The History of the 30-Year Pro Life Fight

 Note I change The head Line For Mother Jones and  Here the Mother Jones head Line as posted  The Unauthorized History of the GOP's 30-Year War on Planned Parenthood

1979

Where states have been faced with a choice between continuing to fund Planned Parenthood and losing out on critical federal funds, many have chosen to dissolve their family planning programs altogether.

 

The Minnesota legislature passes a sweeping law to end all state family planning funding to groups offering abortion, abortion counseling, or referrals. A federal judge strikes down the law in 1980, noting, "Planned Parenthood's unpopularity in and of itself and without reference to some independent considerations in the public interest cannot justify [the law]." Similar laws in Arizona and North Dakota also tank. Anti-abortion activists start seeking a work-around to the rulings.
1980

In Utah, lawmakers reroute $390,000 in family planning funds from the Planned Parenthood's five clinics to county health departments.
1984

The Reagan administration imposes a new policy that prevents any foreign funding from going to health care providers that perform abortions. The move applies to hundreds of millions of dollars the government sets aside to promote family planning in impoverished countries. The policy is in place until President Bill Clinton rolls it back in 1993.

Colorado approves a constitutional amendment banning state funds from being spent on abortions.
1985

California legislators accidentally send Gov. George Deukmejian a version of the state budget that bars any group providing abortion services from receiving money from the state's $34 million annual family planning budget. Deukmejian, a Republican, refuses to veto the measure, which lawmakers had previously voted to remove. "The clear target of the provision, which was introduced…at the request of anti-abortion groups, is Planned Parenthood and its 16 local affiliates," the Los Angeles Times reported. An appeals court struck the measure down.

1987
The Reagan administration tries a more indirect way to end family planning funding to groups that also provide abortions by establishing the "gag rule." The rule prevented family planning clinics that receive federal money from providing abortion counseling. Clinton will later reverse the gag rule shortly after it survives a Supreme Court challenge.
1989

California Gov. Deukmejian slashes the state family planning budget from $362 million to $12.1 million. The cut largely hits Planned Parenthood clinics that serve tens of thousands of California women. The legislature restores the funds the next year.

1994

Michigan passes a new law that will become a model for stripping family planning funds from groups that provide abortions. The law creates a funding formula that assigns "demerits" to organizations that perform or refer for abortions. Organizations with demerits are the last to receive state funding for pregnancy prevention.

The Georgia legislature passes its own version of the gag rule, affecting $4 million in family planning services. "At the top of their hit list is Planned Parenthood," writes the Atlanta Journal and Constitution's editorial board.

1996
The Missouri legislature adds a provision to its budget barring state family planning funds for groups that provide abortion services. The law applies to only two clinics in the whole state—both are Planned Parenthood affiliates. A federal judge strikes the provision down within a few months.
Missouri lawmakers try to gut the entire $5.3 million family planning budget after Gov. Mel Carnahan, a Democrat, refuses to pledge that Planned Parenthood wouldn't receive any of the funds. The attempt fails by 11 votes. The legislature will include provisions designed to cut funding to Planned Parenthood in every state budget until 2002.

1997
Wisconsin bans state funds from being used for abortions, abortion counseling, or referrals for abortion, unless these services are necessary to save a woman's life.

1999
The incoming governor of Colorado, whose campaign promises included ending taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood, orders the state health department to clarify that the 1984 constitutional amendment also bans groups providing abortion services from receiving family planning funds. The move threatens $320,000 that Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains receives for 13 rural health clinics. The group spins off its abortion provider into a separate entity in order to keep receiving funds.

"My amendment would close the loophole that has forced millions of pro-life Americans to subsidize the nation's leading abortion provider, sustaining and underwriting the destruction of innocent human life that has been carried out on a massive scale by Planned Parenthood."

 

Planned Parenthood temporarily closes its Columbia, Missouri, clinic while it complies with another budget measure designed to prevent the group from getting state funds. A judge rules that the group did not adequately separate its family planning and abortion activities, and Planned Parenthood loses $804,000 in state funds for the year and is barred from receiving future funds.

2000
The Clinton administration approves a permanent rule requiring groups taking Title X dollars to keep that money "separate and distinct" from abortion activities.

2001
President George W. Bush reinstates the Reagan-era policy of prohibiting foreign aid to health care groups offering abortion services. The move redirects tens of millions in funding appropriated to the International Planned Parenthood Federation. President Barack Obama reverses the policy in 2009.
US Rep. David Vitter, a Louisiana Republican who would later become a senator, offers an amendment to an appropriations bill that would bar abortion clinics from receiving Title X funds. The amendment—the first of many—is roundly defeated.
2002
Colorado investigators determine that Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains' family planning clinic and abortion clinics are not sufficiently separate to comply with the law, and suspends $380,000 in Title X funds, affecting 13,000 poor women.

Pennsylvania begins a five-year tradition of approving annual budgets that exclude abortion providers from approximately $4 million in family planning funds. Abortion providers' family planning clinics must be spun off into separate entities in order to keep receiving funds.

2003
Rather than continue to finance several court battles over budget measures to defund Planned Parenthood, the Missouri legislature simply eliminates all state funding for family planning.
Texas approves a one-year budget that bars the use of state family planning funds by groups that offer abortions (except in emergencies) or that contract with organizations offering abortions.
2007
The Texas budget requires abortion providers to be "physically and financially separate" from their family planning clinics in order to receive state funds.

Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) offers an amendment to the 2008 appropriations bill that would bar abortion providers from receiving any federal health funds, including from the Title X program. Rep. Mike Pence, (R-Ind.) offers an amendment that would block Planned Parenthood from accessing Title X funds. Both amendments failed.

2009
Pence offers a similar amendment again. "My amendment would close the loophole that has forced millions of pro-life Americans to subsidize the nation's leading abortion provider, sustaining and underwriting the destruction of innocent human life that has been carried out on a massive scale by Planned Parenthood," he writes in a press release.
2010

Citing a need to slash spending, newly elected Gov. Chris Christie cuts all $7.5 million in family planning aid from the New Jersey budget. Only $1.2 million of that money was destined for Planned Parenthood; the cuts affect 58 family planning clinics around the state.

"The taxpayers of New Jersey are under no obligation to fund the radical and failed social agenda of Planned Parenthood."

 

As Democrats in the statehouse fight to restore the funds, Republicans say they oppose channeling any more state money toward Planned Parenthood. "The taxpayers of New Jersey are under no obligation to fund the radical and failed social agenda of Planned Parenthood," said Marie Tasy, the director of New Jersey Right to Life, shortly after Christie vetoes efforts to restore the funding.
2011

The US House passes a new measure introduced by Rep. Pence to prevent Planned Parenthood from receiving federal funds, including Medicaid and Title X grants. The amendment is attached to a critical spending bill and almost shuts down the government. The measure ultimately fails.
Arizona lawmakers ban the state from contracting with abortion providers, a measure that a federal judge overturned within the year.

The Indiana General Assembly bans the state from contracting with any abortion providers except for hospitals. The move is touted as a way to shut off all Medicaid dollars—more than $2 million—to Planned Parenthood. A federal judge blocks the law that summer.

The newly Republican Kansas legislature blocks all Title X family planning funds from flowing to abortion providers or their affiliates. The measure, which is stalled by a lawsuit, strips $330,000 from Kansas's Planned Parenthood clinics, even though no Planned Parenthood clinics in Kansas perform abortions.

The New Hampshire Executive Council, a branch of the governor's office, votes to strip Planned Parenthood of $1.8 million in Title X funds.

The North Carolina General Assembly bans the state from contracting with Planned Parenthood, which receives $434,000 in family planning funds. The state later loses a court battle to enforce the law.

The Republican administration of Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam cuts off Title X grants of $1.06 million to Planned Parenthood and reroutes the money to local public health departments.

Gov. Rick Perry dissolved much of the state's Medicaid program in order to exclude Planned Parenthood. The state walks away from $200 million in Medicaid dollars as a result.

 

The Texas legislature cuts a staggering $73.6 million out of its $111.5 million family planning budget. It allocates the remaining money according to a new, tiered funding formula inspired by Michigan's two-decade-old demerit system. The tier system renders Planned Parenthood completely ineligible for state pregnancy prevention contracts. Other family planning clinics, including some that do not provide abortion services, suffer drastic reductions or closure under the new system. The cuts are fully in place for two years.

Texas lawmakers also eliminate Planned Parenthood clinics from the state program that provides preventive care, screenings, and birth control to 130,000 Texas women. The move causes the program to lose its federal designation, and with it, $30 million in federal Medicaid dollars for poor women's health services.

In Wisconsin, new GOP Gov. Scott Walker proposes eliminating the state's entire $3.4 million family planning budget. Republicans in the statehouse opt to merely cut the program back, to $1.7 million, by rejecting federal funds and using only state money. Rejecting the federal funds allows lawmakers to include a budget provision barring any organization providing abortions from access to the money. The new provision applies to only one health care provider: Planned Parenthood. Its nine Wisconsin clinics lose $1 million.

Building on the 1997 restriction that barred family planning funds from flowing to abortion affiliates, Walker also ends a $138,000 contract that paid for two Planned Parenthood caseworkers to sign up low-income women for breast cancer screenings. A county health department takes over the sign-up program.

2012
North Carolina bars family planning clinics that are not affiliated with the state from receiving family planning funds.

2013
Ohio adopts the Michigan model of allocating state and federal family planning funds through a tiered system that prioritizes recipients. Family planning clinics, including 29 Planned Parenthood health clinics, are last in line below state health clinics and community clinics.
Oklahoma bars family planning clinics not affiliated with the state from receiving family planning funds.

A judge rules that Texas cannot bar a federally approved provider—Planned Parenthood—from participating in the state's Medicaid program. Republican Gov. Rick Perry responds by dissolving much of the state's Medicaid program and forming a new family planning program that excludes Planned Parenthood. The state walks away from $200 million in Medicaid dollars.

2015 (up until the release of the videos in July)
Christie has left the dramatic family planning cuts in place for five years running. Today, he cites his opposition to Planned Parenthood, not the need to cut spending, as the reason for his opposition. "When they send me Planned Parenthood funding year after year after year…there is no room for compromise there," he says at a press conference.

The Arkansas legislature bars public funds from going to most groups that provide or refer for abortions, a move intended to cut off grants Planned Parenthood used to run sex education programs.

Since the sting, states have been scrambling to cut their Medicaid contracts with Planned Parenthood, some citing laws that allow them to terminate contracts with a group that has engaged in illegal activities. This is in spite of the fact that state-led probes of Planned Parenthood have turned up no illegal behavior. As my colleague Nina Liss-Schultz reported, investigations

in Georgia, Indiana, Massachusetts, and South Dakota have found no evidence that Planned Parenthood has sold fetal tissue. Ohio, Arizona, Texas, and Kansas investigated the allegations even though Planned Parenthood affiliates don't run fetal tissue donation programs in those states. And in Louisiana—where Gov. Bobby Jindal ordered an investigation in mid-July—Planned Parenthood doesn't even perform abortions.*

On Thursday, the Center for Medical Progress dropped a seventh video. This one purports to show that Planned Parenthood alters its abortion procedures to better preserve fetal specimens for sale. "Planned Parenthood is a criminal organization from the top down," said David Daleidin, the anti-abortion group's founder, "and should be immediately stripped of taxpayer funding and prosecuted for their atrocities against humanity."

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/08/30-year-history-gop-attacks-defund-planned-parenthood

Common Core: Who's Watching the Kids? Obama Or Jed Bush?

Common Core is about more than just a shift in educational standards.  The architects of Common Core have always planned to integrate computer technology with Common Core standards under the guise of “closing the digital divide” and “preparing our children for the 21st-century workplace.”  They want us to envision “educational equality,” where each student has access to the same technology and resources, including his or her own one-to-one device (one student, one device).  These sound like worthwhile goals, but we know better.

Initially, in order to continue to be eligible for Obama’s “Race to the Top” federal funding, states were obligated to implement a Student Longitudinal Database System (SLDS), used to track students from preschool through college (P20-WIN).  Some of us may recall the many reports about measuring 400 data points.  This is part of SLDS.  Those of us who are paying attention may have assumed that these data points were going to be gathered via the Common Core assessments.  Perhaps some of us assumed that “opting out” or refusing the test would keep us safe.  Not so fast.  Could these one to one devices be another carefully disguised method of software-driven mass surveillance of students?  And in what other ways is data being collected?  Parents, you need to take a closer look at this.  

We are headed back to school, and this year, all across America, more and more classrooms will be filled with children innocently using their iPads or other handheld devices.  Children may be playing interactive educational games, doing interactive assignments, and writing stories that can be easily shared with the teacher and other students.  These seemingly harmless activities are in fact being used to collect personal and private information without the parents’ consent or knowledge.

Could that educational game be used to measure your child’s mental state?  Could those interactive assignments involve morally ambiguous questions that can be used to create a psychological profile of your child?  Could that shared story be used to predict violent behavior?

Besides the one-to-one handheld devices, there are other methods of collecting data, such as written school surveys and notes taken by teachers, guidance counselors, and other school officials who may not even realize that every word they type about a student is stored and analyzed.  The obvious “personally identifiable information” is being collected, including student tests scores and grades, and also information such as name, address, Social Security number, date of birth, place of birth, and mother’s maiden name.  In addition, “sensitive information” is being collected.  This data includes political affiliation and beliefs of students and their parents; mental or psychological problems of the students or their families; illegal, anti-social, or self-incriminating behaviors; gun ownership and beliefs about firearms; and legally recognized privileged or analogous relationships such as those of attorneys, doctors, or priests, among many other things.

What our government might do with all this data is a troublesome question.  

All of this data from multiple sources (exams, assignments, handheld devices, surveys, conversations with school officials, et al.) now feeds into a larger collection of databases that will be mined for patterns and insights.  This data can be accessed and created by the federal government and educational corporations.  Parents assume that FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act) and COPPA (Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act) provide protection, but too many loopholes exist.  COPPA protects only up to the age of 13.  FERPA’s privacy protection language was weakened when it was reinterpreted by the U.S. Department of Education to allow greater access by third parties (big business).   

There are many yet to be known ways in which this information may be used and abused.  Our federal government has extensive plans to use this data for a variety of purposes such as workforce education, shaping student behavior, perhaps forcing compliance to the will of the state, and definitely providing “direction” for our kids in their careers.  The data sets on individual students gives government the ability to impose heavy-handed regulations which will direct children’s futures. These handheld devices are the key enabling technology for the marriage of convenience between big government and big business called “public-private partnerships.”  Since the government didn’t build the handheld devices, big business provides the ability to collect the student data, while big government provides the regulations that force the collection of the student data.

If you comfort yourself with the belief that this information is desired simply so that companies can market products for your children, for example (as if that weren’t bad enough), think again.  This data will be stored forever, and parents will have very, very limited access to it, if any at all.  Maybe you think “predicting future violent behavior” is a step in the right direction.  What if your kid is flagged because he did something that most of us did growing up, such as draw a picture of a gun?

So who will be watching and analyzing our kids?

National standards plus the universal use of one-on-one devices are sold as “closing the digital divide.”  Like every other aspect of Common Core, there is more than meets the eye: these are also necessary pre-conditions for mass surveillance.  They are inseparable.  This Orwellian vision of “educational equality” enables the kind of mass surveillance that can be characterized only as an educational police state.  We the People are watching it happen to our children, and most of us still won’t believe our eyes.

Mary Anne Marcella is a parent and New York City public school teacher.  She cares about her children and her students and wants the best for them.  Her opinions are her own. maryannem@optonline.netMaryAnne@maryannemercog

Cort Wrotnowski is a management consultant in biotechnology and president of BioSpark Associates, LLC.  Over the last two years he has been fighting Common Core, over-testing, and the assaults on local control in public education.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/08/_common_core_whos_watching_the_kids.html

CNN poll: Obama approval back underwater, Iran deal opposition grows to 56%

The more people hear the details of the agreement with Iran, the more they want Congress to stop it. In the latest CNN poll, the majority desiring Congress to block the deal has grow by four points to 56%, while support has dropped from 44% to 41%. That change is incremental, just outside the margin of error, but the trend is clearly going the wrong way for the White House. Meanwhile, Obama’s job approval rating — after briefly poking its head above the waves — has dropped back underwater at 47/51. CNN calls this “a real negative shift” in perceptions of Obama:

The poll on Iran also shows some interesting inconsistencies. Prior to asking that question, CNN’s survey asks whether people would support a deal with Iran that alleviates sanctions in exchange for limitations and inspections on its nuclear program rather than having it dismantled. That gets a bare-majority support at 50/46, down from 53/43 in April but still slightly to the positive. The Obama administration argues that this is precisely what the agreement does, but clearly Americans aren’t buying it. With the AP’s scoop yesterday that inspections of facilities like Parchin will be conducted by the Iranians themselves — a revelation that emerged after this survey was taken — expect the distrust to mount even further.

If the poll shows a dichotomy on policy, it displays none at all about Barack Obama’s performance on Iran. His approval rating on this issue in April was split, 48/48. Four months later, it has plunged to 38/60, and suddenly foreign policy has become an albatross again for the White House. This has implications for the presidential race in 2016, although perhaps indirectly. With Hillary Clinton imploding, some have suggested that John Kerry might make a good alternative for Democrats, with one news outlet noting a month ago that Kerry was “riding high” on the diplomatic success he’d made in Geneva on this deal. Hillary herself came out in favor of the deal, albeit hedging her bets a bit. These numbers show that the deal may become a poison pill to Hillary and certainly to Kerry if he decides to make a run for the nomination.

The internals make the damage clear. Obama has majority disapproval on Iran policy among most of their key demos — women (43/54), college attendees (41/56), independents (36/61), and urban voters (41/54). Even in demos where they do well, there is a notable lack of enthusiasm. Non-white voters approve of Obama’s handling of Iran by only 52/45, and young voters by a whisker, 50/48. Even Democrats aren’t exactly united in support, with only a 66/30 approval rating.

The demos for the deal itself aren’t much better for the White House. Although the splits are narrower, the outcomes are identical. Obama and Kerry lose women, urban voters, and independents, the latter two groups by almost 20 points. Twenty-eight percent of Democrats oppose the deal; if that ratio carried over into Congress, Obama would see a veto of the rejection overridden. The longer this drags out — and especially after people find out about the IAEA’s agreement allowing Iran to self-inspect at its military facilities — the more difficulty Obama will have in trying to keep that ratio from reality on Capitol Hill.

http://hotair.com/archives/2015/08/21/cnn-poll-iran-deal-opposition-grows-to-56/?utm_source=hadaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl

@DrBrianKiczek INVITES YOU~ #UnbornLivesMatter Twitter & FaceBook All Day TwitterStorm" #CCOT #PJNET #USA ThankYou!

Wow! Obama drives down coal company stocks, and Soros buys them on the cheap

I have always believed that global warming is a gigantic scam, driven by greed and lust for power. Now comes the shocking news, via Steve Milloy writing on Breitbart, that following President Obama’s use of CO2 emissions as a weapon to drive major coal companies near bankruptcy, the ultimate politically connected speculator George Soros is buying up stock in major coal producers on the cheap.

I predicted in this column last week that the left wasn’t going to kill off the coal industry so much as it was going to steal it. That prediction is already becoming true courtesy of billionaire George Soros.

U.S. Securities and Exchange Act filings indicate that Soros has purchased an initial 1 million shares of Peabody Energy and 553,200 shares of Arch Coal, the two largest publicly traded U.S. coal companies. As pointed out last week, both companies have been driven perilously close to bankruptcy by the combination of President Obama’s “war on coal” and inexpensive natural gas brought on by the hydrofracturing revolution.

Under the hypothesis that not even socialists would leave trillions of dollars worth of a perfectly safe and clean energy source in the ground for the sake of the imaginary “climate crisis,” I posited that once the existing coal industry ownership was wiped out by President Obama’s regulatory onslaught, a new politically correct ownership would rehabilitate the fuel by contributing to Democrats.

Enter George Soros, a hardball investor and philanthropist to myriad left-wing causes, including the activist and “clean energy” rent-seeking movements that have helped take down the coal industry. In 2009, for example, Soros announced he would spend $1 billion in “clean energy” technology and create a San Francisco-based advocacy organization called the Climate Policy Initiative.

Less than a year ago the Soros’ Climate Policy Initiative issued a major report concluding that the world could save $1.8 trillion over the next two decades by transitioning away from coal. The report referred to coal reserves as “stranded assets” that were losing value as they were no longer needed.

For now, Soros’s investments are small scale (by his standards), but the reports end with June, so there is no knowing what subsequent investments have been made. These companies own huge reserves of coal that would be worth far more if the jihad against coal ended. If, for instance, the EPA backs away from its latest rules on CO2 emissions.

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2015/08/wow_obama_drives_down_coal_company_stocks_and_soros_buys_them_on_the_cheap.html#ixzz3jHuUIlDR
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China has been upgrading its military and is now stronger than ever

From hypersonic missiles to sophisticated cyber attacks that cripple American security, China's military is stronger than ever.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/chinese-military-budget-china-weapons-technology-2015-8#ixzz3jHcCrwch