North Carolina Taxpayers May Get a Big Break - BOB ESCHLIMAN CHARISMA NEWS

North Carolina Taxpayers May Get a Big Break

4/1/2016 BOB ESCHLIMAN  charisma news

North Carolina taxpayers, facing a lawsuit challenging the state's new ban on transgender bathrooms, have a new ally on Friday. (Reuters photo)

After North Carolina Attorney General Ray Cooper, a Democrat, refused to defend his state's new law that requires transgendered people to use the bathroom of the sex that appears on their birth certificate, a top religious liberty law firm has stepped forward.

In a letter to the leaders of the state's legislature, Liberty Counsel offered to defend the state at no charge. The Public Facilities Privacy and Security Act was recently signed into law by Gov. Pat McCrory, who is being challenged by Cooper in November.

The new law sparked a federal lawsuit from the North Carolina Civil Liberties Union and Lambda Legal on behalf of transgendered students and staff at various University of North Carolina campuses, as well as a lesbian law professor in the state. The letter emphasized the importance of the state legislature's role in establishing a uniform rule of law.

"I understand that the rule of law is critical to our survival as a people and a nation, and that the rule of law, and other cultural institutions are under attack," wrote Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver. "For these reasons, I am offering Liberty Counsel's resources to the service of the people of North Carolina. Moreover, the North Carolina legislature is and ought to remain the authority over matters of statewide import, such as nondiscrimination law, and should be commended for its swift defense of its citizens' safety and privacy rights in public facilities."

He also noted Cooper's refusal to defend the new law could be grounds for impeachment.

Founded in 1989, Liberty Counsel is a non-profit, constitutional litigation firm with offices in Lynchburg, Va., Orlando, Fla., and Washington, D.C. Staver has personally argued religious liberty cases before the U.S. Supreme Court.

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The House votes to defund Planned Parenthood

The bills now move to the Senate. (Reuters)

The House votes to defund Planned Parenthood

CHARISMA CAUCUS  Sept. 18, 2015  charisma news

On Friday, the House of Representatives passed two pro-life bills, including a measure that would defund Planned Parenthood for one year unless it stopped performing abortions.

 The House passed Rep. Diane Black's Defund Planned Parenthood Act of 2015 on a 241-187 vote. Two Democrats voted in favor of the measure; three Republicans voted against it.

The House also voted in favor of Rep. Trent Franks' Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection bill, 248-177.

"Planned Parenthood takes half-a-billion dollars each year from struggling taxpayers to use in its abortion franchises nationwide, which do not provide full-service medical care for women," said Dr. Charmaine Yoest, the president and CEO of Americans United for Life. "Real healthcare respects life." 

""We thank the bipartisan majority in the House of Representatives for removing taxpayer funding to this scandal-ridden organization and redirecting those funds to the thousands of full-spectrum health clinics," Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, agreed. "The next step is to add this measure to the short-term budget resolution that forces the Senate to vote again on redirecting tax dollars away from Planned Parenthood."

Recent undercover videos featuring shocking footage of Planned Parenthood employees discussing the dismemberment and harvest of fetal organs for money helped spur many Congressmen to support the legislation, which would impose a moratorium on funding the abortion provider.

"In light of the troubling Center for Medical Progress videos, the U.S. House made the right call in suspending that level of investment so that women and girls' healthcare needs will be met in a safe environment," Yoest said.

The second bill imposes tougher standards for abortionists that make no effort to save the lives of babies born alive during botched abortions.

"One of the most disturbing discussions in the undercover videos are cold, calculating conversations on the part of top Planned Parenthood officials who discuss the kind of money they can make from babies who die during an abortion, but because their bodies remained intact, their parts are worth more money," she continued. "A humane society makes it clear in our laws and in our culture that a child born alive deserves protection. I commend the members of the House for standing up for the most vulnerable among us."

Dr. Yoest testified on Thursday before the House Energy and Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Health, about troubling legal issues raised in the undercover videos revealing Planned Parenthood's trafficking in infant body parts.

To read her testimony and to see AUL's legal analysis of the issues raised, click here. To learn more about the health risks of abortion for all women, click here.

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US Taxpayers Funding Anti-Netanyahu Campaign?

By John Waage

CBN News Sr. Editor

Sunday, February 01, 2015

Two U.S. lawmakers have sent a letter to the State Department, asking whether President Barack Obama has "launched a political campaign" against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and whether American taxpayers are helping to fund the campaign.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas and Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y. sent a letter this week asking the State Department to explain whether a non-profit group called One Voice, supported by U.S. tax dollars, is working with a campaign called Operation Victory 2015 (V15) to influence Israel's elections, to be held March 17.

The lawmakers called taxpayer funding for such a purpose "completely unacceptable."

"State Department grants should never be given to entities working to overthrow strong allies like Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu," Zeldin said Thursday. "Today, I join with Sen. Ted Cruz in calling for a U.S. Department of State investigation into this important matter."

In an article earlier this week, the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz highlighted the work of Jeremy Bird, a political strategist who helped organize a door-to-door effort for the Obama campaign against Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Democratic presidential primary in South Carolina. The effort was very successful, and it helped to break open a dead even race between the two candidates, eventually leading to Obama's nomination and election.

This year, Bird brought a team of consultants to Israel to help organize Israeli political groups opposed to Netanyahu.

The 2014 version of anti-Netanyahu campaign is not without precedent.

The eagerness among former President Bill Clinton's staff to defeat Netanyahu in his first term was so strong that top Clinton operatives James Carville, Bob Shrum and pollster Stanley Greenberg camped out in Israel to help Labor Party candidate Ehud Barak to a come-from-behind victory over Netanyahu in 1999.

This year's activity comes amid charges by Democrats that Republican House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, is playing politics by inviting Netanyahu to address Congress before the elections to report on the danger to Israel and the West from Iran's nuclear weapons program.

On the Republican side, Cruz and Zeldin want to know how much money the U.S. government has given to groups working in the Israeli elections, including One Voice and Peace Works Network Foundation, who approved the funding, how much oversight and accounting is involved, and whether non-profit groups such as One Voice are violating terms of their tax exempt status.

"Of course private American citizens are free to engage in political activities according to their inclinations," their letter stated. "But given the overtly partisan nature of this particular case, we are deeply concerned by the relationship that also exists between One Voice and the Department of State."

Lost in the din of the political battle another question looms: as the diplomats spend years negotiating with Iran, how close are the mullahs to acquiring nuclear weapons and what are the consequences for Israelis, Americans and the people living in the Middle East tinderbox if they do?