Senator Ted Cruz (A, 97%) may have suspended his presidential campaign, but he is keeping his promise to continue to fight for conservative principles, vowing to challenge Donald Trump on the abortion plank of the Republican Platform.
During an interview on the “Today” Show on NBC in late April, Trump said he would change the Republican Party platform on abortion, adding exceptions for rape, incest, and the life of the mother to the party’s pro-life position.
Cruz, speaking to Oklahoma radio host Pat Campbell, pledged to use his delegates to the Republican National Convention to fight that change.
“You have my word. One of the reasons that we are continuing to work to elect conservatives to be delegates, even though Donald has the delegates to get the nomination, we intend to do everything we can to fight for conservative principles to prevent Washington forces from watering down the platform,”
Cruz continued:
“The platform is a manifestation of what we believe as a party, and I think it is important that it continue to reflect conservative values, free-market values, constitutional liberties, Judeo-Christian principles, the values that built this country, and that is exactly what I intend to fight for.”
In his speech announcing an end to his presidential campaign, Senator Cruz made a promise:
“I am not suspending our fight to defend the constitution, to defend the Judeo-Christian values that built America. Our movement will continue and I give you my word that I will continue this fight with all of my strength and all of my ability.”
His vow to fight to keep the Republican Party platform unequivocally pro-life shows that Cruz intends to keep that promise. (For more from the author of “Ted Cruz Vows to Fight Trump on Abortion” please click HERE)
There’s been so much debate as to whether violent extremism—which has triggered numerous terrorist attacks that have claimed thousands of innocent lives—should be attributed to Islam as a religion.
The largest Muslim organisation in the world recently admitted that bad elements of Islam are indeed part of the extremism problem.
During an international meeting of moderate Islamic leaders in Jakarta earlier this month, the Indonesia-based Nahdlatul Ulama group came out with a strong condemnation of their fellow Muslims, particularly extremist groups like the Islamic State (ISIS) and al-Qaeda.
“We are like traditional opposition to supremacist Islamism,” Yahya Staquf, an Indonesia cleric affiliated with the Nahdlatul Ulama, told CNN, as quoted by CBN News.
Staquf openly admitted that to be able to combat the global jihadi movement, world leaders and the general public must recognize the fact that extremism originates from Islamic teachings, which are being used by terrorist groups to justify the use of violence. (Read more from “World’s Largest Muslim Organization Admits Extremism Problem Springs From Islamic Teachings” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/prayer-1008385_960_720-1.jpg720960Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-05-26 22:51:492016-06-05 00:12:18World’s Largest Muslim Organization Admits Extremism Problem Springs From Islamic Teachings
Babies born at 22 weeks and 23 weeks of gestation are likely to survive if given proper care, according to a new study of infants born at a German hospital. 25 percent “born at the border of viability and offered active care survived without severe complications.” The study appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association Pediatrics.
The University of Cologne Medical Center’s study, which looked at babies born from January 1, 2010, to December 31, 2014, found that 67 percent of these babies who were given “active pre-natal and postnatal care” were discharged from the hospital alive. Out of 106 babies born at 22 or 23 weeks, 86 received that kind of care and 58 survived to be discharged.
“The survival rate was 61% (17 of 28) for infants born at 22 weeks of gestation and 71% (41 of 58) for infants born at 23 weeks of gestation,” according to the online abstract for the study. Half of the babies who died died from respiratory failure and one-quarter from multiorgan failure. Others suffered from severe complications.
The study’s publication came shortly after a 21-week old unborn child was left to die at an abortion clinic in Arizona. In a statement, Susan B. Anthony List President Marjorie Dannenfelser tied the study’s results to her organization’s support for a ban on abortions after 20 weeks’ gestation as well as the Born Alive Protection Act. The latter would require doctors to give proper medical care to babies who survive abortions.
The recorded 911 call made from the Arizona clinic showed that the child was not given care that would have helped it survive. According to Dannenfelser, the baby “suffered, awaiting medical care the abortion clinic was incapable of providing.”
SBA spokesperson Mallory Quigley told The Stream that the German study shows the survivability of extremely premature babies is “approaching what the survival rates would be for babies born later in pregnancy.” (For more from the author of “Two-Thirds of Babies Born at 22 and 23 Weeks of Gestation Survive If Given Care” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/pregnant-woman-1130612_960_720.jpg640960Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-05-26 22:41:492016-05-26 23:45:42Two-Thirds of Babies Born at 22 and 23 Weeks of Gestation Survive If Given Care
A pro-life advocacy group published a series of man-on-the-street interviews to make the case that some pro-choice Americans shift to a pro-life position when encountered with the reality of abortion.
On Tuesday, Live Action,a nonprofit organization based in Arlington, Va., released a video that showcases a series of self-proclaimed pro-choice Americans watching a four-minute video made in late February. It portrays former abortionist Dr. Anthony Levatino describing in detail the steps of a second-trimester dilation and evacuation abortion.
Live Action aims to uncover and shed light on abortion procedures in an effort to make the practice illegal in the U.S. Their mission is to “end abortion by leading the culture to embrace the rights and dignity of every person.”
Guttmacher Institute, a sexual and reproductive policy organization, states that “nearly half of pregnancies among American women in 2011 were unintended, and about four in 10 of these were terminated by abortion.” This statistic is just one of many that prompted groups like Live Action to take action.
“We wanted to show America that most people who support abortion have no idea what it actually entails for the mother and the defenseless child inside her,” Live Action president and founder Lila Rose told The Daily Signal. “We also wanted to show how quickly hearts and minds can be changed when we simply expose people to the truth with the four-minute ‘Abortion Procedures’ videos . We hope this stunning man-on-the-street video encourages people to share the ‘Abortion Procedures’ videos with everyone they know until millions more have come over to the pro-life position.”
If born at 24 weeks and given sufficient medical care, a baby can make a full recovery and live a healthy life, according to Baby Center, a tool for expecting mothers. Because abortion up to 24 weeks is legal in many states across the country, Live Action decided to show Americans what an abortion at 24 weeks really looks like.
According to a statement released by Live Action, the video also includes “medically accurate animations to give viewers a window into the womb during an abortion and show how developed a baby is during the procedure.”
When asked to describe their stance on abortion, all eleven of those interviewed believed women should have the right to choose whether or not to carry a pregnancy to term. After watching the four-minute video, every one of them expressed a completely different opinion.
One interviewee’s stance changed from, “I think the person should have a choice to have an abortion or not,” to “abortion shouldn’t be legal.”
While some questioned the legality of the abortion procedure, others questioned the humanity. One observer said, “I believe that’s, like, murder right there–what I saw.” Others labeled abortion “inhumane” and “heinous” after viewing Dr. Levatino’s presentation.
Brian Gottstein, chief communications director of Live Action, told The Daily Signal that the ‘Abortion Procedures’ videos, released over the last three months, have received “over 42 million views,” and are “changing hearts and minds about abortion.” (For more from the author of “How a Pro-Life Video Changes Minds on Abortion” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/89084976_1b6e3d4387_b.jpg6791024Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-05-26 01:40:122016-05-26 01:40:12How a Pro-Life Video Changes Minds on Abortion
A Memorial Day display featuring crosses to honor fallen soldiers was removed from public property in Georgia after someone questioned whether the soldiers were all Christian.
The 79 white, handmade crosses posted on public property along state Highway 92 in Hiram, Ga., were meant to represent the 79 Paulding County residents who died in America’s wars, according to town officials.
But the crosses were abruptly taken down last Friday after someone called Hiram City Hall questioning whether the cross is an appropriate symbol for the memorial.
Hiram Mayor Teresa Philyaw said the cross display, which she approved and planned, was never intended to be religious . . .
“We wanted to make sure that they weren’t forgotten. We also wanted their families to know that our hearts still bleed for them,” she said. “At the time, it never, ever crossed my mind about the religious factor in it.” (Read more from “Memorial Day Crosses Honoring Fallen Soldiers Removed From Public Property After Complaint” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/WW2_Normandy_American_Cemetery_Rain.jpg10371600Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-05-25 21:47:062016-05-26 00:50:15Memorial Day Crosses Honoring Fallen Soldiers Removed From Public Property After Complaint
Leonardo DiCaprio once starred in Blood Diamond, a 2006 thriller that takes place during the Sierra Leone civil war in 1999. According to a synopsis on IMDB, “The film shows a country torn apart by the struggle between government soldiers and rebel forces. The film portrays many of the atrocities of that war …” Those atrocities were often committed in the fight over “blood diamonds” — precious stones whose mining and sales are used to fuel brutal conflicts.
While the Hollywood film reflects the real-life stories in the behind-closed-doors dealings of diamonds and minerals in war-torn areas, what it doesn’t portray are the deep-pocket corporations funding the front-door deals involving the extraction of those diamonds and precious minerals.
According to the Daily Caller, one of those corporations donated $100 million to the Clinton Foundation in 2007.
Richard Pollack writes, “When the Vancouver, Canada-based Lundin Group gave its $100 million commitment to the ‘Clinton Giustra Sustainable Growth Initiative,’ the company had long been cutting deals with warlords, Marxist rebels, military strongmen and dictatorships in the war-torn African countries of Congo, Sudan and Ethiopia.”
The accusations that a donor company was engaged in the often bloody business of precious metal excavation may be of no consequence to the Clinton Foundation, but with the foundation raking in millions from foreign governments, and now corporations with shady business dealings, those questionable donations are now of concern to others, including watchdog groups and humanitarian organizations.
Adolf Lundin, who founded the Lundin Group, reportedly secured mineral rights from the Congo’s brutal dictator Mobutu Sese Seko in 1996 by allegedly donating to Mobutu’s campaign fund, although Lundin reportedly denies it. And in 1997, Pollack writes, the Lundin Group reportedly cut a deal “with Congolese Marxist warlord Laurent Kabila, with a $50 million down payment toward $250 million they would give to the rebels in exchange for mining rights, according to U.N. Inspector Jason K. Stearns. Lundin eventually won majority rights to one of the country’s richest mineral veins.”
Watchdog and humanitarian groups, including Swedwatch, Christian Aid, Enough.org and Human Rights Watch, have all decried abuses for which they say the Lundin Group is responsible. They cite the jailing of journalists, large-scale relocations of entire villages to make way for mining, and starvation of refugees as evidence the mining firm cares more about its business dealings than with humanity as a whole.
The fact the Clinton Foundation received funds from Lundin Group even drew criticism from Washington. Rep. Joe Pitts (R-Pa.) who co-chairs the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, told the Daily Caller that “areas with high conflict over minerals are breeding grounds for human rights abuses on a massive scale, and when entities like the Clintons’ Foundation accept donations from these corrupt actors, they are sanctioning the exploitation.” (For more from the author of “Big Donor to Clinton Foundation Linked to ‘Blood Minerals'” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/25976717375_c1d3b70fa1_b-1.jpg6831024Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-05-24 22:27:482016-05-25 02:28:12Big Donor to Clinton Foundation Linked to ‘Blood Minerals’
After finding out they were pregnant, Ben and Alyssa Reidhead thought they were going to the doctor to find out the sex of their baby . . .
At 23 weeks, doctors told them their son’s brain was growing outside of his skull . . .
However, when she delivered by C-section last week at Primary Children’s Hospital, the couple was shocked . . .
Their little boy Will has defied the odds.
“He’s not hooked up to anything. He’s breathing fine. He’s lifting his head. He’s moving around. He’s pretty much acting like a completely normal baby,” Alyssa Reidhead said. (Read more from “Infant Survives, Thrives After Being Born With No Skull on the Back of His Head” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/Sleeping_baby_with_arm_extended.jpg28484272Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-05-24 21:13:212016-05-25 01:14:16Infant Survives, Thrives After Being Born With No Skull on the Back of His Head
In the midst of outcries from the transgender community that women don’t face threats in public bathrooms, police in England are looking for a man who allegedly took photos of a 13-year-old girl while she used the bathroom at a McDonalds in Berkshire.
According to police reports, while using the bathroom in an individual stall, the girl heard a click over her head, looked up and saw someone hovering over the cubicle wall. Police say the girl was very upset by the incident, and her family is concerned about what’s going to happen to the photographs and where they might be published.
Police have released photos of the suspect in hopes that someone will be able to identify him. They have asked anyone who recognizes the man to contact them immediately.
This incident has occurred at the same time that transgender activists in America are saying there are no threats to women should transgendered women (i.e., men) be allowed in their bathrooms. The LGBT lobby has been releasing ads in North Carolina that voice opposition to the state’s law requiring people to use public restrooms that match their biological sex. HB2, as the law is known, was designed to help protect the privacy and security of women.
North Carolina has been boycotted by companies and celebrities, who have called the privacy and security law discriminatory against transgender people. Most recently, Elton John wrote an article for The Hill, admonishing N.C. Governor Pat McCrory for being insensitive to transgender people.
Forcing transgender people to use the bathroom of a gender with which they don’t identify isn’t just inconvenient or impractical. For many, especially young students still grappling with their transition, it can be traumatic, and at worse, un safe. The failure of McCrory and other lawmakers to see this is a failure of compassion, a failure to recognize the difficult and frequently unwelcoming world transgender people must navigate every day, stigmatized by the fear and ignorance of others.
John says McCrory and others who oppose letting people use the bathroom according to their perceived, not actual, gender “need a lesson in compassion.” If only they could get to know transgender people on a personal level, they would understand, John says.
Those who support privacy and security laws “need to recognize the existence of trans people,” John writes, “and they need to acknowledge that all people have a fundamental desire — and a fundamental right — to be treated fairly.”
Here’s the thing. Does the 13-year-old girl in England have a fundamental right to privacy? Do all the girls in America who don’t want to shower with boys and men or have them in their bathrooms desire the fundamental right to privacy and security as well? Or do only the desires of mentally ill people, who suffer from a dissonance between their mental state and their physical reality, take precedence over 99.7 percent of the population who aren’t confused about their genitalia?
John and others say laws that require people to use public bathrooms that match their biological sex are somehow unfair. How? Everyone has a bathroom to use that correlates with their biology — the parts that are relevant when using a bathroom. There is no such thing as a third sex. Despite this fact, HB2 takes the compassionate step to accommodate those who are confused about their gender, allowing public agencies to create a third bathroom or shower for this tiny minority.
Clearly, the ones who are compassionate in this scenario are those who are supporting laws like HB2 — laws that won’t make it easier for perverts like the one in England to have free rein in women’s restrooms. Yes, this kind of thing obviously happens even with bathrooms being separated by sex, but what will happen if we throw open the doors to these perverts who make up a larger percentage of the population than transgender people?
Media outlets like the Charlotte Observer have tried to make the case that there have been no statistics of sexual predators benefiting from transgender bathroom policies, but this is nonsensical because the practice hasn’t been in effect for very long. It also flies in the face of common sense that there are predators out there — predators like the one in England — who do prey on women and young girls. Why do we want to put them at greater risk?
The law in Charlotte that forced the North Carolina General Assembly to step in and enact HB2 forced all organizations — public and private — to open their bathrooms to men. A man doesn’t have to dress like a woman or even have surgery to make him externally a woman; all he has to do is “identify as a woman” to use the showers, locker rooms, and restrooms reserved for women.
HB2 says that if someone has had an actual sex change and it’s recorded on their birth certificate, then they can use the bathroom that matches that sex. The original Charlotte law just threw open the bathrooms to everyone, whether they’ve actually had a change or not.
In addition, HB2 does not impose its will on private entities, allowing them to decide for themselves what they want to do with their own bathrooms. Those who oppose the North Carolina law want to dictate to private citizens what they can and cannot do with their bathrooms, threatening lawsuits if they don’t comply.
Elton John and other celebrities are presenting themselves as the truly “compassionate” ones, but this is hardly the case. Compassion extends to private entities that have the right to exercise freedom of choice — a choice people like John want to take away. Compassion also extends to women and girls who don’t want their privacy violated or boundaries removed so predators can take advantage of transgender policies.
I would also like to point out that when it comes to transgender people themselves, the compassionate approach is to refuse to accommodate their body dysphoria and delusions. The help they really need is psychological, not legal or political.
If you want to show transgender people compassion, stand by their side as they work through the difficult journey of treating hormone and neuro-chemical dysfunctions as well as psychological disorders that lead to a crisis of identity. Don’t put other people at risk, infringe on their freedoms, or violate the privacy of young girls and women just to advance a political agenda that really does nothing to help gender-confused people in the long run. That’s the opposite of compassion. That’s cruel. (For more from the author of “Ask This 13-Year-Old Girl If Transgender Bathrooms Pose a Threat” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/14985289434_c3c94c88f4_o.jpg34565184Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-05-24 01:52:302016-05-24 01:52:30Ask This 13-Year-Old Girl If Transgender Bathrooms Pose a Threat
By David Martosko. Donald Trump’s latest effort to saddle Hillary Clinton with her husband’s sexual indiscretions hit Instagram like a bomb on Monday.
‘Is Hillary really protecting women?’ Trump tweeted, along with a link to a short video featuring the voices of two of Bill’s sexual-assault accusers, Juanita Broaddrick and Kathleen Willey.
The 15-second video also includes a reference to Clinton’s former White House intern paramour Monica Lewinsky, in the form of a stogie clenched between the former president’s teeth.
Independent Counsel Ken Star wrote in his bombshell report on the Clinton impeachment saga that the then-president sexually pleasured Lewinsky, then in her early twenties, with a cigar.
Broaddrick accused Clinton of raping her in a hotel room when he was the attorney general of Arkansas. Willey has charged that he groped and fondled her against her will in the Oval Office. (Read more from “Trump Slams Hillary Clinton for Not ‘Protecting Women’ in Video Featuring Voices of Bill’s Sex-Assault and Rape Accusers” HERE)
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Leftist Salon: Donald Trump Is Going to Win; This Is Why Hillary Clinton Can’t Defeat What Trump Represents
By Anis Shivani. The neofascist reaction, the force behind Trump, has come about because of the extreme disembeddedness of the economy from social relations. The neoliberal economy has become pure abstraction; as has the market, as has the state, there is no reality to any of these things the way we have classically understood them. Americans, like people everywhere rising up against neoliberal globalization (in Britain, for example, this takes the form of Brexit, or exit from the European Union), want a return of social relations, or embeddedness, to the economy.
The Trump alliance desires to remake the world in their own image, just as the class representing neoliberal globalization has insisted on doing so. The difference couldn’t be starker. Capitalism today is placeless, locationless, nameless, faceless, while Trump is talking about hauling corporations back to where they belong, in their home countries, fix them in place by means of rewards and retribution, like one handles a recalcitrant child.
Trump is a businessman, while Mitt Romney was a businessman too, yet I predict victory for the former while the latter obviously lost miserably. What is the difference? While Trump “builds” things (literal buildings), in places like Manhattan and Atlantic City, places one can recognize and identify with, and while Trump’s entire life has been orchestrated around building luxury and ostentatiousness, again things one can tangibly grasp and hold on to (the Trump steaks!), Romney is the personification of a placeless corporation, making his quarter billion dollars from consulting, i.e., representing economic abstraction at its purest, serving as a high priest of the transnational capitalist class.(Read more from “Donald Trump Is Going to Win: This Is Why Hillary Clinton Can’t Defeat What Trump Represents” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/16678805005_028e7f98d3_b-2.jpg6831024Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-05-23 23:32:052016-05-24 01:31:49Trump Slams Hillary Clinton for Not ‘Protecting Women’ in Video Featuring Voices of Bill’s Sex-Assault and Rape Accusers
By Sarah Westwood. Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert McDonald on Monday compared the length of time veterans wait to receive health care at the VA to the length of time people wait for rides at Disneyland, and said his agency shouldn’t use wait times as a measure of success because Disney doesn’t either.
“When you got to Disney, do they measure the number of hours you wait in line? Or what’s important? What’s important is, what’s your satisfaction with the experience?” McDonald said Monday during a Christian Science Monitor breakfast with reporters. “And what I would like to move to, eventually, is that kind of measure.”
McDonald’s comments angered House Speaker Paul Ryan, who tweeted out Monday afternoon, “This is not make-believe, Mr. Secretary. Veterans have died waiting in those lines.”
This is not make-believe, Mr. Secretary. Veterans have died waiting in those lines. https://t.co/OxfT3AYzTi
McDonald faced questions at the breakfast about the VA’s lack of transparency surrounding how long veterans must wait to receive care at VA facilities around the country. The agency has weathered controversy over the past several years due to its struggle to provide timely care for many patients. (Read more from “VA Secretary: Disney Doesn’t Measure Wait Times, so Why Should VA?” HERE)
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Dying Vietnam Vet Asks for Final Meeting With Beloved Horses Outside Hospital
By Fox News. Vietnam veteran Roberto Gonzalez’s final wish was granted Saturday when he was reunited with his beloved horses — Ringo and Sugar — outside of a Texas VA hospital.
Gonzalez, of Premont, Texas, who was shot and paralyzed during the war, was wheeled outside the front doors of Audie Murphy Veterans Hospital in San Antonio where he was greeted by the horses he had raised for decades, mySA.com reported.
Gonzalez, who was one of the hospital’s first patients when it opened in 1974, had asked his family to see his horses one last time. The family passed along the request to hospital staff who gladly obliged. Ringo and Sugar then made the 150-mile trip to the hospital to see him.
“Horses are his life,” his wife, Rosario Gonzalez, told KABB. “We’ve been training and raising horses for 30, 40 years.”
The South Texas Veterans Health Care System posted a photo of the meeting on its Facebook page on Sunday, calling Gonzalez a great American and identifying him as one of the first patients at the hospital. (Read more from “Dying Vietnam Vet Asks for Final Meeting With Beloved Horses Outside Hospital” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/SmallWorldTokyo.jpg8451126Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-05-23 22:27:372016-05-24 01:26:35VA Secretary: Disney Doesn’t Measure Wait Times, so Why Should VA?
