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Thursday, August 4, 2022

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China Quickly Moves to Punish Taiwan and the US as Pelosi Departs Taiwan

Wall Street Journal: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi departed Taiwan on Wednesday after a whirlwind visit that included a meeting with Taiwan’s president and vows to preserve democracy in Taiwan in the face of growing threats from mainland China. Mrs. Pelosi (D., Calif.), the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit Taiwan in a quarter-century, now heads to South Korea and Japan before returning to the U.S. During her meeting with Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen on Wednesday, Mrs. Pelosi said the U.S. wouldn’t abandon its commitment to Taiwan, framing her visit as part of a broader struggle over democracy’s future. The visit by Mrs. Pelosi angered China and cast a pall over U.S.-China relations. In response, China announced it would carry out live-fire drills from Thursday to Sunday across six areas that together effectively encircle Taiwan. While they will predominantly take place in international waters, some of the areas are close to major Taiwanese ports, meaning they could end up disrupting commercial shipping (Wall Street Journal). Daily Wire: China’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said Wednesday that as a result of Pelosi’s visit, more punishments for both the U.S. and Taiwan would follow. “As for the specific countermeasures, what I can tell you is that they’ll include everything that should be included,” Hua said, according to People’s Daily. a China state-affiliated media outlet. “The measures in question will be firm, vigorous and effective, and the U.S. side and Taiwan independence forces will continue feeling them.” The Chinese Communist Party has repeatedly warned against the visit, and during a phone call last week, Chinese President Xi Jinping told Biden that the United States must not “play with fire” (Daily Wire).

West Virginia Judge Rules Trans Surgeries Can be Covered by Medicaid

Washington Times: A federal judge ruled this week that the state of West Virginia must allow transgender patients covered by Medicaid to receive gender transforming surgeries. U.S. District Judge Robert Chambers for the Southern District of West Virginia said it was discriminatory for the state to ban such procedures from Medicaid recipients while allowing others who do not have a gender dysphoria diagnosis to get the same procedures — one example being a mastectomy. “It is undisputed that the criteria determining whether or not such treatment is covered under the Medicaid Program hinges on a diagnosis — but when treatment is preluded for a diagnosis based on one’s gender identity, such exclusion invidiously discriminates on the basis of sex and transgender status,” Judge Chambers, a Clinton appointee, wrote in Tuesday’s order (Washington Times). WVN News: If the ruling stands, or if it’s appealed and is overturned, it well could have an impact beyond West Virginia’s borders (WVN News).

Joe Manchin, Susan Collins Bipartisan Bill to Reform Electoral Count

Hill: Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) on Wednesday touted a bipartisan bill he introduced with Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) to reform the Electoral Count Act (ECA) that he said would fix a law “bad actors” have manipulated for their benefit. The act was passed in 1887 as an answer to the disputed 1876 election between Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel Tilden — which included competing slates of electors from multiple states — and close elections in 1880 and 1884. Both Republicans and Democrats have used provisions in the act, including during four of the last six presidential elections, for what Collins said were “frivolous objections.” Now, lawmakers hope that by reforming the act, they can help prevent another Jan. 6, 2021, from happening (Hill). ABC: The first bill — the Electoral Count Reform and Presidential Transition Improvement Act — would raise the threshold for lawmakers to raise objections to state electors. Under current law, one House member and one senator are needed to raise an objection. In their proposal, one-fifth of the House and the Senate would be needed to object… The second bill would double the penalty under federal law for individuals who threaten or intimidate election officials, poll watchers, voters or candidates from one year to two years (ABC).

Biden Issues Executive Order Granting Medicaid Funds to Allow for Interstate Travel for Abortions

National Review: President Biden signed an executive order Wednesday that will allow Medicaid funds to be used to facilitate travel for women seeking abortions in states where the procedure is still legal, likely violating the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits the federal financing of abortion. The order will assist the acquisition of “reproductive health care for women who live in states where abortions are banned,” Biden said at the first meeting of the Interagency Task Force on Reproductive Healthcare Access on Wednesday. He claimed it also “advances research and data collection to evaluate the impact of this reproductive health crisis on maternal health” and will protect access to contraception. The Hyde amendment prohibits federal funding from going toward abortion, except in cases of rape, incest, or when the health or life of the mother is at risk (National Review). Katie Pavlich: White House confirms Medicaid, which is taxpayer funded, will be used to pay for abortion procedures, not simply travel for abortions (Twitter). Life News: The pro-life organization said the Biden administration is using the directive to allow unborn babies to be unnecessarily killed in abortions in pro-life states. And if hospitals refuse to comply, their participation in Medicare/Medicaid could be in jeopardy. “Joe Biden is trying to weaponize our communities’ life-saving doctors and hospitals to push his abortion agenda,” said Texas Right to Life senior legislative associate Rebecca Parma. “We look forward to once again beating the Biden administration in court and saving lives.” The pro-life laws in Texas and other states include clearly defined exceptions that allow abortions in the cases when a mother’s life is at risk. Because the pro-life movement cares about the lives of both mother and child and there are rare cases in which only the mother’s life can be saved, it supports such exceptions. But these exceptions mean the Biden administration’s guidance is unnecessary. Undermining Texas’s life-saving efforts and expanding abortions appear to be the administration’s real goal (Life News).

Indiana Congresswoman Jackie Walorski Passes from Fatal Car Accident

Politico: Rep. Jackie Walorski and three other people died in a fatal car crash Wednesday, according to the sheriff’s office of Elkhart County, Ind. The Indiana Republican was a senior House member, her party’s top member on the House Ethics Committee and a member of the Ways and Means Committee. Her communications director, Emma Thomson, and Zachery Potts, her district director, were also killed in the accident, the sheriff’s office announced, as was the driver of the vehicle that collided with theirs. Walorski’s death is a shock to the Capitol community, where two other sitting House members have died this year: Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) and Jim Hagedorn (R-Minn.) died within a month of each other earlier this year (Politico). Kevin McCarthy: It is with a heavy heart that I am sharing this statement from the Office of Congresswoman Jackie Walorski (Twitter).

Krysten Sinema Looks to Change Some Things About Manchin, Schumer’s Deal Before Signing Off

Politico: Kyrsten Sinema is seeking a couple changes to Democrats’ climate, health care and tax bill, according to multiple people familiar with the matter. The Arizona Democrat, who has not weighed in on whether she will vote for the legislation, wants to nix language narrowing the so-called carried interest loophole, which would change the way some investment income is taxed. Cutting that provision would ax $14 billion of the bill’s $739 billion in projected revenue. Sinema also wants an add. She’d like roughly $5 billion in drought resiliency funding added to the legislation, a key ask for Arizona given the state’s problems with water supply. A Sinema spokesperson declined to comment (Politico). Insider: Eliminating carried interest is a goal that’s eluded both Republican and Democratic administrations for a decade. Carried interest is the percentage of profits that hedge-fund managers receive from lucrative investments. But that compensation is taxed at a lower capital gains rate that maxes out at 23.8% and doesn’t face a higher income tax rate like most Americans pay on wages from their job. Critics argue it amounts to a huge gap in the tax code (Insider).

Senator Rand Paul Hold Hearing Looking Into Gain-of-Function Research

Katie Pavlich: Republican Senator Rand Paul is holding a hearing about dangerous gain-of-function research. The practice was banned from receiving federal funding years ago, but was resumed by Dr. Anthony Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and conducted in Chinese labs. More specifically, in Wuhan. “The purpose of this hearing is to examine issues involving gain-of-function research, which attempts to enhance the severity and transmissibility of existing viruses that may infect humans or other mammals,” Paul’s office previewed in statement. “Gain-of-function research has historically been supported by tax dollars both domestically and internationally; as such, this hearing lies at the intersection of the subcommittee’s two primary jurisdictional responsibilities – monitoring emerging threats and conducting oversight of federal spending” (Townhall). Real Mac Report: Sen. Rand Paul: “Tomorrow we will have the first gain of function hearing. The first exploration of this topic in two years. Million of Americans died and we have not had one single hearing” (Twitter). ABC: Sen. Paul has been a major skeptic of whether gain-of-function research took place and was possibly funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in China leading up to the COVID-19 outbreak. Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, repeatedly insisted otherwise to Sen. Paul and other members of Congress during a May 2021 Senate hearing. Former NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins echoed Dr. Fauci’s sentiment in a news release. Much of the skepticism around Fauci’s and Collins’s claims stem from a letter sent to the ranking member of the House Oversight and Reform Committee by NIH’s Principal Deputy Director Lawrence Tabak. In the letter, Tabak claimed Fauci authorized the NIH to fund research by nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance studying the relationship between humans and naturally occurring bat coronaviruses, and that the NIH failed to report indicators revealing an “unexpected” increase in viral growth (ABC).

Iowa School District Sued by Parents for Student Gender Transition Plans not Involving Guardians

Washington Examiner: A parent activist organization has filed a federal lawsuit against an Iowa school district over its policy of facilitating gender transitions for students without parental notice or approval. Parents Defending Education sued Linn-Mar Community School District near Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Iowa, claiming the district’s policy for establishing a “Gender Support Plan” violates legally protected parental rights and the First and 14th Amendments to the Constitution. The policy in question, enacted by the Linn-Mar school district in April, requires schools to create a “gender support plan” when a student claims they no longer identify with their biological sex and wish to adopt a new gender identity. According to the lawsuit , the support plan must be formulated “without any knowledge or input from the child’s parents” and, when implemented, requires all school staff and students to address the student in question by their preferred name and pronoun. The lawsuit says the plan means school officials will edit students’ names on official documents and allow students to use bathroom and locker room facilities and participate in athletics based on their chosen identity. Furthermore, the lawsuit alleges that the policy actually prohibits school officials from disclosing a gender support plan to the student’s parents, even when the parent asks if one exists for their child (Washington Examiner). National Review: Written records about a student’s gender identity are to be kept in a “temporarily file” that only those who receive permission from the student may access, the policy says. Finally, the policy threatens that students who fail to respect a student’s gender identity can be punished, including with suspension or expulsion. The Linn-Mar School Board approved the policy on April 25, despite protest from “dozens of community members,” according to PDE. The board argued that the new policy only codified existing district practices. The lawsuit argues that the policy allows “children to make fundamentally important decisions about their gender identity without any parental involvement and to then hide these decisions from parents” (National Review).

Matt Gaetz Introduces Bill Banning IRS From Purchasing Ammunition

Just the News: U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Florida, has introduced a bill to ban the Internal Revenue Service from acquiring ammunition. The Disarm the IRS act would ban the agency responsible for tax enforcement from purchasing ammunition after the agency already has stockpiled more than 5 million rounds. This year alone, the IRS has purchased $725,000 worth of ammunition, Gaetz said. “I’m not against stockpiling ammunition, but you shouldn’t have to be a D.C. accountant to do it; you ought to be a mechanic in Pensacola,” he told Fox News. The Biden administration wants to “disarm Americans, open the border, empty the prisons,” and “still collect your taxes” with $725,000 worth of ammunition to do it, he said… According to a Government Accountability Office report, in 2018, there were 2,148 law enforcement officers working for the IRS’s Criminal Investigation Division. They were armed with 4,461 weapons, including 15 fully automatic weapons and more than 5 million rounds of ammunition (Just the News). PJ Media: Openthebooks.com CEO Adam Andrzejewski told The Center Square, “After grabbing legal power, bureaucrats are amassing firepower. It’s time to scale back the federal arsenal. Just who are the federal agencies preparing to battle?” Great question, and I think we know the answer. Spoiler alert: it’s you. Biden is looking to hire more than 80,000 IRS “agents.” If they are hiring 80,000 to look after the nation’s 735 billionaires, that’s roughly 108 agents per billionaire. Something tells me that’s not the case. Why would we think the IRS will be weaponized against conservatives? History. Let’s not forget how the IRS was caught red-handed going after conservatives during the Obama years. No one was charged for the misconduct, but Trump’s Attorney General Jeff Sessions was kind enough to apologize for the anti-conservative debacle (PJ Media).

10.

White House Press Secretary Says Repealing Roe v. Wade is Unconstitutional

Daily Wire: Critics blasted White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre after she claimed that the United States Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade was an “unconstitutional action.” On Wednesday, Jean-Pierre reiterated President Joe Biden’s support for abortion rights access after Kansas voters rejected a referendum that would have removed the right to abortion from the state’s constitution (Daily Wire). Fox News Columnist David Marcus: After well over a decade of wokeness in our universities we now have a generation of intelligent, well educated progressives who have never had their holy views challenged. And boy does it show (Twitter). Fox News: Last month, President Biden hinted that the court’s decision was unconstitutional during his remarks given on an executive order to protect abortion access in the wake of Roe v. Wade’s reversal. “Let’s be clear about something from the very start, this was not a decision driven by the Constitution,” he said, adding that the court’s conservative majority was “playing fast and loose with the facts” (Fox News).

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