Controversial Actions and Statements:

In a January 19, 2024 interview with Breitbart News, Blackwell discussed the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, in which 20 first-grade students and six adults were killed. Blackwell stated, “A gun is a tool. The challenge we face instead is the culture … More and more people reject the whole notion of right and wrong. It’s becoming fashionable to deny the existence of God, and claim the right to determine for yourself what you will live for and how you will live. Some embrace the worldview that life is ultimately meaningless, so what’s the point? We come from nothing and we become nothing. Others embrace a worldview that all that matters is going for the thrill and whatever feels good.” Blackwell also addressed President Barack Obama’s proposals to combat gun violence, stating, “If we stop this gun control legislation, what kinds of executive orders and regulations will this president come out with to achieve the same result. We can take him to court on all that, but he’s trying to remake the courts as well. We’re only a single vote away from the Supreme Court erasing the Second Amendment … Nobody wants to talk about 2016 yet, but the reality is this is likely a four-year fight over the Second Amendment to our Constitution. Whoever wins the White House in 2016 will likely determine whether the right to keep and bear arms a decade from now is embraced as a constitutional right, or as a government-granted privilege that a president or governor can revoke on a whim.”

In a January 12, 2024 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell wrote, “President [Barack] Obama will take the oath of office later this month ‘on a stack of Bibles,’ the Washington Post tells us. He will place his left hand on Bibles owned by Abraham Lincoln and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. … Perhaps most disturbing of all Mr. Obama's exceptions in the Oath was his administration's issuance of the HHS Mandate that forces all but a few cloistered Americans to subsidize abortion-inducing drugs. This unconscionable HHS Mandate deserves to be called President Obama's Demancipation Proclamation. For, under this Demancipation Proclamation, the first freedom mentioned in the Bill of Rights, freedom of religion, is trampled under foot … If he can trample the First Amendment's religious freedom guarantees and tread upon the Second Amendment's support for the people's right to keep and bear arms, what security is there for any section of the unraveling Constitution?” The “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” requires employers to provide health insurance that covers contraception for women free of charge. The rule does not apply to church organizations themselves, but instead to affiliated nonprofit corporations, like hospitals.

In a December 21, 2023 interview on a Houston radio station, Blackwell spoke about the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut in which twenty first-grade students and six adults were shot and killed. He said, “We need to take a very comprehensive approach, not only to making sure that we keep dangerous people from acquiring firearms in a manner that doesn’t include disarming law-abiding people from their ability to defend themselves, we need to take an even broader look at the coarsening of our culture. We have people in the name of the First Amendment in Hollywood that basically refuses to rethink its relationship to violence. We need to take a look at what the whole coarsening of the culture, from treating abortion as a form of birth control to the rapid breakup of our families as things that attribute to the atrocities that we have seen occur all too frequently … We need to deal with a coarsening of our culture, everything from getting illegal weapons out of the hands of criminals to making sure that fewer and fewer of our children are born out of wedlock and into broken families where they suffer more and more from the emotional and mental disruptions in their lives that lead to these sort of mass murders.”

In an October 12, 2023 op-ed for American Thinker, Blackwell wrote, “Last month, President Obama had to call Egypt’s new president, Mohamed Morsi, to plead with him to protect the U.S. Embassy in Cairo. Morsi is a Muslim Brotherhood-backed leader. This is a country to whom the U.S. has given nearly $50 billion over the past three decades. We just approved another $1.5 billion in aid to what is said to be a ‘friend’ in the Mideast. Morsi grudgingly agreed not to let the Cairo mobs overrun the U.S. Embassy. International law regards our embassies as sovereign U.S. territory … We have exhausted our Treasury and we are no closer to Mideast peace. It seems that burning U.S. Embassies and murdered Americans dragged through the Arab street are what we are taught we have to tolerate in the interest of tolerance… We have tried gold. We're out of gold. Perhaps it's time to try fear … But if we have to fight, let's make sure we smash and dash. No re-building; no attempts to reform these failed states; no deluding ourselves that our mercenary friends will be loyal one minute after the money runs out. It's time America regained her self-respect.”

In an October 8, 2023 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell wrote, “The Obama Mandate will force us to violate our consciences. President Obama famously said he doesn't know when human life begins, but he's willing to force us to collaborate in the destruction of innocent human lives … President Obama doesn't care what you think, so long as you join him in helping to destroy the unborn on demand. And help him by paying for it … We are putting at risk America's unique contribution to the world: religious freedom.” Blackwell was referring to a January 2012 Obama Administration announcement that the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” requires employers to provide health insurance that covers contraception for women free of charge. The rule does not apply to church organizations themselves, but instead to affiliated nonprofit corporations, like hospitals, that do not rely primarily on members of the faith as employees. Additionally, the Act did not in any way alter existing, strict federal restrictions on the funding of abortion.

In a September 21, 2023 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell wrote, “The Democratic Party has officially committed itself to ending traditional marriage. For what else can happen to marriage when two persons of the same sex can marry and the rest of us are forced to recognize these counterfeits as true? If two, why not three? There is no compelling reason why not … Historian Michael Knox Beran found this nugget in Mr. Obama's second autobiography, The Audacity of Hope: ‘[I] came to appreciate how the earth rotated around the sun and the seasons came and went without any particular exertions on my part.’ What becoming modesty: earth, sun, seasons. Wait! Did he say the earth rotates around the sun? Yes, he did. Where is our ready-to-pounce press corps on this one? I don't know how they taught in fifth grade science in Jakarta, but here in America I learned that the earth rotates on its axis and revolves around the sun. This is no small point … President Obama has similarly mixed up the social science on family. His administration has given us ‘Julia.’ She is the Every Woman fictional figure who spends her entire life looking to government for assistance, from Head Start through Social Security. The only man in Julia's life is Barack Obama. Social science unambiguously reports that children thrive with mothers and fathers who are married and who worship regularly. President Obama's administration is not about that at all.” A Department of Health and Human Services report stated that children in nuclear families were “generally healthier, more likely to have access to health care, and less likely to have definite or severe emotional or behavioral difficulties than children living in nonnuclear families.” The study defines “nuclear family” as one that “consists of one or more children living with two parents who are married to one another and are each biological or adoptive parents to all children in the family.”

In a September 13, 2023 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell wrote, “In the dreary years of Depression and drift leading up to World War II, there was always a difference of perception between Britain and France about the Hitler threat. France wanted to strike Hitler when he marched into the Rhineland in 1936. This was a direct violation of the Treaty of Versailles [which ended World War I and imposed sanctions on Germany] and France felt its very life was threatened by a re-militarized Rhineland on her border. The French premier was invited to London by Prime Minister Baldwin—for talks. Four years later, France fell under the Nazi boot. Britain always had the advantage of distance from Germany. Britain had a 22-mile anti-tank trench called the English Channel. France naturally resented Britain's talking, talking, talking while Hitler moved. This is useful history as we view the situation in Israel today. The Iranian mullahs are motivated by the same anti-Jewish hatred that poisoned Hitler. They are developing a nuclear weapon, while claiming only to want nuclear energy for ‘peaceful purposes’ … [Secretary of State Hillary] Clinton has responded to the latest increase of Mideast tensions with soothing bromides … [President Barack] Obama administration's Iran policy has been all hope and no change. The U.S. has bunker buster bombs that reportedly could destroy Iran's nuclear facilities as they take them deep underground. But would a re-elected Peace Prize winner ever use those bunker busters? Or, would he rely, as he is being daily urged to rely, on deterrence … When we permit [President of Iran, Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad…to visit New York and spew anti-Semitic hatred from the podium of the UN General Assembly, we may think we are showing admirable patience and forbearance; we may think we are demonstrating our liberal values to these dictatorial regimes. But they view this as a sign of our weakness. They are not deterred by weak-willed acquiescence. Hitler was genuinely surprised when Britain and France declared war on him in 1939 following his invasion of Poland. He had met Prime Minister Chamberlain and Premier Daladier at Munich and had taken their measure. He thought they would never carry out their threats. Nothing in the conduct of this administration's policy toward Iran has given the mullahs the slightest indication that President Obama and Sec. Clinton will actually use overwhelming force to stop their nuclear arms race.”

In a September 5, 2023 op-ed for the Daily Caller, Blackwell wrote, “The [Democratic] party was clearly embarrassed because its platform [at the Democratic National Convention] failed to mention God and overlooked the party’s historic support for Jerusalem as the capital of Israel … So now, the Democratic platform has been changed. Are we satisfied? Does anyone think that a party that has to be arm-wrestled into acknowledging God is sincere? What we saw on the convention floor in Charlotte was the real Democratic Party. It was hostile to religion.” The platform at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) originally did not include the words “God” or “Jerusalem.” On September 5, Los Angeles Mayor and Chairman of the DNC Antonio Villaraigosa made a motion on the floor of the DNC to revise the platform to include the word “God” and affirm Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Such action requires a two-thirds vote by convention delegates. Some delegates and journalists on the convention floor claimed that one could not audibly hear two-thirds of the delegates say “aye.” Villaraigosa nonetheless declared the amendment had been approved. Any delegate who objected to the process could have made a formal challenge within ten minutes of the vote. No formal challenge was made.

In a September 4, 2023 op-ed for the Daily Caller, Blackwell wrote, “Froward is admittedly an archaic word, but it’s a very good one. It describes what is actually happening in that Democratic platform with respect—or should I say with disrespect?—to marriage. ‘Froward’ is defined by the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary as ‘habitually disposed to disobedience and opposition.’ When Democrats convene today in Charlotte, North Carolina, to formally adopt their platform, they will be giving in to disobedience and opposition. Voters in the Tar Heel State strongly endorsed true marriage just last May. Like voters in 31 other states, the people are saying loud and clear: Don’t mess with true marriage. But the party bigs are defiant, determined to shove counterfeit marriage down the throats of the people.” Turning to the issue of minority voters, Blackwell stated, “North Carolina’s black voters backed true marriage by a margin of two to one … What can Democratic Party delegates in Charlotte be thinking? How can they imagine that ending marriage as we know it is a good posture to take in the teeth of such determined opposition from their most loyal group of supporters?” Blackwell was referring to a North Carolina constitutional amendment that defined marriage as between one man and one woman and banned the recognition of any other type of “domestic legal union.” The amendment was approved in May 2012.

In an August 28, 2023 interview with The Hill, Blackwell made references to controversial remarks made by U.S. Representative Todd Akin (R-MO). On August 19, 2012, Akin commented on the issue of pregnancy induced by rape, stating, “It seems to be, first of all, from what I understand from doctors, it’s really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut the whole thing down.” Later, Akin publicly stated that Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan had personally asked him to end his candidacy for the U.S. Senate. Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus also announced that even if Akin, who was trailing Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill in two recent polls, managed to pull even with her, "We're not going to send him a penny." Commenting on this imbroglio, Blackwell stated, "I think it was a mistake not to get the leaders in Missouri lined up before [GOP national leadership] went up and looked overly heavy-handed in the way they were pushing [Akin] … I've encouraged people at the Senatorial Committee to wait about five days and do a poll and see if things have stabilized. If things have, they might want to readjust. Senatorial committees can do anything. It is not as if some of the damage they've done can be papered over but they can reverse themselves on it."

In an August 24, 2023 interview on "Washington Watch Weekly", Blackwell stated, “President [Barack] Obama and his party want to transform our market economy into a government-controlled economy but most importantly, they are dead set on making sure that they transform our national philosophy founded upon the primacy of the individual and the supremacy of God to one founded on the primacy of the collective good and the supremacy of the central government. Our document, the GOP document, is a direct contrast; it provides the American people with a choice, not an echo. That is so important because there are two paths that we can go down: we can reinforce our fundamental belief that when we are God-centered, free men and free women and free markets can accomplish much and overcome most hurdles thrown in our way or do we want to go down the path of being a government-controlled economy, destroying families, replacing it with bureaucrat decision makers that would run afoul of what the founders of this nation envisioned 237 years ago … In our 237th year as being an exceptional nation we are at risk of losing it all. We just can’t afford to have four more years of a President that one, doesn’t understand the nature of our exceptionalism, and two, has a worldview and a set of guiding principles that are in direct contradiction with what has made us an exceptional nation. I’ve always enjoyed the push and pull of the whole process, I think it’s now incumbent upon us to make sure that this is not a document that is put on the shelf and our candidates across the country can just let collect dust and ignore. There is a fault line from the Pacific to the Atlantic and one side are those who believe in big government and who believe that the family and God can be replaced by a supreme state government, and that’s a problem.” The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution explicitly prohibited the government from making any law “respecting an establishment of religion.”

In an August 24, 2023 op-ed for World Magazine, Blackwell wrote, “Happily, the Republican Platform Committee this week sidestepped the issue of civil unions. Committee members reaffirmed the party's historic support for true marriage. That's a good thing because, from the government's perspective, all our marriages are civil unions. And government has a duty to protect the civil institution of marriage. What some call a civil union-as a softer way to grant same-sex couples all the rights of marriage without the name of marriage-is merely a slow-motion surrender on the critical issue of marriage. Governments cannot sanctify marriage, but governments can and should protect the civil institution of marriage. True marriage … We have seen many examples of the ways in which defenders of marriage will lose their civil rights if marriage itself is abolished. If 61 percent of North Carolina voters last May had voted to end true marriage in that state instead of affirming it, we could have been sure that the very next semester schoolchildren in the Tar Heel State would have been proselytized in the early grades for the new definition of marriage. This is what happened in Massachusetts. When parents of public schoolchildren object, they will be the ones singled out for threats, ridicule, and possibly even government sanctions … Those who want to end marriage as we know it often cite the famed U.S. Supreme Court case of Loving v. Virginia (1967). In that case, Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote for a unanimous court when he struck down a state law that barred men and women from different races from legally marrying. We agree with that opinion. We, too, believe that marriage is a fundamental civil right of Americans. And we also agree with Earl Warren's view that true marriage is necessary for the survival of society. Chief Justice Warren did not have to say true marriage-between one man and one woman. It was understood. It must still be so understood. The civil rights of all Americans must be defended … Keeping marriage alive requires hard work. And it needs government support. What we are saying is that true marriage must survive for America to survive. We are saying preserve Americans' civil right of marriage if we want America to climb back from the abyss of economic decline and social decay.” On the 40th anniversary of Loving v. Virginia, Mildred Loving, one of the plaintiffs in the case, stated, “I believe all Americans, no matter their sex, no matter their sexual orientation, should have that same freedom to marry … I am proud that Richard’s and my name is on a court case that can help reinforce the love, the commitment, the fairness and the family that so many people, black or white, young or old, gay or straight, seek in life. I support the freedom to marry for all. That’s what Loving, and loving, are all about.”

In an August 20, 2023 op-ed for Huffington Post, Blackwell advised President Barack Obama to replace Joe Biden with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as his vice presidential running mate in the 2012 presidential election, stating, “Imagine if Hillary could be summoned from whatever international conference she's headed to. Envision her State Department jet being re-routed in mid-air for her to appear on the platform next to her onetime rival, just in time to let hubby [former president] Bill [Clinton] announce the new Obama-Clinton ticket to the world. Joe Biden could be put back on that State Department jet as the newly minted Secretary of State. Not a bad shown-the-door prize for the man who is forever stepping on rakes. Now, in all candor, we have already gone on record calling Hillary America's worst Secretary of State. But she couldn't be our worst vice president. As long as Joe Biden's around, that title is safe.”

In a July 23, 2023 op-ed for the Daily Caller, Blackwell wrote about President Barack Obama’s “’covert zeal’ for abortion.” He stated, “Abraham Lincoln faced a similar problem in 1854 when he spoke of the ‘covert zeal’ of President Franklin Pierce and Sen. Stephen A. Douglas for the spread of slavery. These leading Democrats never said they were in favor of slavery. They simply viewed the right of whites to choose slavery for blacks as a ‘sacred principle of self-government’ … President Obama doesn’t talk about abortion much … President Obama has been the most pro-abortion president in history … From his first public office, he has been an advocate for abortion-on-demand. He led the fight in the Illinois State Senate to deny protection for newborn children who survive abortion attempts. These children are U.S. citizens under the Fourteenth Amendment. And just as too many states denied ‘equal protection of the laws’ to black Americans under a century of unjust Jim Crow laws, Barack Obama denied protection of Illinois laws to newborns in the Land of Lincoln because they had been targeted for abortion.” Then-Illinois Senator Barack Obama voted against the state’s “Born Alive Infant Protection Act” in 2001, 2002, and 2004, because in his words, “Whenever we define a previable fetus as a person that is protected by the equal protection clause or the other elements in the Constitution, what we're really saying is, in fact, that they are persons that are entitled to the kinds of protections that would be provided to a… nine-month-old…child that was delivered to term. That determination then, essentially, if it was accepted by a court, would forbid abortions to take place.” Blackwell wrote, “From his first day in office until now, President Obama has quietly but vigorously pushed the abortion agenda. He records promotional videos for Planned Parenthood. This group kills 340,000 of the more than1,200,000 unborn children killed each year by abortion. Under Obamacare, they will be able to kill millions more.” Blackwell was referring to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which did not in any way alter existing, strict federal restrictions on the funding of abortion.

In a July 6, 2023 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell wrote, “We are now told by the Supreme Court of our day that millions have come to ‘rely’ on abortion and therefore we must accept it. But did not millions then ‘rely’ on slavery? Today, 71% of pregnancies in Harlem end in abortion. For those who view the fate of unborn children as "above their pay grade," that 71% pre-natal death rate is not enough. Today, Obamacare threatens to trample liberty underfoot in its drive to force acceptance of abortion on Catholic and non-Catholic institutions that try to defend innocent human lives. What was wrong in slavery is what is wrong in abortion: It denies to members of our human family their rightful place at the national celebration of the Glorious Fourth. It says we will celebrate as your lives ebb away … Lincoln said it well: If slavery is not wrong, then nothing is wrong. We agree. And if abortion is not wrong, then nothing is wrong.” It is unclear where Blackwell got his statistics regarding pregnancies in Harlem—he did not provide any source.

On June 25, 2012, Herman Cain, former 2012 Republican presidential candidate, released an advertisement in which he and Ken Blackwell defended a Florida’s Voter ID law. Blackwell asked, “Why is [U.S. Attorney General] Eric Holder demanding that Florida stop removing illegal voters from their rolls/a>?” Blackwell was making reference to a Department of Justice lawsuit which challenged the Florida law because of allegations that it disenfranchises minorities. Blackwell further boasted, “As Secretary of State of Ohio, I was responsible for the integrity of the vote.” In 2004, while serving as the Secretary of State of Ohio and co-chair of the “Committee to Re-Elect George W. Bush,” Blackwell was the defendant in 16 lawsuits that alleged he disenfranchised Ohio voters.

In a June 15, 2023 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell wrote “Recognizing same-sex couplings as marriages will mean the end of marriage. That's because saying yes to two men or two women marrying opens the door to polygamy … With same-sex couplings and polygamous arrangements recognized, where would that leave marriage? Ended, that's where. When everyone can marry, no one can marry. There is no marriage left. Advocates for same-sex couplings have never agreed to bar polygamous groups being granted marriage rights. After all, if ‘marriage equality’ is the real goal, then three or four marital partners are even more equal than two.” Blackwell continued, stating, “Much media talk about how young people support same-sex couplings does not translate into votes. There is a silenced minority here. Young people are constantly told it's not cool to be against same-sex demands. With Americans waiting longer to get married, it should not surprise us that the youth cohort is the least supportive of true marriage. They're not married yet.” He urged, “Defenders of true marriage need to be equally bold in speaking with younger audiences. Candidates need to tell the young the truth: that if they support marriage rights for same-sex couplings, they will be voting to end marriage … The young, according to all polls, are disproportionately pro-life … We need to share with the young this hopeful message: Marriage is the best protector for unborn children that we have. Four out of five unborn children who are killed in abortion are the children of single parents. If you really care about unborn children, protect the institution that best protects them.”

In a May 29, 2023 speech at the American Religious Freedom Program Conference, Blackwell called a January 2012 Obama administration announcement about the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act “one of the most unprecedented and ominous assaults on religious freedom.” The administration was declaring that employers would be required to provide health insurance which covers contraception for women free of charge. Blackwell warned, “Late in the 19th Century,Germany’s Chancellor Bismarck waged an assault against Catholics. The Prime Minister intended to close down Catholic schools and hospitals, convents and monasteries throughout the country. We’re not there yet; but we must be vigilant … There’s a scene in a famous movie I recommend watching over again. In A Man for All Seasons, Sir Thomas More is facing execution for standing by his conscience in a time of agitation. More tells his prosecutors: ‘I do none harm, I say none harm, I think none harm. And if this be not enough to keep a man alive, in good faith I long not to live.’ Thank God, we have not gotten to that point. But our task is to make sure we never get to that point. We cannot allow these salami tactics—this divide-and-conquer strategy—to succeed. If the [Department of Health and Human Services] can that we subsidize abortion-causing drugs now, what is to stop them from mandating our support for surgical abortions next year?”

In a May 9, 2023 op-ed for World Community, Blackwell accused President Barack Obama of being a “full-blown advocate of abolishing marriage.” He referred to efforts at the state to level to ban same-sex marriage as evidence that “Americans overwhelmingly do not agree that marriage should be ended.” According to Blackwell, that would be the result if same-sex couples were allowed to marry. “Three men marrying?” Blackwell wrote. “Two men and a woman? If everyone can marry, then no one can marry, thus ending marriage as we know it.”

In a February 26, 2023 web appearance on The Daily Caller, Blackwell said of Democratic President Barack Obama, “What you see is a president that ignores the Constitution, an administration that ignores the Constitution. And he wants to build a federal court system in his own philosophy and in his own image, and thereby give him, and his administration, unbridled power.” Blackwell was then asked why some polls were indicating that African-American support was down for President Obama. He responded, “I remember being in graduate school and I read a work of a psychiatrist in the late 1800s and he was talking about the Antebellum south and slavery. And he said, ‘What people don’t understand is that you have a slave, and you have to worry about that slave running and bolting towards freedom. So your guarding and you put him in chains. And what you have is not a slave, you have a captive.’ He said, ‘When you can take off the chains and you can do away with the guards and that captive will not walk and walk outside of the area of prescription of slavery, you then have converted that captive to a slave.’ And he said, ‘There is a fear of freedom, that slaves, unlike captives, wont take the risk of bolting because all of us, slave and master alike, like homeostasis or equilibrium.’ And so one of the things that I’ve started to notice is that more and more young black people are willing to take the risk of being free, the risk of being not dependent on the government, and that is something, that’s a force that the pill of dependency, you know, cannot overtake by the Obama administration.”

In a February 18, 2023 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell wrote, “The folks at the [National] Archives told us that they had discovered a previously unnoticed correction in an early Thomas Jefferson draft of the Declaration of Independence. Young Mr. Jefferson had written the word ‘Subjects.’ Then, he struck that word and penned the word ‘Citizens.’ The National Archives informed us meaningfully that this was the first time in American history that we were so-called Citizens. Will future Archivists be able to pinpoint the signing of Obamacare as that moment in time when we became Subjects once again?” He also added, “The Obama administration today tells us we must provide drugs that can cause abortions [birth control]. Tomorrow, they will tell us we must provide the abortions. The logic is inescapable.”

In a February 2, 2023 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell lamented that complaints by civil rights organizations led retired General Jerry Boykin to withdraw from speaking at the West Point military academy’s annual prayer breakfast. Blackwell wrote, “The Obama administration's hostility toward religion—and especially Christians—continues even to the detriment of our men and women in uniform.” Boykin is an anti-Muslim hardliner who has described the War on Terror as a “Christian battle against Satan” (a statement that was repudiated by President George W. Bush). He has also called Islam “a totalitarian way of life” and has argued that the First Amendment, which protects the free practice of religion, does not apply to Islam. A statement by VoteVets.org alleged that Boykin’s presence at the prayer breakfast would “put our troops in danger.” Blackwell called Boykin “an ideal choice” to speak at a prayer event held at a military academy. He went on to write, “This sad episode is yet another example of the Obama administration's ongoing hostility to people of faith,” despite the fact that the Obama administration played no role in the controversy.

In a December 31, 2023 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell expressed support for Voter ID laws that have been accused by the Department of Justice and others of disenfranchising minorities. In a rant on the topic of race, he wrote, “The African-American community has a staggeringly-high unemployment rate under President Obama. So Black Americans will not vote for this president because of any prosperity he's brought to that community. Instead, he has to gin up their votes by painting a picture of racial conflict in which he—and the governmental agency dealsing [sic] with such things, DOJ—is their champion. This is also seen in [Attorney General Eric] Holder's incessant playing of the race card. First he says we're a nation of cowards about race. Now that he's on the ropes for DOJ's scandalous Operation Fast and Furious gun-running scandal into Mexico, he has the audacity to say that he and President Obama are being attacked in part because they're both African-Americans.”

In a December 9, 2023 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell called the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act—a piece of legislation that allowed the residents of those states to determine whether slavery would be allowed inside their borders—“the original ‘pro-choice’ legislation.” He also added, “A year before his acceptance speech at Denver. Mr. Obama went before Planned Barrenhood and shackled himself to their sterile ideology of abortion-on-demand.”

In a November 23, 2023 op-ed for the Huffington Post, Blackwell wrote, “Mr. Obama, as a candidate, had to bat away accusations that he was close, too close, to Rashid Khalidi, a radical Palestinian Arab intellectual.” Khalaidi is actually a Palestinian-American Professor of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University. President Barack Obama was acquainted with Khalaidi, but never consulted with him on matters of foreign policy. Blackwell also harshly criticized the Occupy Wall Street movement, writing, “the Occupy Wall Street crowd quickly descended to anti-Semitism. They are protesting income inequality, they say, but their cry of 99% against the 1% is a veiled reference to American Jews, who constitute less than 2% of the U.S. population.” Turning back to the President, he concluded, “Barack Obama's intellectual world is one in which [anti-colonialist Franz] Fanon, [linguist Noam] Chomsky, [historian Howard] Zinn, and those neo-Marxist thinkers hold sway. Only free societies can create enough surplus wealth to support such dissident scholars and their ‘myrmidons’ [hired ruffians] in the Occupy Wall Street Movement in their midst.”

Due to ongoing tensions between the United Kingdom and Argentina over the Falklands Islands, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated in March 2010 that the United States will “facilitate them talking to each other.” “We’re not interested and have no real role in determining what they decide between the two of them, but we want them talking and we want them trying to resolve the outstanding issues between them,” she added. In response to Clinton’s statement, Blackwell authored a November 11, 2023 op-ed for the Huffington Post in which he stated, “By raising the subject of ‘talks’ about the Falklands, Mrs. Clinton is threatening a renewed war. We know Bill Clinton has lamented he did not have a war to assure his presidential greatness. Is Hillary hoping to be called upon to negotiate the Falklands matter so she, too, can cop a Nobel Prize? If she wins one for this, let's make it tin.” Blackwell also compared the Argentine military dictatorship that ordered the invasion of the Falklands to the “Occupy Wall Street” protests addressing income inequality in the United States by writing, “Think ‘Occupy Buenos Aires.’”

In a November 4, 2023 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell made a number of unverified claims about President Barack Obama’s policy towards Iran and claimed that the President “even sent Persian New Year greetings to the Iranian people and their dictatorial rulers.” In fact, President Obama sent a greeting only to the people of Iran. In that greeting, he compared the political situation in Iran to populist uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia and stated, “Just as the people of the region have insisted that they have a choice in how they are governed, so do the governments of the region have a choice in their response. So far, the Iranian government has responded by demonstrating that it cares far more about preserving its own power than respecting the rights of the Iranian people.”

On October 27, 2011, Blackwell appeared on MSNBC host Chris Matthew’s Hardball show to express support for a Mississippi ballot initiative that would confer “personhood” at conception, a designation that would outlaw all abortion. In defense of the measure, Blackwell said, “I am not a doctor and I am not a lawyer, but I am one who believes in the human dignity of the human life no different than the Pope, no different then—God bless him—Jerry Falwell.” Falwell was a controversial televangelist who once noted, “As a Christian who has a theological perspective, I do not feel that rape and incest are moral grounds for abortion. I do not think that two wrongs make a right.”

In an October 20, 2023 op-ed published by the Family Research Council, Blackwell addressed allegations of racial bias in SAT questions by writing, “Some fringe activists who push the test-optional approach denigrate the exams, claiming they are biased against minority groups, a false assertion that has been debunked thoroughly and is not accepted by mainstream educators and psychologists.” In contrast, a 2010 study published in the Harvard Educational Review found, “The confirmation of unfair test results throws into question the validity of the test and, consequently, all decisions based on its results. All admissions decisions based exclusively or predominantly on SAT performance—and therefore access to higher education institutions and subsequent job placement and professional success—appear to be biased against the African American minority group and could be exposed to legal challenge.” The study confirmed earlier research that the SAT favors whites over African Americans who share a similar educational background and skill set.

On September 22, 2023 it was announced that Blackwell, along with former Nevada U.S. Senate candidate Sharron Angle, would serve as the two vice presidents for the National Federation of Republican Assemblies (NFRA). Commenting on his selection, Blackwell said, “The NFRA is the flagship of constitutionalist conservatism within the Republican Party. It is intent on making sure the federal government has limited powers and the states have an independent sovereign place in our system of government. If we, the people, are to arrest the Obama march to collectivism, social democracy and an imperial presidency, we must swell the ranks of the NFRA and maintain its status as a principled defender of liberty.” One month later, the NFRA endorsed former Republican Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum for president in the 2012 election.

In a September 13, 2023 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell repeated sexist characterizations about Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, writing, “Mrs. Clinton has even been derided in liberal blogs as Barack Obama's ‘Saudi wife.’ Feminist editor Tina Brown went so far as to say she's been put in a ‘foreign policy burka.’ We don't have to follow the Washington Post's annual In/Out listings. Fashions come and go in the ‘Style Section,’ even burkas.” Blackwell also accused the Secretary of State—without evidence—of anti-Semitism—by stating, “Perhaps most offensive of all is Hillary Clinton's assignment of counting Jews in Jerusalem. Old Washington hands may remember that President Richard Nixon bitterly ordered one of his aides to count the Jews in the Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics. The good man who took on that odious assignment has long since apologized and done penance. And the world has heard on the White House tapes Nixon's foul-mouthed rants and lashings out against the Jews.”

In a September 1, 2023 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell commented on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s reaction to the foreign policy of President Barack Obama by writing, “She had to smile a forced smile and pretend there was nothing amiss. That's not a role that comes naturally to a miss like Hillary. Correction: A Ms.”

Blackwell authored an August 19, 2023 op-ed for the Patriot Post, criticizing President Barack Obama’s role in the death of Osama bin Laden. He wrote that what was missing from the raid (ordered by President Obama) was “presidential leadership.” Blackwell further opined that, “The real reason why President Obama has hurriedly put the bin Laden raid behind him is the same reason why George McGovern could not point to his wonderful combat record, or even let others point to it: The Democratic Party houses a large and influential pacifist element.”

Blackwell believes that the United Nations’ Universal Periodic Review process, which produces reports assessing human rights conditions in all member countries, is being used by European countries to diminish United States sovereignty in the Western Hemisphere by imposing human rights conditions on Latin American countries. In an August 6, 20011 op-ed for the Daily Caller, Blackwell said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton “has done nothing to uphold the Monroe Doctrine and nothing to defend our Latin American allies from this new form of European imperialism … Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are on the side of the European imperialists.”

On July 12, 2023 Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted requested $332,000 in taxpayer money to pay for attorney’s fees for plaintiffs who sued then-Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell over his conduct during the 2004 presidential elections. The plaintiffs, who alleged that Blackwell violated the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, settled the lawsuit with the state in 2009.

In a June 12, 2023 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell claimed—without any evidence—that “San Francisco gay activists” were behind a local ballot initiative to ban infant circumcision.

In an April 12, 2023 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell claimed that President Obama was involved in orchestrating the populist uprising in Egypt, writing, “What was the point of going to a nest of Muslim Brotherhood activity to deliver that 2009 Obama address if not to puff up their stature and their influence? Osama bin Laden tells us that Arabs like to go with ‘the strong horse.’ Did Mr. Obama saddle up Mubarak or the Muslim Muslim [sic] Brotherhood as the strong horse with that Cairo speech?”

In a March 23, 2023 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell, upset that a book about the assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan focused too little on Reagan’s policies as president, wrote, “Just imagine if Hinckley had so grievously wounded Jimmy Carter. Can anyone believe that that would have made 18% mortgage rates go away, forget ‘America held hostage’ in Iran, chill out while lining up for gasoline, or learn to enjoy the era of limits and malaise?” The book in question, “Rawhide Down,” was critically acclaimed and well received by reviewers with diverse viewpoints, including Bill O’Reilly and Bob Woodward.

In a March 10, 2023 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell expressed his belief that democracy would never be established in the Middle East because “democracy requires not only religious liberty, but representative institutions, a vibrant civil society, respect for property rights, the rule of law, and a free and open press. The Middle East has no history of these building blocks of democracy. There are other cultural practices that bode ill for democracy.” Blackwell also claimed that “84% of Egyptians say anyone who departs from Islam should be killed … And there is a real danger they will come under the sway of the Muslim Brotherhood.” He concluded by describing Middle Easterners thusly: “Edmund Burke said it well: ‘Men of intemperate minds cannot be free; their passions forge their fetters.’ There's a reason no state in the Middle East—except Israel—has been free thus far.”

Blackwell tweeted “I am disappointed with ACU's decision to team up with GOProud” and re-tweeted “homosexuality is not conservative” in response to news that the American Conservative Union (ACU) would allow the GOProud organization to participate in the 2011 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).

In a January 11, 2024 op-ed for the Patriot Post entitled “The Constitution Did Not Condone Slavery,” Blackwell claimed, “There was no mention of slavery in the Constitution. The framers were unwilling to admit in the federal charter there could be property in men.” To the contrary, the Constitution contained the three-fifths compromise that counted slaves as three-fifths of a person for representation and tax purposes. Additionally, Article 1, Section 9 and Article 5 allowed the continued importation of slaves and prohibited the Congress from banning slavery until twenty years after ratification of the Constitution. Finally, Article 4, Section 2 prohibited citizens from providing assistance to escaped slaves (before being superseded by the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery).

In a December 17, 2023 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell urged the Senate to not ratify the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with Russia, because “President Obama has never disavowed his socialist convictions. Even the Washington Post refers to him as a socialist. Isn't it time we had a full airing of all of this before we ratify a treaty with the rulers of the Kremlin?”

In an October 22, 2023 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell wrote, “Today, tragically, nearly 40% of our children are born out-of-wedlock. And big government consumes nearly 40% of our Gross Domestic Product. I don't believe the 40/40 link is imaginary? [sic]”

In a September 22, 2023 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell wrote, “While addressing the Congressional Hispanic Caucus last week, Obama began to recite key passages of the Declaration of Independence and slipped up. Or did he? He enumerated the ‘certain inalienable rights’ part beautifully. He even listed the right to life. (Hmmm. How does that comport with an Obamacare law that if
unrepealed would subsidize abortion and thus deny the right to life to millions yet unborn? Well, Barack Obama is hardly the only liberal who manages to declare such pesky questions ‘above my pay grade.’) The trouble came when Obama omitted who endowed the people with these inalienable rights, ‘their Creator’ … We are left to conclude that for the liberal left, our rights do not come from God. They come, instead, from government pronouncements, from UN documents, or from the courts. This is a most disturbing conclusion.”

In an op-ed for the Patriot Post entitled “Obama’s Mosque at Ground Zero” published on August 20, 2010, Blackwell wrote, “Only their [Muslim] beliefs are respected by President Obama … To allow a mosque within spitting distance of Ground Zero is to allow a triumphal arch for our jihadist enemies. It will be a recruiting poster for jihadists worldwide…Do we want sharia law here? That’s the law they have in Saudi Arabia. [Community center proponent] Imam Rauf is all out for sharia. If he succeeds in his life quest, Americans will lose every liberty—starting with our religious liberty.” Rauf actually has said the following about the center: “There's going to be a dedicated prayer space for Muslim, which we do need. And we want to have prayer space for Christians and for Jews. As I said, we have to build on our common platform.” Additionally, Rauf indicated the project will disclose all donors and reject any money offered by organizations that advocate violence.

Commenting on the abortion and LGBT rights debate in America in a July 7, 2023 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell complained, “Let Chastity Bono, the daughter of Sonny and Cher Bono, go through surgery and hormone treatments and is there a liberal publication on the planet that will not call this person Chaz and refer to this person as a man?”

In an April 27, 2023 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell wrote, “When Mr. Obama bowed low before Emperor Akihito, it was a tacit apology for [the use of nuclear weapons against Japan during World War II].”

In a March 24, 2023 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell called President Barack Obama, “The Abortion President.”

In a March 9, 2023 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell suggested that remarks by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton could incite a second Falklands War. Blackwell was incensed that Secretary Clinton referred to the Falkland Islands by their Spanish name. “But
now, we face another possible crisis over the Falklands. And all because of Hillary Clinton’s clumsy attempt at “even-handedness”—which is in fact ham-handedness,” wrote Blackwell. “Think we’re having trouble with Latin Americans now? Try to imagine U.S. Naval vessels called in at the last minute to block an Argentine invasion of the Falklands.”

In a February 23, 2023 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell claimed that homosexuals “created” the AIDs epidemic and worried “Do the American people want to bring this health crisis into the ranks of our volunteer military?” Regarding the potential repeal of the military’s “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy, Blackwell wondered, “What would the gay quota be? Would it be the widely discredited 10% figure that gay activists like Obama’s Safe Schools Czar Kevin Jennings always cite? Or would it be the more realistic ‘less than 3% figure?’”

In a January 19, 2024 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell suggested that TWA Flight 800, which crashed in 1996 killing all 230 persons aboard, was downed by a terrorist attack. A FBI investigation revealed no evidence of terrorist involvement.

In 2010, Blackwell, along with Family Research Council colleague Ken Klukowski, published “The Blueprint: Obama’s Plan to Subvert the Constitution and Build an Imperial Presidency.” According to the authors, President Obama’s goal is to “transform the United States of America into a militant, secular welfare state dominated by an overbearing central government” by using tactics “such as changing voting laws, politicizing the census, coercing corporations into adopting its policies, planning to destroy talk radio, and seeking to make millions of illegal aliens into voting citizens.” They also claimed that Obama “shut down media outlets that expose the truth, and co-opt[ed] the rest of the media to parrot his daily messages.” On the subject of race, the book had this to say: “For affirmative action, the victims are blacks or Hispanics. (We can’t say all minorities, because the tremendous overall success of Asians and Indians proves that there’s no systemic racism that keeps all minorities down.)…Whoever you are and whatever you do, if you are not a wealthy white male with a great education and a great career, a stable family, and in fine health, then Barack Obama says you are a victim of something and will tell you who to blame.”

After the District of Columbia legalized same-sex marriage, Blackwell wrote a December 21, 2023 op-ed for the Patriot Post suggesting that the new law would allow polygamy and incest. “Remember, we’ve all been schooled in that LGBT formulation. That means Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered. The advocates of counterfeiting marriage cannot leave out their B and T. So, what will that mean? How can they deny ‘marriage equality’ to a bisexual person who wants to marry two significant others? Or what about a person who has attempted through surgery and drugs to change his sex? Should such a person, if married, be denied the right to marry another person? If love and commitment make a marriage, why cannot brothers and sisters marry? Or fathers and daughters? What the District Council has done is to open the door to polygamy, to incest.”

In a December 16, 2023 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell worried that the recent Copenhagen climate change summit was a step towards the “implementation of Chinese-style population control” around the world. “China has for more than thirty years been engaged in a ruthless campaign of forced abortions. Beijing’s one-child policy, were it to be enforced world wide, would lead not only to totalitarianism and massive human rights violations, it would lead to infanticide, as well … Could Americans ever be forced under such an inhuman regime? Is this what Global Warming alarmism leads to? … There is one thing we could do that would make a small contribution to lowering temperatures: We could bury, not burn, the bodies of unborn children who have been aborted under Mr. Obama’s health care takeover. Currently, the practice is to incinerate the hundreds of thousands of bodies cruelly of those denied the right to life,” wrote Blackwell.

In a December 4, 2023 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell wrote, “In turn, [former Kansas Governor] Sebelius vetoed bills that might have put a crimp in [George] Tiller’s sales. While we denounce Tiller’s murder and his murderer, it’s interesting that liberals have not really been able to make Tiller a martyr. He didn’t donate those abortions.”

In a November 20, 2023 op-ed for the Patriot Post, Blackwell claimed “more than 90 percent” of Democrats “never go to church.”

In a October 30, 2023 opinion piece, Blackwell attacked the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex and national origin, by writing, “Would you rather not have a receptionist or customer service representative of your company who has tattooed his or her face with fierce Maori markings? You could be forced by the EEOC [Equal Employment Opportunity Commission] to make that hire.” Blackwell also worried about the EEOC’s effect on “employers who would prefer not to hire or promote employees who dress as members of the opposite sex.

Expressing his belief that homosexuality is a choice at the 2009 Republican National Convention, Blackwell said, “I've never had to make the choice because I've never had the urge to be other than a heterosexual, but if in fact I had the urge to be something else, I could have in fact suppressed that urge.” Blackwell further stated that the only two sexual orientations are “male” and “female.”

While serving as Ohio Secretary of State, a state audit revealed that Blackwell illegally paid out over $80,000 in bonuses to staff in December 2006 just before the switch from a Republican to a Democratic administration.

Blackwell compared homosexuality to arson and kleptomania in 2006, describing homosexuality as “a transgression against God’s law.”

On two separate occasions, Blackwell was blamed for the release of the social security numbers of millions of Ohio residents. In 2006, while serving as Ohio’s Secretary of State, Blackwell’s office sent CDs to 20 political parties that contained records of 7.7 million registered voters in Ohio. This followed an earlier incident in which a lawsuit was filed against Blackwell for publishing the social security numbers of thousands of Ohio residents on state websites.

While overseeing the 2004 presidential election in Ohio, Blackwell was accused by the Democratic Party and others of implementing policies that disenfranchised minority and young voters. Numerous lawsuits were filed against Blackwell, who was at the time an Honorary Co-Chair of President George W. Bush’s Ohio campaign. One lawsuit filed by the Ohio Democratic Party alleged that Blackwell’s policies violated the Help America Vote Act, passed in the wake of the 2000 presidential election fiasco.

Blackwell owned shares of Diebold, a voting machine manufacturer, while he was responsible for overseeing the 2004 presidential election in Ohio as Secretary of State. While Secretary of State, Blackwell also directed Ohio to purchase Diebold voting machines. Walden O’Dell, chief executive of Diebold and a fundraiser for George W. Bush, famously sent a letter to Ohio Republicans stating that he was “committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president [George W. Bush in 2004].”

Blackwell called himself “the lead spokesman” for a 2004 ballot measure that sought to ban gay marriage in Ohio.