Political Resurrection: Sanford Says SC Will Judge Him, Not His Affair

Photo Credit: Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford — running again for the U.S. House seat he held for three terms — says he’s prepared to be hammered over the steamy extramarital affair that tarnished his rising political star.

“It goes with the territory,” Sanford told Newsmax TV’s “The Steve Malzberg Show,” two days after beating former Charleston County Councilman Curtis Bostic for the GOP nomination.

“The folks in the media, what do they want to do? They want to take one chapter of your life and completely define your life by that chapter.

“But what many people here along the coast of South Carolina said to me is, ‘You know, Mark, I’m no sooner going to judge you by your worst day than I’ll judge you by your best day. I’m going to look at the totality.’”

Sanford, a two-term governor, triggered a political scandal when he vanished for five days in 2009. Reporters were falsely told he was hiking along the Appalachian Trail.

Read more from this story HERE.

Judge: Catholic Company Doesn’t Have to Follow Obama HHS Mandate

Photo Credit: LifeNews

A federal judge in Minnesota has given a Catholic-owned and operated business a reprieve from the onerous provisions of the Obamacare HHS mandate. The mandate compels companies to pay for birth control and drugs for their employees that may cause abortions.

U.S. District Court Judge John R. Tunheim issued a ruling yesterday for an injunction against complying with the mandate for American Manufacturing Company. The attorney for the client, Thomas Mathews, told a news outlet, “He was conflicted with owning a company that would provide the types of insurance that he finds morally offensive and objectionable.”

More from the report:

In working with its current insurance company, Medica, American Manufacturing was able to cut the birth control coverage from an existing group health insurance plan…

Read more from this story HERE.

Poll: Support Rising for Hillary Clinton in 2016

Photo Credit: cliff1066™

Hillary Clinton has hit a new high in support for a potential presidential run.

Sixty-four percent of Democratic voters surveyed by Democratic firm Public Policy Polling (PPP) support the former secretary of State as the party’s nominee for president in 2016, with every other potential candidate trailing by huge margins. Vice President Biden, in second, got only 18 percent support.

Clinton has majority support among every age group polled, nearly every ethnic group and both men and women, as well as a majority of support from liberals and moderates.

But a Clinton run isn’t a sure thing, and if she decides against it, Biden’s a shoe-in for the nomination, taking 49 percent support to Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D-Mass.) 11 percent support. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo takes 10 percent support, and every other candidate is in single digits.

Clinton fares better than Biden against every potential GOP contender tested, leading all of them by margins ranging from four percentage points to seven. Among the top four GOP contenders, Biden leads Sens. Marco Rubio (Fla.), Rand Paul (Ky.) and Rep. Paul Ryan (Wis.), but by slighter margins than Clinton, and he trails New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie by nine percentage points.

Read more from this story HERE.

Two Female Marines Fail to Pass All-Male Infantry Course

Photo Credit: Lance Cpl. Vincent White

Two female Marine lieutenants have failed in their bid to complete the Corps’ grueling, all-male Infantry Officer Course (IOC). The women’s recent washout after only a few days in the course follows the failure of two other female officers attempting to complete the same program in October.

The Corps now stands 0-4 in its search to find female Marines who have the physical strength and endurance to complete one of the most rigorous infantry schools in the military, located at the Quantico, Va., base.

Of 110 lieutenants in the first phase of the course, called the Combat Entrance Test, 14 failed, including the only two women, according to the Marine Corps Times.

“We will continue to solicit women to take part in the IOC program,” Marine Corps spokesman Capt. Richard Ulsh told The Washington Times. “I don’t know how [the failures] could stretch to mean something broader than what you’ve got.”

In January, then-Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta and Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, announced that the Pentagon had lifted a longtime ban on women serving in direct land combat jobs in infantry, armor and special operations units.

Read more from this story HERE.

USA Today: The War on Christians

Photo Credit: AP

“Christianity is the most persecuted religion in the world.” So asserted German Chancellor Angela Merkel late last year, causing a stir. Merkel echoed a concern expressed by then-French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who warned in a 2011 speech that Christians face a “particularly wicked program of cleansing in the Middle East, religious cleansing.”

Not ‘War on Christmas’

Now, this is not about clerks who say “Happy Holidays” or bans of nativity scenes in public schools. Merkel spoke of real persecution of hundreds of millions of Christians around the world. Indeed, a 2011 Pew Forum study found that Christians are harassed in 130 countries, more than any of the world’s other religions.

The just-released book Persecuted: The Global Assault on Christians provides the gory details behind these statistics. Persecuted is a collaboration of the Hudson Institute’s Nina Shea, Paul Marshall and Lela Gilbert to catalog the human rights abuses visited upon Christian believers from North Korea to Mali. They define this persecution as Christians “who are tortured, raped, imprisoned, or killed for their faith.” It’s a worldwide phenomenon, but Shea points out a troubling acceleration in the cradle of Christianity’s birth: the Middle East and North Africa. As London Guardian columnist Rupert Shortt wrote in January, “The religious ecology of the Middle East looks more fragile than ever, as the Arab Spring gives way to Christian Winter.”

Tragically, Christians have been forced to abandon homelands they have occupied for thousands of years. Up to two-thirds of Christians have fled Iraq in the past ten years to escape massacres, church burnings and constant death threats. Many Christians fled to Syria, where they are experiencing persecution anew. In Iran, U.S. pastor Saeed Abedini has been sentenced to eight years in prison for preaching Christianity.

Read more from this story HERE.

Woman Sues Ohio Clinic Over Failed Abortion After Delivering Healthy 'Miracle' Baby

Photo Credit: HellN

An Ohio woman is suing an abortion clinic after she says she made the painful decision to terminate her pregnancy because her life was in danger, only to discover she was still pregnant after the procedure.

The northeast Ohio clinic in a court filing denied Ariel Knights’ allegations that doctors were negligent and failed to successfully perform the abortion she sought, eventually leading to the birth of her healthy baby daughter.

The Akron Women’s Medical Group and two doctors acknowledge Knights, of Cuyahoga Falls, sought an abortion March 3, 2012. However, they deny any negligence and seek to have the case dismissed, citing a long list of possible defenses.

“I believe my client absolutely met the standard of care and that this case has no basis to be in litigation,”attorney D. Cheryl Atwell, who represents the medical group and the doctors, said Monday.

Lawyers still are exchanging medical records, and Atwell said she couldn’t comment further.

Read more from this story HERE.

The War On Marriage And Motherhood

Photo Credit: Alexander Hunter

President Obama and I have very different notions of what a family is. For liberals, the family can apparently be everything from “Heather Has Two Mommies” to “Daddy’s Roommate” to Hillary Rodham Clinton’s “It Takes a Village.” In the opinion of electoral majorities in Kansas and 40 other states, however, that does not a family make.

For conservatives, the concept of family is the same as the Judeo-Christian model God ordained, a model supported by every other major world religion. It is the same unit recognized by the laws of nature, the laws of government, and civilized societies for thousands of years: one man, married to one woman, with so many children as God should see fit to entrust to their care through birth or adoption. In my case, that means me, Angela (my wife of 18 years), and our four children (who happen to be adopted).

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments last week in two landmark cases concerning homosexual marriage. The Hollingsworth v. Perry case challenges the federal constitutionality of California’s Proposition 8, the 2008 ballot initiative approved by 7 million voters to amend California’s state constitution to define marriage as an institution that involves only one man and one woman. The Windsor v. United States case challenges the constitutionality of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the 1996 federal statute overwhelmingly passed by Congress and signed into law by President Clinton in 1996 that recognizes traditional marriage for federal purposes and protects states from having homosexual marriage imposed upon them by other states.If at least five Supreme Court justices do not resist the temptation to legislate from the bench, they might overturn Proposition 8 and DOMA. If that happens, the high priests and priestesses of political correctness will have done irreparable harm to yet another pillar of the American paradigm for our patriotic, wholesome culture — “God, the flag, mom and apple pie.” Activist judges have already expelled faith from the public square (forbidding the Ten Commandments, a cross in remembrance of our military heroes, and Christmas Nativity scenes) and decriminalized burning the Stars and Stripes in public. The First Lady’s “Let’s Move!” initiative and New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s sugary-drink ban suggest the days of consuming apple pie might well be numbered.

That leaves motherhood. This year marks the 100th anniversary of the introduction of the Congressional Resolution that established Mother’s Day. Every president since Woodrow Wilson has issued proclamations that pay homage to the significance of motherhood. In 1981, Ronald Reagan wrote: “They shape the character of our people through the love and nurture of their children. It is the strength they give their families that keeps our nation strong.” In 2011, President Obama wrote: “[W]e celebrate the extraordinary importance of mothers in our lives. The bond of love and dedication a mother shares with her children and family is without bounds or conditions.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Experts: Abortion Not Medically Necessary To Save The Life Of A Mother

Photo Credit: Life News

Leading medical experts speaking at a major International Symposium on Excellence in Maternal Healthcare held in Dublin have concluded that “direct abortion is not medically necessary to save the life of a mother.”

Professor Eamon O’Dwyer, speaking for the Committee of the Symposium, said that the outcome of the conference “provided clarity and confirmation to doctors and legislators.” Participants in the symposium.

Experts in Obstetrics and Gynaecology, mental health, and molecular epidemiology presented new research, and shared clinical experiences on issues surrounding maternal healthcare to the packed Symposium attended by more than 140 Irish medical professionals.

Particular attention was paid to the management of high-risk pregnancies, cancer in pregnancy, foetal anomalies, mental health and maternal mortality. The Symposium’s conclusions were issued in the Dublin Declaration on Maternal Healthcare which states:

As experienced practitioners and researchers in Obstetrics and Gynaecology, we affirm that direct abortion is not medically necessary to save the life of a woman.

Read more from this story HERE.

Johns Hopkins Denies Pro-Life Club, Equates Them To White Supremacists

Photo Credit: Life News

On March 12th, a pro-life group at Johns Hopkins University, Voice for Life (VFL), was denied the right to become an official student club by the Student Government Association (SGA) during a student Senate meeting, after having been recommended for approval by the SGA Appointments and Evaluations Committee.

At that same SGA meeting, though, another new group was approved called Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). Although SJP has a history of anti-Semitism and disruption on other campuses, the SGA decided that the students from JHU creating the group were separate from other campus affiliations, and they couldn’t be punished for potential violations. Somehow, these standards were not applied to Voice for Life.

This general body meeting was followed by an SGA Town Hall meeting the next day whereupon the decision was further expounded. The SGA explained that they decided not to grant official club status to Voice for Life because:

1) The pro-life group’s intentions to peacefully engage in sidewalk counseling off campus at a Baltimore abortion facility “clearly violates the JHU Harassment and Code of Conduct policies.”
2) One of the 100 pro-life organization links on the Voice for Life website sent visitors to the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform’s website, which was judged to be “offensive.” CBR has brought their Genocide Awareness Project (GAP), which features images of aborted preborn babies, as well as Holocaust victims, and victims of lynching, to Baltimore near the JHU campus in the past.

On Tuesday, March 26th, JHU Voice for Life was rejected again by the Student Senate, and the case will now go to the SGA Judiciary Committee for review, which will be on Tuesday, April 9th at 5:00pm.

Read more from this story HERE.

Kansas Abortions Drop 5 Percent, Hundreds Of Unborn Babies Saved

Photo Credit: Life News

KDHE, the state health department, released preliminary annual data on abortions performed in Kansas, showing a 5.4% decrease overall from 7,885 in 2011 to 7,457 abortions in 2012. This is the lowest state total since 1987, two years after all abortion providers were legally mandated to report. The total was divided between 3,661 obtained by residents and 3,796 by non-residents.

143 women were certified for abortion at Kansas clinics this year and did not return to obtain the procedure, compared to 182 in 2011. KDHE does not collect reasons for these “no-returns.” Kansas requires “Woman’s Right to Know” (WRTK) informed consent materials be accessed 24 hours prior to abortion, whether received from the abortion clinic at her initial visit, or through the state hotline, or just by viewing online at https://www.womansrighttoknow.org.

It is not unreasonable to surmise that the WRTK materials both contribute to “no-returns” as well as deter some women from ever entering a clinic. A woman contemplating abortion may fear a lack of support for her pregnancy needs, or be responding to subtle or overt pressure from her family or the father of the child. In the WRTK info, she finds:

fetal development explanations with high definition real-time sonography; a directory of statewide locations for free individual ultrasounds and 80 pregnancy maintenance centers; links to assistance for medically-challenging pregnancies; warnings that coerced abortions are illegal.

OTHER STATS:
All categories saw a decrease except “RU486″ abortions by pill, which rose from 20% to 30% of total Kansas abortions. This rate exceeds the 2012 CDC chemical abortion national average of 17.4%. Kansas enacted a ban on chemical abortion obtained “by webcam” in the 2011 clinic regulation law, which is not in effect due to litigation.

Read more from this story HERE.