Pro-Life Groups Sound Caution on Obamacare Replacement Bill

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Pro-life leaders are voicing concerns over elements of the Obamacare replacement plan unveiled Monday evening by House Republicans.

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, a conservative policy organization, issued a statement Tuesday noting that money from refundable tax credits provided by the plan could be used to pay for abortions.

House Speaker Paul Ryan released the draft legislation, called the American Health Care Act, to a tepid response from conservatives who would prefer to repeal Obamacare and then pass a replacement for it.

On his organization’s website and in an email to supporters, Perkins said:

The American Health Care Act contains important provisions which prevent these health care credits and state block grants from paying for plans that cover abortion on demand. However, there is still a pro-life concern in the bill because it could allow funds from the refundable credits to pay for abortions in health savings accounts.

If the House amends the legislation to specify that tax credits cannot be used for abortion, Perkins suggested, Senate Republicans face significant challenges in passing such language.

Another pro-life group, Americans United for Life, tweeted Wednesday:

Republicans are using a tool called budget reconciliation to pass their Obamacare replacement plan because it requires only 51 votes to clear the Senate, rather than 60 votes to end debate and proceed to a floor vote.

However, the Byrd rule, which dates to 1985 and is named for the late Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., “limits the type of policies that can be included in reconciliation to those that are specifically related to the budget,” Rachel Bovard, director of policy services at The Heritage Foundation, said in an email to The Daily Signal.

The rule could prevent pro-life language from being included in the Senate version of the measure to repeal and replace Obamacare.

If a senator invokes the Byrd rule, the “extraneous matter” of disallowing use of tax credits for abortion could be stuck down, unless 60 senators voted to waive the rule. Republicans hold 52 Senate seats.

“Right now it’s unclear whether or not this pro-life provision would pass muster in the Senate,” said Bovard, a former Senate aide.

An Obamacare repeal and replace bill that doesn’t include a pro-life provision is exactly what concerns Perkins.

“If the abortion funding restrictions for health care credits and state funds in this new bill fails in the Senate, then these provisions will subsidize abortion. In that case, the pro-life community could not support the overall bill and should oppose it,” he said.

In 2015, the House and Senate passed an Obamacare repeal bill with a pro-life component using the budget reconciliation process. It “cleared all the procedural loopholes in the Senate,” Bovard said, though President Barack Obama vetoed it in January 2016.

While Republicans’ new repeal and replace bill, the American Health Care Act, does include pro-life measures such as a yearlong freeze on federal taxpayers’ money going to Planned Parenthood, pro-life organizations say the bill could go further.

Tom McClusky, vice president of government affairs at the March for Life Education and Defense Fund, said lawmakers have work to do on the replacement plan.

“There is still a great deal of work to be done to ensure that this entire bill is pro-life, specifically with regards to tax credits and health care savings—ensuring that neither go to pay for abortion,” McClusky said in a prepared statement Wednesday. “Our message is simple: Abortion is not health care, and our laws should reflect this basic principle.”

Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America, the nation’s largest pro-life youth organization, said taxpayer funding for abortion is a deal breaker.

“Congress cannot pass anything that would give money to Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry, especially if it is even more than they are currently receiving through Obamacare, which is a distinct possibility if the Hyde protections are lost,” Hawkins said in a statement to The Daily Signal.

The Hyde Amendment, established in 1976 and named after the late Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill., prohibits use of federal funds for most elective abortions.

“The bottom line is that no taxpayer funding of abortion is acceptable, ever,” Hawkins said.

Carol Tobias, president of National Right to Life, told The Daily Signal in an email that the organization applauds Republican efforts to craft a pro-life replacement plan, but reaffirms its stance on opposing use of federal funds to pay for abortions. Tobias said:

National Right to Life opposes the use of subsidies or tax credits which could be used to cover abortion in any federal health plan. We recognize the time and effort put into the drafting of the House bill and thank congressional leadership for their efforts so far to see that abortion is not to be covered in the American Health Care Act. We look forward to working with them to make sure this goal is met.

(For more from the author of “Pro-Life Groups Sound Caution on Obamacare Replacement Bill” please click HERE)

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Texas Bathroom Bill Intended to Be ‘Model for Other States’

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The Texas Legislature will be voting next week on a bill that will prevent men from entering women’s restrooms and the lieutenant governor of Texas says his state’s legislation is a model for the nation.

“I think that our legislation can be a model for other states to follow and end this discussion once and for all about men being able to walk into ladies’ rooms in public buildings and to stop school districts from allowing boys and girls to shower together,” Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, a Republican, told The Daily Signal in a phone interview Wednesday.

If passed into law, the Texas Privacy Act will ensure that men and women use separate bathrooms.

Texas state Sen. Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham, the author of the bill, said there is currently no law on the books in Texas that prevents a man from entering a woman’s restroom dressed looking like a man.

The Texas Legislature held a hearing for the bill on Tuesday.

After nearly 20 hours of public testimony by over 400 witnesses, Patrick said the Texas state Senate Committee on State Affairs voted 8-1 to send the bill to the full Texas Senate for a vote.

The bill is nondiscriminatory, Patrick said, because it encourages schools and government buildings and businesses to provide special facilities for those who want an exception.

“It does not discriminate but it is focused on public safety and common decency and privacy,” Patrick said.

Sarah Kate Ellis, the president and CEO of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), released a statement in February in opposition of the bill.

It was published with a letter that included over 140 signatures of entertainers and musicians decrying the Texas Privacy Act and other “anti-LGBTQ bills.”

“The public outcry by musicians and influencers against upcoming anti-LGBTQ bills in Texas should have lawmakers taking note,” Ellis said. “By adding their voices to the chorus of fair-minded people calling for equality, these artists are using their platforms to speak out and send the resounding message that discrimination is not an American value.”

The American Civil Liberties Union released an ad protesting the legislation which tells viewers they can “stop the bill.”

“You’ve gotta roll up your sleeves, pull down your pants, and pee with LGBT … this isn’t a privacy issue,” the ad states.

Dana Hodges, state director for Concerned Women for America of Texas, a conservative women’s advocacy organization, said the bill is about safeguarding privacy and dignity.

“This bill protects the privacy, safety, and dignity of women and girls in public facilities,” Hodges said in a statement provided to The Daily Signal. “It also allows private industries to make their own restroom policy. This is an issue I’m passionate about having been personally violated in a women’s restroom.”

Patrick said he expects a full vote in the Texas state Senate next Tuesday or Wednesday. (For more from the author of “Texas Bathroom Bill Intended to Be ‘Model for Other States” please click HERE)

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Permanent Federal Bureaucracy Leads Opposition to Trump Agenda

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Leaks from the White House seem to indicate a bureaucratic push against President Donald Trump and his administration, some government watchdogs have said.

“There is a level of paranoia in the White House, but even paranoids can have real concerns,” Peter Flaherty, president of the National Legal and Policy Center, told The Daily Signal. “How do you conduct business when you think you’re being spied on, with good reason.”

The combination of former political appointees that converted to civil service positions, and a long-standing bias among federal bureaucrats have led to an attempt to undermine Trump, Flaherty said.

“The degree to which the intelligence apparatus wants to do in Trump is scary,” Flaherty said. “In recent years, intelligence agencies have trended left. Part of that has been Obama appointees. It’s also part of the education background of the people hired there for the last 20 years.”

Opposition to Trump may go beyond the intelligence agencies.

The Environmental Protection Agency, according to Politico, has career employees using an encoded app to communicate about work-related issues to stop Trump EPA employees from “undermining” the agency’s mission. The watchdog group Cause of Action Institute has made a freedom of information request for all of the encrypted communications because the Federal Records Act requires agencies to preserve all records made by employees working on official government business.

“If federal employees are using encrypted apps on their phones to avoid transparency laws, that’s a problem regardless of their political motivations,” Henry Kerner, an assistant vice president at the Cause of Action Institute, told The Daily Signal in an email statement. “The only reason to use these apps, instead of their government email accounts, would be to conceal their discussions from oversight. Federal agencies have a legal obligation to preserve all records made by employees working on official government business. Americans have a right to know if federal employees are using encrypted electronic messages to evade transparency.”

Trump has been criticized for tweeting last weekend that former President Barack Obama “had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower just before the victory.”

Although there were several news reports of interceptions, and of a potential FISA court order (named for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act), Trump didn’t provide evidence from the executive branch agencies that Obama ordered wiretapping.

The White House is asking Congress to review the leaks, which is already investigating Russia’s effort to interfere with the presidential election.

“I think the smartest and most deliberative way to address this situation is to ask the House and Senate intelligence committees who are already in the process of looking into this to look into this and other leaks of classified information that are troubling to our nation’s national security,” White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Monday during a press briefing.

Among federal employees, about 95 percent of political contributions went to Democrat Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential race, according to an analysis by The Hill in October. Some federal workers have been in consultation with departed Obama administration officials to determine how they can push back against the Trump administration’s agenda, The Washington Post reported in January.

“If we believe the liberal media, the bureaucracy is trying to undermine the president who was elected by the people, when [the bureaucrats] weren’t. They are there to serve the president,” Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, told The Daily Signal. “The permanent bureaucracy is pro-bureaucracy. It is not pro-reform.”

The Weekly Standard reported in a recent story that two negative op-eds on the Trump administration were written by White House officials who worked under Ben Rhodes, Obama’s national security spokesman.

Edward Price, a National Security Council spokesman for the Obama White House, transitioned back to the CIA after the election. He wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post, published on Feb. 20, that said, “I didn’t think I’d ever leave the CIA. But because of Trump, I quit.” It went on to say, “To be clear, my decision had nothing to do with politics.”

However, the Post followed up with a clarification stating Price contributed a total of $5,000 to Clinton’s presidential campaign and the Democratic Party in 2016.

One Obama White House employee who continued to work briefly for the White House under the Trump administration was Rumana Ahmed. After quitting, she wrote a piece for The Atlantic published Feb. 23, with the headline“I Was a Muslim in Trump’s White House.”

“When President Obama left, I stayed on at the National Security Council in order to serve my country,” Ahmed wrote. “I lasted eight days.”

This, she wrote, was because “it was an insult walking into this country’s most historic building every day under an administration that is working against and vilifying everything I stand for as an American and as a Muslim.”

The New York Times reported last May in a profile on Rhodes that: “In the front office, [Rhodes’] assistant, Rumana Ahmed, and his deputy, Ned Price, are squeezed behind desks, which face a large television screen, from which CNN blares nonstop.”

In the Times piece, Price particularly talked about Rhodes manipulating media coverage.

Fitton said this shouldn’t be a surprise.

“It’s not credible to believe that Obama supporters would plan to work long term for Donald Trump,” Fitton said. “Were these individuals interested in working for Donald Trump long term, or were they looking for an excuse to ding him?” (For more from the author of “Permanent Federal Bureaucracy Leads Opposition to Trump Agenda” please click HERE)

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Supreme Court’s Pass on Transgender Case Will Ignite Further Lawsuits

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For the past few months, the legal community has been preparing for a grand showdown before the Supreme Court on student privacy rights.

The central question at hand: Must schools allow a student into sleeping facilities, locker rooms, and restrooms reserved for the opposite sex if that student subjectively identifies with that sex?

The prospects for that face-off, in the case of Gloucester County School Board v. G.G., grew dim a few weeks ago when the Trump administration rescinded an Obama-era directive that lay at the heart of that case.

The directive would have required the Gloucester County School Board in Virginia to allow Gavin Grimm, a female student who identifies as a male, to use the boys’ restroom. The Trump administration’s withdrawal of that Obama-era directive fundamentally altered the nature of the case.

As a result, earlier this week, the Supreme Court did what many expected and sent the Gloucester case back to the court of appeals. That move not only tees up the case for a ruling by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, it also kick-starts many similar cases that had been put on hold.

Those cases all revolve around one central issue. Gender identity advocates insist that the term “sex” in Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972—a statute that prohibits public schools from discriminating “on the basis of sex”—includes the altogether distinct notion of “gender identity.”

This argument is a stretch. Sex, after all, is fundamentally different from gender identity.

Sex is rooted in biological reality determined at birth by objective criteria like anatomy and chromosomes. But gender identity is based on subjective perceptions—the idea that a person’s status as male, female, or something in between depends on what he thinks about himself.

And nothing in Title IX’s congressional history or its regulations suggests that Congress had gender identity in mind when it used the word “sex.”

Nor is there any support in Title IX for the novel idea that federal law requires boys who identify as girls to share sleeping facilities, locker rooms, and restrooms with girls.

On the contrary, for over four decades Title IX and its regulations have explicitly said that schools may implement sex-specific access policies for these sorts of private facilities.

Ironically, gender identity advocates are taking a law intended to equalize educational opportunities for women and distorting it to deny them opportunities. Young girls who don’t want to share locker rooms with male students are now forced into uncomfortable school settings day in and day out, and female athletes are being required to compete against boys who identify as girls.

These developments mark a sad regression, not an advancement, in women’s rights.

Perhaps realizing that gender identity proponents face a tall task in making plausible that which is implausible, the Obama administration leant a helping hand. It issued decrees claiming that gender identity must be read into Title IX and that students must be allowed to use sex-specific facilities that correspond with their gender identity instead of their sex.

By doing so, President Barack Obama tilted the scales of the debate. Various legal doctrines like Chevron and Auer deference require courts to give special respect to the executive branch’s interpretation of the laws that it is charged with implementing.

With the Trump administration’s actions on Feb. 22, the executive’s thumb has now been lifted off the scale.

The Justice Department recognized that the Obama-era directives did not “contain extensive legal analysis,” “explain how the[ir] position is consistent with the express language of Title IX,” or give “due regard for the primary role of the States and local school districts in establishing educational policy.”

For these reasons, President Donald Trump did away with the Obama administration’s dictates.

Although gender identity advocates have lost the tremendous advantage of having the executive branch champion their cause, they will undoubtedly continue to press their position in court. And the Supreme Court’s decision not to rule in the Gloucester case reignites many cases that will give them occasion to do just that.

Students concerned about their privacy rights have filed a number of these cases—one in Illinois and another in Minnesota. They attend public schools that allow classmates of the opposite sex to share their locker rooms and restrooms, and they object to this violation of their dignity and privacy.

These cases will soon resume, and within no time, many more courts will decide whether federal law forces schools to allow boys who identify as girls to share locker rooms with female students.

Once those courts rule, advocates will again ask the Supreme Court to settle the issue once and for all. Should the court agree to do that, we’ll find ourselves exactly where we were just a few days ago. (For more from the author of “Supreme Court’s Pass on Transgender Case Will Ignite Further Lawsuits” please click HERE)

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WikiLeaks Publishes ‘Biggest Ever Leak of Secret CIA Documents’, Reignites Questions Whether CIA Assassinated Michael Hastings

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By Ewen MacAskill. The US intelligence agencies are facing fresh embarrassment after WikiLeaks published what it described as the biggest ever leak of confidential documents from the CIA detailing the tools it uses to break into phones, communication apps and other electronic devices.

The thousands of leaked documents focus mainly on techniques for hacking and reveal how the CIA cooperated with British intelligence to engineer a way to compromise smart televisions and turn them into improvised surveillance devices.

The leak, named “Vault 7” by WikiLeaks, will once again raise questions about the inability of US spy agencies to protect secret documents in the digital age. It follows disclosures about Afghanistan and Iraq by army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning in 2010 and about the National Security Agency and Britain’s GCHQ by Edward Snowden in 2013.

The new documents appear to be from the CIA’s 200-strong Center for Cyber Intelligence and show in detail how the agency’s digital specialists engage in hacking. Monday’s leak of about 9,000 secret files, which WikiLeaks said was only the first tranche of documents it had obtained, were all relatively recent, running from 2013 to 2016. (Read more from “WikiLeaks Publishes ‘Biggest Ever Leak of Secret CIA Documents'” HERE)

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WikiLeaks Publishes Information Reigniting Questions Whether CIA Was Involved in US Journalist Hastings’ Death

WikiLeaks’ release on Tuesday of a massive trove of secret CIA documents has reignited conspiracy theories which have swirled since 2013, with revelations the spy agency was attempting to remotely hack vehicles.

“As of October 2014 the CIA was also looking at infecting the vehicle control systems used by modern cars and trucks,” WikiLeaks writes. “The purpose of such control is not specified, but it would permit the CIA to engage in nearly undetectable assassinations.”

Hastings, an acclaimed war correspondent and vocal critic of government mass surveillance, died in the early hours of Tuesday, June 18, 2013, when his Mercedes C250 Coupe apparently lost control and burst into flames before slamming into a palm tree. . .

[F]ormer US National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection, and Counter-terrorism Richard Clarke told The Huffington Post the crash was “consistent with a car cyber attack”. . .

WikiLeaks itself appeared to suggest Hastings’ death was the result of foul play. Hours after crash, WikiLeaks tweeted: “Michael Hastings contacted WikiLeaks lawyer Jennifer Robinson just a few hours before he died, saying that the FBI was investigating him.” (Read more from Wikileaks Publishes Information Linking CIA to Hastings’ Death HERE)

Editor’s note: To learn more about the troubling facts surrounding Hastings death, please click HERE.

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FBI Prepares for New Hunt for WikiLeaks’ Source

By Devlin Barrett. The FBI has begun preparing for a major mole hunt to determine how anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks got an alleged arsenal of hacking tools the CIA has used to spy on espionage targets, according to people familiar with the matter.

The leak rattled government and technology industry officials, who spent Tuesday scrambling to determine the accuracy and scope of the thousands of documents released by the group. They were also trying to assess the damage the revelations may cause, and what damage may come from future releases promised by WikiLeaks, these people said . . .

In the wake of revelations from Army private Chelsea Manning and former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, officials sought to tighten security procedures, and federal agents came under greater pressure to find and prevent secrets from spilling out of the government. (Read more from “FBI Prepares for New Hunt for WikiLeaks’ Source” HERE)

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WikiLeaks Says It Releases Files on CIA Cyber Spying Tools

By Reuters. Anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks on Tuesday published what it said were thousands of pages of internal CIA discussions about hacking techniques used over several years, renewing concerns about the security of consumer electronics and embarrassing yet another U.S. intelligence agency.

The discussion transcripts showed that CIA hackers could get into Apple Inc iPhones, Google Inc Android devices and other gadgets in order to capture text and voice messages before they were encrypted with sophisticated software.

Cyber security experts disagreed about the extent of the fallout from the data dump, but said a lot would depend on whether WikiLeaks followed through on a threat to publish the actual hacking tools that could do damage.

Reuters could not immediately verify the contents of the published documents, but several contractors and private cyber security experts said the materials, dated between 2013 and 2016, appeared to be legitimate. (Read more from “WikiLeaks Says It Releases Files on CIA Cyber Spying Tools” HERE)

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CNN Drops Congressman’s Feed as He Spills the Beans

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A U.S. congressman was abruptly disconnected from his CNN interview Monday just as he began citing statistics revealing 300 refugees admitted to the U.S. are being investigated by the FBI in domestic terrorism cases.

CNN correspondent Dana Bash was interviewing Rep. Scott Taylor, R-Va., on the issue of President Trump’s revised travel ban, which bars entry of individuals from a list of six terror hotbeds (Iran, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, Syrian and Libya) for 90 days as the administration examines the vetting process.

Bash asked Taylor if he believes Trump’s ban is necessary for America’s security.

Just today, the FBI comes out and says that 30 percent, 30 percent, of their domestic terrorism cases that they’re investigating are from folks who are refugees,” Taylor replied. “It’s important not to label all refugees bad people, that’s not why I’m here, but …”

That’s when the feed suddenly cut out. Taylor’s face and voice were replaced by an image of colored bars and a loud buzzing noise. (Read more from “CNN Drops Congressman’s Feed as He Spills the Beans” HERE)

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Pakistani Judge Threatens to Shut Down Country’s Social Media Over Free Speech ‘Terrorists’

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Pakistan is no place for free speech.

A justice on Pakistan’s Islamabad High Court (IHC) has threatened to shut down the entirety of social media if criticism of Islam’s Muhammad continues, declaring these “blasphemers” as “terrorists.”

According to local reports, Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqi burst into tears while issuing the warning for those who apparently have taken to social media to criticize Muhammad. Siddiqi made it very clear that Pakistan would not allow for such displays of free speech.

“Why is the blasphemous content present on the social media? What steps had the government taken up in this regard so far?” Siddiqi asked. “I submit and sacrifice myself and all what I have including my parents, my life and job to the person of Allah’s messenger … If the sacrilegious pages cannot be blocked, then, Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) should cease to exist,” he added.

Siddiqi then took his comments a step further, arguing that social media in its entirety should be cut off for Muhammad’s sake.

“Each and everything can be sacrificed for the honor of Allah’s Messenger. I will close entire social media, if I have to,” he said.

And then came the conclusion: The justice declaring those who decide to engage in free speech as “terrorists.”

“I hereby declare as terrorists who commit blasphemy to the holy Prophet.” the IHC justice declared.

About 75 percent of Pakistanis support the country’s blasphemy laws, which say that insulting Islam is punishable by death. This has led to massive discrimination against Christians and other religious minorities living inside Pakistan. The blasphemy edicts sometimes lead mobs to take the streets, and guarantees violent repercussions for those who have been deemed slanderers of Islam.

Pakistan is currently fending off a wave of jihadist terrorist attacks. In one such incident in February, a suicide bomber killed 88 people after detonating his vest at a Sufi shrine. This might lead observers to believe that such a vital issue to national security would take priority in Islamabad. Instead, the judiciary is discussing how to block what its citizens discuss on social media.

Free speech does not exist in Pakistan. And worse, the highest levels of government are accused of becoming cozy with international terrorist groups.

Pakistan was notoriously once the home base for deceased al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, who set up shop in Abbottabad, located less than a mile away from a prominent Pakistani military academy. Its Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency has long been accused of collaborating with jihadist terror outfits. (For more from the author of “Pakistani Judge Threatens to Shut Down Country’s Social Media Over Free Speech ‘Terrorists'” please click HERE)

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Trump Makes Planned Parenthood a Deal Only an Abortion Business Would Turn Down

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Half a billion dollars in federal funding isn’t enough to keep Planned Parenthood from what it does best — abortions. This week, Planned Parenthood proved once again that, for all their talk of “women’s health,” their business IS abortion.

On Monday, The New York Times reported that the Trump administration made an informal proposal to the nation’s largest abortion provider: You can keep your federal funding if you stop taking the lives of unborn children.

PP refused, as abortion services are simply “nonnegotiable.”

“Let’s be clear: Federal funds already do not pay for abortions,” Dawn Laguens, the executive vice president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said. “Offering money to Planned Parenthood to abandon our patients and our values is not a deal that we will ever accept. Providing critical health care services for millions of American women is nonnegotiable.”

That’s at least the talking point. But money is fungible (as anyone who has ever handled currency ought to understand).

GOP officials, of course, promised relentlessly on the campaign trail that they’ll get taxpayer dollars out from under the abortion giant. It was an issue that found new life in 2015 after undercover videos from the Center for Medical Progress purported to show PP involved in a large-scale fetal tissue racket.

This all begs the question: If Planned Parenthood was really concerned about vital low-cost health services for women, and really thought the organization would not be able to adequately service patients without an enormous taxpayer kickback, why would it put said handouts on the chopping block for something it says is such a negligible part of its entire existence?

Because it’s all a crock.

This latest development of a White House proposal blows yet another gigantic hole in the hull of Planned Parenthood’s image and racket.

The most popular example of this is, of course, their infamous “3 percent” lie, but has also taken the form of an ad released last year of women AND men touting the abortion mill’s flu and asthma treatment services.

Planned Parenthood – :30 from Wexley School for Girls on Vimeo.

Add that to the 2015 discovery that they don’t provide mammograms (which was even backed up by The Washington Post’s fact-checkers) and the more recent admissions by PP staffers that several of its locations do not provide prenatal care (contrary to claims) … and it all becomes ever more clearer that “women’s health” to this organization is little more than a high-scoring buzzword.

Given what the public now knows about the kind of operation that Planned Parenthood is running all over the country, and the Republican promises made to voters in the 2016 election cycle, there’s absolutely no reason that they should continue receiving a red cent of public money.

There are more than enough places for women to receive basic health care without underwriting this grisly termination business, and their fundraising efforts since Election Day show they do just fine funding themselves.

But no, when the cards are down, abortion is Planned Parenthood’s summum bonum. Everything else – up to and including actual health services – are little more than window dressing. (For more from the author of “Trump Makes Planned Parenthood a Deal Only an Abortion Business Would Turn Down” please click HERE)

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Russia and Corruption: Jeff Sessions Versus the Clintons

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Attorney General Jeff Sessions was asked, during his Senate confirmation hearing, if he had had contact with Russian officials during the late campaign on behalf of then-candidate Donald Trump. He quickly and candidly said no.

Turns out he did meet with the Russian Ambassador twice last year. Were I a bettor, I would place a healthy amount on the belief that the AG did not mention these meetings because they were so far removed from anything to relating to the Trump campaign that they did not even occur to him.

Then-Senator Sessions was chairman of the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces. Has it occurred to anyone that in that capacity, he might have wanted to speak to the ambassador of America’s leading challenger in the realm of nuclear weapons about its resurgent and deliberate nuclear re-armament?

Regardless, one thing is sure: President Trump’s chief rival for the presidency, Hillary Clinton, as well as her husband, former President Bill Clinton, have deep ties to Russia, including ties that involve, potentially, Russia’s nuclear weapons capacity.

Bill & Hillary’s Excellent Uranium Payoff

In 2010, according to the New York Times, “leaders of the Canadian mining industry, who (had) been major donors to the charitable endeavors of former President Bill Clinton and his family” sought access to uranium production facilities in the U.S. “Among the agencies that eventually signed off was the State Department, then headed by Clinton’s wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton.”

Funny thing: Soon after, the Times reports, things got quite interesting for the Clintons. The president of Uranium One, as the company came to be known, “used his family foundation to make four donations totaling $2.35 million” to the Clinton Foundation.

And that was just a fraction of what came pouring in: The Clinton Foundation received no less than $145 million from nine of Uranium One’s shareholders. As noted by Peter Schweizer, who exhaustively tracks the extensive corruption of the former first couple, “the deal allowed Rosatom, the Russian State Nuclear Agency, to buy assets that amounted to 20 percent of American uranium. Rosatom, by the way controls the Russian nuclear arsenal.”

Back to the Times: “Shortly after the Russians announced their intention to acquire a majority stake in Uranium One, Mr. Clinton received $500,000 for a Moscow speech from a Russian investment bank with links to the Kremlin that was promoting Uranium One stock.”

$500,000 — yikes. As the former chief speechwriter for the Secretary of our country’s largest Cabinet department, I can only say that must have been one epic speech.

Skolkovo: Russian for “More Clinton Cash”

Then there’s the case of Skolkovo Innovation Center “Russia’s Silicon Valley.” Then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pulled together a number of American high tech firms to underwrite Skolkovo. A number of these firms had already given to the Clinton Foundation and, soon, 17 of their Russian counterparts in Skolkovo also contributed to the Foundation. As Peter Schweizer notes, these “financial commitments to the Clinton Foundation (were in the) tens of millions of dollars, or sponsored speeches by Bill Clinton.”

Sleazy enough, but only the first peel of a rancid onion: As explained by journalist Rudy Takala, “Government documents suggest Skolkovo’s work conflicted at least in part with U.S. military interests. The U.S. Army Foreign Military Studies Program described it in 2012 as a ‘vehicle for worldwide technology transfer to Russia in the areas of information technology, biomedicine, energy, satellite and space technology, and nuclear technology.’”

FBI Assistant Special Agent Lucia Ziobro, in a recent op-ed, affirmed these concerns: “The FBI recently released a notification to technology companies and research facilities … warning them of the possible perils of entering into joint partnerships with foreign venture capital firms from Russia … The FBI believes the true motives of the Russian partners, who are often funded by their government, is to gain access to classified, sensitive and emerging technology from the companies.”

Former presidents have access to pretty much whatever information they want. Certainly sitting Secretaries of State do. Yet Bill and Hillary Clinton, fully aware of the intimately close connections between Russian “private” industries, the Russian military, and the Putin regime, went forward with their Skolkovo initiative.

And one more: At one time, “Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta sat on the executive board of an energy company, Joule Unlimited, which received millions from a Putin-connected Russian government fund,” writes journalist Jerome Hudson. In addition, Podesta held 75,000 common shares in Joule which he later put in a “holding company.”

The Sad Circus

I have highlighted only the Clintons’ connections with Russia and its dangerous government. There is so much more in the vast archive of their multiple relationships with foreign governments, many of which have policies inimical to the interests of the United States. And still they continue to wander the globe selling influence and accruing massive wealth.

Meanwhile, Jeff Sessions is being assailed and unctuously belittled by the giants of the American Left, even today, for forgetting to mention a couple of meetings with the Russian Ambassador. This circus is a sad commentary on the character of our times. (For more from the author of “Russia and Corruption: Jeff Sessions Versus the Clintons” please click HERE)

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WikiLeaks Publishes CIA Trove Alleging Wide Scale Hacking

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WikiLeaks on Tuesday published thousands of documents purportedly taken from the Central Intelligence Agency’s Center for Cyber Intelligence, a dramatic release that appears to expose intimate details of America’s cyberespionage toolkit.

It was not immediately clear how WikiLeaks obtained the information, which included more than 8,700 documents and files. The CIA tools, if authentic, could undermine the confidence that consumers have in the safety and security of their computers, mobile devices and even smart TVs.

WikiLeaks said the material came from “an isolated, high-security network situated inside the CIA’s Center for Cyber Intelligence in Langley, Virginia.” It didn’t say how the files were removed, such as possibly by a rogue employee, by hacking a federal contractor working for the CIA or breaking into a staging server where such hacking tools might be temporarily stored. (Read more from “WikiLeaks Publishes CIA Trove Alleging Wide Scale Hacking” HERE)

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