Category Archives: Citizens Duty

PP Organ Sales, Pure Profit, Congressional Hearing

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Report: Planned Parenthood Organ Sales Are ‘Pure Profit’

Congressional panel says abortionists incur no costs for organ harvesting

FreeBeacon: Planned Parenthood abortion clinics profit from the sale of aborted baby organs, according to new documents released by a congressional committee investigating the organization’s practices.

The U.S. House Select Panel on Infant Lives released a preview of its findings after a months-long review of internal documents obtained from the nation’s top abortionist, as well as organ procurement companies and buyers. The panel concluded that abortion clinics incur no additional costs in harvesting organs obtained from an already-aborted baby and that the sale or transfer of those organs represented “pure profit” for the clinic.

“The [abortion clinic] has no costs so the payments from the [procurement business] to the [abortion clinic] are pure profit,” the report concludes. “All costs are born by the [procurement business] or the customer. The payments from the customer to the PB exceed its cost by a factor of 300 to 400 percent.”

Pro-life activists said those practices run counter to federal law, which bars clinics from profiting off of the sale of baby body parts.

“The abortion industry sells baby hearts, livers, brains, hands and other organs procured by a middleman company inside their facilities at no cost or effort to the facilities themselves. The facility receives upfront fees that can amount to five-figure sums every month and then the procurement companies resell organs for tens of thousands more—depending on the child’s characteristics,” Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List, said in a release. “The documents make clear there is absolutely no cost to the abortion clinic so that all monies received go to their bottom line.”

The scandal began after investigators with the pro-life Center for Medical Progress released a series of videos capturing top Planned Parenthood officials discussing the group’s fetal organ sales in the summer of 2015. One top official was caught on camera saying that clinics generate a “fair amount of income” from the sales.

The committee’s conclusions stand in contrast to Planned Parenthood’s repeated denials that it made any money from the sale of organs. The group claimed that all payments were to recoup costs. The abortionist announced last year it would no longer accept any payments from researchers or procurement companies for baby body parts.

Planned Parenthood did not return a request for comment.

The congressional panel will hold a hearing Wednesday morning to discuss the report.

***** The law: 42 U.S. Code § 289g–2 – Prohibitions regarding human fetal tissue

(a) Purchase of tissue

It shall be unlawful for any person to knowingly acquire, receive, or otherwise transfer any human fetal tissue for valuable consideration if the transfer affects interstate commerce.
(b) Solicitation or acceptance of tissue as directed donation for use in transplantation

It shall be unlawful for any person to solicit or knowingly acquire, receive, or accept a donation of human fetal tissue for the purpose of transplantation of such tissue into another person if the donation affects interstate commerce, the tissue will be or is obtained pursuant to an induced abortion, and—
(1) the donation will be or is made pursuant to a promise to the donating individual that the donated tissue will be transplanted into a recipient specified by such individual;
(2) the donated tissue will be transplanted into a relative of the donating individual; or
(3) the person who solicits or knowingly acquires, receives, or accepts the donation has provided valuable consideration for the costs associated with such abortion.
(c) Solicitation or acceptance of tissue from fetuses gestated for research purposes

It shall be unlawful for any person or entity involved or engaged in interstate commerce to—
(1) solicit or knowingly acquire, receive, or accept a donation of human fetal tissue knowing that a human pregnancy was deliberately initiated to provide such tissue; or
(2) knowingly acquire, receive, or accept tissue or cells obtained from a human embryo or fetus that was gestated in the uterus of a nonhuman animal.
(d) Criminal penalties for violations

(1) In general

Any person who violates subsection (a), (b), or (c) shall be fined in accordance with title 18, subject to paragraph (2), or imprisoned for not more than 10 years, or both.
(2) Penalties applicable to persons receiving consideration

With respect to the imposition of a fine under paragraph (1), if the person involved violates subsection (a) or (b)(3), a fine shall be imposed in an amount not less than twice the amount of the valuable consideration received.
(e) Definitions

For purposes of this section:
(1) The term “human fetal tissue” has the meaning given such term in section 289g–1 (g) of this title.
(2) The term “interstate commerce” has the meaning given such term in section 321 (b) of title 21.
(3) The term “valuable consideration” does not include reasonable payments associated with the transportation, implantation, processing, preservation, quality control, or storage of human fetal tissue.

Russia/Germany Join Abbas Against Israel

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In 2014: Hamas Issues ‘Terrorism 101 Handbook’

Manuals discovered by IDF give how-to tips for terror
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BDS:  The Boycott/Divest/Sanctions (BDS) Movement against Israel was formally launched in 2005, but really began gathering momentum as a result of the Second Intifada of 2000 and the UN’s World Conference Against Racism in 2001.This Report documents and dissects the BDS’ impact across a broad front of battlefields in the western world. These include economic struggles in corporate boardrooms and among trade unions, BDS’ “academic jihad” against Israel on campuses, the pressure on entertainment and cultural figures to cancel appearances in Israel, and efforts to gain support for BDS from important religious institutions.

Hamas’s link to BDS

Leading expert testifies to Congress over the terror group leading the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement.

Terror finance expert describes ‘network’ of ex-fundraisers in organizations linked to Hamas and key pro-boycott organization

ToI: WASHINGTON — The US should boost transparency of nonprofit organizations in order to shed light on ties between a key pro-boycott organization and defunct charities that were implicated in funding Hamas, analyst Jonathan Schanzer of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies told members of Congress during testimony Tuesday afternoon when two subcommittees of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs met to discuss current threats to Israel.

During testimony, experts including Schanzer highlighted regional nonstate actors such as Iran and the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS) as key threats to Israel.

The chairman of the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Trade, Ted Poe, described the BDS movement as “a threat which seeks [Israel’s] ultimate destruction.”

Schanzer, a former terror finance analyst for the US Treasury, presented open-source research conducted by his group, the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies which highlighted a network linking Hamas supporters with the leadership of the BDS movement.

The research tracked employees of three now-defunct organizations – the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, Kind Hearts Foundation for Humanitarian Development and the Islamic Association for Palestine — all of which were implicated by the federal government for terrorism finance, specifically of Hamas. A federal court found that the Holy Land Foundation had sent some $12 million to Hamas over the course of a decade

The research yielded what Schanzer described as “a troubling outcome” – with seven key employees of these organizations now associated with the Illinois-based organization American Muslims for Palestine.

Schanzer told members of Congress that the latter is “arguably the leading BDS organization in the US, a key sponsor of the anti-Israel campus network known as Students for Justice in Palestine.” The organization, he said, provides money, speakers, training and even “apartheid walls” to SJP activists on campus, for the annual Israel Apartheid Week events.

“The overlap between AMP, Holy Land, Kind Hearts and the Islamic Association for Palestine is striking,” said Schanzer, but noted that “our open source research did not indicate that AMP or any of these individuals are currently involved in any illegal activity.”

“The BDS campaign may pose a threat to Israel, but the network I describe here is decidedly an American problem,” he warned. Americans for Justice in Palestine raises money as a transparent 501c3 tax-exempt non-profit, which then provides funds for AMP which has the usually temporary designation of a corporate non-profit – a status that is usually transitional en route to a tax-exempt 501c3 organization.

“There appear to be flaws in the federal and state oversight of non-profits charities,” Schanzer complained. Although advocating for increased transparency, Schanzer said that he had a sense from talking to former colleagues that the Treasury was less invested in uncovering charities serving to fund terror networks than in the past.

“BDS advocates are free to say what they want, true or false, but tax advantaged organizations are obliged to be transparent,” Schanzer told the panel. “Americans have a right to know who is leading the BDS campaign and so do the students who may not be aware of AMP’s leaders or their goals.”

The BDS movement was not the only threat cited by the witnesses, who included former peace negotiator and Washington Institute for Near East Policy Distinguished Fellow David Makovsky, American Enterprise Institute Scholar Michael Rubin and the Brooking Institution’s Tamara Coffman Wittes.

Makovsky warned that the current stagnation of peace initiatives could feed further into BDS advances in the US.

The former negotiator warned “that the movement could metastasize beyond college campuses” if there is no peace solution on the ground – after noting that “under the current leadership” he did not envision peace efforts “succeeding in the near future.”

Makovsky said that he was “rather skeptical regarding efforts to put forward parameters at the UNSC,” warning that they “would be interpreted by both sides as an imposed solution and could serve as a baseline for defiance rather than bringing the parties closer.”

“We need to find a way to maintain the viability of a two-state outcome even if we can’t implement a two-state solution today,” he offered.

Makovsky suggested that it was not just the US but also European countries that could provide critical leverage in encouraging the Palestinians to jettison their anti-normalization policy and stop providing funds to families of jailed terrorists.

“The US needs to sensitize our European partners to these issues – given the closeness between Europeans and Palestinians, it would carry weight if the Europeans would practice the same tough love they have urged the United States to administer when it comes to Israel but they are reluctant to do when it comes to our Palestinian friends,” he said.

United Healthcare Bails on Obamacare

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Nancy Pelosi, call holding on line 3.  There are other healthcare providers that are likely to bow out of Obamacare in 2017.

UnitedHealth pulls back on ObamaCare exchanges amid huge losses

FNC: The nation’s largest health insurer, fearing massive financial losses, announced Tuesday that it plans to pull back from ObamaCare in a big way and cut its participation in the program’s insurance exchanges to just a handful of states next year – in the latest sign of instability in the marketplace under the law.

UnitedHealth CEO Stephen Hemsley said the company expects losses from its exchange business to total more than $1 billion for this year and last.

Despite the company expanding to nearly three dozen state exchanges for this year, Hemsley said the company cannot continue to broadly serve the market created by the Affordable Care Act’s coverage expansion due partly to the higher risk that comes with its customers.

UnitedHealth Group Inc. said it now expects to lose $650 million this year on its exchange business, up from its previous projection for $525 million. The insurer lost $475 million in 2015, a spokesman said.

UnitedHealth has already decided to pull out of Arkansas, Georgia and Michigan in 2017, and Hemsley told analysts during a Tuesday morning conference call that his company will not carry financial exposure from the exchanges into 2017.

“We continue to remain an advocate for more stable and sustainable approaches to serving this market,” he said.

The state-based exchanges are a key element behind the Affordable Care Act’s push to expand insurance coverage. But insurers have struggled with higher-than-expected claims from that business.

A recent study by the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association detailed how many new customers nationwide under ObamaCare are higher-risk. It found new enrollees in individual health plans in 2014 and 2015 had higher rates of hypertension, diabetes, depression, coronary artery disease, HIV and Hepatitis C than those enrolled before ObamaCare.

On the heels of Tuesday’s announcement, Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., said in a statement it’s a sign of “the President’s broken promise that families would have more choices under ObamaCare.”

The Kaiser Family Foundation, in an analysis on the prospect of United’s exit, said “the effect on insurer competition could be significant in some markets – particularly in rural areas and southern states” if it is not replaced.

In the most extreme scenario, “If United were to leave the exchange market overall, 1.8 million Marketplace enrollees would be left with two insurers, and another 1.1 million would be left with one insurer as a result of the withdrawal,” the analysis said.

UnitedHealth had moved slowly into the newly created market by participating in only four exchanges in their first year, 2014. But the company then expanded to two dozen exchanges last year and said in October it would add to that total. It currently participates in exchanges in 34 states and covers 795,000 people

A month after announcing its latest exchange expansion, UnitedHealth started voicing second thoughts. The insurer said in November that it would decide by the first half of this year whether to even participate in the market for 2017.

Insurers say they have struggled, in particular, with customers who have signed up for coverage outside regular enrollment windows and then dumped expensive claims on their books, a problem the government has said it would address.

A dozen nonprofit health insurance cooperatives created by the ACA to sell coverage on the exchanges have already folded, and the survivors all lost millions last year.

Other publicly traded insurers like Aetna have said that they have lost money on this business as well. But some companies, like Molina Healthcare, have said they have managed to turn a profit from the exchanges.

Analysts expect other insurers to also trim their exchange participation in 2017, especially if they continue to struggle with high costs.

Gitmo Closing: The Race to Shutter

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DNI’s estimate on released detainees re-engaging on the battlefield.

InquisitR: There are 22 “forever prisoners” who could possibly be imprisoned in the U.S. remaining at Guantanamo Bay. As reported by The Guardian,“they are joined by 32 men in some stage of the long-stalled military tribunals process, although 22 of those have been referred for prosecution and not yet charged.”

HouseCmteForeignAffairs: On Saturday afternoon, the administration released nine detainees from the terrorist prison at Guantanamo Bay to Saudi Arabia.

VOA reports the move “came just weeks after President Barack Obama announced an accelerated plan to try to shutter the prison before he leaves office in January 2017.”  And it follows the April 4th release of two Al Qaeda bomb makers, one of which “fought coalition forces at Usama bin Laden’s Tora Bora complex in Afghanistan,” according to FOX News.

In all, the Obama administration is expected to push to release an additional 26 detainees before the end of summer.  This mad rush comes despite the fact that:

  • Nearly 30 percent of former detainees return to the terrorist battlefield.  According to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s latest report, 30.2 percent of former detainees are either confirmed or suspected to have returned to terrorism.  Notably, one detainee freed in 2012 has emerged publicly in a “key position” for Al-Qaeda in east Africa.  Another former detainee, who was reportedly trained in explosives and working as part of an ISIS recruiting cell, was arrested by Spanish and Moroccan authorities in February.
  • Released detainees have killed Americans.  In testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee last month, the Obama administration openly admitted terrorists released from the Guantanamo Bay prison have killed Americans.   “What I can tell you is, unfortunately, there have been Americans that have died,” the Pentagon’s special envoy for Guantanamo detention closure said.

Currently, in an effort to limit public scrutiny, the administration only releases information about upcoming releases in classified documents.  This needs to change.

That’s why Chairman Royce has introduced legislation, the Terrorist Release Transparency Act (H.R. 4850), to ensure the American people, and our foreign partners, have critical details about detainee transfers.  Royce’s legislation would require the administration, in advance of each release, to publicly post details including:

  • The name, country of origin, and country of destination of the individual being transferred;
  • The number of individuals detained at Guantanamo previously transferred to that country, and;
  • The number of individuals who have reengaged in terrorist activity after being transferred to that country.

If the White House truly believed its race to empty out the terrorist prison at Guantanamo Bay was good for America’s national security, it could be taking these steps on its own – right now.  Instead, it’s pushing an incomplete and illegal plan to bring some terrorists to U.S. soil while releasing others to foreign countries.  Once again, Congress needs to step in.

READ MORE:

It is the Fighting Season in Afghanistan

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USAToday: WASHINGTON — The Afghan Taliban announced Tuesday the start of a new fighting season against the U.S.-backed government as the White House weighs future troop levels for the war-torn country.

In an email to the media, the Taliban warned it would launch “large scale attacks” but would attempt to avoid civilian casualties, according to the Associated Press.

The United States has nearly 10,000 service members in Afghanistan. The White House is considering proposals to maintain a future military presence in the country after President Obama last year reversed a plan to remove all U.S. troops by 2016.

That reversal came as Afghan forces faced intense pressure from Taliban militants throughout the country. The Pentagon said no decisions have been made yet.

“Ultimately, Afghanistan has not achieved an enduring level of security and stability that justifies reduction in our support in 2016,” Gen. John Campbell, who recently stepped down as the top coalition commander in Afghanistan, testified to Congress recently.

This fighting season is likely to be another significant test for Afghan security forces, which number about 350,000, including police and soldiers.

The Taliban have emerged strong in parts of the country, including Helmand province, a significant opium growing region in the south, challenging local police and Afghan army forces.

The militants said in the email that the spring offensive began at 5 a.m. local time. They dubbed the campaign “Operation Omari” in honor of Taliban founder Mullah Mohammad Omar, who died three years ago, according to the AP.

The Taliban added that in areas under their control, “mechanisms for good governance will be established so that our people can live a life of security and normalcy.”

 

Taliban kills dozens in suicide assault in Kabul

LWJ: The Taliban targeted a unit responsible for providing security for Afghan officials in a coordinated suicide assault in the Afghan capital today. The Taliban claimed credit for the deadly attack, in which at least 28 people were killed and more that 300 were wounded, according to reports on the ground.

The Taliban took responsibility for the attack on its official propaganda outlet, Voice of Jihad, and said it was part of Operation Omari, the 2016 spring offensive named after Mullah Omar, its founder and first emir. The Taliban reported a suicide bomber detonated a vehicle at the gate, which allowed armed fighters to breach the compound. This is a tactic that has been effectively employed by the Taliban and other jihadist groups throughout the world over the past decade.

“Amid the ongoing ‘Omari’ annual campaign at around 09:00 am local time this morning, a martyrdom seeking unit of Islamic Emirate launched a heavy attack on 10th directorate intelligence building located in PD1 of Kabul city,” the statement said. “The operation began when a martyrdom seeker detonated his explosives laden vehicle at the gate of the building, removing all barriers and killing the guards followed by a number of other martyrdom seekers rushing inside and engaging the remaining enemy targets.”

The Taliban’s account was substantiated by press reporting from Afghanistan. According to TOLONews, the compound that was attacked belonged to a “Secret Service Unit tasked with protecting VIPs.” Afghan officials said the attack began when a suicide bomber detonated at the gate, and one or more Taliban fighters then penetrated the perimeter and began firing on the survivors inside the compound. At least 28 people were killed and 327 more were wounded, according to the Afghan Ministry of Public Health.

The commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan claimed that the attack was proof that the Taliban were unable to fight Afghan forces face to face “on the battlefield.”

“Today’s attack shows the insurgents are unable to meet Afghan forces on the battlefield and must resort to these terrorist attacks,” General John Nicholson, the commander of Resolute Support, NATO’s mission in Afghanistan, said in an email sent to The Long War Journal. “We strongly condemn the actions of Afghanistan’s enemies and remain firmly committed to supporting our Afghan partners and the National Unity Government.”

However, the Taliban are openly engaging Afghan forces on the battlefield on multiple fronts throughout Afghanistan. In the south, the Taliban controls nearly half of Helmand province and has pressured Afghan forces to retreat from key district there. The provincial capital of Lashkar Gah is under siege. In the north, the Taliban launched a coordinated offensive in all seven districts of Kunduz just after announcing the commencement of Operation Omar last week. The Taliban are also fighting in the open in multiple provinces in the east and west.

The Long War Journal estimates that the Taliban controls or hotly contests more than 80 of Afghanistan 400 plus districts.

Today’s attack in Kabul is the largest of its kind since Aug. 7-8, 2015, when the Taliban launched two suicide bombers and a suicide assault over the course of 24 hours. Forty-four people, including 20 Afghan police recruits, 15 Afghan civilians, eight US-contracted Afghan personnel, and a US Army Green Beret were killed when the Taliban targeted a police academy, a US Special Forces base, and a residential district. [See LWJ report, Taliban continues terror attacks in Afghan capital.]