Category: US Politics

Pro-life leaders pounced after Planned Parenthood’s acting president said the organization is not “political by nature” in her first interview since taking over the position.

“We are primarily a health care provider,” Alexis McGill Johnson said in the interview with CBS News reporter Kate Smith. “And the idea that we can provide that access depends on our ability to keep our health centers open.”

Johnson replaced Leana Wen, who was fired July 16 as president of the organization.

“We’re not political by nature, but we’ve been politicized,” Johnson said. “And that fight has actually been our focus to ensure that our health centers stay open.”

Planned Parenthood isn’t political. It’s been politicized. – The Washington Post https://t.co/1qLMbJf898

— Alexis McGill Johnson (@alexismcgill) July 25, 2019

But pro-life leaders said Planned Parenthood is entirely political by nature.

Live Action founder Lila Rose told The Daily Caller News Foundation that it is “laughable” to hear Johnson say the nation’s largest abortion provider is not political, “when Planned Parenthood fired its last CEO for not being political enough.”

“It is clear that Planned Parenthood will continue its deadly abortion business and its ruthless, pro-abortion political advocacy,” Rose said.

Rose added that Planned Parenthood “is present to lobby against every single abortion regulation and restriction, demanding that sex-selection abortion remain legal, that babies who survive abortion attempts not be provided legal protections, and that abortion on full-term infants is [to] be permitted for any reason.”

Tom McClusky, president of March for Life Action, drew attention to the millions of tax dollars he said Planned Parenthood receives from politicians elected by its “affiliated multimillion-dollar PAC.”

“This is active participation in politics, and to claim otherwise is entirely misleading,” McClusky, also vice president of government affairs for March for Life, told The Daily Caller News Foundation.

Mallory Quigley, Susan B. Anthony List’s vice president of communications, called Planned Parenthood a “profit-driven, abortion-centered business with a distinct focus on politics,” pointing to the organization’s annual reports.

“As America’s largest abortion chain, they stand the most to lose when Americans, acting through their elected legislators, pass laws to limit abortion and protect life,” Quigley said.

Former abortion clinic director and now pro-life activist Abby Johnson, subject of the movie “Unplanned,” said Planned Parenthood’s annual reports illustrate their “extensive political involvement.”

“They are more a political entity than health care provider,” Johnson told The Daily Caller News Foundation, adding that the organization relies on “an extensive network of politicians, wealthy donors, and community organizers to ensure they are able to keep abortion in the political conscious.”

Johnson, Planned Parenthood’s acting director, also emphasized in the interview that it must stand up against new abortion restrictions for women who need health care access—a sensitive point for an organization that reportedly fired Wen due to her focus on health care over politics.

Planned Parenthood did not respond to requests for comment from The Daily Caller News Foundation.

The National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws, the American Civil Liberties Union, and Emily’s List also did not respond to requests for comment on Johnson’s remarks.

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Mark Morgan, acting commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, hit hard against those who are “demonizing” Border Patrol agents and directly called out members of Congress.

“The men and women of CBP are not running concentration camps, making those in our custody drink from toilets, nor denying them access to toothbrushes. That is simply not true,” Morgan said Tuesday during a Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing. “This is the kind of irresponsible rhetoric that they have to endure from both the media and even some of our own congressional leaders.”

The committee’s hearing–titled “Unprecedented Migration at the U.S. Southern Border: What Is Required to Improve Conditions?”–examined the crisis along the U.S.-Mexico border and the living conditions in the detention centers that are housing thousands of migrants.

During his opening statements, Morgan spoke about an incident in May when Border Patrol agents observed a group of migrant smugglers deliberately throw a paraplegic man into the Rio Grande River. 

Agents with the Border Patrol Sector Search, Trauma, and Rescue were able to act swiftly, fighting against the river’s strong currents, and rescue the handicapped man before he drowned, Morgan said.

Had it not been for the quick actions of the Border Patrol, he said, the man would have been one of the 172 deaths discovered along the southwest border in recent time. The man’s rescue was one of more than 4,000 rescues made by Customs and Border Protection this year. Stories like this, he said, mostly go unreported by the media.

“This is who the men and women of the United States Customs and Border Protection are. They risk their lives every single day to help and protect whomever is in distress,” Morgan said.

Morgan continued to hammer those who he claimed are vilifying the agency:

It’s unjust and does nothing to bring us closer to resolving one of the most divisive issues that we face in our country. The demonizing of law enforcement professionals must stop. These false, misinformed, and overheated attacks are demoralizing, and serves to further deteriorate the public’s understand and perception of what the true issues are and what needs to be done to end this crisis.

Mentions of toilet water and concentration camps were clear references to attacks made by Democratic lawmakers and popularized by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y..

The freshman Democrat in June accused the Trump administration of running “concentration camps” along the U.S. southern border, generating intense backlash from law enforcement and Jewish communities.

Earlier in July, Morgan blamed the concentration camp comparisons for an attempted terrorist attack on an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility. The perpetrator, a left-wing Antifa member, referred to immigration detention centers as “concentration camps” in his manifesto.

After touring a CBP facility with other Democratic House members on July 1, Ocasio-Cortez claimed migrants were told to drink water out of toilet bowls.

“These women were being told by CBP officers to drink out of the toilet. They were drinking water out of the toilet, and that was them knowing a congressional visit was coming. This is CBP on their best behavior,” she said at the time.

However, immigration officials have since come forward to say the accusation is untrue.

“I can tell you with the utmost confidence that the migrants—anyone and everyone in our custody at all of our facilities—have ready access to fresh water,” CBP Deputy Commissioner Robert Perez said earlier in July. “I’ve never heard, in 26 years of being in this business, ever heard of that type of allegation being made.”

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A gun shop in a small North Carolina town is taking some heat from the left after putting up a particularly funny billboard. The sign features the four progressive freshman lawmakers known as “the Squad“: Reps. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts. Cherokee…

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Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) is accusing multiple senior Trump administration officials in both the Treasury and State Departments of actively working behind President Donald Trump’s back to save the Iran nuclear deal and continue providing Tehran with waivers permitting the regime to conduct sensitive nuclear work at a military site that houses Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

In reaction to reports that the State Department will renew a series of controversial sanctions waivers that have permitted Iran to continue conducting nuclear work, including at a military bunker dug into the side of mountain, Cruz accused "deep state" officials operating at the State and Treasury Departments of actively working to undermine the administration’s so-called "maximum pressure" campaign on Iran.

"If these reports are indeed accurate, then it is a temporary victory for the deep state staffers at Treasury and State who continue working tirelessly to preserve the Obama Iran deal rather than implementing the president’s directive," Cruz said. "I will continue to work towards permanently ending the nuclear deal, including by exercising Congress’s important oversight responsibility to ensure the implementation of United States policy."

The issue of these civil nuclear waivers has emerged as a flashpoint in the debate over Iran and the future of the nuclear deal. For months, Cruz and other Iran critics in Congress have pressured the State Department to end these waivers, which they say have allowed Iran to continue its march towards a functional nuclear weapon.

While top officials in the White House had anticipated that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo would end these waivers in the coming weeks, new reports indicate that the State Department will again renew the sanctions waivers, roiling opponents of the nuclear deal.

The waivers have been linked to the preservation of the deal itself. European countries still party to the nuclear deal have been working with Iran for months on plans to skirt the toughest of new U.S. sanctions issued by the Trump administration.

Multiple U.S. officials who have spoken to the Washington Free Beacon in recent months have supported Cruz’s claims about a so-called deep state operation to save the nuclear deal. These sources allege that a cadre of former Obama administration officials still in the State and Treasury Departments have teamed up to undermine Trump’s hardline policy on Iran.

Cruz is the first senior lawmaker to publicly accuse these officials of engaging in a plot to save the Iran nuclear deal behind the president’s back, though others have made similar claims privately over the past months.

Ultimately, Pompeo will make the final decision on the waivers.

The Washington Post‘s Josh Rogin first reported on Tuesday about an Oval Office meeting in which Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin pressured Trump to sign off on continuing the nuclear waivers.

"In an Oval Office meeting last week, Trump sided with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who argued that the administration should again renew sanctions waivers related to five separate parts of Iran’s nuclear program," Rogin reported. "Mnuchin prevailed over the objections of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and national security adviser John Bolton, according to six administration officials."

"I hope these reports turn out to be wrong," Cruz said. "The president has correctly ordered his administration to halt implementation of the catastrophic Obama-Iran nuclear deal. These waivers are part of the deal, and allow the Ayatollahs to build up their nuclear program, including at Fordow, a bunker they dug into the side of a mountain so they could build nuclear weapons."

The State Department would not comment on Wednesday about the veracity of the reports when contacted by the Free Beacon.

One U.S. official, speaking only on background to the Free Beacon, said the reports have only emboldened Iran, which has viewed the news as a win.

"You can tell that this decision is indefensible because no one wants to own it," said the official, who works on the Iran portfolio. "It’s the classic D.C. game where everyone is blaming everyone else to reporters, because no one wants to get blamed for making the president look like a clown. In the meantime, Zarif gets more time to send snarky tweets about Pompeo and Bolton. Good day for everyone except America."

Meanwhile, Iranian officials announced on Wednesday that they will continue to breach key portions of the deal banning the enrichment of uranium until the U.S. and its partners agree to roll back sanctions.

"I think it will be the last opportunity for the nuclear deal parties," Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Seyed Abbas Moussavi was quoted as saying in the country’s state-controlled press. "We will put into effect the next step if Iran’s interests are not met and if they do not do anything special, the Islamic Republic of Iran will not extend the steps anymore."

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The Trump campaign dug up an old video of Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) on Wednesday that shows him calling his district "drug infested," which comes after the media and Democratic Party repeatedly attacked President Donald Trump for calling Baltimore drug- and rat-infested over the weekend.
During a congressional hearing in 1999, Cummings said: "This morning I left my community of Baltimore, a drug infested area" where people were "walking around like zombies."
WATCH:

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The liberals who’ve been crying about their concern for migrant children at the southern border need to hear about this. For months, Democrats have accused the Trump administration of abusing children who’ve been brought across the border illegally by families just trying to give them a better future. But a Customs and Border Protection announcement…

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U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Ben Carson is playing peacemaker between President Trump and Rep.

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A prank tweet made a member of Congress and President Trump look bad. Twitter then allowed that tweet to trend. HBO writer Dan Lyons posted a tweet that attributed this fake quote to Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): “While Obama and Biden were cowering in fear on Air Force 1, Mr. Trump was on the ground with first responders searching for survivors and pulling people to safety. I remember seeing him on TV, running toward the danger.” This tweet was trending on July 30 under “Obama and Biden” in the top 10 tweet trends. 
 

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Senator Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) said that immigration to the United States should reflect America’s needs rather than offering temporary work programs focused on low-skilled workers during an event on Tuesday with the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS).

"There is no lack of people in Congress focused on things like security and enforcement or our temporary guest worker programs," Cotton told CIS executive director Mark Krikorian, "But there weren’t that many people focused on our legal immigration system and to me that is one of the cornerstones of our immigration system because it is about not just how we generate workers for our economy but citizens for our country. And that’s what we ultimately should focus on is bringing in new citizens who are going to help contribute to the American story and as I studied our legal immigration system I realized it was just a mishmash of quotas and random set asides and policies that are outdated and no one could even explain."

Cotton introduced the Reforming American Immigration for a Strong Economy (RAISE) Act along with Senator David Perdue (R., Ga.) in 2017, which was endorsed at the time by President Donald Trump. Though the Senate didn’t vote on the RAISE Act in the last session of Congress, the duo introduced it again earlier this year with another co-sponsor, Senator Josh Hawley (R., Mo.). Cotton said he didn’t expect an immigration fix while Nancy Pelosi is the Speaker of the House, and that large-scale fixes of the immigration system would take multiple years to gain momentum.

Cotton commented a bill that affects Venezuelan refugees. While sympathetic to Venezuelans who suffered at the hands of Nicolas Maduro’s regime, Cotton expressed concern about granting temporary protected status, stating that the status is no longer temporary.

Cotton cosponsored a bill which would eliminate the country caps on high-skilled immigrants while leaving the overall cap in place, which he said was a measure included in the RAISE Act. The bill passed the House with wide bipartisan support, 365-65.

Cotton also said that Democrats had "lost their mind" on immigration, noting the 2020 Democrats who advocate for decriminalizing border crossings and providing illegal immigrants with government-sponsored health care. "They intentionally said repeatedly as a selling point for Obamacare that illegal immigrants would not be eligible for Obamacare and now you’ve got poor Joe Biden getting attacked on those debate stages by Democrats who say that they deported too many illegal immigrants during the Obama-Biden years," Cotton said, "It just goes to show how radical the Democratic Party has become."

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