The Impact Of President Trump’s Judicial Appointments

Yesterday The Daily Caller reported that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Monday that the Trump administration can continue stripping federal funding from clinics that offer abortions. Note that he did not shut down the clinics–he just said that they would not receive federal funding. That ruling is an example of the impact President Trump’s judicial appointments have had on the Ninth Circuit.

Yesterday Fox News reported:

President Trump has reshaped the “notoriously liberal” U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, according to Carrie Severino, the conservative Judicial Crisis Network’s chief counsel and policy director, who noted it was often referred to as the “Ninth Circus.”

The former law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas made the comments Monday on “Fox & Friends” in response to a Los Angeles Times article titled “Trump has flipped the 9th Circuit — and some new judges are causing a ‘shock wave.’”

The article said that when President Trump talks about his accomplishments in office, “he frequently mentions his aggressive makeover of a key sector of the federal judiciary — the circuit courts of appeal, where he has appointed 51 judges to lifetime jobs in three years.”

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which encompasses California, Arizona, Alaska, Hawaii, Montana, Nevada, Idaho, Guam, Oregon and Washington, was a liberal bastion that has been aggressively reshaped into a more moderate court by the Trump administration.

The Daily Caller notes:

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) followed the decision in June by alerting clinics that it would enforce the administration’s ban. Planned Parenthood withdrew from the Title X federal family planning program, thereby forgoing about $60 million a year, in August 2019 rather than comply with this decision.

The Daily Caller article includes a screenshot of a comment by Leana Wen, M.D., a former president of Planned Parenthood. She comments that she will continue to fight so that millions of women across the country can receive care. Note the vocabulary used here–abortion is being framed as care. In a stretch of logic I suppose you could consider abortion care for the mother, but it is definitely not care for the baby. By controlling the vocabulary, Dr. Wen seeks to control the argument. The government should not be funding clinics that lead women to abortions–they should be funding clinics that lead women to prenatal care and support for their pregnancy.

Spending Money Where It Is Needed–Not For Political Purposes

The Washington Examiner posted an article today about ending the federal funding for abortion.

The article reports:

President Trump’s action last week, barring Title X family planning funds from programs and facilities that perform abortions, is thus entirely right and reasonable. For all Planned Parenthood’s gnashing of teeth, the only thing to suffer will be its own profits and the rewards of its senior executives. The public good and women’s health will, at a minimum, remain completely unaffected and, depending on your perspective, will be improved.

Trump’s decision will not reduce Title X funding at all. Rather, his policy guarantees that the limited funds available from that source will go to comprehensive community health centers all over America that provide health services Planned Parenthood doesn’t offer. There are 20 such community health centers for every Planned Parenthood affiliate. Most provide services such as mammograms that Planned Parenthood doesn’t offer. Most are also not so heavily involved and invested in partisan politics.

According to opensecrets.org, in the 2016 election cycle, Planned Parenthood (through its PAC) donated $671,048 to federal candidates (98% to Democrats, 1% to Republicans).

According to the ACLJ (American Center for Law and Justice):

Planned Parenthood just released their 2016–2017 annual report. The findings are clear: over 320,000 abortions committed in the last year; over half a billion in government funding; nearly $100 million in profit (a staggering 27% increase over the prior year). Big Abortion is big business.

Regardless of where you stand on protecting the unborn, abortion should not be a million dollar business.

It is obvious from the above numbers that Planned Parenthood does not actually need federal money–they are making a substantial profit on their own and they are supporting political candidates.

It has been my belief for a long time that entities that make political contributions should not be eligible for federal funds. This should include any political action committees (PACS) set up by those entities. This seems rather obvious to me, but evidently Congress has not yet figured it out (I guess Congress likes its donations from these entities). The idea of taking federal money and making political donations seems like money laundering to me.

 

Did He Misspeak Or Was He Lying ?

CNS News posted a story today about a statement made by Vice-President Joe Biden in a speech at the University of Wisconsin-LaCrosse on Friday. The article reports that the Vice-President stated that Planned Parenthood “under law cannot perform any abortion.”

The article then states:

Planned Parenthood itself has published fact sheets indicating that it did 985,731 abortions in just the three years from 2008 through 2010. These included 324,008 abortion in 2008, 332,278 abortions in 2009, and 329,445 abortions in 2010.

Biden made his remark in response to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney position that he would defund Planned Parenthood.

“And now these guys pledge that they are going to defund Planned Parenthood, which under law cannot perform any abortion,” said Biden. “You heard it last night again.”

Facts are inconvenient things.

The article reports:

A Congressional Research Service report published on Aug. 28 said that the federal government gives Planned Parenthood about $66 million per year in Title X “family planning” grants. The law prohibits recipients from using Title X money for abortion except in cases of rape, incest or to save the life of the mother.

However, there is nothing in the law to prevent these funds from paying office expenses in offices that schedule and perform abortions. Planned Parenthood, along with Public Broadcasting are two examples of things that should be cut from the federal budget. They are not worth borrowing money from China to fund.


 

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