A federal judge on Tuesday overturned ObamaCare protections for transgender patients, ruling that a 2016 policy violates the religious freedoms of Christian providers.

Judge Reed O'Connor in the Northern District of Texas vacated an Obama-era regulation that prohibited providers and insurers who receive federal money from denying treatment or coverage to anyone based on sex, gender identity or termination of pregnancy.

It also required doctors and hospitals to provide "medically necessary" services to transgender individuals, as long as those services were the same ones provided to other patients.

O'Connor, who is the same judge who last year ruled the entire Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional, said the rule violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

Louisiana voters took a significant step to the right on Saturday, as Republicans notched wins up and down the ballot, giving their party an outside chance of sweeping to power just ahead of a crucial redistricting cycle that could cement their control of the state for years to come.



Amid record turnout for what is usually a sleepy off-year, irregular election, Louisiana Republicans locked up enough seats in the state Senate to amount to a super majority. The party came within seven seats of winning a super majority in the state House, too, with eight runoff elections to come in November.



Gov. John Bel Edwards (D) easily led the field of candidates running for the state's top office, but he did not win a majority of the vote, which would have allowed him to avoid the Nov. 16 runoff.



Instead, his two leading opponents - businessman Eddie Rispone (R) and Rep. Ralph Abraham (R) - captured a combined 52 percent of the vote. That gives Rispone, who finished about 4 percentage points ahead of Abraham, a path to win the runoff.

David Rothkopf
@djrothkopf
I want to say I have never been more ashamed of US foreign policy than I am now. But I was during Bush's war in Iraq. And I was when Obama failed to take action to stop the slaughter in Syria. And I was when Clinton failed to stop the genocide in Rwanda.

I want to say I have never been more ashamed of US foreign policy than I am now. But I was during Bush's war in Iraq. And I was when Obama failed to take action to stop the slaughter in Syria. And I was when Clinton failed to stop the genocide in Rwanda.

I was during the chaos and squalor of Iran Contra. And I was during the ineptitude and weakness of our response to the Iranian hostage crisis. I certainly was during Vietnam. In fact, for all of my adult life, there've been moments when I was disgusted and embarrassed...

by U.S. foreign policy. And candidly, watching the institutionalized racism and sexism and corruption of American domestic politics from the days of George Wallace and Lester Maddox to today, I've also felt the same revulsion from time to time.

So, I ask myself, what makes this moment different. And I realize it is because throughout my life, even in those moments of realization that the United States was deeply flawed, I felt like there always was, at least someplace at least an aspiration to do right.

There was always some awareness of right and wrong. There was at least a pretense of recognition that there was a higher purpose to the country and its government and throughout all those years, there was progress to offset the misdeeds and the profound flaws in our system.

Obama may have faltered in Syria but he did so for understandable reasons and he did great good elsewhere and his character or his commitment to trying to do what was right was never questioned. There were those surrounding Bush and Cheney who struggled with their missteps.

Bill Clinton was a deeply flawed man but he went into politics to try to make the world a better place, he devoted his life to service, he accomplished much to help promote peace and prosperity. The same could be said of Reagan, Carter, Ford, and even Nixon.

It can't be said of Donald Trump and his inner circle. I look at what is going on in Syria today and I see a US that has switched sides. We are now an active part of the Axis of Evil. We are aligned with dictators and murderers and thieves and enemies of our own country.

We have a president who defends those who attack us--like Russia--and goes further, he serves them. He defends murderers like Mohammed bin Salman in Saudi Arabia and sends him troops--or rents our military out to the highest bidder.

He talks of love letters with brutal autocrats like Kim Jong Un. He embraces neo-fascists from Bolsonaro to Duterte. He joins with men like Putin in attacks on our Intelligence Community and our FBI. He and those close to him are so corrupt...

that the vast army of people in the civil service, the Foreign Service, and others who have devoted their lives to serving our country feel compelled to put their careers at risk to help protect us from our own leaders.

Trump and Pence and Pompeo and Barr and McConnell and McCarthy and Graham and Rubio and the rest piously speak of their devotion to the Bible and God and then spend each and every day revealing that they have a Bible-shaped hole in their characters.

They invoke God not to make themselves or us better, to remind us of higher purpose or virtue, but to cover up their service to themselves, their corruption, their willingness to not just tolerate evil but to embrace it if it serves them and their masters and benefactors.

Our nation has never been perfect. But it was created by men fully aware of our flaws and its greatness--like that of the Constitution that is its foundation--lies in its ability and commitment to perfect itself. Bad leaders were expected by our founders.

But it was always expected the rest of the system could hold them in check and remove them. We are at a juncture now when so much of the government is controlled by this corrupt, dangerous, valueless mob that it is no longer certain that the system will prevail.

When the president has coopted the system of justice in conjunction with his attorney general, when the Senate is led by men who are willing to see the nation falter if they themselves prosper, when the courts are packed with no-nothings and toadies, we are in grave danger.

It is inspiring to see a stirring of resistance among whistleblowers and leaders in the House of Representatives. It is a hopeful sign that some courts are trying to hold the lawlessness and the immorality in check. But it is far from clear they must prevail.

Make no mistake, this is a critical moment in our history. That is not hyperbole, not the temporal narcissism that makes every generation feel they are living at the greatest of all moments to be alive. We will decide in the next few weeks and months whether...

the American experiment succeeds or fails. We will decide, knowing full well of our flaws and failures, whether we are a nation that struggles to better ourselves in spite of those weaknesses or whether we are one that gives in to them and consumed by our worst selves.

While I am hopeful because history shows we have stood up to great challenges before, I am far from certain. This is a moment we all must step up & find ways to make our voices heard & to support those who are in a position to save us from the twisted mob who are now in power.

We must recognize that this is a battle--just as real as any fought on any battlefield--for the soul of the country, for the very ideals on which it was founded. But to win we must not only remove Trump and his thugs from their positions of power and influence...

we must fix what is broken in our system that allowed them to rise. That means addressing the sense of disenfranchisement and inequality that led some to support them. It means we must address racism and corruption head on and deny them the chance to do further damage.

It means we must recognize what is broken in our system--from how we elect officials to cultural flaws that allow the embrace of untruths and attacks on science, history and facts. We must do this by placing aspirations ahead of ambition, inclusion ahead of division...

and hope ahead of fear. We will never be perfect or even what we promote ourselves to be. But we can return to struggling to improve rather than giving in to the temptation to be evil as have our leaders today.

I will not be silenced.

The independence of the United States Federal Election Commission will not be compromised.

/1


This new complaint covers the same ground as one filed in 2017. That one was found to be absolutely baseless:

"Report of Investigation INV-17-04,” Federal Election Commission Office of Inspector General(December 21, 2017):

https://www.fec.gov/documents/1776/FEC_OIG_report_investigation_INV-17-04_2017-12-04.pdf

/2
Key quote, from p. 10:

“As a government employee, Commissioner Weintraub is tasked with ensuring the public the integrity of the government and as a FEC Commissioner she is to ensure campaign finance laws are administered….”

/3
“…The OIG investigation disclosed that Commissioners have been allowed to express their opinions and make statements in the past to reporters and at conferences, and author articles on a variety of election topics…”

/4
“…(voting trends, women’s rights, foreign elections and political agendas), without being disciplined or found to violate 5 C.F.R. Part 2635 standards.”

/5
My response then and now:

“It is absolutely within my official duties as a federal election official to comment publicly on any aspect of the integrity of federal elections in the United States. I will not be silenced.”

https://beta.fec.gov/resources/about-fec/commissioners/weintraub/statements/2017-02-21-ELW-statement.pdf

HONEA PATH, S.C. —
A South Carolina car dealership is offering a promotion in which it is giving away a Bible, an American flag and a Smith & Wesson AR when customers purchase a vehicle.

The general manager says one customer drove more than two hours to get to the dealership because of the promotion. He also said sales are up.

Carolina Ford in Honea Path, South Carolina, posted about the promotion on Facebook, calling it a promotion that is, "Near and dear to our hearts: God Guns and America!"

General manager Derrick Hughes said the staff was trying to come up with ways to help business because it is hard to get people to Honea Path.

Good morning world. Per POTUS schedule: "The president’s only public event today is a 3:15 pm signing of an executive order on “transparency in federal guidance and enforcement.”
Irony? Place your own punchline. I'm already tired. @realDonaldTrump

A bad situation in Northeast Syria is about to get much worse. Sources tell me that US officials have just informed the Syrian Kurds that Turkey is likely to attack on air and ground in next 24 hours. The US will do nothing. Targets are Tal Abyad and Ras al Ayn....

..Ironically Tal Abyad was the main supply route for ISIS in 2014-15 through an open border from Turkey. Turkey refused repeated requests from US to shut border. That's a big reason why US decided to partner with SDF, which took the town in the summer of 2015.

David Ignatius
@IgnatiusPost
...I'm also told that Turkish attack appears coordinated with the Russians. Russian-backed forces are mobilizing to invade the Kurdish area from the south — towards Tabqa and other spots. Meanwhile, ISIS is mobilizing sleeper cells in Raqqa and attacks have taken place tonight.

The latest concern is talk of capping the flow of U.S. capital into Chinese companies which comes at a precarious time for investors who are banking on the success of trade negotiations this week in Washington D.C.

Société Générale analysts say continued discussions of measures to limit U.S. investments in China could upend the impressive performance of its onshore stock-market this year.

“Broadly speaking, we can define three stages in the rising economic tensions between the two countries,” Société Générale argued in a note Tuesday. “The first stage started with the tariffs dispute and is ongoing. The second stage extends the conflict to China investment to the US (CFIUS) and export controls (through the Export Control Act and the Entity List). The third stage might involve restrictions on US capital funding Chinese firms. It has not started but that is a risk that we have advised to hedge,” they said.

It’s the third step that represents the “worst-case scenario” for Chinese equities, said the Société Générale analysts, adding that such measures could include preventing U.S.-based stock index providers from putting Chinese stocks in benchmarks pegged to trillions of dollars of assets.