StemExpress Sold Baby Body Parts for 4 to 6 Times Cost, House Probe Alleges

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Republicans on a special House panel investigating the market for fetal tissue released new documents that they said show the procurement company StemExpress marked up the price for body parts, organs, and other tissue from aborted babies 400 to 600 percent when selling the samples to researchers.

One example of such markups of four to six times cost is seven brains sold by StemExpress to Yale University School of Medicine for $715 each, according to the documents.

The documents also appear to show that three abortion clinics, including two Planned Parenthood affiliates, illegally granted StemExpress access to personally identifiable information protected under federal privacy law.

And, the documents suggest, the clinics used invalid patient consent forms to obtain permission to harvest body parts from aborted babies.

Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., chairman of the Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives, sent two letters Wednesday to the Department of Health and Human Services requesting a “swift and full investigation” into “systemic” violations.

“There’s a business contract between StemExpress and the abortion clinics under which both sides make a profit from the baby body parts inside the young woman’s womb,” Blackburn said in a prepared statement, adding:

The contract changes the way both entities view the young woman: Her baby is now a profit center. This betrayal of a young woman’s trust should disgust us all. It takes financial advantage, obtains consent through coercion, and deceives the woman, all in violation of federal privacy laws.

StemExpress told The Daily Signal that Blackburn is making “continued unfounded accusations.”

Specifically, Blackburn says documents obtained through the panel’s investigation show StemExpress and several abortion clinics violated the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) and federal regulations governing research involving human subjects.

HIPPA is a federal law that gives patients the right to determine where and when their private medical information is disclosed. This includes personally identifiable information such as name, age, and Social Security number, along with any present, future, or past health data.

In her letters, addressed to two officials at the Department of Health and Human Services, Blackburn said several abortion clinics provided StemExpress—which is not covered by HIPPA—with personally identifiable information so that StemExpress could fulfill orders from researchers for tissue from aborted babies.

HIPPA covers abortion clinics such as Planned Parenthood, Blackburn notes.

‘Unfounded Accusations’

In a statement to The Daily Signal, a spokesman for StemExpress said the tissue procurement company is “confident there has been no violation of law and appropriate consents were made for every fetal tissue donation,” adding:

We welcome the opportunity to answer any questions from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services or any other agency related to Representative Blackburn’s continued unfounded accusations. StemExpress will continue to support lifesaving research.

The three abortion clinics named in the investigation are all in California: Planned Parenthood Mar Monte in San Jose, Planned Parenthood Shasta Pacific in Concord (currently known as Planned Parenthood of Northern California), and Family Planning Specialists Medical Group in Oakland.

The Daily Signal sought comment from the organizations, which did not respond to phone calls before publication of this article.

Blackburn’s letters, first reported by Fox News, ask the Department of Health and Human Services to investigate potential violations of HIPAA and federal regulations pertaining to the fetal tissue market. The letters are addressed to Jocelyn Samuels, director of the Office of Civil Rights, and Jerry Menikoff, director of the Office for Human Research Protections.

In her letters, Blackburn said the Department of Health and Human Services maintains the right to impose civil money penalties on covered entities, such as Planned Parenthood, that fail to comply with the privacy rule.

In addition, Blackburn wrote, “both a covered entity that discloses, and any person who knowingly obtains, [protected health information] in violation of [HIPAA] can face criminal fines or imprisonment.”

Brain Bonuses

Evidence of the House panel’s allegations included StemExpress documents that feature compensation rates for tissue and blood procurement. Effective Jan. 1, 2013, StemExpress paid procurement technicians $10 per hour, plus what the company calls a tissue or blood bonus ranging anywhere from $10 to $75 per specimen.

“StemExpress paid the abortion clinic for each fetal tissue and each blood sample and then marked up the tissue four to six hundred percent for sale to the researcher,” Blackburn wrote.

In one case, in January 2012, StemExpress billed $5,175 to Yale University School of Medicine for seven brains priced at $715 each. The total included two charges of $85 for Fedex priority overnight shipping.

The $715 price per brain, Blackburn’s letter implies, would include the markup of 400 to 600 percent.

According to the StemExpress compensation policy, procurement technicians get a $35 bonus for procuring anywhere from one to 10 fetal brains in addition to their $10 hourly rate.

While transportation costs were included in the documents released by Blackburn’s panel, investigators are seeking to obtain accounting records from StemExpress to further clarify the price discrepancy between the procurement technician’s compensation rates and the total amount billed to research institutions such as Yale.

The Daily Signal sought comment from Yale via email, but has not received a response.

What Is Legal

The National Institutes of Health Revitalization Act of 1993 prohibits any person or organization from profiting from the sale of fetal tissue. However, it is legal to provide payment and accept payment to cover reasonable costs for “transportation, implantation, processing, preservation, quality control, or storage of human fetal tissue.”

Lawmakers and pro-life activists raised questions about whether abortion clinics and middleman procurement companies such as StemExpress profit from transactions involving organs, body parts, and other tissue from aborted babies after the Center for Medical Progress released a series of undercover videos last year.

The hidden-camera videos, produced by the center’s David Daleiden, showed officials at Planned Parenthood affiliates discussing the buying and selling of baby body parts and other tissue, raising questions about whether abortion clinics and middlemen companies are profiting off these transactions.

Planned Parenthood Federation of America consistently has denied any wrongdoing and was cleared in multiple state investigations so far. In October, after facing questions about its tissue donation practices, Planned Parenthood announced it no longer would accept any reimbursement. (For more from the author of “StemExpress Sold Baby Body Parts for 4 to 6 Times Cost, House Probe Alleges” please click HERE)

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Obama Administration Scrambling to Release as Many Guantanamo Prisoners as Possible

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The Obama administration is running out of time and options to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center in Cuba, so officials are scrambling to release as many prisoners as possible and considering novel legal strategies that include allowing some men to strike plea deals by video-teleconference and sending others to foreign countries to be prosecuted.

But it looks to be little, too late to close the prison before President Barack Obama leaves office in January, denying him the chance to fulfill a campaign pledge.

There’s the difficulty in transferring prisoners from the U.S. base in Cuba, questions about the legality of plea deals and solid opposition in Congress to anything that might help Obama achieve that promise.

“The clock has struck midnight and the American people have won,” said Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., who has said he would oppose any effort to move detainees to prison facilities in his state. “The president needs to admit that.”

Later this month, lawmakers are on track to extend a ban on moving detainees to U.S. soil. That would leave the president with no way to make the January 2017 deadline, barring an unexpected reversal in Congress or a politically explosive executive order. (Read more from “Obama Administration Scrambling to Release as Many Guantanamo Prisoners as Possible” HERE)

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IRS Finally Reveals List of Tea Party Groups Targeted for Extra Scrutiny

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More than three years after it admitted to targeting tea party groups for intrusive scrutiny, the IRS has finally released a near-complete list of the organizations it snagged in a political dragnet.

The tax agency filed the list last month as part of a court case after a series of federal judges, fed up with what they said was the agency’s stonewalling, ordered it to get a move on. The case is a class-action lawsuit, so the list of names is critical to knowing the scope of those who would have a claim against the IRS.

But even as it answers some questions, the list raises others, including exactly when the targeting stopped, and how broadly the tax agency drew its net when it went after nonprofits for unusual scrutiny.

The government released names of 426 organizations. Another 40 were not released as part of the list because they had already opted out of being part of the class-action suit.

That total is much higher than the 298 groups the IRS‘ inspector general identified back in May 2013, when investigators first revealed the agency had been subjecting applications to long — potentially illegal — delays, and forcing them to answer intrusive questions about their activities. Tea party and conservative groups said they was the target of unusually heavy investigations and longer delays. (Read more from “IRS Finally Reveals List of Tea Party Groups Targeted for Extra Scrutiny” HERE)

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Watch: Sanders Blasts Clinton Foundation’s Donations From Foreign Government

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Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) slammed the Clinton Foundation’s acceptance of donations from foreign governments in an interview on CNN’s State of the Union Sunday.

Sanders was critical of the the foundation’s getting money from foreign governments, specifically Saudi Arabia. The Clinton Foundation has come under criticism in the past for taking donations from foreign governments while Clinton was Secretary of State.

Host Jake Tapper asked Sanders, who has previously held his tongue about the Clinton Foundation, how he felt about it taking money from foreign governments which don’t respect American values while Clinton was at the State Department.

“You have not been critical of the Clinton Foundation but there are those who say that there’s something inherently wrong with an American charity, especially one with ties to a secretary of state, taking money from the Saudis and other foreign governments that don’t represent our values. Is that a fair criticism?” Tapper asked.

“Yes, it is,” Sanders said. “If you ask me about the Clinton Foundation, do I have a problem when a sitting secretary of state and a foundation run by her husband collects many millions of dollars from foreign governments, governments which are dictatorships, you don’t have a lot of civil liberties or democratic rights in Saudi Arabia. (Read more from “Sanders Blasts Clinton Foundation’s Donations From Foreign Government” HERE)

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Bulgarian Civilian Vigilante Groups Hunting Migrants

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By Chris Tomlinson. Civilians in Bulgaria have taken to hunting down migrants and handing them to police on so-called “healthy walks.”

A group of men in Bulgaria roam the countryside helping plant trees, participating in torch light parades on national holidays and tracking down illegal migrants to turn into the Bulgarian authorities. The group call themselves the “organization for the protection of Bulgarian citizens,” and were founded by Hristo Atanasov, a cook and self described patriot, Die Welt reports.

Atanasov leads the group who go out on weekends donning military fatigues to go on what they call “healthy walks” through the nearby beaches and mountains close to his home in the coastal town of Burgas. Atanasov claims that the group likes to go to the area because of the natural beauty but also because it is a major hotspot for migrants who have come across the border from neighbouring Turkey.

The self styled patriot describes the process saying that the group often spots the people smugglers first, “they run 200 to 300 metres ahead to see if the coast is clear,” he said. If the migrants see him and his men they often run away, “they think we are the police,” Atanasov remarked. (Read more from “Bulgarian Civilian Vigilante Groups Hunting Migrants” HERE)

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Muslim Immigrant Attacks Flag-Waving American Family

By Leo Hohmann. A family in Lawrenceville, a suburb of Atlanta, said they were attacked by an unknown Muslim woman wearing a full burqa simply because they were flying an American flag for Memorial Day.

Amina Ahra, 30, was arrested on two counts of simple battery after being accused of attacking a mother and daughter at their home, reported Fox 5 News in Atlanta.

Dami Arno told police she was in the garage talking with her daughter when Ahra emerged from the woods wearing a burqa, grabbed the flag from off the mailbox and charged at them.

She told Fox 5 she still can’t believe it all happened on American soil.

The alleged attacker told police she is “from Africa,” but would give them no other information about her identity, not even a local address. (Read more from “Muslim Immigrant Attacks Flag-Waving American Family” HERE)

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HS Track Athlete Was Born Male but Identifies as Female — and and Turns in Quite the Run at Alaska State Championships

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Nattaphon “Ice” Wangyot, who was born male but identifies as female, recently became the first transgender athlete to compete individually for a high school state championship, the Alaska Dispatch News reported.

Wangyot, an 18-year-old senior at Haines High School, qualified and competed in the Class 3A girls’ sprints at the Alaska state meet, taking home third place in the 200-meter dash (27.3 seconds) and fifth in the 100 (13.36 seconds). Wangyot also played for the girls volleyball and basketball teams this past year, USA Today High School Sports said.

Wangyot’s participation didn’t come without controversy, as Alaska Family Action president Jim Minnery and supporters protested outside the event last Friday:

“We are here today as a voice from the community to ensure that female athletes are not denied the playing opportunities and scholarships otherwise available to them and to make the playing field even again,” Minnery said, according to the Dispatch News. “… Allowing students to play on teams of the opposite sex disproportionately impacts female students who will lose spots on track, soccer and volleyball teams to male students who identify as female.”

Fairbanks Hutchinson junior Saskia Harrison turned in a time of 14.11 seconds in the 100-meter dash, which wasn’t fast enough to make the cut — and she wasn’t particularly thrilled that Wangyot advanced. (Read more from “HS Track Athlete Was Born Male but Identifies as Female — and and Turns in Quite the Run at Alaska State Championships” HERE)

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How a New Hampshire Law Will Protect Private Property From Government Seizure

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The New Hampshire Legislature adopted a significant bill to protect private property on Thursday, which will reform the practice of civil asset forfeiture in the state.

The sudden move comes after a lengthy debate that nearly saw SB 522 stripped of one of its most important provisions: the elimination of the financial incentive to seize property. But lawmakers reached a deal that preserved that critical measure, and now the bill is on its way to the desk of Gov. Maggie Hassan, a Democrat, who has indicated she is likely to sign it.

Civil asset forfeiture laws allow for the seizure of property and currency suspected of involvement in a criminal act. These laws were initially ramped up in the 1980s for the narrow purpose of targeting the property and ill-gotten gains of drug kingpins and criminal organizations. But in the decades since, the reach and use of forfeiture have exploded, driven in large part by deficient due process protections for property owners and a powerful financial incentive that returns forfeiture proceeds to the original seizing agency. The result: law enforcement authorities can, and do, self-finance through the forcible seizure of property.

Reforms cannot come soon enough to the Granite State, where prosecutors need only prove by a preponderance of the evidence that property is tied to crime to permanently strip citizens of their cash and property. What’s more, current law requires innocent property owners to prove they did not use their property to commit a crime, or consent to its use. Once property or cash is forfeited, 45 percent of its value is returned to the seizing agency.

SB 522 would make some dramatic changes to forfeiture law in New Hampshire, including:

Requiring a criminal conviction before property may be forfeited. If Hassan signs the bill into law, New Hampshire would be the 11th state with such a requirement. There are reasonable exceptions, however, for instances when a conviction “is not possible due to the person’s death, incompetence, unavailability” or “cannot be identified.”

Shifting the burden of proof from innocent owners to the state, which must prove that a property owner “was a consenting party to the crime.”

Raising the standard of proof to clear and convincing evidence, a much higher standard that represents a middle ground between the existing and too-low “preponderance of the evidence” standard and the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard required in all criminal cases. Many states have lately chosen to heighten the evidentiary standards in forfeiture proceedings to “clear and convincing,” and a bill recently proposed in the U.S. House of Representatives would do the same for federal forfeiture.

Returning all forfeiture proceeds to the general fund, eliminating the financial incentive to seize property under state forfeiture law.

Unfortunately, while the state law incentive to seize property has been eliminated, an alternative route to lucrative forfeiture proceeds remains intact.

Thanks to federal “equitable sharing” programs administered by the Justice and Treasury departments, property seized by state and local law enforcement agencies can be transferred to federal officials for forfeiture under federal law. The original seizing agency may then expect to receive up to 80 percent of the proceeds, which must be spent by that agency for “law enforcement purposes.” State and local legislators have no say in how these funds are spent.

By all appearances, New Hampshire law enforcement agencies have taken full advantage of this “loophole,” receiving more than $17 million in equitable sharing revenues since 2000. Since 1999, state agencies have only generated $1.15 million via state law forfeitures. Why the tremendous disparity? The equitable sharing program promises a greater payout than state law—an 80 percent return versus the 45 percent return under current law—and state agencies in New Hampshire are likely simply following the money.

Other states, such as New Mexico, Nebraska, and Maryland, have restricted the ability of their law enforcement agencies to transfer property for federal forfeiture or receive the resulting payments. New Hampshire would be wise to follow that lead; until it does, the impact of SB 522 is likely to be seriously blunted by law enforcement agencies that have every incentive to circumvent the new law, and little compunction about doing so.

Reforms like those in SB 522 will make it far more difficult to seize property from innocent people. New Hampshire has taken a solid first step toward restoring forfeiture to its original and laudable goal: targeting the ill-gotten gains of criminals. (For more from the author of “How a New Hampshire Law Will Protect Private Property From Government Seizure” please click HERE)

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Trump Reveals Who He Thinks Will Be the First Female President

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Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump revealed in a tweet Friday who he thinks will be the first female president: his daughter.

In response to another Twitter user, Trump tweeted out: “I think the first female president of the USA will be Ivanka Trump a beautiful intelligent young genuine successful lady!”

Clinton has relied heavily on the “woman card” during the Democratic primaries, often touting her campaign as historic and noting she would be America’s first female president.

Trump called her out for it in April, saying, “I think the only card she has is the women’s card. She has nothing else going. And, frankly, if Hillary Clinton were a man, I don’t think she’d get 5 percent of the vote. The only thing she has going is the woman’s card. And the beautiful thing is women don’t like her, OK?”

On the other hand, Trump has described daughter Ivanka as his most trusted adviser, and she was placed in the key role of executive vice president of development and acquisitions for the Trump Organization. Ivanka, who gave birth to her third child in March, has been quick to defend her dad whenever accusations have been thrown his way.

Even though her father’s tweet might have just been a sweet compliment, it’s possible that Ivanka could make a run for president in the future — especially if her dad becomes the next president of the United States. (For more from the author of “Trump Reveals Who He Thinks Will Be the First Female President” please click HERE)

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New Details Reveal UCLA Shooting Could Have Been Much Worse

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It’s just been revealed that quick thinking by a UCLA professor during the shooting potentially saved more lives during the recent tragedy.

Ajit Mal is an engineering professor at UCLA. On Wednesday, he was prepping for his 10 a.m. engineering class when gunshots erupted down the hall.

Mal met his colleague, Christopher Lynch, in the hallway outside of his office.

“What was that?” Mal asked.

“That’s a gunshot,” Lynch said.

The popping noise they heard sounded like it came from a fellow professor’s room. William Klug worked right down the hall from both Mal and Lynch.

Lynch knew Klug well, and he knew that his friend would probably not be taking his own life. Lynch assumed the worst and figured that a gunman was inside terrorizing the place.

Lynch acted quickly, not knowing much about the situation. He went to Klug’s office and held the door shut while he yelled for other people to leave the building.

“If he had stepped out,” Lynch said, “we’d all be in trouble.”

Eventually he heard a third shot and assumed that the killer had taken his own life. Soon police arrived and cleared out the remaining civilians. Lynch handed them the key to Klug’s office and left — not wanting to peek inside and see what happened.

The killer, Mainak Sarkar, was armed with two semi-automatic pistols with backup magazines. Sarkar was a formal doctoral student at UCLA.

His apparent motive for killing had to do with a computer code that he accused Klug of stealing. Los Angeles police chief Charlie Beck said it definitely looked as though Sarkar was “certainly prepared to engage multiple victims.”

Mal praised Lynch’s actions. “If he (Sarkar) had come out with a loaded gun, I don’t think I’d be alive,” Mal said. “Chris Lynch’s presence of mind and quick action saved us.” (For more from the author of “New Details Reveal UCLA Shooting Could Have Been Much Worse” please click HERE)

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Gun Shop Owner Confronts Obama: Why Take Guns From ‘Good Guys?’

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A gun shop owner confronted President Obama at a town hall event Wednesday evening in Indiana, asking why the president wants more gun-control laws that ultimately hurt “the good guys.”

Doug Rhude’s question came after the televised portion of the PBS town hall in Elkhart, Ind., had ended.

“Knowing that we apply common sense to other issues in our society, specifically like holding irresponsible people accountable for their actions when they drink and drive and kill somebody, and we do that without restricting control of cars and cells phones to the rest of us, the good guys,” said Rhude. “Why then do you and Hillary want to control and restrict and limit gun manufacturers, gun owners and responsible use of guns and ammunition to the rest of us, the good guys, instead of holding the bad guys accountable for their actions?”

In response to the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary, Obama implemented 23 executive actions in an attempt to address gun access. He also supported gun control measures in Congress that would have reinstated the assault weapons ban passed in the 1990s, created universal background checks, and limited the ammunition clip sizes.

The legislation fell short in the Senate, with most Republicans opposing it and most Democrats supporting it.

Obama responded to Rhude’s question. “First of all, the notion that I or Hillary or Democrats or whoever you want to choose are hell-bent on taking away folks’ guns is just not true,” he said.

“And I don’t care how many times the NRA says it. I’m about to leave office. There have been more guns sold since I have been president than just about any time in U.S. history. There are enough guns for every man, woman and child in this country.

“What I have said is precisely what you suggested, which is, why don’t we treat this like every other thing that we use?” the president stated.

He went on to argue that those on the “no-fly list” should not be be allowed to purchase a gun.

Obama concluded, “So, sir, I just have to say, respectfully, that there is a way for us to have common-sense gun laws. There is a way for us to make sure that lawful, responsible gun owners like yourself are able to use them for sporting, hunting, protecting yourself, but the only way we’re going to do that is if we don’t have a situation in which anything that is proposed is viewed as some tyrannical destruction of the Second Amendment.”

Critics have pointed out that none of the changes the president seeks would have prevented any of the mass shootings in recent years, including Sandy Hook, Charleston, Chattanooga, Oregon or San Bernardino.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., and others have contended that Obama’s call to empower the DOJ to yank individuals’ right to purchase guns if they have been placed on the no-fly list is unconstitutional. The Constitution’s Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments require that Americans’ right to “life, liberty, or property” cannot be denied without due process of law.

In a congressional hearing in December, Gowdy pressed a Department of Homeland Security official about the proposal. “My question is what process is afforded a United States citizen before that person’s constitutional right is infringed?”

The former federal prosecutor continued, “[President Obama] is fine with doing it with the Second Amendment. How about the First?”

Several have been mistakenly placed on the no-fly list, including Weekly Standard senior writer Stephen Hayes.

Fox News listed eight ways Americans can be placed on the no-fly list, which occurs without their knowledge. (For more from the author of “Gun Shop Owner Confronts Obama: Why Take Guns From ‘Good Guys?'” please click HERE)

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