Sudanese gov’t reaches settlement deal with USS Cole victims

CAIRO (AP) — Sudan’s transitional government said Thursday it has reached a settlement with families of the victims of the 2000 attack on USS Cole in Yemen, in a bid to have the African country taken off the U.S. terrorism list and improve relations with the West.

The settlement is the latest step from Khartoum to end its international pariah status. Earlier this week, Sudan’s provisional rulers said they had agreed to hand over longtime autocrat Omar al-Bashir to the International Criminal Court to face trial on charges of war crimes and genocide during the fighting in the western Darfur region.

Also, Sudan’s interim leader, Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, earlier this month met in Uganda with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who announced that Israel and Sudan would normalize relations after decades of enmity. Observers and Sudanese officials have said that the settlement with the USS Cole victims was among the last hurdles faced by Sudan on its path to being removed from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terror.

At the time of the Oct. 12, 2000 attack in the Yemeni port of Aden that killed 17 sailors and wounded more than three dozen others, Sudan was accused of providing support to al-Qaida, which claimed responsibility for the attack.

Today, Sudan’s interim authorities are desperate to have its listing by the U.S. as a state sponsor of terror lifted, in order to receive an injection of badly needed funds from international lending institutions. Sudan’s justice ministry said that the agreement was signed with the victims’ families last Friday but its statement gave no details of the settlement.

There was no immediate comment from Washington.

Sudan’s information minister and interim government spokesman, Faisal Saleh, told The Associated Press over the phone that Justice Minister Nasr-Eddin Abdul-Bari had traveled last week to Washington to sign the deal, which included compensations for both those wounded and the families of those killed in the attack.

He said the figures could not be disclosed because the Sudanese government is still in negotiations to reach a similar settlements with families of victims of the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. More than 200 people were killed in the attacks and more than 1,000 were wounded.

Saleh said, however, that the American side is free to disclose the amount if it wishes to do so.

The initial figures on the table had been in the billions, he said, but Sudan’s interim government had “inherited an empty treasury.” He said he hoped the international community would be sympathetic to the country’s situation.

“We expect the United States and the world to understand and to be supportive instead of imposing more obstacles,” he said.

For Sudan, being removed from the U.S. terror list will end the country’s economic isolation and allow it to attract much-need loans from international financial institutions in order to rebuild the economy after the popular uprising last year that toppled al-Bashir and installed the joint civilian-military sovereign council.

The new Sudanese rulers say they were not responsible for the attack on USS Cole and that they had negotiated the deal out of their desire “to resolve old terror claims inherited from the ousted regime” of al-Bashir.

In the USS Cole attack, two men in a boat detonated explosives alongside the U.S. destroyer as it was refueling in Aden. The victims’ families, along with the wounded sailors, had sued the Sudanese government in U.S. courts demanding compensations.

In 2012, a federal judge issued a judgment of nearly $315 million against Sudan but last March, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned that ruling on the grounds that Sudan had not been properly notified of the lawsuit.

Andrew C. Hall, a lawyer who represents survivors of the attack, said at the time that the victims, though disappointed with the ruling, would continue the case, along with a second related case filed by family members of the 17 sailors who died in the attack.

It wasn’t clear when the 76-year-old al-Bashir could be handed over to the international court in the Netherlands. He faces three counts of genocide, five counts of crimes against humanity and two counts of war crimes for his alleged role in leading the deadly onslaught on civilians in response to a rebel insurgency in Darfur. The indictments were issued in 2009 and 2010, marking the first time the global court had charged a suspect with genocide.

Saleh also told the AP that the U.S. administration has set the overhaul of the country’s security apparatus as another condition to remove Sudan from the terror list.

“The Americans believe the Sudan’s support for terror was carried out through its security apparatus,” Saleh, said. “So they want to be assured that there has been a radical change” in the way it operates.

Trey Gowdy: Dems' demands for Barr resignation 'about the dumbest damn thing I've ever heard'

Former House Oversight Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy responded Thursday to the outrage by many Democrats over President Trump's defense of Republican political consultant Roger Stone and his agreement that the Justice Department should revise its sentencing recommendation against Stone.
"I’ve had the same position whether it was Barack Obama or Donald Trump: I do not think the chief executive should be weighing in ongoing investigations or criminal prosecutions," Gowdy told "The Story."
On Tuesday, Trump offered "congratulations" to Attorney General Bill Barr after the Justice Department submitted an amended filing seeking a lighter sentence for the former Trump campaign adviser than prosecutors initially recommended -- a move that comes as Democrats accuse the White House of politicizing the department and followed the withdrawal of all four prosecutors from the case in apparent protest.
Democratic lawmakers, including Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Richard Blumenthal, called on Barr to resign Wednesday, while the House Judiciary Committee announced it'll grill the attorney general during a March 31 hearing over his handling of the sentencing.
"I can tell you this: Bill Barr was aware of this recommendation before President Trump ever tweeted a single syllable, a single character. So the notion that Barr was somehow motivated to move because of this tweet is just factually wrong," said Gowdy, a Fox News contributor.
"The notion that Barr should resign is about the dumbest damn thing I've ever heard," Gowdy added.
"If a United States Senator really believes that the head of the Department of Justice cannot weigh in on what a proportional sentence is..." Gowdy trailed off, adding that "there are child pornographers, people who rob banks who do not get nine years."

"The notion that Barr should resign is about the dumbest damn thing I've ever heard."
— Trey Gowdy, "The Story"

"Let the judge decide, I think two or three years is about right," he continued.
Trump's critics accused the president of hypocrisy over his handling of the case after he criticized former President Bill Clinton for potentially interfering with the Hillary Clinton email investigation during a 2016 meeting with then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch.
"The president has the power to commute Roger Stone's sentence. He has the power to pardon him, he can pardon him right now if he wants to," Gowdy fired back.
"He could do it by tweet tonight. He's the head of the executive branch and people have a chance in November if they want a different one."
With that said, Gowdy reiterated his belief that the president should steer clear of ongoing investigations for the time being.
"I am being consistent," he said. "I do not think presidents should weigh in on prosecutions."

Roger Stone jury foreperson's anti-Trump social media posts surface after she defends DOJ prosecutors

Former Memphis City Schools Board President Tomeka Hart revealed Wednesday that she was the foreperson of the jury that convicted former Trump adviser Roger Stone on obstruction charges last year -- and soon afterward, her history of Democratic activism and a string of her anti-Trump, left-wing social media posts came to light.
Hart even posted specifically about the Stone case before she voted to convict, as she retweeted an argument mocking those who considered Stone's dramatic arrest in a predawn raid by a federal tactical team to be excessive force. She also suggested President Trump and his supporters are racist and praised the investigation conducted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, which ultimately led to Stone's prosecution.
Meanwhile, it emerged that U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson had denied a defense request to strike a potential juror who was Obama-era press official with admitted anti-Trump views -- and whose husband worked at the same Justice Department division that handled the probe leading to Stone's arrest. And, another Stone juror, Seth Cousins, donated to former Democratic presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke and other progressive causes, federal election records reviewed by Fox News show.
The revelations came as Trump has called the handling of Stone's prosecution "ridiculous" and a demonstrably unfair "insult to our country." They raised the prospect that Stone's team could again seek a new trial, especially if Hart provided inaccurate responses under oath on her pretrial questionnaires concerning social media activity.
The drama began when Hart confirmed to CNN and other media organizations Wednesday that she had written a Facebook post supporting the Justice Department prosecutors in the Stone case who abruptly stepped down from their posts on Tuesday, saying she "can't keep quiet any longer." The prosecutors apparently objected after senior DOJ officials overrode their recommendation to Jackson that Stone face up to 9 years in prison.
"I want to stand up for Aaron Zelinsky, Adam Jed, Michael Marando, and Jonathan Kravis -- the prosecutors on the Roger Stone trial," Hart wrote in the post. "It pains me to see the DOJ now interfere with the hard work of the prosecutors. They acted with the utmost intelligence, integrity, and respect for our system of justice."

FILE - In this Nov. 12, 2019 file photo, Roger Stone, a longtime Republican provocateur and former confidant of President Donald Trump, waits in line at the federal court in Washington. A Justice Department official tells the AP that the agency is backing away from its sentencing recommendation of between seven to nine years in prison for Trump confidant Roger Stone. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Hart added: "As foreperson [of the jury], I made sure we went through every element, of every charge, matching the evidence presented in the case that led us to return a conviction of guilty on all 7 counts."
Independent journalist Mike Cernovich, not CNN, then first reported that a slew of Hart's other publicly available Twitter and Facebook posts readily suggested a strong political bias. Some of Hart's posts were written as Stone's trial was in progress.
Hart, who unsuccessfully ran for Congress as a Democrat in 2012, quoted someone in an August 2017 tweet referring to Trump as a member of the KKK.
In January 2019, she retweeted a post by pundit Bakari Sellers, who noted that "Roger Stone has y'all talking about reviewing use of force guidelines," before suggesting that racism was the reason for all the attention Stone's arrest had received from conservatives.
In August 2019, Hart called all Trump supporters "racist."
"Gotta love it!" Hart wrote on Jan. 13, 2018, in response to a news report that a vulgarity had been projected onto the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C.
A week later, on Jan. 21, 2018, she shared an opinion piece entitled, "What’s so extremely, uniquely wrong about Trump’s presidency."
On March 24, 2019, Hart shared a Facebook post saying that Republicans who complained about Mueller's probe were deliberately "ignoring the numerous indictments, guilty pleas, and convictions of people in 45’s inner-circle," referring to Trump.
And, on Nov. 15, 2019 -- the day she voted to convict Stone on seven counts of obstruction, witness tampering and making false statements to Congress -- Hart tweeted two "heart" emojis, followed by two pump-fist emojis. (None of Stone's charges accused him of engaging in a criminal conspiracy with Russia or any other actors concerning election interference; instead, his offenses related to his statements concerning his contacts with WikiLeaks and others.)
Hart's tweet linked to a Facebook post that has since been taken down from public view.
If Hart have provided misleading answers on her jury form concerning her political or social media activity, her views on Trump and the Russia probe, or other related matters, there could be grounds for Stone's team to seek a new trial, legal experts told Fox News.
Hart did not immediately respond to Fox News' request for comment. The Memphis Commercial Appeal noted that she was a native of the city and had served a term as the president of its school board.
Hart's posts surfaced the same day that Jackson, who oversaw the Stone case, unsealed her order from earlier this month denying Stone's request for a new trial.
Stone's team argued that an unnamed juror had misled the court concerning his or her exposure to the media during the case, and also had some potential bias because of his or her work with the IRS, which sometimes has interfaced with the DOJ on criminal matters.
But, Jackson shot down the motion for a new trial, saying the juror's potential bias was not demonstrated -- and even if it were, it wasn't significant enough to warrant the drastic step of calling for a new trial.
Courts allow for a new trial, Jackson noted, when "a serious miscarriage of justice may have occured." Bias is a permissible reason to remove a juror or call for a new trial only in "extreme situations where the relationship between a prospective juror and some aspect of the litigation is such that it is highly unlikely that the average person could remain impartial in his deliberations under the circumstances."
Jackson, who was appointed to the bench by President Barack Obama, also took a shot at Stone's team for failing to uncover the information sooner.
"The defense could have easily conducted the same Internet search included in the instant motion and could have raised concerns at that time," Jackson wrote.
Fox News reported earlier Tuesday that top brass at the DOJ were "shocked" that prosecutors handling the Stone case had recommended Monday night that Jackson sentence the 67-year-old Stone to between 87 and 108 months in prison. The prosecutors asserted in the Monday filing that Stone's conduct post-indictment -- including violating the judge's social media gag orders -- merited a sentence much longer than the 15 to 21 months that the defense said was actually advisable under the federal sentencing guidelines.
In a new, amended filing Tuesday afternoon, the DOJ told Jackson that the government "respectfully submits that a sentence of incarceration far less than 87 to 108 months' imprisonment would be reasonable under the circumstances," but that the government "ultimately defers to the court as to the specific sentence to be imposed."
Government officials wrote in the amended filing that while it was "technically" possible to argue that Stone deserved the severe federal sentencing enhancement for threatening physical harm to a witness, such a move would violate the spirit of the federal guidelines.
It would place Stone in a category of the guidelines that "typically applies in cases involving violent offenses, such as armed robbery, not obstruction cases," the government argued, noting that Stone's "advanced age, health, personal circumstances, and lack of criminal history" also counseled against the harsh penalty.
Specifically, prosecutors said that although Stone allegedly had threatened witness Randy Credico's therapy dog, Bianca -- saying he was "going to take that dog away from you" -- it was important to recognize that Credico, a New York radio host, has acknowledged that he "never in any way felt that Stone himself posed a direct physical threat to me or my dog."
The government continued, "If the court were not to apply the eight-level enhancement for threatening a witness with physical injury, it would result in the defendant receiving an advisory guidelines range of 37 to 46 months, which as explained below is more in line with the typical sentences imposed in obstruction cases."
A senior DOJ official confirmed to Fox News that senior leadership officials there made the call to reverse the initial sentencing recommendation, saying the filing on Monday evening was not only extreme, but also substantially inconsistent with how the prosecutors had briefed DOJ leadership they would proceed on the case. The "general communication" between the U.S. Attorney's Office and the main DOJ had led senior officials to expect a more moderate sentence, the official told Fox News.
“It's surprising that would be the line in the sand -- an amended filing," a senior DOJ official told Fox News, adding that the problem with the original sentencing recommendation was it told the judge that the only way to serve justice was a lengthy sentence.
“We're backing off from, 'It has to be this,'" the DOJ source told Fox News. “The amended filing says it's a serious crime, and prison time is appropriate; we're just saying it doesn't have to be 87 to 108 months."
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Trump said he stayed out of internal DOJ deliberations, but strongly opposed their initial sentencing recommendation.
"I stay out of things to a degree that people wouldn't believe," Trump said. He added that the initial recommendation was "ridiculous" and called it "an insult to our country."
Later, Trump took a shot at Jackson, writing on Twitter: "Is this the Judge that put Paul Manafort in SOLITARY CONFINEMENT, something that not even mobster Al Capone had to endure? How did she treat Crooked Hillary Clinton? Just asking!"
Fox News' Jake Gibson and Alex Pfeiffer contributed to this report.

Lazy Liberal Cartoons

AP VoteCast: Young, liberal voters key to Sanders’ NH win

WASHINGTON (AP) — Bernie Sanders won the young, the liberal and the disaffected in New Hampshire. Their votes were enough to deliver him a victory in Tuesday’s Democratic primary, while Pete Buttigieg earned a slight edge among more moderate and conservative voters, with Amy Klobuchar close behind.

The New Hampshire Democratic primary revealed a mountainous ideological divide among Democrats, as voters try to identify which candidate will be most effective in challenging President Donald Trump in November’s general election.

A majority of voters who considered themselves “very liberal” supported Sanders, according to AP VoteCast. The 78-year-old Vermont senator, who has championed universal government health care and high taxes on the wealthy, also won support from voters younger than 45 and had a slight advantage among those without a college degree. Roughly 3 in 10 of those who deemed the U.S. economic system “very unfair” favor Sanders to oversee the world’s leading financial power.

But about 6 in 10 New Hampshire Democrats identified as moderate or conservative. Buttigieg, the 38-year-old former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, held a slight advantage with this group of voters. Roughly another quarter of moderate voters went with Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, while about 1 in 10 went for former Vice President Joe Biden.

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Sanders are avowed liberals.

AP VoteCast is a wide-ranging survey of more than 3,000 Democratic primary voters in New Hampshire conducted for The Associated Press by NORC at the University of Chicago.

The scrum of conflicting ideologies could set up a bruising round of election contests in the weeks ahead as Democratic voters choose whether it is better to lean into an overtly liberal contender or embrace a more moderate challenger. And once the nominee is picked, it is unclear whether the Democrats can fully set aside their differences and bond back together.

Only 15% of New Hampshire Democrats said they were “very confident” that the process for picking a presidential nominee would be fair, a sign of possible doubts lingering in voters’ minds at the state’s Tuesday primary.

The trouble tabulating results in last week’s Iowa caucuses, an issue that has yet to be fully resolved, may have rattled the faith of some voters amid uncertainty about who is the Democratic front-runner. The skepticism was clearest among Sanders’ backers, with about 6 in 10 saying they had little or no confidence in the Democratic primary process. Majorities of voters for every other top Democratic contender described the primary process as fair.

The results from AP VoteCast suggest that Sanders’ younger and generally more liberal supporters distrust their fellow Democrats, a potential reflection of the Vermont senator losing the 2016 nomination to Hillary Clinton.

Matthew Gage, a 40-year-old EMT attending a Sanders party in Manchester, New Hampshire, said he was angered by the use of super delegates in the 2016 election and remains “suspicious” that the process is fair this time around.

This year, he said, “I have more confidence only because there’s more eyes watching them and they know they can’t hide stuff.”

Yet after months of campaigns and debates, New Hampshire voters are still settling on the ideal moderate choice. Of the state Democrats who made a decision in the days before the primary, about half went to Buttigieg and Klobuchar.

The only clear candidate on the outs in a state that is largely white and older was Biden. He departed Tuesday for South Carolina, where there is a significant population of African American voters who will test which candidate appeals most to a diverse electorate that was largely absent from the opening two contests.

Voters see liabilities in many of the Democrats vying to run against Trump. About 6 in 10 said a candidate with strongly liberal views would have difficulty competing with the incumbent president, evidence that Sanders and Warren may be struggling to make the electability argument outside their base of supporters. But roughly 6 in 10 also said a gay nominee — Buttigieg — would face greater hardship in the general election.

Still, New Hampshire Democrats say they are willing to rally around their party’s nominee. At least 6 in 10 said they would be satisfied with Buttigieg, Klobuchar, Sanders or Warren as their presidential candidate. Fewer — half — said they would be pleased if Biden became the nominee.

Broader questions about fairness in U.S. society have been a central concern for the Democratic candidates.

An overwhelming share of New Hampshire Democrats — nearly 8 in 10 — view the economy as unfair. But there is little consensus on which candidate would do the best job of stewarding the world’s largest economy.

Yet among the roughly 2 in 10 who believe the economy is fair, there was an opening for a Democrat whose name was not on the ballot in New Hampshire. These voters gave a slight edge on leading the economy to Mike Bloomberg, the former New York City Mayor with a personal fortune in excess of $60 billion.

___

Associated Press writer Kathleen Ronayne in Manchester, New Hampshire, contributed to this report.

___

AP VoteCast is a survey of the American electorate conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago for The Associated Press and Fox News. The survey of 3,111 voters in New Hampshire was conducted for seven days, concluding as polls closed. Interviews were conducted in English or Spanish. The survey is based on interviews with a random sample of registered voters drawn from the state voter file. The margin of sampling error for voters is estimated to be plus or minus 3.0 percentage points.

New Hampshire business owner who left Venezuela: 'Socialism is not the answer for America'

New Hampshire business owner Corina Cisneros, who moved to the state from Venezuela, said on “Fox & Friends” Wednesday that “socialism is not the answer for America.”
Cisneros, the founder of Cisneros Realty Group, was part of a panel of business leaders speaking on “Fox & Friends” the morning after democratic socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., declared victory after narrowly winning the Democratic primary in New Hampshire.
With the economy surging in the Granite State, which has an unemployment rate of 2.6 percent, the sixth-lowest in the country, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, host Brian Kilmeade asked the panel of business leaders if voters necessarily want a progressive in the White House.
“This is going to be my first presidential election,” Cisneros told Kilmeade. “I'm proud to be an American citizen, and just to be in New Hampshire, have my own business.”
When Kilmeade asked Cisneros if it bothers her that the American dream for Sanders' supporters is socialism, she said, “It bothers me a lot because I lived socialism. I left socialism. Socialism is not the answer for America.”
Sanders narrowly edged former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg to claim victory Tuesday. It was the second straight win in New Hampshire for the populist senator, following his 2016 crushing of eventual nominee Hillary Clinton.
When Kilmeade asked Cisneros if she senses that Sanders' message resonates with the state overall she said, “No.”
“The economy is doing great in New Hampshire,” she explained. “We have low unemployment.”
“As a Realtor, there is demand for housing,” she continued. “We're off the charts in terms of demand. So the overall sensation in New Hampshire is that we're doing great.”
Fox News’ Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.

Newt Gingrich: Buttigieg, other Dems' radical views on abortion, infanticide could lead to a Trump landslide

It is easy to forget how far Democrats have come from former President Bill Clinton’s 1992 commitment that abortion should be “safe, legal, and rare.”
Even as late as 2008, then-Senator Hillary Clinton repeated the formula by affirming that abortion should be “safe, legal, and rare.”
In recent conversations with voters, Pete Buttigieg has shown how much more radical the Democrats have become on the issues of abortion and infanticide.
Kristin Day, a pro-life Democratic voter, recently put Buttigieg on the spot at a Fox News Townhall event in January, when she said: “So, do you want the support of pro-life Democrats, pro-life Democratic voters?  There are about 21 million of us. And if so, would you support more moderate platform language in the Democratic Party to ensure that the party of diversity, of inclusion really does include everybody?”
When Buttigieg told her that he was pro-choice and then gave a waffling answer, moderator Chris Wallace asked if Day was satisfied with the answer she received.
She was not:

“No, I was not, because he did not answer the second part of my question.  And the second part was, the Democratic platform contains language that basically says that we don't belong, we have no part in the party because it says abortion should be legal up to nine months, the government should pay for it, and there's nothing that says that people have a diversity of views on this issue should be included in the party. 
  “In 1996, and I guess several years after that, there was language in the Democratic platform that said that we understand that people have very differing views on this issue, but we are a big tent party that includes everybody.  And so, therefore, we welcome you, people like me, into the party so we can work on issues that we agree on. 
  “So my question was, would you be open to language like that in the Democratic platform, that really did say that our party is diverse and inclusive and we want everybody?”

Buttigieg’s radical stance on abortion (he said that life begins when a baby takes its first breath, i.e., after being born) approaches the pro-infanticide position of Democratic Governor of Virginia Ralph Northam – who is, ironically, a pediatric neurologist supposedly dedicated to saving babies.
Speaking to Washington, D.C. radio station WTOP about late-term abortions, Northam said:
“When we talk about third-trimester abortions, these are done with the consent of obviously the mother, with the consent of the physician — more than one physician, by the way — and it’s done in cases where there may be severe deformities. There may be a fetus that’s non-viable.
“If a mother is in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen. The infant would be delivered. The infant would be kept comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother.”
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo also fits perfectly with the abortion-infanticide Democrats. His highest priority in 2019 was enacting the Reproductive Health Act. According to The Washington Times, the law “decriminalizes abortion and drops most of the state’s previous restrictions on abortions after 24 weeks. It also allows midwives and nurse practitioners to perform abortions.”
As the newspaper reported, Cuomo thought passage of the law was so great that One World Trade Center, the Governor Mario M. Cuomo Bridge, the Kosciuszko Bridge, and the Alfred E. Smith Building in Albany, “were lit pink in celebration of the law.”
Buttigieg, of course, is not that different from the other Democratic candidates on abortion.
Former Vice President Biden reversed his position on the Hyde Amendment, which says taxpayers do not have to pay for abortions. By a majority of 57 to 36, Americans agreed in 2016 that their tax dollars should not be used for abortions. Now, Biden is in favor of tax-paid abortions, as well as for a litmus test on the issue of abortion for US Supreme Court nominees.
Former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg also aligns closely with the extremist pro-abortion group. When running for mayor, he proposed that anyone studying to be a gynecologist or obstetrician should be forced to learn how to perform abortions. (Under enormous public pressure, he backed off and allowed moral and religious exemptions).
Allow me to answer Day’s question: The 2020 Democratic presidential candidates and the platform they’ll adopt in Milwaukee will be radically pro-abortion – possibly including Governor Northam’s infanticide phraseology. There will be no room for pro-life Democrats.
If rightly understood, this radical anti-life position will cost Democrats the support of outspoken pro-life groups, including many Protestant Christians, Mormons, Orthodox Jews, Catholics, and Muslims.
If there indeed are 21 million pro-life Democrats, as Kristin Day asserted, such an extreme position on abortion and infanticide undoubtedly will lead to a landslide defeat à la George McGovern.
This is the ordeal Democrats have coming down the road.

Trump doubles Obama's 2012 vote total in New Hampshire, signaling fired up base

President Trump didn't have a serious challenger in the New Hampshire primary, but he still turned out enough voters to more than double former President Barack Obama's 2012 vote total in the state, indicating that the Republican base is all-in on Trump as he prepares to face the eventual Democratic nominee in a reelection battle this November.
With 87 percent of precincts reporting, Trump secured more than 120,000 votes in the Granite State. In 2012, Obama managed just 49,080 total votes in New Hampshire. The gap between the two presidents is likely to increase as more precincts report their totals Wednesday.
It also dwarfs the total of other incumbent presidents: then-President George W. Bush received 53,962 votes in the largely-uncontested GOP primary in New Hampshire in 2004. And in 1996, incumbent President Bill Clinton received 76,797 votes in New Hampshire's primary.
It follows a coordinated effort by the Republican National Committee and the Trump campaign to drive up turnout for Trump in New Hampshire -- something the other incumbents didn't do. Trump himself revved up his supporters at a packed and fiery rally in Manchester, N.H., on Monday, the eve of the state's primary.

President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally, Monday, Feb. 10, 2020, in Manchester, N.H. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

"Nine months from now, we are going to retake the House of Representatives, we are going to hold the Senate, and we are going to keep the White House," Trump said to thunderous applause. "We have so much more enthusiasm, it's not even close. They're all fighting each other."
In the line to get into Trump's Monday rally, many of his voters seemed to have a zeal uncommon for supporters of an incumbent president.
Jay McDonald of North Providence, R.I., said he “100 percent" supported Trump four years ago and "nothing’s changed.” McDonald said he’s "maybe more angry that they could do that [impeachment] to a president and get away with it over nothing."
"Hopefully he picks up more voters – the independent people – over that,” McDonald said.
Democrats largely owned the turnout in New Hampshire Tuesday -- first and second place finishers Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg combined for almost 140,000 votes with 87 percent reporting -- but the Democratic primary is still wide open and there was almost nothing at stake for Trump in the New Hampshire race. His only primary challenger on the ballot was former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld, who had less than 10 percent of the GOP vote with 87 percent in.
The throngs that showed up for Trump's Monday rally at Southern New Hampshire University were more than the school's venue could hold with its 11,000 capacity, and the president took the opportunity to tout his accomplishments and knock Democrats in front of the large audience.
"To support working families, we have reduced the cost of child care, expanded paid leave, and given 40 million American families an average of $2,200 more in their pockets thanks to the Republican child tax credit," Trump asserted. "We are the party of equal opportunity for all Americans.
He added: "While the extreme left has been wasting America's time with this vile hoax, we've been killing terrorists, creating jobs, raising wages, enacting fair trade deals, securing our borders, and lifting up citizens of every race, color, religion, and creed!"
The Trump campaign also touted a record turnout for an incumbent in the Iowa caucuses, which came on the same night that Democratic turnout fell well below expectations.
About 176,000 Iowa Democrats attended their precinct caucuses, a slight uptick from 2016 but fewer than expected. That total is nowhere near the party's 2008 numbers, when roughly 238,000 Iowans participated in the kickoff clash among Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, onetime Iowa favorite John Edwards, and a handful of others.
“It was lower than I expected,” said former Iowa Democratic Party executive director Norm Sterzenbach, who has been advising Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar’s campaign. “It was definitely lower than what the conventional wisdom was.”
The New Hampshire numbers come as the president's supporters have been fired up in recent days: Just last week Trump was acquitted of two articles of impeachment, gave a largely well-received State of the Union and ran up the score in Iowa. Meanwhile, Democrats have been running attack ads on each other, dealing with the fallout of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., tearing up Trump's speech at the end of the State of the Union and roiling from an Iowa caucus debacle that still does not have an official winner.
When asked about the Democratic field outside of the president's New Hampshire rally, one of Trump's fervent supporters, Air Force Veteran Mike Grunwald, gave a frank assessment of the party's chances to unseat Trump in November.
"They're all going to lose," he said.
Fox News Gregg Re and Paul Steinhauser, as well as the Associated Press contributed to this report.