In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson articulated fundamental truths upon which the United States of America was founded. These truths included that each of us possesses a set of unalienable rights granted by God. Included among these God-given prioritized rights are the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Recognition of these inherent rights once helped propel our people into revolt against a tyrant. Respect for our God-given rights is an essential component of our American Civilization. Congress has a responsibility to ensure the Jeffersonian Truths of the Declaration of Independence are protected for current and future generations of Americans.

Of these rights, the right to life received primacy in Jefferson’s list for a reason: without the right to life, how would an individual’s rights become vested? How could any other rights be realized if one’s very life could be taken away by another who is exercising their right to liberty or pursuit of happiness? Jefferson articulated a prioritized set of rights; first the right to life, then the right to liberty, then the pursuit of happiness. Each right was carefully prioritized in sequential order because the right to life trumps all other rights. No one can take a human life in exercising their liberties and no one can take a life or take away the liberty of another in their pursuit of happiness. If the right to life can be taken by another, then no right of anyone is protected.

Regrettably, our nation has seemingly forgotten the importance of adhering to Jefferson’s vision. Instead, we have allowed a new tyranny composed of nine unelected Justices on the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) to erase our foundational truths. We have traded off the brilliance of Thomas Jefferson’s specificity for a vague and inherently meaningless set of legalistic “emanations” and “penumbras” seemingly conjured out of thin air whenever activists on the Court want to replace Jefferson’s self-evident truths with SCOTUS’s black-robed judicial activism.

It’s time that Americans reclaimed our birthright, including the right to life, from the bloody hands of those who have betrayed Jefferson’s vision, resulting in the abortions of 60 million unique gifts from God. To this end, I have introduced H.R. 490, the Heartbeat Protection Act. H.R. 490 cuts through the obscuring haze of illogical judicial rhetoric and returns the right to life to the primacy our Founding Fathers intended. Under this legislation, abortionists who end the life of an unborn child whose heart is beating will be subject to imprisonment and/or a significant financial penalty. As a matter of law, the bill will ensure that if a heartbeat can be detected, the baby is protected.

By listening for a child’s detectable heartbeat, we can save the lives of over 95% of aborted babies in this country, and we will extend protection to the unborn to as early as 6-8 weeks from conception. What better way to recognize the unalienable right to life than to ensure that all babies with a beating heart are protected in the womb where all our lives began?

Currently, there are 170 members of Congress signed on to the Heartbeat Protection Act because the bill speaks to the conscience of the American people, and because these members understand we may get only one opportunity in our lifetimes to save the lives of the next 60 million babies who will otherwise be tossed onto the ghastly heap of the sins of our nation. There is not a better time than now or a more urgent time than the present to extend protections to unborn children. We have a President who would sign the bill and who is forming a conservative majority on the Supreme Court with one or two appointments imminent. No doubt pro-abortion forces will litigate the Heartbeat Bill to the Supreme Court. The court they go before now is likely to have one or two more Constitutionalists.

Let’s uproot and end the death and destruction of abortion now before millions more children are forced to suffer because we lost sight of our nation’s core principles and turned a blind eye to their God-given, unalienable right to life. Congress should follow the lead of Thomas Jefferson and take this opportunity to declare its own independence from a deadly edict issued by judicial tyrants in Roe v. Wade. Congress can do so by passing the Heartbeat Protection Act immediately and sending it to President Trump for his signature.

Congressman Steve King represents Iowa’s 4th District. He is a member of the House Judiciary, House Agriculture, and House Small Business committees.

The Heartbeat Protection Act will receive a House Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday before the Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice.

The hearing, which begins at 11:30 am eastern, can be watched here:

Congress will hold a hearing Wednesday on a bill that prevents abortions on babies with heartbeats, which are usually detectable after six weeks.

Introduced by Congressman Steve King, H.R. 490, also known as the Heartbeat Protection Act, will receive a hearing before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice.

The hearing begins at 11:30 a.m. eastern.

“Since Roe v. Wade was unconstitutionally decided in 1973, nearly 60 million innocent babies’ lives have been ended by the abortion industry, all with a rubber stamp by the federal government,” King said in a press release.

“Human life, beginning at the moment of conception, is sacred in all of its forms and we must protect the lives of voiceless innocents. The Heartbeat Protection Act, H.R. 490, will require all physicians, before conducting an abortion, to detect the heartbeat of the unborn child and if a heartbeat is detected, the baby is protected. I welcome this opportunity to have my legislation given in depth consideration by Congress and to bring attention to the importance of preserving each of these precious lives.”

The following witnesses are expected to testify, according to the release:

1. Dr. Kathi Aultman– Dr. Aultman is a board certified Ob/Gyn, a fellow of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and an Associate Scholar at the Charlotte Lozier Institute. The Charlotte Lozier Institute is the 501(c)(3) research and education institute of the Susan B. Anthony List, an organization dedicated to pursuing policies that will reduce and ultimately end abortion.

2. Star Parker– Parker is the Founder and President of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education (CURE), a public policy think tank that promotes market-based solutions to fight poverty. Parker has a bachelor’s degree in Marketing and International Business from Woodbury University, has regularly testified before Congress, and has received numerous awards and commendations for her work on public policy issues.

3. David Forte, Professor of Law at Cleveland State University.  Forte holds degrees from Harvard College, Manchester University, England, the University of Toronto, and Columbia University. Professor Forte was the inaugural holder of the Charles R. Emrick, Jr.- Calfee Halter & Griswold Endowed Chair at Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, Cleveland State University.

Amanda House is Breitbart News’ Deputy Political Editor. You can follow her on Twitter at @AmandaLeeHouse.

(New York) Sen. John McCain has still not responded to questions raised in light of the disclosure last Tuesday that the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) helped fund research utilized in the infamous, largely discredited 35-page dossier on President Donald Trump.

In December, it was McCain who notoriously passed the controversial dossier produced by the Washington firm Fusion GPS to then FBI Director James Comey, whose agency reportedly utilized the dossier as a partial basis for its probe into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

McCain’s office did not respond to repeated Breitbart News phone and email requests over the course of last week and this week seeking comment on whether the Arizona senator was aware that the material he passed to the FBI was paid for by the DNC and Clinton’s campaign.

McCain’s office also did not respond to requests for information on how he first obtained the dossier, which is filled with discredited charges.

A spokesperson for McCain confirmed by telephone that the Breitbart News requests were received.

The Washington Post last Tuesday reported that in April 2016, attorney Marc E. Elias and his law firm, Perkins Coie, retained Fusion GPS to conduct the questionable research on behalf of both the Clinton campaign and the DNC. Through Perkins Coie, Clinton’s campaign and the DNC continued to fund Fusion GPS until October 2016, days before Election Day, the Post reported.

Fusion GPS went on to hire former intelligence agent Christopher Steele to do the purported research. Steele later conceded in court documents that part of his work still needed to be verified.

Last week, the Washington Free Beacon confirmed it originally retained Fusion GPS to conduct opposition research on numerous GOP candidates, including Trump. Free Beacon Chairman Michael Goldfarb served as deputy communications director on McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign.

The Free Beacon denied any involvement with the dossier or Steele. “During the 2016 election cycle we retained Fusion GPS to provide research on multiple candidates in the Republican presidential primary, just as we retained other firms to assist in our research into Hillary Clinton,” wrote Goldfarb in a joint statement with the site’s editor-in-chief, Matthew Continetti.

They continued: “The Free Beacon had no knowledge of or connection to the Steele dossier, did not pay for the dossier, and never had contact with, knowledge of, or provided payment for any work performed by Christopher Steele.”

On January 10, CNN was first to report, based on leaked information, that the contents of the dossier were presented during classified briefings one week earlier to then-President Obama and President-elect Trump.

Just after CNN’s January 10 report on the classified briefings about the dossier, BuzzFeed published the dossier’s full unverified contents.

Earlier this month, McCain denied providing the dossier to BuzzFeed and said that he only gave the material to the FBI. “I gave it to no one except for the director of the FBI. I don’t know why you’re digging this up now,” McCain told the Daily Caller during what the news website described as a testy exchange.

It is not immediately clear how McCain obtained the dossier in the first place.

A January 11 statement from McCain attempted to explain why he provided the documents to the FBI but did not mention how he came to possess the dossier or whether he knew who funded it.

“Upon examination of the contents, and unable to make a judgment about their accuracy, I delivered the information to the director of the FBI,” McCain said at the time. “That has been the extent of my contact with the FBI or any other government agency regarding this issue.”

Sir Andrew Wood, a former British ambassador to Moscow, said McCain first consulted him about the claims inside the dossier at a security conference in Canada shortly after last November’s presidential election. Wood stated that McCain had obtained the documents from the senator’s own sources. “I told him I was aware of what was in the report but I had not read it myself, that it might be true, it might be untrue. I had no means of judging really,” Wood further told BBC Radio 4 in January.

In March, Vanity Fair raised questions about the alleged involvement of David J. Kramer, a former State Department official, in helping to obtain the dossier directly from Steele. The issue was also raised in a lawsuit filed against Steele by one of the individuals named in the dossier.

Meanwhile, CNN reported that in private interviews with Congressional investigators prior to the Post’s report revealing Perkins Coie’s reported payment to Fusion GPS, former Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta and former DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz both denied that they were aware of any arrangement to fund Fusion GPS’s opposition research. CNN reported that Elias was seated next to Podesta during the private interview.

That report prompted former CIA Director Leon Panetta to advocate for a Senate Intelligence Committee investigation of both the Clinton campaign and the DNC regarding whether they had any knowledge of the payment to Fusion GPS to produce the dossier.

“Well, it certainly makes the situation very awkward,” Panetta said of Elias’s alleged involvement. “If you’re testifying and saying you have no knowledge, and the attorney sitting next to you is one of those that knew what was involved here, I think it does raise an issue that the committee is going to have to look at and determine just exactly who knew what.”

The dossier contains wild and unproven claims that the Russians had information regarding Trump and sordid sexual acts, including the widely mocked claim that Trump hired prostitutes and had them urinate on a hotel room bed. It also claimed there was an exchange of information between Trump surrogates and intermediaries for the Russian government.

Those allegations remain unsubstantiated following numerous public hearings. Indeed, former CIA Director John Brennan made clear in testimony last May that after viewing all of the evidence that was available to him on the Russia probe he was not aware of any collusion between Russia and members of Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

Dossier was reportedly basis for Obama administration moves

According to the BBC, the dossier served as a “roadmap” for the FBI’s investigation into claims of coordination between Moscow and members of Trump’s presidential campaign during the Obama administration.

In April, CNN reported that the dossier served as part of the FBI’s justification for seeking the FISA court’s reported approval to clandestinely monitor the communications of Carter Page, the American oil industry investor who was tangentially and briefly associated with Trump’s presidential campaign.

Senior Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee have reportedly requested that the FBI and Department of Justice turn over applications for any warrants to monitor the communications of U.S. citizens associated with the investigation into alleged Russia interference in the 2016 presidential election.

In testimony last month, Comey repeatedly refused to answer questions about his agency’s ties to the dossier.

In testimony last month to the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Comey admitted he pushed back against a request from President Donald Trump to possibly investigate the origins of “salacious material” that the agency possessed in the course of its investigation into alleged Russian interference.

Dossier discredited

Major questions have been raised as to the veracity of the dossier, large sections of which have been discredited.

Citing a “Kremlin insider,” the dossier, which misspelled the name of a Russian diplomat, claimed that Trump lawyer Michael Cohen held “secret meetings” with Kremlin officials in Prague in August 2016.

That charge unraveled after Cohen revealed he had never traveled to Prague, calling the story “totally fake, totally inaccurate.” The Atlantic confirmed Cohen’s whereabouts in New York and California during the period the dossier claimed that Cohen was in Prague. Cohen reportedly produced his passport showing he had not traveled to Prague.

During testimony in May, the FBI’s Comey confirmed that the basis for the intelligence community’s assessment that Russia allegedly wanted Trump in office was not because the billionaire was, as Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) claimed during a hearing, “ensnared in” Russia’s “web of patronage” – just as the dossier alleged. Instead, the FBI chief provided two primary reasons for Russia’s alleged favoring of Trump over Clinton during the 2016 presidential race.

One reason, according to Comey, was that Putin “hated” Clinton and would have favored any Republican opponent. The second reason, Comey explained, was that Putin made an assessment that it would be easier to make a deal with a businessman than someone from the political class.

Comey’s statements are a far cry from the conspiracies fueled by the dossier alleging Putin held blackmail information over the billionaire.

Citing current and former government officials, the New Yorker reported the dossier prompted skepticism among intelligence community members, with the publication quoting one member saying it was a “nutty” piece of evidence to submit to a U.S. president.

Steele’s work has been questioned by former acting CIA Director Michael Morell, who currently works at the Hillary Clinton-tied Beacon Global Strategies LLC.

NBC News reported on Morell’s questions about Steele’s credibility:

Morell, who was in line to become CIA director if Clinton won, said he had seen no evidence that Trump associates cooperated with Russians. He also raised questions about the dossier written by a former British intelligence officer, which alleged a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia. …

Morell pointed out that former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said on Meet the Press on March 5 that he had seen no evidence of a conspiracy when he left office January 20.

“That’s a pretty strong statement by General Clapper,” Morell said.

Regarding Steele’s dossier, Morell stated, “Unless you know the sources, and unless you know how a particular source acquired a particular piece of information, you can’t judge the information — you just can’t.”

Morell charged the dossier “doesn’t take you anywhere, I don’t think.”

“I had two questions when I first read it. One was, How did Chris talk to these sources? I have subsequently learned that he used intermediaries.”

Morell continued:

And then I asked myself, why did these guys provide this information, what was their motivation? And I subsequently learned that he paid them. That the intermediaries paid the sources and the intermediaries got the money from Chris. And that kind of worries me a little bit because if you’re paying somebody, particularly former FSB [Russian intelligence] officers, they are going to tell you truth and innuendo and rumor, and they’re going to call you up and say, “Hey, let’s have another meeting, I have more information for you,” because they want to get paid some more.

I think you’ve got to take all that into consideration when you consider the dossier.

Aaron Klein is Breitbart’s Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter. He is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio.” Follow him on Twitter @AaronKleinShow. Follow him on Facebook.

Written with additional research by Joshua Klein.

To paraphrase the immortal Senator John McCain, the first shoe has dropped from the centipede as a big NFL sponsor has publicly ripped the league for declining sales due to the ongoing racial strife.

Now that whatever progress was made by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell’s appeasement of the national anthem protesting ingrates was erased when the all but a few white players on the Houston Texans took a knee on Sunday, it could be that those businesses that rely on television ratings for their sales are getting ready to launch their own counter-revolt.

This is at least the case with Papa John’s as the popular corporate pizza chain’s CEO pointed a finger directly at the league’s executives for a massive failure to resolve the increasingly contentious and likely irreconcilable differences between owners and militant ignoramuses who will never be satisfied.

Papa John’s says anthem protests are hurting deal with NFL – ESPN https://t.co/xD2Z63wxFe http://pic.twitter.com/mtB1TR077o

— NFL News Daily (@NFL_NDaily) November 1, 2017

According to ESPN (which is one of the biggest sticks stirring the shit) “Papa John’s says anthem protests are hurting deal with NFL”:

Executives from Papa John’s, the official pizza company of the NFL, expressed disappointment on a conference call Wednesday about the league’s ongoing player protests during the national anthem.

“The NFL has hurt us,” company founder and CEO John Schnatter said. “We are disappointed the NFL and its leadership did not resolve this.”

Executives said the company has pulled much of its NFL television advertising and that the NFL has responded by giving the company additional future spots.

“Leadership starts at the top and this is an example of poor leadership,” Schnatter said, noting he thought the issue had been “nipped in the bud” a year and a half ago.

In revising sales estimates for the next quarter, Papa John’s president and chief operating officer Steve Ritchie said on the call that the NFL deal was the primary suspect behind the decline and that “we expect it to persist unless a solution is put in place.”

Ritchie said that research has found that Papa John’s has been the most recognized sponsor associated with the NFL for two years running, which he said means the company’s performance can track with that of the league.

Papa John’s has a deal with not only the NFL, but also with 23 individual teams.

Company executives declined to disclose exactly how much money in projected sales Papa John’s lost from its association with the NFL and declining ratings, which mean fewer people are ordering their product for game days, they said.

It definitely makes sense that fewer viewers equal fewer Papa John’s orders being placed during game times.

In fact, it makes too much sense for the chuckleheads who by protesting are only cutting into their future earnings by alienating millions of fans by continuing to bemoan how they are being treated like slaves on their racist owner’s plantations.

The average NFL career is between 3-6 years and these morons are losing leverage with each passing week but when your ideological inspiration is a clown like Colin Kaepernick, it’s not like these are the sharpest tools in the shed.

Now that Papa John’s has said enough it is only a matter of who is next.

There is a lot less beer being sold to wash down those pizzas, sodas too and those really big-ticket items, they want a return on their investment on the costly ads that they have been duped into buying by the snake oil salesmen who work for Goodell.

This could really end up being an ongoing problem, especially if it ends up playing out until the Super Bowl and the NFL refuses to run a deep discount on ad spots because, at this point, millions of fans aren’t coming back anytime soon – if ever.

It may have taken awhile but it looks like #BoycottNFLSponsors and #PunchThemInTheWallet are finally having the desired effect.

Still not much out there about the long-rumored Veteran’s Day weekend boycott, that would be a crushing blow that may send Goodell to the canvas if it becomes reality.

There has been a seemingly endless stream from the left about how Russia interfered in the 2016 election, and that the alleged meddling is the only reason Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton.

A new wrinkle was added to the Russia hacking narrative on Tuesday when Facebook general counsel Colin Stretch told the Senate Judiciary panel that Russia’s efforts to meddle in American affairs continued after the election, Politico reported.

In fact, after Trump’s victory, Russian trolls tried to spread political discord by questioning the legitimacy of the election and trying to get people to react violently to Trump’s win.

“During the election, they were trying to create discord between Americans, most of it directed against Clinton. After the election you saw Russian-tied groups and organizations trying to undermine President Trump’s legitimacy. Is that what you saw on Facebook?” asked South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham at the hearing.

Both Stretch and Twitter general counsel Sean Edgett called that statement “accurate.”

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So it would appear that Russia really wasn’t interested in who won the election, they just wanted to cause as much division and violence in the United States as possible.

Unfortunately, many liberals drank the Russia Kool-Aid after the election, and often reacted horribly, sometimes even violently, toward the results.

“Their goal is to create confusion and dissent,” explained James Lewis, an international cyber policy expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“The target is the U.S. and NATO, not any particular candidate. They just want chaos. It went from being a grudge match against Clinton to what they thought was a priceless opportunity to inflict harm,” he added.

The New York Times noted that during the testimony, both Democrats and Republicans expressed their anger at social media companies for not stopping, or at least disclosing, the Russian campaign earlier.

While Russia may not have wanted Clinton to win, it is becoming increasingly clear that they ultimately just wanted to cause chaos.

A divided America — thus a weaker America — is exactly what what Russia wants.

Sadly, that’s exactly what they got. Democrats and Republicans have been so fixated on this Russia baloney for 11 months, casting doubting on the legitimacy of the election and causing untold division.

RELATED: Mainstream Media Admits People Still Want Trump as President Even After Russia Scare

The Washington Post noted that all social media companies promised to do better to stop this sort of meddling in the future, but also cautioned that they couldn’t stop every false ad from being bought and distributed, nor could they stop false tweets/posts from being sent.

Maybe now Democrats will realize that this months-long probe into alleged collusion between Trump and Russia has just been exactly what Russia wanted.

It’s time to put aside this investigation — which still hasn’t turned up a shred of evidence — and focus on making sure Russia’s global footprint doesn’t expand further.

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