The court is scheduled to issue opinions on Thursday and these are the major outstanding cases:

– Birthright citizenship –

The case is ostensibly about Donald Trump’s bid to scrap birthright citizenship but it actually turns on whether federal judges have the right to issue nationwide blocks to presidential decrees.

It is perhaps the most significant of the remaining cases since it could have far-reaching ramifications for the ability of the judiciary to rein in Trump or future US presidents.

Continue reading HERE

Source: https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-supreme-court-ending-term-074512136.html

The post US Supreme Court ending term with birthright, porn, voting rights first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

While Democrat after Democrat has cried out over the possibility a conservative Supreme Court could eviscerate abortion rights, strategists say little is being offered in terms of a clear way to fight back.

Some also say the party wasn’t ready for something that was clearly coming down the pike.

“Why are we so behind the curve on this? Where is the plan? We knew this was coming in theory since Coney Barrett joined the court, and in practice since December,” said Democratic strategist Christy Setzer.

“I don’t want to hear empty rhetoric about how ‘we won’t go back,’ I want to hear that there is a legislative or federal plan to change things,” she added.

President Biden and Vice President Harris have assailed the leaked draft opinion. In an impassioned speech at the EMILY’s List gala on Tuesday night, Harris declared that women’s rights were under attack, previewing her party’ midterm messaging.

Strategists say the rage is real. But they are worried the party has no real strategy.

“We’re all so enraged but now what? What’s the plan? Sadly, I don’t think we have one,” said one strategist. “There’s so much talk of ‘We can’t let this happen.’ But I don’t think anyone knows what to do next.”

There are significant limits to what the White House and Democrats in Congress can do if the Supreme Court strikes down Roe v. Wade and GOP states begin to outlaw abortion rights.

Previous efforts to codify abortion rights into law have failed and Democrats do not have the votes in Congress to overcome a filibuster.

“I think their options are very limited, and what I’ve been advising is for the White House to focus on winnable battles,” said Lawrence Gostin, a public health law professor at Georgetown University.

While some progressive Democrats have renewed a push to do away with the legislative filibuster, Biden isn’t joining that effort – at least not yet. Instead, he’s called on voters to elect more pro-abortion Democrats to Congress, a message echoed throughout his administration.

Democrats may not even have 50 votes to codify abortion rights. Sen. Joe Manchin (R-W.Va.), who describes himself as a pro-life Democrat, voted against advancing the Women’s Health Protection Act earlier this year.

Biden has ordered the Gender Policy Council and the White House counsel’s office to develop a response plan in preparation for a Supreme Court ruling, but it’s too early to know what that plan will entail. Any steps could also face legal challenges from Republican attorneys general.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Wednesday that the administration will not release its plan until after the final opinion is released, conscious of not getting ahead of the official ruling expected to come over the next two months.

“We don’t have a final conclusion. The Supreme Court themselves made clear this is not the final opinion,” Psaki said. “We are already working a great deal behind the scenes and we will have more to say.”

Psaki said that officials across the administration are focused on helping those who will be most affected by the ruling, including women of color and poorer Americans who will face bigger financial challenges accessing abortions if Roe is overturned and states enact restrictions. The White House believes that as many as 26 states will move to restrict abortion if the draft opinion holds.

Gostin offered that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention could prepare a report on the physical and mental consequences for women for don’t have access to safe and lawful abortions. He also said the Food and Drug Administration could expand its guidance on the use of abortion pills, such as specifying where people can safely order them.

He also said that Biden is considering allowing the use of Medicaid funding to pay for time off and travel for women who need to travel out-of-state to receive abortions.

The administration’s actions thus far have offered little solace to frustrated Democrats.

Some progressives are calling for more aggressive action, including renewing a controversial push to expand the number of justices on the Supreme Court.

“We aren’t powerless,” Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) said on an organizing call for the progressive advocacy group Demand Justice Wednesday night. “Two things that we must do to protect and preserve our democracy: one, we must get rid of the filibuster and, two, we need to add some seats to the United States Supreme Court.”

Meanwhile, a coalition of organizations including Planned Parenthood, MoveOn and Women’s March announced plans Thursday to hold marches in four major cities including in Washington, D.C., as part of a coordinated effort to protest the forthcoming ruling.

The White House has pointed to steps the administration has already taken, such as creating $6.6 million in grants for family planning services and emergency contraception for people in states with restrictive laws.

“We are going to double down on the effort to make sure that the legal rights of all Americans, women to access the care that they’re entitled to continues forward,” Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra told lawmakers at a Senate hearing this week.

Gostin said the White House was unprepared for the uproar created by the leaked draft opinion earlier this week.

“The leak has really made this an outsized public and political issue even more so than the actual opinion would have been,” he said. “It’s caused a huge political tsunami.”

Source: https://thehill.com/news/administration/3479097-democrats-worry-they-lack-a-plan-to-fight-back-on-roe-v-wade/

The post Democrats worry they lack a plan to fight back on Roe v. Wade first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 ruling that declared a nationwide right to abortion, is facing its most serious challenge in 30 years in front of a court with a 6-3 conservative majority that has been remade by three appointees of President Donald Trump.

“There are no half measures here,” said Sherif Girgis, a Notre Dame law professor who once served as a law clerk for Justice Samuel Alito.

A ruling that overturned Roe and the 1992 case of Planned Parenthood v. Casey would lead to outright bans or severe restrictions on abortion in 26 states, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports abortion rights.

The case being argued Wednesday comes from Mississippi, where a 2018 law would ban abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, well before viability. The Supreme Court has never allowed states to ban abortion before the point at roughly 24 weeks when a fetus can survive outside the womb.

The justices are separately weighing disputes over Texas’ much earlier abortion ban, at roughly six weeks, though those cases turn on the unique structure of the law and how it can be challenged in court, not the abortion right. Still, abortion rights advocates were troubled by the court’s 5-4 vote in September to allow the Texas law, which relies on citizen lawsuits to enforce it, to take effect in the first place.

“This is the most worried I’ve ever been,” said Shannon Brewer, who runs the only abortion clinic in Mississippi, the Jackson Women’s Health Organization.

The clinic offers abortions up to 16 weeks of pregnancy and about 10% of abortions it performs take place after the 15th week, Brewer said.

She also noted that since the Texas law took effect, the clinic has seen a substantial increase in patients, operating five days or six days a week instead of two or three.

Lower courts blocked the Mississippi law, as they have other abortion bans that employ traditional enforcement methods by state and local officials.

The Supreme Court had never before even agreed to hear a case over a pre-viability abortion ban. But after Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death last year and her replacement by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, the third of Trump’s appointees, the court said it would take up the case.

Trump had pledged to appoint “pro-life justices” and predicted they would lead the way in overturning the abortion rulings. Only one justice, Clarence Thomas, has publicly called for Roe to be overruled.

The court could uphold the Mississippi law without explicitly overruling Roe and Casey, an outcome that would satisfy neither side.

Abortion-rights advocates say that result would amount to the same thing as an outright ruling overturning the earlier cases because it would erase the rationale undergirding nearly a half-century of Supreme Court law.

“A decision upholding this ban is tantamount to overruling Roe. The ban prohibits abortion around two months before viability,” said Julie Rikelman, who will argue the case for the clinic.

On the other side, abortion opponents argue that the court essentially invented abortion law in Roe and Casey, and shouldn’t repeat that mistake in this case.

If the justices uphold Mississippi’s law, they’ll have to explain why, said Thomas Jipping, a Heritage Foundation legal fellow. They can either overrule the two big cases, Jipping said, “or they’re going to have to come up with another made-up rule.”

Conservative commentator Ed Whelan said such an outcome would be a “massive defeat” on par with the Casey decision in 1992, in which a court with eight justices appointed by Republican presidents unexpectedly reaffirmed Roe.

This court appears far more conservative than the one that decided Casey, and legal historian Mary Ziegler at Florida State University’s law school, said the court probably would “overrule Roe or set us on a path to doing so.”

Chief Justice John Roberts might find the more incremental approach appealing if he can persuade a majority of the court to go along. Since Roberts became chief justice in 2005, the court has moved in smaller steps on some issues, even when it appeared there was only a binary choice.

It took two cases for the court to rip out the heart of the federal Voting Rights Act that curbed potentially discriminatory voting laws in states with a history of discrimination.

In the area of organized labor, the court moved through a series of cases that chipped away at public sector unions’ power.

The high court also heard two rounds of arguments over restrictions on independent spending in the political arena before removing limits on how much money corporations and unions can pour into election advocacy.

If the court looks to public sentiment, it would find poll after poll that shows support for preserving Roe, though some surveys also find backing for greater restrictions on abortion.

Mississippi is one of 12 states ready to act almost immediately if Roe is overturned. Those states have enacted so-called abortion trigger laws that would take effect and ban all or nearly all abortions.

Women in those states wanting abortions could face drives of hundreds of miles to reach the nearest clinic or they might obtain abortion pills by mail. Medication abortions now account for 40% of abortions.

Some legal briefs in the case make clear that the end of Roe is not the ultimate goal of abortion opponents.

The court should recognize that “unborn children are persons” under the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, a conclusion that would compel an end to almost all legal abortions, Princeton professor Robert George and scholar John Finnis wrote. Finnis was Justice Neil Gorsuch’s adviser on his Oxford dissertation, an argument against assisted suicide.

Source: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/supreme-court-set-to-take-up-all-or-nothing-abortion-fight

The post Supreme Court set to take up all-or-nothing abortion fight first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Demonstrators gathered in front of the Governor’s Mansion in Austin to protest against Senate Bill 8, an anti-abortion bill that Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law this morning.   Credit: Evan L’Roy/The Texas Tribune

Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law Wednesday a measure that would prohibit in Texas abortions as early as six weeks — before some women know they are pregnant — and open the door for almost any private citizen to sue abortion providers and others.

The signing of the bill opens a new frontier in the battle over abortion restrictions as first-of-its-kind legal provisions — intended to make the law harder to block — are poised to be tested in the courts.

Abortion rights advocates have promised to challenge the new law, which they consider one of the most extreme nationwide and the strictest in Texas since the landmark Roe v. Wade decision. It would amount to an outright ban on abortions, as the six-week cutoff is two weeks after a missed menstrual cycle, opponents say.

The law takes effect in September.

“Our creator endowed us with the right to life and yet millions of children lose their right to life every year because of abortion,” Abbott said in a bill signing ceremony, captured on videos posted on social media. The Legislature “worked together on a bipartisan basis to pass a bill that I’m about to sign that ensures that the life of every unborn child who has a heartbeat will be saved from the ravages of abortion.”

The governor’s signature comes just after the U.S. Supreme Court said it would hear a case concerning a Mississippi law that would ban most abortions after 15 weeks, and which could lead to new limits on abortion rights. It is the first major abortion case heard before the court’s newly expanded conservative majority, and could have far-reaching effects for Texas, where a pending bill would outlaw nearly all abortions if the Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade.

Senate Bill 8 was a top priority for Republican lawmakers, nearly all of whom signed on as an author or sponsor of the measure.

The bill bans abortions after whenever an ultrasound can detect what lawmakers defined as a fetal “heartbeat,” which can be as early as six weeks into pregnancy. Medical and legal experts say the term is misleading because embryos don’t possess a heart at that developmental stage.

It includes cases where the woman was impregnated as a result of rape or incest. There is an exception for medical emergencies.

Similar bills have been passed by other states and held up by the courts, but Texas’ version has a twist.

Instead of having the government enforce the law, the bill turns the reins over to private citizens — who are newly empowered to sue abortion providers or anyone who helps someone get an abortion after a fetal “heartbeat” has been detected. The person would not have to be connected to someone who had an abortion or to a provider to sue.

Proponents of the new law hope to get around the legal challenges that have tied up abortion restrictions in the courts. While abortion providers typically sue the state to stop a restrictive abortion law from taking effect, there’s no state official enforcing Senate Bill 8 — so there’s no one to sue, the bill’s proponents say.

“It’s a very unique law and it’s a very clever law,” said Josh Blackman, a constitutional law professor at South Texas College of Law Houston. “Planned Parenthood can’t go to court and sue Attorney General [Ken] Paxton like they usually would because he has no role in enforcing the statute. They have to basically sit and wait to be sued.”

Legal experts have been divided on the strategy, and abortion rights advocates have said they plan to fight regardless.

Elisabeth Smith, chief counsel for state policy and advocacy at the Center for Reproductive Rights, which has represented abortion providers who have sued Texas officials, said it and other abortion rights organizations are “not going to let this six-week ban go unchallenged.”

Drucilla Tigner, policy and advocacy strategist of the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, said the “governor’s swipe of a pen can’t change the Constitution.”

While the law amounts to the most extreme abortion ban in the country, “abortion is both legal in Texas and supported by the majority of Texans,” Tigner said.

Abortion rights advocates and lawyers say the new law would allow for a cascade of lawsuits against abortion providers that would sap their time and money even if they ultimately won in court.

Family members, abortion funds, rape crisis counselors and other medical professionals could be open to lawsuits, under the broad language in the bill, according to legal experts and physicians who opposed the measure. People who sued would be awarded at least $10,000, as well as costs for attorney’s fees, if they won.

“Every citizen is now a private attorney general,” Blackman said. “You can have random people who are against abortion start suing tomorrow.”

John Seago, with Texas Right to Life, an anti-abortion organization that supported the bill, said he doubted there would be an “overwhelming number of cases on day one.”

Lawsuits might be filed by anti-abortion activists who learned through talking to the woman that she got an abortion after six weeks.

“There’s going to be a lot of different (fact) patterns that could lead to the case,” he said. But the bill isn’t “throwing out the typical way that the judicial system works — there’s still going to be a judge, there’s still going to be depositions, there’s going to be a high bar” before fees are awarded.

The ultimate goal, he said, is to incentivize abortion providers to comply with the law instead of fighting it in court.

They can “easily avoid all of that,” Seago said. “Have a public statement. Put it on their website that they’re not scheduling appointments after six weeks.”

The bill does not allow rapists to sue, but abortion rights advocates say the wording offers flimsy protection as most rapes and sexual assaults aren’t reported and don’t result in a conviction.

Most abortions in Texas were prohibited after about 20 weeks. Pill-induced abortions were barred at 10 weeks. An abortion provider must perform a sonogram on the woman 24 hours before the abortion and give them information about medical risks, abortion alternatives and assistance available to those who follow through with their pregnancy.

More than 56,600 abortions were performed on Texas residents in 2019, according to state statistics, most of them in the first trimester.

Proponents of the law celebrated its signing.

“The Legislature and Governor prioritized this historic legislation, and with his signature, approximately 50,000 precious human lives will be saved in Texas next year alone!” said Chelsey Youman, with Human Coalition Action, an anti-abortion organization.

Texas Right to Life called the bill’s signing a “landmark victory,” but said a more comprehensive measure was still waiting for a vote in the Legislature.

“Texas Right to Life reminds our elected officials of their solemn duty to protect the lives of their citizens, especially the most vulnerable and innocent Texans in the womb. The signing of the Texas Heartbeat Act marks a historic step in the battle to protect Life,” the organization said.

Opponents of the legislation condemned its passage.

Dyana Limon-Mercado, executive director of Planned Parenthood Texas Votes, the political arm of Planned Parenthood affiliates in Texas, said the six-week cutoff amounted to an effective ban on abortions in the state.

“When you factor in the time it takes to confirm a pregnancy, consider your options and make a decision, schedule an appointment and comply with all the restrictions politicians have already put in place for patients and providers, a six-week ban essentially bans abortion outright,” she said.

Amy Hagstrom Miller, head of Whole Woman’s Health, an abortion provider that has four clinics in Texas, said the law will have a “chilling effect.”

Protesters have previously falsely reported Whole Woman’s Health clinics to state health officials for allegedly having the wrong water heater permit, not following social distancing protocols during the pandemic, and other perceived regulatory infractions, she said.

The “false reports disrupt health care services and this culture of threats and accusations is designed to intimidate providers,” she said.

About 90% of women who come to Whole Woman’s Health clinics are more than six weeks into their pregnancy, she said.

Whole Woman’s Health has sued Texas over abortion restrictions, and won a 2016 case that went up to the Supreme Court.

The bill was opposed by more than 300 Texas lawyers who said it undermined longstanding rules and tenets of the legal system, including that a person must be injured to sue.

The law would also let someone file a lawsuit in their home county against an abortion clinic, and stop the case from being transferred to a different venue.

In practice, legal experts say it would be more costly and difficult for abortion providers to play legal defense before a judge hundreds of miles away, and it could let anti-abortion advocates be heard in courts that they think will be more sympathetic.

Seago, with Texas Right to Life, said it “will be interesting to see (how) the other kind of alternative avenues (handle) these debates.”

“We know how Judge (Lee) Yeakel and Judge (Sam) Sparks handle these cases,” he said, referring to two federal judges who reliably strike down Texas abortion restrictions.

Disclosure: Planned Parenthood has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

Source: https://www.texastribune.org/2021/05/18/texas-heartbeat-bill-abortions-law/

The post Gov. Greg Abbott signs into law one of nation’s strictest abortion measures, banning procedure as early as six weeks into a pregnancy first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

By hearing the case in their next term, which starts in October and ends in June 2022, the justices will look at whether to overturn a central part of the landmark ruling, a longstanding goal of religious conservatives.

The eventual ruling by the conservative-majority court, expected next year, could allow states to ban abortions before a fetus is viable outside the womb, upending decades of legal precedent. Lower courts ruled against Mississippi’s law.

In the Roe v. Wade decision, subsequently reaffirmed in 1992, the court said that states could not ban abortion before the viability of the fetus outside the womb, which is generally viewed by doctors as between 24 and 28 weeks. The Mississippi law would ban abortion much earlier than that. Other states have backed laws that would ban the procedure even earlier.

“Alarm bells are ringing loudly about the threat to reproductive rights. The Supreme Court just agreed to review an abortion ban that unquestionably violates nearly 50 years of Supreme Court precedent and is a test case to overturn Roe v. Wade,” said Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, which is among those challenging the law.

Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch, a Republican, said she is committed to defending the law’s constitutionality.

“The Mississippi legislature enacted this law consistent with the will of its constituents to promote women’s health and preserve the dignity and sanctity of life. I remain committed to advocating for women and defending Mississippi’s legal right to protect the unborn,” Fitch said.

The Roe v. Wade ruling recognized that a constitutional right to personal privacy protects a woman’s ability to obtain an abortion. The court in its 1992 decision, coming in the case Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, reaffirmed the ruling and prohibited laws that place an “undue burden” on a woman’s ability to obtain an abortion.

Abortion opponents are hopeful the Supreme Court will narrow or overturn the Roe v. Wade decision. The court has a 6-3 conservative majority following the addition last year of Republican former President Donald Trump’s third appointee, Justice Amy Coney Barrett.

A person in a mask walks past the United States Supreme Court Building in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 13, 2021. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly/File Photo

The United States Supreme Court in Washington, U.S., May 17, 2021. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters that Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration is committed to defending abortion rights. Psaki said abortion and access to healthcare have come under “withering and extreme attack” in recent years including through “draconian state laws.”

LOUISIANA RULING

The Supreme Court in a 5-4 June 2020 ruling struck down a Louisiana law that imposed restrictions on doctors who perform abortions. The late liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was still on the court at the time, and conservative Chief Justice John Roberts voted with the court’s liberal wing in the ruling. Roberts, however, made it clear that he voted that way because he felt bound by the court’s 2016 ruling striking down a similar Texas law.

The 2018 Mississippi law, like others resembling it passed by Republican-led states, was enacted with full knowledge that was a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade.

After the only abortion clinic in Mississippi, Jackson Women’s Health Organization sued to block the measure, a federal judge in 2018 ruled against the state. The New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2019 reached the same conclusion.

“States may regulate abortion procedures prior to viability so long as they do not impose an undue burden on the woman’s right, but they may not ban abortions. The law at issue is a ban,” 5th Circuit Judge Patrick Higginbotham wrote.

Abortion remains a divisive issue in the United States, as in many countries. Christian conservatives are among those most opposed to it. U.S. abortion rates have steadily declined since the early 1980s, reaching the lowest levels on record in recent years, according to the nonprofit Guttmacher Institute.

Jeanne Mancini, president of the anti-abortion group March for Life, said a ruling limiting abortion to early pregnancy would be in line with many other countries.

The Louisiana case ruling marked the court’s first major abortion decision since Trump appointed Brett Kavanaugh in 2018 and Neil Gorsuch in 2017 as justices. Both voted in favor of Louisiana’s restrictions. If Barrett were to vote on similar lines, conservatives could have a majority to curb abortion rights regardless of how Roberts votes. Trump promised during the 2016 presidential race to appoint justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade.

The Mississippi appeal had been pending at the court since June 2020. During that time, Ginsburg died and was replaced by Barrett and Trump lost his re-election bid, to be replaced by Biden, who supports abortion rights.

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Source:  https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-supreme-court-takes-up-case-that-could-limit-abortion-rights-2021-05-17/

The post U.S. Supreme Court takes up major challenge to abortion rights first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The pope is once again proving that he embraces communism as “perfect Christianity.”  He says the disciples shared all things in common, and there you go.  That is his justification for communist leanings.  He should have sung harmony on John Lennon’s Imagine record.  But it’s doubtful he can sing.  Even Lennon reportedly outgrew his fanciful lyrics.  But not the pope.

Russia is amassing troops and tanks on Ukraine’s border, while conducting military exercises in the Black Sea.  There are reports that the fraudulent president has called back two Navy ships that were on their way.  Putin has closed the straits that would have had to be navigated if American ships were to have entered the Black Sea.  Get used to it.  America’s military is going to be backing down from any hint of conflict as long as we have to endure the current regime.

If Russia decides to annex Ukraine it looks as though nothing will be done.  Germany is not going to get involved.  It went forward with plans for the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline for energy against the advice of President Trump, so Russia has undisputed leverage over Germany.  As an aside, Angela Merkel failed to live up to her promise of increased funding for Germany’s part in NATO, which remained a major bone of contention for the Trump administration.  With Germany compromised by its energy needs, NATO can’t be expected to intervene.

Vladimir Putin is apparently aware that no one will stop him from taking Ukraine if that is indeed what he intends to do.  Half of Ukraine’s citizens are said to support Russian annexation anyway.  So, don’t be surprised when Ukraine becomes part of Russia.

You might remember any number of insider videos released by Project Veritas.  They nailed a lady from Planned Parenthood admitting over lunch that they sold aborted baby parts.  She said she was going to buy a Ferrari or Lamborghini or something.

Most recently they showed a CNN technical director saying he joined the network to help get Trump out of office.  He says they created the story claiming Trump’s hands were shaking out of whole cloth, and then brought in a batch of doctors and “experts” to speculate about what might be wrong with him.  That’s not all they did, and are still doing.  Anyone who watched the network over recent years knows that their homosexual anchors pushed the idea that Trump was crazy, racist and likely suffering some sort of dementia.  They called Trump supporters racist and uneducated all day and night.

One of their most aggressive “pundits” is gone without a trace.  Whatever happened to Jeffrey Toobin after all?  We wish we didn’t know.  Without the constant determined effort, the guy on hidden video suspects Trump would still be president.  He said the next big push, once they’ve completely exhausted the last of their audience with COVID fear, will be “global warming,” or climate change as they’ve come to call it.  He actually said, “Fear sells.”  Maybe that should be their new tagline, since we all know they’re not, “The Most Trusted Name in News.”  Not for a long time now.

If you’re brave enough to risk seeing what they’re doing on CNN, the technical director says that pictures of video of morose Polar bears and collapsing ice will be common on the “news” network.  They’ll try again to bamboozle us with this nonsense, and ridicule all who don’t buy-in.  It seems CNN hates America, hates President Trump and reserves a special hatred for Trump supporters, all the while accusing us as being dangerous “haters.”  Antifa and BLM are justified in all that they do, whether attacking Police precincts, burning businesses or looting department stores.  If you don’t support what they’re doing, you might be a racist!

There are too many signs of the times in which we’re living to even scratch the surface.  But one of the most telling is the fact that corporations are falling all over each other to implement “mandates” of one kind or another.  There is all kinds of noise about the “vaccination passport,” and a movement to insist that an individual be able to prove they’ve had their shots before being able to fly or enter into an establishment where people are shopping.  That push actually predates the news that some people don’t respond well to being vaccinated.  It’s hard to know what to believe in this vortex of conflicting information, but some vaccines have been banned in Europe and one (J & J) has been “paused” in the United States due to the onset of blood clots.   We’re also told that they may be dangerous to some who have already been exposed to the virus and developed anti-bodies, possibly all without their knowledge.  Whatever the truth may be, don’t expect Dr. Fauci to tell it.  Especially if there’s any hint of returning to FREEDOM.  It would be the end of the fame and power he so enjoys.

What’s important from our point of view is that multinational corporate conglomerates are doing the government’s dirty work.  There’s no need for the government to implement un-Constitutional mandates if every big name in food, sports, transportation etc. requires proof that you’ve relinquished freedom for the privilege of being a consumer.  Will we ever taste freedom again?  If the Supreme Court is packed and the Electoral College eliminated, both of which are goals of our fraudulent masters, probably not.  Try to have a great Sabbath.  There is a much Higher Power!

Mark

Source: http://www.intercontinentalcog.org/fridayupdates.php

The post Weekly Update by Mark Armstrong – 16 April 2021 first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The post Mississippi governor signs ‘heartbeat’ abortion law first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

It is Friday afternoon and as we’ve learned, big news often drops sometime in the evening.   There will probably be something that should have been addressed in the update, but was intentionally kept until the evening for whatever strategic reason. That may be the case, but there’s no shortage of matters that deserve attention.   Sometimes we wish there were. We’ll probably hear that they’ve REALLY got Trump, for sure this time.   That’ll probably be it.

You may remember the information relayed a couple of weeks ago, about the man behind the curtain in EU leadership.   His name is Martin Selmayer, as was relayed in our last monthly letter.   An article this week suggests that the Brexit “formula,” rejected by the British Parliament, was written in Berlin!   No wonder the thing left all manner of European rules in place.   No wonder that Prime Minister Theresa May was unable to renegotiate, even around the margins, with European leaders.   They couldn’t change the terms of the agreement anyway.   The terms were apparently laid out behind the scenes by someone with authority.

There’s no way we can tell you how this comes out.   The possibility of a “hard Brexit” at the end of this month still exists.   If Britain pulls the plug with no agreements in place, chances are the EU will make it as difficult as possible.   That’s the concern, that Britain will suffer in trade, travel and that English citizens living and working in Europe will find things they took for granted impossible. The British Parliament is due to hold another vote on the Brexit plan it already shot down, apparently with minor changes that do nothing to address the big problems that led to its demise last time.  There’s also the possibility of another delay.   We’ll see.

 Phony “hate crimes” are still being manufactured regularly.   Nobody seems to learn their lesson.   There are at least TWO more this week alone.   Mainstream outlets report these incidents (or false reports) soberly, even when they’re wildly suspicious. It just goes to show you the media can no longer be relied upon for accurate reporting, and will undoubtedly mislead the public with their analysis.   The most irritating aspect of this is that there apparently is a sizable audience for Fake News. While we turn it off in disgust, there are at least a couple million who hang on every word.   They probably even stay put for the commercials!

You’re doubtless aware that recent records are being shattered for the sheer numbers walking into the United States.   Since the vast majority are now “other than Mexicans,” they can’t be deported back across the border thanks to laws that congress thinks are just fine. Detention centers are bursting at the seams and thousands of people are being released into society. There’s no hope for the situation unless it’s made nearly impossible by some kind of barrier.   Meanwhile, the United States is an economic playground for whoever is willing to cough up enough cash for the smugglers.

The good news this week, if it actually sticks, is that the President is going to require universities to allow FREE SPEECH on their campuses if they expect to continue receiving Federal funding.   It’s unbelievable that universities were the one’s that went to wild extremes to claim their right to free speech.   Apparently it was only socialist/communist/anti-American speech they wanted to promote. Since radical socialist dogma has taken hold, they’ve allowed conservative speakers to be verbally and physically threatened.   They’ve promoted “safe-places” and declared themselves “sanctuaries” from everything that might “offend” socialist snow-flakes.

The other thing that will undoubtedly bring a wave of lawsuits and feigned outrage on your favorite mainstream outlet, is that the President says Planned Parenthood is going to have to physically separate facilities that render all those benign tests and treatments from those that provide the “services” for which they are best known.

Not to reiterate so much that has come before, but have you noticed that famous people and politicians swap positions and arguments at the drop of a hat?   It used to be that the anti-American contingent was anti-war at all costs, and you’ve heard the arguments that began in the 60’s.   Lately everyone’s hair catches fire at any hint of bringing our troops home from Syria.   Or Afghanistan. They say in all seriousness that it’s proof the President has lost his mind.   Question the continued necessity of NATO, now some 23 nations that predominantly rely on the U. S. for their defense?   Many have not lived up to their financial obligations.   Maybe that never occurred to anybody who’s called upon to call the President crazy, but it might be that he’s playing to another audience for strategic reasons.   Same goes for statements regarding North Korea and Kim Jong-un.   And for that matter, Russia! These wretched TV panels, sometimes eight or more at a time, want to diagram every sentence so they can claim, “He lied again!”   They’re not on the up and up, and we know it.

One more thing. The Royal Palace has denied in the strongest terms the report last week that Prince Harry and Meghan intend to raise their baby as “gender-neutral.”   Hard to know what’s gone on behind the scenes.   We hope it was more of the disinformation to which we’ve become accustomed.

Mark

PS: We just received copies of the new TCW.   It’s being mailed out directly from the (out of state) printer and should be in your mailbox presently.   Our thanks go out to all who make it possible for us to publish that magazine and all the other material that we continue to supply to a public that rarely encounters truth.

Source: http://www.intercontinentalcog.org/fridayupdates.php

The post Weekly Update by Mark Armstrong – 8 March 2019 first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The abortion provider and more than a dozen states object to the new rule because it distinguishes between family planning and abortion.

Several weeks ago, the Department of Health and Human Services announced the finalization of its “Protect Life” rule, which bars abortion providers from receiving family-planning funds under the federal Title X program. The rule prohibits the use of Title X money “to perform, promote, refer for, or support abortion as a method of family planning.”

Even though the statute governing Title X has, for most of the program’s history, stated that “none of the funds appropriated under this title shall be used in programs where abortion is a method of family planning,” that language effectively has been ignored. No longer.

Since the program was established in 1970, it has provided federal funding to Planned Parenthood, which today is the nation’s largest abortion provider. According to the group’s most recent annual report, Planned Parenthood facilities performed more than 332,000 abortions last fiscal year alone, over one-third of the estimated annual abortions in the U.S.

Because of the new Trump-administration rule, abortion providers such as Planned Parenthood now stand to lose Title X funding unless they financially and physically separate their provision of abortion from the rest of their business operations. Planned Parenthood executives rarely acknowledge that the policy only requires separation, and their refusal to do so suggests that they wish to conceal the centrality of abortion to their bottom line.

Predictably, abortion-rights supporters are outraged by this policy, and earlier this week California became the first state to sue the Trump administration over it. Xavier Becerra, the state’s progressive attorney general, said California is suing to “stand up for a woman’s right to make her own health-care decision about her own body” and claimed that the policy will “result in clinics going out of business due to financial strain.”

Twenty additional states and the District of Columbia filed suit in Oregon against the administration on similar grounds. Planned Parenthood, joined by the American Medical Association, the Oregon Medical Association, local Planned Parenthood affiliates, and two individual health-care providers, also filed suit in Oregon.

“The Final Rule would radically alter and decimate the family-planning-assistance program established by Title X . . . with severe and irreparable public health consequences across the United States,” Planned Parenthood’s suit alleges.

Planned Parenthood also asserts that the rule “will politicize the practice of medicine and the delivery of health care” and “will cause patients to lose faith in their providers and the health care system as a whole.”

Near the end of Ronald Reagan’s presidency, the HHS Department introduced a Title X policy that would’ve enforced the distinction between family planning and abortion. When President George H. W. Bush attempted to enact the policy, it faced a legal challenge. Though Bill Clinton was in the Oval Office by the time the case was resolved, and declined to enforce the policy, it was ultimately upheld by the Supreme Court in Rust v. Sullivan. It is likely that California and Planned Parenthood’s legal challenges will meet a similar fate.

In an attempt to fundraise off their resistance to the new policy, Planned Parenthood and its most vocal defenders are now characterizing it as a “gag rule,” an assessment that has been echoed by public officials such as Becerra. Abortion-rights supporters say, too, that the rule will result in millions of American women losing access to necessary health care. They conveniently ignore that the federal government won’t reduce overall Title X funding at all but that it will merely redirect it from groups that commit abortions to health-care providers that don’t.

Those who support publicly funded abortion ground their arguments in a common claim: that Planned Parenthood provides health care that women couldn’t obtain anywhere else. This is simply a myth. For one thing, fewer than 500 of the approximately 4,000 Title X service sites in the country are Planned Parenthood facilities. What’s more, the group’s clinics are nationally outnumbered 20 to one by federally qualified health-care centers, which provide a far greater variety of health-care procedures without performing abortions.

The idea that redirecting Title X funding will drastically harm Planned Parenthood’s business is even more of an overstatement. Most of the group’s government funding — half a billion annually — comes in the form of Medicaid reimbursements. Losing Title X grants will remove roughly $60 million from Planned Parenthood’s revenue.

What outrages Planned Parenthood is not the loss of this pittance in federal funding but rather the fact that the federal government has drawn a clear distinction between family planning and abortion. Liberal state governments have rushed to defend the abortion provider not because of the money at stake but because they fear federal policies that clarify the fact that a procedure intended to end a human life isn’t health care.

For Planned Parenthood, losing lucre is an inconvenience. Losing the luster of being a federally sanctioned family-planning provider, on the other hand, is a substantial threat.

The post Planned Parenthood Sues Trump over Title X Funding first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

In an undercover video released Wednesday, a former technician for a tissue-harvesting company details how an aborted baby was kept alive so that its heart could be harvested at a California Planned Parenthood facility, raising more legal questions about the group’s practices.

Holly O’Donnell, a former blood and tissue procurement technician for the biotech startup Stem Express, also said she was asked to harvest an intact brain from the late-term, male fetus whose heart was still beating after the abortion.

A Stem Express supervisor “gave me the scissors and told me that I had to cut down the middle of the face. And I can’t even describe what that feels like,” said Ms. O’Donnell, who has been featured in earlier videos by the Center for Medical Progress, a pro-life group that previously had released six undercover clips involving Planned Parenthood personnel and practices.

David Daleiden, the video project leader, said the undercover footage and interviews show that fetuses are sometimes delivered “intact and alive” before their organs are harvested.

The federal Born-Alive Infants Protection Act of 2002 says that when a child is born alive, including having a beating heart, he or she is a legal person and has a right to lifesaving medical care.

California law also prohibits any kind of experimentation on a fetus with a discernible heartbeat, said the Center for Medical Progress, which is calling for the federal government to cease its $500 million a year support to Planned Parenthood and for it to be investigated.

“Today’s video is especially gruesome, and it shows, once again, the barbarity of what takes place at Planned Parenthood clinics across the country,” said Rep. Joseph R. Pitts, Pennsylvania Republican and chairman of the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on health, one of several congressional panels investigating Planned Parenthood.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz, Utah Republican and chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said Wednesday that all the videos are “disturbing,” and his committee’s investigation will look into whether “any federal funding supported transactions involving fetal tissue.”

“Top-level employees of Planned Parenthood admit to changing their procedures to harvest intact bodies of unborn children for body-part trafficking,” said Rep. Trent Franks, Arizona Republican and chairman of the House Judiciary subcommittee on the Constitution and civil justice.

Mr. Franks and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, Virginia Republican, also said Wednesday that they have written to 58 Planned Parenthood affiliates. They are seeking 10 years of data about all abortions, late-term abortions, “born-alive” infants, fetal tissue collections and any modifications of abortion techniques to “increase the odds of preserving intact fetal tissue and organs.”

Five states — Louisiana, Alabama, Arkansas, Utah and New Hampshire — already have defunded Planned Parenthood.

A request for comment from Planned Parenthood Federation of America about the new video was not immediately available, but the nonprofit organization has denounced earlier undercover videos as fraudulent and misleading.

“These extremists show a total lack of compassion and dignity for women’s most personal medical decisions,” Dawn Laguens, executive vice president of Planned Parenthood, said earlier this month after a video release.

Meanwhile, pro-life groups are using the videos to step up their calls for investigations and defunding of Planned Parenthood.

Rallies and protests at nearly 300 Planned Parenthood clinics are planned for Saturday.

Mixed poll results

On Wednesday, Reuters/Ipsos released a rolling poll of hundreds of people that found stable support for federal funding of Planned Parenthood. Between Aug. 13 and Aug. 18, about 54 percent of Americans consistently said they support taxpayer funding for the reproductive health and abortion group. Federal funds are not permitted to be used for abortions except in cases of rape, incest or endangerment of the life of the mother.

But when pollsters changed their question and asked a smaller sample of people for their views on “current efforts” to defund Planned Parenthood, the rolling poll showed a shift: Those who agreed that Planned Parenthood should be defunded grew to 39 percent, while those opposing defunding shrank to 34 percent; another 27 percent said they didn’t know.

The Reuters/Ipsos poll further asked people if the undercover videos had affected their views on Planned Parenthood or abortion. The rolling poll found that 45 percent of people said the videos made them “more negative” about Planned Parenthood, while 33 percent said it hadn’t changed their views, 19 percent said it made them “more positive,” and 3 percent said they didn’t know.

As for abortion in general, 51 percent said the videos had not changed their views, while 31 percent said it made them “more negative” about abortion, 16 percent said it made them “more positive” about abortion, and 3 percent said they didn’t know.

In June, the Senate voted to defund Planned Parenthood and send the money to community health clinics, but it failed by seven votes.

Separately, Stem Express was in a California court Wednesday in its effort to block the release of a Center for Medical Progress video featuring a recorded conversation with three employees.

The biotech firm, based in Placerville, California, recently ended its relationship with two California Planned Parenthood affiliates to purchase their aborted fetus parts and resell them for scientific experimentation.

Los Angeles Times columnist Michael Hiltzik lamented Stem Express‘ decision to “bail” on Planned Parenthood, and condemned the undercover videos as “pure harassment by antiabortion activists, conniving with opportunistic politicians.”

In Wednesday’s video — the seventh released this summer — the Center for Medical Progress said state and federal laws require that the same treatment be given to an infant born alive after an abortion as to a normally delivered baby.

Ms. O’Donnell said she observed a “beating heart” in a nearly intact, late-term male fetus at the Planned Parenthood Mar Monte’s Alameda clinic in San Jose.

A Stem Express supervisor asked to show her something “kind of cool” and tapped the heart of the aborted fetus, “and it starts beating,” Ms. O’Donnell said.

“And I’m sitting here, and I’m looking at this fetus, and its heart is beating, and I don’t know what to think,” she said.

Then Ms. O’Donnell was asked to harvest the aborted child’s brain, which meant slicing open his face to get at the organ.

“Oh my God, this … just what am I doing?” she recalled thinking to herself after she had complied. “That was the moment when I knew I couldn’t work for the company anymore.”

The seventh video includes an interview with an official with another biotech company who says, “So, you know, there are times when after the [abortion] procedure is done that the heart actually is still beating.”

It also contains a brief interview with another biotech official who says that feticides, like digoxin, are not used when an aborted fetus is going to be dissected for parts because feticides taint the tissues.

Mr. Daleiden, the video project leader, said that not using drugs to kill the fetus before the abortion raises the risks that a child will be born alive.

• David Sherfinski contributed to this report.

Source: https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/aug/19/planned-parenthood-kept-aborted-babies-alive-to-ha/

The post Planned Parenthood kept aborted babies alive to harvest organs, ex-technician says first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.