When Marriage Can Be Anything, Marriage Can Be Anything

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It is only irrational animus, bigotry, and hatred that causes some to deny that human beings and fairground rides cannot marry. Love is love, and sometimes love extends to the soaring tracks, twisting hairpin curves, and thrilling loop-de-loops of roller coasters.

Yes. Two women have married, not each other, which would not be unusual these days, but each has married a roller coaster. Not the same roller coaster, of course; that would be absurd; different roller coasters.

One lady, a Miss Wolfe, 33, church organist, fell in love with the roller coaster in Knoebels Amusement Park, Pennsylvania. According to one report, “Although she faces discrimination from employers, most of her family and friends have been supportive. ‘I’m not hurting anyone and I can’t help it,’ she said. ‘It’s a part of who I am.’”

Don’t scoff. No one chooses to be an objectum-sexual; it is something which is forced upon one. What’s that? What’s an objectum-sexual? As defined by the second wedded lady, Linda, 56, who tied her knot to the backside of a roller coaster, an objectum-sexual is a person who “has romantic feelings for inanimate objects.”

Psychology Today reports many are objectum-sexuals, folks who view their objects of love as “equal” partners. Who isn’t for Equality? Reports are coming in from the across the globe of objectum-sexuals marrying smart phones, steam engines, video game characters, rocks, trees, dolls, electronic devices, radios, pillows, cars, and, yes, the Eiffel Tower.

The Self-Sexuals

Animus, bigotry, and hatred not only motivates people to deny the rights of objectum-sexuals, but also to disparage the needs and desires of self-sexuals. Self-sexuals are people who love best themselves, making it natural that the objects of their matrimonial instincts are, well, themselves.

No less conservative an organ than Good Housekeeping reports that “self-marriage is a small but growing movement, with consultants and self-wedding planners popping up across the world.”

One such person is Brooklynite Erika Anderson who recently married herself. “It wasn’t an easy decision,” she said. “I had cold feet for 35 years. But then I decided it was time to settle down. To get myself a whole damn apartment. To celebrate birthday #36 by wearing an engagement ring and saying: YES TO ME. I even made a registry, because this is America.”

There is even, because this is America, a website, I Married Me, which advises readers to “Choose love.” Love is, after all, love. The site provides the unofficial motto for the self-marriage movement, “To honor myself is to understand and acknowledge that I am worthy”. Anybody can marry themselves, even folks who are already married to others, or to objects.

“It’s not a legal process — you won’t get any tax breaks for marrying yourself. It’s more a ‘rebuke’ of tradition, says Rebecca Traister, author of All the Single Ladies: Unmarried Women and the Rise of an Independent Nation.

Rebuke?

The Rebuke of History and Tradition and Nature

Tradition insists that marriage is between one man, one woman; the two become “one flesh.” The pairs came together to procreate and care for not just each other, but for their created families. Marriages were the result of the natural state of mankind, driven by necessities of biology, the environment, and even religion. No government dared risk interfering with this fundamental and organic process. To have meddled would have invited charges of monumental hubris.

But things change. Governments recognized Equality trumped Nature, and so mandated that history and tradition be overthrown. But first they were borrowed from. History and tradition insisted that marriage was the state between two people, so government meddling dictated any two people could marry.

But it will quickly be realized (and is being realized) that history and tradition can be no guide whatsoever, because history and tradition, while they do say marriage was for pairs, also insist, in the strongest possible terms, that marriage is only for man-woman pairs.

So history and tradition must be rebuked.

Those who want to keep with capital-Tradition are no longer allowed to do so. Traditionalists are still allowed to marry one another in the traditional way, but they are now forced to agree that government-defined “marriages” are equivalent to actual marriages. Governments have not, as yet, moved to “bless” object- and self-marriages, but there is no good reason for them not to.

And if people can marry roller coasters and themselves, why cannot sons marry their mothers? Cosmopolitan reports, “A Mom Fell in Love With Her Son and Plans to Have Children With Him,” which they call “genetic sexual attraction”. There is already a forum for interested people. Why not marriage?

After all, when marriage can be anything, marriage can be anything. (For more from the author of “When Marriage Can Be Anything, Marriage Can Be Anything” please click HERE)

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Shut Down America’s Refugee Programs Before They Turn Us Into Germany

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On the first day of the new year, Islamic terrorists claimed another 39 victims, including Americans, in an attack at a popular nightclub in Istanbul, Turkey. The Christmas truck attack in Berlin recalls the similar July attack in Nice, France. The suspect, Tunisian asylum seeker Anis Amri, was killed in a shootout with Italian police on December 23.

Amri had been denied asylum in Germany due to his terror risk, but was not deported because Tunisia would not accept him since he lacked a passport. Amri carried six different aliases from three nations and had been monitored by German authorities. He was not a “lone jihadist” but part of an ISIS cell, and traveled covertly, like some of the Paris killers, with the refugee flow from the Mediterranean.

On the same day as the Berlin attack, there was a knife attack at a Virginia Metro station by an African Muslim, Ali Ahmed Mohamound. A similar knife attack occurred in New York City the day before, with the suspect still at large.

All this followed on the heels of November’s Ohio State knife attack by Somali Muslim refugee Abdul Artan. These attacks typify the kinds recommended in ISIS literature, and ISIS claims credit for most of them. With Berlin, Brussels, Orlando, and so many other horrific attacks this year, San Bernardino and Paris almost seem like old news.

Although we view these events with horror and growing alarm, the outgoing Obama administration is literally importing terrorists through our nation’s refugee programs. Because private contractors are paid by the head to resettle refugees and other needy populations, the resettlement program has built-in incentives for uncontrolled growth. This harmonizes with the Left’s open borders agenda, which seeks to swell the rolls of new Democrat voters while weakening the influence of traditional (read conservative) America.

Big business shares this agenda in seeking cheap, subsidized labor. The resulting bipartisan alliance has long subsidized a resettlement industry that is expensive, secretive, duplicitous, and unconcerned about the Americans who pay for it with hard-earned tax dollars. The refugee resettlement program must be abolished in its current form before it puts us on the path toward today’s turbulent France and Germany.

The Real Risk of Increasing Terrorism

The most important risk the current refugee program creates is terrorism. Since 9/11 there have been 580 convictions for terrorism in the United States. At least 40 of these were refugees. Just this year, in addition to the knife attacks by Abdul Artan and Ali Mohamound, four other refugees have committed or attempted to commit acts of terrorism.

Since March 2014 there have been 111 ISIS-related arrests and 60 convictions. There have been nine indictments and six convictions of ISIS supporters in the metropolitan DC area alone. ISIS openly encourages “lone jihadi” attacks, and the State Department now admits ISIS is trying to penetrate the U.S. refugee flow. Some 250 U.S. Muslims from 19 states have either joined or attempted to join ISIS overseas. Many have since returned with little or no oversight.

Let’s be clear: these are not Mennonite terrorists. They are not Episcopalian suicide bombers. Virtually all 580 convictions since 9/11 were Muslim immigrants or American Muslim converts, and the Somali community consistently supplies such malefactors. Yet the Department of Homeland Security has provided tours of airport facilities to groups of Somalis, including explanations of airport inner workings, security protocols, and databases. DHS redacted some of this information as too sensitive to share with the public.

The Refugee Program Is Home to Major Fraud

Virginia knife attacker Ali Mohamound was carrying multiple identities when arrested. The Ohio State terrorist and his family lived in Pakistan for seven years before being resettled to the United States. Why were they not simply resettled in Pakistan? Afghani refugee Ahmad Rahami, the terrorist bomber of New York and New Jersey, originally entered the United States through the asylum program, but then traveled back to Afghanistan, where he apparently became radicalized. How can someone who is supposedly fleeing his home country for his life go back for a visit?

Virtually all U.S. Somalis originally arrived as refugees or asylum seekers or are their children. Many now take months-long trips back to Somalia, contradicting their purported reason for seeking asylum: fleeing Somalia for their lives. Minneapolis actually grants rent relief because Somalis complained about the cost of overdue rent upon their return. The home country visits so many “refugees” make undercut the program’s integrity.

The entire refugee resettlement program has systematic fraud, creating both national security risks and undue fiscal burdens. Refugee advocates claim the vetting process for Syrians is airtight, but U.S. security officials say exactly the opposite. An internal Immigrations, Customs, and Enforcement memo states, “[The] refugee program is particularly vulnerable to fraud due to loose evidentiary requirements where at times the testimony of an applicant alone is sufficient for approval.” The memo goes on to say that “the immigration system is a constant target for exploitation” by terrorists. An Immigration and Naturalization Services assistant commissioner said 95 percent of refugee and asylee applications are fraudulent.

The Obama administration has knowingly and routinely allowed illegal aliens falsely claiming asylum to remain in the United States. A September 2016 DHS Inspector General report found that 1,982 aliens from countries known for immigration fraud or terror-links who were scheduled for deportation were instead granted citizenship using false identities because fingerprint records were missing.

The United Nations selects almost all refugees, and the United States takes more refugees than all other resettlement nations combined. Yet many of the tens of thousands of unvettable Syrians who are accepted don’t meet the refugee definition.

Syrian Christians are facing genocide, and certainly do meet the definition, but represent less than 1 percent of those Syrians resettled so far. Syrian Muslims are more than 98 percent of the total. In the interest of diplomacy we are also resettling populations other countries refuse to take. Most recently, the Obama administration offered to accept 2,465 asylum seekers now being detained by Australia which that country refuses to accept because of their possible ties to terrorism. In response to congressional inquiries, the administration has declared information about this agreement classified.

Heavy Costs for Taxpayers Besides Terrorism Risks

Refugee resettlement is administered by three agencies: the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM), the Health and Human Services Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), and the Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS). It has grown and metastasized over the years.

In fiscal year 2016, the program cost $2.4 billion, an increase of 205.4 percent since FY 2009. At the last minute Obama boosted ORR’s request to $3.9 billion for FY 2017 to handle the unprecedented flow of minors now being apprehended at the Southwest border. That’s 14,128 in the past two months alone and a 106 percent increase for the year.

Congress provided a pro-rata share of $500 million of this request in the short-term continuing resolution passed on December 9. It cannot be expended until the new Health and Human Services secretary has been installed. He can withhold some or all of those funds, if he chooses.

Since FY 2009, approximately 1 million migrants have arrived through these programs. Program costs average about $10,000 per head in the first year, and refugee welfare use is off the charts, even after five years (see table below). In fact, refugees resettled in the 1980s still receive welfare at rates well in excess of Americans and other immigrants.

The Center for Immigration Studies has estimated the annual cost of resettling Muslim refugees during the first five years at $12,874 per head. Muslim refugees use welfare at higher rates than average. I have estimated a somewhat lower average of $11,574 per head for the entire group. Cumulatively for the years 2009 through 2015, this cohort alone has cost U.S. taxpayers a staggering $48 billion. Since 1980, 3 million have been resettled.

Migrants Create a Heavy Toll on Communities

State and local costs are significant. When the Refugee Act was first passed, the federal government promised to cover 36 months of states’ share of food stamps, Medicaid, Refugee Cash Assistance (RCA), and Refugee Medical Assistance (RMA) for refugees—a huge subsidy. Today it covers no state costs. Refugees rely heavily on local assistance, and school budgets, costs for translation, and other services have exploded. Following is a sampling of problems in many U.S. communities:

Amarillo, TX: 911 calls taken in 36 languages

Amarillo, TX: English tutoring $1,300/student/month, while feds provide $100/student/year

Buffalo, NY: 42 languages spoken in high school

Lynn, MA: 49 languages spoken, some in unknown dialects

Lynn, MA: 200 percent increase in vaccinations, straining public health budgets; foreign student K-12 admissions doubled

Manchester, NH: 82 languages spoken in high school, among lowest school ratings in NH

Minneapolis, MN: Somalis are a heavy ISIS recruitment target

Minnesota: more than one-half of the Somali population is in poverty

Rochester, NY: refugees and inner-city minorities clash

Nationwide: 20 to 49 percent of refugees test positive for latent tuberculosis (TB)

Nebraska: 82 percent of active TB cases are among foreign-born

Major Conflicts of Interest Among Refugee Resettlers

Nine private contractors, called “Voluntary Agencies” or VOLAGs, resettle refugees with the assistance of 320 “affiliates.” VOLAGs are supposed to consult communities before resettling refugees, but almost never do. They secretly resettle refugees and leave communities to deal with the resulting problems. They regularly withhold information from community leaders and concerned citizens and ignore local complaints.

Refugee resettlement has big effects for small communities throughout the United States, which is a major reason for growing resistance to the program. In one example, a federal agent contacted me in November to describe numerous problems in northern Michigan. He said citizens and public officials from Traverse City and elsewhere expressed concerns over the indiscriminate “dumping” of refugees and illegal aliens in small towns, including the Upper Peninsula, under cover of darkness, without any prior coordination with appropriate public officials (i.e. mayors, town councils, etc.).

Refugees are often employed in the resettlement industry, giving refugees a stake its growth. Many VOLAG leaders who receive federal resettlement grants are former directors of the agencies that administer those grants, and vice versa. Like a revolving door, they cycle in and out of government. For example, Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration Assistant Secretary Ann Richard is a former vice president for one of the nine VOLAGs. She helped found the International Crisis Group, a leftist organization funded by George Soros.

VOLAGs receive a total of about $1 billion per year from taxpayers and are paid by the head, receiving anywhere from $2,025 to more than $5,000 per refugee. The Government Accountability Office has noted that this creates a strong incentive for VOLAGs to constantly resettle more refugees, regardless of whether it is in the interest of the refugee or the target community.

David M. Robinson, who would later lead PRM, said of the refugee industry: “The solution its members offer to every refugee crisis is simplistic and the same: increase the number of admissions to the United States without regard to budgets or competing foreign policy considerations. On the other hand, it is politically well connected, includes major party donors at the local and national levels, and owns the moral high ground on an extremely emotional issue.”

VOLAGs have not faced any kind of meaningful oversight since the program was established in 1980. None have ever faced a public financial audit despite many calls to do so. The program is biased toward continual growth, and security concerns must be addressed.

Prioritizing Refugees Above American Citizens

The Refugee Act of 1980 dictates benefits that refugees must receive. They go to the front of the line for welfare and public housing, jumping ahead of all Americans, including veterans and the disabled. VOLAGs provide:

Housing

Essential furnishings

Food, food allowance

Seasonal clothing

Pocket money

Assistance in applying for public benefits, Social Security cards, language translation, employment services, non-employment services, Medicaid

Assistance with health screenings and medical care

Assistance with registering children in school

Transportation to job interviews and job training

Home visits

Additionally, ORR and other agencies provide numerous special grants available only to refugees. This is supposedly to enable refugees to rapidly become economically self-sufficient. However, ORR’s definition of “economic self-sufficiency” allows refugees to continue to receive every kind of welfare except cash assistance from food stamps or RCA. Refugees thus have a strong incentive to seek U.S. resettlement to obtain benefits.

Maine Gov. Paul LePage told me that elderly autistic residents of Portland, Maine are swelling the rolls of the homeless as their primary caretakers, usually their parents, die, or become unable to care for them, because public housing is taken by refugees.

What Americans and Our Leaders Should Do

The resettlement program is dangerous, expensive, and unfair to Americans. Its structure encourages endless growth, systemic corruption, cronyism, secrecy, and duplicity. The refugee program must be put on hold. Members of Congress have called for a moratorium, and such legislation is circulating. H.R. 3314, the Resettlement Accountability National Security Act, has 86 co-sponsors.

But legislation isn’t needed. On his first day in office, Trump can pause the entire program by simply resetting the annual refugee targets to whatever number has already been reached this fiscal year. The 1980 Refugee Act gives him authority to do this, and subsequent court decisions have declared Congress’s refugee resettlement oversight authority as advisory only.

Trump has stated his desire to halt resettlement from nations of terrorism concern. It would be wiser to pause the entire program.

It costs 12 times as much to resettle refugees as to assist them in place. Almost all refugeeswould prefer to return home than be resettled to a third country. President-Elect Trump’s idea to create “safe zones” in or near countries of conflict is a much more compassionate and cost-effective method of dealing with the refugee crisis. Trump’s State Department should encourage the Gulf States to participate in resettlement, since they currently offer little help.

The VOLAG system needs to be abolished. Asylum and other alternative forms of resettlement should operate case-by-case. Resettlement should be returned to the private act of charity it was before 1980. That structure would be naturally self-limiting, and those financing resettlement would have a much stronger incentive to see that their charitable dollars were not wasted on frauds or potential terrorists. Refugees should be required to become truly economically self-sufficient.

With such restrictions, other nations would have to confront and resolve conflicts they now offload onto America. The U.S. government role should be limited to security: helping create safe zones, identifying other countries that might help more, designating those populations suitable for resettlement, setting numerical limits, and vetting all refugees, asylum seekers, and others seeking U.S. entry. With new leadership, policies and management, Trump’s administration can reinvent the resettlement program to serve America’s interests again. (For more from the author of “Shut Down America’s Refugee Programs Before They Turn Us Into Germany” please click HERE)

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The Unbearable Global Elites Enslaving America, the World; Time to Revolt?

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Perhaps the worst thing in the world of American politics is the liberal elite composed of Utopian wannabe philosopher kings who believe their vision is better or superior to those of us mere mortals. They hide behind what they believe to be rationality and an Enlightenment mode of thinking. As Mark Levin accurately noted, “Utopianism is regressive, irrational and pre-Enlightenment.”

As far back as the Greeks, Plato- who actually advocated for the notion of the philosopher-king- said Utopians believe that the individual must subordinate his will to the state. That is, individuality and its accompanying liberty stand in opposition to the demands of the Utopian vision.

The author Thomas Wolfe updated this notion by coining the phrase “radical chic.” This is when liberals use their ideology as a marker to tell the world that they know better and they are superior to low lives that occupy those vast expanses of America that regularly show up red on an electoral map. To them, we of the vast red wasteland live in a false world where we are blinded to the oppression and injustice of the America in which we live. And lest anyone believe the liberal elite can be beat, it was one of their own who ascended to the Presidency in 2008 denouncing those who clung to Bibles and guns. It was one of their own whose presidential campaign team in 2016 denigrated the fact that Rupert Murdoch raised his kids Catholic.

The presence of the liberal elite is a good reason to have an Electoral College in the first place. That vast red wasteland offsets the locus of power of the liberal elite: the Boston-to-DC corridor, and the state of California. There are stops in between and elsewhere like Madison, Wisconsin, Chicago and Seattle, but chances are the elite will live and work in those first two areas.

Celebrity and education count, although billionaires are usually absent from the mix. They do not want to pontificate too much lest they kill the goose that laid their golden eggs (capitalism), although there are a few of the self-flagellating type. They usually emerge from elite liberal arts colleges that happen to have Ivy on their walls and are located on the East coast, or other “top notch” schools such as Stanford. (Read more from “The Unbearable Global Elites Enslaving America, the World; Time to Revolt?” HERE)

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How Trump Can Rally Three Factions in Congress for a Historic First Year

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Even those repulsed by the recent campaign will focus on Congress and the new President as “gridlock” gives way to — what? The political-science notion of “unified control by one Party” doesn’t begin to explain it.

If the U.S. had a parliamentary system, President Donald Trump’s coalition in Congress would consist of three distinct parties: (1) Economic Nationalists fed up with porous borders and sweeping trade pacts; (2) Conservatives and Christians who favor limited government, military strength, and religious freedom; and (3) Corporate-oriented Republicans ready to compromise on social issues and immigration.

Since all three wear a Republican label, we’ll call them factions. To win legislatively, the Trump Administration will need very strong support from at least two of those three — and no serious resistance from the one whose priorities are being diluted, delayed or denied.

Start with where all three factions are in-sync. Big changes in health insurance. Conservative judicial nominees and support for the police. Energy independence via more fracking and new pipelines. And major business tax relief including repatriation of profits from Fortune 500 subsidiaries. If Trump and the GOP-led Congress concentrated on these four zones, 2017 would be a historic year and the economy would rally.

Beyond that, critical differences take hold. Let’s move beyond “favor versus oppose.” The more enlightening question is: Which faction is excited about delivering on what issues and themes?

1. What drove the Trump Army? Evict the violent illegals, induce a lot of others to depart, and keep out undocumented saboteurs; along with “Buy American and Hire Americans,” all the better with hefty infrastructure spending. Top Republican legislators are not keen on any of that.

2. Conservatives remain solid: Reduce or contain spending on everything while also replenishing a hollowed-out military. Restore local control of K-12 governance while promoting school choice and religious freedoms. On tax changes, remember that families and small businesses have claims at least as strong as those of Silicon Valley, Boeing, and agribusinesses seeking cheap labor.

3. And the Establishment Republicans? For this faction, “excitement” is the wrong term. They measure success by moderating whatever can’t be avoided. Not just the lifestyle and moral issues, but pushing China on trade and currency issues, new spending commitments, and restricting the global autonomy of large U.S. companies. Especially in the Senate, key conservative as well as Trumpian priorities have senior Republican legislators jittery.

Social Decay — and How to Smoke Out the Federal Enablers

Readers of The Stream might also wonder: What about the underlying deterioration not addressed by the measures being talked about?

Since the Crash of 2008, 14 million Americans have left the labor force. That’s mostly aging Boomers, according to Mr. Obama’s Labor Department. Others know that the costs of a job — for the hirers as well as the hirees — are up against government transfer payments, quotas, mandates, and very liberal “disability” rules.

With traditional marriage under assault, America is turning into a tribal society, where millions of kids are everyone’s responsibility even as they have no respected source of authority to turn to. Meanwhile heroin-smuggling, addiction to pain-deadening medications, and the so-called recreational use of marijuana are at levels not seen in 40 to 50 years.

It’s true: Permissive policies and relativistic attitudes are sapping America’s vitals in ways that more pipelines and lower corporate taxes can’t touch.

But there’s one strategy that, using minimal resources, can thwart one of the most insidious threats to family cohesion and social resilience.

Describing belligerents in battle, Carl von Clausewitz wrote that “a certain center of gravity develops, the hub of all power and movement, on which everything depends. That is the point against which all our energies should be directed.” Well, not “all” — 2017 is too top-heavy for that — but enough.

Where does “politics meet culture” in ways that inflame moral as well as economic ills? It’s the Administrative State — law made by lawyers and bureaucrats never elected and relieved to be hidden. These folks are animated by secular materialism and sustained by social polarization. All of us got to sample their daily thinking in the Wikileaks e-mail mound.

Congress won’t eliminate the Energy or Education Departments. But tough GOP legislators can partner with the Trump White House and its Departmental heads to identify and defund economic and moral nihilism in federal departments and agencies.

To block the pollution of children’s minds? Identify the parts of the Dept. of Education that manipulate local content and block objective and effective teacher evaluations. Defund them.

To bolster family autonomy, rights and responsibilities? Haul up the lawyer-bureaucrats from HHS and the Justice Department; make them explain each and every regulation or locally-targeted lawsuit; and then defund the enforcement strategy and the offices from which it sprang.

Though energy is not a family issue as such, the same “search and defund” method will work for Secretary Rick Perry and his hardier congressional allies.

A governing majority of three distinct factions and agendas can deliver on some great things this year. But they’ll need to be evocative and compelling in their public case-making — and highly explicit behind closed doors. “Who does what when? Who’ll need to wait until 2018? And how do we not play games that could blow it up for all of us? After all, we’ve just seen what the other side can do with power. …”

Oh yes, the Democrats! Why did we say so little about them? Mainly because no one expects them to govern. They won’t be able to issue executive orders or set the House and Senate schedule.

Yet the Democratic Party, much better than their GOP rivals, understands Clausewitz’s point about “the hub of all power and movement.” They have a knack for applying force in ways that preserves ground — or blows up the train tracks — regardless of what public opinion favors. They’ll also be trying to make their own deals — with the new Republican President. The Republicans in Congress should remember that. (For more from the author of “How Trump Can Rally Three Factions in Congress for a Historic First Year” please click HERE)

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How Trump’s Presidency Could Retool the Auto Industry

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President-elect Donald Trump’s public campaign to push U.S. companies to make their products in America is already having an impact, especially on one of his favorite targets: the auto industry.

On Tuesday, Ford Motor Co., the nation’s second-largest automaker, said it will cancel a plan to build a small-car assembly plant in Mexico that Trump has criticized, and instead expand a Michigan plant, creating 700 local jobs.

A few hours earlier, Trump had threatened to impose tariffs on cars built by General Motors Co. in Mexico, writing on Twitter: “Make in the U.S.A. or pay big border tax!”

In response to Trump’s attack against GM for selling Chevrolet Cruzes assembled in Mexico to U.S. car dealers, America’s largest automaker quickly defended itself. GM noted that almost all of the 190,000 Cruzes sold here last year actually were made at a factory in Lordstown, Ohio.

Experts say these actions, even if not directly attributable to Trump, showcase potential changes ahead for the auto industry, a sector that is ascendant after selling a record 17.55 million new cars in the U.S. last year.

“It’s bullying, and I don’t think it’s a sustainable way to do business, but Trump’s approach is being reinforced,” Dan Ikenson, who researches international trade and investment policy at the Cato Institute, told The Daily Signal in an interview. “He hasn’t taken the oath of office yet, and he has affected hundreds of millions — if not billions — of dollars in investment decisions, and thousands of jobs.”

Observers of the auto industry contend that investment decisions made by companies such as Ford reflect long-term business goals more than influence from the incoming administration.

Ford Chief Executive Mark Fields said “the primary reason” his company scrapped a $1.6 billion factory slated for San Luis Potosi, shifting production to an existing plant in Mexico, “is just [that] demand has gone down for small cars.”

The new jobs in the Michigan plant, meanwhile, mostly will support Ford’s production of self-driving and electric cars, which the company expects to be popular in the future.

“The U.S. auto industry is clearly at the top of the best cycle we’ve ever had, and even before the presidential election, the industry is acting differently in response to that,” Bernard Swiecki, an analyst at the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Michigan, told The Daily Signal in an interview. “We are now plateauing, meaning the building boom in Mexico will slow because the boom was designed to fill the need for capacity.”

Swiecki added:

I don’t think in any of these decisions Trump’s advocacy will be the main driver. The real driver will always be the business case. In the Ford decision, the business case lined up this way, and if at the same time you can curry some political favor with the president, you will take that.

No matter the motive, Swiecki and other experts say, the increasingly globalized auto industry is paying attention and taking the president-elect’s statements seriously.

Trump has vowed repeatedly to impose tariffs on vehicles imported into the United States from Mexico.

Trade experts agree that presidents have wide latitude to impose penalties on imports, at least temporarily, including restricting imports if they pose a national security risk under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977.

Edward Alden, who studies trade policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, argues that targeting a single company with a tariff would be more controversial, and unprecedented.

“There is nothing that prevents the president from claiming that Ford’s investing in Mexico constitutes a national industrial emergency and to move forward with sanctions,” Alden told The Daily Signal in an interview. “It would be a gross distortion of emergency power, but Trump has indicated he is not terribly constrained by norms and expectations.”

Trump also has frequently criticized and promised to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), a deal that went into force in 1994 under which the United States does not impose tariffs on products imported from Mexico and Canada.

Alden said that since the mid-1960s, the auto industry has been integrated across North American borders, starting with the Auto Pact of 1965, a trade agreement between the U.S. and Canada that allowed for tariff-free imports and exports.

“If you really try to create a build-it-in-America auto industry, you have to undo more than 50 years of history,” Alden said, adding:

The auto supply chain operates on a continental basis. If Trump blows that up by increasing the price of an imported vehicle with tariffs, it could reduce overall vehicle sales and cause manufacturers’ costs to increase substantially. This would force a massive restructuring of the industry.

Imported vehicles have become central to the American market, equaling more than 40 percent of annual volume.

Since the U.S. recession, automakers have committed big investments to new plants in Mexico to take advantage of cheap labor.

According to the Center for Automotive Research, of the 11 assembly plants announced to be built in North America since 2009, nine were planned for Mexico.

The nonprofit, independent research center reported that from 2013 to late 2016, carmakers invested $68.5 billion in North America, a total that includes new plants as well as expansions and updates to existing facilities.

Seventy-two percent, or $49.4 billion, of that investment went to the U.S.

While American car companies say they have moved jobs to Mexico to remain competitive, they also invested in the U.S., creating jobs in design and engineering or in plants making parts for Mexican factories.

“The idea that something is made in the U.S. or made in Mexico is an outdated notion,” Bryan Riley, a trade policy analyst at The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Signal. “With cars, whether final assembly is in the U.S., Mexico, or somewhere else, you have components from all over the world.”

Riley added:

That is something that benefits Americans. You don’t want to go on a path that we are better off if we make everything in the U.S. We are much better off to say Americans have the freedom to spend and invest money where they want, and no one in Washington, D.C., should be interfering with those decisions.

(For more from the author of “How Trump’s Presidency Could Retool the Auto Industry” please click HERE)

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From Transgender 101 Class to Puppies for Stress Release, Is the Naval Academy Going off the Deep End?

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Last November, the Naval Academy offered “Transgender 101” classes to staff and Midshipmen. A few weeks later, after having lost to Army 17-14 (their first loss in 15 years), the Midshipman are provided puppies for stress relief during finals. While no one thinks ill of a Midshipman in uniform petting a puppy in downtown Annapolis, the image of needing man’s best friend for stress relief during finals at the Naval Academy isn’t sitting too well with many of their Facebook followers, most of whom are associated with the Navy – fans, old salts, and many USNA grads.

Puppies and other furry friends are of course a great salve for many things – hospital patients, lonely elders, the blind, and more recently, those who suffer from PTSD. So the specter of requiring a salve for something that Midshipman have been doing since 1845 doesn’t quite compute when compared to those who have really suffered in the face of a relentless enemy.

Negative comments ranged the gamut –

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There were also plenty of light-hearted comments busting on the hard-liners, and who doesn’t love a puppy? But what is the mission of the Academy ? It’s to produce warriors who are not afraid of the enemy and are willing to lay their life on the line.

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Is softness accepted at the Academy? Last September, LT David Nartker (USNA 2011) was issued a punitive letter of reprimand for his role in the capture of two USN boats by Iran in January 2016, for violating Article 92, “failing to obey an order or regulation”.

The entire event was attributed to “failure at every level”, to include the critical junior leadership level and to a “lax culture for US Navy sailors,” in a devastating report from military investigators”.

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And while the Navy often gets chided in good fun for safe surroundings, the SEALS and sailors face grave danger daily all across the globe. Anyone stationed in or close to the Middle East is in harm’s way just for being an American, let alone one in uniform. The USS Cole was bombed in a terrorist attack in Oct 2000, with the loss of 17 sailors and 39 injured. And last January’s embarrassing capture of two Navy boats is testament that a Naval Academy graduate’s “moment of truth” is going to come without notice, and his or her training – in toughness – will make or break the engagement.

Don’t forget that Naval Academy graduates also serve in the Marines, the same Marines which have produced General James “Mad Dog” Mattis (Central Washington U, 1971), recently nominated by President Elect Trump for Secretary of Defense and General John Kelly, commissioned as a second lieutenant via Officer Candidate’s School in 1975, and recently nominated for Secretary of Homeland Security. ’62 USNA graduate John Ripley, Colonel USMC, is memorialized at the Academy for heroism in stopping he North Vietnamese Army’s advance into South Vietnam.

While all of these men embody toughness, no doubt they have compassion for their countrymen and especially their troops. But would they encourage furry friends as a means for building toughness to lead a strong military?

Compassion and diplomacy are critical characteristics for officers at all levels. So is toughness. The ability to handle stressful combat situations is based on training in handling stress, not on looking for the nearest puppy or kitten as soon as the stress level goes up. Let’s hope the Naval Academy doesn’t forget this.

Finally, one thing you should never do is give your enemy “talking points” about your weakness. One can only imagine the West Point cadets salivating at this gift of ridicule and humor, to be on national display in Philadelphia on December 9 this year.

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How Obamacare ‘Repeal and Replace’ Became a ‘Bait and Switch’ Monstrosity

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Earlier this week, we warned that absent a major course correction, Republicans plan to keep the insurance regulations — the most onerous part of Obamacare, which is responsible for permanently destroying the insurance market.

Hence there is no repeal of most of Obamacare, just the funding mechanisms, such as the subsidies and the individual mandate. Worse, they are considering preserving some of the tax increases of the law in order to fund “the replacement” of the subsidies with … subsidies in-all-but-name-only (on top of the $1 trillion we spend on federal-run health care, not including state expenditures).

Earlier today, CQ posted an article which confirms these suspicions — that “Republicans consider keeping some Obamacare taxes intact” (subscription required):

Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady, R-Texas, whose committee has jurisdiction over the law’s taxes in the House, suggested the issue is part of the ongoing discussion, but that no decisions had yet been made.

“As we look at the deal, as we look at the numbers, and more importantly, the step-by-step approach to make health care more affordable, the taxes themselves become a part of that discussion,” Brady said. “Truly, no decisions have been made yet. We’re looking at the universe of options there.”

A Senate staffer suggested a similar discussion had come up among members this week.

Whether they ultimately keep some of the taxes or give into conservative pressure to include all Obamacare taxes in the repeal bill, the die is already cast on their “replace” bill. It is quite evident that they plan to create a massive entitlement built on top of preserving the insurance regulations and therefore are in need of an enormous pot of savings and revenues to fund the new scheme. The truth is the lobbyists for the health care industry want to continue a massive stream of subsidies and that is driving much of this perfidy:

Several lobbyists indicated that waiting to repeal some of the law’s more unpopular taxes, like the Cadillac tax, could entice some interest groups to work more closely on the replacement effort. It would also increase the savings associated with repealing the legislation, which could change the negotiation dynamics.

The mix of not repealing the price-hiking insurance regulations and replacing the existing subsidies with a new form of subsidies is a toxic combination. In fact, it is simply a bait-and-switch of the existing core of Obamacare.

I would define the main component of Obamacare in one sentence as follows: Require that private insurance companies offer coverage that is actuarially insolvent and unsustainably expensive and then offer massive taxpayer subsidies for families to afford those unsustainable plans, which in turn artificially inflates the price of insurance even more, which in turn engenders an even greater need for subsidization.

That is essentially the general cycle of government intervention in a nutshell, most dramatically embodied through Obamacare in particular. And that is essentially what will result from the GOP bait-and-switch plan to maintain the insurance regulations and concoct massive subsidies through refundable tax credits.

This plan will not only raise the cost of health care/health insurance and engender a greater need for government subsidization of unaffordable “private” plans, but it will also distort the health care market in general for the existing government-run programs, such as Medicaid.

The cost of covering an individual in the subpar Medicaid program was $3,247 per individual in 2011 before Obamacare was enacted. In 2015, according to data from the Department of Health and Human Services, the cost of enrolling an individual in Medicaid doubled to $6,366 per individual. And that is only for the second year of implementation. The cycle of regulation, public funding, overutilization, and lack of ability to peg the cost to the service has created a circuitous death spiral of unaffordable costs and unsustainable subsidies.

This cycle of failure is nothing but a handout to hospitals and insurers. Anyone concerned with helping the most people and creating a sustainable pro-growth economy would focus on lowering costs through deregulation, limiting subsidization, restoring insurance to its original purpose, and empowering individuals to have portable control over their own destiny through expanded HSAs.

Yet, Republicans are pursuing the elusive utopian goal of universal coverage (Obamacare in-all-but-name-only) because that has long been the official position of K-Street and the Chamber of Commerce. A more efficient socialism is good for their clients.

Nothing about this past election has changed the political barometer and priorities of GOP leaders in Congress. It’s one big bait-and-switch. It is now up to the president-elect and his likely influential vice president to make good on their promise to fully repeal Obamacare and replace socialism with the free market. (For more from the author of “How Obamacare ‘Repeal and Replace’ Became a ‘Bait and Switch’ Monstrosity” please click HERE)

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It’s the Debt, Donald, the Debt

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History can be a fickle judge. Something considered revolutionary in the immediate past can seem quite insignificant later. The long-term reputation of many early twenty-first century American politicians will partly depend on whether they tackle our republic’s colossal public debt.

That includes the incoming President, Donald Trump. He clearly knows it’s a problem. In one campaign stop, he said, “So we have now $19 trillion in deficits. $19 trillion, you know if you look, we owe! … And we’re gonna knock it down and we’re gonna bring it down big league and quickly.”

Any new administration can only do so many things. Yet over the last 16 years, America’s public debt has grown so massive that reducing it must become a priority. And while public finance isn’t the sexiest of subjects, mishandling or simply ignoring the issue will have serious long-term consequences for the United States.

What’s at Stake?

On December 30, 2016, the United States’ official public debt was $19.97 trillion. It’s almost doubled since 2008. It also exceeds the size of America’s economy in nominal GDP in 2016 ($18.56 trillion).

Put another way, America’s public debt is approximately 107% of nominal GDP. To make matters worse, these numbers don’t include state and local government debt or the unfunded liabilities of entitlement programs like Social Security.

The reasons for this rise in public debt aren’t hard to grasp. At its most basic level, it reflects a failure of Congress and the Executive Branch to match spending and revenue since 2000. The gap has narrowed over the past 5 years. Nonetheless, spending continues to exceed revenue. In terms of what’s driving federal expenditures, it is social programs such as healthcare, income security, education, and housing. Spending on activities such as national defense has remained static.

So why should we care? What’s another trillion here or there?

Americans should worry because there’s plenty of evidence that this level of public debt can have grave effects on economic growth.

Once a country’s debt/GDP ratio reaches a particular threshold, one consequence appears to be slower economic growth. Economists argue about the exact threshold at which debt starts to impact growth. Some cite the figure of 85% of GDP. Others say 90%. Economists also debate how fast high debt negatively impacts growth. Yet there’s considerable consensus that, at some point, high debt-to-GDP ratios do have this impact.

Again, some might say, so what? Why should we care about a couple of percentage points less of growth?

Slower economic growth has several negative consequences. Take, for instance, employment. Slow growth means that businesses hire fewer people.

Another effect is that rises in living standards become sluggish, partly because real wage growth slows down. Slow growth also makes it harder for governments to pay down public debt, not least because tax revenues can’t match spending.

Slow growth, however, isn’t the only negative effect of too much public debt. According to a 2010 Congressional Budget Office study, it also undermines “future national income and living standards,” raises the possibility of serious “losses for mutual funds, pension funds, insurance companies, banks, and other holders of federal debt,” and increases the “probability of a fiscal crisis in which investors would lose confidence in the government’s ability to manage its budget, and the government would be forced to pay much more to borrow money.”

What Should We Do?

To address these and other problems associated with high public debt, governments have several options.

One is to raise personal and corporate taxes across the board. That, however, makes a country less competitive. That in turn has negative consequences for growth.

Another option is to cut expenditures in real terms. Here, however, we face a major problem.

A growing majority of federal government spending is now mandated and funded by what are called “permanent appropriations.” This is spending based on existing laws rather than the budget process. That includes “big league” programs like Social Security and Medicare. To get federal expenditures under control in these areas, Congress would have to change existing laws.

2005 was the last time Social Security reform was attempted. It failed, despite President George W. Bush’s willingness to spend political capital on this issue. The opposition was formidable, not least because retirees and about-to-be-retirees vote.

This may explain why Trump has stated he’ll protect Social Security and has ruled out tackling its problems by raising the retirement-age, increasing taxes, or reducing benefits. Trump has said that he’ll seek reform through improving efficiency and reducing waste. It remains to be seen whether this will be enough. Personally, I doubt it.

Why Growth Matters

This leaves us with one option for reducing public debt. And that is to increase the American economy’s rate of growth. A high-growth economy means more employment, a reduced call on the government to help those in need, more tax revenues to reduce debt more aggressively, and a lowering of the debt/GDP ratio.

Here we have some cause for optimism. The new administration is publicly committed to faster growth in the American economy. It wants, for example, to reduce taxes (including corporate taxes which are among the world’s highest) and engage in significant deregulation, especially with regard to the financial sector.

Such measures should incentivize entrepreneurship, help start new businesses, and make capital more available. If this boosts business confidence, there’s a chance that what John Maynard Keynes called “animal spirits — a spontaneous urge to action” will further bolster growth.

On the other hand, every regulation has a group willing to defend it. Any deregulation will face political opposition, some of which will be substantial. Moreover, the Trump Administration seems ready to turn America away from a general commitment to free trade and towards more-or-less protectionist policies. This will harm productivity and thus growth. Tax-cuts and internal deregulation matter for growth, but so does the American economy’s exposure to the discipline of international competition.

Excessive public debt is one of those long-term problems that undermine a country’s well-being and which democratically-elected governments have few political incentives to address. It’s politically easier to punt the problem to future generations.

Any serious effort to make America great again, however, requires a willingness to sell hard choices to the American public. That’s the essence of leadership, which is what Donald Trump has promised. And when it comes to public debt, it’s just what we need. (For more from the author of “It’s the Debt, Donald, the Debt” please click HERE)

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Is It a Sin for a Christian to Be Obese?

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Is it a sin for a Christian to be seriously overweight? When responding to this question, we should answer it for ourselves and not for others, since there are many potential reasons for people to be overweight and we don’t want to pass judgment on them based on outward appearance alone (see John 7:24).

We know that a small percentage of people have a medical condition that contributes to their obesity, such as a thyroid disorder, while others struggle with emotional traumas, like depression or abuse, and they eat out of pain and despair. And there are women who have had several children in a short period of time and find it very challenging to juggle the challenges of life — often on limited sleep — and lose weight at the same time.

It would be very wrong to pass judgment on any of these people, as if they were sinning by being heavy, and that’s why I said upfront that, however we answer the question about Christians and obesity, we need to do it for ourselves, looking in our own mirrors.

We also need to remember that most Christians (not to mention people in general) who are overweight — especially seriously overweight — hate being fat, and some even feel self-condemned. The last thing we want to do is heap more condemnation on them and make them feel worse. They need some hope and encouragement. My goal in addressing this sensitive issue is to lift you up, not beat you up.

And we live in a culture that prizes youthful, air-brushed, perfect-looking bodies, putting young people in particular (and even women in general) under tremendous pressure to look a certain way. That too is a destructive mentality that we must resist.

That being said, if our body is destroyed by unhealthy eating, that is a serious matter, and if my obesity is due to gluttony or lack of self-control or choosing fleshly indulgences to the detriment of my health, then yes, it is sinful for me to be obese.

It is true, of course, that the Bible never says that the glutton will not enter the kingdom of heaven, but it is also true that the Bible speaks about gluttony in very negative terms: “Be not among drunkards or among gluttonous eaters of meat, for the drunkard and the glutton will come to poverty, and slumber will clothe them with rags” (Prov. 23:20–21). And, “The one who keeps the law is a son with understanding, but a companion of gluttons shames his father” (Prov. 28:7).

Dictionary.com defines glutton as “a person who eats and drinks excessively or voraciously.” Does that describe me or you?

Jesus was falsely accused of being both a drunkard and a glutton. If He was guilty of either, He would not have been the sinless Son of God.

Consider what Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 9:

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified (1 Cor. 9:24-27).

Notice carefully what Paul is saying, since we often miss an important point in this passage. Paul is urging us to run with success the race of fulfilling God’s purposes for our lives, and he contrasts our reward, which is imperishable, with the reward of an athlete, which is perishable. But don’t miss what Paul said in the midst of his exhortation: Athletes who compete in the games (similar to the Olympics today) exercise self-control in all things. So do we! As translated in the NIV, “They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever” (1 Cor. 9:25, my emphasis).

Can we say the same thing about ourselves? Are we disciplined in all things? Have we subdued our bodies (cf. 1 Cor. 9:27a in the NET) when it comes to food?

Proverbs gives us a strong warning about being out of control with our appetites when in the presence of rulers: “When you sit down to eat with a ruler, observe carefully what [or, who] is before you, and put a knife to your throat if you are given to appetite” (Prov. 23:1-2). As the Pulpit Commentary explains, “‘Stab thy gluttony,’ Wordsworth. Restrain thyself by the strongest measures, convince thyself that thou art in the utmost peril, if thou art a glutton or wine-bibber (Ecclus. 31:12, Ecclus. 34:12).” In the words of Matthew Henry, “The sin we are here warned against is luxury and sensuality, and the indulgence of the appetite in eating and drinking, a sin that most easily besets us.”

I wonder what Matthew Henry would have said if he lived today and saw the portions we are served in our restaurants!

We must ask ourselves if the way we are eating is in harmony with our biblical calling, a calling which includes discipline and self-control. In fact, according to Paul, one of the fruits of the spirit is self-control (Galatians 5:23), with the Greek word meaning, “restraint of one’s emotions, impulses, or desires, self-control” (Bauer-Arndt-Gingrich-Danker lexicon). As one commentator explains, “‘self-control’ … denotes control of more sensual passions than anger” (F. F. Bruce).

When it comes to your eating habits, do you have self-control? When it comes to the passions of the flesh for unhealthy food, are you disciplined? Are you controlling your appetite or is your appetite controlling you?

Some of us say that we’re willing to die for Jesus but we’re not willing to control our appetites for Him (or, at the least, we’re not willing to make a serious effort to control those appetites). This simply doesn’t line up. We sing, “I surrender all,” but we practice, “I surrender some.” Or maybe you want to surrender but find yourself helpless and bound?

Notice what Paul has to say about dangerous false teachers: “For many are walking in such a way that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ. I have told you of them often and tell you again, even weeping. Their destination is destruction, their god is their appetite, their glory is in their shame, their minds are set on earthly things” (Phil 3:18-19, MEV). Or, as the relevant phrase is rendered in different versions “their god is their stomach” (HCSB); they “make their bellies their gods” (The Message); “whose God is the stomach” (LEB). How interesting that these heretics were also slaves to food!

Does that describe you? Is your stomach your god? Are you a slave to your appetite?

If so, I have good news for you: God is not condemning you! Instead, He is offering you a better way, a way of discipline, self-control, healthy eating and vibrant life. But, if He has convicted you through this article, I encourage you to confess your bad eating habits as sin, asking the Father for mercy and forgiveness, believing that Jesus paid for this sin as well, and trusting God for grace to overcome. With His help and with a good plan, you can do it! (For more from the author of “Is It a Sin for a Christian to Be Obese?” please click HERE)

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6 Alarming Findings in House Panel’s Planned Parenthood Probe

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Planned Parenthood affiliates profited by transferring parts of aborted babies to outside organizations in violation of the law, a special House panel has concluded after a yearlong investigation.

In a 418-page report released Wednesday, the House Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives also found that other organizations involved in the transfer of fetal tissue broke federal or state law.

In one case, a national Planned Parenthood executive interviewed by staff investigators for the House panel said “it doesn’t bother me” that one vendor, StemExpress, paid Planned Parenthood $55 for an aborted baby’s intact brain and then sold it to a customer for more than $3,000.

“It’s none of my concern. It doesn’t bother me,” the Planned Parenthood executive said, according to the panel’s report.

Republican members of the House panel recommend that authorities pursue charges against Planned Parenthood affiliates, which receive taxpayer money, and other entities for violating the law and related regulations.

“It is my hope that our recommendations will result in some necessary changes within both the abortion and fetal tissue procurement industries,” the panel’s chairman, Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., said in a press release. “Our hope is that these changes will both protect women and their unborn children, as well as the integrity of scientific research.”

But the panel’s ranking member, Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., denounced the report Tuesday as “illegitimate.” She said the panel’s eight Republican members drafted the report in secret without input from the panel’s six Democrats, who issued their own report last month.

“They have repeatedly made false claims,” Schakowsky said of Blackburn and Republicans, “including a series of ‘criminal referrals’ to federal, state, and local law enforcement officials based on unsourced, unverified documents and information.”

Specifically, the panel’s eight Republicans recommended a criminal investigation of Planned Parenthood of the Gulf Coast based on evidence it violated Texas and U.S. law in fetal tissue transactions.

They also made nine criminal and regulatory referrals in the cases of abortion providers and tissue procurement companies in Arkansas, California, and Ohio.

Finally, they recommended that Congress take steps to improve practices in biomedical research, such as by establishing ethical guidelines for using tissue from aborted babies.

Well before the House panel concluded its investigation of Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider, conservative groups had been calling for Congress to end use of federal taxpayers’ money to fund the organization.

With a new Republican administration beginning when Donald Trump is inaugurated as president Jan. 20, pro-life activists now see that as more than a possibility.

The GOP-led investigation began after the pro-life Center for Medical Progress published a series of undercover videos exploring the market for fetal tissue from aborted babies. The videos featured employees of StemExpress and Planned Parenthood discussing the sale of fetal tissue, sparking allegations that both organizations were profiting from such transactions.

StemExpress is a for-profit tissue procurement company based in Folsom, California.

Both the Planned Parenthood Federation of America and StemExpress denied illegal activity, although Planned Parenthood said it has stopped taking reimbursements for the cost of donating fetal tissue to companies such as StemExpress.

The new report details evidence that suggests Planned Parenthood and other entities crossed legal and ethical lines while in the fetal tissue market.

Planned Parenthood Federation of America did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment on the report.

Below, The Daily Signal compiles six of the strongest findings, some featuring interviews between Planned Parenthood officials and the House panel’s top investigators:

1. Several Planned Parenthood affiliates made a profit from the transfer of aborted body parts and other fetal tissue, in violation of federal law prohibiting that.

The report says:

Accounting documents from middleman tissue organizations showed that several PPFA [Planned Parenthood Federation of America] affiliates made a profit from the transfer of fetal tissue.

The middleman investigation, and in particular the investigation of StemExpress, produced information about several PPFA affiliate clinics. In particular, it became clear that StemExpress was doing all the work to obtain consent for donation from individual patients, that StemExpress was doing the work of harvesting the fetal tissue after an abortion was complete, and that StemExpress was doing the work and passing on its costs of shipping to customers.

This raised a profound issue for the [House select] panel: Both the middleman and the PPFA affiliate clinic were claiming the same expenses against their revenue to show a loss on fetal tissue sales.

2. It didn’t “bother” a Planned Parenthood executive that one vendor, StemExpress, appeared to make a 2,800 percent profit on a baby’s brain harvested from a Planned Parenthood clinic.

Investigators questioned a Los Angeles abortion provider who also is a national Planned Parenthood executive, identified as PP Witness No. 1. These questions are about StemExpress making a profit in its contractual collaboration with Planned Parenthood affiliates after StemExpress sold aborted body parts and organs to customers.

The report says:

The questions were focused on the markup of an intact fetal brain from $55 paid to the Planned Parenthood affiliate versus the $3,340 charged to the customer:

Q: Now, here’s the scenario, and we’ll be done. Tissue tech learns who’s available for contributing. She goes and gets the consent. She gets paid a bonus. The Planned Parenthood clinic, I believe, gets $55, but it’s in the range of [$]30 to [$]100, and StemExpress resells that brain for over $3,000.

And you’ll notice—you may notice on there [the invoice] that the shipping and maybe some other things are paid for by the customer.

Now, does that bother you?

A: No.

Q: Well, if they—if it was a profit would it bother you?

A: It’s really none of my business, no.

Q: Is that a concern to you? … And here’s a more granular example. It looks like StemExpress, who for several years only did abortion clinics, now they do lots of stuff, lots of other stuff. But for several years of their life they only got tissue from [Planned Parenthood] Mar Monte, Shasta Pacific, and resold it at prices like this.

And I just want to know what’s sort of the global management perspective of a Planned Parenthood senior leader like you if that’s a 2,800 percent profit.

Would that bother you?

A: So just so that I’m clear on the question[;] you’re asking me if it bothers me that StemExpress makes money reselling the tissue?

Q: Yeah.

A: It’s none of my concern. It doesn’t bother me.

3. Planned Parenthood abortion doctors would huddle with a tissue procurement technician from Novogenix to learn what aborted body parts that outside person was searching for that day.

Investigators questioned a Los Angeles Planned Parenthood abortion provider (PP Witness No. 1) who also works for the Medical Directors’ Council. She answered questions about meetings she had with Novogenix, a tissue procurement company, prior to performing abortions to determine the type of tissue that its technicians wanted that day.

The report says:

Q: Now, do you think that doctors in your position should huddle in the morning? You say, ‘I like to do that.’ It’s sort of an ongoing tense. Do you think the doctors should huddle with a tissue tech to see what they’re procuring, [what] is on their list that day?

A: I don’t really have a feeling as to whether other doctors did. I like to be helpful.

Q: And so you found it helpful that at least on this one day to huddle with the tissue tech and learn what [the Novogenix employee] was searching for, what orders she had; is that right?

A: I would ask her what tissue she was looking for, yes.

Q: All right. Do you think that’s a good idea for the whole fetal tissue donation program, that doctors and the tissue techs huddle each morning to discuss what they’re going to try and procure that day?

A: I think it could be helpful.

4. Planned Parenthood doctors appear to have altered their techniques to increase the chances of success in harvesting tissue from abortions that day.

Investigators questioned the same Planned Parenthood abortion provider in Los Angeles about whether she changed procedures to increase the likelihood of a successful procurement of specific tissue.

From the report:

Q: ‘There are little things they can make in their technique to increase your success.’ What are those little things?

A: Again, as I mentioned, a change in instruments, a change in where they’re grasping the tissue. These are changes in technique that a provider can make for a variety of reasons. I—

Q: But it could be made to increase the success of fetal tissue donation.

A: Yes, that’s what I’m saying.

Q: OK. Now, so those little techniques that you just described, if there was no fetal tissue donation to increase the likelihood of success, they wouldn’t—they wouldn’t make those little changes, would they?

A: Well, providers make changes in technique for a variety of reasons.

Q: Now, the question is: If there was no fetal tissue donation, those little things, changes that would be made to increase their likelihood of success, those wouldn’t be made, would they?

A: Well, I can’t say across the board they wouldn’t be made because there’s probably other reasons that a provider during a procedure—

Q: They wouldn’t be made for the purpose of getting fetal tissue, would they?

A: No, they wouldn’t.

Q: So they would be made for other reasons.

A: Yes.

Q: So one set of little changes is chosen for other medical reasons, and one set of little changes could be chosen to increase the likelihood of success.

A: Yes.

5. Planned Parenthood’s consent form is “inadequate compared to other entities’ consent forms.”

Investigators concluded that Planned Parenthood’s one-page consent form contains “widely inaccurate claims about past results from fetal tissue research.” They also said the consent form “fails to provide basic information about the purpose for which the [tissue] donation is being sought and the precise nature of the ‘pregnancy tissue’ being donated.”

According to the report:

Numerous witnesses, including senior [Planned Parenthood Federation of America] officials, testified that the consent form is misleading and unethical due to its contention that fetal tissue has been used to find a cure for diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, and AIDS.

The Los Angeles Planned Parenthood abortion provider, who is also in charge of the national organization’s Manual of Medical Standard and Guidelines, said:

If I’m evaluating the form now, you are correct. To my knowledge there is no cure for AIDS. So that is probably an inaccurate statement. … a consent form should not have an incorrect statement.

The report says another witness, a manager of research projects at Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast identified as PP Witness No. 2, testified: “I would agree that that is insufficient for obtaining informed consent, correct.”

6. Planned Parenthood affiliate clinics “routinely” violated privacy regulations imposed by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, seeking to ease the process of harvesting body parts and other fetal tissue.

From the House panel’s report:

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) privacy rule (Privacy Rule) protects all individually identifiable health information held or transmitted by a covered entity or its business associate and calls this information protected health information (PHI). PHI identifies an individual, or can reasonably be believed to be useful in identifying an individual, and includes demographic data relating to an individual’s health condition, provision of health care, or payment for the provision of health care to the individual.

The panel’s investigation indicates that StemExpress and Planned Parenthood Mar Monte (PPMM), Planned Parenthood Shasta Pacific (PPSP), and Family Planning Specialists Medical Group (FPS) committed systematic violations of the HIPAA Privacy Rule from about 2010 to 2015.

These violations occurred when the abortion clinics disclosed patients’ individually identifiable health information to StemExpress to facilitate the [tissue procurement business’] efforts to procure human fetal tissue for resale.

(For more from the author of “6 Alarming Findings in House Panel’s Planned Parenthood Probe” please click HERE)

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