According to their press release:

In the video, actors posing as representatives from a human biologics company meet with Farrell at the abortion-clinic headquarters of Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast in Houston to discuss a potential partnership to harvest fetal organs.

“Where we probably have an edge over other organizations, our organization has been doing research for many many years,” explains Farrell. When researchers need a specific part from the aborted fetus, Farrell says, “We bake that into our contract, and our protocol, that we follow this, so we deviate from our standard in order to do that.”

Asked specifically if this means Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast can change abortion procedures to supply intact fetal specimens, Farrell affirms,“We bake that into our contract, and our protocol, that we follow this, so we deviate from our standard in order to do that.”

The investigators ask Farrell how she will frame a contract in which they pay a higher price for higher quality fetal body parts, and she replies, “We can work it out in the context of–obviously, the procedure itself is more complicated,” suggesting that “without having you cover the procedural cost” and paying for the abortion, the higher specimen price could be framed as “additional time, cost, administrative burden.”

Farrell finally summarizes her affiliate’s approach to fetal tissue payments: “If we alter our process, and we are able to obtain intact fetal cadavers, we can make it part of the budget that any dissections are this, and splitting the specimens into different shipments is this. It’s all just a matter of line items.”

The sale or purchase of human fetal tissue is a federal felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison or a fine of up to $500,000 (42 U.S.C. 289g-2). Federal law also requires that no alteration in the timing or method of abortion be done for the purposes of fetal tissue collection (42 U.S.C. 289g-1).

Farrell also indicates to the investigators over lunch that the specimen sales from her department contribute significantly to Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast’s overall finances: “I think everyone realizes, especially because my department contributes so much to the bottom line of our organization here, you know we’re one of the largest affiliates, our Research Department is the largest in the United States. Larger than any the other affiliates’ combined.” In a Texas Senate hearing on July 29, former Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast clinic director Abby Johnson estimated that the affiliate had previously made up to $120,000 per month off of aborted fetal tissue.

This is the fifth video released by The Center for Medical Progress documenting the sale of aborted baby body parts by Planned Parenthood. According to Dave Daleiden, the Project Lead:

This is now the fifth member of Planned Parenthood leadership discussing payments for aborted baby parts without any connection to actual costs of so-called tissue ‘donation.’ Planned Parenthood’s system-wide conspiracy to evade the law and make money off of aborted fetal tissue is now undeniable.

Anyone who watches these videos knows that Planned Parenthood is engaged in barbaric practices and human rights abuses that must end. There is no reason for an organization that uses illegal abortion methods to sell baby parts and commit such atrocities against humanity to still receive over $500 million each year from taxpayers.

The video just released is below:

Photo by jasoneppink

Undercover videos that recently emerged show that the organization has been selling fetal organs from both early and late-term abortions to tissue companies.

The bill to defund Planned Parenthood, after the videos were released to the public, was proposed by first-term Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA), with the Obama White House strongly opposed to it.

Josh Earnest, the WH press secretary, told CNN on Monday that while he had not personally seen the videos, he believe the videos had been “selectively edited.” Of course this is despite that fact that full and unedited footage of the videos has also been released by The Center for Medical Progress, the organization behind the undercover operation.

Earnest also added in his CNN appearance, “What the President has said is that Planned Parenthood provides valuable services, health care services for men and women across the country. He would veto any legislation that tried to advance wholesale defunding for Planned Parenthood.”

The vote for cloture needed 60 votes to end debate and proceed to a vote on the defunding of the organization. It fell short of the needed 60, with a vote of 53-46, which ended largely along partisan lines.

Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL) crossed his party line to vote with the Democrats, while Sen. Joe Machin (D-WV) and Sen. Joe Donnelly (D-IN) voted on the side of the Republicans. House Majority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) votes with the Democrats, however this was a vote he needed to cast to keep the option open for a re-vote.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who is running in the Republican 2016 Presidential Primary, skipped the vote in order to campaign in New Hampshire, while Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), who were also at an event in New Hampshire that night, went back to DC in order to cast their votes.

The latest video that was released by The Center for Medical Progress shows a Planned Parenthood representative talking about “intact fetal cadavers” being nothing but “line items” and explaining about how they can manipulate the abortion process to provide more intact specimens.

Apparently, she doesn’t have an answer for that one, as she truly didn’t know what to say.

Instead of answering the direct question, which Matthews continued to press her on, she kept turning it around to, “The more important question is what is the difference between being a Democrat and being a Republican?”

Matthews continued to press her by saying, “You’re chairman of the democratic party. Tell me the difference between you and a socialist?”

Still leaving her grasping for an answer to a question that she couldn’t come up with.

And, although Matthews said he thinks there is a “huge difference,” he didn’t lay out what the difference was either.

So she can tell you the difference between a Democrat and a Republican, but not between a Democrat and a Socialist? Hmmm…that’s kind of telling, huh?

It’s pretty sad when your own party’s media propaganda machine can’t answer a simple question like this. Here’s an answer, democrat has eight letters and socialist has nine. That’s about all I got!

She never ceases to make my jaw drop when she speaks – or doesn’t speak, in this case. Watch it in all it’s glory.

@HotlineJosh @JammieWF I’m thinking addition would stump her.

— I Sing Sinatra (@Doobydoobydo) July 31, 2015

I guess the Hillary camp better get ready for this stumper.

Somebody at Hillary headquarters is scrambling to prep an answer to the “difference between a Democrat and a Socialist” stumper. — Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) July 31, 2015

Photo by DonkeyHotey

It’s a story that seems to have gotten more airtime on mainstream media outlets than the Planned Parenthood videos that were released at the same time, which show dead baby body parts being sold in a manner that would make most people’s stomachs turn.

I don’t know about a society that gets frantic over the story, sad as it is, of a dead lion halfway across the world, but chooses to ignore babies killed on a daily basis here in the U.S.

Cecil, a 13-year-old lion in Zimbabwe was killed in an organized high-dollar game hunt by Dr. Walter Palmer, 55, a Minnesota dentist. Palmer has now gone into hiding, after the outrage surrounding his story and death threats from anti-hunting and animal rights activists.

Palmer left a note for his patients that read, “I understand and respect that not everyone shares the same views on hunting.” He also added that he would “resume normal operations as soon as possible.”

Hundreds of protesters gathered Wednesday outside of his dental office with signs that said things like, “Let the hunter be hunted!”

Twitter was also bursting with people wanting to do violent things to the hunter.

I want to shoot a particular American dentist with a crossbow #CecilTheLion

— Mark Lewis (@MarkLewisLawyer) July 28, 2015

Can somebody lure the #dentist wanker from his chair and kill him with his own drill? What a total waste of oxygen! #CecilTheLion — Tessy (@TTessy) July 28, 2015

I always find it a bit odd that people who are so against killing animals have no problem issue death threats on humans, but whatevs.

They also carried signs calling him a “murderer.” These are probably the same type of people that, ironically, defend Planned Parenthood.

Absolutely disgusted that in 2015 a so called educated man would kill for fun. Let’s hope Karma gets him pretty quick! #LionLivesMatter

— Laura Featonby (@LaurasTravel) July 29, 2015

We have all this extreme outrage over Cecil’s death on social media and in the news, including Twitter hashtags that read #LionLivesMatter, but it seems like the residents of Zimbabwe are kind of oblivious to it and really don’t care all that much. To them it’s just another dead lion.

The Acting Information Minister of Zimbabwe Prisca Mupfumira was asked about the death of Cecil and responded, “What lion?”

Even though local authorities opened an investigation into whether professional guides who led the hunt followed the rules and regulations in place for such an event, the government of Zimbabwe has yet to give an official response on the matter.

Authorities in Zimbabwe have not even announced any charges against Palmer, they only say they want to speak to him. My guess is to see if their local guides broke any of their own laws regarding the way the hunt was conducted. The U.S. embassy said it was not aware of any extradition requests for the dentist either.

They have charged the hunter who supervised the hunt, Theo Bronkhorst, for killing a lion that was not authorized to be hunted. He faces up to 15 years in prison, if convicted. A second local suspect, farm owner Honest Ndlovu, was also arrested. Both are currently free on $1000 bail each.

But, it seems the people of Zimbabwe have bigger problems to deal with then Cecil, and don’t much care about another dead lion. They live under a mostly corrupt government, insane inflation and have an 80 percent unemployment rate.

Because of an economic meltdown over the last few years, many companies in the area have closed and people are out of jobs and battling water and electricity shortages. Many of the people in downtown Harare had not even heard about the lion, as they were too busy trying to deal with their own problems.

According to a story in the Minnesota Post, here are some statistics on Zimbabwe and it’s residents:

In 2012, Zimbabwe ranked 172nd out of 187 countries and territories.

Life expectancy is about 52 years — lower than it was in 1980. It has rebounded since the middle of the last decade, when it fell into the mid-40s — one of the lowest, if not the lowest in the world.

According to the U.N. agency coordinating the global fight against HIV/AIDS, there are more than half a million AIDS orphans among Zimbabwe’s roughly 15 million people. Almost 1.7 million of people between the ages of 15 and 49 are living with the disease.

Then, there’s the economy. In 2008, inflation hit 500 billion percent, and according to this report, the biggest bill printed — with a value of 100 trillion Zimbabwe dollars — wasn’t enough to get you to work and back on the bus for a week. The next year the country started using foreign currencies instead of its own.

Last month, Zimbabweans were allowed to start exchanging local currency they still held in bank accounts for a few U.S. dollars. Very few. A bank balance of 175 quadrillion Zimbabwe dollars will get you $5 U.S.

Many people of the country feel Cecil had a better overall life than they do. “Why are the Americans more concerned than us?” said Joseph Mabuwa. “We never hear them speak out when villagers are killed by lions and elephants in Hwange.”

Seems that residents of Zimbabwe actually welcome the big game hunts that Westerners come to their country to do. The high prices they pay for the privilege of doing so pumps money into their economy.

They have been debating for years about whether hunting can be justified if the fees they collect from it help fund conservation efforts that their government would not be able to afford otherwise. They also seem to feel that fewer, wealthier visitors of this type, like Palmer, actually causes less wear-and-tear on a fragile environment.

Also, large animals, such as lions, are generally seen as dangerous by locals, and if they aren’t hunted, their populations could explode and bring on increased attacks of people.

“I don’t understand the whole fuss. There are so many pressing issues in Zimbabwe — we have water shortages, no electricity and no jobs — yet people are making noise about a lion?” said Eunice Vhunise, a Harare resident. “I saw Cecil once when I visited the game park. I will probably miss him. But honestly the attention is just too much.”

“Are you saying that all this noise is about a dead lion? Lions are killed all the time in this country,” said Tryphina Kaseke, a used-clothes vendor on the streets of Harare. “What is so special about this one?”

Hey, I love animals. Anyone who knows me knows that I simply adore them. I think lions are gorgeous and I love looking at them. But, I am also bright enough to realize they are dangerous too. I am not necessarily anti-hunting, but I am not a big fan of stuffed and mounted heads on walls either.

And, please understand I am not real pleased with the manner in which this hunt was conducted and I am not defending Palmer. According to reports, the lion was lured out of a protected area by the hunters, where he was shot with a bow and suffered for 40 hours before finally being killed with a gun.

No animal, even a wild one, should suffer a slow death and there was no reason to lure an animal out of a protected area when there were other animals outside of the park that could have been hunted.

But, my question is, is this whole outrage really an outrage from the local area it affected, or is it just another way to let the anti-gun, anti-hunting animal rights activists get their voices in the news?

Or, is this outrage orchestrated in an effort to divert attention away from videos showing dead baby parts being sold by Planned Parenthood and PP officials talking about how to break the law to do so?

It sure would be great if the same people that are outraged about Cecil were as outraged about babies being butchered throughout the U.S. on a daily basis, and at the now proven fact that people are selling their little baby body parts.

The first debate, hosted by Fox News, will be held on August 6 in Cleveland. Only the top 10 candidates will be invited to participate. To make that cut the candidates must rank highest in national polls, which will leave many of them sitting the debates out and at a major disadvantage.

According the a Real Clear Politics poll, Donald Trump continues to rank the highest. He is followed by Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, Senator Marco Rubio (Florida), Dr. Ben Carson and Senators Ted Cruz (Texas) and Dr. Rand Paul (Kentucky).

This leaves New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, former Texas Governor Rick Perry, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, former HP CEO Carly Fiorina, and former Senator Rick Santorum (Pennsylvania) competing for the remaining spots.

Rounding out the field of more well-known candidates, who probably won’t get a chance at a spot in this first debate, are former Governor of Arkansas Mike Huckabee, Governor of Ohio John Kasich, former Governor of New York George Pataki, and Senator Lindsey Graham (South Carolina).

But, did you know, there are actually some much lesser known names running for the spot? They won’t get the media coverage or traction of the more famous names, but they are:

• Skip Andrews, a business owner
• George Bailey, a pastor
• Michael Bickelmeyer, who has over 40 years in the private sector
• Kerry Bowers, a former military man
• Dale Christensen, an entrepreneur and business professor
• Brooks Cullison, an Attorney and Certified Public Accountant
• John Dummett, Jr., who claims to be a Constitutional Republican who has become disenfranchised with both the Republican and Democratic parties
• Mark Everson, a businessman and former IRS Commissioner
• Jack Fellure, an engineer who has been running for President every four years since 1988
• Jim Hayden, a business owner
• Chris Hill, an airline captain and former combat pilot
• Michael Kinlaw
• K. Ross Newland, pastor and veteran
• Michael Petyo, businessman and veteran
• Brian Russell, entrepreneur
  Jefferson Sherman
• Shawna Sterling

So, who would you like to see in the Republican primary first debate? Feel free to comment below.

On Friday, Cruz accused McConnell of lying about whether he made a deal to have the reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank attached to a highway legislation that senators must pass.

The Export-Import Bank, which McConnell says in public he opposes, is viewed by many conservatives as corporate welfare and crony capitalism at its worst. While it is supposed to help small businesses compete in global markets, the bank favors large, and even foreign, companies with taxpayer dollars. Authorization for the bank expired in June, and a huge and expansive lobbying effort has been underway to reauthorize it.

This past weekend, during a rare Sunday session that was called to handle the Highway Bill, which had bipartisan support, we got to see just how much McConnell really is like Reid.

Sunday’s session opened with one thing – a warning.

Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) sternly said the following, in a lengthy speech, no doubt aimed squarely at Cruz:

The chair reminds all senators of the following paragraph from Rule 19 of the Standing Rules of the Senate … ‘No senator in debate shall directly or indirectly by any form of words impute to another senator or to other senators any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming a senator.’

We treat each other with honor, even when we feel another has perhaps not accorded us the same esteem. Squabbling and sanctimony may be tolerated on the campaign trail but not (in) here.

Cruz thanked Hatch for his speech, but also said he was merely being honest in his remarks about McConnell and the Ex-Im bank on Friday.

Cruz said on the Senate floor, “I would note that it is entirely consistent with decorum and with the nature of this body traditionally as the world’s greatest deliberative body to speak the truth.”

He said that McConnell, Hatch, and Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), didn’t dispute his claim about the Ex-Im bank in their remarks.

McConnell then used his power to block Kate’s Law, the law that would keep illegal alien criminals off the streets, and defunding Planned Parenthood, after their disastrous baby parts selling video debacle over the past few weeks, and prioritized two other bills, one which would revive the Export-Import Bank, and another to repeal Obamacare. Both had a 60 vote threshold.

McConnell used a procedure known as “Filling the Tree,” which allows the number of amendments to a bill to be limited by the majority leader, who controls the process, crowding everyone else out. It was used often by Democrat Reid to block Republicans from being able to offer amendments to Democratic bills.

Despite the fact that McConnell ran, and was reelected to his seat, based on returning the Senate to regular order, after being tightly controlled by the Democrats for years, now he is using the same tactic against his own party. He decided last week that he would only allow two amendments to the bill – a repeal of Obamacare (which he knew wouldn’t pass) and the Ex-Im Bank reauthorization – while blocking all others.

On Friday Cruz blasted the leader by saying, “There are hosts of amendments that the American people are focused on, things like defunding Planned Parenthood after the gruesome video. The majority leader doesn’t want to vote on that. That’s actually something the American people are focused on.”

Cruz and other conservatives say the Export-Import Bank amendment, amounts to corporate welfare, however the Senate voted 67-26 to attach a renewal of the bank charter to the Highway Bill, which had to pass. McConnell has been saying he would force a vote on the Export-Import Bank for weeks, both publicly and privately.

Top priority right now of Senate GOP establishment is reauthorizing an obscure corporate welfare program. Can you get any more out of touch?

— Justin Amash (@justinamash) July 26, 2015

The Obamacare defunding effort, which McConnell allowed in an effort to placate conservatives, failed to pass on party lines, 49-43. But, surely, McConnell knew that would happen before allowing it anyway. It needed 60 votes to pass, an unlikely scenario, and it would most certainly have caused the bill to get a presidential veto had it passed.

During Sunday’s session, McConnell blocked an amendment to defund Planned Parenthood, even though he previously said he wanted to defund the organization. He did agree to fast track a separate bill to defund Planned Parenthood, however he knows that would make it subject to filibuster by Democrats. 60 votes are needed to break a filibuster, and the GOP knows it doesn’t have that. It only takes 50 votes for inclusion.

So what does his silly standalone PP defunding bill accomplish? Nothing. It won’t pass. It needs 60. As an amdt it only needed a majority.

— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) July 26, 2015

According to The Hill, McConnell said the Planned Parenthood amendment was not germane to the Highway Bill and that’s why it was blocked.

He also made the same determination for “Kate’s Law,” which was named after Kate Steinle, the woman who was shot and killed in San Francisco on July 1 by an illegal alien who had been deported five times and already had seven felony convictions. It would have imposed a mandatory five year prison term on any illegal alien convicted of a violent felony if they had been previously deported.

So those weren’t allowed, however he deemed the Export-Import Bank amendment and ObamaCare defunding “germane” to the highway bill? Huh? 

Senator Reid, who held the leadership position before McConnell, often used to use this tactic and he was criticized heavily by the Republicans when he did.

Senate elders across the board also gave Cruz a “smackdown” for his speech last week, where he called McConnell a liar. The lawmakers turned down his appeal to have his amendment to keep sanctions against Iran in place until they recognized Israel’s right to exist.

The amendment was ruled out of order last week. When the Senate’s presiding officer called on Sunday for someone to second Cruz’s motion for an appeal, not one other senator did, effectively putting Cruz on “time out” for his earlier accusations.

Cruz was unwavering however, saying the Senate Republican leaders were marching in lockstep with Senate Democrats on things like funding Obamacare (the Affordable Care Act), funding Planned Parenthood and refusing to tie and Iran nuclear deal to Iran’s recognition of Israel’s right to exist.

“They operate as a team, expanding Washington and undermining the liberty of the people,” Cruz said of Senate Democratic and Republican leaders.

“We’ve just seen something extraordinary on the Senate floor. The American people elected a Republican majority believing that a Republican majority would be somehow different from a Democratic majority in the United States Senate. Unfortunately, the way the current Senate operates, there is one party, the Washington party.”

Looks like it is the same old, same old up on Capitol Hill.

Photo by Voices Empower with Alice Linahan

THE STRONG ONES:

Ted Cruz

• In 2014, Ted Cruz sponsored S.2666 – the Protect Children and Families Through the Rule of Law Act, which was “A bill to prohibit future consideration of deferred action for childhood arrivals or work authorization for aliens who are not in lawful status, to facilitate the expedited processing of minors entering the United States across the southern border, and to require the Secretary of Defense to reimburse States for National Guard deployments in response to large-scale border crossings of unaccompanied alien children from noncontiguous countries.”
• Cruz voted against comprehensive immigration reform in 2013. S.744 – the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act passed the Senate on June 27, 2013.

Ben Carson

• In response to the July 2, 2015, shooting death of a woman in San Francisco, California, by a Mexican citizen who had been deported five times, Ben Carson advocated for the end of sanctuary cities where local law enforcement does not enforce federal immigration law.
• On June 17, 2014, Carson proposed the following solutions to the immigration system: Creating a national guest-worker program similar to Canada’s. He wrote, “Noncitizens would have to apply for a guest-worker permit and have a guaranteed job awaiting them. Taxes would be paid at a rate commensurate with other U.S. workers and special visas would allow for easy entry and egress across borders. Guest-worker status would be granted to individuals and not to groups. People already here illegally could apply for guest-worker status from outside of the country. This means they would have to leave first. They should in no way be rewarded for having broken our laws, but if they are wise, they will arrange with their employer before they leave to immediately offer them a legal job as soon as their application is received. When they return, they still would not be U.S. citizens, but they would be legal, and they would be paying taxes. Only jobs that are vacant as a result of a lack of interest by American citizens should be eligible for the guest-worker program.”
• Severe punishment for companies who hire “illegal immigrants.”
• Securing America’s borders.
• Carson also argued that “We must create a system that disincentivizes illegal immigration and upholds the rule of law while providing us with a steady stream of immigrants from other nations who will strengthen our society.”

John Kasich

• John Kasich said that he supported imposing limits on the number of people allowed to immigrate into the United States. He also encouraged naming English as the official national language and opposed automatically giving U.S. citizenship to children of illegal immigrants born in the United States.
• The governor voted in support of eliminating benefits under the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for illegal immigrants, providing more temporary visas for skilled immigrant workers and hiring more border patrol officers.

Carly Fiorina

• According to her 2010 Senate campaign website, Carly Fiorina supported securing the border and “developing an effective visa program and temporary worker program to support legal immigrants who fulfill important roles in our nation’s economy.”
• During an April 2010 interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, Fiorina commented on Arizona’s immigration law. She said, “The people of Arizona did what they felt they had to do. I support their need to protect their citizens. But what we ought to be talking about is the federal government needs to secure the border.”
• During the interview she also said, “I do not support amnesty.”

Rick Santorum

• In November 2014, after President Barack Obama announced that millions of undocumented immigrants would not be not deported, Santorum said, “He’s doing this as a slap in the face of every working American, and that is what we should be talking about… You know, who gets hurt most by what the president just did? Hispanics in America. You’re adding 5 million mostly unskilled workers into a labor pool right now, where wages are declining and income in America is declining.”
• In June 2013, Santorum criticized Marco Rubio, the Gang of Eight and their immigration reform bill. He said, “Look, I think that the issue of immigration and respecting the rule of law in this country is a very, very important thing for Republican voters across the country and the idea that there are Republicans in Washington, D.C., who are going to say ‘well, the rule of law isn’t that important. The idea that people coming into this country illegally and we’re basically going to put them and treat them the same as people who are going to come here legally,’ it’s just not going to go over well on the Republican primary. I certainly respect senators from states with different opinions on that but I think there’s going to certainly be consequences for folks who don’t understand the importance of or have respect for the rule of law that Republicans have.”
• Santorum voted against S.2611 – the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006.
• Santorum voted for H.R.6061 – the Secure Fence Act of 2006, which directed “the Secretary of Homeland Security, within 18 months of enactment of this Act, to take appropriate actions to achieve operational control over U.S. international land and maritime borders.” It became law on October 26, 2006.

Donald Trump

• During his presidential bid announcement speech on June 16, 2015, Donald Trump stated immigrants from Mexico are “people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.” Trump added, “I would build a great wall, and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me, and I’ll build them very inexpensively, I will build a great, great wall on our southern border. And I will have Mexico pay for that wall.”
• Trump said providing a path to citizenship would be politically disadvantageous for Republicans at the 2013 Conservative Political Action Conference. He explained, “You can be out front, you can be the spearhead, you can do whatever you want to do, but every one of those 11 million people will be voting Democratic. It’s just the way it works and you have to be very, very careful because you could say that to a certain extent, the odds aren’t looking so great right now for Republicans, that you’re on a suicide mission. You’re just not going to get those votes.”
• In 2011, Trump rejected the idea that children born in the United States to a mother residing there without legal permission should gain American citizenship under the Constitution. Trump said, “The clear purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment, ratified in 1868, three years after the end of the Civil War, was to guarantee full citizenship rights to now emancipated former slaves. It was not intended to guarantee untrammeled immigration to the United States.”
• In 2000, Trump noted in his book, The America We Deserve, that legal immigration should be made more challenging. Trump wrote, “The majority of legal immigrants can often make significant contributions to our society because they have special skills and because they add to our nation’s cultural diversity. They come with the best of intentions. But legal immigrants do not and should not enter easily. It’s a long, costly, draining, and often frustrating experience-by design. I say to legal immigrants: Welcome and good luck.”

THE SOFTIES:

Jeb Bush

• During an interview in April 2014, Jeb Bush commented on immigrants who entered the United States illegally. He said, “Yes, they broke the law, but it’s not a felony. It’s an act of love, it’s an act of commitment to your family.”
• In March 2013, Bush said, “There has to be some difference between people who come here legally and illegally. It’s just a matter of common sense and a matter of the rule of law. If we’re not going to apply the law fairly and consistently, then we’re going to have another wave of illegal immigrants coming into the country.”

Chris Christie

• In July 2015, Chris Christie said in an interview on CNN’s “New Day,” “There should be no special way for anybody to be able to get citizenship any different than any other foreigners.” He added a critique of his 2016 presidential rival Hillary Clinton, saying, “I think, you know, Secretary Clinton talks about path to citizenship for people who are here illegally – she’s just pandering.”
• Christie had previously supported a pathway to citizenship in 2010, but explained he now believed people do not come to the United States to vote, they come to work. “And quite frankly, a lot of those folks are been exploited by these employers who are paying them significantly lower wages in order to make a greater profit. Those people need to be penalized for that, and that will be the way to stop the flow from wherever they’re coming from, south of the border or elsewhere, into this country illegally,” Christie said.
• In 2014, Christie used his line item veto authority to reject tuition aid grants for undocumented immigrant students who attended state colleges and universities.
• In 2013, Christie signed legislation that allowed undocumented immigrants to pay in-state tuition at state colleges, universities and community colleges. Eligible candidates must have attended a New Jersey high school for at least three years and graduated from that high school. Christie conditionally vetoed a version of the bill that also would have granted in-state financial aid to undocumented immigrant students.
• In 2010, Christie expressed support for a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. He stated, “The president and the Congress have to step up to the plate, they have to secure our borders and they have to put forward a commonsense path to citizenship for people.”

Lindsey Graham

• Lindsey Graham, who is a member of the bipartisan Gang of Eight, co-sponsored the comprehensive immigration reform bill, S.744 – the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act, which passed the Senate on June 27, 2013.
• “Senator Graham’s Speech on Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill,” June 27, 2013.
• Graham voted against S.Amdt.1197 to S.744, which would have required the completion of 350 miles of fence described in the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 “before registered provisional immigrant status” could be granted. It also required that 700 miles of fence be completed before the status of registered provisional immigrants could be changed to permanent resident status. It was rejected on June 17, 2013.
• Graham and the Gang of Eight support a path to citizenship. According to the Washington Post, “The senators envision a temporary legal status and then the opportunity to obtain a green card, upon payment of back taxes, learn English, and a background check ‘among other requirements.'”
• During a 2013 interview with Meet the Press, Graham said, “We’re in a demographic death spiral as a party and the only way we can get back in good graces with the Hispanic community, in my view, is to pass comprehensive immigration reform. If you don’t do that, it really doesn’t matter who we run, (in 2016) in my view.”

Mike Huckabee

• In July 2015, Mike Huckabee released a statement saying he would use “all powers of the presidency to deny federal funding to sanctuary cities.” Huckabee described sanctuary cities as symptomatic “of President Obama’s broader policy decision to ignore existing laws and issue radical unconstitutional executive orders that provide amnesty to the most dangerous illegal aliens.”
• In a 2013 interview, Huckabee suggested he would support Senators Bob Corker (R) and John Hoeven’s border security plan to spend $30 billion to build a 700-mile fence and double the number of federal border agents.
• In his 2007 book, From Hope to Higher Ground, Mike Huckabee wrote, “It would be sheer folly to attempt to suddenly impose strict enforcement of existing laws, round up 12 million people, march them across the border, and expect them to stay. What does make sense is a revision of our laws, one giving those here illegally a process through which they pay a reasonable fine in admission of their guilt for the past infraction of violating our border laws and agree to adhere to a pathway toward legal status and citizenship. In exchange, our government gains the capacity to know who is here, why they are here, where they are, and whether they carry a communicable disease. But much of the debate has become mired more in definitions than in a real solution.”
• In December 2007, during an interview on FOX News Sunday, Huckabee was questioned about why he changed his views on allowing a pathway to citizenship. Huckabee responded, “I don’t think there’s an inconsistency. When I said a pathway, I didn’t say what the pathway was. I now believe that the only thing the American people are going to accept–and, frankly, the only thing that really makes sense–is a pathway that sends people back to the starting point. But this idea of the waiting years — no, I don’t agree with that. In fact, look, if we can get a credit card application done within hours, if we can get passports done within days, if we can transact business over the Internet any place in the world within seconds, do a background check instantaneously — it’s our government that has failed and is dysfunctional. It shouldn’t take years to get a work permit to come here and pick lettuce. So part of the plan that I have is that we seal the borders. You don’t have amnesty and sanctuary cities. You do have a pathway that gets you back home. But that pathway to get back here legally doesn’t take years.”
• In 2007, Huckabee released a comprehensive nine-point immigration enforcement and border security plan that included building a fence, increasing border security, preventing amnesty, enforcing the law on employers, establishing an economic border, empowering local authorities, ensuring document security, discouraging dual citizenship and modernizing the process of legal immigration.
• According to a 2008 profile of Huckabee by the Council on Foreign Relations, he “has advocated prenatal care for pregnant immigrants and has proposed a scholarship program for illegal immigrants who graduate from Arkansas high schools. He also criticized a 2005 federal immigration raid in Arkansas. Huckabee has expressed support for a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants under some conditions.”

Bobby Jindal

• In response to comments from fellow Republican candidate Donald Trump on immigration, including referring to some Mexican immigrants as “rapists,” Bobby Jindal addressed the issue of immigration. “I see people as individuals, not members of ethnic or economic groups. But what I believe is that we do need to secure the border and not as part of a comprehensive bill, but we need to secure the border,” Jindal told reporters.
• In 2013, Jindal opposed the Gang of Eight’s comprehensive immigration bill, S.744 – the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act.
• On July 9, 2013, Jindal presented his immigration reform plan in an op-ed in the National Review. He proposed securing the border, giving those living in the U.S. illegally an opportunity to gain legal status, deporting those engaged in criminal activity and increasing legal immigration. He also added, “As for a pathway to citizenship: For folks who came here illegally but are willing to gain proficiency in English, pay a fine, and demonstrate a willingness to assimilate, we should require them to work here and pay taxes for a substantial period of time after obtaining legal status before they have the opportunity to begin the process of applying for U.S. citizenship.”

George Pataki

• In May 2015, George Pataki said he supported a “pathway to citizenship at the back of the line” excepting members of the military. Pataki expressed skepticism of candidates who suggest mass deportations as an immigration solution.
• Pataki supported legislation in 2002 to allow immigrants living in the United States without legal permission and enrolled in the New York public university system to pay in-state tuition.

Rand Paul

• Following the Chattanooga shooting at two Marine recruitment centers in July 2015, Rand Paul stated there should be heightened security for immigrants coming from “countries that have hotbeds of jihadism and hotbeds of this Islamism.”
• On his presidential campaign website, Paul described his immigration platform. Paul wrote, “I do not support amnesty, but rather I support a legal immigration process. I recognize that our country has been enriched by those who seek the American Dream and have a desire for a better life. However, millions of illegal immigrants are crossing our border without our knowledge, and this threatens our national security. As President, I would secure our border immediately. Before issuing any visas or starting the legal immigration process, we must first ensure that our border is secure.
• When asked in January 2015 if he would nullify President Barack Obama’s executive orders on immigration. Paul responded, “The 11 million, I think, are never going home, don’t need to be sent home, and I would incorporate them into our society by giving them work visas and making them taxpayers.”
• Paul speaks at U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce on immigration in March 2013. Paul introduced S 3015 – Preventing Executive Overreach on Immigration Act of 2014 in response to President Obama’s executive order to delay deportation proceedings for certain immigrants residing in America without legal permission.
• In June 2013, Paul said, “he would support a comprehensive immigration bill if senators accept his amendment to increase Congressional oversight over border security,” according to the Washington Post.
• As a member of the 112th Congress, Paul cosponsored S J Res 2 in January 2011 to amend constitutional requirements for citizenship. Paul also cosponsored S 723 – Birthright Citizenship Act of 2011, which would have required citizenship by birth be granted only to those with at lesast one parent who is American, a lawful permanent resident, or an active service member.
• Paul wrote a column for The Washington Times in February 2013 discussing his stance on immigration. Paul wrote, “The gang of eight wants back taxes and fines. Most of these undocumented immigrants are poor and may not be able to ever pay ten years of back payroll taxes. I would be willing to forego the fines and back taxes in exchange for a longer and significant time period before these folks are eligible to enter into the green card line.”
• In June 2010, Paul suggested he did not support citizenship by birth if the child’s parents were here without legal permission. According to The Hill, Paul said “he would support amending the Constitution to deny automatic citizenship to children born in the United States.” Paul explained that “the 14th amendment actually says that you will be a citizen as long as you are under the jurisdiction of the United States. Many argue that these children that are born to illegal aliens are really still under the jurisdiction of the Mexican government. I think we need to fight that out in the courts. If we lose, then I think we should amend the Constitution because I don’t think the 14th amendment was meant to apply to illegal aliens. It was meant to apply to the children of slaves.”

Rick Perry

• In December 2014, Rick Perry issued an executive order requiring state agencies and companies that contract with them to use a federal electronic employee verification system, E-Verify, to avoid hiring someone living or working in this country without legal permission. Previously, Perry had downplayed the usefulness of E-Verify, saying it wouldn’t “make a hill’s beans of difference” during a gubernatorial debate in 2010. In 2014, Perry explained, “The E-Verify system has been improved, it’s been streamlined and it currently is the most accurate and efficient way to check a person’s legal work in the United States.”
• In 2014, Perry supported “legislation that would prohibit municipalities and other local governments from adopting policies that forbid local peace officers from enforcing federal immigration laws. That includes asking the immigration status of someone detained or arrested by a police officer. The legislation would cut off state funding for governments adopting such policies.”
• Speaking before the Texas Border Coalition in 2006, Perry stated he preferred targeted border solutions to a massive physical wall along the border. According to Perry, “Strategic fencing in certain urban areas to direct the flow of traffic does make sense, but building a wall on the entire border is a preposterous idea. The only thing a wall would possibly accomplish is to help the ladder business.”
• In a December 2006 op-ed, Perry proposed allowing immigrants without legal permission to live in the United States to instead stay in the country under a “guest worker” program. Perry explained, “I would rather know who is crossing our border legally to work instead of not knowing who is crossing our border illegally to work. A guest worker program that provides foreign workers with an ID removes the incentive for millions of people to illegally enter our country. It also adds those workers to our tax base, generates revenue for needed social services and it can be done without providing citizenship. Along with millions of Americans, I think it is wrong to reward those who broke our laws with citizenship ahead of those who have followed the law and are waiting to enter this country legally. And like millions of Americans I do not support amnesty. With a more secure border and a reasonable guest worker program we can allow guest workers to help build our economy without offering citizenship. Many don’t even want to become citizens – they just want to provide for their families back home.”
• In 2001, Perry signed a law that offered in-state college tuition to immigrants living in Texas without legal permission who attended Texas public schools. Ten years later, Perry defended his support of the law at a debate in Florida, saying, “In 2001, members of the legislature, they debated it, they talked about it…and the option they chose was in the best economic interest of the state of Texas, in that young people who are here, by no fault of their own…to give these young people the opportunity to be givers rather than takers, to be a constructive part of this society, and that’s what did.”

Marco Rubio

• Marco Rubio, who is a member of the bipartisan Gang of Eight, co-sponsored the comprehensive immigration reform bill, S.744 – the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act, which passed the Senate on June 27, 2013.
• In November 2011, Rubio and Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) proposed the AGREE Act, which, among other things, proposed removing “per-country limits on employment-based visas in an attempt to allow the brightest foreign students to remain in the country,” according to the Palm Beach Post.
• During the 2010 campaign, Rubio strongly supported securing the borders and opposed any form of amnesty. He said illegal immigrants would need to be deported and that any path to citizenship was “code for amnesty.”

Scott Walker

• In a May 2015 interview with Breitbart, Scott Walker said border security was “a matter of national security.” Walker criticized the lax response to border crossings, saying, “This is truly a matter national sovereignty, in that if we were having people penetrate our water-based ports throughout the Gulf of Mexico or either coast, we’d be taking swift action initially with the Coast Guard and eventually probably with the Navy. Yet, we have international criminal organizations seeking to penetrate our land-based borders to the south—the push for drugs, for firearms and increasingly for people from a trafficking standpoint—it’s just horrific we’re not taking more action to truly secure that border.”
• In July 2013, Walker said, “If people want to come here and work hard and benefit, I don’t care whether they come from Mexico or Ireland or Germany or Canada or South Africa or anywhere else. I want them here.” After expressing support for a pathway to citizenship, Walker commented on Congress’ role in immigration reform, saying, “Not only do they need to fix things for people already here, or find some way to do it, there’s got to be a larger way to fix the system in the first place. Because if it wasn’t so cumbersome, if there wasn’t such a long wait, if it wasn’t so difficult to get in, we wouldn’t have the other problems that we have.”
• During his 2010 campaign, Walker said, “As governor, I will sign similar legislation to the Arizona law on immigration to ensure the taxpayers of Wisconsin are not paying for benefits like BadgerCare and in-state college tuition for people who are here illegally.”

Photo by Lars Plougmann

Things got pretty heated on Thursday between the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which now Secretary of State John Kerry used to chair himself, and Kerry, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew and Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz. Even the Democrats don’t seem to be sold on this whole deal.

Senator Bob Corker (R-Tennessee), who is the current Chair of the committee, told Kerry, “Not unlike a hotel guest that leaves only with a hotel bathrobe on his back, I believe you’ve been fleeced.” He later tried to soften that statement a bit on social media, by taking the “you” out and saying, “We’ve been fleeced.”

After that statement, Senator Benjamin Cardin (D-Maryland), the ranking Democrat on the committee, asked senators to leave out their emotions when debating this. Senator Jim Risch (R-Idaho) agreed, saying, “This should be done in a non-emotional way. But, that doesn’t mean we gotta leave common sense out of this, with all due respect.”

He later stated, “Anyone who believes this is a good deal really joins the ranks of the most naive people on the face of the Earth,” and followed up with “you guys have been bamboozled, and the American people are going to pay for it.”

This sent Senator Barbara Boxer (D-California) into a tailspin, naming other countries who participated in the negotiations and signed off on the deal and saying, “So my colleagues think that you were fleeced, that you were bamboozled, that means everybody was fleeced and bamboozled, everybody, almost everybody in the world?”

Following that scolding from Boxer, Senator Marco Rubio (R-Florida), who is a candidate in the 2016 presidential primaries, said, “I hope the next president is somebody that will remove the national security waiver and re-impose the congressional sanctions passed by Congress, because this deal is fundamentally and irrevocably flawed.”

Kerry and Rubio seemed to spar a bit after this, with Kerry saying, “You know, I have listed to a long list of your objections here about it, but there is no alternative that you or anybody else has proposed…”

Rubio cut him off here by saying, “I sure have, Secretary Kerry!”

I especially enjoyed, and was impressed by, Rubio’s line of questioning to Kerry. Mostly because he brought up many of the questions and misgivings I have personally had about this deal, especially the fact that we are dealing with an evil nation who lies and cheats.

Despite their bluster and maneuvering at the United Nations, the Obama Administration admitted today what we already knew: the next president is under no legal or moral obligation to keep this flawed deal. This is President Obama’s deal with Iran, and our allies and adversaries alike should take careful notice about Secretary Kerry’s acknowledgment today about the limits of the agreement, the fact that neither the American people nor their elected representatives in Congress support this deal, and that if the next president returns America to its rightful indispensable role in the world, Iran will be dealt with quite differently than it has been during the Obama Administration.

This should have a chilling effect for any business thinking about investing in Iran and setting up operations there. This deal will not outlive this administration, and international businesses that move in to Iran in the coming months need to know they will lose everything if the next president chooses not to continue granting Iran the national security waiver this president is pursuing, or if Iran once again fails to keep its promises.

Today’s hearing also raises more questions about whether the American people and the world are supposed to believe the Obama Administration’s assurances on key aspects of the deal, or if we’re supposed to believe the actual text of the nuclear agreement. The agreement states very clearly that the U.S. would be obligated to help Iran against future efforts to sabotage its nuclear program, but Secretary Kerry said today that is absolutely not the case.

Iran is led by an evil regime that has never lived up to its previous international agreements, is currently involved in sponsoring terrorism and remains unrepentant in its desire to destroy the United States and Israel. Instead of legitimizing them and rewarding them as President Obama has done, we should be standing with our allies in opposition to Iran in word and deed.

The hearing was quite a sight to watch and I was left wondering what kind of three stooges show the President’s cabinet was having up there. I’m sorry, but I was left less than impressed by Kerry, Lew and Moniz. They all seemed utterly clueless, but at least Kerry was trying. The other two? I have no idea how in the world they ever got appointed to such high offices.

You can also watch the full hearing here.

What was even more interesting was the way the main stream media covered the hearings, later that day. ABC, NBC and the Spanish-language networks, Telemundo, Univision and MundoFox, all skipped the testimony from Kerry on the Iran deal, and CBS covered it in a short news brief and totally ignored false statements made by Kerry, who faced criticism by Senators on both sides of the aisle.

In the hearings, Kerry said that “nobody has ever talked about actually dismantling their entire program,” however he told Congress on December 10, 2013 that the State Department engaged the Iranian regime “because we know that it would hopefully help Iran dismantle it’s nuclear program.”

Kerry also suggested, as he has before, that inaction by the Bush administration tied Obama’s hands, however the International Atomic Energy Agency reports show that 75 percent of Iran’s centrifuges were installed under President Obama’s watch!

And, Kerry said on Thursday, that the administration “never uttered the words ‘anywhere, anytime’ nor was it ever part of the discussion that we had with the Iranians.” However, on April 6, White House adviser Ben Rhodes told CNN’s Jack Tapper, “Under this deal, you will have anywhere, anytime, 24/7 access as it relates to the nuclear facilities that Iran has.”

There was no mention of any of this on most news channels, and in the brief story on CBS the focus was more of a teaser for Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio’s upcoming appearance on Friday’s CBS This Morning, than an actual report on the hearings.

Photo credit: denishiza / Pixabay (Creative Commons CC0)

Their story states:

With more than 30 FBI agents due to arrive today in Chattanooga, a diary belonging to the gunman and FBI interviews with his parents paint a picture of a disturbed, suicidal young man using drugs, preparing for bankruptcy and facing an appearance in criminal court, according to a representative of the shooter’ s family.

Four days after the shooting, the FBI has not found any connection to overseas terrorist groups, but Mohammod Abdulazeez’s diary says that as far back as 2013, he wrote about having suicidal thoughts and “becoming a martyr” after losing his job due to his drug use, both prescription and non-prescription drugs, the family representative said.

They go on to say that:

A seven-month trip to Jordan last year was an effort to “get him away from bad influences in the U.S.,” not part of a path to radicalization, the family told agents.

You can read the full article at ABC News.

An ISIS video released last week showed a boy beheading a Syrian soldier, all while under the eye of an adult militant’s watch. Last month a video surfaced of 25 children shooting 25 Syrian soldiers in the head, after they were captured.

One 14-year-old boy named Yahya, who escaped from an ISIS training camp, stated that he couldn’t cut the head off right. He chopped several times and didn’t get the job done. He went on to say, “Then they taught me how to hold the sword, and they told me how to hit. They told me it was the head of the infidels.”

This boy is from a Yazidi town in Iraq that ISIS overran last year, butchering older men and enslaving many of the women and girls. With the Yazidis, whom ISIS considers to be heretics that they are more than happy to slaughter, they are kidnapping the youth and erasing their past, replacing it with radicalism.

Yahya said were taken to Raqqa in Syria, the extremists’ de facto capital, where they boys aged 8 to 15 were put in the Farouq training camp. ISIS changed their names to Muslim Arabic names to replace their Kurdish names. They then forced them to convert to Islam from their older faith, re-educated them, and started the process to turn them into jihadi fighters.

Yahya escaped in early March when fighters left the camp to carry out an attack. The remaining guards slept and he and his 10-year-old brother slipped away. He tried to get a friend to come too, but he wouldn’t, saying that he liked Islam and was now a Muslim.

Sunni Muslim children in ISIS-held towns are also being indoctrinated. Radical Islamists are befriending children in the streets with gifts and toys. Militants show them videos on the street and hold outdoor events where they pass out soft drinks, candy and propaganda. They are using gifts, brainwashing and threats, to build up the next generation of ISIS soldiers.

In their mosques and schools, they are indoctrinating children with extremist views and turning them against their own parents. Boys are turned into suicide bombers and killers.

According to an anti-ISIS activist who fled Raqqa, they are telling adults, “We have given up on you, we care about the new generation.”

According to Yahya, he spent nearly five months in the camp, training eight to ten hours a day. Their training included exercises, weapons drills and Koranic studies. They repeatedly told him that Yazidis are “dirty” and should be killed. They taught him how to shoot someone from close range and the boys hit each other in some exercises.

Yahya had to punch his own little brother, knocking out a tooth. He stated, the trainer said if he didn’t do it, he would be shot. “They told us it would make us tougher,” Yahya said. “They beat us everywhere.”

ISIS claims to have hundreds of these type of camps. In videos from camps like these, boys can be seen practicing shoot and crawling under barbed wire. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has documented at least 1100 Syrian children under the age of 16 who have joined ISIS this year. At least 52 have been killed fighting. Eight of those were suicide bombers.

Yahya says he will never forget the videos of beheadings that he was forced to watch. “I was scared when I saw that,” he said. “I knew I wouldn’t be able to behead someone like that. Even as an adult.”