Tim Tebow Does Something Kind. Some People Think It Shows How Awful He Is

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[Recently], Tim Tebow helped a woman whose husband suffered a heart attack on a flight from Atlanta to Phoenix. Although Tebow said nothing about it, a passenger’s Facebook post went viral, being shared 19,000 times and picked up by outlets like Sports Illustrated and US Weekly.

Richad V. Gotti wrote that on the flight an older man got sick and then fell unconscious. “Strangers from all over the world and every ethnicity [came] to the help of this man for over an hour!” he wrote.

Whether it was chest compressions, starting an IV, helping breathe life into this man, or praying everyone helped! I listened to shock after shock from the AED machine and still no pulse. No one gave up.

The Delta Airlines staff were “amazing,” he said. Then, “all of a sudden, I observed a guy walking down the aisle. That guy was Tim Tebow. He met with the family as they cried on his shoulder! I watched Tim pray with the entire section of the plane for this man.” The picture with his post shows Tebow with his arm around the woman’s shoulder comforting her.

When the plane finally landed in Phoenix, Tebow got the woman’s luggage and used the car waiting for him to take her to the hospital. He stayed with her until the doctors told her that her husband had died. And never said a word about it.

The Sports Illustrated story began “You already knew Tim Tebow was a good guy, but here’s even more evidence to prove it.” A Star News reporter wrote “Tebow’s unselfishness speaks volumes about his character. A lot of professional athletes are criticized for staying away from people. Tebow didn’t think twice about giving up his entire day for a stranger.”

TDS Sufferers Disagree

Hard to disagree, you would think. But not everyone thinks so.

Orlando Sentinel reporter David Whitley is annoyed with those who have what he calls “Tebow Derangement Syndrome,” or TDS.

The malady triggers foaming at the mouth among two groups. One believes Tebow would be a great pro quarterback if only the anti-Christian NFL hadn’t blackballed him. That has waned a bit as Tebow has drifted into other ventures.

The other group just hates him. That strain of TDS, he writes, “appears to have no cure.” He read the comments on the stories in the mainline media and found, apparently to his surprise, that while about 60% praised Tebow, 40% criticized him. Tebow critics hit at him with comments like “Tebow is the male equivalent of a Kardashian. Maybe he ought to change his name to Kim” and “Prayed? Give me a break. Get out of the way and let modern medicine take care of the sick. Idiot.”

Whitley was, as we said, annoyed. “Something tells me if that person had been Rob Gronkowski [the New England Patriot’s star tight end] the commenter would have been fine with the story,” he writes, and concludes the article: If Tebow’s actions make “you want to throw up, it says a lot more about you than it does Tim Tebow.”

It says you have a bad case of TDS and made you write mean, foolish comments on newspaper articles. Worse, it’s blinded you to kindness and stories that should make you a little happier — if you didn’t hate Tim Tebow so much. (For more from the author of “Tim Tebow Does Something Kind. Some People Think It Shows How Awful He Is” please click HERE)

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Now Even Breasts Become Part of the Political Debate

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Is breastfeeding natural? Yes and no, says a paper in the prestigious journal Pediatrics.

It may be “natural” to breastfeed, concludes the treatise, but the authors warn against use of the term by government officials or doctors because it might inadvertently support biologically deterministic arguments about the roles of men and women in the family, for example, that women should be the primary caretakers of children.

Ironically, one of the authors of the paper in the peer-reviewed journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, previously wrote a book titled, “Back to the Breast: Natural Motherhood and Breastfeeding in America.”

No word on whether she has forgone accepting royalties on the title released only last year.

The paper, “Unintended Consequences of Invoking the ‘Natural’ in Breastfeeding Promotion,” was authored by Anne Barnhill, a Ph.D and assistant professor in the department of medical ethics and health policy at the University of Pennsylvania, and Jessica Martucci, a fellow (no apology for the gender-oriented title) in the same department who describes herself as a “feminist” historian of “sci/tech/med” and a “twitterstorian.” (Read more from “Now Even Breasts Become Part of the Political Debate” HERE)

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Elite NYC School Teaching Kindergartners About ‘White Privilege’

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An elite Manhattan school is teaching white students as young as 6 that they’re born racist and should feel guilty benefiting from “white privilege,” while heaping praise and cupcakes on their black peers.

Administrators at the Bank Street School for Children on the Upper West Side claim it’s a novel approach to fighting discrimination, and that several other private New York schools are doing it, but even liberal parents aren’t buying it . . .

Bank Street has created a “dedicated space” in the school for “kids of color,” where they’re “embraced” by minority instructors and encouraged to “voice their feelings” and “share experiences about being a kid of color,” according to school presentation slides obtained by The Post.

Meanwhile, white kids are herded into separate classrooms and taught to raise their “awareness of the prevalence of Whiteness and privilege,” challenge “notions of colorblindness (and) assumptions of ‘normal,’ ‘good,’ and ‘American’” and “understand and own European ancestry and see the tie to privilege.” (Read more from “Elite NYC School Teaching Kindergartners About ‘White Privilege'” HERE)

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Marine Corps Gives Women the Option of Ditching Pullups for Pushups Instead

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The Marine Corps has rolled out a series of physical fitness changes Friday, saying women can simply do pushups as an alternative to pullups and admitting the service lowered standards to keep women from failing.

Marine Commandant Gen. Robert Neller has called this physical fitness standards update the most dramatic since 1972.

Brian McGuire, deputy force fitness branch head for the standards division of Marine Corps Training and Education Command, told Marine Corps that the pushups were implemented to make sure that the Marine Corps didn’t “create a manpower problem by having some female Marines failing.”

In other words, pushups constitute lowered physical standards in an effort to make sure that more women don’t wash out of the service.

In November, the Marine Corps launched a review of physical fitness standards (PFT) and finalized the changes as of Friday. The new standards, which come as a final solution to the problem of women failing at pullups, will kick in January 1, 2017, Military.com reports.

Instead of the previously offered flexed-arm hang as a substitute for doing pullups, the new substitute is a set of pushups — for both men and women. But with pushups, the maximum PFT score achievable is lower than the maximum PFT score for pullups.

For example, women can reach the highest PFT score of 100 if they complete seven to ten pullups, whereas if they opt for pushups, their max score is 70, which limits opportunities for upward mobility in the service.

If women choose for the pushups option, they’ll have to complete anywhere from 40-50. For men who choose to do pushups over pullups, they’ll have to complete 70-80, depending on age.

“Push-ups become an option on the PFT, but Marines are incentivized toward pull-ups, as these are a better test of functional, dynamic upper body strength and correlate stronger to physically demanding tasks,” Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Robert Neller told troops Friday, according to Military.com. “Push-ups are also a valid exercise and good test; however maximum points can only be earned by executing pull-ups.”

Although the service previously relied on flexed-arm hangs as a substitute for pullups, it became clear that it was a poor substitute, and so Marine leadership eliminated the option in 2012. Instead, the plan was to mandate that women perform at least three pullups. But that plan of mandating three pullups never really saw implementation, as leadership delayed it repeatedly because it turns out that more than 50 percent of women in boot camp couldn’t pass even that low of a standard. (For more from the author of “Marine Corps Gives Women the Option of Ditching Pullups for Pushups Instead” please click HERE)

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The Fight for Our Lives: How to Beat SCOTUS on Abortion

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No one should underestimate just how severe the loss was in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, Monday’s appalling decision by the U.S. Supreme Court. Five members of the Court, over the strenuous dissents of Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts, didn’t just create a new and far stricter standard for abortion regulations. They threw out the minimal standards that Texas had imposed on abortion clinics to improve their quality and cleanliness and reduce the health risks of women undergoing abortions.

The question now is whether states are going to be able to do anything to get around this abysmal ruling and implement regulations to prevent what the Texas legislature was trying to make sure would not happen in Texas: a repeat of the horrific conditions in the Gosnell abortion clinic in Philadelphia, which led to the “irreparable” injury (and even the death) of women and the murder of children born alive.

To answer that, one must first understand just how extreme this decision was. Without explicitly saying so, the Court rejected its own precedent in Planned Parenthood v. Casey that allows a state to act “where it has a rational basis” to regulate abortion “in furtherance of its legitimate interests in regulating the medical profession” and without placing an undue burden on women. Now, apparently, state legislators will no longer be given deference. They will have to prove to judges that such regulations are absolutely necessary. As Justice Clarence Thomas said in his dissent, the five-member majority has transformed the applicable test “to something much more akin to strict scrutiny,” which is the highest and strictest form of judicial review the Court applies.

The Texas legislature, which has the sole authority to regulate the practice of medicine in the state (something outside the purview of the federal government) had passed two common-sense reforms: requiring abortion clinics to meet the minimum health and safety standards that other ambulatory surgical centers have to meet, and requiring abortion doctors to have hospital admitting privileges within 30 miles of the clinic. The majority held that these requirements placed an “undue burden” on abortion clinics, and were therefore unconstitutional.

The majority’s reasoning was often bizarre and ignored evidence produced in the case. For example, Justice Stephen Breyer, who almost always seems in favor of more government regulation, acknowledged the “terrible” behavior at the Gosnell clinic. But then he claimed that there was “no reason to believe that an extra layer of regulation would have affected that behavior” because that is unlikely to change “determined wrongdoers.” Of course, under that analysis, one could dismiss the usefulness of almost any law or regulation that prohibits wrongful behavior.

Breyer added that there was no evidence that the new Texas requirements would be “more effective” than prior law, ignoring evidence that the plaintiff in the case, Whole Women’s Health, had appalling conditions at its clinic, including “the lack of any equipment to adequately sterilize instruments.” The grand jury report on the Gosnell clinic also described it as a “filthy space” with “unsanitary instruments.” Given the fact that Whole Women’s Health was claiming the new law would force it to shut down, it seems obvious that Texas’s “extra layer of regulation” would, in fact, have a salutatory effect – preventing the operation of a dirty clinic with all of the medical risks that entails.

Similarly, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg seemed to claim that abortions are completely safe for women and almost completely risk free, ignoring evidence that more than 200 women a year end up in hospitals in the state because of complications from both surgical and chemical abortions.

On the requirement of admitting privileges, which the majority also said was an undue (and unnecessary) burden, the justices ignored a crucial fact pointed out by Texas: that before it changed its mind, in 2000 the National Abortion Federation itself had recommended that doctors have admitting privileges. Otherwise, patients experiencing post-abortion complications arrive at a hospital with no medical records, no history and no information about the procedure performed by the abortion doctor. That can slow down and degrade the quality and effectiveness of any subsequent medical treatment.

The bottom line is that a majority of the Court – five lawyers with absolutely no medical experience or education – have set themselves to be the judge of what is appropriate medical care. Or as Justice Thomas said in his dissent, they have appointed themselves as “the country’s ex-officio medical board with powers to disapprove medical and operative practices and standards throughout the United States.”

One of the most embarrassing aspects of this case, ignored by all of the media analysts and supporters of abortion, is what appalling misers some of these abortion organizations are when it comes to the patients they treat. The crux of their case was a claim that they could not afford to meet the minimum medical standards required by Texas and a number of other states. Yet Planned Parenthood’s 2014-2015 annual report shows that Big Abortion is Big Business. Planned Parenthood had $1.3 billion in revenue, including government revenue of $553.7 million, and lists revenue in excess of expenses (i.e., profit) of $58.8 million in 2015, and $127.1 million in 2014. And yet supposedly the abortion industry can’t afford to improve medical conditions for its patients to increase their health and safety.

The key to getting around these five justices is for states to tailor their medical regulations to apply generally, and not just to abortion clinics. In other words, apply stricter medical standards to all clinics that provide particular types of medical services – such as any invasive surgical medical practices or chemical treatments that can cause substantial potential reactions that may require hospitalization. Making such regulations generally applicable will undermine the under inclusiveness critique that Ginsburg made when she claimed that many other medical procedures that “are far more dangerous to patients” are not subject to the Texas requirements.

Legislatures will have to do a much better job beefing up the legislative record when considering any such regulation. They are going to have show that regulations are “necessary” to reduce risk and provide evidence of tangible medical benefits to patients.

That will then put the burden on challengers – and the five justices who issued this terrible decision – to explain and justify why abortion practices should be somehow exempted from the usual practices required for other medical procedures. They must be put in the indefensible position of arguing that substandard medical care for women is constitutionally justified for abortion.

It may still be difficult for states to prevail. But such broader regulations will be tougher for the justices to circumvent. And it will have the effect of generally raising the quality of all medical care provided in a state. (For more from the author of “The Fight for Our Lives: How to Beat SCOTUS on Abortion” please click HERE)

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‘Pro-Life’ GOP Ups the Budget for International Abortions

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For all the talk about partisanship in Washington, 90 percent of legislative initiatives are actually bipartisan, especially the bills that affect the funding of critical policies. The latest example is the Senate Appropriations Committee, controlled by Republicans, which just passed the annual State-Foreign Operations Appropriations bill increasing funding for abortions internationally.

To begin with, this $52.8 billion spending bill is full of billions of dollars in foreign aid, food aid, security aid, and all sorts of AID for wasteful programs of dubious importance, all too often, for enemy nations and entities. This is the bill that funds the primary government department that deals with diplomacy in addition to extra funding for “overseas contingency operations.” I could think of dozens of germane amendments Republican members, with their simple majority on the committee, could have added to the underlying bill that would have actually addressed serious threats. For example, amendments blocking funding for the Palestinians, the Iran deal, and Syrian rebels.

They could have defunded Obama’s refugee surge center established by the State Department and could have placed a number of restrictions on State Department activity with refugee resettlement, as that is the department that first deals with refugee policy in terms of initially admitting them to the country. Republicans could have also placed restrictions on Obama promoting his homosexual and transgender agenda, ironically, on moderate Muslim regimes that fight the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamic terrorists who throw gay people off buildings.

Yet, not a single amendment combating a single Obama foreign policy was added to the bill from this panel of very weak Republicans. What did they add instead? Here is a summary from Congressional Quarterly (subscription required):

An adopted amendment from Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., increases by $124 million funding for direct support to foreign countries for family planning activities, raising the overall amount to $585 million.

The Shaheen measure, which was adopted by a 17-13 vote, also provides $37.5 million in funding to the U.N. Population Fund where none had been provided in the underlying bill. The amendment lastly strips from the legislation Republican language reinstating the so-called Mexico City policy, which forbids any U.S. dollars going to a foreign NGO that provides information about or performs abortions.

Senate appropriators also adopted by voice vote an amendment from Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-O.R., to provide $500 million to the U.N.-sponsored Green Climate Fund where the base bill would have denied any funding. [emphasis added]

So there were enough votes on the GOP-majority-controlled committee to add more funding for abortions and funding for the UN’s global warming scam. Got that? Not only are Republicans incapable and unwilling to block taxpayer funding for abortions in American, they can’t even stop funding for abortions on an international scope, even in their own spending bills. Remember, without the Mexico City policy in place, the $585 million in international family planning funds will be used for abortions, not that we should be funding those programs anyway.

There is one more important amendment that passed during committee markup. Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL) proposed an amendment authorizing states and localities to divest from entities that participate in the boycotts, divestments, and sanctions (BDS) against Israel. Unfortunately, Senator Kirk felt a need to attach language making it clear that our government still delegitimizes Israel’s retention of sovereignty over Judea and Samaria. He added that “nothing in this section shall be construed to alter the established policy of the United States concerning final status issues associated with the Arab-Israeli conflict, including border delineation.” Why was this added?

Some might say Kirk wanted to keep this a bipartisan endeavor and wanted to appease Democrats by tossing in the pro-Palestinian nonsense. But even with this language, 9 of the 14 Democrats voted against the anti-BDS provision. Given that Republicans have a majority on the committee, why not just draw a bold contrast with Democrats and stand for moral clarity? Just today, a young Palestinian teenager crept into a Jewish town in Judea a stabbed to death a 13-year-old girl in her bed while she was sleeping.

The notion that there is any moral equivalence between Jews building homes in their homeland that they won back in a defensive war (after it was illegally occupied by Jordan) and brutal terrorists illegally occupying land that was never given to them, is reprehensible. The only binding resolution of international law that has never been countermanded to this day is the July 1922 Mandate for Palestine, which calls for the creation of a Jewish national homeland anywhere west of the Jordan River. Once the League of Nations was disbanded and the United Nations took its place, they agreed to maintain all agreements and not “alter in any manner the rights whatsoever of any states or any peoples or the terms of existing international instruments to which Members of the United Nations may respectively be parties. [Article 80, UN Charter] The Mandate for Palestine adopted by the League of Nations was the last legally binding document. In Article 5 of the Mandate it explicitly states “The Mandatory shall be responsible for seeing that no Palestine territory shall be ceded or leased to, or in any way placed under the control of the Government of any foreign Power.”

The Arab squatters living in that region have no right to a state in that land, much less a right to murder those who build homes in the rightful territory of their state duly adopted by international law. Why couldn’t Republicans stand on bold colors and defund the Palestinian government altogether, which is responsible for inciting the very sort of jihad that took place this morning? How could Republicans fund an Islamic supremacist government for even one more day? We as may as well send $500 million a year to Raqqa to bolster the Islamic State, albeit attach a provision saying no funds can be used for terrorism!

Whether it’s abortion, global warming, Islamic refugee resettlement, or Islamic terror there is no moral clarity within the ranks of either party. Who needs Democrats when Republicans will validate and consummate all of their policies anyway? (For more from the author of “‘Pro-Life’ GOP Ups the Budget for International Abortions” please click HERE)

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The Facts on Zika and the Abortion Industry’s False Panic Over Microcephaly

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Last week, the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) published a study that claimed the number of women wanting abortions in Zika-infected nations rose after governments warned women about the virus. Conversely, according to the study, no increase was seen when governments didn’t warn women about the potential harms of Zika.

Zika is associated with a number of serious disabilities. Microcephaly, a disorder that can cause minor to major disabilities in children, such as seizures, small head sizes and developmental disabilities, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), is among the most common and most concerning to public health officials.

In order to estimate the demand for abortion in the subject countries, the partially U.S. taxpayer-funded study examined orders for abortion pills from Women on Web, an organization that provides illegal abortions in nations where the procedure is mostly or entirely banned. The lead authors of the study were from the University of Texas, and two of the other authors were from Women on Web.

Many media outlets reported on the study. What was far less frequently reported is that several other studies have discovered that Zika is a real risk to mothers and their unborn children — but the odds of an unborn child being born with a disability caused by Zika are very small.

Should Women Be Concerned About Zika?

Simply put, yes. Zika is suspected to have led to at least 1,500 babies born with the disorder microcephaly in Brazil alone, thanks to maternal Zika infections. (A major caveat to this was published on Monday; see below.) Hundreds of women have been infected in the U.S. and its territories, and in the U.S. at least six children of infected women have been suspected to have had defects.

However, a study published by NEJM in April examining Zika’s effects on children in Brazil and the French Polynesia, as well as a similar study published in May, indicate that the odds of Zika infections turning into disabilities for unborn children are small — even if the mother is infected in the first trimester, when the child is most vulnerable.

Furthermore, the preliminary results of a June 15 study examining results in Colombia found women who were infected in the third trimester of pregnancy did not pass disabilities onto their children.

Should Women Panic?

No. The two earlier studies mentioned above show that the odds of a microcephaly diagnosis in an unborn child born to a woman infected with Zika in the first trimester are between 1 and 13 percent — a finding supported by a new study of Zika-infected women in Colombia.

The Colombian study’s preliminary results found that, as one CDC official told The Stream last week, among the women studied most closely “a majority (over 90%) of those infected in the third trimester delivered no infants with apparent birth defects, including microcephaly.”

For those in the first trimester, continued the spokesperson: “We still don’t know the level of risk from a Zika infection during pregnancy, meaning if a woman is infected, how often her fetus will have problems. However, preliminary data suggest the risk to be about 1-13%” if a woman is infected in the first trimester.

Again, the “1-13%” chance of disability is for women infected with Zika in the first trimester. This means women infected in the second and third trimesters have thus far been shown to be highly unlikely to pass Zika-caused disorders on to their children.

The latest studies have also raised doubts about the Brazilian figures that have been taken as evidence of Zika’s effect. According to an analysis published on Monday by the New England Complex Systems Institute, the disproportionately low number of cases of Zika-caused microcephaly in Colombia compared to Brazil’s outbreak raises the possibility that Brazil’s outbreak has other causes. The Institute also acknowledged, however, that it is possible that more children with Zika-caused microcephaly will soon to be born in Colombia.

All told, this means women should not consider a Zika infection to be a sentence of disability for their children. In fact, current evidence suggests that the majority of women with Zika — well over 90 percent — will raise children who are developmentally normal.

What About Abortion?

If this is the case, why have major news media and pro-choice spokepersons emphasized the danger? Dr. Donna Harrison, the executive director of the American Association of Pro-life OB-GYNs, pointed out in an e-mail to The Stream that many viruses (like cytomegalovirus and rubella) and infections (like syphilis and toxoplasmosis) cause problems in early pregnancy, but

for none of these infections, which have a comparable rate of problems, has there ever been a call to legalize abortion worldwide, despite the fact that these infections have been around for decades. The hysteria being generated over Zika is an unscientific excuse to push abortion legalization on sovereign nations [that] protect and cherish human life.

The University of Texas study closed with the wish that “Official information and advice about potential exposure to the Zika virus should be accompanied by efforts to ensure that all reproductive choices are safe, legal, and accessible.” These scholars aren’t the only ones stressing the danger to pregnant women and urging the legalization of abortion in Latin America in response.

Their efforts have been echoed by a high-ranking official at the United Nations and President Obama. Just last week, Obama threatened to veto Congress’ funding for Zika prevention in part because the GOP’s $1.1 billion in funding declined to fund Planned Parenthood, and earlier this week Democrats blocked Zika funding in part for the same reason.

It is to the detriment of the abortion industry’s attempt to scare women into abortions and Latin American countries into legalizing that scientific research exists. Even the attempts by high-ranking officials at the UN and at the White House to create an abortion panic cannot erase the fact that the best evidence thus far indicates the vast majority of Zika-infected women will not pass disabilities onto their children. (For more from the author of “The Facts on Zika and the Abortion Industry’s False Panic Over Microcephaly” please click HERE)

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Dolly Parton’s Presidential Endorsement Announcement Might Surprise Fans

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Country legend Dolly Parton has announced she’s endorsing Democratic presumptive nominee Hillary Clinton for president.

The 70-year-old country star said that she will “be behind her” when Clinton officially secures the nomination.

When asked in an interview with The New York Times how she feels about a female presidential nominee, Parton responded, “Well, I think that that would be wonderful. Hillary might make as good a president as anybody ever has.”

She continued, “I think no matter if it’s Hillary or Donald Trump, we’re gonna be plagued with PMS either way — presidential mood swings! But I personally think a woman would do a great job. I think Hillary’s very qualified. So if she gets it, I’ll certainly be behind her.”

The admiration is mutual. Clinton used Parton’s 1980 hit “9 to 5” while on the campaign trail in 2008 against President Barack Obama, and she also had a Parton-themed birthday party in 1995.

For the most part, Clinton has secured endorsements from major members of the Democratic Party, including Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, who endorsed Clinton a few weeks ago.

Trump, on the other hand, has had difficulty winning support from some top Republicans. Last week, former House Speaker Tom Delay publicly stated, after attending a meeting of evangelicals with Trump, that he would not endorse the presumptive nominee.

Trump has said he can do it on his own, but it would be nice to have a more help. (For more from the author of “Dolly Parton’s Presidential Endorsement Announcement Might Surprise Fans” please click HERE)

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Women to the Draft: Thanks, but No Thanks

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Congress is debating making women sign up for the draft, but women seem opposed to this push for equality.

A new poll conducted by The Economist and YouGov from June 18-20 found 41 percent of women believe they should not be required to register for the draft when they turn 18. In comparison, only 29 percent of men said women should be able to avoid the draft, Roll Call reports.

Sixty-one percent of men said women should be forced to sign up for the draft. Thirty-nine percent of women said they are in support of having to sign up for the draft.

Far more men than women would like to see females have to go through the exact same Selective Service process they do. Ever since 1980, men have had to sign up for the draft when they come of age.

The previous justification for keeping women out of the draft was that women were not allowed in combat roles, but that justification collapsed following Secretary of Defense Ash Carter’s pronouncement in December that all combat roles would open to women — no exceptions.

Since that pronouncement, numerous military leaders have come out in support of requiring women to sign up for Selective Service, but the issue seems far more contentious in Congress.

After a bitter fight, the Senate recently approved an amendment to require women to register. This amendment will have to be reconciled in conference with the House version of the annual defense budget bill, which only mandates a study be conducted on the institution of the draft itself.

GOP Sen. John McCain, chairman of the Senate Committee on Armed Services, has supported the female draft, while GOP Sen. Ted Cruz is decidedly opposed.

“Despite the many laudable objectives in this bill, I could not in good conscience vote to draft our daughters into the military, sending them off to war and forcing them into combat,” Cruz said, according to Roll Call.

The margin of error for this Economist/YouGov poll is plus or minus 3.9 percentage points. (For more from the author of “Women to the Draft: Thanks, but No Thanks” please click HERE)

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THANKS, OBAMA! State Officials Concealing Number Of “Refugees” With Contagious TB

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Epidemiologists at the Vermont Department of Health are concealing the number of refugees with contagious active tuberculosis nearly a month after Watchdog reported that more than one-third of Vermont’s resettled refugees test positive for TB.

Earlier this month, Watchdog revealed that 35 percent of Vermont’s incoming refugees in the past four years tested positive for tuberculosis. How many of those cases are contagious and symptomatic, however, remains a secret, as state epidemiologists and top officials at the Health Department have spent weeks blocking efforts to obtain the data.

Refugees brought to the United States take TB tests as part of comprehensive health screening. For refugees resettled in Vermont, the Department of Health’s Refugee Health Program monitors test results and treats patients who have active TB disease. Unlike latent tuberculosis infection, active TB disease is contagious, symptomatic and even deadly.

According to documents obtained through a public records request, the evasions began May 27, when Watchdog contacted the Health Department to learn how many refugees tested positive for TB in recent years. The inquiry sparked private meetings among state epidemiologists, public health nurses and office staff, who proceeded to conceal the number of contagious active TB disease cases brought to Vermont through the Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program.

Health department employees and lawyers included in the communication loop were Health Policy Coordinator Ben Truman, Refugee Health and Health Equity Coordinator Martha Friedman, public health specialist Sally Cook, Communications Director Nancy Erickson, and legal counselors Margaret Vincent and Bessie Weiss.

State epidemiologist Patsy Kelso sent Watchdog’s May 27 request for data to Laura Ann Nicolai, deputy state epidemiologist and head of the tuberculosis control program. Nicolai met with department staff and legal counsel that day and the following week to concoct a plan to hide the number of refugees with active TB disease.

“This doesn’t say that he wants to know how many cases were identified, so I wouldn’t offer it. If he asks it would be important to explain that latent infection is not reportable,” Nicolai wrote to the team on May 27.

As team members contemplated an official response, Nicolai drafted bulleted talking points to explain the difference between active TB disease and latent TB infection, and Truman suggested the possibility of making Watchdog file a public records request to obtain data.

After deliberation, the team agreed to reveal the number of refugees testing positive for TB but conceal the number of refugees with contagious active TB disease.

When the team conferred again on May 31, Nicolai discussed what to do if Watchdog wanted “additional information on TB disease specifically.”

“If the reporter wants additional information on TB disease specifically then either Sally or I would be happy to talk with him. We could discuss the difference between latent and active infection, etc. or any of the talking points I provided on Friday,” Nicolai wrote.
She added: “If at any point along the way he changes what he wants and decides he’d like additional data, such as the number of active cases among refugees, then we can cross that bridge when we come to it.”

The draft response, completed an hour and a half later, included four years of refugee TB blood test results and bulleted information explaining the difference between latent and active TB. Excluded from the response was the number of refugees with active TB disease.

When Truman delivered the Health Department’s June 1 response to Watchdog without the number of active TB disease cases, Watchdog asked for “actual numbers of refugee active TB cases per year, starting at FY2011 and ending in FY2016.”

Truman, according to plan, replied: “To address the scope of the additional information you want, please submit this as a formal public records request.”

With the limited information provided, Watchdog reported that 318 refugees out of about 900 admitted to Vermont since 2013 — or 35.4 percent — tested positive for tuberculosis. Regarding active TB cases, the article included the only statistic offered by the Health Department — a comfortingly low incidence statistic of 5.4 cases per year over five years. That statistic includes Vermonters only, not refugees with active TB disease.

When Nicolai conferred with the team on June 3, she tells Truman: “This is the average for active cases among all Vermonters. It does not specify that this is the average number of cases among refugees. Should this be clarified?”

Truman replied: “I suggest any further info be in the context of responses to any PRR [public records request] he may choose to make. To my knowledge, none has been made at this time.”

Watchdog filed a public records request on June 9, asking again for the statistical number of active TB disease cases among resettled refugees. The Health Department’s response, delivered June 23 “on behalf of the Commissioner of the Vermont Department of Health,” did not provide the data.

The response did reveal the team’s evasion efforts, however, captured in this series of emails.

The responsive records also revealed that Truman sent the team’s original June 1 response to Watchdog to John Walters, a self-described liberal blogger writing at the Vermont Political Observer. Walters subsequently wrote a June 4 blog entry that advanced the Health Department’s talking points and accused Watchdog of “fearmongering.”

The development comes as Rutland Mayor Christopher Louras and the city’s Board of Aldermen are weighing whether or not to let residents vote on accepting 100 Syrian refugees in October. Louras says letting the people of Rutland vote on the issue is “offensive.”

Watchdog has additional requests pending at the Department of Health and plans to report the annual number of active TB disease cases among refugees resettled in Vermont over the past five years. (For more from the author of “THANKS, OBAMA! State Officials Concealing Number Of “Refugees” With Contagious TB” please click HERE)

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