Abortion Clinics Are Closing at a Record Pace

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Abortion access in the U.S. has been vanishing at the fastest annual pace on record, propelled by Republican state lawmakers’ push to legislate the industry out of existence. Since 2011, at least 162 abortion providers have shut or stopped offering the procedure, while just 21 opened.

At no time since before 1973, when the U.S. Supreme Court legalized abortion, has a woman’s ability to terminate a pregnancy been more dependent on her zip code or financial resources to travel. The drop-off in providers—more than one every two weeks—occurred in 35 states, in both small towns and big cities that are home to more than 30 million women of reproductive age.

No region was exempt, though some states lost more than others. Texas, which in 2013 passed sweeping clinic regulations that are under scrutiny by the Supreme Court, saw the most: at least 30. It was followed by Iowa, with 14, and Michigan, with 13. California’s loss of a dozen providers shows how availability declined, even in states led by Democrats, who tend to be friendly to abortion rights . . .

Typically defined by medical researchers as facilities that perform 400 or more abortions per year, the ranks peaked in the late 1980s at 705, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a New York-based reproductive-health research organization. By 2011, the most recent year for which Guttmacher has data, that number had fallen to 553. (Read more from “Abortion Clinics Are Closing at a Record Pace” HERE)

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Netanyahu Quotes Bible, Voices Strong Support for Gay Rights

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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu showed his support on the Knesset’s first designated LGBT Rights Day on Tuesday.

Netanyahu rarely appears in the legislature on Tuesdays, a day on which it usually does not hold important votes, but he arrived specially to participate in LGBT Rights Day, during which discussions of the topic were held in the plenum and committees.

The prime minister briefly addressed the plenum: “I know that there were important and lengthy discussions today, and I came here in the middle of my schedule, which was no less busy, to say one sentence to the members of the LGBT community: ‘Every man was created in the image of God.’ That is the idea brought by our nation to mankind thousands of years ago, and it is the principle that must guide our national lives today.” (Read more from “Netanyahu Quotes Bible, Voices Strong Support for Gay Rights” HERE)

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China Warns U.S. After Trump Wins Nevada Caucus

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China warned the United States on Wednesday not to adopt punitive currency policies that could disrupt U.S.-China relations after Donald Trump’s win in the Nevada caucus.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters in Beijing that “we are following with interest the U.S. presidential election.”

Hua was asked about China’s response to a possible Trump presidency and his announced plan to punish China for currency manipulation with a tax on Chinese goods.

“Since it belongs to the domestic affair of the U.S., I am not going to make comments on specific remarks by the relevant candidate,” she said.

“But I want to stress that China and the U.S., as world’s largest developing and developed countries, shoulder major responsibilities in safeguarding world peace, stability and security and driving world development,” the spokeswoman added. (Read more from “China Warns U.S. After Trump Wins Nevada Caucus” HERE)

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Left-Wing Activists Wage War on Parental Rights

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Here are the key provisions that have drawn the most attention:

1) First, SB 89 requires local school boards to adopt policies that recognize a parent’s inherent authority to withdraw their children from tests or assessments that they find objectionable; and to allow parents to withdraw their child from any activity, class or program that instructs on human reproduction or sexual matters, or which inquires into personal or private family affairs of the student that are not a matter of public record.

2) Second, if a school plans to offer instruction dealing with human reproduction or sexual matters (i.e., sex education courses), then the parent must be provided at least two weeks notice, and the signed consent of the parent is required before the student may participate in such instruction.

3) Third, SB 89 states that an “abortion services provider” may not offer course materials or teach sex education programs in the public schools.

Planned Parenthood is lobbying furiously against the bill, arguing that SB 89 is designed to “target” them specifically, and further arguing that it will prevent students from receiving sex education. In reality, the bill’s language speaks for itself: entities that are making money by performing abortions ought not to be given a free, taxpayer-funded venue for promoting their services in front of impressionable young people. That applies not only to Planned Parenthood, but also to other abortion facilities and their employees. As Senator Dunleavy put it, “We’re not outlawing abortion service providers; we’re saying, ‘Take it out of the school.’”

For most of us, that’s just common sense. But Planned Parenthood, which makes more money from doing abortions than any other entity in the world, apparently has a sense of entitlement. Planned Parenthood thinks they’re entitled to be teaching your child about sex, and peddling their “services” to your child, in the public school that you pay for. Here’s reality: there are dozens of options that schools have for teaching about human sexuality that don’t involve giving free advertising to America’s No. 1 abortion business. There is nothing in SB 89 that disallows schools from offering sex education programs – provided they have the permission of parents to do so.

But Planned Parenthood isn’t the only entity opposing this bill. The public school bureaucracy is also launching salvos against SB 89. They claim it would just be way too burdensome to obtain the parent’s written consent before students can participate in a sex education class. This is nonsense. Schools obtain parental consent for all sorts of things – most notably field trips. As just one example, click here to see the parental consent form that Alaska’s largest school district requires before students can go on a field trip.

Guess how many times this form is filled out every year and collected by school staff? Well, the Anchorage School District website says that, “The Transportation Department dispatches approximately 6,000 field and activity trips annually.” You do the math – how many students on average attend each field trip, and then multiply that by thousands. The notion that this couldn’t easily be done for the infrequent sex education class is ludicrous. Let’s translate what the public school bureaucracy is really saying: “We don’t want to lift a finger to help protect the rights of the parents – the same parents who happen to pay our salaries.” If you’re not infuriated by that attitude, you should be.

Click HERE to see what Planned Parenthood is already teaching your kids. Caution – It’s a graphic but eye opening look at what the largest abortion provider in America is doing in public schools today.

My friends, it’s time to saddle up and defend Senate Bill 89. Senator Dunleavy has shown tremendous leadership in advancing this idea, but now the progressive left has simply come unhinged. Don’t let them get away with their “Indiana-style tactics” for demonizing a perfectly reasonable, perfectly common sense bill.

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Ahead of Election, Iran’s Leader Warns of Western ‘Plot’

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By Samia Nakhoul. Iran’s top leader warned voters on Wednesday the West was plotting to influence elections pitting centrists close to President Hassan Rouhani against conservative hardliners in a contest that could shape the Islamic Republic for years to come.

In remarks reflecting an abiding mistrust of Rouhani’s rapprochement with the West, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said he was confident Iranians would vote in favor of keeping Iran’s anti-Western stance on Friday in the first elections since last year’s nuclear accord with world powers.

Rouhani’s allies, who hope the deal will hasten Iran’s opening up to the world after years of sanctions, have come under increasing pressure in the election campaign from hardliners who accuse them of links to Western powers including the United States and Britain.

Those accusations seek to tap into Iranians’ wariness of Western motives and memories of a 1953 coup against nationalist prime minister Mohammad Mossadegh that was orchestrated by the United States and Britain and strengthened the Shah’s rule. (Read more from “Ahead of Election, Iran’s Leader Warns of Western ‘Plot'” HERE)

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Iran Arrests Elderly Father of Jailed U.S. Citizen

By Yeganeh Torbati. Iranian authorities this week arrested the elderly father of an American jailed in Iran since October, the man’s family said on Wednesday.

Siamak Namazi, a dual U.S.-Iranian citizen, was detained by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in October while in Iran visiting family. Officials have yet to announce charges against him.

Baquer Namazi, Siamak’s father, was arrested late on Monday in Tehran, his wife Effie Namazi said in a Facebook post on Wednesday. The 80-year-old Namazi, also a dual Iranian-American citizen, was taken to Evin Prison, where his son is also being held, she said.

Asked at a Senate hearing about the elder Namazi’s arrest, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said: “I am very familiar with this and I am engaged on it specifically, but I am not permitted due to privacy reasons to go into details here.” (Read more from ” Iran Arrests Elderly Father of Jailed U.S. Citizen” HERE)

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California Triplets at Center of Thorny Surrogacy Case, Pro-Life Debate

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A set of newborn triplets are now being tended to in a California hospital, unaware of their place at the center of a complex legal battle that could have huge implications for surrogacy and parental rights.

The babies were delivered several weeks premature Monday night, according to a lawyer for Melissa Cook, the 47-year-old surrogate mother from Woodland Hills who refused the biological father’s demands that she have an abortion. That man, a deaf, 50-year-old postal worker from Georgia identified in court papers as “C.M.,” paid Cook to carry anonymously donated eggs he fertilized in the hopes of having children. But Cook, who describes herself as pro-life, refused to have an abortion, and is seeking parental rights.

“I’m healthy, I’m 28 weeks pregnant, the babies are doing great, the three little boys I have inside me,” Cook told Fox News outside court earlier this month before they were born.

In California, a gestational surrogate – a woman who carries a donor’s eggs – has no parental rights, but Cook is challenging the state’s surrogacy law in federal court, claiming it is unconstitutional.

“It’s an attempt to reduce women to an object, or a breeding animal,” charges Cook’s lawyer, Harold Cassidy, a nationally prominent pro-life and anti-surrogacy lawyer who is calling for a moratorium on surrogacy. (Read more from “California Triplets at Center of Thorny Surrogacy Case, Pro-Life Debate” HERE)

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Cruz Staffer Goes Rogue, Makes SHOCKING Statement About Campaign No One Expected

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An unnamed staff member for GOP candidate Sen. Ted Cruz told CNN Monday that, in his assessment, the campaign is “done.”

“The Cruz campaign has to focus on getting basic campaign techniques right,” an unnamed “Republican operative” working for the Cruz campaign told the news outlet. “I don’t think Cruz can win the nomination at this point. I think his campaign is done.”

The staffer’s pronouncement comes in the wake Cruz’s disappointing third-place finish in South Carolina, “where evangelical or born-again Christians made up 74 percent of the GOP electorate. Making things worse for Cruz, Trump captured all 50 delegates up for grabs. If Cruz can’t win one delegate with demographics like that, the fears are Super Tuesday won’t be much better without a change in tactics,” CNN reported.

The assessment also comes after Cruz announced Monday he had fired campaign spokesman Rick Tyler. Tyler pushed a false story on social media that GOP rival Sen. Marco Rubio made derogatory statements about the Bible, when the opposite was actually true.

As reported by Western Journalism, Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., became very angry with the Cruz campaign and its allies for engaging in “outright lies” and “underhanded tactics” in the days leading up to Saturday’s South Carolina primary. The former federal prosecutor, who has endorsed Rubio, said there has been a “systematic effort by Sen. Cruz and his allies to spread false information.”

(Read more from “Cruz Staffer Goes Rogue, Makes SHOCKING Statement About Campaign No One Expected” HERE)

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Newly Released Documents Show a Pattern of Clinton Deception

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By Micah Morrison. Aficionados of complex financial crime will want a look at a new, never-before-seen document obtained by Judicial Watch. Last month, Judicial Watch released 246 pages of previously undisclosed Office of Independent Counsel (OIC) internal memos on criminal charges against Hillary Clinton in the Whitewater investigation.

On February 9, this reporter provided more details on the case, based on a newly obtained confidential document. The document included a description of the case against Mrs. Clinton “in the legal terms of an indictment.”

The new document, disclosed today by Judicial Watch, goes further. A thirty-two page OIC memo titled “HRC Order of Proof,” it spells out in great detail the evidence that would have been presented at Mrs. Clinton’s trial.

The April 1998 memo includes the names of 121 witnesses, discussions of evidence, and aspects of grand jury testimony to be used at trial, forming a virtual road map to the sweeping criminal case against the Whitewater conspirators. It’s a rare inside look at a major federal case on the brink of indictment. (Read more from “Newly Released Documents Show a Pattern of Clinton Deception” HERE)

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Federal Court Grants Judicial Watch Discovery on Clinton Email Issue

By Judicial Watch. Judicial Watch announced that District Court Judge Emmet G. Sullivan today granted Judicial Watch’s motion for discovery into whether the State Department and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton deliberately thwarted the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) for six years. The developments come in a Judicial Watch FOIA lawsuit that seeks records about the controversial employment status of Huma Abedin, former Deputy Chief of Staff to Clinton. The lawsuit was reopened because of revelations about Clinton’s separate email records (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:13-cv-01363)).

Judge Sullivan initially announced his ruling from the bench during a hearing this morning and, over the objections of the State Department, authorized Judicial Watch to submit a plan for “narrowly-tailored discovery.” Judge Sullivan is also considering whether to order the State Department to subpoena all the emails on the clinton.com email system. (Read more from “Federal Court Grants Judicial Watch Discovery on Clinton Email Issue” HERE)

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Results of the Republican Caucus in Nevada

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By Russell Berman. The seemingly unstoppable train that is Donald Trump rolled on in Nevada on Tuesday, as the outspoken billionaire dominated the caucuses to win his third Republican victory in a row. The Republican nomination for president is now clearly his to lose.

Despite reports of disorganization and chaotic balloting, the networks called the state for Trump as soon as the caucuses officially ended at midnight Eastern time. The early results gave him more than 40 percent of the vote, easily outpacing Senators Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, who were battling for second. Ben Carson and Governor John Kasich of Ohio lagged far behind in the single digits.

Following similarly dominant wins in New Hampshire and South Carolina, the Nevada victory gives Trump a head of steam going into the dozen states that hold primaries and caucuses next week on Super Tuesday. Polls show Trump leading many of those races, and the only event standing in his way is a Republican debate on Thursday night in Texas.

Speaking to cheering supporters at his headquarters shortly before 1 a.m. Eastern, Trump quickly looked ahead to Super Tuesday and began to lay his claim to the nomination. “It’s going to be an amazing two months,” he said. “We might not even need the two months, to be honest.” (Read more from “Results of the Republican Caucus in Nevada” HERE)

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Trump Scores Big Win in Nevada

By Maeve Reston. Donald Trump notched a resounding win in the Nevada caucuses Tuesday, channeling the roiling anger of Republican voters against the establishment and sweeping almost every category of the electorate to build his dominance in the delegate count.

It was a stunning show of momentum for his campaign, one that made it increasingly difficult to imagine a scenario where any other GOP candidate wins the Republican nomination . . .

Not only was it a win in the Silver State, but it was a win with a huge margin. With 30% of the expected vote in at about 3 a.m. ET, Trump was dominating the race with 42.6%. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz were in a narrow battle for second with Rubio at 24.4% and Cruz at 23.6%.

The results in Nevada, a state where 30 delegates are at stake, demonstrated the power of Trump’s appeal in this anti-establishment year. It also underscored his ability to use his media savvy and enormous popularity to sweep a state with complex caucus rules and where rivals were far more organized. (Read more from “Trump Scores Big Win in Nevada” HERE)

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GOP Judiciary: No Hearing on Obama Court Nominee

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By Alexander Bolton. Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee have come to a consensus decision to not have hearings or a vote on a Supreme Court nominee in 2016.

“We believe the American people need to decide who is going to make this appointment rather than a lame-duck president,” Senate Republican Whip John Cornyn (Texas) told reporters Tuesday after a special meeting of the committee.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said members of the panel reached a “consensus” that there should not be hearings or a vote on President Obama’s nominee.

“My decision is that I don’t think we should have a hearing. We should let the next president pick the Supreme Court justice,” he said after emerging from a meeting in Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) office.

The committee Republicans left McConnell’s office and walked straight into a lunch with the party conference to brief their colleagues. (Read more from “GOP Judiciary: No Hearing on Obama Court Nominee” HERE)

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McConnell: Not a ‘Snowball’s Chance in Hell’ I’ll Relent on SCOTUS

By Lauren French and John Bresnahan. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told a group of staunch House conservatives there isn’t “a snowball’s chance in hell” that he will back down from his opposition to confirming a Supreme Court justice before a new president is elected.

The Kentucky Republican received a friendly reception from the board members of the House Freedom Caucus Tuesday evening. During a 45-minute meeting, the lawmakers expressed broad support for McConnell’s position on the high court vacancy.

Senators and House members frequently address the board of the Freedom Caucus but this meeting, requested by McConnell, was the first chance he’s had to do so. (Read more from “McConnell: Not a ‘Snowball’s Chance in Hell’ I’ll Relent on SCOTUS” HERE)

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