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Abby Johnson, a former abortion clinic director at Planned Parenthood, spoke to Alex Marlow on SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Daily on Thursday, explaining that she became a pro-life advocate after witnessing an abortion.

The interview came ahead of the 2019 March for Life, scheduled for January 18 in Washington, DC.

Johnson said, “I worked for Planned Parenthood for eight years. I was a clinic director. I left in 2009 after a couple of things. One, I was told that my job was to double the amount of abortions — so double our abortion quota — that we had in our clinic, which was troubling to me because I was told for all of these years that our goal was to reduce the number of abortions, and here I am being told to double our quota.”

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Johnson then described her participation in and witnessing of an abortion procedure.

Johnson recalled, “Then, about a month later, I was asked to help participate in an ultrasound-guided abortion procedure. Ultrasounds are generally not used during the actual abortion procedure itself, but we had a new physician in our clinic that day, and he wanted to show us what this looked like. He thought it would be a good learning opportunity for us. I watched as a 13-week-old fetus fought and struggled for his life against the abortion instrument. I knew then that there was humanity in the womb, and abortion was taking the life of this innocent human being, and I decided to leave Planned Parenthood.”

Marlow invited Johnson’s comments on science as the theme of this year’s March for Life.

“I love the theme of the March this year,” replied Johnson. “I often — every day — talk to people who support abortion, and one of the things that they cannot deny is the science of the human fetus. That really bothers them, the fact that they want so bad to say, ‘It’s not human,’ and then when you really challenge them and ask, ‘Well, what species is it? Is it feline? Is it canine? What is it?’ That really gets to the heart of the issue. Science is on our side.”

Johnson added, “For those of us who are faithful people, for those of us who are believers, we know where science comes from. We know that science comes from our Creator. None of us who are Christian should have a problem with helping other people understand the science of a human person in the womb because we know the science was given to us by Christ.”

Johnson continued, “It’s a great opportunity. We see more and more people who are secular [and] atheist coming into the pro-life movement because of the science, and that’s a beautiful thing.”

Marlow asked if Planned Parenthood’s position is that an unborn child’s humanity is contingent on the pregnant woman’s desires.

Johnson explained how Planned Parenthood shifted its public statements on abortion over time.

“When I worked at Planned Parenthood, we sort of changed our phrasing back in about 2008,” stated Johnson. “So it used to be, ‘Oh, you don’t have to worry about it. It’s just a blob of tissue. It’s just fetal matter.’ Then it sort of changed. More and more women were having ultrasounds. Sixty percent of women who have abortions already have children at home, so these weren’t women who were ignorant to the fact that they were pregnant with a baby.”

Johnson went on. “So we had to change the way that we talked about abortion. So it became, ‘It’s not a baby until the woman decides she wants to keep the baby.’ And these women are so desperate for any sort of justification for their abortion. They believe whatever you tell them. Then it became, ‘Abortion is a sacrificial choice. It’s a choice that a woman makes because she cares about herself, her current family, and her future family.’ That was the language that we were told to start using in about 2008, and that’s the language that continues within Planned Parenthood.”

Marlow asked about contemporary left-wing sloganeering related to abortion — including “Shout Your Abortion” and actress Lena Dunham’s claimed wish to have had an abortion.

Johnson remarked, “Even in the past more than nine years that I’ve been out of Planned Parenthood, I’ve seen a shift in the way they talk about abortion and the way that they encourage our society and women who’ve had abortions to talk about their abortion.”

Johnson added, “When I worked at Planned Parenthood, we kept the abortion brochures behind the counter. Women had to ask for them to get them. Now, the discussion about abortion is just so brazen. I went to the Women’s March two years ago just to have a pro-life there, with a sign that said, ‘True feminists are pro-life.’ I went there, and I could not believe the vulgarity that I saw among these women. It was embarrassing to me that I was part of a movement like this. It really has changed over the past nine years.”

Johnson concluded, “We see that Planned Parenthood is more vocal about their support of abortion. Their current president, Leana Wen, two days ago, coming out on Twitter and saying, ‘Planned Parenthood is focused on providing abortion.’ Great. Get it out in the open. Stop trying to hide behind this false three percent number. Let’s be honest about the number of abortions you’re providing. Stop saying it’s only three percent. We all know that’s a lie. Just be honest and come out with it.”

Johnson will be a featured speaker at the March for Life. She plans to discuss her forthcoming film, Unplanned, scheduled for release in March.

Breitbart News Daily broadcasts live on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. Eastern.

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Lawyer Harmeet Dhillon discussed Breitbart News’ latest Google leak on Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Tonight, Wednesday, highlighting Google’s threat towards democracy.

On Wednesday, Breitbart Tech Senior Reporter Allum Bokhari published details about a leaked Google internal discussion thread, proving the company regularly adds search results, including negative results about prominent left-wing figures, to a blacklist on its platform YouTube.

“The term ‘abortion’ was added to a ‘blacklist’ file for ‘controversial YouTube queries,’ which contains a list of search terms that the company considers sensitive. According to the leak, these include some of these search terms related to: abortion, abortions, the Irish abortion referendum, Democratic Congresswoman Maxine Waters, and anti-gun activist David Hogg,” Bokhari reported. “The existence of the blacklist was revealed in an internal Google discussion thread leaked to Breitbart News by a source inside the company who wishes to remain anonymous. A partial list of blacklisted terms was also leaked to Breitbart by another Google source.”

After announcing that she would discuss the leak on Tucker Carlson Tonight, Dhillon appeared on Carlson’s show, Wednesday, to warn viewers about the threat Google poses to democracy.

Will be discussing this tonight on @TuckerCarlson @foxnews https://t.co/yYfUug51Z7

— Harmeet K. Dhillon (@pnjaban) January 16, 2019

“Why is nobody covering this? That’s a great question. And this question as well: Google’s manipulation… why isn’t that a violation of campaign finance law? The company’s YouTube blacklist, for example, allegedly suppressed negative videos about Maxine Waters. Why is that not a contribution to Maxine Waters?” asked Carlson on his show. “Harmeet Dhillon, unlike us, is an attorney and she joins us tonight. So, Harmeet, you just saw a guy plead to a felony because he paid off his client’s girlfriend with private funds in the middle of a campaign. That was considered a campaign finance violation. Here you have the most powerful company in the world putting its thumb on the scale on behalf of candidates, but that’s not a campaign contribution? How?”

“Well it is a campaign finance violation, and if anybody thinks that this is some sort of aberration, Google has been doing this and bragging about it internally even in the last election,” Dhillon replied. “One internal person at Google, a manager at Google made a silent campaign contribution by turning out the vote and contributing turn out the vote efforts in several states that were swing states for Hillary Clinton, and specifically targeting Latino voters. I think people should be encouraged to do democratic activities like this, on both sides, and help with elections, but when a corporation does it, with its corporate assets, it needs to be disclosed as a campaign finance violation.”

“Here, you have the one example of Maxine Waters, but let’s just play this out. You have twenty plus Democrats running for the Democratic nomination. If Google decides to bump up the search engine results in a positive way for Beto O’Rourke in response to, for example, ‘Democratic candidates for president 2020,’ and then bump down Tulsi Gabbard or some others for example, that’s going to be a contribution, in my opinion, to those candidates who benefit from it, and a very valuable one,” she explained. “If it isn’t being disclosed as such, then that is a fraud on our democracy. And again, imagine what they’re doing to Donald Trump. They’re already doing it to Republicans as you have previously reported with regard to search engine results for Republican women, for Californian Republican Party, for various other Republicans.”

“This is a particularly shocking and alarming story that we really need to see our members of Congress, Senators, and the White House wake up about this issue, because otherwise, we aren’t going to be talking about a democracy in the next two election cycles,” Dhillon warned. “We’ll be talking about what it used to look like before we let Big Tech take over and control the outcome.”

Tucker then raised the possibility of President Trump even failing to be re-elected if Big Tech continues to influence politics at the current extent, and declared, “I wonder why the White House wouldn’t… they do control the executive branch of government… wouldn’t have been awakened to that.”

Dhillon responded, “We have seen Donald Trump, actually, tweet about this issue in September 2018. He tweeted, practically, about the subject matter of today’s story from Breitbart and people called him a conspiracy theorist, that it isn’t true, when now we see the evidence that they are doing this manipulation. And Sundar Pichai lied to Congress about it.”

“But these companies skilfully spread the money around, not just to members of Congress, but also people working in the administration who are looking for their exit and thinking, well, maybe I’ll work for the other side of tech policy and make a bunch of money advising Google on how to speak conservative to conservatives,” Dhillon concluded. “And that’s how it happens.”

Charlie Nash is a reporter for Breitbart Tech. You can follow him on Twitter @MrNashington, or like his page at Facebook.

One of America’s newest Muslim congresswomen is under fire for apparent anti-Israel remarks, but CNN doesn’t seem to be very interested in pressing her to explain them.

Back in 2012, Ilhan Omar posted a controversial tweet which called on Allah and appeared to call the Jewish nation “evil.” That’s an eye-opening statement from anyone, but particularly so now that Omar has been sworn in to Congress from her state of Minnesota.

“Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel. #Gaza #Palestine #Israel,” she posted in a tweet that has not been deleted.

To their slight credit, that post didn’t escape CNN, which brought it up to her on Thursday.

Rep. Omar’s comments on Israel begin at 7:47 in this video.

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“You wrote Israel has ‘hypnotized the world,’” commented journalist Poppy Harlow. “I wonder what your message is this morning to Jewish-Americans who find that deeply offensive.”

Omar’s response was to passive-aggressively scold CNN for asking the question, while simultaneously standing by her inflammatory remarks.

“That’s really a regrettable way of expressing that (question),” the representative shot back.

She feigned cluelessness about how ranting about “the evil doings of Israel” might be a problem with Israeli or Jewish people.

“I don’t know how my comments would be offensive to Jewish-Americans,” Omar declared. “My comments precisely are addressing what was happening during the Gaza War.”

But then she doubled-down on the same kind of rhetoric by using the term “Israeli regime” to refer to America’s closest ally and friend in the Middle East.

CNN could have followed up and pressed Omar on her inflammatory language — after all, calling a fellow democracy a “regime” is bizarre for an official representative of the United States government. But the network just shrugged it off, quickly moving to a different topic.

There are two items of note here. First is how quickly left-leaning networks change the subject once a liberal puts their foot in their mouth. There’s a clear double standard here: Imagine for just a second if President Trump tweeted about “the evil doings of Mexico” or any other friendly country, for that matter.

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It would be national news, with CNN, MSNBC, and all the rest holding roundtable discussions about just how racist the president was.

Yet when a liberal lawmaker not only makes that comment about a U.S. ally but seems to defend it on national television, there’s no pressure. They simply accept her vague explanation as gold and move on.

The final point is about Omar herself. It’s very telling that the freshman congresswoman seemed absolutely stunned that anybody might have a problem with her anti-Israel statement or dare call her out on it.

Like fellow newcomer Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Minnesota representative seems to expect a free pass on accountability, perhaps because she is a minority.

But as the left has been telling us for decades, a person’s gender or religion shouldn’t change how they’re treated — and that’s exactly why media outlets need to hold America’s representatives’ feet to the fire when they say something ridiculous, not go easy on them.

We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.

Confused Democrat lawmakers were left sitting idle on a military bus near the Capitol after President Donald Trump postponed their seven-day foreign trip as the partial government shutdown continues.

Photos shared to social media purport to show Democrats on a U.S. Air Force bus traveling to the airport when they received word that their access to a military plane had been blocked:

Fox is told CapHill security officials got an emergency call from the Pentagon canceling the overseas trip due to shutdown. No one here knows if the trip is going to happen or not. Lots of confusion pic.twitter.com/eFCqsaNcGe

— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) January 17, 2019

House Members sitting on an Air Force bus b/t the Longworth and Rayburn House Office Buildings waiting to see if they are still going overseas after Trump cancelled the trip. pic.twitter.com/e5IgidRPZu

— Jason Donner (@jason_donner) January 17, 2019

USAF bus back on Capitol plaza. Mbrs getting off bus & going back into Capitol pic.twitter.com/k9luYw5YyC

— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) January 17, 2019

The bus went around the block and back to the Capitol where members eventually got off. pic.twitter.com/Os3LTTmG8h

— Jason Donner (@jason_donner) January 17, 2019

Bus leaving Capitol grounds. A few people still on board. Unknown who pic.twitter.com/zT4Ng1oZ6J

— Emily Goodin (@Emilylgoodin) January 17, 2019

One video shows House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) exiting the bus in front of the Capitol building:

Members including House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff getting off the bus in front of the Capitol. pic.twitter.com/G6JMtVCg8h

— Jason Donner (@jason_donner) January 17, 2019

Bus for lawmakers on Pelosi’s codel is circling Capitol Hill, awaiting some definitive answers. pic.twitter.com/bpSpPeCZOk

— Leo Shane III (@LeoShane) January 17, 2019

House Speaker Pelosi and other Democrats planned to depart around 3:00 p.m. Eastern Thursday for her overseas trip, according to the White House.

Drew Hamill, the speaker’s chief of staff, issued the following statement in response to the cancelation:

 “The CODEL to Afghanistan included a required stop in Brussels for pilot rest. In Brussels, the delegation was scheduled to meet with top NATO commanders, U.S. military leaders and key allies–to affirm the United States’ ironclad commitment to the NATO alliance. This weekend visit to Afghanistan did not include a stop in Egypt. The purpose of the trip was to express appreciation and thanks to our men and women in uniform for their service and dedication, and to obtain critical national security & intelligence briefings from those on the front lines. The President traveled to Iraq during the Trump Shutdown as did a Republican CODEL led by Rep. Zeldin.”

In a letter to Pelosi on Thursday, President Trump wrote that due to the shutdown, a trip to Egypt, Brussels, and Afghanistan would be delayed, declaring, “In light of the 800,000 great American workers not receiving pay, I’m sure you would agree that postponing this public relations event is totally appropriate.”

“I also feel that, during this period, it would be better if you were in Washington negotiating with me and joining the strong border security movement to end the shutdown,” the president continued.

Pelosi is welcome to fly on a commercial aircraft to make the trip, he told the House speaker.

Read the full letter below:

 

While the shutdown drags on, on Thursday, the State Department instructed all U.S. diplomats in Washington and elsewhere to return to work next week with pay, saying it had found money for their salaries, at least temporarily, despite the ongoing government shutdown.

In a notice to staff posted online and sent to employees, the department said it had found money to pay most of its employees, beginning Sunday or Monday, for their next pay period. They will not be paid for time worked since the shutdown began in December until the situation is resolved, said the notice, which was signed by Deputy Under Secretary for Management William Todd.

President Trump declined to address the stalemate over the speech Thursday during a visit to the Pentagon, simply promising that the nation will have “powerful, strong border security,” including $5.7 billion in funding to build a U.S.-Mexico border wall.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

Barack Obama’s infamous “you didn’t build that” line defined his presidency. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio may have just one-upped him with an alarming message to residents: You don’t own that.

During a Thursday speech called the “state of the city” address, the liberal mayor unveiled a new plan that threatens to seize privately-owned property and hand it over to “community nonprofits” if the owners don’t do what the city government says.

The executive order is being billed as a way to punish bad landlords, but it seems to be only a few steps away from outright socialism.

The mayor “announced he wants to take action against landlords who try to force tenants out by making the property unliveable,” Fox News reported. “He said that in the event the government intervenes, the buildings would then be controlled by a ‘community nonprofit.’”

In basic terms, if the city decides that a building owned by a landlord isn’t being managed the way bureaucrats want, the government will impose a series of sanctions all the way up to taking the privately-owned property by force.

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“If the fines and the penalties don’t cut it, we will seize their buildings and we will put them in the hands of a community nonprofit that will treat tenants with the respect they deserve,” de Blasio declared, according to The New York Daily News.

There are some big problems with this plan. Who determines which properties are acceptable, and what prevents the city from constantly changing the definition to seize whatever it wants?

“My first reaction was: Is this communist Cuba?” state Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis said.

“I can say that as a daughter of Cuban refugees who fled Castro’s Cuba in 1959, this is what happened to her family, she had her home taken, my grandfather had his gas station taken.

“This is extreme even for Mayor de Blasio, because we know that he has socialist leanings, but this is straight communism and I think it’s very scary to America-loving, democracy-loving people,” Malliotakis added.

There’s also the reality of unintended consequences. While de Blasio is acting as if threatening landlords unless they pour money into building improvements will benefit residents, it’s almost guaranteed that this will raise the cost of living in the already-expensive city.

The New York metro area is already in the top five most expensive places to live, according to USA Today. Average monthly housing costs for a family of four are close to $1,800 — and that’s before considering any other expenses like food or transportation.

As with constantly-rising minimum wage proposals, the left never stops to think about the downstream consequences of their actions.

Just as raising the minimum wage to $20 an hour would require that the money come from somewhere — with expenses inevitably passed on to employees or end customers — the same would happen by forcing building owners to make expensive improvements or lose their own property.

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De Blasio hasn’t even tried to hide the fact that he wants government bureaucrats to control … well, just about everything.

“I think people all over this city, of every background, would like to have the city government be able to determine which building goes where, how high it will be, who gets to live in it, what the rent will be,” he said during an interview with New York Magazine.

The liberal mayor is openly bragging about his socialism.

“I think there’s a socialistic impulse, which I hear every day, in every kind of community, that they would like things to be planned in accordance to their needs,” de Blasio continued.

“Look, if I had my druthers, the city government would determine every single plot of land, how development would proceed,” he said. “And there would be very stringent requirements around income levels and rents.”

“That’s a world I’d love to see,” he declared, before endorsing “a very, very powerful government.”

What is going on with the left’s flirtation with communist thinking? First Bernie Sanders, then Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and now de Blasio. Maybe it’s time they booked a one-way ticket to Venezuela so they can see just how well their Marxist views work in the real world.

We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.

The Washington Examiner on Wednesday reported that some ranchers near the southern border in New Mexico say they have discovered Islamic prayer rugs on their property in recent months.

A female rancher, who requested anonymity out of fear of retaliation from criminal cartels, told the Examiner, “There’s a lot of people coming in not just from Mexico.”

“People, the general public, just don’t get the terrorist threats of that,” she added. “That’s what’s really scary. You don’t know what’s coming across. We’ve found prayer rugs out here. It’s unreal. It’s not just Mexican nationals that are coming across.”

The rancher lives in the remote southwestern corner of the state near a tiny town called Animas. The nearest municipality of any size in Hidalgo County is Lordsburg, the county seat where a U.S. Border Patrol station is located, some 95 miles north of the border.

With no local police department in Animas, local residents rely on the County Sheriff’s Office and Border Patrol agents for their law enforcement needs, but given the fact that so few law enforcement resources are available in the area, many residents — including the rancher — have armed themselves and rely on friends and neighbors for support in times of need.

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The rancher explained during a tour of her property that she works with the Border Patrol agents who she can trust and shares information with them when she can.

“I’ve talked to several agents that I trust. There’s not a lot that I do trust, but the ones I do trust, I talk to them,” the rancher said. “What Border Patrol classifies as OTMs (other than Mexicans) has really increased in the last couple years, but drastically within the last six months. Chinese, Germans, Russians, a lot of Middle Easterners. Those Czechoslovakians they caught over on our neighbor’s just last summer.”

Watch as this armed rancher shows the reporter how illegal migrants had used a building on her property repeatedly as a waypoint rest stop on their illicit journey northward, and further described the dangers she has faced in the past on her own property.

Another area rancher, identified as Billy Darnell, told the Examiner that one of his neighbors had caught 18 women and children from the Philippines on their property at one point in 2018. The Border Patrol had been notified and the group had been taken into custody.

To be sure, government statistics reveal only a handful of known or suspected terrorists were apprehended on the border during the first half of 2018, but obviously, that number doesn’t account for how many slipped through without being apprehended, which has been estimated by some to number in the thousands.

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen told Fox News, “We’ve talked about the thousands — the thousands of terror watch list individuals who traveled through our hemisphere last year.”

She added, “To pretend there’s not a danger on an unsecured border, on an open border, is just ridiculous. It belies common sense.”

The U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agency declined to provide comment on this report from the Examiner, but the discovery of Islamic prayer rugs in the border region would seem to belie the left’s dismissal of the potential terrorist threat in the area, and raises concerns among those who adamantly insist something be done to better secure the border from such threats.

We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.