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Ninth Circuit blocks Trump administration birth control exemptions

A federal court on Tuesday blocked new rules established by the Trump administration that would have allowed employers with religious or moral objections to opt out of an Obamacare requirement that includes birth control coverage in employee health insurance plans.
Two out of the three judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit concluded that a birth control exemption violated the Affordable Care Act’s contraception mandate, which requires all employers to provide birth control coverage with no co-payment.
The Health and Human Services Department, Labor Department, and Treasury Department in 2017, started adopting new rules that allowed religious groups, including the Little Sisters of the Poor, to opt out of the requirement to provide birth control coverage for employees, the National Review reported. The rules were finalized in 2018 but have not been enforced.
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra spearheaded a lawsuit with 13 other states against the religious exemption rules.
“It’s a simple concept: a woman and her doctor are the only people qualified to decide what’s best for her health. Today will serve as a reminder to the Trump Administration that politicians and employers certainly have no business interfering with women’s reproductive healthcare,” Becerra said in a statement, according to the Washington Times.
Tuesday's decision blocked the new rules from going into effect in California, Delaware, Virginia, Maryland, New York, Illinois, Washington, Minnesota, Connecticut, North Carolina, Vermont, Rhode Island, Hawaii, and the District of Columbia, Bloomberg Law News reported.
Judge J. Clifford Wallace, who was nominated by President Nixon, wrote in the majority decision that “the religious exemption contradicts congressional intent that all women have access to appropriate preventative care and the exemption operates in a manner fully at odds with the careful, individualized, and searching review mandated by the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.”
Judge Andrew J. Kleinfeld, who was nominated by President George H. W. Bush, dissented, writing that the 14-state lawsuit was brought before the court in an effort to save states money, not to protect women's reproductive rights. He also wrote that a ruling in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, which blocked the implementation of the Trump administration rules nationwide, renders this case moot.
“The casual reader may imagine that the dispute is about provision of contraception and abortion services to women. It is not.” Kleinfeld wrote. “No woman sued for an injunction in this case, and no affidavits have been submitted from any women establishing any question in this case about whether they will be deprived of reproductive services or harmed in any way by the modification of the regulation. This case is a claim by several states to prevent a modification of a regulation from going into effect, claiming that it will cost them money.”

Hillary Clinton mulling 2020 run, citing weak Dem field, email vindication: reports

Speculation is growing that Hillary Clinton will make a last-minute entry into the 2020 presidential race after reports published Tuesday said members of the Democratic establishment doubted any of the party’s current top candidates can beat President Trump next November.
But those Democrats already running said Clinton is doing more harm than good for the party by taking aim at Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, in recent remarks.
Clinton in recent weeks has privately stated she would enter the 2020 presidential race if she were certain she could win, The New York Times reported Tuesday. The story, titled “Anxious Democratic Establishment Asks, ‘Is There Anybody Else?’,” said about a half-dozen Democratic donors gathered in New York City questioned whether former front-runner Joe Biden could stand strong against Trump, citing Biden’s lackluster debate performance in Ohio last week.
hey also raised concerns about Biden's fundraising struggles and his need to defend his family’s business dealings in Ukraine amid the ongoing Trump impeachment inquiry.
They also said Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders were likely too liberal to win the general election.
Meanwhile, The Washington Post, citing unnamed sources, reported that Clinton was considering a 2020 rematch against Trump after the State Department concluded this week there was "no persuasive evidence of systemic, deliberate mishandling of classified information" regarding Clinton's use of a private email server while serving as secretary of state.
The same State Department report, however, dozens of individuals were at fault for mishandling classified information and found hundreds of security violations during her 2009-2013 tenure.
Clinton, the first woman to win a major party presidential nomination — and the national popular vote leader with almost 3 million more votes than Trump — remains a popular figure in her party, even after enduring criticism for losing key Midwestern states in 2016. For Republicans, she's perennial target -- currently in the Mississippi governor's race, where Democratic nominee Jim Hood, a longtime attorney general, is being attacked for acknowledging he voted for her over Trump.
Clinton’s supporters within the Democratic establishment have also passed around an op-ed published earlier this month in the San Francisco Chronicle by former Mayor Willie Brown titled: “Who should run against Trump? How about Hillary Clinton?” the Washington Post reported.
Both the Post and the Times reported that Clinton was not the only possible last-minute candidate on Democrats’ minds. Also being considered were: former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Disney chief executive Bob Iger, Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, and former first lady Michelle Obama.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Biden apologizes for calling Clinton impeachment 'partisan lynching,' but hammers Trump again for using term

Former Vice President Joe Biden offered an apology late on Tuesday for previously referring to the Clinton impeachment as a "partisan lynching" just hours after he condemned President Trump for referring to his own impeachment with the same term.
Trump was widely criticized for claiming on Twitter that Republicans are witnessing a "lynching." Several 2020 Democrats piled on the president, including the 2020 frontrunner.
"Impeachment is not 'lynching,' it is part of our Constitution," Biden reacted. "Our country has a dark, shameful history with lynching, and to even think about making this comparison is abhorrent. It's despicable."
However, CNN unearthed an interview Biden did on the network in 1998, where he used the term he blasted Trump for.
"Even if the president should be impeached, history will question whether or not this was a partisan lynching or whether or not it was something that in fact met the standard," then-Sen. Biden told CNN's Wolf Blitzer, "the very high bar that was set by the founders as to what constituted an impeachable offense."
As his unearthed remarks went viral, Biden offered an apology... but continued to hammer Trump by insisting he "chose his words deliberately."
"This wasn’t the right word to use and I’m sorry about that," Biden tweeted. "Trump on the other hand chose his words deliberately today in his use of the word lynching and continues to stoke racial divides in this country daily."
Biden was one of several Democratic lawmakers who used the term "lynching" in the past, including now-Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y, and Rep. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y.

Republican lawmaker 'destroyed' latest impeachment inquiry witness argument: McCarthy

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., on Tuesday said a fellow Republican lawmaker deconstructed a key part of the latest Trump impeachment inquiry witness testimony in Tuesday's closed-door session.
"In 90 seconds, we had John Ratcliffe destroy Taylor's whole argument," McCarthy said.
The questioning by Ratcliffe, a Texas Republican and member of both the House Intelligence and Judiciary Committees, was an important moment in the hearing, McCarthy claimed.
"We can't really talk about it," he said.
Ratcliffe appeared on Fox News after the testimony and said there were new details brought to light, but said nothing "worthy of impeachment."
McCarthy added House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., is not allowing lawmakers to speak too specifically about the proceedings, in an interview Tuesday on "The Ingraham Angle."
"Adam Schiff won't let us talk about what happened," he said regarding U.S. diplomat to Ukraine Bill Taylor's closed-door hearing on Capitol Hill. "There is no quid pro quo."
The California lawmaker also claimed the impeachment inquiry process continues to be based largely on testimony from those without first-hand knowledge of the Trump-Ukraine situation.
"The one thing that you find out in this process is all this information is just like that whistleblower... everything is second-, third-, and fourth-hand information," he said.
He criticized Schiff for how he is conducting the proceedings, claiming the relevant Republican lawmakers are unable to view information from the hearings unless they are accompanied by the chairman's staff members.
"What they are doing [is] they are changing every rule we ever had," he said.

Hunter Biden Cartoons

Report: Hunter Biden, business partner profited off his position at oil company

OAN Newsroom

A new report has alleged that Hunter Biden received tens of thousands of dollars over a year and a half period from Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings. Biden reportedly used his position at the company to defer $3.4 million to a company run by his business associate Devon Archer.
Between April 2014 and November 2015, Biden and Archer were each paid $83,000 monthly for “consulting services” between the two firms. The report went on to claim Burisma’s founder hired Biden to protect the company from persecution.
This comes after a former State Department official told Congress this week he raised concerns about Biden’s business dealings in the past. George Kent said he warned White House officials in 2015 about how Hunter Biden’s position could look like a conflict of interest. Vice President Joe Biden was overseeing cancer treatments for his son Beau at the time and Kent’s warning fell by the wayside.
President Trump responded to Kent’s testimony on Friday.
“They brought (Kent) him in as a witness against me…and he excoriated, from what they reported on the news,” said the president. “He excoriated the Obama administration…, saying that has tremendous problems with Joe Biden’s son and the Ukraine.”
Hunter Biden has since admitted that his decision to be a part of Burisma while his father was in office was “poor judgement.” Going into the 2020 election season, both Bidens have sworn to avoid further business dealings and associations with foreign firms. They both deny allegations of any wrongdoing.

Tulsi Gabbard elevated in Iowa by Clinton spat

WEST BRANCH, Iowa (AP) — Hillary Clinton’s suggestion this past week that Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard is being “groomed” by Russians to act as a spoiler in the 2020 race may have had the opposite effect of what the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee intended: It’s elevated Gabbard’s candidacy and may have inspired even more ardent interest in her campaign among Clinton critics.

On Saturday, Gabbard found fans among the many Clinton skeptics across Iowa, where Clinton barely won the 2016 Democratic caucuses against Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.

“What is this horrible thing that Hillary said about you?” one person asked Gabbard at a house party in West Branch.

Gabbard responded that “it revealed the truth that I have been experiencing for a long time now — which is that, because I have been trying to bring about an end to our country’s long-held foreign policy of waging one regime-change war after the next . I am labeled as a traitor.”

“This is a message that is being sent to every single American . who speaks out for peace,” she said.

Gabbard’s longshot campaign came under scrutiny this past week after Clinton appeared on a podcast where she did not mention the Hawaii congresswoman by name, but said she believes the Russians have “got their eye on somebody who’s currently in the Democratic primary and are grooming her to be the third party candidate.” There was no mistaking whom she meant.

Although Russian interest in Gabbard is apparent, Clinton produced no evidence that Moscow is grooming or directly backing the congresswoman.

Gabbard’s campaign has been promoted by Russian state-owned media and a number of alt-right websites and defended on Twitter by the Russian Embassy. She’s previously faced controversy and criticism from leaders in her party for her unorthodox foreign policy positions, like her decision to meet Syrian President Bashar Assad.

On Friday and Saturday, Gabbard refused to disavow the support she’s seen from Russian actors and alt-right sites. But she repeatedly said she will not run as an independent or third-party candidate if she doesn’t win the Democratic nomination.

And Gabbard encountered supporters across eastern Iowa on Saturday. During a campaign stop in Iowa City at a University of Iowa tailgate, a man came up to give Gabbard a ushanka-style yellow Hawkeye hat.

“It’s a Russian hat!” Gabbard said with a laugh, before hugging the man and taking a picture with him.

And at the West Branch house party, Gabbard found many Clinton critics who were supportive of her campaign.

Clinton’s comments were “divisive and despicable,” said Patricia McIntosh, 83, a semi-retired university employee who liked Gabbard’s “anti-regime-change message.” McIntosh said: “I have no respect for Hillary Clinton at all.”

Robert Rodriguez, a 35-year-old food delivery driver, drove from Minneapolis to see Gabbard speak. He, too, appreciated Gabbard’s anti-war stance and said Clinton had “sowed division in this primary” with her critique. He also noted Gabbard’s support from some alt-right websites

He asked: “You have people praising candidates for being able to reach across the aisle and garner support from the so-called other side, but Tulsi’s a problem because she has support from the other side? Isn’t that what we want?”

Both Rodriguez and McIntosh described themselves as longtime Gabbard fans and skeptics of the Democratic establishment, and both said they weren’t sure if they’d support the eventual nominee if neither Gabbard nor Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, another anti-establishment candidate for president, didn’t win.

But Gabbard also managed to win over some people who hadn’t been familiar with her campaign, like Jennifer Rogers, a 38-year-old nurse from North Liberty, Iowa, who liked that Gabbard was a military veteran.

“I really like that she answers questions,” she said. “She doesn’t just shout talking points and campaign slogans.” Rogers said she’s been on the fence but “today I’m pretty convinced that I think she’s going to be my candidate.”

Still, it’s unclear exactly what Gabbard hopes to achieve with her unorthodox campaign, as she’s struggled to raise money and hit the polling threshold to make it on the debate stage. She has yet to qualify for next month’s debate.

Gabbard has just three staff members on the ground in Iowa.

Asked whether she plans to add staff in any of the early states, Gabbard demurred.

She said she’s “continuing to use every platform possible to reach voters directly” when asked about her path to the nomination, and wouldn’t predict how she’d finish in Iowa. But she suggested that might not matter — even if she doesn’t have enough delegates to win, “we’re taking this all the way to the nomination.”