United States Included in Annual Christian Persecution Report

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For the first time ever, the United States was included in the International Christian Concern’s annual “Hall of Shame Report.” In the 2016 edition, released last week, the U.S. appeared in the “New and Noteworthy” category.

“The persecution in these countries is not anywhere near the same level of persecution as those in the rest of the list,” the report explains, “but events in these countries indicate declining religious freedom and are cause for alarm.”

International Christian Concern (ICC) is a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit that advocates for, raises awareness of and assists persecuted Christians around the world.

The report’s introduction explains that previous editions simply listed the top ten worst countries for Christians’ religious freedom. The 2016 edition splits featured nations into three categories: “Worst of the Worst,” “Core Countries,” and “New and Noteworthy.”

The “Worst of the Worst” category includes North Korea, Iraq, Syria, and Nigeria. “Core Countries” include Saudi Arabia, China, Egypt, Pakistan and India.

Russia and Mexico were also “New and Noteworthy.”

‘Alarming’ Decline in American Religious Freedom

On page 11 of the 16-page report, ICC details why the U.S. earned a spot in the “New and Noteworthy” category.

“Christians in the US are facing constant attacks in the media, where they are portrayed as bigoted, racist, sexist and close-minded,” the report states. It referenced as an example the fact that “numerous high profile media outlets” blamed last year’s nightclub shooting in Orlando on Christian attitudes toward the LGBT community, even though the shooter, Omar Mateen, declared his allegiance to ISIS.

The report also mentioned people like Eric Walsh, Joe Kennedy and Aaron and Melissa Klein, Christians who have been fired or faced penalties in the workplace because of their religious beliefs.

“Christians and all religious people are being marginalized through the law,” the report says, citing an annual study by First Liberty Institute. That report showed that attacks on religious people in the U.S. doubled between 2012 and 2015.

According to the ICC’s report, “the rise of these cases stems partly from a broad cultural shift towards secularism.” 23 percent of Americans now identify themselves as non-religious — compared with just 7 percent in 2007. “Anti-Christian entities have been able to leverage the growing secularization of society and culture to their advantage, utilizing the courts as a preferred venue to gradually marginalize and silence Christians.”

“Decades of accumulated poor judicial decisions and precedents have twisted the First Amendment,” the report notes,

so that the courts, in defiance of the Founders, are pushing religion out of the public square, and into the small space of private expression. In essence, the courts are deciding that you only have full religious freedom and expression in the church and your home. In the public domain, your religious views and thoughts must be restrained and controlled.

“While there is no comparison between the life of a Christian in the US with persecuted believers overseas,” the report concludes, “ICC sees these worrying trends as an alarming indication of a decline in religious liberty in the United States.”

‘Windows of Opportunity’

Kelly Shackelford, President and CEO of First Liberty Institute, previously told The Stream that 2016 saw “an increase in attacks on religious liberty.”

In an interview at the end of December, Shackelford expressed hope in the incoming presidential administration, saying that the future holds “huge windows of opportunity.” “There should be a big change in the hundreds of judges appointed being more favorable to religious freedom and the Constitution,” he said. (For more from the author of “United States Included in Annual Christian Persecution Report” please click HERE)

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Named and Shamed: Tom Cotton Calls out Cory Booker’s Disgraceful Sessions Chicanery

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Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark. (C, 76%) penned an impassioned Facebook post Tuesday afternoon, calling out Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J. (F, 14%) for testifying against Donald Trump’s attorney general pick, Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala. (C, 78%).

Sen. Cotton referred to the unprecedented event of a sitting senator testifying against another sitting senator nominated for a Cabinet position a “disgraceful breach of custom.”

Cotton expressed his belief that Booker’s “shameful” decision to cast aspersions on a fellow senator (whom, just last year, he was “honored to have partnered with”) is part of a ploy to be elected president in 2020:

“Senator Booker is better than that, and he knows better.” (For more from the author of “Named and Shamed: Tom Cotton Calls out Cory Booker’s Disgraceful Sessions Chicanery” please click HERE)

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4 Ways Obama’s Final Speech Was a Load of Crap

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Tonight, in Chicago — the nation’s murder capital, Barack Obama boasted of his self-styled achievements as president, and gave a preview of his future as the nation’s first activist former president. The setting provided a bitter irony for Obama’s self-praising. Chicago is both where Obama honed his activist chops, and is one of the places most negatively affected by his policies. A perfect allegory for a failed presidency.

In the final year of the Obama presidency, under the guidance of his former chief of staff Rahm Emmanuel, Chicago’s murder rate has spiked. This is directly the result of president Obama’s war on cops. Rather than put themselves in danger through aggressive policing, Obama’s friends in the Black Lives Matter movement have made their neighborhoods more dangerous, with police just staying out of certain neighborhoods.

Chicago is Obama’s legacy. Tonight he tried to put a shine on his legacy. But the facts tell a different story.

Obamacare

Obama once again touted success with Obamacare. He crowed about millions more now insured. That may be true, but at what cost? He even, with no hesitation, said that health costs are growing at their “lowest rate in 50 years.” As CR’s Daniel Horowitz recently explained Obamacare is more expensive than if nothing had been done … especially when it comes to 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.

But it’s not just that. Millions of middle class Americans now have coverage they can’t afford to use. Before the election Bloomberg highlighted the problem:

Harris is one of many people with Obamacare plans that feature high out-of-pocket costs that can put health services out of reach. That’s because the insurance coverage Harris and others like her have purchased is designed not to kick in until patients have spent thousands of dollars.

She’s not alone. While the Affordable Care Act has pushed the uninsured rate in the U.S. near a record low, a Commonwealth Fund study this year found that about four in 10 adults in ACA plans aren’t confident they could afford care if they got sick.

Obamacare has also been a drag on the overall economic outlook for millions of Americans. The full-time employer mandate has meant more people are working part-time and in need of multiple jobs. The CEO of Carl’s Jr., a Trump supporter, said in January of 2015 that ‘Obamacare has caused millions of full-time jobs to become part time.” A statement that even Politifact had to rank as “half true” — a moniker they use when the facts buttress an argument but the editors of Politifact don’t like the outcome.

Oh and about that lowest health cost claim, CNNMoney reported in September of 2016 that healthcare costs rose the most in 32 years. Speaking of Politifact, they gave a similar claim by Hillary Clinton during the campaign a rating of FALSE.

National Security

Obama told the nation that we are safer because of his presidency. He touted that no foreign terrorist organization has attacked American soil. Of course, he is parsing words. As the Daily Wire wrote in December of 2016, many of the jihadi attacks in America have been inspired by jihadi organizations or the jihadis were trained by those organizations.

The list compiled by the Daily Wire reports on “the major, verifiable radical Islamic attacks over the last eight years.” The Daily Wire further explains that there have been other attacks in which jihad is suspected but not verified. The thirteen attacks highlighted include the Little Rock military recruiting station attack, the Fort Hood attack, the Boston Marathon bombing and subsequent firefight, a beheading in Moore Oklahoma, a Queens hatchet attack, the execution-style murders of two cops in Brooklyn, the Garland draw Mohammed attack, the Chattanooga recruiting station attack, the San Bernardino Christmas party attack, the Orlando night club attack, the St. Cloud mall attack, the New York/New Jersey bomber, and the Columbus Ohio State University attack.

“Climate Change”

Obama also took credit for his climate change agenda. Something he has always believed poses a greater threat to world peace than radical Islamic terrorism. Jack Welch, the former CEO of GE, explained on CNBC why Obama’s focus on climate change has hurt the nation as a whole.

Jack Welch, former chairman and CEO of General Electric, said Thursday the Obama administration’s heavy focus on combating climate change is “radical behavior” that’s holding back the economy.

A longtime GOP supporter, Welch told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” the priority on preventing climate change spills over into “all kinds of policies throughout the different agencies.”

The result, he said: “You get an economy that won’t move. You get ozone regs that are wacky.”

“You [also] get a reduced military,” he added — saying the U.S. needs to rebuild its national defenses to combat the threat from the so-called Islamic State terrorist group. “You can’t be sitting here with the real threat of a caliphate and ISIL … and talking about climate change.”

The Obama focus on ‘climate change’ has led to a weaker, less prosperous, and less safe America. Hardly an accomplishment to crow about. Not to mention that now some scientists think we are headed into a new ice age.

Jobs

Obama also once again tried to paint the nation’s employment picture as rosy. He boasted about how he “unleash[ed] the longest stretch of job creation in our history.” While it may be factually correct, it belies the type of job growth and the stagnant rate of growth.

Because of Obamacare, there have been a disproportionate number of part-time jobs created. The labor force participation rate is still anemically low.

CR’s John Gray has blown a hole in Obama’s jobs record. Back in 2015 he laid out the case, which hasn’t changed much.

Obama Touts This. Currently at 5 percent, the unemployment rate is at the lowest level since Obama became president. In addition, the president has “created” about 8.1 million net new jobs since 2009 – a little less than the 8.7 million that were lost during financial crisis in 2008 and 2009.

But Not This. Those rosy unemployment numbers fail to factor in millions of people only marginally attached to the workforce, or those who would like to work, but have quit looking for employment out of frustration at the lack of opportunities. When those workers are factored in, the real unemployment rate, otherwise known as the underemployment rate is now 9.9 percent – nearly twice the rate of the “official” metric.

More importantly, a growing share of the population is no longer participating in the workforce altogether. The labor force participation rate has dropped to 62.4 percent, or nearly 94 million American not in the labor force; labor force participation has not been this low since 1977. Those are just a few of the areas that Obama tried to take “credit” for improving. He then went on to talk about areas he would be judging President-elect Trump on, signaling that he would not step aside quietly to let his successor govern, as is the precedent with past presidents.

Tonight’s speech was a powerful reminder of how much better the nation will be when the ink in Obama’s pen runs dry, and his government cell phone contract is dropped. Then all he’ll have is a soapbox, where he can utter “just words.” (For more from the author of “Named and Shamed: Tom Cotton Calls out Cory Booker’s Disgraceful Sessions Chicanery” please click HERE)

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Liberal Theology Empties Churches

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The Episcopal Church in America reached peak membership in 1959, with about 3.5 million baptized members, rising from just over one million in a decade. Since the population of the USA also rose during this period, another way to put it is to say the Episcopal Church had in 1959 about 19.4 members per every 1,000 citizens, rising from 17 per 1,000 in 1949. Total church membership has since fallen, with membership about 1.8 million in 2015, or 5.5 per 1,000, and dropping none too slowly.

Liberal versus Conservative

Similar rapid decreases are seen among the Presbyterian (PCUSA), United Methodist, and Lutheran (ELCA) churches. Episcopalians, Presbyterians (USA), Lutherans (ELCA) and United Methodists represent historical or mainline Protestant Churches in the USA,

The much more evangelical Southern Baptist Convention, because of its age, is similarly situated. Numbers are better in the large Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) than in the Mainline. But membership in SBC congregations has not been keeping track with population increases.

In contrast, evangelical denominations, such as for example the Assemblies of God, while still individually smaller than mainline Protestant congregations, have seen significant growth. The Assemblies of God had only about 300 thousand members in 1950 (about 2.1 per 1,000), swelling ten times to 3.1 million last year (9.8 per 1,000).

Broadly speaking, and using the colloquial understanding of the terms, conservative Protestant churches have had increases this past half century, and liberal churches have had decreases. It is, of course, of interest to shore up these loose expressions and discover just what “conservative” and “liberal” mean in this context.

Enter the paper “Theology Matters: Comparing the Traits of Growing and Declining Mainline Protestant Church Attendees and Clergy” by David Millard Haskell, Kevin N. Flatt, and Stephanie Burgoyne in the journal Review of Religious Research. The trio asked questions of the clergy and congregations of 22 Protestant churches drawn from the Anglican Church of Canada (5), the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada (4), the Presbyterian Church in Canada (8), and the United Church of Canada (4) all centered in southern Ontario. Of these, 13 had declining populations from 2003 to 2013 and 9 had increasing populations.

Now this isn’t an especially large or necessarily representative sample of churches outside Canada; however, as the survey questions will show, there is still much that can be learned.

Congregations in Growing and Declining Churches
Several questions were asked of the congregants, and many answers showed wide disagreement between the Growing and Declining churches.

For instance, 79% of Growing congregants agreed strongly with the statement “Through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, God provided a way for the forgiveness of my sins,” whereas only 57% of Declining congregants thought the same. About 19% of Growing congregants strongly agreed that “the beliefs of the Christian faith need to change over time to stay relevant,” whereas 31% of Declining congregants thought so.

Three questions in particular were revealing in the conservative-liberal gap. Only 7% of Growing congregants strongly agreed that “the Bible is the product of human thinking about God, so some of its teachings are wrong or misguided,” whereas over 15% of Declining congregants strongly agreed.

About 13% of Growing congregants strongly agreed that “all major religions are equally good and true,” but more than twice as many Declining congregants, or 25%, thought so. On the fundamental basis of the Christian religion, 66% of Growing congregants strongly agreed that “Jesus rose from the dead with a real flesh and blood body, leaving behind an empty tomb,” but only 37% of Declining congregants did.

Not surprisingly, about 29% of Growing congregants thought their church’s mission was evangelism, and 16% thought it was social justice, whereas the numbers in Declining congregations was 9% and 31%.

Clergy in Growing and Declining Churches

Questions were also asked of the clergy, and the differences between Growing and Declining congregations was starker.

The largest difference was in the statement “Jesus was not the divine Son of God,” where it might be expected no clergy member could agree. And, indeed, no Growing clergy member agreed in any way. Yet 13% of Declining clergy agreed at least moderately.

Likewise, no Declining clergy strongly agreed that “it is very important to encourage non-Christians to become Christians,” but 77% of Growing clergy did. The statement “The beliefs of the Christian faith need to change over time to stay relevant” could not get any Growing clergy to agree in any way, but 69% of Declining clergy at least moderately agreed.

Some 70% of Growing clergy strongly agreed that “those who die face a divine judgement where some will be punished eternally,” but only 6% of Declining clergy moderately agreed, and none strongly agreed. On that same fundamental question asked of the congregation, 85% of Growing clergy strongly agreed (and none strongly disagreed) that “Jesus rose from the dead with a real flesh and blood body, leaving behind an empty tomb,” yet only 38% of Declining clergy thought so (and 19% strongly disagreed).

Has the call for liberalization failed?

Writing in the Washington Post, one of the authors of the study (Haskell), reminds us of the 1999 book by Episcopalian bishop John Shelby Spong Why Christianity Must Change or Die. “Spong, a theological liberal, said congregations would grow if they abandoned their literal interpretation of the Bible and transformed along with changing times.”

The Episcopal Church followed this advice. They have female priests and bishops. They allow “the ordination of openly gay, lesbian, bisexual, and/or transgender clergy.” They even had a practicing homosexual bishop in a (government-defined) “marriage” to another man, a “marriage” which was further liberalized into a “divorce.”

Yet, even though Haskell says Spong’s theory “won favor with academics” and was “praised” at no less eminent a place than the Harvard Divinity School to assist in “shifting Christianity to meet the needs of the modern world,” the Episcopal Church’s membership dropped precipitously, with no sign of slowing. The Church even splintered, with the Anglican Church in North America forming from former Episcopalians who could not countenance Spong’s liberal theology.

As for the anti-climatic conclusion of his study, Haskell blandly writes, “Conservative Protestant theology, with its more literal view of the Bible, is a significant predictor of church growth while liberal theology leads to decline.”

Apparently theological liberalism empties churches. (For more from the author of “Liberal Theology Empties Churches” please click HERE)

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While America Was Watching Football, the FBI Dropped These 300 Clinton-Related Docs

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While the rest of America was preoccupied with the NFL Wildcard Playoffs and the Golden Globes ceremony Sunday evening, the FBI released another batch of Hillary Clinton documents, completely unannounced. The 300 items contained information regarding the federal investigation into the form Democratic presidential candidate’s private email server and her questionable handling of classified material.

Wikileaks was the first to announce the news via Twitter:

According to Wikileaks, the documents were released at 22:37 p.m. UTC on the Bureau’s Vault website, where it publishes information regarding Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. Sunday marked the fifth of such Clinton document dumps on behalf of the FBI.

The Daily Caller’s Chuck Ross conducted a preliminary perusal of the 300 documents, many of which appear to be emails between State Department officials and federal law enforcement disputing whether certain emails sent over Clinton’s private server contained “classified” information.

From the Daily Caller:

In one April 27, 2015 email, an FBI official wrote to other officials that they were “about to get drug into an issue on classification” of Clinton’s emails. The official, whose name is redacted, said that the State Department was “forum shopping,” or seeking a favorable opinion on the classification issue by asking different officials to rate emails as unclassified.

The emails also appear to show that State Department officials made multiple special requests for the FBI to reduce its classification of certain emails found on Clinton’s.

More from the Daily Caller:

The FBI release also includes an email from the attorney of Bryan Pagliano, the Hillary Clinton State Department aide who set up and managed her secret email server. In the email, Mark MacDougall, Pagliano’s lawyer, informed the FBI that Pagliano would decline the bureau’s request for an investigation. Pagliano would eventually meet with the FBI in December, but only after receiving limited immunity from the Department of Justice.

Sunday’s low-profile email dump proves that the Hillary Clinton email saga is far from over, and that the FBI has some explaining to do. (For more from the author of “While America Was Watching Football, the FBI Dropped These 300 Clinton-Related Docs” please click HERE)

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Retired IRS Special Agent: Here’s How to Get Mexico to Pay for the Wall

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The Washington Post published an article Friday reporting that American taxpayers will have to pay for the promised wall between Mexico and the southern U.S. border, despite President-elect Donald Trump’s earlier claims that Mexico would be forced to fund the project.

There is still a way that Mexico could pay for the wall, however.

How Illegal Immigrants Receive Hefty Tax Returns

Congress, through the Internal Revenue Code (IRC), allows illegal immigrants working in the United States to claim their relatives living in Mexico and Canada, or illegally in the Unitesd States, as dependents on their tax return, thus reducing their tax liability. Amending the IRC to allow only U.S. Citizens (USC’s) or legal residents to be claimed as dependents would likely generate billions of dollars in additional tax revenue which could then be earmarked for a border fence between Mexico and the United States.

Here’s how the system current works. An illegal immigrant living in the United States can file a Form W-7 through an “Accepting Agent” (usually a return preparer) with the IRS to get an Individual Tax Identification Number (ITIN). He then can get ITIN’s for his relatives living in Mexico or illegally in the United States.

When he files his Form 1040, he slaps his ITIN on the front of the return and attaches his Form W-2 showing his wages. The Form W-2 usually shows the social security number that he has purchased, stolen, or borrowed because he was ineligible to work in the Unites States. He then loads up his return with the ITIN’s of his dependents either living illegally in the United States or residing in Mexico. These dependents don’t have to be the taxpayer’s children. They can be his parents, uncles, and distant relatives such as nieces and nephews. The taxpayer’s 2016 taxable income is reduced by $4,050 for each dependent.

Crazy True Story

Here’s a true example. IRS special agents raided a one-person tax preparation business in a small Wisconsin town in 2014. Over the course of seven years, the owner filed 10,437 applications for ITIN’s on behalf of her clients. From the 2011 through 2014 filing season, her clients racked up over $34 million in refunds from the 9,489 returns she filed with the IRS. Her clients received an average refund of $3,509 even though 69 percent of the listed an ITIN holder as the primary taxpayer and about 75 percent of the claimed dependents had ITIN’s.

Translated into English, this means that 69 percent of her taxpayers were illegal immigrants working in the United States who got an annual check for about $3,600 from Uncle Sam after claiming other illegals (or relatives in either Mexico or Canada) as dependents. During an undercover operation, this return preparer counseled her client (the conversation was conducted in Spanish) to find children in Mexico to claim so he could get a tax refund instead of owing money to the IRS.

IRS Mismanagement

Now, matters are getting worse. Illegal immigrants who want to claim bogus dependents operate on the honor system because Congress decimated the IRS’s enforcement budget. This move was made in response, I believe, to former IRS director Lois Lerner’s pleading of the 5th, lost IRS emails, crashed IRS hard drives, a few million dollars spent on a Disney Land boondoggle for IRS management, and videos showing high ranking IRS executives practicing a line dance or parodying a Star Trek episode. (Note that they mix the bridge of the original Star Trek with the Next Generation uniforms. Atrocious.)

The IRS does not publish statistics on the tax revenue lost by allowing illegal immigrants to claim other illegal immigrants, or people residing in Mexico, as dependents. However, the example provided above shows that just one return preparer can cost the Treasury $34 million in a few short years. What we do know is that the IRS estimates that the Tax Gap (the amount of tax revenue that should be collected but isn’t) stands at $468 billion per year.

If President-Elect Trump wants Mexico to pay for the wall, I suggest he sign a revision of the Tax Code which eliminates the dependency exemption for persons residing in Mexico and illegal immigrants from Mexico residing in the Unites States. Doing so would both fulfill a campaign promise and reduce the Tax Gap.

By the way, the return preparer in my example was never indicted, though hope springs eternal. (For more from the author of “Retired IRS Special Agent: Here’s How to Get Mexico to Pay for the Wall” please click HERE)

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Ft. Lauderdale Shooter Another ‘Known Wolf’ Let Go by FBI

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It is uncertain the motive or mental state of the man who walked off a plane in the Fort Lauderdale airport, loaded a gun, and murdered five people. What we do know is that he basically turned himself in to the FBI and once again the Bureau did nothing when confronted with the possibility that he had been influenced by radical Islam. This continues a disturbing trend of law enforcement knowing that specific violent jihadis, or known wolves, exist — and not doing anything to prevent attacks.

From Omar Mateen, the jihadi who shot up a gay nightclub, to the jihadi who set off a bomb in Manhattan, to seemingly countless others, the FBI has known about specific terrorists before they carried out attacks. The FBI has time and time again caught and released these jihadis, and yet again that appears to be the case.

It is uncertain if Esteban Santiago, the man in custody for the horrific attack, is a true believer in a radical Islamic ideology, or a severely mentally unstable person who carried out jihad because of the voices in his head. What is undeniable is that he walked into a FBI office in Alaska and told them “voices” were making him do things.

He told officials he was hearing voices in his head, some of which were telling him to join ISIS and watch their videos, and was taken to hospital for a mental health evaluation.

Santiago, who also told the FBI the government controlled his mind, gunned down 13 people at Fort Lauderdale airport today, killing five and injuring eight.

After the evaluation, and after agreeing to seek help for his mental issues, Santiago was freed. It looks as though there was very little monitoring of him afterwards. There also appears to have been no follow up or monitoring of Santiago, nor an attempt to use existing laws and due process to suspend his right to carry a gun, something that is permissible under current law.

Again, it is very much unsure at this stage if Santiago is an actual convert to radical Islam. But he did flash what is known as, for lack of a better term, the ISIS gang sign in a social media photo.

If, in fact, if it turns out that Santiago is mentally unstable and not a true jihadi, that brings another government agency into focus: the VA. It is well known that the VA health system has been letting down our nation’s veterans at an alarming rate, especially the mental well-being of those veterans. It has been reported that Santiago recently spent a tour of duty in Iraq. His family said that he was not the same since coming back.

The suspect’s aunt Maria Ruiz Rivera claimed the alleged shooter “lost his mind” while fighting in Iraq.

When quizzed why Santiago may have opened fire at passengers, her husband, Hernan Rivera, said: “No idea. Only thing I could tell you was when he came out of Iraq, he wasn’t feeling too good.”

No matter if Santiago was a true believing jihadi, radicalized while in Iraq, or a veteran who did not get the health care he deserved from the VA, it is beyond doubt that our government dropped the ball once again. President-elect Trump has promised to revamp both law enforcement’s stance toward jihad and the VA. The attack in Fort Lauderdale proves that new focus cannot come fast enough. (For more from the author of “Ft. Lauderdale Shooter Another ‘Known Wolf’ Let Go by FBI” 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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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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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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