Court upholds key parts of Texas' strict anti-abortion law

 

AUSTIN, Texas –  A federal appeals court on Tuesday upheld Texas' strict abortion restrictions that could soon leave only seven abortion clinics open in a state of 27 million people.
The decision by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals allows Texas to enforce Republican-backed restrictions that require abortion clinics to meet hospital-level operating standards, a checklist that includes rules on minimum room sizes, staffing levels and air ventilation systems. The restrictions, approved in 2013, are among the toughest in the nation.
Owners of traditional abortion clinics, which resemble doctor's offices more than hospitals, say they would be forced to close because the new rules demand millions of dollars in upgrades they can't afford. That would mark the second large wave of closures in as many years in Texas, which had 41 abortion clinics in 2012, before other new restrictions took effect that require doctor admitting privileges.
"Not since before Roe v. Wade has a law or court decision had the potential to devastate access to reproductive health care on such a sweeping scale," said Nancy Northrop, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights. "We now look to the Justices to stop the sham laws that are shutting clinics down and placing countless women at risk of serious harm."
Texas will be able to start enforcing the restrictions in about three weeks unless the U.S. Supreme Court agrees to halt the decision, said Stephanie Toti, an attorney for the center. Only seven abortion facilities in Texas, including four operated by Planned Parenthood, meet the more robust requirements.
Abortion-rights groups said they will appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, which temporarily sidelined the law last year.
If the law takes effect, some women in the state would live hundreds of miles away from a Texas abortion provider. But that argument didn't sway the three-judge panel making the decision for the New Orleans-based appeals court, which is considered one of the most conservative in the nation. The judges noted that a New Mexico abortion clinic was just across the Texas border, and said clinic owners in Texas failed to prove that a "large fraction" of women would be burdened.
Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, whose office argued before the appeals court in January, praised Tuesday's ruling.
"Abortion practitioners should have no right to operate their businesses from sub-standard facilities and with doctors who lack admitting privileges at a hospital," Paxton said.
Republican Gov. Greg Abbott and other conservatives say the standards protect women's health. But abortion-rights supports say the law is a thinly veiled attempt to block access to abortions in Texas, which has been the site of one of the nation's largest abortion fights for two years. Toti said roughly a half-dozen other states require similar standards for abortion clinics, but unlike in those states, the Texas law doesn't allow clinics to be grandfathered or seek waivers.
About 18 abortion clinics are currently open in Texas, though the number fluctuates depending on whether a facility has a doctor with hospital admitting privileges.
Under the new restrictions, the only remaining abortion facilities in Texas would be in major cities. One exception would be a Whole Woman's Health clinic in McAllen, near the Texas-Mexico border, which the 5th Circuit exempted from some restrictions — but Toti said even those exemptions are so limited that it may not be practical to keep that clinic open.
For women in El Paso, the closest abortion provider in Texas would require a 1,200-mile round trip to San Antonio, or they would have to cross state lines. The appeals court found that option suitable, noting that a clinic was just across the border in Santa Teresa, New Mexico.
"Although the nearest abortion facility in Texas is 550 miles away from El Paso, there is evidence that women in El Paso can travel the short distance to Santa Teresa to obtain an abortion and, indeed, the evidence is that many did just that," the court wrote.
Attorneys for the state also dismissed opponents' arguments about women being burdened by fewer abortion facilities, saying that nearly 9 in 10 women in Texas would still live within 150 miles of a provider.
The restrictions are the same ones that Democrat Wendy Davis temporarily blocked with a 13-hour filibuster in the Texas Legislature in 2013, which attracted national attention and propelled her to an unsuccessful run for governor.

Army refuses to provide Honor Guard for church's July 4th celebration

For nearly two decades, the U.S. Army has provided an honor guard for an Independence Day celebration at a Baptist church that predates the founding of the nation. But this year – that tradition has come to an end.
Officials at Fort Gordon say they will not be able to send an honor guard to a July 5^th service at Abilene Baptist Church because it violates a military policy banning any involvement in a religious service.
“While there are conditions under which the Army can participate in events conducted at a house of worship, we cannot participate in the context of a religious service,” Public Affairs Officer J.C. Mathews told me.
He said officials at Fort Gordon as well as the Office of the Staff Judge Advocate reviewed the church’s request and determined they were in fact holding a “religious service.”

So it’s OK to invite the troops so long as you don’t pray, talk about Jesus or read the Bible?

“As a result, the Army is not permitted to take part,” Mathews said.
That policy would be an offense to most churches in America – but it is especially offensive when you consider the Army just refused to provide an honor guard for a church whose first pastor was a chaplain in the Revolutionary Army.
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Abilene Baptist Church was founded in 1774 – one of Georgia’s most historic churches and the second oldest in the state. The founding pastor was arrested by a colonial magistrate for “preaching in Georgia” and the first pastor, Reverend Loveless Savage, was a chaplain in the Revolutionary Army.
“It was an absolute shock,” said Brad Whitt, the current pastor of Abilene Baptist Church. “What a sad commentary on the state of affairs in America – when we cannot even allow the flags to fly if they are in a church building.”
“We’ve had a tremendous working relationship with the fort,” he told me. “We’ve hosted all sorts of events for military families. We really try to show our love and respect and we try to honor our military folks.”
The July 5^th church service is scheduled to be a “God and Country”-themed celebration with patriotic music and lots of red, white and blue. Afterwards, the church is hosting a Sunday picnic – complete with hot dogs and hamburgers. And for the sake of full disclosure, I’ve been invited to speak at the church service – as well as eat a hamburger afterwards.
Pastor Whitt said they were genuinely confused by the Army’s slight – seeing how Fort Gordon has been providing an honor guard for the past 20 years.
“They have participated for the past two decades and now they are saying – no,” he said. “This is just another example of the secularization of America.”
The church sent me photographs of the honor guard on the main platform of the church in 2007 and 2010. Last year, the church held their service in a local park – and once again – the military sent an honor guard.
So what changed?
Fort Gordon’s Public Affairs Office pointed me to Army Regulation 360-1 – dated May 2011.
The lengthy regulation states Army participation must not selectively benefit (or appear to benefit) any religious group. It also mandates that Army Public Affairs not support any event involving the promotion, endorsement or sponsorship of a religious movement.
According to public affairs, the 2007 church service was designated by the military as a “non-sectarian musical and patriotic program.”
According to the military’s calculations, 80 percent of the program was musical and the other 20 percent included narration and other patriotic elements.
“Because this was not a religious service, our participation was permitted,” he said.
He said the key is not whether the event is sponsored by a religious organization or held in a house of worship.
“Instead, the key factor is, whether or not the event is an actual religious service,” Mathews said.
So it’s okay to invite the troops so long as you don’t pray, talk about Jesus or read the Bible?
LISTEN: Todd’s interview with American Family Radio
“That’s what makes this so sad,” Pastor Whitt told me. “This is what we’ve come to in our nation – where even just representing the colors is some sort of political thing.”
While the Pentagon won’t allow an honor guard to set foot in a church, they have no problem allowing them to march in a gay pride parade.
Last year the Department of Defense gave permission for an honor guard to participate in Washington, D.C.’s gay pride parade – a historic first. An honor guard is also expected to march in the 2015 Capital Pride parade.
So if a military honor guard can celebrate gay pride in a public parade, why can’t they celebrate American pride inside a Baptist church?

Pentagon recommends sending 400 additional US troops to Iraq

The Pentagon has recommended sending 400 more U.S. troops to Iraq to aid in the fight against ISIS, a senior U.S. military official told Fox News late Tuesday.
The official said that the White House had not made a final decision on the recommendation, which would bring the total number of American troops in Iraq to approximately 3,400. That number includes trainers, advisers, security and other logistical personnel.
 The Pentagon also plans to open a sixth training base in Iraq's Anbar province, a vital battleground against the terror group.
The Pentagon says that the additional forces are aimed at bolstering the participation of Sunni tribes in the fight, but the plan is not likely to include the deployment of U.S. forces closer to the front lines to either call in airstrikes or advise smaller Iraqi units in battle. Currently, there are 2,598 Iraqi forces being trained by U.S. forces. Of that number, about 800 are Kurds and the rest are Shiite Muslims.
Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters traveling with him in Israel that it's not clear yet whether opening new training sites would require additional American forces.
"To be determined," Dempsey said. He added that Gen. Lloyd Austin, the U.S. Central Command chief who is responsible for U.S. military operations across the Middle East, had not yet given Dempsey his assessment of whether more resources would be required to implement the proposed changes.

More on this...

• Amb. Burns: Current US strategy 'cannot defeat ISIS'

• ISIS steps up propaganda war with plans to take Baghdad

"And that's appropriate, because I want to first understand that we have a concept that could actually improve (Iraqi military) capability," he said.
Dempsey said he has recommended changes to President Barack Obama but he offered no assessment of when decisions would be made. He suggested the president was considering a number of questions, including what adjustments to U.S. military activities in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the world might be needed if the U.S. does more in Iraq.
Dempsey said the Pentagon also is reviewing ways to improve its air power in Iraq, which is a central pillar of Obama's strategy for enabling Iraqi ground forces to recapture territory held by ISIS.
Obama said Monday that the United States still lacks a "complete strategy" for training Iraqi forces. Obama also urged Iraq's Shiite-dominated government to allow more of the nation's Sunnis to join the campaign against the violent militant group.
Dempsey said Obama recently asked his national security team to examine the train-and-equip program and determine ways to make it more effective. Critics have questioned the U.S. approach, and even Defense Secretary Ash Carter has raised doubts by saying the collapse of Iraqi forces in Ramadi last month suggested the Iraqis lack a "will to fight."
Carter, during a recent trip to Asia, also said it's crucial to better involve Sunnis in the fight, and that will mean training and equipping them.
The viability of the U.S. strategy is hotly debated in Washington, with some calling for U.S. ground combat troops or at least the embedding of U.S. air controllers with Iraqi ground forces to improve the accuracy and effectiveness of U.S. and coalition airstrikes. Dempsey was not specifically asked about that but gave no indication that Obama has dropped his resistance to putting U.S. troops into combat in Iraq.
"What he's asked us to do is to take a look back at what we've learned over the last eight months of the train-and-equip program, and make recommendations to him on whether there are capabilities that we may want to provide to the Iraqis to actually make them more capable, ... whether there are other locations where we might establish training sites," and look for ways to develop Iraqi military leaders, he said.
Dempsey said there will be no radical change to the U.S. approach in Iraq, he said. Rather, it is a recognition that the effort has either been too slow or has allowed setbacks where "certain units have not stood and fought." He did not mention the Ramadi rout specifically, but Dempsey previously has said the Iraqis drove out of the city on their own.
"Are there ways to give them more confidence?" This, he said, is among the questions Obama wanted Dempsey and others to answer.
Dempsey said recommendations on how to improve and accelerate the Iraq training efforts were discussed at a White House meeting last week and said follow-up questions were asked about how the proposed changes would be implemented and what risks they would pose to U.S. troops and to U.S. commitments elsewhere in the world.
He stressed that the U.S. military is deeply involved across the globe, even as its budget is shrinking.
"You know our capabilities are in high demand to reassure European allies," he said. "We've got additional issues in the Gulf related to reassuring allies against Iranian threats."
Dempsey added that the U.S. is "still hard at it in Afghanistan," doing more in South Korea and accounting for the fact that some U.S. allies in Asia are "unsettled" by China's building of artificial islands in the South China Sea.

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Clinton Family Foundation donated $100G to NYT group same year paper endorsed Hillary

A little-known private foundation controlled by Bill and Hillary Clinton donated $100,000 to the New York Times' charitable fund in 2008, the same year the newspaper's editorial page endorsed Clinton in the Democratic presidential primary, according to tax documents reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon.
The Clinton Family Foundation, a separate entity from the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation, has been the family's vehicle for personal charitable giving since 2001.
It is funded directly by the Clintons and distributes more than $1 million a year to civic and educational causes.
The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund is a charity affiliated with the newspaper that assists underprivileged New Yorkers. It is run by members of the New York Times Company's board of directors and senior executives.
The Times' editorial board endorsed Clinton against Democratic challengers John Edwards and Barack Obama on January 25, 2008, writing that she was "more qualified, right now, to be president."
At the time, there were reports that the Times board had leaned toward endorsing Obama, but was overruled by then-chairman and publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr., whose family controlled the paper. Sulzberger's cousins and Times Company directors, Lynn Dolnick and Michael Golden, chaired the New York Times Neediest Cases Fund in 2008.
The Clinton Family Foundation did not list the specific date the donation was made in its public tax disclosure forms. Neither the Times nor a representative of the Clintons responded by press time to a request for comment. Clinton ended her presidential campaign on June 7, 2008.
The CFF's $100,000 contribution to the New York Times Neediest Cases Fund is larger than its typical donations.

Obama under fire for saying no ‘complete strategy’ yet for training Iraqis

President Obama took heat Monday for admitting he doesn't yet have a "complete strategy" in hand for training Iraqis to fight the Islamic State -- months into the coordinated campaign to defeat the deadly terrorist network.
"When a finalized plan is presented to me by the Pentagon, then I will share it with the American people," Obama said, adding, "We don't yet have a complete strategy."
House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul said in a statement: "It is no surprise this administration does not have a 'complete strategy' for training Iraqis to fight ISIS. What is surprising is that the president admitted it."
The president addressed the ISIS fight during a press conference on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Germany. He appeared to be speaking specifically to a new strategy for accelerating the training and equipping of Iraqi security forces. "We're reviewing a range of plans for how we might do that," Obama said.
A U.S. official afterward stressed to Fox News that Obama was indeed talking only about optimizing that train-and-equip mission, "including integration of Sunni fighters," and not "overall strategy." State Department spokesman Jeff Rathke also said Obama was not speaking to overall strategy.
But the comments nevertheless fueled critics' concerns about the direction of the U.S. mission, particularly on the heels of ISIS gains in Ramadi, and the ancient city of Palmyra in Syria.

More on this...

• Obama meets with Iraqi PM to discuss ISIS strategy

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., tweeted: "Pres Obama admits: 'We don't yet have a complete strategy' to combat #ISIS"
Republican National Committee spokesman Michael Short cited a similar comment Obama made 10 months ago, saying in a statement, "the fact he still doesn't have a final plan for the deteriorating situation in Iraq is unacceptable."
A military official also took issue with Obama's claim that he was waiting for options from the Pentagon. "What the f--- was that? We have given him lots of options, he just hasn't acted on them," the official told Fox News.
Obama, similarly, said last August that the U.S. did not "have a strategy yet" for confronting ISIS in Syria. The administration later approved airstrikes in Syria.
Underscoring the work to be done training Iraqi forces, a Pentagon official told Fox News that zero soldiers are being trained at the al-Asad Air Base in Anbar -- the province where ISIS seized the city of Ramadi last month.
However, the Pentagon says 2,598 are in training at other locations in Iraq. And 8,920 Iraqi soldiers have been trained to date by the U.S. military.
Pentagon spokesman Col. Steve Warren backed up the president on his assertion he was still awaiting a "finalized plan" from the Pentagon. He said Defense Secretary Ash Carter has assembled a group of "experts" to develop courses of action to "increase support" to Iraqi forces. Warren would not give a timeline on when this "finalized plan" would be presented to the White House.
A separate defense official told Fox News that any potential increases in the size of the U.S. military presence would likely be in the "train-and-equip" mission and not tactical air controllers to call in close air support against ISIS forces by U.S. aircraft flying overhead.
Echoing the president, the official said, "the problem is the number of recruits" that the U.S. military can train. "We are sending weapons as quickly as we can to Iraq, I don't think we can send anymore," he said.
Obama put some of the responsibility on the Iraqis themselves, urging them to be more inclusive. Speaking Monday, shortly after meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, Obama said a "big part" of the solution is "outreach to Sunni tribes."
"We've seen Sunni tribes who are not only willing and prepared to fight ISIL, but have been successful at rebuffing ISIL. But it has not been happening as fast as it needs to," he said. "And so, one of the efforts that I'm hoping to see out of Prime Minister Abadi and the Iraqi legislature when they're in session is to move forward on a national guard law that would help to devolve some of the security efforts in places like Anbar to local folks and to get those Sunni tribes involved more rapidly."

US Army website hacked, Syrian Electronic Army takes credit

WASHINGTON –  The U.S. Army's official website was hit Monday by hackers claiming to be with a group known as the Syrian Electronic Army, Fox News has learned.
The site, which was down Monday afternoon, is a declassified public website.
Various screenshots that appeared on Twitter reportedly showed pro-Assad propaganda on the site before it crashed.
"Today an element of the Army.mil service provider's content was compromised," Army Brig. Gen. Malcolm Frost said in a statement. "After this came to our attention, the Army took appropriate preventive measures to ensure there was no breach of Army data by taking down the website temporarily."
The SEA is a hacker group that has claimed in the past to disrupt major news websites, including the New York Times, CBS News, the Washington Post and the BBC.
The SEA website launched its website in May 2011 stating the group’s mission: to attack the enemies of the Syrian government, mainly those who “fabricated” stories about the Syrian civil war. They wrote that they were not officially affiliated with the government but were a group of Syrian youths.
In April 2013, the SEA successfully hacked the AP’s Twitter page, sending out a false message that there had been two explosions at the White House and that President Obama had been injured.

ISIS captures 86 Eritrean Christians in Libya, US official confirms

The ISIS terror group kidnapped 86 Eritrean Christians from a people-smugglers' caravan in Libya last week, a U.S. defense official confirmed Monday.
The defense official confirmed initial reports of the mass kidnapping to Fox News after seeing a recent intelligence report. The independent Libya Herald newspaper reported that the convoy was ambushed by militants south of Tripoli before dawn this past Wednesday morning.
Meron Estafanos, the co-founder of the Stockholm-based International Commission on Eritrean Refugees, told the paper that the group of migrants included "about 12 Eritrean Muslims and some Egyptians. They put them in another truck and they put 12 Eritrean women Christians in a smaller pick-up".
Estafanos said that the militants had initially stopped the truck and demanded that the Muslims on board make themselves known. Everyone who responded was asked about the Koran and their religious observance in an attempt to catch Christians pretending to be Muslims.
The main body of the group was put back on the original truck. As the militants drove the vehicle away, Britain's Daily Telegraph reported that at least nine men attempted to escape by diving off the back of the truck. Estefanos said three of those who had escaped were safe, but still trying to get out of Libya. The fate of the others was not known.
Libya has become a jumping-off point for thousands of migrants from the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa who attempt the dangerous Mediterranean crossing to southern Europe. However, Libya's ongoing instability has led to an increased presence by ISIS and other terror groups, increasing the risk for Christians and other non-Muslims attempting the crossing.
In February, Libyan militants proclaiming loyalty to ISIS released a video showing the beheading of 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians at the edge of the Mediterranean Sea. Two months later, another video showed the militants shooting and beheading an indeterminate number of Ethiopian Christians. Estefanos told the Libya Herald that the video released in April had been edited and that 64 people had been massacred, including several Eritreans.
"Ever since the kidnapping by ISIS in Libya last February," she said,  "many are taking different routes. Some go from Khartoum [Sudan] to Turkey, then Greece. Others are now leaving via Khartoum to Cairo, then Alexandria and from there by boat to Italy. I think we will see an increase towards Turkey and Cairo instead of Libya".
Libya is divided between rival governments and hundreds of militias in the aftermath of its 2011 civil war that ousted dictator Muammar Qaddafi.
The violence has impacted the country's oil revenues heavily. U.N. envoy to Libya Bernardino Leon has warned that the country only has enough money to pay salaries for another six weeks, urging warring parties to agree on a unity government. Negotiators are currently meeting in Morocco to discuss a power-sharing agreement.