact our office, our work in Washington, D.C. But that's where you come in. Your support of the ACLJ enables us to do all of this. And most of our donors, you know the average gift to the ACLJ I think is $34. We have some large donors, which we appreciate, but that's not where, we are a grassroots organization.

That's the way we've always been. So where you come in is to be part of that grassroots team. And by the way, I didn't even talk about the fact that in this Pueblo, Colorado place, we also mobilized ACLJ action. And that team, to get people to show up at these hearings, I mean people in the audience, because let me tell you, when you show up, that makes a difference too. So all that happened. And that's going to be happening on Monday. And that was, the immediate reaction was, hey let's get some grassroots support there as well.

Not to shut down and be nasty and scream, to have those speakers back. Actually if you watched the broadcast, you saw in the phone video some applause for our attorney. And because of the city council's decision to open it up to let both sides have their witnesses be heard. And so I think again, it is, these are open meetings, show up.

If you're in that area, we've heard from a lot of people from Pueblo, show up on Monday. Just for moral support. Absolutely. All right, support the work of the ACLJ. We're on that matching challenge, December's the month folks.

ACLJ.org, that's ACLJ.org. Any amount you donate, we're going to get a matching gift. Now, coming up in the next segment, we're going to take your calls. 800 or your comments coming in on Facebook, Grumble, YouTube, wherever it might be at ACLJ.org.

Call us at 800-684-3110. Back with more in a moment. One of the issues we've been involved in over time with the persecuted Christians and Americans in prison abroad, wrongfully in prison abroad, and these issues of prisoner exchanges. Of course, there was big news today with Brittany Greiner, who was a WNBA and a U.S. women's basketball team, a gold medalist arrested just right before the war in Ukraine began. Has been held really as a hostage to that war.

Yes, 100%. And really no other- Unjustly held. Totally unjustly held. And so the Biden administration was able to secure her release. We traded a well-known, very well-known Russian arms dealer, Viktor Bout, who was someone who would sell weapons to anybody, including those who attacked Americans like Al-Qaeda and a lot of the warlords in Africa. He was halfway through a 20-year prison. So he'd been in prison a long time already in the United States. They've wanted him out a long time. The criticism, of course, has been that the U.S. Marine who's been imprisoned in Russia for four years, Paul Whelan, was not part of this exchange. And I think the criticism goes to this soundbite from Joe Biden.

Take a listen by 22. We want to secure the border. We've never forgot about Brittany. We've not forgotten about Paul Whelan, who's been unjustly detained in Russia for years. This was not a choice of which American to bring home. What he's saying there is, and we've done these negotiations because we've had pastors in jail and we've talked about prisoner swaps and we've talked about political arrangements. That's part of these negotiations. So I know people are saying, well, we don't like prisoner swaps. But the truth of the matter is, when you've got someone in jail and they're your client, you're going to do whatever you can to try to get your client out of jail. Now, the interesting thing with this is, and these take on, and Cece's worked on these too, they take on a life of their own.

So you never quite, like with Saeed Abedini, as they're in the holding area about to leave, they started denying people. I think it was, what was the Washington Post reporter's name? Jason Rezaian? Yeah. Yeah. They weren't going to let his wife on the plane.

So they were going to keep her back in Iran, which, so all the hostages that are being released, they were not going anywhere without the wife. Yeah. So these things aren't done until they're done, but they're very complicated. It is complicated. And there's multiple factors going into it. And working with the State Department and the diplomatic relations between the countries, it's always a very tricky process. And I can pretty much guarantee you never, you never are knowing the, all the entirety of the facts surrounding, you know, if a swap takes place or if it's other reasons. Like we have gotten our clients out with diplomatic measures or financial pressure on a country where a swap wasn't necessary. But sometimes it is, and the State Department makes that call.

Yeah, but in the Abedini matter, the United States government, Barack Obama, the President gave $1.9 billion to the Iranians. Yeah, for those three. For those three prisoners.

Now you could say, well, that's terrible, that's horrible. At the end of the day, our job was to get our guy home. Right. We didn't get to make the decisions like that.

How they decide to do it is up to the government, not the individual private counsel. So I don't want to be too critical over these. I would have liked to have had that marine out. That would have been good. Is that when we say that we, it wasn't a choice of which America to bring home is that we have so little influence right now in the world. That's what people are concerned about is that we couldn't go to Russia and say, no, not good enough.

He's going back too. And President Biden chose to let us in on this and to say, they came to us and said that this is the only person you're getting. Why do you think the State Department released that info? He said Biden said it. Yeah, okay.

That's the thing, we played the sound bite. I don't know why he makes these kind of statements publicly. The Marine is serving a 16-year sentence, has been already served four years. Yeah, I will tell you, it is more complicated to deal with people who have military...

He was President and he didn't get out. People who have military backgrounds who get picked up for espionage, it is tougher. It is tougher, but here's what I want to say. Because they have military backgrounds.

This is a good example though, and I'm trying to be fair on this because I think it's important. These are very complicated negotiations. So the Marine that's in there was in there while the former President, President Trump, was in office. And he got a lot of people out, but was not able, and our relations with Russia were better. At least we didn't have a war going on.

Now you got a war going on. I was thinking, you know, it's tragic what's happening over there. But meanwhile, that Marine's still in there, so I'm sure there's diplomatic efforts going on as we speak. But again, these are very complicated, very, very complicated negotiations, very complicated measures.

Yeah, and I think, again, you as an American, everybody can take a step back and you can criticize the administration all you want, but you should be happy that we get this American during a war which we are supporting the other side with weapons that are killing Russians. That we were able to secure her release just as she was being sent to a penal colony too, where her conditions were about to get much worse for her. And she's already on the way home. The thing is, and they're not home until they're home, that's one thing we learned, right? Yes, absolutely.

Because so many things can happen along the way. So you watch absolutely that the flights can be grounded, they can take off, but then not get out of the airspace. And so, yes, we literally, when we have these situations, we are constantly monitoring, even when the planes leave that country's airspace so that we know that we're out of the woods. I remember when Andrew Brunson was released, he said he didn't breathe a sigh of relief until they cleared Iranian airspace. Turkish airspace.

Turkish airspace, excuse me. So with Said Abedini, it was the same thing with Iran. Yeah.

So you're dealing with hostile actors and you're negotiating on a multi-level negotiation. It happened in kind of wild ways these days. I mean, there was no indication internationally that this was going to happen today.

Nope. I mean, there were some... The lawyers probably knew.

Well, someone in the U.S. prison systems knew that Victor Bout was being moved. Yes, because to release them, there's a process. What it does show you is there is an ability for the U.S. government to act without everybody finding out about things. Which is fine on those kinds of matters. No, no, I say it's good because so much of it, we feel like everything gets leaked.

Well, everything does get leaked. I mean, this did not. And with Abedini, it did not. That is interesting.

And with Prunson, it did not. I think on these issues, it's so sensitive. There's a life of a person involved and a family that even the deep... Politics gets out of it. That politics get out of it.

And look, I'm glad that Brittney Griner's on the way back to the United States. I'm glad that in the previous administration, we got our clients released. We worked with President Obama in the release of Said Abedini.

These are not political decisions. These are, you've got person in, the President happened to be Barack Obama. I sent a thank you note when they negotiated the release of Said Abedini. I sent it to the council, one of the council for the President Obama.

Why? Because we'd worked with President Obama and his administration to secure the person's release. Because you know what our job is? We're advocates, we're lawyers.

So, who is ever in power, we have to, on an issue like that, you work with them because you got to work with the State Department to get your person out of harm's way. And I think for Brittney Griner, she's out of harm's way. Yeah, she is. It'll be interesting to see if she... But for the Marine, he's still in harm's way, so we need to get him out. Yeah, it'll be very interesting to hear what she has to say, too, during this time with conflict in Russia about her experience when she's back in the U.S. Yeah, I mean, I'm sure they treated her, she was in a Russian prison.

How good could it be? Not during a time when Russia is at war and low on resources already. Yes. And her country is providing the weapons that are killing Russia. Now, and you saw the Ukrainians ask for cluster bombs. Yeah.

And we haven't had a chance to talk about that. I mean, the administration has been hesitant because we don't even like using those. It's banned in some countries.

But the Russians are using it supposedly on the Ukrainians. So, all of this is very interesting. You know what, folks? We're seeing the full scope of the work of the ACLJ, Pueblo, Colorado, Iran, Turkey, Supreme Court of the United States, Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. I think Abby's was sitting in Cincinnati. I assume Frank's was.

Yeah. Well, they move around, but was in the Sixth Circuit, too. A brief going to the Supreme Court tomorrow. Your support for the ACLJ makes all that happen. I will encourage you to do this. We're a December matching challenge. You know how big of a month this is for us.

Go to ACLJ.org. Any amount you donate, we get a matching gift for it. Are you doing a Secular Brothers podcast today? We are.

Yeah. Thursday is podcast day. SecularBrothers.com. That comes out usually about 3, 4 o'clock.

Go to SecularBrothers.com. You can download all the different ways to listen to it on any of your, wherever you get your podcasts, actually. Yeah. And of course, rumble on Facebook and YouTube.