Abandoning Consensus, Obama Admin. Now Demands Immediate Vote On United Nations Arms Trade Treaty

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The Obama administration is demanding that the U.N. General Assembly vote on an arms trade treaty opposed by the National Rifle Association (NRA) next week, abandoning its earlier insistence on consensus.

The conference drafting the text broke up Thursday afternoon without reaching a deal after North Korea (DPRK), Syria and Iran objected. The United States immediately joined 11 other countries demanding a vote in the General Assembly after the president of the conference delivers his report on Tuesday.

“The U.S. regrets that it was not possible today to reach consensus at this conference on an arms trade treaty,” said Tom Countryman, the assistant secretary of State for International Security and Nonproliferation and head of the U.S. delegation to the Arms Trade Treaty Conference. “Such a treaty would promote global security, would advance important humanitarian objectives, and it would affirm the legitimacy of the international trade in conventional arms.”

He said the text that failed to reach consensus Thursday was “meaningful,” “implementable,” and “did not touch in any way upon the constitutional rights of American citizens.”

“We look forward to this text being adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in the very near future,” Countryman told reporters in a conference call Thursday night. “It’s important to the United States and the defense of our interests to insist on consensus. But every state in this process has always been conscious of the fact that, if consensus is not reached in this process, that there are other ways to adopt this treaty, including via a vote of the General Assembly.”

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Planned Parenthood Official Argues For Right To Murder Newborns (+video)

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Photo Credit: YouTube

Florida legislators considering a bill to require abortionists to provide medical care to an infant who survives an abortion were shocked during a committee hearing this week when a Planned Parenthood official endorsed a right to post-birth abortion.

Alisa LaPolt Snow, the lobbyist representing the Florida Alliance of Planned Parenthood Affiliates, testified that her organization believes the decision to kill an infant who survives a failed abortion should be left up to the woman seeking an abortion and her abortion doctor.

See related story on Obama’s support for infanticide here.

“So, um, it is just really hard for me to even ask you this question because I’m almost in disbelief,” said Rep. Jim Boyd. “If a baby is born on a table as a result of a botched abortion, what would Planned Parenthood want to have happen to that child that is struggling for life?”

“We believe that any decision that’s made should be left up to the woman, her family, and the physician,” said Planned Parenthood lobbyist Snow.

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Obama Uses Executive Power to Move Gun Control Agenda Forward

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Photo Credit: Jesse 1974

President Obama is quietly moving forward on gun control. The president has used his executive powers to bolster the national background check system, jump start government research on the causes of gun violence and create a million-dollar ad campaign aimed at safe gun ownership.

The executive steps will give federal law enforcement officials access to more data about guns and their owners, help keep guns out of the hands of criminals and the mentally ill, and lay the groundwork for future legislative efforts.

It is unclear whether the National Rifle Association (NRA) will challenge any of the executive actions in court. A spokesman for the NRA did not return a request for comment. The moves, which have not been widely touted by the administration, come as Obama ups his pressure on Congress to take action on gun control in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings. The Senate is expected to begin floor consideration of legislation when it returns in April.

Efforts to renew a ban in semi-automatic weapons with military-style features and high-capacity magazines have stalled in Congress. Democratic senators still hope to move gun control legislation that includes tougher background checks, but conservative Republican senators have threatened to filibuster it.

If approved by the Senate, any bill would then face tough sledding in the GOP-controlled House. Gun control groups say Obama’s piecemeal approach falls short of what could be accomplished by legislation overhauling the nation’s gun laws. Still, they argue the actions remain important and will reduce gun violence.

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Madness: Medicare to Now Pay For Sex-Change Operations

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For the first time since 1981, when it dubbed sex-change operations “experimental,” Medicare has opened the door to covering transexual operations, adding to the growing list of operations that would be allowed under Obamacare.

Acting on a new request, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services said it is starting a new analysis that could lift the spending ban for sex-change operations with a goal of making a decision two days after Christmas and on the eve of Obamacare kicking in Jan. 1.

A 30-day public comment period just opened on the proposed “National Coverage Determination.”

“Surgical Treatment for Gender Identity Disorder, formerly referred to as transsexual surgery in 140.3, is currently noncovered under the Medicare Part A and Part B programs. The existing policy, which became effective in 1981, states that transsexual surgery is considered experimental,” said the notice just posted on the CMS.gov site.

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Rush Limbaugh Says Homosexual Marriage ‘Is Lost’ For Social Conservatives, ‘It is Now Inevitable’ (+video)

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Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh is throwing in the towel on the issue of gay marriage. He said “it is now inevitable” that “the issue is lost” for social conservatives…

Many people who oppose gay marriage have “no animosity” towards gay people at all but want to preserve their values, Limbaugh explained. He went on to say that it appears gay marriage will be legalized at the federal level in the future.

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Johns Hopkins Med Students Call for Ben Carson’s Removal as Commencement Speaker (+video)

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Photo Credit: Media Matters

A group of students from the graduating class at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine are calling for the replacement of Dr. Ben Carson as commencement speaker for the class of 2013 following his “deeply offensive” comments on marriage equality and other issues.

In a letter obtained by Media Matters, eight members of the school’s class of 2013, including a co-chair of the school’s LGBT organization, ask their fellow students to sign a petition describing Carson, a neurosurgery professor at the university, as “an inappropriate choice of speaker at a ceremony intended to celebrate the achievements of our class.”

The letter has been circulated across Hopkins School of Medicine, School of Nursing, School of Public Health, and other institutions, according to a signatory.

Carson, who has become a celebrity in recent months among the right-wing media, has come under fire in the media and from members of the Hopkins community since comparing gay relationships with pedophilia and bestiality during a Fox News appearance earlier this week.

His comments were condemned as “nasty,” “petty,” “ill-informed,” “rancid” and “reactionary” by Professor Todd Shepard, the co-director of the university’s sexuality studies program. Current and former leaders of the organization representing the LGBT members of the Johns Hopkins medical institutions told Media Matters they found the comments “hurtful” and “extremely discouraging.”

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Johns Hopkins Denies Pro-Life Club, Equates Them To White Supremacists

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Photo Credit: Life News

On March 12th, a pro-life group at Johns Hopkins University, Voice for Life (VFL), was denied the right to become an official student club by the Student Government Association (SGA) during a student Senate meeting, after having been recommended for approval by the SGA Appointments and Evaluations Committee.

At that same SGA meeting, though, another new group was approved called Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). Although SJP has a history of anti-Semitism and disruption on other campuses, the SGA decided that the students from JHU creating the group were separate from other campus affiliations, and they couldn’t be punished for potential violations. Somehow, these standards were not applied to Voice for Life.

This general body meeting was followed by an SGA Town Hall meeting the next day whereupon the decision was further expounded. The SGA explained that they decided not to grant official club status to Voice for Life because:

1) The pro-life group’s intentions to peacefully engage in sidewalk counseling off campus at a Baltimore abortion facility “clearly violates the JHU Harassment and Code of Conduct policies.”
2) One of the 100 pro-life organization links on the Voice for Life website sent visitors to the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform’s website, which was judged to be “offensive.” CBR has brought their Genocide Awareness Project (GAP), which features images of aborted preborn babies, as well as Holocaust victims, and victims of lynching, to Baltimore near the JHU campus in the past.

On Tuesday, March 26th, JHU Voice for Life was rejected again by the Student Senate, and the case will now go to the SGA Judiciary Committee for review, which will be on Tuesday, April 9th at 5:00pm.

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What to Cut: Striking Subsidies Could Save Billions

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Photo Credit: Moyan_Brenn

Joe Dutra has defied the trend of American confectioners and candy makers who’ve moved abroad to escape the U.S. government’s regime of sugar subsidies.

After moving his Kimmie Candy Company back to the United States from South Korea, he’s now operating a $4 million-$5 million business in Reno, Nev.

But, he said, “when coming back to the United States, I found out that I was paying up to 90 percent more for sugar in the last few years.”

Sugar is just one commodity whose price is hugely inflated in the United States because of what critics call an outdated system of subsidies and price supports. The subsidies take the form of direct payments to farmers that cost taxpayers billions — as well as restrictions on imports and how much can be grown, and other regulations that raise prices.

“It’s ridiculous,” said Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., a frequent critic of subsidies. “We’re losing candy manufacturers in America because the price of sugar is four to six times higher here than it is anywhere else in the world.” Tom Schatz, president of Citizens Against Government Waste, called it “an old Soviet-style command and control process.”

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Kansas Abortions Drop 5 Percent, Hundreds Of Unborn Babies Saved

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Photo Credit: Life News

KDHE, the state health department, released preliminary annual data on abortions performed in Kansas, showing a 5.4% decrease overall from 7,885 in 2011 to 7,457 abortions in 2012. This is the lowest state total since 1987, two years after all abortion providers were legally mandated to report. The total was divided between 3,661 obtained by residents and 3,796 by non-residents.

143 women were certified for abortion at Kansas clinics this year and did not return to obtain the procedure, compared to 182 in 2011. KDHE does not collect reasons for these “no-returns.” Kansas requires “Woman’s Right to Know” (WRTK) informed consent materials be accessed 24 hours prior to abortion, whether received from the abortion clinic at her initial visit, or through the state hotline, or just by viewing online at https://www.womansrighttoknow.org.

It is not unreasonable to surmise that the WRTK materials both contribute to “no-returns” as well as deter some women from ever entering a clinic. A woman contemplating abortion may fear a lack of support for her pregnancy needs, or be responding to subtle or overt pressure from her family or the father of the child. In the WRTK info, she finds:

fetal development explanations with high definition real-time sonography; a directory of statewide locations for free individual ultrasounds and 80 pregnancy maintenance centers; links to assistance for medically-challenging pregnancies; warnings that coerced abortions are illegal.

OTHER STATS:
All categories saw a decrease except “RU486″ abortions by pill, which rose from 20% to 30% of total Kansas abortions. This rate exceeds the 2012 CDC chemical abortion national average of 17.4%. Kansas enacted a ban on chemical abortion obtained “by webcam” in the 2011 clinic regulation law, which is not in effect due to litigation.

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Ben Carson Takes On MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell On The Definition Of ‘Marriage’

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Photo Credit: Daily Caller

On Sean Hannity’s Fox News program earlier this week, Dr. Ben Carson, the director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital, offered his view on the hot-button issue of the week, same-sex marriage.

According to Carson, marriage is defined as between one man and one woman, what he called a “well-established, fundamental pillar of society.” And Carson said this institution could not be redefined by any group, including proponents of bestiality and pedophilia.

Invoking those groups drew the ire of many, but Carson went on MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports” to clarify his remarks, which he apologized to those who took offense.

“Well, first of all, they are my views, that should be mentioned. They are not the views of the institution,” Carson said. “If someone goes back and examines what I’ve been talking about and writing about over the last couple of decades, it’s the same things that I’m talking about now. It’s just that now more people are paying attention to them. And you know, I think in terms of what was said on Sean Hannity’s show — that was taken completely out of context and completely misunderstood in terms of what I was trying to say. You know, as a Christian, you know I have a duty to love all people, and that includes people who have other sexual orientations, and I certainly do. And never had any intention of offending anyone. What I was basically saying and if anybody was offended, I apologize to you. But what I was basically saying is that there is no group — I wasn’t equating those things, I don’t think they’re equal.”

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