Arizona Passes Law Requiring Abortionists to Save Babies Born Alive During Botched Abortions

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It could hardly come at a better time.

On Wednesday, the Arizona state legislature passed a law requiring late-term abortionists to try to save the lives of babies born alive during botched abortions. The same day, a late-term abortionist from Arizona got caught implying that she committed infanticide.

“You have to pay attention to who’s in the room” if a baby is born alive, Dr. DeShawn Taylor told investigators with the Center for Medical Progress. “Because the law states you are not supposed to do any maneuvers after the fact to try to cause fetal demise.”

“Arizona is so conservative,” the former medical director for Planned Parenthood Arizona said. She implies that she commits infanticide against babies born alive. Even as late as 24 weeks.

“Why does it matter who’s in the room if you’re following the law?” asked State Rep. Maria Syms.

She joined the majority that passed the “Delivered Alive Infant Clarification Act” (S.B. 1367) through both chambers on Wednesday. (34-22 and 18-11, respectively.)

But first this commonsense measure had to face down a scorched-earth PR campaign. It presented abortion as “compassionate” and treated medical treatment to newborns as “torture.”

Saving Lives, Not Violating Decision

Sen. Steve Smith sponsored the bill. It requires that anyone who performs abortions from 20 weeks “promote, preserve and maintain the life” of children born alive. Signs of life include “breathing, a heartbeat, umbilical cord pulsation [or] definite movement of voluntary muscles.” The legislation exempts severely handicapped babies certified to survive three months or less.

Abortion facilities must have lifesaving equipment on hand. Abortionists must have an emergency treatment plan. Those who do not comply can get fined or lose their medical license.

Democratic Rep. Ken Clark said trying to save infants’ lives is a “horrendous process.” He said that “it deprives the family and the doctors of the ability to decide.”

But at that point, it is no longer an abortion. It’s a birth. And anything that “continues” the abortion process is murder by anyone’s definition.

“It’s striking how Dr. Taylor describes the law as prohibiting her from finishing the abortion once the baby is outside the womb,” said Center for Arizona Policy President Cathi Herrod. “This is precisely why we need S.B. 1367.”

More Babies Surviving at 22 Weeks

The most infamous case of a “post-birth abortionist” is Dr. Kermit Gosnell. Gosnell snipped babies’ spines with scissors in his West Philadelphia abortion facility. He was convicted of multiple counts of first-degree murder and is serving life in prison without parole.

Abortion supporters called the bill — which would cut into abortionists’ bottom line — unnecessary. “Fetuses born at 20 and 21 weeks gestation have a zero percent chance of survival.” So testified Neonatologist Peter Stevenson.

But a study in the New England Journal of Medicine concluded that nearly one-in-four babies born at 22 weeks could survive with treatment. That prompted University of Iowa pediatrics professor Dr. Edward Bell to tell the New York Times that 22 weeks is a new standard of viability.

Democrats’ Inconsistency

The abortion lobby tried to present medical care as sadistic. Stevenson said that since the babies were unlikely to survive, caring for them prolonged their suffering. He called that “unethical.” Arizona State University professor Dr. Kristy King called the measure “ghastly.” The feminist activist also called it a “fetus torture bill.” Planned Parenthood derided it as “cruel legislation that attempts to stigmatize [and] shame.”

But Planned Parenthood also opposed Arizona’s “Mother’s Health and Safety Act,” signed by then-Governor Jan Brewer in 2012. It prohibited all abortions after 20 weeks on the basis that those unborn babies can feel pain. (It was later struck down by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.)

So, which is it? How can trying to save babies at 20 weeks inflict unspeakable pain if dismemberment abortion is a painless procedure?

The only thing Democratic lawmakers consistently maintained was a positive view of abortion. For instance, Rep. John Allen told the chamber about his daughter, who survived being born with only one hemisphere of her brain. Democrat Lela Alston countered by saying that aborting her handicapped daughter was an act of “great compassion and love.”

Some of them wore pink on the floor to support Planned Parenthood.

Will Gov. Ducey Sign the Bill to Save Babies?

Republicans maintained the hope that one day science will learn to save children at ever-younger ages. “Someone had to be the first to be born at 30 weeks,” said State Rep. Eddie Farnsworth. Over time doctors perfected the technology to preserve life at that stage. “There will be a child at 20 weeks who is viable.”

Babies as premature as 21 weeks have survived.

Jewels Green, a former abortion facility worker who is now pro-life, said a relative was one of the early ones to beat the odds.

“My cousin weighed about two pounds when he was born at six months’ gestation — in 1971!” Green told me. “He is now a strong man.” The military veteran is “proud to have served in Iraq.”

“If doctors could save such tiny babies in 1971, think what we can do now,” she said. (For more from the author of “Arizona Passes Law Requiring Abortionists to Save Babies Born Alive During Botched Abortions” please click HERE)

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Ladies, Would You Rather Be Married to Mike Pence, or Anthony Weiner?

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The latest batch of manufactured outrage on the left has been produced by the Mike and Karen Pence profile that revealed some tools Mike uses to live out his marital vow of faithfulness. As Anika Smith wrote here at The Stream:

Mike and Karen Pence abide by a version of the Billy Graham Rule. In a 2002 interview, then- congressman Pence said he doesn’t drink without his wife present, nor does he dine alone with other women.

This common-sense rule stands out in a town like DC, where many, many marriages have fallen apart because of affairs.

As Smith’s piece pointed out, feminists on social media looked for ways to cast the Pences’ mutually agreed upon rule for their marriage as dehumanizing for women. Or something.

It amazes me that the same secular relativists who will defend any sexual fetish will presume to remark on the details of a marriage. Aren’t both of the Pences “consenting adults”? If fidelity is their kink, who are we to judge?

And wasn’t it just five minutes ago that the same feminists were outraged that Donald Trump did not take steps to be faithful to his pre-Melania wives? That he acted and talked like a “player”? Morality changes so quickly on the left that it’s difficult to keep up.

Take the Survey, Girls

In fact, it’s really hard to believe that any woman who has ever been in love with a man genuinely objects to the Pence Plan. To test that out, I created a little Twitter poll, which appears below:

Women want men to be more like:

Mike Pence
Anthony Weiner
Bill Clinton
Bruce Jenner
— John Zmirak (@JZmirak) March 30, 2017

Any woman who actually felt “triggered” when she read about the Pences owes the rest of us her answer.

Of course, the response I expect instead is the typical feminist “audible eyeroll.” Then a lengthy and testy insistence that those aren’t the only options. Who am I to say that women need to pick among those four alternatives? “There you go again, limiting women’s options and depriving them of agency … just like you want to limit their reproductive health care options!”

The proper response to that, of course, is the line I’ve used before on college campuses: “Oh, I’m not really pro-life. I’m anti-choice. Life is cheap, and they’re only babies. I just want to restrict women’s reproductive health care options.” That ends the conversation, every time.

If I worked at a godless or a Jesuit college, or a big, timid corporation, I might expect to be summoned to Human Resources with a complaint from a nameless female co-worker that my Twitter poll made her feel “unsafe.”

There is No Fifth Option

The truth is that those four choices are exhaustive. You have to pick one. Just so, each man must pick which road he will travel down. In the moral life nothing is fixed. You are always in motion toward goodness and health or sin and sickness, till your last dying breath.

Mike Pence has clearly taken the measure of himself, and determined what he needs to do to keep his sexuality within the bonds of a loving marriage. For a handsome fellow in a position of power, his rules seem sane and sensible. They bespeak a man who knows the reality of temptation, who loves his wife and their marriage enough to take the simplest steps to protect them.

Male sexuality is a real thing, with a genuine shape that differs from the feminine variety. (Though both sexes clearly cheat, and women must stay on guard as well, as Chelen Vicari sagely notes.) The male sex drive is a force of nature, made strong for good biological reasons, and tainted (like everything else) by the Fall. Like anger, ambition, acquisitiveness, or any other drive it must be controlled. Or it controls us.

Or You Could Marry Bill Clinton

Which brings us to Option B, Bill Clinton. Are the women who mock the Pences for their marital plan ready to talk about Bill and Hillary’s arrangement? You know, where Bill cheats with weaker, poorer women, then bullies and blackmails them into silence with his wife’s sullen consent and active support?

I bring this up not solely to mock and humiliate the Clintons on a deeply personal issue. Bill Clinton could be the picture in the dictionary next to “Piggish Male Behavior.”

If a powerful man (like the governor of a state, or a vice president) wants to treat women this way, he will not be short of takers. But lesser men can get away with it too — as the tens of millions of single moms in America could testify. The generation of fatherless kids who are growing up today would back them up.

As grateful as they were that Bill was solidly pro-abortion, I don’t think most feminists would choose the Clinton option.

Carlos Danger Signals

Am I saying that if a man doesn’t take steps like Mike Pence, he will end up acting like Bill Clinton? No.

He could act like Anthony Weiner — humiliating a young and beautiful wife by dragging his sex drive through the bottomless online sewers of pornography and “sexting.”

There is plenty a man can get away with and get addicted to online without ever meeting a stranger in the flesh. I don’t think I need to spell this out, or to point out how damaging that can be to a healthy marriage. Skeptics can ask poor Huma.

So feminists won’t pick Weiner.

Pray for Bruce Jenner. Don’t Imitate Him, Even a Little

If they’re true to their theories, feminists would surely choose Bruce Jenner. Set aside the mental illness which drives the poor man to such gross extremes as dosing himself with dangerous drugs, humiliating his children and camping around in drag.

What feminists really claim to want from men is a milder version of Jenner: Someone who suppresses, beats down, and denies what it means to be a man. Who internalizes the guilt that feminism sprays men with like a firehose. And yet who (like Jenner) is somehow still attracted to women. A tame man, a damaged man, a man who is no threat at all.

At least that’s what feminists think they want. In fact, they’re probably secretly more attracted to Clinton. They’d be better off with Pence. What they’ll end up with is Weiner.

Who said that there’s no justice in the world? (For more from the author of “Ladies, Would You Rather Be Married to Mike Pence, or Anthony Weiner?” please click HERE)

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Persecution of Journalists Who Exposed Planned Parenthood Is Malicious

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We are witnesses to an abuse of power by government that represents a test of our democracy. Anyone who fails to rally to the cause of the Americans victimized in this case should be discredited.

Though I have not been shy about criticizing President Donald Trump when I think he deserves it, he is not involved.

I refer to the Kafkaesque malfeasance by Xavier Becerra, attorney general of California. Becerra, for many years a Democratic congressman, is using his office to hound two citizen journalists. They came into his sights because their videos exposed the sickening reality behind the euphemistic surface of Planned Parenthood. Becerra and other abortion-rights absolutists found this embarrassing. Why do I call it Kafkaesque? Because David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt, who went undercover to reveal the law breaking of Planned Parenthood, now find themselves, not Planned Parenthood, accused of 15 felony counts by the state of California.

Their crimes? Recording people without their consent. The editorial board of the LA Times, to its credit, has called this a “disturbing overreach.” And Kevin Drum of Mother Jones, while condemning Daleiden’s politics, has defended his rights, saying, “This was a legitimate investigation, and no level of government should be in the business of chilling it.”

Xavier Becerra is no stickler about secret recordings. In 2012, he relished the release of Mitt Romney’s surreptitiously recorded comments to donors in which Romney mentioned the “47 percent.” Romney had joked that if he were Hispanic, he’d win the election. Becerra didn’t seem concerned about Romney’s privacy rights when he rushed to the press to denounce the Republican: “The insult of all insults, Mitt Romney says if he was Latino he would win the presidential election, as if being Latino would have given him any advantage to win the White House.” (Read more from “Persecution of Journalists Who Exposed Planned Parenthood Is Malicious” HERE)

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The Hypocrisy of the Trump-Hitler Comparisons

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As an historian and expert on Hitler, I’ve been wary to debate the common comparisons between President Trump and Adolf Hitler. But I’ve been slowly pulled into the debate anyway.

Around January 26 Christopher Hooton published an image from my book, Hitler’s Ethic: The Nazi Pursuit of Evolutionary Progress. Several internet news sites then picked it up. Some of them also quoted from my chapter on “Morally Upright Aryans and Immoral Jews.” On March 2nd, the Washington Post published this image and quoted from an e-mail interview with me. As you might have guessed, the piece compared Hitler and President Trump.

The image in question was from an article about “The Criminal Jew.” It was first published in 1935 in a Nazi periodical. Several photos featured Jews, along with the crimes they allegedly committed. The article claimed that Jews are biologically prone to criminality. This was a major theme in Nazi anti-Semitic rhetoric.

The is what the Washington Post tried to apply to Trump. Here’s the basic argument: Hitler targeted Jews as being criminal and publicized their crimes. Trump is now publicizing the crimes of illegal immigrants. Thus, Trump is like Hitler.

Before dismantling this argument, I should say that I’m not a big fan of Trump’s immigration policies. Nor do I endorse his rhetoric. Though illegal immigration is a tough issue on which decent people can disagree, I think as Americans we should be more welcoming and loving toward immigrants.

Even though I disagree with Trump’s immigration policies, this does not make his policies on par with Hitler. Hitler did many things during his career — some evil, some not. He was a vegetarian, loved dogs, and built highways. Does this make vegetarians, dog lovers, and highway builders “like Hitler”?

Hitler was also a pantheist, as I demonstrated in my recent book, Hitler’s Religion: The Twisted Beliefs That Drove the Third Reich. Pantheism has its problems, to be sure. But, it isn’t wrong because Hitler believed it.

I also explain in Hitler’s Religion that before coming to power, Hitler sometimes claimed he was a Christian. He showed no commitment to Christianity in his private life and his morality. Doesn’t this also sound a lot like hundreds or thousands of other politicians who have never done anything like Hitler? Does this make them, or Trump, a Hitler? Of course not.

To come to grips with the Hitler comparisons, we should ask: Why do people consider Hitler one of the most megalomaniacal evil figures of all time? I submit that it was because he launched an aggressive war to annihilate whole groups of defenseless human beings. He exterminated millions of people whom he deemed inferior biologically or racially. This included the mass murder of about six million Jews. Hitler also orchestrated the mass murder of over 200,000 disabled Germans, hundreds of thousands of Gypsies, millions of Soviet POWs, and others. Now ask yourself: Do Trump’s policies rise to this level? Is Trump threatening to commit mass murder?

Of course not. Ironically, those who are eager to compare Trump to Hitler are doing just what they are decrying in Trump. What is their chief complaint against Trump when it comes to immigration? It’s that he connects other people — illegal immigrants — with criminals.

But what are Trump’s detractors doing? Associating another person — Trump — with the most fiendish criminal they know. Trump’s critics surely know that Trump is not a mass murderer. So why do they keep tarring him with the Hitler label? It’s simple. They think Trump is hateful and intolerant.

But wait a minute. Aren’t they being hateful and intolerant toward him and his supporters? Flinging the epithet Hitler at someone is not exactly a sign of tolerance, love and good will.

I’m not suggesting that those who disagree with Trump’s immigration policies and rhetoric should crawl into a corner and shut up. But, it would be much better, and more productive, if his opponents would take the moral high ground. They should engage in civil debate based on real love and reason, rather than doing the very thing they accuse Trump of doing: demonizing political opponents. (For more from the author of “The Hypocrisy of the Trump-Hitler Comparisons” please click HERE)

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GOP Repeal Bill Left Too Much of Washington Power Grab in Place

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The federal government has been too involved in regulating America’s health care system for years.

Yes, long before the unaffordable “Affordable Care Act,” aka Obamacare, came along, Washington was picking winners and losers in health care.

The unfair tax treatment of health care started post-World War II when we began giving tax breaks to those getting health care via their employer but not to others like the self-employed and the small business owner. More meddling occurred in the 1960s with the creation of Medicare and Medicaid. And it continued in the 1980s when Congress passed a law guaranteeing free emergency room care to both the uninsured and illegal immigrants.

And then came the mother of all meddling: Obamacare. It came with a huge push to not only expand Medicaid, but to take over what was left of the private insurance market through government mandates and regulations.

This was the one of, if not the chief reason, voters wanted to see Obamacare repealed. Its regulations were taking away their doctors, their health care choices, and imposing premium prices many could no longer afford.

Obamacare’s regulations alone were responsible for driving premiums costs up by as much as 68 percent.

For example:

The essential health benefits mandate and actuarial requirements that forced insurance plans to include coverage many Americans don’t want, don’t need, and definitely can’t afford, raised premiums nationally by over 16 percent, and in some states, over 30 percent.

Adding newly uninsured people to the rolls, not surprisingly, caused an uptick in the sickness of the population in insurance markets. Nationally that drove up premiums by 4 percent, but in some states like Ohio, it contributed to a more than 35 percent hike.

And then there is the age factor. It’s a basic fact of life that the older you are, the more health care you are going to need and consume. Insurance markets have long recognized this. But Obamacare mandated they lessen the differences older people versus younger people paid.

The result? National averages show young people will see rate increases of almost 60 to 90 percent.

No wonder far fewer than needed young and healthy Americans have decided to risk paying a fine than sign up for health care.

But getting rid of Obamacare’s architecture, the latest in a long line of Washington attempts to regulate our lives, was not in the GOP’s most recent repeal and replace legislation.

And this is why that attempt failed and a new repeal effort is now underway.

No amount of tinkering with other factors will make up for the costs Americans will pay or privacy we will lose if we allow Congress to leave this Washington power grab in place. (For more from the author of “GOP Repeal Bill Left Too Much of Washington Power Grab in Place” please click HERE)

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Congress Right to Affirm That States Can Defund Planned Parenthood

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It isn’t often that Congress moves a heavy burden off the backs of the states and allows them the freedom to be actual “laboratories of democracy.” Yet the Senate did just that Thursday in voting 51-50 (with Vice President Mike Pence breaking the tie) to invoke the Congressional Review Act to rescind an Obama administration rule that prohibited the states from defunding Planned Parenthood.

The rule blocked states from redirecting public health funding to other health care providers that better serve women’s health. But now the Senate has joined the House of Representatives, which passed the resolution earlier this year, and the measure heads to President Donald Trump’s desk, where his signature is expected.

Fifteen states have acted to defund Planned Parenthood and others who perform elective abortions in the last couple of years, reasoning that America’s largest purveyor of abortions (the organization is responsible for over one-third of a million abortions annually in recent years) doesn’t need taxpayer dollars to offer an elective procedure that most people recognize as the destruction of human life.

Public opposition notwithstanding, the Obama administration passed a “midnight rule” in December 2016 through the Department of Health and Human Services that interpreted Title X, the federal family planning program, to prohibit states from redirecting health care dollars away from groups like Planned Parenthood and toward public health agencies that outnumber the abortion behemoth 20-to-1 and (unlike Planned Parenthood) offer a wide range of preventive and holistic health care services.

Alliance Defending Freedom, Susan B. Anthony List, and Charlotte Lozier Institute had filed comments with HHS urging it not to enact the rule. The midnight rule had stopped states that had passed these public health care funding laws—including Tennessee, Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Ohio—from fully implementing them. Now, with the president’s approval, taxpayer dollars can again flow to where they are needed most.

The timing of the Senate vote comes a day after new undercover video evidence surfaced to remind us why Planned Parenthood doesn’t deserve public funding. In the new Center for Medical Progress video, Dr. DeShawn Taylor, former medical director of Planned Parenthood of Arizona and longtime abortionist at Planned Parenthood Los Angeles, describes how to deliver intact babies in late-term abortions to harvest high-quality body parts.

Taylor displays an eager willingness to ignore Arizona and federal law, which requires that babies who are born alive during an abortion receive medical care in an effort to keep them from dying. When undercover investigators asked Taylor what measures were in place to assess whether the baby was alive, she responded, “[Y]ou need to pay attention to who’s in the room, right?”

This callous and utter disregard for the value of human life is reason enough to ensure that Planned Parenthood never gets another dime of taxpayer funding. But the latest video is not alone, of course.

In addition to the numerous other videos that the Center for Medical Progress released previously (videos confirmed to be unmanipulated and authentic by a respected forensic analysis and cybersecurity company), federal and state audits have revealed waste, abuse, and potential fraud that add ample additional reasons for states to keep money away from Planned Parenthood.

The Obama administration never took any of that information seriously, but clearly both the House and Senate have. Trump can rest assured that his signature on the new measure that the Senate just passed will be more than justified. It’s simply common sense that states should be allowed to prioritize taxpayer money in ways that best serve women, and with the president’s signature, that’s exactly what states will once again be free to do. (For more from the author of “Congress Right to Affirm That States Can Defund Planned Parenthood” please click HERE)

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Charges Against Pro-Life Investigators Show Government’s Double Standard on Investigative Journalists

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The undercover Planned Parenthood videos published in 2015 made one thing abundantly clear: Big Abortion skirts the law for its own gain, going to great lengths to hide its illicit activities not only from the public, but even from its own employees.

After such revelations, it seems like common sense that the government would defund Planned Parenthood. After all, taxpayer money should not go to fund abortions or the illegal practices going on behind the organization’s closed doors.

But abortion cronies seem to be on a different page entirely: Punish the journalists and protect the abortion giant that is lining their pockets.

First, they tried—and failed—to convict Center for Medical Progress investigators David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt in Texas. But now, California wants a shot at it. This week, the state attorney general charged Daleiden and Merritt with 15 felonies.

Now Planned Parenthood said in a statement on the charges, “Planned Parenthood has done nothing wrong.” But if that’s true, the organization has nothing to fear from the Center for Medical Progress’ work.

In response to the charges, the Center for Medical Progress released a new undercover video featuring the former medical director of Planned Parenthood Arizona, DeShawn Taylor.

Taylor is shown on camera discussing what appears to be an illegal partial-birth abortion procedure and the illegal sale of baby body parts.

She also talks about intentionally avoiding an Arizona state law that requires abortionists to transport babies who show signs of life after an abortion to a hospital.

Then, she laughs.

“Well, the thing is, I mean the key is, you need to pay attention to who’s in the room,” she says.

Who is in the room also determines whether or not she can pull out intact “specimens” to sell to fetal tissue procurement agencies. She says she must be sensitive to her staff who might be uncomfortable if the aborted child comes out looking too much like a baby.

And by the way, don’t call it a “baby,” she says. “It’s creepy.”

It’s obvious that Planned Parenthood will stop at nothing to protect its abortion gold mine, even keeping secrets from their own employees. They wouldn’t want to make anyone in the room feel uncomfortable.

But what about the baby in the room?

Investigative journalists like Daleiden have been instrumental in casting light on deceptive practices in big government, big business, and now, big abortion.

In the past, investigative journalists have been lauded for their work.

They were applauded when they uncovered the Watergate scandal. No one has batted an eye at the many undercover investigations run by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

In fact, animal rights organizations in California have uncovered animal abuse by becoming employed and secretly filming conditions at farms and slaughterhouses.

But the state hasn’t charged them with 15 felonies.

Daleiden and Merritt’s investigative work, just like these other examples, brought to light illegal practices and abuse of power that would have otherwise remained hidden from the public.

Isn’t that the purpose of journalism—to reveal the truth? It should concern all Americans that California’s attorney general is trying to strip journalists of the freedom to do their jobs and report the truth.

Big abortion has effectively used its network of abortion cronies to attempt to bring swift punishment against Daleiden, but the reaction to Planned Parenthood’s illegal practices has come much slower.

A handful of states have rightly defunded the abortion giant. And while the House Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives released a report recommending that Planned Parenthood no longer receive federal funding and that those who have illegally profited off of the sale of baby body parts be prosecuted, little action has been taken thus far.

When our government acts more quickly to strip journalists of their freedoms than to act against an organization breaking state and federal law, then something is wrong. That is what’s truly “creepy.” (For more from the author of “Charges Against Pro-Life Investigators Show Government’s Double Standard on Investigative Journalists” please click HERE)

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UN Takes a Key Step to Address Humanitarian Crisis in Burma

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The United Nations approved a resolution on March 24 authorizing a fact-finding mission into human rights violations in Burma. The resolution is the most serious intervention thus far in Rakhine State, where the majority of the 1.2 million Rohingya Muslim population resides.

The resolution, adopted by consensus, addresses a wide range of human rights concerns.

For one thing, it urges the Burmese government to continue its efforts to eliminate statelessness and institutionalized discrimination against members of ethnic and religious minorities, including the Rohingya minority.

It also calls upon the government to amend or repeal all discriminatory legislation and policies, and takes measures to ensure a safe return of all internally displaced people and refugees.

In light of the severe human rights crisis faced by Rohingya displaced in Rakhine, the resolution marks a major step toward securing fundamental rights, such as citizenship and freedom of movement.

Human Rights Watch estimates that nearly 1 million internally displaced Rohingya are currently living in squalid, prison-like conditions in camps within Sittwe, the second-poorest state in Burma, where their movements are restricted and the access to livelihoods is limited.

The resolution also authorized the president of the U.N. Human Rights Council to dispatch an independent, international fact-finding mission. The investigation will examine allegations of arbitrary detention, torture, rape, and other forms of sexual violence, and destruction of property by Burmese security forces to ensure “full accountability for perpetrators and justice for victims.”

The resolution was introduced after Yanghee Lee, U.N. special rapporteur, called for a “prompt, thorough, independent, and impartial” international investigation into the crimes against humanity allegedly committed by the Myanmar government against the Rohingya Muslims.

Researchers at The Heritage Foundation have repeatedly called on Burma to recognize Rohingya as citizens.

“The U.S. should encourage Burma to recognize Rohingya and other displaced minorities as citizens,” urged the report. “ … If Burma seeks to improve its record on human rights and religious liberty, it should guarantee that minority populations enjoy the same legal protections as all other citizens of Burma.”

In spite of Burma’s recent turn toward reform, it goes without saying that there is still a long road ahead.

To this point, the Burmese government failed dismally to act on recommendations to seek U.N. assistance for an investigation into violence against Rohingya, let alone carry out a credible investigation of its own.

The result is clear: The humanitarian crisis in Rakhine State is worsening each day. For all the pressure the resolution is bound to put on Aung San Suu Kyi’s government, further attention and action is crucial to ensure tangible changes are made. (For more from the author of “UN Takes a Key Step to Address Humanitarian Crisis in Burma” please click HERE)

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How This 23-Foot Python Swallowed a Man Whole

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At first the video is blurry and difficult to make out. A bunch of men standing around a python begin slicing its belly down the middle. It soon becomes apparent that something of note is inside the giant snake, but it’s not immediately clear what has drawn so much attention.

Then you see it: An entire grown man, swallowed whole, lies dead inside the python.

According to local news reports, the body found inside the 23-foot-long snake turned out to be 25-year-old Akbar Salubiro, a harvester who worked on a palm oil plantation on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. He was reported missing on March 26 . . .

Similar to Burmese pythons, these huge snakes kill their prey before consuming it, making it unlikely Salubiro was eaten alive.

A 2015 study found that, contrary to popular belief, pythons and other constricting snakes such as boas and anacondas don’t suffocate their victims and instead kill by cutting off their blood flow, a method that ends life much more quickly. (Read more from “How This 23-Foot Python Swallowed a Man Whole” HERE)

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Mitch McConnell’s Bucket of Suck

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It’s worse than most people think. If the Freedom Caucus hadn’t stood in the way of triggering the three-bucket health care solution rightly tagged as “RINOcare,” and it had passed, we’d be on Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) “long game” train that would never reach its destination.

Many people have talked about the “third bucket” of the Republican’s health care plan as one that was particularly enticing. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) explained on “Face the Nation” that the third bucket was the “sucker’s bucket.” He said that everything in the third bucket was put there because there would be a need to have eight Democrats to vote for it, according to the way the Senate is run. Cruz said that phase three was never going to happen because, “You can’t get eight Senate Democrats to agree on saying good morning.”

Jim Geraghty at National Review also questioned phase three, noting that it would be quite a difficult road to get eight Democratic Senate seats to flip in 2018. He wrote, “Nuking the filibuster appears to be off the table, at least for now. So what’s the roadmap to get to 60 votes? And if there is no viable path to get 60 votes … how do the ideas in ‘Phase Three’ ever get enacted?”

So, why would “nuking the filibuster” be off the table in the first place?

I wrote a piece on Mitch McConnell’s recent memoir, “The Long Game” a while back, and I noted that the book is peppered from beginning to end of McConnell’s love for winning elections. It’s what keeps him going, and I recall him saying something like, “The best way to become a great senator, is to remain one.” He is very proud of the elections he, “wasn’t supposed to” win. But he also said plenty about how he believes in the Senate as an institution which must survive for our own good. It is because he believes in the institution over everything else and that he loves winning elections that we had a phase three.

The way the AHCA was set up, looking back, has McConnell’s fingerprints all over it for two reasons. One, the sucker’s bucket, as Cruz aptly termed it, promised all the goodies conservatives wanted yet took eight Democrats to enact. “Impossible!” said nearly everyone. But if you look at it from McConnell’s point of view, it makes sense. He will not change Senate procedure in his “precious institution” where he has sat for 32 years.

The second reason this reeks of McConnell-esque machinations is because a phase that can be put off for campaign purposes — as in spending all of 2018 campaigning on replacement that would take a filibuster-proof Senate when there will be 23 Democrats coming up for reelection — is a chance, as several sources have said, that Republicans can gain seats.

I’m sure we all remember leadership’s mantras in 2011, that they were only half of a third in 2013, that they needed the Senate in 2015, that they needed the White House in 2016, and now, apparently, Mitch McConnell is saying because of Senate rules he needs a filibuster proof majority in the elections of 2018. In every one of these arguments, the leadership continued to claim they would repeal, “if,” the people continued to elect more and more Republicans.

This is precisely why he recently said the following:

It’s pretty obvious we were not able in the House to pass a replacement … Our Democratic friends ought to be pretty happy about that because we have the existing law in place and I think we’re just going to have to see how that works out … We believe it will not work out well, but we’ll see. They have an opportunity now to have the status quo go forward, regretfully.

In other words, McConnell was able to cast blame on the House for a promise in the Senate that he had no intention of honoring UNLESS we elected a filibuster-proof Senate. Even then the law would still not be repealed.

It’s my guess McConnell is probably a little upset that all eyes aren’t on him in the Senate, which they would have been had the House passed RINOcare. He would have been able to command attention for the next two years, promising once again to do what he said he would do — once the voters gave him even more of a majority of course.

In reality, he’s the keeper of his precious institution that under his management is guaranteeing Obamacare will remain. (For more from the author of “Mitch McConnell’s Bucket of Suck” please click HERE)

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